The rising crime is only in one city, everywhere else in the country the police have learned to do more with less - without the constant bleating.
From reading around the story this week that a youth worker was shot dead, it appears that the youth clubs act as magnets for the gangs and drug dealers. More police on the beat will have a much bigger effect on crime than more youth clubs, but the mayor prefers to blame others for things that are in his power to sort out.
(You may have guessed I’m not Mr Khan’s greatest fan).
More police on the beat? How many police and PCSOs were lost because of government cuts? Thousands wasn't it?
The Met police report to the mayor, not to the government (although yes there is some interaction around VIP and diplomatic protection). Any cuts in numbers are down to Sadiq Khan and his funding priorities. He’s criticising others for his own choices.
I think you are overstating the position. About 70% of the funding comes from national government and that is where the cuts have been imposed. There is a limited amount the Mayor can do about that. Where I think the Mayor can have more impact is the policies that the Met operate.
I also remember the huge fuss when Boris removed that prat Blair as head of the Met without asking the Labour Home Secretary of the day who appreciated the endlessly supportive comments from him. He was found to have the right to but the relationship between the Mayor and the Home Sec in relation to the Met was complicated.
Indeed, the interaction between the various forms of government can be complicated -especially so when there’s different political groupings in change of the different branches.
Yes, central funding for police budgets has been reduced; but the mayor can, if he wish, use some of his £16bn budget to make up the shortfall. But he chooses not to, and then seeks to blame others for his choices. Only in his police area has there been an explosion of gangland killings.
If I were him, I’d have every available armed officer in the capital on foot patrol in the problem areas every night, stopping and searching every known gang member until the problems stop. But my priority would be to stop people being killed, rather than to pass the buck for the problems into another set of politicians.
Interesting article about how scammers use Facebook to sell their dodgy messages. Presumably the Trump and Brexit campaigns paid Cambridge Analytica and sister company to do similar.
"Facebook’s targeting algorithm is so powerful, they said, they don’t need to identify suckers themselves—Facebook does it automatically. And they boasted that Russia’s dezinformatsiya agents were using tactics their community had pioneered...
Affiliates once had to guess what kind of person might fall for their unsophisticated cons, targeting ads by age, geography, or interests. Now Facebook does that work for them. The social network tracks who clicks on the ad and who buys the pills, then starts targeting others whom its algorithm thinks are likely to buy. Affiliates describe watching their ad campaigns lose money for a few days as Facebook gathers data through trial and error, then seeing the sales take off exponentially. “They go out and find the morons for me,” I was told by an affiliate who sells deceptively priced skin-care creams with fake endorsements from Chelsea Clinton.
So you start with a message which can be as fake as you like. Facebook will find someone who will "buy" that message and charge you for it. It turns advertising round. Rather than understanding your audience and tailoring your message to it, you start with the message and tailor your audience to that.
"The Tories are in denial about the terrible violence on our streets Tackling youth violence requires more than a knee-jerk response, says Diane Abbott"
"This investment means City Hall is paying a greater percentage of the overall police budget in the capital than ever before – up from 18 per cent in 2010 to 23 per cent today, pushing the burden for policing the capital city away from general taxation and onto hard-pressed Londoners."
Much nicer when someone else pays for it, isn't it?
That political press release also contains a long list of pet projects he’s funding, it’s the mayor’s choice to starve the police of resources while spending £45m on youth clubs and £1m on the “London Borough of Culture” scheme. The mayor needs to take responsibility, as we all know the police chief’s record on accepting responsibility.
What possible role could youth clubs play in youth crime prevention? Back on planet Earth. government police cuts have led to rising crime. What happened to the party of Laura Norder?
The rising crime is only in one city, everywhere else in the country the police have learned to do more with less - without the constant bleating.
From reading around the story this week that a youth worker was shot dead, it appears that the youth clubs act as magnets for the gangs and drug dealers. More police on the beat will have a much bigger effect on crime than more youth clubs, but the mayor prefers to blame others for things that are in his power to sort out.
(You may have guessed I’m not Mr Khan’s greatest fan).
They had a father of a kid on had been attacked on radio daily mirrror yesterday and he said exactly this. Youth clubs were used as little more than gang recruitment centres / gang HQs.
Interesting article about how scammers use Facebook to sell their dodgy messages. Presumably the Trump and Brexit campaigns paid Cambridge Analytica and sister company to do similar.
"Facebook’s targeting algorithm is so powerful, they said, they don’t need to identify suckers themselves—Facebook does it automatically. And they boasted that Russia’s dezinformatsiya agents were using tactics their community had pioneered...
Affiliates once had to guess what kind of person might fall for their unsophisticated cons, targeting ads by age, geography, or interests. Now Facebook does that work for them. The social network tracks who clicks on the ad and who buys the pills, then starts targeting others whom its algorithm thinks are likely to buy. Affiliates describe watching their ad campaigns lose money for a few days as Facebook gathers data through trial and error, then seeing the sales take off exponentially. “They go out and find the morons for me,” I was told by an affiliate who sells deceptively priced skin-care creams with fake endorsements from Chelsea Clinton.
So you start with a message which can be as fake as you like. Facebook will find someone who will "buy" that message and charge you for it. It turns advertising round. Rather than understanding your audience and tailoring your message to it, you start with the message and tailor your audience to that.
So basically scammers use Facebook exactly the same way as more legitimate businesses? And advertising on Facebook works? Zuckerman needs some good news.
Ofcom is running the auction to release airwaves for 4G mobile and future 5G services.
It says the 2.3 GHz spectrum is usable by current mobile phones and will help improve 4G capacity.
It adds that 3.4 GHz is one of the spectrum bands earmarked for 5G, the next generation of mobile technology.
Vodafone paid £378.2m for 50 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum. EE, which is owned by BT, has paid £302.5m for 40 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum Hutchison, which controls Three, bid £151.2m for 20 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum Telefónica, the parent company of O2, won all 40 MHz of 2.3 GHz spectrum available for £205.8m It also acquired 40 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum at a cost of £317.7m
I think you are overstating the position. About 70% of the funding comes from national government and that is where the cuts have been imposed. There is a limited amount the Mayor can do about that. Where I think the Mayor can have more impact is the policies that the Met operate.
I also remember the huge fuss when Boris removed that prat Blair as head of the Met without asking the Labour Home Secretary of the day who appreciated the endlessly supportive comments from him. He was found to have the right to but the relationship between the Mayor and the Home Sec in relation to the Met was complicated.
Indeed, the interaction between the various forms of government can be complicated -especially so when there’s different political groupings in change of the different branches.
Yes, central funding for police budgets has been reduced; but the mayor can, if he wish, use some of his £16bn budget to make up the shortfall. But he chooses not to, and then seeks to blame others for his choices. Only in his police area has there been an explosion of gangland killings.
If I were him, I’d have every available armed officer in the capital on foot patrol in the problem areas every night, stopping and searching every known gang member until the problems stop. But my priority would be to stop people being killed, rather than to pass the buck for the problems into another set of politicians.
Really? Your priority would seem to be pro-government spin because you've already forgotten the Mayor is using part of his budget to make up for government cuts to the police, which we were discussing just an hour or so back.
Ofcom is running the auction to release airwaves for 4G mobile and future 5G services.
It says the 2.3 GHz spectrum is usable by current mobile phones and will help improve 4G capacity.
It adds that 3.4 GHz is one of the spectrum bands earmarked for 5G, the next generation of mobile technology.
Vodafone paid £378.2m for 50 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum. EE, which is owned by BT, has paid £302.5m for 40 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum Hutchison, which controls Three, bid £151.2m for 20 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum Telefónica, the parent company of O2, won all 40 MHz of 2.3 GHz spectrum available for £205.8m It also acquired 40 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum at a cost of £317.7m
I remember when Brown auctioned the original spectrum auction. He raised billions which seemed very clever in the short term but which everyone then paid for by more expensive mobile telephony and less infrastructure spending for the best part of a decade. These figures look much more sensible.
Interesting article about how scammers use Facebook to sell their dodgy messages. Presumably the Trump and Brexit campaigns paid Cambridge Analytica and sister company to do similar.
"Facebook’s targeting algorithm is so powerful, they said, they don’t need to identify suckers themselves—Facebook does it automatically. And they boasted that Russia’s dezinformatsiya agents were using tactics their community had pioneered...
Affiliates once had to guess what kind of person might fall for their unsophisticated cons, targeting ads by age, geography, or interests. Now Facebook does that work for them. The social network tracks who clicks on the ad and who buys the pills, then starts targeting others whom its algorithm thinks are likely to buy. Affiliates describe watching their ad campaigns lose money for a few days as Facebook gathers data through trial and error, then seeing the sales take off exponentially. “They go out and find the morons for me,” I was told by an affiliate who sells deceptively priced skin-care creams with fake endorsements from Chelsea Clinton.
So you start with a message which can be as fake as you like. Facebook will find someone who will "buy" that message and charge you for it. It turns advertising round. Rather than understanding your audience and tailoring your message to it, you start with the message and tailor your audience to that.
You don't need to spend long on Facebook to be suspicious about such claims. IME Facebook's targeting algorithm is rather hilariously borken. It's more likely they just spam people - and it works as long as it's only marginally better than traditional advertising.
I'd also not hang an article on the word of a scammer.
"The Tories are in denial about the terrible violence on our streets Tackling youth violence requires more than a knee-jerk response, says Diane Abbott"
"This investment means City Hall is paying a greater percentage of the overall police budget in the capital than ever before – up from 18 per cent in 2010 to 23 per cent today, pushing the burden for policing the capital city away from general taxation and onto hard-pressed Londoners."
Much nicer when someone else pays for it, isn't it?
That political press release also contains a long list of pet projects he’s funding, it’s the mayor’s choice to starve the police of resources while spending £45m on youth clubs and £1m on the “London Borough of Culture” scheme. The mayor needs to take responsibility, as we all know the police chief’s record on accepting responsibility.
What possible role could youth clubs play in youth crime prevention? Back on planet Earth. government police cuts have led to rising crime. What happened to the party of Laura Norder?
The rising crime is only in one city, everywhere else in the country the police have learned to do more with less - without the constant bleating.
From reading around the story this week that a youth worker was shot dead, it appears that the youth clubs act as magnets for the gangs and drug dealers. More police on the beat will have a much bigger effect on crime than more youth clubs, but the mayor prefers to blame others for things that are in his power to sort out.
(You may have guessed I’m not Mr Khan’s greatest fan).
They had a father of a kid on had been attacked on radio daily mirrror yesterday and he said exactly this. Youth clubs were used as little more than gang recruitment centres / gang HQs.
But whatever the science of it one of the major functions of police is to make us feel safe and a higher profile street presence clearly does that. I also think that it is not so much the number of police but what you do with them. The risk of carrying weapons on our streets must be increased which means more stop and search and more aggressive intelligence led searches for guns etc.
London has a particular problem with the enhanced security status because it has so many obvious targets. This ties up a disproportionate level of resources and the Met maintain that the additional money they have had from central government does not come close to covering it.
There is probably a case for so-called Elliot Ness strategies -- using anything from income tax evasion to watching television without a licence to target the gang controllers. It is not 15-year-olds importing drugs or exporting stolen phones. Separately, London could probably learn from the Scottish approach to prevention.
There is a paradox. Arresting key gang members creates gaps in the market, and turf wars as new gangs move in, and often violence as a result. Gangsters killing each other is sometimes a sign of disrupted activity, or a power struggle within a gang.
Moving against gangs needs to be intelligence led, which requires good sources on the ground.
I think you are overstating the position. About 70% of the funding comes from national government and that is where the cuts have been imposed. There is a limited amount the Mayor can do about that. Where I think the Mayor can have more impact is the policies that the Met operate.
I also remember the huge fuss when Boris removed that prat Blair as head of the Met without asking the Labour Home Secretary of the day who appreciated the endlessly supportive comments from him. He was found to have the right to but the relationship between the Mayor and the Home Sec in relation to the Met was complicated.
Indeed, the interaction between the various forms of government can be complicated -especially so when there’s different political groupings in change of the different branches.
Yes, central funding for police budgets has been reduced; but the mayor can, if he wish, use some of his £16bn budget to make up the shortfall. But he chooses not to, and then seeks to blame others for his choices. Only in his police area has there been an explosion of gangland killings.
If I were him, I’d have every available armed officer in the capital on foot patrol in the problem areas every night, stopping and searching every known gang member until the problems stop. But my priority would be to stop people being killed, rather than to pass the buck for the problems into another set of politicians.
Really? Your priority would seem to be pro-government spin because you've already forgotten the Mayor is using part of his budget to make up for government cuts to the police, which we were discussing just an hour or so back.
My view is that he’s more interested in the politics of the situation, than he is in actually addressing the problem of gang violence in his city.
But whatever the science of it one of the major functions of police is to make us feel safe and a higher profile street presence clearly does that. I also think that it is not so much the number of police but what you do with them. The risk of carrying weapons on our streets must be increased which means more stop and search and more aggressive intelligence led searches for guns etc.
London has a particular problem with the enhanced security status because it has so many obvious targets. This ties up a disproportionate level of resources and the Met maintain that the additional money they have had from central government does not come close to covering it.
There is probably a case for so-called Elliot Ness strategies -- using anything from income tax evasion to watching television without a licence to target the gang controllers. It is not 15-year-olds importing drugs or exporting stolen phones. Separately, London could probably learn from the Scottish approach to prevention.
As I understand it one of the deaths last night happened as Police were on the street and the young man collapsed at their feet. Also heard a report from a father who had his son stabbed with life changing injuries saying that all community centres should be closed as they are taken over by gangs. He also said that the root cause was single parents working long hours and their children joining gangs as they had no support at home. He also said it is all to do with the sale of drugs.
He did not attribute it to police numbers but as a very serious social problem that requires multi agency intervention and concentration on education to provide better life chances.
I do not know much about the problem but it seems a fair analysis but as always, the only thing you will hear is police cuts
Interesting article about how scammers use Facebook to sell their dodgy messages. Presumably the Trump and Brexit campaigns paid Cambridge Analytica and sister company to do similar.
"Facebook’s targeting algorithm is so powerful, they said, they don’t need to identify suckers themselves—Facebook does it automatically. And they boasted that Russia’s dezinformatsiya agents were using tactics their community had pioneered...
Affiliates once had to guess what kind of person might fall for their unsophisticated cons, targeting ads by age, geography, or interests. Now Facebook does that work for them. The social network tracks who clicks on the ad and who buys the pills, then starts targeting others whom its algorithm thinks are likely to buy. Affiliates describe watching their ad campaigns lose money for a few days as Facebook gathers data through trial and error, then seeing the sales take off exponentially. “They go out and find the morons for me,” I was told by an affiliate who sells deceptively priced skin-care creams with fake endorsements from Chelsea Clinton.
So you start with a message which can be as fake as you like. Facebook will find someone who will "buy" that message and charge you for it. It turns advertising round. Rather than understanding your audience and tailoring your message to it, you start with the message and tailor your audience to that.
You don't need to spend long on Facebook to be suspicious about such claims. IME Facebook's targeting algorithm is rather hilariously borken. It's more likely they just spam people - and it works as long as it's only marginally better than traditional advertising.
I'd also not hang an article on the word of a scammer.
Personally, I am not convinced that Google and FB are anywhere like as good with their algorithms as they claim. Nearly all ads are for things that I am not slightly interested in.
I think you are overstating the position. About 70% of the funding comes from national government and that is where the cuts have been imposed. There is a limited amount the Mayor can do about that. Where I think the Mayor can have more impact is the policies that the Met operate.
I also remember the huge fuss when Boris removed that prat Blair as head of the Met without asking the Labour Home Secretary of the day who appreciated the endlessly supportive comments from him. He was found to have the right to but the relationship between the Mayor and the Home Sec in relation to the Met was complicated.
Indeed, the interaction between the various forms of government can be complicated -especially so when there’s different political groupings in change of the different branches.
Yes, central funding for police budgets has been reduced; but the mayor can, if he wish, use some of his £16bn budget to make up the shortfall. But he chooses not to, and then seeks to blame others for his choices. Only in his police area has there been an explosion of gangland killings.
If I were him, I’d have every available armed officer in the capital on foot patrol in the problem areas every night, stopping and searching every known gang member until the problems stop. But my priority would be to stop people being killed, rather than to pass the buck for the problems into another set of politicians.
Really? Your priority would seem to be pro-government spin because you've already forgotten the Mayor is using part of his budget to make up for government cuts to the police, which we were discussing just an hour or so back.
My view is that he’s more interested in the politics of the situation, than he is in actually addressing the problem of gang violence in his city.
Thats all he is ever inetersted in. I cant believe he is getting such an easy ride on this. I remember when three cyclists were killed in a week in London when Boris was mayor. He got a hell of a grilling and was blamed for their deaths. I hae not even seen khan questioned on this horrendous situtaion.
.....Did Russia want these two dead and did they want to leave a calling card on the bodies?
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
"The Tories are in denial about the terrible violence on our streets Tackling youth violence requires more than a knee-jerk response, says Diane Abbott"
"This investment means City Hall is paying a greater percentage of the overall police budget in the capital than ever before – up from 18 per cent in 2010 to 23 per cent today, pushing the burden for policing the capital city away from general taxation and onto hard-pressed Londoners."
Much nicer when someone else pays for it, isn't it?
The people living in the cesspit should be paying to catch their criminals and ne'er do wells. Why does London always expect the rest of the country to pay for its debauchery.
Interesting article about how scammers use Facebook to sell their dodgy messages. Presumably the Trump and Brexit campaigns paid Cambridge Analytica and sister company to do similar.
"Facebook’s targeting algorithm is so powerful, they said, they don’t need to identify suckers themselves—Facebook does it automatically. And they boasted that Russia’s dezinformatsiya agents were using tactics their community had pioneered...
Affiliates once had to guess what kind of person might fall for their unsophisticated cons, targeting ads by age, geography, or interests. Now Facebook does that work for them. The social network tracks who clicks on the ad and who buys the pills, then starts targeting others whom its algorithm thinks are likely to buy. Affiliates describe watching their ad campaigns lose money for a few days as Facebook gathers data through trial and error, then seeing the sales take off exponentially. “They go out and find the morons for me,” I was told by an affiliate who sells deceptively priced skin-care creams with fake endorsements from Chelsea Clinton.
So you start with a message which can be as fake as you like. Facebook will find someone who will "buy" that message and charge you for it. It turns advertising round. Rather than understanding your audience and tailoring your message to it, you start with the message and tailor your audience to that.
You don't need to spend long on Facebook to be suspicious about such claims. IME Facebook's targeting algorithm is rather hilariously borken. It's more likely they just spam people - and it works as long as it's only marginally better than traditional advertising.
I'd also not hang an article on the word of a scammer.
Personally, I am not convinced that Google and FB are anywhere like as good with their algorithms as they claim. Nearly all ads are for things that I am not slightly interested in.
It's a little unfair as they're used in different ways, but I would rank the big three I use in the following way:
*) Amazon. Generally well-targeted ads, and on a few occasions has suggested products I didn't know I wanted, but ended up buying. Then again, they've got the easiest job.
*) Google. Occasionally makes mistakes, but often produces relevant hits.
*) Facebook. Poor ad placement, sometimes hilariously.
As for YouTube: again, it has a simple task, and it generally does it well. If I've been watching 'Army of Lovers' videos, then it's likely I might want to watch other videos by them and (say) Erasure.
But whatever the science of it one of the major functions of police is to make us feel safe and a higher profile street presence clearly does that. I also think that it is not so much the number of police but what you do with them. The risk of carrying weapons on our streets must be increased which means more stop and search and more aggressive intelligence led searches for guns etc.
London has a particular problem with the enhanced security status because it has so many obvious targets. This ties up a disproportionate level of resources and the Met maintain that the additional money they have had from central government does not come close to covering it.
There is probably a case for so-called Elliot Ness strategies -- using anything from income tax evasion to watching television without a licence to target the gang controllers. It is not 15-year-olds importing drugs or exporting stolen phones. Separately, London could probably learn from the Scottish approach to prevention.
Police Scotland is a disaster zone that exists to make the Met look good. At the moment we don't even have a Chief Constable and we are very likely to have a court case with the last one.
But I agree on the Elliot Ness approach.
David, No-one has noticed that the top team have been missing for last 6 moths or so, shows how much they contributed.
.....Did Russia want these two dead and did they want to leave a calling card on the bodies?
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
.......I find for the Russians with costs
Do you really believe that or are you just wanting to stir up some posters
.....Did Russia want these two dead and did they want to leave a calling card on the bodies?
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
.......I find for the Russians with costs
Sadly on this one Roger I find you've lost the plot to the cost of your PB reputation.
"The Tories are in denial about the terrible violence on our streets Tackling youth violence requires more than a knee-jerk response, says Diane Abbott"
.....Did Russia want these two dead and did they want to leave a calling card on the bodies?
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
.......I find for the Russians with costs
"It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong."
Russia botched the Litvinenko job. They botched this one. More accurately, they don't care who else gets hurt.
But whatever the science of it one of the major functions of police is to make us feel safe and a higher profile street presence clearly does that. I also think that it is not so much the number of police but what you do with them. The risk of carrying weapons on our streets must be increased which means more stop and search and more aggressive intelligence led searches for guns etc.
London has a particular problem with the enhanced security status because it has so many obvious targets. This ties up a disproportionate level of resources and the Met maintain that the additional money they have had from central government does not come close to covering it.
There is probably a case for so-called Elliot Ness strategies -- using anything from income tax evasion to watching television without a licence to target the gang controllers. It is not 15-year-olds importing drugs or exporting stolen phones. Separately, London could probably learn from the Scottish approach to prevention.
Police Scotland is a disaster zone that exists to make the Met look good. At the moment we don't even have a Chief Constable and we are very likely to have a court case with the last one.
But I agree on the Elliot Ness approach.
David, No-one has noticed that the top team have been missing for last 6 moths or so, shows how much they contributed.
There are other kinds of deaths than violent ones though and Scotland has more than twice as many drug related deaths as the rest of the UK and I am ashamed to say that Dundee has the worst record in Scotland.
This means that Dundee probably has the worst record for drug deaths in Europe. It is a shameful state of affairs and the fault is not all with the police but when you see people openly cooking up heroin in the Murraygate on a Saturday you know that things have gone very far wrong.
.....Did Russia want these two dead and did they want to leave a calling card on the bodies?
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
.......I find for the Russians with costs
Do you really believe that or are you just wanting to stir up some posters
The truth is I don't know any more than anyone else. But look at it as a neutral from some far away country (or even as a Russian) and tell me that's not the conclusion you'd come to. Boris is known even here in France to be a bufffoon and a liar. Why can't Mrs May find someone who at least sounds trustworthy?
.....Did Russia want these two dead and did they want to leave a calling card on the bodies?
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
.......I find for the Russians with costs
Putin has history. People who offend him tend to get poisoned, fall from high buildings, die in explosions.
.....Did Russia want these two dead and did they want to leave a calling card on the bodies?
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
.......I find for the Russians with costs
Do you really believe that or are you just wanting to stir up some posters
The truth is I don't know any more than anyone else. But look at it as a neutral from some far away country (or even as a Russian) and tell me that's not the conclusion you'd come to. Boris is known even here in France to be a bufffoon and a liar. Why can't Mrs May find someone who at least sounds trustworthy?
You appear to be starting from the following position: *) I don't like this government. *) I like Corbyn and Labour. *) Corbyn and Labour mucked this up. *) I think Boris is a buffoon.
And have developed a position accordingly.
I've criticised Boris plenty of times on here, but I think he and May have played this well. Not perfectly, but well. Certainly Boris has got many countries to act in concerted action against Russia.
.....Did Russia want these two dead and did they want to leave a calling card on the bodies?
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
.......I find for the Russians with costs
Do you really believe that or are you just wanting to stir up some posters
The truth is I don't know any more than anyone else. But look at it as a neutral from some far away country (or even as a Russian) and tell me that's not the conclusion you'd come to. Boris is known even here in France to be a bufffoon and a liar. Why can't Mrs May find someone who at least sounds trustworthy?
You would come to the conclusion that people who have a record of poisoning their enemies have done so again. There is such a thing as similar fact evidence.
More police on the beat? How many police and PCSOs were lost because of government cuts? Thousands wasn't it?
There is probably a case for so-called Elliot Ness strategies -- using anything from income tax evasion to watching television without a licence to target the gang controllers. It is not 15-year-olds importing drugs or exporting stolen phones. Separately, London could probably learn from the Scottish approach to prevention.
Police Scotland is a disaster zone that exists to make the Met look good. At the moment we don't even have a Chief Constable and we are very likely to have a court case with the last one.
But I agree on the Elliot Ness approach.
David, No-one has noticed that the top team have been missing for last 6 moths or so, shows how much they contributed.
There are other kinds of deaths than violent ones though and Scotland has more than twice as many drug related deaths as the rest of the UK and I am ashamed to say that Dundee has the worst record in Scotland.
This means that Dundee probably has the worst record for drug deaths in Europe. It is a shameful state of affairs and the fault is not all with the police but when you see people openly cooking up heroin in the Murraygate on a Saturday you know that things have gone very far wrong.
Drugs policy in most Western countries is a real mess. It’s not strict enough to deter people, yet not lenient enough to treat it as primarily a health problem. Most of the gang problems have the supply of drugs at their heart.
We need to either go down the Portugal / Amsterdam route of complete tolerence, or down the Singapore / Dubai route of zero tolerance. In the UK, the former option is probably likeliest to succeed.
.....Did Russia want these two dead and did they want to leave a calling card on the bodies?
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
.......I find for the Russians with costs
The truth is I don't know any more than anyone else. But look at it as a neutral from some far away country (or even as a Russian) and tell me that's not the conclusion you'd come to. Boris is known even here in France to be a bufffoon and a liar. Why can't Mrs May find someone who at least sounds trustworthy?
Boris acting as a buffoon and the FCO cocking up a tweet should not deflect us from the evidence trail and simple investigation process.
1. What is the victim profile? 2. What was the attack methodology? 3. What weapon was involved and who has access? 4. Who are in the suspect pool? 5. Do the suspects have prior form? 6. Did the suspects believe they would enjoy immunity from the consequences? 7. What was the motive?
You do not require Inspector Knacker of the Yard to join the dots?
Roger - Do not allow you animus towards the Conservatives to cloud a disinterested judgement.
.....Did Russia want these two dead and did they want to leave a calling card on the bodies?
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
.......I find for the Russians with costs
Sadly on this one Roger I find you've lost the plot to the cost of your PB reputation.
You've been away from here for a while Jack (and missed). My reputation such as it was disappeared long ago. Read MM's oblique post above.
Way off topic, but a fascinating long read on the politics of the Middle East, centred around Mohammed bin Salman, the young moderniser crown prince in Saudi Arabia. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/09/a-saudi-princes-quest-to-remake-the-middle-east The biggest takeaway is that there appears to be a lot going on behind the scenes on Israel and Palestine, with almost everyone realising that the real enemy is Iran and the rest of the region needs to be united against them. Trump’s trip to Riyadh was a lot more significant than was thought at the time.
You don't need to spend long on Facebook to be suspicious about such claims. IME Facebook's targeting algorithm is rather hilariously borken. It's more likely they just spam people - and it works as long as it's only marginally better than traditional advertising.
I'd also not hang an article on the word of a scammer.
The scammers' margin is entirely in the advertising, a bit similar to the political campaigner. The article addresses your point about targeting because Facebook sells you an audience for your message, whatever your message is. It does this by pushing out the message by trial and error as it learns, so you would be seeing the trial and error part.
I am more interested in the technique and how that applies to political campaigning. To be clear, I don't know what messages Vote Leave used in their online campaigns. I wouldn't be surprised if Dominic Cummings doesn't know, and doesn't want to know. He employed Cambridge Analytica's sister company do a job for him. We're entirely dependent on CA acting ethically.
The point is the messages don't need to be official campaign messages or truthful, nor does the call to action have to be to vote Leave in the referendum. A message salient enough to get people to click on it could for example be "Britain's overrun by Muslims. What are we doing about it?" Then you got hit those people about voting Leave to control immigration. Neither the client, nor the electorate at large, nor the electoral authorities need to be any the wiser about how you get the votes.
.....Did Russia want these two dead and did they want to leave a calling card on the bodies?
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
.......I find for the Russians with costs
If it wasn't Russia then the Russians will know it was someone trying to frame them and be eager to find out who it was.
At no point has Putin phoned May, denied responsibility and offered to help the investigation. Instead, they have resorted to mocking the situation, joked about England being a dangerous place for Russians and used Twitter to troll the investigation.
Not so long ago, the Tory party knew that — no matter how bleak the national picture — there were parts of the capital that would always remain blue. Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth — these boroughs were the jewels in the Conservative crown. Even at the height of Tony Blair’s popularity, the party held on to them. Campaigning in their smarter postcodes was considered almost déclassé.
But this year, the Tories are in the fight of a lifetime to keep hold of every one of the nine councils they control. For many ministers, the working assumption is that the city is about to be painted red. As one cabinet minister puts it: ‘There is only one word to describe the party in London: screwed.’
For an idea of how bad things look, consider the Tory peer and psephologist Robert Hayward’s recent projection that the Conservatives will lose about 100 council seats of their 612, which would be a worse result than in 1994, just a few years before Tony Blair’s first landslide.
That the Prime Minister recently chose to sit down with her nemesis George Osborne, in his role as editor of the Evening Standard, is a tell-tale sign of the depth of her concern.
The extent of the panic among London Conservatives has been so great that they have been considering a drastic step. Over the past year, a series of meetings has been held at venues including Tory HQ. On the agenda was a radical idea: that London’s Tories should formally break away from the national party and become a separate entity with their own brand and leader, like the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson. It would create clear water between them and a national party that, in the words of one insider, is becoming ‘very provincial’ under Theresa May.
More police on the beat? How many police and PCSOs were lost because of government cuts? Thousands wasn't it?
There is probably a case for so-called Elliot Ness strategies -- using anything from income tax evasion to watching television without a licence to target the gang controllers. It is not 15-year-olds importing drugs or exporting stolen phones. Separately, London could probably learn from the Scottish approach to prevention.
Police Scotland is a disaster zone that exists to make the Met look good. At the moment we don't even have a Chief Constable and we are very likely to have a court case with the last one.
But I agree on the Elliot Ness approach.
David, No-one has noticed that the top team have been missing for last 6 moths or so, shows how much they contributed.
There are other kinds of deaths than violent ones though and Scotland has more than twice as many drug related deaths as the rest of the UK and I am ashamed to say that Dundee has the worst record in Scotland.
This means that Dundee probably has the worst record for drug deaths in Europe. It is a shameful state of affairs and the fault is not all with the police but when you see people openly cooking up heroin in the Murraygate on a Saturday you know that things have gone very far wrong.
Drugs policy in most Western countries is a real mess. It’s not strict enough to deter people, yet not lenient enough to treat it as primarily a health problem. Most of the gang problems have the supply of drugs at their heart.
We need to either go down the Portugal / Amsterdam route of complete tolerence, or down the Singapore / Dubai route of zero tolerance. In the UK, the former option is probably likeliest to succeed.
We are following the path of the US where opioid death is now so common it is reducing average life expectancy. To put it into perspective in 2016 in Scotland 106 drivers and passengers were killed in RTAs. 867 died of a drug overdose, 8x as many. Our death rate through drugs is 27x that of Portugal which suggests 835 additional deaths as a result of our current polices in a year.
It really does put the current violent crime wave in London into some perspective.
A Momentum officer has resigned in protest at Labour’s anti-Semitism scandal saying he felt “sometimes unsafe and most certainly untrusted” as a Jewish member of one of its London Steering Groups.
A loss of 100 councillors would still leave the Tories with Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea,if not Wandsworth. Indeed on a UNS (OK, ULS) on such a result the only other council they would lose would be Barnet.
.....Did Russia want these two dead and did they want to leave a calling card on the bodies?
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
.......I find for the Russians with costs
Sadly on this one Roger I find you've lost the plot to the cost of your PB reputation.
You've been away from here for a while Jack (and missed). My reputation such as it was disappeared long ago. Read MM's oblique post above.
See my 9:02am
To which I'd add:
None on PB who dare offer their opinions regularly for consideration escape unscathed. The vagaries of public discourse, opinion and events will make fools of all of us.
That said we all need to remind ourselves that waddling along the street we see a duck. It walks with the appropriate gait and quacks in an accent not unfamiliar around the Kremlin. I think my old friend it's a Russian duck.
Nice story except GDPR is a bureaucratic nightmare that is going to cost us hundreds of millions in additional paperwork for minimal benefit. The abolition of implied consent means that I am no longer entitled to assume that the solicitor who sends me papers has the authority of the person or persons whose private information is in the papers. So I will need to have express authority from the clients in every case to do the work the solicitor is asking me to do, I will need to have a system for keeping the record of that consent, I will have to check that consent to raise an action also covers an appeal, I will need to have policies for the retention of that documentation and I will need to have policies for disposal within "a reasonable period" of the information. All of this to address a completely non existent problem.
A loss of 100 councillors would still leave the Tories with Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea,if not Wandsworth. Indeed on a UNS (OK, ULS) on such a result the only other council they would lose would be Barnet.
Not so long ago, the Tory party knew that — no matter how bleak the national picture — there were parts of the capital that would always remain blue. Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth — these boroughs were the jewels in the Conservative crown. Even at the height of Tony Blair’s popularity, the party held on to them. Campaigning in their smarter postcodes was considered almost déclassé.
But this year, the Tories are in the fight of a lifetime to keep hold of every one of the nine councils they control. For many ministers, the working assumption is that the city is about to be painted red. As one cabinet minister puts it: ‘There is only one word to describe the party in London: screwed.’
For an idea of how bad things look, consider the Tory peer and psephologist Robert Hayward’s recent projection that the Conservatives will lose about 100 council seats of their 612, which would be a worse result than in 1994, just a few years before Tony Blair’s first landslide.
That the Prime Minister recently chose to sit down with her nemesis George Osborne, in his role as editor of the Evening Standard, is a tell-tale sign of the depth of her concern.
The extent of the panic among London Conservatives has been so great that they have been considering a drastic step. Over the past year, a series of meetings has been held at venues including Tory HQ. On the agenda was a radical idea: that London’s Tories should formally break away from the national party and become a separate entity with their own brand and leader, like the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson. It would create clear water between them and a national party that, in the words of one insider, is becoming ‘very provincial’ under Theresa May.
And the 57m in the "provinces" go boo-hoo to the 8m in London.....
Not so long ago, the Tory party knew that — no matter how bleak the national picture — there were parts of the capital that would always remain blue. Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth — these boroughs were the jewels in the Conservative crown. Even at the height of Tony Blair’s popularity, the party held on to them. Campaigning in their smarter postcodes was considered almost déclassé.
But this year, the Tories are in the fight of a lifetime to keep hold of every one of the nine councils they control. For many ministers, the working assumption is that the city is about to be painted red. As one cabinet minister puts it: ‘There is only one word to describe the party in London: screwed.’
For an idea of how bad things look, consider the Tory peer and psephologist Robert Hayward’s recent projection that the Conservatives will lose about 100 council seats of their 612, which would be a worse result than in 1994, just a few years before Tony Blair’s first landslide.
That the Prime Minister recently chose to sit down with her nemesis George Osborne, in his role as editor of the Evening Standard, is a tell-tale sign of the depth of her concern.
The extent of the panic among London Conservatives has been so great that they have been considering a drastic step. Over the past year, a series of meetings has been held at venues including Tory HQ. On the agenda was a radical idea: that London’s Tories should formally break away from the national party and become a separate entity with their own brand and leader, like the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson. It would create clear water between them and a national party that, in the words of one insider, is becoming ‘very provincial’ under Theresa May.
Bit hubristic of George to describe himself as May’s nemesis?
Implacable foe, maybe, but “nemesis”?predestines the outcome and the means
.....Did Russia want these two dead and did they want to leave a calling card on the bodies?
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
.......I find for the Russians with costs
Do you really believe that or are you just wanting to stir up some posters
The truth is I don't know any more than anyone else. But look at it as a neutral from some far away country (or even as a Russian) and tell me that's not the conclusion you'd come to. Boris is known even here in France to be a bufffoon and a liar. Why can't Mrs May find someone who at least sounds trustworthy?
No Roger - I agree Boris is far from reliable but that does not take away from the fact that everything points to Russia, even Dianne Abbott said that this morning.
Interesting that intelligence has obtained evidence of Russia trialling the nerve agent on door handles and also the intelligence agencies have evidence pointing to the Russian suspects behind the attacks
The security services believe they have pinpointed the location of the covert Russian laboratory that manufactured the nerve agent.
All this has been shared with the Countries supported the UK.
A loss of 100 councillors would still leave the Tories with Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea,if not Wandsworth. Indeed on a UNS (OK, ULS) on such a result the only other council they would lose would be Barnet.
p.s. please could we have some more polling Sir
I'm hopeful we'll see at least two more YouGov London polls before the election.
Interesting article about how scammers use Facebook to sell their dodgy messages. Presumably the Trump and Brexit campaigns paid Cambridge Analytica and sister company to do similar.
"Facebook’s targeting algorithm is so powerful, they said, they don’t need to identify suckers themselves—Facebook does it automatically. And they boasted that Russia’s dezinformatsiya agents were using tactics their community had pioneered...
So you start with a message which can be as fake as you like. Facebook will find someone who will "buy" that message and charge you for it. It turns advertising round. Rather than understanding your audience and tailoring your message to it, you start with the message and tailor your audience to that.
You don't need to spend long on Facebook to be suspicious about such claims. IME Facebook's targeting algorithm is rather hilariously borken. It's more likely they just spam people - and it works as long as it's only marginally better than traditional advertising.
I'd also not hang an article on the word of a scammer.
Personally, I am not convinced that Google and FB are anywhere like as good with their algorithms as they claim. Nearly all ads are for things that I am not slightly interested in.
It's a little unfair as they're used in different ways, but I would rank the big three I use in the following way:
*) Amazon. Generally well-targeted ads, and on a few occasions has suggested products I didn't know I wanted, but ended up buying. Then again, they've got the easiest job.
*) Google. Occasionally makes mistakes, but often produces relevant hits.
*) Facebook. Poor ad placement, sometimes hilariously.
As for YouTube: again, it has a simple task, and it generally does it well. If I've been watching 'Army of Lovers' videos, then it's likely I might want to watch other videos by them and (say) Erasure.
Another point is that Facebook is what works for scammers and political campaigners. They are not i interested in Google. Vote Leave allegedly pspent more than its legal limit on Facebook ads because it reckoned it delivered a result.
Nice story except GDPR is a bureaucratic nightmare that is going to cost us hundreds of millions in additional paperwork for minimal benefit. The abolition of implied consent means that I am no longer entitled to assume that the solicitor who sends me papers has the authority of the person or persons whose private information is in the papers. So I will need to have express authority from the clients in every case to do the work the solicitor is asking me to do, I will need to have a system for keeping the record of that consent, I will have to check that consent to raise an action also covers an appeal, I will need to have policies for the retention of that documentation and I will need to have policies for disposal within "a reasonable period" of the information. All of this to address a completely non existent problem.
Every solicitor already does the vast majority of that. The bar has a problem largely because of its continued insistence that its members have no relationship, contractual or otherwise, with their Instructing Solicitors' clients. That has been a myth for some time.
You don't need to spend long on Facebook to be suspicious about such claims. IME Facebook's targeting algorithm is rather hilariously borken. It's more likely they just spam people - and it works as long as it's only marginally better than traditional advertising.
I'd also not hang an article on the word of a scammer.
The scammers' margin is entirely in the advertising, a bit similar to the political campaigner. The article addresses your point about targeting because Facebook sells you an audience for your message, whatever your message is. It does this by pushing out the message by trial and error as it learns, so you would be seeing the trial and error part.
I am more interested in the technique and how that applies to political campaigning. To be clear, I don't know what messages Vote Leave used in their online campaigns. I wouldn't be surprised if Dominic Cummings doesn't know, and doesn't want to know. He employed Cambridge Analytica's sister company do a job for him. We're entirely dependent on CA acting ethically.
The point is the messages don't need to be official campaign messages or truthful, nor does the call to action have to be to vote Leave in the referendum. A message salient enough to get people to click on it could for example be "Britain's overrun by Muslims. What are we doing about it?" Then you got hit those people about voting Leave to control immigration. Neither the client, nor the electorate at large, nor the electoral authorities need to be any the wiser about how you get the votes.
I may well be seeing the trail and error part: but on FB I never see any sign it has 'learnt'.
I have plenty of interests, some of which should be very obvious to someone looking at my FB posts and the few groups I am in. There are advertisers in those areas. Yet it never seems to place ads that I, as an intelligent person, would place. Perhaps that's a symptom of the fact I don't use FB as much as many people, or perhaps it is the fact it doesn't actually 'learn;.
I agree it is interesting to see how it applies to political campaigning, which in some ways is 'simpler', especially in our environment with only a few political parties.
But as I said below, they only need to be slightly better that traditional advertising.
Not so long ago, the Tory party knew that — no matter how bleak the national picture — there were parts of the capital that would always remain blue. Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth — these boroughs were the jewels in the Conservative crown. Even at the height of Tony Blair’s popularity, the party held on to them. Campaigning in their smarter postcodes was considered almost déclassé.
But this year, the Tories are in the fight of a lifetime to keep hold of every one of the nine councils they control. For many ministers, the working assumption is that the city is about to be painted red. As one cabinet minister puts it: ‘There is only one word to describe the party in London: screwed.’
For an idea of how bad things look, consider the Tory peer and psephologist Robert Hayward’s recent projection that the Conservatives will lose about 100 council seats of their 612, which would be a worse result than in 1994, just a few years before Tony Blair’s first landslide.
That the Prime Minister recently chose to sit down with her nemesis George Osborne, in his role as editor of the Evening Standard, is a tell-tale sign of the depth of her concern.
The extent of the panic among London Conservatives has been so great that they have been considering a drastic step. Over the past year, a series of meetings has been held at venues including Tory HQ. On the agenda was a radical idea: that London’s Tories should formally break away from the national party and become a separate entity with their own brand and leader, like the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson. It would create clear water between them and a national party that, in the words of one insider, is becoming ‘very provincial’ under Theresa May.
Bit hubristic of George to describe himself as May’s nemesis?
Implacable foe, maybe, but “nemesis”?predestines the outcome and the means
It is Will Heaven describing George Osborne CH as Theresa May's nemesis.
Hon how pb’s Leavers laughed when I tried to convey just how alienated London was from the government because of Brexit.
" This is Radio Free Islington calling ... "
I'm expecting 200+ gains for the LibDems in London if the election is all about Brexit.
And I'm hoping to see the London Independence Party make an appearnace.
Labour is the anti-Brexit party of choice. Conservatives can protest till they’re blue in the face that doesn’t make sense, but it is.
Hold on, weren't Corbyn's anti-Jewish politics going to sink him in Barnet ?
If Barnet were not so close, the Tories would have a decent chance. But they could halve the swing elsewhere in the capital and still lose control to Labour.
Having said that his anti-Jewish politics have already cost him three-ish seats in N London in the election.
Not so long ago, the Tory party knew that — no matter how bleak the national picture — there were parts of the capital that would always remain blue. Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth — these boroughs were the jewels in the Conservative crown. Even at the height of Tony Blair’s popularity, the party held on to them. Campaigning in their smarter postcodes was considered almost déclassé.
But this year, the Tories are in the fight of a lifetime to keep hold of every one of the nine councils they control. For many ministers, the working assumption is that the city is about to be painted red. As one cabinet minister puts it: ‘There is only one word to describe the party in London: screwed.’
For an idea of how bad things look, consider the Tory peer and psephologist Robert Hayward’s recent projection that the Conservatives will lose about 100 council seats of their 612, which would be a worse result than in 1994, just a few years before Tony Blair’s first landslide.
That the Prime Minister recently chose to sit down with her nemesis George Osborne, in his role as editor of the Evening Standard, is a tell-tale sign of the depth of her concern.
The extent of the panic among London Conservatives has been so great that they have been considering a drastic step. Over the past year, a series of meetings has been held at venues including Tory HQ. On the agenda was a radical idea: that London’s Tories should formally break away from the national party and become a separate entity with their own brand and leader, like the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson. It would create clear water between them and a national party that, in the words of one insider, is becoming ‘very provincial’ under Theresa May.
If the Conservatives want to know where their problems start in London all they need to do is to look at how levels of home ownership have changed during the last 20 years.
And after that have a look at how levels of student debt have changed in the last twenty years.
Until they have policies which reverse those two trends instead of exacerbating them (as for example George Osborne did) then they will continue to decline in London irrespective of whatever gimmicks they come up with.
More police on the beat? How many police and PCSOs were lost because of government cuts? Thousands wasn't it?
.
Police Scotland is a disaster zone that exists to make the Met look good. At the moment we don't even have a Chief Constable and we are very likely to have a court case with the last one.
But I agree on the Elliot Ness approach.
David, No-one has noticed that the top team have been missing for last 6 moths or so, shows how much they contributed.
There are other kinds of deaths than violent ones though and Scotland has more than twice as many drug related deaths as the rest of the UK and I am ashamed to say that Dundee has the worst record in Scotland.
This means that Dundee probably has the worst record for drug deaths in Europe. It is a shameful state of affairs and the fault is not all with the police but when you see people openly cooking up heroin in the Murraygate on a Saturday you know that things have gone very far wrong.
Drugs policy in most Western countries is a real mess. It’s not strict enough to deter people, yet not lenient enough to treat it as primarily a health problem. Most of the gang problems have the supply of drugs at their heart.
We need to either go down the Portugal / Amsterdam route of complete tolerence, or down the Singapore / Dubai route of zero tolerance. In the UK, the former option is probably likeliest to succeed.
We are following the path of the US where opioid death is now so common it is reducing average life expectancy. To put it into perspective in 2016 in Scotland 106 drivers and passengers were killed in RTAs. 867 died of a drug overdose, 8x as many. Our death rate through drugs is 27x that of Portugal which suggests 835 additional deaths as a result of our current polices in a year.
It really does put the current violent crime wave in London into some perspective.
Quite shocking statistics. Shame that no politicians from any party have the guts to do what’s needed. Either sell drugs in pharmacies or lock people up for years for possession, they’re the only strategies that actually work.
Personally, I think “cuts” - whilst a political card that will be played with skill by the Police Federation and the Labour Party - is a red herring.
You could succumb to lobbying and increase funding of the Met by 50% and it’d barely put a scratch in these crime figures. The issue is far more one of community policing policy, and failure to develop a proper strategy to tackle a toxic street culture.
Any request for additional funds should only be considered in the context of what extra targeted resources are required to implement that strategy, otherwise it’ll be almost wholly wasted.
Hon how pb’s Leavers laughed when I tried to convey just how alienated London was from the government because of Brexit.
Agreed. The Tories will be punished in London. What I find slightly odd though is why - if you think Brexit is a bad idea and if it's what drives your vote - you would vote Labour, given that their leadership is just as much in favour of it as the Tories, albeit for different reasons.
Not so long ago, the Tory party knew that — no matter how bleak the national picture — there were parts of the capital that would always remain blue. Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth — these boroughs were the jewels in the Conservative crown. Even at the height of Tony Blair’s popularity, the party held on to them. Campaigning in their smarter postcodes was considered almost déclassé.
But this year, the Tories are in the fight of a lifetime to keep hold of every one of the nine councils they control. For many ministers, the working assumption is that the city is about to be painted red. As one cabinet minister puts it: ‘There is only one word to describe the party in London: screwed.’
For an idea of how bad things look, consider the Tory peer and psephologist Robert Hayward’s recent projection that the Conservatives will lose about 100 council seats of their 612, which would be a worse result than in 1994, just a few years before Tony Blair’s first landslide.
That the Prime Minister recently chose to sit down with her nemesis George Osborne, in his role as editor of the Evening Standard, is a tell-tale sign of the depth of her concern.
The extent of the panic among London Conservatives has been so great that they have been considering a drastic step. Over the past year, a series of meetings has been held at venues including Tory HQ. On the agenda was a radical idea: that London’s Tories should formally break away from the national party and become a separate entity with their own brand and leader, like the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson. It would create clear water between them and a national party that, in the words of one insider, is becoming ‘very provincial’ under Theresa May.
And the 57m in the "provinces" go boo-hoo to the 8m in London.....
I’m going to take a wild guess that, for every seat we lose in London, we gain two elsewhere.
Outside London Brexit is popular and Corbyn’s politics isn’t.
Mr. Eagles, London today isn't London of 1994, though. It's become less British, hasn't it (ie more foreign nationals and foreign-born nationals living there)? Not to mention being more pro-EU than the nation as a whole.
Nice story except GDPR is a bureaucratic nightmare that is going to cost us hundreds of millions in additional paperwork for minimal benefit. The abolition of implied consent means that I am no longer entitled to assume that the solicitor who sends me papers has the authority of the person or persons whose private information is in the papers. So I will need to have express authority from the clients in every case to do the work the solicitor is asking me to do, I will need to have a system for keeping the record of that consent, I will have to check that consent to raise an action also covers an appeal, I will need to have policies for the retention of that documentation and I will need to have policies for disposal within "a reasonable period" of the information. All of this to address a completely non existent problem.
Every solicitor already does the vast majority of that. The bar has a problem largely because of its continued insistence that its members have no relationship, contractual or otherwise, with their Instructing Solicitors' clients. That has been a myth for some time.
First they take away my quill, then they tell me not to use Latin in the Courts, and now this. I am involved in the implementation of GDPR for the Scottish bar and it is going to cost a lot of money and time to comply. And where is the benefit from all this paperwork? I really don't see it.
Mr. Eagles, London today isn't London of 1994, though. It's become less British, hasn't it (ie more foreign nationals and foreign-born nationals living there)? Not to mention being more pro-EU than the nation as a whole.
We keep being told London has been bought by the Russians.
Maybe we should take the vote away from the place.....
I remember when Brown auctioned the original spectrum auction. He raised billions which seemed very clever in the short term but which everyone then paid for by more expensive mobile telephony and less infrastructure spending for the best part of a decade. These figures look much more sensible.
Even at the time the amount paid in 3G spectrum auctions was seen as a bad sign by the telecoms industry. Across Europe something ludicrous like £120 billion was spent on licenses. Companies took on huge debts, many mergers and aquistions resulted, and most experts think it stalled 3G network deployment and adoption. Thankfully later auctions have raised a lot less.
.....Did Russia want these two dead and did they want to leave a calling card on the bodies?
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
.......I find for the Russians with costs
Putin has history. People who offend him tend to get poisoned, fall from high buildings, die in explosions.
Personally, I think “cuts” - whilst a political card that will be played with skill by the Police Federation and the Labour Party - is a red herring.
You could succumb to lobbying and increase funding of the Met by 50% and it’d barely put a scratch in these crime figures. The issue is far more one of community policing policy, and failure to develop a proper strategy to tackle a toxic street culture.
Any request for additional funds should only be considered in the context of what extra targeted resources are required to implement that strategy, otherwise it’ll be almost wholly wasted.
I wonder what effect the London riots have had on growth of gangs. The police response was so pathetic that if you were a youth at the time you can’t help but he emboldened but just what a joke the filths approach to widespread criminality was. You aren’t exactly going to be scared by them, and that has been reinforced since by things like not chasing moped thieves.
It is exactly the opposite of NYC’s broken window theory approach.
Wasn’t it May who effectively vetoed bill Bratton getting hired for MET job?
But whatever the science of it one of the major functions of police is to make us feel safe and a higher profile street presence clearly does that. I also think that it is not so much the number of police but what you do with them. The risk of carrying weapons on our streets must be increased which means more stop and search and more aggressive intelligence led searches for guns etc.
London has a particular problem with the enhanced security status because it has so many obvious targets. This ties up a disproportionate level of resources and the Met maintain that the additional money they have had from central government does not come close to covering it.
There is probably a case for so-called Elliot Ness strategies -- using anything from income tax evasion to watching television without a licence to target the gang controllers. It is not 15-year-olds importing drugs or exporting stolen phones. Separately, London could probably learn from the Scottish approach to prevention.
Police Scotland is a disaster zone that exists to make the Met look good. At the moment we don't even have a Chief Constable and we are very likely to have a court case with the last one.
But I agree on the Elliot Ness approach.
David, No-one has noticed that the top team have been missing for last 6 moths or so, shows how much they contributed.
There are other kinds of deaths than violent ones though and Scotland has more than twice as many drug related deaths as the rest of the UK and I am ashamed to say that Dundee has the worst record in Scotland.
This means that Dundee probably has the worst record for drug deaths in Europe. It is a shameful state of affairs and the fault is not all with the police but when you see people openly cooking up heroin in the Murraygate on a Saturday you know that things have gone very far wrong.
Are you in favour of Westminster allowing Glasgow to set up a safe room for drug consumption in Glasgow (& presumably in time Dundee)? The Home Office seems to be behaving more than averagely densely on the subject.
Hon how pb’s Leavers laughed when I tried to convey just how alienated London was from the government because of Brexit.
Agreed. The Tories will be punished in London. What I find slightly odd though is why - if you think Brexit is a bad idea and if it's what drives your vote - you would vote Labour, given that their leadership is just as much in favour of it as the Tories, albeit for different reasons.
I'd still expect the Tories to hold 6 or 7 London boroughs, including now, Barnet. Labour will certainly achieve some clean sweeps.
Not so long ago, the Tory party knew that — no matter how bleak the national picture — there were parts of the capital that would always remain blue. Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth — these boroughs were the jewels in the Conservative crown. Even at the height of Tony Blair’s popularity, the party held on to them. Campaigning in their smarter postcodes was considered almost déclassé.
But this year, the Tories are in the fight of a lifetime to keep hold of every one of the nine councils they control. For many ministers, the working assumption is that the city is about to be painted red. As one cabinet minister puts it: ‘There is only one word to describe the party in London: screwed.’
For an idea of how bad things look, consider the Tory peer and psephologist Robert Hayward’s recent projection that the Conservatives will lose about 100 council seats of their 612, which would be a worse result than in 1994, just a few years before Tony Blair’s first landslide.
That the Prime Minister recently chose to sit down with her nemesis George Osborne, in his role as editor of the Evening Standard, is a tell-tale sign of the depth of her concern.
The extent of the panic among London Conservatives has been so great that they have been considering a drastic step. Over the past year, a series of meetings has been held at venues including Tory HQ. On the agenda was a radical idea: that London’s Tories should formally break away from the national party and become a separate entity with their own brand and leader, like the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson. It would create clear water between them and a national party that, in the words of one insider, is becoming ‘very provincial’ under Theresa May.
And the 57m in the "provinces" go boo-hoo to the 8m in London.....
I think by 'becoming very provincial' they mean 'remaining very British'.
Nice story except GDPR is a bureaucratic nightmare that is going to cost us hundreds of millions in additional paperwork for minimal benefit. The abolition of implied consent means that I am no longer entitled to assume that the solicitor who sends me papers has the authority of the person or persons whose private information is in the papers. So I will need to have express authority from the clients in every case to do the work the solicitor is asking me to do, I will need to have a system for keeping the record of that consent, I will have to check that consent to raise an action also covers an appeal, I will need to have policies for the retention of that documentation and I will need to have policies for disposal within "a reasonable period" of the information. All of this to address a completely non existent problem.
Every solicitor already does the vast majority of that. The bar has a problem largely because of its continued insistence that its members have no relationship, contractual or otherwise, with their Instructing Solicitors' clients. That has been a myth for some time.
First they take away my quill, then they tell me not to use Latin in the Courts, and now this. I am involved in the implementation of GDPR for the Scottish bar and it is going to cost a lot of money and time to comply. And where is the benefit from all this paperwork? I really don't see it.
It is the start of proper regulation for the data industry.
Those people who use data to do other things (pretty much everyone else) is on the outer rim.
Not so long ago, the Tory party knew that — no matter how bleak the national picture — there were parts of the capital that would always remain blue. Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth — these boroughs were the jewels in the Conservative crown. Even at the height of Tony Blair’s popularity, the party held on to them. Campaigning in their smarter postcodes was considered almost déclassé.
But this year, the Tories are in the fight of a lifetime to keep hold of every one of the nine councils they control. For many ministers, the working assumption is that the city is about to be painted red. As one cabinet minister puts it: ‘There is only one word to describe the party in London: screwed.’
For an idea of how bad things look, consider the Tory peer and psephologist Robert Hayward’s recent projection that the Conservatives will lose about 100 council seats of their 612, which would be a worse result than in 1994, just a few years before Tony Blair’s first landslide.
That the Prime Minister recently chose to sit down with her nemesis George Osborne, in his role as editor of the Evening Standard, is a tell-tale sign of the depth of her concern.
The extent of the panic among London Conservatives has been so great that they have been considering a drastic step. Over the past year, a series of meetings has been held at venues including Tory HQ. On the agenda was a radical idea: that London’s Tories should formally break away from the national party and become a separate entity with their own brand and leader, like the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson. It would create clear water between them and a national party that, in the words of one insider, is becoming ‘very provincial’ under Theresa May.
If the Conservatives want to know where their problems start in London all they need to do is to look at how levels of home ownership have changed during the last 20 years.
And after that have a look at how levels of student debt have changed in the last twenty years.
Until they have policies which reverse those two trends instead of exacerbating them (as for example George Osborne did) then they will continue to decline in London irrespective of whatever gimmicks they come up with.
I’m not sure what the Tories can do about London without becoming a totally different party.
Home ownership and demographics are poor for them, and getting worse.
Mr. Eagles, London today isn't London of 1994, though. It's become less British, hasn't it (ie more foreign nationals and foreign-born nationals living there)? Not to mention being more pro-EU than the nation as a whole.
The Tory vote share in London has been stuck at 29-35% since 1994, but it's differently distributed.
Not so long ago, the Tory party knew that — no matter how bleak the national picture — there were parts of the capital that would always remain blue. Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth — these boroughs were the jewels in the Conservative crown. Even at the height of Tony Blair’s popularity, the party held on to them. Campaigning in their smarter postcodes was considered almost déclassé.
But this year, the Tories are in the fight of a lifetime to keep hold of every one of the nine councils they control. For many ministers, the working assumption is that the city is about to be painted red. As one cabinet minister puts it: ‘There is only one word to describe the party in London: screwed.’
For an idea of how bad things look, consider the Tory peer and psephologist Robert Hayward’s recent projection that the Conservatives will lose about 100 council seats of their 612, which would be a worse result than in 1994, just a few years before Tony Blair’s first landslide.
That the Prime Minister recently chose to sit down with her nemesis George Osborne, in his role as editor of the Evening Standard, is a tell-tale sign of the depth of her concern.
The extent of the panic among London Conservatives has been so great that they have been considering a drastic step. Over the past year, a series of meetings has been held at venues including Tory HQ. On the agenda was a radical idea: that London’s Tories should formally break away from the national party and become a separate entity with their own brand and leader, like the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson. It would create clear water between them and a national party that, in the words of one insider, is becoming ‘very provincial’ under Theresa May.
Bit hubristic of George to describe himself as May’s nemesis?
Implacable foe, maybe, but “nemesis”?predestines the outcome and the means
It is Will Heaven describing George Osborne CH as Theresa May's nemesis.
Will Heaven takes dictation, he doesn’t create original thought
Hon how pb’s Leavers laughed when I tried to convey just how alienated London was from the government because of Brexit.
Agreed. The Tories will be punished in London. What I find slightly odd though is why - if you think Brexit is a bad idea and if it's what drives your vote - you would vote Labour, given that their leadership is just as much in favour of it as the Tories, albeit for different reasons.
It’s like the people who think that voting for someone promising to kill the banking industry will somehow make it easier for them to buy property in expensive areas.
Not so long ago, the Tory party knew that — no matter how bleak the national picture — there were parts of the capital that would always remain blue. Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth — these boroughs were the jewels in the Conservative crown. Even at the height of Tony Blair’s popularity, the party held on to them. Campaigning in their smarter postcodes was considered almost déclassé.
But this year, the Tories are in the fight of a lifetime to keep hold of every one of the nine councils they control. For many ministers, the working assumption is that the city is about to be painted red. As one cabinet minister puts it: ‘There is only one word to describe the party in London: screwed.’
For an idea of how bad things look, consider the Tory peer and psephologist Robert Hayward’s recent projection that the Conservatives will lose about 100 council seats of their 612, which would be a worse result than in 1994, just a few years before Tony Blair’s first landslide.
That the Prime Minister recently chose to sit down with her nemesis George Osborne, in his role as editor of the Evening Standard, is a tell-tale sign of the depth of her concern.
The extent of the panic among London Conservatives has been so great that they have been considering a drastic step. Over the past year, a series of meetings has been held at venues including Tory HQ. On the agenda was a radical idea: that London’s Tories should formally break away from the national party and become a separate entity with their own brand and leader, like the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson. It would create clear water between them and a national party that, in the words of one insider, is becoming ‘very provincial’ under Theresa May.
If the Conservatives want to know where their problems start in London all they need to do is to look at how levels of home ownership have changed during the last 20 years.
And after that have a look at how levels of student debt have changed in the last twenty years.
Until they have policies which reverse those two trends instead of exacerbating them (as for example George Osborne did) then they will continue to decline in London irrespective of whatever gimmicks they come up with.
I’m not sure what the Tories can do about London without becoming a totally different party.
Home ownership and demographics are poor for them, and getting worse.
The extent of the panic among London Conservatives has been so great that they have been considering a drastic step. Over the past year, a series of meetings has been held at venues including Tory HQ. On the agenda was a radical idea: that London’s Tories should formally break away from the national party and become a separate entity with their own brand and leader, like the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson. It would create clear water between them and a national party that, in the words of one insider, is becoming ‘very provincial’ under Theresa May.
A local party for a city representing less than 10% of the population led by a London MP or mayoral candidate, say Zac Goldsmith?
So basically scammers use Facebook exactly the same way as more legitimate businesses? And advertising on Facebook works? Zuckerman needs some good news.
There may be a different takeaway. If you can profitably sell fake pills through Facebook, selling a Trump or a Brexit is a piece of cake.
Hon how pb’s Leavers laughed when I tried to convey just how alienated London was from the government because of Brexit.
Agreed. The Tories will be punished in London. What I find slightly odd though is why - if you think Brexit is a bad idea and if it's what drives your vote - you would vote Labour, given that their leadership is just as much in favour of it as the Tories, albeit for different reasons.
I'd still expect the Tories to hold 6 or 7 London boroughs, including now, Barnet. Labour will certainly achieve some clean sweeps.
On a unified swing for London, even 54% Labour (which is what the last poll said) would only result in one or two Councils going Blue to Red. The third parties in Havering and Tower Hamlets don't get described very well on that unified swing so it is possible they would revert to Blue and Red as well.
Miss Cyclefree, via Twitter, I've read that Khan and Labour have been sending out leaflets essentially calling on European citizens to punish the Conservatives. No idea if it'll be an effective strategy but it won't exactly help to heal divisions.
Mr. F, interesting. Distribution is, of course vital (as we've seen with UKIP/Green success, or not, at General Elections).
Of course the only reason that the Scottish Tories have 'won' (tr. move from distant second from even more distant third, no sniff of government in Scotland and no visible influence on Westminster policy) is the indy referendum. Maybe London Tories should be pushing for one for London..
Nice story except GDPR is a bureaucratic nightmare that is going to cost us hundreds of millions in additional paperwork for minimal benefit. The abolition of implied consent means that I am no longer entitled to assume that the solicitor who sends me papers has the authority of the person or persons whose private information is in the papers. So I will need to have express authority from the clients in every case to do the work the solicitor is asking me to do, I will need to have a system for keeping the record of that consent, I will have to check that consent to raise an action also covers an appeal, I will need to have policies for the retention of that documentation and I will need to have policies for disposal within "a reasonable period" of the information. All of this to address a completely non existent problem.
Every solicitor already does the vast majority of that. The bar has a problem largely because of its continued insistence that its members have no relationship, contractual or otherwise, with their Instructing Solicitors' clients. That has been a myth for some time.
First they take away my quill, then they tell me not to use Latin in the Courts, and now this. I am involved in the implementation of GDPR for the Scottish bar and it is going to cost a lot of money and time to comply. And where is the benefit from all this paperwork? I really don't see it.
It is the start of proper regulation for the data industry.
Those people who use data to do other things (pretty much everyone else) is on the outer rim.
And as usual with the EU (at least the way the UK interprets it, we are our own worst enemies in this regard) in seeking to regulate one area they cause a bureaucratic nightmare for everyone else boosting costs and reducing our competitiveness. Its certainly not something for @Scott_P to be boasting about.
Not so long ago, the Tory party knew that — no matter how bleak the national picture — there were parts of the capital that would always remain blue. Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth — these boroughs were the jewels in the Conservative crown. Even at the height of Tony Blair’s popularity, the party held on to them. Campaigning in their smarter postcodes was considered almost déclassé.
But this year, the Tories are in the fight of a lifetime to keep hold of every one of the nine councils they control. For many ministers, the working assumption is that the city is about to be painted red. As one cabinet minister puts it: ‘There is only one word to describe the party in London: screwed.’
For an idea of how bad things look, consider the Tory peer and psephologist Robert Hayward’s recent projection that the Conservatives will lose about 100 council seats of their 612, which would be a worse result than in 1994, just a few years before Tony Blair’s first landslide.
That the Prime Minister recently chose to sit down with her nemesis George Osborne, in his role as editor of the Evening Standard, is a tell-tale sign of the depth of her concern.
The extent of the panic among London Conservatives has been so great that they have been considering a drastic step. Over the past year, a series of meetings has been held at venues including Tory HQ. On the agenda was a radical idea: that London’s Tories should formally break away from the national party and become a separate entity with their own brand and leader, like the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson. It would create clear water between them and a national party that, in the words of one insider, is becoming ‘very provincial’ under Theresa May.
If the Conservatives want to know where their problems start in London all they need to do is to look at how levels of home ownership have changed during the last 20 years.
And after that have a look at how levels of student debt have changed in the last twenty years.
Until they have policies which reverse those two trends instead of exacerbating them (as for example George Osborne did) then they will continue to decline in London irrespective of whatever gimmicks they come up with.
I’m not sure what the Tories can do about London without becoming a totally different party.
Home ownership and demographics are poor for them, and getting worse.
A few years of momentum running London councils will do all that is needed to change from red to blue
There is probably a case for so-called Elliot Ness strategies -- using anything from income tax evasion to watching television without a licence to target the gang controllers. It is not 15-year-olds importing drugs or exporting stolen phones. Separately, London could probably learn from the Scottish approach to prevention.
Police Scotland is a disaster zone that exists to make the Met look good. At the moment we don't even have a Chief Constable and we are very likely to have a court case with the last one.
But I agree on the Elliot Ness approach.
David, No-one has noticed that the top team have been missing for last 6 moths or so, shows how much they contributed.
There are other kinds of deaths than violent ones though and Scotland has more than twice as many drug related deaths as the rest of the UK and I am ashamed to say that Dundee has the worst record in Scotland.
This means that Dundee probably has the worst record for drug deaths in Europe. It is a shameful state of affairs and the fault is not all with the police but when you see people openly cooking up heroin in the Murraygate on a Saturday you know that things have gone very far wrong.
Are you in favour of Westminster allowing Glasgow to set up a safe room for drug consumption in Glasgow (& presumably in time Dundee)? The Home Office seems to be behaving more than averagely densely on the subject.
Absolutely. A first, small but necessary step to reduce the carnage.
Nice story except GDPR is a bureaucratic nightmare that is going to cost us hundreds of millions in additional paperwork for minimal benefit. The abolition of implied consent means that I am no longer entitled to assume that the solicitor who sends me papers has the authority of the person or persons whose private information is in the papers. So I will need to have express authority from the clients in every case to do the work the solicitor is asking me to do, I will need to have a system for keeping the record of that consent, I will have to check that consent to raise an action also covers an appeal, I will need to have policies for the retention of that documentation and I will need to have policies for disposal within "a reasonable period" of the information. All of this to address a completely non existent problem.
Every solicitor already does the vast majority of that. The bar has a problem largely because of its continued insistence that its members have no relationship, contractual or otherwise, with their Instructing Solicitors' clients. That has been a myth for some time.
First they take away my quill, then they tell me not to use Latin in the Courts, and now this. I am involved in the implementation of GDPR for the Scottish bar and it is going to cost a lot of money and time to comply. And where is the benefit from all this paperwork? I really don't see it.
It is the start of proper regulation for the data industry.
Those people who use data to do other things (pretty much everyone else) is on the outer rim.
And as usual with the EU (at least the way the UK interprets it, we are our own worst enemies in this regard) in seeking to regulate one area they cause a bureaucratic nightmare for everyone else boosting costs and reducing our competitiveness. Its certainly not something for @Scott_P to be boasting about.
Sounds like their approach to Amazon etc exploiting VAT rules to give them an unfair advantage over small businesses, by coming up with a scheme that hit small businesses the hardest.
Not so long ago, the Tory party knew that — no matter how bleak the national picture — there were parts of the capital that would always remain blue. Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth — these boroughs were the jewels in the Conservative crown. Even at the height of Tony Blair’s popularity, the party held on to them. Campaigning in their smarter postcodes was considered almost déclassé.
But this year, the Tories are in the fight of a lifetime to keep hold of every one of the nine councils they control. For many ministers, the working assumption is that the city is about to be painted red. As one cabinet minister puts it: ‘There is only one word to describe the party in London: screwed.’
For an idea of how bad things look, consider the Tory peer and psephologist Robert Hayward’s recent projection that the Conservatives will lose about 100 council seats of their 612, which would be a worse result than in 1994, just a few years before Tony Blair’s first landslide.
That the Prime Minister recently chose to sit down with her nemesis George Osborne, in his role as editor of the Evening Standard, is a tell-tale sign of the depth of her concern.
The extent of the panic among London Conservatives has been so great that they have been considering a drastic step. Over the past year, a series of meetings has been held at venues including Tory HQ. On the agenda was a radical idea: that London’s Tories should formally break away from the national party and become a separate entity with their own brand and leader, like the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson. It would create clear water between them and a national party that, in the words of one insider, is becoming ‘very provincial’ under Theresa May.
If the Conservatives want to know where their problems start in London all they need to do is to look at how levels of home ownership have changed during the last 20 years.
And after that have a look at how levels of student debt have changed in the last twenty years.
Until they have policies which reverse those two trends instead of exacerbating them (as for example George Osborne did) then they will continue to decline in London irrespective of whatever gimmicks they come up with.
I’m not sure what the Tories can do about London without becoming a totally different party.
Home ownership and demographics are poor for them, and getting worse.
IIRC throughout the western world centre-right parties do poorly in the big cities.
What has kept the Conservatives going in London has been the financial services workers in west-central London and the lower middle class voters around the outer rim.
Falling home ownership and rising student debt is steadily degrading the former and demographic change the latter.
Comments
Yes, central funding for police budgets has been reduced; but the mayor can, if he wish, use some of his £16bn budget to make up the shortfall. But he chooses not to, and then seeks to blame others for his choices. Only in his police area has there been an explosion of gangland killings.
If I were him, I’d have every available armed officer in the capital on foot patrol in the problem areas every night, stopping and searching every known gang member until the problems stop. But my priority would be to stop people being killed, rather than to pass the buck for the problems into another set of politicians.
"Facebook’s targeting algorithm is so powerful, they said, they don’t need to identify suckers themselves—Facebook does it automatically. And they boasted that Russia’s dezinformatsiya agents were using tactics their community had pioneered...
Affiliates once had to guess what kind of person might fall for their unsophisticated cons, targeting ads by age, geography, or interests. Now Facebook does that work for them. The social network tracks who clicks on the ad and who buys the pills, then starts targeting others whom its algorithm thinks are likely to buy. Affiliates describe watching their ad campaigns lose money for a few days as Facebook gathers data through trial and error, then seeing the sales take off exponentially. “They go out and find the morons for me,” I was told by an affiliate who sells deceptively priced skin-care creams with fake endorsements from Chelsea Clinton.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-03-27/ad-scammers-need-suckers-and-facebook-helps-find-them
So you start with a message which can be as fake as you like. Facebook will find someone who will "buy" that message and charge you for it. It turns advertising round. Rather than understanding your audience and tailoring your message to it, you start with the message and tailor your audience to that.
It says the 2.3 GHz spectrum is usable by current mobile phones and will help improve 4G capacity.
It adds that 3.4 GHz is one of the spectrum bands earmarked for 5G, the next generation of mobile technology.
Vodafone paid £378.2m for 50 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum.
EE, which is owned by BT, has paid £302.5m for 40 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum
Hutchison, which controls Three, bid £151.2m for 20 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum
Telefónica, the parent company of O2, won all 40 MHz of 2.3 GHz spectrum available for £205.8m
It also acquired 40 MHz of 3.4 GHz spectrum at a cost of £317.7m
I'd also not hang an article on the word of a scammer.
Moving against gangs needs to be intelligence led, which requires good sources on the ground.
He did not attribute it to police numbers but as a very serious social problem that requires multi agency intervention and concentration on education to provide better life chances.
I do not know much about the problem but it seems a fair analysis but as always, the only thing you will hear is police cuts
https://twitter.com/aedwardslevy/status/981592023881961474?s=20
The story so far
.....they're not dead-the daughter is recovering-and the calling card was so badly printed that there's now serious doubt that they left it.
So two possibilities
It was a botched job or British intelligence got it wrong.
Conclusions
British intelligence have history. They erroneously told the world that Saddam had chemical weapons that they could deploy in 48 hours and they have a Foreign secretary who is a proven liar.
The Russians had no motive for killing these two and if they'd wanted the world to know is it credible they'd have made such a pigs arse of it?
.......I find for the Russians with costs
*) Amazon. Generally well-targeted ads, and on a few occasions has suggested products I didn't know I wanted, but ended up buying. Then again, they've got the easiest job.
*) Google. Occasionally makes mistakes, but often produces relevant hits.
*) Facebook. Poor ad placement, sometimes hilariously.
As for YouTube: again, it has a simple task, and it generally does it well. If I've been watching 'Army of Lovers' videos, then it's likely I might want to watch other videos by them and (say) Erasure.
Russia botched the Litvinenko job. They botched this one. More accurately, they don't care who else gets hurt.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/15/drug-related-deaths-in-scotland-more-than-doubles-in-10-years
https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/dundee-drugs-death-capital-scotland/
This means that Dundee probably has the worst record for drug deaths in Europe. It is a shameful state of affairs and the fault is not all with the police but when you see people openly cooking up heroin in the Murraygate on a Saturday you know that things have gone very far wrong.
The truth is I don't know any more than anyone else. But look at it as a neutral from some far away country (or even as a Russian) and tell me that's not the conclusion you'd come to. Boris is known even here in France to be a bufffoon and a liar. Why can't Mrs May find someone who at least sounds trustworthy?
*) I don't like this government.
*) I like Corbyn and Labour.
*) Corbyn and Labour mucked this up.
*) I think Boris is a buffoon.
And have developed a position accordingly.
I've criticised Boris plenty of times on here, but I think he and May have played this well. Not perfectly, but well. Certainly Boris has got many countries to act in concerted action against Russia.
Many Russians would approve.
We need to either go down the Portugal / Amsterdam route of complete tolerence, or down the Singapore / Dubai route of zero tolerance. In the UK, the former option is probably likeliest to succeed.
1. What is the victim profile?
2. What was the attack methodology?
3. What weapon was involved and who has access?
4. Who are in the suspect pool?
5. Do the suspects have prior form?
6. Did the suspects believe they would enjoy immunity from the consequences?
7. What was the motive?
You do not require Inspector Knacker of the Yard to join the dots?
Roger - Do not allow you animus towards the Conservatives to cloud a disinterested judgement.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/09/a-saudi-princes-quest-to-remake-the-middle-east
The biggest takeaway is that there appears to be a lot going on behind the scenes on Israel and Palestine, with almost everyone realising that the real enemy is Iran and the rest of the region needs to be united against them. Trump’s trip to Riyadh was a lot more significant than was thought at the time.
I am more interested in the technique and how that applies to political campaigning. To be clear, I don't know what messages Vote Leave used in their online campaigns. I wouldn't be surprised if Dominic Cummings doesn't know, and doesn't want to know. He employed Cambridge Analytica's sister company do a job for him. We're entirely dependent on CA acting ethically.
The point is the messages don't need to be official campaign messages or truthful, nor does the call to action have to be to vote Leave in the referendum. A message salient enough to get people to click on it could for example be "Britain's overrun by Muslims. What are we doing about it?" Then you got hit those people about voting Leave to control immigration. Neither the client, nor the electorate at large, nor the electoral authorities need to be any the wiser about how you get the votes.
At no point has Putin phoned May, denied responsibility and offered to help the investigation. Instead, they have resorted to mocking the situation, joked about England being a dangerous place for Russians and used Twitter to troll the investigation.
Russia's response alone shows it was them.
But this year, the Tories are in the fight of a lifetime to keep hold of every one of the nine councils they control. For many ministers, the working assumption is that the city is about to be painted red. As one cabinet minister puts it: ‘There is only one word to describe the party in London: screwed.’
For an idea of how bad things look, consider the Tory peer and psephologist Robert Hayward’s recent projection that the Conservatives will lose about 100 council seats of their 612, which would be a worse result than in 1994, just a few years before Tony Blair’s first landslide.
That the Prime Minister recently chose to sit down with her nemesis George Osborne, in his role as editor of the Evening Standard, is a tell-tale sign of the depth of her concern.
The extent of the panic among London Conservatives has been so great that they have been considering a drastic step. Over the past year, a series of meetings has been held at venues including Tory HQ. On the agenda was a radical idea: that London’s Tories should formally break away from the national party and become a separate entity with their own brand and leader, like the Scottish Tories under Ruth Davidson. It would create clear water between them and a national party that, in the words of one insider, is becoming ‘very provincial’ under Theresa May.
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/981804141768003584
It really does put the current violent crime wave in London into some perspective.
https://order-order.com/2018/04/05/momentum-officer-resigns-felt-unsafe-jewish-member/
To which I'd add:
None on PB who dare offer their opinions regularly for consideration escape unscathed. The vagaries of public discourse, opinion and events will make fools of all of us.
That said we all need to remind ourselves that waddling along the street we see a duck. It walks with the appropriate gait and quacks in an accent not unfamiliar around the Kremlin. I think my old friend it's a Russian duck.
I'm expecting 200+ gains for the LibDems in London if the election is all about Brexit.
And I'm hoping to see the London Independence Party make an appearnace.
Implacable foe, maybe, but “nemesis”?predestines the outcome and the means
Interesting that intelligence has obtained evidence of Russia trialling the nerve agent on door handles and also the intelligence agencies have evidence pointing to the Russian suspects behind the attacks
The security services believe they have pinpointed the location of the covert Russian laboratory that manufactured the nerve agent.
All this has been shared with the Countries supported the UK.
I have plenty of interests, some of which should be very obvious to someone looking at my FB posts and the few groups I am in. There are advertisers in those areas. Yet it never seems to place ads that I, as an intelligent person, would place. Perhaps that's a symptom of the fact I don't use FB as much as many people, or perhaps it is the fact it doesn't actually 'learn;.
I agree it is interesting to see how it applies to political campaigning, which in some ways is 'simpler', especially in our environment with only a few political parties.
But as I said below, they only need to be slightly better that traditional advertising.
Having said that his anti-Jewish politics have already cost him three-ish seats in N London in the election.
And after that have a look at how levels of student debt have changed in the last twenty years.
Until they have policies which reverse those two trends instead of exacerbating them (as for example George Osborne did) then they will continue to decline in London irrespective of whatever gimmicks they come up with.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/20/ruth-davidson-believes-scottish-tories-would-break-away-if-boris/
https://twitter.com/RuthDavidsonMSP/status/981808682718593024
You could succumb to lobbying and increase funding of the Met by 50% and it’d barely put a scratch in these crime figures. The issue is far more one of community policing policy, and failure to develop a proper strategy to tackle a toxic street culture.
Any request for additional funds should only be considered in the context of what extra targeted resources are required to implement that strategy, otherwise it’ll be almost wholly wasted.
Outside London Brexit is popular and Corbyn’s politics isn’t.
Well its a point of view ...
Its all about Brexit apparently except where it isn't.
Maybe we should take the vote away from the place.....
It is exactly the opposite of NYC’s broken window theory approach.
Wasn’t it May who effectively vetoed bill Bratton getting hired for MET job?
Those people who use data to do other things (pretty much everyone else) is on the outer rim.
Home ownership and demographics are poor for them, and getting worse.
Brilliant idea! What could possibly go wrong...
Mr. F, interesting. Distribution is, of course vital (as we've seen with UKIP/Green success, or not, at General Elections).
What has kept the Conservatives going in London has been the financial services workers in west-central London and the lower middle class voters around the outer rim.
Falling home ownership and rising student debt is steadily degrading the former and demographic change the latter.