Ukraine starting to lose German and French voter support which is pretty concerning. I suspect we shall get a bad peace deal in 2026, which will give the global economy a temporary boost but at the expense of emboldening Putin and might is right generally.
We won’t, Zelensky will only accept a ceasefire on current lines and Putin will only accept a ceasefire with Russia getting given more Ukrainian territory
A settlement on current lines wouldn't be good for VVP. Odessa might just make it all worth it. It was the Kulkovye Polye protests/massacre and subsequent firestorm of disinformation from both sides in 2014 that so inflamed Russian ire and germinated the conflict. Getting Katherine's city back would be the sort of sentimental symmetry that nourishes the Slavic psyche.
I see Big Z has now given up on joining NATO so you can sort of see the hazy outlines of a deal that could emerge. Russia will need more though.
Given the state of the Russian Black Sea fleet, Odessa looks unattainable.
Russian navy down one submarine, taken out by Ukranian suicide drone sub while in port at Novorossiysk.
Stand by for a few more Ukranian drone subs heading for Novorossiysk in the coming days and weeks.
I was watching video of that yesterday. The drone rounded several ships and harbour fittings before hitting the submarine. It was seriously impressive but also a bit scary. I really wonder if the RN would have fared any better if facing such an attack.
Very scary. This new drone is basically a navigable torpedo that can go anywhere.
One assumes that the Royal Navy takes port security a little more seriously than the Russians, and can spot an enemy vessel approaching!
That's the rational for the sea drones the RN is testing. But it would require an awful lot of them, and I doubt the MoD has the money.
They surely need satellites to navigate and I imagine in a big war scenario those satellites will be gone in minutes?
There’s probably an inertia/star chart/object recognition/local radio towers based solution that doesn’t need satellites.
Some combination of INS and sea bed mapping.
Whatever this was, it wasn't a Sea Baby/Magura 5 as they 6m long surface vessels and there is nothing like that on the video.
The Ukranians were obviously active inside the port because they had that camera feed so it might be covert mine laying marketed as a new wonder drone for PR purposes.
A submersible drone is not really a massive advance on previously deployed technology, but it's definitely +1 for Ukraine that there's one less submarine to launch Kalibr cruise missiles.
In all the previous sea drone attacks, they used Starlink to control them.
It’s not hard to imagine a submersible drone that runs inertially, then comes up for orders.
The mini-Starlink dishes are pretty small now and the quality of the “lock” is crazy. In the US, the standard land based ones were getting popular with private pilots, before SpaceX clamped down on max speed) and there is a thing for mounting them for off road motorcycle races.
There’s rumours around of SpaceX spinning off Starlink with in IPO next year, potentially valued at $500bn. It’s a crazy technology and they’re years ahead of their competition in this space.
3 year driving ban is absurd for the Liverpool Parade driver. If that's not a life ban, what is? We should not be expected up share the road with someone like this.
Government should pass some urgent legislation that ensures life ban from driving if a vehicle is used as a weapon.
Is that AFTER the 21 years in prison? (Ok I know he will be out sooner, but still).
After. I still thinks it's completely absurd, the idea that someone with a history of using a car as weapon again hundreds of people, including children in prams, should be allowed behind the wheel again? It's an outrage.
Its a really odd one. Has he ever done anything like this before? (History of driving offences?). And yes, you can make the case for never being allowed to drive after something like this. Personally I'd prefer it if he had to prove a positive about his behaviour having changed, but maybe thats not something the system allows.
The trouble is the detection rate is so low. The guy was driving like a twat in the run up to the attack, repeatedly through red lights. Even Dura_Ace has still got a licence.
The guy who ran over a kid in Edinburgh got a 12 month ban, no jail because it was "first offence". It wasn't, of course - the dash cam showed he'd been on his phone the whole shift.
add pension contributions , cushy number , conditions etc and it is the opposite.
I think it very much depends where you are. In most of Scotland public sector pay is actually substantially ahead of what the private sector is offering. So, for example, a one year qualified solicitor in the private sector will earn somewhere between £40 and £50k outside the most demanding areas. A procurator fiscal with the same qualifications will be paid £52-54K plus the extras that come from the public sector such as pension rights, more holidays, better sick pay, greater security of employment etc.
This is a problem for the private firms and more generally it is a real problem for the economy since the cream of the crop are tempted to the public sector where their skills are not necessarily fully utilised. This makes growing businesses in Scotland, and in other areas with depressed earnings, much more difficult and removes potential innovators or entrepreneurs from the scene.
In contrast, in more affluent areas we see the public sector really struggling to get qualified staff at all because they cannot compete with what is on offer.
The combination of these effects are to depress growth, entrepreneurship and investment in our poorer areas and to increase these in the richer ones. This is one of the major reasons so much money invested in "levelling up" , regional investment funds etc has simply not worked. Ironically, given this money is public sector driven, it can aggravate the problem rather than address it. Do you want a safe, secure, well paid job in some "enterprise company" or take your chances with a dodgy start up?
I think it is a major factor in our economic performance because we create this huge drag factor. Only existing hot spots can create the opportunities and employment needed for growth. Everywhere else the dead hand of an overheavy, over paid public sector destroys growth.
The big firms are paying between £50 and 60k at NQ in Glasgow and Edinburgh these days. The satellite offices of the English firms even higher.
Rachel from customer service has really fucked the economy. Real terms pay contraction for private sector workers next year, inflation unlikely to drop and the BoE being forced to cut rates because the economy is in the shitter and the jobs market has been shat on.
I'm not sure the country can take 3 more years of this level of incompetence and malevolence.
I heard Stephen Kinnock on R4 this morning. It was gently suggested to him that the rapid increase in youth unemployment and policies such as increasing the NMW and Employers NI were perhaps somewhat related. He wasn't having it. We are the Labour party, we believe in proper wages and the money can come out of the profits of the companies that employ them.
The economic illiteracy was genuinely painful to listen to.
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
He's not doing anything silly like listing the A level grades on his CV is he?
He probably is. If he cuts them out won’t employers draw the obvious conclusion?
Degree erases A levels. His academic performance as a child is not really relevant. If an employer really wants to know they can ask. But many more would be put off by seeing them than would ask, I would imagine.
Sorry, but that doesn't accord at all with the recent experiences of my son and step-daughter. Employers are generally still very interested in A-levels after you graduate, probably because so many firsts and 2.1s are awarded these days that the degree grade has become a limited indicator of ability.
3 year driving ban is absurd for the Liverpool Parade driver. If that's not a life ban, what is? We should not be expected up share the road with someone like this.
Government should pass some urgent legislation that ensures life ban from driving if a vehicle is used as a weapon.
Is that AFTER the 21 years in prison? (Ok I know he will be out sooner, but still).
After. I still thinks it's completely absurd, the idea that someone with a history of using a car as weapon again hundreds of people, including children in prams, should be allowed behind the wheel again? It's an outrage.
Its a really odd one. Has he ever done anything like this before? (History of driving offences?). And yes, you can make the case for never being allowed to drive after something like this. Personally I'd prefer it if he had to prove a positive about his behaviour having changed, but maybe thats not something the system allows.
On the latter point Labour tried that with the Indeterminate sentences for Public Protection.
I'm practice it seems to be really difficult to prove, or the bar has been set very high.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
“I’m on the side of... Trump… in the US court system”
“The BBC in this case… has an extraordinary high bar to pass in the US court system”
Are those fair edits of your comment? Because that’s what the BBC did to the President. They’d decided in advance the narrative they wished to portray of Trump’s speech, and then edited it way out of context when it turned out that he didn’t actually say what they wanted him to have said that day.
(Yes I know this is an unpopular opinion on here).
The edited or unedited comments from randoms on here have about as much chance of influencing Trump's electoral prospects, prosperity or reputation as the BBC's clip. ie fuck all.
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
He's not doing anything silly like listing the A level grades on his CV is he?
He probably is. If he cuts them out won’t employers draw the obvious conclusion?
Degree erases A levels. His academic performance as a child is not really relevant. If an employer really wants to know they can ask. But many more would be put off by seeing them than would ask, I would imagine.
Sorry, but that doesn't accord at all with the recent experiences of my son and step-daughter. Employers are generally still very interested in A-levels after you graduate, probably because so many firsts and 2.1s are awarded these days that the degree grade has become a limited indicator of ability.
Yet A levels don't indicate ability, they at best indicate consistency and only then if everything was perfect at both home and at university..
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Rachel from customer service has really fucked the economy. Real terms pay contraction for private sector workers next year, inflation unlikely to drop and the BoE being forced to cut rates because the economy is in the shitter and the jobs market has been shat on.
I'm not sure the country can take 3 more years of this level of incompetence and malevolence.
Get used to it, without the essential infrastructure projects such as HS2 I don't see any growth appearing in the next 20 years unless it's an unknown unknown...
To think there were people blaming Liverpool fans for this act of terror.
I might name and shame some people later.
Liverpool as a place and as fans inhabit a weird land of being victims and loving being victims. What happened at the parade was horrific - one man's inability to control his anger and entitlement. And in recent times Liverpool fans have been far more sinned against than sinners. But I still recall Heysel, and I think too many make martyrs of the 96, and forget the 39. Johnson was not always wrong in the things he said.
That suggests that Heysel “balances out” all the bad things that Liverpool have endured. Whilst Heysel was the fault of Liverpool hooligans (and others) at that time in football, in England especially but also in Italy to a large extent, hooliganism and fan violence by firms and ultras was rife and would be staggering to us to see it now. There is every chance that fans of other clubs could have been the ones responsible for a Heysel type event however the fact that Liverpool were constantly in Europe increased the chances that it would be them and the well documented failure in crowd control and problems with the stadium played parts that would amplify “regular” football terrace violence into a brutal tragedy.
Liverpool never forgets Heysel and they wear it as a badge of shame however, as I said it doesn’t equalise Hilsborough, Jota or the parade.
The fact that Liverpool went through a super shitty period for decades and was largely vilified and mocked as a city and the people in a way no other English cities have been understandably makes them prickly and looking at slights.
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
Try with the F1 teams and motorsports-related companies in that region. Apply for unpaid or min wage internships, and take a job (any job, working in a bar) in the meantime to keep up morale. There’s loads of temporary work in retail and hospitality in Dec and Jan.
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
He's not doing anything silly like listing the A level grades on his CV is he?
He probably is. If he cuts them out won’t employers draw the obvious conclusion?
Degree erases A levels. His academic performance as a child is not really relevant. If an employer really wants to know they can ask. But many more would be put off by seeing them than would ask, I would imagine.
Sorry, but that doesn't accord at all with the recent experiences of my son and step-daughter. Employers are generally still very interested in A-levels after you graduate, probably because so many firsts and 2.1s are awarded these days that the degree grade has become a limited indicator of ability.
95 per cent Firsts and Upper Seconds from Oxford when I checked a few years ago.
OT rant about government meetings. I've been sent this email for a Teams call:-
Please join the meeting 5 minutes before your allocated time of 11:15 by clicking on the link. ... Join the meeting 10 minutes before your allocated time by clicking on the link. It is important that you are ready and join on time.
So in the course of a paragraph, they want me to join at 11.15, 11.10 and 11.05. This automatically generated nonsense must have been sent out for months if not decades with no civil servant bothering to read it.
How much deadweight unproductive time is accounted for by those 10 minutes wasted? People should join meeting on time, keep to the agenda and leave promptly
Er, this is an *online* meeting. JUst make sure it's all set up at 1105, in case of e-hiccups, and then get on with one's desk work till 1115. Makes sense to me.
Presumably the extra five or ten minutes is so you can discuss your cats with colleagues you've never met in person and not take up the timetabled call for this purpose.
I'm amazed at the visions of working life some people on PB have.
I’d worked at home a fair bit before lockdown and it made little or no difference to me but for other colleagues it was a new experience and while some took to it others didn’t and the months of enforced non-office attendance were purgatory and I saw some suffer really badly not only physically and mentally but in terms of effectiveness.
The psychological comfort blanket of the familiarity of the neutral venue was absent. There’s an old adage about work life balance and that is valid on so many levels.
I have worked at home now for 20+ years , never an issue and had no problems. Even stopped travelling years ago.
Absolutely no anger & empathy issues there….
Meow, green cheese gets you nowhere. You are obviously not very good on the uptake re online persona
No more cask strength turnip juice for the rest of the day.
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
He's not doing anything silly like listing the A level grades on his CV is he?
He probably is. If he cuts them out won’t employers draw the obvious conclusion?
Degree erases A levels. His academic performance as a child is not really relevant. If an employer really wants to know they can ask. But many more would be put off by seeing them than would ask, I would imagine.
Edit: also, if they ask, it gives him a chance at giving an explanation, which can't really be done on a CV.
And your last degree erases previous.
A friend did a information security masters at Oxford, part time. Previous was a 2.2 at Durham. Has to fend off the job offers, even now.
Rachel from customer service has really fucked the economy. Real terms pay contraction for private sector workers next year, inflation unlikely to drop and the BoE being forced to cut rates because the economy is in the shitter and the jobs market has been shat on.
I'm not sure the country can take 3 more years of this level of incompetence and malevolence.
She never reached tge dizzy heights of Customer Services, sho got stuck in Accounts and had a wet dream it made her an economist.
Austerity Reeves is on par with SKS at being totally reverse Midas at everythibg she does.
Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize board has reached its discovery phase. Trump claims physical and mental anguish.The board wants all Trump physical and mental examinations, medications, and tax returns for proof.
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
He's not doing anything silly like listing the A level grades on his CV is he?
He probably is. If he cuts them out won’t employers draw the obvious conclusion?
Degree erases A levels. His academic performance as a child is not really relevant. If an employer really wants to know they can ask. But many more would be put off by seeing them than would ask, I would imagine.
Sorry, but that doesn't accord at all with the recent experiences of my son and step-daughter. Employers are generally still very interested in A-levels after you graduate, probably because so many firsts and 2.1s are awarded these days that the degree grade has become a limited indicator of ability.
95 per cent Firsts and Upper Seconds from Oxford when I checked a few years ago.
Exactly, which is why employers generally need a bit more to go on than degree grade when choosing who to interview. Especially so when that degree wasn't awarded by an institution with the (alleged) cachet of Oxford.
Top journalism on display from the BBC, sending Sarah Montague from WATO into Israel and the West Bank, herself unable to speak either Herbrew or Arabic and seemingly having no-one with her who can, reduced to going round asking people in the middle of that conflict zone whether they speak English.
Indiana Jones: The hell you will! He's got a two-day head start on you, which is more than he needs. Brody's got friends in every town and village from here to the Sudan. He speaks a dozen languages, knows every local custom. He'll blend in, disappear. You'll never see him again. With any luck, he's got the Grail already.
[Cut to Marcus arriving at the train station in İskenderun] Marcus Brody: Does anyone here speak English? Or even Ancient Greek? Uh, water? No thank you, sir. No. Fish make love in it. Thank you so much. No, I really don't want...No, no, thank you very much. No thank you, madam. I'm a vegetarian. Does anyone understand a word I'm saying here?!
add pension contributions , cushy number , conditions etc and it is the opposite.
I think it very much depends where you are. In most of Scotland public sector pay is actually substantially ahead of what the private sector is offering. So, for example, a one year qualified solicitor in the private sector will earn somewhere between £40 and £50k outside the most demanding areas. A procurator fiscal with the same qualifications will be paid £52-54K plus the extras that come from the public sector such as pension rights, more holidays, better sick pay, greater security of employment etc.
This is a problem for the private firms and more generally it is a real problem for the economy since the cream of the crop are tempted to the public sector where their skills are not necessarily fully utilised. This makes growing businesses in Scotland, and in other areas with depressed earnings, much more difficult and removes potential innovators or entrepreneurs from the scene.
In contrast, in more affluent areas we see the public sector really struggling to get qualified staff at all because they cannot compete with what is on offer.
The combination of these effects are to depress growth, entrepreneurship and investment in our poorer areas and to increase these in the richer ones. This is one of the major reasons so much money invested in "levelling up" , regional investment funds etc has simply not worked. Ironically, given this money is public sector driven, it can aggravate the problem rather than address it. Do you want a safe, secure, well paid job in some "enterprise company" or take your chances with a dodgy start up?
I think it is a major factor in our economic performance because we create this huge drag factor. Only existing hot spots can create the opportunities and employment needed for growth. Everywhere else the dead hand of an overheavy, over paid public sector destroys growth.
Which is why there should be no national pay agreements in the public sector. Each local organisation needs to deal with their own pay.
Possibly the best thing they could do is move the public sector pensions to DC scheme, but that has a significant short term cost.
As was mentioned upthread, the vast majority of public sector workers have no idea just how bad are most private-sector pensions now.
3 year driving ban is absurd for the Liverpool Parade driver. If that's not a life ban, what is? We should not be expected up share the road with someone like this.
Government should pass some urgent legislation that ensures life ban from driving if a vehicle is used as a weapon.
Is that AFTER the 21 years in prison? (Ok I know he will be out sooner, but still).
After. I still thinks it's completely absurd, the idea that someone with a history of using a car as weapon again hundreds of people, including children in prams, should be allowed behind the wheel again? It's an outrage.
Its a really odd one. Has he ever done anything like this before? (History of driving offences?). And yes, you can make the case for never being allowed to drive after something like this. Personally I'd prefer it if he had to prove a positive about his behaviour having changed, but maybe thats not something the system allows.
Had previous offences for violence - thirty years ago. Given their nature, he may have been a ticking time bomb all that time.
The Guardian can now reveal that the father of three, described as a mild-mannered “family man”, is said to have had a history of explosive violent outbursts long before the victory parade on 26 May.
Someone who served with Doyle in the Royal Marines in the early 1990s described how he was known “really, really quickly to be an absolute live wire”.
“It was like he was on a tripwire,” the former marine said. “Everyone would say: ‘He’s got a horrendous flash to bang’ – meaning the point you get annoyed to the point you’re punching people is zero time.”
Doyle, 54, has a series of previous convictions for serious violence and other offences dating back to the early 90s. He was jailed for a year for biting off a sailor’s ear in a pub brawl in July 1993, six months after being discharged from the Royal Marines after a string of previous offences.
He joined the Royal Marines in March 1991, aged 19, after a short period in the Royal Engineers, but quickly got into trouble for violence, dishonesty and criminal damage. By the time he was discharged from the military in January 1993, he had six civilian and service convictions.
Fellow service personnel, who were unaware of these convictions, said the young recruit was known in the close-combat Yankee Company for his short fuse. “He was just out drinking with everyone and he’d just be filling people in,” said one former marine. “He had zero escalation – he was just on the tripwire.”
He said Doyle became an “outcast” in his troop before he left the Marines in 1993: “Normal people would give him a wide berth. They’re 21 years old and they’re trying to pull girls. They don’t want to be around some sort of lunatic Tasmanian devil who’s trying to knock everyone out who bumps into him.”
It is understood that Doyle was discharged by the marines after four years following the convictions, when he was told his “service was no longer required”. The Ministry of Defence declined to comment.
In the 30 years since he was released from prison in May 1995, Doyle had “taken steps to lead a positive and productive life”, the prosecutor, Paul Greaney KC, said on Friday.
add pension contributions , cushy number , conditions etc and it is the opposite.
I think it very much depends where you are. In most of Scotland public sector pay is actually substantially ahead of what the private sector is offering. So, for example, a one year qualified solicitor in the private sector will earn somewhere between £40 and £50k outside the most demanding areas. A procurator fiscal with the same qualifications will be paid £52-54K plus the extras that come from the public sector such as pension rights, more holidays, better sick pay, greater security of employment etc.
This is a problem for the private firms and more generally it is a real problem for the economy since the cream of the crop are tempted to the public sector where their skills are not necessarily fully utilised. This makes growing businesses in Scotland, and in other areas with depressed earnings, much more difficult and removes potential innovators or entrepreneurs from the scene.
In contrast, in more affluent areas we see the public sector really struggling to get qualified staff at all because they cannot compete with what is on offer.
The combination of these effects are to depress growth, entrepreneurship and investment in our poorer areas and to increase these in the richer ones. This is one of the major reasons so much money invested in "levelling up" , regional investment funds etc has simply not worked. Ironically, given this money is public sector driven, it can aggravate the problem rather than address it. Do you want a safe, secure, well paid job in some "enterprise company" or take your chances with a dodgy start up?
I think it is a major factor in our economic performance because we create this huge drag factor. Only existing hot spots can create the opportunities and employment needed for growth. Everywhere else the dead hand of an overheavy, over paid public sector destroys growth.
The trouble is the solution doesn't work either - it's incredibly difficult to get doctors to move to the Highlands for example - my partner turned down a £20k golden handshake. You can also argue that the public sector underpins much economic demand in poorer/rural areas, because those teachers/doctors/lawyers are spending money in the local economy.
And the inverse is true in somewhere like Edinburgh - if you boosted salaries here relative to Glasgow all you'd do is concentrate even more economic demand on the east coast.
What is needed is much more flexibility in pay structures more related to the local market. So in Edinburgh, for example, local authorities probably need to pay more to get half decent staff, but in most areas, Dundee for example, they should be paying significantly less. I take the point about that money keeping the local economy alive but it does so at a tremendous hidden cost that condemns those areas to long term failure.
It's a really interesting problem. A better approach might be market-rate salaries but with local rates of taxation, so you get demand balance across the whole economy. My advocacy of flat council tax rates is in effect a very small example of this. Ideally you'd extend it to other taxes too.
Frankly there's no chance you'd get a doctor to move to Dundee if it was a Dundee salary (no offence).
Sir Keir Starmer has launched a formal investigation into foreign election interference after a former senior Reform UK politician accepted bribes to promote Russian interests in the European Parliament
Nathan Gill, Reform UK's former leader jn Wales, was sentenced to 10-and-a-half years in prison last month after admitting accepting bribes for television appearances and speeches
The government is now launching an inquiry into foreign interference led by Philip Rycroft, a former permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union. Rycroft is expected to report back by March and will be given licence to "go wherever he wants to go"
The move is likely to be viewed by Reform as a political attack. Starmer has repeatedly claimed that Nigel Farage and Reform UK are 'pro-Putin', accusing him of 'sycophancy'
Farage previously condemned Gill, describing his behaviour as 'treasonous'
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
“I’m on the side of... Trump… in the US court system”
“The BBC in this case… has an extraordinary high bar to pass in the US court system”
Are those fair edits of your comment? Because that’s what the BBC did to the President. They’d decided in advance the narrative they wished to portray of Trump’s speech, and then edited it way out of context when it turned out that he didn’t actually say what they wanted him to have said that day.
(Yes I know this is an unpopular opinion on here).
The edited or unedited comments from randoms on here have about as much chance of influencing Trump's electoral prospects, prosperity or reputation as the BBC's clip. ie fuck all.
In any event, the totality of BBC reporting on the election was overwhelmingly generous to Trump, sane washing him to an embarrassing degree.
The fact that a program made a bad edit is not evidence of general BBC bias - and Sandpit trying now to persuade us that the man who pardoned 1600 felons for their assault on the Capitol was trying to dissuade them is ... novel.
Ukraine starting to lose German and French voter support which is pretty concerning. I suspect we shall get a bad peace deal in 2026, which will give the global economy a temporary boost but at the expense of emboldening Putin and might is right generally.
We won’t, Zelensky will only accept a ceasefire on current lines and Putin will only accept a ceasefire with Russia getting given more Ukrainian territory
A settlement on current lines wouldn't be good for VVP. Odessa might just make it all worth it. It was the Kulkovye Polye protests/massacre and subsequent firestorm of disinformation from both sides in 2014 that so inflamed Russian ire and germinated the conflict. Getting Katherine's city back would be the sort of sentimental symmetry that nourishes the Slavic psyche.
I see Big Z has now given up on joining NATO so you can sort of see the hazy outlines of a deal that could emerge. Russia will need more though.
Given the state of the Russian Black Sea fleet, Odessa looks unattainable.
Russian navy down one submarine, taken out by Ukranian suicide drone sub while in port at Novorossiysk.
Stand by for a few more Ukranian drone subs heading for Novorossiysk in the coming days and weeks.
I was watching video of that yesterday. The drone rounded several ships and harbour fittings before hitting the submarine. It was seriously impressive but also a bit scary. I really wonder if the RN would have fared any better if facing such an attack.
Very scary. This new drone is basically a navigable torpedo that can go anywhere.
One assumes that the Royal Navy takes port security a little more seriously than the Russians, and can spot an enemy vessel approaching!
That's the rational for the sea drones the RN is testing. But it would require an awful lot of them, and I doubt the MoD has the money.
They surely need satellites to navigate and I imagine in a big war scenario those satellites will be gone in minutes?
There’s probably an inertia/star chart/object recognition/local radio towers based solution that doesn’t need satellites.
Some combination of INS and sea bed mapping.
Whatever this was, it wasn't a Sea Baby/Magura 5 as they 6m long surface vessels and there is nothing like that on the video.
The Ukranians were obviously active inside the port because they had that camera feed so it might be covert mine laying marketed as a new wonder drone for PR purposes.
A submersible drone is not really a massive advance on previously deployed technology, but it's definitely +1 for Ukraine that there's one less submarine to launch Kalibr cruise missiles.
In all the previous sea drone attacks, they used Starlink to control them.
It’s not hard to imagine a submersible drone that runs inertially, then comes up for orders.
The mini-Starlink dishes are pretty small now and the quality of the “lock” is crazy. In the US, the standard land based ones were getting popular with private pilots, before SpaceX clamped down on max speed) and there is a thing for mounting them for off road motorcycle races.
There’s rumours around of SpaceX spinning off Starlink with in IPO next year, potentially valued at $500bn. It’s a crazy technology and they’re years ahead of their competition in this space.
Not rumours - and they're not spinning off Starlink.
Musk is talking about taking the whole thing public - but only selling 2% of the (non-voting) shares to the public.
add pension contributions , cushy number , conditions etc and it is the opposite.
I think it very much depends where you are. In most of Scotland public sector pay is actually substantially ahead of what the private sector is offering. So, for example, a one year qualified solicitor in the private sector will earn somewhere between £40 and £50k outside the most demanding areas. A procurator fiscal with the same qualifications will be paid £52-54K plus the extras that come from the public sector such as pension rights, more holidays, better sick pay, greater security of employment etc.
This is a problem for the private firms and more generally it is a real problem for the economy since the cream of the crop are tempted to the public sector where their skills are not necessarily fully utilised. This makes growing businesses in Scotland, and in other areas with depressed earnings, much more difficult and removes potential innovators or entrepreneurs from the scene.
In contrast, in more affluent areas we see the public sector really struggling to get qualified staff at all because they cannot compete with what is on offer.
The combination of these effects are to depress growth, entrepreneurship and investment in our poorer areas and to increase these in the richer ones. This is one of the major reasons so much money invested in "levelling up" , regional investment funds etc has simply not worked. Ironically, given this money is public sector driven, it can aggravate the problem rather than address it. Do you want a safe, secure, well paid job in some "enterprise company" or take your chances with a dodgy start up?
I think it is a major factor in our economic performance because we create this huge drag factor. Only existing hot spots can create the opportunities and employment needed for growth. Everywhere else the dead hand of an overheavy, over paid public sector destroys growth.
The trouble is the solution doesn't work either - it's incredibly difficult to get doctors to move to the Highlands for example - my partner turned down a £20k golden handshake. You can also argue that the public sector underpins much economic demand in poorer/rural areas, because those teachers/doctors/lawyers are spending money in the local economy.
And the inverse is true in somewhere like Edinburgh - if you boosted salaries here relative to Glasgow all you'd do is concentrate even more economic demand on the east coast.
The real problem of the left behind towns is brain drain to the bright lights of the big city. Worsening pay for public sector workers there (and presumably boosting it in London) would only worsen this.
If a bright kid goes off to Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle etc and gets a good degree then what is there for them any more in Reformville?
The way to improve the attractiveness to businesses in such places is to think throygh why people do not want to live there and tackle these. Think of transport links, infrastructure investment, university research campuses etc. Pretty much the sort of thing that has ground to a halt in recent years.
3 year driving ban is absurd for the Liverpool Parade driver. If that's not a life ban, what is? We should not be expected up share the road with someone like this.
Government should pass some urgent legislation that ensures life ban from driving if a vehicle is used as a weapon.
Is that AFTER the 21 years in prison? (Ok I know he will be out sooner, but still).
After. I still thinks it's completely absurd, the idea that someone with a history of using a car as weapon again hundreds of people, including children in prams, should be allowed behind the wheel again? It's an outrage.
Its a really odd one. Has he ever done anything like this before? (History of driving offences?). And yes, you can make the case for never being allowed to drive after something like this. Personally I'd prefer it if he had to prove a positive about his behaviour having changed, but maybe thats not something the system allows.
The trouble is the detection rate is so low. The guy was driving like a twat in the run up to the attack, repeatedly through red lights. Even Dura_Ace has still got a licence.
I've got multiple licences to spread the offenses around and circumvent Europcar's blacklist. British, Russian, Saudi, etc.
It’s odd that unemployment is rising at the same time as net immigration is plummeting. The news agenda is behind the curve; before long we are going to be crying out for workers.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
OT rant about government meetings. I've been sent this email for a Teams call:-
Please join the meeting 5 minutes before your allocated time of 11:15 by clicking on the link. ... Join the meeting 10 minutes before your allocated time by clicking on the link. It is important that you are ready and join on time.
So in the course of a paragraph, they want me to join at 11.15, 11.10 and 11.05. This automatically generated nonsense must have been sent out for months if not decades with no civil servant bothering to read it.
How much deadweight unproductive time is accounted for by those 10 minutes wasted? People should join meeting on time, keep to the agenda and leave promptly
Er, this is an *online* meeting. JUst make sure it's all set up at 1105, in case of e-hiccups, and then get on with one's desk work till 1115. Makes sense to me.
Presumably the extra five or ten minutes is so you can discuss your cats with colleagues you've never met in person and not take up the timetabled call for this purpose.
I'm amazed at the visions of working life some people on PB have.
I’d worked at home a fair bit before lockdown and it made little or no difference to me but for other colleagues it was a new experience and while some took to it others didn’t and the months of enforced non-office attendance were purgatory and I saw some suffer really badly not only physically and mentally but in terms of effectiveness.
The psychological comfort blanket of the familiarity of the neutral venue was absent. There’s an old adage about work life balance and that is valid on so many levels.
I have worked at home now for 20+ years , never an issue and had no problems. Even stopped travelling years ago.
yeah working from home is great if you have nice house garden etc. not so much if you in some flatshare.
With supermarket home delivery, our Malc doesn’t need to go out at all. He just needs a dog to supply some dogs**t for him to throw at anyone who comes too close to his fence.
Aren’t you the guy with a dog ?
Yes, but there’s no obvious way for me to supply him with the raw material our Malc would need to keep his intruders at bay.
It’s odd that unemployment is rising at the same time as net immigration is plummeting. The news agenda is behind the curve; before long we are going to be crying out for workers.
The only workers businesses have wanted for the past 10 years is people willing to work minimum wage..
That hasn't changed except a lot of businesses can't even make their business work with minimum wage workers...
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
He's not doing anything silly like listing the A level grades on his CV is he?
He probably is. If he cuts them out won’t employers draw the obvious conclusion?
Degree erases A levels. His academic performance as a child is not really relevant. If an employer really wants to know they can ask. But many more would be put off by seeing them than would ask, I would imagine.
Sorry, but that doesn't accord at all with the recent experiences of my son and step-daughter. Employers are generally still very interested in A-levels after you graduate, probably because so many firsts and 2.1s are awarded these days that the degree grade has become a limited indicator of ability.
95 per cent Firsts and Upper Seconds from Oxford when I checked a few years ago.
Exactly, which is why employers generally need a bit more to go on than degree grade when choosing who to interview. Especially so when that degree wasn't awarded by an institution with the (alleged) cachet of Oxford.
To be cynical, the best way to get a job is to know someone who can give you a job.
Which raises the question of whether Phil's son is in that place. Many big companies give their employees bounties for bringing their mates on board, so he should not feel shy about asking his mates (which I guess is what is happening here) if there is anything going wherever they are.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
add pension contributions , cushy number , conditions etc and it is the opposite.
I think it very much depends where you are. In most of Scotland public sector pay is actually substantially ahead of what the private sector is offering. So, for example, a one year qualified solicitor in the private sector will earn somewhere between £40 and £50k outside the most demanding areas. A procurator fiscal with the same qualifications will be paid £52-54K plus the extras that come from the public sector such as pension rights, more holidays, better sick pay, greater security of employment etc.
This is a problem for the private firms and more generally it is a real problem for the economy since the cream of the crop are tempted to the public sector where their skills are not necessarily fully utilised. This makes growing businesses in Scotland, and in other areas with depressed earnings, much more difficult and removes potential innovators or entrepreneurs from the scene.
In contrast, in more affluent areas we see the public sector really struggling to get qualified staff at all because they cannot compete with what is on offer.
The combination of these effects are to depress growth, entrepreneurship and investment in our poorer areas and to increase these in the richer ones. This is one of the major reasons so much money invested in "levelling up" , regional investment funds etc has simply not worked. Ironically, given this money is public sector driven, it can aggravate the problem rather than address it. Do you want a safe, secure, well paid job in some "enterprise company" or take your chances with a dodgy start up?
I think it is a major factor in our economic performance because we create this huge drag factor. Only existing hot spots can create the opportunities and employment needed for growth. Everywhere else the dead hand of an overheavy, over paid public sector destroys growth.
The trouble is the solution doesn't work either - it's incredibly difficult to get doctors to move to the Highlands for example - my partner turned down a £20k golden handshake. You can also argue that the public sector underpins much economic demand in poorer/rural areas, because those teachers/doctors/lawyers are spending money in the local economy.
And the inverse is true in somewhere like Edinburgh - if you boosted salaries here relative to Glasgow all you'd do is concentrate even more economic demand on the east coast.
What is needed is much more flexibility in pay structures more related to the local market. So in Edinburgh, for example, local authorities probably need to pay more to get half decent staff, but in most areas, Dundee for example, they should be paying significantly less. I take the point about that money keeping the local economy alive but it does so at a tremendous hidden cost that condemns those areas to long term failure.
It's a really interesting problem. A better approach might be market-rate salaries but with local rates of taxation, so you get demand balance across the whole economy. My advocacy of flat council tax rates is in effect a very small example of this. Ideally you'd extend it to other taxes too.
Frankly there's no chance you'd get a doctor to move to Dundee if it was a Dundee salary (no offence).
Same problem around London - the "Reading Corridor" keeps on not succeeding because the employers think that half London salaries are appropriate. So lots of people end up commuting to London.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Ukraine starting to lose German and French voter support which is pretty concerning. I suspect we shall get a bad peace deal in 2026, which will give the global economy a temporary boost but at the expense of emboldening Putin and might is right generally.
We won’t, Zelensky will only accept a ceasefire on current lines and Putin will only accept a ceasefire with Russia getting given more Ukrainian territory
A settlement on current lines wouldn't be good for VVP. Odessa might just make it all worth it. It was the Kulkovye Polye protests/massacre and subsequent firestorm of disinformation from both sides in 2014 that so inflamed Russian ire and germinated the conflict. Getting Katherine's city back would be the sort of sentimental symmetry that nourishes the Slavic psyche.
I see Big Z has now given up on joining NATO so you can sort of see the hazy outlines of a deal that could emerge. Russia will need more though.
Given the state of the Russian Black Sea fleet, Odessa looks unattainable.
Russian navy down one submarine, taken out by Ukranian suicide drone sub while in port at Novorossiysk.
Stand by for a few more Ukranian drone subs heading for Novorossiysk in the coming days and weeks.
I was watching video of that yesterday. The drone rounded several ships and harbour fittings before hitting the submarine. It was seriously impressive but also a bit scary. I really wonder if the RN would have fared any better if facing such an attack.
Very scary. This new drone is basically a navigable torpedo that can go anywhere.
One assumes that the Royal Navy takes port security a little more seriously than the Russians, and can spot an enemy vessel approaching!
That's the rational for the sea drones the RN is testing. But it would require an awful lot of them, and I doubt the MoD has the money.
They surely need satellites to navigate and I imagine in a big war scenario those satellites will be gone in minutes?
There’s probably an inertia/star chart/object recognition/local radio towers based solution that doesn’t need satellites.
Some combination of INS and sea bed mapping.
Whatever this was, it wasn't a Sea Baby/Magura 5 as they 6m long surface vessels and there is nothing like that on the video.
The Ukranians were obviously active inside the port because they had that camera feed so it might be covert mine laying marketed as a new wonder drone for PR purposes.
A submersible drone is not really a massive advance on previously deployed technology, but it's definitely +1 for Ukraine that there's one less submarine to launch Kalibr cruise missiles.
In all the previous sea drone attacks, they used Starlink to control them.
It’s not hard to imagine a submersible drone that runs inertially, then comes up for orders.
The mini-Starlink dishes are pretty small now and the quality of the “lock” is crazy. In the US, the standard land based ones were getting popular with private pilots, before SpaceX clamped down on max speed) and there is a thing for mounting them for off road motorcycle races.
There’s rumours around of SpaceX spinning off Starlink with in IPO next year, potentially valued at $500bn. It’s a crazy technology and they’re years ahead of their competition in this space.
Not rumours - and they're not spinning off Starlink.
Musk is talking about taking the whole thing public - but only selling 2% of the (non-voting) shares to the public.
So he will still have 80% of the voting stock.
If they only sell 2% there will be a massive scramble for it, inflating the value even further.
He wants to see the value of the company but without jeopardising the Mars mission, which is his lifetime’s passion.
It’s odd that unemployment is rising at the same time as net immigration is plummeting. The news agenda is behind the curve; before long we are going to be crying out for workers.
There could be a whole economy effect here that UK businesses are so reliant on cheap labour, the sudden reduction in immigration is going to kill them before they can adjust/invest, and employment everywhere is going to take a big hit. It's post-COVID all over again, and the Treasury will be itching for Boriswave 2 + minimum wage cut.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
He's not doing anything silly like listing the A level grades on his CV is he?
He probably is. If he cuts them out won’t employers draw the obvious conclusion?
Degree erases A levels. His academic performance as a child is not really relevant. If an employer really wants to know they can ask. But many more would be put off by seeing them than would ask, I would imagine.
Sorry, but that doesn't accord at all with the recent experiences of my son and step-daughter. Employers are generally still very interested in A-levels after you graduate, probably because so many firsts and 2.1s are awarded these days that the degree grade has become a limited indicator of ability.
95 per cent Firsts and Upper Seconds from Oxford when I checked a few years ago.
Exactly, which is why employers generally need a bit more to go on than degree grade when choosing who to interview. Especially so when that degree wasn't awarded by an institution with the (alleged) cachet of Oxford.
To be cynical, the best way to get a job is to know someone who can give you a job.
Which raises the question of whether Phil's son is in that place. Many big companies give their employees bounties for bringing their mates on board, so he should not feel shy about asking his mates (which I guess is what is happening here) if there is anything going wherever they are.
My daughter go her first job - high end mass market food chain - via a friend who works at that branch.
The manager gets zillions of bullshit CVs through the company every day. He hasn't got time to read covering letters from 500 people.... And most of them are AI generated, he reckons.
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
He's not doing anything silly like listing the A level grades on his CV is he?
He probably is. If he cuts them out won’t employers draw the obvious conclusion?
Degree erases A levels. His academic performance as a child is not really relevant. If an employer really wants to know they can ask. But many more would be put off by seeing them than would ask, I would imagine.
Sorry, but that doesn't accord at all with the recent experiences of my son and step-daughter. Employers are generally still very interested in A-levels after you graduate, probably because so many firsts and 2.1s are awarded these days that the degree grade has become a limited indicator of ability.
95 per cent Firsts and Upper Seconds from Oxford when I checked a few years ago.
Exactly, which is why employers generally need a bit more to go on than degree grade when choosing who to interview. Especially so when that degree wasn't awarded by an institution with the (alleged) cachet of Oxford.
To be cynical, the best way to get a job is to know someone who can give you a job.
Which raises the question of whether Phil's son is in that place. Many big companies give their employees bounties for bringing their mates on board, so he should not feel shy about asking his mates (which I guess is what is happening here) if there is anything going wherever they are.
That's true. It hepls a lot if you have a personal connection to someone who might be able to give you a chance.
My own lad's chances were aided enormously by the fact that he'd done a 2 month (paid) internship with his employer during the previous summer. This seems an excellent way for both employer and employee to determine if they'll be a good fit for one another, especially if, like me, you have no useful connections whatsoever :-)
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
He's not doing anything silly like listing the A level grades on his CV is he?
He probably is. If he cuts them out won’t employers draw the obvious conclusion?
Degree erases A levels. His academic performance as a child is not really relevant. If an employer really wants to know they can ask. But many more would be put off by seeing them than would ask, I would imagine.
Sorry, but that doesn't accord at all with the recent experiences of my son and step-daughter. Employers are generally still very interested in A-levels after you graduate, probably because so many firsts and 2.1s are awarded these days that the degree grade has become a limited indicator of ability.
95 per cent Firsts and Upper Seconds from Oxford when I checked a few years ago.
Exactly, which is why employers generally need a bit more to go on than degree grade when choosing who to interview. Especially so when that degree wasn't awarded by an institution with the (alleged) cachet of Oxford.
I'd take an interest in A level subjects and grades if recruiting a graduate. They get less relevant (as does your degree) as you progress in your working life with experience becoming the main thing. Hope your son finds an opening soon.
That LibDem dog still isn't barking. But we now have a approx three-way tie for second place. Which is...weird?
Yet the party is polling consistently at or above its 2024 levels and local council by-election results continue to be good in the party’s areas of strength.
We are barely 18 months into the Parliament and we have perhaps just under three and a half years to a May 2029 election when Reform will also have to defend the council seats they won last May.
There is so much time for so much to happen and why harp on about the Lib Dems - you could mention the loss of a third of the 2024 Conservative vote and nearly half the 2024 Labour vote but if you can’t or won’t, I will.
I mention it a lot because it's interesting. I genuinely accept the argument that they are doing well in council performance, they are polling at/above 2024, and are well place to do well (by LD standards) in 2029. But given the loss of a third of the 2024 Conservative vote and nearly half the 2024 Labour vote, they should be striding across the battlefield taking all the plunder going and administering the coup de grâce to the wailing LabCon casualties. And they're not.
That’s the “old” political thinking of the 80s and 90s coming through.
Reform and Green have emerged as alternative homes of protest but as any LD will tell you, there’s a world of difference between a midterm protest vote and a serious General Election vote.
I’ve said on here the next election could EITHER be Reform vs Not Reform OR Labour vs Not Labour but it could equally be both in different areas at the same time.
I’m currently in Amber Valley, a marginal (arguably). Labour hold the seat with Reform second while the Conservatives, who held the seat from 2019 to 2024, were smashed down to third at the GE and, along with Labour, were thrashed at the County Council elections in May.
I imagine if there were a GE now Reform would win easily with Labour and Conservatives scrapping for a moderate second but that may not be the case by 2029 and a lot will depend on what or who are perceived as the lesser of the evils at that time.
I could imagine Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats all polling above where they are now but it’s where the votes are as much as the quantity that matters.
It’s odd that unemployment is rising at the same time as net immigration is plummeting. The news agenda is behind the curve; before long we are going to be crying out for workers.
Some of my daughter's friends are now radical (Green) left + no to more low skill immigration. Which is an interesting mix.
Because they find getting and keeping jobs a struggle.
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
Consider something like water management, if he's prepared to do more training? I haven't looked recently but this speciality used to have the highest graduate recruitment rates. Steady demand for employees but no-one ever thinks of doing it as a career.
It’s odd that unemployment is rising at the same time as net immigration is plummeting. The news agenda is behind the curve; before long we are going to be crying out for workers.
There could be a whole economy effect here that UK businesses are so reliant on cheap labour, the sudden reduction in immigration is going to kill them before they can adjust/invest, and employment everywhere is going to take a big hit. It's post-COVID all over again, and the Treasury will be itching for Boriswave 2 + minimum wage cut.
Cutting minimum wage would be political suicide.
For the current government it would be Poll Tax++++
It would be voted down in the Commons for a start.
3 year driving ban is absurd for the Liverpool Parade driver. If that's not a life ban, what is? We should not be expected up share the road with someone like this.
Government should pass some urgent legislation that ensures life ban from driving if a vehicle is used as a weapon.
Is that AFTER the 21 years in prison? (Ok I know he will be out sooner, but still).
After. I still thinks it's completely absurd, the idea that someone with a history of using a car as weapon again hundreds of people, including children in prams, should be allowed behind the wheel again? It's an outrage.
Its a really odd one. Has he ever done anything like this before? (History of driving offences?). And yes, you can make the case for never being allowed to drive after something like this. Personally I'd prefer it if he had to prove a positive about his behaviour having changed, but maybe thats not something the system allows.
The trouble is the detection rate is so low. The guy was driving like a twat in the run up to the attack, repeatedly through red lights. Even Dura_Ace has still got a licence.
I've got multiple licences to spread the offenses around and circumvent Europcar's blacklist. British, Russian, Saudi, etc.
Good luck showing a Russian driving licence to a British copper.
(Disclaimer, I did once rent a car in the UK on a UAE licence as the UK one had expired).
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
He's not doing anything silly like listing the A level grades on his CV is he?
He probably is. If he cuts them out won’t employers draw the obvious conclusion?
Degree erases A levels. His academic performance as a child is not really relevant. If an employer really wants to know they can ask. But many more would be put off by seeing them than would ask, I would imagine.
Sorry, but that doesn't accord at all with the recent experiences of my son and step-daughter. Employers are generally still very interested in A-levels after you graduate, probably because so many firsts and 2.1s are awarded these days that the degree grade has become a limited indicator of ability.
95 per cent Firsts and Upper Seconds from Oxford when I checked a few years ago.
Exactly, which is why employers generally need a bit more to go on than degree grade when choosing who to interview. Especially so when that degree wasn't awarded by an institution with the (alleged) cachet of Oxford.
I'd take an interest in A level subjects and grades if recruiting a graduate. They get less relevant (as does your degree) as you progress in your working life with experience becoming the main thing. Hope your son finds an opening soon.
To think there were people blaming Liverpool fans for this act of terror.
I might name and shame some people later.
Liverpool as a place and as fans inhabit a weird land of being victims and loving being victims. What happened at the parade was horrific - one man's inability to control his anger and entitlement. And in recent times Liverpool fans have been far more sinned against than sinners. But I still recall Heysel, and I think too many make martyrs of the 96, and forget the 39. Johnson was not always wrong in the things he said.
That suggests that Heysel “balances out” all the bad things that Liverpool have endured. Whilst Heysel was the fault of Liverpool hooligans (and others) at that time in football, in England especially but also in Italy to a large extent, hooliganism and fan violence by firms and ultras was rife and would be staggering to us to see it now. There is every chance that fans of other clubs could have been the ones responsible for a Heysel type event however the fact that Liverpool were constantly in Europe increased the chances that it would be them and the well documented failure in crowd control and problems with the stadium played parts that would amplify “regular” football terrace violence into a brutal tragedy.
Liverpool never forgets Heysel and they wear it as a badge of shame however, as I said it doesn’t equalise Hilsborough, Jota or the parade.
The fact that Liverpool went through a super shitty period for decades and was largely vilified and mocked as a city and the people in a way no other English cities have been understandably makes them prickly and looking at slights.
Not really my intention to make it about balancing out. Its more that Hillsborough happened because footballs fans (not just Liverpool) created a need for fencing. Some of the blame for Hillsborough is on football hooligans themselves, such as those who killed 39 at Heysel. Clearly Heysel could have been other fans as could have been Hillsborough.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
Starmer should take a leaf out of Trump's playbook - and pardon the BBC and all involved.
He doesn't have to (not that he could), since there is no real case. It's impossible for Trump to argue damages from being accused of encouraging a group of people to do something that he regards as blameless - since he pardoned every single one of them.
And the effect of literally any comment, on the reputation of a man who tweeted what he did about the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, is quite obviously nugatory.
It’s odd that unemployment is rising at the same time as net immigration is plummeting. The news agenda is behind the curve; before long we are going to be crying out for workers.
Rachel Reeves is the first Chancellor for decades who hasn't focused on "creating jobs" so it's to be expected that we are importing fewer people. It's joined up government in action.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
It’s odd that unemployment is rising at the same time as net immigration is plummeting. The news agenda is behind the curve; before long we are going to be crying out for workers.
There could be a whole economy effect here that UK businesses are so reliant on cheap labour, the sudden reduction in immigration is going to kill them before they can adjust/invest, and employment everywhere is going to take a big hit. It's post-COVID all over again, and the Treasury will be itching for Boriswave 2 + minimum wage cut.
I think there will be adjustment and the employment market will eventually sort itself out at a higher productivity. No consolation to young people who are missing out now though.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
Starmer should take a leaf out of Trump's playbook - and pardon the BBC and all involved.
He doesn't have to (not that he could), since there is no real case. It's impossible for Trump to argue damages from being accused of encouraging a group of people to do something that he regards as blameless - since he pardoned every single one of them.
And the effect of literally any comment, on the reputation of a man who tweeted what he did about the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, is quite obviously nugatory.
Plenty of his own side called out the Rob Reiner comment, in fact almost all of them did.
One doesn’t speak ill of the dead, especially given the horrific circumstances.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
Ha ha, I was wondering when British politics version of Joey Deacon would comment.
You have some brass neck needling me about my criticism of the Lib Dem’s, you’re utterly obsessed with Trump. You probably dream about him. 😂
Once he is gone from office, I'll happily ignore him forever. Until then, his actions are, unfortunately, highly consequential for the entire world.
Good.
Until last November you were a pleasant, rational, poster never rude to anyone.
Since the election you’ve become obsessed with Trump and quite happy to make personal comments to people who have never made them to you. Like myself a few times concerning Lib Dem’s. For example my posts on the Lib Dem’s are like the noise a fly makes to you. Not quite sure what you get from it but if it makes you happy, but it’s a shitty thing to say to someone who’s never insulted you.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
Starmer should take a leaf out of Trump's playbook - and pardon the BBC and all involved.
He doesn't have to (not that he could), since there is no real case. It's impossible for Trump to argue damages from being accused of encouraging a group of people to do something that he regards as blameless - since he pardoned every single one of them.
And the effect of literally any comment, on the reputation of a man who tweeted what he did about the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, is quite obviously nugatory.
Plenty of his own side called out the Rob Reiner comment, in fact almost all of them did.
One doesn’t speak ill of the dead, especially given the horrific circumstances.
I wonder if the likes of LBC and Times Radio will reputation wash Trump over this like they did thst Oxford Uni student who gloated about Charlie Kirk’s death 🤔
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
Try with the F1 teams and motorsports-related companies in that region. Apply for unpaid or min wage internships, and take a job (any job, working in a bar) in the meantime to keep up morale. There’s loads of temporary work in retail and hospitality in Dec and Jan.
F1 is /incredibly/ competitive. He is taking whatever temp work he can get his hands on.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
Ha ha, I was wondering when British politics version of Joey Deacon would comment.
You have some brass neck needling me about my criticism of the Lib Dem’s, you’re utterly obsessed with Trump. You probably dream about him. 😂
Once he is gone from office, I'll happily ignore him forever. Until then, his actions are, unfortunately, highly consequential for the entire world.
Good.
Until last November you were a pleasant, rational, poster never rude to anyone.
Since the election you’ve become obsessed with Trump and quite happy to make personal comments to people who have never made them to you. Like myself a few times concerning Lib Dem’s. For example my posts on the Lib Dem’s are like the noise a fly makes to you. Not quite sure what you get from it but if it makes you happy, but it’s a shitty thing to say to someone who’s never insulted you.
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
He's not doing anything silly like listing the A level grades on his CV is he?
He probably is. If he cuts them out won’t employers draw the obvious conclusion?
Degree erases A levels. His academic performance as a child is not really relevant. If an employer really wants to know they can ask. But many more would be put off by seeing them than would ask, I would imagine.
Sorry, but that doesn't accord at all with the recent experiences of my son and step-daughter. Employers are generally still very interested in A-levels after you graduate, probably because so many firsts and 2.1s are awarded these days that the degree grade has become a limited indicator of ability.
95 per cent Firsts and Upper Seconds from Oxford when I checked a few years ago.
Exactly, which is why employers generally need a bit more to go on than degree grade when choosing who to interview. Especially so when that degree wasn't awarded by an institution with the (alleged) cachet of Oxford.
I'd take an interest in A level subjects and grades if recruiting a graduate. They get less relevant (as does your degree) as you progress in your working life with experience becoming the main thing. Hope your son finds an opening soon.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.
What merits of the case could Trump possibly have? I mean Davey really doesn't have to go into analysis mode on this
He said to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”, but the BBC said that he said march to the Capitol “and fight like Hell”.
Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
Try with the F1 teams and motorsports-related companies in that region. Apply for unpaid or min wage internships, and take a job (any job, working in a bar) in the meantime to keep up morale. There’s loads of temporary work in retail and hospitality in Dec and Jan.
F1 is /incredibly/ competitive. He is taking whatever temp work he can get his hands on.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
Starmer should take a leaf out of Trump's playbook - and pardon the BBC and all involved.
He doesn't have to (not that he could), since there is no real case. It's impossible for Trump to argue damages from being accused of encouraging a group of people to do something that he regards as blameless - since he pardoned every single one of them.
And the effect of literally any comment, on the reputation of a man who tweeted what he did about the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, is quite obviously nugatory.
Wouldn't this be a case where, even if Trump established that he was libelled, the damages would be £1, because he has no reputation to defend?
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
Ha ha, I was wondering when British politics version of Joey Deacon would comment.
You have some brass neck needling me about my criticism of the Lib Dem’s, you’re utterly obsessed with Trump. You probably dream about him. 😂
Once he is gone from office, I'll happily ignore him forever. Until then, his actions are, unfortunately, highly consequential for the entire world.
Good.
Until last November you were a pleasant, rational, poster never rude to anyone.
Since the election you’ve become obsessed with Trump and quite happy to make personal comments to people who have never made them to you. Like myself a few times concerning Lib Dem’s. For example my posts on the Lib Dem’s are like the noise a fly makes to you. Not quite sure what you get from it but if it makes you happy, but it’s a shitty thing to say to someone who’s never insulted you.
Hope the old Nigelb returns.
You give as good as you get, Taz, but if I've genuinely upset you there, then apologies.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
Starmer should take a leaf out of Trump's playbook - and pardon the BBC and all involved.
He doesn't have to (not that he could), since there is no real case. It's impossible for Trump to argue damages from being accused of encouraging a group of people to do something that he regards as blameless - since he pardoned every single one of them.
And the effect of literally any comment, on the reputation of a man who tweeted what he did about the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, is quite obviously nugatory.
Wouldn't this be a case where, even if Trump established that he was libelled, the damages would be £1, because he has no reputation to defend?
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
Try with the F1 teams and motorsports-related companies in that region. Apply for unpaid or min wage internships, and take a job (any job, working in a bar) in the meantime to keep up morale. There’s loads of temporary work in retail and hospitality in Dec and Jan.
F1 is /incredibly/ competitive. He is taking whatever temp work he can get his hands on.
@Phil, This might be telling grandmothers how to suck eggs, but has he tried Harwell? It sounds like you are local and he could literally walk around and knock on the door of 200 research establishments.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.
What merits of the case could Trump possibly have? I mean Davey really doesn't have to go into analysis mode on this
He said to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”, but the BBC said that he said march to the Capitol “and fight like Hell”.
Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.
Trump lied repeatedly that the election had been stolen. He bears a great part of the blame for the events of that day.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
Starmer should take a leaf out of Trump's playbook - and pardon the BBC and all involved.
He doesn't have to (not that he could), since there is no real case. It's impossible for Trump to argue damages from being accused of encouraging a group of people to do something that he regards as blameless - since he pardoned every single one of them.
And the effect of literally any comment, on the reputation of a man who tweeted what he did about the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, is quite obviously nugatory.
Wouldn't this be a case where, even if Trump established that he was libelled, the damages would be £1, because he has no reputation to defend?
And I for one (and this might surprise some people) wouldn't mind the Beeb using licence-payer money to settle right now at about that level.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.
What merits of the case could Trump possibly have? I mean Davey really doesn't have to go into analysis mode on this
He said to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”, but the BBC said that he said march to the Capitol “and fight like Hell”.
Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.
Trump lied repeatedly that the election had been stolen. He bears a great part of the blame for the events of that day.
I don’t disagree, but can still see that the BBC defamed him pretty egregiously by editing the quote.
If you’re going to accuse someone of inciting a riot, then you’d better have their actual quote from the day and not one you made up by splicing a speech.
Especially if you’re the BBC, which has a reputation to uphold.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.
What merits of the case could Trump possibly have? I mean Davey really doesn't have to go into analysis mode on this
He said to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”, but the BBC said that he said march to the Capitol “and fight like Hell”.
Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.
The actual quote is
I said something's wrong here, something is really wrong, can have happened.
And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
Trump used the word fight twenty times. Is it plausible he wasn't inciting the mob?
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
Starmer should take a leaf out of Trump's playbook - and pardon the BBC and all involved.
He doesn't have to (not that he could), since there is no real case. It's impossible for Trump to argue damages from being accused of encouraging a group of people to do something that he regards as blameless - since he pardoned every single one of them.
And the effect of literally any comment, on the reputation of a man who tweeted what he did about the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, is quite obviously nugatory.
Plenty of his own side called out the Rob Reiner comment, in fact almost all of them did.
One doesn’t speak ill of the dead, especially given the horrific circumstances.
I wonder if the likes of LBC and Times Radio will reputation wash Trump over this like they did thst Oxford Uni student who gloated about Charlie Kirk’s death 🤔
One is a student one is the President of the United States. Pathetic whataboutery from the Trump apologists today.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.
What merits of the case could Trump possibly have? I mean Davey really doesn't have to go into analysis mode on this
He said to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”, but the BBC said that he said march to the Capitol “and fight like Hell”.
Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.
Pity you never seem to be as exercised by the lies that pour out of Trump's mouth on a daily basis.
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
Try with the F1 teams and motorsports-related companies in that region. Apply for unpaid or min wage internships, and take a job (any job, working in a bar) in the meantime to keep up morale. There’s loads of temporary work in retail and hospitality in Dec and Jan.
F1 is /incredibly/ competitive. He is taking whatever temp work he can get his hands on.
@Phil, This might be telling grandmothers how to suck eggs, but has he tried Harwell? It sounds like you are local and he could literally walk around and knock on the door of 200 research establishments.
Yes, he applied to the Harwell grad scheme & was not given an interview. I suspect half the engineering/physics grads in the country applied to it given the current economic circs.
If anything else comes up there he’ll apply again, but they limit applications to the grad scheme - you only get to apply to two jobs.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.
What merits of the case could Trump possibly have? I mean Davey really doesn't have to go into analysis mode on this
He said to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”, but the BBC said that he said march to the Capitol “and fight like Hell”.
Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.
The actual quote is
I said something's wrong here, something is really wrong, can have happened.
And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
Trump used the word fight twenty times. Is it plausible he wasn't inciting the mob?
The problem is getting the two facts to be admitted
- Trump incited the Jan 6 riot and attempted to steal the Presidency by pushing the VP to not validate the result. - The BBC fucked up in editing the speech
Bit like Alison Rose and Coutts losing a truth telling competition with Nigel Fucking Farage. As a result of which they had to make Farage rich enough to have a Coutts account again.
Wronging a Wong'un Doesn't Make A Right.
I think the BBC should fight the Trump suit, by the way.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.
What merits of the case could Trump possibly have? I mean Davey really doesn't have to go into analysis mode on this
He said to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”, but the BBC said that he said march to the Capitol “and fight like Hell”.
Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.
The actual quote is
I said something's wrong here, something is really wrong, can have happened.
And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
Trump used the word fight twenty times. Is it plausible he wasn't inciting the mob?
The problem is getting the two facts to be admitted
- Trump incited the Jan 6 riot and attempted to steal the Presidency by pushing the VP to not validate the result. - The BBC fucked up in editing the speech
Bit like Alison Rose and Coutts losing a truth telling competition with Nigel Fucking Farage. As a result of which they had to make Farage rich enough to have a Coutts account again.
Wronging a Wong'un Doesn't Make A Right.
I think the BBC should fight the Trump suit, by the way.
No but the wrongs aren't remotely comparable. As basic journalist good practice breaks in quotes should be indicated with an ellipsis. The key thing however is that the BBC didn't misrepresent Trump's speech, with or without an ellipsis. No reasonable person could interpret his words as anything other than incitement. As a matter of record, the mob acted violently.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.
What merits of the case could Trump possibly have? I mean Davey really doesn't have to go into analysis mode on this
He said to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”, but the BBC said that he said march to the Capitol “and fight like Hell”.
Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.
The actual quote is
I said something's wrong here, something is really wrong, can have happened.
And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
Trump used the word fight twenty times. Is it plausible he wasn't inciting the mob?
The problem is getting the two facts to be admitted
- Trump incited the Jan 6 riot and attempted to steal the Presidency by pushing the VP to not validate the result. - The BBC fucked up in editing the speech
Bit like Alison Rose and Coutts losing a truth telling competition with Nigel Fucking Farage. As a result of which they had to make Farage rich enough to have a Coutts account again.
Wronging a Wong'un Doesn't Make A Right.
I think the BBC should fight the Trump suit, by the way.
People making a fuss about this obviously have no experience of dealing with or being part of broadcast media. It's always chopped about to a bewildering degree, 30 minute interviews turn into a few seconds. As long as the broad message is correct I don't think you can complain at all. And that's certainly the case here.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.
What merits of the case could Trump possibly have? I mean Davey really doesn't have to go into analysis mode on this
He said to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”, but the BBC said that he said march to the Capitol “and fight like Hell”.
Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.
The actual quote is
I said something's wrong here, something is really wrong, can have happened.
And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
Trump used the word fight twenty times. Is it plausible he wasn't inciting the mob?
The problem is getting the two facts to be admitted
- Trump incited the Jan 6 riot and attempted to steal the Presidency by pushing the VP to not validate the result. - The BBC fucked up in editing the speech
Bit like Alison Rose and Coutts losing a truth telling competition with Nigel Fucking Farage. As a result of which they had to make Farage rich enough to have a Coutts account again.
Wronging a Wong'un Doesn't Make A Right.
I think the BBC should fight the Trump suit, by the way.
The issues are (to me):
a) Is Trump being misrepresented? b) If so, does he have any reputation to defend?
Anyone need a recently graduated physicist? My eldest is struggling to find anything except very occasional short term temp jobs.
Hopefully things will pick up for him, but it’s very demoralising to be stuck in your parents home.
What part of the UK ?
Oxfordshire. He had mixed A-levels (ABCC) & ended up going to Swansea where he got his head down & was given a first (yes, I know a first isn’t hat it used to be, but still) & the prize for best experimental thesis in his year.
He’s never going to be the first pick for the plum jobs - those will go to the Oxbridge/London grads with impeccable CVs - but he’s just getting nothing at all. Any suggestions that I can point him to are most gratefully received - he’s personable & does the work, but he can’t demonstrate that if no one will even interview him.
I’m sure something will turn up eventually, but leads are a bit thin on the ground.
He's not doing anything silly like listing the A level grades on his CV is he?
He probably is. If he cuts them out won’t employers draw the obvious conclusion?
Degree erases A levels. His academic performance as a child is not really relevant. If an employer really wants to know they can ask. But many more would be put off by seeing them than would ask, I would imagine.
Sorry, but that doesn't accord at all with the recent experiences of my son and step-daughter. Employers are generally still very interested in A-levels after you graduate, probably because so many firsts and 2.1s are awarded these days that the degree grade has become a limited indicator of ability.
Yet A levels don't indicate ability, they at best indicate consistency and only then if everything was perfect at both home and at university..
A'levels provide some indication of ability. They're not perfect, but they're also not completely useless. For example, https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7407/139.short is a study of doctors with a 20-year follow-up, showing that A'level performance continues to be a significant independent predictor of performance.
Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize board has reached its discovery phase. Trump claims physical and mental anguish.The board wants all Trump physical and mental examinations, medications, and tax returns for proof.
To think there were people blaming Liverpool fans for this act of terror.
I might name and shame some people later.
Liverpool as a place and as fans inhabit a weird land of being victims and loving being victims. What happened at the parade was horrific - one man's inability to control his anger and entitlement. And in recent times Liverpool fans have been far more sinned against than sinners. But I still recall Heysel, and I think too many make martyrs of the 96, and forget the 39. Johnson was not always wrong in the things he said.
That suggests that Heysel “balances out” all the bad things that Liverpool have endured. Whilst Heysel was the fault of Liverpool hooligans (and others) at that time in football, in England especially but also in Italy to a large extent, hooliganism and fan violence by firms and ultras was rife and would be staggering to us to see it now. There is every chance that fans of other clubs could have been the ones responsible for a Heysel type event however the fact that Liverpool were constantly in Europe increased the chances that it would be them and the well documented failure in crowd control and problems with the stadium played parts that would amplify “regular” football terrace violence into a brutal tragedy.
Liverpool never forgets Heysel and they wear it as a badge of shame however, as I said it doesn’t equalise Hilsborough, Jota or the parade.
The fact that Liverpool went through a super shitty period for decades and was largely vilified and mocked as a city and the people in a way no other English cities have been understandably makes them prickly and looking at slights.
Not really my intention to make it about balancing out. Its more that Hillsborough happened because footballs fans (not just Liverpool) created a need for fencing. Some of the blame for Hillsborough is on football hooligans themselves, such as those who killed 39 at Heysel. Clearly Heysel could have been other fans as could have been Hillsborough.
Hillsborough was terrible stadium design, massive overcrowding and awful crowd control by the police.
So the BBC is going to fight - fight like hell - and I'll be there with them. They should crowdfund the cost of the case. Allow people to contribute if they are so inclined. Put me down for £500. I'll give up nuts for a year. It's a no brainer.
There was some stuff from Newsmax on the BBC this morning saying both that the BBC couldn't afford to fight the case (£50m plus) versus settling (maybe £10-15m) .. and that they would be embarrassed by the discovery process.
I'm with you in saying bollocks to that. The BBC's own right to discovery is likely to be very interesting in what it might turn up. And I'm happy to help pay to defend such a transparently nonsense lawsuit.
It's important, I think. People talk a lot about "British values" and if not giving in to extortion by malevolent foreigners isn't one of them it jolly well should be. I also like the calculus of it. IMO the potential damage to Donald Trump of having this litigated in open court in the US is greater than that to the BBC.
I'm on the side of freedom of speech here, and in that case that means I'm 100% behind the BBC in this case.
US law should be on their side here too - far more than if the case was going to be heard in the libel capital of the world, London...
They should not settle, Trump has an extraordinarily high bar to pass in the US court system. And any halfway competent attorney ought to be able to defend them quite honestly.
Newsmax guy agreed that it was a weak case, but seemed to think we'd just settle on pragmatic (ie monetary) grounds, since a successful defence might still cost £50m plus. I guess someone working for Newmax places very little value on journalistic independence, so he might even have been commenting honestly.
BBC v Trump
Like Neil Hamilton v Al Fayed.
Can’t they both lose ?
However anything that undermines the license fee is all well and good.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
So Ed Davey has no comment to make on the actual merits of the case, he just reflexively says BBCGood and OrangeManBad.
What merits of the case could Trump possibly have? I mean Davey really doesn't have to go into analysis mode on this
He said to march to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically”, but the BBC said that he said march to the Capitol “and fight like Hell”.
Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.
The actual quote is
I said something's wrong here, something is really wrong, can have happened.
And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
Trump used the word fight twenty times. Is it plausible he wasn't inciting the mob?
The problem is getting the two facts to be admitted
- Trump incited the Jan 6 riot and attempted to steal the Presidency by pushing the VP to not validate the result. - The BBC fucked up in editing the speech
Bit like Alison Rose and Coutts losing a truth telling competition with Nigel Fucking Farage. As a result of which they had to make Farage rich enough to have a Coutts account again.
Wronging a Wong'un Doesn't Make A Right.
I think the BBC should fight the Trump suit, by the way.
People making a fuss about this obviously have no experience of dealing with or being part of broadcast media. It's always chopped about to a bewildering degree, 30 minute interviews turn into a few seconds. As long as the broad message is correct I don't think you can complain at all. And that's certainly the case here.
Editing is one thing, re-ordering clips quite another. Remember this scandal?
add pension contributions , cushy number , conditions etc and it is the opposite.
I think it very much depends where you are. In most of Scotland public sector pay is actually substantially ahead of what the private sector is offering. So, for example, a one year qualified solicitor in the private sector will earn somewhere between £40 and £50k outside the most demanding areas. A procurator fiscal with the same qualifications will be paid £52-54K plus the extras that come from the public sector such as pension rights, more holidays, better sick pay, greater security of employment etc.
This is a problem for the private firms and more generally it is a real problem for the economy since the cream of the crop are tempted to the public sector where their skills are not necessarily fully utilised. This makes growing businesses in Scotland, and in other areas with depressed earnings, much more difficult and removes potential innovators or entrepreneurs from the scene.
In contrast, in more affluent areas we see the public sector really struggling to get qualified staff at all because they cannot compete with what is on offer.
The combination of these effects are to depress growth, entrepreneurship and investment in our poorer areas and to increase these in the richer ones. This is one of the major reasons so much money invested in "levelling up" , regional investment funds etc has simply not worked. Ironically, given this money is public sector driven, it can aggravate the problem rather than address it. Do you want a safe, secure, well paid job in some "enterprise company" or take your chances with a dodgy start up?
I think it is a major factor in our economic performance because we create this huge drag factor. Only existing hot spots can create the opportunities and employment needed for growth. Everywhere else the dead hand of an overheavy, over paid public sector destroys growth.
Which is why there should be no national pay agreements in the public sector. Each local organisation needs to deal with their own pay.
Possibly the best thing they could do is move the public sector pensions to DC scheme, but that has a significant short term cost.
As was mentioned upthread, the vast majority of public sector workers have no idea just how bad are most private-sector pensions now.
One of the largest public sector pension schemes is the Armed Forces Pension Scheme, which is DB. Do you think that should move to DC? Should there be local pay agreements such that squaddies in The Royal Anglian Regiment get different pay to those in The Royal Yorkshire Regiment?
Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize board has reached its discovery phase. Trump claims physical and mental anguish.The board wants all Trump physical and mental examinations, medications, and tax returns for proof.
Comments
The guy who ran over a kid in Edinburgh got a 12 month ban, no jail because it was "first offence". It wasn't, of course - the dash cam showed he'd been on his phone the whole shift.
Couldn't happen to a nicer person.
https://x.com/ElizLanders/status/2000919684166889666
@VanityFair spoke with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles over the course of the year of this second admin. Some observations from her:
- Trump has “an alcoholic’s personality”
- VP has been a “conspiracy theorist for a decade”
- Russ Vought: “right-wing absolute zealot”
The economic illiteracy was genuinely painful to listen to.
I'm practice it seems to be really difficult to prove, or the bar has been set very high.
ie fuck all.
https://x.com/EdwardJDavey/status/2000850649064546505
Keir Starmer needs to stand up for the BBC against Trump's outrageous $5bn lawsuit and protect licence fee payers from being hit in the pocket.
Trump wants to interfere in our democracy and undermine our national broadcaster. We cannot let him.
Liverpool never forgets Heysel and they wear it as a badge of shame however, as I said it doesn’t equalise Hilsborough, Jota or the parade.
The fact that Liverpool went through a super shitty period for decades and was largely vilified and mocked as a city and the people in a way no other English cities have been understandably makes them prickly and looking at slights.
A friend did a information security masters at Oxford, part time. Previous was a 2.2 at Durham. Has to fend off the job offers, even now.
Austerity Reeves is on par with SKS at being totally reverse Midas at everythibg she does.
Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize board has reached its discovery phase.
Trump claims physical and mental anguish.The board wants all Trump physical and mental examinations, medications, and tax returns for proof.
https://bsky.app/profile/peaceandteachin.bsky.social/post/3ma32to4xts2e
[Cut to Marcus arriving at the train station in İskenderun]
Marcus Brody: Does anyone here speak English? Or even Ancient Greek? Uh, water? No thank you, sir. No. Fish make love in it. Thank you so much. No, I really don't want...No, no, thank you very much. No thank you, madam. I'm a vegetarian. Does anyone understand a word I'm saying here?!
Possibly the best thing they could do is move the public sector pensions to DC scheme, but that has a significant short term cost.
As was mentioned upthread, the vast majority of public sector workers have no idea just how bad are most private-sector pensions now.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/dec/16/driver-who-hit-liverpool-fc-parade-said-to-have-had-history-explosive-violence-paul-doyle#:~:text=Doyle, 54, has a series,a string of previous offences.
The Guardian can now reveal that the father of three, described as a mild-mannered “family man”, is said to have had a history of explosive violent outbursts long before the victory parade on 26 May.
Someone who served with Doyle in the Royal Marines in the early 1990s described how he was known “really, really quickly to be an absolute live wire”.
“It was like he was on a tripwire,” the former marine said. “Everyone would say: ‘He’s got a horrendous flash to bang’ – meaning the point you get annoyed to the point you’re punching people is zero time.”
Doyle, 54, has a series of previous convictions for serious violence and other offences dating back to the early 90s. He was jailed for a year for biting off a sailor’s ear in a pub brawl in July 1993, six months after being discharged from the Royal Marines after a string of previous offences.
He joined the Royal Marines in March 1991, aged 19, after a short period in the Royal Engineers, but quickly got into trouble for violence, dishonesty and criminal damage. By the time he was discharged from the military in January 1993, he had six civilian and service convictions.
Fellow service personnel, who were unaware of these convictions, said the young recruit was known in the close-combat Yankee Company for his short fuse. “He was just out drinking with everyone and he’d just be filling people in,” said one former marine. “He had zero escalation – he was just on the tripwire.”
He said Doyle became an “outcast” in his troop before he left the Marines in 1993: “Normal people would give him a wide berth. They’re 21 years old and they’re trying to pull girls. They don’t want to be around some sort of lunatic Tasmanian devil who’s trying to knock everyone out who bumps into him.”
It is understood that Doyle was discharged by the marines after four years following the convictions, when he was told his “service was no longer required”. The Ministry of Defence declined to comment.
In the 30 years since he was released from prison in May 1995, Doyle had “taken steps to lead a positive and productive life”, the prosecutor, Paul Greaney KC, said on Friday.
Frankly there's no chance you'd get a doctor to move to Dundee if it was a Dundee salary (no offence).
Sir Keir Starmer has launched a formal investigation into foreign election interference after a former senior Reform UK politician accepted bribes to promote Russian interests in the European Parliament
Nathan Gill, Reform UK's former leader jn Wales, was sentenced to 10-and-a-half years in prison last month after admitting accepting bribes for television appearances and speeches
The government is now launching an inquiry into foreign interference led by Philip Rycroft, a former permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union. Rycroft is expected to report back by March and will be given licence to "go wherever he wants to go"
The move is likely to be viewed by Reform as a political attack. Starmer has repeatedly claimed that Nigel Farage and Reform UK are 'pro-Putin', accusing him of 'sycophancy'
Farage previously condemned Gill, describing his behaviour as 'treasonous'
The fact that a program made a bad edit is not evidence of general BBC bias - and Sandpit trying now to persuade us that the man who pardoned 1600 felons for their assault on the Capitol was trying to dissuade them is ... novel.
https://politpro.eu/en/united-kingdom/institute/find-out-now
Musk is talking about taking the whole thing public - but only selling 2% of the (non-voting) shares to the public.
So he will still have 80% of the voting stock.
If a bright kid goes off to Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle etc and gets a good degree then what is there for them any more in Reformville?
The way to improve the attractiveness to businesses in such places is to think throygh why people do not want to live there and tackle these. Think of transport links, infrastructure investment, university research campuses etc. Pretty much the sort of thing that has ground to a halt in recent years.
That hasn't changed except a lot of businesses can't even make their business work with minimum wage workers...
Which raises the question of whether Phil's son is in that place. Many big companies give their employees bounties for bringing their mates on board, so he should not feel shy about asking his mates (which I guess is what is happening here) if there is anything going wherever they are.
Im an atheist
Seats as per latest Fund Out Now VI
REF 204
CON 123
GRN 122
LAB 94
LD 81
SNP 20
PC 6
If only..
He wants to see the value of the company but without jeopardising the Mars mission, which is his lifetime’s passion.
You have some brass neck needling me about my criticism of the Lib Dem’s, you’re utterly obsessed with Trump. You probably dream about him. 😂
The manager gets zillions of bullshit CVs through the company every day. He hasn't got time to read covering letters from 500 people.... And most of them are AI generated, he reckons.
My own lad's chances were aided enormously by the fact that he'd done a 2 month (paid) internship with his employer during the previous summer. This seems an excellent way for both employer and employee to determine if they'll be a good fit for one another, especially if, like me, you have no useful connections whatsoever :-)
Reform and Green have emerged as alternative homes of protest but as any LD will tell you, there’s a world of difference between a midterm protest vote and a serious General Election vote.
I’ve said on here the next election could EITHER be Reform vs Not Reform OR Labour vs Not Labour but it could equally be both in different areas at the same time.
I’m currently in Amber Valley, a marginal (arguably). Labour hold the seat with Reform second while the Conservatives, who held the seat from 2019 to 2024, were smashed down to third at the GE and, along with Labour, were thrashed at the County Council elections in May.
I imagine if there were a GE now Reform would win easily with Labour and Conservatives scrapping for a moderate second but that may not be the case by 2029 and a lot will depend on what or who are perceived as the lesser of the evils at that time.
I could imagine Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats all polling above where they are now but it’s where the votes are as much as the quantity that matters.
Because they find getting and keeping jobs a struggle.
For the current government it would be Poll Tax++++
It would be voted down in the Commons for a start.
(Disclaimer, I did once rent a car in the UK on a UAE licence as the UK one had expired).
It's impossible for Trump to argue damages from being accused of encouraging a group of people to do something that he regards as blameless - since he pardoned every single one of them.
And the effect of literally any comment, on the reputation of a man who tweeted what he did about the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, is quite obviously nugatory.
Until then, his actions are, unfortunately, highly consequential for the entire world.
One doesn’t speak ill of the dead, especially given the horrific circumstances.
Until last November you were a pleasant, rational, poster never rude to anyone.
Since the election you’ve become obsessed with Trump and quite happy to make personal comments to people who have never made them to you. Like myself a few times concerning Lib Dem’s. For example my posts on the Lib Dem’s are like the noise a fly makes to you. Not quite sure what you get from it but if it makes you happy, but it’s a shitty thing to say to someone who’s never insulted you.
Hope the old Nigelb returns.
Given that there was actually a disturbance at the Capitol after the event at which he spoke, a reputable journalist might want to make sure that his words were accurately reported.
I dont see Reform or either of their Tributes as much different so makes no odds to me.
Just want to see GRN, SNP, PC get as many seats as possible.
If you’re going to accuse someone of inciting a riot, then you’d better have their actual quote from the day and not one you made up by splicing a speech.
Especially if you’re the BBC, which has a reputation to uphold.
I said something's wrong here, something is really wrong, can have happened.
And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
Trump used the word fight twenty times. Is it plausible he wasn't inciting the mob?
High court rules whole cooked cool-down chickens should be subject to standard 20% tax rate for hot food
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/16/morrisons-loses-vat-rotisserie-chickens-high-court-tax-rate
Huzzah for George Osborne's omnishambles budget and its pasty tax.
If anything else comes up there he’ll apply again, but they limit applications to the grad scheme - you only get to apply to two jobs.
- Trump incited the Jan 6 riot and attempted to steal the Presidency by pushing the VP to not validate the result.
- The BBC fucked up in editing the speech
Bit like Alison Rose and Coutts losing a truth telling competition with Nigel Fucking Farage. As a result of which they had to make Farage rich enough to have a Coutts account again.
Wronging a Wong'un Doesn't Make A Right.
I think the BBC should fight the Trump suit, by the way.
a) Is Trump being misrepresented?
b) If so, does he have any reputation to defend?
To me, the answer is No and No.
https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/bbc-fails-to-calm-furious-queen-over-crowngate-affair-6669385.html
I think the Trump one was just cutting bit out.