Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
I’ve done a lot of work in both WFH and office-based environments over the years, and there’s both positives and negatives to either arrangement.
While there’s a war or pandemic on, it’s absolutely the right thing to do from a risk management perspective. It’s also less productive though, unless your company is set up with the correct processes and business tools to work remotely for more than a couple of weeks. This is the public sector weakness, where they mostly measure inputs rather than outputs.
OTOH not commuting is definitely a positive for everyone, except the restaurants and bars in the business district.
The worst-of-all-worlds scenario is to have a massive expensive office building left mostly empty. You’re taking the hit to productivity without saving the money from actually closing the office.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
I’ve done a lot of work in both WFH and office-based environments over the years, and there’s both positives and negatives to either arrangement.
While there’s a war or pandemic on, it’s absolutely the right thing to do from a risk management perspective. It’s also less productive though, unless your company is set up with the correct processes and business tools to work remotely for more than a couple of weeks. This is the public sector weakness, where they mostly measure inputs rather than outputs.
OTOH not commuting is definitely a positive for everyone, except the restaurants and bars in the business district.
The worst-of-all-worlds scenario is to have a massive expensive office building left mostly empty. You’re taking the hit to productivity without saving the money from actually closing the office.
Plus a massive loss in social terms, especially for younger employees.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
Out here in Turkey the view of government people - I’ve met a couple - is that Dubai is somewhat fucked. They are in part talking their own book, so a pinch of Aegean Sea salt is required - they want Erdogan’s Istanbul airport to replace Dubai airport as a hub (and Doha etc)
However there is also some conviction in their words. They think the damage to Dubai’s reputation for safety is long term and considerable (and could of course get a lot worse)
For Dubai to prosper as it did, it needs a pacified Iran that won’t ever kick off again. That seems distant
Category error. Based on a scientific survey of people I've known, Turkey's main appeal is as a safe holiday destination for British Muslims. It's sunny and Westernised and everything is halal. Erdogan's tourist board should lean into that. Dubai is more about business because holidaymakers run out of things to do after three days of golf, racing and window shopping because everything is too hot without massive air conditioning.
Morning pb! It's my oldest daughter's 16th birthday today. She wanted to start the day by seeing the sunrise - so we set off early and walked up Wild Bank Hill, by Stalybridge. Improbably, the clouds had left a tiny gap for the sun to peek through at dawn. There were deer gambolling about, rabbits zipping hither and thither, a dawn chorus from the woodland below us. It was like being in a Disney cartoon in Greater Manchester.
Feel remarkably lucky that what she wants to do on her birthday is get up before dawn to go for a walk with her old dad.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
I’ve done a lot of work in both WFH and office-based environments over the years, and there’s both positives and negatives to either arrangement.
While there’s a war or pandemic on, it’s absolutely the right thing to do from a risk management perspective. It’s also less productive though, unless your company is set up with the correct processes and business tools to work remotely for more than a couple of weeks. This is the public sector weakness, where they mostly measure inputs rather than outputs.
OTOH not commuting is definitely a positive for everyone, except the restaurants and bars in the business district.
The worst-of-all-worlds scenario is to have a massive expensive office building left mostly empty. You’re taking the hit to productivity without saving the money from actually closing the office.
Plus a massive loss in social terms, especially for younger employees.
I dunno. I am in the office every day and so are some of the older partners but most younger people come in the bare minimum due to having dogs to look after and shit
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
Out here in Turkey the view of government people - I’ve met a couple - is that Dubai is somewhat fucked. They are in part talking their own book, so a pinch of Aegean Sea salt is required - they want Erdogan’s Istanbul airport to replace Dubai airport as a hub (and Doha etc)
However there is also some conviction in their words. They think the damage to Dubai’s reputation for safety is long term and considerable (and could of course get a lot worse)
For Dubai to prosper as it did, it needs a pacified Iran that won’t ever kick off again. That seems distant
That new Istanbul airport is designed for 200 mn compared to Dubai's current 100 mn. So you can see they have a lot of hub to fill.
The Tories would not survive a pact with Reform. They may not survive without one, but them the breaks
The LibDems survived a pact with the Tories - but only just.
Perhaps there should be a Tories-Reform pact as we all know who are the bigger sharks.
Did the LibDems survive? It’s too early to tell.
You could make an argument that they have been fatally wounded; they don’t just realize it yet.
20 years ago they would have been the obvious candidate to benefit from the current political turmoil. Today they are an after thought.
72 MPs is the largest third party representation in a century, so they clearly survived. Likely to have a good set of May elections in England too, though will be overshadowed in the headlines by the Reform and Green surges, and Con and Labour meltdown.
You are taking too short term a view.
They did well in a generational melt down for the Tories.
But if they are supplanted as the natural left party of protest what’s their USP?
The Waitrose Belt National Party. Not so much a protest party as a mild grumbling party. It's a decent slice of the electorate and of the country. Maybe 100 seats next time. It doesn't get the Lib Dems anywhere near a majority, but that's no change on the last century.
It's one of the curious things about current politics- the growth of "People Like Us" parties. It started with the Nats in Scotland, now in Wales as well. The Lib Dem map is a bit like that, except their nation is like one of those crazy old counties with loads on enclaves and exclaves. The Greens seem to be heading that way; especially under Polanski, they seem to be settling as the Voice of Funky Young Urbanites.
Not sure why it's happened, but it doesn't feel like a good thing. It will be an absolute bugger if these fairly parochial groups need to agree a plan for national government.
Hasn't it ever been thus? The only difference was it was squeezed into a two party system, so the us and them were a little more diverse.
I honestly think Google played the AI race extremely intelligently. They weren’t the first to make it big but they used their long-developed models and iteratively improved them over time to now from what I can see be at least on par with OpenAI. They also have the fallback of having a massive business with which to fund it that isn’t AI.
OpenAI has nothing.
Apple has virtually stayed out altogether and I can see why.
No doubt AI is going to be around but when the bubble bursts - and it will - we will finally get some proper and rational discussion about what AI is for. OpenAI I think, will be one of the first casualties.
OpenAI seems very weird to me. As you say others have successful businesses to fund their efforts, and whilst im sure its not easy it doesn't seem to be a field where others cannot break into it, OpenAI is not untouchable in its products or research so cannot raise infinite funds on the basis it will be winner takes all.
Has anyone else not been able to see comments for a few days ?
Yes! I tried various routes to complain, none of which worked, then it suddenly worked again. We could do with a "Contact moderator" link on the right side of the screen, as I really couldn't find any way to do so.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
Out here in Turkey the view of government people - I’ve met a couple - is that Dubai is somewhat fucked. They are in part talking their own book, so a pinch of Aegean Sea salt is required - they want Erdogan’s Istanbul airport to replace Dubai airport as a hub (and Doha etc)
However there is also some conviction in their words. They think the damage to Dubai’s reputation for safety is long term and considerable (and could of course get a lot worse)
For Dubai to prosper as it did, it needs a pacified Iran that won’t ever kick off again. That seems distant
That new Istanbul airport is designed for 200 mn compared to Dubai's current 100 mn. So you can see they have a lot of hub to fill.
Meanwhile, Dubai’s new airport, costing $35bn and with a capacity of 260bn, is already under construction in the desert.
I honestly think Google played the AI race extremely intelligently. They weren’t the first to make it big but they used their long-developed models and iteratively improved them over time to now from what I can see be at least on par with OpenAI. They also have the fallback of having a massive business with which to fund it that isn’t AI.
OpenAI has nothing.
Apple has virtually stayed out altogether and I can see why.
No doubt AI is going to be around but when the bubble bursts - and it will - we will finally get some proper and rational discussion about what AI is for. OpenAI I think, will be one of the first casualties.
OpenAI seems very weird to me. As you say others have successful businesses to fund their efforts, and whilst im sure its not easy it doesn't seem to be a field where others cannot break into it, OpenAI is not untouchable in its products or research so cannot raise infinite funds on the basis it will be winner takes all.
Most businesses all they know is Copilot which is basically ChatGPT but I understand that because Microsoft have a stake in OpenAI they get very preferential rates. That’s probably affecting profitability.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
I’ve done a lot of work in both WFH and office-based environments over the years, and there’s both positives and negatives to either arrangement.
While there’s a war or pandemic on, it’s absolutely the right thing to do from a risk management perspective. It’s also less productive though, unless your company is set up with the correct processes and business tools to work remotely for more than a couple of weeks. This is the public sector weakness, where they mostly measure inputs rather than outputs.
OTOH not commuting is definitely a positive for everyone, except the restaurants and bars in the business district.
The worst-of-all-worlds scenario is to have a massive expensive office building left mostly empty. You’re taking the hit to productivity without saving the money from actually closing the office.
Plus a massive loss in social terms, especially for younger employees.
Integrating new staff into a WFH environment is difficult and requires attention from managers.
If you’re a WFH company you really need to do regular workshops and social events if possible, even if that means putting half the staff in hotels for the night every month.
We have a lot of people here who would never vote Farage and are sort of never Farage Tories.
However I feel that in the country this is a lot more unlikely, sadly.
I really do not think it is
Farage is toxic and he has 3 years ahead of him of deep dislike in a very changed environment
I expect the shine to come off both Farage and Polanski by GE29
I think you're right.
So why in gods name then do you want to back Farage 2 in a skirt who wants the Tories to out Reform in every Policy sector and to be even more tie curlingly aligned to Trump and Netanyahu than Farage is.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
I’ve done a lot of work in both WFH and office-based environments over the years, and there’s both positives and negatives to either arrangement.
While there’s a war or pandemic on, it’s absolutely the right thing to do from a risk management perspective. It’s also less productive though, unless your company is set up with the correct processes and business tools to work remotely for more than a couple of weeks. This is the public sector weakness, where they mostly measure inputs rather than outputs.
OTOH not commuting is definitely a positive for everyone, except the restaurants and bars in the business district.
The worst-of-all-worlds scenario is to have a massive expensive office building left mostly empty. You’re taking the hit to productivity without saving the money from actually closing the office.
Plus a massive loss in social terms, especially for younger employees.
I dunno. I am in the office every day and so are some of the older partners but most younger people come in the bare minimum due to having dogs to look after and shit
I've worked from home for decades (solo self employed).
My daughter's first job was for a London-based very large company with a fancy office which, she discovered after starting work, is hardly being used.
She obviously had a massive training need but received next to no support (working in a office we created for her at home). It was soul-destroying, she was in tears most nights. She asked many times to no avail to be able to work in the office despite it being an hour's train commute.
The experience was so damaging and dispiriting for her she resigned after 3 months with no other job to go to. Luckily, she got re-employed and drives 30 mins to work with a team of people and she is working 10 x harder but is 100 x happier.
She has maintained contact with a senior person at the old employer who says the company is trying desperately now to incorporate contract changes to insist employees come in at least 2 days a week. Desperate stuff and a direct result of them being too weak at the end of the pandemic.
I honestly think Google played the AI race extremely intelligently. They weren’t the first to make it big but they used their long-developed models and iteratively improved them over time to now from what I can see be at least on par with OpenAI. They also have the fallback of having a massive business with which to fund it that isn’t AI.
OpenAI has nothing.
Apple has virtually stayed out altogether and I can see why.
No doubt AI is going to be around but when the bubble bursts - and it will - we will finally get some proper and rational discussion about what AI is for. OpenAI I think, will be one of the first casualties.
OpenAI seems very weird to me. As you say others have successful businesses to fund their efforts, and whilst im sure its not easy it doesn't seem to be a field where others cannot break into it, OpenAI is not untouchable in its products or research so cannot raise infinite funds on the basis it will be winner takes all.
OpenAI's only chance of success was to develop by far the best LLM and then out-scale all their rivals, so even if one of them eventually developed a better model than ChatGPT they would not be able to buy the compute capacity to scale it.
They've failed at both of those goals, imo. Google's models are as good or better then ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude is well ahead of either in many more niche (but lucrative) areas. And it turns out those vast gobs of investor cash are still not enough to deny compute capacity to their rivals, only make it more expensive.
I fully expect OpenAI to go bust next year and Sam Altman to spend many months in courtrooms trying to stay out of jail for lying to investors.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
I’ve done a lot of work in both WFH and office-based environments over the years, and there’s both positives and negatives to either arrangement.
While there’s a war or pandemic on, it’s absolutely the right thing to do from a risk management perspective. It’s also less productive though, unless your company is set up with the correct processes and business tools to work remotely for more than a couple of weeks. This is the public sector weakness, where they mostly measure inputs rather than outputs.
OTOH not commuting is definitely a positive for everyone, except the restaurants and bars in the business district.
The worst-of-all-worlds scenario is to have a massive expensive office building left mostly empty. You’re taking the hit to productivity without saving the money from actually closing the office.
Plus a massive loss in social terms, especially for younger employees.
I dunno. I am in the office every day and so are some of the older partners but most younger people come in the bare minimum due to having dogs to look after and shit
I've worked from home for decades (solo self employed).
My daughter's first job was for a London-based very large company with a fancy office which, she discovered after starting work, is hardly being used.
She obviously had a massive training need but received next to no support (working in a office we created for her at home). It was soul-destroying, she was in tears most nights. She asked many times to no avail to be able to work in the office despite it being an hour's train commute.
The experience was so damaging and dispiriting for her she resigned after 3 months with no other job to go to. Luckily, she got re-employed and drives 30 mins to work with a team of people and she is working 10 x harder but is 100 x happier.
She has maintained contact with a senior person at the old employer who says the company is trying desperately now to incorporate contract changes to insist employees come in at least 2 days a week. Desperate stuff and a direct result of them being too weak at the end of the pandemic.
Aye. I am similar to your daughter in that I hate WFH. However that’s not the norm.
Are the residential addresses of candidates in Local Elections published?
There could be some interesting analysis as to where the paper candidates live. I know one place where on a previous occasion a candidate lived in France, and we just had the one who lived at the other end of Cornwall.
Someone (not me) will need to be gearing up their resignations spreadsheet - I'm predicting 100-200 Ref UK Councillor resignations over the next 12 months. *
Or we could adopt one measure of the Welsh system, where candidates are required to be local - but that has downsides.
I was represented by a councillor living in the Dominican Republic.
Candidates need to have some link to the council area they are standing in. Either through residence, owning property, or a place of work.
But it's up to the candidate whether their address goes on the ballot paper, or is replaced with "An address in X constituency/ward/local government area" and, increasingly, candidates are opting for the latter. There is, however, a downside, particularly in local elections (especially first tier), where candidates who allow their address onto the ballot paper have a clear advantage over those who seek to withhold where they live. At town/parish level, you'd expect many voters to know, anyway, so trying to conceal it just makes the candidate look dodgy.
My address is not on the ballot. I don't want nutters turning up on my doorstep.
How do you think voters feel about being canvassed ?
Not a problem, but very time consuming. A photograph would have been more convenient.
There will be no pact from the Tory side. There wasn't even a pact in 2019 from Boris to get Brexit done, it was Farage who stood down candidates but even then only in Conservative held seats to help get Brexit done but it was Conservative gains in Labour held seats which also had Reform candidates which actually got Brexit done and beat Corbyn so Farage's offer didn't actually get Boris his majority.
As the Tory MP says any pact now giving Reform a free run in say seats Reform won in 2024 or were second to Labour would just be used by Farage to take over the local Tory party and their voters in those seats now. As TSE also suggests Labour and the LDs would likely respond with a pact of their own.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
Out here in Turkey the view of government people - I’ve met a couple - is that Dubai is somewhat fucked. They are in part talking their own book, so a pinch of Aegean Sea salt is required - they want Erdogan’s Istanbul airport to replace Dubai airport as a hub (and Doha etc)
However there is also some conviction in their words. They think the damage to Dubai’s reputation for safety is long term and considerable (and could of course get a lot worse)
For Dubai to prosper as it did, it needs a pacified Iran that won’t ever kick off again. That seems distant
Category error. Based on a scientific survey of people I've known, Turkey's main appeal is as a safe holiday destination for British Muslims. It's sunny and Westernised and everything is halal. Erdogan's tourist board should lean into that. Dubai is more about business because holidaymakers run out of things to do after three days of golf, racing and window shopping because everything is too hot without massive air conditioning.
Holidaymakers don’t fly via Istanbul they go point to point from the local UK airport to the local airport in the region of turkey they are going to.
Heck given the choice when I fly into Istanbul I go to the Asian side airport as it’s nearer.
The whole point of the rebuild of IST was to become THE flight hub replacing Dubai et al and it hasn’t really worked out yet because the issue isn’t the airport it’s the airlines that base themselves there and Turkish air really doesn’t have the reputation of Emirates, Etihad or Oman
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
I’ve done a lot of work in both WFH and office-based environments over the years, and there’s both positives and negatives to either arrangement.
While there’s a war or pandemic on, it’s absolutely the right thing to do from a risk management perspective. It’s also less productive though, unless your company is set up with the correct processes and business tools to work remotely for more than a couple of weeks. This is the public sector weakness, where they mostly measure inputs rather than outputs.
OTOH not commuting is definitely a positive for everyone, except the restaurants and bars in the business district.
The worst-of-all-worlds scenario is to have a massive expensive office building left mostly empty. You’re taking the hit to productivity without saving the money from actually closing the office.
Personally I’m a lot more productive from home because people don’t come and ask me for things. But I like going in because for meetings and so on and simple socialising it is better.
That’s why I like a balance. I just don’t like being forced because I am an adult and I’ve built trust.
'Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a truce for Orthodox Easter, with Vladimir Putin saying he's ordered Russian troops to cease fire "in all directions" this weekend.
The declaration from Moscow came after Volodymyr Zelensky issued repeated calls for a ceasefire, all ignored by the Kremlin.
Now Putin has announced a truce from 16:00 local time (13:00 GMT) on Saturday 11 April through Easter Sunday, adding that he expected Ukraine to "follow the example" of Russia. He ordered his forces to be ready to intercept "possible enemy provocations" and any "aggressive actions".
There will be no pact from the Tory side. There wasn't even a pact in 2019 from Boris to get Brexit done, it was Farage who stood down candidates but even then only in Conservative held seats to help get Brexit done but it was Conservative gains in Labour held seats which also had Reform candidates which actually got Brexit done and beat Corbyn so Farage's offer didn't actually get Boris his majority.
As the Tory MP says any pact now giving Reform a free run in say seats Reform won in 2024 or were second to Labour would just be used by Farage to take over the local Tory party and their voters in those seats now. As TSE also suggests Labour and the LDs would likely respond with a pact of their own.
I honestly think Google played the AI race extremely intelligently. They weren’t the first to make it big but they used their long-developed models and iteratively improved them over time to now from what I can see be at least on par with OpenAI. They also have the fallback of having a massive business with which to fund it that isn’t AI.
OpenAI has nothing.
Apple has virtually stayed out altogether and I can see why.
No doubt AI is going to be around but when the bubble bursts - and it will - we will finally get some proper and rational discussion about what AI is for. OpenAI I think, will be one of the first casualties.
OpenAI seems very weird to me. As you say others have successful businesses to fund their efforts, and whilst im sure its not easy it doesn't seem to be a field where others cannot break into it, OpenAI is not untouchable in its products or research so cannot raise infinite funds on the basis it will be winner takes all.
OpenAI's only chance of success was to develop by far the best LLM and then out-scale all their rivals, so even if one of them eventually developed a better model than ChatGPT they would not be able to buy the compute capacity to scale it.
They've failed at both of those goals, imo. Google's models are as good or better then ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude is well ahead of either in many more niche (but lucrative) areas. And it turns out those vast gobs of investor cash are still not enough to deny compute capacity to their rivals, only make it more expensive.
I fully expect OpenAI to go bust next year and Sam Altman to spend many months in courtrooms trying to stay out of jail for lying to investors.
Apple went with Google for Siri 2 and I can totally see why.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
There will be no pact from the Tory side. There wasn't even a pact in 2019 from Boris to get Brexit done, it was Farage who stood down candidates but even then only in Conservative held seats to help get Brexit done but it was Conservative gains in Labour held seats which also had Reform candidates which actually got Brexit done and beat Corbyn so Farage's offer didn't actually get Boris his majority.
As the Tory MP says any pact now giving Reform a free run in say seats Reform won in 2024 or were second to Labour would just be used by Farage to take over the local Tory party and their voters in those seats now. As TSE also suggests Labour and the LDs would likely respond with a pact of their own.
There is also the risk that not all Tory voters would vote Reform under such a pact, some may even vote Starmer Labour or LD. Yougov has found that 9% of Conservative voters would vote Labour in a seat only Reform could win even now and 24% of Conservative voters would vote LD in a seat only Reform or the LDs could win, only slightly smaller than the 37% who would vote Reform.
I honestly think Google played the AI race extremely intelligently. They weren’t the first to make it big but they used their long-developed models and iteratively improved them over time to now from what I can see be at least on par with OpenAI. They also have the fallback of having a massive business with which to fund it that isn’t AI.
OpenAI has nothing.
Apple has virtually stayed out altogether and I can see why.
No doubt AI is going to be around but when the bubble bursts - and it will - we will finally get some proper and rational discussion about what AI is for. OpenAI I think, will be one of the first casualties.
OpenAI seems very weird to me. As you say others have successful businesses to fund their efforts, and whilst im sure its not easy it doesn't seem to be a field where others cannot break into it, OpenAI is not untouchable in its products or research so cannot raise infinite funds on the basis it will be winner takes all.
OpenAI's only chance of success was to develop by far the best LLM and then out-scale all their rivals, so even if one of them eventually developed a better model than ChatGPT they would not be able to buy the compute capacity to scale it.
They've failed at both of those goals, imo. Google's models are as good or better then ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude is well ahead of either in many more niche (but lucrative) areas. And it turns out those vast gobs of investor cash are still not enough to deny compute capacity to their rivals, only make it more expensive.
I fully expect OpenAI to go bust next year and Sam Altman to spend many months in courtrooms trying to stay out of jail for lying to investors.
Apple went with Google for Siri 2 and I can totally see why.
My wife and I are fed up with Siri chipping in every so often uninvited!
Damn, just when I was giving serious thought to voting Tory to keep out Farage in my constituency you have to go and remind me that Rees-Mogg is still in the Tories!
'Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a truce for Orthodox Easter, with Vladimir Putin saying he's ordered Russian troops to cease fire "in all directions" this weekend.
The declaration from Moscow came after Volodymyr Zelensky issued repeated calls for a ceasefire, all ignored by the Kremlin.
Now Putin has announced a truce from 16:00 local time (13:00 GMT) on Saturday 11 April through Easter Sunday, adding that he expected Ukraine to "follow the example" of Russia. He ordered his forces to be ready to intercept "possible enemy provocations" and any "aggressive actions".
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
The Tories would not survive a pact with Reform. They may not survive without one, but them the breaks
The LibDems survived a pact with the Tories - but only just.
Perhaps there should be a Tories-Reform pact as we all know who are the bigger sharks.
Did the LibDems survive? It’s too early to tell.
You could make an argument that they have been fatally wounded; they don’t just realize it yet.
20 years ago they would have been the obvious candidate to benefit from the current political turmoil. Today they are an after thought.
72 MPs is the largest third party representation in a century, so they clearly survived. Likely to have a good set of May elections in England too, though will be overshadowed in the headlines by the Reform and Green surges, and Con and Labour meltdown.
You are taking too short term a view.
They did well in a generational melt down for the Tories.
But if they are supplanted as the natural left party of protest what’s their USP?
The Waitrose Belt National Party. Not so much a protest party as a mild grumbling party. It's a decent slice of the electorate and of the country. Maybe 100 seats next time. It doesn't get the Lib Dems anywhere near a majority, but that's no change on the last century.
It's one of the curious things about current politics- the growth of "People Like Us" parties. It started with the Nats in Scotland, now in Wales as well. The Lib Dem map is a bit like that, except their nation is like one of those crazy old counties with loads on enclaves and exclaves. The Greens seem to be heading that way; especially under Polanski, they seem to be settling as the Voice of Funky Young Urbanites.
Not sure why it's happened, but it doesn't feel like a good thing. It will be an absolute bugger if these fairly parochial groups need to agree a plan for national government.
Part of me thinks it's a good thing as there are plenty of examples in recent history of large swathes of the population not being well represented by either of the main parties. A lot of the white working class were too socially conservative to find a home in the modern Labour Party and too dependent on the state to be well represented by the Conservatives. You could say the same thing about socially liberal and economically conservative voters post Brexit who are now gravitating to the Lib Dems. The only problem is we as a country don't have a sensible attitude to coalitions and see the compromises needed to form a government as selling out
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Robots will be doing the warehouse work and the tech work before too long. No employees, no problem.
We have a lot of people here who would never vote Farage and are sort of never Farage Tories.
However I feel that in the country this is a lot more unlikely, sadly.
I really do not think it is
Farage is toxic and he has 3 years ahead of him of deep dislike in a very changed environment
I expect the shine to come off both Farage and Polanski by GE29
I think you're right.
So why in gods name then do you want to back Farage 2 in a skirt who wants the Tories to out Reform in every Policy sector and to be even more tie curlingly aligned to Trump and Netanyahu than Farage is.
Utter nonsense and blatant misogyny
Kemi is widely accepted as much improved even amongst her distractors, but you have an irrational and ingrained dislike of her and other female conservative politicians that says more negatives about you than them
'Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a truce for Orthodox Easter, with Vladimir Putin saying he's ordered Russian troops to cease fire "in all directions" this weekend.
The declaration from Moscow came after Volodymyr Zelensky issued repeated calls for a ceasefire, all ignored by the Kremlin.
Now Putin has announced a truce from 16:00 local time (13:00 GMT) on Saturday 11 April through Easter Sunday, adding that he expected Ukraine to "follow the example" of Russia. He ordered his forces to be ready to intercept "possible enemy provocations" and any "aggressive actions".
Difficult to believe that this is anything except a brief pause to ramp up Russian logistics and supplies. Putin’s constantly ignored previous calls for holiday ceasefires over the past four years.
I’ll believe there’s a ceasefire on Sunday, on Monday.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Robots will be doing the warehouse work and the tech work before too long. No employees, no problem.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Robots will be doing the warehouse work and the tech work before too long. No employees, no problem.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Robots will be doing the warehouse work and the tech work before too long. No employees, no problem.
The SOPNs are trickling out and looks like Greens have greatly upped their candidates but are a little short in some areas of London - Barking and Dagenham being a surprising example. LDs will have fewest of the main 5 but not short of what you'd expect so far. Tories are struggling to fill some of the metros - S Tyneside, Knowsley, Burnley etc Labour with a few gaps but look fully loaded in London Reform so far fully represented everywhere outside London but there are gaps in the inner London boroughs - they are standimg 1 in a lot of 3 member wards in the likes of Hackney, Waltham Forest etc
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Robots will be doing the warehouse work and the tech work before too long. No employees, no problem.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Robots will be doing the warehouse work and the tech work before too long. No employees, no problem.
No they won’t.
Course they will. The writing is on the wall
No it isn’t.
Burying your head in the sand is one coping strategy amongst many
The Tories would not survive a pact with Reform. They may not survive without one, but them the breaks
The LibDems survived a pact with the Tories - but only just.
Perhaps there should be a Tories-Reform pact as we all know who are the bigger sharks.
Did the LibDems survive? It’s too early to tell.
You could make an argument that they have been fatally wounded; they don’t just realize it yet.
20 years ago they would have been the obvious candidate to benefit from the current political turmoil. Today they are an after thought.
72 MPs is the largest third party representation in a century, so they clearly survived. Likely to have a good set of May elections in England too, though will be overshadowed in the headlines by the Reform and Green surges, and Con and Labour meltdown.
You are taking too short term a view.
They did well in a generational melt down for the Tories.
But if they are supplanted as the natural left party of protest what’s their USP?
The Waitrose Belt National Party. Not so much a protest party as a mild grumbling party. It's a decent slice of the electorate and of the country. Maybe 100 seats next time. It doesn't get the Lib Dems anywhere near a majority, but that's no change on the last century.
It's one of the curious things about current politics- the growth of "People Like Us" parties. It started with the Nats in Scotland, now in Wales as well. The Lib Dem map is a bit like that, except their nation is like one of those crazy old counties with loads on enclaves and exclaves. The Greens seem to be heading that way; especially under Polanski, they seem to be settling as the Voice of Funky Young Urbanites.
Not sure why it's happened, but it doesn't feel like a good thing. It will be an absolute bugger if these fairly parochial groups need to agree a plan for national government.
Part of me thinks it's a good thing as there are plenty of examples in recent history of large swathes of the population not being well represented by either of the main parties. A lot of the white working class were too socially conservative to find a home in the modern Labour Party and too dependent on the state to be well represented by the Conservatives. You could say the same thing about socially liberal and economically conservative voters post Brexit who are now gravitating to the Lib Dems. The only problem is we as a country don't have a sensible attitude to coalitions and see the compromises needed to form a government as selling out
The basic problem, surely, arose from the fact that our Parliament was designed with two 'sides'; a Government and an Opposition. "If you're not with us, you're against us!" The front benches are even far enough apart that two swords cannot meet.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Robots will be doing the warehouse work and the tech work before too long. No employees, no problem.
No they won’t.
Course they will. The writing is on the wall
Is that because the robots mistook it for paper?
I can only assume it’s anti-human graffiti from the clankers
There will be no pact from the Tory side. There wasn't even a pact in 2019 from Boris to get Brexit done, it was Farage who stood down candidates but even then only in Conservative held seats to help get Brexit done but it was Conservative gains in Labour held seats which also had Reform candidates which actually got Brexit done and beat Corbyn so Farage's offer didn't actually get Boris his majority.
As the Tory MP says any pact now giving Reform a free run in say seats Reform won in 2024 or were second to Labour would just be used by Farage to take over the local Tory party and their voters in those seats now. As TSE also suggests Labour and the LDs would likely respond with a pact of their own.
There is also the risk that not all Tory voters would vote Reform under such a pact, some may even vote Starmer Labour or LD. Yougov has found that 9% of Conservative voters would vote Labour in a seat only Reform could win even now and 24% of Conservative voters would vote LD in a seat only Reform or the LDs could win, only slightly smaller than the 37% who would vote Reform.
By contrast only 7% of Reform voters would vote LD and 45% would vote Conservative in a seat only the LDs or Conservatives could win, while only 3% of Reform voters would vote Labour and 44% would vote Conservative in a seat only the Conservatives or Labour could win.
Showing that Reform voters are more willing to lend their votes to the Conservatives than Conservatives are willing to lend their votes to Reform and the LDs could also gain significant numbers of Conservative votes after any Reform and Conservative pact
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Robots will be doing the warehouse work and the tech work before too long. No employees, no problem.
On topic, is the supposed "deadline" for defections genuine, or simply a piece of political theatre ?
My view inclines to the latter.
I still don’t really see why they decided to allow any Tory defections at all. Okay at best it makes zero difference but at worst it puts actual credibility behind the idea the people that broke the country now want another go to “fix it”.
Farage for his many faults has never been able to enact anything. All the defectors have and did.
Like Robert Jenrick, who literally boasted about opening migrant hotels.
They allowed defections because they needed "credible" people to come in and replace the assorted fruitcakes and loonies they already had.
Yes, Jenrick and Braverman are "credible" compared to the rest. But incredible to anyone else...
The Tories would not survive a pact with Reform. They may not survive without one, but them the breaks
The LibDems survived a pact with the Tories - but only just.
Perhaps there should be a Tories-Reform pact as we all know who are the bigger sharks.
Did the LibDems survive? It’s too early to tell.
You could make an argument that they have been fatally wounded; they don’t just realize it yet.
20 years ago they would have been the obvious candidate to benefit from the current political turmoil. Today they are an after thought.
72 MPs is the largest third party representation in a century, so they clearly survived. Likely to have a good set of May elections in England too, though will be overshadowed in the headlines by the Reform and Green surges, and Con and Labour meltdown.
You are taking too short term a view.
They did well in a generational melt down for the Tories.
But if they are supplanted as the natural left party of protest what’s their USP?
The Waitrose Belt National Party. Not so much a protest party as a mild grumbling party. It's a decent slice of the electorate and of the country. Maybe 100 seats next time. It doesn't get the Lib Dems anywhere near a majority, but that's no change on the last century.
It's one of the curious things about current politics- the growth of "People Like Us" parties. It started with the Nats in Scotland, now in Wales as well. The Lib Dem map is a bit like that, except their nation is like one of those crazy old counties with loads on enclaves and exclaves. The Greens seem to be heading that way; especially under Polanski, they seem to be settling as the Voice of Funky Young Urbanites.
Not sure why it's happened, but it doesn't feel like a good thing. It will be an absolute bugger if these fairly parochial groups need to agree a plan for national government.
Hasn't it ever been thus? The only difference was it was squeezed into a two party system, so the us and them were a little more diverse.
I'm always confused by the description of the Lib Dems as "left" or "centre-left" as they demonstrated they're centre-right / right. Using NIMBY issues to create local strongholds.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Robots will be doing the warehouse work and the tech work before too long. No employees, no problem.
No they won’t.
Course they will. The writing is on the wall
No it isn’t.
Burying your head in the sand is one coping strategy amongst many
No it’s from working in software engineering for 9 years and seeing this what it is.
The Tories would not survive a pact with Reform. They may not survive without one, but them the breaks
The LibDems survived a pact with the Tories - but only just.
Perhaps there should be a Tories-Reform pact as we all know who are the bigger sharks.
Did the LibDems survive? It’s too early to tell.
You could make an argument that they have been fatally wounded; they don’t just realize it yet.
20 years ago they would have been the obvious candidate to benefit from the current political turmoil. Today they are an after thought.
72 MPs is the largest third party representation in a century, so they clearly survived. Likely to have a good set of May elections in England too, though will be overshadowed in the headlines by the Reform and Green surges, and Con and Labour meltdown.
You are taking too short term a view.
They did well in a generational melt down for the Tories.
But if they are supplanted as the natural left party of protest what’s their USP?
The Waitrose Belt National Party. Not so much a protest party as a mild grumbling party. It's a decent slice of the electorate and of the country. Maybe 100 seats next time. It doesn't get the Lib Dems anywhere near a majority, but that's no change on the last century.
It's one of the curious things about current politics- the growth of "People Like Us" parties. It started with the Nats in Scotland, now in Wales as well. The Lib Dem map is a bit like that, except their nation is like one of those crazy old counties with loads on enclaves and exclaves. The Greens seem to be heading that way; especially under Polanski, they seem to be settling as the Voice of Funky Young Urbanites.
Not sure why it's happened, but it doesn't feel like a good thing. It will be an absolute bugger if these fairly parochial groups need to agree a plan for national government.
Part of me thinks it's a good thing as there are plenty of examples in recent history of large swathes of the population not being well represented by either of the main parties. A lot of the white working class were too socially conservative to find a home in the modern Labour Party and too dependent on the state to be well represented by the Conservatives. You could say the same thing about socially liberal and economically conservative voters post Brexit who are now gravitating to the Lib Dems. The only problem is we as a country don't have a sensible attitude to coalitions and see the compromises needed to form a government as selling out
The basic problem, surely, arose from the fact that our Parliament was designed with two 'sides'; a Government and an Opposition. "If you're not with us, you're against us!" The front benches are even far enough apart that two swords cannot meet.
Yet that was in the early 19th century when Parliament was rebuilt after fire and back then most men and certainly not most working class men could vote and no women of any class could vote. So political parties largely just represented rich and property owning elite men
I honestly think Google played the AI race extremely intelligently. They weren’t the first to make it big but they used their long-developed models and iteratively improved them over time to now from what I can see be at least on par with OpenAI. They also have the fallback of having a massive business with which to fund it that isn’t AI.
OpenAI has nothing.
Apple has virtually stayed out altogether and I can see why.
No doubt AI is going to be around but when the bubble bursts - and it will - we will finally get some proper and rational discussion about what AI is for. OpenAI I think, will be one of the first casualties.
Apart from NVidia, Apple has played the best game so far on AI.
Be the guy selling shovels and sieves in the gold rush.
I don't think giving Google $20bn per year for Gemini is a particularly great strategy win, but it's probably better than spending $200bn on a custom model that's worse than the competition - the Microsoft route I like to call that.
Google have clearly played the best game for AI, they have been in it longest and have their own hardware which eliminates their reliance on Nvidia and they've managed to sidestep the soaring costs for RAM because Tensor has a much lower usage of RAM than H100s or AMD/Intel CPUs.
OpenAI is, IMO, going to be gone this time next year. ChatGPT is a shite, Sora is dead, their enterprise offering is 2-3 steps behind Anthropic and sucking up to the US government has probably only bought them a year of runway. My understanding is that their $150bn funding round only unlocks $40bn in immediate cash, which they will burn through in about 8-9 months even if energy prices start to fall that will only buy them an extra few months. ChatGPT is the default consumer LLM but consumers don't want to pay $100 per month for it and companies would rather pay Anthropic $150 per licence or get Gemini with a Google workspace subscription.
Also, OpenAI still have the looming threat of Elon Musk, his lawsuit against them hasn't been thrown out despite numerous attempts to do so and he has got a real case. He gave them billions in startup funding to be a non-profit, they converted to a profit making business but gave him zero equity despite the initial seed funding. I wouldn't be surprised if the courts rule in his favour and force OpenAI to hand him a very big chunk of equity or pay him out tens of billions in recompense.
What do you make of the AI shrinkflation story ? Rumour is that Anthropic is also struggling to make the business model work, and dumbing down its offerings to reduce processing requirements. (I am in no position to judge whether this is true or nonsense.)
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Robots will be doing the warehouse work and the tech work before too long. No employees, no problem.
No they won’t.
Course they will. The writing is on the wall
No it isn’t.
Burying your head in the sand is one coping strategy amongst many
No it’s from working in software engineering for 9 years and seeing this what it is.
I am not sure what your point is. Claude Code has already changed software engineering and in my field of law frontier models are already doing 90% of my work at a very high standard. That doesn’t mean AI is perfect or can work without human intervention right now but the rate of progress and future is clearer than ever.
The SOPNs are trickling out and looks like Greens have greatly upped their candidates but are a little short in some areas of London - Barking and Dagenham being a surprising example. LDs will have fewest of the main 5 but not short of what you'd expect so far. Tories are struggling to fill some of the metros - S Tyneside, Knowsley, Burnley etc Labour with a few gaps but look fully loaded in London Reform so far fully represented everywhere outside London but there are gaps in the inner London boroughs - they are standimg 1 in a lot of 3 member wards in the likes of Hackney, Waltham Forest etc
Reform have no chance in inner London, whereas they will likely sweep the board in much of provincial England that is why
Damn, just when I was giving serious thought to voting Tory to keep out Farage in my constituency you have to go and remind me that Rees-Mogg is still in the Tories!
Thankfully, at the moment Jacob is the only Conservative who I think could unite the Tories and most of Reform again.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Robots will be doing the warehouse work and the tech work before too long. No employees, no problem.
No they won’t.
Course they will. The writing is on the wall
No it isn’t.
Burying your head in the sand is one coping strategy amongst many
No it’s from working in software engineering for 9 years and seeing this what it is.
I am not sure what your point is. Claude Code has already changed software engineering and in my field of law frontier models are already doing 90% of my work at a very high standard. That doesn’t mean AI is perfect or can work without human intervention right now but the rate of progress and future is clearer than ever.
I think the odds AI will replace any software engineering jobs is vanishingly small and every day somebody hypes up some new model or CLI and the result is always the same. Good for some things and terrible for others.
Beyond their support for withdrawing from NATO and opposition to nuclear power which makes them automatically worse than Reform, Greens are the NIMBY party.
They may well do very well. But not the party for me.
The Tories would not survive a pact with Reform. They may not survive without one, but them the breaks
The LibDems survived a pact with the Tories - but only just.
Perhaps there should be a Tories-Reform pact as we all know who are the bigger sharks.
Did the LibDems survive? It’s too early to tell.
You could make an argument that they have been fatally wounded; they don’t just realize it yet.
20 years ago they would have been the obvious candidate to benefit from the current political turmoil. Today they are an after thought.
72 MPs is the largest third party representation in a century, so they clearly survived. Likely to have a good set of May elections in England too, though will be overshadowed in the headlines by the Reform and Green surges, and Con and Labour meltdown.
You are taking too short term a view.
They did well in a generational melt down for the Tories.
But if they are supplanted as the natural left party of protest what’s their USP?
The Waitrose Belt National Party. Not so much a protest party as a mild grumbling party. It's a decent slice of the electorate and of the country. Maybe 100 seats next time. It doesn't get the Lib Dems anywhere near a majority, but that's no change on the last century.
It's one of the curious things about current politics- the growth of "People Like Us" parties. It started with the Nats in Scotland, now in Wales as well. The Lib Dem map is a bit like that, except their nation is like one of those crazy old counties with loads on enclaves and exclaves. The Greens seem to be heading that way; especially under Polanski, they seem to be settling as the Voice of Funky Young Urbanites.
Not sure why it's happened, but it doesn't feel like a good thing. It will be an absolute bugger if these fairly parochial groups need to agree a plan for national government.
Part of me thinks it's a good thing as there are plenty of examples in recent history of large swathes of the population not being well represented by either of the main parties. A lot of the white working class were too socially conservative to find a home in the modern Labour Party and too dependent on the state to be well represented by the Conservatives. You could say the same thing about socially liberal and economically conservative voters post Brexit who are now gravitating to the Lib Dems. The only problem is we as a country don't have a sensible attitude to coalitions and see the compromises needed to form a government as selling out
The basic problem, surely, arose from the fact that our Parliament was designed with two 'sides'; a Government and an Opposition. "If you're not with us, you're against us!" The front benches are even far enough apart that two swords cannot meet.
Yet that was in the early 19th century when Parliament was rebuilt after fire and back then most men and certainly not most working class men could vote and no women of any class could vote. So political parties largely just represented rich and property owning elite men
What was the layout before the 1830's rebuild? I thought that, as with the WWII rebuild, it was as it is now.
Shouting abuse across the Chamber has never struck me as a very adult method of running a country.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
I’ve done a lot of work in both WFH and office-based environments over the years, and there’s both positives and negatives to either arrangement.
While there’s a war or pandemic on, it’s absolutely the right thing to do from a risk management perspective. It’s also less productive though, unless your company is set up with the correct processes and business tools to work remotely for more than a couple of weeks. This is the public sector weakness, where they mostly measure inputs rather than outputs.
OTOH not commuting is definitely a positive for everyone, except the restaurants and bars in the business district.
The worst-of-all-worlds scenario is to have a massive expensive office building left mostly empty. You’re taking the hit to productivity without saving the money from actually closing the office.
Three days in the office, two at home seems to be a good compromise ?
Sir Tony Blair has accused Ed Miliband of taking an “ideological” approach to net zero and called on him to approve new oil and gasfields in the North Sea to protect households and businesses from energy price shocks
The Tony Blair Institute, the former prime minister’s think tank, said the government should approve new licences for the drilling of the Jackdaw gasfield and the Rosebank oilfield to help address Britain’s “systematic energy crisis”
The report, which was endorsed by Blair, argues that Britain needs to pursue a two-track approach by producing more clean energy while accelerating domestic oil and gas production to reduce Britain’s exposure to global markets
Tone Langengen, a policy adviser at the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) and author of the paper, also said the UK risked falling behind global competitors by solely focusing on clean power
“If the government doubles down on the wrong parts of the system, the UK will remain exposed to the same vulnerabilities,” he said
“But this is also an opportunity to reset — including by accelerating domestic supply to reduce reliance on volatile imports and support UK jobs and tax revenues.”
Tony Blair is correct.
Tony Blair is now right of Cameron let alone Starmer
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
I’ve done a lot of work in both WFH and office-based environments over the years, and there’s both positives and negatives to either arrangement.
While there’s a war or pandemic on, it’s absolutely the right thing to do from a risk management perspective. It’s also less productive though, unless your company is set up with the correct processes and business tools to work remotely for more than a couple of weeks. This is the public sector weakness, where they mostly measure inputs rather than outputs.
OTOH not commuting is definitely a positive for everyone, except the restaurants and bars in the business district.
The worst-of-all-worlds scenario is to have a massive expensive office building left mostly empty. You’re taking the hit to productivity without saving the money from actually closing the office.
Three days in the office, two at home seems to be a good compromise ?
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
I’ve done a lot of work in both WFH and office-based environments over the years, and there’s both positives and negatives to either arrangement.
While there’s a war or pandemic on, it’s absolutely the right thing to do from a risk management perspective. It’s also less productive though, unless your company is set up with the correct processes and business tools to work remotely for more than a couple of weeks. This is the public sector weakness, where they mostly measure inputs rather than outputs.
OTOH not commuting is definitely a positive for everyone, except the restaurants and bars in the business district.
The worst-of-all-worlds scenario is to have a massive expensive office building left mostly empty. You’re taking the hit to productivity without saving the money from actually closing the office.
Plus a massive loss in social terms, especially for younger employees.
I dunno. I am in the office every day and so are some of the older partners but most younger people come in the bare minimum due to having dogs to look after and shit
I've worked from home for decades (solo self employed).
My daughter's first job was for a London-based very large company with a fancy office which, she discovered after starting work, is hardly being used.
She obviously had a massive training need but received next to no support (working in a office we created for her at home). It was soul-destroying, she was in tears most nights. She asked many times to no avail to be able to work in the office despite it being an hour's train commute.
The experience was so damaging and dispiriting for her she resigned after 3 months with no other job to go to. Luckily, she got re-employed and drives 30 mins to work with a team of people and she is working 10 x harder but is 100 x happier.
She has maintained contact with a senior person at the old employer who says the company is trying desperately now to incorporate contract changes to insist employees come in at least 2 days a week. Desperate stuff and a direct result of them being too weak at the end of the pandemic.
Too weak? We were working from home years before the Covid pandemic and the company took the opportunity to sell the building. Many others, including the government (pace Jacob Rees-Mogg and his post-it notes) did the same.
WFH saves money for employers as well as employees, and we should not forget that. It screws over new recruits but I'm all right Jack.
Two days a week is the worst of both worlds. It means commuters can't save with season tickets, and leads employers to hot desking so teams can't sit together even if by chance each member chose the same two days so it still screws over new recruits.
It is absolutely criminally insane that there is a "ceasefire" that has left Hormuz closed.
What is the frigging point?
Unless Hormuz is reopened in full, there should be no ceasefire and Iranian regime and military targets like IRGC facilities, petrochemical industry and energy targets should be wiped out, until there is regime change and the new regime reopens Hormuz.
The Tories would not survive a pact with Reform. They may not survive without one, but them the breaks
The LibDems survived a pact with the Tories - but only just.
Perhaps there should be a Tories-Reform pact as we all know who are the bigger sharks.
Did the LibDems survive? It’s too early to tell.
You could make an argument that they have been fatally wounded; they don’t just realize it yet.
20 years ago they would have been the obvious candidate to benefit from the current political turmoil. Today they are an after thought.
72 MPs is the largest third party representation in a century, so they clearly survived. Likely to have a good set of May elections in England too, though will be overshadowed in the headlines by the Reform and Green surges, and Con and Labour meltdown.
You are taking too short term a view.
They did well in a generational melt down for the Tories.
But if they are supplanted as the natural left party of protest what’s their USP?
The Waitrose Belt National Party. Not so much a protest party as a mild grumbling party. It's a decent slice of the electorate and of the country. Maybe 100 seats next time. It doesn't get the Lib Dems anywhere near a majority, but that's no change on the last century.
It's one of the curious things about current politics- the growth of "People Like Us" parties. It started with the Nats in Scotland, now in Wales as well. The Lib Dem map is a bit like that, except their nation is like one of those crazy old counties with loads on enclaves and exclaves. The Greens seem to be heading that way; especially under Polanski, they seem to be settling as the Voice of Funky Young Urbanites.
Not sure why it's happened, but it doesn't feel like a good thing. It will be an absolute bugger if these fairly parochial groups need to agree a plan for national government.
Part of me thinks it's a good thing as there are plenty of examples in recent history of large swathes of the population not being well represented by either of the main parties. A lot of the white working class were too socially conservative to find a home in the modern Labour Party and too dependent on the state to be well represented by the Conservatives. You could say the same thing about socially liberal and economically conservative voters post Brexit who are now gravitating to the Lib Dems. The only problem is we as a country don't have a sensible attitude to coalitions and see the compromises needed to form a government as selling out
Not so much selling out as giving a good excuse for the politicians to ignore the people that voted for them. Or ignore them even more than they do anyway.
Even in the most recent example of coalition we see this with the way the Lib Dems stabbed their own voters in the back. This is the norm in coaltion rather than the exception. It gives yet more power to the parties and their leaderships and takes it away from the electorate.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
And when they do a deal, they can do one.
As things stand, the Conservatives are only likely to be in government after 2029 as a junior partner to Reform. There is little ideological difference between Badenoch and Farage. Would they really say No, if the situation arises?
The situation may not arise, if Reform don't need the Conservatives, the Conservatives manage to displace Reform or centre/left parties form the next government. But if Reform can form a government only with the Tories, I am pretty sure they will say, Yes.
Kemi would probably back Farage in a hung parliament if he made her his Deputy PM, which he likely would if he needed Tory support for a majority. If Cleverly was Conservative leader though he probably would not back Farage and tell Tory MPs to abstain on a confidence and supply vote and just vote bill by bill.
Of course if Reform won a majority or the Conservatives remained ahead of Reform on MPs or Labour was re elected with a majority or most seats in a hung parliament the situation would not arise. If it did though there would be a difference I suspect between Kemi and Cleverly's approach to Farage and Reform
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Sorry. A pet hate is the WFH debate - a classic of polarisation.
To WFH effectively requires organisational changes, technical support and team level methodology. It’s usefulness varies according to the type of work - which changes on a regular basis in most roles
For example, i work in an IT dev team using agile. Our “machines” are in server room, with access via a thin client. Phones are virtualised. We all have space at home for an office - I have a proper desk, giant monitor etc.
So we have tasks that can be done by one person (mostly), easily tracked, creating code that is reviewed. This means productivity and quality are automatically checked. We have high quality, reasonably secure workspaces at home.
Even so, when new team members join, we head to the office for a few weeks, for example. We also define team days when we are all in the office.
I have seen people 100% remote, with a laptop on the ironing board in a HMO living room. Which, strangely, doesn’t work.
Starmer’s done an interview with ITV and seems to have dropped all idea that he will be friends with Trump, virtually equating him to Putin.
I hope that is a genuine relfection of a change of direction.
Feel free to take this with as much salt as you would like but I do genuinely get a sense that since McSweeney left Starmer has started to control things himself. Of course he should have been in control from the start.
The Tories would not survive a pact with Reform. They may not survive without one, but them the breaks
The LibDems survived a pact with the Tories - but only just.
Perhaps there should be a Tories-Reform pact as we all know who are the bigger sharks.
Did the LibDems survive? It’s too early to tell.
You could make an argument that they have been fatally wounded; they don’t just realize it yet.
20 years ago they would have been the obvious candidate to benefit from the current political turmoil. Today they are an after thought.
72 MPs is the largest third party representation in a century, so they clearly survived. Likely to have a good set of May elections in England too, though will be overshadowed in the headlines by the Reform and Green surges, and Con and Labour meltdown.
You are taking too short term a view.
They did well in a generational melt down for the Tories.
But if they are supplanted as the natural left party of protest what’s their USP?
The Waitrose Belt National Party. Not so much a protest party as a mild grumbling party. It's a decent slice of the electorate and of the country. Maybe 100 seats next time. It doesn't get the Lib Dems anywhere near a majority, but that's no change on the last century.
It's one of the curious things about current politics- the growth of "People Like Us" parties. It started with the Nats in Scotland, now in Wales as well. The Lib Dem map is a bit like that, except their nation is like one of those crazy old counties with loads on enclaves and exclaves. The Greens seem to be heading that way; especially under Polanski, they seem to be settling as the Voice of Funky Young Urbanites.
Not sure why it's happened, but it doesn't feel like a good thing. It will be an absolute bugger if these fairly parochial groups need to agree a plan for national government.
Part of me thinks it's a good thing as there are plenty of examples in recent history of large swathes of the population not being well represented by either of the main parties. A lot of the white working class were too socially conservative to find a home in the modern Labour Party and too dependent on the state to be well represented by the Conservatives. You could say the same thing about socially liberal and economically conservative voters post Brexit who are now gravitating to the Lib Dems. The only problem is we as a country don't have a sensible attitude to coalitions and see the compromises needed to form a government as selling out
The basic problem, surely, arose from the fact that our Parliament was designed with two 'sides'; a Government and an Opposition. "If you're not with us, you're against us!" The front benches are even far enough apart that two swords cannot meet.
Yet that was in the early 19th century when Parliament was rebuilt after fire and back then most men and certainly not most working class men could vote and no women of any class could vote. So political parties largely just represented rich and property owning elite men
What was the layout before the 1830's rebuild? I thought that, as with the WWII rebuild, it was as it is now.
Shouting abuse across the Chamber has never struck me as a very adult method of running a country.
Little difference on the point, in the 18th century less than 5% of the population could vote. Though yes when we had only 2 parties with over 3/4 of MPs and votes as we did even in 2017 and 2019 it made sense more than now where barely more than a third are backing the Tories and Labour
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
I’ve done a lot of work in both WFH and office-based environments over the years, and there’s both positives and negatives to either arrangement.
While there’s a war or pandemic on, it’s absolutely the right thing to do from a risk management perspective. It’s also less productive though, unless your company is set up with the correct processes and business tools to work remotely for more than a couple of weeks. This is the public sector weakness, where they mostly measure inputs rather than outputs.
OTOH not commuting is definitely a positive for everyone, except the restaurants and bars in the business district.
The worst-of-all-worlds scenario is to have a massive expensive office building left mostly empty. You’re taking the hit to productivity without saving the money from actually closing the office.
Three days in the office, two at home seems to be a good compromise ?
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Sorry. A pet hate is the WFH debate - a classic of polarisation.
To WFH effectively requires organisational changes, technical support and team level methodology. It’s usefulness varies according to the type of work - which changes on a regular basis in most roles
For example, i work in an IT dev team using agile. Our “machines” are in server room, with access via a thin client. Phones are virtualised. We all have space at home for an office - I have a proper desk, giant monitor etc.
So we have tasks that can be done by one person (mostly), easily tracked, creating code that is reviewed. This means productivity and quality are automatically checked. We have high quality, reasonably secure workspaces at home.
Even so, when new team members join, we head to the office for a few weeks, for example. We also define team days when we are all in the office.
I have seen people 100% remote, with a laptop on the ironing board in a HMO living room. Which, strangely, doesn’t work.
I am as anti permanent WFH as I am permanent in the office. It’s all about a balance.
It’s forcing people in five days a week for tech jobs I just cannot understand.
Yesterday I was in out of choice and I sat all day writing code that was urgent so I had headphones in.
Beyond social interaction at lunch being in was essentially pointless.
It is absolutely criminally insane that there is a "ceasefire" that has left Hormuz closed.
What is the frigging point?
Unless Hormuz is reopened in full, there should be no ceasefire and Iranian regime and military targets like IRGC facilities, petrochemical industry and energy targets should be wiped out, until there is regime change and the new regime reopens Hormuz.
Israel is still murdering Lebanese civilians, hence no ceasefire.
That’s Vanilla. I’m baffled why everyone doesn’t use it as managing comments on the main site is awful. You’re all doing yourselves a massive disservice by not using it.
It is absolutely criminally insane that there is a "ceasefire" that has left Hormuz closed.
What is the frigging point?
Unless Hormuz is reopened in full, there should be no ceasefire and Iranian regime and military targets like IRGC facilities, petrochemical industry and energy targets should be wiped out, until there is regime change and the new regime reopens Hormuz.
It is absolutely criminally insane that there is a "ceasefire" that has left Hormuz closed.
What is the frigging point?
Unless Hormuz is reopened in full, there should be no ceasefire and Iranian regime and military targets like IRGC facilities, petrochemical industry and energy targets should be wiped out, until there is regime change and the new regime reopens Hormuz.
You just do't get it do you Bart.
As I said the other day, you have had your regime change. You replaced a hardline theocratic regime that was willing to negitiate with a hardline military regime that isn't.
The US were very unlikely to achieve their war aims without actually putting people on the ground in Iran and they don't have the support in Congress or in the wider public to do that. Anyone with an ounce of sense could see this was the most likely outcome of this little US/Israeli adventure which is why anyone with any sense opposed it from the start.
The Tories would not survive a pact with Reform. They may not survive without one, but them the breaks
The LibDems survived a pact with the Tories - but only just.
Perhaps there should be a Tories-Reform pact as we all know who are the bigger sharks.
Did the LibDems survive? It’s too early to tell.
You could make an argument that they have been fatally wounded; they don’t just realize it yet.
20 years ago they would have been the obvious candidate to benefit from the current political turmoil. Today they are an after thought.
72 MPs is the largest third party representation in a century, so they clearly survived. Likely to have a good set of May elections in England too, though will be overshadowed in the headlines by the Reform and Green surges, and Con and Labour meltdown.
You are taking too short term a view.
They did well in a generational melt down for the Tories.
But if they are supplanted as the natural left party of protest what’s their USP?
The Waitrose Belt National Party. Not so much a protest party as a mild grumbling party. It's a decent slice of the electorate and of the country. Maybe 100 seats next time. It doesn't get the Lib Dems anywhere near a majority, but that's no change on the last century.
It's one of the curious things about current politics- the growth of "People Like Us" parties. It started with the Nats in Scotland, now in Wales as well. The Lib Dem map is a bit like that, except their nation is like one of those crazy old counties with loads on enclaves and exclaves. The Greens seem to be heading that way; especially under Polanski, they seem to be settling as the Voice of Funky Young Urbanites.
Not sure why it's happened, but it doesn't feel like a good thing. It will be an absolute bugger if these fairly parochial groups need to agree a plan for national government.
Hasn't it ever been thus? The only difference was it was squeezed into a two party system, so the us and them were a little more diverse.
I'm always confused by the description of the Lib Dems as "left" or "centre-left" as they demonstrated they're centre-right / right. Using NIMBY issues to create local strongholds.
The LDs were centre left under Charles Kennedy, centre right under Clegg and now under Davey between the two
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
I’ve done a lot of work in both WFH and office-based environments over the years, and there’s both positives and negatives to either arrangement.
While there’s a war or pandemic on, it’s absolutely the right thing to do from a risk management perspective. It’s also less productive though, unless your company is set up with the correct processes and business tools to work remotely for more than a couple of weeks. This is the public sector weakness, where they mostly measure inputs rather than outputs.
OTOH not commuting is definitely a positive for everyone, except the restaurants and bars in the business district.
The worst-of-all-worlds scenario is to have a massive expensive office building left mostly empty. You’re taking the hit to productivity without saving the money from actually closing the office.
Three days in the office, two at home seems to be a good compromise ?
I go for 1 day at home, 1 in the office and 3 waffling on pb.
'Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a truce for Orthodox Easter, with Vladimir Putin saying he's ordered Russian troops to cease fire "in all directions" this weekend.
The declaration from Moscow came after Volodymyr Zelensky issued repeated calls for a ceasefire, all ignored by the Kremlin.
Now Putin has announced a truce from 16:00 local time (13:00 GMT) on Saturday 11 April through Easter Sunday, adding that he expected Ukraine to "follow the example" of Russia. He ordered his forces to be ready to intercept "possible enemy provocations" and any "aggressive actions".
It is absolutely criminally insane that there is a "ceasefire" that has left Hormuz closed.
What is the frigging point?
Unless Hormuz is reopened in full, there should be no ceasefire and Iranian regime and military targets like IRGC facilities, petrochemical industry and energy targets should be wiped out, until there is regime change and the new regime reopens Hormuz.
You just do't get it do you Bart.
As I said the other day, you have had your regime change. You replaced a hardline theocratic regime that was willing to negitiate with a hardline military regime that isn't.
The US were very unlikely to achieve their war aims without actually putting people on the ground in Iran and they don't have the support in Congress or in the wider public to do that. Anyone with an ounce of sense could see this was the most likely outcome of this little US/Israeli adventure which is why anyone with any sense opposed it from the start.
We may not always agree Richard but we’ve been lock-step in opposing this stupid war ever since day one. It was OBVIOUS to anyone with a pulse it was going to be a disaster.
Anyone who couldn’t see that needs their judgment seriously called into question. Forget that Iran is a stupid country to get involved in, forget all the mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was led by TRUMP.
It is absolutely criminally insane that there is a "ceasefire" that has left Hormuz closed.
What is the frigging point?
Unless Hormuz is reopened in full, there should be no ceasefire and Iranian regime and military targets like IRGC facilities, petrochemical industry and energy targets should be wiped out, until there is regime change and the new regime reopens Hormuz.
Israel is still murdering Lebanese civilians, hence no ceasefire.
Have we ditched the idea Israel has any moral superiority now or are people still trying that
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Sorry. A pet hate is the WFH debate - a classic of polarisation.
To WFH effectively requires organisational changes, technical support and team level methodology. It’s usefulness varies according to the type of work - which changes on a regular basis in most roles
For example, i work in an IT dev team using agile. Our “machines” are in server room, with access via a thin client. Phones are virtualised. We all have space at home for an office - I have a proper desk, giant monitor etc.
So we have tasks that can be done by one person (mostly), easily tracked, creating code that is reviewed. This means productivity and quality are automatically checked. We have high quality, reasonably secure workspaces at home.
Even so, when new team members join, we head to the office for a few weeks, for example. We also define team days when we are all in the office.
I have seen people 100% remote, with a laptop on the ironing board in a HMO living room. Which, strangely, doesn’t work.
I am as anti permanent WFH as I am permanent in the office. It’s all about a balance.
It’s forcing people in five days a week for tech jobs I just cannot understand.
Yesterday I was in out of choice and I sat all day writing code that was urgent so I had headphones in.
Beyond social interaction at lunch being in was essentially pointless.
I ran drilling operations in the North Sea and West of Shetlands from my study in Lincolnshire for almost a decade. We would go in the office every 6 weeks or so to do team stuff but we all knew that no actual work beyond tick over would get done during that week.
For mayny companies, full time office based more often than not reflects poor management who don't trust their workforce.
I hadn't realised former Senator Ben Sasse was dying. He has done an interview with the NYT about his cancer - stage 4 pancreatic, multiply metastasised.
How Ben Sasse Is Living Now That He Is Dying https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/opinion/ben-sasse-death-pancreatic-cancer.html ..Sasse: There’s a company in Silicon Valley called Revolution Medicines, and they have a drug called daraxonrasib, and that’s my drug. I’m able to take it orally, as of now. So, I don’t have an infusion port right now. I take it orally, but it’s a nasty drug. It causes crazy stuff like my body can’t grow skin and so I bleed all out of a whole bunch of parts of me that shouldn’t be bleeding.
The Tories would not survive a pact with Reform. They may not survive without one, but them the breaks
The LibDems survived a pact with the Tories - but only just.
Perhaps there should be a Tories-Reform pact as we all know who are the bigger sharks.
Did the LibDems survive? It’s too early to tell.
You could make an argument that they have been fatally wounded; they don’t just realize it yet.
20 years ago they would have been the obvious candidate to benefit from the current political turmoil. Today they are an after thought.
72 MPs is the largest third party representation in a century, so they clearly survived. Likely to have a good set of May elections in England too, though will be overshadowed in the headlines by the Reform and Green surges, and Con and Labour meltdown.
You are taking too short term a view.
They did well in a generational melt down for the Tories.
But if they are supplanted as the natural left party of protest what’s their USP?
The Waitrose Belt National Party. Not so much a protest party as a mild grumbling party. It's a decent slice of the electorate and of the country. Maybe 100 seats next time. It doesn't get the Lib Dems anywhere near a majority, but that's no change on the last century.
It's one of the curious things about current politics- the growth of "People Like Us" parties. It started with the Nats in Scotland, now in Wales as well. The Lib Dem map is a bit like that, except their nation is like one of those crazy old counties with loads on enclaves and exclaves. The Greens seem to be heading that way; especially under Polanski, they seem to be settling as the Voice of Funky Young Urbanites.
Not sure why it's happened, but it doesn't feel like a good thing. It will be an absolute bugger if these fairly parochial groups need to agree a plan for national government.
Part of me thinks it's a good thing as there are plenty of examples in recent history of large swathes of the population not being well represented by either of the main parties. A lot of the white working class were too socially conservative to find a home in the modern Labour Party and too dependent on the state to be well represented by the Conservatives. You could say the same thing about socially liberal and economically conservative voters post Brexit who are now gravitating to the Lib Dems. The only problem is we as a country don't have a sensible attitude to coalitions and see the compromises needed to form a government as selling out
The basic problem, surely, arose from the fact that our Parliament was designed with two 'sides'; a Government and an Opposition. "If you're not with us, you're against us!" The front benches are even far enough apart that two swords cannot meet.
Yet that was in the early 19th century when Parliament was rebuilt after fire and back then most men and certainly not most working class men could vote and no women of any class could vote. So political parties largely just represented rich and property owning elite men
What was the layout before the 1830's rebuild? I thought that, as with the WWII rebuild, it was as it is now.
Shouting abuse across the Chamber has never struck me as a very adult method of running a country.
Little difference on the point, in the 18th century less than 5% of the population could vote. Though yes when we had only 2 parties with over 3/4 of MPs and votes as we did even in 2017 and 2019 it made sense more than now where barely more than a third are backing the Tories and Labour
My comments are nothing whatsoever to do with the percentage of the population who could vote.
I'm simply interested in the layout of the Parliament. Would it be better if it was semi-circular, as is the case in, for example New Zealand and, I think, Scotland?
It is absolutely criminally insane that there is a "ceasefire" that has left Hormuz closed.
What is the frigging point?
Unless Hormuz is reopened in full, there should be no ceasefire and Iranian regime and military targets like IRGC facilities, petrochemical industry and energy targets should be wiped out, until there is regime change and the new regime reopens Hormuz.
Blame Netanyahu.
Blame the Israelis who elected Netanyahu and will elect Netanyahu or an even more belligerent genocidal leader at the next GE.
Interesting article about Dubai and why it's likely to see off the current attacks from Iran thanks to a highly successful economy based on immigration and a massive sovereign wealth fund.
On topic the Tories won't do a deal with Farage until they do one.
Somewhat more positive than most articles written about Dubai in the past six weeks, many of which written by people who had never been here for more than a week’s holiday.
There has been a lot of hysterical media about some exodus from Dubai . When the reality is even during the last month everyday life has gone on as normal for the vast majority of people .
Correct. A lot of companies are WFH, to avoid half the company being in the same place if something happens. Multinationals had longstanding disaster plans to evacuate key staff, which was done immediately the situation started.
I don’t know anyone who’s quit a salaried job. A few of the digital nomad and ‘influencer’ types have left temporarily, as have a number of wives and kids as schools are also remote.
Hospitality sector is struggling with the lack of tourists, and there have been some furloughs there. On the other hand the fancy hotel resorts are doing some fantastic resident offers at the moment, 5* resort for £150-£200 a night.
The death toll in UAE is 10 for a population of 11m. That’s a couple of days’ worth of road accidents. Obviously sad for those affected, but perspective…
So are you pro WFH? I thought you’d be the kind of person to say get back to the office but maybe I’m wrong and happy to say so.
The WFH thing is being misunderstood. Many are not against it per se but are cross that people (particularly the more senior with power, inc public sector) cynically used the pandemic to refuse to return to their prior workplace in order to improve their terms and conditions (with no loss of salary). Many of these people are still WFH.
I work from home more than I did before the pandemic, I’m fairly senior in my current organisation. That’s the policy of my current company.
I can’t see the point in companies like Amazon forcing people in every day, can you?
If they work in the warehouse…
Yes but for say tech roles, why?
Sorry. A pet hate is the WFH debate - a classic of polarisation.
To WFH effectively requires organisational changes, technical support and team level methodology. It’s usefulness varies according to the type of work - which changes on a regular basis in most roles
For example, i work in an IT dev team using agile. Our “machines” are in server room, with access via a thin client. Phones are virtualised. We all have space at home for an office - I have a proper desk, giant monitor etc.
So we have tasks that can be done by one person (mostly), easily tracked, creating code that is reviewed. This means productivity and quality are automatically checked. We have high quality, reasonably secure workspaces at home.
Even so, when new team members join, we head to the office for a few weeks, for example. We also define team days when we are all in the office.
I have seen people 100% remote, with a laptop on the ironing board in a HMO living room. Which, strangely, doesn’t work.
I am as anti permanent WFH as I am permanent in the office. It’s all about a balance.
It’s forcing people in five days a week for tech jobs I just cannot understand.
Yesterday I was in out of choice and I sat all day writing code that was urgent so I had headphones in.
Beyond social interaction at lunch being in was essentially pointless.
I ran drilling operations in the North Sea and West of Shetlands from my study in Lincolnshire for almost a decade. We would go in the office every 6 weeks or so to do team stuff but we all knew that no actual work beyond tick over would get done during that week.
For mayny companies, full time office based more often than not reflects poor management who don't trust their workforce.
For me it’s always about trust. You hit the nail on the head.
I’ve proved I can work productively from home and even have done more work as I’ve been up at odd hours I’d never have had in the office. My company leaves me to it.
Break the trust and it’s a different conversation.
The Tories would not survive a pact with Reform. They may not survive without one, but them the breaks
The LibDems survived a pact with the Tories - but only just.
Perhaps there should be a Tories-Reform pact as we all know who are the bigger sharks.
Did the LibDems survive? It’s too early to tell.
You could make an argument that they have been fatally wounded; they don’t just realize it yet.
20 years ago they would have been the obvious candidate to benefit from the current political turmoil. Today they are an after thought.
72 MPs is the largest third party representation in a century, so they clearly survived. Likely to have a good set of May elections in England too, though will be overshadowed in the headlines by the Reform and Green surges, and Con and Labour meltdown.
You are taking too short term a view.
They did well in a generational melt down for the Tories.
But if they are supplanted as the natural left party of protest what’s their USP?
The Waitrose Belt National Party. Not so much a protest party as a mild grumbling party. It's a decent slice of the electorate and of the country. Maybe 100 seats next time. It doesn't get the Lib Dems anywhere near a majority, but that's no change on the last century.
It's one of the curious things about current politics- the growth of "People Like Us" parties. It started with the Nats in Scotland, now in Wales as well. The Lib Dem map is a bit like that, except their nation is like one of those crazy old counties with loads on enclaves and exclaves. The Greens seem to be heading that way; especially under Polanski, they seem to be settling as the Voice of Funky Young Urbanites.
Not sure why it's happened, but it doesn't feel like a good thing. It will be an absolute bugger if these fairly parochial groups need to agree a plan for national government.
Part of me thinks it's a good thing as there are plenty of examples in recent history of large swathes of the population not being well represented by either of the main parties. A lot of the white working class were too socially conservative to find a home in the modern Labour Party and too dependent on the state to be well represented by the Conservatives. You could say the same thing about socially liberal and economically conservative voters post Brexit who are now gravitating to the Lib Dems. The only problem is we as a country don't have a sensible attitude to coalitions and see the compromises needed to form a government as selling out
The basic problem, surely, arose from the fact that our Parliament was designed with two 'sides'; a Government and an Opposition. "If you're not with us, you're against us!" The front benches are even far enough apart that two swords cannot meet.
Yet that was in the early 19th century when Parliament was rebuilt after fire and back then most men and certainly not most working class men could vote and no women of any class could vote. So political parties largely just represented rich and property owning elite men
What was the layout before the 1830's rebuild? I thought that, as with the WWII rebuild, it was as it is now.
Shouting abuse across the Chamber has never struck me as a very adult method of running a country.
Little difference on the point, in the 18th century less than 5% of the population could vote. Though yes when we had only 2 parties with over 3/4 of MPs and votes as we did even in 2017 and 2019 it made sense more than now where barely more than a third are backing the Tories and Labour
But its not about the parties. It is about Government and Opposition. That is what the system and the structure of the Commons reflects. That can just as easily be several parties on each side. But they are still Government and Opposition.
Are the residential addresses of candidates in Local Elections published?
There could be some interesting analysis as to where the paper candidates live. I know one place where on a previous occasion a candidate lived in France, and we just had the one who lived at the other end of Cornwall.
Someone (not me) will need to be gearing up their resignations spreadsheet - I'm predicting 100-200 Ref UK Councillor resignations over the next 12 months. *
Or we could adopt one measure of the Welsh system, where candidates are required to be local - but that has downsides.
I was represented by a councillor living in the Dominican Republic.
Candidates need to have some link to the council area they are standing in. Either through residence, owning property, or a place of work.
But it's up to the candidate whether their address goes on the ballot paper, or is replaced with "An address in X constituency/ward/local government area" and, increasingly, candidates are opting for the latter. There is, however, a downside, particularly in local elections (especially first tier), where candidates who allow their address onto the ballot paper have a clear advantage over those who seek to withhold where they live. At town/parish level, you'd expect many voters to know, anyway, so trying to conceal it just makes the candidate look dodgy.
My address is not on the ballot. I don't want nutters turning up on my doorstep.
If you want to avoid the local nutters, best advice is not to stand for your local council.
After all, if you do get elected, you'll be spending a lot of time with a fair few of them.
'Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a truce for Orthodox Easter, with Vladimir Putin saying he's ordered Russian troops to cease fire "in all directions" this weekend.
The declaration from Moscow came after Volodymyr Zelensky issued repeated calls for a ceasefire, all ignored by the Kremlin.
Now Putin has announced a truce from 16:00 local time (13:00 GMT) on Saturday 11 April through Easter Sunday, adding that he expected Ukraine to "follow the example" of Russia. He ordered his forces to be ready to intercept "possible enemy provocations" and any "aggressive actions".
I hadn't realised former Senator Ben Sasse was dying. He has done an interview with the NYT about his cancer - stage 4 pancreatic, multiply metastasised.
How Ben Sasse Is Living Now That He Is Dying https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/opinion/ben-sasse-death-pancreatic-cancer.html ..Sasse: There’s a company in Silicon Valley called Revolution Medicines, and they have a drug called daraxonrasib, and that’s my drug. I’m able to take it orally, as of now. So, I don’t have an infusion port right now. I take it orally, but it’s a nasty drug. It causes crazy stuff like my body can’t grow skin and so I bleed all out of a whole bunch of parts of me that shouldn’t be bleeding.
Douthat: Yeah. You look terrible.
Sasse: Thank you.
Douthat: How do you feel?
Sasse: I feel better than I deserve...
Pancreatic cancer is very, very nasty. And frequently quickly fatal. Sympathies.
I am a big fan of the average Iranian citizen who just wants to live their life.
But good god, the latest regime-produced Lego rap has no right to go this hard and nail the current American experience so precisely.
No idea if this was actually produced by the Iranian regime but the fact they managed to get Trump’s hand with a bruise on it in Lego is attention to detail.
Morning pb! It's my oldest daughter's 16th birthday today. She wanted to start the day by seeing the sunrise - so we set off early and walked up Wild Bank Hill, by Stalybridge. Improbably, the clouds had left a tiny gap for the sun to peek through at dawn. There were deer gambolling about, rabbits zipping hither and thither, a dawn chorus from the woodland below us. It was like being in a Disney cartoon in Greater Manchester.
Feel remarkably lucky that what she wants to do on her birthday is get up before dawn to go for a walk with her old dad.
Comments
While there’s a war or pandemic on, it’s absolutely the right thing to do from a risk management perspective. It’s also less productive though, unless your company is set up with the correct processes and business tools to work remotely for more than a couple of weeks. This is the public sector weakness, where they mostly measure inputs rather than outputs.
OTOH not commuting is definitely a positive for everyone, except the restaurants and bars in the business district.
The worst-of-all-worlds scenario is to have a massive expensive office building left mostly empty. You’re taking the hit to productivity without saving the money from actually closing the office.
Here's the Mogg with panglossian cheerleading including being casually accepting Iran extorting money from ships sailing through Hornuz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRjt9dMhOys
As if I would make a mistake like claiming the Corn Laws were repealed in 1847.
It was 1846.
The only difference was it was squeezed into a two party system, so the us and them were a little more diverse.
https://gulfnews.com/business/aviation/al-maktoum-international-all-you-need-to-know-about-dubais-35-billion-mega-airport-also-known-as-dwc-1.500298863
In fact, it’s actually already open with one runway, for freight, bizjet, and a coulple of low cost commercial carriers.
If you’re a WFH company you really need to do regular workshops and social events if possible, even if that means putting half the staff in hotels for the night every month.
So why in gods name then do you want to back Farage 2 in a skirt who wants the Tories to out Reform in every Policy sector and to be even more tie curlingly aligned to Trump and Netanyahu than Farage is.
My daughter's first job was for a London-based very large company with a fancy office which, she discovered after starting work, is hardly being used.
She obviously had a massive training need but received next to no support (working in a office we created for her at home). It was soul-destroying, she was in tears most nights. She asked many times to no avail to be able to work in the office despite it being an hour's train commute.
The experience was so damaging and dispiriting for her she resigned after 3 months with no other job to go to. Luckily, she got re-employed and drives 30 mins to work with a team of people and she is working 10 x harder but is 100 x happier.
She has maintained contact with a senior person at the old employer who says the company is trying desperately now to incorporate contract changes to insist employees come in at least 2 days a week. Desperate stuff and a direct result of them being too weak at the end of the pandemic.
They've failed at both of those goals, imo. Google's models are as good or better then ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude is well ahead of either in many more niche (but lucrative) areas. And it turns out those vast gobs of investor cash are still not enough to deny compute capacity to their rivals, only make it more expensive.
I fully expect OpenAI to go bust next year and Sam Altman to spend many months in courtrooms trying to stay out of jail for lying to investors.
As the Tory MP says any pact now giving Reform a free run in say seats Reform won in 2024 or were second to Labour would just be used by Farage to take over the local Tory party and their voters in those seats now. As TSE also suggests Labour and the LDs would likely respond with a pact of their own.
Heck given the choice when I fly into Istanbul I go to the Asian side airport as it’s nearer.
The whole point of the rebuild of IST was to become THE flight hub replacing Dubai et al and it hasn’t really worked out yet because the issue isn’t the airport it’s the airlines that base themselves there and Turkish air really doesn’t have the reputation of Emirates, Etihad or Oman
That’s why I like a balance. I just don’t like being forced because I am an adult and I’ve built trust.
The declaration from Moscow came after Volodymyr Zelensky issued repeated calls for a ceasefire, all ignored by the Kremlin.
Now Putin has announced a truce from 16:00 local time (13:00 GMT) on Saturday 11 April through Easter Sunday, adding that he expected Ukraine to "follow the example" of Russia. He ordered his forces to be ready to intercept "possible enemy provocations" and any "aggressive actions".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0wkkwev2vo
https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/54117-what-is-the-tactical-voting-landscape-in-february-2026
I just cannot see where challenges will come from.
Kemi is widely accepted as much improved even amongst her distractors, but you have an irrational and ingrained dislike of her and other female conservative politicians that says more negatives about you than them
I’ll believe there’s a ceasefire on Sunday, on Monday.
Labour with a few gaps but look fully loaded in London
Reform so far fully represented everywhere outside London but there are gaps in the inner London boroughs - they are standimg 1 in a lot of 3 member wards in the likes of Hackney, Waltham Forest etc
The front benches are even far enough apart that two swords cannot meet.
Showing that Reform voters are more willing to lend their votes to the Conservatives than Conservatives are willing to lend their votes to Reform and the LDs could also gain significant numbers of Conservative votes after any Reform and Conservative pact
https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/54117-what-is-the-tactical-voting-landscape-in-february-2026
Yes, Jenrick and Braverman are "credible" compared to the rest. But incredible to anyone else...
Using NIMBY issues to create local strongholds.
Rumour is that Anthropic is also struggling to make the business model work, and dumbing down its offerings to reduce processing requirements.
(I am in no position to judge whether this is true or nonsense.)
https://x.com/FT/status/2042508805926273500
It would make a lot of sense. The long range characteristics of the aircraft would be well suited to Canada's vast territory.
They may well do very well. But not the party for me.
Shouting abuse across the Chamber has never struck me as a very adult method of running a country.
WFH saves money for employers as well as employees, and we should not forget that. It screws over new recruits but I'm all right Jack.
Two days a week is the worst of both worlds. It means commuters can't save with season tickets, and leads employers to hot desking so teams can't sit together even if by chance each member chose the same two days so it still screws over new recruits.
What is the frigging point?
Unless Hormuz is reopened in full, there should be no ceasefire and Iranian regime and military targets like IRGC facilities, petrochemical industry and energy targets should be wiped out, until there is regime change and the new regime reopens Hormuz.
Even in the most recent example of coalition we see this with the way the Lib Dems stabbed their own voters in the back. This is the norm in coaltion rather than the exception. It gives yet more power to the parties and their leaderships and takes it away from the electorate.
Of course if Reform won a majority or the Conservatives remained ahead of Reform on MPs or Labour was re elected with a majority or most seats in a hung parliament the situation would not arise. If it did though there would be a difference I suspect between Kemi and Cleverly's approach to Farage and Reform
No neither do I. What with those cheap house prices, triple locked pension, lower taxes.
To WFH effectively requires organisational changes, technical support and team level methodology. It’s usefulness varies according to the type of work - which changes on a regular basis in most roles
For example, i work in an IT dev team using agile. Our “machines” are in server room, with access via a thin client. Phones are virtualised. We all have space at home for an office - I have a proper desk, giant monitor etc.
So we have tasks that can be done by one person (mostly), easily tracked, creating code that is reviewed. This means productivity and quality are automatically checked. We have high quality, reasonably secure workspaces at home.
Even so, when new team members join, we head to the office for a few weeks, for example. We also define team days when we are all in the office.
I have seen people 100% remote, with a laptop on the ironing board in a HMO living room. Which, strangely, doesn’t work.
It’s forcing people in five days a week for tech jobs I just cannot understand.
Yesterday I was in out of choice and I sat all day writing code that was urgent so I had headphones in.
Beyond social interaction at lunch being in was essentially pointless.
As I said the other day, you have had your regime change. You replaced a hardline theocratic regime that was willing to negitiate with a hardline military regime that isn't.
The US were very unlikely to achieve their war aims without actually putting people on the ground in Iran and they don't have the support in Congress or in the wider public to do that. Anyone with an ounce of sense could see this was the most likely outcome of this little US/Israeli adventure which is why anyone with any sense opposed it from the start.
Anyone who couldn’t see that needs their judgment seriously called into question. Forget that Iran is a stupid country to get involved in, forget all the mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was led by TRUMP.
For mayny companies, full time office based more often than not reflects poor management who don't trust their workforce.
He has done an interview with the NYT about his cancer - stage 4 pancreatic, multiply metastasised.
How Ben Sasse Is Living Now That He Is Dying
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/opinion/ben-sasse-death-pancreatic-cancer.html
..Sasse: There’s a company in Silicon Valley called Revolution Medicines, and they have a drug called daraxonrasib, and that’s my drug. I’m able to take it orally, as of now. So, I don’t have an infusion port right now.
I take it orally, but it’s a nasty drug. It causes crazy stuff like my body can’t grow skin and so I bleed all out of a whole bunch of parts of me that shouldn’t be bleeding.
Douthat: Yeah. You look terrible.
Sasse: Thank you.
Douthat: How do you feel?
Sasse: I feel better than I deserve...
I'm simply interested in the layout of the Parliament. Would it be better if it was semi-circular, as is the case in, for example New Zealand and, I think, Scotland?
I’ve proved I can work productively from home and even have done more work as I’ve been up at odd hours I’d never have had in the office. My company leaves me to it.
Break the trust and it’s a different conversation.
After all, if you do get elected, you'll be spending a lot of time with a fair few of them.
I am no fan of the IRGC.
I am a big fan of the average Iranian citizen who just wants to live their life.
But good god, the latest regime-produced Lego rap has no right to go this hard and nail the current American experience so precisely.
No idea if this was actually produced by the Iranian regime but the fact they managed to get Trump’s hand with a bruise on it in Lego is attention to detail.
I obviously detest the anti-Semitic elements.