"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at "only" £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
It deserves some investigation. Perhaps Reform is seen as a way to protest vote against the current SNP government, without voting for the longer-term opponents of the SNP in Scotland: Labour or the Tories?
Particularly for those who are more social conservative supporters of independence, and therefore repelled by the Scottish Greens.
It seems clear that the Reform vote is substantially a protest vote. One in the style of Marlon Brando in the Wild One (though without the smouldering cool).
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at only £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
They trailed it as the greatest thing since the Open University...
TRUMP: I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up
Trump supporters skew old, and Trump opponents skew young, so naturally Trump opponents will already tend to favour lower asset prices and vice versa.
Most people on PB.com have been in favour of lower house prices from well before Trump started using twitter to amplify birther conspiracies about Obama. It will have nothing to do with "Trump hate" if they continue to do so.
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at only £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
They trailed it as the greatest things since the Open University...
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
TRUMP: I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up
I am more concerned that the silly barsteward has today in Georgia, with mad Tulsi, set the wheels in motion for overturning the 2020 President Election.
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at "only" £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
Perhaps it is an ironic demonstration of how to make £3.999 million with £10 of AI credits and an AWS / Cloudflare subscription?
They didn't even pay for the content management (IPS Community Suite).
[The front page is just puff pieces by the usual suspects.]
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at "only" £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
Perhaps it is an ironic demonstration of how to make £3.999 million with £10 of AI credits and an AWS / Cloudflare subscription?
They didn't even pay for the content management (IPS Community Suite).
The government have been absolutely shook down by magic bean salesman, but in the scale of government shakedowns it is suprisingly small scale given this is supposedly the education platform to upskill 10 million people.
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at "only" £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
Perhaps it is an ironic demonstration of how to make £3.999 million with £10 of AI credits and an AWS / Cloudflare subscription?
They didn't even pay for the content management (IPS Community Suite).
The government have been absolutely shook down by magic bean salesman, but in the scale of government shakedowns it is suprisingly small scale given this is supposedly the education platform to upskill 10 million people.
The pro grifter scales the grift to what he/she can walk away with. As opposed to being hunted down by fraud investigators.
Walz told me that when he spoke to Trump on the phone the president compared the immigration operations in Minneapolis to the military mission he ordered in Venezuela.
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at only £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
They trailed it as the greatest things since the Open University...
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at "only" £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
Perhaps it is an ironic demonstration of how to make £3.999 million with £10 of AI credits and an AWS / Cloudflare subscription?
They didn't even pay for the content management (IPS Community Suite).
The government have been absolutely shook down by magic bean salesman, but in the scale of government shakedowns it is suprisingly small scale given this is supposedly the education platform to upskill 10 million people.
The pro grifter scales the grift to what he/she can walk away with. As opposed to being hunted down by fraud investigators.
I still reckon they could have got away with £40-50 mill, pitch being price of a cup of coffee for each person to be upskilled.
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at "only" £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
Perhaps it is an ironic demonstration of how to make £3.999 million with £10 of AI credits and an AWS / Cloudflare subscription?
They didn't even pay for the content management (IPS Community Suite).
The government have been absolutely shook down by magic bean salesman, but in the scale of government shakedowns it is suprisingly small scale given this is supposedly the education platform to upskill 10 million people.
Looked at another way, how much are the public and private sectors currently quietly paying commercial providers for stuff similar to what's on the list when they could be getting the training for free? Four million pounds is only a thousand times four thousand pounds and there must be more underpowered organisations in the UK than that who can be shook down for more than that. We just don't see it because it's distributed in tiny packets.
Used well, this could be the best £4 million the government has wasted. Probably won't be, though.
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at only £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
They trailed it as the greatest things since the Open University...
So it seems that Alex Pretti was something of a violent street thug.
In fact his behaviour was rather reminiscent of the Wath rioters.
Now that doesn't mean he should have been killed but the USA is a gun society and thankfully Yorkshire isn't.
"Now that doesn't mean he should have been killed but.."
Why do the media have to pretend that every victim was an angel though? I am sure it turns more people towards the far right than telling the truth would. If the consensus had been that this guy was a provocative and aggressive armed protestor, but that is no reason for him to be shot dead once he had been disarmed, I can't see many people disagreeing, yet making him out to be a Kumbayah singing Greenham Common style peacenik only for the footage to be revealed is akin to the highbrow disinformation problem discussed in this article, linked by our old fav @AlastairMeeks
Very very good and carefully written piece that I encourage people to read closely rather than immediately seizing on things they don’t like to score points.
Otoh when people are victims of an atrocity it's not a natural instinct to go looking for ways in which they hadn't lived an admirable life. Doing this usually indicates a desire to downplay the atrocity (because of support for the political cause responsible for it) by introducing the thought that it wasn't entirely unjustified.
Your point would be fine if they had been a bit of a wrongun in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with their demise, and the fact they were a wrongun were used to dismiss their death. But the fellow who was killed last week was depicted as being an angel, when he was, if the video I have seen of him from the previous week is legitimate, quite a violent and angry, armed protestor. As I said, this doesn't mean it was right to kill him, especially as his firearm had been removed, but there is just no need to overegg the pudding. I think it treats the public as fools to do so, and in turn causes people to lose sympathy/distrust the authorities
Well, yes, the point being that even rogues and ne'erdowells deserve the protection of the law ad shouldn't be gunned down unless they present an immediate threat to life.
No, that isn’t the point.
I accept what you say, but the point is that there is no need to pretend that everyone who is mistakenly or unjustly killed by the police or ICE or whoever is some kind of Saint. Rogues and Ne’erdowells deserve the full protection of the law and shouldn’t be gunned down, but that doesn’t mean you have to pretend that they weren’t Rogues and Ne’erdowells. If anything the fact they were those things but still shouldn’t have been killed makes the point; trying to pretend they weren’t is obliquely saying that rogues and ne’erdowells don’t deserve to the full protection of the law as much as Saints
Walz told me that when he spoke to Trump on the phone the president compared the immigration operations in Minneapolis to the military mission he ordered in Venezuela.
Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder · 6m Getting the impression that ICE is gearing up for a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio, which was ground zero of Vance’s lies about Haitians during the campaign. Haitians lose temporary protected status on February 3rd. Reporters, lawyers, neighbors — please get ready.
According to this, Livingston and Sevenoaks would swtich from other parties to Reform UK as a result of 16 and 17 year olds being allowed to vote, which seems a bit unlikely.
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at "only" £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
Capita (or similar) will have got the main contract for it. They will then have sub-contracted to Cognizant (or similar) to do the main bit of the work. But they will likely have also sub-contracted to a number of smaller consultancy firms you've never heard of to get the people to do the work. A lot of people will have sat around getting paid while they waited for various stages of onboarding to happen, before being able to do any work, and the work done will have concentrated on building the framework for the website, but not the content - the idea being to deliver something to the department that the department could keep updated, because something like this is always going to need to be updated.
However, the department likely won't have thought about who was going to populate it and maintain it on an ongoing basis - that's opex and not capex - and the department likely doesn't have the knowledge to update a Skills Hub for AI anyway. So when they had the site delivered to them, populated by a bunch of placeholder "courses" to show that the site worked, I guess they simply published it, because who was going to have the domain knowledge to put useful stuff into it?
The minister asked for a Skills Hub for AI, and the department delivered a Skills Hub for AI, but the civil service is such a diminished organisation - not allowed to pay the salaries to employ people who know what they're doing, demoralised from the abuse they receive from every quarter, encouraged to outsource at every turn, rather than build institutional knowledge and capability - that what was delivered was a potemkin skills hub for AI, and I guess that this will kick off another round of abuse towards the civil service, reducing the prospect of a similar outcome being avoided in the future.
Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder · 6m Getting the impression that ICE is gearing up for a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio, which was ground zero of Vance’s lies about Haitians during the campaign. Haitians lose temporary protected status on February 3rd. Reporters, lawyers, neighbors — please get ready.
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in mid last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in October last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Green fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
My instant analysis of the current polls would suggest that a larger Holyrood majority for the SNP & Greens is on the cards - the SNP may well hold most of their constituency seats against a very split Unionist vote, while an increased vote for the Greens in the regional lists would give them gains there.
Otherwise I would suggest that there would be some form of minority government, which seemed to be handled quite deftly by Salmond in 2007-2011 I believe, with Tory support.
Quite likely to be a pro-Indy majority at Holyrood delivered by a minority pro-Indy vote.
Not certain at all. The SNP voteshare at Holyrood on the new Yougov is lower than it has been at any election since 2007 and Reform are ahead of the Greens on the list vote as are Labour
Those living in Scotland know far more about this than you do
The polls for Holyrood read the same even on the Moon
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at only £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
They trailed it as the greatest things since the Open University...
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in October last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
You can't U turn on something not in your manifesto, the UK government would refuse Plaid a Welsh independence referendum regardless of course but if you didn't even win with it as a manifesto commitment you couldn't even ask for one anyway
TRUMP: I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up
I am more concerned that the silly barsteward has today in Georgia, with mad Tulsi, set the wheels in motion for overturning the 2020 President Election.
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at "only" £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
Capita (or similar) will have got the main contract for it. They will then have sub-contracted to Cognizant (or similar) to do the main bit of the work. But they will likely have also sub-contracted to a number of smaller consultancy firms you've never heard of to get the people to do the work. A lot of people will have sat around getting paid while they waited for various stages of onboarding to happen, before being able to do any work, and the work done will have concentrated on building the framework for the website, but not the content - the idea being to deliver something to the department that the department could keep updated, because something like this is always going to need to be updated.
However, the department likely won't have thought about who was going to populate it and maintain it on an ongoing basis - that's opex and not capex - and the department likely doesn't have the knowledge to update a Skills Hub for AI anyway. So when they had the site delivered to them, populated by a bunch of placeholder "courses" to show that the site worked, I guess they simply published it, because who was going to have the domain knowledge to put useful stuff into it?
The minister asked for a Skills Hub for AI, and the department delivered a Skills Hub for AI, but the civil service is such a diminished organisation - not allowed to pay the salaries to employ people who know what they're doing, demoralised from the abuse they receive from every quarter, encouraged to outsource at every turn, rather than build institutional knowledge and capability - that what was delivered was a potemkin skills hub for AI, and I guess that this will kick off another round of abuse towards the civil service, reducing the prospect of a similar outcome being avoided in the future.
The problem that Big Dom and Patrick Vallence agree on is that the civil service is STEM deficient. Clueless about AI, data science, i.e. all crucial aspects of running a modern productive economy.
Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder · 6m Getting the impression that ICE is gearing up for a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio, which was ground zero of Vance’s lies about Haitians during the campaign. Haitians lose temporary protected status on February 3rd. Reporters, lawyers, neighbors — please get ready.
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in mid last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
Didn't he specifically rule out independence "in the first term" ? thereby clearly making it a long term objective with some ground work to be done first.
A more honest approach than the SNP perhaps, but also in recognition that as it stands Wales is not yet ready for independence.
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in mid last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
You do not live in Wales nor do you get Welsh news, or local Welsh news where May Senedd election is the topic of lots of discussions and Plaid popularity is wholly unaffected by the independence debate
They will win irrespective of your opinion on this
TRUMP: I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up
I am more concerned that the silly barsteward has today in Georgia, with mad Tulsi, set the wheels in motion for overturning the 2020 President Election.
More about rigging 2028 me thinks.
Oh it is definitely a recce to see if they can collect the boxes before the count next time.
But don't you believe he will consider himself vindicated if he bins a handful of boxes from Dem wards. He needs to bin less than 12,000 votes.
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at "only" £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
Capita (or similar) will have got the main contract for it. They will then have sub-contracted to Cognizant (or similar) to do the main bit of the work. But they will likely have also sub-contracted to a number of smaller consultancy firms you've never heard of to get the people to do the work. A lot of people will have sat around getting paid while they waited for various stages of onboarding to happen, before being able to do any work, and the work done will have concentrated on building the framework for the website, but not the content - the idea being to deliver something to the department that the department could keep updated, because something like this is always going to need to be updated.
However, the department likely won't have thought about who was going to populate it and maintain it on an ongoing basis - that's opex and not capex - and the department likely doesn't have the knowledge to update a Skills Hub for AI anyway. So when they had the site delivered to them, populated by a bunch of placeholder "courses" to show that the site worked, I guess they simply published it, because who was going to have the domain knowledge to put useful stuff into it?
The minister asked for a Skills Hub for AI, and the department delivered a Skills Hub for AI, but the civil service is such a diminished organisation - not allowed to pay the salaries to employ people who know what they're doing, demoralised from the abuse they receive from every quarter, encouraged to outsource at every turn, rather than build institutional knowledge and capability - that what was delivered was a potemkin skills hub for AI, and I guess that this will kick off another round of abuse towards the civil service, reducing the prospect of a similar outcome being avoided in the future.
Bottom of the page: This is a third party site, delivered by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) on behalf of the Innovate UK BridgeAI programme.
You could be right that the delivery was just a framework, but surely someone along the way must have proposed actual material for this, otherwise what's the point?
So it seems that Alex Pretti was something of a violent street thug.
In fact his behaviour was rather reminiscent of the Wath rioters.
Now that doesn't mean he should have been killed but the USA is a gun society and thankfully Yorkshire isn't.
"Now that doesn't mean he should have been killed but.."
Why do the media have to pretend that every victim was an angel though? I am sure it turns more people towards the far right than telling the truth would. If the consensus had been that this guy was a provocative and aggressive armed protestor, but that is no reason for him to be shot dead once he had been disarmed, I can't see many people disagreeing, yet making him out to be a Kumbayah singing Greenham Common style peacenik only for the footage to be revealed is akin to the highbrow disinformation problem discussed in this article, linked by our old fav @AlastairMeeks
Very very good and carefully written piece that I encourage people to read closely rather than immediately seizing on things they don’t like to score points.
Otoh when people are victims of an atrocity it's not a natural instinct to go looking for ways in which they hadn't lived an admirable life. Doing this usually indicates a desire to downplay the atrocity (because of support for the political cause responsible for it) by introducing the thought that it wasn't entirely unjustified.
Your point would be fine if they had been a bit of a wrongun in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with their demise, and the fact they were a wrongun were used to dismiss their death. But the fellow who was killed last week was depicted as being an angel, when he was, if the video I have seen of him from the previous week is legitimate, quite a violent and angry, armed protestor. As I said, this doesn't mean it was right to kill him, especially as his firearm had been removed, but there is just no need to overegg the pudding. I think it treats the public as fools to do so, and in turn causes people to lose sympathy/distrust the authorities
Well, yes, the point being that even rogues and ne'erdowells deserve the protection of the law ad shouldn't be gunned down unless they present an immediate threat to life.
No, that isn’t the point.
I accept what you say, but the point is that there is no need to pretend that everyone who is mistakenly or unjustly killed by the police or ICE or whoever is some kind of Saint. Rogues and Ne’erdowells deserve the full protection of the law and shouldn’t be gunned down, but that doesn’t mean you have to pretend that they weren’t Rogues and Ne’erdowells. If anything the fact they were those things but still shouldn’t have been killed makes the point; trying to pretend they weren’t is obliquely saying that rogues and ne’erdowells don’t deserve to the full protection of the law as much as Saints
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at "only" £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
Capita (or similar) will have got the main contract for it. They will then have sub-contracted to Cognizant (or similar) to do the main bit of the work. But they will likely have also sub-contracted to a number of smaller consultancy firms you've never heard of to get the people to do the work. A lot of people will have sat around getting paid while they waited for various stages of onboarding to happen, before being able to do any work, and the work done will have concentrated on building the framework for the website, but not the content - the idea being to deliver something to the department that the department could keep updated, because something like this is always going to need to be updated.
However, the department likely won't have thought about who was going to populate it and maintain it on an ongoing basis - that's opex and not capex - and the department likely doesn't have the knowledge to update a Skills Hub for AI anyway. So when they had the site delivered to them, populated by a bunch of placeholder "courses" to show that the site worked, I guess they simply published it, because who was going to have the domain knowledge to put useful stuff into it?
The minister asked for a Skills Hub for AI, and the department delivered a Skills Hub for AI, but the civil service is such a diminished organisation - not allowed to pay the salaries to employ people who know what they're doing, demoralised from the abuse they receive from every quarter, encouraged to outsource at every turn, rather than build institutional knowledge and capability - that what was delivered was a potemkin skills hub for AI, and I guess that this will kick off another round of abuse towards the civil service, reducing the prospect of a similar outcome being avoided in the future.
Bottom of the page: This is a third party site, delivered by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) on behalf of the Innovate UK BridgeAI programme.
You could be right that the delivery was just a framework, but surely someone along the way must have proposed actual material for this, otherwise what's the point?
If you need a government Skills Hub to find AI courses then you shouldn't be looking to work in AI is my brutal view of all this.
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in October last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
You can't U turn on something not in your manifesto, the UK government would refuse Plaid a Welsh independence referendum regardless of course but if you didn't even win with it as a manifesto commitment you couldn't even ask for one anyway
If Plaid win they can do what they decide to do in Wales best interest
Jim Wallace (Lord Wallace of Tankerness) has died, aged 71. He was the former MP for Orkney & Shetland, former Deputy First Minister of Scotland and a thoroughly decent bloke.
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in mid last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
Until then most Senedd polls had Reform or Labour ahead, only since late last year have Plaid been ahead in most Senedd polls
You do not live in Wales nor do you get Welsh news, or local Welsh news where May Senedd election is the topic of lots of discussions and Plaid popularity is wholly unaffected by the independence debate
They will win irrespective of your opinion on this
Yes it is. Look at the data, from May 2024 to March 2025 Plaid polled from 18 to 24%.
The Plaid leader ruled out an independence referendum in Spring 2025 and since then some polls have had Plaid reaching 30%+ as a direct result
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at "only" £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
Capita (or similar) will have got the main contract for it. They will then have sub-contracted to Cognizant (or similar) to do the main bit of the work. But they will likely have also sub-contracted to a number of smaller consultancy firms you've never heard of to get the people to do the work. A lot of people will have sat around getting paid while they waited for various stages of onboarding to happen, before being able to do any work, and the work done will have concentrated on building the framework for the website, but not the content - the idea being to deliver something to the department that the department could keep updated, because something like this is always going to need to be updated.
However, the department likely won't have thought about who was going to populate it and maintain it on an ongoing basis - that's opex and not capex - and the department likely doesn't have the knowledge to update a Skills Hub for AI anyway. So when they had the site delivered to them, populated by a bunch of placeholder "courses" to show that the site worked, I guess they simply published it, because who was going to have the domain knowledge to put useful stuff into it?
The minister asked for a Skills Hub for AI, and the department delivered a Skills Hub for AI, but the civil service is such a diminished organisation - not allowed to pay the salaries to employ people who know what they're doing, demoralised from the abuse they receive from every quarter, encouraged to outsource at every turn, rather than build institutional knowledge and capability - that what was delivered was a potemkin skills hub for AI, and I guess that this will kick off another round of abuse towards the civil service, reducing the prospect of a similar outcome being avoided in the future.
Bottom of the page: This is a third party site, delivered by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) on behalf of the Innovate UK BridgeAI programme.
You could be right that the delivery was just a framework, but surely someone along the way must have proposed actual material for this, otherwise what's the point?
If you need a government Skills Hub to find AI courses then you shouldn't be looking to work in AI is my brutal view of all this.
No doubt.
Though I could see some value in explaining what AI does, what it should be used for, and what it shouldn't be used for.
Perhaps the people who most need this are based in Westminster.
Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder · 6m Getting the impression that ICE is gearing up for a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio, which was ground zero of Vance’s lies about Haitians during the campaign. Haitians lose temporary protected status on February 3rd. Reporters, lawyers, neighbors — please get ready.
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at only £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
They trailed it as the greatest things since the Open University...
Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder · 6m Getting the impression that ICE is gearing up for a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio, which was ground zero of Vance’s lies about Haitians during the campaign. Haitians lose temporary protected status on February 3rd. Reporters, lawyers, neighbors — please get ready.
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in October last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
You can't U turn on something not in your manifesto, the UK government would refuse Plaid a Welsh independence referendum regardless of course but if you didn't even win with it as a manifesto commitment you couldn't even ask for one anyway
If Plaid win they can do what they decide to do in Wales best interest
'Reform UK has threatened to sue Kemi Badenoch unless she publicly apologises to Suella Braverman by 4pm tomorrow over the Tories’ now-retracted mental health reference'
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at only £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
They trailed it as the greatest things since the Open University...
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in October last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
You can't U turn on something not in your manifesto, the UK government would refuse Plaid a Welsh independence referendum regardless of course but if you didn't even win with it as a manifesto commitment you couldn't even ask for one anyway
If Plaid win they can do what they decide to do in Wales best interest
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in mid last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
Until then most Senedd polls had Reform or Labour ahead, only since late last year have Plaid been ahead in most Senedd polls
You do not live in Wales nor do you get Welsh news, or local Welsh news where May Senedd election is the topic of lots of discussions and Plaid popularity is wholly unaffected by the independence debate
They will win irrespective of your opinion on this
Yes it is. Look at the data, from May 2024 to March 2025 Plaid polled from 18 to 24%.
The Plaid leader ruled out an independence referendum in Spring 2025 and since then some polls have had Plaid reaching 30%+ as a direct result
It has nothing to do with independence and that is my final word on the subject
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in October last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
You can't U turn on something not in your manifesto, the UK government would refuse Plaid a Welsh independence referendum regardless of course but if you didn't even win with it as a manifesto commitment you couldn't even ask for one anyway
If Plaid win they can do what they decide to do in Wales best interest
On devolved matters only
Why do you deny democracy and self determination
Democracy and self-determination are not mutually consistent to be picky.
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in October last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
You can't U turn on something not in your manifesto, the UK government would refuse Plaid a Welsh independence referendum regardless of course but if you didn't even win with it as a manifesto commitment you couldn't even ask for one anyway
If Plaid win they can do what they decide to do in Wales best interest
On devolved matters only
Why do you deny democracy and self determination
The future of the Union is constitutionally and legally a matter for Westminster and the UK government alone, as the UK Supreme Court confirmed
'Reform UK has threatened to sue Kemi Badenoch unless she publicly apologises to Suella Braverman by 4pm tomorrow over the Tories’ now-retracted mental health reference'
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in mid last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
Until then most Senedd polls had Reform or Labour ahead, only since late last year have Plaid been ahead in most Senedd polls
You do not live in Wales nor do you get Welsh news, or local Welsh news where May Senedd election is the topic of lots of discussions and Plaid popularity is wholly unaffected by the independence debate
They will win irrespective of your opinion on this
Yes it is. Look at the data, from May 2024 to March 2025 Plaid polled from 18 to 24%.
The Plaid leader ruled out an independence referendum in Spring 2025 and since then some polls have had Plaid reaching 30%+ as a direct result
It has nothing to do with independence and that is my final word on the subject
It does, Plaid only took the lead in Senedd polls after ruling out pushing for independence
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in mid last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
Didn't he specifically rule out independence "in the first term" ? thereby clearly making it a long term objective with some ground work to be done first.
A more honest approach than the SNP perhaps, but also in recognition that as it stands Wales is not yet ready for independence.
Yes he did but that is not the reason for Plaid popularity no matter how much @HYUFD tries to make the case
It is the utter disillusionment with labour and Plaid are seen as best for Wales
It is of course true that independence is not seen as viable and ruling it out is irrelevant because virtually nobody sees it happening soon anyway
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at only £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
They trailed it as the greatest things since the Open University...
'Reform UK has threatened to sue Kemi Badenoch unless she publicly apologises to Suella Braverman by 4pm tomorrow over the Tories’ now-retracted mental health reference'
Silly. It was clearly just a clumsy attempt at satire. And, anyway, this is the outfit whose followers tirelessly throw around insults like 'Trump derangement syndrome' and 'Brexit derangement syndrome' thus proclaiming that anyone who questions their world view is mentally unstable. Nigel needs to lighten up.
'Reform UK has threatened to sue Kemi Badenoch unless she publicly apologises to Suella Braverman by 4pm tomorrow over the Tories’ now-retracted mental health reference'
I can easily see a situation where the SNP and Greens fall slightly short of a majority but the Unionists cannot form a government because at least some parties will not work with Reform making a Unionist majority impossible too.
Lord knows what happens then but it is unlikely to be any less of a shambles that the current government who live in stasis. In 2025 the Scottish Parliament managed to pass a grand total of 15 Acts of Parliament including such radical provisions as the Welfare of Dogs Act and the Scottish Languages Act, the former allowing a code of conduct for the acquisition of dogs and the latter support for Gaelic which already exists. Who could doubt this institution takes seriously the problems of Scotland? Well, anyone who looks even briefly into what they actually do, really.
Fine, Swinney remains FM but completely neutered with no majority for indyref2 at Holyrood and has to focus on Scottish domestic policy like he is paid to!
Your obsession over independence is silly
It is the SNP obsession not mine
Yes as I recall you are more Plaid Cymru obsessed. You've sold it to me. Come the referendum it is independence all the way. Free Wales!
Plaid have ruled out pushing for independence for their first term if they win in May, unlike the SNP
Steven Flynn was on the wireless yesterday as excited about Welsh Independence from
the wicked Starmer as he was for Scotland.
Well of course he was he is anti Union but the only reason Plaid are leading the polls is they have ruled out independence if they win
Rubbish again from an Englishman on Welsh politics
Plaid will win irrespective, because the Welsh want a government that will put Wales first and take on Westminster
No, it was in mid last year that Plaid leader ap Iorweth ruled out independence.
Didn't he specifically rule out independence "in the first term" ? thereby clearly making it a long term objective with some ground work to be done first.
A more honest approach than the SNP perhaps, but also in recognition that as it stands Wales is not yet ready for independence.
Yes he did but that is not the reason for Plaid popularity no matter how much @HYUFD tries to make the case
It is the utter disillusionment with labour and Plaid are seen as best for Wales
It is of course true that independence is not seen as viable and ruling it out is irrelevant because virtually nobody sees it happening soon anyway
No, there was disillusion with Labour in late 2024 but Plaid still did not poll 30%+ like now
So it seems that Alex Pretti was something of a violent street thug.
In fact his behaviour was rather reminiscent of the Wath rioters.
Now that doesn't mean he should have been killed but the USA is a gun society and thankfully Yorkshire isn't.
"Now that doesn't mean he should have been killed but.."
Why do the media have to pretend that every victim was an angel though? I am sure it turns more people towards the far right than telling the truth would. If the consensus had been that this guy was a provocative and aggressive armed protestor, but that is no reason for him to be shot dead once he had been disarmed, I can't see many people disagreeing, yet making him out to be a Kumbayah singing Greenham Common style peacenik only for the footage to be revealed is akin to the highbrow disinformation problem discussed in this article, linked by our old fav @AlastairMeeks
Very very good and carefully written piece that I encourage people to read closely rather than immediately seizing on things they don’t like to score points.
Otoh when people are victims of an atrocity it's not a natural instinct to go looking for ways in which they hadn't lived an admirable life. Doing this usually indicates a desire to downplay the atrocity (because of support for the political cause responsible for it) by introducing the thought that it wasn't entirely unjustified.
Your point would be fine if they had been a bit of a wrongun in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with their demise, and the fact they were a wrongun were used to dismiss their death. But the fellow who was killed last week was depicted as being an angel, when he was, if the video I have seen of him from the previous week is legitimate, quite a violent and angry, armed protestor. As I said, this doesn't mean it was right to kill him, especially as his firearm had been removed, but there is just no need to overegg the pudding. I think it treats the public as fools to do so, and in turn causes people to lose sympathy/distrust the authorities
Well, yes, the point being that even rogues and ne'erdowells deserve the protection of the law ad shouldn't be gunned down unless they present an immediate threat to life.
No, that isn’t the point.
I accept what you say, but the point is that there is no need to pretend that everyone who is mistakenly or unjustly killed by the police or ICE or whoever is some kind of Saint. Rogues and Ne’erdowells deserve the full protection of the law and shouldn’t be gunned down, but that doesn’t mean you have to pretend that they weren’t Rogues and Ne’erdowells. If anything the fact they were those things but still shouldn’t have been killed makes the point; trying to pretend they weren’t is obliquely saying that rogues and ne’erdowells don’t deserve to the full protection of the law as much as Saints
Nearly all corrupt police practises target the “wrong ‘uns”
A favourite in the U.K. was arresting a criminal for a genuine offence then getting him to admit to all the unsolved cases that were vaguely similar.
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
Former Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Lord Jim Wallace, who served as Scotland's first-ever deputy first minister, has died as a result of complications after surgery, his family has said.
Sad news
That means the leaders of Labour, the SNP, Lib Dem and Tories from the 1999 Scottish election have all passed away
You could almost think it was a long time ago.
It is, but if they were all alive today only one of them would be over 75
'Reform UK has threatened to sue Kemi Badenoch unless she publicly apologises to Suella Braverman by 4pm tomorrow over the Tories’ now-retracted mental health reference'
Silly. It was clearly just a clumsy attempt at satire. And, anyway, this is the outfit whose followers tirelessly throw around insults like 'Trump derangement syndrome' and 'Brexit derangement syndrome' thus proclaiming that anyone who questions their world view is mentally unstable. Nigel needs to lighten up.
The combination of being rude yet thin skinned is not a good one for the snowflakes of Reform.
I thought they regard hurty words as a bit of banter.
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
I've been there a few times but some time ago. You probably can't go wrong with the bit with all the ancient beer halls in it.
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
I was there quite recently - I'd think you are fine wherever you stay. There's a slightly edgy wedge from the old town out towards the station and edged by the university area, but it's absolutely fine anyway.
In the Residence there is this most magnificent vaulted room with statues along its walls. Really one of the great things to see anywhere.
Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder · 6m Getting the impression that ICE is gearing up for a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio, which was ground zero of Vance’s lies about Haitians during the campaign. Haitians lose temporary protected status on February 3rd. Reporters, lawyers, neighbors — please get ready.
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at "only" £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
Capita (or similar) will have got the main contract for it. They will then have sub-contracted to Cognizant (or similar) to do the main bit of the work. But they will likely have also sub-contracted to a number of smaller consultancy firms you've never heard of to get the people to do the work. A lot of people will have sat around getting paid while they waited for various stages of onboarding to happen, before being able to do any work, and the work done will have concentrated on building the framework for the website, but not the content - the idea being to deliver something to the department that the department could keep updated, because something like this is always going to need to be updated.
However, the department likely won't have thought about who was going to populate it and maintain it on an ongoing basis - that's opex and not capex - and the department likely doesn't have the knowledge to update a Skills Hub for AI anyway. So when they had the site delivered to them, populated by a bunch of placeholder "courses" to show that the site worked, I guess they simply published it, because who was going to have the domain knowledge to put useful stuff into it?
The minister asked for a Skills Hub for AI, and the department delivered a Skills Hub for AI, but the civil service is such a diminished organisation - not allowed to pay the salaries to employ people who know what they're doing, demoralised from the abuse they receive from every quarter, encouraged to outsource at every turn, rather than build institutional knowledge and capability - that what was delivered was a potemkin skills hub for AI, and I guess that this will kick off another round of abuse towards the civil service, reducing the prospect of a similar outcome being avoided in the future.
Bottom of the page: This is a third party site, delivered by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) on behalf of the Innovate UK BridgeAI programme.
You could be right that the delivery was just a framework, but surely someone along the way must have proposed actual material for this, otherwise what's the point?
If you need a government Skills Hub to find AI courses then you shouldn't be looking to work in AI is my brutal view of all this.
No doubt.
Though I could see some value in explaining what AI does, what it should be used for, and what it shouldn't be used for.
Perhaps the people who most need this are based in Westminster.
Honestly it sounds like The Thick of It.
"We need an AI policy for this press release."
"How about a skills hub. You can't go wrong with a skills hub. We set up loads at my last department when had no other ideas."
"Yeh, brilliant. We can also throw in a Pathfinder Initiative for good measure."
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
My daughter lived there for a year recently. They were due north of the old town, just outside the inner ring road. Walking distance to englischer garten. Nice area, just lively enough and lots of good bars and places to eat as close to university. Are you arriving into Munich airport and then picking up a car ?
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at "only" £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
Capita (or similar) will have got the main contract for it. They will then have sub-contracted to Cognizant (or similar) to do the main bit of the work. But they will likely have also sub-contracted to a number of smaller consultancy firms you've never heard of to get the people to do the work. A lot of people will have sat around getting paid while they waited for various stages of onboarding to happen, before being able to do any work, and the work done will have concentrated on building the framework for the website, but not the content - the idea being to deliver something to the department that the department could keep updated, because something like this is always going to need to be updated.
However, the department likely won't have thought about who was going to populate it and maintain it on an ongoing basis - that's opex and not capex - and the department likely doesn't have the knowledge to update a Skills Hub for AI anyway. So when they had the site delivered to them, populated by a bunch of placeholder "courses" to show that the site worked, I guess they simply published it, because who was going to have the domain knowledge to put useful stuff into it?
The minister asked for a Skills Hub for AI, and the department delivered a Skills Hub for AI, but the civil service is such a diminished organisation - not allowed to pay the salaries to employ people who know what they're doing, demoralised from the abuse they receive from every quarter, encouraged to outsource at every turn, rather than build institutional knowledge and capability - that what was delivered was a potemkin skills hub for AI, and I guess that this will kick off another round of abuse towards the civil service, reducing the prospect of a similar outcome being avoided in the future.
Bottom of the page: This is a third party site, delivered by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) on behalf of the Innovate UK BridgeAI programme.
You could be right that the delivery was just a framework, but surely someone along the way must have proposed actual material for this, otherwise what's the point?
If you need a government Skills Hub to find AI courses then you shouldn't be looking to work in AI is my brutal view of all this.
No doubt.
Though I could see some value in explaining what AI does, what it should be used for, and what it shouldn't be used for.
Perhaps the people who most need this are based in Westminster.
Honestly it sounds like The Thick of It.
"We need an AI policy for this press release."
"How about a skills hub. You can't go wrong with a skills hub. We set up loads at my last department when had no other ideas."
"Yeh, brilliant. We can also throw in a Pathfinder Initiative for good measure."
"I took a closer look at the UK government's new 'AI Skills Hub', and it is insane. It includes 'courses' that are simply links to info pages about PhD programs; 'courses' that are literally just software developer documentation; and 'courses' that don't exist at all."
That's not a Skills Hub for AI. That's a Skills Hub made by AI.
Who did this and how much did they charge?
Its been reported at only £4 million. I I was a journalist I might do so digging to see if that was the extent of it and who actually did the work and who signed it off.
They trailed it as the greatest things since the Open University...
So the Trump administration will fabricate evidence to suggest Fulton County can’t be trusted with elections . Trump will put in a bunch of stooges to oversee the county and steal the mid-terms or just sow enough doubt with the urban voters to suppress turnout .
Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder · 6m Getting the impression that ICE is gearing up for a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio, which was ground zero of Vance’s lies about Haitians during the campaign. Haitians lose temporary protected status on February 3rd. Reporters, lawyers, neighbors — please get ready.
So it seems that Alex Pretti was something of a violent street thug.
In fact his behaviour was rather reminiscent of the Wath rioters.
Now that doesn't mean he should have been killed but the USA is a gun society and thankfully Yorkshire isn't.
"Now that doesn't mean he should have been killed but.."
Why do the media have to pretend that every victim was an angel though? I am sure it turns more people towards the far right than telling the truth would. If the consensus had been that this guy was a provocative and aggressive armed protestor, but that is no reason for him to be shot dead once he had been disarmed, I can't see many people disagreeing, yet making him out to be a Kumbayah singing Greenham Common style peacenik only for the footage to be revealed is akin to the highbrow disinformation problem discussed in this article, linked by our old fav @AlastairMeeks
Very very good and carefully written piece that I encourage people to read closely rather than immediately seizing on things they don’t like to score points.
Otoh when people are victims of an atrocity it's not a natural instinct to go looking for ways in which they hadn't lived an admirable life. Doing this usually indicates a desire to downplay the atrocity (because of support for the political cause responsible for it) by introducing the thought that it wasn't entirely unjustified.
Your point would be fine if they had been a bit of a wrongun in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with their demise, and the fact they were a wrongun were used to dismiss their death. But the fellow who was killed last week was depicted as being an angel, when he was, if the video I have seen of him from the previous week is legitimate, quite a violent and angry, armed protestor. As I said, this doesn't mean it was right to kill him, especially as his firearm had been removed, but there is just no need to overegg the pudding. I think it treats the public as fools to do so, and in turn causes people to lose sympathy/distrust the authorities
Well, yes, the point being that even rogues and ne'erdowells deserve the protection of the law ad shouldn't be gunned down unless they present an immediate threat to life.
No, that isn’t the point.
I accept what you say, but the point is that there is no need to pretend that everyone who is mistakenly or unjustly killed by the police or ICE or whoever is some kind of Saint. Rogues and Ne’erdowells deserve the full protection of the law and shouldn’t be gunned down, but that doesn’t mean you have to pretend that they weren’t Rogues and Ne’erdowells. If anything the fact they were those things but still shouldn’t have been killed makes the point; trying to pretend they weren’t is obliquely saying that rogues and ne’erdowells don’t deserve to the full protection of the law as much as Saints
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
I've always wanted to visit Munich but never got round to it. Hope you have a good trip.
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
My daughter lived there for a year recently. They were due north of the old town, just outside the inner ring road. Walking distance to englischer garten. Nice area, just lively enough and lots of good bars and places to eat as close to university. Are you arriving into Munich airport and then picking up a car ?
Thanks - yes, that's the plan. We're going to spend a week in Austria but then a couple of days in Munich at the end (probably will return the car and do Munich by public transport).
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 11 Dem Gains 2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 3 Dem Gains 3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 62 4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 29 5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage (British Polling Council registered pollsters only)? 16% Lead for Reform 6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 23% 7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 11 8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Keir Starmer 9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No 10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025)? £120 billion 11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025)? 1.3% 12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup? Spain
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
My daughter lived there for a year recently. They were due north of the old town, just outside the inner ring road. Walking distance to englischer garten. Nice area, just lively enough and lots of good bars and places to eat as close to university. Are you arriving into Munich airport and then picking up a car ?
Thanks - yes, that's the plan. We're going to spend a week in Austria but then a couple of days in Munich at the end (probably will return the car and do Munich by public transport).
Don’t bother with Dachau. Total letdown. No gas chambers, not even a torture cell
Just a pathetic rip off of Auschwitz, basically. Like one of those Winter Wonderlands with a plastic Santa and 3 mangy reindeer
'Reform UK has threatened to sue Kemi Badenoch unless she publicly apologises to Suella Braverman by 4pm tomorrow over the Tories’ now-retracted mental health reference'
Silly. It was clearly just a clumsy attempt at satire. And, anyway, this is the outfit whose followers tirelessly throw around insults like 'Trump derangement syndrome' and 'Brexit derangement syndrome' thus proclaiming that anyone who questions their world view is mentally unstable. Nigel needs to lighten up.
'Reform UK has threatened to sue Kemi Badenoch unless she publicly apologises to Suella Braverman by 4pm tomorrow over the Tories’ now-retracted mental health reference'
Silly. It was clearly just a clumsy attempt at satire. And, anyway, this is the outfit whose followers tirelessly throw around insults like 'Trump derangement syndrome' and 'Brexit derangement syndrome' thus proclaiming that anyone who questions their world view is mentally unstable. Nigel needs to lighten up.
The combination of being rude yet thin skinned is not a good one for the snowflakes of Reform.
I thought they regard hurty words as a bit of banter.
Playground bullies are well known for not liking it up 'em.
Can't think where I got the playground bully metaphor from.
(Could be worse, my go-to line in this scenario is the one from St Thomas Moore; the proud spirit cannot endure to be mocked.)
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
My daughter lived there for a year recently. They were due north of the old town, just outside the inner ring road. Walking distance to englischer garten. Nice area, just lively enough and lots of good bars and places to eat as close to university. Are you arriving into Munich airport and then picking up a car ?
Thanks - yes, that's the plan. We're going to spend a week in Austria but then a couple of days in Munich at the end (probably will return the car and do Munich by public transport).
Don’t bother with Dachau. Total letdown. No gas chambers, not even a torture cell
Just a pathetic rip off of Auschwitz, basically. Like one of those Winter Wonderlands with a plastic Santa and 3 mangy reindeer
We took our family to Dachau when they were relatively young and it left an indeliable mark on them
No concentration camp can be described as a let down
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
My daughter lived there for a year recently. They were due north of the old town, just outside the inner ring road. Walking distance to englischer garten. Nice area, just lively enough and lots of good bars and places to eat as close to university. Are you arriving into Munich airport and then picking up a car ?
Thanks - yes, that's the plan. We're going to spend a week in Austria but then a couple of days in Munich at the end (probably will return the car and do Munich by public transport).
Don’t bother with Dachau. Total letdown. No gas chambers, not even a torture cell
Just a pathetic rip off of Auschwitz, basically. Like one of those Winter Wonderlands with a plastic Santa and 3 mangy reindeer
We took our family to Dachau when they were relatively young and it left an indeliable mark on them
No concentration camp can be described as a let down
For the second time today, Trump declines to take any questions from reporters. Hard to think of a moment in the Trump presidency when that’s happened before.
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
My daughter lived there for a year recently. They were due north of the old town, just outside the inner ring road. Walking distance to englischer garten. Nice area, just lively enough and lots of good bars and places to eat as close to university. Are you arriving into Munich airport and then picking up a car ?
Thanks - yes, that's the plan. We're going to spend a week in Austria but then a couple of days in Munich at the end (probably will return the car and do Munich by public transport).
Yeah, probably best to return the car as soon as you get to the city. The only caveat for me would be if you want to visit Dachau, as that is easier to get to by car.
What time of year are you going ? In the warmer months it's quite cool metaphorically and literally to swim in the river that flows through the English garden, once the current slows a bit below the eiswelle.
For the second time today, Trump declines to take any questions from reporters. Hard to think of a moment in the Trump presidency when that’s happened before.
That does seem pretty unusual, I thought he generally loved questions, since no matter how hostile he's confident bluster always sees him through and he knows how to play to his audience very well.
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
My daughter lived there for a year recently. They were due north of the old town, just outside the inner ring road. Walking distance to englischer garten. Nice area, just lively enough and lots of good bars and places to eat as close to university. Are you arriving into Munich airport and then picking up a car ?
Thanks - yes, that's the plan. We're going to spend a week in Austria but then a couple of days in Munich at the end (probably will return the car and do Munich by public transport).
Don’t bother with Dachau. Total letdown. No gas chambers, not even a torture cell
Just a pathetic rip off of Auschwitz, basically. Like one of those Winter Wonderlands with a plastic Santa and 3 mangy reindeer
Which one's your favourite, m9* ? I like Sachsenhausen, the OG. When I say "like", I mean I went on a bitterly cold grey day in December with the wind sweeping in all the way from the Steppes, and it was the bleakest thing I have ever done and it left a stronger impression on me than any film or book, or any of the museums.
Not interested in party politics at the moment. More needs to be shaken out.
Big News! At yesterday's earnings call Tesla announced their plans to stop building cars. Model S and X and Cybertruck are all dead with their production lines repurposed for robots and taxis. No further cars will be built which you can drive. So once the Model 3 and Y get old, that's the end.
Madness standing on the shoulders of madness on stilts. Oh, the Robototron production line is to build 1m units next year. As there is no global market for these, expect them to be bought by the US government and used for herd culling of the population.
Is that a true-truth? I'm not a big fan of Elon (I know: surprise!) but even by his standard this is f*****g stupid. Tesla is a hundred-billion dollar company. Are the board so in thrall to Elon that they are willing to destroy the company for one man's stupidity?
1. Model S and X production ends shortly. Sales are down to a trickle anyway. Production space at the Fremont factory to be repurposed to build Optimus 2. Cybertruck production line to be repurposed to build autonomous vehicles. No timeline given or what those are but it won't be the truck that nobody buys 3. Roadster announced with a reveal in April. Its been announced as launching this year every year since 2020 4. Elon said that with the exception of the roadster, Tesla will not bring to the market any vehicles which are not fully autonomous 5. They further project that the bulk of all future sales will be the cybercab
He/they are mad. Sales are in Year on Year on Year decline. Accelerating hard. Sales of tax credits down nearly 50% YonY. They need profitable sales (vehicles are 75% of revenue to pay for capex and research. Capex this year more than doubles to $20bn. Hasn't said what they're spending it on. Won't be cars.
So no new models ever again. Its done.
Still, if the roadster ever does happen ima gettit. Performance that breaks either the laws of physics or the laws of the UK sounds good to me. 0-60 in one second is something I require.
You, TSE and Dura round Silverstone. I hope Betfair offer odds!
We could do it in iRacing. I will back myself at any odds.
I can do a 1:59 around it in a 992 GT3 R. It's a front end grip track so I can probably get another 1s with better setup and then maybe another 1s with practice.
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
My daughter lived there for a year recently. They were due north of the old town, just outside the inner ring road. Walking distance to englischer garten. Nice area, just lively enough and lots of good bars and places to eat as close to university. Are you arriving into Munich airport and then picking up a car ?
Thanks - yes, that's the plan. We're going to spend a week in Austria but then a couple of days in Munich at the end (probably will return the car and do Munich by public transport).
Yeah, probably best to return the car as soon as you get to the city. The only caveat for me would be if you want to visit Dachau, as that is easier to get to by car.
What time of year are you going ? In the warmer months it's quite cool metaphorically and literally to swim in the river that flows through the English garden, once the current slows a bit below the eiswelle.
FWIW, I found it very time-consuming boarding a flight from Munich Airport - lots of walking from place to place, endless queues, and not being in the EU didn't help. Got there three hours before the flight, and we were so constantly busy with one thing or another (first search, second scan, emigration, check-in, luggage drop-off etc) that we weren't able to get breakfast. It may have been an off day, of course (I am not a particularly experienced traveller) but I would recommend leaving enough time to get out of the place.
For the second time today, Trump declines to take any questions from reporters. Hard to think of a moment in the Trump presidency when that’s happened before.
That does seem pretty unusual, I thought he generally loved questions, since no matter how hostile he's confident bluster always sees him through and he knows how to play to his audience very well.
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
My daughter lived there for a year recently. They were due north of the old town, just outside the inner ring road. Walking distance to englischer garten. Nice area, just lively enough and lots of good bars and places to eat as close to university. Are you arriving into Munich airport and then picking up a car ?
Thanks - yes, that's the plan. We're going to spend a week in Austria but then a couple of days in Munich at the end (probably will return the car and do Munich by public transport).
Don’t bother with Dachau. Total letdown. No gas chambers, not even a torture cell
Just a pathetic rip off of Auschwitz, basically. Like one of those Winter Wonderlands with a plastic Santa and 3 mangy reindeer
We took our family to Dachau when they were relatively young and it left an indeliable mark on them
No concentration camp can be described as a let down
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
My daughter lived there for a year recently. They were due north of the old town, just outside the inner ring road. Walking distance to englischer garten. Nice area, just lively enough and lots of good bars and places to eat as close to university. Are you arriving into Munich airport and then picking up a car ?
Thanks - yes, that's the plan. We're going to spend a week in Austria but then a couple of days in Munich at the end (probably will return the car and do Munich by public transport).
Yeah, probably best to return the car as soon as you get to the city. The only caveat for me would be if you want to visit Dachau, as that is easier to get to by car.
What time of year are you going ? In the warmer months it's quite cool metaphorically and literally to swim in the river that flows through the English garden, once the current slows a bit below the eiswelle.
FWIW, I found it very time-consuming boarding a flight from Munich Airport - lots of walking from place to place, endless queues, and not being in the EU didn't help. Got there three hours before the flight, and we were so constantly busy with one thing or another (first search, second scan, emigration, check-in, luggage drop-off etc) that we weren't able to get breakfast. It may have been an off day, of course (I am not a particularly experienced traveller) but I would recommend leaving enough time to get out of the place.
It's a surprisingly large airport. The car rental return operation, all cars for all firms funneled into the one dropoff zone, is intimidating but very quick.
"Labour attacks Green party drugs policy in Gorton and Denton byelection Online ads target Zack Polanski’s drugs stance as Labour aims to sideline Greens and consolidate anti-Reform vote"
We basically somehow ended up with David Icke as prime minister for two months didn't we? How the hell did we manage that?
We were in mourning for the Queen for one chunk of it, and then there was the conference recess for another chunk of it.
Elizabeth T took over on September 6 Elizabeth R died on September 8 The funeral was on September 19 Kwarteng's mini budget was on September 23 The party conference recess was from September 23 to October 11 Kwateng was sacked on October 14 Hunt's antibudget was on October 17 Truss announced her resgination on October 20 Sunak took over on October 24
In terms of actual Westminster time, that's about three weeks?
Not interested in party politics at the moment. More needs to be shaken out.
Big News! At yesterday's earnings call Tesla announced their plans to stop building cars. Model S and X and Cybertruck are all dead with their production lines repurposed for robots and taxis. No further cars will be built which you can drive. So once the Model 3 and Y get old, that's the end.
Madness standing on the shoulders of madness on stilts. Oh, the Robototron production line is to build 1m units next year. As there is no global market for these, expect them to be bought by the US government and used for herd culling of the population.
Is that a true-truth? I'm not a big fan of Elon (I know: surprise!) but even by his standard this is f*****g stupid. Tesla is a hundred-billion dollar company. Are the board so in thrall to Elon that they are willing to destroy the company for one man's stupidity?
1. Model S and X production ends shortly. Sales are down to a trickle anyway. Production space at the Fremont factory to be repurposed to build Optimus 2. Cybertruck production line to be repurposed to build autonomous vehicles. No timeline given or what those are but it won't be the truck that nobody buys 3. Roadster announced with a reveal in April. Its been announced as launching this year every year since 2020 4. Elon said that with the exception of the roadster, Tesla will not bring to the market any vehicles which are not fully autonomous 5. They further project that the bulk of all future sales will be the cybercab
He/they are mad. Sales are in Year on Year on Year decline. Accelerating hard. Sales of tax credits down nearly 50% YonY. They need profitable sales (vehicles are 75% of revenue to pay for capex and research. Capex this year more than doubles to $20bn. Hasn't said what they're spending it on. Won't be cars.
So no new models ever again. Its done.
Still, if the roadster ever does happen ima gettit. Performance that breaks either the laws of physics or the laws of the UK sounds good to me. 0-60 in one second is something I require.
Why don't you just buy a Taycan Turbo GT today? That will do a sub 2s 0-60 and actually exists.
I can see the logic of this for Tesla. One aspect of the car industry they have never embraced, whether by intent or lack of ability, is continuous and iterative product improvement. We have had three generations of 5 Series in the lifespan of the Model S and all they did with that was change the door handles. The product line up got very stale and the new offerings from the legacy OEMS (Neue Klasse iX3, etc.) look to have them beat in every possible way. Tesla, as far as I can tell, aren't bound by the norms of corporate finance because people like betting on Musk so they might as well move on to the New New Thing. AI/Robotics might be something eventually I suppose. I asked Co-pilot in Excel to change all red on black text to white on black and it asked me where this text was (it was in the fucking spreadsheet from whence I summoned Co-pilot) and then gave me a load of VB Code which I was presumably supposed to print out and stick up my arse.
pb brains trust: Anyone know Munich? Anyone ha e any views what area of the city I might be best advised to stay in with the family, balancing niceness/cost/proximity to things to see?
My daughter lived there for a year recently. They were due north of the old town, just outside the inner ring road. Walking distance to englischer garten. Nice area, just lively enough and lots of good bars and places to eat as close to university. Are you arriving into Munich airport and then picking up a car ?
Thanks - yes, that's the plan. We're going to spend a week in Austria but then a couple of days in Munich at the end (probably will return the car and do Munich by public transport).
Don’t bother with Dachau. Total letdown. No gas chambers, not even a torture cell
Just a pathetic rip off of Auschwitz, basically. Like one of those Winter Wonderlands with a plastic Santa and 3 mangy reindeer
We took our family to Dachau when they were relatively young and it left an indeliable mark on them
No concentration camp can be described as a let down
They are not tourist attractions
Ignore him, Big G. He’s just being an edgelord.
Incorrect. He is trying to be an edgelord
Actually, he is Biff.
He's certainly a (U)Kipper.
There's one for the parents of primary school children.
We basically somehow ended up with David Icke as prime minister for two months didn't we? How the hell did we manage that?
We were in mourning for the Queen for one chunk of it, and then there was the conference recess for another chunk of it.
Elizabeth T took over on September 6 Elizabeth R died on September 8 The funeral was on September 19 Kwarteng's mini budget was on September 23 The party conference recess was from September 23 to October 11 Kwateng was sacked on October 14 Hunt's antibudget was on October 17 Truss announced her resgination on October 20 Sunak took over on October 24
In terms of actual Westminster time, that's about three weeks?
Put like that, the striking thing is that she had both the attention of, and a grip on, the nation for just 4 days.
Comments
"Hey Johnnie, what are you rebelling against?"
"What you got?"
https://x.com/SciTechgovuk/status/2016406230202277922
Most people on PB.com have been in favour of lower house prices from well before Trump started using twitter to amplify birther conspiracies about Obama. It will have nothing to do with "Trump hate" if they continue to do so.
Parachuted in like an SKS blue Tory
https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/the-nation-nominates-minneapolis-for-the-nobel-peace-prize/
Can you imagine the response if they got it?
They didn't even pay for the content management (IPS Community Suite).
[The front page is just puff pieces by the usual suspects.]
https://youtu.be/Z7inpZjjfoA?t=2485
Walz told me that when he spoke to Trump on the phone the president compared the immigration operations in Minneapolis to the military mission he ordered in Venezuela.
https://bsky.app/profile/jacobsoboroff.bsky.social/post/3mdlqaal4vk2e
I am sure a tousle haired former PM could navigate his way around Only Fans with an impressive dexterity.
Used well, this could be the best £4 million the government has wasted. Probably won't be, though.
I accept what you say, but the point is that there is no need to pretend that everyone who is mistakenly or unjustly killed by the police or ICE or whoever is some kind of Saint. Rogues and Ne’erdowells deserve the full protection of the law and shouldn’t be gunned down, but that doesn’t mean you have to pretend that they weren’t Rogues and Ne’erdowells. If anything the fact they were those things but still shouldn’t have been killed makes the point; trying to pretend they weren’t is obliquely saying that rogues and ne’erdowells don’t deserve to the full protection of the law as much as Saints
@TimothyDSnyder
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6m
Getting the impression that ICE is gearing up for a pogrom in Springfield, Ohio, which was ground zero of Vance’s lies about Haitians during the campaign. Haitians lose temporary protected status on February 3rd. Reporters, lawyers, neighbors — please get ready.
https://x.com/TimothyDSnyder/status/2016992083685392840
Hope to God he is wrong.
https://x.com/edhodgsoned/status/2016964423345111172
However, the department likely won't have thought about who was going to populate it and maintain it on an ongoing basis - that's opex and not capex - and the department likely doesn't have the knowledge to update a Skills Hub for AI anyway. So when they had the site delivered to them, populated by a bunch of placeholder "courses" to show that the site worked, I guess they simply published it, because who was going to have the domain knowledge to put useful stuff into it?
The minister asked for a Skills Hub for AI, and the department delivered a Skills Hub for AI, but the civil service is such a diminished organisation - not allowed to pay the salaries to employ people who know what they're doing, demoralised from the abuse they receive from every quarter, encouraged to outsource at every turn, rather than build institutional knowledge and capability - that what was delivered was a potemkin skills hub for AI, and I guess that this will kick off another round of abuse towards the civil service, reducing the prospect of a similar outcome being avoided in the future.
Until then most Senedd polls had Reform or Labour ahead, only since late last year have Plaid been ahead in most Senedd polls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2026_Senedd_election
A more honest approach than the SNP perhaps, but also in recognition that as it stands Wales is not yet ready for independence.
They will win irrespective of your opinion on this
But don't you believe he will consider himself vindicated if he bins a handful of boxes from Dem wards. He needs to bin less than 12,000 votes.
This is a third party site, delivered by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) on behalf of the Innovate UK BridgeAI programme.
You could be right that the delivery was just a framework, but surely someone along the way must have proposed actual material for this, otherwise what's the point?
The Plaid leader ruled out an independence referendum in Spring 2025 and since then some polls have had Plaid reaching 30%+ as a direct result
Though I could see some value in explaining what AI does, what it should be used for, and what it shouldn't be used for.
Perhaps the people who most need this are based in Westminster.
https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/2016911722250911823?s=20
It is the utter disillusionment with labour and Plaid are seen as best for Wales
It is of course true that independence is not seen as viable and ruling it out is irrelevant because virtually nobody sees it happening soon anyway
Sorry, files not flies.
See Manchester Police have rejected their complaint over the labour advert
A favourite in the U.K. was arresting a criminal for a genuine offence then getting him to admit to all the unsolved cases that were vaguely similar.
I thought they regard hurty words as a bit of banter.
In the Residence there is this most magnificent vaulted room with statues along its walls. Really one of the great things to see anywhere.
"We need an AI policy for this press release."
"How about a skills hub. You can't go wrong with a skills hub. We set up loads at my last department when had no other ideas."
"Yeh, brilliant. We can also throw in a Pathfinder Initiative for good measure."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei9iM_zzzQk
Democracy in the USA is tragically disappearing.
1. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the House? 11 Dem Gains
2. Number of net gains (or losses -ve) for the Dems in the Senate? 3 Dem Gains
3. Number of MSPs won by the SNP at the Holyrood election? 62
4. Number of AMs won by Plaid Cymru at the Senedd election? 29
5. UK Party recording the largest poll lead during 2026 and by what percentage (British Polling Council registered pollsters only)? 16% Lead for Reform
6. Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC? 23%
7. Number of Reform MPs on the 31st December 2026? 11
8. The name of the UK Prime Minister on 31st December 2026? Keir Starmer
9. Will Andy Burnham will be an MP on 31st December 2026? No
10. UK borrowing in the financial year to November 2026 (£132.3bn to November 2025)? £120 billion
11. UK GDP growth in the 12 months to October 2026 (1.1% to October 2025)? 1.3%
12. Winners of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup? Spain
Just a pathetic rip off of Auschwitz, basically. Like one of those Winter Wonderlands with a plastic Santa and 3 mangy reindeer
Can't think where I got the playground bully metaphor from.
(Could be worse, my go-to line in this scenario is the one from St Thomas Moore; the proud spirit cannot endure to be mocked.)
No concentration camp can be described as a let down
They are not tourist attractions
https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/
For the second time today, Trump declines to take any questions from reporters. Hard to think of a moment in the Trump presidency when that’s happened before.
What time of year are you going ? In the warmer months it's quite cool metaphorically and literally to swim in the river that flows through the English garden, once the current slows a bit below the eiswelle.
*m9 is like m8 but one better.
I can do a 1:59 around it in a 992 GT3 R. It's a front end grip track so I can probably get another 1s with better setup and then maybe another 1s with practice.
Actually, he is Biff.
Online ads target Zack Polanski’s drugs stance as Labour aims to sideline Greens and consolidate anti-Reform vote"
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jan/28/labour-attacks-green-party-drugs-policy-gorton-and-denton-byelection
Elizabeth T took over on September 6
Elizabeth R died on September 8
The funeral was on September 19
Kwarteng's mini budget was on September 23
The party conference recess was from September 23 to October 11
Kwateng was sacked on October 14
Hunt's antibudget was on October 17
Truss announced her resgination on October 20
Sunak took over on October 24
In terms of actual Westminster time, that's about three weeks?
I can see the logic of this for Tesla. One aspect of the car industry they have never embraced, whether by intent or lack of ability, is continuous and iterative product improvement. We have had three generations of 5 Series in the lifespan of the Model S and all they did with that was change the door handles. The product line up got very stale and the new offerings from the legacy OEMS (Neue Klasse iX3, etc.) look to have them beat in every possible way. Tesla, as far as I can tell, aren't bound by the norms of corporate finance because people like betting on Musk so they might as well move on to the New New Thing. AI/Robotics might be something eventually I suppose. I asked Co-pilot in Excel to change all red on black text to white on black and it asked me where this text was (it was in the fucking spreadsheet from whence I summoned Co-pilot) and then gave me a load of VB Code which I was presumably supposed to print out and stick up my arse.
There's one for the parents of primary school children.