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  • JackWJackW Posts: 14,787
    I can't believe Mike Smithson had a long odds winner during a POTUS campaign .... who knew ?!? .... :smile:
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,562
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    I have no idea of whether CA breached the law or Facebook’s TOS...
    Don't know, or don't want to know ?

    If one were being uncharitable, that might give the impression of an aloof sensibility...
    :smile:

    Aside from possible criminal actions, or breaches of the data protection laws, it does appear that companies like Facebook, which hold personal data in a scale and level of detail which make the Stasi look like the rankest amateurs, are incredibly lightly regulated, and display little or no concern for data privacy.

  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    I have no idea of whether CA breached the law or Facebook’s TOS...
    Don't know, or don't want to know ?

    If one were being uncharitable, that might give the impression of an aloof sensibility...
    :smile:

    Aside from possible criminal actions, or breaches of the data protection laws, it does appear that companies like Facebook, which hold personal data in a scale and level of detail which make the Stasi look like the rankest amateurs, are incredibly lightly regulated, and display little or no concern for data privacy.
    The problem is that we, the public, have little concern for data privacy. Many of us squealed about ID cards, but willingly give vastly larger reams of data to organisations who make money from exploiting that data.

    I'm on Facebook. But I'm on it knowing that my data could get shared, and only use it for keeping in touch with a few people. I know other people who put their entire lives on it.

    Ditto Twitter.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,876

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Have I missed something? I thought we had been guaranteed the 2020 catch would be the same as 2019?
    The cynic in me says expectations were raised in a rather deceitful manner about BREXIT to a lot of voters, the fishermen are just finding out today......
    In 2021 we’ll be outside

    The issue is the decision is made in Dec 19 for the whole of the 20 season.

    We’ve be guaranteed it will be the same as 19.

    It’s far from a given we’ll be outside anything much in 2021, in practical terms. The Irish border issue has not gone away. Neither has the business case for the status quo. The can has been kicked down the road a little, but time is running out.
    Time is running out, but we've progressed much further than many doom-mongers predicted.

    I'm bored with Brexit now. I think the way it was done was a mistake, but let's just leave the fanatics on both sides to argue amongst themselves (*) and look at sorting the more important issues facing the country.

    (*) Perhaps OGH could provide a padded room in which they could be put? A PB Brexit Royale room, where Brexit-obsessed posters entered but only one emerges?

    Boredom is the government’s best friend. It makes climbdowns easier to do. And that’s very good news, of course. They key will be to secure symbolic signs of leaving while making sure all the important stuff stays in place. God bless those blue passports. And I mean that very seriously. They will buy an awful lot of room for manouevre. A small EU concession on freedom of movement, a form of words on the ECJ, and the deal will be sealed: the UK will remain a de facto, though not de jure, member of both the single market and customs union.

  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    The whole issue revolves around Facebook App Data sharing ToS. An academic created an app, those that downloaded it agree to the T&C (in there was that they would be allow Facebook to hand over their data to the academic (this is very common with all apps these days that use Facebook or Google login), and also their network of friends [public] info*).

    Note all of the above could have been scraped a different way, but would have been much more inefficient to do. The way it was done allowed them to capture info on 100,000s of profiles in just a few days.

    Now real issue is that the academic agreed with Facebook that the data they would hand over was for academic purposes only. Instead it has been leveraged by a private company.

    What is unclear at the moment is how strong are Facebook ToS and what exact agreement everybody signed up for i.e the Facebook users, Facebook and the academic. In the mountains of legalize it might be that all that has gone on is fine, because we all signed up to it when we joined Facebook.
    Thank you. As you observe, in all the legalese T&C it may be that Facebook are covered - I guess we’ll have to wait to see. CA on the other hand appear to have been damned out of their own mouths...

    Part of this feels a bit like refighting Trump & Brexit....”How could we possibly lose? We were right! It must be something else....”
    Never mind the legalese in Facebook's T&C's: the question for that nice Mr Zuckerberg is whether this leads to the mass cancellation of accounts as people suddenly realise how purposely leaky it is.

    I never joined up to Facebook. It always worried me.

    Most users are on the site to communicate with friends and family. Their interest in politics is minimal. However Facebook is chasing revenue and it may be it's undoing.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    One thing that p**es me off about these companies is the data retention policies. We have a friend who died four years ago, and he was active on a couple of social media platforms. I occasionally get emails 'from him' sent by two of the companies (one being FB). It's horrid when it happens.

    I've tried to go through the process of letting them know he is deceased, but it all seems to go to /dev/null. I actually left the worst offending service because of it, and at least that stopped the emails. I bet they've still got my data, though ...
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    felix said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    The whole issue revolves around Facebook App Data sharing ToS. An academic created an app, those that downloaded it agree to the T&C (in there was that they would be allow Facebook to hand over their data to the academic (this is very common with all apps these days that use Facebook or Google login), and also their network of friends [public] info*).

    Note all of the above could have been scraped a different way, but would have been much more inefficient to do. The way it was done allowed them to capture info on 100,000s of profiles in just a few days.

    Now real issue is that the academic agreed with Facebook that the data they would hand over was for academic purposes only. Instead it has been leveraged by a private company.

    What is unclear at the moment is how strong are Facebook ToS and what exact agreement everybody signed up for i.e the Facebook users, Facebook and the academic. In the mountains of legalize it might be that all that has gone on is fine, because we all signed up to it when we joined Facebook.
    Thank you. As you observe, in all the legalese T&C it may be that Facebook are covered - I guess we’ll have to wait to see. CA on the other hand appear to have been damned out of their own mouths...

    Part of this feels a bit like refighting Trump & Brexit....”How could we possibly lose? We were right! It must be something else....”
    Never mind the legalese in Facebook's T&C's: the question for that nice Mr Zuckerberg is whether this leads to the mass cancellation of accounts as people suddenly realise how purposely leaky it is.

    I never joined up to Facebook. It always worried me.

    Most users are on the site to communicate with friends and family. Their interest in politics is minimal. However Facebook is chasing revenue and it may be it's undoing.
    I thought Fb was already yesterday's thing?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.

    Isn’t it more that the Obama campaign explicitly sought people’s consent, while CA harvested data without permission? In other words, they essentially stole it.

    AIUI they had permitted soon to use it for academic purposes but probably overstepped. IANAL but I’d assume that is breach of contract rather than theft

    (FWIW the “goodie” and “baddie” terminology clearly indicates - to me at least - an intention to be humorous)
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    edited March 2018
    felix said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    The whole issue revolves around Facebook App Data sharing ToS. An academic created an app, those that downloaded it agree to the T&C (in there was that they would be allow Facebook to hand over their data to the academic (this is very common with all apps these days that use Facebook or Google login), and also their network of friends [public] info*).

    Note all of the above could have been scraped a different way, but would have been much more inefficient to do. The way it was done allowed them to capture info on 100,000s of profiles in just a few days.

    Now real issue is that the academic agreed with Facebook that the data they would hand over was for academic purposes only. Instead it has been leveraged by a private company.

    What is unclear at the moment is how strong are Facebook ToS and what exact agreement everybody signed up for i.e the Facebook users, Facebook and the academic. In the mountains of legalize it might be that all that has gone on is fine, because we all signed up to it when we joined Facebook.
    Thank you. As you observe, in all the legalese T&C it may be that Facebook are covered - I guess we’ll have to wait to see. CA on the other hand appear to have been damned out of their own mouths...

    Part of this feels a bit like refighting Trump & Brexit....”How could we possibly lose? We were right! It must be something else....”
    Never mind the legalese in Facebook's T&C's: the question for that nice Mr Zuckerberg is whether this leads to the mass cancellation of accounts as people suddenly realise how purposely leaky it is.

    I never joined up to Facebook. It always worried me.

    Most users are on the site to communicate with friends and family. Their interest in politics is minimal. However Facebook is chasing revenue and it may be it's undoing.
    This is how Cambridge Analytica worked. The KitKat phenomenon was that statistically, people who liked KitKats and Nike were much more open to "I hate Israel" messages. So profiles of anodyne Facebook users with no overt political postings, could be targeted by political campaigns:

    https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-faceook-nix-bannon-trump?CMP=share_btn_tw
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    I have no idea of whether CA breached the law or Facebook’s TOS.

    But we may well see a company destroyed regardless of guilt or innocence.

    (The more amusing allegations - Ukrainian hookers et al - I am inclined to believe are Bertie trying to play the big man / be in with the “cool kids”. It would fit his personality especially after a few drinks)
    Nah, you just said some biased sh*t. I

    Given your defence of Mylan over the Epipen scandal (and which they recently got a humongous fine for), I'm unsure you're in a position to determine guilt or innocence, especially where you've made money. It seems to rather colour your judgement.

    As for your last paragraph: I knew you'd claim to know the people involved. You surround yourself with such a hive of scum and villainy. :)
    On Mylan - IIRC - I was very critical of their pricing strategy. I was less emotional about it than you: it was simply a legal attempt to maximise profits but one that I thought was I’ll-judged. I don’t like the “Valeant” model and am thankful it has gone pop.

    FWIW I’ve never made money out of Mylan although I did help a colleague buy EpiPen for them (I just did some HSR and competitive bidder analysis so didn’t get paid)

    As for bias - I am not a fan of Trump (or Obama). The former is unpredictable and impulsive, the latter weak and indecisive (especially in foreign affairs). Neither are good characteristics in a President

  • DecrepitJohnLDecrepitJohnL Posts: 13,300
    edited March 2018
    IanB2 said:

    felix said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    The whole issue revolves around Facebook App Data sharing ToS. An academic created an app, those that downloaded it agree to the T&C (in there was that they would be allow Facebook to hand over their data to the academic (this is very common with all apps these days that use Facebook or Google login), and also their network of friends [public] info*).

    Note all of the above could have been scraped a different way, but would have been much more inefficient to do. The way it was done allowed them to capture info on 100,000s of profiles in just a few days.

    Now real issue is that the academic agreed with Facebook that the data they would hand over was for academic purposes only. Instead it has been leveraged by a private company.

    What is unclear at the moment is how strong are Facebook ToS and what exact agreement everybody signed up for i.e the Facebook users, Facebook and the academic. In the mountains of legalize it might be that all that has gone on is fine, because we all signed up to it when we joined Facebook.
    Thank you. As you observe, in all the legalese T&C it may be that Facebook are covered - I guess we’ll have to wait to see. CA on the other hand appear to have been damned out of their own mouths...

    Part of this feels a bit like refighting Trump & Brexit....”How could we possibly lose? We were right! It must be something else....”
    Never mind the legalese in Facebook's T&C's: the question for that nice Mr Zuckerberg is whether this leads to the mass cancellation of accounts as people suddenly realise how purposely leaky it is.

    I never joined up to Facebook. It always worried me.

    Most users are on the site to communicate with friends and family. Their interest in politics is minimal. However Facebook is chasing revenue and it may be it's undoing.
    I thought Fb was already yesterday's thing?
    Many have moved to Whatsapp for keeping in touch with family, or arranging political campaigns with like-minded MPs (you can set up closed groups for messaging) or to Instagram for hobby professional purposes (you can display your portfolio or photos of your cats). Whatsapp and Instagram are owned by Facebook.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Have I missed something? I thought we had been guaranteed the 2020 catch would be the same as 2019?
    The cynic in me says expectations were raised in a rather deceitful manner about BREXIT to a lot of voters, the fishermen are just finding out today......
    In 2021 we’ll be outside

    The issue is the decision is made in Dec 19 for the whole of the 20 season.

    We’ve be guaranteed it will be the same as 19.

    It’s far from a given we’ll be outside anything much in 2021, in practical terms. The Irish border issue has not gone away. Neither has the business case for the status quo. The can has been kicked down the road a little, but time is running out.
    Time is running out, but we've progressed much further than many doom-mongers predicted.

    I'm bored with Brexit now. I think the way it was done was a mistake, but let's just leave the fanatics on both sides to argue amongst themselves (*) and look at sorting the more important issues facing the country.

    (*) Perhaps OGH could provide a padded room in which they could be put? A PB Brexit Royale room, where Brexit-obsessed posters entered but only one emerges?

    Boredom is the government’s best friend. It makes climbdowns easier to do. And that’s very good news, of course. They key will be to secure symbolic signs of leaving while making sure all the important stuff stays in place. God bless those blue passports. And I mean that very seriously. They will buy an awful lot of room for manouevre. A small EU concession on freedom of movement, a form of words on the ECJ, and the deal will be sealed: the UK will remain a de facto, though not de jure, member of both the single market and customs union.
    Boredom may be the government's best friend, but it's also a good way to keep sane (or in my case, sane-ish). The posters who constantly read every rune about Brexit and attempt to decipher them are starting to come across as a little unhinged. And also as not very pleasant people.

    There's f-all I can do about Brexit, and nothing I can do to influence the way it'll end up. Therefore I might as well just take on an aura of calm and let the fanatical nutters on both sides argue about something they cannot influence in order to win on-line rutting battles.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Foxy said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    I have no idea of whether CA breached the law or Facebook’s TOS.

    But we may well see a company destroyed regardless of guilt or innocence.

    (The more amusing allegations - Ukrainian hookers et al - I am inclined to believe are Bertie trying to play the big man / be in with the “cool kids”. It would fit his personality especially after a few drinks)
    Traffiking white girls to asian men in Telford - shocking scandal. Traffiking white girls to asian men in Sri Lanka - just a bit of banter, so nothing to see here.

    To coin a phrase "Lock them up!"
    I haven’t seen Bertie for probably 20 years so don’t know for sure. But I suspect he was shooting his mouth off rather than *actually* trafficking anyone.

    It goes without saying that if he was actually doing that then - after due process - he should be locked up
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    IanB2 said:

    felix said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    The whole issue revolves around Facebook App Data sharing ToS. An academic created an app, those that downloaded it agree to the T&C (in there was that they would be allow Facebook to hand over their data to the academic (this is very common with all apps these days that use Facebook or Google login), and also their network of friends [public] info*).

    Note all of the above could have been scraped a different way, but would have been much more inefficient to do. The way it was done allowed them to capture info on 100,000s of profiles in just a few days.

    Now real issue is that the academic agreed with Facebook that the data they would hand over was for academic purposes only. Instead it has been leveraged by a private company.

    What is unclear at the moment is how strong are Facebook ToS and what exact agreement everybody signed up for i.e the Facebook users, Facebook and the academic. In the mountains of legalize it might be that all that has gone on is fine, because we all signed up to it when we joined Facebook.
    Thank you. As you observe, in all the legalese T&C it may be that Facebook are covered - I guess we’ll have to wait to see. CA on the other hand appear to have been damned out of their own mouths...

    Part of this feels a bit like refighting Trump & Brexit....”How could we possibly lose? We were right! It must be something else....”
    Never mind the legalese in Facebook's T&C's: the question for that nice Mr Zuckerberg is whether this leads to the mass cancellation of accounts as people suddenly realise how purposely leaky it is.

    I never joined up to Facebook. It always worried me.

    Most users are on the site to communicate with friends and family. Their interest in politics is minimal. However Facebook is chasing revenue and it may be it's undoing.
    I thought Fb was already yesterday's thing?
    Many have moved to Whatsapp for keeping in touch with family, or arranging political campaigns with like-minded MPs (you can set up closed groups for messaging) or to Instagram for hobby professional purposes (you can display your portfolio or photos of your cats). Whatsapp and Instagram are owned by Facebook.
    Valuations for tech companies that depend heavily on fashion/trend must surely be shaky.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008
    edited March 2018
    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    I have no idea of whether CA breached the law or Facebook’s TOS...
    Don't know, or don't want to know ?

    If one were being uncharitable, that might give the impression of an aloof sensibility...
    :smile:

    Aside from possible criminal actions, or breaches of the data protection laws, it does appear that companies like Facebook, which hold personal data in a scale and level of detail which make the Stasi look like the rankest amateurs, are incredibly lightly regulated, and display little or no concern for data privacy.

    I don’t use Facebook for precisely that reason.

    IIRC someone in the US election (possibly Saunders?) suggested regulating them as a public utility which I think is an interesting avenue to explore
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    I have no idea of whether CA breached the law or Facebook’s TOS.

    But we may well see a company destroyed regardless of guilt or innocence.

    (The more amusing allegations - Ukrainian hookers et al - I am inclined to believe are Bertie trying to play the big man / be in with the “cool kids”. It would fit his personality especially after a few drinks)
    Nah, you just said some biased sh*t. I

    Given your defence of Mylan over the Epipen scandal (and which they recently got a humongous fine for), I'm unsure you're in a position to determine guilt or innocence, especially where you've made money. It seems to rather colour your judgement.

    As for your last paragraph: I knew you'd claim to know the people involved. You surround yourself with such a hive of scum and villainy. :)
    On Mylan - IIRC - I was very critical of their pricing strategy. I was less emotional about it than you: it was simply a legal attempt to maximise profits but one that I thought was I’ll-judged. I don’t like the “Valeant” model and am thankful it has gone pop.

    FWIW I’ve never made money out of Mylan although I did help a colleague buy EpiPen for them (I just did some HSR and competitive bidder analysis so didn’t get paid)

    As for bias - I am not a fan of Trump (or Obama). The former is unpredictable and impulsive, the latter weak and indecisive (especially in foreign affairs). Neither are good characteristics in a President
    "FWIW I’ve never made money out of Mylan although I did help a colleague buy EpiPen for them (I just did some HSR and competitive bidder analysis so didn’t get paid)"

    Really? You might want to remember this previous post of yours (available from a ten-second Google)
    "Declaration of interest: Mylan paid me a lot of money to help them buy Epipen from E Merck Darmstadt."

    http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/5399/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-the-lord-adonis-guide-to-predicting-elections-best-leader-win

    It certainly appears you lied in one of those posts?
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122
    IanB2 said:

    felix said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    The whole issue revolves around Facebook App Data sharing ToS. An academic created an app, those that downloaded it agree to the T&C (in there was that they would be allow Facebook to hand over their data to the academic (this is very common with all apps these days that use Facebook or Google login), and also their network of friends [public] info*).

    Note all of the above could have been scraped a different way, but would have been much more inefficient to do. The way it was done allowed them to capture info on 100,000s of profiles in just a few days.

    Now real issue is that the academic agreed with Facebook that the data they would hand over was for academic purposes only. Instead it has been leveraged by a private company.

    What is unclear at the moment is how strong are Facebook ToS and what exact agreement everybody signed up for i.e the Facebook users, Facebook and the academic. In the mountains of legalize it might be that all that has gone on is fine, because we all signed up to it when we joined Facebook.
    Thank you. As you observe, in all the legalese T&C it may be that Facebook are covered - I guess we’ll have to wait to see. CA on the other hand appear to have been damned out of their own mouths...

    Part of this feels a bit like refighting Trump & Brexit....”How could we possibly lose? We were right! It must be something else....”
    Never mind the legalese in Facebook's T&C's: the question for that nice Mr Zuckerberg is whether this leads to the mass cancellation of accounts as people suddenly realise how purposely leaky it is.

    I never joined up to Facebook. It always worried me.

    Most users are on the site to communicate with friends and family. Their interest in politics is minimal. However Facebook is chasing revenue and it may be it's undoing.
    I thought Fb was already yesterday's thing?
    Only for the kids - the oldies love it .
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    I have no idea of whether CA breached the law or Facebook’s TOS.

    But we may well see a company destroyed regardless of guilt or innocence.

    (The more amusing allegations - Ukrainian hookers et al - I am inclined to believe are Bertie trying to play the big man / be in with the “cool kids”. It would fit his personality especially after a few drinks)
    Nah, you just said some biased sh*t. I

    Given your defence of Mylan over the Epipen scandal (and which they recently got a humongous fine for), I'm unsure you're in a position to determine guilt or innocence, especially where you've made money. It seems to rather colour your judgement.

    As for your last paragraph: I knew you'd claim to know the people involved. You surround yourself with such a hive of scum and villainy. :)
    On Mylan - IIRC - I was very critical of their pricing strategy. I was less emotional about it than you: it was simply a legal attempt to maximise profits but one that I thought was I’ll-judged. I don’t like the “Valeant” model and am thankful it has gone pop.

    FWIW I’ve never made money out of Mylan although I did help a colleague buy EpiPen for them (I just did some HSR and competitive bidder analysis so didn’t get paid)

    As for bias - I am not a fan of Trump (or Obama). The former is unpredictable and impulsive, the latter weak and indecisive (especially in foreign affairs). Neither are good characteristics in a President
    "FWIW I’ve never made money out of Mylan although I did help a colleague buy EpiPen for them (I just did some HSR and competitive bidder analysis so didn’t get paid)"

    Really? You might want to remember this previous post of yours (available from a ten-second Google)
    "Declaration of interest: Mylan paid me a lot of money to help them buy Epipen from E Merck Darmstadt."

    http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/5399/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-the-lord-adonis-guide-to-predicting-elections-best-leader-win

    It certainly appears you lied in one of those posts?
    There’s a difference between lying and forgetting.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    I have no idea of whether CA breached the law or Facebook’s TOS.

    But we may well see a company destroyed regardless of guilt or innocence.

    (The more amusing allegations - Ukrainian hookers et al - I am inclined to believe are Bertie trying to play the big man / be in with the “cool kids”. It would fit his personality especially after a few drinks)
    Nah, you just said some biased sh*t. I

    Given your defence of Mylan over the Epipen scandal (and which they recently got a humongous fine for), I'm unsure you're in a position to determine guilt or innocence, especially where you've made money. It seems to rather colour your judgement.

    As for your last paragraph: I knew you'd claim to know the people involved. You surround yourself with such a hive of scum and villainy. :)
    On Mylan - IIRC - I was very critical of their pricing strategy. I was less emotional about it than you: it was simply a legal attempt to maximise profits but one that I thought was I’ll-judged. I don’t like the “Valeant” model and am thankful it has gone pop.

    FWIW I’ve never made money out of Mylan although I did help a colleague buy EpiPen for them (I just did some HSR and competitive bidder analysis so didn’t get paid)

    As for bias - I am not a fan of Trump (or Obama). The former is unpredictable and impulsive, the latter weak and indecisive (especially in foreign affairs). Neither are good characteristics in a President
    "FWIW I’ve never made money out of Mylan although I did help a colleague buy EpiPen for them (I just did some HSR and competitive bidder analysis so didn’t get paid)"

    Really? You might want to remember this previous post of yours (available from a ten-second Google)
    "Declaration of interest: Mylan paid me a lot of money to help them buy Epipen from E Merck Darmstadt."

    http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/5399/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-the-lord-adonis-guide-to-predicting-elections-best-leader-win

    It certainly appears you lied in one of those posts?
    Press F to pay respects because Charles just got shot in the head.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Charles said:

    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    I have no idea of whether CA breached the law or Facebook’s TOS...
    Don't know, or don't want to know ?

    If one were being uncharitable, that might give the impression of an aloof sensibility...
    :smile:

    Aside from possible criminal actions, or breaches of the data protection laws, it does appear that companies like Facebook, which hold personal data in a scale and level of detail which make the Stasi look like the rankest amateurs, are incredibly lightly regulated, and display little or no concern for data privacy.

    I don’t use Facebook for precisely that reason.

    IIRC someone in the US election (possibly Saunders?) suggested regulating them as a public utility which I think is an interesting avenue to explore
    https://twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/975981604161163264?s=20
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    There’s a difference between lying and forgetting.

    Hmmm. Forgetting making a lot of money, when he remembered it just six months earlier (and mentioned it himself?

    Nah, don't buy it. I've recently had a slightly dodgy memory, and I'm sure I wouldn't forget being paid a lot of money by a money-grabbing drugs company.
  • DecrepitJohnLDecrepitJohnL Posts: 13,300
    edited March 2018
    Deleted
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,880

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,733
    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    Are you saying that they don't know their plaice?

    Ah, my coat...
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,880




    Really? You might want to remember this previous post of yours (available from a ten-second Google)

    Unrelated - but did it really take you just 10 seconds to google?
    I find it hard to search for past posts on pb.com... something which previously i found ocassionally irritating but often reassuring...
  • DecrepitJohnLDecrepitJohnL Posts: 13,300
    IanB2 said:



    Valuations for tech companies that depend heavily on fashion/trend must surely be shaky.

    Valuing companies is more Charles's area than mine but surely that is true of all companies: when men stopped wearing hats in the 1960s, it can't have done milliners any good. Facebook, aiui, is making money. The shakier valuations are perhaps those where there is no profit and no clear path to monetisation.

    What is interesting to me is that the standard MBA teaching of the past few decades has gone out of the window again. We used to love conglomerates, then in the 90s they were broken up and core competencies were all the rage, but if you look at the tech giants, and especially the profitable ones, surely they are more like the old-fashioned conglomerates cross-subsidising their different businesses. Tesla too.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,761
    On fishing the reality is that a generation of fishermen, many Scottish, were given the gold of fishing quotas. They, in large part, sold that gold and retired in some comfort. The people who bought the gold were largely foreign and mainly Spanish who bought up the right to fish in what had been British waters. This had devastating effects on north east Scottish communities (and no doubt other such communities elsewhere). Not only were there not the jobs for the potential fishermen of the next generation but the Spanish trawlers took their catch back to their home ports largely wiping out the fish processing jobs as well. It really isn't accurate to say that British fishermen sell their product to the EU (shell fishermen being an exception), they simply aren't British in the first place.

    The UK government did try to stop this process which led to the Factortame case where the ECJ directed the HoL to overrule an Act of Parliament as being illegal. Trying to stop it was not compatible with the Single Market and that is why the children of that generation were so keen to leave it.

    What the fishermen want now is effectively to be given the right to fish that their fathers sold back which is fair enough. After all these quotas are simply man made permits and they were never guaranteed to last forever. There are some practical issues of whether there are enough boats left to fish the UK waters but no doubt more could be built/acquired over time. On one view this will be a bit of a windfall for these communities but on the other they have been royally shafted by people who didn't care about them very much.

    I don't think a continuation of the status quo for a year or two is going to be the end of the world for these communities but they do expect their gold back. The number of Scottish Tory MPs who have promised it to them exceeds May's majority even with the DUP. She needs to be very careful about this.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,957
    ydoethur said:

    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    Are you saying that they don't know their plaice?

    Ah, my coat...
    They seem to have a turbot-charged PR machine....
  • DecrepitJohnLDecrepitJohnL Posts: 13,300

    There’s a difference between lying and forgetting.

    Hmmm. Forgetting making a lot of money, when he remembered it just six months earlier (and mentioned it himself?

    Nah, don't buy it. I've recently had a slightly dodgy memory, and I'm sure I wouldn't forget being paid a lot of money by a money-grabbing drugs company.
    Both could be true if one refers to him personally and the other to his company.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    rkrkrk said:




    Really? You might want to remember this previous post of yours (available from a ten-second Google)

    Unrelated - but did it really take you just 10 seconds to google?
    I find it hard to search for past posts on pb.com... something which previously i found ocassionally irritating but often reassuring...
    I used 'politicalbetting', 'mylan' and 'charles'. The thread was the first hit, and I didn't even need to load a new page of data.

    But yes, that's unusual.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,733

    ydoethur said:

    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    Are you saying that they don't know their plaice?

    Ah, my coat...
    They seem to have a turbot-charged PR machine....
    Indeed. This cod turn very nasty.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,957
    I think this was the chap SeanT went to see. Farewell, Northern White Rhino. Your fate was sealed when some complete ***** in Asia continued with ancient magic about potency, instead of just buying viagra off the net:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-43468066
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    DavidL said:

    On fishing the reality is that a generation of fishermen, many Scottish, were given the gold of fishing quotas. They, in large part, sold that gold and retired in some comfort. The people who bought the gold were largely foreign and mainly Spanish who bought up the right to fish in what had been British waters. This had devastating effects on north east Scottish communities (and no doubt other such communities elsewhere). Not only were there not the jobs for the potential fishermen of the next generation but the Spanish trawlers took their catch back to their home ports largely wiping out the fish processing jobs as well. It really isn't accurate to say that British fishermen sell their product to the EU (shell fishermen being an exception), they simply aren't British in the first place.

    The UK government did try to stop this process which led to the Factortame case where the ECJ directed the HoL to overrule an Act of Parliament as being illegal. Trying to stop it was not compatible with the Single Market and that is why the children of that generation were so keen to leave it.

    What the fishermen want now is effectively to be given the right to fish that their fathers sold back which is fair enough. After all these quotas are simply man made permits and they were never guaranteed to last forever. There are some practical issues of whether there are enough boats left to fish the UK waters but no doubt more could be built/acquired over time. On one view this will be a bit of a windfall for these communities but on the other they have been royally shafted by people who didn't care about them very much.

    I don't think a continuation of the status quo for a year or two is going to be the end of the world for these communities but they do expect their gold back. The number of Scottish Tory MPs who have promised it to them exceeds May's majority even with the DUP. She needs to be very careful about this.

    Do I remember someone saying we could have our cake and eat it?
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Charles said:

    Have I missed something? I thought we had been guaranteed the 2020 catch would be the same as 2019?
    Fishermen were promised they'd be out of the CFP in 2019. No transition. Ruth Davidson and Gove were going this up last week in a press release.

    They have egg (fish roe?) on their faces.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,957
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    Are you saying that they don't know their plaice?

    Ah, my coat...
    They seem to have a turbot-charged PR machine....
    Indeed. This cod turn very nasty.
    Just appeal to their bass instincts....
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122
    ydoethur said:

    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    Are you saying that they don't know their plaice?

    Ah, my coat...
    Ahem - you're skating on thin ice my friend.
  • Blue_rogBlue_rog Posts: 2,019
    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    My bold - and isn't that a sad state of affairs where hairdressers bring in more than a real job!

    Shade of hitchhikers guide to the galaxy :(
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,733
    TGOHF said:
    Isn't it a good job that at this moment, when the US is led by a certifiable lunatic who is also a sex maniac, the Chinese are degenerating into oligarchic autocracy, the world's second greatest nuclear power is led by an unstable geriatric Fascist, the world's most unstable regime has developed nuclear weapons and long range missiles and the EU is not merely weak but complacently led by a man who was forced to resign as PM of Luxembourg for distinctly authoritarian behaviour and desperately unpopular on top of being about to lose one of its three most important members, that our political class is fully united, totally on the ball and led by such giants as Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and John Macdonnell?

    I mean, I hate to think what sort of a mess we'd be in otherwise...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,733
    felix said:

    ydoethur said:

    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    Are you saying that they don't know their plaice?

    Ah, my coat...
    Ahem - you're skating on thin ice my friend.
    I think the fishermen are the ones who are going to get battered by it.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,562

    Charles said:

    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    I have no idea of whether CA breached the law or Facebook’s TOS...
    Don't know, or don't want to know ?

    If one were being uncharitable, that might give the impression of an aloof sensibility...
    :smile:

    Aside from possible criminal actions, or breaches of the data protection laws, it does appear that companies like Facebook, which hold personal data in a scale and level of detail which make the Stasi look like the rankest amateurs, are incredibly lightly regulated, and display little or no concern for data privacy.

    I don’t use Facebook for precisely that reason.

    IIRC someone in the US election (possibly Saunders?) suggested regulating them as a public utility which I think is an interesting avenue to explore
    https://twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/975981604161163264?s=20
    I'm not sure that the combined powers of comrades Corbyn and Mason are going to be able to accomplish that....
    And in any event, would we really wish to give government control of that wealth of personal information ??

    All a bit 'The Lives of Others'.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,733

    DavidL said:

    On fishing the reality is that a generation of fishermen, many Scottish, were given the gold of fishing quotas. They, in large part, sold that gold and retired in some comfort. The people who bought the gold were largely foreign and mainly Spanish who bought up the right to fish in what had been British waters. This had devastating effects on north east Scottish communities (and no doubt other such communities elsewhere). Not only were there not the jobs for the potential fishermen of the next generation but the Spanish trawlers took their catch back to their home ports largely wiping out the fish processing jobs as well. It really isn't accurate to say that British fishermen sell their product to the EU (shell fishermen being an exception), they simply aren't British in the first place.

    The UK government did try to stop this process which led to the Factortame case where the ECJ directed the HoL to overrule an Act of Parliament as being illegal. Trying to stop it was not compatible with the Single Market and that is why the children of that generation were so keen to leave it.

    What the fishermen want now is effectively to be given the right to fish that their fathers sold back which is fair enough. After all these quotas are simply man made permits and they were never guaranteed to last forever. There are some practical issues of whether there are enough boats left to fish the UK waters but no doubt more could be built/acquired over time. On one view this will be a bit of a windfall for these communities but on the other they have been royally shafted by people who didn't care about them very much.

    I don't think a continuation of the status quo for a year or two is going to be the end of the world for these communities but they do expect their gold back. The number of Scottish Tory MPs who have promised it to them exceeds May's majority even with the DUP. She needs to be very careful about this.

    Do I remember someone saying we could have our cake and eat it?
    But not our hake, or even eating it, allegedly.
  • archer101auarcher101au Posts: 1,612
    edited March 2018
    DavidL said:

    On fishing the reality is that a generation of fishermen, many Scottish, were given the gold of fishing quotas. They, in large part, sold that gold and retired in some comfort. The people who bought the gold were largely foreign and mainly Spanish who bought up the right to fish in what had been British waters. This had devastating effects on north east Scottish communities (and no doubt other such communities elsewhere). Not only were there not the jobs for the potential fishermen of the next generation but the Spanish trawlers took their catch back to their home ports largely wiping out the fish processing jobs as well. It really isn't accurate to say that British fishermen sell their product to the EU (shell fishermen being an exception), they simply aren't British in the first place.

    The UK government did try to stop this process which led to the Factortame case where the ECJ directed the HoL to overrule an Act of Parliament as being illegal. Trying to stop it was not compatible with the Single Market and that is why the children of that generation were so keen to leave it.

    What the fishermen want now is effectively to be given the right to fish that their fathers sold back which is fair enough. After all these quotas are simply man made permits and they were never guaranteed to last forever. There are some practical issues of whether there are enough boats left to fish the UK waters but no doubt more could be built/acquired over time. On one view this will be a bit of a windfall for these communities but on the other they have been royally shafted by people who didn't care about them very much.

    I don't think a continuation of the status quo for a year or two is going to be the end of the world for these communities but they do expect their gold back. The number of Scottish Tory MPs who have promised it to them exceeds May's majority even with the DUP. She needs to be very careful about this.

    Come on. The fact that the UK sold them out so quickly this time means that they will do it again as part of the permanent deal and we all know it. May's promises and red lines disappear the moment she sends Davis into battle (or surrender).

    JRM has said that we can put up with a crap transition to get a good Brexit, and I agree. But the way these negotiations are being conducted make it absolutely clear that no good Brexit will arise - May will sell out everyone and anyone as long as she can say she has a 'deal' at the end of it.

    And this of course was Cameron's great strategy - the public are stupid and will accept any 'deal' and can't really tell a good deal from a bad deal. That worked out well.

  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,761

    DavidL said:

    On fishing the reality is that a generation of fishermen, many Scottish, were given the gold of fishing quotas. They, in large part, sold that gold and retired in some comfort. The people who bought the gold were largely foreign and mainly Spanish who bought up the right to fish in what had been British waters. This had devastating effects on north east Scottish communities (and no doubt other such communities elsewhere). Not only were there not the jobs for the potential fishermen of the next generation but the Spanish trawlers took their catch back to their home ports largely wiping out the fish processing jobs as well. It really isn't accurate to say that British fishermen sell their product to the EU (shell fishermen being an exception), they simply aren't British in the first place.

    The UK government did try to stop this process which led to the Factortame case where the ECJ directed the HoL to overrule an Act of Parliament as being illegal. Trying to stop it was not compatible with the Single Market and that is why the children of that generation were so keen to leave it.

    What the fishermen want now is effectively to be given the right to fish that their fathers sold back which is fair enough. After all these quotas are simply man made permits and they were never guaranteed to last forever. There are some practical issues of whether there are enough boats left to fish the UK waters but no doubt more could be built/acquired over time. On one view this will be a bit of a windfall for these communities but on the other they have been royally shafted by people who didn't care about them very much.

    I don't think a continuation of the status quo for a year or two is going to be the end of the world for these communities but they do expect their gold back. The number of Scottish Tory MPs who have promised it to them exceeds May's majority even with the DUP. She needs to be very careful about this.

    Do I remember someone saying we could have our cake and eat it?
    Tbh I think that there is a great deal of fantasy about this. These industries and communities have already been destroyed as have their traditions. Fishing is a brutally hard way to earn a living. The current generation have neither the skills nor the inclination to undertake that work in large numbers. The infrastructure needed to process the fish no longer exists to any material extent. But the emotional ties of a tough trade are strong. Look at how the mining communities felt about coal.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122
    Alistair said:

    Charles said:

    Have I missed something? I thought we had been guaranteed the 2020 catch would be the same as 2019?
    Fishermen were promised they'd be out of the CFP in 2019. No transition. Ruth Davidson and Gove were going this up last week in a press release.

    They have egg (fish roe?) on their faces.
    Caviar on the face for 20 months - I could live with it.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    edited March 2018
    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. Doethur, sounds like turbulent times will continue...

    Edited extra bit: Wolff reckons it's a three-way title fight. If so, then backing Raikkonen to be top 3 (win, each way) at Ladbrokes for the Australian Grand Prix is a good bet. He's circa 26 or 31 for the win.

    The Ferrari engine should have more power, especially in qualifying, than the Renault (and be more reliable) and if there's to be a title fight you'd probably expect Ferrari to give Mercedes a good challenge in Australia.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    There’s a difference between lying and forgetting.

    Hmmm. Forgetting making a lot of money, when he remembered it just six months earlier (and mentioned it himself?

    Nah, don't buy it. I've recently had a slightly dodgy memory, and I'm sure I wouldn't forget being paid a lot of money by a money-grabbing drugs company.
    Both could be true if one refers to him personally and the other to his company.
    Six months ago:
    "Mylan paid me a lot of money"

    Today:
    "I’ve never made money out of Mylan"

    Unless he means that he never 'made' money because the money he was 'paid' did not cover his expenses, but that's a poor excuse.

    He was lying. And not for the first time ...
  • archer101auarcher101au Posts: 1,612
    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    The EU sell 4bn a year of our fish, so the industry could be five times as large if we actually, you know, kept our own property.

    The fishing industry certainly are spoilt - they have whole departments of civil servants mobilised to sell them out.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    (The more amusing allegations - Ukrainian hookers et al - I am inclined to believe are Bertie trying to play the big man / be in with the “cool kids”. It would fit his personality especially after a few drinks)
    Nah, you just said some biased sh*t. I

    Given your defence of Mylan over the Epipen scandal (and which they recently got a humongous fine for), I'm unsure you're in a position to determine guilt or innocence, especially where you've made money. It seems to rather colour your judgement.

    As for your last paragraph: I knew you'd claim to know the people involved. You surround yourself with such a hive of scum and villainy. :)
    On Mylan - IIRC - I was very critical of their pricing strategy. I was less emotional about it than you: it was simply a legal attempt to maximise profits but one that I thought was I’ll-judged. I don’t like the “Valeant” model and am thankful it has gone pop.

    FWIW I’ve never made money out of Mylan although I did help a colleague buy EpiPen for them (I just did some HSR and competitive bidder analysis so didn’t get paid)

    As for bias - I am not a fan of Trump (or Obama). The former is unpredictable and impulsive, the latter weak and indecisive (especially in foreign affairs). Neither are good characteristics in a President
    "FWIW I’ve never made money out of Mylan although I did help a colleague buy EpiPen for them (I just did some HSR and competitive bidder analysis so didn’t get paid)"

    Really? You might want to remember this previous post of yours (available from a ten-second Google)
    "Declaration of interest: Mylan paid me a lot of money to help them buy Epipen from E Merck Darmstadt."

    http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/5399/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-the-lord-adonis-guide-to-predicting-elections-best-leader-win

    It certainly appears you lied in one of those posts?
    They paid my firm/team/colleague a lot of money. Me individually not so much. I still think that warrants a decleration (I was 1 was one of 3 senior guys in the team) - but I simplified it as the detail wasn’t relevant.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,562
    Charles said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_P said:
    https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xk9v3/watch-cambridge-analyticas-ceo-offer-to-entrap-political-opponents-with-sex-workers-video
    Nix speaks of setting up fake IDs, websites, and identities in target countries to gather information and blackmail material. Former Cambridge Analytica employees have admitted to The Guardian of working on tourist visas during Trump’s election campaign. Cambridge Analytica, Nix says, can subcontract—to Israeli spy firms, for example—and operate under different names for extra layers of obfuscation. Turnbull mentions an unnamed Eastern European country where the company “ghosted in,” and then disappeared after the job was done...
    I knew Bertie (Nix) growing up. He was a prat, a wanker and a shyster. I’d be surprised if he was a crook.
    Of course he could just be the well spoken upper class twit frontman for the real dirty stuff - and in any event Cambridge Analytica seems to have been intended as the more acceptable face of the murkier SCL parent.
    Funny how things turn out.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    edited March 2018
    https://twitter.com/PolhomeEditor/status/975999718907170816?s=20


    How many guesses do I get on the Russian answer?
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Cambridge Analytics should be positively drowning in GDPR letters soon.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,761

    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    The EU sell 4bn a year of our fish, so the industry could be five times as large if we actually, you know, kept our own property.

    The fishing industry certainly are spoilt - they have whole departments of civil servants mobilised to sell them out.
    The onshore jobs that used to come with the fish are actually far more numerous than the fishermen themselves. But yet another problem is that we have as a nation got out of the way of eating fish in large quantities. We now prefer meat. Would we really go back if the fish were being landed here?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008
    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    The Government has a significant number of Tory MPs that it relies upon who represent constituencies in Cornwall and North-East Scotland.

    The civil service may have a technocratic macro-economic view when it comes to Brexit, but you'd expect ministers to not be so politically naive, and to lead them accordingly.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Charles said:

    They paid my firm/team/colleague a lot of money. Me individually not so much. I still think that warrants a decleration (I was 1 was one of 3 senior guys in the team) - but I simplified it as the detail wasn’t relevant.

    'Me individually not so much' is not the same as "I've never made money" And the fact it is a company - so you claim - is irrelevant given the context of the posts. You had a fiscal connection with the company, and a profitable one.

    So no, you lied. Or at least you intended to deceive in one or other posts. To give you credit, you probably didn't lie in both. ;)

    "The detail wasn't relevant". LOL. I'll have to remember that excuse the next time I lie.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    I have no idea of whether CA breached the law or Facebook’s TOS...
    Don't know, or don't want to know ?

    If one were being uncharitable, that might give the impression of an aloof sensibility...
    :smile:

    Aside from possible criminal actions, or breaches of the data protection laws, it does appear that companies like Facebook, which hold personal data in a scale and level of detail which make the Stasi look like the rankest amateurs, are incredibly lightly regulated, and display little or no concern for data privacy.

    I don’t use Facebook for precisely that reason.

    IIRC someone in the US election (possibly Saunders?) suggested regulating them as a public utility which I think is an interesting avenue to explore
    https://twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/975981604161163264?s=20
    I'm not sure that the combined powers of comrades Corbyn and Mason are going to be able to accomplish that....
    And in any event, would we really wish to give government control of that wealth of personal information ??

    All a bit 'The Lives of Others'.
    As an economist you would hope Paul Mason vaguely understood Network economics and the fact the value of facebook (to everyone, facebook, advertisers, users) is in the fact virtually everyone is on it.
    It's like the telephone utterly useless if you are the only person on it, essential if everyone else has one.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    https://twitter.com/PolhomeEditor/status/975999718907170816?s=20


    How many guesses do I get on the Russian answer?

    WTF.

    He is a political genius. Just as the fuss over this was dying down, thanks to fish, Jezza doubles down on his from Russia with love act.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,733

    https://twitter.com/PolhomeEditor/status/975999718907170816?s=20
    How many guesses do I get on the Russian answer?

    Could we give them Corbyn?

    After all he's allegedly an agent and he's certainly paralysed British politics...
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,761
    Alistair said:

    Cambridge Analytics should be positively drowning in GDPR letters soon.

    There's another total disaster that has been inflicted on European business by the way (GDPR).
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    There’s a difference between lying and forgetting.

    Hmmm. Forgetting making a lot of money, when he remembered it just six months earlier (and mentioned it himself?

    Nah, don't buy it. I've recently had a slightly dodgy memory, and I'm sure I wouldn't forget being paid a lot of money by a money-grabbing drugs company.
    Both could be true if one refers to him personally and the other to his company.
    Six months ago:
    "Mylan paid me a lot of money"

    Today:
    "I’ve never made money out of Mylan"

    Unless he means that he never 'made' money because the money he was 'paid' did not cover his expenses, but that's a poor excuse.

    He was lying. And not for the first time ...
    You are a deeply unpleasant man.

    I did not, and do not, lie.

    I gave you a second chance after you last decide to attack me. But no more.

    This correspondence is closed. There is no need for you to reply.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,562

    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    I have no idea of whether CA breached the law or Facebook’s TOS...
    Don't know, or don't want to know ?

    If one were being uncharitable, that might give the impression of an aloof sensibility...
    :smile:

    Aside from possible criminal actions, or breaches of the data protection laws, it does appear that companies like Facebook, which hold personal data in a scale and level of detail which make the Stasi look like the rankest amateurs, are incredibly lightly regulated, and display little or no concern for data privacy.
    The problem is that we, the public, have little concern for data privacy. Many of us squealed about ID cards, but willingly give vastly larger reams of data to organisations who make money from exploiting that data.

    I'm on Facebook. But I'm on it knowing that my data could get shared, and only use it for keeping in touch with a few people. I know other people who put their entire lives on it.

    Ditto Twitter.
    I doubt more than a small percentage of users have any inkling of why they should take a close look at their account privacy settings - the ability of 'friends', by default, freely to share your personal information with all of theirs makes it very simple to amass huge datasets which can be sold on.

    In an earlier age we realised that legislation on unfair contract terms was necessary; we need to go through the same process again for the digital age.
    The Data Protection Act was farsighted two decades ago, but it is utterly inadequate (particularly with regard to enforcement measures) today.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    edited March 2018

    Charles said:

    They paid my firm/team/colleague a lot of money. Me individually not so much. I still think that warrants a decleration (I was 1 was one of 3 senior guys in the team) - but I simplified it as the detail wasn’t relevant.

    'Me individually not so much' is not the same as "I've never made money" And the fact it is a company - so you claim - is irrelevant given the context of the posts. You had a fiscal connection with the company, and a profitable one.

    So no, you lied. Or at least you intended to deceive in one or other posts. To give you credit, you probably didn't lie in both. ;)

    "The detail wasn't relevant". LOL. I'll have to remember that excuse the next time I lie.
    I was an employee of an $80bn company at the time! They paid me a salary but that’s not as grand as a “fiscal connection”

    (And yes I do claim that Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith was a company. Quite a well known one.)
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008
    DavidL said:

    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    The EU sell 4bn a year of our fish, so the industry could be five times as large if we actually, you know, kept our own property.

    The fishing industry certainly are spoilt - they have whole departments of civil servants mobilised to sell them out.
    The onshore jobs that used to come with the fish are actually far more numerous than the fishermen themselves. But yet another problem is that we have as a nation got out of the way of eating fish in large quantities. We now prefer meat. Would we really go back if the fish were being landed here?
    I think we might, actually.

    There's a much greater diversity of fish on restaurants menus now than i remember when I was growing up, and cooked in more interesting and flavoursome ways.
  • CD13CD13 Posts: 6,349
    edited March 2018
    Mr Ace,

    "My Irish passport came this morning. Anybody want their drive tarmacing?"

    Verging on hate crime?

    My son, who lives and works in Copenhagen. has received his Irish passport too. It was a response to Brexit. I voted leave and my wife voted Remain, my son would have voted Remain, had he been in the country and my daughter who lives in Australia would have voted Leave.

    After my son received his new passport, he rang me. "Dad," he said. "With my mother being an Irish citizen, me being one now, and my sister having that option, I think we might have to reconsider your family privileges."

    "Fenian bastards," I replied. "You're always plotting."

    I also have Irish antecedents which I don't like talking about but it's the kids I feel sorry for. I've only got a mild dose but they're full-on tinkers.


  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    (The more amusing allegations - Ukrainian hookers et al - I am inclined to believe are Bertie trying to play the big man / be in with the “cool kids”. It would fit his personality especially after a few drinks)
    Nah, you just said some biased sh*t. I

    Given your defence of Mylan over the Epipen scandal (and which they recently got a humongous fine for), I'm unsure you're in a position to determine guilt or innocence, especially where you've made money. It seems to rather colour your judgement.

    As for your last paragraph: I knew you'd claim to know the people involved. You surround yourself with such a hive of scum and villainy. :)

    FWIW I’ve never made money out of Mylan although I did help a colleague buy EpiPen for them (I just did some HSR and competitive bidder analysis so didn’t get paid)

    As for bias - I am not a fan of Trump (or Obama). The former is unpredictable and impulsive, the latter weak and indecisive (especially in foreign affairs). Neither are good characteristics in a President
    "FWIW I’ve never made money out of Mylan although I did help a colleague buy EpiPen for them (I just did some HSR and competitive bidder analysis so didn’t get paid)"

    Really? You might want to remember this previous post of yours (available from a ten-second Google)
    "Declaration of interest: Mylan paid me a lot of money to help them buy Epipen from E Merck Darmstadt."

    http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/5399/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-the-lord-adonis-guide-to-predicting-elections-best-leader-win

    It certainly appears you lied in one of those posts?
    They paid my firm/team/colleague a lot of money. Me individually not so much. I still think that warrants a decleration (I was 1 was one of 3 senior guys in the team) - but I simplified it as the detail wasn’t relevant.
    Side issue. Mylan doesn’t mention R&D on the main page of it’s website. One issue about Epi-pen, when I had anything (quite a lot at times) to do with them was it’s stability. Wonder if that’s improved.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,562
    ydoethur said:

    DavidL said:

    On fishing the reality is that a generation of fishermen, many Scottish, were given the gold of fishing quotas. They, in large part, sold that gold and retired in some comfort. The people who bought the gold were largely foreign and mainly Spanish who bought up the right to fish in what had been British waters. This had devastating effects on north east Scottish communities (and no doubt other such communities elsewhere). Not only were there not the jobs for the potential fishermen of the next generation but the Spanish trawlers took their catch back to their home ports largely wiping out the fish processing jobs as well. It really isn't accurate to say that British fishermen sell their product to the EU (shell fishermen being an exception), they simply aren't British in the first place.

    The UK government did try to stop this process which led to the Factortame case where the ECJ directed the HoL to overrule an Act of Parliament as being illegal. Trying to stop it was not compatible with the Single Market and that is why the children of that generation were so keen to leave it.

    What the fishermen want now is effectively to be given the right to fish that their fathers sold back which is fair enough. After all these quotas are simply man made permits and they were never guaranteed to last forever. There are some practical issues of whether there are enough boats left to fish the UK waters but no doubt more could be built/acquired over time. On one view this will be a bit of a windfall for these communities but on the other they have been royally shafted by people who didn't care about them very much.

    I don't think a continuation of the status quo for a year or two is going to be the end of the world for these communities but they do expect their gold back. The number of Scottish Tory MPs who have promised it to them exceeds May's majority even with the DUP. She needs to be very careful about this.

    Do I remember someone saying we could have our cake and eat it?
    But not our hake, or even eating it, allegedly.
    Very finny.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    (The more amusing allegations - Ukrainian hookers et al - I am inclined to believe are Bertie trying to play the big man / be in with the “cool kids”. It would fit his personality especially after a few drinks)
    Nah, you just said some biased sh*t. I

    Given your defence of Mylan over the Epipen scandal (and which they recently got a humongous fine for), I'm unsure you're in a position to determine guilt or innocence, especially where you've made money. It seems to rather colour your judgement.

    As for your last paragraph: I knew you'd claim to know the people involved. You surround yourself with such a hive of scum and villainy. :)

    FWIW I’ve never made money out of Mylan although I did help a colleague buy EpiPen for them (I just did some HSR and competitive bidder analysis so didn’t get paid)

    As for bias - I am not a fan of Trump (or Obama). The former is unpredictable and impulsive, the latter weak and indecisive (especially in foreign affairs). Neither are good characteristics in a President
    "FWIW I’ve never made money out of Mylan although I did help a colleague buy EpiPen for them (I just did some HSR and competitive bidder analysis so didn’t get paid)"

    Really? You might want to remember this previous post of yours (available from a ten-second Google)
    "Declaration of interest: Mylan paid me a lot of money to help them buy Epipen from E Merck Darmstadt."
    They paid my firm/team/colleague a lot of money. Me individually not so much. I still think that warrants a decleration (I was 1 was one of 3 senior guys in the team) - but I simplified it as the detail wasn’t relevant.
    Side issue. Mylan doesn’t mention R&D on the main page of it’s website. One issue about Epi-pen, when I had anything (quite a lot at times) to do with them was it’s stability. Wonder if that’s improved.
    It seems not:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/health/epipen-fda-malfunction.html
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Charles said:

    There’s a difference between lying and forgetting.

    Hmmm. Forgetting making a lot of money, when he remembered it just six months earlier (and mentioned it himself?

    Nah, don't buy it. I've recently had a slightly dodgy memory, and I'm sure I wouldn't forget being paid a lot of money by a money-grabbing drugs company.
    Both could be true if one refers to him personally and the other to his company.
    Six months ago:
    "Mylan paid me a lot of money"

    Today:
    "I’ve never made money out of Mylan"

    Unless he means that he never 'made' money because the money he was 'paid' did not cover his expenses, but that's a poor excuse.

    He was lying. And not for the first time ...
    You are a deeply unpleasant man.

    I did not, and do not, lie.

    I gave you a second chance after you last decide to attack me. But no more.

    This correspondence is closed. There is no need for you to reply.
    I'm sorry you feel I'm 'deeply unpleasant', but you lied. Or at best, tried to deceive. I believe this is not the first time, either.

    BTW, I don't think I'm 'deeply unpleasant'. A gentleman might want to apologise for that ...
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,957

    https://twitter.com/PolhomeEditor/status/975999718907170816?s=20


    How many guesses do I get on the Russian answer?

    WTF.

    He is a political genius. Just as the fuss over this was dying down, thanks to fish, Jezza doubles down on his from Russia with love act.
    Corbyn: really, really cunning, or really, really dim?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,761

    DavidL said:

    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    The EU sell 4bn a year of our fish, so the industry could be five times as large if we actually, you know, kept our own property.

    The fishing industry certainly are spoilt - they have whole departments of civil servants mobilised to sell them out.
    The onshore jobs that used to come with the fish are actually far more numerous than the fishermen themselves. But yet another problem is that we have as a nation got out of the way of eating fish in large quantities. We now prefer meat. Would we really go back if the fish were being landed here?
    I think we might, actually.

    There's a much greater diversity of fish on restaurants menus now than i remember when I was growing up, and cooked in more interesting and flavoursome ways.
    But its a delicious treat, not a staple. I remember seeing a contract by which the employer had to agree that he would not feed the employees on his estate salmon more than 5x a week! And this was before the tasteless farmed rubbish we have today.

    Look at any supermarket. There are aisles of meat both in its original form and processed. And a fish counter. Its niche.
  • alex.alex. Posts: 4,658
    ydoethur said:

    https://twitter.com/PolhomeEditor/status/975999718907170816?s=20
    How many guesses do I get on the Russian answer?

    Could we give them Corbyn?

    After all he's allegedly an agent and he's certainly paralysed British politics...
    Maybe Putin ordered the attack, but by amazing coincidence there was a third party independently planning an attack using the same methodology at almost the same time, and they chose a grassy knoll as their base.
  • Ishmael_ZIshmael_Z Posts: 8,981
    DavidL said:

    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    The EU sell 4bn a year of our fish, so the industry could be five times as large if we actually, you know, kept our own property.

    The fishing industry certainly are spoilt - they have whole departments of civil servants mobilised to sell them out.
    The onshore jobs that used to come with the fish are actually far more numerous than the fishermen themselves. But yet another problem is that we have as a nation got out of the way of eating fish in large quantities. We now prefer meat. Would we really go back if the fish were being landed here?
    Why can't we sell it to the EU once weve caught it?

    I am always amazed at the wet fish counters at the SYP supermarkets in the Balearics. An amazing array of very non-Med looking fish which I assume have been caught in UK waters and made much the same journey as I have to end up in Palma.
  • nielhnielh Posts: 1,307
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    snip

    What the fishermen want now is effectively to be given the right to fish that their fathers sold back which is fair enough. After all these quotas are simply man made permits and they were never guaranteed to last forever. There are some practical issues of whether there are enough boats left to fish the UK waters but no doubt more could be built/acquired over time. On one view this will be a bit of a windfall for these communities but on the other they have been royally shafted by people who didn't care about them very much.

    I don't think a continuation of the status quo for a year or two is going to be the end of the world for these communities but they do expect their gold back. The number of Scottish Tory MPs who have promised it to them exceeds May's majority even with the DUP. She needs to be very careful about this.

    Do I remember someone saying we could have our cake and eat it?
    Tbh I think that there is a great deal of fantasy about this. These industries and communities have already been destroyed as have their traditions. Fishing is a brutally hard way to earn a living. The current generation have neither the skills nor the inclination to undertake that work in large numbers. The infrastructure needed to process the fish no longer exists to any material extent. But the emotional ties of a tough trade are strong. Look at how the mining communities felt about coal.
    I think thats right. It seems likely that the ultimate outcome of this is that the fishing rights would just get consolidated in to a few small, largely mechanised/automated companies; using massive trawlers that find the fish by computers. This happened in Iceland through the 1980's, ultimately it led to the decimation of the rural fishing industry, and the consolidation of the wealth (eg the fishing rights) led to a few very rich families, who then became a very powerful lobby group.

    How are you going to force people to fish in way that is essentially uneconomic and uncompetitive? It defies all logic.

    You can't get the gold back in this regard without giving something else away.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    They paid my firm/team/colleague a lot of money. Me individually not so much. I still think that warrants a decleration (I was 1 was one of 3 senior guys in the team) - but I simplified it as the detail wasn’t relevant.

    'Me individually not so much' is not the same as "I've never made money" And the fact it is a company - so you claim - is irrelevant given the context of the posts. You had a fiscal connection with the company, and a profitable one.

    So no, you lied. Or at least you intended to deceive in one or other posts. To give you credit, you probably didn't lie in both. ;)

    "The detail wasn't relevant". LOL. I'll have to remember that excuse the next time I lie.
    I was an employee of an $80bn company at the time! They paid me a salary but that’s not as grand as a “fiscal connection”

    (And yes I do claim that Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith was a company. Quite a well known one.)
    Lordy. To repeat the quotes:

    Six months ago:
    "Mylan paid me a lot of money"

    Today:
    "I’ve never made money out of Mylan"

    'Me' and 'I've'.

    I don't work for any big companies, but I can tell a self-aggrandising liar when I see one. ;)

  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    DavidL said:



    What the fishermen want now is effectively to be given the right to fish that their fathers sold back which is fair enough. After all these quotas are simply man made permits and they were never guaranteed to last forever. There are some practical issues of whether there are enough boats left to fish the UK waters but no doubt more could be built/acquired over time. On one view this will be a bit of a windfall for these communities but on the other they have been royally shafted by people who didn't care about them very much.

    I don't know much about the industry and you clearly do but I don't get this. Someone sells you their house. You live in it and organise your life around it. N years later, his children say they want it back, at no charge. You say "fair enough"? Unless the permits were indeed time-limited, why is it fair?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,957
    ydoethur said:

    TGOHF said:
    Isn't it a good job that at this moment, when the US is led by a certifiable lunatic who is also a sex maniac, the Chinese are degenerating into oligarchic autocracy, the world's second greatest nuclear power is led by an unstable geriatric Fascist, the world's most unstable regime has developed nuclear weapons and long range missiles and the EU is not merely weak but complacently led by a man who was forced to resign as PM of Luxembourg for distinctly authoritarian behaviour and desperately unpopular on top of being about to lose one of its three most important members, that our political class is fully united, totally on the ball and led by such giants as Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and John Macdonnell?

    I mean, I hate to think what sort of a mess we'd be in otherwise...
    Chill. We have Boris....
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,543
    DavidL said:

    On fishing the reality is that a generation of fishermen, many Scottish, were given the gold of fishing quotas. They, in large part, sold that gold and retired in some comfort. The people who bought the gold were largely foreign and mainly Spanish who bought up the right to fish in what had been British waters. This had devastating effects on north east Scottish communities (and no doubt other such communities elsewhere). Not only were there not the jobs for the potential fishermen of the next generation but the Spanish trawlers took their catch back to their home ports largely wiping out the fish processing jobs as well. It really isn't accurate to say that British fishermen sell their product to the EU (shell fishermen being an exception), they simply aren't British in the first place.

    The UK government did try to stop this process which led to the Factortame case where the ECJ directed the HoL to overrule an Act of Parliament as being illegal. Trying to stop it was not compatible with the Single Market and that is why the children of that generation were so keen to leave it.

    What the fishermen want now is effectively to be given the right to fish that their fathers sold back which is fair enough. After all these quotas are simply man made permits and they were never guaranteed to last forever. There are some practical issues of whether there are enough boats left to fish the UK waters but no doubt more could be built/acquired over time. On one view this will be a bit of a windfall for these communities but on the other they have been royally shafted by people who didn't care about them very much.

    I don't think a continuation of the status quo for a year or two is going to be the end of the world for these communities but they do expect their gold back. The number of Scottish Tory MPs who have promised it to them exceeds May's majority even with the DUP. She needs to be very careful about this.

    The allocation of EU fishing quotas to individual vessels is a national, ie UK, competence. The allocation has to be equitable but otherwise the national authority can distribute its quota as it chooses. The UK splits its quota amongst regional cooperatives who then allocate shares to each vessel registered with the cooperative. The UK system allows those shares to be traded. Presumably the same system will be retained after Brexit. The only thing that MIGHT change is the size of the UK's allowable catch.

    More information: http://www.mseproject.net/data-sources/doc_download/117-3b-uk-quota-ownership-overview
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786

    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    The EU sell 4bn a year of our fish, so the industry could be five times as large if we actually, you know, kept our own property.

    The fishing industry certainly are spoilt - they have whole departments of civil servants mobilised to sell them out.
    This is an interesting analysis of the different approaches of EU member states to managing their quotas.

    http://neweconomics.org/2017/03/who-gets-to-fish/
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    There’s a difference between lying and forgetting.

    Hmmm. Forgetting making a lot of money, when he remembered it just six months earlier (and mentioned it himself?

    Nah, don't buy it. I've recently had a slightly dodgy memory, and I'm sure I wouldn't forget being paid a lot of money by a money-grabbing drugs company.
    Both could be true if one refers to him personally and the other to his company.
    Six months ago:
    "Mylan paid me a lot of money"

    Today:
    "I’ve never made money out of Mylan"

    Unless he means that he never 'made' money because the money he was 'paid' did not cover his expenses, but that's a poor excuse.

    He was lying. And not for the first time ...
    You are a deeply unpleasant man.

    I did not, and do not, lie.

    I gave you a second chance after you last decide to attack me. But no more.

    This correspondence is closed. There is no need for you to reply.
    I'm sorry you feel I'm 'deeply unpleasant', but you lied. Or at best, tried to deceive. I believe this is not the first time, either.

    BTW, I don't think I'm 'deeply unpleasant'. A gentleman might want to apologise for that ...
    You started this conversation with “that’s deeply pathetic, even for you”

    Pretty unpleasant from the off.

    The firm I worked for billed Mylan $50m for its advice and the financing it provided.

    I did not get paid for my work on the project as it was fairly tangential. I did get a salary from my employer (something I believe to be customary).

    That clear enough for you?
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    On fishing the reality is that a generation of fishermen, many Scottish, were given the gold of fishing quotas. They, in large part, sold that gold and retired in some comfort. The people who bought the gold were largely foreign and mainly Spanish who bought up the right to fish in what had been British waters. This had devastating effects on north east Scottish communities (and no doubt other such communities elsewhere). Not only were there not the jobs for the potential fishermen of the next generation but the Spanish trawlers took their catch back to their home ports largely wiping out the fish processing jobs as well. It really isn't accurate to say that British fishermen sell their product to the EU (shell fishermen being an exception), they simply aren't British in the first place.

    The UK government did try to stop this process which led to the Factortame case where the ECJ directed the HoL to overrule an Act of Parliament as being illegal. Trying to stop it was not compatible with the Single Market and that is why the children of that generation were so keen to leave it.

    What the fishermen want now is effectively to be given the right to fish that their fathers sold back which is fair enough. After all these quotas are simply man made permits and they were never guaranteed to last forever. There are some practical issues of whether there are enough boats left to fish the UK waters but no doubt more could be built/acquired over time. On one view this will be a bit of a windfall for these communities but on the other they have been royally shafted by people who didn't care about them very much.

    I don't think a continuation of the status quo for a year or two is going to be the end of the world for these communities but they do expect their gold back. The number of Scottish Tory MPs who have promised it to them exceeds May's majority even with the DUP. She needs to be very careful about this.

    Do I remember someone saying we could have our cake and eat it?
    Tbh I think that there is a great deal of fantasy about this. These industries and communities have already been destroyed as have their traditions. Fishing is a brutally hard way to earn a living. The current generation have neither the skills nor the inclination to undertake that work in large numbers. The infrastructure needed to process the fish no longer exists to any material extent. But the emotional ties of a tough trade are strong. Look at how the mining communities felt about coal.
    Norwegian bloke on R4 said UK had never exercised some right or other over quotas. Sounded analogous to us deciding not to have immigration transitional controls in that we could have had more control but chose not to.

    That sound right?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Charles said:

    Charles said:

    Not been keeping up with this CA story - can someone explain the difference between Obama “harnessing the power of social media” (widely praised at the time) and what team Trump is alleged to have done?

    Trump is a baddie. Obama is a goodie.
    That's pathetic, even for you.

    It is possible to harness the power of social media in a legal (and even a cheap) way. What CA have been accused of doing for its clients goes way beyond that.
    Media narrative always plays a role.

    I have no idea of whether CA breached the law or Facebook’s TOS...
    Don't know, or don't want to know ?

    If one were being uncharitable, that might give the impression of an aloof sensibility...
    :smile:

    Aside from possible criminal actions, or breaches of the data protection laws, it does appear that companies like Facebook, which hold personal data in a scale and level of detail which make the Stasi look like the rankest amateurs, are incredibly lightly regulated, and display little or no concern for data privacy.
    The problem is that we, the public, have little concern for data privacy. Many of us squealed about ID cards, but willingly give vastly larger reams of data to organisations who make money from exploiting that data.

    I'm on Facebook. But I'm on it knowing that my data could get shared, and only use it for keeping in touch with a few people. I know other people who put their entire lives on it.

    Ditto Twitter.
    I doubt more than a small percentage of users have any inkling of why they should take a close look at their account privacy settings - the ability of 'friends', by default, freely to share your personal information with all of theirs makes it very simple to amass huge datasets which can be sold on.

    In an earlier age we realised that legislation on unfair contract terms was necessary; we need to go through the same process again for the digital age.
    The Data Protection Act was farsighted two decades ago, but it is utterly inadequate (particularly with regard to enforcement measures) today.
    The Data Protection Act will of course be replaced by the General Data Protection Regulation in May and that will still effectively be implemented by the government post Brexit
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,957

    DavidL said:



    What the fishermen want now is effectively to be given the right to fish that their fathers sold back which is fair enough. After all these quotas are simply man made permits and they were never guaranteed to last forever. There are some practical issues of whether there are enough boats left to fish the UK waters but no doubt more could be built/acquired over time. On one view this will be a bit of a windfall for these communities but on the other they have been royally shafted by people who didn't care about them very much.

    I don't know much about the industry and you clearly do but I don't get this. Someone sells you their house. You live in it and organise your life around it. N years later, his children say they want it back, at no charge. You say "fair enough"? Unless the permits were indeed time-limited, why is it fair?
    Hmmm... Someone [the State] sells you their [rail, water, telecoms, etc industry] . You organise your [pension] around it. N years later, [a Labour Chancellor] says they want it back, at no charge. You say "fair enough"? Why is it fair?
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    DavidL said:



    What the fishermen want now is effectively to be given the right to fish that their fathers sold back which is fair enough. After all these quotas are simply man made permits and they were never guaranteed to last forever. There are some practical issues of whether there are enough boats left to fish the UK waters but no doubt more could be built/acquired over time. On one view this will be a bit of a windfall for these communities but on the other they have been royally shafted by people who didn't care about them very much.

    I don't know much about the industry and you clearly do but I don't get this. Someone sells you their house. You live in it and organise your life around it. N years later, his children say they want it back, at no charge. You say "fair enough"? Unless the permits were indeed time-limited, why is it fair?
    It’s not fair, but if the permits cease to have validity (which is what will happen once the U.K. leaves the CFP) then that’s a risk of doing business.

    Fishermen are grumbling about waiting an extra year for an upside
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008
    Fisheries was one of the few 2013-2014 Reviews of the Balance of Competences between the
    United Kingdom and the European Union that expressed major concerns:

    "Respondents to the call for evidence overwhelmingly considered that the Common Fisheries
    Policy (CFP) had failed in the past to achieve key objectives, namely to successfully maintain
    fish stocks or provide an economically sustainable basis for the industry. Over the last ten years these failings have opened this policy up to significant debate on how well the UK’s national interest is served by the EU’s management of fisheries. "

    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335033/fisheries-final-report.pdf
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    ydoethur said:

    TGOHF said:
    Isn't it a good job that at this moment, when the US is led by a certifiable lunatic who is also a sex maniac, the Chinese are degenerating into oligarchic autocracy, the world's second greatest nuclear power is led by an unstable geriatric Fascist, the world's most unstable regime has developed nuclear weapons and long range missiles and the EU is not merely weak but complacently led by a man who was forced to resign as PM of Luxembourg for distinctly authoritarian behaviour and desperately unpopular on top of being about to lose one of its three most important members, that our political class is fully united, totally on the ball and led by such giants as Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and John Macdonnell?

    I mean, I hate to think what sort of a mess we'd be in otherwise...
    Chill. We have Boris....
    I wouldn’t call Putin geriatric.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    .
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    DavidL said:

    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    The EU sell 4bn a year of our fish, so the industry could be five times as large if we actually, you know, kept our own property.

    The fishing industry certainly are spoilt - they have whole departments of civil servants mobilised to sell them out.
    The onshore jobs that used to come with the fish are actually far more numerous than the fishermen themselves. But yet another problem is that we have as a nation got out of the way of eating fish in large quantities. We now prefer meat. Would we really go back if the fish were being landed here?
    I think we might, actually.

    There's a much greater diversity of fish on restaurants menus now than i remember when I was growing up, and cooked in more interesting and flavoursome ways.
    You mean filet-o-fish with or without tartare sauce?
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    DavidL said:

    Alistair said:

    Cambridge Analytics should be positively drowning in GDPR letters soon.

    There's another total disaster that has been inflicted on European business by the way (GDPR).
    No where near as bad as it is being made out by... rapacious data collectors like Facebook.

    The GDPR is basically a good thing. If your business can't answer the questions easily then you were being cavalier and careless with personal data
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    The EU sell 4bn a year of our fish, so the industry could be five times as large if we actually, you know, kept our own property.

    The fishing industry certainly are spoilt - they have whole departments of civil servants mobilised to sell them out.
    The onshore jobs that used to come with the fish are actually far more numerous than the fishermen themselves. But yet another problem is that we have as a nation got out of the way of eating fish in large quantities. We now prefer meat. Would we really go back if the fish were being landed here?
    I think we might, actually.

    There's a much greater diversity of fish on restaurants menus now than i remember when I was growing up, and cooked in more interesting and flavoursome ways.
    But its a delicious treat, not a staple. I remember seeing a contract by which the employer had to agree that he would not feed the employees on his estate salmon more than 5x a week! And this was before the tasteless farmed rubbish we have today.

    Look at any supermarket. There are aisles of meat both in its original form and processed. And a fish counter. Its niche.
    Yes, well, we have unsustainable fishing practices and quota systems to thank for that.

    I'm actually very confident Michael Gove will come up with good proposal on this. He's very good at that. The White Paper/draft bill later this year will be interesting.

    I suspect he simply hasn't got round to it yet, having hitherto focused very largely on the environment and agriculture.

    Brexit carries a massive workload.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Charles said:


    You started this conversation with “that’s deeply pathetic, even for you”

    Pretty unpleasant from the off.

    The firm I worked for billed Mylan $50m for its advice and the financing it provided.

    I did not get paid for my work on the project as it was fairly tangential. I did get a salary from my employer (something I believe to be customary).

    That clear enough for you?

    You once accused me of 'favouring utilitarian architecture' . Believe me, there is not much of a bigger insult you could pay me. Massively deeply unpleasant. ;)

    But yes, it's clear you are a liar. If you meant the company, use 'we' or similar instead of 'me'/'I'.

    I used 'deeply pathetic' in that post because I remembered there was a certain (ahem) difference between what you said then and now. And I was right.

    I won't insult you beyond calling you a liar, because you come across as an interesting and pleasant chap.
  • nielhnielh Posts: 1,307

    https://twitter.com/PolhomeEditor/status/975999718907170816?s=20


    How many guesses do I get on the Russian answer?

    Just when I keep warming to Corbyn, he pulls something like this out of the bag.

    Essentially, he is advocating even tougher measures on Russia, ie by rolling out a human rights agenda and imposing greater financial sanctions; whilst at the same time appearing willing to fall for the russian 'plausible deniability' narrative over incidents like this.

    To me it seems that this approach would be more likely to lead to conflict than the supposedly tougher approach taken by May.

  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008
    TOPPING said:

    DavidL said:

    rkrkrk said:

    What the fishing saga tells us, as well as that with the NI border in the divorce agreement in December last year, is just how London centric HMG and the civil service are.

    Financial services and new tech start-ups barely need a second mention, but they do seem to need to be reminded there are other parts of the UK a long way away. These also have MPs who, although they want to support the Government, might not necessarily see their interests being bottom of the list in quite the same way.

    Certainly HMG and the civil service are London centric.

    But the idea that the fishing industry is neglected by govt?
    It employs c. 10,000 people and is worth about 1 billion pounds.
    So a fraction of say the hairdresser industry or the pet food market.

    Yet they generate national headlines, get Ministers going to Brussels to fight for their quotas, have divisions of civil servants mobilised to produce statistics and lobby for them.
    The EU sell 4bn a year of our fish, so the industry could be five times as large if we actually, you know, kept our own property.

    The fishing industry certainly are spoilt - they have whole departments of civil servants mobilised to sell them out.
    The onshore jobs that used to come with the fish are actually far more numerous than the fishermen themselves. But yet another problem is that we have as a nation got out of the way of eating fish in large quantities. We now prefer meat. Would we really go back if the fish were being landed here?
    I think we might, actually.

    There's a much greater diversity of fish on restaurants menus now than i remember when I was growing up, and cooked in more interesting and flavoursome ways.
    You mean filet-o-fish with or without tartare sauce?
    Yuk.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,052
    nielh said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    snip

    What the fishermen want now is effectively to be given the right to fish that their fathers sold back which is fair enough. After all these quotas are simply man made permits and they were never guaranteed to last forever. There are some practical issues of whether there are enough boats left to fish the UK waters but no doubt more could be built/acquired over time. On one view this will be a bit of a windfall for these communities but on the other they have been royally shafted by people who didn't care about them very much.

    I don't think a continuation of the status quo for a year or two is going to be the end of the world for these communities but they do expect their gold back. The number of Scottish Tory MPs who have promised it to them exceeds May's majority even with the DUP. She needs to be very careful about this.

    Do I remember someone saying we could have our cake and eat it?
    Tbh I think that there is a great deal of fantasy about this. These industries and communities have already been destroyed as have their traditions. Fishing is a brutally hard way to earn a living. The current generation have neither the skills nor the inclination to undertake that work in large numbers. The infrastructure needed to process the fish no longer exists to any material extent. But the emotional ties of a tough trade are strong. Look at how the mining communities felt about coal.
    I think thats right. It seems likely that the ultimate outcome of this is that the fishing rights would just get consolidated in to a few small, largely mechanised/automated companies; using massive trawlers that find the fish by computers. This happened in Iceland through the 1980's, ultimately it led to the decimation of the rural fishing industry, and the consolidation of the wealth (eg the fishing rights) led to a few very rich families, who then became a very powerful lobby group.

    How are you going to force people to fish in way that is essentially uneconomic and uncompetitive? It defies all logic.

    You can't get the gold back in this regard without giving something else away.
    I think that sounds very familiar to miners or those in manufacturing industry. Automation and use of technology will price out local artisans.

    I believe that Marx described this phenomenon as the Alienation of Labour.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263



    I don't know much about the industry and you clearly do but I don't get this. Someone sells you their house. You live in it and organise your life around it. N years later, his children say they want it back, at no charge. You say "fair enough"? Unless the permits were indeed time-limited, why is it fair?

    Hmmm... Someone [the State] sells you their [rail, water, telecoms, etc industry] . You organise your [pension] around it. N years later, [a Labour Chancellor] says they want it back, at no charge. You say "fair enough"? Why is it fair?
    It wouldn't be. Labour is not proposing nationalisation without compensation. The exception would be the rail franchises, which would not be reissued when they run out - but that IS an example of a time-limited permit, which as I understand it the fishing permits were not. I don't think the EU should agree to a post-transition deal which nullifies the permits, and indeed I don't think they will agree to it, though the sums involved are perhaps not so large that compensation might not be found.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    DavidL said:



    What the fishermen want now is effectively to be given the right to fish that their fathers sold back which is fair enough. After all these quotas are simply man made permits and they were never guaranteed to last forever. There are some practical issues of whether there are enough boats left to fish the UK waters but no doubt more could be built/acquired over time. On one view this will be a bit of a windfall for these communities but on the other they have been royally shafted by people who didn't care about them very much.

    I don't know much about the industry and you clearly do but I don't get this. Someone sells you their house. You live in it and organise your life around it. N years later, his children say they want it back, at no charge. You say "fair enough"? Unless the permits were indeed time-limited, why is it fair?
    Hmmm... Someone [the State] sells you their [rail, water, telecoms, etc industry] . You organise your [pension] around it. N years later, [a Labour Chancellor] says they want it back, at no charge. You say "fair enough"? Why is it fair?
    I doubt it will be 'no charge'. McD has said he will issue the shareholders with bonds.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:


    You started this conversation with “that’s deeply pathetic, even for you”

    Pretty unpleasant from the off.

    The firm I worked for billed Mylan $50m for its advice and the financing it provided.

    I did not get paid for my work on the project as it was fairly tangential. I did get a salary from my employer (something I believe to be customary).

    That clear enough for you?

    You once accused me of 'favouring utilitarian architecture' . Believe me, there is not much of a bigger insult you could pay me. Massively deeply unpleasant. ;)

    But yes, it's clear you are a liar. If you meant the company, use 'we' or similar instead of 'me'/'I'.

    I used 'deeply pathetic' in that post because I remembered there was a certain (ahem) difference between what you said then and now. And I was right.

    I won't insult you beyond calling you a liar, because you come across as an interesting and pleasant chap.
    “Deeply pathetic” related to a post in which I explained the difference between Trump and Obama as being “goodies” and “baddies”
This discussion has been closed.