I don't even understand what people think Starmer did wrong on the Mandelson thing. In their wisdom the people of the United States of America elected a mad pedophile scammer who only gets along with other people who are also mad, pedophiles, scammers or multiple of the above. The UK depends for it's security on the United States, a situation made worse by Brexit which happened through no fault of Starmer's.
Negotiating this situation required someone who could get along with the Trump people. They couldn't send someone mad because the whole point is to negotiate this very complicated and delicate mad king situation. Labour isn't exactly overflowing with pedophile scammers who are skilled at negotiation. Who was he supposed to send? Jimmy Saville is already dead.
I don't even understand what people think Starmer did wrong on the Mandelson thing. In their wisdom the people of the United States of America elected a mad pedophile scammer who only gets along with other people who are also mad, pedophiles, scammers or multiple of the above. The UK depends for it's security on the United States, a situation made worse by Brexit which happened through no fault of Starmer's.
Negotiating this situation required someone who could get along with the Trump people. They couldn't send someone mad because the whole point is to negotiate this very complicated and delicate mad king situation. Labour isn't exactly overflowing with pedophile scammers who are skilled at negotiation. Who was he supposed to send? Jimmy Saville is already dead.
I don’t know what time of day it is where you are, but it sounds like you need a lie down.
I don't even understand what people think Starmer did wrong on the Mandelson thing. In their wisdom the people of the United States of America elected a mad pedophile scammer who only gets along with other people who are also mad, pedophiles, scammers or multiple of the above. The UK depends for it's security on the United States, a situation made worse by Brexit which happened through no fault of Starmer's.
Negotiating this situation required someone who could get along with the Trump people. They couldn't send someone mad because the whole point is to negotiate this very complicated and delicate mad king situation. Labour isn't exactly overflowing with pedophile scammers who are skilled at negotiation. Who was he supposed to send? Jimmy Saville is already dead.
I don’t know what time of day it is where you are, but it sounds like you need a lie down.
I'm serious, Jimmy Saville is dead. Check it on wikipedia.
Whilst I agree Starmer is in trouble, I am not sure the Pincher analogy holds water.
With Pincher, it wasn't simply a failure of vetting but a situation where Johnson lied about what he knew and had colleagues unwittingly sent onto the media to propogate that lie. This was also the latest in a series of incidents where Johnson had been utterly unreliable.
That may yet turn out to be the case for Starmer, but I don't think we are there - it was a foolish appointment given Mandelson's track record, but I don't think the anger towards Mandelson for having misled Starmer is synthetic.
For that reason, whilst there is definitely a competence issue there and it's increasingly hard to see a very long term future for Starmer, I don't really see it playing out as it did in the final days of Johnson.
I also find the Rayner surge a little odd. She has a lot going for her, but she isn't exactly Ms Clean, the candidate of unimpeachable personal integrity.
She's the furthest they've got from the old boy's club attitudes that led to where we are.
I don’t think Angela Rayner is a traitor. I DO believe that about Starmer and those around him - Hermer, Sands, Powell. They loathe Britain and seek to harm Britons
It’s that basic
Rayner might well be an economic disaster but fuck it, how does that change anything. I don’t think Rayner will deliberately enact policies that are solely designed to harm the country she governs because she despises it
It’s a pretty low bar but I reckon she’ll clear it
Oh God, not this from you again: "she couldn't we worse".
She absolutely could be fucking worse.
I'm terrified of Rayner becoming PM.
The Tories demonstrated well - more than once - that a change of PM absolutely can make things worse.
There’s no serious question to which Angela Rayner is the answer. She can’t even run her own house without screwing up the finances, let alone the country.
Some hoo hah about Alton Towers changing the rules for their disability access pass on Facebook. The extensive comments give a clue as to why the country is in the state it's in wrt schools, disability benefits etc imo
Some hoo hah about Alton Towers changing the rules for their disability access pass on Facebook. The extensive comments give a clue as to why the country is in the state it's in wrt schools, disability benefits etc imo
Some hoo hah about Alton Towers changing the rules for their disability access pass on Facebook. The extensive comments give a clue as to why the country is in the state it's in wrt schools, disability benefits etc imo
We are currently trialling AI summarisation of outpatient consultations in place of medical notes and letters in my Trust. All part of Mr Streetings grand plan, with costs repaid by making our receptionists and secretaries redundent.
Myself and colleagues have some concerns, not least that we are taking on admin duties formerly done by others at a quarter of our pay, as doing the AI stuff adds 5-10 minutes to consultations. Patients don't seem to object.
It does hallucinate though, including making false diagnoses and even made up pharmaceuticals, so needs a lot of proof-reading, and annoyingly keeps undeleting them when we delete them.
I was with a customer last week who asked why, when I research something in front of him, I use a search engine (to look for primary sources) and not a generative AI.
This is exactly the reason why. The AI will confidently spout bollocks, as you say it makes up drug names and legal cases then asserts them to be true - which means that as the expert you need to carefully proofread and correct before sending to anyone else.
That's an interesting, and HUGE, paper - I make it about 14k words.
That "left moving further left" comment seems to relate to the USA, not internationally. Given that traditionally the US mainstream has no "left" as the rest of the world would understand it, that seems reasonable, and is a move more into line with the outside world. They analyse in "clusters" (eg "right-leaning"), "dispersion within clusters" (has a cluster stretched), and "separation between clusters" (are different clusters they further apart). From the General Discussion:
In Study 1, analysing polarization levels in the USA from 1988 to 2024, we found clear evidence that polarization has increased, mostly due to a period of continually rising polarization from 2008 to 2020. We see that between-cluster Separation has increased, while within-cluster Dispersion and Equality-of-Size have remained virtually unchanged, meaning that America’s left-leaning cluster and right-leaning cluster have drifted further apart while both remaining internally cohesive and equal in size. Notably, the position of the left-leaning cluster has shifted further to the left since 1988 than the right-leaning cluster has shifted to the right, consistent with US opinion in general moving to the left while becoming more polarized.
I'd recommend a skim at least the abstract, conclusions and discussion.
We are currently trialling AI summarisation of outpatient consultations in place of medical notes and letters in my Trust. All part of Mr Streetings grand plan, with costs repaid by making our receptionists and secretaries redundent.
Myself and colleagues have some concerns, not least that we are taking on admin duties formerly done by others at a quarter of our pay, as doing the AI stuff adds 5-10 minutes to consultations. Patients don't seem to object.
It does hallucinate though, including making false diagnoses and even made up pharmaceuticals, so needs a lot of proof-reading, and annoyingly keeps undeleting them when we delete them.
Surely the hallucination of law is just a summary of 852 years of lawyers' letters, following the Migration of Bollocks Over Time principle?
When my physio used an AI secretary for an assessment, he was very careful to explain how his language would change in order to make the machine come up with clinically faithful content.
As an IT/Comms wallah ("Information Systems Engineering"), that is a generalised dialogue whilst still maintaining certain features of what we used to call "structured English" as far back as the 1980s when I was at university; I can't comment on the 1970s. The degree included a fair amount of esoteric topics such as Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing.
Some hoo hah about Alton Towers changing the rules for their disability access pass on Facebook. The extensive comments give a clue as to why the country is in the state it's in wrt schools, disability benefits etc imo
There are varied takes on it. I'd probably call it as as PR Cockup with poor processes.
(I'd say they could start lending out shooting sticks for a deposit.)
That's an interesting, and HUGE, paper - I make it about 14k words.
That "left moving further left" comment seems to relate to the USA, not internationally. Given that traditionally the US mainstream has no "left" as the rest of the world would understand it, that seems reasonable, and is a move more into line with the outside world. They analyse in "clusters" (eg "right-leaning"), "dispersion within clusters" (has a cluster stretched), and "separation between clusters" (are different clusters they further apart). From the General Discussion:
In Study 1, analysing polarization levels in the USA from 1988 to 2024, we found clear evidence that polarization has increased, mostly due to a period of continually rising polarization from 2008 to 2020. We see that between-cluster Separation has increased, while within-cluster Dispersion and Equality-of-Size have remained virtually unchanged, meaning that America’s left-leaning cluster and right-leaning cluster have drifted further apart while both remaining internally cohesive and equal in size. Notably, the position of the left-leaning cluster has shifted further to the left since 1988 than the right-leaning cluster has shifted to the right, consistent with US opinion in general moving to the left while becoming more polarized.
I'd recommend a skim at least the abstract, conclusions and discussion.
When you look at the breakdown of the first study by issue, the conclusions rest heavily on shifting views on only a handful of the issues examined, notably abortion and a few other religious-related issues. And it’s true that in the US there has been a shift among the young toward more secular values. Whilst Europe has also become more secular, for a mix of historical and cultural reasons, there has not been the same counter-reaction from our relatively less prominent and powerful religious voters. Politics and religion don’t have the same inter-relation that they do in the US, and religions are weaker here anyway. Abortion hasn’t been a salient issue in European politics for a long time, Poland excepted.
People paying good money to have a civilised meal at a smart restaurant should expect to be able to do so without screaming brats running around the place. If children can't behave their parents shouldn't bring them to the restaurant - take them to McDonalds ffs, you know they'd be happier there.
Some hoo hah about Alton Towers changing the rules for their disability access pass on Facebook. The extensive comments give a clue as to why the country is in the state it's in wrt schools, disability benefits etc imo
There are varied takes on it. I'd probably call it as as PR Cockup with poor processes.
(I'd say they could start lending out shooting sticks for a deposit.)
The wider issue is that society in general has started to make accommodations for ‘disability’, and that these accommodations are being gamed by bad actors, because those making the accommodations have little way of checking eligibility for them.
So we see 40% of kids at Stanford are ‘disabled’, becuase that means they get extra time in tests and single room accommodation, in the UK we see a huge rise in kids taking taxi as to school, or people claiming sickness benefits for mental health issues.
These things all started off with good intent, but have led to perverse outcomes and huge financial costs to both government and companies dealing with the public. It’s also very difficult to row back, because of the risk of lawsuits and public accusations of discrimination.
Alton Towers would be better off offering wheelchairs on demand for disabled customers, and not offering a pass to jump queues for rides.
The problem, surely, is that the pendulum naturally accelerates.
Person A is bad, and the person who is most in opposition to them gets the gig. This means that it swings even further the other way.
And so on and so forth.
Here's the thing, though. I loathe Jeremy Corbyn, and share exactly no political views with him.
But I'd choose him 100 times out of 100 over Donald J Trump. Because while Corbyn is a antisemite, communist, who would wreck the UK economy, I have no doubt that if the voters rejected him, he would walk away.
The most important requirement for any politician is that they respect the will of the people. DJT has -time and time again- demonstrated he does not.
After Trump was completely vindicated ( his analysis) on Saturday when the Epstein files dropped, Trump explains how he intends to Federalise the midterms. Trump and not the states to manage the count.
Complain the 2026 mid-terms were a fraud to put pressure on federalising the 2028 Presidential Election. He wants to steal that, not for something as lowly as the House/Senate. The plebs don't deserve it.
That's an interesting, and HUGE, paper - I make it about 14k words.
That "left moving further left" comment seems to relate to the USA, not internationally. Given that traditionally the US mainstream has no "left" as the rest of the world would understand it, that seems reasonable, and is a move more into line with the outside world. They analyse in "clusters" (eg "right-leaning"), "dispersion within clusters" (has a cluster stretched), and "separation between clusters" (are different clusters they further apart). From the General Discussion:
In Study 1, analysing polarization levels in the USA from 1988 to 2024, we found clear evidence that polarization has increased, mostly due to a period of continually rising polarization from 2008 to 2020. We see that between-cluster Separation has increased, while within-cluster Dispersion and Equality-of-Size have remained virtually unchanged, meaning that America’s left-leaning cluster and right-leaning cluster have drifted further apart while both remaining internally cohesive and equal in size. Notably, the position of the left-leaning cluster has shifted further to the left since 1988 than the right-leaning cluster has shifted to the right, consistent with US opinion in general moving to the left while becoming more polarized.
I'd recommend a skim at least the abstract, conclusions and discussion.
The US has a problem with identity politics. The individual, and their rights, became subserviant to the group of which they were a member. And that's a dangerous path to go down.
And it is not inaccurate to regard Trumpism as a reaction to it: it's identity politics for the losers from the left's indentity politics.
Now, of course, the US is infused with the legacy of slavery. It still shocks me that -as the slaves were being freed, white European immigrants with no skills were being handed land by the Federal government while those of colour were not.
But we deal with the world as it is, and we must remember that there are plenty of white people who grew up in grinding poverty with no benefit from 'history', and a fair few African Americans who have done very nicely thank you. Your position and advantages are always -and ultimately- unique to you.
The solution is to cast aside identity politics, not to deny the past happened.
People paying good money to have a civilised meal at a smart restaurant should expect to be able to do so without screaming brats running around the place. If children can't behave their parents shouldn't bring them to the restaurant - take them to McDonalds ffs, you know they'd be happier there.
Standards in this country have gone down the pan.
What an unpleasant comment.
It sounds as if they need to organise more than a single dining space.
Labour MPs would be well advised to be wary of acting in haste as it may lead to repenting at leisure. Starmer obviously made a colossal mistake in appointing Mandelson to the USA, but it seems to be forgotten that he did sack him last September. With respect to this week's revelations, he's dealt with them about as well as he could, given the initial error, and has given Mandelson a good bollocking.
Over the last 10 years we've got used to dispensing with PMs rather quickly, but that isn't the historical norm. And it may not be wise to get rid of a PM who won a large majority and has only served 19 months. There are some signs of improvements in the economy and the NHS, and with the other stuff in the pipeline it's quite plausible that there'll be a Labour recovery before the next GE. I guess what I'm arguing is that they (Labour MPs) should be careful what they wish for: there's no obvious replacement, and the electorate may not take kindly to having an unelected PM thrust upon them this soon in the electoral cycle. My advice: take your time, and, if you need to dump Starmer, leave it until 2027.
On the other hand since the runes are suggesting there will not be a Labour PM after 2029, those with ambition to be PM will want to do it now. The only factor is whether they and their backers can organise it in time.
AFAIK the only one with significant backing within the PLP is Rainer.
Some hoo hah about Alton Towers changing the rules for their disability access pass on Facebook. The extensive comments give a clue as to why the country is in the state it's in wrt schools, disability benefits etc imo
There are varied takes on it. I'd probably call it as as PR Cockup with poor processes.
(I'd say they could start lending out shooting sticks for a deposit.)
The wider issue is that society in general has started to make accommodations for ‘disability’, and that these accommodations are being gamed by bad actors, because those making the accommodations have little way of checking eligibility for them.
So we see 40% of kids at Stanford are ‘disabled’, becuase that means they get extra time in tests and single room accommodation, in the UK we see a huge rise in kids taking taxi as to school, or people claiming sickness benefits for mental health issues.
These things all started off with good intent, but have led to perverse outcomes and huge financial costs to both government and companies dealing with the public. It’s also very difficult to row back, because of the risk of lawsuits and public accusations of discrimination.
Alton Towers would be better off offering wheelchairs on demand for disabled customers, and not offering a pass to jump queues for rides.
I would take a slightly more ... nuanced ... line.
Disability has been extended to cover anything where there is a diagnosis.
And a lot of those diagnoses are so minor as to be an irrelevancy.
My son has very poor fine motor skills. It makes his handwriting almost illegible. So he gets special accomodation -and has done since elementary school- to use a laptop to type on, even in public exams.
Being a very rules based society, and the fact he has an 'accomodation' means he is almost certainly tagged as 'diasbled'. But the accomodation is incredibly minor.
Some hoo hah about Alton Towers changing the rules for their disability access pass on Facebook. The extensive comments give a clue as to why the country is in the state it's in wrt schools, disability benefits etc imo
There are varied takes on it. I'd probably call it as as PR Cockup with poor processes.
(I'd say they could start lending out shooting sticks for a deposit.)
The wider issue is that society in general has started to make accommodations for ‘disability’, and that these accommodations are being gamed by bad actors, because those making the accommodations have little way of checking eligibility for them.
So we see 40% of kids at Stanford are ‘disabled’, becuase that means they get extra time in tests and single room accommodation, in the UK we see a huge rise in kids taking taxi as to school, or people claiming sickness benefits for mental health issues.
These things all started off with good intent, but have led to perverse outcomes and huge financial costs to both government and companies dealing with the public. It’s also very difficult to row back, because of the risk of lawsuits and public accusations of discrimination.
Alton Towers would be better off offering wheelchairs on demand for disabled customers, and not offering a pass to jump queues for rides.
Limiting "disabled" to "wheelchair users" is not tenable realistically, practically, or legally.
Here Alton Towers are being insufficiently professionally.
Allowing a disabled person to book a disabled pass, then when they arrive saying "Sorry we gave it to somebody else?". Seriously?
I don't even understand what people think Starmer did wrong on the Mandelson thing. In their wisdom the people of the United States of America elected a mad pedophile scammer who only gets along with other people who are also mad, pedophiles, scammers or multiple of the above. The UK depends for it's security on the United States, a situation made worse by Brexit which happened through no fault of Starmer's.
Negotiating this situation required someone who could get along with the Trump people. They couldn't send someone mad because the whole point is to negotiate this very complicated and delicate mad king situation. Labour isn't exactly overflowing with pedophile scammers who are skilled at negotiation. Who was he supposed to send? Jimmy Saville is already dead.
I don’t know what time of day it is where you are, but it sounds like you need a lie down.
I'm serious, Jimmy Saville is dead. Check it on wikipedia.
Apart from Rory showing his rich man (worth maybe £15-20m) naivety that MPs are "poorly" paid, when they are in the top 2% plus gold plated pensions, and an excellent expenses package.
After Trump was completely vindicated ( his analysis) on Saturday when the Epstein files dropped, Trump explains how he intends to Federalise the midterms. Trump and not the states to manage the count.
Complain the 2026 mid-terms were a fraud to put pressure on federalising the 2028 Presidential Election. He wants to steal that, not for something as lowly as the House/Senate. The plebs don't deserve it.
It's substantially harder to steal the presidential election if the Dems hold the House, statehouses, governorships, various statewide officiating roles and The Senate. Also once he's lost the House he has no hope of passing any legislative changes to federalize state-run elections. I mean, he doesn't have much as it is but it goes from slim to none.
Comments
Negotiating this situation required someone who could get along with the Trump people. They couldn't send someone mad because the whole point is to negotiate this very complicated and delicate mad king situation. Labour isn't exactly overflowing with pedophile scammers who are skilled at negotiation. Who was he supposed to send? Jimmy Saville is already dead.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/snooker/articles/c4g51n3n8v8o
There’s no serious question to which Angela Rayner is the answer. She can’t even run her own house without screwing up the finances, let alone the country.
40% of students at Stanford are now ‘disabled’.
https://x.com/owengregorian/status/2018665259385442690
https://x.com/dkthomp/status/1995899910009626790
https://bsky.app/profile/bretdevereaux.bsky.social/post/3me3j4vyads2y
The reason for the political polarisation of the last decade and a half, is that the left have moved a lot further left in their views.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/2/251428/479919/A-new-measure-of-issue-polarization-using-k-means
https://x.com/kangminjlee/status/2019202512264606035
https://x.com/g_s_bhogal/status/2019047132129272274
This is exactly the reason why. The AI will confidently spout bollocks, as you say it makes up drug names and legal cases then asserts them to be true - which means that as the expert you need to carefully proofread and correct before sending to anyone else.
That "left moving further left" comment seems to relate to the USA, not internationally. Given that traditionally the US mainstream has no "left" as the rest of the world would understand it, that seems reasonable, and is a move more into line with the outside world. They analyse in "clusters" (eg "right-leaning"), "dispersion within clusters" (has a cluster stretched), and "separation between clusters" (are different clusters they further apart). From the General Discussion:
In Study 1, analysing polarization levels in the USA from 1988 to 2024, we found clear evidence that polarization has increased, mostly due to a period of continually rising polarization from 2008 to 2020. We see that between-cluster Separation has increased, while within-cluster Dispersion and Equality-of-Size have remained virtually unchanged, meaning that America’s left-leaning cluster and right-leaning cluster have drifted further apart while both remaining internally cohesive and equal in size. Notably, the position of the left-leaning cluster has shifted further to the left since 1988 than the right-leaning cluster has shifted to the right, consistent with US opinion in general moving to the left while becoming more polarized.
I'd recommend a skim at least the abstract, conclusions and discussion.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/2/251428/479919/A-new-measure-of-issue-polarization-using-k-means
When my physio used an AI secretary for an assessment, he was very careful to explain how his language would change in order to make the machine come up with clinically faithful content.
As an IT/Comms wallah ("Information Systems Engineering"), that is a generalised dialogue whilst still maintaining certain features of what we used to call "structured English" as far back as the 1980s when I was at university; I can't comment on the 1970s. The degree included a fair amount of esoteric topics such as Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing.
(I'd say they could start lending out shooting sticks for a deposit.)
ITVx: Heather Giles has Early Onset Parkinsons disease and pre-booked the passes to Alton Towers but was told on the day there were none left.
https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2024-09-02/i-just-had-to-suffer-disabled-woman-had-to-crawl-along-queue-at-theme-park
GB News: (Who forced them?) Alton Towers forced to ban people with 'anxiety' from using disability queue-jump pass
https://www.gbnews.com/news/alton-towers-anxiety-disability-queue-jump-pass
Telegraph: Theme park changes rules after complaints from visitors with mobility problems over longer ‘fast lane’ queues
Full article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/0482a1089407faa9
So we see 40% of kids at Stanford are ‘disabled’, becuase that means they get extra time in tests and single room accommodation, in the UK we see a huge rise in kids taking taxi as to school, or people claiming sickness benefits for mental health issues.
These things all started off with good intent, but have led to perverse outcomes and huge financial costs to both government and companies dealing with the public. It’s also very difficult to row back, because of the risk of lawsuits and public accusations of discrimination.
Alton Towers would be better off offering wheelchairs on demand for disabled customers, and not offering a pass to jump queues for rides.
£74 million for clean energy upgrades to cut bills for public buildings and create savings for frontline services.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/clean-energy-upgrades-for-hospitals-and-military-sites
Government press release.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/04/peter-mandelson-house-of-lords-second-chamber
Person A is bad, and the person who is most in opposition to them gets the gig. This means that it swings even further the other way.
And so on and so forth.
Here's the thing, though. I loathe Jeremy Corbyn, and share exactly no political views with him.
But I'd choose him 100 times out of 100 over Donald J Trump. Because while Corbyn is a antisemite, communist, who would wreck the UK economy, I have no doubt that if the voters rejected him, he would walk away.
The most important requirement for any politician is that they respect the will of the people. DJT has -time and time again- demonstrated he does not.
The US has a problem with identity politics. The individual, and their rights, became subserviant to the group of which they were a member. And that's a dangerous path to go down.
And it is not inaccurate to regard Trumpism as a reaction to it: it's identity politics for the losers from the left's indentity politics.
Now, of course, the US is infused with the legacy of slavery. It still shocks me that -as the slaves were being freed, white European immigrants with no skills were being handed land by the Federal government while those of colour were not.
But we deal with the world as it is, and we must remember that there are plenty of white people who grew up in grinding poverty with no benefit from 'history', and a fair few African Americans who have done very nicely thank you. Your position and advantages are always -and ultimately- unique to you.
The solution is to cast aside identity politics, not to deny the past happened.
Trick missed.
AFAIK the only one with significant backing within the PLP is Rainer.
Disability has been extended to cover anything where there is a diagnosis.
And a lot of those diagnoses are so minor as to be an irrelevancy.
My son has very poor fine motor skills. It makes his handwriting almost illegible. So he gets special accomodation -and has done since elementary school- to use a laptop to type on, even in public exams.
Being a very rules based society, and the fact he has an 'accomodation' means he is almost certainly tagged as 'diasbled'. But the accomodation is incredibly minor.
Here Alton Towers are being insufficiently professionally.
Allowing a disabled person to book a disabled pass, then when they arrive saying "Sorry we gave it to somebody else?". Seriously?
Apart from Rory showing his rich man (worth maybe £15-20m) naivety that MPs are "poorly" paid, when they are in the top 2% plus gold plated pensions, and an excellent expenses package.