Record numbers of children, many from private schools, are applying to top state sixth forms for their A-levels, a rise partly driven by the introduction of VAT, according to head teachers.
Some schools have reported applications doubling for Year 12 places.
In January, the government removed independent schools’ exemption from VAT. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, said the exemption was a “luxury we cannot afford”. She predicted “very few families will move out of private schools”.
A German group, Lebensraum Vorpommern, has filed a further legal challenge against Poland's plans to construct a deepwater shipping terminal near the border with Germany.
I've been reading (oh god I hear!) about the Royal Navy. A big history by NAM Roger - I think it was @Carnyx that was also so engaged.
It really is very good.
Anyway, one of the things that has recently struck me as interesting is how the government/admiralty fiddled the tendering process so that shipbuilding capacity would be maintained. It's oligarchical stuff but really fascinating.
So anyway I have a question to you - have we lost the ability to find the minds needed for an oligarchy?
(All the Lords and Ladies, Damsels (fruity M'Lord) and Dames are just a waste of space.)
Do you think the vacuum is there though? (I really struggle to think of anybody that I'd class as wise these days)
Given the way we've run down defence over the last decade or two - along with engineering and manufacturing in general - it would be something of a surprise if there were many who even fully grasped the issues ?
Oh there will be loads of us that have some sort of a grasp. Anyway I'm lurching towards some sort of a conclusion of thought that policy may be far more harmful than we think.
For the brave - my conclusions are;
Don't vote Labour (policy stuff) Don't vote Tory (performance stuff)
Rep. Victoria Spartz's second and last town hall of this weekend -- this one in Muncie, Indiana -- is already starting off with boos and yelling from the 160 person audience.
Mine has increased from £846 to £1,164 38% Thames Water I'm thinking of getting a meter.
I'm thinking of renationalisation without compensation....
Just let them go bust. That's how it's meant to operate.
Quite right! The Government then buys the assets from the Receivers for £1.00 That's how it's supposed to work.
Administration takes time and creates disruption. Worth paying a premium to avoid that
No it isn't and this isn't a "premium" it's out and out price gouging by a monopoly supplier aided and abetted by the toothless regulator. Bankrupt the whole industry and nationalise it. Water should never have been privatised, customers have paid tens of billions in dividends to vulture capitalists and our rivers and beaches are more polluted than ever. No more dividends, no more leverage, no more private ownership of monopoly suppliers and bar the current and previous shareholders from purchasing UK infrastructure assets for a minimum period of 25 years.
Administration is a procedural nightmare. What we need is a quick move to a resolution.
If it takes given the equity holders 5p in the £ to get their support for a deal that avoids administration that is worth it.
No, what we need is a reckoning for the parasites. Chase them out of the country with fucking pitchforks if necessary.
The current owners are not the ones that caused the problem. They have made a terrible investment, that is all.
Macquarie, on the other hand…
Past and present shareholders across the whole industry. I mean they're still sucking dividends out to this day.
They have made an investment and are entitled to a return on that.
The basic failure here was (a) ZIRP, (b) OFWAT repeatedly mispricing debt - they relied on market calculations of WACC but Macquarie regularly achieved better than expected in the market; (c) OFWAT not regulating leverage; and (d) OFWAT allowing dividends to be paid when there was a capex backlog
Basically Macquarie ran rings around OFWAT. The government should blacklist them for a decade. Problem is they are one of the most connected infra investors and we need infra funds to invest in the UK
Surely no-one is entitled to return from an investment. If you fuck up, you lose your shirt. Profit is the reward for risk.
Yes, but here @maxPB is talking about expropriation of the rights of people who have fucked up rather than the guilty
A poor poll for Reform but better for the Conservatives who, I think, have turned the corner though I still think the May locals won't be pleasant for Badenoch.
I get the sense that Farage will either be found out or he'll do something stupid. His inappropriateness for the top job is Boris to the power of ten. Boris at least had a record with his time as mayor. Farage is just a wrecker and there's not a snowballs chance in Hell the majority of the public will risk him with their future
That's genuinely his name. The first time I knocked on his door was a very hot summer day. I told him that I got thirsty every time I delivered his mail; he immediately grabbed a bottle of Ramsbury Gold from his beer fridge in the porch and told me to quench my thirst with it when I'd finished work
He also gave me beer for Christmas. So when I started brewing beer, I wanted Mr Beer's endorsement. I gave him a bottle a couple of weeks back, and saw him for the first time since this afternoon
He loved the beer I'd given him, so I gave him a bottle of our latest batch. He gave me a box of Camden Hells lager in return, and said my beer was much better
A poor poll for Reform but better for the Conservatives who, I think, have turned the corner though I still think the May locals won't be pleasant for Badenoch.
I get the sense that Farage will either be found out or he'll do something stupid. His inappropriateness for the top job is Boris to the power of ten. Boris at least had a record with his time as mayor. Farage is just a wrecker and there's not a snowballs chance in Hell the majority of the public will risk him with their future
I wish I shared your confidence. A country stupid enough to vote for Brexit is stupid enough to elect Farage as PM.
I have to say I'm also pretty disappointed in the CMA opening a completely unnecessary investigation into transatlantic travel. It's this kind of anti-business action the government needs to crack down on. There is precisely zero chance that forcing IAG/AA to give up market share to Air France or Lufthansa will result in price drops for consumers, all it will lead to is money draining out of the country as a mostly UK owned airline loses out to a French/Dutch or German one instead.
You don't see US or national regulators in Europe taking aim at their own companies like this, it's something that we British specialise in, tear down our success stories, let foreign competitors in, no benefit for consumers and negative outcomes for the economy.
I completely agree but you can make the same argument for the magnificent 7 in the US. At some point anti-competitive behaviour switches from a good thing for UK plc or the US to a bad thing. I don't think transatlantic flights are there at the moment (although they have been in the past) but it is something to be aware of.
The CMA should be focusing on the unbelievable abuse of Amazon's marketplace. But maybe that requires more courage.
In this scenario there's just a complete misreading of the market. The Transatlantic route is at capacity because Heathrow and Gatwick are at capacity. Handing slots to foreign operators will just hand them market share without any chance of price reductions because the route is at capacity. They could reasonably increase their price relative to BA/AA and still sell over 90% of seats on the route because demand hugely outstrips supply for the routes in question.
If the CMA wants real competition on the routes then it should lobby the government to increase capacity by building new runways, not setting out to damage a UK company in favour of foreign ones.
Won't giving slots to foreign operators (of transatlantic routes) mean that a greater proportion of the Heathrow/Gatwick traffic will be transatlantic, and therefore there will be more capacity. I.e., there will be more seats to fill.
So shouldn't it still have a (probably small) positive impact on prices?
A poor poll for Reform but better for the Conservatives who, I think, have turned the corner though I still think the May locals won't be pleasant for Badenoch.
I get the sense that Farage will either be found out or he'll do something stupid. His inappropriateness for the top job is Boris to the power of ten. Boris at least had a record with his time as mayor. Farage is just a wrecker and there's not a snowballs chance in Hell the majority of the public will risk him with their future
On current form (things can change of course) the result of the next GE will hang heavily on the strength of feeling about which party you certainly want to vote against; there is amazingly little actual affirmative support for anyone, except perhaps Reform, though many more will vote for whoever can beat them.
A poor poll for Reform but better for the Conservatives who, I think, have turned the corner though I still think the May locals won't be pleasant for Badenoch.
A poor poll for Reform but better for the Conservatives who, I think, have turned the corner though I still think the May locals won't be pleasant for Badenoch.
I get the sense that Farage will either be found out or he'll do something stupid. His inappropriateness for the top job is Boris to the power of ten. Boris at least had a record with his time as mayor. Farage is just a wrecker and there's not a snowballs chance in Hell the majority of the public will risk him with their future
I share that hope but can I remind you who gained office in the US recently
Farage's speech yesterday was simply right wing to the core and it is why I will never vote Reform
Note that the wildly inaccurate measurements claimed by the lab for the quality control sample are very similar to the ones reported for Baby L.
The jury were instructed that they could rely on their assessment of the use of insulin by Letby to poison baby L & F to inform their opinion of her guilt in all the other deaths or injuries. They were also instructed that they could rely on the lab’s assessment of the insulin / C-peptide in the blood samples by the judge in his summing up.
If the insulin tests were as wildly inaccurate as claimed, then the entire prosecution falls apart I think? The cross-admissibility instruction makes the rest of the convictions unsafe.
The problem with that article is that it is high on hyperbole, and light on data. "Multiple false readings" sounds terrible... But is it multiple false readings over tens of tests, or millions of tests? Without that information, it's hard to get a handle on whether it is likely that the insulin - c-peptide levels measured were likely the result of measurement error (and there were no murders), or not.
A fair criticism. But if you send a bunch of tests to a lab & one of them comes back out by a factor of eight then it’s utility as a forensic test is surely fatally compromised?
At the very least, the jury should have been accurately informed of what level of confidence they should place in the insulin / C-peptide tests. Instead the judge told them they could have absolute confidence in the reported values.
Oh, I agree there are plenty of red flags with the Letby conviction.
But the contention of the doctor in that piece is that the test in question has had multiple false readings. But over what time horizon? Also, were the two readings from the same batch (in which case they might have suffered the same contamination issue), or were they from two totally different batches?
Because if the answers are (a) one in a million tests throws up a screwy result, and (b) they were sent at different times to the lab, then one's view of the deaths being murders is very different to if if's one-in-a-hundred and/or if they were part of the same analysis.
That's genuinely his name. The first time I knocked on his door was a very hot summer day. I told him that I got thirsty every time I delivered his mail; he immediately grabbed a bottle of Ramsbury Gold from his beer fridge in the porch and told me to quench my thirst with it when I'd finished work
He also gave me beer for Christmas. So when I started brewing beer, I wanted Mr Beer's endorsement. I gave him a bottle a couple of weeks back, and saw him for the first time since this afternoon
He loved the beer I'd given him, so I gave him a bottle of our latest batch. He gave me a box of Camden Hells lager in return, and said my beer was much better
I think I have a thumbs-up from Mr Beer
With only a little editing this would make vol 48 of the Mr Men series of books I read to my four year old grandson.
Perhaps there should be a grown ups version? Mr Beer, Mr Flaneur, Mr Leon, Mr Cokehead, Mr Alco, Mr Lech, Mr Toad, Mr Liar, Mr Implacable, Mr Gay, Mr Vance, Mr Benefits, Mr Rizz and so on.
I've been reading (oh god I hear!) about the Royal Navy. A big history by NAM Roger - I think it was @Carnyx that was also so engaged.
It really is very good.
Anyway, one of the things that has recently struck me as interesting is how the government/admiralty fiddled the tendering process so that shipbuilding capacity would be maintained. It's oligarchical stuff but really fascinating.
So anyway I have a question to you - have we lost the ability to find the minds needed for an oligarchy?
(All the Lords and Ladies, Damsels (fruity M'Lord) and Dames are just a waste of space.)
Nick Rogers is great. The Wooden Walls is the best book about the Georgian navy I have ever read.
A poor poll for Reform but better for the Conservatives who, I think, have turned the corner though I still think the May locals won't be pleasant for Badenoch.
Many DOGE fans in the comments are asking for proof of lies. I promised I would follow up. I'll start with a list of every lie and misleading statement I heard, then follow up with evidence in subsequent posts.
Lies: - "nearly one BILLION dollars for a simple survey" - "we save $4B every day 7 days a week" - "we've been careful in the cuts, measure twice if not thrice!" - "everything is published on the DOGE website for maximum transparency" - "when you ask them which line they disagree with, they can't point to any!" - "only 0.15% of federal employees have been fired" - "Stacy Abrams NGO that didn't exist and then suddenly got $2B" - "If we don't do it, America's gonna go bankrupt"
Misleading statements: - "an old mine that can only process 8000 retirements per month" - "legitimate recipients will receive more money" - "15 million people over the age of 120 marked as alive in SS database" - "40% of NIH grants go to the institution" - "there is $500B of fraud in government spending every year" https://x.com/electricfutures/status/1905860579119767680
The UK must prepare for an exodus of US citizens seeking shelter.
I am not joking.
These academics are all experts on the nazi. They know what they are seeing.
"Three prominent critics of President Donald Trump are leaving Yale’s faculty — and the United States — amid attacks on higher education to take up positions at the University of Toronto in fall 2025.
Philosophy professor Jason Stanley announced this week that he will leave Yale, while history professors Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore, who are married, decided to leave around the November elections. The three professors will work at Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy."
Note that the wildly inaccurate measurements claimed by the lab for the quality control sample are very similar to the ones reported for Baby L.
The jury were instructed that they could rely on their assessment of the use of insulin by Letby to poison baby L & F to inform their opinion of her guilt in all the other deaths or injuries. They were also instructed that they could rely on the lab’s assessment of the insulin / C-peptide in the blood samples by the judge in his summing up.
If the insulin tests were as wildly inaccurate as claimed, then the entire prosecution falls apart I think? The cross-admissibility instruction makes the rest of the convictions unsafe.
I shall wait and see, but three points: A discussion of the insulin cases needs to look at the totality of the evidence on those counts, which is summarised in para 29 and 30 of the Court of Appeal judgment.
There is, despite suggestions otherwise, an extensive series of threads to the totality of the evidence of murders and attempts of which the insulin evidence is only one. In reality the Letby case has to succeed on every count separately because each case is different.
A perfectly possible, and I think probable, explanation for why Letby accepted that the 2 babies had been poisoned by insulin is that she had unique knowledge of the fact and make a mistake in failing to deny it. This is especially so as her counsel had challenged in cross examination the reliability of the insulin findings. She slipt up.
The insulin cases are the only ones with hard evidence - everything else is circumstantial isn’t it? Nobody ever saw Letby injure a baby - they only ever saw her in the vicinity of a child that was having problems & put 2 + 2 together to make four (or possibly 17, depending on whether Letby is innocent or not!) The failure to install cameras in the ward when suspicions were originally raised does seem to be an egregious one in retrospect - management of the hospital have a lot to answer for, regardless of whether Letby is guilty or innocent.
An equally plausible explanation for the Letby’s acceptance of insulin poisoning is simply that the prosecutor browbeat her into an admission that the test results must mean that the babies had been poisoned with insulin: any ordinary person faced with the test results as presented to the court would conclude the same thing. The fact that she should have refused to answer a question where she had no relevant expertise whatsoever but was cornered into doing so by the prosecution doesn’t make her guilty.
Not quite. The apparent admission ('I killed') is more than circumstantial, as are some other threads. And it is worth noting the appeal on the second trial and how thin were the grounds in that appeal.
As to accepting that the children were poisoned in cross examination, the damning aspect is this: Letby and her lawyers will have spent weeks going through the evidence. Her counsel challenged the reliability of the insulin evidence (see CA judgment para 29 and 30) in other words the defence case from Myers KC point of view was that there was doubt as to whether they were poisoned. Letby would of course have known that this was the defence line - she wasn't thick.
Whatever happened in re-examination, when Myers could have reopened that matter to get her to retract the concession, he and she didn't try or didn't succeed. Letby slipped in a bit of truth by mistake, under pressure. She tried to poison them.
Myers could have called expert evidence to ameliorate the insulin evidence. And didn't. Draw your own conclusions.
On US politics, I'm having a look at a USA podcast called The NatCon Squad, to see what they are saying - "Where Common Sense and Common Good meet". It's run by the Edmund Burke foundation, of which James Orr is the UK Chairman.
The UK must prepare for an exodus of US citizens seeking shelter.
I am not joking.
These academics are all experts on the nazi. They know what they are seeing.
"Three prominent critics of President Donald Trump are leaving Yale’s faculty — and the United States — amid attacks on higher education to take up positions at the University of Toronto in fall 2025.
Philosophy professor Jason Stanley announced this week that he will leave Yale, while history professors Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore, who are married, decided to leave around the November elections. The three professors will work at Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy."
The UK must prepare for an exodus of US citizens seeking shelter.
I am not joking.
These academics are all experts on the nazi. They know what they are seeing.
"Three prominent critics of President Donald Trump are leaving Yale’s faculty — and the United States — amid attacks on higher education to take up positions at the University of Toronto in fall 2025.
Philosophy professor Jason Stanley announced this week that he will leave Yale, while history professors Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore, who are married, decided to leave around the November elections. The three professors will work at Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy."
The UK must prepare for an exodus of US citizens seeking shelter.
I am not joking.
These academics are all experts on the nazi. They know what they are seeing.
"Three prominent critics of President Donald Trump are leaving Yale’s faculty — and the United States — amid attacks on higher education to take up positions at the University of Toronto in fall 2025.
Philosophy professor Jason Stanley announced this week that he will leave Yale, while history professors Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore, who are married, decided to leave around the November elections. The three professors will work at Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy."
Mine has increased from £846 to £1,164 38% Thames Water I'm thinking of getting a meter.
I'm thinking of renationalisation without compensation....
Just let them go bust. That's how it's meant to operate.
Yes - but I still want the water and sewerage to work!
It would. Someone would get the franchise with none of the debt of Thames Water.
And they'd rip us off all over again.
I'd nationalise the assets and award private sector management contracts, renewable ever five years if performance is at least satisfactory. That way there's no way to gear up the assets all over again, to siphon off cash.
Not if the regulator did its job.
There is, as far as I know, no official gap between working for the regulator and joining a water company.
The UK must prepare for an exodus of US citizens seeking shelter.
I am not joking.
These academics are all experts on the nazi. They know what they are seeing.
"Three prominent critics of President Donald Trump are leaving Yale’s faculty — and the United States — amid attacks on higher education to take up positions at the University of Toronto in fall 2025.
Philosophy professor Jason Stanley announced this week that he will leave Yale, while history professors Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore, who are married, decided to leave around the November elections. The three professors will work at Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy."
The UK must prepare for an exodus of US citizens seeking shelter.
I am not joking.
These academics are all experts on the nazi. They know what they are seeing.
"Three prominent critics of President Donald Trump are leaving Yale’s faculty — and the United States — amid attacks on higher education to take up positions at the University of Toronto in fall 2025.
Philosophy professor Jason Stanley announced this week that he will leave Yale, while history professors Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore, who are married, decided to leave around the November elections. The three professors will work at Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy."
Patriotic Americans should feel abject shame and abject horror. Don't know about the others but for the USA to lose Snyder feels very very 1930s. I don't suppose any modern scholar should be compared with Einstein in 1932 but still......
Rep. Victoria Spartz's second and last town hall of this weekend -- this one in Muncie, Indiana -- is already starting off with boos and yelling from the 160 person audience.
The UK must prepare for an exodus of US citizens seeking shelter.
I am not joking.
These academics are all experts on the nazi. They know what they are seeing.
"Three prominent critics of President Donald Trump are leaving Yale’s faculty — and the United States — amid attacks on higher education to take up positions at the University of Toronto in fall 2025.
Philosophy professor Jason Stanley announced this week that he will leave Yale, while history professors Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore, who are married, decided to leave around the November elections. The three professors will work at Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy."
Rory the Tory is Brady-Johnson Professor of the Practice of Grand Strategy at Yale University's Jackson School of Global Affairs.
I wonder if he will be leaving. He needs to do some relevant lectures about the onset of totalitarian Government, using the progress of the Chump regime as a case study. Maga will pop like a parade of weasels.
The Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy offers a year-long course (“Studies in Grand Strategy”) to Yale undergraduates and graduate students that addresses large-scale, long-term strategic challenges of statecraft, politics, and social change. The course encourages understanding of historical and contemporary global and domestic challenges, while developing students’ capacity for strategic thinking and effective leadership in a variety of fields.
Rep. Victoria Spartz's second and last town hall of this weekend -- this one in Muncie, Indiana -- is already starting off with boos and yelling from the 160 person audience.
The UK must prepare for an exodus of US citizens seeking shelter.
I am not joking.
These academics are all experts on the nazi. They know what they are seeing.
"Three prominent critics of President Donald Trump are leaving Yale’s faculty — and the United States — amid attacks on higher education to take up positions at the University of Toronto in fall 2025.
Philosophy professor Jason Stanley announced this week that he will leave Yale, while history professors Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore, who are married, decided to leave around the November elections. The three professors will work at Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy."
Rory the Tory is Brady-Johnson Professor of the Practice of Grand Strategy at Yale University's Jackson School of Global Affairs.
I wonder if he will be leaving. He needs to do some relevant lectures about the onset of totalitarian Government, using the progress of the Chump regime as a case study. Maga will pop like a parade of weasels.
The Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy offers a year-long course (“Studies in Grand Strategy”) to Yale undergraduates and graduate students that addresses large-scale, long-term strategic challenges of statecraft, politics, and social change. The course encourages understanding of historical and contemporary global and domestic challenges, while developing students’ capacity for strategic thinking and effective leadership in a variety of fields.
We (.ac.uk sci/eng) have seen a distinct uptick in US academics applying for posts of late. Sadly, being economically in the doldrums, we're not picking many up.
Rep. Victoria Spartz's second and last town hall of this weekend -- this one in Muncie, Indiana -- is already starting off with boos and yelling from the 160 person audience.
Love Idris . The early seasons of Luther were superb and of course there’s the Wire when I had no idea he was a Brit actor . It would certainly be an interesting choice for a Labour candidate .
Love Idris . The early seasons of Luther were superb and of course there’s the Wire when I had no idea he was a Brit actor . It would certainly be an interesting choice for a Labour candidate .
Love Idris . The early seasons of Luther were superb and of course there’s the Wire when I had no idea he was a Brit actor . It would certainly be an interesting choice for a Labour candidate .
Too many Sky adverts
He’d certainly bring some star quality to the role and the best city in the world could do a lot worse than sexy Idris !
Rep. Victoria Spartz's second and last town hall of this weekend -- this one in Muncie, Indiana -- is already starting off with boos and yelling from the 160 person audience.
In all of this there may well be Dem place people (though names and addresses of all for this town hall), but if the keyboard warriors believe that, where are the Republican audiences members balancing things out?
Note that the wildly inaccurate measurements claimed by the lab for the quality control sample are very similar to the ones reported for Baby L.
The jury were instructed that they could rely on their assessment of the use of insulin by Letby to poison baby L & F to inform their opinion of her guilt in all the other deaths or injuries. They were also instructed that they could rely on the lab’s assessment of the insulin / C-peptide in the blood samples by the judge in his summing up.
If the insulin tests were as wildly inaccurate as claimed, then the entire prosecution falls apart I think? The cross-admissibility instruction makes the rest of the convictions unsafe.
I shall wait and see, but three points: A discussion of the insulin cases needs to look at the totality of the evidence on those counts, which is summarised in para 29 and 30 of the Court of Appeal judgment.
There is, despite suggestions otherwise, an extensive series of threads to the totality of the evidence of murders and attempts of which the insulin evidence is only one. In reality the Letby case has to succeed on every count separately because each case is different.
A perfectly possible, and I think probable, explanation for why Letby accepted that the 2 babies had been poisoned by insulin is that she had unique knowledge of the fact and make a mistake in failing to deny it. This is especially so as her counsel had challenged in cross examination the reliability of the insulin findings. She slipt up.
The insulin cases are the only ones with hard evidence - everything else is circumstantial isn’t it? Nobody ever saw Letby injure a baby - they only ever saw her in the vicinity of a child that was having problems & put 2 + 2 together to make four (or possibly 17, depending on whether Letby is innocent or not!) The failure to install cameras in the ward when suspicions were originally raised does seem to be an egregious one in retrospect - management of the hospital have a lot to answer for, regardless of whether Letby is guilty or innocent.
An equally plausible explanation for the Letby’s acceptance of insulin poisoning is simply that the prosecutor browbeat her into an admission that the test results must mean that the babies had been poisoned with insulin: any ordinary person faced with the test results as presented to the court would conclude the same thing. The fact that she should have refused to answer a question where she had no relevant expertise whatsoever but was cornered into doing so by the prosecution doesn’t make her guilty.
Not quite. The apparent admission ('I killed') is more than circumstantial, as are some other threads. And it is worth noting the appeal on the second trial and how thin were the grounds in that appeal.
As to accepting that the children were poisoned in cross examination, the damning aspect is this: Letby and her lawyers will have spent weeks going through the evidence. Her counsel challenged the reliability of the insulin evidence (see CA judgment para 29 and 30) in other words the defence case from Myers KC point of view was that there was doubt as to whether they were poisoned. Letby would of course have known that this was the defence line - she wasn't thick.
Whatever happened in re-examination, when Myers could have reopened that matter to get her to retract the concession, he and she didn't try or didn't succeed. Letby slipped in a bit of truth by mistake, under pressure. She tried to poison them.
Myers could have called expert evidence to ameliorate the insulin evidence. And didn't. Draw your own conclusions.
In trials, the devil is in the detail.
Indeed. The trial took over 10 months. It is probably the longest murder trial in the country's history. There was no rush to judgement. There was a lot of detail.
Rep. Victoria Spartz's second and last town hall of this weekend -- this one in Muncie, Indiana -- is already starting off with boos and yelling from the 160 person audience.
In all of this there may well be Dem place people (though names and addresses of all for this town hall), but if the keyboard warriors believe that, where are the Republican audiences members balancing things out?
Presumably the Dems are booing her because she is GOP, and the Reps are booing her because she is Ukrainian.
Love Idris . The early seasons of Luther were superb and of course there’s the Wire when I had no idea he was a Brit actor . It would certainly be an interesting choice for a Labour candidate .
That's genuinely his name. The first time I knocked on his door was a very hot summer day. I told him that I got thirsty every time I delivered his mail; he immediately grabbed a bottle of Ramsbury Gold from his beer fridge in the porch and told me to quench my thirst with it when I'd finished work
He also gave me beer for Christmas. So when I started brewing beer, I wanted Mr Beer's endorsement. I gave him a bottle a couple of weeks back, and saw him for the first time since this afternoon
He loved the beer I'd given him, so I gave him a bottle of our latest batch. He gave me a box of Camden Hells lager in return, and said my beer was much better
I think I have a thumbs-up from Mr Beer
With only a little editing this would make vol 48 of the Mr Men series of books I read to my four year old grandson.
Perhaps there should be a grown ups version? Mr Beer, Mr Flaneur, Mr Leon, Mr Cokehead, Mr Alco, Mr Lech, Mr Toad, Mr Liar, Mr Implacable, Mr Gay, Mr Vance, Mr Benefits, Mr Rizz and so on.
Note that the wildly inaccurate measurements claimed by the lab for the quality control sample are very similar to the ones reported for Baby L.
The jury were instructed that they could rely on their assessment of the use of insulin by Letby to poison baby L & F to inform their opinion of her guilt in all the other deaths or injuries. They were also instructed that they could rely on the lab’s assessment of the insulin / C-peptide in the blood samples by the judge in his summing up.
If the insulin tests were as wildly inaccurate as claimed, then the entire prosecution falls apart I think? The cross-admissibility instruction makes the rest of the convictions unsafe.
I shall wait and see, but three points: A discussion of the insulin cases needs to look at the totality of the evidence on those counts, which is summarised in para 29 and 30 of the Court of Appeal judgment.
There is, despite suggestions otherwise, an extensive series of threads to the totality of the evidence of murders and attempts of which the insulin evidence is only one. In reality the Letby case has to succeed on every count separately because each case is different.
A perfectly possible, and I think probable, explanation for why Letby accepted that the 2 babies had been poisoned by insulin is that she had unique knowledge of the fact and make a mistake in failing to deny it. This is especially so as her counsel had challenged in cross examination the reliability of the insulin findings. She slipt up.
The insulin cases are the only ones with hard evidence - everything else is circumstantial isn’t it? Nobody ever saw Letby injure a baby - they only ever saw her in the vicinity of a child that was having problems & put 2 + 2 together to make four (or possibly 17, depending on whether Letby is innocent or not!) The failure to install cameras in the ward when suspicions were originally raised does seem to be an egregious one in retrospect - management of the hospital have a lot to answer for, regardless of whether Letby is guilty or innocent.
An equally plausible explanation for the Letby’s acceptance of insulin poisoning is simply that the prosecutor browbeat her into an admission that the test results must mean that the babies had been poisoned with insulin: any ordinary person faced with the test results as presented to the court would conclude the same thing. The fact that she should have refused to answer a question where she had no relevant expertise whatsoever but was cornered into doing so by the prosecution doesn’t make her guilty.
Many cases are settled on circumstantial evidence.
Nobody ever saw Letby injure a baby, but... well, let me quote Wikipedia's write-up: "The mother of Baby E described hearing her infant scream, and walking in to find him with blood around his mouth and Letby in the room. She testified that Letby had attributed the blood to a nasogastric tube, saying "trust me, I'm a nurse."[62] The baby's condition soon worsened and he died a few hours later.[62]"
As well as the one you mentioned: "A consultant testified that, in February 2016, he had walked in on Letby standing over a desaturating infant and failing to intervene. He said that Letby had responded to his questions by telling him that the infant had only just started declining. The infant in question survived the collapse.[3]: 22:55 "
That's genuinely his name. The first time I knocked on his door was a very hot summer day. I told him that I got thirsty every time I delivered his mail; he immediately grabbed a bottle of Ramsbury Gold from his beer fridge in the porch and told me to quench my thirst with it when I'd finished work
He also gave me beer for Christmas. So when I started brewing beer, I wanted Mr Beer's endorsement. I gave him a bottle a couple of weeks back, and saw him for the first time since this afternoon
He loved the beer I'd given him, so I gave him a bottle of our latest batch. He gave me a box of Camden Hells lager in return, and said my beer was much better
That's genuinely his name. The first time I knocked on his door was a very hot summer day. I told him that I got thirsty every time I delivered his mail; he immediately grabbed a bottle of Ramsbury Gold from his beer fridge in the porch and told me to quench my thirst with it when I'd finished work
He also gave me beer for Christmas. So when I started brewing beer, I wanted Mr Beer's endorsement. I gave him a bottle a couple of weeks back, and saw him for the first time since this afternoon
He loved the beer I'd given him, so I gave him a bottle of our latest batch. He gave me a box of Camden Hells lager in return, and said my beer was much better
Rep. Victoria Spartz's second and last town hall of this weekend -- this one in Muncie, Indiana -- is already starting off with boos and yelling from the 160 person audience.
That's genuinely his name. The first time I knocked on his door was a very hot summer day. I told him that I got thirsty every time I delivered his mail; he immediately grabbed a bottle of Ramsbury Gold from his beer fridge in the porch and told me to quench my thirst with it when I'd finished work
He also gave me beer for Christmas. So when I started brewing beer, I wanted Mr Beer's endorsement. I gave him a bottle a couple of weeks back, and saw him for the first time since this afternoon
He loved the beer I'd given him, so I gave him a bottle of our latest batch. He gave me a box of Camden Hells lager in return, and said my beer was much better
I think I have a thumbs-up from Mr Beer
Please tell me his parents named him Rupert 😜
Luke Warm…
According to James Burke (Connections) British beer ferments in a different way than German beer, and specifically at a different temperature. Warmer...
That's genuinely his name. The first time I knocked on his door was a very hot summer day. I told him that I got thirsty every time I delivered his mail; he immediately grabbed a bottle of Ramsbury Gold from his beer fridge in the porch and told me to quench my thirst with it when I'd finished work
He also gave me beer for Christmas. So when I started brewing beer, I wanted Mr Beer's endorsement. I gave him a bottle a couple of weeks back, and saw him for the first time since this afternoon
He loved the beer I'd given him, so I gave him a bottle of our latest batch. He gave me a box of Camden Hells lager in return, and said my beer was much better
I think I have a thumbs-up from Mr Beer
Please tell me his parents named him Rupert 😜
Luke Warm…
According to James Burke (Connections) British beer ferments in a different way than German beer, and specifically at a different temperature. Warmer...
That is correct. Pilsner ferments at a lower temp than ales. Slower too.
I wonder if rejoining the single market becomes an economic necessity when Trump's "liberation day" of tarrifs kick off on the second. I suspect that Starmer is finding out there are no exceptions no matter how deep your nose goes. At some point he will have to pull the ejector seat cord on the red lines to keep the economy floating.
I wonder if rejoining the single market becomes an economic necessity when Trump's "liberation day" of tarrifs kick off on the second. I suspect that Starmer is finding out there are no exceptions no matter how deep your nose goes. At some point he will have to pull the ejector seat cord on the red lines to keep the economy floating.
What's the connection? Trump's tariffs don't apply to trade between third countries.
I wonder if rejoining the single market becomes an economic necessity when Trump's "liberation day" of tarrifs kick off on the second. I suspect that Starmer is finding out there are no exceptions no matter how deep your nose goes. At some point he will have to pull the ejector seat cord on the red lines to keep the economy floating.
What's the connection? Trump's tariffs don't apply to trade between third countries.
Erm…yes…that’s the point. You really don’t see the connection?
I have to say I'm also pretty disappointed in the CMA opening a completely unnecessary investigation into transatlantic travel. It's this kind of anti-business action the government needs to crack down on. There is precisely zero chance that forcing IAG/AA to give up market share to Air France or Lufthansa will result in price drops for consumers, all it will lead to is money draining out of the country as a mostly UK owned airline loses out to a French/Dutch or German one instead.
You don't see US or national regulators in Europe taking aim at their own companies like this, it's something that we British specialise in, tear down our success stories, let foreign competitors in, no benefit for consumers and negative outcomes for the economy.
I completely agree but you can make the same argument for the magnificent 7 in the US. At some point anti-competitive behaviour switches from a good thing for UK plc or the US to a bad thing. I don't think transatlantic flights are there at the moment (although they have been in the past) but it is something to be aware of.
The CMA should be focusing on the unbelievable abuse of Amazon's marketplace. But maybe that requires more courage.
In this scenario there's just a complete misreading of the market. The Transatlantic route is at capacity because Heathrow and Gatwick are at capacity. Handing slots to foreign operators will just hand them market share without any chance of price reductions because the route is at capacity. They could reasonably increase their price relative to BA/AA and still sell over 90% of seats on the route because demand hugely outstrips supply for the routes in question.
If the CMA wants real competition on the routes then it should lobby the government to increase capacity by building new runways, not setting out to damage a UK company in favour of foreign ones.
Won't giving slots to foreign operators (of transatlantic routes) mean that a greater proportion of the Heathrow/Gatwick traffic will be transatlantic, and therefore there will be more capacity. I.e., there will be more seats to fill.
So shouldn't it still have a (probably small) positive impact on prices?
No because the regulator is saying they'll take effectively limit BA/AA market share on the Transatlantic routes in question so they aren't necessarily creating more capacity, just reallocating it from a British/American partnership to European or Arab carriers.
I wonder if rejoining the single market becomes an economic necessity when Trump's "liberation day" of tarrifs kick off on the second. I suspect that Starmer is finding out there are no exceptions no matter how deep your nose goes. At some point he will have to pull the ejector seat cord on the red lines to keep the economy floating.
What's the connection? Trump's tariffs don't apply to trade between third countries.
Erm…yes…that’s the point. You really don’t see the connection?
EU-UK trade is tariff free and will remain so regardless of what Trump does. To the extent that Trump's tariffs will promote trade between other western countries, it makes joining the single market less relevant.
They have made an investment and are entitled to a return on that.
What fresh hell is this ?!?
I believe in property rights and the rule of law.
I'm sorry, someone who didn't do their due diligence properly and fucked up doesn't deserve a government bailout of any kind. They fucked up, they have to live with that poor decision, I also think it is a net benefit because these rent seekers will be put off investing in existing low risk UK infrastructure. I see in the same bracket as a buy to let landlord, they're taking precisely zero risk when they "invest" their money into existing property. The government should increase that risk factor to an appropriate level for the expected 4-5% annual ROI or reduce the ROI to more like 0-1% if the risk level is impossible to increase. Fundamentally money being put into something that already exists does nothing for the economy. It's not creating any additional demand for new infrastructure and someone already owned it before anyway so you're really just helping the previous owner cash out.
For something intangible like shares there is no real downside and companies have a lot of power over shareholders to influence dividend payouts and yields as well as capital investment plans because the shareholders are sufficiently diversified and have conflicting agendas. When those funds/individuals own the infrastructure or housing directly it's a recipe for neglect and rent seeking. There is simply no oversight because the board is in no way independent and and the non-diversified share ownership means that the investors can simply vote themselves unsustainable dividends paid for by increasing leverage, as we've seen across the water industry (and I would venture the housing sector too).
I don't know what the solution is in the grand scheme, yet I do know that it starts with bankrupting the water industry and nationalising it as well as barring "investment" from any company that sucked the blood from the industry for a minimum of 25 years and barring any directors of senior level management from being involved with UK industry for the same period. These companies and those managers bring zero value to the UK economy and are in fact a huge negative, we should act in our own interest and tell them quite literally to get fucked.
They have made an investment and are entitled to a return on that.
What fresh hell is this ?!?
I believe in property rights and the rule of law.
I'm sorry, someone who didn't do their due diligence properly and fucked up doesn't deserve a government bailout of any kind. They fucked up, they have to live with that poor decision, I also think it is a net benefit because these rent seekers will be put off investing in existing low risk UK infrastructure. I see in the same bracket as a buy to let landlord, they're taking precisely zero risk when they "invest" their money into existing property. The government should increase that risk factor to an appropriate level for the expected 4-5% annual ROI or reduce the ROI to more like 0-1% if the risk level is impossible to increase. Fundamentally money being put into something that already exists does nothing for the economy. It's not creating any additional demand for new infrastructure and someone already owned it before anyway so you're really just helping the previous owner cash out.
For something intangible like shares there is no real downside and companies have a lot of power over shareholders to influence dividend payouts and yields as well as capital investment plans because the shareholders are sufficiently diversified and have conflicting agendas. When those funds/individuals own the infrastructure or housing directly it's a recipe for neglect and rent seeking. There is simply no oversight because the board is in no way independent and and the non-diversified share ownership means that the investors can simply vote themselves unsustainable dividends paid for by increasing leverage, as we've seen across the water industry (and I would venture the housing sector too).
I don't know what the solution is in the grand scheme, yet I do know that it starts with bankrupting the water industry and nationalising it as well as barring "investment" from any company that sucked the blood from the industry for a minimum of 25 years and barring any directors of senior level management from being involved with UK industry for the same period. These companies and those managers bring zero value to the UK economy and are in fact a huge negative, we should act in our own interest and tell them quite literally to get fucked.
Apart from all that though, it's going well? Zero value might be expensive. But at least it's not negative value and expensive.
Anyone know what the Sunday Times frontpage about the police storming a Quakers house is all about?
"meeting house" i.e church. It had been booked by a protest group planning some kind of disruption police deemed illegal. So it's not like they barged into a service...
That's genuinely his name. The first time I knocked on his door was a very hot summer day. I told him that I got thirsty every time I delivered his mail; he immediately grabbed a bottle of Ramsbury Gold from his beer fridge in the porch and told me to quench my thirst with it when I'd finished work
He also gave me beer for Christmas. So when I started brewing beer, I wanted Mr Beer's endorsement. I gave him a bottle a couple of weeks back, and saw him for the first time since this afternoon
He loved the beer I'd given him, so I gave him a bottle of our latest batch. He gave me a box of Camden Hells lager in return, and said my beer was much better
I think I have a thumbs-up from Mr Beer
Please tell me his parents named him Rupert 😜
Luke Warm…
According to James Burke (Connections) British beer ferments in a different way than German beer, and specifically at a different temperature. Warmer...
That is correct. Pilsner ferments at a lower temp than ales. Slower too.
Different yeast action as well I think (Brewologists please explain)
A German group, Lebensraum Vorpommern, has filed a further legal challenge against Poland's plans to construct a deepwater shipping terminal near the border with Germany.
The word has a pretty broad meaning in German. The best translation here is probably "habitat".
Edit: This works both ways. I've interacted with Germans who simply refused to believe that the word "collaboration" could have anything other than negative connotations.
A German group, Lebensraum Vorpommern, has filed a further legal challenge against Poland's plans to construct a deepwater shipping terminal near the border with Germany.
Anyone know what the Sunday Times frontpage about the police storming a Quakers house is all about?
"meeting house" i.e church. It had been booked by a protest group planning some kind of disruption police deemed illegal. So it's not like they barged into a service...
Reunion dinner this evening at the House, first time in a dinner suit for years, disappointingly despite rumours, but understandably, no appearance by KCIII, far too much to drink, and now the lie in curtailed by the clocks. And Mother’s Day.
Reunion dinner this evening at the House, first time in a dinner suit for years, disappointingly despite rumours, but understandably, no appearance by KCIII, far too much to drink, and now the lie in curtailed by the clocks. And Mother’s Day.
The clocks are going forward, not back, so you get an extra hour lie-in.
Reunion dinner this evening at the House, first time in a dinner suit for years, disappointingly despite rumours, but understandably, no appearance by KCIII, far too much to drink, and now the lie in curtailed by the clocks. And Mother’s Day.
The clocks are going forward, not back, so you get an extra hour lie-in.
Reunion dinner this evening at the House, first time in a dinner suit for years, disappointingly despite rumours, but understandably, no appearance by KCIII, far too much to drink, and now the lie in curtailed by the clocks. And Mother’s Day.
The clocks are going forward, not back, so you get an extra hour lie-in.
"The police have become the rent-a-goons of the easily offended A couple were arrested and held for eight hours after criticising their daughter’s school on WhatsApp Tom Slater"
I wonder if rejoining the single market becomes an economic necessity when Trump's "liberation day" of tarrifs kick off on the second. I suspect that Starmer is finding out there are no exceptions no matter how deep your nose goes. At some point he will have to pull the ejector seat cord on the red lines to keep the economy floating.
If only the EU didn’t insist on all the political stuff
They have made an investment and are entitled to a return on that.
What fresh hell is this ?!?
I believe in property rights and the rule of law.
I'm sorry, someone who didn't do their due diligence properly and fucked up doesn't deserve a government bailout of any kind. They fucked up, they have to live with that poor decision, I also think it is a net benefit because these rent seekers will be put off investing in existing low risk UK infrastructure. I see in the same bracket as a buy to let landlord, they're taking precisely zero risk when they "invest" their money into existing property. The government should increase that risk factor to an appropriate level for the expected 4-5% annual ROI or reduce the ROI to more like 0-1% if the risk level is impossible to increase. Fundamentally money being put into something that already exists does nothing for the economy. It's not creating any additional demand for new infrastructure and someone already owned it before anyway so you're really just helping the previous owner cash out.
For something intangible like shares there is no real downside and companies have a lot of power over shareholders to influence dividend payouts and yields as well as capital investment plans because the shareholders are sufficiently diversified and have conflicting agendas. When those funds/individuals own the infrastructure or housing directly it's a recipe for neglect and rent seeking. There is simply no oversight because the board is in no way independent and and the non-diversified share ownership means that the investors can simply vote themselves unsustainable dividends paid for by increasing leverage, as we've seen across the water industry (and I would venture the housing sector too).
I don't know what the solution is in the grand scheme, yet I do know that it starts with bankrupting the water industry and nationalising it as well as barring "investment" from any company that sucked the blood from the industry for a minimum of 25 years and barring any directors of senior level management from being involved with mUK industry for the same period. These companies and those managers bring zero value to the UK economy and are in fact a huge negative, we should act in our own interest and tell them quite literally to get fucked.
There are two things.
Paying someone a nominal amount to get their vote and avoid diligence is simply a matter of practicality. Whether someone loses 95% or 100% of their investment is not a “bail out”.
You took it further though and applied it to all utility investors with the kind of hostile language (“parasites”) that Trump uses about others. Can’t you see that undermining the rule of law and commercial contract is not a sensible thing to do?
The new supersonic airliner in development might seriously screw up the current economics of airline long haul.
From the thread on the economic case for the Boom Aerospace aircraft in development:
https://x.com/bscholl/status/1906111973848461482 ...Here's the secret of international airline economics: the ~40-80 business class flatbeds at the front of the airplane represent more than 50% of revenue and >80% of operating profit. Business class is where almost all the money is!
..,With 64 seats, fares close to today's business class (say, $5k), airlines can fill seats easily on many more routes. Overture works economically most anywhere a three-class airplane does.
We see 600+ economically viable routes. More if we can also fly supersonic over land*...
*Which they probably will be able to, as it's a lot quieter than Concorde.
The new supersonic airliner in development might seriously screw up the current economics of airline long haul.
From the thread on the economic case for the Boom Aerospace aircraft in development:
https://x.com/bscholl/status/1906111973848461482 ...Here's the secret of international airline economics: the ~40-80 business class flatbeds at the front of the airplane represent more than 50% of revenue and >80% of operating profit. Business class is where almost all the money is!
..,With 64 seats, fares close to today's business class (say, $5k), airlines can fill seats easily on many more routes. Overture works economically most anywhere a three-class airplane does.
We see 600+ economically viable routes. More if we can also fly supersonic over land*...
*Which they probably will be able to, as it's a lot quieter than Concorde.
Comments
https://feweek.co.uk/sixth-form-college-academisation-reaches-tipping-point/
A German group, Lebensraum Vorpommern, has filed a further legal challenge against Poland's plans to construct a deepwater shipping terminal near the border with Germany.
It claims the project "will lead to an environmental catastrophe"
https://x.com/notesfrompoland/status/1905587977998266376
For the brave - my conclusions are;
Don't vote Labour (policy stuff)
Don't vote Tory (performance stuff)
Don't vote anyone else (insanity beckons)
Rep. Victoria Spartz's second and last town hall of this weekend -- this one in Muncie, Indiana -- is already starting off with boos and yelling from the 160 person audience.
When she took the mic, the entire audience booed her.
https://x.com/DaniellaMicaela/status/1906000112410566735
That's genuinely his name. The first time I knocked on his door was a very hot summer day. I told him that I got thirsty every time I delivered his mail; he immediately grabbed a bottle of Ramsbury Gold from his beer fridge in the porch and told me to quench my thirst with it when I'd finished work
He also gave me beer for Christmas. So when I started brewing beer, I wanted Mr Beer's endorsement. I gave him a bottle a couple of weeks back, and saw him for the first time since this afternoon
He loved the beer I'd given him, so I gave him a bottle of our latest batch. He gave me a box of Camden Hells lager in return, and said my beer was much better
I think I have a thumbs-up from Mr Beer
So shouldn't it still have a (probably small) positive impact on prices?
Farage's speech yesterday was simply right wing to the core and it is why I will never vote Reform
But the contention of the doctor in that piece is that the test in question has had multiple false readings. But over what time horizon? Also, were the two readings from the same batch (in which case they might have suffered the same contamination issue), or were they from two totally different batches?
Because if the answers are (a) one in a million tests throws up a screwy result, and (b) they were sent at different times to the lab, then one's view of the deaths being murders is very different to if if's one-in-a-hundred and/or if they were part of the same analysis.
Perhaps there should be a grown ups version? Mr Beer, Mr Flaneur, Mr Leon, Mr Cokehead, Mr Alco, Mr Lech, Mr Toad, Mr Liar, Mr Implacable, Mr Gay, Mr Vance, Mr Benefits, Mr Rizz and so on.
Lies:
- "nearly one BILLION dollars for a simple survey"
- "we save $4B every day 7 days a week"
- "we've been careful in the cuts, measure twice if not thrice!"
- "everything is published on the DOGE website for maximum transparency"
- "when you ask them which line they disagree with, they can't point to any!"
- "only 0.15% of federal employees have been fired"
- "Stacy Abrams NGO that didn't exist and then suddenly got $2B"
- "If we don't do it, America's gonna go bankrupt"
Misleading statements:
- "an old mine that can only process 8000 retirements per month"
- "legitimate recipients will receive more money"
- "15 million people over the age of 120 marked as alive in SS database"
- "40% of NIH grants go to the institution"
- "there is $500B of fraud in government spending every year"
https://x.com/electricfutures/status/1905860579119767680
The UK must prepare for an exodus of US citizens seeking shelter.
I am not joking.
These academics are all experts on the nazi. They know what they are seeing.
"Three prominent critics of President Donald Trump are leaving Yale’s faculty — and the United States — amid attacks on higher education to take up positions at the University of Toronto in fall 2025.
Philosophy professor Jason Stanley announced this week that he will leave Yale, while history professors Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore, who are married, decided to leave around the November elections. The three professors will work at Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy."
https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2025/03/27/three-prominent-yale-professors-depart-for-canadian-university-citing-trump-fears/
As to accepting that the children were poisoned in cross examination, the damning aspect is this: Letby and her lawyers will have spent weeks going through the evidence. Her counsel challenged the reliability of the insulin evidence (see CA judgment para 29 and 30) in other words the defence case from Myers KC point of view was that there was doubt as to whether they were poisoned. Letby would of course have known that this was the defence line - she wasn't thick.
Whatever happened in re-examination, when Myers could have reopened that matter to get her to retract the concession, he and she didn't try or didn't succeed. Letby slipped in a bit of truth by mistake, under pressure. She tried to poison them.
Myers could have called expert evidence to ameliorate the insulin evidence. And didn't. Draw your own conclusions.
In trials, the devil is in the detail.
Here is one following on from the JD Vance Munich speech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur9FzZrhqc0
AFAICS they are more or less straight down the line, and have celebrated slapping Europe in the face, without factchecking his speech.
Here's the most recent about "The Houthis Strike Group Chat":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HL9CP4yaPY&list=PLbZpjtSKtltEtMVVGnggWkYY42LNT3JBH
There is, as far as I know, no official gap between working for the regulator and joining a water company.
I wonder if he will be leaving. He needs to do some relevant lectures about the onset of totalitarian Government, using the progress of the Chump regime as a case study. Maga will pop like a parade of weasels.
The Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy offers a year-long course (“Studies in Grand Strategy”) to Yale undergraduates and graduate students that addresses large-scale, long-term strategic challenges of statecraft, politics, and social change. The course encourages understanding of historical and contemporary global and domestic challenges, while developing students’ capacity for strategic thinking and effective leadership in a variety of fields.
EXCL: Could Idris Elba take on his toughest role yet and become London Mayor?
Labour insiders want the Luther star to be their candidate for City Hall when Sadiq Khan leaves.
The Hollywood star, 52, is a vocal anti knife crime campaigner.
https://x.com/kateferguson4/status/1906072903403086068
My apologies.
Omar…
Lester Freamon…
Just exceptional TV.
Nobody ever saw Letby injure a baby, but... well, let me quote Wikipedia's write-up: "The mother of Baby E described hearing her infant scream, and walking in to find him with blood around his mouth and Letby in the room. She testified that Letby had attributed the blood to a nasogastric tube, saying "trust me, I'm a nurse."[62] The baby's condition soon worsened and he died a few hours later.[62]"
As well as the one you mentioned: "A consultant testified that, in February 2016, he had walked in on Letby standing over a desaturating infant and failing to intervene. He said that Letby had responded to his questions by telling him that the infant had only just started declining. The infant in question survived the collapse.[3]: 22:55 "
Usha and I are on our way home from an incredible journey to Greenland. We can't wait to come back again soon.
America stands with Greenland!
https://x.com/JDVance/status/1905703328912486723
https://www.thesun.co.uk/dear-deidre/
https://popbitch.com/
https://x.com/amduffany/status/1906073822111134015
Spartz: "If you violated the law, you are not entitled to due process."..
https://x.com/JoshEakle/status/1906043829850882135
Without due process, there is no law.
For something intangible like shares there is no real downside and companies have a lot of power over shareholders to influence dividend payouts and yields as well as capital investment plans because the shareholders are sufficiently diversified and have conflicting agendas. When those funds/individuals own the infrastructure or housing directly it's a recipe for neglect and rent seeking. There is simply no oversight because the board is in no way independent and and the non-diversified share ownership means that the investors can simply vote themselves unsustainable dividends paid for by increasing leverage, as we've seen across the water industry (and I would venture the housing sector too).
I don't know what the solution is in the grand scheme, yet I do know that it starts with bankrupting the water industry and nationalising it as well as barring "investment" from any company that sucked the blood from the industry for a minimum of 25 years and barring any directors of senior level management from being involved with UK industry for the same period. These companies and those managers bring zero value to the UK economy and are in fact a huge negative, we should act in our own interest and tell them quite literally to get fucked.
How's about that then?'
Silver linings.
Does anyone have an idea with what is really going on? The whole story spends a lot of time not saying what happened.
Bill Kristol
@BillKristol
·
2m
MAGA Congresswoman in Trump's America: "You violated the law, you don't get due process.”
Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland: “Sentence first—verdict afterward.”
https://www.ft.com/content/8fc9561d-c145-4542-a32a-1707573c012b
Edit: This works both ways. I've interacted with Germans who simply refused to believe that the word "collaboration" could have anything other than negative connotations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om3s9WGkW4w
Reunion dinner this evening at the House, first time in a dinner suit for years, disappointingly despite rumours, but understandably, no appearance by KCIII, far too much to drink, and now the lie in curtailed by the clocks. And Mother’s Day.
A couple were arrested and held for eight hours after criticising their daughter’s school on WhatsApp
Tom Slater"
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/03/29/the-police-have-become-the-rent-a-goons-of-the-easily-offended/
Basically they arrested some people who were planning a crime. It was incidental (or perhaps deliberate) that they were in a Quaker owned building
Paying someone a nominal amount to get their vote and avoid diligence is simply a matter of practicality. Whether someone loses 95% or 100% of their investment is not a “bail out”.
You took it further though and applied it to all utility investors with the kind of hostile language (“parasites”) that Trump uses about others. Can’t you see that undermining the rule of law and commercial contract is not a sensible thing to do?
The Tories won't even admit to their disgraceful nomination of Spielman for a peerage.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/29/ofsted-chief-amanda-spielman-peerage-lords-ruth-perry
A Conservative party spokesperson said: “It would be unfair to comment on whether specific individuals have or have not been nominated or vetted for any honour or dignity. We do not comment on speculation or purported leaks.”
In the context of the granting of a peerage to that woman, "unfair to comment" is simply grotesque.
From the thread on the economic case for the Boom Aerospace aircraft in development:
https://x.com/bscholl/status/1906111973848461482
...Here's the secret of international airline economics: the ~40-80 business class flatbeds at the front of the airplane represent more than 50% of revenue and >80% of operating profit. Business class is where almost all the money is!
..,With 64 seats, fares close to today's business class (say, $5k), airlines can fill seats easily on many more routes. Overture works economically most anywhere a three-class airplane does.
We see 600+ economically viable routes. More if we can also fly supersonic over land*...
*Which they probably will be able to, as it's a lot quieter than Concorde.