neilj
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Post by neilj on May 13, 2023 12:38:45 GMT
Why on earth is there so much hype this year re- the Eurovision nonsense? Previous years have seen it largely ignored by the mass media. It might sound a bit snobbish but people like myself whose musical interests are almost entirely Classical would not touch this trivia with a bargepole. I suspect because it's in the UK, the first time for 25 years |
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Post by Mark on May 13, 2023 12:41:49 GMT
From the article.... Alex, 24, a software engineer, said: “Sunak’s not exempt from all of the ongoings and the mismanagement that had happened [during Johnson’s leadership] … but at least Boris was overt and open. You could get a sense of who he was. Rishi is so covert.....Wow....just wow. Not quite what I was expecting. It should be stressed that this is just one person in a focus group and I'm not convinced this is typical....although if there is one, there will be more even if just a few...but, just break this down. He is saying that Sunak is less open - and by extension, more sneaky/less honest - than serial liar, Johnson. I mean, wow. Not often that I'm lost for words. |
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Post by graham on May 13, 2023 12:45:05 GMT
Why on earth is there so much hype this year re- the Eurovision nonsense? Previous years have seen it largely ignored by the mass media. It might sound a bit snobbish but people like myself whose musical interests are almost entirely Classical would not touch this trivia with a bargepole. I'm currently listening to Sibelius and Britten earlier. It is possible to enjoy both you know if one can recognise fun and joy when one sees it and doesn't take everything too seriously.. Though I think for many Eurovision is pretty serious at the moment. It's proof to many Ukrainians that there's wide public support out there for them. Sorry, that comment annoyed me. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/13/ukrainian-musician-uk-eurovisionThe point surely is that so many people are taking Eurovision too seriously - in a way that was not true in earlier years when it probably passed most people by! |
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Post by graham on May 13, 2023 12:47:21 GMT
Why on earth is there so much hype this year re- the Eurovision nonsense? Previous years have seen it largely ignored by the mass media. It might sound a bit snobbish but people like myself whose musical interests are almost entirely Classical would not touch this trivia with a bargepole. I suspect because it's in the UK, the first time for 25 years I don't recall this hype from the earlier years the UK staged it - certainly not in 1968 following Sandie Shaw's 'Puppet on a string' win. |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on May 13, 2023 12:53:34 GMT
I suspect because it's in the UK, the first time for 25 years I don't recall this hype from the earlier years the UK staged it - certainly not in 1968 following Sandie Shaw's 'Puppet on a string' win. No idea, all I know is that it is normal if a big international event is held in the UK there is normally a bigger vibe in the UK or any country it's held in Euro96 had a much bigger media presence than other euros held outside the UK The Olympics held in the UK also got a lot more attention |
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Post by pete on May 13, 2023 12:54:41 GMT
'Handling unions' surely depends on how the unions locally wish to behave. If the staff you have on your payroll are more militant than in other TOC's then your services are going to be worse in times of industrial dispute. Well you’re assuming the unions might be locally more militant, wheras the unions say the management have been confrontational. This is before the concerns around rest payments and not employing or training enough drivers. Incidentally, regarding this on the matter from before… As a principle I support rail privatisation and it's bought an amazing improvement on rail services compared to BR days It’s hard to square that with the currently inflated prices, difficulty getting a seat etc… wasn't rail underfunded before the sell off? Almost as if the plan was to get people to turn on nationalised industries to make them easier to sell? |
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Post by pete on May 13, 2023 13:00:28 GMT
I hope they keep this up. A bit of luck in the next 6 months Boris might be PM again. Would rip the Tories apart even more and bar the damage to the country would be fun to watch. |
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Post by leftieliberal on May 13, 2023 13:02:43 GMT
An interesting spot by Ian Dunt in his newsletter to i subscribers, which I think deserves wider circulation (there is rather more in the full newsletter covering other subjects):
Very quietly, apparently while hoping that no-one was watching, the Home Office has used a ministerial power to directly overrule parliament. It is unprecedented. It’s the kind of thing no previous government would have ever dreamed of doing. It is a sign of a department, and indeed a whole governing culture, which has simply lost any respect for accountability or the restraint of executive power. Put simply: Parliament rejected something. And then the Government did it anyway. All very hush-hush. All very tucked away. All very technical and nerdy. But it broke the central principle by which free societies are distinguished from authoritarian ones.
The story started during the passage of the Public Order Act 2023 earlier this year. This is the legislation which was used to arrest anti-royalist demonstrators last Saturday. During the passage of the bill, the Government attempted to define the meaning of the phrase “serious disruption to the life of a community”. This is the test that allows the police to close down a protest. If it classifies as serious disruption, the police powers are activated. If it doesn’t, they aren’t.
The maximum room to manoeuvre
The Home Office approach is therefore to define them as minimally as possible so the police have the maximum room to manoeuvre. It lowered the threshold for serious disruption from “significant” and “prolonged” to “more than minor”. It incorporated the cumulative impact of protests in the same area, excluded existing traffic disruption from impact assessments and expanded the word “community” to include anyone affected by the protest.
So far, so Home Office. A crushing down of any scenario in which the right to protest can be protected or even ascertained. A delivery of so many powers and discretions to the police that they really can arrest whoever they like for whatever they like, no matter how crazed their decision-making, as in the case today of a royal superfan who was held for 13 hours because she happened to be standing next to a group of Just Stop Oil protesters during the coronation.
The Government introduced these changes as amendments to the Public Order Act at report stage in the Lords earlier this year. That alone was a problem. It’s an attempt to stuff new powers into a bill at the last moment. If they did it earlier, when it was in the Commons, it would trigger angry comment pieces in the newspapers, or outrage on social media, or debates on late night current affairs programme debates. So instead they tried to sneak it in the Lords, right at the end of a bill’s journey through parliament.
A new tactic
It’s not even the first time they’ve tried this. They did the same with extra police powers during the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. This is clearly one of their new tactics.
But the Lords weren’t having it. They rejected the amendments.
Let’s just stop here for a moment and note that. Parliament rejected the Government’s amendments. Let’s just put a little pin in it, because it’s an important sentence, the kind of sentence which really should not need to be emphasised but now apparently must be. Parliament is sovereign. If it rejects something, it should stay rejected unless it decides to consider it again.
But that is not what happened. Instead, the Home Office attempted to sidestep it.
It did this using a statutory instrument. These are ministerial powers allowing them to act with an absolute minimum of parliamentary scrutiny. There’s some face-saving provisions, but they’re all toothless. The last time the Commons rejected a negative statutory instrument was in 1979.
This particular statutory instrument was made possible by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 last year. It allowed the home secretary to come in whenever she liked and define the meaning of the phrase “serious disruption”. She would act, in effect, like a little mini parliament, deciding by herself what words meant in law.
And that is precisely what she has done. The Home Office took the provisions which were rejected by the Lords and simply turned them into a statutory instrument to force it through anyway.
The Lords secondary legislation scrutiny committee, one of only two bodies in parliament which actually bothers to properly assess ministerial powers, is ashen-faced with shock. “The Home Office has not provided any reasons for bringing the measures back in the form of secondary legislation,” it said in its report yesterday, “so soon after they were rejected in primary legislation. We are not aware of any examples of this approach being taken in the past… We believe this raises possible constitutional issues that the House may wish to consider.”
A dangerous new terrain
It certainly does raise constitutional issues. The obvious ones, as we’ve seen over the course of the week, is that of the relationship between the individual and the state. Your right to go out and demonstrate, to express your political view, has now all but ceased to exist. You might still be able to do it. But the bar to police action is so low and nebulous that you will do so entirely at their discretion.
But now a second constitutional issue has raised its head. The Government has shown that it is willing to go directly against the will of parliament and use ministerial powers instead. For a long time there’s been a tendency to legislate using these powers instead of the full parliamentary process. It’s what we saw during Brexit and then, most alarmingly, under Covid. But now we have entered a dangerous new terrain. They’re not just being used to sideline parliament. They’re being used to disobey it. (MY EMPHASIS)
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Post by Mark on May 13, 2023 13:03:00 GMT
. (double post)
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Post by graham on May 13, 2023 13:03:10 GMT
I don't recall this hype from the earlier years the UK staged it - certainly not in 1968 following Sandie Shaw's 'Puppet on a string' win. No idea, all I know is that it is normal if a big international event is held in the UK there is normally a bigger vibe in the UK or any country it's held in Euro96 had a much bigger media presence than other euros held outside the UK The Olympics held in the UK also got a lot more attention I understand that - but I have never sensed that the Eurovision Song Contest has ever been seen as a major event remotely comparable to sporting competitions.It is a bit like comparing the European Parliament election to a General Election - few voters took the former seriously. |
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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 13, 2023 13:03:37 GMT
Well you’re assuming the unions might be locally more militant, wheras the unions say the management have been confrontational. This is before the concerns around rest payments and not employing or training enough drivers. Incidentally, regarding this on the matter from before… It’s hard to square that with the currently inflated prices, difficulty getting a seat etc… wasn't rail underfunded before the sell off? Almost as if the plan was to get people to turn on nationalised industries to make them easier to sell? I do recall that argument from the time Pete, though I didn’t check up on it. It did seem like the prices went up after privatisation though! |
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Post by pete on May 13, 2023 13:04:19 GMT
pete re Stay out 41% (+4), Rejoin 59% (-4) - "Surely, looks better for leave as they jumped 3%(4%)?" It's a reversion to the norm after a rather high 'Rejoin' lead in the previous Omnisis poll. The recent average is Stay Out 42%, Rejoin 58%. www.whatukthinks.org/eu/opinion-polls/poll-of-polls-uk-eu/There are now significant numbers of those who voted Leave in 2016 and/or Conservtive in 2019 ( "Get Brexit Done") who now say that they would vote to Rejoin. Yeah, tbh I was being very facetious. |
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Post by lululemonmustdobetter on May 13, 2023 13:17:58 GMT
No idea, all I know is that it is normal if a big international event is held in the UK there is normally a bigger vibe in the UK or any country it's held in Euro96 had a much bigger media presence than other euros held outside the UK The Olympics held in the UK also got a lot more attention I understand that - but I have never sensed that the Eurovision Song Contest has ever been seen as a major event remotely comparable to sporting competitions.It is a bit like comparing the European Parliament election to a General Election - few voters took the former seriously. |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 13, 2023 13:43:41 GMT
graham Because of the unremitting antipathy shown by the right wing media to all things European union the only time they took the European union elections " seriously " was when the frog faced fascist farage's latest ego trip vehicle was performing well. This wasn't the case in all European union member states. @mark I think the point the people were making in Surrey was that Spaffer was more transparent in his dishonesty while Sunak is a sneaky bastard. I'm more than happy for blue wall Tories to carry on voting lib dems at the general election we could pick up 50 seats win win we get rid of the Tories and they get better constituency MP's.
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steve
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Post by steve on May 13, 2023 14:02:15 GMT
In the crowded field of brexitanian village idiot of the week we have a strong contender here from the mouthpieces of the Brexit party "Spiked" Here the contributor bemoans the removal of the bonfire of European union retained laws as these apparently impact local planning permission ( spoiler alert no they don't they have nothing to do with local government decisions) and the fact that not removing the laws means we don't get the Brexit bonus of lowering safety standards on baby formula! Where do they find these people. youtu.be/BLFdep1kaEk |
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steve
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Post by steve on May 13, 2023 14:10:39 GMT
leftieliberalWhile the recent behaviour of my former employer has left me as dismayed as many others a little bit of context here. Firstly there was no massive clamour for these powers by the police in the first place, indeed some chief constables have publicly expressed their concerns over the introduction.This is a regime initiative aimed at suppression of dissent. Also as usual with this inept regime their legislation is so ambiguous and badly drafted that almost by design it's going to result in misuse and abuse of power.
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Post by thylacine on May 13, 2023 14:23:08 GMT
No idea, all I know is that it is normal if a big international event is held in the UK there is normally a bigger vibe in the UK or any country it's held in Euro96 had a much bigger media presence than other euros held outside the UK The Olympics held in the UK also got a lot more attention I understand that - but I have never sensed that the Eurovision Song Contest has ever been seen as a major event remotely comparable to sporting competitions.It is a bit like comparing the European Parliament election to a General Election - few voters took the former seriously. The past as has been said is a foreign land Graham and that is not how I remember it. As a child I can remember Sandy Shaw, Dana and Cliff Richards amongst others and the excitement that generated in the media ( admittedly the family were Mirror ,and whisper it, News of the World readers lol). Surely even the most high brow of forum members remember the ,ahem, arrival of Abba ( I hope some see what I did there  ), and the skirt strip of Bucks Fizz. The competition in recent years has seen a resurgence in the UK but has always been beloved in Europe and also the Europe wide LGBTQ+ community. So sit back and enjoy a joyous spectacle or I'm sure you can find some sport to watch if not your cup of tea |
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Post by thylacine on May 13, 2023 14:29:21 GMT
I hope they keep this up. A bit of luck in the next 6 months Boris might be PM again. Would rip the Tories apart even more and bar the damage to the country would be fun to watch. Beware the greased pig it might not be so funny :-) |
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Post by lululemonmustdobetter on May 13, 2023 14:37:14 GMT
Hi johntel. Looks like more evidence to support the view that at the next GE, Tory VI may be depressed by 'stay at home' or increased likelihood to vote LD. If such views are shared by Tory VI in the marginals between Lab and Tory, and lead to a segment of the Tory vote staying at home, then we could see some big swings to Labour. To cheer myself up, I watched a bit of the coverage of the '97 election (I was so young then) the other day, and some of the swings to Lab were very high. With an overall swing of 8.8% they gained 146 seats. Matching that would give Starmer a comfortable majority.
While there are currently a lot of similarities with '97 that contributed to Lab's success, there are also some notable differences:
1) In '97, after 18 years of Tory rule, the left of the party didn't rock the boat and Labour's party discipline was v. tight. Currently, the left is getting its claims of betrayal in before the GE.
2) Labour had built a very effective electoral campaign machine run by extremely capable operators by '97- the current party machine is nowhere near as well resourced, effective or well run.
3) Murdoch had switched his support to Labour. Currently there is no sign of that happening prior to the next GE.
4) Blair was perceived as offering a 'change' - Starmer does not illicit the same reaction/enthusiasm from the electorate.
Now its hard to calculate how much these either individually or collectively contributed to Labour's victory, and there will be other factors operating in the next GE, but it does help to temper a bit the expectation that Labour will just walk the next GE.
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steve
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Post by steve on May 13, 2023 15:00:31 GMT
lululemonmustdobetter I am not sure if you recall but in 1997 along with the Blair landslide the lib dems won 43 seats based on a 16% vote share, which because of the inequities of fptp was about the most proportional to vote share they have ever achieved. Now Starmer isn't a Blair and frankly Davey isn't an Ashdown but a collapse in the Tory vote without the same massive Labour appeal for moderate Tories could be good for all of us.
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Post by moby on May 13, 2023 15:07:58 GMT
I don't recall this hype from the earlier years the UK staged it - certainly not in 1968 following Sandie Shaw's 'Puppet on a string' win. No idea, all I know is that it is normal if a big international event is held in the UK there is normally a bigger vibe in the UK or any country it's held in Euro96 had a much bigger media presence than other euros held outside the UK The Olympics held in the UK also got a lot more attention I wonder what the odds are on a surprise appearance by Macca. Wonder what @crofty would say? |
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Post by James E on May 13, 2023 15:27:56 GMT
@lululemonmustdobetter "I watched a bit of the coverage of the '97 election (I was so young then) the other day, and some of the swings to Lab were very high. With an overall swing of 8.8% they gained 146 seats. Matching that would give Starmer a comfortable majority." To be pedantic, the swing in 1997 was 10%. Labour were up by 8.8%, and the Conservatives down by 11.2%. But I fully agree that a similar movement* would deliver a very comfortable majority. However, a Uniform Swing of 10% would in fact leave Labour short of a majority. And in various parts of the media, this is being used to raise the spectre of a 'coalition of chaos', even though it is a wildly inaccurate predictor of seats changing hands - especially when there is a large swing. Looking at the 1997 results, Labour achieved around 40 gains in excess of the number predicted by a 10% uniform swing. And this was mostly due to 'proportionate swing' with a bit of help from tactical voting. For this, please see page 14 of 18 of the attached paper on Constituency system and the 1997 landslide. The differential movements between all different types of seat are provided, but as a preliminary point, the Conservatives lost most (13.1%) and Labour gained most (13.8%) in safe Conservative seats where Labour were second. The average swing in all Conservative held seats with Labour second was around 13% - so a 3% 'bonus' on top of UNS. And note that the Tory losses were all greater than the average of 11.2% where they were defending. Labour also did well in marginal seats they were defending, but the lowest swings (av 7.9%) came in safe Labour seats. Again, this is simply how a 'proportionate swing' works. www.dannydorling.org/wp-content/files/dannydorling_publication_id1318.pdf* This looks plausible enough. If we have identical movements in 2024/5, it would be: Lab 41.8% (+8.8) Con 33.5% (-11.2) LD 10.7% (-1) Others up by 3.4% UNS puts Lab on 310 seats (15 short) on this. Electoral Calculus says Lab 368 seats and a majority of 86 (with 50% tactical voting) or 46 seat majority with no tactical voting. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 13, 2023 15:33:22 GMT
This narrative of inevitability runs against all our learnt history; there was an age when we aspired to build a better world by democratic design, but now we wait for the corporations to tell us what is feasible. And, strangely, only what is profitable seems to be feasible. Does it? There is a temptation for anyone to believe the world they have lived in is how the world has always been. So we look back at the post WW2 era as a golden age of government intervention on behalf of people. Forgetting that governments faced with millions of citizens trained to kill and very pissed off at failings of government which created not just one but two world wars, decided it was a good moment to act in the common interest of the common man. Not forgetting russia and China and big chunks of lots of other places never had this democratic utopia at all. Possibly this was a rather exceptional period in history for an exceptionally lucky group of people. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 13, 2023 15:36:35 GMT
Danny - I think you're penchant for conspiracy theories sometimes gets the better of you. Russia wasn't shaping the agenda in Bakhmut. Shorn of so much force, they had no option but to concentrate on one narrow point to push for progress. Ukraine saw them coming, and they, not the Russians, were the once deriving purpose and value from the fighting for Bakhmut. If Russia had not perceived it was gaining something from the fighting around bahkmut, it would not have engaged there. I think their plan was to throw away expendable troops in return for a basically static fighting line through the winter. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 13, 2023 15:44:11 GMT
Mmm I think you may be in for a surprise. Russian leaders don't normally 'continue in post' following obvious military defeat. Putin expected an easy win, like last time he invaded Ukraine or better. Didn't happen, so he then had a problem as you decribe. So how to get out of that? His answer seems to be a campaign of rhetoric casting the west as enemies of a beleagured Russia, which is being attacked on all sides, thereby causing the failure in Ukraine. So he will be arguing if he hadnt shown the Russian people the truth of this, they would have walked into defeat. The longer this goes on, the more time he has to convince people. Its juts like governments persuading people covid was incredibly dangerous so they were right to lockdown, when it wasnt and they werent. But so far they seem to have got away with it. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 13, 2023 15:46:29 GMT
These seem to be local counter-attacks only by Ukraine and yet when you consider that official US sources suggest that the Russians may have suffered 20,000 dead and 80,000 wounded in trying and failing to capture Bakhmut, it really is an extraordinary failure on the Russian side. If that was 100,000 conscripts, easily replaced, then on balance why would Russia care? (OK, yes I know some were but some were crack troops, but the point stands, Russia has always used cannon fodder to halt approaching armies) |
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Post by lululemonmustdobetter on May 13, 2023 15:47:17 GMT
Hi James E To be pedantic, the swing in 1997 was 10%
I should have known better than to mention the 's' word.
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Post by alec on May 13, 2023 16:00:01 GMT
Ukraine - apparently confirmed that Friday's strike on an oil storage deport in occupied Luhansk was the first known use of Storm Shadow long range missiles provided quite recently by the UK. Significant, as this was deep behind Russian lines.
Also being reported that two Russian jets have been downed, along with two helicopters, but possibly by their own air defence systems. There seems to be a jumpiness amongst the Russian occupying force.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 13, 2023 16:14:45 GMT
As the no-one has any say over who is our monarch who cares? I was surprised to see the popularity of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex over there though. Perhaps it's just because they're seen as anti-Royal? I read some of Harry's book and compared it to the wikipedia article about the same. Wiki is an appalling hatchet job on what was actually written. Digging a little deeper, the reason seems to be that the wiki article was written mostly based on reports about the book before it was published, so it reflects what was written about it. A good chunk of the press set out to sensationalise and portray Harry in as bad a light as posssible. Given British press tend to side with monarchy (because I guess in the long run its a great story), they have sided with William and Charles against Harry. Whereas its possible (I havnt researched further) US and other press has had much more balanced responses to the book. I heard another report he is much more popular in US than here. This is reflected in Harry's current court case, where he alleges Charles and William settled bugging claims out of court with big compensation payments, whereas he has sought to publicise the details of what they did. Can see why they might not like that. Theres a fascinating bit in the books where he says someone published a piece about his drug taking, which was totally made up. But he says the palace refused to contest it. Some reviews of the book suggest he was a massive drug taker really by misreporting what he did write. The also-ran, or as he puts it 'spare', has not fared very well in the british press, or in the royal family. Arranged marriages dont sit well in modern life. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 13, 2023 16:19:27 GMT
…Apparently they had more cancellations than any other operator in January-February. They had more cancellations than all the other operators put together. There seems to be a consensus train operators are not allowed to make deals themselves beyond what government decides. It may be government chose to make this operator a test fight, and the result has been the union didnt cave but services have collapsed. |
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), and the skirt strip of Bucks Fizz.
