Tories are releasing more McSweeney revelations later today. I get the impression they are timing this all to come to a head as Conference starts for Labour.
Can’t really get my head around it all, other than the fact that someone clearly wants him gone. It doesn’t seem to have hit the headlines yet (at least, not beyond the Telegraph).
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
As someone who was a commercial lawyer but now running a manufacturing business in the UK and Europe, this is how I see him as well. I can't hate him for being unable to transcend the mindset and limited vision that his professional and social circles have granted him. If you haven't started a business, taken real risk, identified unmet needs and matched them, found success by challenging assumptions about the way things have always been done, by being more efficient than the competition, if you've never been anything but a manager, a paper shuffler and a back coverer, then you're a joke to me, but I can't hate you.
And... breathe...
Who was the last PM who started a business? Genuine question, I don't think that any recent PMs has had an entrepreneurial background. Starmer is hardly unique in this regard.
Probably Neville Chamberlain.
Hmm. Not a great precedent. I wonder whether that deal-making business attitude led him down the path of appeasement. FWIW I don't think business people tend to make good politicians. I do think though that it's good to have people in politics who understand the needs of entrepreneurs. There are too many on the left who are completely ignorant of that side of things. Just as there are too many on the right who assume that government has no useful function. And too many on all sides who have no experience of anything at all!
That’s probably correct, but Chamberlain’s disaster in dealing with Hitler has too often masked the fact that he was a conspicuous political success domestically as a notably ‘strong’ Prime Minister. He dominated the political scene for many years with a proven record both as Health Minister in the 1920s and Chancellor in the 1930s before succeeding Baldwin in 1937.
There's an interesting take on Munich by Alec Douglas-Home, who was Chamberlain's PPS at the time. Apparently Chamberlain thought Hitler would renege on it, but decided to make a real song and dance over it ('Peace for our time' etc.) so that when Hitler did renege he'd look like an absolute shit before the world. Which speaks quite highly of Chamberlain if true.
Does it?
It means he sold out the Czechs, who would have had a better chance of defending themselves than the Poles, just to buy a little more time. I think less of him for knowing that.
No easy answer, an early version of the Kobayshi Maru? If Britain and France had gone to war in 1938, with the Czech's better able to fight things would have turned out differently, but we cannot be sure how. If I recall correctly we didn't have the Spitfire ready in 1938, only the Hurricane, and the French would likely have still suffered from the their intense desire to avoid 1914-18 again and would likely have performed poorly (individual gallantry and valour excepted, as was the case in 1940). The other argument of course is that we should have fought in 1939 too, and did not. The idea that we would have fought a year earlier seems unlikely.
My view of Chamberlain was that he genuinely thought Britain, France and Czechsolavakia could not have defeated Germany in 1938. He knew Hitler would not stop there but he still did his best to buy another year to rearm, after which Britain would be better placed. He knowingly sacrificed his reputation in history - he knew he'd look foolish when Hitler reneged - for another 12 months to prepare. I think therefore he was a bit of a hero - even though for perfectly forgivable reasons he probably overestimated Germany's strength in 1938, and arguably fighting in 1938 would have led to a better outcome. Based on the intelligence he had, he made the right decision, even at the expense of his place in history.
One of the things which trashed his reputation was Foot's book "The Guilty Men", which was arguably more a piece of party political propaganda than any kind of objective analysis. It helped make Foot's reputation (though not so with me).
1) From about 1922 to 1934, British defence spending as a proportion of GDP was utterly static. The Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1924-1929, the middle period of this abject failure to spend on defence, was in fact, one Winston Churchill, (Chamberlain took over from 1931>1937).
2) Chamberlain, carefully (and correctly) proposed that with the state of the economy being totally inadequate to prepare Britain for war with Germany AND the far east (i.e Japan), it was necessary to prioritise. He chose to pour what little resources he had into the RAF and Navy, and not into the army. He judged that these two services would be most critical in a future war, from the perspective of industrial and scientific investment. This had the unfortunate effect of putting the immediate blame for the early failures (which were most glaringly of the army) on his shoulders. Few are interested that the fact the RAF was out-producing the Luftwaffe at the time and that the Navy was the most powerful in the world were both definitely attributable to Chamberlain.
Few (if any) had imagined that France`s army would fall so easily to the Germans.
3) In June 1934 Chamberlain`s review of British defence needs was:
"The return of the country to normal financial conditions was still so beset with difficulty that it was impossible to afford all that had been recommended, and Ministers must therefore decide on priorities. Britain`s initial efforts in rearmament should be devoted to measures design for the defence of these islands...the chief danger from Germany was from the air. The best defence for this purpose was a powerful air force based upon this country and as a second and long term line of defence an Army capable of helping to protect the low countries and thus provide defence in depth."*
(*DC meeting 32, 120. 50th meeting)
4) In 1934 Chamberlain rejected recommendations that another ten home defence RAF squadrons be formed, he proposed that savings be made by reducing fleet and reserve aircraft, enabling money to be found to increase home defence RAF squadrons not by another 10, but by an extra 38 squadrons.
He certainly made severe mistakes, and can and should be criticized, but his current status as a mere "appeaser" and the man MOST responsible for the inadequate preparation of Britain for war is almost criminally incorrect...
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
As someone who was a commercial lawyer but now running a manufacturing business in the UK and Europe, this is how I see him as well. I can't hate him for being unable to transcend the mindset and limited vision that his professional and social circles have granted him. If you haven't started a business, taken real risk, identified unmet needs and matched them, found success by challenging assumptions about the way things have always been done, by being more efficient than the competition, if you've never been anything but a manager, a paper shuffler and a back coverer, then you're a joke to me, but I can't hate you.
And... breathe...
Who was the last PM who started a business? Genuine question, I don't think that any recent PMs has had an entrepreneurial background. Starmer is hardly unique in this regard.
Probably Neville Chamberlain.
Hmm. Not a great precedent. I wonder whether that deal-making business attitude led him down the path of appeasement. FWIW I don't think business people tend to make good politicians. I do think though that it's good to have people in politics who understand the needs of entrepreneurs. There are too many on the left who are completely ignorant of that side of things. Just as there are too many on the right who assume that government has no useful function. And too many on all sides who have no experience of anything at all!
That’s probably correct, but Chamberlain’s disaster in dealing with Hitler has too often masked the fact that he was a conspicuous political success domestically as a notably ‘strong’ Prime Minister. He dominated the political scene for many years with a proven record both as Health Minister in the 1920s and Chancellor in the 1930s before succeeding Baldwin in 1937.
While grubby, Munich gave us time to accelerate the rearming process I believe
Yes but it also gave Germany time to build more arms.
The limit to rational analysis of the beginnings of the second world war is that Hitler was completely bonkers, surrounded by idiot lackeys, and started an unwinnable war. It was only a question of time. His navy was anywhere near ready; his army inferior to the French; Germany lacked resources; there was no way of invading Britain. You could go on for hours.
Basically France should have defeated Germany in the first few weeks, if only they had moved on from the first world war. Maybe used radios instead of phone lines that were easily cut, and shored up the bit next to Belgium which they thought was impassable except hold on, that's exactly where Germany invaded last time.
Tories are releasing more McSweeney revelations later today. I get the impression they are timing this all to come to a head as Conference starts for Labour.
Can’t really get my head around it all, other than the fact that someone clearly wants him gone. It doesn’t seem to have hit the headlines yet (at least, not beyond the Telegraph).
BTW the thought that on subject X 'there's nothing new to discover' is not a scientific thought but a quasi religious one. This cannot be known a priori.
That's a fair qualification. I'm going to blame a futile and largely failed attempt to keep down the length of my comment.
More completely what I mean is that there are strong incentives to find such a refutation. Sometimes these can be overlooked for many decades because people haven't looked, or haven't connected two disparate pieces of data, but, in general, as a shorthand, we can be reasonably confident that such a refutation hasn't been found because it doesn't exist.
There is always a slim chance that our entire understanding of science will be turned on its head, and so there is a sense that all scientific knowledge is provisional and incomplete, but for practical purposes it is reasonable to treat well-established scientific knowledge - such as gravity, electromagnetism, and the greenhouse effect - as proven facts, so that for the political purposes of debating appropriate action (or lack of action) we debate the less certain political and economic tradeoffs, rather than imagined scientific uncertainties.
Society has generally wasted a huge amount of effort in having non-scientists attempt to debate (badly) the science of climate change, instead of talking about the real choices that exist in how best to respond to the science (and its uncertainties). Why the so-called climate sceptics decided to attack the science, rather than make a political and economic case for a different approach I have run out of space in this comment to speculate.
A fair set of points. I am not a climate scientist and personally basically accept the general theory of global warming as a consequence of human activity. I also think that most of the public debate is an elaborate sharing of ignorance.
As to the politics and human side of it, I think there is more to be said and it is principally about trust. When I look at elites, political leaders and opinion formers I get the impression from what they say that they are committed to the standard view of climate change, but I do not draw the same conclusion from what they do. It is a reasonable assumption that, if they believed it, the wealthiest and most powerful with the greatest celebrity profile would be in the vanguard of the necessary change in respect of personal conduct and that this would be unavoidably obvious in its consequences.
Try, for one tiny example, the recent decision to expand massively Gatwick. Contemplate for one moment the nature of celebrity lifestyle.
It is not unreasonable for a non scientist to draw the conclusion that the world's most important and richest people do not believe it, and that it is rational to assume they may be right.
I don't draw that conclusion. One of the reasons I never travel by air.
My life is surrounded by lovely much younger people who travel by air all the time, nearly all of it just for fun.
What sort of person finds air travel fun, unless they have a private jet?
I love air travel, if I'm sat by the window. The process of getting through an airport can be stressful. But the flight itself - on a clear day, I can think of nothing I would rather do than look out of the window of an aeroplane at the geography below. (Obviously this is a bit boring if you're over a massive ocean - I'm assuming your flight passes within sight of land for much of it.)
Agreed. And the land doesn't have to be varied, my first flight was a couple of hops towards Japan and the dawn rising over Siberia and the endless hours of meandering rivers through an empty landscape was stunning.
My very first flight on that journey, taking off eastwards from Edinburgh on a flight billed as to Paris, turning round westwards, then turning round again a small time later to set down in Glasgow, going damn, I could've caught this in Glasgow!
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
He wants to introduce ID cards.
We already have them, driving licences, mobile phones etc
Mobile phones do not prove who you are and driving licences are not, and cannot, be held by the entire population.
The usual solution to this is “non-driving” driving licences that don’t demonstrate permission to drive a motorised vehicle.
To many people don't seem to understand that for ID cards to actually work for the stated purpose they'll have to be validated against a database every time they're used. That's one reason why driving licences don't work as ID very well, because non-government organisations generally don't have access to the database because driving licences are purely for one purpose.
Even organisations like driving and motorcycle schools don't get that access and can't directly validate your licence.
But ID cards will need an open, widely accessible way of validating the card. When you go into the corner shop to buy a bottle of wine, the age check will end up requiring you to tap your ID card because that will be the legally most watertight way to do the check. The government will end up with a vast amount of data about when, where and why people have to use their ID.
On this anti vax, and now paracetamol issue, is this coming from the US Evangelical Movement who reject anything but Christ as the healer and see these substances as dangerous ?
I am sure @HYUFD will have a view on this, but what is certain is it has to be comprehensively defeated and it certainly is not Christian
Not good enough. Jimmy, it’s simple. Here’s what you need to say:
“I’m sorry for saying the shooter was MAGA. He was not. He was of the left. I apologize to the Kirk family for lying. Please accept my sincere apology. I will do better. I was wrong.”
Yes, Jimmy got emotional. So what. He’s emotional for himself because he almost torched his entire career.
Kimmel is an unrepentant liar who tried to blame Charlie’s assassination on the part of the country that just spent the last 2 weeks praying and holding vigils. What he’s really saying is that he still thinks it’s fair game to slander conservatives. He would rather advance his own political and cultural agenda than confront the truth. The truth is that his own side has been fanning the flames of political assassinations for years. The truth is that someone on the left picked up a gun and murdered someone on the right who advocated for peaceful debate.
It’s critical that liars admit they lied. There can be no restoration without that. Anything short of that is a fake and scripted cry line designed to endear him to his fans, not to make right the wrong he committed.
Not good enough. Jimmy, it’s simple. Here’s what you need to say:
“I’m sorry for saying the shooter was MAGA. He was not. He was of the left. I apologize to the Kirk family for lying. Please accept my sincere apology. I will do better. I was wrong.”
Yes, Jimmy got emotional. So what. He’s emotional for himself because he almost torched his entire career.
Kimmel is an unrepentant liar who tried to blame Charlie’s assassination on the part of the country that just spent the last 2 weeks praying and holding vigils. What he’s really saying is that he still thinks it’s fair game to slander conservatives. He would rather advance his own political and cultural agenda than confront the truth. The truth is that his own side has been fanning the flames of political assassinations for years. The truth is that someone on the left picked up a gun and murdered someone on the right who advocated for peaceful debate.
It’s critical that liars admit they lied. There can be no restoration without that. Anything short of that is a fake and scripted cry line designed to endear him to his fans, not to make right the wrong he committed.
So what you're proving is that they are being shits?
BTW the thought that on subject X 'there's nothing new to discover' is not a scientific thought but a quasi religious one. This cannot be known a priori.
That's a fair qualification. I'm going to blame a futile and largely failed attempt to keep down the length of my comment.
More completely what I mean is that there are strong incentives to find such a refutation. Sometimes these can be overlooked for many decades because people haven't looked, or haven't connected two disparate pieces of data, but, in general, as a shorthand, we can be reasonably confident that such a refutation hasn't been found because it doesn't exist.
There is always a slim chance that our entire understanding of science will be turned on its head, and so there is a sense that all scientific knowledge is provisional and incomplete, but for practical purposes it is reasonable to treat well-established scientific knowledge - such as gravity, electromagnetism, and the greenhouse effect - as proven facts, so that for the political purposes of debating appropriate action (or lack of action) we debate the less certain political and economic tradeoffs, rather than imagined scientific uncertainties.
Society has generally wasted a huge amount of effort in having non-scientists attempt to debate (badly) the science of climate change, instead of talking about the real choices that exist in how best to respond to the science (and its uncertainties). Why the so-called climate sceptics decided to attack the science, rather than make a political and economic case for a different approach I have run out of space in this comment to speculate.
A fair set of points. I am not a climate scientist and personally basically accept the general theory of global warming as a consequence of human activity. I also think that most of the public debate is an elaborate sharing of ignorance.
As to the politics and human side of it, I think there is more to be said and it is principally about trust. When I look at elites, political leaders and opinion formers I get the impression from what they say that they are committed to the standard view of climate change, but I do not draw the same conclusion from what they do. It is a reasonable assumption that, if they believed it, the wealthiest and most powerful with the greatest celebrity profile would be in the vanguard of the necessary change in respect of personal conduct and that this would be unavoidably obvious in its consequences.
Try, for one tiny example, the recent decision to expand massively Gatwick. Contemplate for one moment the nature of celebrity lifestyle.
It is not unreasonable for a non scientist to draw the conclusion that the world's most important and richest people do not believe it, and that it is rational to assume they may be right.
I don't draw that conclusion. One of the reasons I never travel by air.
My life is surrounded by lovely much younger people who travel by air all the time, nearly all of it just for fun.
What sort of person finds air travel fun, unless they have a private jet?
I love air travel, if I'm sat by the window. The process of getting through an airport can be stressful. But the flight itself - on a clear day, I can think of nothing I would rather do than look out of the window of an aeroplane at the geography below. (Obviously this is a bit boring if you're over a massive ocean - I'm assuming your flight passes within sight of land for much of it.)
We have flown round the world many times over the years, but the most boring flight was Sydney to Johannesburg entirely over the ocean in daytime for 15 hours with nothing to see
Even the pilots struggle to stay awake on flights like that!
BTW the thought that on subject X 'there's nothing new to discover' is not a scientific thought but a quasi religious one. This cannot be known a priori.
That's a fair qualification. I'm going to blame a futile and largely failed attempt to keep down the length of my comment.
More completely what I mean is that there are strong incentives to find such a refutation. Sometimes these can be overlooked for many decades because people haven't looked, or haven't connected two disparate pieces of data, but, in general, as a shorthand, we can be reasonably confident that such a refutation hasn't been found because it doesn't exist.
There is always a slim chance that our entire understanding of science will be turned on its head, and so there is a sense that all scientific knowledge is provisional and incomplete, but for practical purposes it is reasonable to treat well-established scientific knowledge - such as gravity, electromagnetism, and the greenhouse effect - as proven facts, so that for the political purposes of debating appropriate action (or lack of action) we debate the less certain political and economic tradeoffs, rather than imagined scientific uncertainties.
Society has generally wasted a huge amount of effort in having non-scientists attempt to debate (badly) the science of climate change, instead of talking about the real choices that exist in how best to respond to the science (and its uncertainties). Why the so-called climate sceptics decided to attack the science, rather than make a political and economic case for a different approach I have run out of space in this comment to speculate.
A fair set of points. I am not a climate scientist and personally basically accept the general theory of global warming as a consequence of human activity. I also think that most of the public debate is an elaborate sharing of ignorance.
As to the politics and human side of it, I think there is more to be said and it is principally about trust. When I look at elites, political leaders and opinion formers I get the impression from what they say that they are committed to the standard view of climate change, but I do not draw the same conclusion from what they do. It is a reasonable assumption that, if they believed it, the wealthiest and most powerful with the greatest celebrity profile would be in the vanguard of the necessary change in respect of personal conduct and that this would be unavoidably obvious in its consequences.
Try, for one tiny example, the recent decision to expand massively Gatwick. Contemplate for one moment the nature of celebrity lifestyle.
It is not unreasonable for a non scientist to draw the conclusion that the world's most important and richest people do not believe it, and that it is rational to assume they may be right.
I don't draw that conclusion. One of the reasons I never travel by air.
My life is surrounded by lovely much younger people who travel by air all the time, nearly all of it just for fun.
What sort of person finds air travel fun, unless they have a private jet?
I love air travel, if I'm sat by the window. The process of getting through an airport can be stressful. But the flight itself - on a clear day, I can think of nothing I would rather do than look out of the window of an aeroplane at the geography below. (Obviously this is a bit boring if you're over a massive ocean - I'm assuming your flight passes within sight of land for much of it.)
We have flown round the world many times over the years, but the most boring flight was Sydney to Johannesburg entirely over the ocean in daytime for 15 hours with nothing to see
Even the pilots struggle to stay awake on flights like that!
Before my 11 hour flight tomorrow, this is very reassuring.
Not good enough. Jimmy, it’s simple. Here’s what you need to say:
“I’m sorry for saying the shooter was MAGA. He was not. He was of the left. I apologize to the Kirk family for lying. Please accept my sincere apology. I will do better. I was wrong.”
Yes, Jimmy got emotional. So what. He’s emotional for himself because he almost torched his entire career.
Kimmel is an unrepentant liar who tried to blame Charlie’s assassination on the part of the country that just spent the last 2 weeks praying and holding vigils. What he’s really saying is that he still thinks it’s fair game to slander conservatives. He would rather advance his own political and cultural agenda than confront the truth. The truth is that his own side has been fanning the flames of political assassinations for years. The truth is that someone on the left picked up a gun and murdered someone on the right who advocated for peaceful debate.
It’s critical that liars admit they lied. There can be no restoration without that. Anything short of that is a fake and scripted cry line designed to endear him to his fans, not to make right the wrong he committed.
The whole Kimmel/Kirk thing is funny because there are commercial forces in play. Both Disney and the affiliates need government approval for deals in the pipeline, which is probably why Kimmel was cancelled so quickly, but that triggered a lot of viewers to end their subscriptions, which is why Disney put him back on.
My take is this is an American domestic story and would the British media please STFU about it. Declaration of lack of interest: I've never seen the show or the man.
Not good enough. Jimmy, it’s simple. Here’s what you need to say:
“I’m sorry for saying the shooter was MAGA. He was not. He was of the left. I apologize to the Kirk family for lying. Please accept my sincere apology. I will do better. I was wrong.”
Yes, Jimmy got emotional. So what. He’s emotional for himself because he almost torched his entire career.
Kimmel is an unrepentant liar who tried to blame Charlie’s assassination on the part of the country that just spent the last 2 weeks praying and holding vigils. What he’s really saying is that he still thinks it’s fair game to slander conservatives. He would rather advance his own political and cultural agenda than confront the truth. The truth is that his own side has been fanning the flames of political assassinations for years. The truth is that someone on the left picked up a gun and murdered someone on the right who advocated for peaceful debate.
It’s critical that liars admit they lied. There can be no restoration without that. Anything short of that is a fake and scripted cry line designed to endear him to his fans, not to make right the wrong he committed.
The whole Kimmel/Kirk thing is funny because there are commercial forces in play. Both Disney and the affiliates need government approval for deals in the pipeline, which is probably why Kimmel was cancelled so quickly, but that triggered a lot of viewers to end their subscriptions, which is why Disney put him back on.
My take is this is an American domestic story and would the British media please STFU about it. Declaration of lack of interest: I've never seen the show or the man.
Indeed. Has all the hallmarks of the collective wetting themselves that the BBC and the rest of the UK media had with the Linekar saga and (though not politically connected per se) the Masterchef stuff. But not even UK based.
BTW the thought that on subject X 'there's nothing new to discover' is not a scientific thought but a quasi religious one. This cannot be known a priori.
That's a fair qualification. I'm going to blame a futile and largely failed attempt to keep down the length of my comment.
More completely what I mean is that there are strong incentives to find such a refutation. Sometimes these can be overlooked for many decades because people haven't looked, or haven't connected two disparate pieces of data, but, in general, as a shorthand, we can be reasonably confident that such a refutation hasn't been found because it doesn't exist.
There is always a slim chance that our entire understanding of science will be turned on its head, and so there is a sense that all scientific knowledge is provisional and incomplete, but for practical purposes it is reasonable to treat well-established scientific knowledge - such as gravity, electromagnetism, and the greenhouse effect - as proven facts, so that for the political purposes of debating appropriate action (or lack of action) we debate the less certain political and economic tradeoffs, rather than imagined scientific uncertainties.
Society has generally wasted a huge amount of effort in having non-scientists attempt to debate (badly) the science of climate change, instead of talking about the real choices that exist in how best to respond to the science (and its uncertainties). Why the so-called climate sceptics decided to attack the science, rather than make a political and economic case for a different approach I have run out of space in this comment to speculate.
A fair set of points. I am not a climate scientist and personally basically accept the general theory of global warming as a consequence of human activity. I also think that most of the public debate is an elaborate sharing of ignorance.
As to the politics and human side of it, I think there is more to be said and it is principally about trust. When I look at elites, political leaders and opinion formers I get the impression from what they say that they are committed to the standard view of climate change, but I do not draw the same conclusion from what they do. It is a reasonable assumption that, if they believed it, the wealthiest and most powerful with the greatest celebrity profile would be in the vanguard of the necessary change in respect of personal conduct and that this would be unavoidably obvious in its consequences.
Try, for one tiny example, the recent decision to expand massively Gatwick. Contemplate for one moment the nature of celebrity lifestyle.
It is not unreasonable for a non scientist to draw the conclusion that the world's most important and richest people do not believe it, and that it is rational to assume they may be right.
I don't draw that conclusion. One of the reasons I never travel by air.
My life is surrounded by lovely much younger people who travel by air all the time, nearly all of it just for fun.
What sort of person finds air travel fun, unless they have a private jet?
I love air travel, if I'm sat by the window. The process of getting through an airport can be stressful. But the flight itself - on a clear day, I can think of nothing I would rather do than look out of the window of an aeroplane at the geography below. (Obviously this is a bit boring if you're over a massive ocean - I'm assuming your flight passes within sight of land for much of it.)
We have flown round the world many times over the years, but the most boring flight was Sydney to Johannesburg entirely over the ocean in daytime for 15 hours with nothing to see
Even the pilots struggle to stay awake on flights like that!
Before my 11 hour flight tomorrow, this is very reassuring.
So long as you’re not going from Sydney to Jo’burg, your pilots will be fine.
A flight of 11 hours actually has at least three pilots on board, so they may take scheduled rest breaks.
BTW the thought that on subject X 'there's nothing new to discover' is not a scientific thought but a quasi religious one. This cannot be known a priori.
That's a fair qualification. I'm going to blame a futile and largely failed attempt to keep down the length of my comment.
More completely what I mean is that there are strong incentives to find such a refutation. Sometimes these can be overlooked for many decades because people haven't looked, or haven't connected two disparate pieces of data, but, in general, as a shorthand, we can be reasonably confident that such a refutation hasn't been found because it doesn't exist.
There is always a slim chance that our entire understanding of science will be turned on its head, and so there is a sense that all scientific knowledge is provisional and incomplete, but for practical purposes it is reasonable to treat well-established scientific knowledge - such as gravity, electromagnetism, and the greenhouse effect - as proven facts, so that for the political purposes of debating appropriate action (or lack of action) we debate the less certain political and economic tradeoffs, rather than imagined scientific uncertainties.
Society has generally wasted a huge amount of effort in having non-scientists attempt to debate (badly) the science of climate change, instead of talking about the real choices that exist in how best to respond to the science (and its uncertainties). Why the so-called climate sceptics decided to attack the science, rather than make a political and economic case for a different approach I have run out of space in this comment to speculate.
A fair set of points. I am not a climate scientist and personally basically accept the general theory of global warming as a consequence of human activity. I also think that most of the public debate is an elaborate sharing of ignorance.
As to the politics and human side of it, I think there is more to be said and it is principally about trust. When I look at elites, political leaders and opinion formers I get the impression from what they say that they are committed to the standard view of climate change, but I do not draw the same conclusion from what they do. It is a reasonable assumption that, if they believed it, the wealthiest and most powerful with the greatest celebrity profile would be in the vanguard of the necessary change in respect of personal conduct and that this would be unavoidably obvious in its consequences.
Try, for one tiny example, the recent decision to expand massively Gatwick. Contemplate for one moment the nature of celebrity lifestyle.
It is not unreasonable for a non scientist to draw the conclusion that the world's most important and richest people do not believe it, and that it is rational to assume they may be right.
I don't draw that conclusion. One of the reasons I never travel by air.
My life is surrounded by lovely much younger people who travel by air all the time, nearly all of it just for fun.
What sort of person finds air travel fun, unless they have a private jet?
I love air travel, if I'm sat by the window. The process of getting through an airport can be stressful. But the flight itself - on a clear day, I can think of nothing I would rather do than look out of the window of an aeroplane at the geography below. (Obviously this is a bit boring if you're over a massive ocean - I'm assuming your flight passes within sight of land for much of it.)
We have flown round the world many times over the years, but the most boring flight was Sydney to Johannesburg entirely over the ocean in daytime for 15 hours with nothing to see
Even the pilots struggle to stay awake on flights like that!
I am glad ours did, but it is not a flight to enjoy
A seat which could be LD v Reform at the next election is Torbay. There aren't that many of them, possible LD/Ref contests.
LibDems and Reform really do seem to be the polar opposite of each other. Europe, Trump and Climate Change spring to mind. Maybe they (still) agree on PR?
The Electoral Calculus/Baxter machine seems to make the coastal seats in the West Country into Lib Dem/Reform contests - also Brecon & Radnor. The coastal thing seems to have the ring of truth to it.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
As someone who was a commercial lawyer but now running a manufacturing business in the UK and Europe, this is how I see him as well. I can't hate him for being unable to transcend the mindset and limited vision that his professional and social circles have granted him. If you haven't started a business, taken real risk, identified unmet needs and matched them, found success by challenging assumptions about the way things have always been done, by being more efficient than the competition, if you've never been anything but a manager, a paper shuffler and a back coverer, then you're a joke to me, but I can't hate you.
And... breathe...
Who was the last PM who started a business? Genuine question, I don't think that any recent PMs has had an entrepreneurial background. Starmer is hardly unique in this regard.
Probably Neville Chamberlain.
Hmm. Not a great precedent. I wonder whether that deal-making business attitude led him down the path of appeasement. FWIW I don't think business people tend to make good politicians. I do think though that it's good to have people in politics who understand the needs of entrepreneurs. There are too many on the left who are completely ignorant of that side of things. Just as there are too many on the right who assume that government has no useful function. And too many on all sides who have no experience of anything at all!
That’s probably correct, but Chamberlain’s disaster in dealing with Hitler has too often masked the fact that he was a conspicuous political success domestically as a notably ‘strong’ Prime Minister. He dominated the political scene for many years with a proven record both as Health Minister in the 1920s and Chancellor in the 1930s before succeeding Baldwin in 1937.
There's an interesting take on Munich by Alec Douglas-Home, who was Chamberlain's PPS at the time. Apparently Chamberlain thought Hitler would renege on it, but decided to make a real song and dance over it ('Peace for our time' etc.) so that when Hitler did renege he'd look like an absolute shit before the world. Which speaks quite highly of Chamberlain if true.
Does it?
It means he sold out the Czechs, who would have had a better chance of defending themselves than the Poles, just to buy a little more time. I think less of him for knowing that.
No easy answer, an early version of the Kobayshi Maru? If Britain and France had gone to war in 1938, with the Czech's better able to fight things would have turned out differently, but we cannot be sure how. If I recall correctly we didn't have the Spitfire ready in 1938, only the Hurricane, and the French would likely have still suffered from the their intense desire to avoid 1914-18 again and would likely have performed poorly (individual gallantry and valour excepted, as was the case in 1940). The other argument of course is that we should have fought in 1939 too, and did not. The idea that we would have fought a year earlier seems unlikely.
My view of Chamberlain was that he genuinely thought Britain, France and Czechsolavakia could not have defeated Germany in 1938. He knew Hitler would not stop there but he still did his best to buy another year to rearm, after which Britain would be better placed. He knowingly sacrificed his reputation in history - he knew he'd look foolish when Hitler reneged - for another 12 months to prepare. I think therefore he was a bit of a hero - even though for perfectly forgivable reasons he probably overestimated Germany's strength in 1938, and arguably fighting in 1938 would have led to a better outcome. Based on the intelligence he had, he made the right decision, even at the expense of his place in history.
One of the things which trashed his reputation was Foot's book "The Guilty Men", which was arguably more a piece of party political propaganda than any kind of objective analysis. It helped make Foot's reputation (though not so with me).
1) From about 1922 to 1934, British defence spending as a proportion of GDP was utterly static. The Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1924-1929, the middle period of this abject failure to spend on defence, was in fact, one Winston Churchill, (Chamberlain took over from 1931>1937).
2) Chamberlain, carefully (and correctly) proposed that with the state of the economy being totally inadequate to prepare Britain for war with Germany AND the far east (i.e Japan), it was necessary to prioritise. He chose to pour what little resources he had into the RAF and Navy, and not into the army. He judged that these two services would be most critical in a future war, from the perspective of industrial and scientific investment. This had the unfortunate effect of putting the immediate blame for the early failures (which were most glaringly of the army) on his shoulders. Few are interested that the fact the RAF was out-producing the Luftwaffe at the time and that the Navy was the most powerful in the world were both definitely attributable to Chamberlain.
Few (if any) had imagined that France`s army would fall so easily to the Germans.
3) In June 1934 Chamberlain`s review of British defence needs was:
"The return of the country to normal financial conditions was still so beset with difficulty that it was impossible to afford all that had been recommended, and Ministers must therefore decide on priorities. Britain`s initial efforts in rearmament should be devoted to measures design for the defence of these islands...the chief danger from Germany was from the air. The best defence for this purpose was a powerful air force based upon this country and as a second and long term line of defence an Army capable of helping to protect the low countries and thus provide defence in depth."*
(*DC meeting 32, 120. 50th meeting)
4) In 1934 Chamberlain rejected recommendations that another ten home defence RAF squadrons be formed, he proposed that savings be made by reducing fleet and reserve aircraft, enabling money to be found to increase home defence RAF squadrons not by another 10, but by an extra 38 squadrons.
He certainly made severe mistakes, and can and should be criticized, but his current status as a mere "appeaser" and the man MOST responsible for the inadequate preparation of Britain for war is almost criminally incorrect...
IMV Chamberlain did a great deal to prepare Britain for war (though, as ever, more could have been done), but that the Munich Agreement was well-meant (on his side) appeasement?
An important question is what would have happened if he had not come back from Munich with an agreement? I have no doubt Hitler would still have gone for the Sudetenland, but what would our response have been? What could we have done?
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
As someone who was a commercial lawyer but now running a manufacturing business in the UK and Europe, this is how I see him as well. I can't hate him for being unable to transcend the mindset and limited vision that his professional and social circles have granted him. If you haven't started a business, taken real risk, identified unmet needs and matched them, found success by challenging assumptions about the way things have always been done, by being more efficient than the competition, if you've never been anything but a manager, a paper shuffler and a back coverer, then you're a joke to me, but I can't hate you.
And... breathe...
Who was the last PM who started a business? Genuine question, I don't think that any recent PMs has had an entrepreneurial background. Starmer is hardly unique in this regard.
Probably Neville Chamberlain.
Hmm. Not a great precedent. I wonder whether that deal-making business attitude led him down the path of appeasement. FWIW I don't think business people tend to make good politicians. I do think though that it's good to have people in politics who understand the needs of entrepreneurs. There are too many on the left who are completely ignorant of that side of things. Just as there are too many on the right who assume that government has no useful function. And too many on all sides who have no experience of anything at all!
That’s probably correct, but Chamberlain’s disaster in dealing with Hitler has too often masked the fact that he was a conspicuous political success domestically as a notably ‘strong’ Prime Minister. He dominated the political scene for many years with a proven record both as Health Minister in the 1920s and Chancellor in the 1930s before succeeding Baldwin in 1937.
While grubby, Munich gave us time to accelerate the rearming process I believe
I've seen it argued that the Czechs were strong enough that backing them to fight might have delayed the Nazis for longer than giving in to them. Always assuming that Hitler went ahead with an invasion of Czechoslovakia and didn't back down.
Tediously I think I’ve mentioned before that a third of Germany’s tanks in the Blitzkrieg of 1940 were appropriated Czech ones and the enviable CZ arms industry was put to use servicing the Reich in other areas. If we (the UK and France) needed more time in 1938 so undoubtedly did Hitler. As in 1940 Germany probably had weaker forces by numbers than the Allies, the early variants of the 109 were inferior to the Hurricane and Morane-Saulnier, they had virtually no heavy tanks and relatively small numbers of mediums. Of course if we’d declared war and sat back thinking outdated tactics & superior numbers would suffice in the face of a mass offensive, the result might have been the same.
On this anti vax, and now paracetamol issue, is this coming from the US Evangelical Movement who reject anything but Christ as the healer and see these substances as dangerous ?
I am sure @HYUFD will have a view on this, but what is certain is it has to be comprehensively defeated and it certainly is not Christian
RFK Jr should visit the amazon rainforest. There are no painkillers available there because...
Not good enough. Jimmy, it’s simple. Here’s what you need to say:
“I’m sorry for saying the shooter was MAGA. He was not. He was of the left. I apologize to the Kirk family for lying. Please accept my sincere apology. I will do better. I was wrong.”
Yes, Jimmy got emotional. So what. He’s emotional for himself because he almost torched his entire career.
Kimmel is an unrepentant liar who tried to blame Charlie’s assassination on the part of the country that just spent the last 2 weeks praying and holding vigils. What he’s really saying is that he still thinks it’s fair game to slander conservatives. He would rather advance his own political and cultural agenda than confront the truth. The truth is that his own side has been fanning the flames of political assassinations for years. The truth is that someone on the left picked up a gun and murdered someone on the right who advocated for peaceful debate.
It’s critical that liars admit they lied. There can be no restoration without that. Anything short of that is a fake and scripted cry line designed to endear him to his fans, not to make right the wrong he committed.
The whole Kimmel/Kirk thing is funny because there are commercial forces in play. Both Disney and the affiliates need government approval for deals in the pipeline, which is probably why Kimmel was cancelled so quickly, but that triggered a lot of viewers to end their subscriptions, which is why Disney put him back on.
My take is this is an American domestic story and would the British media please STFU about it. Declaration of lack of interest: I've never seen the show or the man.
Yes it’s actually quite a complicated story.
One version of events that I heard was that Kimmel was told to apologise last week but told the bosses he wouldn’t apologise and would double down, which led to the suspension.
Another is that the pressure on Disney came from advertisers and affiliates, and yet another is that the pressure came from the FCC regarding the initial untruth, which is a clear breach of broadcasting rules.
Many of the affiliates are still refusing to carry the show, and the online right are keeping up their campaign to get a serious apology to Kirk’s family out of Kimmel.
The show itself is part of a long tradition in the US, but has over the years turned from light entertainment to much more partisan politics, especially in the host’s opening monologue.
Bill Maher and Jon Stewart can do the late-night-show format very well politically, the likes of Kimmel and Colbert much less so. The oldies like Johnnie Carson almost avoided politics completely, bar a light ribbing of whoever was the incumbent president or in the news.
Not good enough. Jimmy, it’s simple. Here’s what you need to say:
“I’m sorry for saying the shooter was MAGA. He was not. He was of the left. I apologize to the Kirk family for lying. Please accept my sincere apology. I will do better. I was wrong.”
Yes, Jimmy got emotional. So what. He’s emotional for himself because he almost torched his entire career.
Kimmel is an unrepentant liar who tried to blame Charlie’s assassination on the part of the country that just spent the last 2 weeks praying and holding vigils. What he’s really saying is that he still thinks it’s fair game to slander conservatives. He would rather advance his own political and cultural agenda than confront the truth. The truth is that his own side has been fanning the flames of political assassinations for years. The truth is that someone on the left picked up a gun and murdered someone on the right who advocated for peaceful debate.
It’s critical that liars admit they lied. There can be no restoration without that. Anything short of that is a fake and scripted cry line designed to endear him to his fans, not to make right the wrong he committed.
The whole Kimmel/Kirk thing is funny because there are commercial forces in play. Both Disney and the affiliates need government approval for deals in the pipeline, which is probably why Kimmel was cancelled so quickly, but that triggered a lot of viewers to end their subscriptions, which is why Disney put him back on.
My take is this is an American domestic story and would the British media please STFU about it. Declaration of lack of interest: I've never seen the show or the man.
Yes it’s actually quite a complicated story.
One version of events that I heard was that Kimmel was told to apologise last week but told the bosses he wouldn’t apologise and would double down, which led to the suspension.
Another is that the pressure on Disney came from advertisers and affiliates, and yet another is that the pressure came from the FCC regarding the initial untruth, which is a clear breach of broadcasting rules.
Many of the affiliates are still refusing to carry the show, and the online right are keeping up their campaign to get a serious apology to Kirk’s family out of Kimmel.
The show itself is part of a long tradition in the US, but has over the years turned from light entertainment to much more partisan politics, especially in the host’s opening monologue.
Bill Maher and Jon Stewart can do the late-night-show format very well politically, the likes of Kimmel and Colbert much less so. The oldies like Johnnie Carson almost avoided politics completely, bar a light ribbing of whoever was the incumbent president or in the news.
The reason they want the 'apology' for is based in their own politics, rather than anything he actually said. He is the enemy, and they want him off the air.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
I agree on Starmer not being inspirational and being cautious to a fault - an aspiring technocrat when we need something beyond; even those here opposed to him often complain that he is too indecisive. But he also been notably competent at foreign affairs so far.
I think the Cons and RefUK are phobic towards Starmer, 1) Because the biggest threat they have is that he succeeds, and it works, and 2) Because they have little or nothing to offer themselves, so they have no option other than relying on personality politics.
Personally, I still think we will not be in a position to judge any outcome for 2 years from the Election, and even then it will only be straws in the wind.
His lack of communication cut-through so that the battle is on his home ground eg currently Workers' and Renters' Rights, and reluctance to go for the Opposition in a consistent, brutal manner, makes him his own worst enemy.
Also, the media is tribal as it always is, and chunks of it are now nakedly political.
Among people I know, Starmer is more of a joke than hated.
The endless piling on of regulation and then discovering that the government is ever more unable to do anything without the permission of a court is the most commented.
Which isn’t just about A/C - it also explains how rules on A/C interact with rules on building ventilation and fire safety to make new builds more expensive and less dense. And why the windows keep getting pokier. All because of he cult of “one more extra regulation - and regulations cost nothing”
As someone who was a commercial lawyer but now running a manufacturing business in the UK and Europe, this is how I see him as well. I can't hate him for being unable to transcend the mindset and limited vision that his professional and social circles have granted him. If you haven't started a business, taken real risk, identified unmet needs and matched them, found success by challenging assumptions about the way things have always been done, by being more efficient than the competition, if you've never been anything but a manager, a paper shuffler and a back coverer, then you're a joke to me, but I can't hate you.
And... breathe...
Who was the last PM who started a business? Genuine question, I don't think that any recent PMs has had an entrepreneurial background. Starmer is hardly unique in this regard.
Probably Neville Chamberlain.
Hmm. Not a great precedent. I wonder whether that deal-making business attitude led him down the path of appeasement. FWIW I don't think business people tend to make good politicians. I do think though that it's good to have people in politics who understand the needs of entrepreneurs. There are too many on the left who are completely ignorant of that side of things. Just as there are too many on the right who assume that government has no useful function. And too many on all sides who have no experience of anything at all!
That’s probably correct, but Chamberlain’s disaster in dealing with Hitler has too often masked the fact that he was a conspicuous political success domestically as a notably ‘strong’ Prime Minister. He dominated the political scene for many years with a proven record both as Health Minister in the 1920s and Chancellor in the 1930s before succeeding Baldwin in 1937.
While grubby, Munich gave us time to accelerate the rearming process I believe
I've seen it argued that the Czechs were strong enough that backing them to fight might have delayed the Nazis for longer than giving in to them. Always assuming that Hitler went ahead with an invasion of Czechoslovakia and didn't back down.
Tediously I think I’ve mentioned before that a third of Germany’s tanks in the Blitzkrieg of 1940 were appropriated Czech ones and the enviable CZ arms industry was put to use servicing the Reich in other areas. If we (the UK and France) needed more time in 1938 so undoubtedly did Hitler. As in 1940 Germany probably had weaker forces by numbers than the Allies, the early variants of the 109 were inferior to the Hurricane and Morane-Saulnier, they had virtually no heavy tanks and relatively small numbers of mediums. Of course if we’d declared war and sat back thinking outdated tactics & superior numbers would suffice in the face of a mass offensive, the result might have been the same.
Yes. Czechoslovakia looks like a better place to draw the line than Poland.
Also, if the argument over delay for rearmament was right in 1938, surely it was still right in 1939? It's not like the British Army was particularly well prepared for fighting in France in 1940.
BTW the thought that on subject X 'there's nothing new to discover' is not a scientific thought but a quasi religious one. This cannot be known a priori.
That's a fair qualification. I'm going to blame a futile and largely failed attempt to keep down the length of my comment.
More completely what I mean is that there are strong incentives to find such a refutation. Sometimes these can be overlooked for many decades because people haven't looked, or haven't connected two disparate pieces of data, but, in general, as a shorthand, we can be reasonably confident that such a refutation hasn't been found because it doesn't exist.
There is always a slim chance that our entire understanding of science will be turned on its head, and so there is a sense that all scientific knowledge is provisional and incomplete, but for practical purposes it is reasonable to treat well-established scientific knowledge - such as gravity, electromagnetism, and the greenhouse effect - as proven facts, so that for the political purposes of debating appropriate action (or lack of action) we debate the less certain political and economic tradeoffs, rather than imagined scientific uncertainties.
Society has generally wasted a huge amount of effort in having non-scientists attempt to debate (badly) the science of climate change, instead of talking about the real choices that exist in how best to respond to the science (and its uncertainties). Why the so-called climate sceptics decided to attack the science, rather than make a political and economic case for a different approach I have run out of space in this comment to speculate.
A fair set of points. I am not a climate scientist and personally basically accept the general theory of global warming as a consequence of human activity. I also think that most of the public debate is an elaborate sharing of ignorance.
As to the politics and human side of it, I think there is more to be said and it is principally about trust. When I look at elites, political leaders and opinion formers I get the impression from what they say that they are committed to the standard view of climate change, but I do not draw the same conclusion from what they do. It is a reasonable assumption that, if they believed it, the wealthiest and most powerful with the greatest celebrity profile would be in the vanguard of the necessary change in respect of personal conduct and that this would be unavoidably obvious in its consequences.
Try, for one tiny example, the recent decision to expand massively Gatwick. Contemplate for one moment the nature of celebrity lifestyle.
It is not unreasonable for a non scientist to draw the conclusion that the world's most important and richest people do not believe it, and that it is rational to assume they may be right.
I don't draw that conclusion. One of the reasons I never travel by air.
My life is surrounded by lovely much younger people who travel by air all the time, nearly all of it just for fun.
What sort of person finds air travel fun, unless they have a private jet?
I love air travel, if I'm sat by the window. The process of getting through an airport can be stressful. But the flight itself - on a clear day, I can think of nothing I would rather do than look out of the window of an aeroplane at the geography below. (Obviously this is a bit boring if you're over a massive ocean - I'm assuming your flight passes within sight of land for much of it.)
Me too. A little game I have is to try to identify places we overfly- at night.
On this anti vax, and now paracetamol issue, is this coming from the US Evangelical Movement who reject anything but Christ as the healer and see these substances as dangerous ?
I am sure @HYUFD will have a view on this, but what is certain is it has to be comprehensively defeated and it certainly is not Christian
Not as such I don't think. There have been Christian groups opposed to healthcare, such as Christian Scientists. But Evangelicals & others have also tended to take "Christ the Healer" as a model for practising medicine. Higher than average proportions of various type of Christian have contributed eg to the existence of conscience clauses in abortion law.
I think amongst USA MAGA and other Evangelicals suspicion of Government motives is likely to be a greater factor, and viewing vaccines as big-government control, which can then feed into vaccine resistance.
BTW the thought that on subject X 'there's nothing new to discover' is not a scientific thought but a quasi religious one. This cannot be known a priori.
That's a fair qualification. I'm going to blame a futile and largely failed attempt to keep down the length of my comment.
More completely what I mean is that there are strong incentives to find such a refutation. Sometimes these can be overlooked for many decades because people haven't looked, or haven't connected two disparate pieces of data, but, in general, as a shorthand, we can be reasonably confident that such a refutation hasn't been found because it doesn't exist.
There is always a slim chance that our entire understanding of science will be turned on its head, and so there is a sense that all scientific knowledge is provisional and incomplete, but for practical purposes it is reasonable to treat well-established scientific knowledge - such as gravity, electromagnetism, and the greenhouse effect - as proven facts, so that for the political purposes of debating appropriate action (or lack of action) we debate the less certain political and economic tradeoffs, rather than imagined scientific uncertainties.
Society has generally wasted a huge amount of effort in having non-scientists attempt to debate (badly) the science of climate change, instead of talking about the real choices that exist in how best to respond to the science (and its uncertainties). Why the so-called climate sceptics decided to attack the science, rather than make a political and economic case for a different approach I have run out of space in this comment to speculate.
A fair set of points. I am not a climate scientist and personally basically accept the general theory of global warming as a consequence of human activity. I also think that most of the public debate is an elaborate sharing of ignorance.
As to the politics and human side of it, I think there is more to be said and it is principally about trust. When I look at elites, political leaders and opinion formers I get the impression from what they say that they are committed to the standard view of climate change, but I do not draw the same conclusion from what they do. It is a reasonable assumption that, if they believed it, the wealthiest and most powerful with the greatest celebrity profile would be in the vanguard of the necessary change in respect of personal conduct and that this would be unavoidably obvious in its consequences.
Try, for one tiny example, the recent decision to expand massively Gatwick. Contemplate for one moment the nature of celebrity lifestyle.
It is not unreasonable for a non scientist to draw the conclusion that the world's most important and richest people do not believe it, and that it is rational to assume they may be right.
I don't draw that conclusion. One of the reasons I never travel by air.
My life is surrounded by lovely much younger people who travel by air all the time, nearly all of it just for fun.
What sort of person finds air travel fun, unless they have a private jet?
I love air travel, if I'm sat by the window. The process of getting through an airport can be stressful. But the flight itself - on a clear day, I can think of nothing I would rather do than look out of the window of an aeroplane at the geography below. (Obviously this is a bit boring if you're over a massive ocean - I'm assuming your flight passes within sight of land for much of it.)
Me too. A little game I have is to try to identify places we overfly- at night.
How can anyone be 'phobic' towards Starmer? He's a grey suit, and there are far, far worse people in, and around politics.
He's not very good at the job, but that's little reason to feel 'phobic' towards him.
It's also interesting that many of the responses agreeing come from people who like Farage, who is a far worse person, and whose ideas are disastrous for this country.
He wants to introduce ID cards.
We already have them, driving licences, mobile phones etc
Mobile phones do not prove who you are and driving licences are not, and cannot, be held by the entire population.
The usual solution to this is “non-driving” driving licences that don’t demonstrate permission to drive a motorised vehicle.
To many people don't seem to understand that for ID cards to actually work for the stated purpose they'll have to be validated against a database every time they're used. That's one reason why driving licences don't work as ID very well, because non-government organisations generally don't have access to the database because driving licences are purely for one purpose.
Even organisations like driving and motorcycle schools don't get that access and can't directly validate your licence.
But ID cards will need an open, widely accessible way of validating the card. When you go into the corner shop to buy a bottle of wine, the age check will end up requiring you to tap your ID card because that will be the legally most watertight way to do the check. The government will end up with a vast amount of data about when, where and why people have to use their ID.
The long way to say they're a terrible idea..💩 and a total abuse of government power who are supposed to serve us, not the other way round..🧐
Comments
This seems fairer.
https://x.com/CalumDouglas1/status/1660427403854839810
...A few "points of note":
1) From about 1922 to 1934, British defence spending as a proportion of GDP was utterly static. The Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1924-1929, the middle period of this abject failure to spend on defence, was in fact, one Winston Churchill, (Chamberlain took over from 1931>1937).
2) Chamberlain, carefully (and correctly) proposed that with the state of the economy being totally inadequate to prepare Britain for war with Germany AND the far east (i.e Japan), it was necessary to prioritise. He chose to pour what little resources he had into the RAF and Navy, and not into the army. He judged that these two services would be most critical in a future war, from the perspective of industrial and scientific investment. This had the unfortunate effect of putting the immediate blame for the early failures (which were most glaringly of the army) on his shoulders. Few are interested that the fact the RAF was out-producing the Luftwaffe at the time and that the Navy was the most powerful in the world were both definitely attributable to Chamberlain.
Few (if any) had imagined that France`s army would fall so easily to the Germans.
3) In June 1934 Chamberlain`s review of British defence needs was:
"The return of the country to normal financial conditions was still so beset with difficulty that it was impossible to afford all that had been recommended, and Ministers must therefore decide on priorities. Britain`s initial efforts in rearmament should be devoted to measures design for the defence of these islands...the chief danger from Germany was from the air. The best defence for this purpose was a powerful air force based upon this country and as a second and long term line of defence an Army capable of helping to protect the low countries and thus provide defence in depth."*
(*DC meeting 32, 120. 50th meeting)
4) In 1934 Chamberlain rejected recommendations that another ten home defence RAF squadrons be formed, he proposed that savings be made by reducing fleet and reserve aircraft, enabling money to be found to increase home defence RAF squadrons not by another 10, but by an extra 38 squadrons.
He certainly made severe mistakes, and can and should be criticized, but his current status as a mere "appeaser" and the man MOST responsible for the inadequate preparation of Britain for war is almost criminally incorrect...
The limit to rational analysis of the beginnings of the second world war is that Hitler was completely bonkers, surrounded by idiot lackeys, and started an unwinnable war. It was only a question of time. His navy was anywhere near ready; his army inferior to the French; Germany lacked resources; there was no way of invading Britain. You could go on for hours.
Basically France should have defeated Germany in the first few weeks, if only they had moved on from the first world war. Maybe used radios instead of phone lines that were easily cut, and shored up the bit next to Belgium which they thought was impassable except hold on, that's exactly where Germany invaded last time.
My very first flight on that journey, taking off eastwards from Edinburgh on a flight billed as to Paris, turning round westwards, then turning round again a small time later to set down in Glasgow, going damn, I could've caught this in Glasgow!
Even organisations like driving and motorcycle schools don't get that access and can't directly validate your licence.
But ID cards will need an open, widely accessible way of validating the card. When you go into the corner shop to buy a bottle of wine, the age check will end up requiring you to tap your ID card because that will be the legally most watertight way to do the check. The government will end up with a vast amount of data about when, where and why people have to use their ID.
I am sure @HYUFD will have a view on this, but what is certain is it has to be comprehensively defeated and it certainly is not Christian
Last night:
https://x.com/andrewkolvet/status/1970704731350962558
Not good enough. Jimmy, it’s simple. Here’s what you need to say:
“I’m sorry for saying the shooter was MAGA. He was not. He was of the left. I apologize to the Kirk family for lying. Please accept my sincere apology. I will do better. I was wrong.”
This morning:
https://x.com/andrewkolvet/status/1970831118321832027
Yes, Jimmy got emotional. So what. He’s emotional for himself because he almost torched his entire career.
Kimmel is an unrepentant liar who tried to blame Charlie’s assassination on the part of the country that just spent the last 2 weeks praying and holding vigils. What he’s really saying is that he still thinks it’s fair game to slander conservatives. He would rather advance his own political and cultural agenda than confront the truth. The truth is that his own side has been fanning the flames of political assassinations for years. The truth is that someone on the left picked up a gun and murdered someone on the right who advocated for peaceful debate.
It’s critical that liars admit they lied. There can be no restoration without that. Anything short of that is a fake and scripted cry line designed to endear him to his fans, not to make right the wrong he committed.
My take is this is an American domestic story and would the British media please STFU about it. Declaration of lack of interest: I've never seen the show or the man.
A flight of 11 hours actually has at least three pilots on board, so they may take scheduled rest breaks.
An important question is what would have happened if he had not come back from Munich with an agreement? I have no doubt Hitler would still have gone for the Sudetenland, but what would our response have been? What could we have done?
If we (the UK and France) needed more time in 1938 so undoubtedly did Hitler. As in 1940 Germany probably had weaker forces by numbers than the Allies, the early variants of the 109 were inferior to the Hurricane and Morane-Saulnier, they had virtually no heavy tanks and relatively small numbers of mediums. Of course if we’d declared war and sat back thinking outdated tactics & superior numbers would suffice in the face of a mass offensive, the result might have been the same.
...the parrots eat 'em all.
(My coat awaits)
One version of events that I heard was that Kimmel was told to apologise last week but told the bosses he wouldn’t apologise and would double down, which led to the suspension.
Another is that the pressure on Disney came from advertisers and affiliates, and yet another is that the pressure came from the FCC regarding the initial untruth, which is a clear breach of broadcasting rules.
Many of the affiliates are still refusing to carry the show, and the online right are keeping up their campaign to get a serious apology to Kirk’s family out of Kimmel.
The show itself is part of a long tradition in the US, but has over the years turned from light entertainment to much more partisan politics, especially in the host’s opening monologue.
Bill Maher and Jon Stewart can do the late-night-show format very well politically, the likes of Kimmel and Colbert much less so. The oldies like Johnnie Carson almost avoided politics completely, bar a light ribbing of whoever was the incumbent president or in the news.
There's no way what he said warrants this.
Also, if the argument over delay for rearmament was right in 1938, surely it was still right in 1939? It's not like the British Army was particularly well prepared for fighting in France in 1940.
NEW THREAD
I think amongst USA MAGA and other Evangelicals suspicion of Government motives is likely to be a greater factor, and viewing vaccines as big-government control, which can then feed into vaccine resistance.