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Post by moby on May 12, 2022 19:16:39 GMT
My problems with Waters go back to 1985. I've been a Pink Floyd fanatic since the Barrett days but I hated the direction Waters was taking the band in, (The Wall, Final Cut) and the fact he sacked Richard Wright from the band. The other members didn't accept his lead and found him increasingly oppresive; he then left and assumed Pink Floyd was over. After a legal dispute Gilmour, Wright and Mason carried on and Waters has never accepted that and has , " commented" frequently ever since. He wrote some great lyrics but the musical talent was Gilmour and Wright imo. This is disputed of course and the vendetta has continued ever since! I think the problems might go back to 1977 and the recording of Animals, that’s when Wright said it started with the ”ego thing”. It is as you say, a matter of some dispute, with Team Waters saying the others didn’t pull their weight, and Team Gilmour saying that Waters at times frustrated the others ability to contribute. Further to your point, according to Mason, Waters didn’t seem to properly appreciate the musical capabilities of the others.
“It’s a really odd thing in my opinion,” Mason told Rolling Stone. “But I think the problem is Roger doesn’t really respect David. He feels that writing is everything, and that guitar playing and the singing are something that, I won’t say anyone can do, but that everything should be judged on the writing rather than the playing.”I suspect you will have seen this but I love watching it, if only to see the body language between the band. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljaU7YcrKAU |
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2022 20:14:17 GMT
Is it safe yet???  |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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A step on the way toward the demise of the liberal elite? Or just a blip…
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on May 12, 2022 20:19:08 GMT
Well, you’re still posting!
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oldnat
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Extremist - Undermining the UK state and its institutions
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Post by oldnat on May 12, 2022 20:48:19 GMT
More evidence of the effect of alphabetic ordering on ballot papers determining results In my own ward, the SNP urged supporters to vote the non-councillor (also alphabetically disadvantaged) as No 1 specifically because of the tendency of people to place "1" against the first candidate of their party that they saw and "2" for the next one.
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Post by mercian on May 12, 2022 20:54:12 GMT
I've noticed a couple of folks ( ladyvalerie and birdseye) have posted on the precious main thread recently - presumably by accident. Be careful folks or we might miss your pearls of wisdom! |
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Post by mercian on May 12, 2022 21:05:23 GMT
As so often (and it's not just you) you set up a non-existent situation to confirm your prejudices. e.g. "If this happened, the BBC and press (and/or some other hate figure) would do so-and-so wouldn't they. the b*stards!" I think it's more constructive to debate things which actually happen. Come, come Mercers old chap you've surely got more imagination than that, or does the imagined situation touch a nerve? We can all dream things up, I just don't think there's any point because it's not constructive. Let me try one from the other side 'If Labour get in, they'll raise taxes like they always do, probably nationalise things I've got shares in and get rid of the nuclear deterrent. Therefore nobody should vote Labour.' We could argue back and forth about this, but there's no point whatsoever because Labour haven't got a manifesto for the next GE yet, so it's all just fantasy land, just as alec's post was. If Labour did actually come out with policies that I preferred I might well vote for them. I think it's vanishingly unlikely but you never know. |
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Post by alec on May 12, 2022 21:29:43 GMT
mercian - "I think it's more constructive to debate things which actually happen." Fair enough, but it has happened. We really do have a governing party that accepted a whopping donation from a Russian that was so dodgy the bank reported the transaction to the NCA. This should be the subject of resignations, criminal investigations and that party being thrown from office, but few people seem to give a shit. It's precisely because something has happened that I made that post.
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Post by jib on May 12, 2022 21:33:53 GMT
mercian - "I think it's more constructive to debate things which actually happen." Fair enough, but it has happened. We really do have a governing party that accepted a whopping donation from a Russian that was so dodgy the bank reported the transaction to the NCA. This should be the subject of resignations, criminal investigations and that party being thrown from office, but few people seem to give a shit. It's precisely because something has happened that I made that post. Ultimately it's the electorate that decides. If Boris Johnson survives Party gate, we shall see if the (mainly English) electorate that backed him in 2019 still believe in his integrity and honesty. |
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oldnat
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Post by oldnat on May 12, 2022 21:36:23 GMT
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Post by jib on May 12, 2022 21:40:29 GMT
The gullible believed in the Johnson rhetoric. Lavish promises of lashings of cake and eat it have turned out to be a half baked soggy disaster all round. |
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Post by alec on May 12, 2022 21:40:30 GMT
c-a-r-f-r-e-w - "Upper-middle-class children become upper-middle-class adults." I know that quote wasn't from you, but much of what you posted rings true to me. It's one of those absurdities in life that I always feel whenever I hear people talking about 'increasing social mobility'. The unspoken rule is always that this means more people moving up, whatever that means. But, in terms of relative performance, at least, if some are going up, some must be going down. Increased social mobility ultimately has to mean that some of those upper middle classes who lack the talent or work ethic must slide down the ladder, making way for the better people to climb past them. It's an uncomfortable truism.
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Post by mercian on May 12, 2022 21:41:53 GMT
mercian - "I think it's more constructive to debate things which actually happen." Fair enough, but it has happened. We really do have a governing party that accepted a whopping donation from a Russian that was so dodgy the bank reported the transaction to the NCA. This should be the subject of resignations, criminal investigations and that party being thrown from office, but few people seem to give a shit. It's precisely because something has happened that I made that post. I was criticising your fantasy assumption that if it had been Labour the publicity would have been different. I grant that it might have been, but then again it might not. I think the story still has legs, so we'll see what transpires. |
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Post by alec on May 12, 2022 21:42:33 GMT
oldnat - I gather that there were two measures where we have seen some leveling up, in terms of the regions narrowing the gap on London. These were in number of Universal Credit claimants, and life expectancy. London has seen the former rise and the latter fall, so some success at least, even if it is more leveling down.
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Post by leftieliberal on May 12, 2022 21:43:28 GMT
More evidence of the effect of alphabetic ordering on ballot papers determining results In my own ward, the SNP urged supporters to vote the non-councillor (also alphabetically disadvantaged) as No 1 specifically because of the tendency of people to place "1" against the first candidate of their party that they saw and "2" for the next one. For my Party's internal elections the candidate order on the ballot paper is randomised and has been for well over a decade now. |
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Post by mercian on May 12, 2022 21:44:30 GMT
Sure. Not a lot to debate because not much has actually happened. I'm not particularly a cheerleader for this government though I'm not so viscerally opposed to it as some. |
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Post by mercian on May 12, 2022 21:53:15 GMT
c-a-r-f-r-e-w - "Upper-middle-class children become upper-middle-class adults." I know that quote wasn't from you, but much of what you posted rings true to me. It's one of those absurdities in life that I always feel whenever I hear people talking about 'increasing social mobility'. The unspoken rule is always that this means more people moving up, whatever that means. But, in terms of relative performance, at least, if some are going up, some must be going down. Increased social mobility ultimately has to mean that some of those upper middle classes who lack the talent or work ethic must slide down the ladder, making way for the better people to climb past them. It's an uncomfortable truism. Only if you believe it's a zero-sum game. I'm not sure what criteria you're using, but in terms of wealth, the vast majority of people are much better off than those of the same age say 50 years ago. Some might move down relative to others in the pecking order of course. |
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Post by crossbat11 on May 12, 2022 21:55:47 GMT
Is it safe yet??? Yes it is, but it's not good news for Gooners. Spurs 3 Arsenal 0. |
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Post by pete on May 12, 2022 22:16:28 GMT
Employers are already seeing long covid as an increasingly significant factor in workplace absences, and this is having an impact on the wider economy. Well duh! Its much more credible than that the dog ate my homework! What a horrible attitude to have about workers. A very Tory attitude. |
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Post by alec on May 12, 2022 22:17:48 GMT
mercian - "Only if you believe it's a zero-sum game." That's right of course, which is why I said 'relative performance'. Of course it's laudable to seek to raise living standards across the board, which we have from 1945 until the last fifteen years or so, but even on that basis there is an equality issue. If everyone's income grows by 3% a year, the gap between the better and less well off will grow and grow. But I think most people understand social mobility to be more than just seeing your own income rise. I would assume most people see it as a chance to do something that people from your background would not previously have had as much chance to do. But there are only so many solicitors, or senior registrars, or FTSE 100 directors etc etc. If the daughter of a bus driver takes one of these roles, then the son of a barrister might miss out. The reality is that the sons of barristers really do get a head start, for all kinds of reasons, and not because they are inherently more talented. I do believe that there is a kind of unspoken terror in the ranks of the middle classes (whoever they are) that fears that their nice but not overly bright children might end up driving buses if the floodgates are truly opened to the talented individuals from less privileged backgrounds. But that doesn't stop them nodding support to the idea of social mobility.
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Post by somerjohn on May 12, 2022 22:33:12 GMT
I see Johnson is demanding that the Civil Service eliminate the 90,000 staff it has added since 2016.
Those 90,000 civil servants were taken on to deal with the massive increase in bureaucratic red tape caused by brexit, and to take on tasks that were no longer performed by the EU.
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Post by eor on May 12, 2022 22:39:34 GMT
Just out - www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(22)00126-6/fulltext"Regardless of initial disease severity, COVID-19 survivors had longitudinal improvements in physical and mental health, with most returning to their original work within 2 years [89%, so that means over 1 in 10 couldn't return to normal work after two years]; however, the burden of symptomatic sequelae remained fairly high. COVID-19 survivors had a remarkably lower health status than the general population at 2 years. The study findings indicate that there is an urgent need to explore the pathogenesis of long COVID and develop effective interventions to reduce the risk of long COVID." My emphasis.
- I think your initial emphasis is perhaps inadvertently misleading to those who might well read your post but not see Danny 's responses or delve into the study itself. "Regardless of initial disease severity" is being used in an extremely specific context here, namely the relative severity of the initial disease amongst this group of people who were all so ill they were hospitalised by COVID in early 2020, the overwhelming majority of whom needed at least additional oxygen to survive it. Likewise your point that "over 1 in 10 couldn't return to normal work after two years" actually shakes out at 21 people from the c2,500 that started this survey, of people who had COVID badly enough to be hospitalised by it, once they remove all those who dropped out of reporting, didn't have jobs in the first place or didn't go back to work for other reasons. www.thelancet.com/cms/10.1016/S2213-2600(22)00126-6/attachment/a06cd4c1-2a6a-4c59-9b3b-e5787399a4a8/mmc1.pdf (page 22) I agree in terms of the data it's still an interestingly strong number tho, as it equates to about 4% of the people who stayed in touch with them through the two years and who had had at least some kind of job before they got COVID. So for those tempted to disregard ongoing UK hospitalisation numbers on the basis that vaccines mean relatively few are dying from it, it'd be worth splitting the data down to see how many people of working age who weren't priorly incapacitated are being hospitalised now, and how many people even small % of that number might amount to. |
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Post by moby on May 12, 2022 22:40:04 GMT
mercian - "I think it's more constructive to debate things which actually happen." Fair enough, but it has happened. We really do have a governing party that accepted a whopping donation from a Russian that was so dodgy the bank reported the transaction to the NCA. This should be the subject of resignations, criminal investigations and that party being thrown from office, but few people seem to give a shit. It's precisely because something has happened that I made that post. I was criticising your fantasy assumption that if it had been Labour the publicity would have been different. I grant that it might have been, but then again it might not. I think the story still has legs, so we'll see what transpires. Surely the press coverage would have been different? |
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Post by eor on May 12, 2022 22:51:44 GMT
I was criticising your fantasy assumption that if it had been Labour the publicity would have been different. I grant that it might have been, but then again it might not. I think the story still has legs, so we'll see what transpires. Surely the press coverage would have been different? I looked an hour ago after reading about it here and couldn't find it anywhere on the Guardian UK news page or even their UK Politics page. I wonder if there's an extent to which a relatively scant evening shift at many UK media newsdesks is trying to ascertain what this US story actually is? Might be fairer to judge who covers it (and how) tomorrow rather than tonight? |
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2022 22:52:02 GMT
I see Johnson is demanding that the Civil Service eliminate the 90,000 staff it has added since 2016. Those 90,000 civil servants were taken on to deal with the massive increase in bureaucratic red tape caused by brexit, and to take on tasks that were no longer performed by the EU. Indeed. I wonder if JRM's recent forays into largely-unoccupied central London government offices might have started this hare running. "Your name will also go on the list." |
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Post by eor on May 12, 2022 23:24:01 GMT
eor/jimjam That popular vote share analysis of the local council results in Red Wall constituencies was indeed interesting. Depending on which year you choose to benchmark, Labour's 2022 performance varies from modest to mildly encouraging. There is a case to be made, certainly in one or two of these seats like Dudley and Newcastle under Lyne in the West Midlands, that the party isn't making anything like enough progress to be optimistic about winning a general election, but I think that it's probably worth distinguishing quite specifically between certain seats. The so called Red Wall is probably too broad and lazy a grouping to be very useful anyway. More appropriately, they are a large number of highly variable former Labour seats that have turned Tory as Labour have subsided from the 350-420 seat range enjoyed for 13 years to where they are now, some 200 odd fewer than the high water mark. That's an awful lot of seats, quite a few of them now SNP in Scotland. I still prefer the old label of marginals. Due to demography and regional politics, many of these old Labour seats have gone for good, I expect. The Tories or SNP have got gargantuan majorities in some of them now anyway and only swings of historic sizes would regain them. In terms of winning a parliamentary majority, Labour need to concentrate on seats where only modest swings are required to regain them. There are plenty of those in the so called Red Wall. The key isn't necessarily uniform national swing, it's about doing enough in the marginals in the North and Midlands and then combine that maybe lukewarm recovery with conquest gains in the South of England, Wales and Scotland. They also need the Lib Dems to continue their fightback in the South West too. The more I look at the electoral map of the UK, the less I feel that the so called Red Wall is necessarily crucial. If it's a marginal seat it is, clearly, but many of them are Tory for a generation now. My old fiefdom of Redditch is an example. If I was a Labour strategist I wouldn't bother making much of an effort there at the next GE. It used to be a classic Con/Lab marginal. A bellwether seat even. Not now. Labour don't need it any longer to gain a majority. It's almost out of play. I suspect quite a bit of the Red Wall is now too, but maybe, intriguingly, the new key and decisive battlegrounds are elsewhere. - thanks to you and jimjam for the replies, and I agree very much with what you both wrote. The trend from this local election data in England is undeniably positive for Labour, but it's hard to say yet whether (in terms of the next GE) it's a slight or significant improvement. In terms of the specific points you raised, I think we've seen on UKPR many times now that the art is in predicting where the next GE's marginals will actually be, rather than fixating on those of prior elections. Some have been swept by a high tide, others have disappeared beneath climate change. Like you I see that locally very much. Coventry South and Nuneaton are two seats that traditionally would be expected to flit with the higher tides - Coventry South was abolished and then recreated so missed the 1980s but given the wards I don't think there's much doubt it would have been solidly Tory in 1983 and 1987 at least. Nuneaton went Labour in 1992, and stayed there through the Blair years, and yet... just over a decade on and 2019 saw Coventry South still one of the Labour rump, whilst Nuneaton had a Tory majority of nearly 30%. |
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oldnat
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Extremist - Undermining the UK state and its institutions
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Post by oldnat on May 12, 2022 23:24:45 GMT
Anent downward social mobility
Some (admittedly small scale) research I did on deprived areas in one town some years back does demonstrate that it happens.
It isn't at the extremes of the social scale with the child of a university professor ending up surviving on the street (though I'm sure that there are such cases due to addiction problems etc).
Much of the commentary on areas of multiple deprivation assumes that there is continuity of population - they are all underclass, who are the children of underclass.
In practice, if you track individuals by the postcodes they had when they were at school, and the postcodes that their children (living with them) currently have, there is considerable fluidity - and much of that seemed to relate to whether there had been family breakdown or not.
The sample wasn't big enough to do more than provide indications but, as with health and development, more of those with 2 parents at the same address (used as a proxy for a stable family - though it may not have been!) went on to positive destinations from school and to homes outwith the most deprived areas, while the opposite was true for those whose parent (usually only one) had moved from a "better" area as a pupil to a "worse" one as a parent.
It seems likely that a stable family with economic security, can protect their children from dropping too far below the socio-economic status of their parents, even if the kids don't have their parents' talents. There's nothing wrong with your kid having a skilled job like a bus driver or a carer. I know of 2 families with graduates as parents who have kids doing well in both of these roles.
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Post by eor on May 12, 2022 23:58:36 GMT
oldnatI think your last paragraph is critical - some posts above have implied a certain defensive hostility amongst those who want to stop children from less privileged backgrounds eclipsing their own less bright offspring, but I don't think it's that so much as what you describe. A family who can afford to have a parent that doesn't work (or works part-time for a while) in their children's early years are handing a massive inherent boost to their children's prospects relative to those from families where such intense support is either not affordable or not available. Ditto the advantage (in England and Wales at least, I don't know how it works in Scotland and NI) of likely living in homes with the strongest chance of going to their parents' preference of school. And having more disposable income available to support and encourage their education outside of the resources provided by the schools. The advantage compounds and compounds, with no cynical or malign intent necessary at all.
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Post by eor on May 13, 2022 1:24:36 GMT
Interesting polling from Yahoo news on the U.S. in how the rise of the right wing can undermine public confidence in institutions In 2020 just after the death of Ruth Ginsburg 73% of Americans expressed some or a lot of confidence in the U.S. Supreme court. Since the appointment of Trumps nominees this has dropped to just 50%. Whilst it's entirely possible that a snap poll in the aftermath of losing an icon like RBG could have produced such a spike result, the trend you claim doesn't stand up at all, unless you have better data? news.gallup.com/poll/4732/supreme-court.aspx |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 13, 2022 4:20:41 GMT
mercian - "I think it's more constructive to debate things which actually happen." Fair enough, but it has happened. We really do have a governing party that accepted a whopping donation from a Russian that was so dodgy the bank reported the transaction to the NCA. This should be the subject of resignations, criminal investigations and that party being thrown from office, but few people seem to give a shit. It's precisely because something has happened that I made that post. Ultimately it's the electorate that decides. If Boris Johnson survives Party gate, we shall see if the (mainly English) electorate that backed him in 2019 still believe in his integrity and honesty. It really isnt. Johnson's personal seat is a bit iffy, but the party could place him in a safe seat where he will win and therefore can choose whether he or any other particular person becomes an MP. Its a foregone conclusion someone standing for the right party will win in most seats in the UK. So those people are never chosen by voters but by the party. Most people do not have choice at all in elections. Some have a choice of really only a couple of viable candidates or wasting their vote. No one gets to choose who they want to represent them. Western democracy is frequently an illusion. Even in Russia they place someone else on the ballot now, they just make sure no one votes for him. We use a duopoly ruling party system. Not much difference in outlook between most of the candidates from either. Sure there are some things which might disqualify you. Johnson as an example hasnt done anything nearly bad enough. For the most part the rules are only to keep out the wrong sort of person, and a toff like him isnt it. If Starmer would resign over a legal infringement no more serious than a parking fine, more fool him. Except he doesnt expect to do so, its all about getting advantage over his rival. Corbyn as a bit of a leftie was tolerated in the labour party to give them a bit of street cred with the poor. Once he got out of his box by accident, the party worked hard to put him back in it and make sure he never got actual power. Couldnt have him rocking the boat and delivering actual socialist policies. Coldnt risk breaking the duopoly consensus. Labour MPs agree with conservative MPs more than they disagree, and have more in common with each other than with voters. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 13, 2022 4:46:32 GMT
For my Party's internal elections the candidate order on the ballot paper is randomised and has been for well over a decade now. But have you considered that in external elections, choosing candidates from the start of the alphabet might increase your success? crossbat11 - thanks to you and jimjam for the replies, and I agree very much with what you both wrote. The trend from this local election data in England is undeniably positive for Labour, but it's hard to say yet whether (in terms of the next GE) it's a slight or significant improvement. What I saw was mostly a trend away from Con. To everyone else. Labour wasnt especially successful in capturing that exodus. Because of the way our system mostly works, the largest block takes all, that will amount to lab moving to first place, but its a win by default. This trend keeps on repeating. At the moment we have conservatives having lockdown parties. At the end of the last labour administration, we had Brown's open mic 'stupid woman' moment.
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