19-Nov-2021 : CON 36 / LAB 34 / GREEN 10 / LIBDEM 7

[Deleted]

TW

@"I just wanted to clarify my opinion in case it was being misrepresented. "

Thank you. It wasn't neccessary. I understood your post and the desires and objectives therein. I followed your Raab references too.


I was just trying to respond that the Home Office -as expected-told him to get of their grass cos its their job. One -imho-they are absolutely hopeless at. Everything takes forever. I hope you understood what I was saying now ??

@"Not sure why you used emoji as none of this is funny. "

I didn't seek to indicate that it is . That emoji is the nearest I could see from those available to a tap on the nose signal indicating-yes I understand you about Raab, but we all know that the HO runs this show"

Please let me know if you still have difficulty with the above.

[Deleted]

colin I appreciate the clarification and we agree on the Home Office

[mercian]

I find it interesting that very quickly after the tragedy in the channel, the French arrested several people they thought were involved in organising the trip, which suggests that they knew who was responsible all along and did nothing.

[steve]

Mercian

Is that what your highly tuned detective abilities assume.

It doesn't of course suggest anything of the sort.

It's quite possible that the identity of the people traffickers involved was only discovered after the death of these poor unfortunate people.
It's certainly the case that far more resources would be available to find them after the deaths than before.
One of the key factors in establishing the identity of the suspects appears to be the purchase record of the boat, which of course wasn't in the French police possession until after the event.It's also quite possible that the identity of the traffickers was obtained from the two survivors of the disaster


The next time you feel like engaging in brexitanian cluedo perhaps you might like wait until there's evidence.

[Deleted]

TW

@"unless Patel sorts it, asap."

With respect, that phraseology implies that "it" has a simple solution which , by some means, has merely been missed up to now and simply needs implementing.

Honestly-I don't think its like that at all. The migrants at the Channel coast are not a random selection of the 140k illegal border crossings into Europe *. They are the minority of that total who have specific reasons for wanting to come to UK. Those reasons will not go away .

I really hope that the traffickers trading at the Channel corridor are caught and severely dealt with. It will take all the co-operation that Macron et al pontificate about. But I dont believe it will get them all-or their replacements.

And anyway it won't stop the source routes into Europe.

* Frontex-2019 143k. 2021 82k in seven months.

[Deleted]

Nov 25, 2021 14:17:56 GMT colin said:

TW

@"unless Patel sorts it, asap."

With respect, that phraseology implies that "it" has a simple solution which , by some means, has merely been missed up to now and simply needs implementing.

With respect you've either misunderstood me or are seeking to misrepresent me. If you can highlight where, on UKPR or UKPR2, I have ever stated there is a 'simple solution' then please do so.

If 'it' had a simple solution then we (specifically UK but also many other countries) would have implemented the solution by now. It is most certainly not simple. For clarity then I will restate:

The legal issues and the logistic issues are highly complex. Just in case you think I was ever unclear about the complexity of 'it' 

(@tw goes for a long walk to CTFD as it's getting tetchy)

[Deleted]

TW

@"If you can highlight where, on UKPR or UKPR2, I have ever stated there is a 'simple solution' then please do so."

No-otherwise I would have done so.

I wrote "implies"-in the sense of " seems to suggest".

[alec]

@mark and colin - on the permanence of the internet, your exchange reminded me of a New Scientist article of several years ago which explored how long the human influence on the world would remain, were we all to disappear. They covered the topic by categories, so buildings,for example, were thought to have relatively limited lifespans (for modern versions at least). Once the roof leaked or the odd window fell out, damage would extend rather rapidly and within a few decades there would be major collapse into little more than archeological remains.

One area they looked at was information. They concluded that digital data wouldn't last that long, and if it did manage to survive somehow, the odds of the storage devices ever being matched to a technology capable of reading them at any future time would be slender. They made the point that this has already happened with certain technological data, with the Pentagon apparently having to deconstruct an early nuclear warhead system to understand it, because the critical information on the design had been stored on a computer format that no one could read anymore.

They also concluded that print based data would likely outlive most digital stores, with several hundred or a few thousand years of survival possible for books. Initially, this seemed encouraging, for someone like me, but the article went on to make the obvious conclusion that because of weight of numbers and the very long odds of survival of any one specific item, future aliens visiting earth would be far more likely to pick up a degraded copy of a Geoffrey Archer novel than an original manuscript by Beethoven. :-(

[alec]

"(tw goes for a long walk to CTFD as it's getting tetchy)"

Haven't seen anyone getting tetchy - and certainly not colin. Everything on here seems remarkably calm and welcoming, tbh.

[steamdrivenandy]

Six days in and scores on the doors Top 10 (number of posts) are:

TW 62
Colin 51
Old Nat 32
JIB 29
Alec 27
Danny 26
Steve 25
Barbara 24
EOR 22
Lululemon 21

[Deleted]

ALEC
Thanks.

Yes I think I read that too.

But this article was dealing with modern civilisation while it lasts-and the loss of the ability to "forget". Prompted by the Twitter aspect of the Yorkshire Cricket thing and referenced to the book I mentioned.

Here's a flavour :-

"I no longer find it possible to read Borges’s story without thinking of the internet. Our words and gestures fade in memory. Old photographs are lost. But online every dumb picture, every unfinished conversation and every idle feud is preserved as perfectly as one of Funes’s memories. These things go on existing, as vividly, as angrily and as pointlessly as they did when you hit the enter key and closed the Twitter tab in righteous disgust. There is no forgetting, no mercy of slow disappearance. Like Funes, we are condemned to live in the appalling glare of an eternal present. I think this has changed us profoundly."

"In this land of no forgetting you do not exist moment to moment, in possession of that liquid and mutable thing, a human personality. You are instead a kind of archival aggregate of every clever and every fatuous thing you have ever said. Online, we are not so much people as vast, unwieldy filing cabinets waiting to be browsed by our friends or raided by our enemies."

"It is from here that so much of the fury of the internet derives. Like Funes, we suffer the heat and pressure of an inexhaustible reality."

"Features like Facebook’s “on this day” contribute to the atmosphere of chaotic simultaneity. Memories of parties, of funerals, of old lovers arrive without invitation and without reason. The past lurches meaninglessly towards us, as real and vivid as the present.

As the academic Viktor Mayer-Schönberger writes in Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age, his interesting book about the internet and memory: “For millennia, human beings have lived in a world of forgetting. Behaviour, societal mechanisms and processes and values have incorporated and reflected that fact.” Forgetting is a blunt moral instrument but for centuries it has afforded an invaluable kind of justice. Reputations heal, old fights burn themselves out. Too much memory is paralysing. Only by forgetting is it possible to advance. The culture war is the characteristic war of the internet age because it is a war of endless remembering: the same battles over race and gender fought year after year, the same scandals interminably revived, the same villains somehow always at the centre of it all."

"Funes was merely condemned never to forget. We are doubly condemned, for we are also condemned never to be forgotten. As Mayer-Schönberger points out, “To be preserved forever” was the legend the KGB stamped on the files of its political prisoners. It was meant as a kind of curse."

[neilj]

Nov 25, 2021 15:09:33 GMT steamdrivenandy said:

Six days in and scores on the doors Top 10 (number of posts) are:

TW 62
Colin 51
Old Nat 32
JIB 29
Alec 27
Danny 26
Steve 25
Barbara 24
EOR 22
Lululemon 21

I notice that some on here are classed as
new members and some junior members. As many joined at the same time are you or anyone else aware if status depens in the number of posts you make?

[steamdrivenandy]

Nov 25, 2021 15:30:09 GMT neilj said:

Nov 25, 2021 15:09:33 GMT steamdrivenandy said:

That's a sort of standard thing in forums like this. I presume the 'owner' can allocate titles at various levels of posting.

[barbara]

Nov 25, 2021 15:09:33 GMT steamdrivenandy said:

Six days in and scores on the doors Top 10 (number of posts) are:

TW 62
Colin 51
Old Nat 32
JIB 29
Alec 27
Danny 26
Steve 25
Barbara 24
EOR 22
Lululemon 21

I'm the only newbie in the top 10, challenging all you old hands! 

[barbara]

Nov 25, 2021 16:08:30 GMT barbara said:

Nov 25, 2021 15:09:33 GMT steamdrivenandy said:

I'm the only newbie in the top 10, challenging all you old hands! 

Not that I'm competitive in any way!!  

[robert]

Nov 25, 2021 14:02:46 GMT mercian said:

I find it interesting that very quickly after the tragedy in the channel, the French arrested several people they thought were involved in organising the trip, which suggests that they knew who was responsible all along and did nothing.

Well quell surprise! Of course they know who the criminals are and they probably know who is supplying the boats too. That's if they are using their intelligence properly. They just don't want to get involved. They see it as a U.K. problem and are happy to pass it on. A proper zero tolerance operation aided by drones and the army, not to mention satellite surveillance of beach activity, followed by 30 year prison sentences for the criminals orchestrating it, would soon send a message.

it's a European problem and no matter how much the bleeding hearts of the left wish it to be, the populations of Africa and the Middle East cannot all be accommodated in Europe, yet that is the end result of the riseable suggestions of ferry services being laid on. The US has a similar problem of course, along it's southern border. Australia had a problem but sorted it with tough action despite much criticism at the time.

[neilj]

Nov 25, 2021 16:13:21 GMT barbara said:

Nov 25, 2021 16:08:30 GMT barbara said:

I'm the only newbie in the top 10, challenging all you old hands! 

Go forit;)

[lululemonmustdobetter]

Good afternoon all from what was a bright and sunny but now has clouded over day in the PSRL.

I am starting to think that if the sleaze allegations etc continue, the notion that they all have their snouts in the trough may actually stick. There does seem to be a distinct difference between the '90's and expenses scandal, in that this time, and more damagingly, the integrity of the PM himself is seriously under question. Whilst it may or may not damage Tory VI in the longer run, for many it threatens to further undermine faith in our system of Parliamentary Democracy, which has been strained over the past decade. The corrosive feeling that they can just get away with it can poison voters views of all politicians. Personally, while I disagreed politically with the likes of Thatcher, Major. Clark, Osbourne etc I never thought they were corrupt. This current regime is genuinely starting to look rotten to the core.

Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time till a tragedy such as the one yesterday occurred. If we are going to blame someone, then it is the gangs of organised criminals who are preying on desperate people looking for a better life or fleeing from failed states. If we truly want to stop this type of event for re-occurring here or in other parts of the World, then the real solution is to address the problem at source. That requires increasing foreign aid not cutting it, a more activist involvement supporting civil society and economic growth in developing countries not cutting and running leaving vulnerable people to fend for themselves or literally throwing those who share our values under the buss. Compassion is cheap word or sentiment unless it is backed up with action.

[leftieliberal]

Nov 25, 2021 15:40:49 GMT steamdrivenandy said:

Nov 25, 2021 15:30:09 GMT neilj said:

That's a sort of standard thing in forums like this. I presume the 'owner' can allocate titles at various levels of posting.

Fifty posts gets you to junior member; not that I would encourage any meaningless posts just to get your numbers up.

[alec]

Worrisome thread from Prof Pagel -

Another new variant from South Africa - B.1.1.529 - is starting to make the news, and UK experts are concerned.
It appears to be spreading very rapidly in parts of SA where it has very quickly supplanted Delta. It has many more mutations than other variants and the identified mutations are associated with both increased transmissibility and immune escape. No one yet know what the balance between these two advantages are, or whether current vaccines will be sufficiently broad to contain this variant.

Good sense would suggest adding SA and surrounding countries to the red list straight away.

[oldnat]

Nov 25, 2021 15:09:33 GMT steamdrivenandy said:

Barbara 24

Well done, that woman!

[js]

Nov 25, 2021 16:17:43 GMT robert said:

Australia had a problem but sorted it with tough action despite much criticism at the time.

True but one cannot but find the irony in a people that having arrived by boat proceed to forbid other people of arriving by boat.

[lululemonmustdobetter]

One thing I really like about the new home is that you can edit your post to correct grammar/spelling mistakes.

Not that I would use such an observation to get my post count up.

[Deleted]

YG: Latest Holyrood voting intention (18-22 Nov)

Constit.
SNP 48% (-4 from 2-4 May)
Con 21% (+1)
Lab 19% (n/c)
Lib Dem 7% (+1)
Green 2% (n/c)

Regional/party
SNP 38% (n/c)
Con 19% (-1)
Lab 19% (+3)
Green 11% (-2)
Lib Dem 7% (+2)

Scottish independence voting intention:

Yes: 47% (n/c from 2-4 May)
No: 53% (n/c)

yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/11/25/scot-voting-intention-snp-48-con-21-lab-19-nov-21

[Deleted]

Voters in west divided more by identity than issues, survey finds

www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/17/voters-in-west-divided-more-by-identity-than-issues-survey-finds

of note: In the UK, 88% of Labour voters said they disliked Conservative politicians and 73% said they disliked Conservative supporters. Similarly, 74% of Tory supporters said they disliked Labour politicians and 45% disliked Labour voters..

In the UK, only half of Tory and Liberal Democrat voters, and 64% of Labour voters, said they felt a common sense of identity with people who voted with them in the 2019 general election. Asked how strongly they identified with those who voted the same way in the referendum, the figure was 80% for remainers and 72% for leavers

[davwel]

@ Robert 16.17 pm

Those with bleeding hearts about unnecessary drownings are not all LoC.

When the UK hasn`t taken a fair share of asylum seekers compared to many EU countries, it isn`t odd to suggest safe steps to balance up by some chartered ferries, and Patel herself has made strong anti-Scotland remarks claiming we aren`t taking a fair share. Which looks hypocritical to me, if she is trying to avoid this for the UK.

Nobody has suggested that <B>ALL</B> the populations of Africa and the Middle East can be accommodated in Europe, just a very small percent of those whose lives are in danger.

[jib]

@ Alec

"Good sense would suggest adding SA and surrounding countries to the red list straight away."

You would think so, but do you believe this Government has the wherewithal to actually demonstrate such preemptive competence?

It was the cackhanded way they reacted to the Delta variant and the flight from India that was when I believe their facade of competence started to break up.

[neilj]

Nov 25, 2021 16:24:06 GMT leftieliberal said:

Nov 25, 2021 15:40:49 GMT steamdrivenandy said:

That's a sort of standard thing in forums like this. I presume the 'owner' can allocate titles at various levels of posting.

Fifty posts gets you to junior member; not that I would encourage any meaningless posts just to get your numbers up.

Wouldn't dream of it

[steve]

Surely they can't all aspire to be Tory MPs

www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/25/bond-doctor-who-casting-women-risks-driving-boys-to-crime-mp

[jib]

Nov 25, 2021 16:24:06 GMT leftieliberal said:

Nov 25, 2021 15:40:49 GMT steamdrivenandy said:

That's a sort of standard thing in forums like this. I presume the 'owner' can allocate titles at various levels of posting.

Fifty posts gets you to junior member; not that I would encourage any meaningless posts just to get your numbers up.

Excellent. Something to aim for there, a mark of status and authority.