In 2027 will I be writing 'Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majo

Tate launches the BRUV party. Starmer must be quaking in his boots.
https://www.votebruv.co.uk/bruv_2.pdf
I mean look at these policies... they'll be even more appealing than the Absolute Boy's was.
"Knife Crime Epidemic: Zero Tolerance, Maximum
Deterrence
6
Last year, there were 50,000 knife crime offences in Englan
and Wales. That’s 137 every single day. Mothers burying sons.
Fathers burying daughters. Lives stolen. Futures destroyed. And
what’s the punishment? A slap on the wrist? A few years in jail?
No. The punishment will be seen by every Briton, every day.
Introducing BBC Punishment—a 24/7 live broadcast of knife
crime offenders serving solitary confinement. No redempt
arcs. No second chances. Just the cold, hard reality of a life
wasted in a concrete cell.
Imagine a 15-year-old boy, tempted to pick up a blade, turning
on the TV and seeing a man grow old and die alone. That’s not
cruelty—it’s deterrence. And it will save lives."

Morning, PB Campers.

I see that.Musk is now calling Davey a "snivelling cretin" for criticising him. He really is a real-life Bond villain.

MarqueeMark said:

Ukraine has announced that it has eliminated 4,000 North Korean troops and captured 860 as POWs.

Crikey.

The NorKs in Kursk are allegedly the well-trained ones, but from the videos it sure as Hell doesn’t look like that.

I know that North Korea hasn’t fought a war for 60 years, but these soldiers don’t appear practiced in anything more dangerous than parade ground drill.

There are stories of Ukraine dropping leaflets in Korean explaining that POWs are well looked after, and others of suicides, murders, and blue-on-blue among the various factions fighting on the Russian side who can’t properly communicate with each other.

Pulpstar said:

MaxPB said:

Pulpstar said:

MaxPB said:

rottenborough said:

‪Jim Pickard‬ ‪@pickardje.bsky.social‬
·
15m
Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, is considering running for leadership of Canada’s Liberal party after prime minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation this week

Yes, that will help the Liberal party against Polievre. They'll go from taking a hiding to it being existential if Mark Carney wins. This is the same as someone watching the West Wing and suggesting that President Bartlett could actually win in America today. Mark Carney is the epitome of the Davos "citizen of nowhere". Polievre will make mincemeat of him.

Yeah it's probably a terrible move, but he was a fantastic BoE governor if you were a homeowner lol.

Indeed, especially if you ended up selling a centralish London flat to buy an outer London house. 😄

Have you made good on the relative prices of those since you moved ?

Oh massively, we got very lucky. Sold two flats (mine and my wife's that she moved out of when she moved in with me while we were dating) which had appreciated massively and bought a house in an area with pretty stable prices. We were able to buy with a mortgage of just 40% because of that.

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Morning, PB Campers.

I see that.Musk is now calling Davey a "snivelling cretin" for criticising him. He really is a real-life Bond villain.

I don’t think Bond villains called people names on social media.

Poisonous spiders in your bed, death by obstacle course/giant squid etc was more their speed.

Mind you, there was that guy with his own space program…

Musk needs a henchman too. Either a very big one, or a teeny tiny one.

Jean Marie Le Pen has died aged 96

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgm2jvkl2yo

https://www.tf1info.fr/politique/en-direct-rn-fn-l-ancien-leader-du-fn-jean-marie-le-pen-est-mort-a-l-age-de-96-ans-2343432.html

I wonder how employees of Tesla and SpaceX feel at the moment. Sure there must be a significant group who are MAGA supporters and are delighted to work for their idol, but presumably there are a number of others whom his antics must make very uncomfortable. I suppose their big pay packets offer some compensation.

viewcode said:

Selebian said:

viewcode said:

Selebian said:

david_herdson said:

MaxPB said:

Pulpstar said:

MaxPB said:

The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.

Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.

Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.

Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.

Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.

What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?

Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.

We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.

So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'

Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries

*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.

This point - about research degenerating into looking at other research - is an explicit plot point in the Foundation series, and indicates a rotting civilisation. People think research is done at desks, and it just isn't.

Um... my research is done at a desk

As is mine - well more specifically, the statistical contributions to somebody else's research, but I get named so it's all good

But if you are doing something with real-world implications, you have to check it against the real world, and we are losing sight of that. The map is not the territory and a' that.

Well, I use real world data. I'm just not the person collecting the data. The doctors and nurses do it as part of routine care (not for the purposes of research, which can raise its own issues).

Driver said:

RandallFlagg said:

Tate launches the BRUV party. Starmer must be quaking in his boots.
https://www.votebruv.co.uk/bruv_2.pdf
I mean look at these policies... they'll be even more appealing than the Absolute Boy's was.
"Knife Crime Epidemic: Zero Tolerance, Maximum
Deterrence
6
Last year, there were 50,000 knife crime offences in Englan
and Wales. That’s 137 every single day. Mothers burying sons.
Fathers burying daughters. Lives stolen. Futures destroyed. And
what’s the punishment? A slap on the wrist? A few years in jail?
No. The punishment will be seen by every Briton, every day.
Introducing BBC Punishment—a 24/7 live broadcast of knife
crime offenders serving solitary confinement. No redempt
arcs. No second chances. Just the cold, hard reality of a life
wasted in a concrete cell.
Imagine a 15-year-old boy, tempted to pick up a blade, turning
on the TV and seeing a man grow old and die alone. That’s not
cruelty—it’s deterrence. And it will save lives."

Poe's Law...

I wonder what Tate's policies are on punishment for sex offenders.

WhisperingOracle said:

Morning, PB Campers.

I see that.Musk is now calling Davey a "snivelling cretin" for criticising him. He really is a real-life Bond villain.

Snivelling?

"I've not been well..."

WhisperingOracle said:

Morning, PB Campers.

I see that.Musk is now calling Davey a "snivelling cretin" for criticising him. He really is a real-life Bond villain.

Bond villains are suave and charismatic.

Not sub 6th form oiks.

Or even Goldfinger ! Klaus Doldinger was a German rocker or jazz man.

The oligarch’s pinned tweet at the moment refers to Labour campaigning against Trump, which suggests that one of underlying motivations for all of this is revenge against them.

MoonRabbit said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Morning, PB Campers.

I see that.Musk is now calling Davey a "snivelling cretin" for criticising him. He really is a real-life Bond villain.

Bond villains are suave and charismatic.

He's the first Generation X Bond villain, in a t-shirt, and slacker shoes.

Selebian said:

RandallFlagg said:

Tate launches the BRUV party. Starmer must be quaking in his boots.
https://www.votebruv.co.uk/bruv_2.pdf
I mean look at these policies... they'll be even more appealing than the Absolute Boy's was.
"Knife Crime Epidemic: Zero Tolerance, Maximum
Deterrence
6
Last year, there were 50,000 knife crime offences in Englan
and Wales. That’s 137 every single day. Mothers burying sons.
Fathers burying daughters. Lives stolen. Futures destroyed. And
what’s the punishment? A slap on the wrist? A few years in jail?
No. The punishment will be seen by every Briton, every day.
Introducing BBC Punishment—a 24/7 live broadcast of knife
crime offenders serving solitary confinement. No redempt
arcs. No second chances. Just the cold, hard reality of a life
wasted in a concrete cell.
Imagine a 15-year-old boy, tempted to pick up a blade, turning
on the TV and seeing a man grow old and die alone. That’s not
cruelty—it’s deterrence. And it will save lives."

Spoof? Or real? I honestly can't tell any more.

It looks like a spoof, but then Tate looks like a character from Little Britain or a Sacha Baron Cohen creation.

If it's real, then with that tortuous backronym he could have a great future naming scientific studies

It is just grifting, will probably get a decent mix of big donations from US and Russian disruptors and small donations from our domestic hard of thinking. Wouldn't be surprised if he could make £1m a year from it.

RandallFlagg said:

Tate launches the BRUV party. Starmer must be quaking in his boots.
https://www.votebruv.co.uk/bruv_2.pdf
I mean look at these policies... they'll be even more appealing than the Absolute Boy's was.
"Knife Crime Epidemic: Zero Tolerance, Maximum
Deterrence
6
Last year, there were 50,000 knife crime offences in Englan
and Wales. That’s 137 every single day. Mothers burying sons.
Fathers burying daughters. Lives stolen. Futures destroyed. And
what’s the punishment? A slap on the wrist? A few years in jail?
No. The punishment will be seen by every Briton, every day.
Introducing BBC Punishment—a 24/7 live broadcast of knife
crime offenders serving solitary confinement. No redempt
arcs. No second chances. Just the cold, hard reality of a life
wasted in a concrete cell.
Imagine a 15-year-old boy, tempted to pick up a blade, turning
on the TV and seeing a man grow old and die alone. That’s not
cruelty—it’s deterrence. And it will save lives."

I saw something about this on twitter last night and assumed it was a joke.

williamglenn said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

You’ll never guess what YouGov has just polled me on.

It’s missing the option “…and I’m distressed about it”.

That response would count as “lawful but harmful” and has been banned.

Sandpit said:

biggles said:

Sandpit said:

Carnyx said:

Sandpit said:

Pulpstar said:

Sandpit said:

Malmesbury said:

Pulpstar said:

Eabhal said:

TimS said:

Eabhal said:

carnforth said:

Leon said:

The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others


The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on

Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:



Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.

UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown

I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.

It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.

Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.

And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.

People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.

Here's a vid of our 5 axis CNC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2hQnC3RHDk

Nice

Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.

Mercedes F1 machine shop walk around. 24 CNCs in there, machine porn!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0CMSKjesRs

Blimy, best not show our workshop manager that he'll be off there on triple (or more) the pay lol.

Ha, that’s probably one of the best shops in the whole country.

There was an interview on one of the F1 channels with James Vowles, who went from Mercedes to Williams, and said what most shocked him about the move was that his new team were using 10-year-old CNCs in the machine shop, because they’d not had any capital budget for a few years.

The first thing he told the board he needed was some decent new equipment in the factory!

Would those 10yo machines be of any use to anyone else? For how long?

Just thinking of the Marc Brunel block machinery - in use for 160 years and probably could have kept going if it weren't for the small matter of the RN not needing wooden blocks and sheaves any more ...

I imagine that anyone who doesn’t need a five-axis liquid-cooled 100-tool micron-resolution fire-and-forget monster costing several million, which let’s face it is going to be 99.99% of us who aren’t making prototype racecars or engines for aeroplanes, could probably find a good home for an ‘old’ one in their garage!

The decent models will run for decades, so long as you can get spare parts and can find software to write the appropriate file format for any new projects.

Will I be ok with the 60 amp supply to my garage? If so, I’ll take two.

One advantage of all these electric cars, is that they’re now building houses with decent power supplies to the garage, and upgrading existing last-mile infrastructure to accommodate them in existing houses.

So if you want to have a workshop full of machine tools rather than an electric car…

CNC machines have somewhat gone the way of consumer goods - they're cheaper than they ever have been, work better than they ever did, but where machine tools were once engineered for almost indefinite lifespans, they are somewhat value engineered with rather more finite life.

I've a small 1992 Bridgeport VMC that's still churning out parts in an industrial setting. Not terribly fast by modern standards, but acceptable quality, and it's well and truly at the bottom of its depreciation curve.

The equivalent size machine now will rapid about twice as fast, but I don't think it will have similar lifespan.

Not that I'll say no, if someone wants to buy my a new toy or two - a Dosan DMN 750 L II with a 4th axis would do me very nicely thank you...

OldKingCole said:

kinabalu said:

GE in 27? Can't see that. The sense I'm getting is of the toddler in the back of the car chirping "when are we there? when are we there?" before we've even made the motorway. I think people should relax a bit more into the reality of several years, and likely a decade, of Labour government. Easy for me to say, I know, as a supporter of it, but I think it's a good approach for Tories and far righters too.

IIRC something like that was what we all felt in 2010; there was a Coalition Government with a solid majority, and while there were odd bumps on the road, notably Chris Huhne, we all expected it to last until 2015.

Yes there was an air of stability about that government. I recall not feeling that bad about Labour losing in 2010. The Con majority in 2015 was another matter though. That was a sickener.

david_herdson said:

mwadams said:

david_herdson said:

On topic, I fully agree with TSE. This is Westminster Wonkery at its finest (ie worst).

A government elected with a landslide majority has no cause to go to the country after two years. On what basis? Delivery? There won't be any because the only actual decisions the govt has taken so far have been to piss things off and make them (temporarily, one assumes Labour expects), worse. Mandate? It already has that, unless it wants to rat on a pledge. Preventative, before things really go down the pan? Hardly an inspiring message. To take advantage? Brenda from Bristol - and indeed the entire 2017 election - would have an answer to that.

And even if re-elected, then unless the Tories and Reform are both at each others' throats and failing to land blows on Labour, then Labour will lose seats. No matter how you spin it, that will take the shine off any victory and check Labour's momentum - as well as potentially costing some ministers their seats.

Just bloody govern and forget about the games. Governments have many structural advantages in the political game. If the country is in a decent, improved, shape come 2028/9, and Labour runs a capable campaign, they will win.

We haven't had a government that "just" governed for many years. I suspect that this is partly because of the long periods in opposition before a new government was formed. Non-governing habits are formed that are difficult to shake off.

About the only thing I can praise Blair for is his good fortune in coming into government at a time of relative stability and choosing to (basically) carry on a continuity Major administration, domestically.

Given both Tory and Labour are suffering, I wonder if Westminster has collectively forgotten how to do it?

The Coalition 'just governed' in 2010-15. Sure, there were reforms there but they were ones that had been in the planning for years and more-or-less ready to go. It was change for change's sake, and it certainly wasn't politics for politics' sake. Arguably, Theresa May tried 'just governing', notwithstanding the 2017 election (which was arguably necessary given her precarious majority, subsequently proven by events after she and Nick Timothy cocked up the execution).

Just governing isn't about pure administration; it's about setting out a coherent plan for the 4-5 years and sticking to it. Though obviously the administration needs doing too, and doing well.

The coalition made reforms in education, pensions, welfare, a (utterly bizarre) one in health, and advanced liberal social policies. This was on top of the fundamental one to eliminate the structural deficit.

I'd say there was a plan, and much of it laid out in the coalition agreement - which took 5 days to write.

What's Labour's excuse?

Selebian said:

Off-topic: Do any of our academics have a view on MDPI nowadays? Specifically 'Journal of Clinical Medicine'. Are they still seen as junk publishers? I've been sent a review request for a paper that is in my field and which is making, from the abstract, some extravagant claims - it seems a run of the mill analysis claiming rather more. I don't want to waste my time if the journal is going to just rubber stamp it anyway.

(I don't generally review for journals I don't know nowadays, but this article is very much in my area, so considering it).

I think they're probably dodgy. https://predatoryjournals.org/ lists them (although they can be oversensitive).

MarqueeMark said:

carnforth said:

Leon said:

The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others


The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on

Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:



Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.

What we can say is that if were still in the EU, their manufacturing PMI output expectations would be a little bit higher. And the UK's would be a lot lower.

The frustrating thing about Starmer's failure to get growth moving is that it is missing the opportunity to actually get the UK some benefit from Brexit, rather than being shackled to a hospital bed with a patient not so much suffering from a bad cold as pneumonia...

In my best Frank Carson voice "It's the way you tell 'em".

" Benefit from Brexit". You could have had a career as a comic.

Selebian said:

turbotubbs said:

Selebian said:

Off-topic: Do any of our academics have a view on MDPI nowadays? Specifically 'Journal of Clinical Medicine'. Are they still seen as junk publishers? I've been sent a review request for a paper that is in my field and which is making, from the abstract, some extravagant claims - it seems a run of the mill analysis claiming rather more. I don't want to waste my time if the journal is going to just rubber stamp it anyway.

(I don't generally review for journals I don't know nowadays, but this article is very much in my area, so considering it).

I'd review it as normal, but accept that they might ignore your review...

Laughably I received an invitation to review a paper on the 23rd December with a 7 day expected response. I did not review said paper... I know that journals like to get reviewers moving and not everyone celebrates Christmas but still...

Nice. We got sent some article proofs on the 24th. Just people clearing their desks, I guess.

I'll maybe have a look at the review if I have time. The authors look legit and the abstract reads ok, probably just a bit of a nothing paper that they can't get any of the proper journals to publish.

It's also because Americans don't have holidays! Lots of Americans expect to work between Xmas and New Year.

Selebian said:

viewcode said:

Selebian said:

viewcode said:

Selebian said:

david_herdson said:

MaxPB said:

Pulpstar said:

MaxPB said:

The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.

Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.

Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.

Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.

Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.

What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?

Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.

We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.

So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'

Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries

*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.

This point - about research degenerating into looking at other research - is an explicit plot point in the Foundation series, and indicates a rotting civilisation. People think research is done at desks, and it just isn't.

Um... my research is done at a desk

As is mine - well more specifically, the statistical contributions to somebody else's research, but I get named so it's all good

But if you are doing something with real-world implications, you have to check it against the real world, and we are losing sight of that. The map is not the territory and a' that.

Well, I use real world data. I'm just not the person collecting the data. The doctors and nurses do it as part of routine care (not for the purposes of research, which can raise its own issues).

Also - AIUI Cochranes can indicate where new real world research appears to be particularly needed. If all existing trials appear to be duds ... opportunity knocks.

bondegezou said:

Selebian said:

turbotubbs said:

Selebian said:

Off-topic: Do any of our academics have a view on MDPI nowadays? Specifically 'Journal of Clinical Medicine'. Are they still seen as junk publishers? I've been sent a review request for a paper that is in my field and which is making, from the abstract, some extravagant claims - it seems a run of the mill analysis claiming rather more. I don't want to waste my time if the journal is going to just rubber stamp it anyway.

(I don't generally review for journals I don't know nowadays, but this article is very much in my area, so considering it).

I'd review it as normal, but accept that they might ignore your review...

Laughably I received an invitation to review a paper on the 23rd December with a 7 day expected response. I did not review said paper... I know that journals like to get reviewers moving and not everyone celebrates Christmas but still...

Nice. We got sent some article proofs on the 24th. Just people clearing their desks, I guess.

I'll maybe have a look at the review if I have time. The authors look legit and the abstract reads ok, probably just a bit of a nothing paper that they can't get any of the proper journals to publish.

It's also because Americans don't have holidays! Lots of Americans expect to work between Xmas and New Year.

Lots of English folk expect to work on 2 January.
*shudders*

Selebian said:

RandallFlagg said:

Tate launches the BRUV party. Starmer must be quaking in his boots.
https://www.votebruv.co.uk/bruv_2.pdf
I mean look at these policies... they'll be even more appealing than the Absolute Boy's was.
"Knife Crime Epidemic: Zero Tolerance, Maximum
Deterrence
6
Last year, there were 50,000 knife crime offences in Englan
and Wales. That’s 137 every single day. Mothers burying sons.
Fathers burying daughters. Lives stolen. Futures destroyed. And
what’s the punishment? A slap on the wrist? A few years in jail?
No. The punishment will be seen by every Briton, every day.
Introducing BBC Punishment—a 24/7 live broadcast of knife
crime offenders serving solitary confinement. No redempt
arcs. No second chances. Just the cold, hard reality of a life
wasted in a concrete cell.
Imagine a 15-year-old boy, tempted to pick up a blade, turning
on the TV and seeing a man grow old and die alone. That’s not
cruelty—it’s deterrence. And it will save lives."

Spoof? Or real? I honestly can't tell any more.

It looks like a spoof, but then Tate looks like a character from Little Britain or a Sacha Baron Cohen creation.

If it's real, then with that tortuous backronym he could have a great future naming scientific studies

And biological taxa.

Mexicanpete said:

kinabalu said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

Jean Marie Le Pen has died aged 96

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgm2jvkl2yo

https://www.tf1info.fr/politique/en-direct-rn-fn-l-ancien-leader-du-fn-jean-marie-le-pen-est-mort-a-l-age-de-96-ans-2343432.html

Moving swiftly along.

Fulsome tribute from Musk, I'd hope. He stands on the shoulders of giants.

I listened to Musk's Dad Errol yesterday. I suspect he wasn't a Mandela voter and maybe, although I can't say for certain, cried a river when the apartheid system failed.

He was a member of the anti-apartheid Progressive Federal Party in the early '80s, but left the party and aligned with the New Republic Party, who favoured a midway course between keeping apartheid and abolishing apartheid... sort of apartheid-lite.

He's been accused of domestic violence against Elon's mother. He subsequently married a woman 20 years younger than him, and then had a relationship with his stepdaughter from that relationship. Elon said of him, "Almost every evil thing you could possibly think of, he has done."

TimS said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Morning, PB Campers.

I see that.Musk is now calling Davey a "snivelling cretin" for criticising him. He really is a real-life Bond villain.

I don’t think Bond villains called people names on social media.

Poisonous spiders in your bed, death by obstacle course/giant squid etc was more their speed.

Mind you, there was that guy with his own space program…

Musk needs a henchman too. Either a very big one, or a teeny tiny one.

I was just thinking he could become a sort of Pablo Escobar out there in Texas. Build his own quasi state, with its own army (legal there), infrastructure, laws etc. Muskland. Convert the digital kingdom into a physical one. Mixture of desire and necessity (as with Escobar).

TimS said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Morning, PB Campers.

I see that.Musk is now calling Davey a "snivelling cretin" for criticising him. He really is a real-life Bond villain.

I don’t think Bond villains called people names on social media.

Poisonous spiders in your bed, death by obstacle course/giant squid etc was more their speed.

Mind you, there was that guy with his own space program…

Musk needs a henchman too. Either a very big one, or a teeny tiny one.

Maybe Farage wasn't a good fit for Oddjob?

That said, I wonder how he'd have looked in the hat?

Carnyx said:

Selebian said:

RandallFlagg said:

Tate launches the BRUV party. Starmer must be quaking in his boots.
https://www.votebruv.co.uk/bruv_2.pdf
I mean look at these policies... they'll be even more appealing than the Absolute Boy's was.
"Knife Crime Epidemic: Zero Tolerance, Maximum
Deterrence
6
Last year, there were 50,000 knife crime offences in Englan
and Wales. That’s 137 every single day. Mothers burying sons.
Fathers burying daughters. Lives stolen. Futures destroyed. And
what’s the punishment? A slap on the wrist? A few years in jail?
No. The punishment will be seen by every Briton, every day.
Introducing BBC Punishment—a 24/7 live broadcast of knife
crime offenders serving solitary confinement. No redempt
arcs. No second chances. Just the cold, hard reality of a life
wasted in a concrete cell.
Imagine a 15-year-old boy, tempted to pick up a blade, turning
on the TV and seeing a man grow old and die alone. That’s not
cruelty—it’s deterrence. And it will save lives."

Spoof? Or real? I honestly can't tell any more.

It looks like a spoof, but then Tate looks like a character from Little Britain or a Sacha Baron Cohen creation.

If it's real, then with that tortuous backronym he could have a great future naming scientific studies

And biological taxa.

To me, Tate seems to be a contestant of some kind of low rent spinoff of Big Brother, who’s climbed through the screen.

A horrible character, written by a bad writer.

I remember reading somewhere that Errol took the young Elon to school in a Rolls-Royce, in the period when apartheid was breaking down.

Meanwhile, he seemed to be harbouring lots of hostility to his father. I see the roots of all sorts of problems here, Dr Freud would say.

biggles said:

Casino_Royale said:

david_herdson said:

mwadams said:

david_herdson said:

On topic, I fully agree with TSE. This is Westminster Wonkery at its finest (ie worst).

A government elected with a landslide majority has no cause to go to the country after two years. On what basis? Delivery? There won't be any because the only actual decisions the govt has taken so far have been to piss things off and make them (temporarily, one assumes Labour expects), worse. Mandate? It already has that, unless it wants to rat on a pledge. Preventative, before things really go down the pan? Hardly an inspiring message. To take advantage? Brenda from Bristol - and indeed the entire 2017 election - would have an answer to that.

And even if re-elected, then unless the Tories and Reform are both at each others' throats and failing to land blows on Labour, then Labour will lose seats. No matter how you spin it, that will take the shine off any victory and check Labour's momentum - as well as potentially costing some ministers their seats.

Just bloody govern and forget about the games. Governments have many structural advantages in the political game. If the country is in a decent, improved, shape come 2028/9, and Labour runs a capable campaign, they will win.

We haven't had a government that "just" governed for many years. I suspect that this is partly because of the long periods in opposition before a new government was formed. Non-governing habits are formed that are difficult to shake off.

About the only thing I can praise Blair for is his good fortune in coming into government at a time of relative stability and choosing to (basically) carry on a continuity Major administration, domestically.

Given both Tory and Labour are suffering, I wonder if Westminster has collectively forgotten how to do it?

The Coalition 'just governed' in 2010-15. Sure, there were reforms there but they were ones that had been in the planning for years and more-or-less ready to go. It was change for change's sake, and it certainly wasn't politics for politics' sake. Arguably, Theresa May tried 'just governing', notwithstanding the 2017 election (which was arguably necessary given her precarious majority, subsequently proven by events after she and Nick Timothy cocked up the execution).

Just governing isn't about pure administration; it's about setting out a coherent plan for the 4-5 years and sticking to it. Though obviously the administration needs doing too, and doing well.

The coalition made reforms in education, pensions, welfare, a (utterly bizarre) one in health, and advanced liberal social policies. This was on top of the fundamental one to eliminate the structural deficit.

I'd say there was a plan, and much of it laid out in the coalition agreement - which took 5 days to write.

What's Labour's excuse?

They (sort of) tried to create a unifying theme around the “black hole” and “crashed economy” didn’t they? But they just couldn’t land it. It didn’t have the traction of the need to fix the deficit and an aborted Budget from Truss was hardly black Wednesday.

So I think they lack the founding myth. They’d have been better to stick to a message about fixing underfunded public services. I think it all went wrong when they failed to use the classic “x years of Tory misrule” line in opposition.

They still have the bugbear about the Liam Byrne note, I think.

Whilst Hunt can-kicked some pay settlements, departmental spending reviews and efficiency savings out to 2025 in his last budget, and did a pre-election tax-cut, it just wasn't in the same category, so didn't land. And people expected Labour to overdo tax and spend over and above this in any event.

Which they did.

WhisperingOracle said:

Morning, PB Campers.

I see that.Musk is now calling Davey a "snivelling cretin" for criticising him. He really is a real-life Bond villain.

(One of) the (many) odd thing(s) about Musk is that apparently he has an open mind to technical solutions and is willing to listen when people push back - hence why his projects do tend to work, despite their seemingly outrageous ambition and targets - and yet when it comes to politics, he shows all the tolerance of criticism as any other autocrat.

Now, perhaps that can be reconciled in that technical solutions either work or don't work, and in any case, everyone there is working towards the same (his) end. Any cat to catch a mouse, and all that.

But whatever, he doesn't have much idea about how to win over the public, or how to finesse through policy.

He is going to come badly undone and it will be spectacular. And joyous.

david_herdson said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Morning, PB Campers.

I see that.Musk is now calling Davey a "snivelling cretin" for criticising him. He really is a real-life Bond villain.

(One of) the (many) odd thing(s) about Musk is that apparently he has an open mind to technical solutions and is willing to listen when people push back - hence why his projects do tend to work, despite their seemingly outrageous ambition and targets - and yet when it comes to politics, he shows all the tolerance of criticism as any other autocrat.

Now, perhaps that can be reconciled in that technical solutions either work or don't work, and in any case, everyone there is working towards the same (his) end. Any cat to catch a mouse, and all that.

But whatever, he doesn't have much idea about how to win over the public, or how to finesse through policy.

He is going to come badly undone and it will be spectacular. And joyous.

Behind every great fortune there lies a great crime... I expect even apparent friends of Musk will be gathering enough information to destroy him if he becomes any more than a churlish nuisance.

kinabalu said:

TimS said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Morning, PB Campers.

I see that.Musk is now calling Davey a "snivelling cretin" for criticising him. He really is a real-life Bond villain.

I don’t think Bond villains called people names on social media.

Poisonous spiders in your bed, death by obstacle course/giant squid etc was more their speed.

Mind you, there was that guy with his own space program…

Musk needs a henchman too. Either a very big one, or a teeny tiny one.

I was just thinking he could become a sort of Pablo Escobar out there in Texas. Build his own quasi state, with its own army (legal there), infrastructure, laws etc. Muskland. Convert the digital kingdom into a physical one. Mixture of desire and necessity (as with Escobar).

There's huge potential in Texas for that kind of thing. The areas and the potential scale of land ownership so vast. And another thing: a lot of the landscape and some of the climate is not dissimilar to Savanna areas of sub-Saharan Africa. An enterprising and very rich individual (and who better than the Saffer Elon Musk) could fence off a few thousand hectares, plant a few million authentic looking acacias and the odd baobab, and then release an entire menagerie of African plains wildlife. Turn a corner of Texas into the world's largest and most realistic safari park where predators actually kill prey and everything breeds in the semi-wild.

As it's Musk he could also hatch a few DNA-reconstructed dinosaurs.

david_herdson said:

TimS said:

MoonRabbit said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Morning, PB Campers.

I see that.Musk is now calling Davey a "snivelling cretin" for criticising him. He really is a real-life Bond villain.

Bond villains are suave and charismatic.

A true Bond villain looks like Jeff Bezos, thinks like Elon Musk and speaks like James Dyson.

That's very good.

Although I can't get out of the back of my mind that such a composite would really just be trying to sell you self-driving vacuum cleaners?

Or bagless space rockets.

TimS said:

kinabalu said:

TimS said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Morning, PB Campers.

I see that.Musk is now calling Davey a "snivelling cretin" for criticising him. He really is a real-life Bond villain.

I don’t think Bond villains called people names on social media.

Poisonous spiders in your bed, death by obstacle course/giant squid etc was more their speed.

Mind you, there was that guy with his own space program…

Musk needs a henchman too. Either a very big one, or a teeny tiny one.

I was just thinking he could become a sort of Pablo Escobar out there in Texas. Build his own quasi state, with its own army (legal there), infrastructure, laws etc. Muskland. Convert the digital kingdom into a physical one. Mixture of desire and necessity (as with Escobar).

There's huge potential in Texas for that kind of thing. The areas and the potential scale of land ownership so vast. And another thing: a lot of the landscape and some of the climate is not dissimilar to Savanna areas of sub-Saharan Africa. An enterprising and very rich individual (and who better than the Saffer Elon Musk) could fence off a few thousand hectares, plant a few million authentic looking acacias and the odd baobab, and then release an entire menagerie of African plains wildlife. Turn a corner of Texas into the world's largest and most realistic safari park where predators actually kill prey and everything breeds in the semi-wild.

As it's Musk he could also hatch a few DNA-reconstructed dinosaurs.

Years back, there was a chap who wanted to raise rhino in Texas. A vast herd of them. Then farm the horns, and crash the world market for rhino horn to the point that it wouldn’t even pay for the poachers bullets.

All to be financed by selling hunting licenses, IIRC.

Malmesbury said:

TimS said:

kinabalu said:

TimS said:

Malmesbury said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Morning, PB Campers.

I see that.Musk is now calling Davey a "snivelling cretin" for criticising him. He really is a real-life Bond villain.

I don’t think Bond villains called people names on social media.

Poisonous spiders in your bed, death by obstacle course/giant squid etc was more their speed.

Mind you, there was that guy with his own space program…

Musk needs a henchman too. Either a very big one, or a teeny tiny one.

I was just thinking he could become a sort of Pablo Escobar out there in Texas. Build his own quasi state, with its own army (legal there), infrastructure, laws etc. Muskland. Convert the digital kingdom into a physical one. Mixture of desire and necessity (as with Escobar).

There's huge potential in Texas for that kind of thing. The areas and the potential scale of land ownership so vast. And another thing: a lot of the landscape and some of the climate is not dissimilar to Savanna areas of sub-Saharan Africa. An enterprising and very rich individual (and who better than the Saffer Elon Musk) could fence off a few thousand hectares, plant a few million authentic looking acacias and the odd baobab, and then release an entire menagerie of African plains wildlife. Turn a corner of Texas into the world's largest and most realistic safari park where predators actually kill prey and everything breeds in the semi-wild.

As it's Musk he could also hatch a few DNA-reconstructed dinosaurs.

Years back, there was a chap who wanted to raise rhino in Texas. A vast herd of them. Then farm the horns, and crash the world market for rhino horn to the point that it wouldn’t even pay for the poachers bullets.

All to be financed by selling hunting licenses, IIRC.

One of those economically sensible yet somehow never politically achievable plans, like the even better one of big pharma buying up the entire annual Afghan opium poppy harvest at guaranteed fair trade prices.

…

kinabalu said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

Selebian said:

RandallFlagg said:

Tate launches the BRUV party. Starmer must be quaking in his boots.
https://www.votebruv.co.uk/bruv_2.pdf
I mean look at these policies... they'll be even more appealing than the Absolute Boy's was.
"Knife Crime Epidemic: Zero Tolerance, Maximum
Deterrence
6
Last year, there were 50,000 knife crime offences in Englan
and Wales. That’s 137 every single day. Mothers burying sons.
Fathers burying daughters. Lives stolen. Futures destroyed. And
what’s the punishment? A slap on the wrist? A few years in jail?
No. The punishment will be seen by every Briton, every day.
Introducing BBC Punishment—a 24/7 live broadcast of knife
crime offenders serving solitary confinement. No redempt
arcs. No second chances. Just the cold, hard reality of a life
wasted in a concrete cell.
Imagine a 15-year-old boy, tempted to pick up a blade, turning
on the TV and seeing a man grow old and die alone. That’s not
cruelty—it’s deterrence. And it will save lives."

Spoof? Or real? I honestly can't tell any more.

It looks like a spoof, but then Tate looks like a character from Little Britain or a Sacha Baron Cohen creation.

If it's real, then with that tortuous backronym he could have a great future naming scientific studies

And biological taxa.

To me, Tate seems to be a contestant of some kind of low rent spinoff of Big Brother, who’s climbed through the screen.

A horrible character, written by a bad writer.

He comes from reality tv, I believe. Tate, Trump, Hopkins ... the sector is something of a far right academy.

Is Farage's successor right now on our screens in something or other? The way things are going you wouldn't rule it out.

Keep an eye on Winkelman - behind that fringe is a dark authoritarian mind waiting to unleash her perfectly timed and choreographed goosesteppers.

kinabalu said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

Selebian said:

RandallFlagg said:

Tate launches the BRUV party. Starmer must be quaking in his boots.
https://www.votebruv.co.uk/bruv_2.pdf
I mean look at these policies... they'll be even more appealing than the Absolute Boy's was.
"Knife Crime Epidemic: Zero Tolerance, Maximum
Deterrence
6
Last year, there were 50,000 knife crime offences in Englan
and Wales. That’s 137 every single day. Mothers burying sons.
Fathers burying daughters. Lives stolen. Futures destroyed. And
what’s the punishment? A slap on the wrist? A few years in jail?
No. The punishment will be seen by every Briton, every day.
Introducing BBC Punishment—a 24/7 live broadcast of knife
crime offenders serving solitary confinement. No redempt
arcs. No second chances. Just the cold, hard reality of a life
wasted in a concrete cell.
Imagine a 15-year-old boy, tempted to pick up a blade, turning
on the TV and seeing a man grow old and die alone. That’s not
cruelty—it’s deterrence. And it will save lives."

Spoof? Or real? I honestly can't tell any more.

It looks like a spoof, but then Tate looks like a character from Little Britain or a Sacha Baron Cohen creation.

If it's real, then with that tortuous backronym he could have a great future naming scientific studies

And biological taxa.

To me, Tate seems to be a contestant of some kind of low rent spinoff of Big Brother, who’s climbed through the screen.

A horrible character, written by a bad writer.

He comes from reality tv, I believe. Tate, Trump, Hopkins ... the sector is something of a far right academy.

Is Farage's successor right now on our screens in something or other? The way things are going you wouldn't rule it out.

Philip K Dick, George Orwell and with a touch of William Gibson….

WhisperingOracle said:

I remember reading somewhere that Errol took the young Elon to school in a Rolls-Royce, in the period when apartheid was breaking down.

Meanwhile, he seemed to be harbouring lots of hostility to his father. I see the roots of all sorts of problems here, Dr Freud would say.

I think this sums it up, from an old friend of mine:

The super-wealthy are mostly fascist because they need to tell themselves a story about how talent and genes made them rich, when it was really inheritance and exploitation.

This is why they are queuing up to fund Farage.

https://bsky.app/profile/ruthholliday.bsky.social/post/3ldnr7ssvwh24

Let's hope the Online Safety Bill improves the standard of Internet discourse. It's a bit of a blunt instrument, but there is undeniably a massive problem of politically driven misinformation.

If not then perhaps the internet and social media deserve to die.

Nigelb said:

MarqueeMark said:

Ukraine has announced that it has eliminated 4,000 North Korean troops and captured 860 as POWs.

Crikey.

Reportedly many were unaware of the anti-personnel drones.

Doesn't say much about Russian briefing. You wonder what it *does* say about Russian tactics re the drones.

david_herdson said:

TimS said:

MoonRabbit said:

WhisperingOracle said:

Morning, PB Campers.

I see that.Musk is now calling Davey a "snivelling cretin" for criticising him. He really is a real-life Bond villain.

Bond villains are suave and charismatic.

A true Bond villain looks like Jeff Bezos, thinks like Elon Musk and speaks like James Dyson.

That's very good.

Although I can't get out of the back of my mind that such a composite would really just be trying to sell you self-driving vacuum cleaners?

With a streaming service bundled in.

With all Bond villains, you have to start by blaming the parents?

kinabalu said:

Malmesbury said:

Carnyx said:

Selebian said:

RandallFlagg said:

Tate launches the BRUV party. Starmer must be quaking in his boots.
https://www.votebruv.co.uk/bruv_2.pdf
I mean look at these policies... they'll be even more appealing than the Absolute Boy's was.
"Knife Crime Epidemic: Zero Tolerance, Maximum
Deterrence
6
Last year, there were 50,000 knife crime offences in Englan
and Wales. That’s 137 every single day. Mothers burying sons.
Fathers burying daughters. Lives stolen. Futures destroyed. And
what’s the punishment? A slap on the wrist? A few years in jail?
No. The punishment will be seen by every Briton, every day.
Introducing BBC Punishment—a 24/7 live broadcast of knife
crime offenders serving solitary confinement. No redempt
arcs. No second chances. Just the cold, hard reality of a life
wasted in a concrete cell.
Imagine a 15-year-old boy, tempted to pick up a blade, turning
on the TV and seeing a man grow old and die alone. That’s not
cruelty—it’s deterrence. And it will save lives."

Spoof? Or real? I honestly can't tell any more.

It looks like a spoof, but then Tate looks like a character from Little Britain or a Sacha Baron Cohen creation.

If it's real, then with that tortuous backronym he could have a great future naming scientific studies

And biological taxa.

To me, Tate seems to be a contestant of some kind of low rent spinoff of Big Brother, who’s climbed through the screen.

A horrible character, written by a bad writer.

He comes from reality tv, I believe. Tate, Trump, Hopkins ... the sector is something of a far right academy.

Is Farage's successor right now on our screens in something or other? The way things are going you wouldn't rule it out.

Just looked up Lowe, 7 years older than Farage so it won't be him. Too short at 30-1 next PM imo.

Also Bozza at 16-1 ! A preposterous price lol.

So now I'm -£128 Farage, Bozza or Lowe against +£67.51 anyone else

Eight detained on suspicion of tragedy chanting

A man from the United States was one of eight people detained after tragedy chanting at Sunday's Premier League match between Liverpool and Manchester United, police have said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czen7g2x47yo

Arrests for upsetting people are not new, but no-one cared when it was only football supporters.

I'm told that Sony pre-sold their initial allocation of the electric cars within a few hours of reservations going live. I'll be interested to see how much of the premium market they manage to carve out for EVs, the prices are pretty high at $89k and $102k. Delivery for the cheaper model is now all the way out to 2027 already, the first ones are expected at the end of this year.

It's interesting to me that Japan's fightback in EVs will probably come from this initiative rather than from Nissan who were early runners with the Leaf.

If my source is right and the initial allocation is all reserved already it also shows how big the market for a premium brand EV is and what Jaguar could have achieved without the completely braindead rebrand.

Pulpstar said:

williamglenn said:

Zuckerberg says that Facebook will replace their censorship policies with X-style community notes and will work with Trump to combat foreign governments who want to impose censorship.

https://x.com/esaagar/status/1876612227807236310

ZuckMAGAberg.

Community notes are objectively better than censorship. A really great way to stop misinformation without sending people down the conspiracy route.

Foxy said:

WhisperingOracle said:

I remember reading somewhere that Errol took the young Elon to school in a Rolls-Royce, in the period when apartheid was breaking down.

Meanwhile, he seemed to be harbouring lots of hostility to his father. I see the roots of all sorts of problems here, Dr Freud would say.

I think this sums it up, from an old friend of mine:

The super-wealthy are mostly fascist because they need to tell themselves a story about how talent and genes made them rich, when it was really inheritance and exploitation.

This is why they are queuing up to fund Farage.

https://bsky.app/profile/ruthholliday.bsky.social/post/3ldnr7ssvwh24

Let's hope the Online Safety Bill improves the standard of Internet discourse. It's a bit of a blunt instrument, but there is undeniably a massive problem of politically driven misinformation.

If not then perhaps the internet and social media deserve to die.

Bill Gates seems to have bucked the trend. As far as I'm aware, he appears to have used his billions largely as a force for good.