I can now see the point of Birmingham City council banning the Maccabi football supporters.
Yes and no. Plenty of other teams in UEFA have troublesome hooligans, yet the game in Birmingham is the only time I can recall where away fans have been banned.
No-one suggests that they are the good guys. But the issue is anti-semitism.
No, it really isn't. At least, it probably isn't. The issue is the rioting at their last game in Amsterdam where Israeli fans attacked local Muslims and then it all kicked off bigly as local thugs, many antisemitic no doubt, are up for a ruck. Transferring this scenario to Birmingham is what the police are worried about.
And as I posted earlier, I can remember in the dim and distant past, West Ham fans being banned from European games, so this is not new. Liverpool fans were also famously banned after Heysel. And all this is without betting on Israeli police banning Israeli fans unless you think Tel Aviv's Chief Constable is an Iranian mole.
I too recall the really bad times of the eighties and football violence. Its why I get so pissed off at Liverpool fan sentimentality around Hillsborough (an awful tragedy, to be clear) while one of the biggest reasons for Hillsborough was fan behaviour, such as that displayed by Liverpool fans at Heysel. Yes the police were shits and lied. Yes the stadium was unsafe. But fan behaviour (from all clubs) led to the need for cages at football.
I watch Premiership rugby all the time. There is no segregation. What the eff is wrong with football fans?
But on this specific case, unless we are shown the evidence, I, and many others, will believe it is the threat of antisemitic violence from the pro-Gaza lobby that is the biggest reason for the ban.
FPT (or a recent one anyway):-
The problem is two opposing groups up for a ruck. Have a read of the Jewish Chronicle account of the Amsterdam kerfuffle:-
Seems to me to take down pretty much the entire (Western) internet is easier than you might think. Only a few companies need to be targetted I think - AWS and Cloudflare. Probably another big beast in the background too. Take them out and Xi or Putin's your uncle.
It's really quite shocking to find the government is reliant on Amazon services.
Between them, AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud completely dominate the market for cloud services. I'd think you'd be hard pressed to find any major web service or app that didn't depend on one of them.
One of the rare exceptions is Lidl, who decided not to be reliant on outsiders and built their own system.
Also Bluesky, apparently they mostly run their own physical servers.
Elon has been gloating this morning that TwiX is still up
Donald Trump demanded that Ukraine submit to Vladimir Putin’s peace terms or face destruction in an angry meeting at the White House last week, it has emerged.
The US president, who spoke with his Russian counterpart shortly before hosting Volodymyr Zelensky, warned that Putin would “destroy” Ukraine unless a peace deal was in place.
Shouting and swearing, Mr Trump threw aside Ukrainian maps of the battlefield and pressured Mr Zelensky to surrender the Donetsk region to Russia.
Putin is demanding the withdrawal of Ukraine’s army from the crucial eastern territory as a precondition for peace.
However, the surrender of Donetsk is a red line for Ukraine, which has long refused to cede the territory, which Russia has failed to capture despite fighting since 2014.
Just have a ceasefire on current lines, which gibes the Russians part but not all of Donetsk
While I have little time for @Dura_Ace’s sympathies in this conflict, I suspect that he is right, that a ceasefire on current lines, with the rest of Ukraine firmly aligned with the West, would be seen as a defeat in Russia.
The best comparison I can think of would be the USA occupying 20% of Iraq, after years of fighting, and a million casualties.
That's probably true but it's also irrelevant as post-Iraq America was a democracy while Russia is now pretty much a dictatorship.
If Putin wants the average muzhik's opinion, he'll give it to them. For Russia's whole shit history they have been used to taking orders from the top. And the fabled "oligarchs", who were going to rise up once their yachts were seized and their holidays in Europe blocked, clearly don't "arch" anything. Just like the German business community or army were the real power and always about to overthrow Hitler. Many wealthy Russians have made lots of money from this war, so they will regard it as a success whatever happens. And the rest are either cowed or in exile. Even if they don't like Putin there's nothing they can do about him given the pervasive security state.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
Never make yourself reliant on one system. People seem to have fogotten that recently. Have lots of different ways of doing the same thing, independent of each other.
The problem is that you, as Britain Useful Company Inc., can contract with two different companies to provide you with a service, so you have two different ways of doing the same thing, and they both might end up being reliant on AWS anyway.
What's confusing to me is that the initial design of the internet was to create a computer network that would still be able to operate in the event of nuclear war, and yet it seems to be astonishingly fragile.
I guess most of the internet did carry on working, even with this AWS failure, but perhaps there are a few things we could do better.
Never make yourself reliant on one system. People seem to have fogotten that recently. Have lots of different ways of doing the same thing, independent of each other.
Could be an interesting day at work. Our on-prem data centre needs to close, and we have been in discussions with all of the Cloud providers. Serendipitously the AWS discussions ended without agreement, but I do wonder if this might shift the whole debate slightly
It's amazing to think that Labour will poll 10-15% in a seat where just a few years ago, they were polling 55% (and back in the day, 70%+), which they have held since 1918.
Just as professional/managerial support for the Conservatives has cratered, over the years, in places like Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, now Surrey, so working class support for Labour is cratering in places like Durham, South Wales, South Yorkshire.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
I don't think Letby is an expert pathologist, or indeed an expert in case law. Many believe she was badly advised. Certainly there are other explanations for the insulin results that a competent legal team would have challenged. As I said, if you accept just one murder then you are accepting that there was a murderer and if not Letby then who?
I can now see the point of Birmingham City council banning the Maccabi football supporters.
Yes and no. Plenty of other teams in UEFA have troublesome hooligans, yet the game in Birmingham is the only time I can recall where away fans have been banned.
No-one suggests that they are the good guys. But the issue is anti-semitism.
No, it really isn't. At least, it probably isn't. The issue is the rioting at their last game in Amsterdam where Israeli fans attacked local Muslims and then it all kicked off bigly as local thugs, many antisemitic no doubt, are up for a ruck. Transferring this scenario to Birmingham is what the police are worried about.
And as I posted earlier, I can remember in the dim and distant past, West Ham fans being banned from European games, so this is not new. Liverpool fans were also famously banned after Heysel. And all this is without betting on Israeli police banning Israeli fans unless you think Tel Aviv's Chief Constable is an Iranian mole.
I too recall the really bad times of the eighties and football violence. Its why I get so pissed off at Liverpool fan sentimentality around Hillsborough (an awful tragedy, to be clear) while one of the biggest reasons for Hillsborough was fan behaviour, such as that displayed by Liverpool fans at Heysel. Yes the police were shits and lied. Yes the stadium was unsafe. But fan behaviour (from all clubs) led to the need for cages at football.
I watch Premiership rugby all the time. There is no segregation. What the eff is wrong with football fans?
But on this specific case, unless we are shown the evidence, I, and many others, will believe it is the threat of antisemitic violence from the pro-Gaza lobby that is the biggest reason for the ban.
FPT (or a recent one anyway):-
The problem is two opposing groups up for a ruck. Have a read of the Jewish Chronicle account of the Amsterdam kerfuffle:-
It's amazing to think that Labour will poll 10-15% in a seat where just a few years ago, they were polling 55% (and back in the day, 70%+), which they have held since 1918.
There aren't that many seats that Labour (or any party) has held continuously since 1918 (excluding defections).
Seems to me to take down pretty much the entire (Western) internet is easier than you might think. Only a few companies need to be targetted I think - AWS and Cloudflare. Probably another big beast in the background too. Take them out and Xi or Putin's your uncle.
It's really quite shocking to find the government is reliant on Amazon services.
Between them, AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud completely dominate the market for cloud services. I'd think you'd be hard pressed to find any major web service or app that didn't depend on one of them.
One of the rare exceptions is Lidl, who decided not to be reliant on outsiders and built their own system.
Also Bluesky, apparently they mostly run their own physical servers.
Elon has been gloating this morning that TwiX is still up
IIRC they had a falling-out with Amazon, and migrated away from AWS in the early Elon Musk days.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
One thing I find odd is that the GOP is unable to pass a budget despite a very loyal majority in both houses. The rules on these things seem very complex compared to here.
The democrats have enough to filibuster in the house
Never make yourself reliant on one system. People seem to have fogotten that recently. Have lots of different ways of doing the same thing, independent of each other.
The problem is that you, as Britain Useful Company Inc., can contract with two different companies to provide you with a service, so you have two different ways of doing the same thing, and they both might end up being reliant on AWS anyway.
What's confusing to me is that the initial design of the internet was to create a computer network that would still be able to operate in the event of nuclear war, and yet it seems to be astonishingly fragile.
I guess most of the internet did carry on working, even with this AWS failure, but perhaps there are a few things we could do better.
As you note, The Internet did keep working. The design allows for packets to keep flowing and route around damage. Unfortunately that does assume the packets know where to go, which in this instance they did not.
As also noted upthread, much of the foundational Internet design assumed good faith users and was not initially designed with security in mind.
I worked with a security consultant 20 years ago who had been asked to pentest some company. He changed the DNS registration to add a mail relay and simply read all of their email for a week
There's an AWS outage this morning impacting lots of services; it started around 07.30 UK time. People who use services like Alexa as their alarm clocks have just had a helpful reminder that using a device reliant on connectivity to carry out a task that doesn't need connectivity is not a good idea.
Couldn't get the iRobots to clean this morning. They seemed to want to have the day off. When they do work, the mapping software is very good.
Off topic, is this MoD being allowed to shoot down drones thing just a case of something must be done noise? Outside a live war situation can anyone see a scenario where live ordnance being fired into the skies of this sceptred isle will take place?
Firstly, Farage has appointed James Orr as one of his key advisers. James Orr is an academic philosopher at Cambridge, and became a "thought mentor" (my word) to JD Vance about 5 years ago. Orr is an adult convert to Christianity, having had a classical education. He was one the Vance's stayed with this year.
Orr was involved in founding the Edmund Burke Foundation, which is the key UK body for National Conservatism. He's also high up in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, as is Danny Kruger and Baroness Stroud - and Paul Marshall.
My political speculation is that Reform UK (Kruger having defected and been welcomed with open arms) will be more a hub of National Conservatism as a segment its intellectual base, and I'm not sure how that affects the RefUK positioning wrt the Tories and vice-versa.
(As a further aside, I just came across this very English parish name - Agatha Christie wants her setting back: Bluntisham cum Earith with Colne and Holywell cum Needingworth (Ely) .)
Seems to me to take down pretty much the entire (Western) internet is easier than you might think. Only a few companies need to be targetted I think - AWS and Cloudflare. Probably another big beast in the background too. Take them out and Xi or Putin's your uncle.
It's really quite shocking to find the government is reliant on Amazon services.
Between them, AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud completely dominate the market for cloud services. I'd think you'd be hard pressed to find any major web service or app that didn't depend on one of them.
One of the rare exceptions is Lidl, who decided not to be reliant on outsiders and built their own system.
Also Bluesky, apparently they mostly run their own physical servers.
Elon has been gloating this morning that TwiX is still up
As I expect are Royal Mail
’I've just tried to return an Amazon parcel at my local Post Office, but it couldn’t be processed.
The Post Office tells me Amazon Click and Collect and Drop Off services are being impacted across the branch network.
It also says the Amazon Web Services (AWS) issue is affecting customers who are trying to top up their pre-payment cards for gas and electricity via Payzone devices.'
It's amazing to think that Labour will poll 10-15% in a seat where just a few years ago, they were polling 55% (and back in the day, 70%+), which they have held since 1918.
Just as professional/managerial support for the Conservatives has cratered, over the years, in places like Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, now Surrey, so working class support for Labour is cratering in places like Durham, South Wales, South Yorkshire.
"From dust you are, and to dust you shall return."
"Ring, Lloyds Bank and Snapchat knocked offline in huge internet blackout Amazon web hosting crash takes down dozens of apps and websites
Dozens of internet services, games and apps including the HMRC website and banks are offline after a crash involving hosting company Amazon Web Services.
Web users were also unable to access services including the Ring doorbell app, Snapchat and Fortnite on Monday morning.
The blackout affected the Government’s Gateway login service, which includes HMRC and many other public services. Users also reported problems with Lloyds Bank and Halifax’s apps."
Thoughts and prayers for those who have to report notifiable everts to the regulators.
I have a friend who does these kinds of updates. No idea how he sleeps at night - and he's not on as much money as you might think.
After the RBS screw up in 2012 and the TSB screw up in 2018 I get stressed when the IT director emails and tells us there’s an update scheduled for later on the week.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
I don't think Letby is an expert pathologist, or indeed an expert in case law. Many believe she was badly advised. Certainly there are other explanations for the insulin results that a competent legal team would have challenged. As I said, if you accept just one murder then you are accepting that there was a murderer and if not Letby then who?
We have no idea what LL's expert evidence said, for reasons I have stated above. So it has neither been presented nor subject to cross examination. Nothing at all can be said about it except the inference that it did not assist the defence, which can of course be disproved if LL gives permission.
The other evidence which has not yet been cross examined is the evidence of the new range of experts who have come into play since the trials. Best to wait and see on that.
The only expert evidence subject to cross examination, jury and appeal is that of the prosecution. I think caution is in order. It is of course not impossible that a massive injustice has been done, that is true of contested trials, but I don't think the data points that way yet.
Firstly, Farage has appointed James Orr as one of his key advisers. James Orr is an academic philosopher at Cambridge, and became a "thought mentor" (my word) to JD Vance about 5 years ago. Orr is an adult convert to Christianity, having had a classical education. He was one the Vance's stayed with this year.
Orr was involved in founding the Edmund Burke Foundation, which is the key UK body for National Conservatism. He's also high up in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, as is Danny Kruger and Baroness Stroud - and Paul Marshall.
My political speculation is that Reform UK (Kruger having defected and been welcomed with open arms) will be more a hub of National Conservatism as a segment its intellectual base, and I'm not sure how that affects the RefUK positioning wrt the Tories and vice-versa.
(As a further aside, I just came across this very English parish name - Agatha Christie wants her setting back: Bluntisham cum Earith with Colne and Holywell cum Needingworth (Ely) .)
Plus Reform will be more a hub for anti abortion activists, Orr and Kruger are firmly pro life and those who take a traditional view of marriage as only between one man and woman for life as Orr and Kruger also do
My second note on Reform is a little more Carry On (Infamy ! Infamy !).
It continues to be interesting at Kent County Council, following on from the leaked video at the weekend of the RefUK group meeting. The Leader sent out an excoriating email, which someone .. er .. leaked.
In a message sent after the Guardian published the video, (Council Leader) Kemkaran told her fellow Reform councillors that a “thorough investigation” was being launched as she said she had passed on her suspicions about who was responsible for “this treachery” to Reform UK’s head office.
“To have people on the inside, who smile to our faces, sit next to us at meetings, share jokes, anecdotes, before stabbing us in the back is very sad indeed,” she said in the message.
“The people who did this are cowards. They are weak. They are foolish. They are incapable of displaying true courage themselves, so they look to harm those who are. They are obsessed with personal gain at the expense of group success. They cannot cope with disappointment and personal inadequacies so they seek to bring down others to their level.”
She added: “I want you to know … I passed my suspicions of who is responsible for this treachery to head office and a thorough investigation is already under way. The guilty parties will be expelled from the Reform party without delay. They will have no political future.”
Seems to me to take down pretty much the entire (Western) internet is easier than you might think. Only a few companies need to be targetted I think - AWS and Cloudflare. Probably another big beast in the background too. Take them out and Xi or Putin's your uncle.
It's really quite shocking to find the government is reliant on Amazon services.
Between them, AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud completely dominate the market for cloud services. I'd think you'd be hard pressed to find any major web service or app that didn't depend on one of them.
One of the rare exceptions is Lidl, who decided not to be reliant on outsiders and built their own system.
Also Bluesky, apparently they mostly run their own physical servers.
The size of their user base, it will be running on a raspberry pi 3.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
I don't think Letby is an expert pathologist, or indeed an expert in case law. Many believe she was badly advised. Certainly there are other explanations for the insulin results that a competent legal team would have challenged. As I said, if you accept just one murder then you are accepting that there was a murderer and if not Letby then who?
We have no idea what LL's expert evidence said, for reasons I have stated above. So it has neither been presented nor subject to cross examination. Nothing at all can be said about it except the inference that it did not assist the defence, which can of course be disproved if LL gives permission.
The other evidence which has not yet been cross examined is the evidence of the new range of experts who have come into play since the trials. Best to wait and see on that.
The only expert evidence subject to cross examination, jury and appeal is that of the prosecution. I think caution is in order. It is of course not impossible that a massive injustice has been done, that is true of contested trials, but I don't think the data points that way yet.
I don't disagree. I think, from what you have posted, that you think she is probably guilty. I genuinely have no idea, but I do think the evidence that I am aware of (which is not the same as what was presented in court) is suspect.
The director-general said personal politics had no place in the Corporation’s news department amid repeated controversy over BBC impartiality.
“You leave it at the door and your religion is journalism at the BBC. And the problem I’ve got is that people react quite chemically to that,” Mr Davie told the Cheltenham Literature Festival.
“So you can’t come into the newsroom with a Black Lives Matter T-shirt.
“We stand absolutely firmly against racism in any form. I find some of the hatred in society at the moment utterly abhorrent, and personally really upsetting.
“But that is a campaign that has politicised objectives, therefore is not appropriate for a journalist who may be covering that issue to be campaigning in that way,” he told an audience at the festival.
“And for some people joining the BBC, that is a very difficult thing to accept.
“I feel very strongly that if you walk into the BBC newsroom you cannot be holding a Kamala Harris mug when you come to the [US] election. No way.”
This kind of position was absolutely normal, and not just at the BBC, HMRC, the local hospital, the national trust, constabularies, but even political bodies like your local council would in the delivery of their services not participate in areas that were political, outside a few radical councils in the eighties. There was an expectation that you don’t campaign on the rate payer.
I don’t know if it is the Equality Act that is to blame, or is an excuse, but we now have normalised radical political and social action from charitable, private and public institutions that wouldn’t have in the past touched such things with a barge pole.
Social media, innit?
Too many folk think they have an untrammelled right to express their opinions without a filter, whether that be "black lives matter" T-shirts or "burn them in their hotels".
Not sure that BLM t-shirts and ‘burn them in their hotels’ are exactly equal but opposite ends of the same problem.
Donald Trump demanded that Ukraine submit to Vladimir Putin’s peace terms or face destruction in an angry meeting at the White House last week, it has emerged.
The US president, who spoke with his Russian counterpart shortly before hosting Volodymyr Zelensky, warned that Putin would “destroy” Ukraine unless a peace deal was in place.
Shouting and swearing, Mr Trump threw aside Ukrainian maps of the battlefield and pressured Mr Zelensky to surrender the Donetsk region to Russia.
Putin is demanding the withdrawal of Ukraine’s army from the crucial eastern territory as a precondition for peace.
However, the surrender of Donetsk is a red line for Ukraine, which has long refused to cede the territory, which Russia has failed to capture despite fighting since 2014.
Trump is playing with a fire he does not even understand. The consequences for the US are going to be horrific.
Good morning
The consequences for everyone looks horrific
The breakdown in law and order, and decency, is deeply disturbing and I have no idea where this ends
@Mexicanpete makes a good point about Nathan Gill acceptance of Russian brides and Farage closeness to Putin and why it is not cutting through
Indeed in Caerphilly this Thursday Llyr Powell is favourite to take the Senedd seat from labour for Reform despite him previously working for Gill
I have come to the conclusion the public are so disenchanted with the political class they will vote for anyone who is different and not interested in the details as they are 'all the same'
The media don't care about Gill and the Farage adjacency. If they can create the story of Farage's elevation to Prime Minister, that is the story and the story is the prize.
Did you see the debate where Powell was comprehensively taken down by a Caerphilly born young man and his mother. The boy's father I believe was of Asian descent. He and his mother said that having lived in Caerphilly all their lives (where they quoted the non-white population at around 3%) had no racial tensions prior to Powell's candidacy?
The problem is Starmer (and unfortunately Davey and Badenoch) are panicking and falling for the winning Reform narrative. Maccabi Tel Aviv is a case in point, the outrage shown by Starmer (Davey and Badenoch) at the Villa decision which has been contextualised this weekend by Maccabi fans being restricted in Israel for race related hooliganism promoted the Reform narrative of good and bad (or on their agenda white and non-white-and their supporters) actors.
I didn't see the debate but good on the young man and his mother
And thank you for not pointing out my mistake - bribes not brides !!!!!
My second note on Reform is a little more Carry On (Infamy ! Infamy !).
It continues to be interesting at Kent County Council, following on from the leaked video at the weekend of the RefUK group meeting. The Leader sent out an excoriating email, which someone .. er .. leaked.
In a message sent after the Guardian published the video, (Council Leader) Kemkaran told her fellow Reform councillors that a “thorough investigation” was being launched as she said she had passed on her suspicions about who was responsible for “this treachery” to Reform UK’s head office.
“To have people on the inside, who smile to our faces, sit next to us at meetings, share jokes, anecdotes, before stabbing us in the back is very sad indeed,” she said in the message.
“The people who did this are cowards. They are weak. They are foolish. They are incapable of displaying true courage themselves, so they look to harm those who are. They are obsessed with personal gain at the expense of group success. They cannot cope with disappointment and personal inadequacies so they seek to bring down others to their level.”
She added: “I want you to know … I passed my suspicions of who is responsible for this treachery to head office and a thorough investigation is already under way. The guilty parties will be expelled from the Reform party without delay. They will have no political future.”
It was a very high handed meeting that I saw from a leader who saw her members as an inconvenience. Councillors can go native to the system very very quickly.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
One thing I find odd is that the GOP is unable to pass a budget despite a very loyal majority in both houses. The rules on these things seem very complex compared to here.
The democrats have enough to filibuster in the house
Filibusters happen in the Senate, not the House.
And the problem the Reps have is that their majority is NOT very loyal - they are riven with factions. Plus, the majority is tiny so they can't afford too many opposing votes.
At breakfast I was having an interesting little dig into Mrs James Orr aka Rev Helen Orr, who is a Church of England vicar, and daughter of Simon Barrington-Ward, who was a REALLY interesting Bishop of Coventry about 3 decades ago, and also head of the Church Missionary Society for a decade, and interested in contemplative spirituality. She herself is interested in societal questions such as how girls can grow into women in our current cultural environment. But the trail stopped when I needed to follow it to substack.
Fascinating situational dynamics for someone who is SWMBO to one of JD Vance's key mentors.
Good morning everyone.
Looks like his wife is a C of E vicar in Cambridgeshire. C of E vicars like civil servants (and often CEOs and directors of large companies) are normally discouraged from getting too involved in party politics though there is nothing to stop their spouses doing so
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
US East seems to fall over a lot. AP-Northeast-1 basically never goes down, you can throw an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident at it and it dgaf.
US East 1 is the original & first AWS datacentre. Many companies have ended up with a dependency on US-East 1 because they started there & never built out geographic redundancy. On top of that it’s rumoured that some AWS services still have single points of failure in US-East 1 - this Dynamo DB failure might be one of them.
There are probably a ton of design decisions that Amazon would redo if they had the chance for a second go around, but they can’t exactly tear down US East 1 & rebuild it - half the largest companies in the world depend on US East 1 maintaining service.
Normal politics. You'd probably find the same sort of thing happening in other councils and other parties over the years.
That's the point. Reform are butting up against the same frustrations and limitations that councillors of all parties do.
It's fun in this case because they made all these mad claims about "DEI" officers, DOGE, and billions on Net Zero. But it turns out most council spending and administration is actually tied up with on the kind of person who votes Reform.
At breakfast I was having an interesting little dig into Mrs James Orr aka Rev Helen Orr, who is a Church of England vicar, and daughter of Simon Barrington-Ward, who was a REALLY interesting Bishop of Coventry about 3 decades ago, and also head of the Church Missionary Society for a decade, and interested in contemplative spirituality. She herself is interested in societal questions such as how girls can grow into women in our current cultural environment. But the trail stopped when I needed to follow it to substack.
Fascinating situational dynamics for someone who is SWMBO to one of JD Vance's key mentors.
Good morning everyone.
Looks like his wife is a C of E vicar in Cambridgeshire. C of E vicars like civil servants (and often CEOs and directors of large companies) are normally discouraged from getting too involved in party politics though there is nothing to stop their spouses doing so
The parish newsletter in one part of West Yorkshire used to read like it had been produced by UKIP.
Facial hair on men is increasingly popular with British women, with one in five (19%) now saying they prefer the appearance of a man with a beard, up from 6% in 2011 and 13% in 2016.
Perhaps more notable is how far dislike for beards has dropped: in 2011 fully 66% of women said they preferred the appearance of a man without a beard. That figure is now just 36%. Instead, 44% of women say they don’t have any preference either way (up from 27% in 2011)."
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
The House passed a budget, but the Senate (where 60 votes are required) has voted it down 10 times so far.
The Democrats in the Senate are not going to vote for a MAGA budget, quite obviously.
But at least 7 Dems are going to have to support a budget that can pass.
That gives them some leverage to get some of what they want but ultimately, as they're in a minority, they will have to accept some things they don't want.
The alternative is governmental shutdown whereby the people lose out and become ever more disenchanted by federal politicians.
This pattern will repeat, in various forms, irrespective of who controls Congress.
That's why we see continuing resolutions (which keep the show on the road) while the two sides negotiate.
The GOP have chosen not to go with another continuing resolution, and have shut the government down, rather than compromise. Their best offer is "vote for the budget, and trust us to negotiate"; it doesn't work that way round, not least with a party which has demonstrated to everyone that its wod means nothing at all.
September 2024 continuing resolution December 2024 continuing resolution March 2025 continuing resolution
They've had time to negotiate, at some point decisions have to be made.
So the Dems have three choices - accept the budget, compromise to get some of what they want, government shutdown.
If they wanted more control over that decision then they needed to get more people elected last year.
the Dems have offered to compromise but not on gutting healthcare. They are allowed their red lines.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
The rules don't matter if they're not enforced. Trump has broken the Constitutional rules on budget spending already, but cancelling funding for Federal agencies mandated by Congress. And SCOTUS has said that it's fine.
So how much further will they take it?
This is really fundamental constitutional stuff. It's what Macron is struggling with in France. It's why the civil war was fought in England in the 17th century. Trump is gathering all the power of an absolute monarch.
If push were to come to shove, what does enforcement look like?
Is it something really bad? This century, it's usually something really bad.
At this stage, enforcing the rules on Trump would require Congress to impeach and convict Trump, ejecting him from office, and demonstrating to Vance, his successor, that he has to follow the Constitution, or they will do likewise.
Of course, the reaction to Trump being convicted would be pandemonium.
I suspect we are beyond that stage. We have only one branch of Government now. Congress is closed for business and SCOTUS are compliant. He is indeed the King.
Kings need successors. Time to fire Vance and install Don Jnr.
On early 2028 polls Republican primary voters prefer Vance to Trump Jr
Vance leads the polls, but does that mean he's the preferred candidate of Republicans or the presumed preferred candidate of the Orange Emperor?
It seems quite likely a lot of that would melt away if King Donald I suddenly announced Vance was banished from the court. Unless and until he actually is President, Vance is very heavily reliant on Trump's continuing patronage.
Though if he does that Trump risks Vance being the Sunak or Heseltine to his Boris or Thatcher, the Brutus to his Caesar who finally wields the knife and from his own side. Perhaps by getting the Cabinet to remove Trump in his favour
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
I don't think Letby is an expert pathologist, or indeed an expert in case law. Many believe she was badly advised. Certainly there are other explanations for the insulin results that a competent legal team would have challenged. As I said, if you accept just one murder then you are accepting that there was a murderer and if not Letby then who?
Indeed. Asking Letby to draw conclusions based on the insulin evidence was arguably an abuse of the court system - she simply wasn’t qualified to give answers to those questions. It was the legal equivalent of a “Have you stopped beating your wife?” loaded question that begged the conclusion, i.e. that someone was killing babies on the ward & it was either Letby or someone else.
Never make yourself reliant on one system. People seem to have fogotten that recently. Have lots of different ways of doing the same thing, independent of each other.
The problem is that you, as Britain Useful Company Inc., can contract with two different companies to provide you with a service, so you have two different ways of doing the same thing, and they both might end up being reliant on AWS anyway.
What's confusing to me is that the initial design of the internet was to create a computer network that would still be able to operate in the event of nuclear war, and yet it seems to be astonishingly fragile.
I guess most of the internet did carry on working, even with this AWS failure, but perhaps there are a few things we could do better.
I worked on one project where I forced through using multiple vendor K8s. So that the systems ran on multiple different companies clouds - AWS was just one.
When the first, famous AWS outage hit, I'd already left the project (consultancy). Apparently management asked why they weren't hit. They were, apparently a bit startled to discover that what had happened was that the load balancing had noticed non-response from the AWS instances, and spun up more instances on non-AWS to compensate. Probably no-one on the customer side noticed anything.
Firstly, Farage has appointed James Orr as one of his key advisers. James Orr is an academic philosopher at Cambridge, and became a "thought mentor" (my word) to JD Vance about 5 years ago. Orr is an adult convert to Christianity, having had a classical education. He was one the Vance's stayed with this year.
Orr was involved in founding the Edmund Burke Foundation, which is the key UK body for National Conservatism. He's also high up in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, as is Danny Kruger and Baroness Stroud - and Paul Marshall.
My political speculation is that Reform UK (Kruger having defected and been welcomed with open arms) will be more a hub of National Conservatism as a segment its intellectual base, and I'm not sure how that affects the RefUK positioning wrt the Tories and vice-versa.
(As a further aside, I just came across this very English parish name - Agatha Christie wants her setting back: Bluntisham cum Earith with Colne and Holywell cum Needingworth (Ely) .)
Plus Reform will be more a hub for anti abortion activists, Orr and Kruger are firmly pro life and those who take a traditional view of marriage as only between one man and woman for life as Orr and Kruger also do
That's an interesting potential impact, if RefUK take a notably harder line than the Conservatives - especially if they go towards the USA type line of seeking to punish women or seem to put abortion access in a social conduct frame not a medical need one.
Potential appeal or repulsion amongst groups of voters including ethnic minority, black and white Pentecostal / Evangelical / Roman Catholic as attraction, and others as repulsion. Also potentially the same amongst male / female demographics at different ages.
I don't know the numbers well enough to make any estimates.
Firstly, Farage has appointed James Orr as one of his key advisers. James Orr is an academic philosopher at Cambridge, and became a "thought mentor" (my word) to JD Vance about 5 years ago. Orr is an adult convert to Christianity, having had a classical education. He was one the Vance's stayed with this year.
Orr was involved in founding the Edmund Burke Foundation, which is the key UK body for National Conservatism. He's also high up in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, as is Danny Kruger and Baroness Stroud - and Paul Marshall.
My political speculation is that Reform UK (Kruger having defected and been welcomed with open arms) will be more a hub of National Conservatism as a segment its intellectual base, and I'm not sure how that affects the RefUK positioning wrt the Tories and vice-versa.
(As a further aside, I just came across this very English parish name - Agatha Christie wants her setting back: Bluntisham cum Earith with Colne and Holywell cum Needingworth (Ely) .)
Plus Reform will be more a hub for anti abortion activists, Orr and Kruger are firmly pro life and those who take a traditional view of marriage as only between one man and woman for life as Orr and Kruger also do
The Americanisation/pseudo-science aspect of ReformUK will limit their support, making a Reform government unachievable whilst retaining enough support to make a Conservative government unachievable.
Amazon Web Services identifies potential root cause AWS said it has "identified a potential root cause" for the problems causing this morning's massive internet outage.
"Based on our investigation, the issue appears to be related to DNS resolution of the DynamoDB API endpoint in US-EAST-1," said the company in an update.
DNS resolution means the process that allows companies to connect to its servers.
AWS said it is working on "multiple parallel paths to accelerate recovery".
US East seems to fall over a lot. AP-Northeast-1 basically never goes down, you can throw an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident at it and it dgaf.
US East 1 is the original & first AWS datacentre. Many companies have ended up with a dependency on US-East 1 because they started there & never built out geographic redundancy. On top of that it’s rumoured that some AWS services still have single points of failure in US-East 1 - this Dynamo DB failure might be one of them.
There are probably a ton of design decisions that Amazon would redo if they had the chance for a second go around, but they can’t exactly tear down US East 1 & rebuild it - half the largest companies in the world depend on US East 1 maintaining service.
It does appear to be the “master” location for a whole number of AWS internal services, as well as being the original data centre location.
It’s easy enough to set up redundancy nowadays, no-one should be relying on a single location for cloud storage. That’s kinda the point of cloud services!
Off topic, is this MoD being allowed to shoot down drones thing just a case of something must be done noise? Outside a live war situation can anyone see a scenario where live ordnance being fired into the skies of this sceptred isle will take place?
It’s more of a “don’t try anything on Russia”
I assume there's a missing comma after 'on', though as it stands a useful summary of attitudes to Russia from Trump down.
Has anyone checked if the head of Amazon IT has any links to Prince Andrew? I suspect Andrew is secretly massively relieved he is no longer leading the news
Firstly, Farage has appointed James Orr as one of his key advisers. James Orr is an academic philosopher at Cambridge, and became a "thought mentor" (my word) to JD Vance about 5 years ago. Orr is an adult convert to Christianity, having had a classical education. He was one the Vance's stayed with this year.
Orr was involved in founding the Edmund Burke Foundation, which is the key UK body for National Conservatism. He's also high up in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, as is Danny Kruger and Baroness Stroud - and Paul Marshall.
My political speculation is that Reform UK (Kruger having defected and been welcomed with open arms) will be more a hub of National Conservatism as a segment its intellectual base, and I'm not sure how that affects the RefUK positioning wrt the Tories and vice-versa.
(As a further aside, I just came across this very English parish name - Agatha Christie wants her setting back: Bluntisham cum Earith with Colne and Holywell cum Needingworth (Ely) .)
Plus Reform will be more a hub for anti abortion activists, Orr and Kruger are firmly pro life and those who take a traditional view of marriage as only between one man and woman for life as Orr and Kruger also do
The Americanisation/pseudo-science aspect of ReformUK will limit their support, making a Reform government unachievable whilst retaining enough support to make a Conservative government unachievable.
Though still probably enough to make a Labour majority government unachievable too due to anti immigration votes for Reform
Firstly, Farage has appointed James Orr as one of his key advisers. James Orr is an academic philosopher at Cambridge, and became a "thought mentor" (my word) to JD Vance about 5 years ago. Orr is an adult convert to Christianity, having had a classical education. He was one the Vance's stayed with this year.
Orr was involved in founding the Edmund Burke Foundation, which is the key UK body for National Conservatism. He's also high up in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, as is Danny Kruger and Baroness Stroud - and Paul Marshall.
My political speculation is that Reform UK (Kruger having defected and been welcomed with open arms) will be more a hub of National Conservatism as a segment its intellectual base, and I'm not sure how that affects the RefUK positioning wrt the Tories and vice-versa.
(As a further aside, I just came across this very English parish name - Agatha Christie wants her setting back: Bluntisham cum Earith with Colne and Holywell cum Needingworth (Ely) .)
Plus Reform will be more a hub for anti abortion activists, Orr and Kruger are firmly pro life and those who take a traditional view of marriage as only between one man and woman for life as Orr and Kruger also do
The Americanisation/pseudo-science aspect of ReformUK will limit their support, making a Reform government unachievable whilst retaining enough support to make a Conservative government unachievable.
But it makes a Tory Reform coalition more likely - which is my preferred outcome.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
They’re basically two tribes of children at this point, both happy to continue the shutdown for as long as they can blame the other side for it.
It will probably take a month or so before people get annoyed with government services that are not working, or government workers not being paid, that’s what brings them back to the table.
It’s a crazy system that even allows for government to shut down at all, not sure any other country has the same constitutional process of brinkmanship. Wasn’t it Belgium that ran just fine for a year with no government after electing a a very hung Parliament?
IIRC in the UK there’s very little that has to be done, but there’s a few annual renewals such as for income tax and various terrorism-related legislation.
There's really no justification for that kind of "both sides" analysis. The GOP controls all three branches if government, and benefits from a rock solid conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
Whatever is going on with government is 100% down to them.
One thing I find odd is that the GOP is unable to pass a budget despite a very loyal majority in both houses. The rules on these things seem very complex compared to here.
The democrats have enough to filibuster in the house
Firstly, Farage has appointed James Orr as one of his key advisers. James Orr is an academic philosopher at Cambridge, and became a "thought mentor" (my word) to JD Vance about 5 years ago. Orr is an adult convert to Christianity, having had a classical education. He was one the Vance's stayed with this year.
Orr was involved in founding the Edmund Burke Foundation, which is the key UK body for National Conservatism. He's also high up in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, as is Danny Kruger and Baroness Stroud - and Paul Marshall.
My political speculation is that Reform UK (Kruger having defected and been welcomed with open arms) will be more a hub of National Conservatism as a segment its intellectual base, and I'm not sure how that affects the RefUK positioning wrt the Tories and vice-versa.
(As a further aside, I just came across this very English parish name - Agatha Christie wants her setting back: Bluntisham cum Earith with Colne and Holywell cum Needingworth (Ely) .)
Plus Reform will be more a hub for anti abortion activists, Orr and Kruger are firmly pro life and those who take a traditional view of marriage as only between one man and woman for life as Orr and Kruger also do
That's an interesting potential impact, if RefUK take a notably harder line than the Conservatives - especially if they go towards the USA type line of seeking to punish women or seem to put abortion access in a social conduct frame not a medical need one.
Potential appeal or repulsion amongst groups of voters including ethnic minority, black and white Pentecostal / Evangelical / Roman Catholic as attraction, and others as repulsion. Also potentially the same amongst male / female demographics at different ages.
I don't know the numbers well enough to make any estimates.
Yes a traditional marriage and anti abortion line from Reform will go down well with conservative Roman Catholics and evangelicals black and white and even a few Muslims ironically.
It will go down less well with swing voters who voted Conservative or Labour in 2024, have since switched to Reform but are relatively socially liberal just want to reduce immigration
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
I don't think Letby is an expert pathologist, or indeed an expert in case law. Many believe she was badly advised. Certainly there are other explanations for the insulin results that a competent legal team would have challenged. As I said, if you accept just one murder then you are accepting that there was a murderer and if not Letby then who?
We have no idea what LL's expert evidence said, for reasons I have stated above. So it has neither been presented nor subject to cross examination. Nothing at all can be said about it except the inference that it did not assist the defence, which can of course be disproved if LL gives permission.
The other evidence which has not yet been cross examined is the evidence of the new range of experts who have come into play since the trials. Best to wait and see on that.
The only expert evidence subject to cross examination, jury and appeal is that of the prosecution. I think caution is in order. It is of course not impossible that a massive injustice has been done, that is true of contested trials, but I don't think the data points that way yet.
I don't disagree. I think, from what you have posted, that you think she is probably guilty. I genuinely have no idea, but I do think the evidence that I am aware of (which is not the same as what was presented in court) is suspect.
Yes. I am open to persuasion, but I think the juries and the Court of Appeal have got it right. FWIW the BBC's Judith Moritz sat through the entire trial and has, from what I have read, drawn the same conclusion.
The unanswered questions about the non use of defence expert evidence remain critical. It is worth recalling that there was a second trial and the same tactic was used. You have to ask why.
All the stuff about inadequate counsel is unjustified and levelled at people who, because of privilege, cannot reply.
I know that no-one wants to be told to wait and see, discover over time whether there is fresh evidence capable of belief and relevant to guilt, and so on, but that is what has to happen.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
I don't think Letby is an expert pathologist, or indeed an expert in case law. Many believe she was badly advised. Certainly there are other explanations for the insulin results that a competent legal team would have challenged. As I said, if you accept just one murder then you are accepting that there was a murderer and if not Letby then who?
We have no idea what LL's expert evidence said, for reasons I have stated above. So it has neither been presented nor subject to cross examination. Nothing at all can be said about it except the inference that it did not assist the defence, which can of course be disproved if LL gives permission.
The other evidence which has not yet been cross examined is the evidence of the new range of experts who have come into play since the trials. Best to wait and see on that.
The only expert evidence subject to cross examination, jury and appeal is that of the prosecution. I think caution is in order. It is of course not impossible that a massive injustice has been done, that is true of contested trials, but I don't think the data points that way yet.
Defence experts can be cross examined in court, but it seems to be quite rare. According to
there are circumstances where the prosecution can choose to cross examine a defence expert witness.
It seems that generally everyone already knows what arguments the expert witnesses are going to make: everything is in the pre trial disclosure & witness statements. Any challenges usually happen at this stage & so cross examination on the stand happens very rarely.
(Again, not a trial lawyer - anyone with relevant expertise would know more about this!)
Firstly, Farage has appointed James Orr as one of his key advisers. James Orr is an academic philosopher at Cambridge, and became a "thought mentor" (my word) to JD Vance about 5 years ago. Orr is an adult convert to Christianity, having had a classical education. He was one the Vance's stayed with this year.
Orr was involved in founding the Edmund Burke Foundation, which is the key UK body for National Conservatism. He's also high up in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, as is Danny Kruger and Baroness Stroud - and Paul Marshall.
My political speculation is that Reform UK (Kruger having defected and been welcomed with open arms) will be more a hub of National Conservatism as a segment its intellectual base, and I'm not sure how that affects the RefUK positioning wrt the Tories and vice-versa.
(As a further aside, I just came across this very English parish name - Agatha Christie wants her setting back: Bluntisham cum Earith with Colne and Holywell cum Needingworth (Ely) .)
Plus Reform will be more a hub for anti abortion activists, Orr and Kruger are firmly pro life and those who take a traditional view of marriage as only between one man and woman for life as Orr and Kruger also do
The Americanisation/pseudo-science aspect of ReformUK will limit their support, making a Reform government unachievable whilst retaining enough support to make a Conservative government unachievable.
But it makes a Tory Reform coalition more likely - which is my preferred outcome.
I would think that Reform's Americanisation/pseudo-science side would repel the Conservatives from any alliance, but maybe in the end they will have little choice.
I continue to think the fact that the House Republicans have essentially closed up shop is one of the most consequential, interesting, infuriating, historically bananas things happening right now and I cannot understand why it’s not getting more coverage. Like, first of all, WHY? https://x.com/brianschatz/status/1980086949223288866
Suppose Trump declares a budget by Executive Order. I know it's not Constitutional, but when has that stopped him, and who else would stop him?
Most of his existing public support would support him on it, as bypassing the Democrats who they blame for the shutdown. Federal employees will be relieved to return to work and receiving their pay again, even if they believe it to be due to an unconstitutional act.
A lot of low-information voters will simply be relieved that the government is functioning, and probably don't distinguish between the different branches of government that much.
Once SCOTUS dismisses the case against the Executive budget, what else are Democrats going to do?
I guess it solves the problem of what to do about the midterm elections if the House simply never sits again. Though most dictators find it useful to have a legislative assembly to give the facade of democracy.
I would expect the House to return eventually, but it's not 100%.
I think in the uk there is a rule that there has to be a state opening of parliament by a certain date. So you have the same thing in the US?
Because I could quite easily see them holding over the current session for a very very long time
The rules don't matter if they're not enforced. Trump has broken the Constitutional rules on budget spending already, but cancelling funding for Federal agencies mandated by Congress. And SCOTUS has said that it's fine.
So how much further will they take it?
This is really fundamental constitutional stuff. It's what Macron is struggling with in France. It's why the civil war was fought in England in the 17th century. Trump is gathering all the power of an absolute monarch.
If push were to come to shove, what does enforcement look like?
Is it something really bad? This century, it's usually something really bad.
At this stage, enforcing the rules on Trump would require Congress to impeach and convict Trump, ejecting him from office, and demonstrating to Vance, his successor, that he has to follow the Constitution, or they will do likewise.
Of course, the reaction to Trump being convicted would be pandemonium.
I suspect we are beyond that stage. We have only one branch of Government now. Congress is closed for business and SCOTUS are compliant. He is indeed the King.
Kings need successors. Time to fire Vance and install Don Jnr.
On early 2028 polls Republican primary voters prefer Vance to Trump Jr
Vance leads the polls, but does that mean he's the preferred candidate of Republicans or the presumed preferred candidate of the Orange Emperor?
It seems quite likely a lot of that would melt away if King Donald I suddenly announced Vance was banished from the court. Unless and until he actually is President, Vance is very heavily reliant on Trump's continuing patronage.
Though if he does that Trump risks Vance being the Sunak or Heseltine to his Boris or Thatcher, the Brutus to his Caesar who finally wields the knife and from his own side. Perhaps by getting the Cabinet to remove Trump in his favour
I tend to think that most of Trump's circle are mushrooms, glove puppets or dependents, except for perhaps Vance, Scott Bessent, Russell Vought and perhaps Rubio.
Apart from a very small number, imo there is parhaps no scaffolding that will stand if Trump is absent.
But my predictions are likely to be as far off as anyone else's.
Firstly, Farage has appointed James Orr as one of his key advisers. James Orr is an academic philosopher at Cambridge, and became a "thought mentor" (my word) to JD Vance about 5 years ago. Orr is an adult convert to Christianity, having had a classical education. He was one the Vance's stayed with this year.
Orr was involved in founding the Edmund Burke Foundation, which is the key UK body for National Conservatism. He's also high up in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, as is Danny Kruger and Baroness Stroud - and Paul Marshall.
My political speculation is that Reform UK (Kruger having defected and been welcomed with open arms) will be more a hub of National Conservatism as a segment its intellectual base, and I'm not sure how that affects the RefUK positioning wrt the Tories and vice-versa.
(As a further aside, I just came across this very English parish name - Agatha Christie wants her setting back: Bluntisham cum Earith with Colne and Holywell cum Needingworth (Ely) .)
Plus Reform will be more a hub for anti abortion activists, Orr and Kruger are firmly pro life and those who take a traditional view of marriage as only between one man and woman for life as Orr and Kruger also do
The Americanisation/pseudo-science aspect of ReformUK will limit their support, making a Reform government unachievable whilst retaining enough support to make a Conservative government unachievable.
But it makes a Tory Reform coalition more likely - which is my preferred outcome.
Though also a Labour and LD coalition more likely, the biggest loser would be a Reform majority
"Ring, Lloyds Bank and Snapchat knocked offline in huge internet blackout Amazon web hosting crash takes down dozens of apps and websites
Dozens of internet services, games and apps including the HMRC website and banks are offline after a crash involving hosting company Amazon Web Services.
Web users were also unable to access services including the Ring doorbell app, Snapchat and Fortnite on Monday morning.
The blackout affected the Government’s Gateway login service, which includes HMRC and many other public services. Users also reported problems with Lloyds Bank and Halifax’s apps."
Thoughts and prayers for those who have to report notifiable everts to the regulators.
I have a friend who does these kinds of updates. No idea how he sleeps at night - and he's not on as much money as you might think.
After the RBS screw up in 2012 and the TSB screw up in 2018 I get stressed when the IT director emails and tells us there’s an update scheduled for later on the week.
Latest Windows 11 / Server 2025 update from last week is a real mess.
I've just updated to Windows 11 and it's retrograde in several respects. But I needed a new computer anyway so the improvement in speed is some compensation.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
I don't think Letby is an expert pathologist, or indeed an expert in case law. Many believe she was badly advised. Certainly there are other explanations for the insulin results that a competent legal team would have challenged. As I said, if you accept just one murder then you are accepting that there was a murderer and if not Letby then who?
We have no idea what LL's expert evidence said, for reasons I have stated above. So it has neither been presented nor subject to cross examination. Nothing at all can be said about it except the inference that it did not assist the defence, which can of course be disproved if LL gives permission.
The other evidence which has not yet been cross examined is the evidence of the new range of experts who have come into play since the trials. Best to wait and see on that.
The only expert evidence subject to cross examination, jury and appeal is that of the prosecution. I think caution is in order. It is of course not impossible that a massive injustice has been done, that is true of contested trials, but I don't think the data points that way yet.
Defence experts can be cross examined in court, but it seems to be quite rare. According to
there are circumstances where the prosecution can choose to cross examine a defence expert witness.
It seems that generally everyone already knows what arguments the expert witnesses are going to make: everything is in the pre trial disclosure & witness statements. Any challenges usually happen at this stage & so cross examination on the stand happens very rarely.
(Again, not a trial lawyer - anyone with relevant expertise would know more about this!)
Cross examination (testing, challenging, inviting qualifications, putting alternative opinions to the witness for comment) of expert witnesses is normal where their evidence is not agreed between the parties.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
I don't think Letby is an expert pathologist, or indeed an expert in case law. Many believe she was badly advised. Certainly there are other explanations for the insulin results that a competent legal team would have challenged. As I said, if you accept just one murder then you are accepting that there was a murderer and if not Letby then who?
We have no idea what LL's expert evidence said, for reasons I have stated above. So it has neither been presented nor subject to cross examination. Nothing at all can be said about it except the inference that it did not assist the defence, which can of course be disproved if LL gives permission.
The other evidence which has not yet been cross examined is the evidence of the new range of experts who have come into play since the trials. Best to wait and see on that.
The only expert evidence subject to cross examination, jury and appeal is that of the prosecution. I think caution is in order. It is of course not impossible that a massive injustice has been done, that is true of contested trials, but I don't think the data points that way yet.
Defence experts can be cross examined in court, but it seems to be quite rare. According to
there are circumstances where the prosecution can choose to cross examine a defence expert witness.
It seems that generally everyone already knows what arguments the expert witnesses are going to make: everything is in the pre trial disclosure & witness statements. Any challenges usually happen at this stage & so cross examination on the stand happens very rarely.
(Again, not a trial lawyer - anyone with relevant expertise would know more about this!)
Cross examination (testing, challenging, inviting qualifications, putting alternative opinions to the witness for comment) of expert witnesses is normal where their evidence is not agreed between the parties.
But this was MD's point. For whatever reason the defence accepted a lot of the evidence (that many think they should not have accepted) and so it wasn't contested in court.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
I don't think Letby is an expert pathologist, or indeed an expert in case law. Many believe she was badly advised. Certainly there are other explanations for the insulin results that a competent legal team would have challenged. As I said, if you accept just one murder then you are accepting that there was a murderer and if not Letby then who?
We have no idea what LL's expert evidence said, for reasons I have stated above. So it has neither been presented nor subject to cross examination. Nothing at all can be said about it except the inference that it did not assist the defence, which can of course be disproved if LL gives permission.
The other evidence which has not yet been cross examined is the evidence of the new range of experts who have come into play since the trials. Best to wait and see on that.
The only expert evidence subject to cross examination, jury and appeal is that of the prosecution. I think caution is in order. It is of course not impossible that a massive injustice has been done, that is true of contested trials, but I don't think the data points that way yet.
I don't disagree. I think, from what you have posted, that you think she is probably guilty. I genuinely have no idea, but I do think the evidence that I am aware of (which is not the same as what was presented in court) is suspect.
Yes. I am open to persuasion, but I think the juries and the Court of Appeal have got it right. FWIW the BBC's Judith Moritz sat through the entire trial and has, from what I have read, drawn the same conclusion.
The unanswered questions about the non use of defence expert evidence remain critical. It is worth recalling that there was a second trial and the same tactic was used. You have to ask why.
All the stuff about inadequate counsel is unjustified and levelled at people who, because of privilege, cannot reply.
I know that no-one wants to be told to wait and see, discover over time whether there is fresh evidence capable of belief and relevant to guilt, and so on, but that is what has to happen.
No, the reason is that the defence’s own witnesses supported the claim that 2 babies were overdosed on insulin at the time.
That’s the reason they weren’t called - the defence could see that they would simply be asked this question by the prosecution barrister, based on their existing pre-trial testimony.
Once she was convicted, it becomes impossible to challenge at appeal, because you can only appeal on new evidence, or trial issues, like witnesses contradicting their own evidence. This is why the appeal judge was rather surprised that her lawyers didn’t use the contradictions in the witness statements over time as grounds for appeal.
There is no new evidence - only opinions from a variety of experts that the original experts were wrong. This (as I understand things) is not grounds for appeal in the UK. It’s what the CCRC was setup to deal with, but they are hopelessly behind & slow to act.
It’s notable that Sally Clark was freed on appeal due to other evidence that was discovered after the fact that cast doubt on her original conviction. The fact that the first conviction was based on the shoddiest statistics known to man was not a valid ground for her appeal & the legal minds of this country are still (apparently) prone to introducing basic statistical fallacies into prosecutions, without them being challenged by anyone involved.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
I don't think Letby is an expert pathologist, or indeed an expert in case law. Many believe she was badly advised. Certainly there are other explanations for the insulin results that a competent legal team would have challenged. As I said, if you accept just one murder then you are accepting that there was a murderer and if not Letby then who?
We have no idea what LL's expert evidence said, for reasons I have stated above. So it has neither been presented nor subject to cross examination. Nothing at all can be said about it except the inference that it did not assist the defence, which can of course be disproved if LL gives permission.
The other evidence which has not yet been cross examined is the evidence of the new range of experts who have come into play since the trials. Best to wait and see on that.
The only expert evidence subject to cross examination, jury and appeal is that of the prosecution. I think caution is in order. It is of course not impossible that a massive injustice has been done, that is true of contested trials, but I don't think the data points that way yet.
Defence experts can be cross examined in court, but it seems to be quite rare. According to
there are circumstances where the prosecution can choose to cross examine a defence expert witness.
It seems that generally everyone already knows what arguments the expert witnesses are going to make: everything is in the pre trial disclosure & witness statements. Any challenges usually happen at this stage & so cross examination on the stand happens very rarely.
(Again, not a trial lawyer - anyone with relevant expertise would know more about this!)
As I understand it, it's furthermore seen as good practice for expert witnesses (a very specific term of course) to meet beforehand and see what they agree and don't agree on, and agree on that. That way the trial can save a lot of time by zipping through the non-contentious stuff and focus only on the stuff that is not mutually accepted.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
I don't think Letby is an expert pathologist, or indeed an expert in case law. Many believe she was badly advised. Certainly there are other explanations for the insulin results that a competent legal team would have challenged. As I said, if you accept just one murder then you are accepting that there was a murderer and if not Letby then who?
We have no idea what LL's expert evidence said, for reasons I have stated above. So it has neither been presented nor subject to cross examination. Nothing at all can be said about it except the inference that it did not assist the defence, which can of course be disproved if LL gives permission.
The other evidence which has not yet been cross examined is the evidence of the new range of experts who have come into play since the trials. Best to wait and see on that.
The only expert evidence subject to cross examination, jury and appeal is that of the prosecution. I think caution is in order. It is of course not impossible that a massive injustice has been done, that is true of contested trials, but I don't think the data points that way yet.
I don't disagree. I think, from what you have posted, that you think she is probably guilty. I genuinely have no idea, but I do think the evidence that I am aware of (which is not the same as what was presented in court) is suspect.
Yes. I am open to persuasion, but I think the juries and the Court of Appeal have got it right. FWIW the BBC's Judith Moritz sat through the entire trial and has, from what I have read, drawn the same conclusion.
The unanswered questions about the non use of defence expert evidence remain critical. It is worth recalling that there was a second trial and the same tactic was used. You have to ask why.
All the stuff about inadequate counsel is unjustified and levelled at people who, because of privilege, cannot reply.
I know that no-one wants to be told to wait and see, discover over time whether there is fresh evidence capable of belief and relevant to guilt, and so on, but that is what has to happen.
Based on the court case, anyone would reasonably conclude that Letby was probably guilty. If you based your opinion on having attended the case, you’d draw the same conclusion that the jury did.
The problems with the court case & the expert evidence used to secure her conviction were pointed out after the fact - remember that during the case all this was sub judice & it wasn’t possible for anyone to raise any of these criticisms in the press, or elsewhere, without risking being prosecuted for contempt.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
I don't think Letby is an expert pathologist, or indeed an expert in case law. Many believe she was badly advised. Certainly there are other explanations for the insulin results that a competent legal team would have challenged. As I said, if you accept just one murder then you are accepting that there was a murderer and if not Letby then who?
Indeed. Asking Letby to draw conclusions based on the insulin evidence was arguably an abuse of the court system - she simply wasn’t qualified to give answers to those questions. It was the legal equivalent of a “Have you stopped beating your wife?” loaded question that begged the conclusion, i.e. that someone was killing babies on the ward & it was either Letby or someone else.
This may be a fair point, it depends on the context, only available from a transcript I have not seen. What is possible (and can't be verified at the moment, as LL has privilege over the matter) is that both sides' experts agreed that the insulin levels meant that human interference was involved rather than natural occurring. Contested stuff in trials is about the facts which are in issue, not the facts which are not.
For all I know this is the case, but they were all in error. The CCRC will be asked to look at exactly that I should think.
Firstly, Farage has appointed James Orr as one of his key advisers. James Orr is an academic philosopher at Cambridge, and became a "thought mentor" (my word) to JD Vance about 5 years ago. Orr is an adult convert to Christianity, having had a classical education. He was one the Vance's stayed with this year.
Orr was involved in founding the Edmund Burke Foundation, which is the key UK body for National Conservatism. He's also high up in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, as is Danny Kruger and Baroness Stroud - and Paul Marshall.
My political speculation is that Reform UK (Kruger having defected and been welcomed with open arms) will be more a hub of National Conservatism as a segment its intellectual base, and I'm not sure how that affects the RefUK positioning wrt the Tories and vice-versa.
(As a further aside, I just came across this very English parish name - Agatha Christie wants her setting back: Bluntisham cum Earith with Colne and Holywell cum Needingworth (Ely) .)
Plus Reform will be more a hub for anti abortion activists, Orr and Kruger are firmly pro life and those who take a traditional view of marriage as only between one man and woman for life as Orr and Kruger also do
The Americanisation/pseudo-science aspect of ReformUK will limit their support, making a Reform government unachievable whilst retaining enough support to make a Conservative government unachievable.
But it makes a Tory Reform coalition more likely - which is my preferred outcome.
I would think that Reform's Americanisation/pseudo-science side would repel the Conservatives from any alliance, but maybe in the end they will have little choice.
I think you're exaggerating what are essentially very superficial differences and coming up with a catastrophe.
According to South Korea's Minister of Defense An Gyu-bak, South Korea has put into serial production the world's most powerful non-nuclear ballistic missile, Hyunmoo-5.
🔻 South Korea, which has committed under international agreements to not possess nuclear weapons, focuses on the power of the non-nuclear warhead of ballistic missiles and the mass production of such missiles to deter North Korea. According to the South Korean Minister of Defense, the missiles will be deployed on combat duty by the end of this year.
🔻 The first public display of the Hyunmoo-5 missile system took place last year during a military parade held to commemorate Armed Forces Day. According to limited available information, the ballistic missile weighs 36 tons, of which 8 tons are the warhead. The flight range reaches 3000 km (according to another version - 3500 km). https://x.com/visionergeo/status/1979839930340659704
According to South Korea's Minister of Defense An Gyu-bak, South Korea has put into serial production the world's most powerful non-nuclear ballistic missile, Hyunmoo-5.
🔻 South Korea, which has committed under international agreements to not possess nuclear weapons, focuses on the power of the non-nuclear warhead of ballistic missiles and the mass production of such missiles to deter North Korea. According to the South Korean Minister of Defense, the missiles will be deployed on combat duty by the end of this year.
🔻 The first public display of the Hyunmoo-5 missile system took place last year during a military parade held to commemorate Armed Forces Day. According to limited available information, the ballistic missile weighs 36 tons, of which 8 tons are the warhead. The flight range reaches 3000 km (according to another version - 3500 km). https://x.com/visionergeo/status/1979839930340659704
Would they like to test that on the Russian Shahed drone factory in Siberia?
This may be right; but of course this is an element of the recurring comedy in which UK governments consistently took the line, while in the EU and its predecessors, that the European state-like ambition instanced by monetary union, FOM, parliament, binding law making powers, flags and anthems etc was no such thing.
All part of that helpful programme whereby when we were in it, lots of opinion wanted to be out, and when we are out of it, lots of opinion wants to be in.
(Which is why the Norway/Swiss option remains the only stable solution.)
According to South Korea's Minister of Defense An Gyu-bak, South Korea has put into serial production the world's most powerful non-nuclear ballistic missile, Hyunmoo-5.
🔻 South Korea, which has committed under international agreements to not possess nuclear weapons, focuses on the power of the non-nuclear warhead of ballistic missiles and the mass production of such missiles to deter North Korea. According to the South Korean Minister of Defense, the missiles will be deployed on combat duty by the end of this year.
🔻 The first public display of the Hyunmoo-5 missile system took place last year during a military parade held to commemorate Armed Forces Day. According to limited available information, the ballistic missile weighs 36 tons, of which 8 tons are the warhead. The flight range reaches 3000 km (according to another version - 3500 km). https://x.com/visionergeo/status/1979839930340659704
Firstly, Farage has appointed James Orr as one of his key advisers. James Orr is an academic philosopher at Cambridge, and became a "thought mentor" (my word) to JD Vance about 5 years ago. Orr is an adult convert to Christianity, having had a classical education. He was one the Vance's stayed with this year.
Orr was involved in founding the Edmund Burke Foundation, which is the key UK body for National Conservatism. He's also high up in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, as is Danny Kruger and Baroness Stroud - and Paul Marshall.
My political speculation is that Reform UK (Kruger having defected and been welcomed with open arms) will be more a hub of National Conservatism as a segment its intellectual base, and I'm not sure how that affects the RefUK positioning wrt the Tories and vice-versa.
(As a further aside, I just came across this very English parish name - Agatha Christie wants her setting back: Bluntisham cum Earith with Colne and Holywell cum Needingworth (Ely) .)
Plus Reform will be more a hub for anti abortion activists, Orr and Kruger are firmly pro life and those who take a traditional view of marriage as only between one man and woman for life as Orr and Kruger also do
The Americanisation/pseudo-science aspect of ReformUK will limit their support, making a Reform government unachievable whilst retaining enough support to make a Conservative government unachievable.
But it makes a Tory Reform coalition more likely - which is my preferred outcome.
Though also a Labour and LD coalition more likely, the biggest loser would be a Reform majority
I don't see that happening. If it did, it would be lucky to last weeks.
At breakfast I was having an interesting little dig into Mrs James Orr aka Rev Helen Orr, who is a Church of England vicar, and daughter of Simon Barrington-Ward, who was a REALLY interesting Bishop of Coventry about 3 decades ago, and also head of the Church Missionary Society for a decade, and interested in contemplative spirituality. She herself is interested in societal questions such as how girls can grow into women in our current cultural environment. But the trail stopped when I needed to follow it to substack.
Fascinating situational dynamics for someone who is SWMBO to one of JD Vance's key mentors.
Good morning everyone.
Looks like his wife is a C of E vicar in Cambridgeshire. C of E vicars like civil servants (and often CEOs and directors of large companies) are normally discouraged from getting too involved in party politics though there is nothing to stop their spouses doing so
Yes - the last week or two I've been listening to a little Youtubing from a Vicar in Chalfont St Giles called Rev Dan Beasley (about 20k subs - so notable but not substantial), as he does some of reflecting around movements such as ARC, and movements in the Church of England and Anglican Communion. He takes care with the limitations imposed on him by his public role where he has the "cure of souls" of the whole parish.
But he's told his bishop that he will find it very difficult to stay in the CofE if gay marriage comes in. I can't quite catch the precise tenor of his stance (probably "mainstream traditional evangelical still wrestling to find his view"), but the basics are reminiscent of that taken in 1991 by people like David Holloway when Reform was set up. That positioning is clear, but to me seems less self-consciously sharp-elbowed and has his face set less "like flint" than say William Taylor or other "Reformed" people.
His take on attending ARC (Alliance for Responsible Citizenship) was interesting, where he contrasted attending in person, with newspapers reporting over the internet. His critique is that "ARC" the movement was promoting "cultural Christianity" rather than "the Gospel itself". "Cultural Christianity" is likely to be code for "the form of the religion, but not the heart thereof" in evangelical language, and is deployed in all sort of ways.
This is his vid - quite long, but it gives a good idea of the tensions vicars in that stream are dealing with, and where they are coming from. There's useful summary in the last few minutes if anyone just to dip in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV98xcd12xM
* For anyone not following, ARC is the Jordan Peterson / Baroness Philippa Stroud movement looking to "Create a Better Story" (ie imo trying to create a new societal culture to follow on from what we have now). I had not realised that ARC 2025 in London had nearly 5000 people attending paying around £1000 each for 3 days just for the conference itself.
According to South Korea's Minister of Defense An Gyu-bak, South Korea has put into serial production the world's most powerful non-nuclear ballistic missile, Hyunmoo-5.
🔻 South Korea, which has committed under international agreements to not possess nuclear weapons, focuses on the power of the non-nuclear warhead of ballistic missiles and the mass production of such missiles to deter North Korea. According to the South Korean Minister of Defense, the missiles will be deployed on combat duty by the end of this year.
🔻 The first public display of the Hyunmoo-5 missile system took place last year during a military parade held to commemorate Armed Forces Day. According to limited available information, the ballistic missile weighs 36 tons, of which 8 tons are the warhead. The flight range reaches 3000 km (according to another version - 3500 km). https://x.com/visionergeo/status/1979839930340659704
It's the South Korean version of the Japanese long running project of multi-stage solid fuelled orbital launchers.
For those who don't know, no-one uses all solid fuelled rockets for orbital launch as a simple choice. They are almost certainly supporting a military usage, if they do. Modern ICBMs are solid fuelled - low maintenance and quick reaction. They have less performance - liquid fuels have more energy.
The Japanese orbital solid launchers are about having a deterrent. They have lots of plutonium, and a rocket they can use as an ICBM. The deterrent is that "if you push things too far, we can have nuclear weapons and a delivery system in a short time"
In the South Korean case, they are claiming to be just developing a shorter range missile. Though larger than the Poseidon SLBM of yore...
However, if the warhead weight dropped to a ton or half a ton, the Hyunmoo-5 would have the range to go more than half way round the world. They could strike *anywhere* from South Korea. 1-0.5 tons would easily be a first nuclear weapon.
At breakfast I was having an interesting little dig into Mrs James Orr aka Rev Helen Orr, who is a Church of England vicar, and daughter of Simon Barrington-Ward, who was a REALLY interesting Bishop of Coventry about 3 decades ago, and also head of the Church Missionary Society for a decade, and interested in contemplative spirituality. She herself is interested in societal questions such as how girls can grow into women in our current cultural environment. But the trail stopped when I needed to follow it to substack.
Fascinating situational dynamics for someone who is SWMBO to one of JD Vance's key mentors.
Good morning everyone.
Looks like his wife is a C of E vicar in Cambridgeshire. C of E vicars like civil servants (and often CEOs and directors of large companies) are normally discouraged from getting too involved in party politics though there is nothing to stop their spouses doing so
Yes - the last week or two I've been listening to a little Youtubing from a Vicar in Chalfont St Giles called Rev Dan Beasley (about 20k subs - so notable but not substantial), as he does some of reflecting around movements such as ARC, and movements in the Church of England and Anglican Communion. He takes care with the limitations imposed on him by his public role where he has the "cure of souls" of the whole parish.
But he's told his bishop that he will find it very difficult to stay in the CofE if gay marriage comes in. I can't quite catch the precise tenor of his stance (probably "mainstream traditional evangelical still wrestling to find his view"), but the basics are reminiscent of that taken in 1991 by people like David Holloway when Reform was set up. That positioning is clear, but to me seems less self-consciously sharp-elbowed and has his face set less "like flint" than say William Taylor or other "Reformed" people.
His take on attending ARC (Alliance for Responsible Citizenship) was interesting, where he contrasted attending in person, with newspapers reporting over the internet. His critique is that "ARC" the movement was promoting "cultural Christianity" rather than "the Gospel itself". "Cultural Christianity" is likely to be code for "the form of the religion, but not the heart thereof" in evangelical language, and is deployed in all sort of ways.
This is his vid - quite long, but it gives a good idea of the tensions vicars in that stream are dealing with, and where they are coming from. There's useful summary in the last few minutes if anyone just to dip in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV98xcd12xM
* For anyone not following, ARC is the Jordan Peterson / Baroness Philippa Stroud movement looking to "Create a Better Story" (ie imo trying to create a new societal culture to follow on from what we have now). I had not realised that ARC 2025 in London had nearly 5000 people attending paying around £1000 each for 3 days just for the conference itself.
The important bit of this interesting post is the seven words I have put in bold.
According to South Korea's Minister of Defense An Gyu-bak, South Korea has put into serial production the world's most powerful non-nuclear ballistic missile, Hyunmoo-5.
🔻 South Korea, which has committed under international agreements to not possess nuclear weapons, focuses on the power of the non-nuclear warhead of ballistic missiles and the mass production of such missiles to deter North Korea. According to the South Korean Minister of Defense, the missiles will be deployed on combat duty by the end of this year.
🔻 The first public display of the Hyunmoo-5 missile system took place last year during a military parade held to commemorate Armed Forces Day. According to limited available information, the ballistic missile weighs 36 tons, of which 8 tons are the warhead. The flight range reaches 3000 km (according to another version - 3500 km). https://x.com/visionergeo/status/1979839930340659704
It's the South Korean version of the Japanese long running project of multi-stage solid fuelled orbital launchers.
For those who don't know, no-one uses all solid fuelled rockets for orbital launch as a simple choice. They are almost certainly supporting a military usage, if they do. Modern ICBMs are solid fuelled - low maintenance and quick reaction. They have less performance - liquid fuels have more energy.
The Japanese orbital solid launchers are about having a deterrent. They have lots of plutonium, and a rocket they can use as an ICBM. The deterrent is that "if you push things too far, we can have nuclear weapons and a delivery system in a short time"
In the South Korean case, they are claiming to be just developing a shorter range missile. Though larger than the Poseidon SLBM of yore...
However, if the warhead weight dropped to a ton or half a ton, the Hyunmoo-5 would have the range to go more than half way round the world. They could strike *anywhere* from South Korea. 1-0.5 tons would easily be a first nuclear weapon.
That's part of it. The other part is what it says on the tin: they want a conventional weapon that can penetrate even the deepest bunkers that fat Kim can hide in.
According to South Korea's Minister of Defense An Gyu-bak, South Korea has put into serial production the world's most powerful non-nuclear ballistic missile, Hyunmoo-5.
🔻 South Korea, which has committed under international agreements to not possess nuclear weapons, focuses on the power of the non-nuclear warhead of ballistic missiles and the mass production of such missiles to deter North Korea. According to the South Korean Minister of Defense, the missiles will be deployed on combat duty by the end of this year.
🔻 The first public display of the Hyunmoo-5 missile system took place last year during a military parade held to commemorate Armed Forces Day. According to limited available information, the ballistic missile weighs 36 tons, of which 8 tons are the warhead. The flight range reaches 3000 km (according to another version - 3500 km). https://x.com/visionergeo/status/1979839930340659704
It's the South Korean version of the Japanese long running project of multi-stage solid fuelled orbital launchers.
For those who don't know, no-one uses all solid fuelled rockets for orbital launch as a simple choice. They are almost certainly supporting a military usage, if they do. Modern ICBMs are solid fuelled - low maintenance and quick reaction. They have less performance - liquid fuels have more energy.
The Japanese orbital solid launchers are about having a deterrent. They have lots of plutonium, and a rocket they can use as an ICBM. The deterrent is that "if you push things too far, we can have nuclear weapons and a delivery system in a short time"
In the South Korean case, they are claiming to be just developing a shorter range missile. Though larger than the Poseidon SLBM of yore...
However, if the warhead weight dropped to a ton or half a ton, the Hyunmoo-5 would have the range to go more than half way round the world. They could strike *anywhere* from South Korea. 1-0.5 tons would easily be a first nuclear weapon.
That's part of it. The other part is what it says on the tin: they want a conventional weapon that can penetrate even the deepest bunkers that fat Kim can hide in.
Fat Boi will just have his bunker dug on the North side of some mountains. North Korea has plenty of those.
According to South Korea's Minister of Defense An Gyu-bak, South Korea has put into serial production the world's most powerful non-nuclear ballistic missile, Hyunmoo-5.
🔻 South Korea, which has committed under international agreements to not possess nuclear weapons, focuses on the power of the non-nuclear warhead of ballistic missiles and the mass production of such missiles to deter North Korea. According to the South Korean Minister of Defense, the missiles will be deployed on combat duty by the end of this year.
🔻 The first public display of the Hyunmoo-5 missile system took place last year during a military parade held to commemorate Armed Forces Day. According to limited available information, the ballistic missile weighs 36 tons, of which 8 tons are the warhead. The flight range reaches 3000 km (according to another version - 3500 km). https://x.com/visionergeo/status/1979839930340659704
North Korea is only 250 miles long so it may overshoot a bit.
At breakfast I was having an interesting little dig into Mrs James Orr aka Rev Helen Orr, who is a Church of England vicar, and daughter of Simon Barrington-Ward, who was a REALLY interesting Bishop of Coventry about 3 decades ago, and also head of the Church Missionary Society for a decade, and interested in contemplative spirituality. She herself is interested in societal questions such as how girls can grow into women in our current cultural environment. But the trail stopped when I needed to follow it to substack.
Fascinating situational dynamics for someone who is SWMBO to one of JD Vance's key mentors.
Good morning everyone.
Looks like his wife is a C of E vicar in Cambridgeshire. C of E vicars like civil servants (and often CEOs and directors of large companies) are normally discouraged from getting too involved in party politics though there is nothing to stop their spouses doing so
Yes - the last week or two I've been listening to a little Youtubing from a Vicar in Chalfont St Giles called Rev Dan Beasley (about 20k subs - so notable but not substantial), as he does some of reflecting around movements such as ARC, and movements in the Church of England and Anglican Communion. He takes care with the limitations imposed on him by his public role where he has the "cure of souls" of the whole parish.
But he's told his bishop that he will find it very difficult to stay in the CofE if gay marriage comes in. I can't quite catch the precise tenor of his stance (probably "mainstream traditional evangelical still wrestling to find his view"), but the basics are reminiscent of that taken in 1991 by people like David Holloway when Reform was set up. That positioning is clear, but to me seems less self-consciously sharp-elbowed and has his face set less "like flint" than say William Taylor or other "Reformed" people.
His take on attending ARC (Alliance for Responsible Citizenship) was interesting, where he contrasted attending in person, with newspapers reporting over the internet. His critique is that "ARC" the movement was promoting "cultural Christianity" rather than "the Gospel itself". "Cultural Christianity" is likely to be code for "the form of the religion, but not the heart thereof" in evangelical language, and is deployed in all sort of ways.
This is his vid - quite long, but it gives a good idea of the tensions vicars in that stream are dealing with, and where they are coming from. There's useful summary in the last few minutes if anyone just to dip in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV98xcd12xM
* For anyone not following, ARC is the Jordan Peterson / Baroness Philippa Stroud movement looking to "Create a Better Story" (ie imo trying to create a new societal culture to follow on from what we have now). I had not realised that ARC 2025 in London had nearly 5000 people attending paying around £1000 each for 3 days just for the conference itself.
I am amazed at how many vicars intend to leave the CoE over gay marriage/blessings etc, and not all of them are conservative evangelicals. I suspect a fair amount of it is positioning to make sure the process is stopped dead in its tracks, which I think is what will happen.
Incidentally, if it does happen and there is an exodus, an awful lot of the evangelicals will in fact stay but would be subject to a multiple split like the anglo catholics over women, who since 1994 have split dramatically into three: those who have gone to Rome etc, those who stay but are traditional with flying bishops, and those who embrace the new order.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
I don't think Letby is an expert pathologist, or indeed an expert in case law. Many believe she was badly advised. Certainly there are other explanations for the insulin results that a competent legal team would have challenged. As I said, if you accept just one murder then you are accepting that there was a murderer and if not Letby then who?
We have no idea what LL's expert evidence said, for reasons I have stated above. So it has neither been presented nor subject to cross examination. Nothing at all can be said about it except the inference that it did not assist the defence, which can of course be disproved if LL gives permission.
The other evidence which has not yet been cross examined is the evidence of the new range of experts who have come into play since the trials. Best to wait and see on that.
The only expert evidence subject to cross examination, jury and appeal is that of the prosecution. I think caution is in order. It is of course not impossible that a massive injustice has been done, that is true of contested trials, but I don't think the data points that way yet.
You're seeking to prove a negative, which is not how the system works.
There has been evidence that has come to light, post-trial, that there are non-nefarious ways to explain the insulin data that does not imply poisoning. Yes, this was not presented at trial.
Why didn't LL's team present it? Well, it doesn't really matter.
Maybe they had it and badly advised not to use it? Maybe they didn't have it, but should have, so didn't know it could be used.
Many other potential explanations, not one of which matters.
If evidence is missing, which later comes to light, then that is not for the defence to explain why they didn't use it originally. Not how the system works, or ever has, for good reason.
I think that makes it the Presidential library most vulnerable to rising sea levels.
By the time this is over, those papers not subject to subpoena from the justice department will probably be subject to repeated arson or will have been auctioned off. The Presidential Library business is already absurd, so at least the traitor president will bring these absurd boondoggles to an end.
Or is it possible that poor care can have an increase in deaths without invoking murder?
Two different, but superficially similar, events may have different causes.
To discriminate between the different causes you would need further evidence, such as pathology investigations into the deaths. Presumably these gave different results in Leeds than in Cheshire.
I have strong views on the poor quality of the trial of Lucy Letby. Private Eye's MD has written many a column on it. I don't know if she is guilty or innocent but I strongly believe her convictions were unsound. Now Private Eye have been wrong before (coughs - Wakefield). But there are just so many questions in this case, such as pathologists not agreeing on how the babies died, consultants changing their evidence from emails at time to what they said in court.
I was making a point generally that in Cheshire a rise in deaths led to people thinking a murderer was present and then looking for evidence to support that theory. What if there never was a murderer?
(Edited for a mistake!)
FWIW I don't think it is possible to comment on the quality of the LL trials (there were two, plus of course appeals for each) unless the unaddressed question is answered, a question which only LL can allow to be dealt with.
Why, in neither trial, did the defence call their expert medical evidence? (No sane, though some insane, reasons have been offered; the lawyers can't comment unless privilege is waived by LL; until this is sorted the only working assumption must be that LL's own experts were unable to help the defence).
This has been addressed by MD's articles. Apparently there were meetings of counsel before the trails to 'agree' on evidence that was accepted by both sides. MD suggests that those acting for Letby were rather brow beaten and accepted things that really ought not have been accepted, for instance the insulin evidence. By doing so they accepted that at least some of the babies had been murdered and so if not Letby, who?
There are claims here which bear examining.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
I don't think Letby is an expert pathologist, or indeed an expert in case law. Many believe she was badly advised. Certainly there are other explanations for the insulin results that a competent legal team would have challenged. As I said, if you accept just one murder then you are accepting that there was a murderer and if not Letby then who?
We have no idea what LL's expert evidence said, for reasons I have stated above. So it has neither been presented nor subject to cross examination. Nothing at all can be said about it except the inference that it did not assist the defence, which can of course be disproved if LL gives permission.
The other evidence which has not yet been cross examined is the evidence of the new range of experts who have come into play since the trials. Best to wait and see on that.
The only expert evidence subject to cross examination, jury and appeal is that of the prosecution. I think caution is in order. It is of course not impossible that a massive injustice has been done, that is true of contested trials, but I don't think the data points that way yet.
Defence experts can be cross examined in court, but it seems to be quite rare. According to
there are circumstances where the prosecution can choose to cross examine a defence expert witness.
It seems that generally everyone already knows what arguments the expert witnesses are going to make: everything is in the pre trial disclosure & witness statements. Any challenges usually happen at this stage & so cross examination on the stand happens very rarely.
(Again, not a trial lawyer - anyone with relevant expertise would know more about this!)
Cross examination (testing, challenging, inviting qualifications, putting alternative opinions to the witness for comment) of expert witnesses is normal where their evidence is not agreed between the parties.
My own very limited but very recent experience of being interviewed under oath does not give me much confidence in the process. "Answer yes or no" he demanded. But the question isn't amenable to a yes no answer was my unhelpful response. A 70 point witness statement, picked out one point and deliberately misquoted it. Fortunately our side noticed the misquoting - under oath I didn't. When corrected his cross examining actually proved the validity of the point he was trying to tear apart.
That's disappointing. I have a preference for clean-shaven women.
Don't be so Cis-normative 🤫
Its also rather prejudiced against Terry Pratchett's female dwarves.
Warhammer has chosen to depict female Dwarfs as beardless.
This should be more controversial than that they are depicting female Dwarfs, but, alas, the controversy has focussed on that there are females depicted at all.
That's disappointing. I have a preference for clean-shaven women.
Don't be so Cis-normative 🤫
Its also rather prejudiced against Terry Pratchett's female dwarves.
Warhammer has chosen to depict female Dwarfs as beardless.
This should be more controversial than that they are depicting female Dwarfs, but, alas, the controversy has focussed on that there are females depicted at all.
Well, indeed, females and Warhammer is an oxymoron.
That's disappointing. I have a preference for clean-shaven women.
Don't be so Cis-normative 🤫
Its also rather prejudiced against Terry Pratchett's female dwarves.
Warhammer has chosen to depict female Dwarfs as beardless.
This should be more controversial than that they are depicting female Dwarfs, but, alas, the controversy has focussed on that there are females depicted at all.
Tolkien
"Indeed this strangeness they have that no Man nor Elf has ever seen a beardless Dwarf - unless he were shaven in mockery, and would then be more like to die of shame than of many other hurts that to us would seem more deadly. For the Naugrim have beards from the beginning of their lives, male and female alike; nor indeed can their womenkind be discerned by those of other race, be it in feature or in gait or in voice, nor in any wise save this: that they go not to war, and seldom save at direst need issue from their deep bowers and halls."
That's disappointing. I have a preference for clean-shaven women.
Don't be so Cis-normative 🤫
Its also rather prejudiced against Terry Pratchett's female dwarves.
Warhammer has chosen to depict female Dwarfs as beardless.
This should be more controversial than that they are depicting female Dwarfs, but, alas, the controversy has focussed on that there are females depicted at all.
Well, indeed, females and Warhammer is an oxymoron.
That's disappointing. I have a preference for clean-shaven women.
Don't be so Cis-normative 🤫
Its also rather prejudiced against Terry Pratchett's female dwarves.
Warhammer has chosen to depict female Dwarfs as beardless.
This should be more controversial than that they are depicting female Dwarfs, but, alas, the controversy has focussed on that there are females depicted at all.
Well, indeed, females and Warhammer is an oxymoron.
Comments
The problem is two opposing groups up for a ruck. Have a read of the Jewish Chronicle account of the Amsterdam kerfuffle:-
What happened to Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in Amsterdam? A complete timeline
Hundreds of Israeli football fans were attacked after some ripped down Palestinian flags and ‘destroyed’ a taxi in the Dutch capital last week
https://www.thejc.com/news/world/what-happened-in-amsterdam-a-timeline-ljm5nlgq
ETA this might almost be a parable of the Gaza ceasefire breakdown.
If Putin wants the average muzhik's opinion, he'll give it to them. For Russia's whole shit history they have been used to taking orders from the top. And the fabled "oligarchs", who were going to rise up once their yachts were seized and their holidays in Europe blocked, clearly don't "arch" anything. Just like the German business community or army were the real power and always about to overthrow Hitler. Many wealthy Russians have made lots of money from this war, so they will regard it as a success whatever happens. And the rest are either cowed or in exile. Even if they don't like Putin there's nothing they can do about him given the pervasive security state.
1) Agreed evidence in criminal trials is a public matter, either by explicitly saying so in court, or by not testing it in cross examination
2) The prosecution case of course that each of the babies was murdered, or an attempt was made to do so. SFAICS LL accepted in evidence that the insulin cases were indeed criminal, but not done by her. The defence had to meet the case on all counts, so there was massive scope for the use of expert evidence to show alternative explanations etc.
3) The Court of Appeal drew attention to the defence failure to call expert evidence in the first appeal. If it were the case that the expert evidence was essentially agreed, this would have been made clear, and it would not have been open to challenge on appeal.
4) LL can ask for all the defence expert evidence to be disclosed and waive privilege so that her original counsel can explain. So far she seems not to have done so. I wonder why?
What's confusing to me is that the initial design of the internet was to create a computer network that would still be able to operate in the event of nuclear war, and yet it seems to be astonishingly fragile.
I guess most of the internet did carry on working, even with this AWS failure, but perhaps there are a few things we could do better.
Just as professional/managerial support for the Conservatives has cratered, over the years, in places like Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, now Surrey, so working class support for Labour is cratering in places like Durham, South Wales, South Yorkshire.
As also noted upthread, much of the foundational Internet design assumed good faith users and was not initially designed with security in mind.
I worked with a security consultant 20 years ago who had been asked to pentest some company. He changed the DNS registration to add a mail relay and simply read all of their email for a week
The European attempt to build a European Union with monetary and 'ever closer' union without bothering about a common defence strategy.
The attempt by big business and governmental world to digitize and internetize everything without first building and maintaining adequate defences.
Firstly, Farage has appointed James Orr as one of his key advisers. James Orr is an academic philosopher at Cambridge, and became a "thought mentor" (my word) to JD Vance about 5 years ago. Orr is an adult convert to Christianity, having had a classical education. He was one the Vance's stayed with this year.
Aside: his conversions story, which is quite reminiscent of CS Lewis's in some ways:
https://justinbrierley.beehiiv.com/p/conversion-classicist-reading-greek-new-testament-led-james-orr-christ
Orr was involved in founding the Edmund Burke Foundation, which is the key UK body for National Conservatism. He's also high up in the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, as is Danny Kruger and Baroness Stroud - and Paul Marshall.
My political speculation is that Reform UK (Kruger having defected and been welcomed with open arms) will be more a hub of National Conservatism as a segment its intellectual base, and I'm not sure how that affects the RefUK positioning wrt the Tories and vice-versa.
(As a further aside, I just came across this very English parish name - Agatha Christie wants her setting back:
Bluntisham cum Earith with Colne and Holywell cum Needingworth (Ely) .)
’I've just tried to return an Amazon parcel at my local Post Office, but it couldn’t be processed.
The Post Office tells me Amazon Click and Collect and Drop Off services are being impacted across the branch network.
It also says the Amazon Web Services (AWS) issue is affecting customers who are trying to top up their pre-payment cards for gas and electricity via Payzone devices.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c5y8k7k6v1rt
Amazing story in The Times. Reform UK failed to pay VAT to HMRC on its sales (tickets, merchandise). About £400k in all.
Not tax avoidance. Not tax evasion. They just didn't realise when you sell stuff you have to charge VAT.
https://bsky.app/profile/danneidle.bsky.social/post/3m3mhc6zcse2a
I have never worked for RBS or TSB.
The other evidence which has not yet been cross examined is the evidence of the new range of experts who have come into play since the trials. Best to wait and see on that.
The only expert evidence subject to cross examination, jury and appeal is that of the prosecution. I think caution is in order. It is of course not impossible that a massive injustice has been done, that is true of contested trials, but I don't think the data points that way yet.
It continues to be interesting at Kent County Council, following on from the leaked video at the weekend of the RefUK group meeting. The Leader sent out an excoriating email, which someone .. er .. leaked.
In a message sent after the Guardian published the video, (Council Leader) Kemkaran told her fellow Reform councillors that a “thorough investigation” was being launched as she said she had passed on her suspicions about who was responsible for “this treachery” to Reform UK’s head office.
“To have people on the inside, who smile to our faces, sit next to us at meetings, share jokes, anecdotes, before stabbing us in the back is very sad indeed,” she said in the message.
“The people who did this are cowards. They are weak. They are foolish. They are incapable of displaying true courage themselves, so they look to harm those who are. They are obsessed with personal gain at the expense of group success. They cannot cope with disappointment and personal inadequacies so they seek to bring down others to their level.”
She added: “I want you to know … I passed my suspicions of who is responsible for this treachery to head office and a thorough investigation is already under way. The guilty parties will be expelled from the Reform party without delay. They will have no political future.”
For me, that the investigation is by Reform Head Office is interesting.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/19/reform-kent-council-leader-launched-hunt-for-cowards-who-leaked-recorded-meeting
I bet they went with an American supplier, and told them they didn’t have sales tax in the UK.
Four Reform councillors suspended in Farage's flagship Kent council after online meeting bust-up with leader
https://x.com/nicholascecil/status/1980218855839727780
And thank you for not pointing out my mistake - bribes not brides !!!!!
And the problem the Reps have is that their majority is NOT very loyal - they are riven with factions. Plus, the majority is tiny so they can't afford too many opposing votes.
There are probably a ton of design decisions that Amazon would redo if they had the chance for a second go around, but they can’t exactly tear down US East 1 & rebuild it - half the largest companies in the world depend on US East 1 maintaining service.
It's fun in this case because they made all these mad claims about "DEI" officers, DOGE, and billions on Net Zero. But it turns out most council spending and administration is actually tied up with on the kind of person who votes Reform.
Facial hair on men is increasingly popular with British women, with one in five (19%) now saying they prefer the appearance of a man with a beard, up from 6% in 2011 and 13% in 2016.
Perhaps more notable is how far dislike for beards has dropped: in 2011 fully 66% of women said they preferred the appearance of a man without a beard. That figure is now just 36%. Instead, 44% of women say they don’t have any preference either way (up from 27% in 2011)."
https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/47434-most-british-men-now-have-facial-hair
When the first, famous AWS outage hit, I'd already left the project (consultancy). Apparently management asked why they weren't hit. They were, apparently a bit startled to discover that what had happened was that the load balancing had noticed non-response from the AWS instances, and spun up more instances on non-AWS to compensate. Probably no-one on the customer side noticed anything.
Potential appeal or repulsion amongst groups of voters including ethnic minority, black and white Pentecostal / Evangelical / Roman Catholic as attraction, and others as repulsion. Also potentially the same amongst male / female demographics at different ages.
I don't know the numbers well enough to make any estimates.
It’s easy enough to set up redundancy nowadays, no-one should be relying on a single location for cloud storage. That’s kinda the point of cloud services!
It will go down less well with swing voters who voted Conservative or Labour in 2024, have since switched to Reform but are relatively socially liberal just want to reduce immigration
The unanswered questions about the non use of defence expert evidence remain critical. It is worth recalling that there was a second trial and the same tactic was used. You have to ask why.
All the stuff about inadequate counsel is unjustified and levelled at people who, because of privilege, cannot reply.
I know that no-one wants to be told to wait and see, discover over time whether there is fresh evidence capable of belief and relevant to guilt, and so on, but that is what has to happen.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/expert-evidence
there are circumstances where the prosecution can choose to cross examine a defence expert witness.
It seems that generally everyone already knows what arguments the expert witnesses are going to make: everything is in the pre trial disclosure & witness statements. Any challenges usually happen at this stage & so cross examination on the stand happens very rarely.
(Again, not a trial lawyer - anyone with relevant expertise would know more about this!)
Apart from a very small number, imo there is parhaps no scaffolding that will stand if Trump is absent.
But my predictions are likely to be as far off as anyone else's.
That’s the reason they weren’t called - the defence could see that they would simply be asked this question by the prosecution barrister, based on their existing pre-trial testimony.
Once she was convicted, it becomes impossible to challenge at appeal, because you can only appeal on new evidence, or trial issues, like witnesses contradicting their own evidence. This is why the appeal judge was rather surprised that her lawyers didn’t use the contradictions in the witness statements over time as grounds for appeal.
There is no new evidence - only opinions from a variety of experts that the original experts were wrong. This (as I understand things) is not grounds for appeal in the UK. It’s what the CCRC was setup to deal with, but they are hopelessly behind & slow to act.
It’s notable that Sally Clark was freed on appeal due to other evidence that was discovered after the fact that cast doubt on her original conviction. The fact that the first conviction was based on the shoddiest statistics known to man was not a valid ground for her appeal & the legal minds of this country are still (apparently) prone to introducing basic statistical fallacies into prosecutions, without them being challenged by anyone involved.
The problems with the court case & the expert evidence used to secure her conviction were pointed out after the fact - remember that during the case all this was sub judice & it wasn’t possible for anyone to raise any of these criticisms in the press, or elsewhere, without risking being prosecuted for contempt.
A recent(ish) example:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37482942
For all I know this is the case, but they were all in error. The CCRC will be asked to look at exactly that I should think.
🔻 South Korea, which has committed under international agreements to not possess nuclear weapons, focuses on the power of the non-nuclear warhead of ballistic missiles and the mass production of such missiles to deter North Korea. According to the South Korean Minister of Defense, the missiles will be deployed on combat duty by the end of this year.
🔻 The first public display of the Hyunmoo-5 missile system took place last year during a military parade held to commemorate Armed Forces Day. According to limited available information, the ballistic missile weighs 36 tons, of which 8 tons are the warhead. The flight range reaches 3000 km (according to another version - 3500 km).
https://x.com/visionergeo/status/1979839930340659704
https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/miami-developer-says-city-ready-trump-presidential-library-legacy-project-downtown
All part of that helpful programme whereby when we were in it, lots of opinion wanted to be out, and when we are out of it, lots of opinion wants to be in.
(Which is why the Norway/Swiss option remains the only stable solution.)
Asking for a friend[ly country].
But he's told his bishop that he will find it very difficult to stay in the CofE if gay marriage comes in. I can't quite catch the precise tenor of his stance (probably "mainstream traditional evangelical still wrestling to find his view"), but the basics are reminiscent of that taken in 1991 by people like David Holloway when Reform was set up. That positioning is clear, but to me seems less self-consciously sharp-elbowed and has his face set less "like flint" than say William Taylor or other "Reformed" people.
His take on attending ARC (Alliance for Responsible Citizenship) was interesting, where he contrasted attending in person, with newspapers reporting over the internet. His critique is that "ARC" the movement was promoting "cultural Christianity" rather than "the Gospel itself". "Cultural Christianity" is likely to be code for "the form of the religion, but not the heart thereof" in evangelical language, and is deployed in all sort of ways.
This is his vid - quite long, but it gives a good idea of the tensions vicars in that stream are dealing with, and where they are coming from. There's useful summary in the last few minutes if anyone just to dip in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV98xcd12xM
* For anyone not following, ARC is the Jordan Peterson / Baroness Philippa Stroud movement looking to "Create a Better Story" (ie imo trying to create a new societal culture to follow on from what we have now). I had not realised that ARC 2025 in London had nearly 5000 people attending paying around £1000 each for 3 days just for the conference itself.
For those who don't know, no-one uses all solid fuelled rockets for orbital launch as a simple choice. They are almost certainly supporting a military usage, if they do. Modern ICBMs are solid fuelled - low maintenance and quick reaction. They have less performance - liquid fuels have more energy.
The Japanese orbital solid launchers are about having a deterrent. They have lots of plutonium, and a rocket they can use as an ICBM. The deterrent is that "if you push things too far, we can have nuclear weapons and a delivery system in a short time"
In the South Korean case, they are claiming to be just developing a shorter range missile. Though larger than the Poseidon SLBM of yore...
However, if the warhead weight dropped to a ton or half a ton, the Hyunmoo-5 would have the range to go more than half way round the world. They could strike *anywhere* from South Korea. 1-0.5 tons would easily be a first nuclear weapon.
The other part is what it says on the tin: they want a conventional weapon that can penetrate even the deepest bunkers that fat Kim can hide in.
Incidentally, if it does happen and there is an exodus, an awful lot of the evangelicals will in fact stay but would be subject to a multiple split like the anglo catholics over women, who since 1994 have split dramatically into three: those who have gone to Rome etc, those who stay but are traditional with flying bishops, and those who embrace the new order.
There has been evidence that has come to light, post-trial, that there are non-nefarious ways to explain the insulin data that does not imply poisoning. Yes, this was not presented at trial.
Why didn't LL's team present it? Well, it doesn't really matter.
Maybe they had it and badly advised not to use it?
Maybe they didn't have it, but should have, so didn't know it could be used.
Many other potential explanations, not one of which matters.
If evidence is missing, which later comes to light, then that is not for the defence to explain why they didn't use it originally. Not how the system works, or ever has, for good reason.
Betfair has Piastri favourite at 2.7, with Norris and Verstappen essentially tied at 3.1(ish) each.
This should be more controversial than that they are depicting female Dwarfs, but, alas, the controversy has focussed on that there are females depicted at all.
"Indeed this strangeness they have that no Man nor Elf has ever seen a beardless Dwarf - unless he were shaven in mockery, and would then be more like to die of shame than of many other hurts that to us would seem more deadly. For the Naugrim have beards from the beginning of their lives, male and female alike; nor indeed can their womenkind be discerned by those of other race, be it in feature or in gait or in voice, nor in any wise save this: that they go not to war, and seldom save at direst need issue from their deep bowers and halls."