I see the government is pushing forward on VPN registration - and talking about banning children from having a VPN account.
I foresee a new playground business. Tech Boy selling access to his homebrew VPN.
Let’s just ban the entire internet and be done with it. We can have a government approved intranet portal telling us of all the wonderful things the Dear Leader is doing for us.
I see the government is pushing forward on VPN registration - and talking about banning children from having a VPN account.
I foresee a new playground business. Tech Boy selling access to his homebrew VPN.
Let’s just ban the entire internet and be done with it. We can have a government approved intranet portal telling us of all the wonderful things the Dear Leader is doing for us.
It’s the King Cnut / Canute / Luddite approach of trying to prevent the inevitable.
VPNs are essential technology for businesses, social media is awful but already exists.
Neither are things (alongside a million others that will appear in the next few years) that can be stopped and any attempt to do so will be utterly pointless.
Farage is apparently announcing his frontbench opposition spokespeople tomorrow. Media are calling it his shadow cabinet which it isn't.
Why isn't it a shadow cabinet? Is that something only the official opposition is allowed to have? In which case it's something of a technicality.
Only His Majesties Loyal Opposition has a shadow cabinet.
Are you saying Reform aren’t loyal?
I mean it’s obvious from the behavior of Jenrick and co but I wouldn’t have been so blunt
We do have a very loyal PM. Loyal to the wrong people of course. And only loyal until he’s forced to pretend he was never really loyal in the first place.
I see the government is pushing forward on VPN registration - and talking about banning children from having a VPN account.
I foresee a new playground business. Tech Boy selling access to his homebrew VPN.
Let’s just ban the entire internet and be done with it. We can have a government approved intranet portal telling us of all the wonderful things the Dear Leader is doing for us.
It’s the King Cnut / Canute / Luddite approach of trying to prevent the inevitable.
VPNs are essential technology for businesses, social media is awful but already exists.
Neither are things (alongside a million others that will appear in the next few years) that can be stopped and any attempt to do so will be utterly pointless.
On topic. No. Labour are hiding behind “legal opinion” for a political decision to u-turn before the campaign kicks off and is made all about Labour cancelling democracy to save their skins.
The Conservatives successfully cancelled elections for this reorganisation in both 2019 and 2022, so there is NO WAY this government would have lost this case in the courts, even if it may have taken more than one visit.
Todays definitely not based on legal advice but wholly political u-turn from Labour, knowingly and unnecessarily puts hundreds of thousands of tax payers money straight into Nigel’s and Zia’s pockets.
As usual, I find myself splitting the difference on this. The cancellation of elections for a second year in places like Norfolk, Suffolk, Hampshire and the two Sussexes was and is indefensible but for those in the earlier stages of re-organisation, I think a 12-month postponement is justifiable and as you say this was a game the Conservatives played when in office.
It’s no game. What is the point holding elections electing someone to a council role and a council that doesn’t exist in less than 12 months? What is harm in extending for 1 year someone only elected 4 years ago?
The game Farage and the Daily Telegraph been playing here is utterly, money wasting nimbyism. The type of opportunist shit that holds this country back.
What’s so special about councillors can’t extend a year over 4 or it’s an outrage and democracy starts falling apart?
And what game Kemi and her front bench doing here? They were actually in a government that actually done this, they justified on grounds it’s sound fiscal conservatism!
12 months? Luxury.
We've just had a byelection to Bradford council less than 3 months before the winning candidate has to seek re-election.
Was it legally obliged to happen? Or like Parliament constituencies, the timing of by-election a political plaything?
When 2019 elections cancelled, the Conservative Party defended it as a necessary step to support local government reorganisation. The primary reasons provided were: * Protecting Reorganisation Work: Postponing the polls enabled councils to focus their time and energy on implementing the transition from a "two-tier" system (county and district councils) to new, single unitary authorities. * Avoiding Waste of Resources: The government argued it would be "financially wasteful" and "distracting" to hold elections for short-term posts on councils that were due to be abolished shortly thereafter. * Capacity Constraints: Ministers stated that councils undergoing significant structural changes might lack the capacity to manage resource-intensive election administration simultaneously with the reorganisation process. * Ensuring Continuity: Existing councillors had their terms extended to maintain leadership and stability until the new unitary councils were established.
The only fundamental difference now from then is scale. The Cancellations 2019-2021 were pilot schemes, to prove the change of scrapping local authorities to next step be rolled out.
There’s no way the Government would have lost this challenge to the glib paper thin Reform position in court.
Where is your legal opinion on your last sentence
Sky reports government lawyers said they would not only lose but their action was illegal, hence today's PR disaster for Starmer
It's utterly bizarre as despite the easy jokes there are plenty of smart people in government, and the first thing you'd think they'd have done was get a cast iron opinion on how to do it legally.
And if they couldn't, putb a Bill before Parliament
I see a pattern.
1) the comic bat tunnel. Not the idea of protecting bats, but the apparent fact that the requirement was expressed as an impossible “no bat must be harmed”. It’s impossible to guarantee such things - even at vast cost. All such requirements should be expressed as a probability and, ideally, given a “cost per event avoided” in the spec. 2) in the contract for Rolls Royce to build SMRs, a requirement was added to have a number of asylum seekers employed by the project. It’s illegal for asylum seekers to work.
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
I'm not sure I understand that about Asylum seekers. We had some Syrian asylum seekers when I worked at the Jobcentre and they were indeed allowed to work, in fact they claimed benefits in the same way and under the same conditions as anyone else. So you are allowed to work as an asylum seeker where you have reached a certain stage of the process.
I see the government is pushing forward on VPN registration - and talking about banning children from having a VPN account.
I foresee a new playground business. Tech Boy selling access to his homebrew VPN.
Backhaul via Starlink, no doubt.
Or by Amazon Leo or the Chinese mega constellations. Did you know that the Chinese have applied to the ITU to orbit 200,000 satellites?
Yes, I saw that. I can't imagine anyone will say no.
Shame about the night sky, eh?
Depends what we build up there.
“To grow in knowledge and in stature. Lofty halls of adamant and titanium, lit with the very light of dreams. Epic bridges between planets, wonders made manifest. And then at last, the last great adventure - to dare the gulf between the stars.”
I see the government is pushing forward on VPN registration - and talking about banning children from having a VPN account.
I foresee a new playground business. Tech Boy selling access to his homebrew VPN.
My Norton AV has a VPN. It's a standard account so I'm sure it would be available whoever logs on.
Don’t worry - that’s round 37 of the laws. Anyone providing a VPN to someone under 16 will be subject to a massive fine and be put on the register of offenders. So your children would be taken into care.
The war on Social Media will be completely different to the War On Drugs. To start with, we will lose it quicker.
I see the government is pushing forward on VPN registration - and talking about banning children from having a VPN account.
I foresee a new playground business. Tech Boy selling access to his homebrew VPN.
My Norton AV has a VPN. It's a standard account so I'm sure it would be available whoever logs on.
The government has not thought this through. Too busy on their AI Skill Hub doing worthless courses.
There have to be some MPs who are aware of these things, they're not all octogenarians or Jacob Rees-Moggs.
My father, who is quite ancient, sent me a link to a news story on this. He commented that nothing has changed since the Athenians gave Socrates a free drink for “Corrupting Youth”
That is absolutely insane. £100 fine is the worse you can get. Oh nooo....I do 24 in a 20 and I get rammed up the arse and 4 of those in 3 years loss of licence. Just put invisible plates on even if i am caught, its £100 and that's it.
The fact you basically need no checks to supply them either is crazy given how over regulated so many industries are.
This ought to be a prestige series for Apple or Amazon.
We were promised a whole ocean of sequels drawn from Patrick O’Brian's twenty-book treasury, yet we were left with only this one magnificent voyage.
The disappointment is almost domestic in its sadness: the picture came out just after everyone had stuffed themselves on Pirates of the Caribbean’s rum-soaked capers. And although it was critically adored and pulled in respectable money worldwide, it didn't quite deliver the obscene domestic blockbuster numbers the studios now insist on before they’ll green-light another expensive wooden ship full of extras getting wet and cold for months on end.
So the Surprise sits at anchor in our heads, her powder magazines untouched, while we quietly grieve the French frigates we never chased, the dinners in the great cabin we never attended. We wonder how the Hollywood bean-counters - who never once smelled salt spray or heard a broadside - managed to convince themselves this particular adventure wasn't worth continuing.
Plus they'd have to recast: Russell Crowe is fat and old, and Vision is booked up (and married to Jennifer Connolly - yes, really). Unless there are later books with older versions of the characters.
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
In fairness to David Cameron, his 2015-2016 ministry was quite well handled. The Referendum was on a matter of national importance, yet it was handled remarkably well. The vote was not rigged and was counted fairly and in good time. Parliament promptly shat the bed and Cameron ran away, but up to that point things had run OK
Except Cameron f***ed up by 1) allowing the referendum to be held in the first place 2) making vote Yes mean not a clue what we are voting for and 3) voting No given everyone their pet unicorn attached to the ability to say fu to a government 60% of the population hadn't voted for,.
And when you look at it that way I'm actually surprised No only got 51.9% of the vote.
And also by not actually trying to get any sort of deal. If he'd gone for some sort of pre-Lisbon status he could have gone down in history as the man who cut the Gordian knot of Europe. But then he would have felt left out of his euro-PMs group of chums. So he didn't bother.
Personally, I think the real opportunity lay in the creation of a proper three-tier Europe.
First tier: Eurozone Second tier: Economic integration, but not political integration. (Which I would call EEA+) Third tier: Economic cooperation, but not integration
There are quite a few countries who are EU members, but don't want the Eurozone, and/or are very unhappy about further political integration. That group would have included not just us, but the Swedes and the Poles too.
I would have called it something like Associate Member of the EU.
But that would have been too much like hard work for David Cameron.
...Alas, Master and Commander is one of those quiet sorrows that all film buffs will continue to carry like an old wound from a duel they never quite fought... https://x.com/ithacarising/status/2023054829426442668
There will always be a part of me that wants to go back in time and stop "Tron: Ares" being made.
That is absolutely insane. £100 fine is the worse you can get. Oh nooo....I do 24 in a 20 and I get rammed up the arse and 4 of those in 3 years loss of licence. Just put invisible plates on even if i am caught, its £100 and that's it.
The fact you basically need no checks to supply them either is crazy given how over regulated so many industries are.
Using better cameras would be a another option, or, in the spirit of the age, using AI to read images that are not the perfect size, spacing, on the specified plate dimensions.
That is absolutely insane. £100 fine is the worse you can get. Oh nooo....I do 24 in a 20 and I get rammed up the arse and 4 of those in 3 years loss of licence. Just put invisible plates on even if i am caught, its £100 and that's it.
The fact you basically need no checks to supply them either is crazy given how over regulated so many industries are.
Using better cameras would be a another option, or, in the spirit of the age, using AI to read images that are not the perfect size, spacing, on the specified plate dimensions.
Habitual plate counterfeiter writes...
If you know what you are doing, it's possible to make a plate that's indistinguishable from the real thing in terms of font, kerning, colours, etc.
The game has now moved to 3d printed plates which have the correct number, etc. but have raised and textured letters which make it problematic for cameras to read in all light conditions. They have to printed with a UV stable material like ASA which fucking stinks while printing and needs a high nozzle temp but do-able. I have some on Mrs DA's i5 and so far, so good. On my cars and motorbikes I just have (most of the time) counterfeit plates of cars/bikes of the same model/year/colour. Except my Tributo which is a 1 of 1 in RHD when it comes to colour. *mad*
RF ID chips in the plates are probably the only way to fix it definitively but the Daily Mail and Telegraph wouldn't stand for it.
Frankly, if you're driving round on your real plates then you're a fucking mug.
I bet many of the people who regularly decry judicial interference in government policy like this example of it.
What judicial interference? They U-turned on the back of their legal advice saying the move would be illegal.
You wonder why they didn't get that advice *before* trying to postpone elections.
Good question. I thought Starmer was meant to be in thrall to legal niceties. This seems to have been more a case of JFDI. But now not as it turns out. Odd one.
Is that u turn #19 or 20?
Sure someone must be keeping a list!
I'm not sure the public cares much. It is Mrs Thatcher who convinced the media U-turns are a bad thing. Before then we would quote Maynard Keynes on "when the facts change". Probably most voters welcome the government coming into line with public opinion.
He u-turns too quickly for the facts to have changed
Indeed but I still doubt the voter on the Clapham omnibus cares about U-turns the way the pundit class does. (See also tax-and-spend.)
It’s a balance.
A few smart U-turns can be sensible politics.
The key is avoiding getting a reputation for them, because it kills your credibility and annoys more people than it reassures.
The Starmer government has crossed that line. Indeed I think it threatens that government’s “bounce-back-ability” because any policy announcement is now treated with a dose of skepticism.
I bet many of the people who regularly decry judicial interference in government policy like this example of it.
What judicial interference? They U-turned on the back of their legal advice saying the move would be illegal.
You wonder why they didn't get that advice *before* trying to postpone elections.
Good question. I thought Starmer was meant to be in thrall to legal niceties. This seems to have been more a case of JFDI. But now not as it turns out. Odd one.
Is that u turn #19 or 20?
Sure someone must be keeping a list!
I'm not sure the public cares much. It is Mrs Thatcher who convinced the media U-turns are a bad thing. Before then we would quote Maynard Keynes on "when the facts change". Probably most voters welcome the government coming into line with public opinion.
He u-turns too quickly for the facts to have changed
Indeed but I still doubt the voter on the Clapham omnibus cares about U-turns the way the pundit class does. (See also tax-and-spend.)
It’s a balance.
A few smart U-turns can be sensible politics.
The key is avoiding getting a reputation for them, because it kills your credibility and annoys more people than it reassures.
The Starmer government has crossed that line. Indeed I think it threatens that government’s “bounce-back-ability” because any policy announcement is now treated with a dose of skepticism.
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
What to do…
One of the few times we actually seem to have been governed by experts, or at least in accordance with their advice, was perhaps during the pandemic. The vaccine procurement was excellent, back the leading candidate for each major technology, so that we had the first fully developed and tested vaccine. Stetching the dose interval also worked very well, and likely that decision alone saved tens of thousands of lives. The sequencing was excellent, IIRC at one point the UK alone was producing about half the sequencing done globally. Even the testing which a lot of people lambasted scaled up to enormous levels, well over 100 fold from where it started. We went from hardly able to test at all to completely testing mad.
This country can really do some amazing stuff when we want or need to.
Then you see stuff like today when the stupid Online Safety Act is going to be extended with some new "bright ideas". I wonder what's next when they fail again? I guess we are back to letting amateurs decide again.
It was notable how the permanent system of government worked hard after the pandemic. To erase any trace (ha!) of the successes.
The dashboard team for example - too dangerous to have people integrating data all over the government, I suppose.
I think I mentioned a friend who was shoved out of working for the Government - her crime was to have aided in the completion of one of the Nightingale Hospitals on schedule.
I was involved (in a peripheral way, for a supplier) in getting the Nightingale and Vaccine centres up and running.
Everyone was prepared to do whatever it took to get things working as the benefits in doing so were quite clear.
I'm not sure the normal course of work for the government has such obvious benefits, so sloth, politics and arguments over money take over.
The phenomenon you are referring to has been described as War Socialism.
That is, in times of national emergency, some simple concepts can hammer through, because of the alignment of everyone working on it, to a common cause.
See Willow Run, the Manhattan Project, Kaiser shipyards etc…
And in war, everyone can see bat tunnels, and multi-year enquiries for the useless crap that they are.
That is absolutely insane. £100 fine is the worse you can get. Oh nooo....I do 24 in a 20 and I get rammed up the arse and 4 of those in 3 years loss of licence. Just put invisible plates on even if i am caught, its £100 and that's it.
The fact you basically need no checks to supply them either is crazy given how over regulated so many industries are.
Using better cameras would be a another option, or, in the spirit of the age, using AI to read images that are not the perfect size, spacing, on the specified plate dimensions.
Habitual plate counterfeiter writes...
If you know what you are doing, it's possible to make a plate that's indistinguishable from the real thing in terms of font, kerning, colours, etc.
The game has now moved to 3d printed plates which have the correct number, etc. but have raised and textured letters which make it problematic for cameras to read in all light conditions. They have to printed with a UV stable material like ASA which fucking stinks while printing and needs a high nozzle temp but do-able. I have some on Mrs DA's i5 and so far, so good. On my cars and motorbikes I just have (most of the time) counterfeit plates of cars/bikes of the same model/year/colour. Except my Tributo which is a 1 of 1 in RHD when it comes to colour. *mad*
RF ID chips in the plates are probably the only way to fix it definitively but the Daily Mail and Telegraph wouldn't stand for it.
Frankly, if you're driving round on your real plates then you're a fucking mug.
I think the phrase you're looking for is "law abiding citizen".
That’s definitely a big part of it, Russian command structure and supply lines appear to be seriously breaking down in occupied regions.
They used to have bootleg Starlink terminals on a lot of their command posts, but when they made the mistake of putting them on drones that were captured, the Ukranians worked with SpaceX to set up a registration process for the Ukranian Starlinks, and any unregistered devices got shut off. Now they’re trying to set up wifi mesh systems with bootleg Ubiqiti access points, but these are now getting shut down or droned.
That is absolutely insane. £100 fine is the worse you can get. Oh nooo....I do 24 in a 20 and I get rammed up the arse and 4 of those in 3 years loss of licence. Just put invisible plates on even if i am caught, its £100 and that's it.
The fact you basically need no checks to supply them either is crazy given how over regulated so many industries are.
Using better cameras would be a another option, or, in the spirit of the age, using AI to read images that are not the perfect size, spacing, on the specified plate dimensions.
Habitual plate counterfeiter writes...
If you know what you are doing, it's possible to make a plate that's indistinguishable from the real thing in terms of font, kerning, colours, etc.
The game has now moved to 3d printed plates which have the correct number, etc. but have raised and textured letters which make it problematic for cameras to read in all light conditions. They have to printed with a UV stable material like ASA which fucking stinks while printing and needs a high nozzle temp but do-able. I have some on Mrs DA's i5 and so far, so good. On my cars and motorbikes I just have (most of the time) counterfeit plates of cars/bikes of the same model/year/colour. Except my Tributo which is a 1 of 1 in RHD when it comes to colour. *mad*
RF ID chips in the plates are probably the only way to fix it definitively but the Daily Mail and Telegraph wouldn't stand for it.
Frankly, if you're driving round on your real plates then you're a fucking mug.
I think the phrase you're looking for is "law abiding citizen".
There are motorists out there who are law abiding citizens?
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
What to do…
One of the few times we actually seem to have been governed by experts, or at least in accordance with their advice, was perhaps during the pandemic. The vaccine procurement was excellent, back the leading candidate for each major technology, so that we had the first fully developed and tested vaccine. Stetching the dose interval also worked very well, and likely that decision alone saved tens of thousands of lives. The sequencing was excellent, IIRC at one point the UK alone was producing about half the sequencing done globally. Even the testing which a lot of people lambasted scaled up to enormous levels, well over 100 fold from where it started. We went from hardly able to test at all to completely testing mad.
This country can really do some amazing stuff when we want or need to.
Then you see stuff like today when the stupid Online Safety Act is going to be extended with some new "bright ideas". I wonder what's next when they fail again? I guess we are back to letting amateurs decide again.
It was notable how the permanent system of government worked hard after the pandemic. To erase any trace (ha!) of the successes.
The dashboard team for example - too dangerous to have people integrating data all over the government, I suppose.
I think I mentioned a friend who was shoved out of working for the Government - her crime was to have aided in the completion of one of the Nightingale Hospitals on schedule.
I was involved (in a peripheral way, for a supplier) in getting the Nightingale and Vaccine centres up and running.
Everyone was prepared to do whatever it took to get things working as the benefits in doing so were quite clear.
I'm not sure the normal course of work for the government has such obvious benefits, so sloth, politics and arguments over money take over.
The phenomenon you are referring to has been described as War Socialism.
That is, in times of national emergency, some simple concepts can hammer through, because of the alignment of everyone working on it, to a common cause.
See Willow Run, the Manhattan Project, Kaiser shipyards etc…
And in war, everyone can see bat tunnels, and multi-year enquiries for the useless crap that they are.
Well quite. In Ukraine the procurement and iteration times on weapons systems are now measured in weeks, and any official caught trying to cream something off the top of the contract quickly finds himself in the Big House.
Funny how war concentrates minds like that.
Soviet procurement was famous for a dozen layers of people taking a slice, and a small fraction of what was ordered ever got delivered in a serviceable condition.
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
In fairness to David Cameron, his 2015-2016 ministry was quite well handled. The Referendum was on a matter of national importance, yet it was handled remarkably well. The vote was not rigged and was counted fairly and in good time. Parliament promptly shat the bed and Cameron ran away, but up to that point things had run OK
Except Cameron f***ed up by 1) allowing the referendum to be held in the first place 2) making vote Yes mean not a clue what we are voting for and 3) voting No given everyone their pet unicorn attached to the ability to say fu to a government 60% of the population hadn't voted for,.
And when you look at it that way I'm actually surprised No only got 51.9% of the vote.
And also by not actually trying to get any sort of deal. If he'd gone for some sort of pre-Lisbon status he could have gone down in history as the man who cut the Gordian knot of Europe. But then he would have felt left out of his euro-PMs group of chums. So he didn't bother.
Personally, I think the real opportunity lay in the creation of a proper three-tier Europe.
First tier: Eurozone Second tier: Economic integration, but not political integration. (Which I would call EEA+) Third tier: Economic cooperation, but not integration
There are quite a few countries who are EU members, but don't want the Eurozone, and/or are very unhappy about further political integration. That group would have included not just us, but the Swedes and the Poles too.
I would have called it something like Associate Member of the EU.
But that would have been too much like hard work for David Cameron.
It isn't what he wanted. Once he won, he'd have used the 'democratic mandate' to go for the euro and everything I think. A bit like Maggie boasting about spending more on the NHS, he wanted to be the Tory PM who got us right 'to the heart' of Europe.
That is absolutely insane. £100 fine is the worse you can get. Oh nooo....I do 24 in a 20 and I get rammed up the arse and 4 of those in 3 years loss of licence. Just put invisible plates on even if i am caught, its £100 and that's it.
The fact you basically need no checks to supply them either is crazy given how over regulated so many industries are.
Using better cameras would be a another option, or, in the spirit of the age, using AI to read images that are not the perfect size, spacing, on the specified plate dimensions.
Habitual plate counterfeiter writes...
If you know what you are doing, it's possible to make a plate that's indistinguishable from the real thing in terms of font, kerning, colours, etc.
The game has now moved to 3d printed plates which have the correct number, etc. but have raised and textured letters which make it problematic for cameras to read in all light conditions. They have to printed with a UV stable material like ASA which fucking stinks while printing and needs a high nozzle temp but do-able. I have some on Mrs DA's i5 and so far, so good. On my cars and motorbikes I just have (most of the time) counterfeit plates of cars/bikes of the same model/year/colour. Except my Tributo which is a 1 of 1 in RHD when it comes to colour. *mad*
RF ID chips in the plates are probably the only way to fix it definitively but the Daily Mail and Telegraph wouldn't stand for it.
Frankly, if you're driving round on your real plates then you're a fucking mug.
I think the phrase you're looking for is "law abiding citizen".
There are motorists out there who are law abiding citizens?
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
What to do…
One of the few times we actually seem to have been governed by experts, or at least in accordance with their advice, was perhaps during the pandemic. The vaccine procurement was excellent, back the leading candidate for each major technology, so that we had the first fully developed and tested vaccine. Stetching the dose interval also worked very well, and likely that decision alone saved tens of thousands of lives. The sequencing was excellent, IIRC at one point the UK alone was producing about half the sequencing done globally. Even the testing which a lot of people lambasted scaled up to enormous levels, well over 100 fold from where it started. We went from hardly able to test at all to completely testing mad.
This country can really do some amazing stuff when we want or need to.
Then you see stuff like today when the stupid Online Safety Act is going to be extended with some new "bright ideas". I wonder what's next when they fail again? I guess we are back to letting amateurs decide again.
It was notable how the permanent system of government worked hard after the pandemic. To erase any trace (ha!) of the successes.
The dashboard team for example - too dangerous to have people integrating data all over the government, I suppose.
I think I mentioned a friend who was shoved out of working for the Government - her crime was to have aided in the completion of one of the Nightingale Hospitals on schedule.
I was involved (in a peripheral way, for a supplier) in getting the Nightingale and Vaccine centres up and running.
Everyone was prepared to do whatever it took to get things working as the benefits in doing so were quite clear.
I'm not sure the normal course of work for the government has such obvious benefits, so sloth, politics and arguments over money take over.
The phenomenon you are referring to has been described as War Socialism.
That is, in times of national emergency, some simple concepts can hammer through, because of the alignment of everyone working on it, to a common cause.
See Willow Run, the Manhattan Project, Kaiser shipyards etc…
And in war, everyone can see bat tunnels, and multi-year enquiries for the useless crap that they are.
Sometimes.
Sir Arthur Harris used to opine that he could shorten the war, if allowed to shoot a fair number of the leading aircraft manufacturer management and their brethren in the Air Ministry. Who, together, ran a cosy little circle.
Dura Ace strikes me as a libertarian in instinct. But instead he takes the rather charming attitude of 'No rules for me - crushing servitude under the blob for the masses'.
And their cost of construction less than half the western equivalent. Benefit of having a huge domestic supply chain within which there's intense pressure to innovate or go under.
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
What to do…
One of the few times we actually seem to have been governed by experts, or at least in accordance with their advice, was perhaps during the pandemic. The vaccine procurement was excellent, back the leading candidate for each major technology, so that we had the first fully developed and tested vaccine. Stetching the dose interval also worked very well, and likely that decision alone saved tens of thousands of lives. The sequencing was excellent, IIRC at one point the UK alone was producing about half the sequencing done globally. Even the testing which a lot of people lambasted scaled up to enormous levels, well over 100 fold from where it started. We went from hardly able to test at all to completely testing mad.
This country can really do some amazing stuff when we want or need to.
Then you see stuff like today when the stupid Online Safety Act is going to be extended with some new "bright ideas". I wonder what's next when they fail again? I guess we are back to letting amateurs decide again.
It was notable how the permanent system of government worked hard after the pandemic. To erase any trace (ha!) of the successes.
The dashboard team for example - too dangerous to have people integrating data all over the government, I suppose.
I think I mentioned a friend who was shoved out of working for the Government - her crime was to have aided in the completion of one of the Nightingale Hospitals on schedule.
I was involved (in a peripheral way, for a supplier) in getting the Nightingale and Vaccine centres up and running.
Everyone was prepared to do whatever it took to get things working as the benefits in doing so were quite clear.
I'm not sure the normal course of work for the government has such obvious benefits, so sloth, politics and arguments over money take over.
The phenomenon you are referring to has been described as War Socialism.
That is, in times of national emergency, some simple concepts can hammer through, because of the alignment of everyone working on it, to a common cause.
See Willow Run, the Manhattan Project, Kaiser shipyards etc…
And in war, everyone can see bat tunnels, and multi-year enquiries for the useless crap that they are.
Sometimes.
Sir Arthur Harris used to opine that he could shorten the war, if allowed to shoot a fair number of the leading aircraft manufacturer management and their brethren in the Air Ministry. Who, together, ran a cosy little circle.
That's rather ironic, given the less than flattering descriptions of the WW2 era Air Ministry in the memoirs of the managers of Airspeed and de Havilland.
It's pretty clear that Rubio's security conference speech, which the European audience give a (frankly pathetic) standing ovation, was essentially gaslighting.
I was starting to get onboard the "Rubio is the moderating force" train. But his visits post Munich were so outlandish, I have now hopped right off that bandwagon......just a grotesque and inexcusable endorsement of Orban, who is the scourge of Europe (I think I used that line on MSNOW today). And all of Europe watched his visit to Budapest. Rubio may as well have given a Vance-ian speech at Munich at this point. All the soft tone stuff, see ya. https://x.com/Mpolymer/status/2023504166610411535
It's pretty clear that Rubio's security conference speech, which the European audience give a (frankly pathetic) standing ovation, was essentially gaslighting.
I was starting to get onboard the "Rubio is the moderating force" train. But his visits post Munich were so outlandish, I have now hopped right off that bandwagon......just a grotesque and inexcusable endorsement of Orban, who is the scourge of Europe (I think I used that line on MSNOW today). And all of Europe watched his visit to Budapest. Rubio may as well have given a Vance-ian speech at Munich at this point. All the soft tone stuff, see ya. https://x.com/Mpolymer/status/2023504166610411535
It is all about 2028 for Rubio.
He has to stay MAGA enough to get the nomination if for some reason Vance is no longer seen as heir.
Reform under 25% again as with FON but no Restore prompted.
Would give the most hung parliament since 1923, Reform 255, Labour 112 and LDs 79 and Tories 68, Greens 46 and SNP 45 https://electionmaps.uk/nowcast/custom
It's pretty clear that Rubio's security conference speech, which the European audience give a (frankly pathetic) standing ovation, was essentially gaslighting.
I was starting to get onboard the "Rubio is the moderating force" train. But his visits post Munich were so outlandish, I have now hopped right off that bandwagon......just a grotesque and inexcusable endorsement of Orban, who is the scourge of Europe (I think I used that line on MSNOW today). And all of Europe watched his visit to Budapest. Rubio may as well have given a Vance-ian speech at Munich at this point. All the soft tone stuff, see ya. https://x.com/Mpolymer/status/2023504166610411535
It is all about 2028 for Rubio.
He has to stay MAGA enough to get the nomination if for some reason Vance is no longer seen as heir.
Even then Trump Jr or DeSantis would likely win the GOP nomination over Rubio, if he goes too MAGA he also loses the moderate lane back to Haley
It's pretty clear that Rubio's security conference speech, which the European audience give a (frankly pathetic) standing ovation, was essentially gaslighting.
I was starting to get onboard the "Rubio is the moderating force" train. But his visits post Munich were so outlandish, I have now hopped right off that bandwagon......just a grotesque and inexcusable endorsement of Orban, who is the scourge of Europe (I think I used that line on MSNOW today). And all of Europe watched his visit to Budapest. Rubio may as well have given a Vance-ian speech at Munich at this point. All the soft tone stuff, see ya. https://x.com/Mpolymer/status/2023504166610411535
Rubio’s exhortations to join in a cultural & civilisational renaissance were grotesque. The Secretary of State for Kid Rock, gold leaf and Melania the movie can fuck right off.
Both these (and many others) and the case over the elections strongly suggest that domain experts are not being involved at fundamental level in policy implementation. That nearly random suggestions - “wouldn’t it be nice…” from amateurs are being incorporated into the plans and actions.
What to do…
One of the few times we actually seem to have been governed by experts, or at least in accordance with their advice, was perhaps during the pandemic. The vaccine procurement was excellent, back the leading candidate for each major technology, so that we had the first fully developed and tested vaccine. Stetching the dose interval also worked very well, and likely that decision alone saved tens of thousands of lives. The sequencing was excellent, IIRC at one point the UK alone was producing about half the sequencing done globally. Even the testing which a lot of people lambasted scaled up to enormous levels, well over 100 fold from where it started. We went from hardly able to test at all to completely testing mad.
This country can really do some amazing stuff when we want or need to.
Then you see stuff like today when the stupid Online Safety Act is going to be extended with some new "bright ideas". I wonder what's next when they fail again? I guess we are back to letting amateurs decide again.
It was notable how the permanent system of government worked hard after the pandemic. To erase any trace (ha!) of the successes.
The dashboard team for example - too dangerous to have people integrating data all over the government, I suppose.
I think I mentioned a friend who was shoved out of working for the Government - her crime was to have aided in the completion of one of the Nightingale Hospitals on schedule.
I was involved (in a peripheral way, for a supplier) in getting the Nightingale and Vaccine centres up and running.
Everyone was prepared to do whatever it took to get things working as the benefits in doing so were quite clear.
I'm not sure the normal course of work for the government has such obvious benefits, so sloth, politics and arguments over money take over.
The phenomenon you are referring to has been described as War Socialism.
That is, in times of national emergency, some simple concepts can hammer through, because of the alignment of everyone working on it, to a common cause.
See Willow Run, the Manhattan Project, Kaiser shipyards etc…
And in war, everyone can see bat tunnels, and multi-year enquiries for the useless crap that they are.
Sometimes.
Sir Arthur Harris used to opine that he could shorten the war, if allowed to shoot a fair number of the leading aircraft manufacturer management and their brethren in the Air Ministry. Who, together, ran a cosy little circle.
That's rather ironic, given the less than flattering descriptions of the WW2 era Air Ministry in the memoirs of the managers of Airspeed and de Havilland.
Both were outside the industry “ring”. The success of the Mosquito, Hornet and the Oxford was considered problematic by “the system”.
It's pretty clear that Rubio's security conference speech, which the European audience give a (frankly pathetic) standing ovation, was essentially gaslighting.
I was starting to get onboard the "Rubio is the moderating force" train. But his visits post Munich were so outlandish, I have now hopped right off that bandwagon......just a grotesque and inexcusable endorsement of Orban, who is the scourge of Europe (I think I used that line on MSNOW today). And all of Europe watched his visit to Budapest. Rubio may as well have given a Vance-ian speech at Munich at this point. All the soft tone stuff, see ya. https://x.com/Mpolymer/status/2023504166610411535
It is all about 2028 for Rubio.
He has to stay MAGA enough to get the nomination if for some reason Vance is no longer seen as heir.
It's a pathetic abandonment of any principle at all. Projecting "but he's just a moderate trying to survive" onto someone who just intervened in the upcoming Hungarian election on behalf of Orban, is self delusion.
Marco Rubio endorsed Viktor Orban this morning.
Here's a 2019 letter signed by Marco Rubio to Donald Trump sharply criticizing Orban and "Hungary's downward democratic trajectory"
The next crisis in EU - US relations will be Hungarian elections on April 12. Trump & Putin’s puppet Orban is trailing by 10 points but likely will try and steal elections. Watch for mass demonstrations and use of force then by Orban, backed by Trump & Putin. https://x.com/tashecon/status/2023377312910028909
The USP of being “not the uniparty” cannot be squared with a top team stuffed full of failed former Tory ministers. That may well come to be seen as their strategic mistake.
The USP of being “not the uniparty” cannot be squared with a top team stuffed full of failed former Tory ministers. That may well come to be seen as their strategic mistake.
If Greens do win in Gorton and Denton the boost may well have them topping the polls.
Reform under 25% again as with FON but no Restore prompted.
Would give the most hung parliament since 1923, Reform 255, Labour 112 and LDs 79 and Tories 68, Greens 46 and SNP 45 https://electionmaps.uk/nowcast/custom
If Reform got 24% in a GE then I'd expect their seat total to be lower as their evenly spread vote efficiency would start to work against them compared to Con and Lab (in the South and North respectively) If this were the baseline at the outset of a GE even a modest campaign boost would work wonders for any of the parties
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
In fairness to David Cameron, his 2015-2016 ministry was quite well handled. The Referendum was on a matter of national importance, yet it was handled remarkably well. The vote was not rigged and was counted fairly and in good time. Parliament promptly shat the bed and Cameron ran away, but up to that point things had run OK
Except Cameron f***ed up by 1) allowing the referendum to be held in the first place 2) making vote Yes mean not a clue what we are voting for and 3) voting No given everyone their pet unicorn attached to the ability to say fu to a government 60% of the population hadn't voted for,.
And when you look at it that way I'm actually surprised No only got 51.9% of the vote.
And also by not actually trying to get any sort of deal. If he'd gone for some sort of pre-Lisbon status he could have gone down in history as the man who cut the Gordian knot of Europe. But then he would have felt left out of his euro-PMs group of chums. So he didn't bother.
Personally, I think the real opportunity lay in the creation of a proper three-tier Europe.
First tier: Eurozone Second tier: Economic integration, but not political integration. (Which I would call EEA+) Third tier: Economic cooperation, but not integration
There are quite a few countries who are EU members, but don't want the Eurozone, and/or are very unhappy about further political integration. That group would have included not just us, but the Swedes and the Poles too.
I would have called it something like Associate Member of the EU.
But that would have been too much like hard work for David Cameron.
It isn't what he wanted. Once he won, he'd have used the 'democratic mandate' to go for the euro and everything I think. A bit like Maggie boasting about spending more on the NHS, he wanted to be the Tory PM who got us right 'to the heart' of Europe.
No Blair or Heseltine or Clarke might have taken us into the Euro, Cameron never would
The USP of being “not the uniparty” cannot be squared with a top team stuffed full of failed former Tory ministers. That may well come to be seen as their strategic mistake.
100%. Nadhim Zahawi was the 'beginning of the end'
It pains me to say it but I’m finding difficulty finding the last time this country was properly governed. By a government that actually knew what it was doing, and used Parliament - you know that thing government uses to make laws - to actually do something that did any good. At all.
I’d say controversially 2010-2015.Some may not have liked it but by Christ at least it had a programme. Mapped out and agreed.
In fairness to David Cameron, his 2015-2016 ministry was quite well handled. The Referendum was on a matter of national importance, yet it was handled remarkably well. The vote was not rigged and was counted fairly and in good time. Parliament promptly shat the bed and Cameron ran away, but up to that point things had run OK
Except Cameron f***ed up by 1) allowing the referendum to be held in the first place 2) making vote Yes mean not a clue what we are voting for and 3) voting No given everyone their pet unicorn attached to the ability to say fu to a government 60% of the population hadn't voted for,.
And when you look at it that way I'm actually surprised No only got 51.9% of the vote.
And also by not actually trying to get any sort of deal. If he'd gone for some sort of pre-Lisbon status he could have gone down in history as the man who cut the Gordian knot of Europe. But then he would have felt left out of his euro-PMs group of chums. So he didn't bother.
Personally, I think the real opportunity lay in the creation of a proper three-tier Europe.
First tier: Eurozone Second tier: Economic integration, but not political integration. (Which I would call EEA+) Third tier: Economic cooperation, but not integration
There are quite a few countries who are EU members, but don't want the Eurozone, and/or are very unhappy about further political integration. That group would have included not just us, but the Swedes and the Poles too.
I would have called it something like Associate Member of the EU.
But that would have been too much like hard work for David Cameron.
It's pretty clear that Rubio's security conference speech, which the European audience give a (frankly pathetic) standing ovation, was essentially gaslighting.
I was starting to get onboard the "Rubio is the moderating force" train. But his visits post Munich were so outlandish, I have now hopped right off that bandwagon......just a grotesque and inexcusable endorsement of Orban, who is the scourge of Europe (I think I used that line on MSNOW today). And all of Europe watched his visit to Budapest. Rubio may as well have given a Vance-ian speech at Munich at this point. All the soft tone stuff, see ya. https://x.com/Mpolymer/status/2023504166610411535
It is all about 2028 for Rubio.
He has to stay MAGA enough to get the nomination if for some reason Vance is no longer seen as heir.
It's a pathetic abandonment of any principle at all. Projecting "but he's just a moderate trying to survive" onto someone who just intervened in the upcoming Hungarian election on behalf of Orban, is self delusion.
Marco Rubio endorsed Viktor Orban this morning.
Here's a 2019 letter signed by Marco Rubio to Donald Trump sharply criticizing Orban and "Hungary's downward democratic trajectory"
When someone shows you who they are, believe that.
At no point can anyone describe Rubio as a 'moderate.' He's to the right of George W. Bush and arguably Reagan too. He's not as extreme as Trump but that's like saying somebody has more integrity and courage than a lawyer for the Post Office.
If we're talking about him as a moderate the US is totally screwed.
Reform under 25% again as with FON but no Restore prompted.
Would give the most hung parliament since 1923, Reform 255, Labour 112 and LDs 79 and Tories 68, Greens 46 and SNP 45 https://electionmaps.uk/nowcast/custom
If Reform got 24% in a GE then I'd expect their seat total to be lower as their evenly spread vote efficiency would start to work against them compared to Con and Lab (in the South and North respectively) If this were the baseline at the outset of a GE even a modest campaign boost would work wonders for any of the parties
Take those YG numbers and build in very modest swingback to the old parties: 2 from Reform to Con, 2 from Green to Labour. We’re then getting close to Labour largest party. But YG is the least favourable to Reform already, of course.
The public sector annual growth rate is affected by some public sector pay rises being paid earlier in 2025 than in 2024. This has caused a base effect that has now reached its peak and will phase out over the next three months.
The 2024 pay rounds were held off until after the election, and it's hard not to conclude that the previous government dragged their feet so that they didn't have to acknowledge the cost.
The public sector annual growth rate is affected by some public sector pay rises being paid earlier in 2025 than in 2024. This has caused a base effect that has now reached its peak and will phase out over the next three months.
The 2024 pay rounds were held off until after the election, and it's hard not to conclude that the previous government dragged their feet so that they didn't have to acknowledge the cost.
Let’s hope that’s the case.
Can’t have the public sector as too great a burden on the productive economy.
The USP of being “not the uniparty” cannot be squared with a top team stuffed full of failed former Tory ministers. That may well come to be seen as their strategic mistake.
If they can destroy the Tories (apart from an inconsequential rump) it works but that's a long term project. As it is there doesn't seem to be much difference between the two parties so Reform are winning based on being the fresher option, which too many recycled Tories can damage.
It was founded as some sort of political advocacy group in June last year, so I presume membership has been available since then. Registration was applied for on 13 Feb, which is the day after The EC last published a list of current applications. It is perfectly legal to be an unregistered political party, candidates just can't run under your banner in elections
Comments
I mean it’s obvious from the behavior of Jenrick and co but I wouldn’t have been so blunt
VPNs are essential technology for businesses, social media is awful but already exists.
Neither are things (alongside a million others that will appear in the next few years) that can be stopped and any attempt to do so will be utterly pointless.
From this year’s Spring Festival Gala performance, it’s clear that Unitree’s motion control is the strongest in the entire industry.
https://x.com/ErenChenAI/status/2023394559342903397?s=20
Shame about the night sky, eh?
This looks to be an AI generated movie - SeanT will be all over it tomorrow.
Now it’s got some jumps in logic and it’s not perfect but it will merrily fills 3 minutes and wait to the cameo at the end
https://youtu.be/V5AFQaEbHQU?si=kxKS74mDnhEZlGGj
“To grow in knowledge and in stature. Lofty halls of adamant and titanium, lit with the very light of dreams. Epic bridges between planets, wonders made manifest. And then at last, the last great adventure - to dare the gulf between the stars.”
The war on Social Media will be completely different to the War On Drugs. To start with, we will lose it quicker.
For comparison, here are similar scenes produced by conventional methods costing tens of millions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUthfKQsZ4M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fstiovuBC3M
At present, fines are non-endorsable, meaning that they do not carry points and are not recorded on a driver’s licence.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/02/16/ghost-number-plates-haunting-britain-police/
That is absolutely insane. £100 fine is the worse you can get. Oh nooo....I do 24 in a 20 and I get rammed up the arse and 4 of those in 3 years loss of licence. Just put invisible plates on even if i am caught, its £100 and that's it.
The fact you basically need no checks to supply them either is crazy given how over regulated so many industries are.
First tier: Eurozone
Second tier: Economic integration, but not political integration. (Which I would call EEA+)
Third tier: Economic cooperation, but not integration
There are quite a few countries who are EU members, but don't want the Eurozone, and/or are very unhappy about further political integration. That group would have included not just us, but the Swedes and the Poles too.
I would have called it something like Associate Member of the EU.
But that would have been too much like hard work for David Cameron.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTMgX1PDGAE
If you know what you are doing, it's possible to make a plate that's indistinguishable from the real thing in terms of font, kerning, colours, etc.
The game has now moved to 3d printed plates which have the correct number, etc. but have raised and textured letters which make it problematic for cameras to read in all light conditions. They have to printed with a UV stable material like ASA which fucking stinks while printing and needs a high nozzle temp but do-able. I have some on Mrs DA's i5 and so far, so good. On my cars and motorbikes I just have (most of the time) counterfeit plates of cars/bikes of the same model/year/colour. Except my Tributo which is a 1 of 1 in RHD when it comes to colour. *mad*
RF ID chips in the plates are probably the only way to fix it definitively but the Daily Mail and Telegraph wouldn't stand for it.
Frankly, if you're driving round on your real plates then you're a fucking mug.
https://x.com/euromaidanpress/status/2023527315481800842
https://x.com/vyshnyaostap/status/2023515606734291098
https://x.com/dakdar22/status/2023437437570253166
https://x.com/maks_nafo_fella/status/2023489619388756454
Timeline of Sir Keir Starmer and Labour's U-turn habit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x0ZuK8utBE
https://x.com/the_real_itdude/status/2023487864231915929
No reports yet of damage, but we know it’s a very well built structure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxKFhA3JRwY
Benefits of Russia losing Starlink?
But what they definitely can do is keep enough drone and missile fire on it, so as to make it unusable in practice.
They used to have bootleg Starlink terminals on a lot of their command posts, but when they made the mistake of putting them on drones that were captured, the Ukranians worked with SpaceX to set up a registration process for the Ukranian Starlinks, and any unregistered devices got shut off. Now they’re trying to set up wifi mesh systems with bootleg Ubiqiti access points, but these are now getting shut down or droned.
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2026/02/labour-need-to-go-back-to-the-fundamentals-and-re-establish-what-theyre-about-my-focus-groups-in-gorton-denton/
He’s not had enough support for them to get a monster total, and New Zealand are missing Santner, but still a fabulous innings.
Funny how war concentrates minds like that.
Soviet procurement was famous for a dozen layers of people taking a slice, and a small fraction of what was ordered ever got delivered in a serviceable condition.
Another bad headline for labour
https://news.sky.com/story/unemployment-hits-highest-rate-in-nearly-5-years-13508415
This government is a complete shower of shite
Sir Arthur Harris used to opine that he could shorten the war, if allowed to shoot a fair number of the leading aircraft manufacturer management and their brethren in the Air Ministry. Who, together, ran a cosy little circle.
Benefit of having a huge domestic supply chain within which there's intense pressure to innovate or go under.
I was starting to get onboard the "Rubio is the moderating force" train. But his visits post Munich were so outlandish, I have now hopped right off that bandwagon......just a grotesque and inexcusable endorsement of Orban, who is the scourge of Europe (I think I used that line on MSNOW today). And all of Europe watched his visit to Budapest. Rubio may as well have given a Vance-ian speech at Munich at this point. All the soft tone stuff, see ya.
https://x.com/Mpolymer/status/2023504166610411535
YouGov has the fight tightening again
Ref 24 (-3)
Lab 19 (=)
Con 18 (=)
Grn 17 (+1)
LD 13 (-1)
He has to stay MAGA enough to get the nomination if for some reason Vance is no longer seen as heir.
Would give the most hung parliament since 1923, Reform 255, Labour 112 and LDs 79 and Tories 68, Greens 46 and SNP 45
https://electionmaps.uk/nowcast/custom
https://bsky.app/profile/mark-carney.bsky.social/post/3meyh5ccw7c2v
But trebles all round for the public sector. That lack of productivity is being rewarded. Labour rewarding their client vote.
‘ ONS - "Annual average regular earnings growth was 7.2% for the public sector and 3.4% for the private sector"’
https://x.com/mrmbrown/status/2023653931914539464?s=61
Projecting "but he's just a moderate trying to survive" onto someone who just intervened in the upcoming Hungarian election on behalf of Orban, is self delusion.
Marco Rubio endorsed Viktor Orban this morning.
Here's a 2019 letter signed by Marco Rubio to Donald Trump sharply criticizing Orban and "Hungary's downward democratic trajectory"
https://foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/05-10-19 Letter-Orban.pdf
https://x.com/samstein/status/2023495024542183913
When someone shows you who they are, believe that.
The next crisis in EU - US relations will be Hungarian elections on April 12. Trump & Putin’s puppet Orban is trailing by 10 points but likely will try and steal elections. Watch for mass demonstrations and use of force then by Orban, backed by Trump & Putin.
https://x.com/tashecon/status/2023377312910028909
If this were the baseline at the outset of a GE even a modest campaign boost would work wonders for any of the parties
Nadhim Zahawi was the 'beginning of the end'
If we're talking about him as a moderate the US is totally screwed.
NEW THREAD
The public sector annual growth rate is affected by some public sector pay rises being paid earlier in 2025 than in 2024. This has caused a base effect that has now reached its peak and will phase out over the next three months.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/january2026
The 2024 pay rounds were held off until after the election, and it's hard not to conclude that the previous government dragged their feet so that they didn't have to acknowledge the cost.
Can’t have the public sector as too great a burden on the productive economy.
Are these signees to his email list?
https://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/Search/Registrations?currentPage=8&rows=30&sort=RegulatedEntityName&order=asc&open=filter&et=pp&et=ppm®ister=gb®Status=registered&optCols=EntityStatusName
NEW: Weekly YouGov voting intention poll for The Times/Sky News
Reform lead down to five points over Labour
RFM 24% (-3)
LAB 19% (=)
CON 18% (=)
GRN 17% (+1)
LDEM 13% (-1)
(Cue: The Victor Meldrew tribute acts)