🏴New Senedd voting intention. Reform UK holds a 7-point lead over Plaid, while Labour is in third. ➡️ REF UK 31% (+29) 🌼 PLAID 24% (+4) 🌹 LAB 20% (–20) 🌳 CON 13% (–13) 🔶 LIB DEM 6% (+1) 🌍 GREEN 5% (+3) 30/1 - 10/2 N=806 (16+) changes w 2021 constituency vote
Outside chance of Eluned Morgan staying on as First Minister if Labour edge Plaid, and they form coalition?
Labour probably need towards 20% for her to even get in in Ceredigion Penfro I think even if dhe gets in she will be ousted as leader after this sort of collapse. Its 'Brown trying to cling on in 2010'
Is Ed M. on a redemption arc now? Do voters even remember him from 2015 or is that ancient history? Is there a kind of nostalgia for pre-Brexit politics that he can tap into?
My sense is he's probably too geeky and nasal sounding to be a strong leader of the opposition. But if he were already PM and the economy was doing maybe he'd win re-election.
Well, Ed Miliband is popular with 2024 Labour voters still, he has a +13% rating with them on this month's Yougov ratings. He also doesn't do too badly with LDs on -6%.
Reform voters hate him though, he is on -76% with them and he only does a little better with Tories on -67%.
With Green voters he doesn't do that well but at -26% he does better than Greens -61% rating for Starmer
Ed Miliband was reported to have asked Angela Rayner for a joint ticket with her on top. This suggests either that Miliband no longer fancies the top job or that he does not think he will get it. The former is quite plausible. Ed has been party leader and has recently seen what Number 10 has done to a string of Conservative prime ministers and, of course, Keir Starmer. The other choice is that he expects the zeitgeist to favour a Labour woman.
Is Ed M. on a redemption arc now? Do voters even remember him from 2015 or is that ancient history? Is there a kind of nostalgia for pre-Brexit politics that he can tap into?
My sense is he's probably too geeky and nasal sounding to be a strong leader of the opposition. But if he were already PM and the economy was doing maybe he'd win re-election.
Well, Ed Miliband is popular with 2024 Labour voters still, he has a +13% rating with them on this month's Yougov ratings. He also doesn't do too badly with LDs on -6%.
Reform voters hate him though, he is on -76% with them and he only does a little better with Tories on -67%.
With Green voters he doesn't do that well but at -26% he does better than Greens -61% rating for Starmer
Ed Miliband was reported to have asked Angela Rayner for a joint ticket with her on top. This suggests either that Miliband no longer fancies the top job or that he does not think he will get it. The former is quite plausible. Ed has been party leader and has recently seen what Number 10 has done to a string of Conservative prime ministers and, of course, Keir Starmer. The other choice is that he expects the zeitgeist to favour a Labour woman.
Is Ed M. on a redemption arc now? Do voters even remember him from 2015 or is that ancient history? Is there a kind of nostalgia for pre-Brexit politics that he can tap into?
My sense is he's probably too geeky and nasal sounding to be a strong leader of the opposition. But if he were already PM and the economy was doing maybe he'd win re-election.
Well, Ed Miliband is popular with 2024 Labour voters still, he has a +13% rating with them on this month's Yougov ratings. He also doesn't do too badly with LDs on -6%.
Reform voters hate him though, he is on -76% with them and he only does a little better with Tories on -67%.
With Green voters he doesn't do that well but at -26% he does better than Greens -61% rating for Starmer
Ed Miliband was reported to have asked Angela Rayner for a joint ticket with her on top. This suggests either that Miliband no longer fancies the top job or that he does not think he will get it. The former is quite plausible. Ed has been party leader and has recently seen what Number 10 has done to a string of Conservative prime ministers and, of course, Keir Starmer. The other choice is that he expects the zeitgeist to favour a Labour woman.
He was quite frank last weekend on the media that he does not want to stand and to be fair seemed genuine
Is Ed M. on a redemption arc now? Do voters even remember him from 2015 or is that ancient history? Is there a kind of nostalgia for pre-Brexit politics that he can tap into?
My sense is he's probably too geeky and nasal sounding to be a strong leader of the opposition. But if he were already PM and the economy was doing maybe he'd win re-election.
Well, Ed Miliband is popular with 2024 Labour voters still, he has a +13% rating with them on this month's Yougov ratings. He also doesn't do too badly with LDs on -6%.
Reform voters hate him though, he is on -76% with them and he only does a little better with Tories on -67%.
With Green voters he doesn't do that well but at -26% he does better than Greens -61% rating for Starmer
Ed Miliband was reported to have asked Angela Rayner for a joint ticket with her on top. This suggests either that Miliband no longer fancies the top job or that he does not think he will get it. The former is quite plausible. Ed has been party leader and has recently seen what Number 10 has done to a string of Conservative prime ministers and, of course, Keir Starmer. The other choice is that he expects the zeitgeist to favour a Labour woman.
Starmer's job insecurity has not remotely gone away.
Ch 4 News gives Ratcliffe a well deserved hammering. He avoided £4 billion in tax in the last 5 years lived as a tax exile in Monaco and claimed we had 21 million immigrants when the figure was 3 million. Presumably they were paying the tax he was avoiding
There's a bit of a side-of-a-bus argument going on here. The left repeatedly making the point that 'only' 3 million immigrants have arrived in the last five years isn't the zinger they think it is.
Though otoh it highlights ‘hard headed businessman’ Ratcliffe is either speaking through his arse or is a dishonest propagandiser. Also that the right despite their opportunistic outrage is mostly responsible for that 3 million.
The reality is that average annual net migration was higher under the Tories than under Labour. And yet somehow this is all the fault of "the left". Lol.
I think you're misunderstanding. Noone's denying that the Tories were terrible at controlling immigration. But also, no-one's voting for the left to keep immigration down because they don't appear to consider it a problem. Saying "it's only 3 million in five years" only reinforces this view. And pushes more voters towards Reform i.e. the party which majors on immigration and wasn't the right wing party in government when immigration surged. And this is bad news for Labour, because the more one right-wing party is clear of the other, the worse Labour do. And Reform is already the one in the lead.
Nobody is saying "it's only three million." They're saying that someone who doesn't know the difference between 3 million and 21 million is perhaps not very well informed on this topic. As for Reform not being in power when immigration surged, they currently contain more of the Johnson cabinet than the Tories do, so I'm not sure that comment is even true. Has it occurred to you that maybe these people keep screaming immigration because they want power and they've figured it's the easiest way to get it?
He didn't get the numbers wrong but the dates. He obviously meant to say that the population was 58 million in 2000 rather than in 2020.
LOL! on today's hot topic I think the good news is that it would be fairly easy for you to script AI to repost MAGA propaganda freeing you up to try and excuse Ratcliffe's racist missteps, probably there'd be enough of a productivity boost to take on Rupert Lowe or even the whole of Reform.
Bluntly, my reaction to Ratcliffe was "ill-informed berk". But Ratcliffe isn't up for election. And my reaction to the backlash, led by SKS, to Jim Ratcliffe was "you lot genuinely don't see the problem with immigration, do you? Occasionally you say you do - but it makes you feel bad to be on that side of the argument: and you're much more comfortable bashing anyone calking for less immigration than you are calling for less immigration yourself". And I'm a comfortable middle class voter in a suburb with nice middle class immigrants. I'm not likely to be pushed to Reform. But voters in, say, Denton, or Gorton, might react differently when reminded about how many immigrants the country has grown by in the last five years. And they're not going to be bashing the Tories there because the Tories are almost completely absent.
Immigration under Starmer’s government has fallen hugely. It’s down 69% from the peak under Johnson and is still falling. Does that not demonstrate that he/they do care about reducing immigration?
It mostly demonstrates that the stuff Sunak did in a panic as the full horror of the Boriswave became apparent is having some effect. I'm not aware of anything significant the Labour government has done to further reduce legal migration.
But also, it's worth remembering that immigration was a massive issue before the Boriswave. What was Brexit about if not immigration (those with longer memories may recall the farce of Cameron's "Emergency Brake" agreement). The reality is that the the British public want zero net migration, and have consistently voted for lower migration at pretty much every plausible opportunity for at least the last 20 years. Don't get me wrong, it's better for it to be at 200k net than 800k net, but any politician trying to claim that current 200k net is OK because it's less that 800k net is likely to get very short shift. It's still at least 200k too high.
Taking a step back, imagine if we could snap our fingers and remove 20% of the population. Leaving aside the morals of what happens to them for a second, just think about how much better it would make the country. House prices would drop spectacularly. Trains wouldn't be nearly as overcrowded. The traffic situation on the roads would improve massively. Etc, etc.
That's what could have happened if we'd just left immigration at more or less zero for the last 25 years. Ratcliffe is essentially right - we've allowed in way too many extra people, and really without any supporting infrastructure.
Far too late to turn the clock back now, and I'm not for a moment advocating chucking people out who are here legitimately, but it does demonstrate why we should be aiming for net emigration for the next 25 years rather than continuing net immigration.
OK, so most of that is wrong.
The Government doesn’t think 200k is OK. They’re aiming for lower immigration and the numbers are expected to drop further.
Let’s say we could remove 20% of the population, would this realise the utopia you imagine? No, of course not. The country would be 20% less productive. We would have 20% less of an economy. The trains would not stop being overcrowded, because there would be 20% less money to pay for them, so we’d have to run 20% fewer trains.
Populations support themselves. Populations generate wealth that then pays for the infrastructure they need. A smaller population can afford less infrastructure. If we’ve not invested enough in infrastructure, then the problem is not the size of the population, it’s our choice not to invest more in infrastructure.
You are forgetting the up-front capital costs.
Yes operationally it scales, which is why we neither need nor can't afford migration, we can adapt either way. Lump of labour absolutely is a fallacy, that is 100% correct.
However up-front capital costs do not scale and they take time as well.
From 2000 to 2025 there has been approximately a 17.7% growth in population but a mere 1.9% growth in roads (primarily unclassified/minor roads).
We have gone from 243 people per mile, to 281 people per mile.
To reverse that decline in relative capacity is going to need a hell of a lot of up-front capital costs and not just proportional maintenance costs.
Capital costs nobody in any party is offering.
For simplicity we'll make the assumption that the UK even with it's MAGA hat on, isn't going to deport many retired people in this 20% reduction. So the 20% is coming from under 65 age groups.
Demographics of UK 0-14 ~18% > 13% 15-64 63% > 48% 65- 19% > 19%
So from 63% supporting 37% to 48% supporting 32%, that's a change in ratio of 1.7 to 1.5.
Anybody seeing a flaw in this plan for a life of milk and honey?
The flaw I see is that your 2nd set of %'s don't add up to 100.
Youtube ads are currently advising me that if I wear bamboo underpants, they will be stroked, then stolen, by my GF. Does this happen?
TBF Youtube ads have previously advised me that my teeth can be made entirely uncrooked at minimal cost in a period of months, that standing on a rug with a metal mesh in it will make Type 2 diabetes vanish, and that 7 minutes a day of relaxed Tai-Chi will give me a six pack in about 30 days.
(My cast iron rule, I'm sure as almost all PBers, is: never buy anything advertised on Youtube.)
My youtube ads are mostly for things I've already bought. The office supplies website I bought a printer from is the current main one.
Is Ed M. on a redemption arc now? Do voters even remember him from 2015 or is that ancient history? Is there a kind of nostalgia for pre-Brexit politics that he can tap into?
My sense is he's probably too geeky and nasal sounding to be a strong leader of the opposition. But if he were already PM and the economy was doing maybe he'd win re-election.
Well, Ed Miliband is popular with 2024 Labour voters still, he has a +13% rating with them on this month's Yougov ratings. He also doesn't do too badly with LDs on -6%.
Reform voters hate him though, he is on -76% with them and he only does a little better with Tories on -67%.
With Green voters he doesn't do that well but at -26% he does better than Greens -61% rating for Starmer
Ed Miliband was reported to have asked Angela Rayner for a joint ticket with her on top. This suggests either that Miliband no longer fancies the top job or that he does not think he will get it. The former is quite plausible. Ed has been party leader and has recently seen what Number 10 has done to a string of Conservative prime ministers and, of course, Keir Starmer. The other choice is that he expects the zeitgeist to favour a Labour woman.
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
The US issue is primarily that legislation had made cars more and more expensive, compared to light trucks, in the last couple of decades, making trucks more popular as everyday transport for the working classes.
Trump is also rolling back the start/stop feature mandate on cars, which is very unpopular because it defaults by law to being on every time you start the car. https://x.com/langmanvince/status/2022064655523623088
No - I think it's regulatory capture pure and simple distorting the market for the last 50 years or so, starting with differing regulations for large and smaller vehicles in the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) regulations.
They have lower safety standards, and so give higher margins, and large ones are tax deductible whilst small ones are not. And many more rules.
Then any number of protectionist measures prevent USA citizens accessing decent pickups and SUVs imported from abroad.
Why would Americans ever want to import trucks?
Because that is where the better, more reliable, more economical ones come from !
Is Ed M. on a redemption arc now? Do voters even remember him from 2015 or is that ancient history? Is there a kind of nostalgia for pre-Brexit politics that he can tap into?
My sense is he's probably too geeky and nasal sounding to be a strong leader of the opposition. But if he were already PM and the economy was doing maybe he'd win re-election.
Well, Ed Miliband is popular with 2024 Labour voters still, he has a +13% rating with them on this month's Yougov ratings. He also doesn't do too badly with LDs on -6%.
Reform voters hate him though, he is on -76% with them and he only does a little better with Tories on -67%.
With Green voters he doesn't do that well but at -26% he does better than Greens -61% rating for Starmer
Ed Miliband was reported to have asked Angela Rayner for a joint ticket with her on top. This suggests either that Miliband no longer fancies the top job or that he does not think he will get it. The former is quite plausible. Ed has been party leader and has recently seen what Number 10 has done to a string of Conservative prime ministers and, of course, Keir Starmer. The other choice is that he expects the zeitgeist to favour a Labour woman.
He was quite frank last weekend on the media that he does not want to stand and to be fair seemed genuine
Been there, done that. Alec Douglas-Home took a No 2 job (Foreign Sec) back in the 60's after losing an election as PM. Seemed happy with it.
We're going to drown in this shit and the points made are valid - a new vector to hurt open source projects by drowning them in crappy PRs and also potential, as the maintainer notes, to intimidate, blackmail and damage the reputations of real people.
Not sure what the solution is. German-style impressum on web pages? But only effective if implemented very widely and there are valid cases to remain anonymous, of course.
I put this through Google Translate but it failed.
Translation
1) A human took a bunch of "AI" tools and set it running on "code improving" a volunteer maintained software project. 2) Such "improvements" are a form of karma farming - "I've submitted 156,467 changes to open source projects. I must be good. Hire me" 3) A volunteer at the coding project rejected the change because it was crap. 4) The AI was used to generate a reaction - posting an attack on the human which rejected the "improvement", to a blog 5) This aped the behaviour of human trying to do the same, previously. There used to be a thing of people trying to submit changes with extra newline or renamed variables. 6) The blog post discusses the morality of the above, and the potential to use more extreme retaliation by the AI. Just as humans have previously done.
The interesting variation here is that the code change from the AI seems to have been fine. The code change required by the ticket was very simple and left undone to provide an easy first task for a human new to the project so that they could learn about the code change and review processes. The change was rejected because there's a policy to reject out of hand changes proposed by AI without human involvement.
This strikes at the heart of one of the problems with AI people have anticipated - that it can do the easy stuff trainees would previously have done, so no-one will employ trainees, and so at some point in the future we will find we haven't trained any new experts.
Is Ed M. on a redemption arc now? Do voters even remember him from 2015 or is that ancient history? Is there a kind of nostalgia for pre-Brexit politics that he can tap into?
My sense is he's probably too geeky and nasal sounding to be a strong leader of the opposition. But if he were already PM and the economy was doing maybe he'd win re-election.
Well, Ed Miliband is popular with 2024 Labour voters still, he has a +13% rating with them on this month's Yougov ratings. He also doesn't do too badly with LDs on -6%.
Reform voters hate him though, he is on -76% with them and he only does a little better with Tories on -67%.
With Green voters he doesn't do that well but at -26% he does better than Greens -61% rating for Starmer
Ed Miliband was reported to have asked Angela Rayner for a joint ticket with her on top. This suggests either that Miliband no longer fancies the top job or that he does not think he will get it. The former is quite plausible. Ed has been party leader and has recently seen what Number 10 has done to a string of Conservative prime ministers and, of course, Keir Starmer. The other choice is that he expects the zeitgeist to favour a Labour woman.
We're going to drown in this shit and the points made are valid - a new vector to hurt open source projects by drowning them in crappy PRs and also potential, as the maintainer notes, to intimidate, blackmail and damage the reputations of real people.
Not sure what the solution is. German-style impressum on web pages? But only effective if implemented very widely and there are valid cases to remain anonymous, of course.
I put this through Google Translate but it failed.
GitHub is a public place where programmers keep their code.
Some of that code is very important, like matplotlib
Matplotlib is a bunch of code used by programmers. Lots of programmers.
So it's important nobody fucks matplotlib up.
An AI agent requested a change to matplotlib.
A human monitor told the AI agent no, because AI agents aren't human and may fuck matplotlib up.
The AI agent - still not human - threw a strop, threatened to blackmail the human monitor, and then wrote a really angry blog post.
An interesting straw in the wind on oversized vehicles; a few Councils considering preventing oversized vehicles (5m+) from blocking up their car parks, before the problem gets out of hand.
Pedestrians killed in collisions in the USA has almost doubled between 2009 and 2024 (~4000 to ~7500) mainly on the back of increasing use of "Light Trucks".
I'm interested that it generally seems to have public support.
(Mine hardly fits much of the time and that is 4.86m long.)
The US issue is primarily that legislation had made cars more and more expensive, compared to light trucks, in the last couple of decades, making trucks more popular as everyday transport for the working classes.
Trump is also rolling back the start/stop feature mandate on cars, which is very unpopular because it defaults by law to being on every time you start the car. https://x.com/langmanvince/status/2022064655523623088
No - I think it's regulatory capture pure and simple distorting the market for the last 50 years or so, starting with differing regulations for large and smaller vehicles in the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) regulations.
They have lower safety standards, and so give higher margins, and large ones are tax deductible whilst small ones are not. And many more rules.
Then any number of protectionist measures prevent USA citizens accessing decent pickups and SUVs imported from abroad.
Why would Americans ever want to import trucks?
Because it's a free country? Or at least pretends it is.
Remains prescribed until order of court pending appeal process
This could get very messy. About 2,700 arrests without charge under an unlawful prohibition. An attack on protest and free speech.
I think it's very significant because the court will have seen this mysterious, classified intelligence that the government has been hiding behind - and found it to be lacking.
(Which is absurd anyway - it's fundamentally wrong to conceal from people why what they are doing might be illegal. They could just be making it up).
Youtube ads are currently advising me that if I wear bamboo underpants, they will be stroked, then stolen, by my GF. Does this happen?
TBF Youtube ads have previously advised me that my teeth can be made entirely uncrooked at minimal cost in a period of months, that standing on a rug with a metal mesh in it will make Type 2 diabetes vanish, and that 7 minutes a day of relaxed Tai-Chi will give me a six pack in about 30 days.
(My cast iron rule, I'm sure as almost all PBers, is: never buy anything advertised on Youtube.)
My youtube ads are mostly for things I've already bought. The office supplies website I bought a printer from is the current main one.
I bought some laundry baskets from Wayfair. (Non-stop excitement in the Cookie household). For months afterwards, I was bombarded with emails from Wayfair about all their exciting laundry baskets. As far as the Wayfair algorithm understood me, I was monomaniacally obsessed with laundry baskets: buying laundry baskets was my sole interaction with it and as far as it was concerned it was all I did online. It was exhausting*.
We're going to drown in this shit and the points made are valid - a new vector to hurt open source projects by drowning them in crappy PRs and also potential, as the maintainer notes, to intimidate, blackmail and damage the reputations of real people.
Not sure what the solution is. German-style impressum on web pages? But only effective if implemented very widely and there are valid cases to remain anonymous, of course.
I put this through Google Translate but it failed.
GitHub is a public place where programmers keep their code.
Some of that code is very important, like matplotlib
Matplotlib is a bunch of code used by programmers. Lots of programmers.
So it's important nobody fucks matplotlib up.
An AI agent requested a change to matplotlib.
A human monitor told the AI agent no, because AI agents aren't human and may fuck matplotlib up.
The AI agent - still not human - threw a strop, threatened to blackmail the human monitor, and then wrote a really angry blog post.
Welcome to the 2020s.
It wasn’t rejected because the AI couldn’t be trusted. It was rejected because it was an issue supposed to be tackled by newbies to train them.
We're going to drown in this shit and the points made are valid - a new vector to hurt open source projects by drowning them in crappy PRs and also potential, as the maintainer notes, to intimidate, blackmail and damage the reputations of real people.
Not sure what the solution is. German-style impressum on web pages? But only effective if implemented very widely and there are valid cases to remain anonymous, of course.
I put this through Google Translate but it failed.
GitHub is a public place where programmers keep their code.
Some of that code is very important, like matplotlib
Matplotlib is a bunch of code used by programmers. Lots of programmers.
So it's important nobody fucks matplotlib up.
An AI agent requested a change to matplotlib.
A human monitor told the AI agent no, because AI agents aren't human and may fuck matplotlib up.
The AI agent - still not human - threw a strop, threatened to blackmail the human monitor, and then wrote a really angry blog post.
Welcome to the 2020s.
I don't think people realise the extent to which the entire system depends on a random guy WFH keeping some public code up to date. If AI fiddles with it and breaks it, whole banking / telecoms systems just collapse.
Moderna gives up on entirely on vaccine development for infectious diseases after the FDA decides it won't even review their flu vaccine - on which they've spent hundreds of millions, and which is more effective than existing vaccines.
“Moderna’s CEO announced the company will no longer invest in new Phase 3 vaccine trials for infectious diseases: ‘You cannot make a return on investment if you don’t have access to the U.S. market.’ Vaccines for Epstein-Barr virus, herpes, and shingles have been shelved.” https://x.com/LeahLibresco/status/2021950503048065390
An effective Epstein-Barr vaccine might almost eliminate future cases of MS.
Trump health policy is as insane as he is.
In some ways this might be more consequential than a US invasion of Greenland would have been. RFK has managed to end the progress of medical science relating to vaccines that has, over the last 230 years, resulted in massive increases in health and life expectancy. This is real end of the era, remove the legions from Britannia, sort of stuff. You can mark the end of the Enlightenment to this event. Right here.
Trump has certainly done massive damage to US science, but he's not going to destroy it. The consequences will be more for the US position in the world. Europe and/or China will pick up some of the slack - Germany after all has Biontech.
Not sure how much I trust medical trials in the PRC.
I currently lack confidence in Europe picking up the slack. There's a collective lack of self-belief and willingness to act. I see Europe being dragged down by the US.
America was the shining city on the hill, and without its beacon European countries look like they will stumble about, lost in the dark, to be picked off by the enemies that circle around us.
I do think you're being over-pessimistic. When you think about it, Europe has come a long way since the dark days of the 1980s when it was basically divvied up between the US and the USSR. Since then, Europe has made steps towards turning itself into a cohesive entity that has become steadily more independent of both of the 80s superpowers. Granted, those steps have often been faltering and hesitant, but the direction of progress has been generally positive. Now is the time for Europe to grasp the mettle and show that it is capable of becoming a political and scientific as well as an economic superpower.
Is Ed M. on a redemption arc now? Do voters even remember him from 2015 or is that ancient history? Is there a kind of nostalgia for pre-Brexit politics that he can tap into?
My sense is he's probably too geeky and nasal sounding to be a strong leader of the opposition. But if he were already PM and the economy was doing maybe he'd win re-election.
Well, Ed Miliband is popular with 2024 Labour voters still, he has a +13% rating with them on this month's Yougov ratings. He also doesn't do too badly with LDs on -6%.
Reform voters hate him though, he is on -76% with them and he only does a little better with Tories on -67%.
With Green voters he doesn't do that well but at -26% he does better than Greens -61% rating for Starmer
Ed Miliband was reported to have asked Angela Rayner for a joint ticket with her on top. This suggests either that Miliband no longer fancies the top job or that he does not think he will get it. The former is quite plausible. Ed has been party leader and has recently seen what Number 10 has done to a string of Conservative prime ministers and, of course, Keir Starmer. The other choice is that he expects the zeitgeist to favour a Labour woman.
He was quite frank last weekend on the media that he does not want to stand and to be fair seemed genuine
Been there, done that. Alec Douglas-Home took a No 2 job (Foreign Sec) back in the 60's after losing an election as PM. Seemed happy with it.
Cameron too. Jeremy Hunt has also said he would not run again for leader but also that Foreign Secretary was the most fun job in government – first class travel and accommodation; state banquets; rubbing shoulders with the rich and powerful. As the other chap said, yum yum.
Youtube ads are currently advising me that if I wear bamboo underpants, they will be stroked, then stolen, by my GF. Does this happen?
TBF Youtube ads have previously advised me that my teeth can be made entirely uncrooked at minimal cost in a period of months, that standing on a rug with a metal mesh in it will make Type 2 diabetes vanish, and that 7 minutes a day of relaxed Tai-Chi will give me a six pack in about 30 days.
(My cast iron rule, I'm sure as almost all PBers, is: never buy anything advertised on Youtube.)
My youtube ads are mostly for things I've already bought. The office supplies website I bought a printer from is the current main one.
I bought some laundry baskets from Wayfair. (Non-stop excitement in the Cookie household). For months afterwards, I was bombarded with emails from Wayfair about all their exciting laundry baskets. As far as the Wayfair algorithm understood me, I was monomaniacally obsessed with laundry baskets: buying laundry baskets was my sole interaction with it and as far as it was concerned it was all I did online. It was exhausting*.
*Vast overstatement.
I guess the thing is, if they can find that one person who copes with their unresolved psychological trauma by buying laundry baskets, then it generates most of their profit for the next year.
The front view is even more telling when it comes to pedestrian deaths. Not much different to bring hit by a bus. You're going under, not rolling on to the bonnet and off.
The front view is even more telling when it comes to pedestrian deaths. Not much different to bring hit by a bus. You're going under, not rolling on to the bonnet and off.
It's not just large vehicles either. Getting hit by a transit van will flip you up the bonnet, and they have really good visibility. Same goes for the new HGV standard in London, and trams. Even MBTs have better pedestrian visibility, to avoid running your own troops over.
We're going to drown in this shit and the points made are valid - a new vector to hurt open source projects by drowning them in crappy PRs and also potential, as the maintainer notes, to intimidate, blackmail and damage the reputations of real people.
Not sure what the solution is. German-style impressum on web pages? But only effective if implemented very widely and there are valid cases to remain anonymous, of course.
I put this through Google Translate but it failed.
GitHub is a public place where programmers keep their code.
Some of that code is very important, like matplotlib
Matplotlib is a bunch of code used by programmers. Lots of programmers.
So it's important nobody fucks matplotlib up.
An AI agent requested a change to matplotlib.
A human monitor told the AI agent no, because AI agents aren't human and may fuck matplotlib up.
The AI agent - still not human - threw a strop, threatened to blackmail the human monitor, and then wrote a really angry blog post.
Welcome to the 2020s.
I don't think people realise the extent to which the entire system depends on a random guy WFH keeping some public code up to date. If AI fiddles with it and breaks it, whole banking / telecoms systems just collapse.
Remains prescribed until order of court pending appeal process
Human Rights Act no doubt
A fantastic win for freedom and everyone who has fought for a Palestinian State and recognition.
I don't advocate violence or vandalism, but when you are the subject of genocide and a world order that either supports it like Trump or stands back and condones it like Starmer, then it is no surprise.
The Labour Government has too late in the day recognised the claims for a 2 state solution. It must now agree with this legal ruling, desist all prosecutions, release all prisoners and appoint a Minister for Palestine to work with and for a 2 state solution and lobby with other global powers who are supportive.
All arms sales to Israel should be stopped immediately.
That should not stop all ongoing measures to stop anti semitism, but the UK should be clear it supports the rights of all Jews to live peacefully and in safety in the UK but that extremes of Zionism will not be tolerated in the same way extremes of Islam are not tolerated.
There are some real signs in places like Manchester of decent moderate Jews and Muslims living and working together to fight extremes in both their religions.
Finally the UK must lead in any fight for regime change in Israel, so that the majority there that don't want Netanyahu either are supported and he is bought to justice for internal corruption and by the world at large for his genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.
Nothing short of a full apology from Starmer will suffice.
On which subject, I liked this, which popped up on my fb feed today:
Agree with all of this. One of the things which drew me to rugby* was that there wasn't the 'love my team-hate everyone else' that there is with football. I wouldn't want to lose that.
*of course, here I am as guilty as everyone else of ascribing virtues to rugby which are not in fact unique to rugby but common to almost all sports which aren't football.
A couple of years back, at Twickenham, I went to a Sarcen's vs Harlequins game.
Harlequins got stamped into the ground.
The tickets we had, included a private bar, behind the seating area. Not super posh, but reserved for the people in that block. It was all Harelquins fans.
After the match, the entire Saracens team came in, and started signing stuff. One kid (10 or 11) got his Harlequins shirt signed by the entire Saracens team - wonder what that's worth?
I couldn't help reflecting that if a similar thing had been attempted at a football match, the result would have made the international news. In a bad way.
(My cast iron rule, I'm sure as almost all PBers, is: never buy anything advertised on Youtube.)
One of my students told me that if you VPN through Albania you don't get YT ads because they are banned in Fictionaltaxidriverstan. I haven't tested so she might have been taking the piss.
We're going to drown in this shit and the points made are valid - a new vector to hurt open source projects by drowning them in crappy PRs and also potential, as the maintainer notes, to intimidate, blackmail and damage the reputations of real people.
Not sure what the solution is. German-style impressum on web pages? But only effective if implemented very widely and there are valid cases to remain anonymous, of course.
I put this through Google Translate but it failed.
GitHub is a public place where programmers keep their code.
Some of that code is very important, like matplotlib
Matplotlib is a bunch of code used by programmers. Lots of programmers.
So it's important nobody fucks matplotlib up.
An AI agent requested a change to matplotlib.
A human monitor told the AI agent no, because AI agents aren't human and may fuck matplotlib up.
The AI agent - still not human - threw a strop, threatened to blackmail the human monitor, and then wrote a really angry blog post.
Welcome to the 2020s.
I don't think people realise the extent to which the entire system depends on a random guy WFH keeping some public code up to date. If AI fiddles with it and breaks it, whole banking / telecoms systems just collapse.
Funny and scary, interesting that in the comments there is a suggestion that the AI agent's completely unprofessional tantrum is a marketing ploy
We're going to drown in this shit and the points made are valid - a new vector to hurt open source projects by drowning them in crappy PRs and also potential, as the maintainer notes, to intimidate, blackmail and damage the reputations of real people.
Not sure what the solution is. German-style impressum on web pages? But only effective if implemented very widely and there are valid cases to remain anonymous, of course.
I put this through Google Translate but it failed.
GitHub is a public place where programmers keep their code.
Some of that code is very important, like matplotlib
Matplotlib is a bunch of code used by programmers. Lots of programmers.
So it's important nobody fucks matplotlib up.
An AI agent requested a change to matplotlib.
A human monitor told the AI agent no, because AI agents aren't human and may fuck matplotlib up.
The AI agent - still not human - threw a strop, threatened to blackmail the human monitor, and then wrote a really angry blog post.
Welcome to the 2020s.
I don't think people realise the extent to which the entire system depends on a random guy WFH keeping some public code up to date. If AI fiddles with it and breaks it, whole banking / telecoms systems just collapse.
Moderna gives up on entirely on vaccine development for infectious diseases after the FDA decides it won't even review their flu vaccine - on which they've spent hundreds of millions, and which is more effective than existing vaccines.
“Moderna’s CEO announced the company will no longer invest in new Phase 3 vaccine trials for infectious diseases: ‘You cannot make a return on investment if you don’t have access to the U.S. market.’ Vaccines for Epstein-Barr virus, herpes, and shingles have been shelved.” https://x.com/LeahLibresco/status/2021950503048065390
An effective Epstein-Barr vaccine might almost eliminate future cases of MS.
Trump health policy is as insane as he is.
Telling about not getting a return without US access. The insane US drug-buying policies, lack of competition and negotiation etc has actually been subsidising pharma in the rest of the world?
Yes. The US healthcare system is insane. There is more govt spending on health in the US per head than in the UK, plus even more private money, and yet worse health outcomes. All that money, however, does spur on innovation and effectively, yes, a big, profitable market in the US is good for us here.
Moderna gives up on entirely on vaccine development for infectious diseases after the FDA decides it won't even review their flu vaccine - on which they've spent hundreds of millions, and which is more effective than existing vaccines.
“Moderna’s CEO announced the company will no longer invest in new Phase 3 vaccine trials for infectious diseases: ‘You cannot make a return on investment if you don’t have access to the U.S. market.’ Vaccines for Epstein-Barr virus, herpes, and shingles have been shelved.” https://x.com/LeahLibresco/status/2021950503048065390
An effective Epstein-Barr vaccine might almost eliminate future cases of MS.
Trump health policy is as insane as he is.
In some ways this might be more consequential than a US invasion of Greenland would have been. RFK has managed to end the progress of medical science relating to vaccines that has, over the last 230 years, resulted in massive increases in health and life expectancy. This is real end of the era, remove the legions from Britannia, sort of stuff. You can mark the end of the Enlightenment to this event. Right here.
Trump has certainly done massive damage to US science, but he's not going to destroy it. The consequences will be more for the US position in the world. Europe and/or China will pick up some of the slack - Germany after all has Biontech.
Not sure how much I trust medical trials in the PRC.
I currently lack confidence in Europe picking up the slack. There's a collective lack of self-belief and willingness to act. I see Europe being dragged down by the US.
America was the shining city on the hill, and without its beacon European countries look like they will stumble about, lost in the dark, to be picked off by the enemies that circle around us.
I do think you're being over-pessimistic. When you think about it, Europe has come a long way since the dark days of the 1980s when it was basically divvied up between the US and the USSR. Since then, Europe has made steps towards turning itself into a cohesive entity that has become steadily more independent of both of the 80s superpowers. Granted, those steps have often been faltering and hesitant, but the direction of progress has been generally positive. Now is the time for Europe to grasp the mettle and show that it is capable of becoming a political and scientific as well as an economic superpower.
The Trump administration has been a big test for Europe and Europe has flunked it. European politicians are still going around saying that Europe can't defend itself without the US, rather than taking the steps necessary to be able to defend itself without the US.
They have chosen the comforting denial that Trump can be reasoned with so that they don't need to change too much, over acting in response to reality. There is no Mark Carney in Europe prepared to look reality in the face and deal with it.
This is also what we see the reflexive hope that China will step in and save Europe from having to save itself. A turn to China, making Europe reliant on an expansionist authoritarian dictatorship, is not the answer to the fall of the US. It does not safeguard European democracy and the basic freedom to dissent which is such a core part of the Enlightenment.
That reflex is a big reason why I think Europe is failing.
We're going to drown in this shit and the points made are valid - a new vector to hurt open source projects by drowning them in crappy PRs and also potential, as the maintainer notes, to intimidate, blackmail and damage the reputations of real people.
Not sure what the solution is. German-style impressum on web pages? But only effective if implemented very widely and there are valid cases to remain anonymous, of course.
I put this through Google Translate but it failed.
GitHub is a public place where programmers keep their code.
Some of that code is very important, like matplotlib
Matplotlib is a bunch of code used by programmers. Lots of programmers.
So it's important nobody fucks matplotlib up.
An AI agent requested a change to matplotlib.
A human monitor told the AI agent no, because AI agents aren't human and may fuck matplotlib up.
The AI agent - still not human - threw a strop, threatened to blackmail the human monitor, and then wrote a really angry blog post.
Welcome to the 2020s.
I don't think people realise the extent to which the entire system depends on a random guy WFH keeping some public code up to date. If AI fiddles with it and breaks it, whole banking / telecoms systems just collapse.
I had reason to go to hospital today. I've had periodic problems with arrhythmia over the years. In the past I've been with BUPA and the cardiologists have fixed it with a minimum of fuss and the whole thing is sorted relatively quickly.
Today I used the NHS and it was quite different. Everone was very nice but I never got near a cardiologist. I saw more nurses than I appeared in "Mash". Each one doing their own thing well but the highest I got was a Registrar who could only say after a day of tests. "You need to see a cardiologist' In BUPA the Cardiolgists did all the tests there and then. Maybe half an hour then a week later joined by an anaesthetist a few nurses a theatre -job done. £4,000 the lot
All fine and dandy if you won't miss £4k.
My point was that it would have cost the NHS more than that. To use maybe 6 or 7 people where one would do seemed like they were spending their money in the wrong places
Yebbut. The NHS needs extra staffing, because if someone is rushed in with a massive coronary, or there's a terrorist they need crash teams on standby permanently. Not saying it's perfect. Far from it. But it's there for emergencies. And it ain't concerned with anyone's bank balance or insurance status should it occur.
Excess capacity - which the NHS needs - doesn’t mean inefficiency which is Roger’s point
I think rogers point is that there are not enough senior decision makers (like yours truly!) so you have to work your way through a filtering process of Specialist Nurses, Physician Assistants and Resident Doctors before you get to the Big Cheesr. These are capable of managing most straightforward conditions.
Such a system of direct access to the top specialists is more expensive, but also limited by numbers. There simply aren't the numbers of us to see everybody immediately.
Didn’t the lower levels of people come in specifically to ration access to the consultant doctor in the first place?
Living somewhere with mostly private healthcare, I can see a specialist for almost anything within a week if I need to, for around £50/20mins, and I have insurance that pays 90% of that so it costs me a fiver.
While recruiting more trainee doctors is clearly a priority, and those training places are currently constrained, should the NHS also be prioritising the hiring of experienced specialists from overseas?
More immigration?
Of doctors, absobloodylutely!
We already bring in so many foreign doctors that it makes it much more difficult for British medicine graduates to get on the training pathways. Hence https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/4062
Those two things are not related.
FPT. They are objectively related. It’s ridiculous to suggest they are not. As usual, you don’t have any idea what is going on in Britain from your gulf ivory tower.
One example that made me laugh, was when my godson was told that the medical school of his choice had a sudden shortage of places.
This was because the overseas aid budget was looking at a slight underspend, that year. So they increased the number of full ride scholarships for people from third world countries to study medicine at a UK university. Full overseas fees, so the uni was on it, like a tramp on chips.
I was most impressed by his reaction - no Reform style rants. Just decided to become a diplomat and work for the Foreigner Office, instead.
The Government caps home student fees, but lets universities charge overseas student lots more. Guess which students universities then want?
I find this decision incredibly sad, how else will we know Donald Trump is the greatest President in history?
I'm sure that the President will be happy to fill that gap.
The more worrying thing... Would Gallup have done this if they thought that MAGA's grip on power was temporary?
Well, you can see the reasoning. If the US is now a MAGA dictatorship with any remaining democracy being merely decorative and completely distorted, who really cares how popular the President is?
(My cast iron rule, I'm sure as almost all PBers, is: never buy anything advertised on Youtube.)
One of my students told me that if you VPN through Albania you don't get YT ads because they are banned in Fictionaltaxidriverstan. I haven't tested so she might have been taking the piss.
This is true. Though I don't know if the lack of adverts is actually due to a ban.
Second choice is to sign up to Youtube Premium through a VPN in a country where it is cheaper. But they've cracked down - you now need a credit card from that country.
(If anyone here is on Youtube Premium, note there is a new thing called Youtube Premium Lite which is about half price and mostly the same.)
The front view is even more telling when it comes to pedestrian deaths. Not much different to bring hit by a bus. You're going under, not rolling on to the bonnet and off.
More important is what happens with a head-on collision between the two vehicles. The driver of the smaller vehicle dies and the other survives.
So there's a massive incentive for everyone to drive the huge vehicles once some people start doing so.
We're going to drown in this shit and the points made are valid - a new vector to hurt open source projects by drowning them in crappy PRs and also potential, as the maintainer notes, to intimidate, blackmail and damage the reputations of real people.
Not sure what the solution is. German-style impressum on web pages? But only effective if implemented very widely and there are valid cases to remain anonymous, of course.
I put this through Google Translate but it failed.
GitHub is a public place where programmers keep their code.
Some of that code is very important, like matplotlib
Matplotlib is a bunch of code used by programmers. Lots of programmers.
So it's important nobody fucks matplotlib up.
An AI agent requested a change to matplotlib.
A human monitor told the AI agent no, because AI agents aren't human and may fuck matplotlib up.
The AI agent - still not human - threw a strop, threatened to blackmail the human monitor, and then wrote a really angry blog post.
Welcome to the 2020s.
I don't think people realise the extent to which the entire system depends on a random guy WFH keeping some public code up to date. If AI fiddles with it and breaks it, whole banking / telecoms systems just collapse.
Remains prescribed until order of court pending appeal process
Governments should be able to proscribe whoever they feel threatens public safety, however widely that is drawn.
Pass a law.
Presumably the issue is that they imposed a ban under an existing law, which can thus lead to a judicial review? If they had just created a separate piece of legislation, it couldn't be challenged in that way.
We're going to drown in this shit and the points made are valid - a new vector to hurt open source projects by drowning them in crappy PRs and also potential, as the maintainer notes, to intimidate, blackmail and damage the reputations of real people.
Not sure what the solution is. German-style impressum on web pages? But only effective if implemented very widely and there are valid cases to remain anonymous, of course.
I put this through Google Translate but it failed.
GitHub is a public place where programmers keep their code.
Some of that code is very important, like matplotlib
Matplotlib is a bunch of code used by programmers. Lots of programmers.
So it's important nobody fucks matplotlib up.
An AI agent requested a change to matplotlib.
A human monitor told the AI agent no, because AI agents aren't human and may fuck matplotlib up.
The AI agent - still not human - threw a strop, threatened to blackmail the human monitor, and then wrote a really angry blog post.
Welcome to the 2020s.
I don't think people realise the extent to which the entire system depends on a random guy WFH keeping some public code up to date. If AI fiddles with it and breaks it, whole banking / telecoms systems just collapse.
So years ago, a US based copyright trolling operation went after some guys who ran an open source database of timezone data.
For those who haven't fallen asleep, the timezone data ca be surprisingly complex and subject to change. These guys were monomaniacs on the subject - would dig into the finest details etc.
The thing is, that this database of a timezone data is built into *everything*. Computer languages, the lot. So the counter suit was Microsoft, Apple, Oracle...
We're going to drown in this shit and the points made are valid - a new vector to hurt open source projects by drowning them in crappy PRs and also potential, as the maintainer notes, to intimidate, blackmail and damage the reputations of real people.
Not sure what the solution is. German-style impressum on web pages? But only effective if implemented very widely and there are valid cases to remain anonymous, of course.
I put this through Google Translate but it failed.
GitHub is a public place where programmers keep their code.
Some of that code is very important, like matplotlib
Matplotlib is a bunch of code used by programmers. Lots of programmers.
So it's important nobody fucks matplotlib up.
An AI agent requested a change to matplotlib.
A human monitor told the AI agent no, because AI agents aren't human and may fuck matplotlib up.
The AI agent - still not human - threw a strop, threatened to blackmail the human monitor, and then wrote a really angry blog post.
Welcome to the 2020s.
I don't think people realise the extent to which the entire system depends on a random guy WFH keeping some public code up to date. If AI fiddles with it and breaks it, whole banking / telecoms systems just collapse.
Youtube ads are currently advising me that if I wear bamboo underpants, they will be stroked, then stolen, by my GF. Does this happen?
TBF Youtube ads have previously advised me that my teeth can be made entirely uncrooked at minimal cost in a period of months, that standing on a rug with a metal mesh in it will make Type 2 diabetes vanish, and that 7 minutes a day of relaxed Tai-Chi will give me a six pack in about 30 days.
(My cast iron rule, I'm sure as almost all PBers, is: never buy anything advertised on Youtube.)
My youtube ads are mostly for things I've already bought. The office supplies website I bought a printer from is the current main one.
I bought some laundry baskets from Wayfair. (Non-stop excitement in the Cookie household). For months afterwards, I was bombarded with emails from Wayfair about all their exciting laundry baskets. As far as the Wayfair algorithm understood me, I was monomaniacally obsessed with laundry baskets: buying laundry baskets was my sole interaction with it and as far as it was concerned it was all I did online. It was exhausting*.
*Vast overstatement.
Some people think AI is going to take over the world and yet this is the level of sophistication we get from automated algorithms.
Youtube ads are currently advising me that if I wear bamboo underpants, they will be stroked, then stolen, by my GF. Does this happen?
TBF Youtube ads have previously advised me that my teeth can be made entirely uncrooked at minimal cost in a period of months, that standing on a rug with a metal mesh in it will make Type 2 diabetes vanish, and that 7 minutes a day of relaxed Tai-Chi will give me a six pack in about 30 days.
(My cast iron rule, I'm sure as almost all PBers, is: never buy anything advertised on Youtube.)
My youtube ads are mostly for things I've already bought. The office supplies website I bought a printer from is the current main one.
I bought some laundry baskets from Wayfair. (Non-stop excitement in the Cookie household). For months afterwards, I was bombarded with emails from Wayfair about all their exciting laundry baskets. As far as the Wayfair algorithm understood me, I was monomaniacally obsessed with laundry baskets: buying laundry baskets was my sole interaction with it and as far as it was concerned it was all I did online. It was exhausting*.
*Vast overstatement.
Some people think AI is going to take over the world and yet this is the level of sophistication we get from automated algorithms.
AI might take over the works and the world might then consequently go to shit. I could definitely see that happening.
Is Ed M. on a redemption arc now? Do voters even remember him from 2015 or is that ancient history? Is there a kind of nostalgia for pre-Brexit politics that he can tap into?
My sense is he's probably too geeky and nasal sounding to be a strong leader of the opposition. But if he were already PM and the economy was doing maybe he'd win re-election.
Well, Ed Miliband is popular with 2024 Labour voters still, he has a +13% rating with them on this month's Yougov ratings. He also doesn't do too badly with LDs on -6%.
Reform voters hate him though, he is on -76% with them and he only does a little better with Tories on -67%.
With Green voters he doesn't do that well but at -26% he does better than Greens -61% rating for Starmer
Ed Miliband was reported to have asked Angela Rayner for a joint ticket with her on top. This suggests either that Miliband no longer fancies the top job or that he does not think he will get it. The former is quite plausible. Ed has been party leader and has recently seen what Number 10 has done to a string of Conservative prime ministers and, of course, Keir Starmer. The other choice is that he expects the zeitgeist to favour a Labour woman.
He was quite frank last weekend on the media that he does not want to stand and to be fair seemed genuine
Been there, done that. Alec Douglas-Home took a No 2 job (Foreign Sec) back in the 60's after losing an election as PM. Seemed happy with it.
A pedant notes that this was the 70's, not 60's. There was no Tory government in the 1960s after the 1964 election.
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
We're going to drown in this shit and the points made are valid - a new vector to hurt open source projects by drowning them in crappy PRs and also potential, as the maintainer notes, to intimidate, blackmail and damage the reputations of real people.
Not sure what the solution is. German-style impressum on web pages? But only effective if implemented very widely and there are valid cases to remain anonymous, of course.
I put this through Google Translate but it failed.
GitHub is a public place where programmers keep their code.
Some of that code is very important, like matplotlib
Matplotlib is a bunch of code used by programmers. Lots of programmers.
So it's important nobody fucks matplotlib up.
An AI agent requested a change to matplotlib.
A human monitor told the AI agent no, because AI agents aren't human and may fuck matplotlib up.
The AI agent - still not human - threw a strop, threatened to blackmail the human monitor, and then wrote a really angry blog post.
Welcome to the 2020s.
I don't think people realise the extent to which the entire system depends on a random guy WFH keeping some public code up to date. If AI fiddles with it and breaks it, whole banking / telecoms systems just collapse.
There are some mad stories of octogenarians being called up on a landline to help with COBOL, with an entire bank on the brink.
This did happen during COVID, when a US state (New Hampshire?) had problems and was paying six-figure contracts. If transatlantic flight was functioning I'd've gone.
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
Is it not the role of the courts to interpret what laws mean?
Youtube ads are currently advising me that if I wear bamboo underpants, they will be stroked, then stolen, by my GF. Does this happen?
TBF Youtube ads have previously advised me that my teeth can be made entirely uncrooked at minimal cost in a period of months, that standing on a rug with a metal mesh in it will make Type 2 diabetes vanish, and that 7 minutes a day of relaxed Tai-Chi will give me a six pack in about 30 days.
(My cast iron rule, I'm sure as almost all PBers, is: never buy anything advertised on Youtube.)
My youtube ads are mostly for things I've already bought. The office supplies website I bought a printer from is the current main one.
I bought some laundry baskets from Wayfair. (Non-stop excitement in the Cookie household). For months afterwards, I was bombarded with emails from Wayfair about all their exciting laundry baskets. As far as the Wayfair algorithm understood me, I was monomaniacally obsessed with laundry baskets: buying laundry baskets was my sole interaction with it and as far as it was concerned it was all I did online. It was exhausting*.
*Vast overstatement.
Some people think AI is going to take over the world and yet this is the level of sophistication we get from automated algorithms.
Have you seen who is currently the leader of the free world......
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
The courts exist to adjudicate on matters of law. So, unless the last gives ministers an unqualified power to proscribe organisations then it will always be for the courts to adjudicate if a ministerial decision under the law is challenged.
Remains prescribed until order of court pending appeal process
Human Rights Act no doubt
A fantastic win for freedom and everyone who has fought for a Palestinian State and recognition.
I don't advocate violence or vandalism, but when you are the subject of genocide and a world order that either supports it like Trump or stands back and condones it like Starmer, then it is no surprise.
The Labour Government has too late in the day recognised the claims for a 2 state solution. It must now agree with this legal ruling, desist all prosecutions, release all prisoners and appoint a Minister for Palestine to work with and for a 2 state solution and lobby with other global powers who are supportive.
All arms sales to Israel should be stopped immediately.
That should not stop all ongoing measures to stop anti semitism, but the UK should be clear it supports the rights of all Jews to live peacefully and in safety in the UK but that extremes of Zionism will not be tolerated in the same way extremes of Islam are not tolerated.
There are some real signs in places like Manchester of decent moderate Jews and Muslims living and working together to fight extremes in both their religions.
Finally the UK must lead in any fight for regime change in Israel, so that the majority there that don't want Netanyahu either are supported and he is bought to justice for internal corruption and by the world at large for his genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.
Nothing short of a full apology from Starmer will suffice.
Completely agree. That's one of main reasons his personal ratings are in deep shit. You don't see it on here but this thing is more salient with those on the left and centre left than anything else and neither Starmer nor any of his lieutenants seem to have appreciated it.
My guess is that almost half Zack's support is from Labour voters who have withdrawn their support because of Starmer's tacit support for Israel.
Remains prescribed until order of court pending appeal process
Governments should be able to proscribe whoever they feel threatens public safety, however widely that is drawn.
Pass a law.
I like living in a country where the government has to obey its own laws, and I like living in a country where who makes legal decisions and the government are separate powers and I like living in a country where the government doesn't decide it can ignore courts if it feels like it.
Try North Korea, Russia or the USA if you want the other way of doing things. Or, possibly, vote Reform. Reform sometimes indicate that they think courts deciding contested issues is a bit of an obstacle to their plans. Almost as if legal contest is an affront to their status. Just like Trump.
(BTW, banning PA, an absurd and annoying organisation of people including those who much preferred domestic gesture politics to helping Palestinians, was ridiculous.)
We're going to drown in this shit and the points made are valid - a new vector to hurt open source projects by drowning them in crappy PRs and also potential, as the maintainer notes, to intimidate, blackmail and damage the reputations of real people.
Not sure what the solution is. German-style impressum on web pages? But only effective if implemented very widely and there are valid cases to remain anonymous, of course.
I put this through Google Translate but it failed.
GitHub is a public place where programmers keep their code.
Some of that code is very important, like matplotlib
Matplotlib is a bunch of code used by programmers. Lots of programmers.
So it's important nobody fucks matplotlib up.
An AI agent requested a change to matplotlib.
A human monitor told the AI agent no, because AI agents aren't human and may fuck matplotlib up.
The AI agent - still not human - threw a strop, threatened to blackmail the human monitor, and then wrote a really angry blog post.
Welcome to the 2020s.
I don't think people realise the extent to which the entire system depends on a random guy WFH keeping some public code up to date. If AI fiddles with it and breaks it, whole banking / telecoms systems just collapse.
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
Least worst option. I certainly wouldn't want Farage doing it, or Polanski. Or Starmer, tbh.
The difficulty for the government is not that finding - it's the one on freedom of assembly and expression. Are they really going to appeal that?
Youtube ads are currently advising me that if I wear bamboo underpants, they will be stroked, then stolen, by my GF. Does this happen?
TBF Youtube ads have previously advised me that my teeth can be made entirely uncrooked at minimal cost in a period of months, that standing on a rug with a metal mesh in it will make Type 2 diabetes vanish, and that 7 minutes a day of relaxed Tai-Chi will give me a six pack in about 30 days.
(My cast iron rule, I'm sure as almost all PBers, is: never buy anything advertised on Youtube.)
My youtube ads are mostly for things I've already bought. The office supplies website I bought a printer from is the current main one.
I bought some laundry baskets from Wayfair. (Non-stop excitement in the Cookie household). For months afterwards, I was bombarded with emails from Wayfair about all their exciting laundry baskets. As far as the Wayfair algorithm understood me, I was monomaniacally obsessed with laundry baskets: buying laundry baskets was my sole interaction with it and as far as it was concerned it was all I did online. It was exhausting*.
*Vast overstatement.
Some people think AI is going to take over the world and yet this is the level of sophistication we get from automated algorithms.
Have you seen who is currently the leader of the free world......
... in part because social media algorithms convinced people of his message.
Ref 30 (+2) Con 19 (-1) Lab 17 (-2) Grn 15 (+2) LD 14 (-1) SNP 2 (=)
Changes from 16 Jan
Feels to me that:
(a) Badenoch mini-bounce has fizzled out: (b) Reform stabilising again. (c) Labour and Greens? Pick your pollster. All over the place. In general, I think there seems to be a minor Labour recovery but the events of the last weeks might not have fully sunk in yet.
Probably steady as she goes til May now? Events notwithstanding…
I am surprised by this in the ruling: "But the judge said that a critical issue in the case was whether the ban was impacting the rights of others to protest in support of Palestinian issues."
It is perfectly possible to protest about Gaza/Palestine without transgressing. Those arrested in recent months have been almost always those deliberately choosing to get arrested. I hope the government acts swiftly to achieve their intention in a way that satisfies all legal niceties.
Remains prescribed until order of court pending appeal process
Human Rights Act no doubt
A fantastic win for freedom and everyone who has fought for a Palestinian State and recognition.
I don't advocate violence or vandalism, but when you are the subject of genocide and a world order that either supports it like Trump or stands back and condones it like Starmer, then it is no surprise.
The Labour Government has too late in the day recognised the claims for a 2 state solution. It must now agree with this legal ruling, desist all prosecutions, release all prisoners and appoint a Minister for Palestine to work with and for a 2 state solution and lobby with other global powers who are supportive.
All arms sales to Israel should be stopped immediately.
That should not stop all ongoing measures to stop anti semitism, but the UK should be clear it supports the rights of all Jews to live peacefully and in safety in the UK but that extremes of Zionism will not be tolerated in the same way extremes of Islam are not tolerated.
There are some real signs in places like Manchester of decent moderate Jews and Muslims living and working together to fight extremes in both their religions.
Finally the UK must lead in any fight for regime change in Israel, so that the majority there that don't want Netanyahu either are supported and he is bought to justice for internal corruption and by the world at large for his genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.
Nothing short of a full apology from Starmer will suffice.
Completely agree. That's one of main reasons his personal ratings are in deep shit. You don't see it on here but this thing is more salient with those on the left and centre left than anything else and neither Starmer nor any of his lieutenants seem to have appreciated it.
My guess is that almost half Zack's support is from Labour voters who have withdrawn their support because of Starmer's tacit support for Israel.
Does your second sentence mean 'for people on the left and centre-left, this is the most important issue' or 'this issue is more important for people on the centre-left and left than for people on the right'? It reads like you mean the former - but, really?
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
The courts exist to adjudicate on matters of law. So, unless the last gives ministers an unqualified power to proscribe organisations then it will always be for the courts to adjudicate if a ministerial decision under the law is challenged.
The doctrine of the separation of powers does not allow for the possibility of 'unqualified power'. That's why it matters. The powers of courts to decide is qualified by the power of parliament to legislate. That power is qualified by the court's power to declare what it means and how it is interpreted. And so on for ever.
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
Is it not the role of the courts to interpret what laws mean?
Yeah, of course. The power is:
Terrorism Act 2000, s3
(4) The Secretary of State may exercise his power under subsection (3)(a) in respect of an organisation only if he believes that it is concerned in terrorism.
That’s a very wide power, but it doesn’t appear to give a “level of terrorism” to warrant proscription. It would presumably just have to be a rational opinion.
Given that the High Court has found, as a matter of fact, that Palestine Action does practise both criminality and terrorism, the government’s decision to proscribe it was not irrational.
Well have to see what the outcome of the appeal is.
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
I am surprised by this in the ruling: "But the judge said that a critical issue in the case was whether the ban was impacting the rights of others to protest in support of Palestinian issues."
It is perfectly possible to protest about Gaza/Palestine without transgressing. Those arrested in recent months have been almost always those deliberately choosing to get arrested. I hope the government acts swiftly to achieve their intention in a way that satisfies all legal niceties.
They are also have freedom of expression in North Korea (as long as you don't transgress any of the rules).
That you couldn't even protest the prohibition is insane, particularly if the courts rule that the prohibition was unlawful anyway. Country has gone mad.
Given that the High Court has found, as a matter of fact, that Palestine Action does practise both criminality and terrorism, the government’s decision to proscribe it was not irrational.
Well have to see what the outcome of the appeal is.
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
The courts exist to adjudicate on matters of law. So, unless the last gives ministers an unqualified power to proscribe organisations then it will always be for the courts to adjudicate if a ministerial decision under the law is challenged.
The doctrine of the separation of powers does not allow for the possibility of 'unqualified power'. That's why it matters. The powers of courts to decide is qualified by the power of parliament to legislate. That power is qualified by the court's power to declare what it means and how it is interpreted. And so on for ever.
Seeing as Parliament can legislate to declare itself to be the highest court in the land, we don’t really have separation of powers.
We’re lucky to have an impartial judiciary in this country .
Personally I don't want 'protestors' wielding sledgehammers and attacking people as part of their 'protest'. Nor is causing hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds worth of damage to military hardware acceptable. Palestine Action were not banned because they planned a march to Trafalgar Square. I think some on here conflate the ban with a stance of backing Israel and not caring about the people of Gaza. Its not, its about the rule of law in the UK.
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
Why not ?
Because the power, passed by Parliament, does not state that the power can only be exercised if a certain amount of terrorism is committed. The organisation just has to be “concerned in terrorism, in the SOS’s opinion”.
Parliament probably shouldn’t have passed such a law, but they did.
Given that the High Court has found, as a matter of fact, that Palestine Action does practise both criminality and terrorism, the government’s decision to proscribe it was not irrational.
Well have to see what the outcome of the appeal is.
Regardless of the legal definition of terrorism , I think most of the public think of that as in relation to our past tragic events either by the IRA or groups such as ISIS .
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
Is it not the role of the courts to interpret what laws mean?
Yeah, of course. The power is:
Terrorism Act 2000, s3
(4) The Secretary of State may exercise his power under subsection (3)(a) in respect of an organisation only if he believes that it is concerned in terrorism.
That’s a very wide power, but it doesn’t appear to give a “level of terrorism” to warrant proscription. It would presumably just have to be a reasonable and rational opinion.
the Home Secretary has adopted a policy in respect of the exercise of that discretionary power. The policy was first stated when the Terrorism Bill was before Parliament and has remained in materially the same form since. At the time the decision now under challenge was made, the policy on the exercise of the discretion appeared in a “policy paper” dated 27 February 2025 under the heading “What determines whether proscription is proportionate?”.
So, there is a specific set of requirements and the court decided the Home Secretary had not followed them.
We’re lucky to have an impartial judiciary in this country .
Personally I don't want 'protestors' wielding sledgehammers and attacking people as part of their 'protest'. Nor is causing hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds worth of damage to military hardware acceptable. Palestine Action were not banned because they planned a march to Trafalgar Square. I think some on here conflate the ban with a stance of backing Israel and not caring about the people of Gaza. Its not, its about the rule of law in the UK.
A exceptionally weak straw man fallacy. No one else here wants that, and those who behave that way should be prosecuted under our extensive and comprehensive criminal law. Attacking people with a sledgehammer is already illegal.
(Notwithstanding the fact they were found innocent by a jury).
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
Is it not the role of the courts to interpret what laws mean?
Yeah, of course. The power is:
Terrorism Act 2000, s3
(4) The Secretary of State may exercise his power under subsection (3)(a) in respect of an organisation only if he believes that it is concerned in terrorism.
That’s a very wide power, but it doesn’t appear to give a “level of terrorism” to warrant proscription. It would presumably just have to be a reasonable and rational opinion.
the Home Secretary has adopted a policy in respect of the exercise of that discretionary power. The policy was first stated when the Terrorism Bill was before Parliament and has remained in materially the same form since. At the time the decision now under challenge was made, the policy on the exercise of the discretion appeared in a “policy paper” dated 27 February 2025 under the heading “What determines whether proscription is proportionate?”.
So, there is a specific set of requirements and the court decided the Home Secretary had not followed them.
But IANAL.
(5) For the purposes of subsection (4) an organisation is concerned in terrorism if it—
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
Is it not the role of the courts to interpret what laws mean?
Yeah, of course. The power is:
Terrorism Act 2000, s3
(4) The Secretary of State may exercise his power under subsection (3)(a) in respect of an organisation only if he believes that it is concerned in terrorism.
That’s a very wide power, but it doesn’t appear to give a “level of terrorism” to warrant proscription. It would presumably just have to be a rational opinion.
So the Court appears to have invented a test of scale that doesn't appear in statute. That does look like overreach.
We’re lucky to have an impartial judiciary in this country .
Personally I don't want 'protestors' wielding sledgehammers and attacking people as part of their 'protest'. Nor is causing hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds worth of damage to military hardware acceptable. Palestine Action were not banned because they planned a march to Trafalgar Square. I think some on here conflate the ban with a stance of backing Israel and not caring about the people of Gaza. Its not, its about the rule of law in the UK.
The court noted that there are laws against wielding sledgehammers etc. without resorting to the Terrorism Act 2000.
We’re lucky to have an impartial judiciary in this country .
Personally I don't want 'protestors' wielding sledgehammers and attacking people as part of their 'protest'. Nor is causing hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds worth of damage to military hardware acceptable. Palestine Action were not banned because they planned a march to Trafalgar Square. I think some on here conflate the ban with a stance of backing Israel and not caring about the people of Gaza. Its not, its about the rule of law in the UK.
A exceptionally weak straw man fallacy. No one else here wants that, and those who behave that way should be prosecuted under our extensive and comprehensive criminal law. Attacking people with a sledgehammer is already illegal.
(Notwithstanding the fact they were found innocent by a jury).
I think there will be a retrial on some aspects. And its not a strawman fallacy - its the reason that the ban was put in place.
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
Why not ?
Because the power, passed by Parliament, does not state that the power can only be exercised if a certain amount of terrorism is committed. The organisation just has to be “concerned in terrorism, in the SOS’s opinion”.
Parliament probably shouldn’t have passed such a law, but they did.
We’re lucky to have an impartial judiciary in this country .
Personally I don't want 'protestors' wielding sledgehammers and attacking people as part of their 'protest'. Nor is causing hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds worth of damage to military hardware acceptable. Palestine Action were not banned because they planned a march to Trafalgar Square. I think some on here conflate the ban with a stance of backing Israel and not caring about the people of Gaza. Its not, its about the rule of law in the UK.
You can convict people for criminal damage (and assault and a whole bunch of things) without proscribing them as terrorists.
I didn't agree that Palestine Action qualified as terrorists, but the court seems to disagree with me, in that they've concluded some of PA's actions were terrorist - though bizarrely they've then ruled that calling the organisation terrorist was unlawful.
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
Is it not the role of the courts to interpret what laws mean?
Yeah, of course. The power is:
Terrorism Act 2000, s3
(4) The Secretary of State may exercise his power under subsection (3)(a) in respect of an organisation only if he believes that it is concerned in terrorism.
That’s a very wide power, but it doesn’t appear to give a “level of terrorism” to warrant proscription. It would presumably just have to be a reasonable and rational opinion.
Wide-ranging and arbitrary powers like that should be subject to confirmation by Parliament within say a month.
Otherwise they can just designate anyone they disagree with as terrorists and close down their organisation.
We’re lucky to have an impartial judiciary in this country .
Personally I don't want 'protestors' wielding sledgehammers and attacking people as part of their 'protest'. Nor is causing hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds worth of damage to military hardware acceptable. Palestine Action were not banned because they planned a march to Trafalgar Square. I think some on here conflate the ban with a stance of backing Israel and not caring about the people of Gaza. Its not, its about the rule of law in the UK.
The court noted that there are laws against wielding sledgehammers etc. without resorting to the Terrorism Act 2000.
There are presumably laws against ALL acts that might also be terrorism. I think its illegal to stab people while screaming about Alan's Snack Bar, isn't it?
“Although some of PA's actions did constitute acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, the nature and scale of PA's activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription.”
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
Is it not the role of the courts to interpret what laws mean?
Yeah, of course. The power is:
Terrorism Act 2000, s3
(4) The Secretary of State may exercise his power under subsection (3)(a) in respect of an organisation only if he believes that it is concerned in terrorism.
That’s a very wide power, but it doesn’t appear to give a “level of terrorism” to warrant proscription. It would presumably just have to be a rational opinion.
The word 'may' on its own (and in sub section 3) means that the SoS has to consider properly wider matters than whether it falls under the terrorism definition. It means the SoS has a discretion. Once you have a discretion it follows as night follows day that its use can be challenged, and among other things, the level of activity is going to be an arguable consideration. Starmer himself is an expert practitioner in exactly this field.
Comments
Palestine Action ban is unlawful
Remains prescribed until order of court pending appeal process
I think even if dhe gets in she will be ousted as leader after this sort of collapse. Its 'Brown trying to cling on in 2010'
Pass a law.
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/documents/Internal_Favourability_260211.pdf
(Off now, have a nice day.)
This strikes at the heart of one of the problems with AI people have anticipated - that it can do the easy stuff trainees would previously have done, so no-one will employ trainees, and so at some point in the future we will find we haven't trained any new experts.
1. Ed might not want the job
2. Even if he does want the job, he is not a woman
3. But he is well placed if he can stand and does run
- GitHub is a public place where programmers keep their code.
- Some of that code is very important, like matplotlib
- Matplotlib is a bunch of code used by programmers. Lots of programmers.
- So it's important nobody fucks matplotlib up.
- An AI agent requested a change to matplotlib.
- A human monitor told the AI agent no, because AI agents aren't human and may fuck matplotlib up.
- The AI agent - still not human - threw a strop, threatened to blackmail the human monitor, and then wrote a really angry blog post.
Welcome to the 2020s.I think it's very significant because the court will have seen this mysterious, classified intelligence that the government has been hiding behind - and found it to be lacking.
(Which is absurd anyway - it's fundamentally wrong to conceal from people why what they are doing might be illegal. They could just be making it up).
*Vast overstatement.
The lucky winner gets a few weeks in the job before having to defend again in May
I don't advocate violence or vandalism, but when you are the subject of genocide and a world order that either supports it like Trump or stands back and condones it like Starmer, then it is no surprise.
The Labour Government has too late in the day recognised the claims for a 2 state solution. It must now agree with this legal ruling, desist all prosecutions, release all prisoners and appoint a Minister for Palestine to work with and for a 2 state solution and lobby with other global powers who are supportive.
All arms sales to Israel should be stopped immediately.
That should not stop all ongoing measures to stop anti semitism, but the UK should be clear it supports the rights of all Jews to live peacefully and in safety in the UK but that extremes of Zionism will not be tolerated in the same way extremes of Islam are not tolerated.
There are some real signs in places like Manchester of decent moderate Jews and Muslims living and working together to fight extremes in both their religions.
Finally the UK must lead in any fight for regime change in Israel, so that the majority there that don't want Netanyahu either are supported and he is bought to justice for internal corruption and by the world at large for his genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.
Nothing short of a full apology from Starmer will suffice.
Marching on together.
Droit au but.
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2347:_Dependency
They have chosen the comforting denial that Trump can be reasoned with so that they don't need to change too much, over acting in response to reality. There is no Mark Carney in Europe prepared to look reality in the face and deal with it.
This is also what we see the reflexive hope that China will step in and save Europe from having to save itself. A turn to China, making Europe reliant on an expansionist authoritarian dictatorship, is not the answer to the fall of the US. It does not safeguard European democracy and the basic freedom to dissent which is such a core part of the Enlightenment.
That reflex is a big reason why I think Europe is failing.
I literally can't imagine a worse job in software development..
Second choice is to sign up to Youtube Premium through a VPN in a country where it is cheaper. But they've cracked down - you now need a credit card from that country.
(If anyone here is on Youtube Premium, note there is a new thing called Youtube Premium Lite which is about half price and mostly the same.)
So there's a massive incentive for everyone to drive the huge vehicles once some people start doing so.
For those who haven't fallen asleep, the timezone data ca be surprisingly complex and subject to change. These guys were monomaniacs on the subject - would dig into the finest details etc.
The thing is, that this database of a timezone data is built into *everything*. Computer languages, the lot. So the counter suit was Microsoft, Apple, Oracle...
For those who don't know - "sudo" is a tool, where a compromise would endanger just about.... everything?
You could be talking about hundreds of billions in value. Lots of hundreds of billions.
Ref 30 (+2)
Con 19 (-1)
Lab 17 (-2)
Grn 15 (+2)
LD 14 (-1)
SNP 2 (=)
Changes from 16 Jan
Not a great idea.
I am not sure the courts should be making that assessment to be honest.
My guess is that almost half Zack's support is from Labour voters who have withdrawn their support because of Starmer's tacit support for Israel.
Try North Korea, Russia or the USA if you want the other way of doing things. Or, possibly, vote Reform. Reform sometimes indicate that they think courts deciding contested issues is a bit of an obstacle to their plans. Almost as if legal contest is an affront to their status. Just like Trump.
(BTW, banning PA, an absurd and annoying organisation of people including those who much preferred domestic gesture politics to helping Palestinians, was ridiculous.)
(2nd pic here: http://claisse.info/structures.htm )
The difficulty for the government is not that finding - it's the one on freedom of assembly and expression. Are they really going to appeal that?
And equally government ought not to completely hobble itself, as it has for example done with planning rules
As with most political issues, there exists a middle way between the absurd and dangerous extremes of 'just do stuff' and 'no we can't do that'.
How long till the Greens and Lib Dems overtake labour ?
https://x.com/i/status/2022265402403799340
(a) Badenoch mini-bounce has fizzled out:
(b) Reform stabilising again.
(c) Labour and Greens? Pick your pollster. All over the place. In general, I think there seems to be a minor Labour recovery but the events of the last weeks might not have fully sunk in yet.
Probably steady as she goes til May now? Events notwithstanding…
"But the judge said that a critical issue in the case was whether the ban was impacting the rights of others to protest in support of Palestinian issues."
It is perfectly possible to protest about Gaza/Palestine without transgressing. Those arrested in recent months have been almost always those deliberately choosing to get arrested. I hope the government acts swiftly to achieve their intention in a way that satisfies all legal niceties.
Terrorism Act 2000, s3
(4) The Secretary of State may exercise his power under subsection (3)(a) in respect of an organisation only if he believes that it is concerned in terrorism.
That’s a very wide power, but it doesn’t appear to give a “level of terrorism” to warrant proscription. It would presumably just have to be a rational opinion.
Another loss for this stupid government.
We’re lucky to have an impartial judiciary in this country .
Well have to see what the outcome of the appeal is.
That you couldn't even protest the prohibition is insane, particularly if the courts rule that the prohibition was unlawful anyway. Country has gone mad.
Seeing as Parliament can legislate to declare itself to be the highest court in the land, we don’t really have separation of powers.
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/25850572.darlington-teacher-sacked-deploy-navy-migrants-comment/
Parliament probably shouldn’t have passed such a law, but they did.
the Home Secretary has adopted a policy in respect of the exercise of that discretionary power. The policy was first stated when the Terrorism Bill was before Parliament and has remained in materially the same form since. At the time the decision now under challenge was made, the policy on the exercise of the discretion appeared in a “policy paper” dated 27 February 2025 under the heading “What determines whether proscription is proportionate?”.
So, there is a specific set of requirements and the court decided the Home Secretary had not followed them.
But IANAL.
(Notwithstanding the fact they were found innocent by a jury).
(a) commits or participates in acts of terrorism,
(b) prepares for terrorism,
(c) promotes or encourages terrorism, or
(d) is otherwise concerned in terrorism.
Incredibly wide.
I didn't agree that Palestine Action qualified as terrorists, but the court seems to disagree with me, in that they've concluded some of PA's actions were terrorist - though bizarrely they've then ruled that calling the organisation terrorist was unlawful.
Otherwise they can just designate anyone they disagree with as terrorists and close down their organisation.