Meanwhile, in the Irish Presidential election campaign...
Every nation has its idiots.
It does but on the other hand, it has been conventional wisdom since the end of the war that Germany should not rearm. Our Irish friend might not have noticed the shift in the zeitgeist.
The Cold War Bundeswehr was hardly three men in a shed.
I don't mind an ID card. I don't like the database that will lie behind the card. The two cannot easily be separated.
BUT....
(And, to quite Bart Simpson, it is a Big Butt...) we give away far more information *by choice* to private companies every day. Yes, I don't want the state having too much information on me, but large parts of the private, and Internet, sector lives off your information. When the AI Crash happens, the companies that fail will look to sell their - i.e. your - data on. And if you have been using their service as a psychiatrist, that will include your inner thoughts.
As just one example, DNA testing form 23 And Me recently went bust, and were looking for a buyer. And that buyer would get all the DNA data of their customers. In a separate issue, 23 And Me were fined millions last year for not keeping over 100k UK customer's data private. The problems with all of this are obvious.
Privacy is long dead. That's not a reason to allow ID cards, but we should not think that just because we stop ID cards, we don't have a much bigger, massive, problem that we are ignoring.
"The crown court backlog in England and Wales has risen by 10% to a new record of almost 80,000 cases, while wait times for trial dates have reached up to four years.
Figures from the Ministry of Justice showed the open caseload was 78,329 at the end of June, up 2% from 76,957 at the end of March, the first time the backlog passed 75,000. It is also up 10% from 70,893 a year earlier, the figures show. ... There is also a new record backlog in magistrates’ courts of 361,027 cases, up 25% on 289,595 a year earlier."
This is a big problem, but is it even in the top five big problems for the government?
At this point - where five years after Covid the blockage is still getting worse - is it unthinkable that the time comes when it is necessary to have a gigantic amnesty for a huge number of criminal cases?
There are of course at least 100 objections to it. But is there going to be an alternative?
Meanwhile, in the Irish Presidential election campaign...
An interesting comment. I have been increasingly wary that EU/German approach to Europe's eastern borderlands (aka the Ukraine) in the last 15 years has echoes of the Drang nach Osten of previous German administrations.
In UK terms, Catherine Connolly seems to have Corbynite views. If the vote was FPTP, she would have a good chance of winning Eire's fortcoming presidential election, but as it is AV, I suspect that either the FF or FG candidate will win.
I find the election hard to judge because all three of the candidates are very weak. The FG candidate has allegedly been seen waving a Union flag on an Orange Order parade and the FF candidate has managed to position himself as the IDF representative.
Against a pro-British candidate and a pro-Israeli candidate, the pro-Russian candidate may well win.
As an aside, most Irish people I know find it irritating for people to use Éire when speaking in English rather than as Gaeilge. People don't tend to use Deutschland instead of Germany for example. Why Éire instead of Ireland, or Republic of Ireland?
Survation Holyrood Constituency vote SNP 37 Labour 20 Reform 18 Con 11 LD 7 Green 5 Alba 1
List vote SNP 31 Lab 18 Reform 15 Con 13 LD 11 Green 8 Alba 2
SNP almost knocking on an outright majority. Impossible as it is for much of PB to comprehend they’ve had a good few weeks if you ignore BBC Scotland headlines. Will Your Party get their act together before next May? I think not but if they did and came out with an indy curious offer they might do okay, ie a seat or two. Lot of ifs there of course.
Are they not about to get a second hand kicking re trans when Sandie Peggie wins bigly in her claim against Fife NHS (and indirectly the Scottish Governments ludicrous Trans policies)?
No idea, I leave that stuff to the toilet monitors.
I wonder if @turbotubbs is expecting to be one of the "Are you female?" toilet inspectors?
I'm not expecting any toilet inspectors. I am hoping that women will be allowed single sex spaces away from ALL men, including those who believe that they are women, and those who fantasize that they are women. Including those with all male genitalia, currently trying to impregnate their girlfriend and expecting women to change alongside them (see Durham).
If you don't believe in the right of women to have single sex spaces then you don't believe in women's rights.
Really? There are a lot of pro-trans feminists who you think don't believe in women's rights, then.
Let me ask a question: why should someone who has been through full gender transition for decades, and has been using women's facilities for those decades, now have to use male, or disabled if available, facilities? What has changed?
The law has been clarified. Men CANNOT become women by surgery, by fairy dust, by will power.
I have every sympathy for transwomen. And they have the same rights as everyone else, but just as they cannot become a horse they cannot become a woman.
You don't show much sympathy.
In what way? I would treat (and have done) a trans person the same as any other. I simply do not believe that you can change sex/gender or whatever you want to call it. The debate is ridiculous.
I note that the UN has deemed that trans is not a mental illness (no doubt after significant pressure from pro trans lobbying). Yet body dysmorphia is still a mental illness.
I do not seek to tell anyone who to live their lives, who they can have sex with, how they can dress. I merely wish the law respected and that women's single sex spaces remain for women, not for anyone who the law regards as a man.
A you know what - this is a dangerous thing to say. People have been hounded out of work because of this belief.
And trans people have been hounded to suicide and worse through bullying. And even murdered. I have witnessed the bullying this myself with trans friends and colleagues.
Have we done this? Lib Dems leading the Tories for the first time. And almost ahead of Labour.
Not for the first time. They led with YouGov in May
Ah yes. 17% LD 16% Con and 22% Lab on 19th May. But it's tighter now with labour as well. Perhaps a LD breakthrough. There is a tipping point when it flips.
It will need a few such polls with a variety of pollsters but potentially, yeah
This was the first apart from YouGov I think (I did a quick scan but might have missed one). FON usually seems to lowball the LDs so either it's significant or an outlier, depending on whether you like it or not.
If politics polarises into Farage v Not-Farage, then the LDs are the most unequivocally Not-Farage, so ticking up a point or two isn't a surprise,
@PippaCrerar · 52m A big loss for Starmer: Steph Driver was particularly well trusted and valued by the PM, and despite difficult times, had a way of explaining him to media in a way few could. Story 👇🏼
An average salary of $520k? Fuck me I made some wrong choices back then. I doubt its as high in the UK.
I've done a quick Google, and that appears roughly at the high end of salaries for the USA. A similarly quick Google puts the UK range at about £66,000 to £90,000 per year, with seniors creeping above that. That sort of salary seems reasonable.
Fairliered - Hunters of Canadian Geese. The geese love lawns next to lakes -- and then poop all over, including on the sidewalks. (I believe they are the main reason so many public swimming areas here in the Seattle area are closed during our summers.)
Extremely adept at living in human-altered areas, Canada geese have established breeding colonies in urban and cultivated habitats, which provide food and few natural predators. The success of this common park species has led to it often being considered a pest species because of its excrement, its depredation of crops, its noise, its aggressive territorial behavior toward both humans and other animals, and its habit of stalking and begging for food, the latter a result of humans disobeying artificial feeding policies toward wild animals.
Meanwhile, in the Irish Presidential election campaign...
Every nation has its idiots.
It does but on the other hand, it has been conventional wisdom since the end of the war that Germany should not rearm. Our Irish friend might not have noticed the shift in the zeitgeist.
The Cold War Bundeswehr was hardly three men in a shed.
They were non-nuclear and their tanks prioritised speed over armour, acting more like tank destroyers. They flew Starfighters, an aircraft of such levels of shittiness they coined the term "lawn dart" to describe them. Their forces were light and deployed quickly, leading to wonders like the Wiesel, a two-man very small tank about the size of a Ford Fiesta. In short they were set up to defend the Fulda Gap for as long as it took for the Americans to urgently reinforce Europe whilst Russian tanks ate up the landscape and tactical nukes bloomed.
Survation Holyrood Constituency vote SNP 37 Labour 20 Reform 18 Con 11 LD 7 Green 5 Alba 1
List vote SNP 31 Lab 18 Reform 15 Con 13 LD 11 Green 8 Alba 2
SNP almost knocking on an outright majority. Impossible as it is for much of PB to comprehend they’ve had a good few weeks if you ignore BBC Scotland headlines. Will Your Party get their act together before next May? I think not but if they did and came out with an indy curious offer they might do okay, ie a seat or two. Lot of ifs there of course.
Are they not about to get a second hand kicking re trans when Sandie Peggie wins bigly in her claim against Fife NHS (and indirectly the Scottish Governments ludicrous Trans policies)?
No idea, I leave that stuff to the toilet monitors.
I wonder if @turbotubbs is expecting to be one of the "Are you female?" toilet inspectors?
I'm not expecting any toilet inspectors. I am hoping that women will be allowed single sex spaces away from ALL men, including those who believe that they are women, and those who fantasize that they are women. Including those with all male genitalia, currently trying to impregnate their girlfriend and expecting women to change alongside them (see Durham).
If you don't believe in the right of women to have single sex spaces then you don't believe in women's rights.
Really? There are a lot of pro-trans feminists who you think don't believe in women's rights, then.
Let me ask a question: why should someone who has been through full gender transition for decades, and has been using women's facilities for those decades, now have to use male, or disabled if available, facilities? What has changed?
The law has been clarified. Men CANNOT become women by surgery, by fairy dust, by will power.
I have every sympathy for transwomen. And they have the same rights as everyone else, but just as they cannot become a horse they cannot become a woman.
Hang on a sec, that's not what the court said. They said that, for the purposes of the Equality Act, a person could not change their sex. But the Equality Act also states that a person should not be discriminated against on the basis of their transgender identity.
So it's not as simple as saying that, "trans women are men," just as it was never as simple as saying that, "trans women are women."
Meanwhile, in the Irish Presidential election campaign...
Every nation has its idiots.
It does but on the other hand, it has been conventional wisdom since the end of the war that Germany should not rearm. Our Irish friend might not have noticed the shift in the zeitgeist.
Completely wrong.
West Germany rearmed in the late 1950s. As did East Germany.
Until the early 90s the West German military (and then a united Germany) had a vast tank park and the largest airforce in Europe.
This is why Germany has a vast store of slightly rusty Leopard tanks to send to Ukraine.
This armament included the American policy of “lending” them nuclear weapons.
Which led to the following fun interaction -
In the late 50s and early 60s, West German fighter bombers stood alert with American nuclear weapons slung under their wings, sat on the ground.
One of the American officers in charge of the weapons got talking to a pilot. Who he noticed was wearing an Iron Cross. Turned out that the German pilot had quite possibly shot the American down, during WWII - been in the same air battle, anyway.
Have we done this? Lib Dems leading the Tories for the first time. And almost ahead of Labour.
Not for the first time. They led with YouGov in May
Ah yes. 17% LD 16% Con and 22% Lab on 19th May. But it's tighter now with labour as well. Perhaps a LD breakthrough. There is a tipping point when it flips.
It will need a few such polls with a variety of pollsters but potentially, yeah
This was the first apart from YouGov I think (I did a quick scan but might have missed one). FON usually seems to lowball the LDs so either it's significant or an outlier, depending on whether you like it or not.
If politics polarises into Farage v Not-Farage, then the LDs are the most unequivocally Not-Farage, so ticking up a point or two isn't a surprise,
Techne had a LD Con tie at the end of May/Start of June FoN are about average for LDs, their better pollsters have been YouGov and Techne generally, especially YouGov No trend until trend is a good rule of thumb.
"The crown court backlog in England and Wales has risen by 10% to a new record of almost 80,000 cases, while wait times for trial dates have reached up to four years.
Figures from the Ministry of Justice showed the open caseload was 78,329 at the end of June, up 2% from 76,957 at the end of March, the first time the backlog passed 75,000. It is also up 10% from 70,893 a year earlier, the figures show. ... There is also a new record backlog in magistrates’ courts of 361,027 cases, up 25% on 289,595 a year earlier."
This is a big problem, but is it even in the top five big problems for the government?
At this point - where five years after Covid the blockage is still getting worse - is it unthinkable that the time comes when it is necessary to have a gigantic amnesty for a huge number of criminal cases?
There are of course at least 100 objections to it. But is there going to be an alternative?
We need to look to cricket for inspiration. Five day tests are all right but its just so long! Lets have T20 instead...
So no more weeks or months for a case - the prosecution get 1 h and the defence gets 1 h. Then a quick ten minute slog re-examination and done.
Survation Holyrood Constituency vote SNP 37 Labour 20 Reform 18 Con 11 LD 7 Green 5 Alba 1
List vote SNP 31 Lab 18 Reform 15 Con 13 LD 11 Green 8 Alba 2
SNP almost knocking on an outright majority. Impossible as it is for much of PB to comprehend they’ve had a good few weeks if you ignore BBC Scotland headlines. Will Your Party get their act together before next May? I think not but if they did and came out with an indy curious offer they might do okay, ie a seat or two. Lot of ifs there of course.
Are they not about to get a second hand kicking re trans when Sandie Peggie wins bigly in her claim against Fife NHS (and indirectly the Scottish Governments ludicrous Trans policies)?
No idea, I leave that stuff to the toilet monitors.
I wonder if @turbotubbs is expecting to be one of the "Are you female?" toilet inspectors?
I'm not expecting any toilet inspectors. I am hoping that women will be allowed single sex spaces away from ALL men, including those who believe that they are women, and those who fantasize that they are women. Including those with all male genitalia, currently trying to impregnate their girlfriend and expecting women to change alongside them (see Durham).
If you don't believe in the right of women to have single sex spaces then you don't believe in women's rights.
Really? There are a lot of pro-trans feminists who you think don't believe in women's rights, then.
Let me ask a question: why should someone who has been through full gender transition for decades, and has been using women's facilities for those decades, now have to use male, or disabled if available, facilities? What has changed?
The law has been clarified. Men CANNOT become women by surgery, by fairy dust, by will power.
I have every sympathy for transwomen. And they have the same rights as everyone else, but just as they cannot become a horse they cannot become a woman.
Hang on a sec, that's not what the court said. They said that, for the purposes of the Equality Act, a person could not change their sex. But the Equality Act also states that a person should not be discriminated against on the basis of their transgender identity.
So it's not as simple as saying that, "trans women are men," just as it was never as simple as saying that, "trans women are women."
Its not discriminating against a transwoman to say that they cannot use a women's single sex space, unless no provision is made for them elsewhere.
Times and the I reporting mandatory digital ID cards to be announced
(Kneels down, clasps hands)
Hello God, it's me, Viewcode. I don't like Reform and I don't want them to win. But Labour keep doing things that I don't want them to do and in fact should be physically stopped from doing. Can you please send somebody who is half-assed decent with a chance of winning? Because this is getting me down. Amen, Viewcode.
Survation Holyrood Constituency vote SNP 37 Labour 20 Reform 18 Con 11 LD 7 Green 5 Alba 1
List vote SNP 31 Lab 18 Reform 15 Con 13 LD 11 Green 8 Alba 2
SNP almost knocking on an outright majority. Impossible as it is for much of PB to comprehend they’ve had a good few weeks if you ignore BBC Scotland headlines. Will Your Party get their act together before next May? I think not but if they did and came out with an indy curious offer they might do okay, ie a seat or two. Lot of ifs there of course.
Are they not about to get a second hand kicking re trans when Sandie Peggie wins bigly in her claim against Fife NHS (and indirectly the Scottish Governments ludicrous Trans policies)?
No idea, I leave that stuff to the toilet monitors.
I wonder if @turbotubbs is expecting to be one of the "Are you female?" toilet inspectors?
I'm not expecting any toilet inspectors. I am hoping that women will be allowed single sex spaces away from ALL men, including those who believe that they are women, and those who fantasize that they are women. Including those with all male genitalia, currently trying to impregnate their girlfriend and expecting women to change alongside them (see Durham).
If you don't believe in the right of women to have single sex spaces then you don't believe in women's rights.
Really? There are a lot of pro-trans feminists who you think don't believe in women's rights, then.
Let me ask a question: why should someone who has been through full gender transition for decades, and has been using women's facilities for those decades, now have to use male, or disabled if available, facilities? What has changed?
The law has been clarified. Men CANNOT become women by surgery, by fairy dust, by will power.
I have every sympathy for transwomen. And they have the same rights as everyone else, but just as they cannot become a horse they cannot become a woman.
Hang on a sec, that's not what the court said. They said that, for the purposes of the Equality Act, a person could not change their sex. But the Equality Act also states that a person should not be discriminated against on the basis of their transgender identity.
So it's not as simple as saying that, "trans women are men," just as it was never as simple as saying that, "trans women are women."
And by the way what part of "Men CANNOT become women" is different from " for the purposes of the Equality Act, a person could not change their sex"?
I sense deep political jeapordy with this digital ID card announcement. On the day a nursery chain was hacked and kids photos are being shared on the internet...
An average salary of $520k? Fuck me I made some wrong choices back then. I doubt its as high in the UK.
I've done a quick Google, and that appears roughly at the high end of salaries for the USA. A similarly quick Google puts the UK range at about £66,000 to £90,000 per year, with seniors creeping above that. That sort of salary seems reasonable.
I don't mind an ID card. I don't like the database that will lie behind the card. The two cannot easily be separated.
BUT....
(And, to quite Bart Simpson, it is a Big Butt...) we give away far more information *by choice* to private companies every day. Yes, I don't want the state having too much information on me, but large parts of the private, and Internet, sector lives off your information. When the AI Crash happens, the companies that fail will look to sell their - i.e. your - data on. And if you have been using their service as a psychiatrist, that will include your inner thoughts.
As just one example, DNA testing form 23 And Me recently went bust, and were looking for a buyer. And that buyer would get all the DNA data of their customers. In a separate issue, 23 And Me were fined millions last year for not keeping over 100k UK customer's data private. The problems with all of this are obvious.
Privacy is long dead. That's not a reason to allow ID cards, but we should not think that just because we stop ID cards, we don't have a much bigger, massive, problem that we are ignoring.
And I don't know how to fix it.
Any government system needs to conform to GDPR and data privacy and access requirements.
To start with, if it doesn’t, the EU will raise a stink about their citizens data.
I suggest detention without trial for all the advocates of the obverse. Since the loons in the Home Office who want everything connected to everything else with no limits on access, generally support internment….
An average salary of $520k? Fuck me I made some wrong choices back then. I doubt its as high in the UK.
How long does it take to train to be a radiologist?
Similar to other consultants, I'd expect (and I assume that's what they are talking about, but might be wrong).
...and the next question is: "how long does it take to train to be a consultant". Because if it's seven years it's not doable, but if it's three years it is... 😀
I sense deep political jeapordy with this digital ID card announcement. On the day a nursery chain was hacked and kids photos are being shared on the internet...
@PippaCrerar · 52m A big loss for Starmer: Steph Driver was particularly well trusted and valued by the PM, and despite difficult times, had a way of explaining him to media in a way few could. Story 👇🏼
"The crown court backlog in England and Wales has risen by 10% to a new record of almost 80,000 cases, while wait times for trial dates have reached up to four years.
Figures from the Ministry of Justice showed the open caseload was 78,329 at the end of June, up 2% from 76,957 at the end of March, the first time the backlog passed 75,000. It is also up 10% from 70,893 a year earlier, the figures show. ... There is also a new record backlog in magistrates’ courts of 361,027 cases, up 25% on 289,595 a year earlier."
This is a big problem, but is it even in the top five big problems for the government?
At this point - where five years after Covid the blockage is still getting worse - is it unthinkable that the time comes when it is necessary to have a gigantic amnesty for a huge number of criminal cases?
There are of course at least 100 objections to it. But is there going to be an alternative?
The problem is less the size of the backlog, and that the backlog is still growing.
If you have an amnesty then the backlog just starts growing again. Then what do you do? Have another amnesty?
Defence lawyers will do everything they can to delay cases to try and get their clients part of an amnesty. You would make the situation a hundred times worse.
I don't see any alternative to increasing the capacity of the system to start processing more cases and reducing the backlog that way. But that requires money, of course.
I sense deep political jeapordy with this digital ID card announcement. On the day a nursery chain was hacked and kids photos are being shared on the internet...
I have no problem with ID cards but I agree it’s very risky politically. This could precipitate the end of Starmer if it turns into “ poll tax mark 2”.
I don't mind an ID card. I don't like the database that will lie behind the card. The two cannot easily be separated.
BUT....
(And, to quite Bart Simpson, it is a Big Butt...) we give away far more information *by choice* to private companies every day. Yes, I don't want the state having too much information on me, but large parts of the private, and Internet, sector lives off your information. When the AI Crash happens, the companies that fail will look to sell their - i.e. your - data on. And if you have been using their service as a psychiatrist, that will include your inner thoughts.
As just one example, DNA testing form 23 And Me recently went bust, and were looking for a buyer. And that buyer would get all the DNA data of their customers. In a separate issue, 23 And Me were fined millions last year for not keeping over 100k UK customer's data private. The problems with all of this are obvious.
Privacy is long dead. That's not a reason to allow ID cards, but we should not think that just because we stop ID cards, we don't have a much bigger, massive, problem that we are ignoring.
And I don't know how to fix it.
A friend of mine, who was at Cambridge Analytica put it this way. They asked people whether they would mind if "everyone" knew who their friends were, their birthday, what they had for breakfast, and whatnot, and people would usually answer "no". They then asked if they would mind if people knew their intimate financial details, what they owed, their credit score, etc, and people would usually answer "yes, a lot".
And my friend would respond that it was incredibly difficult to find out the first set of data, no matter that people post freely on the socials, because it is all accessible via user authorisation and control. Meanwhile, it was trivially easy to find out everything about someone's financial position without any recourse or request to the owner of the data.
An average salary of $520k? Fuck me I made some wrong choices back then. I doubt its as high in the UK.
I've done a quick Google, and that appears roughly at the high end of salaries for the USA. A similarly quick Google puts the UK range at about £66,000 to £90,000 per year, with seniors creeping above that. That sort of salary seems reasonable.
Someone on X posting shit? I'm amazed.
I guess the person posting was in the USA, so the stated salary was more reasonable. A confusion, perhaps, because Hinton is British.
All it shows is yet another data point about why the USA needs to sort out its healthcare system...
I sense deep political jeapordy with this digital ID card announcement. On the day a nursery chain was hacked and kids photos are being shared on the internet...
I have no problem with ID cards but I agree it’s very risky politically. This could precipitate the end of Starmer if it turns into “ poll tax mark 2”.
There is a poster who repeatedly puts up the list of conditions to make the ID acceptable, including being able to access and change any data the government holds on you, stringent penalties for civil servants accessing data without permission etc. Mostly sensible stuff. But for me the question is always this - what problem are you hoping to solve? If Starmer can explain that then fine, if not hmm?
Times and the I reporting mandatory digital ID cards to be announced
(Kneels down, clasps hands)
Hello God, it's me, Viewcode. I don't like Reform and I don't want them to win. But Labour keep doing things that I don't want them to do and in fact should be physically stopped from doing. Can you please send somebody who is half-assed decent with a chance of winning? Because this is getting me down. Amen, Viewcode.
An average salary of $520k? Fuck me I made some wrong choices back then. I doubt its as high in the UK.
I've done a quick Google, and that appears roughly at the high end of salaries for the USA. A similarly quick Google puts the UK range at about £66,000 to £90,000 per year, with seniors creeping above that. That sort of salary seems reasonable.
Someone on X posting shit? I'm amazed.
I guess the person posting was in the USA, so the stated salary was more reasonable. A confusion, perhaps, because Hinton is British.
All it shows is yet another data point about why the USA needs to sort out its healthcare system...
Yes and no - an NHS employee gets benefits that the US radiologist wouldn't, so its not easy to directly compare salaries.
I sense deep political jeapordy with this digital ID card announcement. On the day a nursery chain was hacked and kids photos are being shared on the internet...
I have no problem with ID cards but I agree it’s very risky politically. This could precipitate the end of Starmer if it turns into “ poll tax mark 2”.
There is a poster who repeatedly puts up the list of conditions to make the ID acceptable, including being able to access and change any data the government holds on you, stringent penalties for civil servants accessing data without permission etc. Mostly sensible stuff. But for me the question is always this - what problem are you hoping to solve? If Starmer can explain that then fine, if not hmm?
We’ll end up like Italians, having to carry them everywhere
I don't mind an ID card. I don't like the database that will lie behind the card. The two cannot easily be separated.
BUT....
(And, to quite Bart Simpson, it is a Big Butt...) we give away far more information *by choice* to private companies every day. Yes, I don't want the state having too much information on me, but large parts of the private, and Internet, sector lives off your information. When the AI Crash happens, the companies that fail will look to sell their - i.e. your - data on. And if you have been using their service as a psychiatrist, that will include your inner thoughts.
As just one example, DNA testing form 23 And Me recently went bust, and were looking for a buyer. And that buyer would get all the DNA data of their customers. In a separate issue, 23 And Me were fined millions last year for not keeping over 100k UK customer's data private. The problems with all of this are obvious.
Privacy is long dead. That's not a reason to allow ID cards, but we should not think that just because we stop ID cards, we don't have a much bigger, massive, problem that we are ignoring.
And I don't know how to fix it.
Privacy isn't long dead for everyone, because not everyone spends all day on social media, phones, etc. Why should they be made to pay for the misjudgements of other people in getting addicted to these things?
I sense deep political jeapordy with this digital ID card announcement. On the day a nursery chain was hacked and kids photos are being shared on the internet...
I have no problem with ID cards but I agree it’s very risky politically. This could precipitate the end of Starmer if it turns into “ poll tax mark 2”.
There is a poster who repeatedly puts up the list of conditions to make the ID acceptable, including being able to access and change any data the government holds on you, stringent penalties for civil servants accessing data without permission etc. Mostly sensible stuff. But for me the question is always this - what problem are you hoping to solve? If Starmer can explain that then fine, if not hmm?
We’ll end up like Italians, having to carry them everywhere
I'm not convinced - you are not required to carry your driving licence to drive, for instance.
Meanwhile, in the Irish Presidential election campaign...
Every nation has its idiots.
It does but on the other hand, it has been conventional wisdom since the end of the war that Germany should not rearm. Our Irish friend might not have noticed the shift in the zeitgeist.
Completely wrong.
West Germany rearmed in the late 1950s. As did East Germany.
Until the early 90s the West German military (and then a united Germany) had a vast tank park and the largest airforce in Europe.
This is why Germany has a vast store of slightly rusty Leopard tanks to send to Ukraine.
This armament included the American policy of “lending” them nuclear weapons.
Which led to the following fun interaction -
In the late 50s and early 60s, West German fighter bombers stood alert with American nuclear weapons slung under their wings, sat on the ground.
One of the American officers in charge of the weapons got talking to a pilot. Who he noticed was wearing an Iron Cross. Turned out that the German pilot had quite possibly shot the American down, during WWII - been in the same air battle, anyway.
Well over a decade ago, there was an old podcast (*) by a young American man that covered historical military matters. He was half-Japanese. At his parents' wedding. his maternal and paternal fathers met for the first time, and realised they had both been at the same battle, on different sides. Apparently they got on very well.
It was a great podcast, and I wish I could remember what it was called. ISTR he stopped it because he was going off to do some uni course or somesuch.
I don't mind an ID card. I don't like the database that will lie behind the card. The two cannot easily be separated.
BUT....
(And, to quite Bart Simpson, it is a Big Butt...) we give away far more information *by choice* to private companies every day. Yes, I don't want the state having too much information on me, but large parts of the private, and Internet, sector lives off your information. When the AI Crash happens, the companies that fail will look to sell their - i.e. your - data on. And if you have been using their service as a psychiatrist, that will include your inner thoughts.
As just one example, DNA testing form 23 And Me recently went bust, and were looking for a buyer. And that buyer would get all the DNA data of their customers. In a separate issue, 23 And Me were fined millions last year for not keeping over 100k UK customer's data private. The problems with all of this are obvious.
Privacy is long dead. That's not a reason to allow ID cards, but we should not think that just because we stop ID cards, we don't have a much bigger, massive, problem that we are ignoring.
And I don't know how to fix it.
Privacy isn't long dead for everyone, because not everyone spends all day on social media, phones, etc. Why should they be made to pay for the misjudgements of other people in getting addicted to these things?
That's a good point, and I am not arguing for the system.
But I fear even those who are very careful about the data they share will be shocked by the breadth of data that is held by private companies.
This story hasn't really broken yet though, has it? Is someone waiting for the conference?
It broke in 2019 and Labour Together were sanctioned in 2021. A slow burner?
The e mails to deliberate lie about it and call it an admin error has only just broke though. Lied to the Electoral Commission and MPs Committees. Steve Reed is a gonner very soon btw as he was complicit
And my friend would respond that it was incredibly difficult to find out the first set of data, no matter that people post freely on the socials, because it is all accessible via user authorisation and control. Meanwhile, it was trivially easy to find out everything about someone's financial position without any recourse or request to the owner of the data.
I don't think that is correct at all. A person might opt out of sharing their personal data and disable permissions on apps, but if their friends, family, colleagues and so on have the person's details in the data that those friends and so on share you can still end up in a social graph. That's how Facebook has data on people who have never had a Facebook account. It's what is known as a shadow profile and it is very difficult to avoid such data being created.
"The crown court backlog in England and Wales has risen by 10% to a new record of almost 80,000 cases, while wait times for trial dates have reached up to four years.
Figures from the Ministry of Justice showed the open caseload was 78,329 at the end of June, up 2% from 76,957 at the end of March, the first time the backlog passed 75,000. It is also up 10% from 70,893 a year earlier, the figures show. ... There is also a new record backlog in magistrates’ courts of 361,027 cases, up 25% on 289,595 a year earlier."
This is a big problem, but is it even in the top five big problems for the government?
At this point - where five years after Covid the blockage is still getting worse - is it unthinkable that the time comes when it is necessary to have a gigantic amnesty for a huge number of criminal cases?
There are of course at least 100 objections to it. But is there going to be an alternative?
The problem is less the size of the backlog, and that the backlog is still growing.
If you have an amnesty then the backlog just starts growing again. Then what do you do? Have another amnesty?
Defence lawyers will do everything they can to delay cases to try and get their clients part of an amnesty. You would make the situation a hundred times worse.
I don't see any alternative to increasing the capacity of the system to start processing more cases and reducing the backlog that way. But that requires money, of course.
You get them out of the Crown Courts by introducing legislation saying that a certain less controversial indictable offences (I'm thinking fraud below a certain amount, money laundering, stuff your average Joe doesn't know or care much about) committed before date 'x' can be tried summarily. You then push them through the more efficient magistrates system as fast as you can, possibly by recruiting more lay magistrates.
Sir Keir is certainly playing high-risk politics with his ID cards. However, it could well split the Reform coalition asunder, which I'm sure is Sir Keir's devious intention.
Is the ID card actually going to be called the Brit card or is that just standard Starmer wankiness?
Get with the mood. It'll be called the GREAT Brit Card.
'Brit Card' will go down fabulously well with the nationalists in NI. They will especially enjoy the little flag in the corner.
Maybe it will be like some credit cards where you can choose to have a picture on it?
‘I’ll have Bobby Sands, mo chara.’
I got that reference. But I am extremely pleased that I am gradually forgetting the Troubles-related distinctions, details and references that I used to be able to recall from memory, and let them lapse into the land of Things I Don't Have To Worry About Any More.
I sense deep political jeapordy with this digital ID card announcement. On the day a nursery chain was hacked and kids photos are being shared on the internet...
I have no problem with ID cards but I agree it’s very risky politically. This could precipitate the end of Starmer if it turns into “ poll tax mark 2”.
I do. I certainly won't be voting for any party that advocates them, even if the alternative is Reform (who I won't be voting for under any circumstances).
And my friend would respond that it was incredibly difficult to find out the first set of data, no matter that people post freely on the socials, because it is all accessible via user authorisation and control. Meanwhile, it was trivially easy to find out everything about someone's financial position without any recourse or request to the owner of the data.
I don't think that is correct at all. A person might opt out of sharing their personal data and disable permissions on apps, but if their friends, family, colleagues and so on have the person's details in the data that those friends and so on share you can still end up in a social graph. That's how Facebook has data on people who have never had a Facebook account. It's what is known as a shadow profile and it is very difficult to avoid such data being created.
I'm sure that is right. The principle about accessibility and how people have a different perception of data and its uses remains valid. Facebook "shadow profiles" notwithstanding.
Sir Keir is certainly playing high-risk politics with his ID cards. However, it could well split the Reform coalition asunder, which I'm sure is Sir Keir's devious intention.
The thing is ID cards are very popular with the public.
Having read the internal private email to and from Morgan McSweeney. He can't survive and neither can @ShabanaMahmood@SteveReedMP and especially @Keir_Starmer.How the fuck can you say you've made a mistake not logging £740000 in donations. And then being told to cover it up
Sir Keir is certainly playing high-risk politics with his ID cards. However, it could well split the Reform coalition asunder, which I'm sure is Sir Keir's devious intention.
If there is not a vanity by election in Goole and Pocklington, Sir David Davis is a hypocrite.
Sir Keir is certainly playing high-risk politics with his ID cards. However, it could well split the Reform coalition asunder, which I'm sure is Sir Keir's devious intention.
The thing is ID cards are very popular with the public.
Like higher taxes on people that arent the respondent, or banning stuff, or burning down the nightclubs
Sir Keir is certainly playing high-risk politics with his ID cards. However, it could well split the Reform coalition asunder, which I'm sure is Sir Keir's devious intention.
If there is not a vanity by election in Goole and Pocklington, Sir David Davis is a hypocrite.
Sir Keir is certainly playing high-risk politics with his ID cards. However, it could well split the Reform coalition asunder, which I'm sure is Sir Keir's devious intention.
The thing is ID cards are very popular with the public.
Never re-opening nightclubs which had closed over Covid was very popular with the public. What the fuck do they know.
I don't love the idea of the database behind ID cards but there are so many databases which we contribute to/populate with everything digital we do these days one more probably won't be the end of the world.
Meanwhile, in the Irish Presidential election campaign...
Every nation has its idiots.
It does but on the other hand, it has been conventional wisdom since the end of the war that Germany should not rearm. Our Irish friend might not have noticed the shift in the zeitgeist.
The Cold War Bundeswehr was hardly three men in a shed.
They were non-nuclear and their tanks prioritised speed over armour, acting more like tank destroyers. They flew Starfighters, an aircraft of such levels of shittiness they coined the term "lawn dart" to describe them. Their forces were light and deployed quickly, leading to wonders like the Wiesel, a two-man very small tank about the size of a Ford Fiesta. In short they were set up to defend the Fulda Gap for as long as it took for the Americans to urgently reinforce Europe whilst Russian tanks ate up the landscape and tactical nukes bloomed.
In short, not the Wehrmacht.
With all due respect, the Starfighter has a completely unmatched record. The F16 can claim 70-80 kills. The F15 over 100. But the Starfighter can claim 115 kills.
The only difference, really, between it and the fighters that followed it, is that its designers hadn't realised that it was the enemy's pilots you were supposed to kill rather than your own.
Sir Keir is certainly playing high-risk politics with his ID cards. However, it could well split the Reform coalition asunder, which I'm sure is Sir Keir's devious intention.
The thing is ID cards are very popular with the public.
Never re-opening nightclubs which had closed over Covid was very popular with the public. What the fuck do they know.
I don't love the idea of the database behind ID cards but there are so many databases which we contribute to/populate with everything digital we do these days one more probably won't be the end of the world.
Fake news.
Never reopening night clubs was only popular with a small number of voters, it never had majority/plurality support, ID cards on the other hand do.
Meanwhile, in the Irish Presidential election campaign...
Every nation has its idiots.
It does but on the other hand, it has been conventional wisdom since the end of the war that Germany should not rearm. Our Irish friend might not have noticed the shift in the zeitgeist.
The Cold War Bundeswehr was hardly three men in a shed.
They were non-nuclear and their tanks prioritised speed over armour, acting more like tank destroyers. They flew Starfighters, an aircraft of such levels of shittiness they coined the term "lawn dart" to describe them. Their forces were light and deployed quickly, leading to wonders like the Wiesel, a two-man very small tank about the size of a Ford Fiesta. In short they were set up to defend the Fulda Gap for as long as it took for the Americans to urgently reinforce Europe whilst Russian tanks ate up the landscape and tactical nukes bloomed.
In short, not the Wehrmacht.
With all due respect, the Starfighter has a completely unmatched record. The F16 can claim 70-80 kills. The F15 over 100. But the Starfighter can claim 115 kills.
The only difference, really, between it and the fighters that followed it, is that its designers hadn't realised that it was the enemy's pilots you were supposed to kill rather than your own.
The idea that West Germany wasn’t heavily armed is nonsense. They had more Tornados in service than we did. And the Leopard I was a very nice tank in its time - hence the export success.
The Wiesel was a light transport vehicle.
Germany, through the “lending” of nuclear weapons by the US, was and is a nuclear power. Of a sort.
Off topic, but such a surprise it should be shared:
Months after the election of a new president, the formation of a new government and a shaky ceasefire with Israel, confidence among the Lebanese in their government has leaped by 46 percentage points compared to last year, according to a new poll released Thursday. The swing marks one of the largest jumps in approval for a government in 20 years of Gallup conducting the World Poll. . . . Now, more than 6 in 10 Lebanese adults (62 percent) approve of the country’s leadership overall, up from 16 percent in 2024, according to the poll fielded in May and June. Specifically, President Joseph Aoun’s approval rating was 81 percent and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s was 56 percent. Both were elected in January.
Sir Keir is certainly playing high-risk politics with his ID cards. However, it could well split the Reform coalition asunder, which I'm sure is Sir Keir's devious intention.
The thing is ID cards are very popular with the public.
Never re-opening nightclubs which had closed over Covid was very popular with the public. What the fuck do they know.
I don't love the idea of the database behind ID cards but there are so many databases which we contribute to/populate with everything digital we do these days one more probably won't be the end of the world.
Sir Keir is certainly playing high-risk politics with his ID cards. However, it could well split the Reform coalition asunder, which I'm sure is Sir Keir's devious intention.
I bet he hasn't considered Reform's position on this at all.
Sir Keir is certainly playing high-risk politics with his ID cards. However, it could well split the Reform coalition asunder, which I'm sure is Sir Keir's devious intention.
The thing is ID cards are very popular with the public.
Superficially, yes. But as always with these things, the devil is in the detail.
How much will they cost? What data is captured? When do you need to get one by? What do they need to be used for? How much inconvenience will they generate.
I never trust specific policy polling. It is far too subjective to what the respondent thinks it means.
Sir Keir is certainly playing high-risk politics with his ID cards. However, it could well split the Reform coalition asunder, which I'm sure is Sir Keir's devious intention.
The thing is ID cards are very popular with the public.
Never re-opening nightclubs which had closed over Covid was very popular with the public. What the fuck do they know.
I don't love the idea of the database behind ID cards but there are so many databases which we contribute to/populate with everything digital we do these days one more probably won't be the end of the world.
Fake news.
Never reopening night clubs was only popular with a small number of voters, it never had majority/plurality support, ID cards on the other hand do.
Given that we elect governments on 30% of the vote I think 28% of the public (for that was the number) that never wanted nightclubs to reopen is ample demonstration of the public;s imbecility.
Meanwhile, in the Irish Presidential election campaign...
Every nation has its idiots.
It does but on the other hand, it has been conventional wisdom since the end of the war that Germany should not rearm. Our Irish friend might not have noticed the shift in the zeitgeist.
The Cold War Bundeswehr was hardly three men in a shed.
They were non-nuclear and their tanks prioritised speed over armour, acting more like tank destroyers. They flew Starfighters, an aircraft of such levels of shittiness they coined the term "lawn dart" to describe them. Their forces were light and deployed quickly, leading to wonders like the Wiesel, a two-man very small tank about the size of a Ford Fiesta. In short they were set up to defend the Fulda Gap for as long as it took for the Americans to urgently reinforce Europe whilst Russian tanks ate up the landscape and tactical nukes bloomed.
In short, not the Wehrmacht.
With all due respect, the Starfighter has a completely unmatched record. The F16 can claim 70-80 kills. The F15 over 100. But the Starfighter can claim 115 kills.
The only difference, really, between it and the fighters that followed it, is that its designers hadn't realised that it was the enemy's pilots you were supposed to kill rather than your own.
The US had much lower losses, and blamed poor German/Belgian pilots for that. One video I saw explained it better: the USAF generally trained their pilots in reasonable climactic conditions. The Germans, knowing they would have to fly whenever the Russians attacked, had less strict weather conditions they could fly in. And flying in bad weather meant more crashes. But you could not ask the Soviets to attack only in good weather. And the Canadians had high losses because they never had good weather.
Hence its German nicknames: widowmaker, flying coffin, tent peg...
Sir Keir is certainly playing high-risk politics with his ID cards. However, it could well split the Reform coalition asunder, which I'm sure is Sir Keir's devious intention.
The thing is ID cards are very popular with the public.
Superficially, yes. But as always with these things, the devil is in the detail.
How much will they cost? What data is captured? When do you need to get one by? What do they need to be used for? How much inconvenience will they generate.
I never trust specific policy polling. It is far too subjective to what the respondent thinks it means.
Mail's opening line on this story is interesting:
"Every working adult in Britain will require a Government-issued digital ID card"
Is this just journos typing at speed in a breaking story or is it not going to be required for a lot things including any thing that pensioners or the not working do?
Sir Keir is certainly playing high-risk politics with his ID cards. However, it could well split the Reform coalition asunder, which I'm sure is Sir Keir's devious intention.
The thing is ID cards are very popular with the public.
Never re-opening nightclubs which had closed over Covid was very popular with the public. What the fuck do they know.
I don't love the idea of the database behind ID cards but there are so many databases which we contribute to/populate with everything digital we do these days one more probably won't be the end of the world.
This is what is known as boiled frog syndrome.
"You have zero privacy, get over it" was a mantra back in the early days of Internet. Bill Joy of Sun Microsystems. Or might have been his co-leader Scott McNally. I forget which.
Although I do recall a Wired article by Joy about how tiny nanodevices with AI capability would form a grey goo that would take over the world, so enjoy what time you have left kids.
Sir Keir is certainly playing high-risk politics with his ID cards. However, it could well split the Reform coalition asunder, which I'm sure is Sir Keir's devious intention.
I bet he hasn't considered Reform's position on this at all.
Everything Starmer does is because he is running scared of Reform and this is very much a product of that
I am ambivalent on it as I already have a driving licence, passport and rail card, all with my photo on them
The SNP or Reform? It makes Scylla and Charybdis look like a pleasant choice. I really could not bring myself to vote for either of them, even to defeat the other. My political choices are dwindling. It is not a happy state of affairs.
Comments
I don't mind an ID card. I don't like the database that will lie behind the card. The two cannot easily be separated.
BUT....
(And, to quite Bart Simpson, it is a Big Butt...) we give away far more information *by choice* to private companies every day. Yes, I don't want the state having too much information on me, but large parts of the private, and Internet, sector lives off your information. When the AI Crash happens, the companies that fail will look to sell their - i.e. your - data on. And if you have been using their service as a psychiatrist, that will include your inner thoughts.
As just one example, DNA testing form 23 And Me recently went bust, and were looking for a buyer. And that buyer would get all the DNA data of their customers. In a separate issue, 23 And Me were fined millions last year for not keeping over 100k UK customer's data private. The problems with all of this are obvious.
Privacy is long dead. That's not a reason to allow ID cards, but we should not think that just because we stop ID cards, we don't have a much bigger, massive, problem that we are ignoring.
And I don't know how to fix it.
There are of course at least 100 objections to it. But is there going to be an alternative?
Against a pro-British candidate and a pro-Israeli candidate, the pro-Russian candidate may well win.
As an aside, most Irish people I know find it irritating for people to use Éire when speaking in English rather than as Gaeilge. People don't tend to use Deutschland instead of Germany for example. Why Éire instead of Ireland, or Republic of Ireland?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/s3zhni8okkI
If politics polarises into Farage v Not-Farage, then the LDs are the most unequivocally Not-Farage, so ticking up a point or two isn't a surprise,
Pippa Crerar
@PippaCrerar
·
52m
A big loss for Starmer: Steph Driver was particularly well trusted and valued by the PM, and despite difficult times, had a way of explaining him to media in a way few could. Story 👇🏼
https://x.com/PippaCrerar/status/1971222283839815939
Not looking too good for him is it?
"I know what's going on...
I'm going on."
speech next week?
In short, not the Wehrmacht.
So it's not as simple as saying that, "trans women are men," just as it was never as simple as saying that, "trans women are women."
West Germany rearmed in the late 1950s. As did East Germany.
Until the early 90s the West German military (and then a united Germany) had a vast tank park and the largest airforce in Europe.
This is why Germany has a vast store of slightly rusty Leopard tanks to send to Ukraine.
This armament included the American policy of “lending” them nuclear weapons.
Which led to the following fun interaction -
In the late 50s and early 60s, West German fighter bombers stood alert with American nuclear weapons slung under their wings, sat on the ground.
One of the American officers in charge of the weapons got talking to a pilot. Who he noticed was wearing an Iron Cross. Turned out that the German pilot had quite possibly shot the American down, during WWII - been in the same air battle, anyway.
FoN are about average for LDs, their better pollsters have been YouGov and Techne generally, especially YouGov
No trend until trend is a good rule of thumb.
So no more weeks or months for a case - the prosecution get 1 h and the defence gets 1 h. Then a quick ten minute
slogre-examination and done.Surely that would work for most cases?
Then SKS out the door in 2026
SKS fans got regrets yet?
To start with, if it doesn’t, the EU will raise a stink about their citizens data.
I suggest detention without trial for all the advocates of the obverse. Since the loons in the Home Office who want everything connected to everything else with no limits on access, generally support internment….
If you have an amnesty then the backlog just starts growing again. Then what do you do? Have another amnesty?
Defence lawyers will do everything they can to delay cases to try and get their clients part of an amnesty. You would make the situation a hundred times worse.
I don't see any alternative to increasing the capacity of the system to start processing more cases and reducing the backlog that way. But that requires money, of course.
And my friend would respond that it was incredibly difficult to find out the first set of data, no matter that people post freely on the socials, because it is all accessible via user authorisation and control. Meanwhile, it was trivially easy to find out everything about someone's financial position without any recourse or request to the owner of the data.
All it shows is yet another data point about why the USA needs to sort out its healthcare system...
EVERRRYTHINGGGG!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2025/09/25/sir-david-knox-tory-wet-centrist-died-obituary/
It was a great podcast, and I wish I could remember what it was called. ISTR he stopped it because he was going off to do some uni course or somesuch.
(*) How can a podcast be 'old' ?
https://news.sky.com/story/former-french-president-nicolas-sarkozy-found-guilty-of-conspiracy-in-gaddafi-finance-trial-13437795
But I fear even those who are very careful about the data they share will be shocked by the breadth of data that is held by private companies.
has only just broke though. Lied to the Electoral Commission and MPs Committees.
Steve Reed is a gonner very soon btw as he was complicit
Spencer Hakimian
@SpencerHakimian
Pete Hegseth has ordered a very rare gathering of all the Generals and Admirals in the U.S. Armed Forces “urgently”.
Just gauging how many sacks of rice I need to go and buy.
Messages from activists for the new Left-wing group show them in despair over the fresh in-fighting
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/25/jeremy-corbyns-your-party-whatsapp-messages-activists/
I don't love the idea of the database behind ID cards but there are so many databases which we contribute to/populate with everything digital we do these days one more probably won't be the end of the world.
The only difference, really, between it and the fighters that followed it, is that its designers hadn't realised that it was the enemy's pilots you were supposed to kill rather than your own.
Never reopening night clubs was only popular with a small number of voters, it never had majority/plurality support, ID cards on the other hand do.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/hegseth-orders-rare-urgent-meeting-of-numerous-generals-admirals/ar-AA1NiqMW
The Wiesel was a light transport vehicle.
Germany, through the “lending” of nuclear weapons by the US, was and is a nuclear power. Of a sort.
If anyone predicted this in January, they have my respect. (By the way, according to the article, Aoun has American support.)
How much will they cost? What data is captured? When do you need to get one by? What do they need to be used for? How much inconvenience will they generate.
I never trust specific policy polling. It is far too subjective to what the respondent thinks it means.
Hence its German nicknames: widowmaker, flying coffin, tent peg...
I want one even less.
"Every working adult in Britain will require a Government-issued digital ID card"
Is this just journos typing at speed in a breaking story or is it not going to be required for a lot things including any thing that pensioners or the not working do?
Although I do recall a Wired article by Joy about how tiny nanodevices with AI capability would form a grey goo that would take over the world, so enjoy what time you have left kids.
I am ambivalent on it as I already have a driving licence, passport and rail card, all with my photo on them
Straw in the wind or will this be confined to the usual suspects on backbenches?
10 minutes reflection time before home time for all involved
https://bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/campaigns/no2digitalid/