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Post by eor on May 18, 2023 22:32:24 GMT
joeboy - thanks for those. I don't think DeSantis will be the nominee (more likely to me is that either Trump pushes him out of the race and has the field to himself, or Trump fails to push him out and realising Trump is beatable others then join and DeSantis gets squeezed between Trump and one or more more moderate candidates). Caveat there is that I was wrong in almost every such prediction I made about how the 2016 campaign would unfold, and that even if DeSantis succeeds in getting blood into the water and other candidates join then there's still the risk that they would repeat the error of 2015/16 and many people would stay in the race too long instead of dropping out and rallying around one alternative candidate. But if DeSantis were to be the nominee... yes I'd bet on him to beat Biden tho I suspect it'd be pretty close. I don't think candidate demographics would play as big a role as you imply in the rust belt. Obama won those states against McCain, the epitome of a decent, respectable, white, Republican military hero, and the swings the good ould boy achieved in 2020 were tiny compared to 2016 - less than 2% in Michigan and less than 1% in the other two if I remember rightly. (UK definition of swing, not US), no better than the national average. As for Trump, certainly he'll be pushing the narrative that he's the only Republican that can win, and (along with totally distorting levels of name recognition) I suspect that's where a fair chunk of his current polling comes from. Of course, as steve points out, and as I've mentioned before, this may all yet be hypothetical if he ends up in jail. Tho after 7 years of trying they're not doing awfully well at putting him away... I do see where you're coming from, but I'm not sure I'd buy the Obama/McCain comparison. Obama appealed to the traditional Democratic base on a number of levels, and the Democratic machine while it can be fractious at times, was clearly able to rally around the guy. McCain on the other hand, while a decent enough fella, did not have the 'hey buddy' ease of Biden with voters. He was also treated with deep suspicion by many in his own party which didn't help his cause. Yeah that's fair - and McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as VP to try to counter that suspicion didn't entirely go to plan either did it! I think your point there cuts both ways - turnout in 2020 was unusually high, but the population and the electorate had both grown quite markedly since 2008. About 20-30 million in fact. And whilst you may well be right that DeSantis would command lower enthusiasm across the electorate than Trump, how much of Biden's 2020 vote was galvanised by the need to get rid of Trump? Yeah, whilst the US equivalent of our Tory "men in grey suits" gets a bit overplayed, as the campaign develops there could well be a growing sense within the Republican establishment that it's less destructive to let Trump run and lose again than it is to have a protracted nomination fight that has to be settled by backroom shenanigans and causes all manner of bitterness for the future. Absolutely - I have Dem friends who would find little disagreeable with Ed Davey or David Cameron, and Dem friends who put in unpaid legwork for Bernie, and *none* of them wanted Biden to run again. But as you say there are no serious contenders - the likely contenders from the centre or the left are all better suited to waiting for a free-for-all next time instead of staking everything on taking down the incumbent President this time. Certainly it's taught us not to pay much heed to polls, but the speculation is the fun bit  |
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Post by mercian on May 18, 2023 22:36:17 GMT
Mr Jansen said BT would be a “huge beneficiary” of AI, which he said could save the company hundreds of millions of pounds compared to its old IT systems. He said: “Yes it has its risks, we’ve got to be very careful, but I personally think it’s going to be as big as the internet and as big as mobile phones. This is a massive change. Sounds like the plot of many a science fiction story, where the AI takes over the world. So this one is to be given control of our communications network. You can just imagine the next prime minister screaming why his phones stopped working and his remote security system just locked him up. Good to see that a once-sclerotic nationalised industry is moving with the times. Prepare yourselves for the forthcoming jobs apocalypse. A national basic wage for everyone is inevitable sooner or later as so many people will be virtually unemployable in the new world order. Taxes on businesses will have to rise to pay for this. When I was in the NHS a lot of people were employed producing reports in Excel spreadsheets which was mainly done by copying and pasting data from various sources. I automated as much of this as I could (pre-AI) and a good few drones lost their jobs. That wasn't particularly my intention but it must be that even NHS managers realised that their so-called skills were superfluous. Of course by then independent businessmen (GPs) were running the local NHS Trusts. |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 18, 2023 22:38:17 GMT
I see jib remains obsessed with the minority party in the coalition government of 13 years ago. Despite as far as I am aware no one who posts here actually voted for the minority party in the coalition government of thirteen years ago , thirteen years ago. While he regularly breaks out his Orange crayons and blamed them for the culpable ineptitude of all events since ( other than of course his beloved brexit)I'm not entirely sure who he's aiming at. If he thinks the currently avowedly anti Tory liberal democrat party which has just one member of its parliamentary membership that actually participated in the coalition government and which in common with the Labour party hasn't ruled out a progressive partnership with the Labour party is somehow the same I think he needs to catch up with reality. |
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Post by mercian on May 18, 2023 22:42:26 GMT
A big wake up call for press freedom here - rsf.org/en/uk-allocation-costs-banks-v-cadwalladr-sets-chilling-precedent-public-interest-journalismThe case is quite complex, but in essence Aaron Banks sued the journalist, not the publishers, and while the reporting was deemed to be in the public interest, the Appeal Court has found only partially in Bank's favour yet awarded significant costs to be paid by Cadwalladr. In the UK, rich people can silence the press, and this technique of targeting the journalist rather than the publishing platform is going to help drive the UK further and further towards a corrupt political system. Are journalists above the law of libel? |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 18, 2023 22:43:26 GMT
That's the spirit graham obviously a direct comparison between the liberal democrats joining the Tory party in 2010 with the German conservatives joining the fucking Nazi Party in 1933! Now I didn't have a lot of time for Lord Snooty Cameron but I think on the balance of probabilities Adolph Hitler was a teeny bit worse! |
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Post by mercian on May 18, 2023 22:46:46 GMT
As an update, the Times had a bit more about it. And apparently Jansen did suggest something the AI is going to do. “ Technologies such as digital assistants would allow customers to “interact with us in a more seamless way”” So there you go. Digital Assistants, apparently. @c-a-r-f-r-e-w I don't think I need any digital assistance thank you very much. Can I have a reduction in my bill instead? You should get one, because BT won't have to pay all those wages any more, and it will benefit them if they can undercut their competitors if only for a short time. Capitalism at it's best! |
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Post by joeboy on May 18, 2023 22:51:51 GMT
I made no contention of that sort at all - I purposely mentioned the fuel protesters and ref to people campaigning/protesting on things that impact on them like building of local sewage works to point out that anyone can become motivated to protest and if pushed to rebel/revolt. When rebellions/revolutions do occur its due to a build up of socio-economic tension that pushes people into the political sphere - you can have revolutions / rebellions of the right or left, but they don't occur due to the actions of radicalised intellectuals but because a broad mass of people become active/motivated in toppling the stays quo. They are normally sparked by things such as food queues etc.
Seems you completely missed the point I was trying to make. I don't think I did. Luckily n this country 'revolutions' usually happen democratically - e.g. UKIP's success. This was exactly what you describe as 'When rebellions/revolutions do occur its due to a build up of socio-economic tension that pushes people into the political sphere'. Neither I or most of the original members of my local branch of UKIP had ever had any political experience though (as I expect usually happens) we were joined by local 'activists' with personal agendas later. In what sense was UKIP's success (I assume you mean Brexit) a revolution, the same government remained in power, the Queen kept all her houses and everyone went to work the next day. I seriously don't think in years to come historians will refer to 2016 as the year of the 'British Revolution'. |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 18, 2023 22:53:10 GMT
jibIt remains the intent of the liberal democrats to rejoin the European union when practicable, this was confirmed at conference, so we are a rejoin party , to be fair to you the roadmap you outline is correct , the easiest way to secure single market membership would of course to be in the European union.
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Post by eor on May 18, 2023 22:59:46 GMT
This conversation induced me to look up my grandparents' old house in Emscote (which will mean something to mercian and probably no-one else) on Google Streetview, which my gran lived in until shortly (a few days) before she died. To my surprise, it is still there and looks much the same. I can remember the one gas mantle still in the hall although they had electricity from before I was born. The outside toilet was beyond the scullery and the grating where the coal was tipped into the cellar is still there. There were three bedrooms, but no bathroom (my grandfather used to bath in a tin bath in front of the fire). Unfortunately the overhead view isn't good enough to see how the back garden has changed, although I remember that we had very fine black soil. Afraid even I had never heard of Emscote though I looked it up. The house you describe sounds similar to many of the time. My second house still had gas mantles, though no longer in use. The contrast between then and now is the sort of thing that annoys me when people complain about how terrible life is nowadays. - even tho you missed your intended target, it meant something to me Whilst back-to-backs are long gone, some of the terraced housing described today is quite common still in Coventry - they've had ground floor bathrooms added as rear extensions over the decades, but they're still there. Never had the coal cellars but did have larders. One of the key features here is no hallway - the front door leads straight into the front downstairs room, and the back door from the now tiny rear garden goes into the kitchen or living room. They were popular here as student houses for a while, because the layout made it easy to make the front downstairs room into another bedroom. |
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Post by graham on May 18, 2023 23:08:26 GMT
That's the spirit graham obviously a direct comparison between the liberal democrats joining the Tory party in 2010 with the German conservatives joining the fucking Nazi Party in 1933! Now I didn't have a lot of time for Lord Snooty Cameron but I think on the balance of probabilities Adolph Hitler was a teeny bit worse! Not much in it though - Cameron's government was far more deflationary in terms of economic policy and his heirs are very much from the Arbeit Macht Frei wing of the Tory party. |
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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 18, 2023 23:19:13 GMT
oldnat “ EDIT: Since pjw1961 has declared his intention no longer to try to insist that his usage of "nationalism" is the only acceptable one, I will have no reason to continue to provide an alternative.” Shame really - but I’ll make a note in my diary anyway. FM Apropos of nothing in particular, here is an interesting article about people who feel the need to always have the last word: www.learning-mind.com/having-the-last-word-important-deal/That comment being your "last word". |
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Post by eor on May 18, 2023 23:28:12 GMT
A big wake up call for press freedom here - rsf.org/en/uk-allocation-costs-banks-v-cadwalladr-sets-chilling-precedent-public-interest-journalismThe case is quite complex, but in essence Aaron Banks sued the journalist, not the publishers, and while the reporting was deemed to be in the public interest, the Appeal Court has found only partially in Bank's favour yet awarded significant costs to be paid by Cadwalladr. In the UK, rich people can silence the press, and this technique of targeting the journalist rather than the publishing platform is going to help drive the UK further and further towards a corrupt political system. Complex as you say, but isn't the point that it's not about what she wrote on the "publishing platform", but what she separately chose to write and say in a personal capacity on twitter and in a TED talk? I agree completely that what a journalist writes in the Guardian should be entirely the legal issue for the Guardian, not the journalist. But why is what someone who happens to be a Guardian journalist chooses to write on twitter any more protected than what you or I might write there? |
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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 18, 2023 23:29:58 GMT
I see jib remains obsessed with the minority party in the coalition government of 13 years ago. Despite as far as I am aware no one who posts here actually voted for the minority party in the coalition government of thirteen years ago , thirteen years ago. While he regularly breaks out his Orange crayons and blamed them for the culpable ineptitude of all events since ( other than of course his beloved brexit)I'm not entirely sure who he's aiming at. If he thinks the currently avowedly anti Tory liberal democrat party which has just one member of its parliamentary membership that actually participated in the coalition government and which in common with the Labour party hasn't ruled out a progressive partnership with the Labour party is somehow the same I think he needs to catch up with reality.
Party partisans can be pathetically persuaded by populist personalities to persistently propagate pish. (I do recognise that the Deputy Speaker of the UK HoC deprecates that last word, in the same way that I deprecate the UK HoC). |
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Post by eor on May 18, 2023 23:33:28 GMT
Labels can be a useful shorthand, when used in context, when deployed as absolute truths, they are but fecking mince. Totally nicking that, thank you! |
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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 18, 2023 23:47:11 GMT
@c-a-r-f-r-e-w I don't think I need any digital assistance thank you very much. Can I have a reduction in my bill instead? You should get one, because BT won't have to pay all those wages any more, and it will benefit them if they can undercut their competitors if only for a short time. Capitalism at it's best! Don’t be surprised if they will ditch the jobs and put up the prices for all the digital assistance you don’t want. Ah, you say, but you will just move to another provider! But they might well all of them put up their prices for all the digital assistance you don’t want. You may as well learn to love the digital assistance. Capitalism at its best etc. |
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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…
Posts: 6,721
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on May 18, 2023 23:54:45 GMT
Afraid even I had never heard of Emscote though I looked it up. The house you describe sounds similar to many of the time. My second house still had gas mantles, though no longer in use. The contrast between then and now is the sort of thing that annoys me when people complain about how terrible life is nowadays. - even tho you missed your intended target, it meant something to me Whilst back-to-backs are long gone, some of the terraced housing described today is quite common still in Coventry - they've had ground floor bathrooms added as rear extensions over the decades, but they're still there. Never had the coal cellars but did have larders. One of the key features here is no hallway - the front door leads straight into the front downstairs room, and the back door from the now tiny rear garden goes into the kitchen or living room. They were popular here as student houses for a while, because the layout made it easy to make the front downstairs room into another bedroom. Speaking of Coventry, congrats to the Sky Blues on making the playoffs final. Despite not owning their own ground and despite the questionable pitches provided in the early part of the season by their former landlord. Commiserations to their former landlord, Wasps, who have in the last few hours lost their licence to play in the Championship. PUSB |
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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 18, 2023 23:55:30 GMT
You should get one, because BT won't have to pay all those wages any more, and it will benefit them if they can undercut their competitors if only for a short time. Capitalism at it's best! Don’t be surprised if they will ditch the jobs and put up the prices for all the digital assistance you don’t want. Ah, you say, but you will just move to another provider! But they might well all of them put up their prices for all the digital assistance you don’t want. You may as well learn to love the digital assistance. Capitalism at its best etc. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 19, 2023 5:54:41 GMT
Interesting analysis, basically even worse news for the Tories Rob Ford argues that the 2019 election did not show tactical voting against tories, whereas the recent elections did. I'm not sure thats a surprise- 2019 was all about Brexit. Or it was for con, labour tried to sit on the fence....and lost. However, if 2019 was about Brexit and not what might be considered the usual, 'i hate the government', then it could be argued 2019 was the aberration and recent results of anti government voting more normal. Although the degree of government hatred tends to increase with time in office. In 2015 any 'i hate the government' effect addressed against con was masked by the rather greater effect against their liberal partners. Something else Ford finds surprising is that the swing against con is proportional to their former vote. ie the more people voted for them last time, then the more changed this. He contrasts this to an expected uniform gain in every seat in the country of , say, 5%. I honestly dont know if this is what previously happened, people talk about 'uniform swing' but I never thought of it as more than an approximation based on the total of all votes cast, expecting it to vary from place to place.
So do people think thyere has been a change in behaviour by voters, so that massively more of them are swing voters rather than tribally committed, or is this just business as usual which hasnt quite been defined so well in the past?
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 19, 2023 6:06:25 GMT
There's no obvious reason why the European union should make any effort to bail the Sunak regime out they gain from the companies moving and 800,000 jobs in the UK are at risk as a result. Indeed you could argue that since rules of origin are very much easier for the EU to meet than the UK, because its so much bigger and makes much more stuff, then the agreement spectacularly disadvantages the UK. Although I dont see how it could reasonably have been done differently by the EU itself, obviously it is a single trading block which counts all its members equally as 'made in the EU'. To overcome this disadvantage we could only reasonably become a member at least of the trading system if not the EU as a whole. The implication is very obvious that there are lots of trade disadvantages to leaving the EU which have totally not been taken into account in terms of likely future impact on our ability to trade with them. Or indeed with anyone, because this will result in the end of the Uk car manufacturing industry so we wont be exporting to anyone else outside the EU either.
And if your 800,000 jobs lost is simply the car industry, then the final total will be much greater. The irony is that when we get rid of these jobs so the Uk labour force gets smalle, we will still have a shortage of fruit pickers so needing immigrant labour, and no doubt with a failing education system also of many other skilled sectors. (and yes, its obvious fruit picking is a skilled job because UK workers are simply incapable of doing it. People do not seem to understand physical labour is also a skill most people simply do not have.)
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 19, 2023 6:12:26 GMT
Against such a backdrop, having the Mail opine about how dictators might be better for us sends chills down my spine, and should, I think, chill people across the political spectrum. I seem to remember Hitler had a plan to install the Duke of Windsor as king of England to make his regime more palatable to England, should germany occupy the UK. The current regime aready installed its own puppet ruler, the former Duke of Cornwall. Exactly for the same reasons, to give it a veneer of respectability. Although isnt there some technicality of law saying the Dutchy is not part of the the United Kingdom, or not ruled by it? |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 19, 2023 6:23:19 GMT
News this morning talking about children carrying knives for self protection when they depart school premises. I hope some may recall my describing the goal of some schools not so much to educate, but simply to prevent the kids killing each other or staff. Since this intervieed kid was talking about fears on leaving the building, perhaps the education system is succeeding at least to some degree in keeping knife crime out of its premises.
The report went on about trying to persuade kids that it is against their interest to carry knives. Not succeeding. Well duh, in a situation where the other guy has a knife and you dont, seems to me you are more likely to do better with than without. Your benefit is not in not having a knife yourself, but in preventing the other guy having one. Its a prisoners dilemma situation about benefits of cooperation. If a significant minority persist in having knives to use, then everyone needs one. You can say the same about guns in the US.
So the problem is not how to stop relatively law abiding kids carrying knives, but haow to prevent kids determined and willing to use them from carrying knives. And obviously the authorities either have no idea how to do this, or are simply unwilling to try. A soultion is likely to involve massive amounts of money and human resources. Basically, get rid of poverty and change the area into a contented middle class one. But no, we simply tell the law abiding kids not to defend themselves.
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steve
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Post by steve on May 19, 2023 6:45:00 GMT
 Why do the media give these people air time? |
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Post by alec on May 19, 2023 6:56:17 GMT
eor - the court accepted that Cadwhalladre had no control over the TED platform continuing to broadcast her talk after the relevant date. mercian - yes, no one should be above the libel laws, but access to law is the key here. You can only seriously access legal remedies if you are very rich, and that's why the very rich are using the threat of the law to silence genuine investigative journalism.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 19, 2023 6:57:40 GMT
May I compliment you on removing your reference to calling a spade a shovel? I do dislike inaccuracies when describing garden equipment. [/font][/quote]I started wondering about the origin of this phrase and the curious usage in the form 'calling a spade a shovel', because surely inserting the word shovel is to avoid using the word 'spade', which can have meanings other than a garden implement. And maybe to highlight that spade has these other meanings. However, the source of the phrases seems to be traceable to the writings of Plutarch, but is actually an either accidental or deliberate mistranslation of a word meaning trough or basin. So it should be calling a basin a basin. Plutarch was making a comment about people who were so uneducated they had only one word for basin, so its supposed to be an insult about ignorance and not about euphemisms. |
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Post by alec on May 19, 2023 6:59:51 GMT
And here is a study from Switzerland showing that covid transmission fell by 80% due to masking, with a near identical fall if air cleaners were deployed.
Masks work folks. No debate left to be had.
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Post by EmCat on May 19, 2023 7:07:46 GMT
Why do the media give these people air time? To quote someone in the industry: "Because they answered the phone" Many people, when approached by the media, may be too busy, or their employer has imposed restrictions on whether they can speak without having to get permission first, or there may be other reasons why they are not able to give their views. Once someone is in the media address book, it is far easier to go back to them "because they will have a view on {particular subject}" |
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Post by befuddledbadger on May 19, 2023 7:15:47 GMT
leftieliberal - even tho you missed your intended target, it meant something to me Whilst back-to-backs are long gone, some of the terraced housing described today is quite common still in Coventry - they've had ground floor bathrooms added as rear extensions over the decades, but they're still there. Never had the coal cellars but did have larders. One of the key features here is no hallway - the front door leads straight into the front downstairs room, and the back door from the now tiny rear garden goes into the kitchen or living room. They were popular here as student houses for a while, because the layout made it easy to make the front downstairs room into another bedroom. Speaking of Coventry, congrats to the Sky Blues on making the playoffs final. Despite not owning their own ground and despite the questionable pitches provided in the early part of the season by their former landlord. Commiserations to their former landlord, Wasps, who have in the last few hours lost their licence to play in the Championship. PUSB A footballing good news story and I share your sentiments about the club's incredible fortitude over their many years of hardships and misfortunes. One or two maybe self-inflicted, but the major ones visited upon them from outside forces, I think. While no one wants to see any sports club fall on hard times, you can be forgiven for a slight trace of schadenfreude creeping into your last commiserating sentence! Good luck against the Happy Hatters |
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Post by wb61 on May 19, 2023 7:20:00 GMT
This conversation induced me to look up my grandparents' old house in Emscote (which will mean something to mercian and probably no-one else) on Google Streetview, which my gran lived in until shortly (a few days) before she died. To my surprise, it is still there and looks much the same. I can remember the one gas mantle still in the hall although they had electricity from before I was born. The outside toilet was beyond the scullery and the grating where the coal was tipped into the cellar is still there. There were three bedrooms, but no bathroom (my grandfather used to bath in a tin bath in front of the fire). Unfortunately the overhead view isn't good enough to see how the back garden has changed, although I remember that we had very fine black soil. Afraid even I had never heard of Emscote though I looked it up. The house you describe sounds similar to many of the time. My second house still had gas mantles, though no longer in use. The contrast between then and now is the sort of thing that annoys me when people complain about how terrible life is nowadays. I imagine that the Victorian worker awakening from slumber over a doss house rope would consider you a snowflake for bothering with any sort of comfort and would get angry because you hadn't known your place and stayed in it. Social Conservatism in its raw state. |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 19, 2023 7:23:57 GMT
In terms of overcoming difficulties in Football success seeing a playoff for access to the richest football league in the world between Luton Town and Coventry has to be up there.
Luton were in the fifth league of football just 8 years ago remarkable success.
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Post by jimjam on May 19, 2023 7:32:27 GMT
Just out,
I am surprised that the LD boost from the positive LA election results has virtually disappeared so quickly.
Still if they settle at 1-2% above what national polls were recording in March and in double figures that is progress.
Plus they have more activists as councillors and data to concentrate their resources.
Hard to see them getting over 25 seats at the GE and more likely nearer 20 imo.
'' @techneuk
NEW POLL: Labour lead by 16:
Lab 45% (nc)
Con 29% (+1)
LibDem 10% (-1)
Reform 5% (nc)
Green 4% (-1)
SNP 3% (nc)
1,633 questioned on 17-18 May.
+/- 10-11 May.
Data - technetracker.co.uk pic.twitter.com/O3pDoslfJF
19/05/2023, 08:00''
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