85 mins till we find out that the right wing☆ Labour Northern woman has beaten the right wing northern woman to become deputy to the right wing leader. ☆In traditional Labour terms
Is she the one that gets to make the tea for the men who run things in Labour?
He's still to explain, as far as I'm aware, why that's relevant when the alleged offences were committed before Starmer was in government.
Anyone ?
Because the issue isn't that offences were committed, but the reason why the prosecution collapsed.
He says prosecutors were asking 'not what the then Government was prepared to do, or did, say in public about China (whether framed as its policy or otherwise, and whether as a matter of fact true or not), but rather whether China was - as a matter of fact - an active threat to national security'
The statements provided to them were quite clear about China being a threat to national security.
I don't understand why the DPP hasn't resigned. They've completely fucked this up and they're desperately trying to blame the government for it, but the witness statements are available to read and they seem pretty clear to me - China is a threat to Britain.
If you actually read the law they were being prosecuted under, it literally says that giving secrets to *anyone* is illegal.
So if you gave secrets to your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells, you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act.
So, you support the resignation of the DPP?
Not sure *who* should resign.
But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.
Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?
1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—
(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;
85 mins till we find out that the right wing☆ Labour Northern woman has beaten the right wing northern woman to become deputy to the right wing leader. ☆In traditional Labour terms
Rachel Reeves is preparing to give more than a million low-paid workers a pay rise in the budget, despite warnings from businesses that she risks “pricing jobs out of existence”.
The Times has been told that the chancellor is likely to confirm a rise in the national living wage of about 4 per cent, from £12.21 to at least £12.70, in an effort to deliver on her pledge to improve living standards.
The government will also commit itself to extending the living wage to people between the ages of 18 and 21 as part of a commitment to “raise the floor” on wages.
Funny how those who drivel on endlessly about copying Denmark never mention that it doesn't have a minimum wage.
The minimum wage should be scrapped, not raised, as it distorts the labour market by forcing business to pay people more than they're worth, raising unemployment, reducing competitiveness and the incentive to increase productivity amongst those who need it most, increasing compliance costs and inflation. In fact it's hard to think of a more damaging policy (though the looking through the current government's actions gives a pretty long list of them).
But understanding the harm done needs politicians and journalists to think things through for thirty seconds, so we're stuck with it unfortunately.
The counter to that is we've had massive immigration and yet we haven't see massive unemployment - indeed, the minimum wage serves as a disincentive for firms to rely on cheap labour. As long as Labour keep cutting migration (and targets dodgy outfits swerving the rule) then I can't see that changing to a large degree.
In terms of the benefits bill, in theory you need wages at the lower end to rise pretty quickly to provide an incentive for people to work (in reality I don't think you can see this effect too much because the marginal utlity of cash for someone on UC means they can tolerate fairly low wages and still want to work - conditions are much more important IMO).
Indeed, if we take @Fishing's argument to its logical conclusion, slavery should never have been abolished.
It seems there is a pool of people unable to find work for whatever reason (and there may be several) who chase jobs, apply and get nowhere. That's not people who are making no effort (a different group) but those who cannot even get their foot in the door of employment whether it's through lack of qualifications, lack of experience or a lack of something else.
That latter group is large and by far the biggest issue. Often, they just aren't the kind of person who is particularly employable unless you have a highly tolerant and benevolent employer.
It's actually quite rare for the financial incentive to be a problem - even if their EMTR is something like 70% people still tend to want to work because 1) they don't run their lives with spreadsheets like PBers 2) the value of additional income is far higher than for the typical PBer, because it's often the difference between food on the table or not 3) people do recognise that living on benefits forever is not a source of happiness, particularly given the sanctions and other tribulations that DWP have in place.
Indeed. I was involved in the recruitment for a lower grade post handling records. The shortlisting process (before AI) weeded out the obvious and we got down to the last six. Of that six, two stood out on paper and both interviewed very well. We had a really tough job splitting them even on evaluation scoring but by the time we'd decided, both had found better paid work elsewhere.
The other four interviewees were much weaker - it wasn't their academic qualifications which were the problem or even the lack of experience but we were left with the thought they were socially inept, barely able to hold a conversation and interact with others.
Some people are like that - not everyone is gregarious, there are those who find basic social situations very difficult especially with people they don't know. In a workplace, you need to be able to communicate with and basically interact with not just your immediate colleagues but others and whether it's down to technological or societal changes, it's much easier to be alone and lonely than it ever was.
There's a lot in this about self-promotion and self-confidence and I wonder if education is part of the problem (and the solution). It's easy to be in the background in a class of 30 or 40 - less easy when it's 15 or 20. A generation or two of children in overcrowded, underfunded schools come out the other side and we wonder why they find "the real world" so difficult.
It’s all going swimmingly for Reform in Cornwall…… From Cornwall live
Cllr Karen Knight, who was voted in at the May election as the Reform UK councillor for Camborne West & Treswithian, will now represent the division as a Standalone Independent. We have contacted her to ask why she has made the move. Cllr Knight's switch means that Reform - which was voted in as the largest political group on Cornwall Council - now has 26 councillors rather than its original 28. However, we have been told that as many as four more councillors could resign from the party over the next week.
No denial that it was a corrupt act. And btw, the felon pled guilty.
Reporter: On the pardon, Binance has significant business interests with the President’s family’s crypto company. How do you respond to allegations that this is a corrupt act?
Leavitt: The President is exercising his constitutional authority to grant clemency requests. This was an overly prosecuted case by the Biden administration. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1981417027442266367
I never understood why this power even exists. Its is just open for corruption and has been repeatedly.
It exists in the UK as well. It’s designed to correct gross miscarriages of justice or to reward specific acts (eg the Fishmongers Hall guy was pardoned 9 months before his parole was due to come up for review).
It’s been mildly abused by Presidents since the days of Clinton at least (Marc Rich anyone?) but Trump has taken it to a whole new level
I've found this source of numbers and while it doesn't evaluate the dodginess of each individual pardon, it does suggest that the story is more complicated than that.
He's still to explain, as far as I'm aware, why that's relevant when the alleged offences were committed before Starmer was in government.
Anyone ?
Because the issue isn't that offences were committed, but the reason why the prosecution collapsed.
He says prosecutors were asking 'not what the then Government was prepared to do, or did, say in public about China (whether framed as its policy or otherwise, and whether as a matter of fact true or not), but rather whether China was - as a matter of fact - an active threat to national security'
The statements provided to them were quite clear about China being a threat to national security.
I don't understand why the DPP hasn't resigned. They've completely fucked this up and they're desperately trying to blame the government for it, but the witness statements are available to read and they seem pretty clear to me - China is a threat to Britain.
If you actually read the law they were being prosecuted under, it literally says that giving secrets to *anyone* is illegal.
So if you gave secrets to your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells, you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act.
So, you support the resignation of the DPP?
Not sure *who* should resign.
But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.
Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?
1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—
(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;
My bold
Added my bold.
You need to demonstrate that the information would be useful to an enemy. The easiest way to do that is to”they supplied it to China therefore they must have believed it would be useful to China… is China an enemy?”
The issue is the information - that we know - they supplied was low grade political gossip. So it’s not a slam dunk that it was useful.
He's still to explain, as far as I'm aware, why that's relevant when the alleged offences were committed before Starmer was in government.
Anyone ?
Because the issue isn't that offences were committed, but the reason why the prosecution collapsed.
He says prosecutors were asking 'not what the then Government was prepared to do, or did, say in public about China (whether framed as its policy or otherwise, and whether as a matter of fact true or not), but rather whether China was - as a matter of fact - an active threat to national security'
The statements provided to them were quite clear about China being a threat to national security.
I don't understand why the DPP hasn't resigned. They've completely fucked this up and they're desperately trying to blame the government for it, but the witness statements are available to read and they seem pretty clear to me - China is a threat to Britain.
If you actually read the law they were being prosecuted under, it literally says that giving secrets to *anyone* is illegal.
So if you gave secrets to your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells, you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act.
So, you support the resignation of the DPP?
Not sure *who* should resign.
But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.
Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?
1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—
(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;
My bold
Common sense ought to be enough. Person A tells person B who isn't an enemy. Person B tells someone else. Eventually Person B, C, X etc tells someone who is an enemy.
It’s all going swimmingly for Reform in Cornwall…… From Cornwall live
Cllr Karen Knight, who was voted in at the May election as the Reform UK councillor for Camborne West & Treswithian, will now represent the division as a Standalone Independent. We have contacted her to ask why she has made the move. Cllr Knight's switch means that Reform - which was voted in as the largest political group on Cornwall Council - now has 26 councillors rather than its original 28. However, we have been told that as many as four more councillors could resign from the party over the next week.
Not that surprising. Councillors have been notorious for changing alliegance when they don't get the Cabinet post they think they rightfully deserve. Many of the Reform councillors have already flounced from one party to get a leg up. When so many of them got elected, the chance for glory was greatly diminished. Plus, they have to be associated with some very hard decisions, like putting up councl tax. As an indy, they can suck air through teeth and say to the voters "Oh, I wouldn't have done that..."
He's still to explain, as far as I'm aware, why that's relevant when the alleged offences were committed before Starmer was in government.
Anyone ?
Because the issue isn't that offences were committed, but the reason why the prosecution collapsed.
He says prosecutors were asking 'not what the then Government was prepared to do, or did, say in public about China (whether framed as its policy or otherwise, and whether as a matter of fact true or not), but rather whether China was - as a matter of fact - an active threat to national security'
The statements provided to them were quite clear about China being a threat to national security.
I don't understand why the DPP hasn't resigned. They've completely fucked this up and they're desperately trying to blame the government for it, but the witness statements are available to read and they seem pretty clear to me - China is a threat to Britain.
If you actually read the law they were being prosecuted under, it literally says that giving secrets to *anyone* is illegal.
So if you gave secrets to your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells, you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act.
So, you support the resignation of the DPP?
Not sure *who* should resign.
But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.
Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?
1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—
(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;
My bold
Added my bold.
You need to demonstrate that the information would be useful to an enemy. The easiest way to do that is to”they supplied it to China therefore they must have believed it would be useful to China… is China an enemy?”
The issue is the information - that we know - they supplied was low grade political gossip. So it’s not a slam dunk that it was useful.
If it was (and you are) covered by the Official Secrets Act, it doesn't matter how far the gossip may have spread. You yourself don't discuss it.
In more optimistic news, a lot of "please, take this electricity off us" this weekend.
Wonder how frequent such situations have to be for a serious industry to develop to exploit free, but very intermittent, energy?
Not so intermittent up north, of course. And we were discussing the other day that Scots engineer whose approach to high winds was to actually design the wind turbines to cope with anything up to a hurricane.
The issue is, I suspect, as much a matter of local pricing (or lack thereof).
Yes, why set up to take advantage of that free/cheap energy only to be charged full whack for it. Mystifying why the Lab government doesn’t want to make Scotland an extremely attractive destination for business.
Or have pylons built alongside your clachan/burgh.
Also mystifying (yet again) why local pricing isn't a big issue up here for the SNP. And SLDs (for all; that they are Unionists) and SGs. Even if the leccy is absurdly cheap only some of the time, in Orkney or Caithness it should be most of the time and the need to pay full whack for the rest of the time is still a huge improvement. You don't need to switch the factory off on calm days.
Edit: just confirmed the postponement of an outing to have a plowter along the seaside and some rock pools on the Lothian coast. It's a full gale where we were planning to go, and I don't want to be on the clifftop path with the wind blowing offshore.
No denial that it was a corrupt act. And btw, the felon pled guilty.
Reporter: On the pardon, Binance has significant business interests with the President’s family’s crypto company. How do you respond to allegations that this is a corrupt act?
Leavitt: The President is exercising his constitutional authority to grant clemency requests. This was an overly prosecuted case by the Biden administration. https://x.com/Acyn/status/1981417027442266367
I never understood why this power even exists. Its is just open for corruption and has been repeatedly.
It exists in the UK as well. It’s designed to correct gross miscarriages of justice or to reward specific acts (eg the Fishmongers Hall guy was pardoned 9 months before his parole was due to come up for review).
It’s been mildly abused by Presidents since the days of Clinton at least (Marc Rich anyone?) but Trump has taken it to a whole new level
I've found this source of numbers and while it doesn't evaluate the dodginess of each individual pardon, it does suggest that the story is more complicated than that.
Clinton, Reagan and the two Bushes all issued pardons at a much lower rate than Eisenhower or Truman. Then Obama and Biden loads of pardons.
The Trump figure doesn't include any from his second term. One assumes he hadn't monetised the process in his first term.
Perhaps, if you were to leave party affiliation out of it, you could conclude the whole US political structure is, in the words of political science, completely f**ked.
In more optimistic news, a lot of "please, take this electricity off us" this weekend.
Wonder how frequent such situations have to be for a serious industry to develop to exploit free, but very intermittent, energy?
Not so intermittent up north, of course. And we were discussing the other day that Scots engineer whose approach to high winds was to actually design the wind turbines to cope with anything up to a hurricane.
The issue is, I suspect, as much a matter of local pricing (or lack thereof).
Yes, why set up to take advantage of that free/cheap energy only to be charged full whack for it. Mystifying why the Lab government doesn’t want to make Scotland an extremely attractive destination for business.
Or have pylons built alongside your clachan/burgh.
Also mystifying (yet again) why local pricing isn't a big issue up here for the SNP. And SLDs (for all; that they are Unionists) and SGs. Even if the leccy is absurdly cheap only some of the time, in Orkney or Caithness it should be most of the time and the need to pay full whack for the rest of the time is still a huge improvement. You don't need to switch the factory off on calm days.
Edit: just confirmed the postponement of an outing to have a plowter along the seaside and some rock pools on the Lothian coast. It's a full gale where we were planning to go, and I don't want to be on the clifftop path with the wind blowing offshore.
A few SNP leaflets through my door have made this point.
In more optimistic news, a lot of "please, take this electricity off us" this weekend.
Wonder how frequent such situations have to be for a serious industry to develop to exploit free, but very intermittent, energy?
Not so intermittent up north, of course. And we were discussing the other day that Scots engineer whose approach to high winds was to actually design the wind turbines to cope with anything up to a hurricane.
The issue is, I suspect, as much a matter of local pricing (or lack thereof).
Yes, why set up to take advantage of that free/cheap energy only to be charged full whack for it. Mystifying why the Lab government doesn’t want to make Scotland an extremely attractive destination for business.
Or have pylons built alongside your clachan/burgh.
Also mystifying (yet again) why local pricing isn't a big issue up here for the SNP. And SLDs (for all; that they are Unionists) and SGs. Even if the leccy is absurdly cheap only some of the time, in Orkney or Caithness it should be most of the time and the need to pay full whack for the rest of the time is still a huge improvement. You don't need to switch the factory off on calm days.
Edit: just confirmed the postponement of an outing to have a plowter along the seaside and some rock pools on the Lothian coast. It's a full gale where we were planning to go, and I don't want to be on the clifftop path with the wind blowing offshore.
A few SNP leaflets through my door have made this point.
He's still to explain, as far as I'm aware, why that's relevant when the alleged offences were committed before Starmer was in government.
Anyone ?
Because the issue isn't that offences were committed, but the reason why the prosecution collapsed.
He says prosecutors were asking 'not what the then Government was prepared to do, or did, say in public about China (whether framed as its policy or otherwise, and whether as a matter of fact true or not), but rather whether China was - as a matter of fact - an active threat to national security'
The statements provided to them were quite clear about China being a threat to national security.
I don't understand why the DPP hasn't resigned. They've completely fucked this up and they're desperately trying to blame the government for it, but the witness statements are available to read and they seem pretty clear to me - China is a threat to Britain.
If you actually read the law they were being prosecuted under, it literally says that giving secrets to *anyone* is illegal.
So if you gave secrets to your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells, you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act.
So, you support the resignation of the DPP?
Not sure *who* should resign.
But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.
Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?
1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—
(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;
My bold
Added my bold.
You need to demonstrate that the information would be useful to an enemy. The easiest way to do that is to”they supplied it to China therefore they must have believed it would be useful to China… is China an enemy?”
The issue is the information - that we know - they supplied was low grade political gossip. So it’s not a slam dunk that it was useful.
If it was (and you are) covered by the Official Secrets Act, it doesn't matter how far the gossip may have spread. You yourself don't discuss it.
Sure. But that’s not the same as a prosecutable case
In more optimistic news, a lot of "please, take this electricity off us" this weekend.
Wonder how frequent such situations have to be for a serious industry to develop to exploit free, but very intermittent, energy?
Not so intermittent up north, of course. And we were discussing the other day that Scots engineer whose approach to high winds was to actually design the wind turbines to cope with anything up to a hurricane.
The issue is, I suspect, as much a matter of local pricing (or lack thereof).
Yes, why set up to take advantage of that free/cheap energy only to be charged full whack for it. Mystifying why the Lab government doesn’t want to make Scotland an extremely attractive destination for business.
Or have pylons built alongside your clachan/burgh.
Also mystifying (yet again) why local pricing isn't a big issue up here for the SNP. And SLDs (for all; that they are Unionists) and SGs. Even if the leccy is absurdly cheap only some of the time, in Orkney or Caithness it should be most of the time and the need to pay full whack for the rest of the time is still a huge improvement. You don't need to switch the factory off on calm days.
Edit: just confirmed the postponement of an outing to have a plowter along the seaside and some rock pools on the Lothian coast. It's a full gale where we were planning to go, and I don't want to be on the clifftop path with the wind blowing offshore.
A few SNP leaflets through my door have made this point.
Ah, interesting. Thanks.
I still don't think they are pushing it hard enough. If I were Swinney I'd be talking about the economic benefits of cheap energy in the run up to the election, as well as fuel poverty in Scotland during a cold snap.
(and, for balance, wind has been highly variable this week - we were using loads of gas earlier on with a spot price north of £150/MWh. )
He's still to explain, as far as I'm aware, why that's relevant when the alleged offences were committed before Starmer was in government.
Anyone ?
Because the issue isn't that offences were committed, but the reason why the prosecution collapsed.
He says prosecutors were asking 'not what the then Government was prepared to do, or did, say in public about China (whether framed as its policy or otherwise, and whether as a matter of fact true or not), but rather whether China was - as a matter of fact - an active threat to national security'
The statements provided to them were quite clear about China being a threat to national security.
I don't understand why the DPP hasn't resigned. They've completely fucked this up and they're desperately trying to blame the government for it, but the witness statements are available to read and they seem pretty clear to me - China is a threat to Britain.
If you actually read the law they were being prosecuted under, it literally says that giving secrets to *anyone* is illegal.
So if you gave secrets to your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells, you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act.
So, you support the resignation of the DPP?
Not sure *who* should resign.
But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.
Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?
1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—
(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;
My bold
Added my bold.
You need to demonstrate that the information would be useful to an enemy. The easiest way to do that is to”they supplied it to China therefore they must have believed it would be useful to China… is China an enemy?”
The issue is the information - that we know - they supplied was low grade political gossip. So it’s not a slam dunk that it was useful.
If it was (and you are) covered by the Official Secrets Act, it doesn't matter how far the gossip may have spread. You yourself don't discuss it.
Sure. But that’s not the same as a prosecutable case
Pity we can't use OSA in this context any longer, it means something different now!
The below the line comments for The Times "interview" with convicted fraudster and Fascist propagandist Steve Bannon are mildly amusing this morning. Murdoch's promotion of this sinister Cambridge Analytica and Breitbart Svengali is going down very badly indeed with his customers.
After a while one does wonder about the billionaires' agenda. Project 2025 turns out not have been an absurd far right conspiracy after all, more an absurd, far right programme for government. Bannon fully believes that Trump will run again in 2028, so he would, presumably ,want to serve until 2033. He would be 87 then, so quite possibly Bannon thinks that a festering corpse would be an ideal leader for the oligarchy formerly known as the Land of the Free. This bullshit is so ridiculous it is almost laughable, or at least it would be if these people were not so obviously criminal in practice and intent. The symbolism of the demolition a large chunk of the White House, "The People's House", regardless of history, beauty or heritage protection, and its replacement with a vulgar, lopsided, over-blown and unnecessary piece of crap is a a marvelous metaphor for Trump himself. In the end the interview is so weak and the promotion of these evil men so egregious that hundreds of subscribers to *The Times* pour out total fury at the "newspaper" and its geriatric proprietor.
The tide seems to turning against the populist far right both in the UK and the US. It is a shame that the equally loathsome Murdoch will not live to see the undoing of his works and the damnation of his memory.
He's still to explain, as far as I'm aware, why that's relevant when the alleged offences were committed before Starmer was in government.
Anyone ?
Because the issue isn't that offences were committed, but the reason why the prosecution collapsed.
He says prosecutors were asking 'not what the then Government was prepared to do, or did, say in public about China (whether framed as its policy or otherwise, and whether as a matter of fact true or not), but rather whether China was - as a matter of fact - an active threat to national security'
The statements provided to them were quite clear about China being a threat to national security.
I don't understand why the DPP hasn't resigned. They've completely fucked this up and they're desperately trying to blame the government for it, but the witness statements are available to read and they seem pretty clear to me - China is a threat to Britain.
If you actually read the law they were being prosecuted under, it literally says that giving secrets to *anyone* is illegal.
So if you gave secrets to your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells, you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act.
So, you support the resignation of the DPP?
Not sure *who* should resign.
But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.
Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?
1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—
(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;
My bold
Added my bold.
You need to demonstrate that the information would be useful to an enemy. The easiest way to do that is to”they supplied it to China therefore they must have believed it would be useful to China… is China an enemy?”
The issue is the information - that we know - they supplied was low grade political gossip. So it’s not a slam dunk that it was useful.
If it was (and you are) covered by the Official Secrets Act, it doesn't matter how far the gossip may have spread. You yourself don't discuss it.
Sure. But that’s not the same as a prosecutable case
You are trying to make your partisan narrative fit the frame.
The CPS could prosecute a case without a Government summary of China's espionage capability.
I would suggest in diplomatic terms annoying China is sub optimal. Do you want your MG or BYD ECU switched off remotely at 70 mph on the M4?
I am only half joking. We are so immersed into Chinese tech, as is our power and communications infrastructure that the Chinese have us by the nuts.
Ooh, tactless. Drinkies and food next to the Parthenon marbles.
(Marble is porous and really stains. Bastard to clean if you are trying to keep the patina - if indeed it is possible. I once heard the story of a corporate event in a museum which shall be nameless. Boss had been a shit to a subordinate who after a few threw her G&T at him and most of it missed and hit the oil painting behind. And alcohol and acid are not great for paintings. The cost of professional conservation work was added to the bill for the event.)
Trump plans to name his $300million ballroom after himself after demolishing the entire East Wing of the White House. Officials are referring to the grandiose building as The President Donald J Trump Ballroom, according to ABC News. Trump is set to keep the name when construction is finished.
I suppose is slightly better than the Sofi Manscaped Harley Davison Prime Energy Donald J Trump Ballrom brought to you in asociation with our official webhosting Squarespace, VPN provider NordVPN....
Seems reasonable. When all this is over, America is going to need something from the Trump Era to remain as a warning from history.
I expect most of it will be destroyed in the coming civil war.
He's still to explain, as far as I'm aware, why that's relevant when the alleged offences were committed before Starmer was in government.
Anyone ?
Because the issue isn't that offences were committed, but the reason why the prosecution collapsed.
He says prosecutors were asking 'not what the then Government was prepared to do, or did, say in public about China (whether framed as its policy or otherwise, and whether as a matter of fact true or not), but rather whether China was - as a matter of fact - an active threat to national security'
The statements provided to them were quite clear about China being a threat to national security.
I don't understand why the DPP hasn't resigned. They've completely fucked this up and they're desperately trying to blame the government for it, but the witness statements are available to read and they seem pretty clear to me - China is a threat to Britain.
If you actually read the law they were being prosecuted under, it literally says that giving secrets to *anyone* is illegal.
So if you gave secrets to your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells, you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act.
So, you support the resignation of the DPP?
Not sure *who* should resign.
But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.
Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?
1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—
(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;
My bold
Common sense ought to be enough. Person A tells person B who isn't an enemy. Person B tells someone else. Eventually Person B, C, X etc tells someone who is an enemy.
Who's at fault?
If you have told your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells then clearly you have committed an offence, open and shut. If you are a council member and have pink papers strewn about you desk and someone reads them then you have committed an offence. I have no problem with any of that. What I do have a problem with is when officers of an authority demand members take a decision acting on "confidential" information but refuse to disclose to members and members are incurious to ask, who the informant is. That is pretty close to malfeasance and contrary to the Bill of Right. It is also the current basis of planning enforcement.
I have just received on my computer a two minute clip from a well known US journalist disgussing the new book by Virginia G. Apparently all the characters who behaved badly with her are given names such as Billionaire 1 billionaire 2 billionaire 3 head of corporation .....Prime Minister of .....unnamed. She suggests this is done to protect the publishers. She then goes on to name them complete with photos. All extremely well known. Am I allowed to link to this? It seems quite interesting. One or two particularly....
In more optimistic news, a lot of "please, take this electricity off us" this weekend.
Wonder how frequent such situations have to be for a serious industry to develop to exploit free, but very intermittent, energy?
Not so intermittent up north, of course. And we were discussing the other day that Scots engineer whose approach to high winds was to actually design the wind turbines to cope with anything up to a hurricane.
The issue is, I suspect, as much a matter of local pricing (or lack thereof).
Yes, why set up to take advantage of that free/cheap energy only to be charged full whack for it. Mystifying why the Lab government doesn’t want to make Scotland an extremely attractive destination for business.
Or have pylons built alongside your clachan/burgh.
Also mystifying (yet again) why local pricing isn't a big issue up here for the SNP. And SLDs (for all; that they are Unionists) and SGs. Even if the leccy is absurdly cheap only some of the time, in Orkney or Caithness it should be most of the time and the need to pay full whack for the rest of the time is still a huge improvement. You don't need to switch the factory off on calm days.
Edit: just confirmed the postponement of an outing to have a plowter along the seaside and some rock pools on the Lothian coast. It's a full gale where we were planning to go, and I don't want to be on the clifftop path with the wind blowing offshore.
A few SNP leaflets through my door have made this point.
Ah, interesting. Thanks.
I still don't think they are pushing it hard enough. If I were Swinney I'd be talking about the economic benefits of cheap energy in the run up to the election, as well as fuel poverty in Scotland during a cold snap.
(and, for balance, wind has been highly variable this week - we were using loads of gas earlier on with a spot price north of £150/MWh. )
I have just received on my computer a two minute clip from a well known US journalist disgussing the new book by Virginia G. Apparently all the characters who behaved badly with her are given names such as Billionaire 1 billionaire 2 billionaire 3 head of corporation .....Prime Minister of .....unnamed. She suggests this is done to protect the publishers. She then goes on to name them complete with photos. All extremely well known. Am I allowed to link to this? It seems quite interesting. One or two particularly....
Not a mod but my guess would be very much not to do so.
He's still to explain, as far as I'm aware, why that's relevant when the alleged offences were committed before Starmer was in government.
Anyone ?
Because the issue isn't that offences were committed, but the reason why the prosecution collapsed.
He says prosecutors were asking 'not what the then Government was prepared to do, or did, say in public about China (whether framed as its policy or otherwise, and whether as a matter of fact true or not), but rather whether China was - as a matter of fact - an active threat to national security'
The statements provided to them were quite clear about China being a threat to national security.
I don't understand why the DPP hasn't resigned. They've completely fucked this up and they're desperately trying to blame the government for it, but the witness statements are available to read and they seem pretty clear to me - China is a threat to Britain.
If you actually read the law they were being prosecuted under, it literally says that giving secrets to *anyone* is illegal.
So if you gave secrets to your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells, you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act.
So, you support the resignation of the DPP?
Not sure *who* should resign.
But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.
Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?
1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—
(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;
My bold
Added my bold.
You need to demonstrate that the information would be useful to an enemy. The easiest way to do that is to”they supplied it to China therefore they must have believed it would be useful to China… is China an enemy?”
The issue is the information - that we know - they supplied was low grade political gossip. So it’s not a slam dunk that it was useful.
If it was (and you are) covered by the Official Secrets Act, it doesn't matter how far the gossip may have spread. You yourself don't discuss it.
Sure. But that’s not the same as a prosecutable case
You are trying to make your partisan narrative fit the frame.
The CPS could prosecute a case without a Government summary of China's espionage capability.
I would suggest in diplomatic terms annoying China is sub optimal. Do you want your MG or BYD ECU switched off remotely at 70 mph on the M4?
I am only half joking. We are so immersed into Chinese tech, as is our power and communications infrastructure that the Chinese have us by the nuts.
I don’t have a partisan narrative. Either the DPP is lying (and should be sacked) or Starmer has misled the House (and should correct the record). I don’t know which one it is and don’t particularly care.
Of course there is downside to annoying China. There is also downside in not slapping their wrist when they are caught spying on us.
He's still to explain, as far as I'm aware, why that's relevant when the alleged offences were committed before Starmer was in government.
Anyone ?
Because the issue isn't that offences were committed, but the reason why the prosecution collapsed.
He says prosecutors were asking 'not what the then Government was prepared to do, or did, say in public about China (whether framed as its policy or otherwise, and whether as a matter of fact true or not), but rather whether China was - as a matter of fact - an active threat to national security'
The statements provided to them were quite clear about China being a threat to national security.
I don't understand why the DPP hasn't resigned. They've completely fucked this up and they're desperately trying to blame the government for it, but the witness statements are available to read and they seem pretty clear to me - China is a threat to Britain.
If you actually read the law they were being prosecuted under, it literally says that giving secrets to *anyone* is illegal.
So if you gave secrets to your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells, you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act.
So, you support the resignation of the DPP?
Not sure *who* should resign.
But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.
Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?
1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—
(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;
My bold
Added my bold.
You need to demonstrate that the information would be useful to an enemy. The easiest way to do that is to”they supplied it to China therefore they must have believed it would be useful to China… is China an enemy?”
The issue is the information - that we know - they supplied was low grade political gossip. So it’s not a slam dunk that it was useful.
The reason the act was worded like that was (I looked it up) that there was a lot of private spying and information selling in the 19th cent
So the person you gave or sold information to might not be the ultimate recipient.
You just have to show that the information might help *any enemy* - the Chinese are just the first stop on the road.
Ooh, tactless. Drinkies and food next to the Parthenon marbles.
(Marble is porous and really stains. Bastard to clean if you are trying to keep the patina - if indeed it is possible. I once heard the story of a corporate event in a museum which shall be nameless. Boss had been a shit to a subordinate who after a few threw her G&T at him and most of it missed and hit the oil painting behind. And alcohol and acid are not great for paintings. The cost of professional conservation work was added to the bill for the event.)
I have just received on my computer a two minute clip from a well known US journalist disgussing the new book by Virginia G. Apparently all the characters who behaved badly with her are given names such as Billionaire 1 billionaire 2 billionaire 3 head of corporation .....Prime Minister of .....unnamed. She suggests this is done to protect the publishers. She then goes on to name them complete with photos. All extremely well known. Am I allowed to link to this? It seems quite interesting. One or two particularly....
Not a mod but my guess would be very much not to do so.
That's my feeling but if I've been sent it presumably at least a million others have too......
It’s all going swimmingly for Reform in Cornwall…… From Cornwall live
Cllr Karen Knight, who was voted in at the May election as the Reform UK councillor for Camborne West & Treswithian, will now represent the division as a Standalone Independent. We have contacted her to ask why she has made the move. Cllr Knight's switch means that Reform - which was voted in as the largest political group on Cornwall Council - now has 26 councillors rather than its original 28. However, we have been told that as many as four more councillors could resign from the party over the next week.
Not that surprising. Councillors have been notorious for changing alliegance when they don't get the Cabinet post they think they rightfully deserve. Many of the Reform councillors have already flounced from one party to get a leg up. When so many of them got elected, the chance for glory was greatly diminished. Plus, they have to be associated with some very hard decisions, like putting up councl tax. As an indy, they can suck air through teeth and say to the voters "Oh, I wouldn't have done that..."
Expect many more, is my assessment.
A lot of the appeal of populism, of whatever colour, is the promise of simple solutions. Sometimes out of naivety, sometimes out of cynicism. Either way, it tends to fall apart when forced to confront reality by being in power.
There are two interesting moments here. Do populists blink and run just before entering office? If they make it into power, the options are to adapt to reality, run away quickly, or go into a denial bubble that sends them mad.
85 mins till we find out that the right wing☆ Labour Northern woman has beaten the right wing northern woman to become deputy to the right wing leader. ☆In traditional Labour terms
Even the BBC aren’t allowed in to watch the new Labour deputy leader be announced.
You get the impression No10 really don’t want to give Lucy Powell a glitzy coronation event.
From bad to worse.
On Friday Starmer's personally releases an extremely dangerous child sex offender onto the streets of Essex to disappear into the grey economy forever. The LOTO has demanded his immediate resignation.
On Saturday Lucy Powell is elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party...
Ooh, tactless. Drinkies and food next to the Parthenon marbles.
(Marble is porous and really stains. Bastard to clean if you are trying to keep the patina - if indeed it is possible. I once heard the story of a corporate event in a museum which shall be nameless. Boss had been a shit to a subordinate who after a few threw her G&T at him and most of it missed and hit the oil painting behind. And alcohol and acid are not great for paintings. The cost of professional conservation work was added to the bill for the event.)
Looks pretty vulgar (UJ dress Naomi, really?) though raising £2.5m sounds useful, none of it going to the birthplace of Western civilisation presumably. I recall someone on here wondering why 'Fuck Israel' was liberally sprayed around Athens, perhaps 'Fuck the British Museum' will be joining it.
I have just received on my computer a two minute clip from a well known US journalist disgussing the new book by Virginia G. Apparently all the characters who behaved badly with her are given names such as Billionaire 1 billionaire 2 billionaire 3 head of corporation .....Prime Minister of .....unnamed. She suggests this is done to protect the publishers. She then goes on to name them complete with photos. All extremely well known. Am I allowed to link to this? It seems quite interesting. One or two particularly....
Not a mod but my guess would be very much not to do so.
That's my feeling but if I've been sent it presumably at least a million others have too......
Were we in the States it's fair game, her it's definitely libel and I wouldn't recommend it.
The below the line comments for The Times "interview" with convicted fraudster and Fascist propagandist Steve Bannon are mildly amusing this morning. Murdoch's promotion of this sinister Cambridge Analytica and Breitbart Svengali is going down very badly indeed with his customers.
After a while one does wonder about the billionaires' agenda. Project 2025 turns out not have been an absurd far right conspiracy after all, more an absurd, far right programme for government. Bannon fully believes that Trump will run again in 2028, so he would, presumably ,want to serve until 2033. He would be 87 then, so quite possibly Bannon thinks that a festering corpse would be an ideal leader for the oligarchy formerly known as the Land of the Free. This bullshit is so ridiculous it is almost laughable, or at least it would be if these people were not so obviously criminal in practice and intent. The symbolism of the demolition a large chunk of the White House, "The People's House", regardless of history, beauty or heritage protection, and its replacement with a vulgar, lopsided, over-blown and unnecessary piece of crap is a a marvelous metaphor for Trump himself. In the end the interview is so weak and the promotion of these evil men so egregious that hundreds of subscribers to *The Times* pour out total fury at the "newspaper" and its geriatric proprietor.
The tide seems to turning against the populist far right both in the UK and the US. It is a shame that the equally loathsome Murdoch will not live to see the undoing of his works and the damnation of his memory.
An alternative view is that there is no Project 2025. Its the O & G guys doing their normal thing. Cosy up to the Middle East and bomb them if they are not friendly. Paying members of the ruling family (Trump) is a sign of friendliness. Other O & G options are to park your navy on the coast and threaten the populace if they don't agree to regime change. Meanwhile, the Russian Direct Investment Minister (invest in Russia and not the US) will be meeting Witkoff very soon - perhaps to discuss drill, baby, drill.
Seems that vested interests trumps, the interests of the US voters - with a sideline of commissions to the family. If it all ends in tears, they can follow Andy to the Middle East.
Ooh, tactless. Drinkies and food next to the Parthenon marbles.
(Marble is porous and really stains. Bastard to clean if you are trying to keep the patina - if indeed it is possible. I once heard the story of a corporate event in a museum which shall be nameless. Boss had been a shit to a subordinate who after a few threw her G&T at him and most of it missed and hit the oil painting behind. And alcohol and acid are not great for paintings. The cost of professional conservation work was added to the bill for the event.)
Looks pretty vulgar (UJ dress Naomi, really?) though raising £2.5m sounds useful, none of it going to the birthplace of Western civilisation presumably. I recall someone on here wondering why 'Fuck Israel' was liberally sprayed around Athens, perhaps 'Fuck the British Museum' will be joining it.
Mind, as with all such events that will include or attract - not sure which, depends if inclusive figure or not - [edit] near on a million from our taxpayers' pockets as gift aid - assuming all the donors are higher rate taxpayers in the UK, which is quite possible. Good cause, though.
I have just received on my computer a two minute clip from a well known US journalist disgussing the new book by Virginia G. Apparently all the characters who behaved badly with her are given names such as Billionaire 1 billionaire 2 billionaire 3 head of corporation .....Prime Minister of .....unnamed. She suggests this is done to protect the publishers. She then goes on to name them complete with photos. All extremely well known. Am I allowed to link to this? It seems quite interesting. One or two particularly....
Not a mod but my guess would be very much not to do so.
That's my feeling but if I've been sent it presumably at least a million others have too......
Rachel Reeves is preparing to give more than a million low-paid workers a pay rise in the budget, despite warnings from businesses that she risks “pricing jobs out of existence”.
The Times has been told that the chancellor is likely to confirm a rise in the national living wage of about 4 per cent, from £12.21 to at least £12.70, in an effort to deliver on her pledge to improve living standards.
The government will also commit itself to extending the living wage to people between the ages of 18 and 21 as part of a commitment to “raise the floor” on wages.
Funny how those who drivel on endlessly about copying Denmark never mention that it doesn't have a minimum wage.
The minimum wage should be scrapped, not raised, as it distorts the labour market by forcing business to pay people more than they're worth, raising unemployment, reducing competitiveness and the incentive to increase productivity amongst those who need it most, increasing compliance costs and inflation. In fact it's hard to think of a more damaging policy (though the looking through the current government's actions gives a pretty long list of them).
But understanding the harm done needs politicians and journalists to think things through for thirty seconds, so we're stuck with it unfortunately.
The counter to that is we've had massive immigration and yet we haven't see massive unemployment - indeed, the minimum wage serves as a disincentive for firms to rely on cheap labour. As long as Labour keep cutting migration (and targets dodgy outfits swerving the rule) then I can't see that changing to a large degree.
In terms of the benefits bill, in theory you need wages at the lower end to rise pretty quickly to provide an incentive for people to work (in reality I don't think you can see this effect too much because the marginal utlity of cash for someone on UC means they can tolerate fairly low wages and still want to work - conditions are much more important IMO).
Indeed, if we take @Fishing's argument to its logical conclusion, slavery should never have been abolished.
It seems there is a pool of people unable to find work for whatever reason (and there may be several) who chase jobs, apply and get nowhere. That's not people who are making no effort (a different group) but those who cannot even get their foot in the door of employment whether it's through lack of qualifications, lack of experience or a lack of something else.
That latter group is large and by far the biggest issue. Often, they just aren't the kind of person who is particularly employable unless you have a highly tolerant and benevolent employer.
It's actually quite rare for the financial incentive to be a problem - even if their EMTR is something like 70% people still tend to want to work because 1) they don't run their lives with spreadsheets like PBers 2) the value of additional income is far higher than for the typical PBer, because it's often the difference between food on the table or not 3) people do recognise that living on benefits forever is not a source of happiness, particularly given the sanctions and other tribulations that DWP have in place.
Indeed. I was involved in the recruitment for a lower grade post handling records. The shortlisting process (before AI) weeded out the obvious and we got down to the last six. Of that six, two stood out on paper and both interviewed very well. We had a really tough job splitting them even on evaluation scoring but by the time we'd decided, both had found better paid work elsewhere.
The other four interviewees were much weaker - it wasn't their academic qualifications which were the problem or even the lack of experience but we were left with the thought they were socially inept, barely able to hold a conversation and interact with others.
Some people are like that - not everyone is gregarious, there are those who find basic social situations very difficult especially with people they don't know. In a workplace, you need to be able to communicate with and basically interact with not just your immediate colleagues but others and whether it's down to technological or societal changes, it's much easier to be alone and lonely than it ever was.
There's a lot in this about self-promotion and self-confidence and I wonder if education is part of the problem (and the solution). It's easy to be in the background in a class of 30 or 40 - less easy when it's 15 or 20. A generation or two of children in overcrowded, underfunded schools come out the other side and we wonder why they find "the real world" so difficult.
That's certainly true, but education in its fullest sense is responsible, not just education at school. Bright but poor children often have low expectations drilled into them by their parents and peers, who pour scorn on any attempts to better themselves. A friend who grew up in a horribly poor background but has definitely bettered himself told me that all but one of his friends and acquaintances made fun of his plans to get an education and a profession, except one aunt who told him, when he was seven, "don't listen to them. You can be anything you want to be". Which took exceptional strength of character to act on, but motivated him to get himself out of the ghetto and is somehow one of the moving things I've ever heard.
It's bonkers. The DPP distinguishes between what the previous government's actual policy was compared with what the previous government said the policy was and this is "an explicit rebuke to Starmer" according to Swinford.
I have just received on my computer a two minute clip from a well known US journalist disgussing the new book by Virginia G. Apparently all the characters who behaved badly with her are given names such as Billionaire 1 billionaire 2 billionaire 3 head of corporation .....Prime Minister of .....unnamed. She suggests this is done to protect the publishers. She then goes on to name them complete with photos. All extremely well known. Am I allowed to link to this? It seems quite interesting. One or two particularly....
Not a mod but my guess would be very much not to do so.
That's my feeling but if I've been sent it presumably at least a million others have too......
Were we in the States it's fair game, her it's definitely libel and I wouldn't recommend it.
It's slightly burning a hole in my computer. The funny thing is I'm not in the slightest interested in her book or this kind of tittle tattle but when some of those mentioned are among those you particularly despise it becomes a different story
I'd missed that Russia went into NATO airspace again yesterday. Becoming routine, which was always going to happen after our feeble response to the drones into Poland (and elsewhere), as well as the jets into Estonia.
At some point we're going to have to shoot something down at a bare minimum. Putin is taking the piss.
I have just received on my computer a two minute clip from a well known US journalist disgussing the new book by Virginia G. Apparently all the characters who behaved badly with her are given names such as Billionaire 1 billionaire 2 billionaire 3 head of corporation .....Prime Minister of .....unnamed. She suggests this is done to protect the publishers. She then goes on to name them complete with photos. All extremely well known. Am I allowed to link to this? It seems quite interesting. One or two particularly....
Not a mod but my guess would be very much not to do so.
That's my feeling but if I've been sent it presumably at least a million others have too......
Were we in the States it's fair game, her it's definitely libel and I wouldn't recommend it.
It's slightly burning a hole in my computer. The funny thing is I'm not in the slightest interested in her book or this kind of tittle tattle but when some of those mentioned are among those you particularly despise it becomes a different story
I’ll tell everyone that it’s an Israeli former PM so you don’t have to
I have just received on my computer a two minute clip from a well known US journalist disgussing the new book by Virginia G. Apparently all the characters who behaved badly with her are given names such as Billionaire 1 billionaire 2 billionaire 3 head of corporation .....Prime Minister of .....unnamed. She suggests this is done to protect the publishers. She then goes on to name them complete with photos. All extremely well known. Am I allowed to link to this? It seems quite interesting. One or two particularly....
Not a mod but my guess would be very much not to do so.
That's my feeling but if I've been sent it presumably at least a million others have too......
Were we in the States it's fair game, her it's definitely libel and I wouldn't recommend it.
It's slightly burning a hole in my computer. The funny thing is I'm not in the slightest interested in her book or this kind of tittle tattle but when some of those mentioned are among those you particularly despise it becomes a different story
What I saw was backed up by testimony from Virginia Roberts, I believe to Congressional Committees, so what has been reported was already in the public domain.
I doubt the GOP or the current Israeli Government will sue, as the revelations seem to apply to their political opponents.
Although Roberts herself despite being dead so cannot be sued was mindful of the jeopardy her publisher might face.
It does seem from the piece that Epstein was gathering kompromat in an absolutely despicable way on behalf of his employer/third party government.
He's still to explain, as far as I'm aware, why that's relevant when the alleged offences were committed before Starmer was in government.
Anyone ?
Because the issue isn't that offences were committed, but the reason why the prosecution collapsed.
He says prosecutors were asking 'not what the then Government was prepared to do, or did, say in public about China (whether framed as its policy or otherwise, and whether as a matter of fact true or not), but rather whether China was - as a matter of fact - an active threat to national security'
The statements provided to them were quite clear about China being a threat to national security.
I don't understand why the DPP hasn't resigned. They've completely fucked this up and they're desperately trying to blame the government for it, but the witness statements are available to read and they seem pretty clear to me - China is a threat to Britain.
If you actually read the law they were being prosecuted under, it literally says that giving secrets to *anyone* is illegal.
So if you gave secrets to your maiden aunt in Tunbridge Wells, you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act.
So, you support the resignation of the DPP?
Not sure *who* should resign.
But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.
Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?
1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—
(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;
My bold
Added my bold.
You need to demonstrate that the information would be useful to an enemy. The easiest way to do that is to”they supplied it to China therefore they must have believed it would be useful to China… is China an enemy?”
The issue is the information - that we know - they supplied was low grade political gossip. So it’s not a slam dunk that it was useful.
The reason the act was worded like that was (I looked it up) that there was a lot of private spying and information selling in the 19th cent
So the person you gave or sold information to might not be the ultimate recipient.
You just have to show that the information might help *any enemy* - the Chinese are just the first stop on the road.
Yes. But the information that we know about - I think it was who was going to be appointed to some minor post - was pretty marginal. So they are reliant on “useful to X” rather than “intrinsically useful”
Rachel Reeves is preparing to give more than a million low-paid workers a pay rise in the budget, despite warnings from businesses that she risks “pricing jobs out of existence”.
The Times has been told that the chancellor is likely to confirm a rise in the national living wage of about 4 per cent, from £12.21 to at least £12.70, in an effort to deliver on her pledge to improve living standards.
The government will also commit itself to extending the living wage to people between the ages of 18 and 21 as part of a commitment to “raise the floor” on wages.
Funny how those who drivel on endlessly about copying Denmark never mention that it doesn't have a minimum wage.
The minimum wage should be scrapped, not raised, as it distorts the labour market by forcing business to pay people more than they're worth, raising unemployment, reducing competitiveness and the incentive to increase productivity amongst those who need it most, increasing compliance costs and inflation. In fact it's hard to think of a more damaging policy (though the looking through the current government's actions gives a pretty long list of them).
But understanding the harm done needs politicians and journalists to think things through for thirty seconds, so we're stuck with it unfortunately.
The counter to that is we've had massive immigration and yet we haven't see massive unemployment - indeed, the minimum wage serves as a disincentive for firms to rely on cheap labour. As long as Labour keep cutting migration (and targets dodgy outfits swerving the rule) then I can't see that changing to a large degree.
In terms of the benefits bill, in theory you need wages at the lower end to rise pretty quickly to provide an incentive for people to work (in reality I don't think you can see this effect too much because the marginal utlity of cash for someone on UC means they can tolerate fairly low wages and still want to work - conditions are much more important IMO).
Indeed, if we take @Fishing's argument to its logical conclusion, slavery should never have been abolished.
It seems there is a pool of people unable to find work for whatever reason (and there may be several) who chase jobs, apply and get nowhere. That's not people who are making no effort (a different group) but those who cannot even get their foot in the door of employment whether it's through lack of qualifications, lack of experience or a lack of something else.
That latter group is large and by far the biggest issue. Often, they just aren't the kind of person who is particularly employable unless you have a highly tolerant and benevolent employer.
It's actually quite rare for the financial incentive to be a problem - even if their EMTR is something like 70% people still tend to want to work because 1) they don't run their lives with spreadsheets like PBers 2) the value of additional income is far higher than for the typical PBer, because it's often the difference between food on the table or not 3) people do recognise that living on benefits forever is not a source of happiness, particularly given the sanctions and other tribulations that DWP have in place.
Indeed. I was involved in the recruitment for a lower grade post handling records. The shortlisting process (before AI) weeded out the obvious and we got down to the last six. Of that six, two stood out on paper and both interviewed very well. We had a really tough job splitting them even on evaluation scoring but by the time we'd decided, both had found better paid work elsewhere.
The other four interviewees were much weaker - it wasn't their academic qualifications which were the problem or even the lack of experience but we were left with the thought they were socially inept, barely able to hold a conversation and interact with others.
Some people are like that - not everyone is gregarious, there are those who find basic social situations very difficult especially with people they don't know. In a workplace, you need to be able to communicate with and basically interact with not just your immediate colleagues but others and whether it's down to technological or societal changes, it's much easier to be alone and lonely than it ever was.
There's a lot in this about self-promotion and self-confidence and I wonder if education is part of the problem (and the solution). It's easy to be in the background in a class of 30 or 40 - less easy when it's 15 or 20. A generation or two of children in overcrowded, underfunded schools come out the other side and we wonder why they find "the real world" so difficult.
The problem is that conventional interviews tend to favour confident extaverts (bullshitters in common parlance), while in many jobs introverts are better at the job, being much more likely to prepare properly rather than just wing it.
We adjusted our medical student interviews for this reason, with a mix of stations including comprehension and problem solving.
LIVE: Israel blocks Gaza crossings despite ceasefire; 1.5 million need aid
You were well ahead of the game. Both with Israel and Starmer. Israel was easier to spot. Their disregard for Palestinian life and rights has been well known to all but the most ignorant for a long time but Starmer has been something of a revelation
I have just received on my computer a two minute clip from a well known US journalist disgussing the new book by Virginia G. Apparently all the characters who behaved badly with her are given names such as Billionaire 1 billionaire 2 billionaire 3 head of corporation .....Prime Minister of .....unnamed. She suggests this is done to protect the publishers. She then goes on to name them complete with photos. All extremely well known. Am I allowed to link to this? It seems quite interesting. One or two particularly....
Not a mod but my guess would be very much not to do so.
That's my feeling but if I've been sent it presumably at least a million others have too......
Were we in the States it's fair game, her it's definitely libel and I wouldn't recommend it.
It's slightly burning a hole in my computer. The funny thing is I'm not in the slightest interested in her book or this kind of tittle tattle but when some of those mentioned are among those you particularly despise it becomes a different story
I’ll tell everyone that it’s an Israeli former PM so you don’t have to
Which opens the question who was Epstein actually working for? The PM under suspicion did make me go "oh yes, that seems to fit all too well".
Rachel Reeves is preparing to give more than a million low-paid workers a pay rise in the budget, despite warnings from businesses that she risks “pricing jobs out of existence”.
The Times has been told that the chancellor is likely to confirm a rise in the national living wage of about 4 per cent, from £12.21 to at least £12.70, in an effort to deliver on her pledge to improve living standards.
The government will also commit itself to extending the living wage to people between the ages of 18 and 21 as part of a commitment to “raise the floor” on wages.
Funny how those who drivel on endlessly about copying Denmark never mention that it doesn't have a minimum wage.
The minimum wage should be scrapped, not raised, as it distorts the labour market by forcing business to pay people more than they're worth, raising unemployment, reducing competitiveness and the incentive to increase productivity amongst those who need it most, increasing compliance costs and inflation. In fact it's hard to think of a more damaging policy (though the looking through the current government's actions gives a pretty long list of them).
But understanding the harm done needs politicians and journalists to think things through for thirty seconds, so we're stuck with it unfortunately.
Absolutely agree. What an appallingly stupid thing to do.
Feels like a bear trap move - they're not going to be in Government, so they want the first move of a Reform government to be reducing the minimum wage.
In more optimistic news, a lot of "please, take this electricity off us" this weekend.
Wonder how frequent such situations have to be for a serious industry to develop to exploit free, but very intermittent, energy?
Not so intermittent up north, of course. And we were discussing the other day that Scots engineer whose approach to high winds was to actually design the wind turbines to cope with anything up to a hurricane.
The issue is, I suspect, as much a matter of local pricing (or lack thereof).
Which can't get on the grid, because turbines are deliberately situated in remote areas to harvest constraint payments.
Comments
But the “enemies” thing is bollocks.
Or have all these Too Lawyers not actually read the two sentences of the law?
1 1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—
(c) obtains or communicates to any other person any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy ;
My bold
Drama!
Even the BBC aren’t allowed in to watch the new Labour deputy leader be announced.
You get the impression No10 really don’t want to give Lucy Powell a glitzy coronation event.
The other four interviewees were much weaker - it wasn't their academic qualifications which were the problem or even the lack of experience but we were left with the thought they were socially inept, barely able to hold a conversation and interact with others.
Some people are like that - not everyone is gregarious, there are those who find basic social situations very difficult especially with people they don't know. In a workplace, you need to be able to communicate with and basically interact with not just your immediate colleagues but others and whether it's down to technological or societal changes, it's much easier to be alone and lonely than it ever was.
There's a lot in this about self-promotion and self-confidence and I wonder if education is part of the problem (and the solution). It's easy to be in the background in a class of 30 or 40 - less easy when it's 15 or 20. A generation or two of children in overcrowded, underfunded schools come out the other side and we wonder why they find "the real world" so difficult.
Cllr Karen Knight, who was voted in at the May election as the Reform UK councillor for Camborne West & Treswithian, will now represent the division as a Standalone Independent. We have contacted her to ask why she has made the move. Cllr Knight's switch means that Reform - which was voted in as the largest political group on Cornwall Council - now has 26 councillors rather than its original 28. However, we have been told that as many as four more councillors could resign from the party over the next week.
https://potus.com/presidential-facts/pardons-commutations/
Clinton, Reagan and the two Bushes all issued pardons at a much lower rate than Eisenhower or Truman. Then Obama and Biden loads of pardons.
The Trump figure doesn't include any from his second term. One assumes he hadn't monetised the process in his first term.
You need to demonstrate that the information would be useful to an enemy. The easiest way to do that is to”they supplied it to China therefore they must have believed it would be useful to China… is China an enemy?”
The issue is the information - that we know - they supplied was low grade political gossip. So it’s not a slam dunk that it was useful.
Who's at fault?
Expect many more, is my assessment.
Also mystifying (yet again) why local pricing isn't a big issue up here for the SNP. And SLDs (for all; that they are Unionists) and SGs. Even if the leccy is absurdly cheap only some of the time, in Orkney or Caithness it should be most of the time and the need to pay full whack for the rest of the time is still a huge improvement. You don't need to switch the factory off on calm days.
Edit: just confirmed the postponement of an outing to have a plowter along the seaside and some rock pools on the Lothian coast. It's a full gale where we were planning to go, and I don't want to be on the clifftop path with the wind blowing offshore.
(and, for balance, wind has been highly variable this week - we were using loads of gas earlier on with a spot price north of £150/MWh. )
After a while one does wonder about the billionaires' agenda. Project 2025 turns out not have been an absurd far right conspiracy after all, more an absurd, far right programme for government. Bannon fully believes that Trump will run again in 2028, so he would, presumably ,want to serve until 2033. He would be 87 then, so quite possibly Bannon thinks that a festering corpse would be an ideal leader for the oligarchy formerly known as the Land of the Free. This bullshit is so ridiculous it is almost laughable, or at least it would be if these people were not so obviously criminal in practice and intent. The symbolism of the demolition a large chunk of the White House, "The People's House", regardless of history, beauty or heritage protection, and its replacement with a vulgar, lopsided, over-blown and unnecessary piece of crap is a a marvelous metaphor for Trump himself. In the end the interview is so weak and the promotion of these evil men so egregious that hundreds of subscribers to *The Times* pour out total fury at the "newspaper" and its geriatric proprietor.
The tide seems to turning against the populist far right both in the UK and the US. It is a shame that the equally loathsome Murdoch will not live to see the undoing of his works and the damnation of his memory.
The CPS could prosecute a case without a Government summary of China's espionage capability.
I would suggest in diplomatic terms annoying China is sub optimal. Do you want your MG or BYD ECU switched off remotely at 70 mph on the M4?
I am only half joking. We are so immersed into Chinese tech, as is our power and communications infrastructure that the Chinese have us by the nuts.
Ooh, tactless. Drinkies and food next to the Parthenon marbles.
(Marble is porous and really stains. Bastard to clean if you are trying to keep the patina - if indeed it is possible. I once heard the story of a corporate event in a museum which shall be nameless. Boss had been a shit to a subordinate who after a few threw her G&T at him and most of it missed and hit the oil painting behind. And alcohol and acid are not great for paintings. The cost of professional conservation work was added to the bill for the event.)
Of course there is downside to annoying China. There is also downside in not slapping their wrist when they are caught spying on us.
So the person you gave or sold information to might not be the ultimate recipient.
You just have to show that the information might help *any enemy* - the Chinese are just the first stop on the road.
Edit: @DavidL thought similarly to me, I believe?
There are two interesting moments here. Do populists blink and run just before entering office? If they make it into power, the options are to adapt to reality, run away quickly, or go into a denial bubble that sends them mad.
On Friday Starmer's personally releases an extremely dangerous child sex offender onto the streets of Essex to disappear into the grey economy forever. The LOTO has demanded his immediate resignation.
On Saturday Lucy Powell is elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party...
Seems that vested interests trumps, the interests of the US voters - with a sideline of commissions to the family. If it all ends in tears, they can follow Andy to the Middle East.
At some point we're going to have to shoot something down at a bare minimum. Putin is taking the piss.
I doubt the GOP or the current Israeli Government will sue, as the revelations seem to apply to their political opponents.
Although Roberts herself despite being dead so cannot be sued was mindful of the jeopardy her publisher might face.
It does seem from the piece that Epstein was gathering kompromat in an absolutely despicable way on behalf of his employer/third party government.
LIVE: Israel blocks Gaza crossings despite ceasefire; 1.5 million need aid
We adjusted our medical student interviews for this reason, with a mix of stations including comprehension and problem solving.
NEW THREAD
Feels like a bear trap move - they're not going to be in Government, so they want the first move of a Reform government to be reducing the minimum wage.