This has been calculated by looking at the number of people who are either:
receiving the state pension
receiving universal credit, including unemployed people;
Higher Education students;
employed by a Higher Education institution;
public sector employees.
The ASI also took the number of employees in human resources and the planning sector into account. This is because the ever-expanding reach of the state has been the primary driver of the growth of these roles. These professions enable businesses to navigate the huge regulatory burdens that the state has placed on them.
Some of those, sure, fit an obvious definition of "reliant on the state for their livelihood", like public sector employees. However, some of them are more questionable. Lots of people who receive the state pension get more from a private pension: they are not reliant on the state, necessarily.
Higher education students may be funded by the state, but many are not. Most undergrads are reliant on state-backed loans and/or family support. Many work part-time. Lots of postgrads are paying themselves or supported by an employer.
I'm employed by a higher education institution. I generate income for my employer in many ways: some of me is supported by government grants, but an increasingly high proportion of me is supported by fee income, and that fee income is increasingly from overseas students. Some of my colleagues are entirely paid for by overseas student fees, so they are being supported by middle class families in China.
But the egregious category there is "employees in human resources and the planning sector into account". That's just making stuff up. Those are private sector employees. That the private sector has to obey laws does not make those jobs reliant on the state for their incomes.
In economics, there is a long running categorisation of activity as “Socialised” when it is indirectly controlled by the Government. Regulatory burden is a classic for this.
Given the habit of government creating regulatory burdens, this simply makes sense.
There are jobs that are indirectly controlled by government, but these jobs aren't generally that. You need HR personnel if you have lots of employees. You need someone to manage job adverts, onboarding, holiday requests, sick leave etc., irrespective of government regulation. The ASI are just inflating figures for shock value.
The regulatory burden is real. And if it is not counted, the politicians will carry on adding to it, without regard for consequences.
While that is true, most regulations have been introduced as a response to a tragedy or public pressure to resolve something. Simply scrapping them without thought doesn't really help and will likely result in more regulation again in the future.
Take the Building Safety Act in response to Grenfell. Yes, you could scrap the bureaucracy but if you don't replace the measures with something else, or some action, then you are at risk of another Grenfell.
Scrapping things without thought or concern for the consequence is the DOGE approach and is already being found out as being stupid.
Is Grenfell a good example? Surely the regulatory burden on those involved in construction and works there was immense. But where needed it was overlooked, falsified or ignored.
No amount of law can overcome an amoral culture, nor can it overcome a ruthless competitiveness which requires the corner cutting to survive.
A case of Gresham's law.
I think it's a good example because it is an example whereby the "solution" to the problem is deemed to be too much of a regulatory burden but yet burning the regulations does not solve the original problem.
Almost every regulation in respect of the construction industry has come as a result of parliament trying to prevent accidents/bad practice or to give people remedies in the event of the same. Now, I do agree that there is massive regulatory overburden however I think some thought needs to be had as to alternative solutions.
Personally (and I guess I would say this as a construction lawyer) I think that judicial reform is the answer, i.e. give people the chance to more efficiently (both cost and time) bring cases against people/companies involved. That should, organically, lead to better practice.
Tesla is recalling 46,096 Cybertruck vehicles in the US over an exterior panel that can detach while driving, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said reut.rs/4bHXpnS
One coming down the track - Trump reportedly having databases recording war crimes in Ukraine, including that related to thousands of children abducted to Russia, deleted, as he withdraws funding to the project.
The detail is not absolutely clear yet, and Trump / Musk will obfuscate. I hope Yale University had their data backed up in a safe jurisdiction.
I'd say it's exactly the sort of promise he may have quietly made to Putin, given that he launched his assault on the ICC on day one.
That story has malicious compliance, obfuscation and lies written all over it. How can cutting funding for something 'result' in the deletion of data? Did the data even exist in the first place?
An unidentified source familiar with the tracking program told Reuters that DOGE's cutting funding for the program has resulted in the deletion of $26 million of war crimes evidence protecting Putin. They said, "They took $26 million of U.S. taxpayers money used for war crimes data and threw it into the woodchipper, including the dossiers on all the children. If you wanted to protect President Putin from prosecution, you nuke that thing. And they did it. It's the final court-admissible version with all the metadata."
"How can cutting funding for something 'result' in the deletion of data?"
Quite easy really: you don't archive it. Data from a ceased project is either properly archived, left in place on an active server, or deleted as no longer required or destroyed when ordered or the computer it is on/cloud it is in overwrites it. There were cases in the Global War On Terror when servers/drives/whatever were flown back with gigabytes of data and never inspected nor stored properly. In my previous incarnation I once scraped unstructured data off a server header and reimposed a schema to resurrect it before the 28-day rolling-archive limit was reached, thereby rescuing deleted data that would otherwise be lost.
The question is not whether Trump and Musk's Jahr Null approach deletes data, the question is why you would be surprised by it.
Failing to maintain something is not the same as actively deleting it: "Oh, we're no longer getting $26m from the government. I guess we'll just have to delete the database!"
The story is a hoax and casts doubt on whether the funding was being used appropriately in the first place.
I don't know the veracity of the story, but if we had a project cancelled then we would absolutely delete the data. Carrying sensitive data poses risks to the participants (and the institution). If the research has been cancelled then the benefits (research outputs) that justify those risks are gone and we'd securely delete the data ASAP.
Isn't there a GDPR duty to do so? I know that's not the US, but it illustrates the point.
Indeed, here. If the study is canned, the legal basis evaporates if relying on one of the non-consent bases. If consented, that's also gone if the study for which the consent exists no longer exists (may be some legal wriggle room on that if the consent allowed for archiving after study end, but in reality the institution would want the data gone asap)
But would gdpr come into play when you are talking about evidence of a crime?
Why on earth does anyone think anybody but Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK?
It was pure contingency that Oswald found a job at the Texas Book Depository, pure contingency that he was assigned to work at the warehouse itself, pure contingency that Kennedy decided to take the route through Dealey Plaza, and pure contingency that Kennedy decided to travel with the hood down.
While Oswald’s back history is very odd, that’s perhaps no surprise for someone who ended up assassinating a President (and who had attempted to shoot at a right wing politician a few months earlier).
The autopsy and Jack Ruby killing are also weird, but their weirdness do not undermine the aforementioned facts that underpin the case for Oswald.
My view is that LHO killed JFK; and probably did so alone. However, the ease with which LHO was dispatched before he could say much gives a genuine opening to all the conspiracy theories. From the point of view of today it is almost impossible to believe that such an important suspect was placed in a position where he could be killed and thus silenced so easily without there being a reason.
Incidentally, I was 8, nearly 9 on the Friday it happened and it is one of my earliest political memories. I remember a TV programme being interrupted with news flashes (Emergency Ward 10), the American boy at my London primary school school reading the lesson (Ecclesiastes) at assembly the Monday after, my older brother giving me gory details of the photo in the Daily Mirror (I was not allowed to see it) of Jack Ruby's bullet entering LHO.
Case Closed by Gerald Posner was the book that sorted me out on this one. There can't be many people who have read that and still think it wasn't Oswald alone.
This has been calculated by looking at the number of people who are either:
receiving the state pension
receiving universal credit, including unemployed people;
Higher Education students;
employed by a Higher Education institution;
public sector employees.
The ASI also took the number of employees in human resources and the planning sector into account. This is because the ever-expanding reach of the state has been the primary driver of the growth of these roles. These professions enable businesses to navigate the huge regulatory burdens that the state has placed on them.
Some of those, sure, fit an obvious definition of "reliant on the state for their livelihood", like public sector employees. However, some of them are more questionable. Lots of people who receive the state pension get more from a private pension: they are not reliant on the state, necessarily.
Higher education students may be funded by the state, but many are not. Most undergrads are reliant on state-backed loans and/or family support. Many work part-time. Lots of postgrads are paying themselves or supported by an employer.
I'm employed by a higher education institution. I generate income for my employer in many ways: some of me is supported by government grants, but an increasingly high proportion of me is supported by fee income, and that fee income is increasingly from overseas students. Some of my colleagues are entirely paid for by overseas student fees, so they are being supported by middle class families in China.
But the egregious category there is "employees in human resources and the planning sector into account". That's just making stuff up. Those are private sector employees. That the private sector has to obey laws does not make those jobs reliant on the state for their incomes.
In economics, there is a long running categorisation of activity as “Socialised” when it is indirectly controlled by the Government. Regulatory burden is a classic for this.
Given the habit of government creating regulatory burdens, this simply makes sense.
There are jobs that are indirectly controlled by government, but these jobs aren't generally that. You need HR personnel if you have lots of employees. You need someone to manage job adverts, onboarding, holiday requests, sick leave etc., irrespective of government regulation. The ASI are just inflating figures for shock value.
The regulatory burden is real. And if it is not counted, the politicians will carry on adding to it, without regard for consequences.
While that is true, most regulations have been introduced as a response to a tragedy or public pressure to resolve something. Simply scrapping them without thought doesn't really help and will likely result in more regulation again in the future.
Take the Building Safety Act in response to Grenfell. Yes, you could scrap the bureaucracy but if you don't replace the measures with something else, or some action, then you are at risk of another Grenfell.
Scrapping things without thought or concern for the consequence is the DOGE approach and is already being found out as being stupid.
Is Grenfell a good example? Surely the regulatory burden on those involved in construction and works there was immense. But where needed it was overlooked, falsified or ignored.
No amount of law can overcome an amoral culture, nor can it overcome a ruthless competitiveness which requires the corner cutting to survive.
A case of Gresham's law.
Exactly.
The response to failure has been to pile on more rules, in the belief that it is possible to cover every corner case.
This is probably wrong and impossible - Humans and their works are non-linear.
What is needed, is a short, clear statement of outcomes. Then, implementation by regulators with discretionary powers. And enough of them to actually enforce.
Grenfell had metric tons of paper declaring it safe.
A friend, caught in the cladding comedy, discovered that his building was actually structurally deficient. A trawl through the rooms of paper involved discovered that the essential, basic calculations were wrong and had never been checked.
It’s a pattern that repeats - bullshit paperwork provides a hiding place for rats. And little more.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
At top line: 2.4m students 1.4m unemployed 2.6m sick 1.7m carers (overwhelmingly women) 1.2m retired 1.0m inactive but none of the above
1.2m retired? Mr Google tells me there were 12.7 million people over 65 in the UK. The idea that "90% of all people over 65 are still working" is facially implausible.
Economic inactivity is only measured in 16-64 year olds. So, those 1.2m are all early retirees.
This has been calculated by looking at the number of people who are either:
receiving the state pension
receiving universal credit, including unemployed people;
Higher Education students;
employed by a Higher Education institution;
public sector employees.
The ASI also took the number of employees in human resources and the planning sector into account. This is because the ever-expanding reach of the state has been the primary driver of the growth of these roles. These professions enable businesses to navigate the huge regulatory burdens that the state has placed on them.
Some of those, sure, fit an obvious definition of "reliant on the state for their livelihood", like public sector employees. However, some of them are more questionable. Lots of people who receive the state pension get more from a private pension: they are not reliant on the state, necessarily.
Higher education students may be funded by the state, but many are not. Most undergrads are reliant on state-backed loans and/or family support. Many work part-time. Lots of postgrads are paying themselves or supported by an employer.
I'm employed by a higher education institution. I generate income for my employer in many ways: some of me is supported by government grants, but an increasingly high proportion of me is supported by fee income, and that fee income is increasingly from overseas students. Some of my colleagues are entirely paid for by overseas student fees, so they are being supported by middle class families in China.
But the egregious category there is "employees in human resources and the planning sector into account". That's just making stuff up. Those are private sector employees. That the private sector has to obey laws does not make those jobs reliant on the state for their incomes.
In economics, there is a long running categorisation of activity as “Socialised” when it is indirectly controlled by the Government. Regulatory burden is a classic for this.
Given the habit of government creating regulatory burdens, this simply makes sense.
There are jobs that are indirectly controlled by government, but these jobs aren't generally that. You need HR personnel if you have lots of employees. You need someone to manage job adverts, onboarding, holiday requests, sick leave etc., irrespective of government regulation. The ASI are just inflating figures for shock value.
The regulatory burden is real. And if it is not counted, the politicians will carry on adding to it, without regard for consequences.
While that is true, most regulations have been introduced as a response to a tragedy or public pressure to resolve something. Simply scrapping them without thought doesn't really help and will likely result in more regulation again in the future.
Take the Building Safety Act in response to Grenfell. Yes, you could scrap the bureaucracy but if you don't replace the measures with something else, or some action, then you are at risk of another Grenfell.
Scrapping things without thought or concern for the consequence is the DOGE approach and is already being found out as being stupid.
Is Grenfell a good example? Surely the regulatory burden on those involved in construction and works there was immense. But where needed it was overlooked, falsified or ignored.
No amount of law can overcome an amoral culture, nor can it overcome a ruthless competitiveness which requires the corner cutting to survive.
A case of Gresham's law.
I think it's a good example because it is an example whereby the "solution" to the problem is deemed to be too much of a regulatory burden but yet burning the regulations does not solve the original problem.
Almost every regulation in respect of the construction industry has come as a result of parliament trying to prevent accidents/bad practice or to give people remedies in the event of the same. Now, I do agree that there is massive regulatory overburden however I think some thought needs to be had as to alternative solutions.
Personally (and I guess I would say this as a construction lawyer) I think that judicial reform is the answer, i.e. give people the chance to more efficiently (both cost and time) bring cases against people/companies involved. That should, organically, lead to better practice.
Do less, but do it better, should be the mantra.
A thousand pages of regulations isn't being read by anyone, and means that whoever is filling it in doesn't see the wood for the trees.
We need smaller, smarter but more accountable regulations.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Londoners pay £5k more per person in taxes than they receive back in spending.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
Tesla is recalling 46,096 Cybertruck vehicles in the US over an exterior panel that can detach while driving, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said reut.rs/4bHXpnS
Nobody wants Musk to get the Luigi hostile takeover treatment more than me but this Teᛋᛋla dooming is overblown. Every major OEM does recalls and they've all done far bigger (into the millions of vehicles) ones than this.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
Why on earth does anyone think anybody but Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK?
It was pure contingency that Oswald found a job at the Texas Book Depository, pure contingency that he was assigned to work at the warehouse itself, pure contingency that Kennedy decided to take the route through Dealey Plaza, and pure contingency that Kennedy decided to travel with the hood down.
While Oswald’s back history is very odd, that’s perhaps no surprise for someone who ended up assassinating a President (and who had attempted to shoot at a right wing politician a few months earlier).
The autopsy and Jack Ruby killing are also weird, but their weirdness do not undermine the aforementioned facts that underpin the case for Oswald.
My view is that LHO killed JFK; and probably did so alone. However, the ease with which LHO was dispatched before he could say much gives a genuine opening to all the conspiracy theories. From the point of view of today it is almost impossible to believe that such an important suspect was placed in a position where he could be killed and thus silenced so easily without there being a reason.
Incidentally, I was 8, nearly 9 on the Friday it happened and it is one of my earliest political memories. I remember a TV programme being interrupted with news flashes (Emergency Ward 10), the American boy at my London primary school school reading the lesson (Ecclesiastes) at assembly the Monday after, my older brother giving me gory details of the photo in the Daily Mirror (I was not allowed to see it) of Jack Ruby's bullet entering LHO.
Case Closed by Gerald Posner was the book that sorted me out on this one. There can't be many people who have read that and still think it wasn't Oswald alone.
Yes. But the world if increasingly full of people who think Lucy Letby was framed and is innocent. Though, SFAICS, not many who sat through the trial
This has been calculated by looking at the number of people who are either:
receiving the state pension
receiving universal credit, including unemployed people;
Higher Education students;
employed by a Higher Education institution;
public sector employees.
The ASI also took the number of employees in human resources and the planning sector into account. This is because the ever-expanding reach of the state has been the primary driver of the growth of these roles. These professions enable businesses to navigate the huge regulatory burdens that the state has placed on them.
Some of those, sure, fit an obvious definition of "reliant on the state for their livelihood", like public sector employees. However, some of them are more questionable. Lots of people who receive the state pension get more from a private pension: they are not reliant on the state, necessarily.
Higher education students may be funded by the state, but many are not. Most undergrads are reliant on state-backed loans and/or family support. Many work part-time. Lots of postgrads are paying themselves or supported by an employer.
I'm employed by a higher education institution. I generate income for my employer in many ways: some of me is supported by government grants, but an increasingly high proportion of me is supported by fee income, and that fee income is increasingly from overseas students. Some of my colleagues are entirely paid for by overseas student fees, so they are being supported by middle class families in China.
But the egregious category there is "employees in human resources and the planning sector into account". That's just making stuff up. Those are private sector employees. That the private sector has to obey laws does not make those jobs reliant on the state for their incomes.
In economics, there is a long running categorisation of activity as “Socialised” when it is indirectly controlled by the Government. Regulatory burden is a classic for this.
Given the habit of government creating regulatory burdens, this simply makes sense.
There are jobs that are indirectly controlled by government, but these jobs aren't generally that. You need HR personnel if you have lots of employees. You need someone to manage job adverts, onboarding, holiday requests, sick leave etc., irrespective of government regulation. The ASI are just inflating figures for shock value.
The regulatory burden is real. And if it is not counted, the politicians will carry on adding to it, without regard for consequences.
While that is true, most regulations have been introduced as a response to a tragedy or public pressure to resolve something. Simply scrapping them without thought doesn't really help and will likely result in more regulation again in the future.
Take the Building Safety Act in response to Grenfell. Yes, you could scrap the bureaucracy but if you don't replace the measures with something else, or some action, then you are at risk of another Grenfell.
Scrapping things without thought or concern for the consequence is the DOGE approach and is already being found out as being stupid.
Is Grenfell a good example? Surely the regulatory burden on those involved in construction and works there was immense. But where needed it was overlooked, falsified or ignored.
No amount of law can overcome an amoral culture, nor can it overcome a ruthless competitiveness which requires the corner cutting to survive.
A case of Gresham's law.
I think it's a good example because it is an example whereby the "solution" to the problem is deemed to be too much of a regulatory burden but yet burning the regulations does not solve the original problem.
Almost every regulation in respect of the construction industry has come as a result of parliament trying to prevent accidents/bad practice or to give people remedies in the event of the same. Now, I do agree that there is massive regulatory overburden however I think some thought needs to be had as to alternative solutions.
Personally (and I guess I would say this as a construction lawyer) I think that judicial reform is the answer, i.e. give people the chance to more efficiently (both cost and time) bring cases against people/companies involved. That should, organically, lead to better practice.
Do less, but do it better, should be the mantra.
A thousand pages of regulations isn't being read by anyone, and means that whoever is filling it in doesn't see the wood for the trees.
We need smaller, smarter but more accountable regulations.
I agree. The problem is that less but better requires more thought than more and is therefore harder.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
Broadly concur but not just about the money, we would also both choose different policies and approaches to government, business and culture.
Tesla is recalling 46,096 Cybertruck vehicles in the US over an exterior panel that can detach while driving, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said reut.rs/4bHXpnS
(my usual funny signoff or emoji has been deleted because I'm sick of this shit. These things are not funny. Burning people alive in a stainless steel mobile oven is not funny. The conversion of the United States to an autocratic playground for tech billionaires to torment people as they see fit is not funny. The forced delivery of the Ukrainians to their murderers, rapists and kidnappers of their children is not funny. PB is not as much fun as it used to be.)
@viewcode please don’t blame PB. The world is shit right now. But good people are getting their act together - remember: this to shall pass
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
Highly diverse societies are low trust societies and low trust societies can't sustain a social contract of the sort that underpins the welfare state. Trying to defy this = political suicide
Why on earth does anyone think anybody but Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK?
It was pure contingency that Oswald found a job at the Texas Book Depository, pure contingency that he was assigned to work at the warehouse itself, pure contingency that Kennedy decided to take the route through Dealey Plaza, and pure contingency that Kennedy decided to travel with the hood down.
While Oswald’s back history is very odd, that’s perhaps no surprise for someone who ended up assassinating a President (and who had attempted to shoot at a right wing politician a few months earlier).
The autopsy and Jack Ruby killing are also weird, but their weirdness do not undermine the aforementioned facts that underpin the case for Oswald.
My view is that LHO killed JFK; and probably did so alone. However, the ease with which LHO was dispatched before he could say much gives a genuine opening to all the conspiracy theories. From the point of view of today it is almost impossible to believe that such an important suspect was placed in a position where he could be killed and thus silenced so easily without there being a reason.
Incidentally, I was 8, nearly 9 on the Friday it happened and it is one of my earliest political memories. I remember a TV programme being interrupted with news flashes (Emergency Ward 10), the American boy at my London primary school school reading the lesson (Ecclesiastes) at assembly the Monday after, my older brother giving me gory details of the photo in the Daily Mirror (I was not allowed to see it) of Jack Ruby's bullet entering LHO.
Sandwiched between the deaths of JFK and LHO was the birth of Doctor Who. At school on Monday morning, as we trudged to the rugby field, all the chat was about 'The Doctor'.
Why on earth does anyone think anybody but Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK?
It was pure contingency that Oswald found a job at the Texas Book Depository, pure contingency that he was assigned to work at the warehouse itself, pure contingency that Kennedy decided to take the route through Dealey Plaza, and pure contingency that Kennedy decided to travel with the hood down.
While Oswald’s back history is very odd, that’s perhaps no surprise for someone who ended up assassinating a President (and who had attempted to shoot at a right wing politician a few months earlier).
The autopsy and Jack Ruby killing are also weird, but their weirdness do not undermine the aforementioned facts that underpin the case for Oswald.
My view is that LHO killed JFK; and probably did so alone. However, the ease with which LHO was dispatched before he could say much gives a genuine opening to all the conspiracy theories. From the point of view of today it is almost impossible to believe that such an important suspect was placed in a position where he could be killed and thus silenced so easily without there being a reason.
Incidentally, I was 8, nearly 9 on the Friday it happened and it is one of my earliest political memories. I remember a TV programme being interrupted with news flashes (Emergency Ward 10), the American boy at my London primary school school reading the lesson (Ecclesiastes) at assembly the Monday after, my older brother giving me gory details of the photo in the Daily Mirror (I was not allowed to see it) of Jack Ruby's bullet entering LHO.
Case Closed by Gerald Posner was the book that sorted me out on this one. There can't be many people who have read that and still think it wasn't Oswald alone.
Yes. But the world if increasingly full of people who think Lucy Letby was framed and is innocent. Though, SFAICS, not many who sat through the trial
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
I wonder what the number of London ex financial services would be?
Tesla is recalling 46,096 Cybertruck vehicles in the US over an exterior panel that can detach while driving, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said reut.rs/4bHXpnS
(my usual funny signoff or emoji has been deleted because I'm sick of this shit. These things are not funny. Burning people alive in a stainless steel mobile oven is not funny. The conversion of the United States to an autocratic playground for tech billionaires to torment people as they see fit is not funny. The forced delivery of the Ukrainians to their murderers, rapists and kidnappers of their children is not funny. PB is not as much fun as it used to be.)
@viewcode please don’t blame PB. The world is shit right now. But good people are getting their act together - remember: this to shall pass
Yes we just have to get through the global depression caused by the trade wars and then WW3 and by 2045 we can start rebuilding again. Hope owning the libs has been a lot of fun.
Tesla is recalling 46,096 Cybertruck vehicles in the US over an exterior panel that can detach while driving, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said reut.rs/4bHXpnS
(my usual funny signoff or emoji has been deleted because I'm sick of this shit. These things are not funny. Burning people alive in a stainless steel mobile oven is not funny. The conversion of the United States to an autocratic playground for tech billionaires to torment people as they see fit is not funny. The forced delivery of the Ukrainians to their murderers, rapists and kidnappers of their children is not funny. PB is not as much fun as it used to be.)
@viewcode please don’t blame PB. The world is shit right now. But good people are getting their act together - remember: this to shall pass
Yes we just have to get through the global depression caused by the trade wars and then WW3 and by 2045 we can start rebuilding again. Hope owning the libs has been a lot of fun.
Tesla is recalling 46,096 Cybertruck vehicles in the US over an exterior panel that can detach while driving, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said reut.rs/4bHXpnS
(my usual funny signoff or emoji has been deleted because I'm sick of this shit. These things are not funny. Burning people alive in a stainless steel mobile oven is not funny. The conversion of the United States to an autocratic playground for tech billionaires to torment people as they see fit is not funny. The forced delivery of the Ukrainians to their murderers, rapists and kidnappers of their children is not funny. PB is not as much fun as it used to be.)
@viewcode please don’t blame PB. The world is shit right now. But good people are getting their act together - remember: this to shall pass
Yes we just have to get through the global depression caused by the trade wars and then WW3 and by 2045 we can start rebuilding again. Hope owning the libs has been a lot of fun.
A blip in human history. Barely a generation
Not much use if you are in one of those generations. Or if you are one of the last generations before the broligarchs replace us with AI and or cyborgs.
Tesla is recalling 46,096 Cybertruck vehicles in the US over an exterior panel that can detach while driving, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said reut.rs/4bHXpnS
(my usual funny signoff or emoji has been deleted because I'm sick of this shit. These things are not funny. Burning people alive in a stainless steel mobile oven is not funny. The conversion of the United States to an autocratic playground for tech billionaires to torment people as they see fit is not funny. The forced delivery of the Ukrainians to their murderers, rapists and kidnappers of their children is not funny. PB is not as much fun as it used to be.)
@viewcode please don’t blame PB. The world is shit right now. But good people are getting their act together - remember: this to shall pass
Yes we just have to get through the global depression caused by the trade wars and then WW3 and by 2045 we can start rebuilding again. Hope owning the libs has been a lot of fun.
A blip in human history. Barely a generation
Not much use if you are in one of those generations. Or if you are one of the last generations before the broligarchs replace us with AI and or cyborgs.
This has been calculated by looking at the number of people who are either:
receiving the state pension
receiving universal credit, including unemployed people;
Higher Education students;
employed by a Higher Education institution;
public sector employees.
The ASI also took the number of employees in human resources and the planning sector into account. This is because the ever-expanding reach of the state has been the primary driver of the growth of these roles. These professions enable businesses to navigate the huge regulatory burdens that the state has placed on them.
Some of those, sure, fit an obvious definition of "reliant on the state for their livelihood", like public sector employees. However, some of them are more questionable. Lots of people who receive the state pension get more from a private pension: they are not reliant on the state, necessarily.
Higher education students may be funded by the state, but many are not. Most undergrads are reliant on state-backed loans and/or family support. Many work part-time. Lots of postgrads are paying themselves or supported by an employer.
I'm employed by a higher education institution. I generate income for my employer in many ways: some of me is supported by government grants, but an increasingly high proportion of me is supported by fee income, and that fee income is increasingly from overseas students. Some of my colleagues are entirely paid for by overseas student fees, so they are being supported by middle class families in China.
But the egregious category there is "employees in human resources and the planning sector into account". That's just making stuff up. Those are private sector employees. That the private sector has to obey laws does not make those jobs reliant on the state for their incomes.
In economics, there is a long running categorisation of activity as “Socialised” when it is indirectly controlled by the Government. Regulatory burden is a classic for this.
Given the habit of government creating regulatory burdens, this simply makes sense.
There are jobs that are indirectly controlled by government, but these jobs aren't generally that. You need HR personnel if you have lots of employees. You need someone to manage job adverts, onboarding, holiday requests, sick leave etc., irrespective of government regulation. The ASI are just inflating figures for shock value.
The regulatory burden is real. And if it is not counted, the politicians will carry on adding to it, without regard for consequences.
There is, of course, a regulatory burden. There is, of course, a balance around how much and what regulation is appropriate. You make a weirdly sweeping statement about politicians at a time when the official opposition party is constantly going on about cutting regulation and the Government is explicitly seeking to cut regulation.
That all notwithstanding, the ASI coming up with bogus figures for who is reliant on the state for their income isn't advancing a sensible discussion on regulation, is it?
I have, personally, dealt with regulation in construction and banking.
It’s been piled on without any apparent interest in effectiveness, results and even safety (collecting confidential information creates a risk that must be mitigated)
Because of its uselessness, it conceals real problems. So domestic construction projects have doorstop tomes, listing risks and mitigations. On page 1027 onward. Which are ignored, because no one is going to mine 2k pages on a site for safety info.
So real people get hurt. I know lots are immigrants. But I like to think of them as humans. Bit of a foible of mine.
Great. I'm employed one day a week helping digital health innovators with regulation. I'm the lead author on a paper (preprint so far) on the challenges they face with regulation. I am aware regulation has costs.
That isn't a reason, however, to wave through misleading numbers from the Adam Smith Institute or dismiss all politicians as unthinking on the matter.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Londoners pay £5k more per person in taxes than they receive back in spending.
By including "other revenues", not because of the named taxes paid. I'm curious the breakdown of these other revenues.
Also ignoring the fact that a lot of highly paid (and thus highly taxed) jobs in London are there because of eg services and headquarters etc for the whole UK.
The Prince of Wales has arrived in Estonia for a two-day visit to thank the country for its support of Ukraine, highlight bi-lateral relations with the UK and meet @MercianRegiment troops on NATO manoeuvres here. William is starting the visit meeting President @AlarKaris
This has been calculated by looking at the number of people who are either:
receiving the state pension
receiving universal credit, including unemployed people;
Higher Education students;
employed by a Higher Education institution;
public sector employees.
The ASI also took the number of employees in human resources and the planning sector into account. This is because the ever-expanding reach of the state has been the primary driver of the growth of these roles. These professions enable businesses to navigate the huge regulatory burdens that the state has placed on them.
Some of those, sure, fit an obvious definition of "reliant on the state for their livelihood", like public sector employees. However, some of them are more questionable. Lots of people who receive the state pension get more from a private pension: they are not reliant on the state, necessarily.
Higher education students may be funded by the state, but many are not. Most undergrads are reliant on state-backed loans and/or family support. Many work part-time. Lots of postgrads are paying themselves or supported by an employer.
I'm employed by a higher education institution. I generate income for my employer in many ways: some of me is supported by government grants, but an increasingly high proportion of me is supported by fee income, and that fee income is increasingly from overseas students. Some of my colleagues are entirely paid for by overseas student fees, so they are being supported by middle class families in China.
But the egregious category there is "employees in human resources and the planning sector into account". That's just making stuff up. Those are private sector employees. That the private sector has to obey laws does not make those jobs reliant on the state for their incomes.
In economics, there is a long running categorisation of activity as “Socialised” when it is indirectly controlled by the Government. Regulatory burden is a classic for this.
Given the habit of government creating regulatory burdens, this simply makes sense.
There are jobs that are indirectly controlled by government, but these jobs aren't generally that. You need HR personnel if you have lots of employees. You need someone to manage job adverts, onboarding, holiday requests, sick leave etc., irrespective of government regulation. The ASI are just inflating figures for shock value.
The regulatory burden is real. And if it is not counted, the politicians will carry on adding to it, without regard for consequences.
While that is true, most regulations have been introduced as a response to a tragedy or public pressure to resolve something. Simply scrapping them without thought doesn't really help and will likely result in more regulation again in the future.
Take the Building Safety Act in response to Grenfell. Yes, you could scrap the bureaucracy but if you don't replace the measures with something else, or some action, then you are at risk of another Grenfell.
Scrapping things without thought or concern for the consequence is the DOGE approach and is already being found out as being stupid.
Is Grenfell a good example? Surely the regulatory burden on those involved in construction and works there was immense. But where needed it was overlooked, falsified or ignored.
No amount of law can overcome an amoral culture, nor can it overcome a ruthless competitiveness which requires the corner cutting to survive.
A case of Gresham's law.
I think it's a good example because it is an example whereby the "solution" to the problem is deemed to be too much of a regulatory burden but yet burning the regulations does not solve the original problem.
Almost every regulation in respect of the construction industry has come as a result of parliament trying to prevent accidents/bad practice or to give people remedies in the event of the same. Now, I do agree that there is massive regulatory overburden however I think some thought needs to be had as to alternative solutions.
Personally (and I guess I would say this as a construction lawyer) I think that judicial reform is the answer, i.e. give people the chance to more efficiently (both cost and time) bring cases against people/companies involved. That should, organically, lead to better practice.
Let us not overlook that that regulation has frequently worked. House fires are way less common, for example, and when they happen, there are fewer casualties.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
Where do you think most of the young people who flock to London were educated? Perhaps the city should pay for provincial schools, since it’s the capital that often ends up benefitting from it.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
Highly diverse societies are low trust societies and low trust societies can't sustain a social contract of the sort that underpins the welfare state. Trying to defy this = political suicide
Tesla is recalling 46,096 Cybertruck vehicles in the US over an exterior panel that can detach while driving, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said reut.rs/4bHXpnS
(my usual funny signoff or emoji has been deleted because I'm sick of this shit. These things are not funny. Burning people alive in a stainless steel mobile oven is not funny. The conversion of the United States to an autocratic playground for tech billionaires to torment people as they see fit is not funny. The forced delivery of the Ukrainians to their murderers, rapists and kidnappers of their children is not funny. PB is not as much fun as it used to be.)
@viewcode please don’t blame PB. The world is shit right now. But good people are getting their act together - remember: this to shall pass
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Londoners pay £5k more per person in taxes than they receive back in spending.
By including "other revenues", not because of the named taxes paid. I'm curious the breakdown of these other revenues.
Also ignoring the fact that a lot of highly paid (and thus highly taxed) jobs in London are there because of eg services and headquarters etc for the whole UK.
Not really, the "other revenues" is not disproportionately large for London, compared to eg income tax.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
Highly diverse societies are low trust societies and low trust societies can't sustain a social contract of the sort that underpins the welfare state. Trying to defy this = political suicide
It's an opinion presented without evidence.
I think there is some truth there but as usual it's intermixed with an agenda. For example, "woke" is highly driven by natives, not immigrants. "Woke" and immigration levels are not linked.
Tesla is recalling 46,096 Cybertruck vehicles in the US over an exterior panel that can detach while driving, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said reut.rs/4bHXpnS
(my usual funny signoff or emoji has been deleted because I'm sick of this shit. These things are not funny. Burning people alive in a stainless steel mobile oven is not funny. The conversion of the United States to an autocratic playground for tech billionaires to torment people as they see fit is not funny. The forced delivery of the Ukrainians to their murderers, rapists and kidnappers of their children is not funny. PB is not as much fun as it used to be.)
@viewcode please don’t blame PB. The world is shit right now. But good people are getting their act together - remember: this to shall pass
Too.
Clearly a typo while walking. Do you realise what an arsewipe those sorts of posts make you look?
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
Where do you think most of the young people who flock to London were educated? Perhaps the city should pay for provincial schools, since it’s the capital that often ends up benefitting from it.
I'm one of them - went to school in NE England and Scotland. In effect we are paying for those schools of course, that's where our £5k a year goes.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
Highly diverse societies are low trust societies and low trust societies can't sustain a social contract of the sort that underpins the welfare state. Trying to defy this = political suicide
It's an opinion presented without evidence.
I think there is some truth there but as usual it's intermixed with an agenda. For example, "woke" is highly driven by natives, not immigrants. "Woke" and immigration levels are not linked.
IIRC the empirical evidence backs up the view that more diverse societies have lower levels of trust. It's not because minorities have lower levels of trust but because trust levels among the majority population go down as societies become more diverse.
One coming down the track - Trump reportedly having databases recording war crimes in Ukraine, including that related to thousands of children abducted to Russia, deleted, as he withdraws funding to the project.
The detail is not absolutely clear yet, and Trump / Musk will obfuscate. I hope Yale University had their data backed up in a safe jurisdiction.
I'd say it's exactly the sort of promise he may have quietly made to Putin, given that he launched his assault on the ICC on day one.
That story has malicious compliance, obfuscation and lies written all over it. How can cutting funding for something 'result' in the deletion of data? Did the data even exist in the first place?
An unidentified source familiar with the tracking program told Reuters that DOGE's cutting funding for the program has resulted in the deletion of $26 million of war crimes evidence protecting Putin. They said, "They took $26 million of U.S. taxpayers money used for war crimes data and threw it into the woodchipper, including the dossiers on all the children. If you wanted to protect President Putin from prosecution, you nuke that thing. And they did it. It's the final court-admissible version with all the metadata."
"How can cutting funding for something 'result' in the deletion of data?"
Quite easy really: you don't archive it. Data from a ceased project is either properly archived, left in place on an active server, or deleted as no longer required or destroyed when ordered or the computer it is on/cloud it is in overwrites it. There were cases in the Global War On Terror when servers/drives/whatever were flown back with gigabytes of data and never inspected nor stored properly. In my previous incarnation I once scraped unstructured data off a server header and reimposed a schema to resurrect it before the 28-day rolling-archive limit was reached, thereby rescuing deleted data that would otherwise be lost.
The question is not whether Trump and Musk's Jahr Null approach deletes data, the question is why you would be surprised by it.
Failing to maintain something is not the same as actively deleting it: "Oh, we're no longer getting $26m from the government. I guess we'll just have to delete the database!"
The story is a hoax and casts doubt on whether the funding was being used appropriately in the first place.
I don't know the veracity of the story, but if we had a project cancelled then we would absolutely delete the data. Carrying sensitive data poses risks to the participants (and the institution). If the research has been cancelled then the benefits (research outputs) that justify those risks are gone and we'd securely delete the data ASAP.
Isn't there a GDPR duty to do so? I know that's not the US, but it illustrates the point.
Indeed, here. If the study is canned, the legal basis evaporates if relying on one of the non-consent bases. If consented, that's also gone if the study for which the consent exists no longer exists (may be some legal wriggle room on that if the consent allowed for archiving after study end, but in reality the institution would want the data gone asap)
But would gdpr come into play when you are talking about evidence of a crime?
Yes (here, not in the States - not sure of their relevant legislation) but law enforcement/crime investigation would be a legal purpose.
If an investigation was discontinued though, then you'd probably delete the data (I think, this is not my field!) unless there was an argument that there was a legitimate purpose for keeping it. In law enforcement, that would be fairly easy, I expect, for appeals, potential reopening of investigations etc.
I don't want to comment on the US/DOGE data as I've no idea what the laws are there on data protection.
Tesla is recalling 46,096 Cybertruck vehicles in the US over an exterior panel that can detach while driving, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said reut.rs/4bHXpnS
Nobody wants Musk to get the Luigi hostile takeover treatment more than me but this Teᛋᛋla dooming is overblown. Every major OEM does recalls and they've all done far bigger (into the millions of vehicles) ones than this.
That's very good. You probably didn't notice but the way "Teᛋᛋla" is displayed in your post looks a bit like it includes "ss". As in the nazis! And that is a spooky coincidence because you might be unaware but there are plenty of people who view Musk as a fascist. What are the chances.
As to your substantive point, yes agree. It's a focal point for SJWs to feel better about themselves (see also: I'm not going to the US while DJT is in charge...)
The Prince of Wales has arrived in Estonia for a two-day visit to thank the country for its support of Ukraine, highlight bi-lateral relations with the UK and meet @MercianRegiment troops on NATO manoeuvres here. William is starting the visit meeting President @AlarKaris
Why on earth does anyone think anybody but Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK?
It was pure contingency that Oswald found a job at the Texas Book Depository, pure contingency that he was assigned to work at the warehouse itself, pure contingency that Kennedy decided to take the route through Dealey Plaza, and pure contingency that Kennedy decided to travel with the hood down.
While Oswald’s back history is very odd, that’s perhaps no surprise for someone who ended up assassinating a President (and who had attempted to shoot at a right wing politician a few months earlier).
The autopsy and Jack Ruby killing are also weird, but their weirdness do not undermine the aforementioned facts that underpin the case for Oswald.
My view is that LHO killed JFK; and probably did so alone. However, the ease with which LHO was dispatched before he could say much gives a genuine opening to all the conspiracy theories. From the point of view of today it is almost impossible to believe that such an important suspect was placed in a position where he could be killed and thus silenced so easily without there being a reason.
Incidentally, I was 8, nearly 9 on the Friday it happened and it is one of my earliest political memories. I remember a TV programme being interrupted with news flashes (Emergency Ward 10), the American boy at my London primary school school reading the lesson (Ecclesiastes) at assembly the Monday after, my older brother giving me gory details of the photo in the Daily Mirror (I was not allowed to see it) of Jack Ruby's bullet entering LHO.
Case Closed by Gerald Posner was the book that sorted me out on this one. There can't be many people who have read that and still think it wasn't Oswald alone.
Yes. But the world if increasingly full of people who think Lucy Letby was framed and is innocent. Though, SFAICS, not many who sat through the trial
You'll be very perplexed then when a retrial is announced then..🤨😏
Not perplexed at all. I shall wait and see. Ordering retrials (there were two trials) would not tell you Letby was innocent, it would tell you that in some manner the trials process was flawed so as to render some or all of the verdicts unsafe.
It is quite possible to be guilty and for there to be what turns out to be a flawed process in the trials.
It will need rethinking as and when Letby is found guilty of none of the charges, and the police close the file on other cases. There's a long way to go.
Tesla is recalling 46,096 Cybertruck vehicles in the US over an exterior panel that can detach while driving, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said reut.rs/4bHXpnS
(my usual funny signoff or emoji has been deleted because I'm sick of this shit. These things are not funny. Burning people alive in a stainless steel mobile oven is not funny. The conversion of the United States to an autocratic playground for tech billionaires to torment people as they see fit is not funny. The forced delivery of the Ukrainians to their murderers, rapists and kidnappers of their children is not funny. PB is not as much fun as it used to be.)
@viewcode please don’t blame PB. The world is shit right now. But good people are getting their act together - remember: this to shall pass
Too.
Clearly a typo while walking. Do you realise what an arsewipe those sorts of posts make you look?
I thought your post was rather sententious and that it would be fun to puncture the pomposity somewhat.
The world is not 'shit right now' - it is rubbing along much as it ever has, and so is America. Some very vocal groups are not being listened too as they once were, and we're seeing very visible pushback. When one of us loses perspective and gets depressed or angry, I don't think it is particularly helpful to buy into their gloomy assessment the way that you have, which adds to the general negativity.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
Highly diverse societies are low trust societies and low trust societies can't sustain a social contract of the sort that underpins the welfare state. Trying to defy this = political suicide
This thread is very astute: the scholars and intellectuals who predicted the rise of Trumpism were largely humanists with training in philosophy, history, etc. NOT quantitative social scientists. To use one of myriad examples, Richard Rorty had this pegged three decades ago.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
One tricky factoid for that theory, in the BBC report, deaths were all at night, she was moved to days, deaths stopped at night, became only during the day, they removed her from front line duty, deaths stopped.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
Highly diverse societies are low trust societies and low trust societies can't sustain a social contract of the sort that underpins the welfare state. Trying to defy this = political suicide
It's an opinion presented without evidence.
I think there is some truth there but as usual it's intermixed with an agenda. For example, "woke" is highly driven by natives, not immigrants. "Woke" and immigration levels are not linked.
IIRC the empirical evidence backs up the view that more diverse societies have lower levels of trust. It's not because minorities have lower levels of trust but because trust levels among the majority population go down as societies become more diverse.
Lower levels of trust are also driven by misinformation on social media spreading lies about immigrants.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
One tricky factoid for that theory, in the BBC report, deaths were all at night, she was moved to days, deaths stopped at night, became only during the day, they removed her from front line duty, deaths stopped.
That is exactly what that is - a factoid. Nothing more. There were, I imagine, plenty of deaths all around the NHS at all times of day and night.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
One tricky factoid for that theory, in the BBC report, deaths were all at night, she was moved to days, deaths stopped at night, became only during the day, they removed her from front line duty, deaths stopped.
I'm wary of this because other deaths occurred that were not included in the case. The danger of the argument becoming circular is real.
The Prince of Wales has arrived in Estonia for a two-day visit to thank the country for its support of Ukraine, highlight bi-lateral relations with the UK and meet @MercianRegiment troops on NATO manoeuvres here. William is starting the visit meeting President @AlarKaris
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
One tricky factoid for that theory, in the BBC report, deaths were all at night, she was moved to days, deaths stopped at night, became only during the day, they removed her from front line duty, deaths stopped.
I'm wary of this because other deaths occurred that were not included in the case. The danger of the argument becoming circular is real.
Yes, of course. I don't think it proves things concretely one way or another, but it is shall we say awkward.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
Highly diverse societies are low trust societies and low trust societies can't sustain a social contract of the sort that underpins the welfare state. Trying to defy this = political suicide
It's an opinion presented without evidence.
I think there is some truth there but as usual it's intermixed with an agenda. For example, "woke" is highly driven by natives, not immigrants. "Woke" and immigration levels are not linked.
IIRC the empirical evidence backs up the view that more diverse societies have lower levels of trust. It's not because minorities have lower levels of trust but because trust levels among the majority population go down as societies become more diverse.
Lower levels of trust are also driven by misinformation on social media spreading lies about immigrants.
Yes of course. There's nothing inherent about the relationship and ignorance is being weaponised for political purposes. But empirically speaking there is a relationship between diversity and trust, I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
The Prince of Wales has arrived in Estonia for a two-day visit to thank the country for its support of Ukraine, highlight bi-lateral relations with the UK and meet @MercianRegiment troops on NATO manoeuvres here. William is starting the visit meeting President @AlarKaris
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
The New Yorker, I presume. That article was very biased and failed to mention several lines of evidence against Letby.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
The New Yorker, I presume. That article was very biased and failed to mention several lines of evidence against Letby.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
"Most peole who are convicted are rightly convicted". So the fuck what. 51% = "most".
We are talking about the NHS. The NHS is institutionally so useless that it wouldn't surprise me in the least that such a number of babies, people, etc have died through gross malpractice or oversight. Look at the headlines in the newspapers all the time.
I just scrolled down the BBC News app. Today yields:
"Three deaths linked to listeria detected in NHS desserts"
Was it the orderly who put the "desserts" onto the patients' trays that was to blame?
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
Highly diverse societies are low trust societies and low trust societies can't sustain a social contract of the sort that underpins the welfare state. Trying to defy this = political suicide
It's an opinion presented without evidence.
I think there is some truth there but as usual it's intermixed with an agenda. For example, "woke" is highly driven by natives, not immigrants. "Woke" and immigration levels are not linked.
IIRC the empirical evidence backs up the view that more diverse societies have lower levels of trust. It's not because minorities have lower levels of trust but because trust levels among the majority population go down as societies become more diverse.
Lower levels of trust are also driven by misinformation on social media spreading lies about immigrants.
Yes of course. There's nothing inherent about the relationship and ignorance is being weaponised for political purposes. But empirically speaking there is a relationship between diversity and trust, I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
I have looked up some actual evidence, and, yes, Dinesen et al. (2020) reports from a large systematic review:
We find a statistically significant negative relationship between ethnic diversity and social trust across all studies. The relationship is stronger for trust in neighbors and when ethnic diversity is measured more locally. Covariate conditioning generally changes the relationship only slightly.
Stolle et al. (2008) offer hope, noting:
Our most important finding, however, is that not everyone is equally sensitive to context. Individuals who regularly talk with their neighbors are less influenced by the racial and ethnic character of their surroundings than people who lack such social interaction. [...] it suggests that the negative effects so prevalent in existing research can be mediated by social ties.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
The New Yorker, I presume. That article was very biased and failed to mention several lines of evidence against Letby.
How do you know it was very biased.
Because I read it and compared it to broader reporting of the court case.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
I wonder what the number of London ex financial services would be?
Along with the civil service, etc.
Around the times of both Acts of Union (1707 & 1800) and during the height of the industrial revolution there were discussions that perhaps the British centre of government might be placed midway between Edinburgh and London. A point conveniently almost exactly where I live. https://x.com/thomasforth/status/1902720254133895182
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
"Most peole who are convicted are rightly convicted". So the fuck what. 51% = "most".
We are talking about the NHS. The NHS is institutionally so useless that it wouldn't surprise me in the least that such a number of babies, people, etc have died through gross malpractice or oversight. Look at the headlines in the newspapers all the time.
I just scrolled down the BBC News app. Today yields:
"Three deaths linked to listeria detected in NHS desserts"
Was it the orderly who put the "desserts" onto the patients' trays that was to blame?
Your exact argument could be used to argue Harold Shipman was innocent. Do you think Shipman was innocent?
There is evidence linking Letby to these deaths. That evidence convinced two juries.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
"Most peole who are convicted are rightly convicted". So the fuck what. 51% = "most".
We are talking about the NHS. The NHS is institutionally so useless that it wouldn't surprise me in the least that such a number of babies, people, etc have died through gross malpractice or oversight. Look at the headlines in the newspapers all the time.
I just scrolled down the BBC News app. Today yields:
"Three deaths linked to listeria detected in NHS desserts"
Was it the orderly who put the "desserts" onto the patients' trays that was to blame?
Your exact argument could be used to argue Harold Shipman was innocent. Do you think Shipman was innocent?
There is evidence linking Letby to these deaths. That evidence convinced two juries.
I have no idea about the Shipman case and I'm sure he was guilty as a guilty thing. But to immediately overlook the possibility that the NHS, of all things, could, indeed has proven time and time (and time and time and time) again previously to be institutionally negligent resulting in hundreds and thousands of deaths is just bizarre.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
It doesn't help that there is a lot of crossover between the 5G/WEF/cyclist-illuminati/JFK/Letby/two-tier groups. It stems from a supposed grand conspiracy by the government to stitch ordinary white folk up. Letby fits that profile.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of statistical/evidence mistake in the trial, but I've no idea if there has yet been a serious attempt to develop such a critique into new evidence to base an appeal around.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
It doesn't help that there is a lot of crossover between the 5G/WEF/cyclist-illuminati/JFK/Letby/two-tier groups. It stems from a supposed grand conspiracy by the government to stitch ordinary white folk up. Letby fits that profile.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of statistical/evidence mistake in the trial, but I've no idea if there has yet been a serious attempt to develop such a critique into new evidence to base an appeal around.
Not really. It is the NHS we are talking about here. I mean google "NHS scandal" and then spend the next two months solidly reading about how good they are at keeping people alive.
The EU can’t help themselves. They believe there is an existential threat to them from Russia so are trying to improve their defensive capabilities and one of the potential partners who could massively increase these capabilities is told “you cannot benefit from this unless you sign up to our rules, but btw please will you help us at your cost.”
They should be saying “let’s work together - if you build kit we need we will buy it and if we build kit you need you can buy it. We will happily shelter under the nuclear umbrella provided by you and France at your costs and so think it’s only day to treat you as a friend and partner.”
The UK chose to leave. It's not surprising that they aren't going to get a sniff of the EU €150bn SAFE fund.
Perhaps they want to be equally exclusionary when it comes to spending money and risking lives in defending EU countries.
I'm sure Austria, Ireland and Hungary would be happy to make up the difference.
The UK will be defending them anyway if it all kicks off unless NATO falls apart completely - which admittedly is looking odds on.
The point is really a NATO replacement, just in case the US is permanently AWOL. And that requires collaboration for all manner of reasons.
Airborne Electromagnetic Warfare in NATO: A Critical European Capability Gap
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/occasional-papers/airborne-electromagnetic-warfare-nato-critical-european-capability-gap Airborne electromagnetic warfare (EW) capabilities are critical to Western airpower, but they are also one of the areas in which NATO countries have the greatest dependence on the US military. The scale of this dependence represents a potential risk for the Alliance if Russian aggression occurs when American reinforcements and support capacity are either tied up with a concurrent crisis in another theatre or are otherwise unavailable at scale.
No single European country has either the existing foundations or sufficient suitably qualified and experienced personnel to rapidly be able to add meaningful capabilities across all aspects of EW. Therefore, creating end-to-end capability within Europe will require genuine multinational partnerships and cooperative specialisation.
The UK has maintained world-class signals analysis and mission dataprogramming expertise, especially through the Joint Electronic Warfare Operational Support Centre and the tactical data-focused Typhoon Mission Support Centre. However, maintaining these vital and scarce capabilities in electromagnetic support measures (ESM) and electromagnetic countermeasures (ECM) in an era of rapidly evolving digital threat systems will require increased investment and rapid adoption of AI- and machine learning-enabled toolsets.
The key to rapidly increasing European NATO’s ability to collect electromagnetic intelligence data is to ensure that all the electronic support measures suites being carried by non-traditional ISR platforms – such as modern fighter aircraft and UAVs for other mission sets – are used to their full collection potential.
A pooled multinational electromagnetic attack squadron procured and run by NATO could allow air forces that are too small to economically field dedicated EW capabilities to meaningfully contribute funding and personnel. There is precedence for this approach in other areas, such as the NATO Airborne Warning and Control System Force (AWACS), the Multinational Multirole Tanker Transport Capability fleet, and the Strategic Airlift Capability fleet...
The report is interesting reading, with regard to the F35 in particular.
...A real-world example of the potential risks that are posed to air forces and other parts of the Joint Force when the ELINT collection, subsequent processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) and mission data update cycle does not keep pace with changing threats was seen during the initial NATO response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. US Air Force F-35s from the 388th Fighter Wing deployed to Europe to take part in the enhanced deterrence and reassurance patrols that were mounted along NATO’s eastern border in the weeks following the start of the invasion. During that period, Russian air defence systems were operating using ‘war modes’ that had previously not been observed or collected by NATO ELINT systems. As a result, despite having the most capable ESM suite on any NATO fighter on the Eastern border, the 388th Fighter Wing’s F-35s did not always recognise and correctly identify Russian GBAD systems. In the words of the Wing’s commanding officer, Colonel Craig Andrle: ‘We’re looking at an SA-20 [NATO’s name for the S-300 surface-to-air missile system]. I know it’s an SA-20. Intel says there’s an SA-20 there, but now my jet doesn’t ID it as such, because that SA-20 is operating, potentially, in a war reserve mode that we haven’t seen before’..
DSACEUR is normally British but if the US pull out then realistically SACEUR will have to be rotated. Maybe UK, Germany, France, Poland, Turkiye.
It would be an interesting game of national egos - but the US deciding Europe doesn't really matter to them is rather more significant than any of that.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
It doesn't help that there is a lot of crossover between the 5G/WEF/cyclist-illuminati/JFK/Letby/two-tier groups. It stems from a supposed grand conspiracy by the government to stitch ordinary white folk up. Letby fits that profile.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of statistical/evidence mistake in the trial, but I've no idea if there has yet been a serious attempt to develop such a critique into new evidence to base an appeal around.
Not really. It is the NHS we are talking about here. I mean google "NHS scandal" and then spend the next two months solidly reading about how good they are at keeping people alive.
That doesn't prove anything either way. It would be like saying the terrorists using cars to ram pedestrians might be innocent because lots of people are hit by drivers everyday.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
"Most peole who are convicted are rightly convicted". So the fuck what. 51% = "most".
We are talking about the NHS. The NHS is institutionally so useless that it wouldn't surprise me in the least that such a number of babies, people, etc have died through gross malpractice or oversight. Look at the headlines in the newspapers all the time.
I just scrolled down the BBC News app. Today yields:
"Three deaths linked to listeria detected in NHS desserts"
Was it the orderly who put the "desserts" onto the patients' trays that was to blame?
Your exact argument could be used to argue Harold Shipman was innocent. Do you think Shipman was innocent?
There is evidence linking Letby to these deaths. That evidence convinced two juries.
Like Eleanor of Aquitane, Our Queen will eventually be freed from unjust imprisonment.
DSACEUR is normally British but if the US pull out then realistically SACEUR will have to be rotated. Maybe UK, Germany, France, Poland, Turkiye.
It would be an interesting game of national egos - but the US deciding Europe doesn't really matter to them is rather more significant than any of that.
Not that I think that for one moment this won't be yet another instance of DJT and his administration announcing something, only for precisely the opposite (or nothing) to happen, I think this could be read not so much as deciding Europe doesn't really matter, as believing that Europe should step up as the US steps down in the defence of Europe (now where have I heard that phrase before).
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
It doesn't help that there is a lot of crossover between the 5G/WEF/cyclist-illuminati/JFK/Letby/two-tier groups. It stems from a supposed grand conspiracy by the government to stitch ordinary white folk up. Letby fits that profile.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of statistical/evidence mistake in the trial, but I've no idea if there has yet been a serious attempt to develop such a critique into new evidence to base an appeal around.
I am not particularly a conspiracy theorist, generally preferring the 'cock-up' explanation for many events.
But Letby's case intrigues me. As I said on the previous thread, today's BBC article (1) throws up an interesting point. On the 22nd June, a doctor sent an email to the trust saying that there had been an unusual number of deaths. That seems good to me, and something worth investigating. (*) But he than adds: "There does not seem to be any staff ... present at all three episodes other than one nurse."
That's worrying to me, as once her name was in the frame, they could start looking for all sorts of other connections. But what if she was *not* the cause? Did they look elsewhere, or from that point onwards, was she the one to blame in their minds? The emails mentioned in the article concentrate on her, and not looking at other potential causes for the deaths. Perhaps because blaming her was easier than admitting the hospital was failing in its duty of care?
(*) Though was he correct that three was a noteworthy number of deaths, or may it just have been a statistical cluster?
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
It doesn't help that there is a lot of crossover between the 5G/WEF/cyclist-illuminati/JFK/Letby/two-tier groups. It stems from a supposed grand conspiracy by the government to stitch ordinary white folk up. Letby fits that profile.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of statistical/evidence mistake in the trial, but I've no idea if there has yet been a serious attempt to develop such a critique into new evidence to base an appeal around.
Not really. It is the NHS we are talking about here. I mean google "NHS scandal" and then spend the next two months solidly reading about how good they are at keeping people alive.
That doesn't prove anything either way. It would be like saying the terrorists using cars to ram pedestrians might be innocent because lots of people are hit by drivers everyday.
It doesn't prove anything either way but people are behaving (like they always do, talk about the definition of insanity) that the NHS is beyond fault.
DSACEUR is normally British but if the US pull out then realistically SACEUR will have to be rotated. Maybe UK, Germany, France, Poland, Turkiye.
It would be an interesting game of national egos - but the US deciding Europe doesn't really matter to them is rather more significant than any of that.
Not that I think that for one moment this won't be yet another instance of DJT and his administration announcing something, only for precisely the opposite (or nothing) to happen, I think this could be read not so much as deciding Europe doesn't really matter, as believing that Europe should step up as the US steps down in the defence of Europe (now where have I heard that phrase before).
You're really of no help when it comes to policy, since you seem always to take the position that nothing much matters at all.
But however you want to frame it, the risk of the US no longer providing a backstop to European security is quite real, and ignoring it would mean that if it ever happened, it would be too late to do anything useful about it.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
It doesn't help that there is a lot of crossover between the 5G/WEF/cyclist-illuminati/JFK/Letby/two-tier groups. It stems from a supposed grand conspiracy by the government to stitch ordinary white folk up. Letby fits that profile.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of statistical/evidence mistake in the trial, but I've no idea if there has yet been a serious attempt to develop such a critique into new evidence to base an appeal around.
Not really. It is the NHS we are talking about here. I mean google "NHS scandal" and then spend the next two months solidly reading about how good they are at keeping people alive.
That doesn't prove anything either way. It would be like saying the terrorists using cars to ram pedestrians might be innocent because lots of people are hit by drivers everyday.
It doesn't prove anything either way but people are behaving (like they always do, talk about the definition of insanity) that the NHS is beyond fault.
I don't think that's true.
The interesting thing here, if you're right (all explained by NHS cockup) is why Letby has been tried and convicted for this set of deaths, when we normally just have an inquiry, plenty of hand-wringing and promises that Lessons Will Be Learned. You may well be right that these kinds of clusters of deaths happen a lot, but it's not the British way to actually blame someone for it.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
It doesn't help that there is a lot of crossover between the 5G/WEF/cyclist-illuminati/JFK/Letby/two-tier groups. It stems from a supposed grand conspiracy by the government to stitch ordinary white folk up. Letby fits that profile.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of statistical/evidence mistake in the trial, but I've no idea if there has yet been a serious attempt to develop such a critique into new evidence to base an appeal around.
Not really. It is the NHS we are talking about here. I mean google "NHS scandal" and then spend the next two months solidly reading about how good they are at keeping people alive.
That doesn't prove anything either way. It would be like saying the terrorists using cars to ram pedestrians might be innocent because lots of people are hit by drivers everyday.
It doesn't prove anything either way but people are behaving (like they always do, talk about the definition of insanity) that the NHS is beyond fault.
I don't think anyone is arguing that. If you think Letby is guilty, then you have to accept the NHS massively fucked up by letting her injure and murder at least 15 babies before controls could prevent any more babies being hurt. And forced the doctors who were trying to prevent the murders to apologise to her.
Frankly that's worse than just typical negligence.
DSACEUR is normally British but if the US pull out then realistically SACEUR will have to be rotated. Maybe UK, Germany, France, Poland, Turkiye.
It would be an interesting game of national egos - but the US deciding Europe doesn't really matter to them is rather more significant than any of that.
Not that I think that for one moment this won't be yet another instance of DJT and his administration announcing something, only for precisely the opposite (or nothing) to happen, I think this could be read not so much as deciding Europe doesn't really matter, as believing that Europe should step up as the US steps down in the defence of Europe (now where have I heard that phrase before).
You're really of no help when it comes to policy, since you seem always to take the position that nothing much matters at all.
But however you want to frame it, the risk of the US no longer providing a backstop to European security is quite real, and ignoring it would mean that if it ever happened, it would be too late to do anything useful about it.
Weird response. Do you want policy announcements from the PB gang. Super strange. I like PB because it assesses what is happening in the world and tries to provide sensible analysis. But by all means let us know your policy suggestion for Allied Forces Europe and then when everyone has stopped laughing we can get on with commenting on PB.
Weird x2 also because I actually said not that it didn't matter, but that (if it comes to pass, which I doubt) it ties in with the US wanting Europe to be more responsible for its own defence. I mean it's exactly what every European government has been acting on for the past several weeks.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
It doesn't help that there is a lot of crossover between the 5G/WEF/cyclist-illuminati/JFK/Letby/two-tier groups. It stems from a supposed grand conspiracy by the government to stitch ordinary white folk up. Letby fits that profile.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of statistical/evidence mistake in the trial, but I've no idea if there has yet been a serious attempt to develop such a critique into new evidence to base an appeal around.
I am not particularly a conspiracy theorist, generally preferring the 'cock-up' explanation for many events.
But Letby's case intrigues me. As I said on the previous thread, today's BBC article (1) throws up an interesting point. On the 22nd June, a doctor sent an email to the trust saying that there had been an unusual number of deaths. That seems good to me, and something worth investigating. (*) But he than adds: "There does not seem to be any staff ... present at all three episodes other than one nurse."
That's worrying to me, as once her name was in the frame, they could start looking for all sorts of other connections. But what if she was *not* the cause? Did they look elsewhere, or from that point onwards, was she the one to blame in their minds? The emails mentioned in the article concentrate on her, and not looking at other potential causes for the deaths. Perhaps because blaming her was easier than admitting the hospital was failing in its duty of care?
(*) Though was he correct that three was a noteworthy number of deaths, or may it just have been a statistical cluster?
I can't be bothered to run the maths (simple, but I'd need more background info on normal counts etc) but I'd be astonished if three was enough to be a strong statistical anomaly, based simply on an unusual number of deaths for one nurse to be present. The fact that concerns were raised was presumably because these were really odd deaths that felt wrong.
IIRC, a post-event analysis of Shipman's murders suggested that the stats could have suggested something was up when he was up to murder 60 odd out of 120 or so (albeit that's would be against a background of many more expected deaths).
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
"Most peole who are convicted are rightly convicted". So the fuck what. 51% = "most".
We are talking about the NHS. The NHS is institutionally so useless that it wouldn't surprise me in the least that such a number of babies, people, etc have died through gross malpractice or oversight. Look at the headlines in the newspapers all the time.
I just scrolled down the BBC News app. Today yields:
"Three deaths linked to listeria detected in NHS desserts"
Was it the orderly who put the "desserts" onto the patients' trays that was to blame?
Your exact argument could be used to argue Harold Shipman was innocent. Do you think Shipman was innocent?
There is evidence linking Letby to these deaths. That evidence convinced two juries.
Like Eleanor of Aquitane, Our Queen will eventually be freed from unjust imprisonment.
I'm not a big fan of Charles, but 'unjust imprisonment' seems like a slightly harsh description of marriage to our present monarch.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
It doesn't help that there is a lot of crossover between the 5G/WEF/cyclist-illuminati/JFK/Letby/two-tier groups. It stems from a supposed grand conspiracy by the government to stitch ordinary white folk up. Letby fits that profile.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of statistical/evidence mistake in the trial, but I've no idea if there has yet been a serious attempt to develop such a critique into new evidence to base an appeal around.
Not really. It is the NHS we are talking about here. I mean google "NHS scandal" and then spend the next two months solidly reading about how good they are at keeping people alive.
That doesn't prove anything either way. It would be like saying the terrorists using cars to ram pedestrians might be innocent because lots of people are hit by drivers everyday.
It doesn't prove anything either way but people are behaving (like they always do, talk about the definition of insanity) that the NHS is beyond fault.
I don't think that's true.
The interesting thing here, if you're right (all explained by NHS cockup) is why Letby has been tried and convicted for this set of deaths, when we normally just have an inquiry, plenty of hand-wringing and promises that Lessons Will Be Learned. You may well be right that these kinds of clusters of deaths happen a lot, but it's not the British way to actually blame someone for it.
My being right = thinking "it entirely possible that Letby didn't do it."
We have trials all the time, high profile ones, also, but what that New Yorker (?) article did eloquently remind people, is that the NHS is fucked and within that fucked system it is entirely possible, if not probable, that those babies dies because of general systemic problems with the NHS set up.
My other point being no one would fall off their chair in surprise if it turned out that this was the cause rather than one "bad actor" (which solves an awful lot of problems for the NHS).
One coming down the track - Trump reportedly having databases recording war crimes in Ukraine, including that related to thousands of children abducted to Russia, deleted, as he withdraws funding to the project.
The detail is not absolutely clear yet, and Trump / Musk will obfuscate. I hope Yale University had their data backed up in a safe jurisdiction.
I'd say it's exactly the sort of promise he may have quietly made to Putin, given that he launched his assault on the ICC on day one.
That story has malicious compliance, obfuscation and lies written all over it. How can cutting funding for something 'result' in the deletion of data? Did the data even exist in the first place?
An unidentified source familiar with the tracking program told Reuters that DOGE's cutting funding for the program has resulted in the deletion of $26 million of war crimes evidence protecting Putin. They said, "They took $26 million of U.S. taxpayers money used for war crimes data and threw it into the woodchipper, including the dossiers on all the children. If you wanted to protect President Putin from prosecution, you nuke that thing. And they did it. It's the final court-admissible version with all the metadata."
There has been regular reporting of the destruction of records by DOGE, in numerous instances. As I'm sure you're well aware. Malice and obfuscation are rather more likely from that source.
"malicious compliance" is a term only used by lying Trumpist shills to try and blame others for all the really shitty things Trump and Musk are doing.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
Highly diverse societies are low trust societies and low trust societies can't sustain a social contract of the sort that underpins the welfare state. Trying to defy this = political suicide
I think there are plenty of homogenous places that are low trust (Albania), and some heterogeneous places (Switzerland) that are high trust. So, is it trust that is the factor?
Or is it that we are wired to prefer to support people that are genetically similar to us?
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
Where do you think most of the young people who flock to London were educated? Perhaps the city should pay for provincial schools, since it’s the capital that often ends up benefitting from it.
I'm one of them - went to school in NE England and Scotland. In effect we are paying for those schools of course, that's where our £5k a year goes.
Until the government balances the books, we are all being subsidised by our grand-children.
I don't want to puncture this immigration theory of everything, but those differential unemployment rates are probably related to age more than anything else, as London has a younger population and young people, lacking marketable experience, are much more likely to be unemployed (unemployment rate of 18-24yos is 13%, compared to 3% for over 50yos).
But a younger population should also have a higher employment rate and London's is below average.
You're right that people without marketable experience, and skills, will have higher unemployment but how many of London's current unemployed will ever gain those ?
As opposed to becoming unemployable for life as they subsist on welfare while being replaced by the next wave of immigrants.
Have you ever even been to London? It is full of incredibly ambitious young people, often immigrants or children of immigrants. My daughter attended a state sixth form college that sends more kids to Oxbridge than Eton. Most of the kids there are from ethnic minorities (including my daughter, who is now at Oxford doing a maths degree). The idea that London is full of lazy brown people sitting around spending other people's money is a laughable fiction - the energy and ambition of London keeps the rest of the country afloat.
London and the rest of the country would both be happier with an independent London city state!
Indeed. We give them money, and they hate us.
that's a bit weird.
I don't really think about London but if you mention the flow of money the first thing that comes to mind is treasury infrastructure investment.
And don't make me come up with a list, you won't like it.
Right or wrong, both sides feel hard done by, and think they could do better. Better off with a divorce.
I don't mind paying the money - Londoners are better off on average so it's right that we subsidise places like the NE of England or Wales. I do mind simultaneously paying the money and being told that we are some kind of alien presence in the country.
Highly diverse societies are low trust societies and low trust societies can't sustain a social contract of the sort that underpins the welfare state. Trying to defy this = political suicide
I think there are plenty of homogenous places that are low trust (Albania), and some heterogeneous places (Switzerland) that are high trust. So, is it trust that is the factor?
Or is it that we are wired to prefer to support people that are genetically similar to us?
Or following on from OLB's comment, we don't like supporting people who don't like us.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
It doesn't help that there is a lot of crossover between the 5G/WEF/cyclist-illuminati/JFK/Letby/two-tier groups. It stems from a supposed grand conspiracy by the government to stitch ordinary white folk up. Letby fits that profile.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of statistical/evidence mistake in the trial, but I've no idea if there has yet been a serious attempt to develop such a critique into new evidence to base an appeal around.
I am not particularly a conspiracy theorist, generally preferring the 'cock-up' explanation for many events.
But Letby's case intrigues me. As I said on the previous thread, today's BBC article (1) throws up an interesting point. On the 22nd June, a doctor sent an email to the trust saying that there had been an unusual number of deaths. That seems good to me, and something worth investigating. (*) But he than adds: "There does not seem to be any staff ... present at all three episodes other than one nurse."
That's worrying to me, as once her name was in the frame, they could start looking for all sorts of other connections. But what if she was *not* the cause? Did they look elsewhere, or from that point onwards, was she the one to blame in their minds? The emails mentioned in the article concentrate on her, and not looking at other potential causes for the deaths. Perhaps because blaming her was easier than admitting the hospital was failing in its duty of care?
(*) Though was he correct that three was a noteworthy number of deaths, or may it just have been a statistical cluster?
(1) Were there any murders? Or was this all a statistical quirk? (2) If there were murders, was Ms Letby the perpetrator?
Having not sifted through all the evidence, I obviously cannot give a definitive answer to either question. (And even if I had, it is also entirely possible that the evidence is unclear.)
I am also conscious of the fact that - deliberately or otherwise - institutions like to find scapegoats for their own failings.
With that said... the one piece of evidence that I have really not seen explained away as regards to (1) is that of insulin. The report by Shoo Lee tried to brush the low C-peptide levels away by suggesting it might be the result of sampling error or that the ratio of C-peptide might not be unusual in infants. And while I think the first is possible (albeit unlikely), the second seems like a real stretch.
Given that I am natural cynic I have, since I read an extended article in (Atlantic? NYT? Can't remember) some months ago about the circumstances around Lucy Letby I have thought it entirely possible that she didn't commit those murders.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
I have no idea if Letby murdered some, none or all the babies she has been found guilty of killing. I was not in the court.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered. I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows. The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
Most people who are convicted are rightly convicted. The case against Letby was not merely statistical. Those who critique the statistical evidence have a tendency to forget about the non-statistical evidence.
It doesn't help that there is a lot of crossover between the 5G/WEF/cyclist-illuminati/JFK/Letby/two-tier groups. It stems from a supposed grand conspiracy by the government to stitch ordinary white folk up. Letby fits that profile.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of statistical/evidence mistake in the trial, but I've no idea if there has yet been a serious attempt to develop such a critique into new evidence to base an appeal around.
I am not particularly a conspiracy theorist, generally preferring the 'cock-up' explanation for many events.
But Letby's case intrigues me. As I said on the previous thread, today's BBC article (1) throws up an interesting point. On the 22nd June, a doctor sent an email to the trust saying that there had been an unusual number of deaths. That seems good to me, and something worth investigating. (*) But he than adds: "There does not seem to be any staff ... present at all three episodes other than one nurse."
That's worrying to me, as once her name was in the frame, they could start looking for all sorts of other connections. But what if she was *not* the cause? Did they look elsewhere, or from that point onwards, was she the one to blame in their minds? The emails mentioned in the article concentrate on her, and not looking at other potential causes for the deaths. Perhaps because blaming her was easier than admitting the hospital was failing in its duty of care?
(*) Though was he correct that three was a noteworthy number of deaths, or may it just have been a statistical cluster?
I can't be bothered to run the maths (simple, but I'd need more background info on normal counts etc) but I'd be astonished if three was enough to be a strong statistical anomaly, based simply on an unusual number of deaths for one nurse to be present. The fact that concerns were raised was presumably because these were really odd deaths that felt wrong. (Snip)
Or office politics occurs in the NHS as much as it does in any other workplace. What if Letby was disliked by some of her colleagues and it all got out of hand?
I think my point is this: if murder of patients by medical staff is incredibly rare, then you should look at all possible causes of a potential statistical cluster. Instead, they appear to have focused attention/blame on her from the very start. Why, when there were many other potential, more likely, causes of an apparent cluster?
Also: if the statistical analysis done proved so accurate, I would expect every trust would run such analysis weekly or monthly, just in case. It would pick up not just murders, but other causes of problems, e.g. contaminated equipment. Do they? And if not, why not?
Rachel Reeves will announce the biggest spending cuts since austerity at next week’s spring statement after ruling out tax rises as a way to close her budget deficit.
The chancellor will tell MPs next Wednesday that she intends to cut Whitehall budgets by billions of pounds more than previously expected in a move which could mean reductions of as much as 7% for certain departments over the next four years.
Guardian
Madness. Total madness.
Just watched an episode of GB News for the first time. They've exhumed Eamonn Holmes. Any young media students looking for a job try GB News. They must be desperate
If it's your first time, I'd be very interested in your assessment of their methodology for putting out unbalanced coverage whilst maintaining an illusion of balance.
AFAICS their main technique is to have the presenters (many of whom are a touch nutty) frame an exaggerated, spun version of the story, or add a fabricated interpretation, then have their "balanced" panel (fairly hard righty, some sort of lefty) have their debate through a shifted Overton window.
That's pretty similar to what I saw...........
The recently resurrected Eamonn Holmes sat with a youngish blond woman and an invited 'expert' titled in very small letters 'ex advisor to the Tory Party' who gave a neutralish description of the subject being discussed.
Eamonn then interrupted to say "Starmer's supposed to be a socialist! If Kemi had done this they'd have crucified her!' He's got NO chance of winning the next election! NO chance! He changes his mind every five minutes!'
This seemed to trigger the 'independent expert' who forgot to be 'independent' and gave Starmer both barells! The woman sitting next to Eamonn said nothing but occasionally looked at her nails
What wasn't attempted was balance but I don't suppose that's what their audience are looking for
Comments
Almost every regulation in respect of the construction industry has come as a result of parliament trying to prevent accidents/bad practice or to give people remedies in the event of the same. Now, I do agree that there is massive regulatory overburden however I think some thought needs to be had as to alternative solutions.
Personally (and I guess I would say this as a construction lawyer) I think that judicial reform is the answer, i.e. give people the chance to more efficiently (both cost and time) bring cases against people/companies involved. That should, organically, lead to better practice.
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1902518050353770527
The response to failure has been to pile on more rules, in the belief that it is possible to cover every corner case.
This is probably wrong and impossible - Humans and their works are non-linear.
What is needed, is a short, clear statement of outcomes. Then, implementation by regulators with discretionary powers. And enough of them to actually enforce.
Grenfell had metric tons of paper declaring it safe.
A friend, caught in the cladding comedy, discovered that his building was actually structurally deficient. A trawl through the rooms of paper involved discovered that the essential, basic calculations were wrong and had never been checked.
It’s a pattern that repeats - bullshit paperwork provides a hiding place for rats. And little more.
A thousand pages of regulations isn't being read by anyone, and means that whoever is filling it in doesn't see the wood for the trees.
We need smaller, smarter but more accountable regulations.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/articles/countryandregionalpublicsectorfinances/financialyearending2023#main-points
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66104004
Find Out Now voting intention:
🟦 Reform UK: 27% (-)
🔴 Labour: 22% (-2)
🔵 Conservatives: 21% (-)
🟠 Lib Dems: 14% (+3)
🟢 Greens: 11% (+1)
Changes from 12th March
[Find Out Now, 19th March, N=2,770]
https://x.com/capellofft/status/1902672291588170076
Highly diverse societies are low trust societies and low trust societies can't sustain a social contract of the sort that underpins the welfare state. Trying to defy this = political suicide
That isn't a reason, however, to wave through misleading numbers from the Adam Smith Institute or dismiss all politicians as unthinking on the matter.
Also ignoring the fact that a lot of highly paid (and thus highly taxed) jobs in London are there because of eg services and headquarters etc for the whole UK.
The move is being discussed as part of a possible restructuring of combatant commands that would help the Defense Department cut costs.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-admin-considers-giving-nato-command-exclusively-american-eisenho-rcna196503
Good local election results incoming if they are gaining on the Tories like that.
I think the question now is can Reform get into the 30s.
If an investigation was discontinued though, then you'd probably delete the data (I think, this is not my field!) unless there was an argument that there was a legitimate purpose for keeping it. In law enforcement, that would be fairly easy, I expect, for appeals, potential reopening of investigations etc.
I don't want to comment on the US/DOGE data as I've no idea what the laws are there on data protection.
As to your substantive point, yes agree. It's a focal point for SJWs to feel better about themselves (see also: I'm not going to the US while DJT is in charge...)
It is quite possible to be guilty and for there to be what turns out to be a flawed process in the trials.
It will need rethinking as and when Letby is found guilty of none of the charges, and the police close the file on other cases. There's a long way to go.
The world is not 'shit right now' - it is rubbing along much as it ever has, and so is America. Some very vocal groups are not being listened too as they once were, and we're seeing very visible pushback. When one of us loses perspective and gets depressed or angry, I don't think it is particularly helpful to buy into their gloomy assessment the way that you have, which adds to the general negativity.
I didn't sit through hours and hours of the trial, obvs, but I would have zero problem believing that the NHS is so institutionally useless that such a string of events could occur without it being the fault of anyone in particular. Or that high-ups might be keen to find someone to blame.
https://x.com/tyler_a_harper/status/1902400371605094909
This thread is very astute: the scholars and intellectuals who predicted the rise of Trumpism were largely humanists with training in philosophy, history, etc. NOT quantitative social scientists. To use one of myriad examples, Richard Rorty had this pegged three decades ago.
I am aware of other things though. Firstly people are often wrongly convicted. Secondly people have been convicted of crimes that have later found to have been statistical flukes (Texas sharpshooter, Dutch nurse). There is disagreement over the cause of death for these babies - some experts believe it possible that none were murdered.
I don't trust lawyers with statistical arguments. I don't trust juries with lawyers statistical arguments. The ghost of Meadows.
The unit was doing things it wasn't set up for and babies died. Possibly they were murdered. Possibly they weren't.
I think there is going to be a retrial at some point.
She’s no longer a suspect.
Hmmm ... is it Edward? Let me go check... Yay! It is! Go me and my knowledge of the royal family!
Any bridges for sale?
We are talking about the NHS. The NHS is institutionally so useless that it wouldn't surprise me in the least that such a number of babies, people, etc have died through gross malpractice or oversight. Look at the headlines in the newspapers all the time.
I just scrolled down the BBC News app. Today yields:
"Three deaths linked to listeria detected in NHS desserts"
Was it the orderly who put the "desserts" onto the patients' trays that was to blame?
We find a statistically significant negative relationship between ethnic diversity and social trust across all studies. The relationship is stronger for trust in neighbors and when ethnic diversity is measured more locally. Covariate conditioning generally changes the relationship only slightly.
Stolle et al. (2008) offer hope, noting:
Our most important finding, however, is that not everyone is equally sensitive to context. Individuals who regularly talk with their neighbors are less influenced by the racial and ethnic character of their surroundings than people who lack such social interaction. [...] it suggests that the negative effects so prevalent in existing research can be mediated by social ties.
Around the times of both Acts of Union (1707 & 1800) and during the height of the industrial revolution there were discussions that perhaps the British centre of government might be placed midway between Edinburgh and London. A point conveniently almost exactly where I live.
https://x.com/thomasforth/status/1902720254133895182
Which was when much of the wealth originated.
There is evidence linking Letby to these deaths. That evidence convinced two juries.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of statistical/evidence mistake in the trial, but I've no idea if there has yet been a serious attempt to develop such a critique into new evidence to base an appeal around.
...A real-world example of the potential risks that are posed to air forces and other parts of the Joint Force when the ELINT collection, subsequent processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) and mission data update cycle does not keep pace with changing threats was seen during the initial NATO response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. US Air Force F-35s from the 388th Fighter Wing deployed to Europe to take part in the enhanced deterrence and reassurance patrols that were mounted along NATO’s eastern border in the weeks following the start of the invasion. During that period, Russian air defence systems were operating using ‘war modes’ that had previously not been observed or collected by NATO ELINT systems. As a result, despite having the most capable ESM suite on any NATO fighter on the Eastern border, the 388th Fighter Wing’s F-35s did not always recognise and correctly identify Russian GBAD systems.
In the words of the Wing’s commanding officer, Colonel Craig Andrle: ‘We’re looking at an SA-20 [NATO’s name for the S-300 surface-to-air missile system]. I know it’s an SA-20. Intel says there’s an SA-20 there, but now my jet doesn’t ID it as such, because that SA-20 is operating, potentially, in a war reserve mode that we haven’t seen before’..
But Letby's case intrigues me. As I said on the previous thread, today's BBC article (1) throws up an interesting point. On the 22nd June, a doctor sent an email to the trust saying that there had been an unusual number of deaths. That seems good to me, and something worth investigating. (*) But he than adds: "There does not seem to be any staff
... present at all three episodes other than one nurse."
That's worrying to me, as once her name was in the frame, they could start looking for all sorts of other connections. But what if she was *not* the cause? Did they look elsewhere, or from that point onwards, was she the one to blame in their minds? The emails mentioned in the article concentrate on her, and not looking at other potential causes for the deaths. Perhaps because blaming her was easier than admitting the hospital was failing in its duty of care?
(*) Though was he correct that three was a noteworthy number of deaths, or may it just have been a statistical cluster?
(1): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-30341313-26f6-448a-ba92-b397a802fbb9
But however you want to frame it, the risk of the US no longer providing a backstop to European security is quite real, and ignoring it would mean that if it ever happened, it would be too late to do anything useful about it.
The interesting thing here, if you're right (all explained by NHS cockup) is why Letby has been tried and convicted for this set of deaths, when we normally just have an inquiry, plenty of hand-wringing and promises that Lessons Will Be Learned. You may well be right that these kinds of clusters of deaths happen a lot, but it's not the British way to actually blame someone for it.
Frankly that's worse than just typical negligence.
Weird x2 also because I actually said not that it didn't matter, but that (if it comes to pass, which I doubt) it ties in with the US wanting Europe to be more responsible for its own defence. I mean it's exactly what every European government has been acting on for the past several weeks.
IIRC, a post-event analysis of Shipman's murders suggested that the stats could have suggested something was up when he was up to murder 60 odd out of 120 or so (albeit that's would be against a background of many more expected deaths).
We have trials all the time, high profile ones, also, but what that New Yorker (?) article did eloquently remind people, is that the NHS is fucked and within that fucked system it is entirely possible, if not probable, that those babies dies because of general systemic problems with the NHS set up.
My other point being no one would fall off their chair in surprise if it turned out that this was the cause rather than one "bad actor" (which solves an awful lot of problems for the NHS).
Oh it was @williamglenn. As you were
Or is it that we are wired to prefer to support people that are genetically similar to us?
Another unhappy poll for labour
When were they last at 22% ?
https://x.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1902707421438484857?t=dKkBmq-fpd7kKclmSvxAZQ&s=19
NEW THREAD
(1) Were there any murders? Or was this all a statistical quirk?
(2) If there were murders, was Ms Letby the perpetrator?
Having not sifted through all the evidence, I obviously cannot give a definitive answer to either question. (And even if I had, it is also entirely possible that the evidence is unclear.)
I am also conscious of the fact that - deliberately or otherwise - institutions like to find scapegoats for their own failings.
With that said... the one piece of evidence that I have really not seen explained away as regards to (1) is that of insulin. The report by Shoo Lee tried to brush the low C-peptide levels away by suggesting it might be the result of sampling error or that the ratio of C-peptide might not be unusual in infants. And while I think the first is possible (albeit unlikely), the second seems like a real stretch.
I think my point is this: if murder of patients by medical staff is incredibly rare, then you should look at all possible causes of a potential statistical cluster. Instead, they appear to have focused attention/blame on her from the very start. Why, when there were many other potential, more likely, causes of an apparent cluster?
Also: if the statistical analysis done proved so accurate, I would expect every trust would run such analysis weekly or monthly, just in case. It would pick up not just murders, but other causes of problems, e.g. contaminated equipment. Do they? And if not, why not?
The recently resurrected Eamonn Holmes sat with a youngish blond woman and an invited 'expert' titled in very small letters 'ex advisor to the Tory Party' who gave a neutralish description of the subject being discussed.
Eamonn then interrupted to say "Starmer's supposed to be a socialist! If Kemi had done this they'd have crucified her!'
He's got NO chance of winning the next election! NO chance! He changes his mind every five minutes!'
This seemed to trigger the 'independent expert' who forgot to be 'independent' and gave Starmer both barells! The woman sitting next to Eamonn said nothing but occasionally looked at her nails
What wasn't attempted was balance but I don't suppose that's what their audience are looking for