On Topic.I can't decide if this is performance art or a genuine mental health crisis.
Rishi Sunak is announcing the General Election date 1037hrs 13th May.The 2024 General Election is being held on 4th July. Parliament will end on 23rd May.
There is only one political party who can be seen to lose this election from here, so it will be a very difficult campaign for Labour, obvious jitters with polls tightening once election called. 9th May BOE interest rate cut announced, 10th May UK comes out of recession with good first quarter growth, 22nd May Inflation will fall below 2% - no arguing or doubt about this because its based on energy prices. Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. The sunny economic news will contrast with the depth of credit crisis in voters minds and credit given to Rishi and Hunt for the financial turnaround pulls rug from under Labours best argument for voters to switch to them. The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening.
Also as background narrative to the campaign, the last week of June and into July will be near record breaking heatwave in UK, throwing attention to how major parties have backed away from climate commitments ahead of this election. Escalating events in the Gaza War will return to the conflict to greater attention than it is currently getting, and make UKs political leaders look impotent and without influence at the worst possible moment for them.
I can give you the July election result right now, in shares and seats.
CON33 LAB39 LDM16 REF3 GRN4 SNP2
CON180 LAB379 LDM48 REF0 GRN1 (Bristols not Brightons) SNP21 PLD4
Consider this my entry in the inevitable PB competition when it comes.
Did Horse get banned again? Haven't seen him on the site for a bit.He was last seen rampaging through London yesterday.
Rishi Sunaks first success, to withdraw the Kings sicknote!The King is back . Good news . You don’t have to be a royalist to be happy about that .Well that puts paid to that story last night that he was practically on his deathbed….
Wow, that's a big family.
The Guardian
@guardian
Liz Truss book enters bestseller list in 70th place with 2,228 copies sold
Anything that removes the moronic fragmentation of the railway, whereby a bunch of whining chiselling bell-ends, constantly blame each other for everything while creating a ticketing system that you need a PhD in astromathematics to understand will be a big step forward.Ultimately, the only way to seriously improve things is to seriously upgrade the network. What it may help them do if get things right is find efficiencies in the places where operators weren't that interested in, improve things like ticketing and pricing, and deploy or increase staff to reduce cancellations where it's become a huge problem.It isn't particularly 'nationalisation'; leastways, not as was being screamed for decades ("Bring back BR!"). Large and important parts are going to remain in the private sector, and it will take five years or more to get all the franchises into public ownership.This not just nationalisation, this is SKS nationalisation.Not so long since Labour jumped up and down and demand that the SNP nationalise the water supply, railways, etc. etc. The party leader (the one yanking the chain, not the one on the other end) came up aaaaall the way to Scotland to give a speech and make those demands, much written down and publicised by BBC, etc. etc.Are Labour planning to put their British tanks on the level crossings of Scotland’s already publicly owned railways?
Awesome poster 👏
Keir Cozens is good.
cozen
verb
coz·en ˈkə-zən
cozened; cozening ˈkəz-niŋ
ˈkə-zə-
Synonyms of cozen
transitive verb
1: to deceive, win over, or induce to do something by artful coaxing and wheedling or shrewd trickery
2: to gain by cozening someone
cozened his supper out of the old couple
Alas it was impossible to achieve the impossible of nationalising a nationalised industry.
I'm unsure how this is supposed to improve things for passengers; especially given that, AIUI, the DfT will still be in ultimate charge.
That's largely tinkering, and will upset those who think nationalisation is a magic wand - but may just be a useful and necessary kick up the bum that improves things where they've become unacceptable.
Cambridge for the Intelligence Services, shirley? Mostly foreign, but hey...Getting into Oxford is a prerequisite for getting out of Oxford with a plum job in the City, politics or the media. Cambridge for comedy, of course.The baffling thing is wanting to get into Oxford.It might be Boris's sister's fault. Fans of the greatest docudrama in the history of television, When Boris Met Dave, will recall Rachel saying Classics was a dead easy way of getting into Oxford. Lots of places, not much competition if 90 per cent of schools do not teach it, one imagines.Well.Is this another of Johnson's bastard gets?
Unkind, sir.The Bogerd woman barely aspires to the moral and intellectual level of a speak your weight machine."someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture"... "A good generalist is worth a lot IMO but someone who claims they don't need to understand the detail because they are all about the "big picture" very often understands neither.A core competence of the generalist is to know when and which specialists are required, and to employ them,They were generalists. Knowing something about the business would have contaminated their minds with "technical issues" rather than maintaining their "10,000 foot view".Along with repeated claims that they were "trying to get to the bottom of it", but that "the technical issues" weren't their responsibility.Off-topic and on the Post Office.God knows. The evidence so far from those involved seems to be fulsome apology, usually read from script, and then failure to remember anything damning.
What are disclosure requirements for such a statutory enquiry (assuming I have the correct phrase)? Do witnesses get to see the evidence before the public display, as in a Court Case?
Is "Angela van den Bogerd shown letter blaming PO for sub-postmaster's death" a potential Perry Mason moment in a forum such as this enquiry, or are they impossible?
Although you can go too far the other way as I once did. I had a job designing the functionality of an IT system and got it into my head I was a fraud because I couldn't program let alone understand how computer code actually worked. It kind of paralysed me, obsessing about that.
Moral is you have to understand the detail at an appropriate level - and deciding where this level is where the skill comes in. Too high, you risk being a freefloating ignoramus. Too low, your head explodes and you're no good to anybody.
Is generally not worth very much. Maybe if you sell their organs for transplant...
You have to be comfortable with the jargon, the people and have a feeling for the possibilities of the technology that you are managing. Otherwise, you can't.
Profit is a side effect of a good business. Not the goal.
Or so she presents herself in her evidence.