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  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060
    edited February 2020
    DavidL said:

    Mr. Teacher, gaming can sometimes lead to useful innovations elsewhere. VR's main drive is videogames but the technology can be used in immersion therapy to try and reduce anxiety. Not to mention when I played cassette tape videogames I spent the 30 minute loading time reading a book.

    There are a lot of clues about someone’s age given by their first memory of a computer. 😀
    That's a bit troubling. My first memory is when I was taken into my dad's work at Worthy Down outside Winchester where the payroll for all UK armed forces was done. It had reel to reel tapes and punch cards. It was the size of a gym hall and probably had less computing ability than my phone.

    I'm old :-(
    No “probably” about it: a modern smart phone has not just more computing power than any of the computers from the sixties and seventies, but all of them put together.

    What is truly depressing is the trivial uses to which we put all that power.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    Cyclefree said:

    dodrade said:

    But, it HAS to be a woman!

    That is not a problem. He simply declares that he identifies as a woman. No further steps are needed. Job done.

    RLB and Lisa Nandy can hardly object given the stupid pledges they've adopted on this issue.
    Brilliant.

  • Indeed. Irrespective of the case in hand, it is an exceptionally weak argument to say "the guy was a former XXX and you don't get to that position without being highly competent", whatever XXX is.

    There are abundant people in high positions who are extremely incompetent.

    Starmer seems to me to be pretty average. I don't think he'll be great, but I don't think he will be a disaster.

    I am not sure the temper of the times suits pretty average people.

    And given a choice between former lawyers (Starmer or Long Bailey) and non-lawyers (Nandy), I'd always choose a non-lawyer.

    I think Labour are making a mistake, but they have made worse ones before.

    I think suggesting Long-Bailey is a lawyer of equal standing to Starmer is a little ridiculous. He was the DPP for goodness sake, one of the most senior legal positions in the land. I am not a Labour supporter. As a former Tory who is disgusted at the direction the Tory party has taken I want a good LoTO who can forensically take Johnson and Cummings apart.

    A top level lawyer is exactly what is needed, rather than another lightweight like Nandy (let alone Long Bailey), who has achieved precisely nothing other than being a Labour MP (a fairly low bar)
    Devil's advocate. The case for RLB is that she is the only one of the three candidates with any trace of charisma, who when she starts to speak seems like she might say something interesting. (Even if usually the listener is disappointed.)

    RLB also seems to have given some thought as to why Labour lost, even if she is probably wrong.

    The case for Starmer is the case for Michael Howard after Hague and IDS. He is a serious figure; if a Tory, the papers would say he has bottom. As a barrister, he should be able to dissect Boris at PMQs. Against that, he is an oddly unattractive speaker, though that can be addressed with coaching (à la Thatcher).

    Starmer is running an oddly Boris-like campaign and saying nothing. It worked for Boris.

    RLB? Charisma? She is as much of a lightweight as Jo Swinson!
    You are conflating two different things. Starmer is a serious figure, with bottom. RLB is the more charismatic. Neither has both, which is a shame.
    RLB has no charisma.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,762
    Head girl gets appointment of Scottish Finance Secretary: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51530461

    If things work out sub-optimally for Nicola next month (and her comments at the weekend about how she had learned from the #metoo movement that she had put up with a lot of male behaviour that she should not have were....interesting) she may well be very well placed to take over. A remarkable rise.
  • MattW said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Seems a done deal for Starmer. I do wonder if they'd be better with Nandy. But neither will be as bad as Corbyn.

    That’s really the point. Starmer strikes me as dull and unimaginative but he is intelligent and capable of developing a coherent argument. It’s a massive step forward from where Labour has been since 2015.
    I thought he would be really boring before I went to see him talk in Newcastle and he was actually pretty warm and charismatic...

    Perhaps he’s better in person.
    Maybe but I know a dull lawyer when I see one. On the plus side he is going to have several years to learn the job, refine the team and develop his pitch. Given where Labour is starting from he may need all the time he can get.

    I wish him well. We need an opposition that offers a viable choice. Governments without one become self indulgent and more foolish than usual.

    After five years of constant conflict and confrontation under Cummings/Johnson dull and competent may be looking very appealing. What Nandy or Starmer will do is ensure that Labour provides a strong opposition. We have not had one for a long time and it will come at a time when almost all the talent that exists on the Tory side will be on the backbenches.

    I will be utterly gobsmacked if Cummings is still there in 4 years time.
    If it's true there are health concerns then he will have to go but barring that I expect he will be. I'd expect him to last about as long as Campbell did under Blair.
    Is that the right comparison? From Joe Haines and Bernard Ingham through AC to Coulson, these were largely press or media officers. Cummings is not like them but also is not the same as Mandelson or Hilton because their main influence was in Opposition. Dom is perhaps like Nick and Fiona were for May.
    Of those I think only Campbell had an Order-in-Council specifically to allow him to give directions to Civil Servants.

    I remember a rumpus at the time.
    Yes but wasn't that only so AC could micro-manage departmental press officers by making everything go through Number 10 and its fabled grid? I do not think it extended to policy or operations (although I've not read his diaries).
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,741
    Cyclefree said:

    dodrade said:

    But, it HAS to be a woman!

    That is not a problem. He simply declares that he identifies as a woman. No further steps are needed. Job done.

    RLB and Lisa Nandy can hardly object given the stupid pledges they've adopted on this issue.

    He would be a leader for the Labour party in transition from a man to a woman.
  • DavidL said:

    Mr. Teacher, gaming can sometimes lead to useful innovations elsewhere. VR's main drive is videogames but the technology can be used in immersion therapy to try and reduce anxiety. Not to mention when I played cassette tape videogames I spent the 30 minute loading time reading a book.

    There are a lot of clues about someone’s age given by their first memory of a computer. 😀
    That's a bit troubling. My first memory is when I was taken into my dad's work at Worthy Down outside Winchester where the payroll for all UK armed forces was done. It had reel to reel tapes and punch cards. It was the size of a gym hall and probably had less computing ability than my phone.

    I'm old :-(
    No “probably” about it: a modern smart phone has not just more computing power than any of the computers from the sixties and seventies, but all of them put together.

    What is truly depressing is the trivial uses to which we put all that power.
    My first computer memory is of a school trip to the NCB headquarters in Cannock, to see an enormous computer room with reel to reel tape drives, which supposedly organised the pay for the NCB.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    DavidL said:

    Mr. Teacher, gaming can sometimes lead to useful innovations elsewhere. VR's main drive is videogames but the technology can be used in immersion therapy to try and reduce anxiety. Not to mention when I played cassette tape videogames I spent the 30 minute loading time reading a book.

    There are a lot of clues about someone’s age given by their first memory of a computer. 😀
    That's a bit troubling. My first memory is when I was taken into my dad's work at Worthy Down outside Winchester where the payroll for all UK armed forces was done. It had reel to reel tapes and punch cards. It was the size of a gym hall and probably had less computing ability than my phone.

    I'm old :-(
    No “probably” about it: a modern smart phone has not just more computing power than any of the computers from the sixties and seventies, but all of them put together.

    What is truly depressing is the trivial uses to which we put all that power.
    Indeed. Modern developers also seem to care very little for either memory management or disk space, and of course the youngsters never even knew the time when these things were important!
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,394
    TOPPING said:

    This is not about CON switchers but getting the maximum LAB vote out as well as squeezing the greens and the LDs. I remember much of the commentary after the 1992 General Election when Labour had suffered its fourth defeat and people were saying can the party ever win again. In the month afterwards ththe loonies on the Tory benches made John Major's position intolerable and created an ideal environment for Tony Blair to exploit. Remember the Tories are the party of brexit and Boris was the leader of the campaign. His big gamble is brexit will produce positive outcomes. If it doesn't he and his party are screwed

    Agree (and with @Nigel_Foremain) - but the red wall is critical also and much as people might not have cared about it, for some reason, Brexit has become a point almost of honour. It is, reflecting the 2016 vote, the one thing that people feel they have some sort of control over. They showed this to the bien pensant remainers in 2016 and did so again with GE2019. No reason to think that they won't still be as bloody minded in future. Indeed the worse it gets for them under the Cons, the more they might hang on to that one element of power they hold in their hands.
    Boris recognises the danger of being overly reliant on Brexit. That is why he is going hell for leather on public sector investment in the North even if it means over-turning Treasury orthodoxy. There will be lots of pics of a yellow-jacketed Boris in a hard hat stomping over development sites in the North over the next five years. Rows about it are all the better. I think Starmer, ultimately, may struggle to compete with the sense of momentum. He's not exactly "one of us" when it comes to the average punter in Teesside.
  • Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Banterman said:

    I agree Nick. Relations with the EU are going to be well down the political agenda come 2024 and as a consequence there will be plenty of scope for a Starmer-led Labour Party to re-engage with those who voted Leave nearly a decade earlier. In fact there will be scope even from the outset, because polling shows that the 2017 Labour Leave voters were also the most hostile to Corbyn generally as a leader, regardless of Brexit. Even free movement won't I think become the issue the Tories would like it to be, because any reciprocal arrangements will have to be negotiated bilaterally with individual EU states and that leaves plenty of scope for Labour to reassure voters by committing to be selective.
    By 2024 I doubt immigration will be an issue as the new points system will be in place.

    Also I do not see how UK can do any bilateral deals as the EU always acts as one body
    No, while the UK was part of the EU, it retained control of its immigration policies towards non-EU states. As does France, I believe.
    I may have expressed myself poorly. I meant that free movement between UK and EU member states would be subject to EU requirements but of course there is no restriction on control by the UK and other countries
    I think we may still be at cross purposes. What I mean is that France is at liberty to determine its own migration policies with non-EU states, rather than having to be bound by any blanket EU requirement, so with the UK becoming a non-EU state France will be able to negotiate bilaterally with the UK. I am, admittedly, disregarding any possible limitations imposed by the withdrawal agreement, so if there are some then please correct me.
    Yes, one of the problems of the negotiation is going to be the areas where there is a common EU policy, but outside the EU it's not an EU competence and is left to the member States to regulate themselves.

    Immigration policy is one such area, corporate taxation - specifically, withholding tax - is another, as @rcs1000 points out on a regular basis.

    I maybe wrong, but I am pretty sure that the withdrawal agreement stipulates that the EU27 will operate one policy with regards to UK migration, just as the UK will operate one policy with regards to EU migration.

  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    ydoethur said:

    Cyclefree said:

    dodrade said:

    But, it HAS to be a woman!

    That is not a problem. He simply declares that he identifies as a woman. No further steps are needed. Job done.

    RLB and Lisa Nandy can hardly object given the stupid pledges they've adopted on this issue.

    He would be a leader for the Labour party in transition from a man to a woman.
    Ah, but under self-ID you don’t need to transition or do anything else. You just announce and, hey presto, Labour has its first woman leader.

    And anyone who objects gets expelled, apparently.

    What a joke Labour is.

  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    The BBC are making a documentary about Dominic Cummings, and according to the Daily Mail they are "planning to interview" Colin Perry who says that Cummings assaulted him 20 years ago by grabbing his lapels (further on in the article the reference is to grabbing his collar and tie) and pushing him against a wall. Allegedly that was when Perry had been representing the CBI on the radio, when he accused Cummings of wanting Britain not merely to retain sterling but to withdraw from the EU entirely. Perry's story is that Cummings responded with violence to such an outrageous allegation, describing it as a "lie". Cummings's story is that the men simply stumbled into each other. Both were 27. Bit of a non-story really. But the Daily Mail have really got it in for Cummings. Why?

    No date has been set for the broadcast.

    "Government sources" say Cummings has "discussed" stripping the CBI of its royal charter. Until I read that, I didn't know it had one. Does it matter much?

    The games that are being played at the moment!

    The BBC are making a documentary about Dominic Cummings, and according to the Daily Mail they are "planning to interview" Colin Perry who says that Cummings assaulted him 20 years ago by grabbing his lapels (further on in the article the reference is to grabbing his collar and tie) and pushing him against a wall. Allegedly that was when Perry had been representing the CBI on the radio, when he accused Cummings of wanting Britain not merely to retain sterling but to withdraw from the EU entirely. Perry's story is that Cummings responded with violence to such an outrageous allegation, describing it as a "lie". Cummings's story is that the men simply stumbled into each other. Both were 27. Bit of a non-story really. But the Daily Mail have really got it in for Cummings. Why?

    No date has been set for the broadcast.

    "Government sources" say Cummings has "discussed" stripping the CBI of its royal charter. Until I read that, I didn't know it had one. Does it matter much?

    The games that are being played at the moment!

    Why did Perry not press charges against Cummings?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    No the lack of a majority and Tory divisions did that. Grieve was a more effective leader of the opposition than Starmer or Corbyn in that period.

    The majority being lacking because they lost it to Labour.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080

    MattW said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Seems a done deal for Starmer. I do wonder if they'd be better with Nandy. But neither will be as bad as Corbyn.

    That’s really the point. Starmer strikes me as dull and unimaginative but he is intelligent and capable of developing a coherent argument. It’s a massive step forward from where Labour has been since 2015.
    I thought he would be really boring before I went to see him talk in Newcastle and he was actually pretty warm and charismatic...

    Perhaps he’s better in person.
    Maybe but I know a dull lawyer when I see one. On the plus side he is going to have several years to learn the job, refine the team and develop his pitch. Given where Labour is starting from he may need all the time he can get.

    I wish him well. We need an opposition that offers a viable choice. Governments without one become self indulgent and more foolish than usual.

    After five years of constant conflict and confrontation under Cummings/Johnson dull and competent may be looking very appealing. What Nandy or Starmer will do is ensure that Labour provides a strong opposition. We have not had one for a long time and it will come at a time when almost all the talent that exists on the Tory side will be on the backbenches.

    I will be utterly gobsmacked if Cummings is still there in 4 years time.
    If it's true there are health concerns then he will have to go but barring that I expect he will be. I'd expect him to last about as long as Campbell did under Blair.
    Is that the right comparison? From Joe Haines and Bernard Ingham through AC to Coulson, these were largely press or media officers. Cummings is not like them but also is not the same as Mandelson or Hilton because their main influence was in Opposition. Dom is perhaps like Nick and Fiona were for May.
    Of those I think only Campbell had an Order-in-Council specifically to allow him to give directions to Civil Servants.

    I remember a rumpus at the time.
    Yes but wasn't that only so AC could micro-manage departmental press officers by making everything go through Number 10 and its fabled grid? I do not think it extended to policy or operations (although I've not read his diaries).
    Honestly not sure on that.

    But I don't Bad Al sticking to micromanagement.
  • TOPPING said:

    This is not about CON switchers but getting the maximum LAB vote out as well as squeezing the greens and the LDs. I remember much of the commentary after the 1992 General Election when Labour had suffered its fourth defeat and people were saying can the party ever win again. In the month afterwards ththe loonies on the Tory benches made John Major's position intolerable and created an ideal environment for Tony Blair to exploit. Remember the Tories are the party of brexit and Boris was the leader of the campaign. His big gamble is brexit will produce positive outcomes. If it doesn't he and his party are screwed

    Agree (and with @Nigel_Foremain) - but the red wall is critical also and much as people might not have cared about it, for some reason, Brexit has become a point almost of honour. It is, reflecting the 2016 vote, the one thing that people feel they have some sort of control over. They showed this to the bien pensant remainers in 2016 and did so again with GE2019. No reason to think that they won't still be as bloody minded in future. Indeed the worse it gets for them under the Cons, the more they might hang on to that one element of power they hold in their hands.
    Boris recognises the danger of being overly reliant on Brexit. That is why he is going hell for leather on public sector investment in the North even if it means over-turning Treasury orthodoxy. There will be lots of pics of a yellow-jacketed Boris in a hard hat stomping over development sites in the North over the next five years. Rows about it are all the better. I think Starmer, ultimately, may struggle to compete with the sense of momentum. He's not exactly "one of us" when it comes to the average punter in Teesside.
    Yes, Boris is going to be spaffing money on pointless crap left, right and centre. The man is a spendaholic. We'll be looking back on the 2019 Labour manifesto as a veritable blueprint for austerity. The only question is what will become more eye-wateringly huge first: the borrowing or the tax hikes?
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited February 2020

    TOPPING said:

    This is not about CON switchers but getting the maximum LAB vote out as well as squeezing the greens and the LDs. I remember much of the commentary after the 1992 General Election when Labour had suffered its fourth defeat and people were saying can the party ever win again. In the month afterwards ththe loonies on the Tory benches made John Major's position intolerable and created an ideal environment for Tony Blair to exploit. Remember the Tories are the party of brexit and Boris was the leader of the campaign. His big gamble is brexit will produce positive outcomes. If it doesn't he and his party are screwed

    Agree (and with @Nigel_Foremain) - but the red wall is critical also and much as people might not have cared about it, for some reason, Brexit has become a point almost of honour. It is, reflecting the 2016 vote, the one thing that people feel they have some sort of control over. They showed this to the bien pensant remainers in 2016 and did so again with GE2019. No reason to think that they won't still be as bloody minded in future. Indeed the worse it gets for them under the Cons, the more they might hang on to that one element of power they hold in their hands.
    Boris recognises the danger of being overly reliant on Brexit. That is why he is going hell for leather on public sector investment in the North even if it means over-turning Treasury orthodoxy. There will be lots of pics of a yellow-jacketed Boris in a hard hat stomping over development sites in the North over the next five years. Rows about it are all the better. I think Starmer, ultimately, may struggle to compete with the sense of momentum. He's not exactly "one of us" when it comes to the average punter in Teesside.
    I would agree with that: he looks like a Tory but isn't one, but doesn't look like a grass roots Lab type either.
  • HYUFD said:

    Banterman said:

    Starmer is currently relatively positively received by voters because they don't understand what an ardent lefty he actually is.

    He's the definition of a hypocrite champagne socialist.

    It is Remainers where Starmer polls best, Leavers are not fans
    I suspect that Brexit is going to seem old news (whether good or bad) by 2024 and almost nobody will make their votes depend on what people did in the Brexit wars. There will be mood music about "closer working partnership with the EU" and potentially something about making it easier to travel and work abroad (with its inevitable corollary) but that'll be as far as it goes.

    On the Tory side, they'll have their shiny new trade deals with everyone to boast of. Or not.
    I agree Nick. Relations with the EU are going to be well down the political agenda come 2024 and as a consequence there will be plenty of scope for a Starmer-led Labour Party to re-engage with those who voted Leave nearly a decade earlier. In fact there will be scope even from the outset, because polling shows that the 2017 Labour Leave voters were also the most hostile to Corbyn generally as a leader, regardless of Brexit. Even free movement won't I think become the issue the Tories would like it to be, because any reciprocal arrangements will have to be negotiated bilaterally with individual EU states and that leaves plenty of scope for Labour to reassure voters by committing to be selective.
    Actually I think you're incorrect regarding being selective. If we were to negotiate free movement then I believe we would need to negotiate with the whole of the Schengen countries or none of them. Which is now essentially every nation besides Ireland.

    Under Schengen rules now we couldn't negotiate with just say France but exclude Poland it will be all or none.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571

    Our school has two computers. A BBC and some other thing with a built in green screen.

    Then I went to Uni (in 1985), and we faffed with computers for a couple of hours each week in the first term. I then never touched another computer for the rest of my course. This was an engineering degree. I did borrow my cousin's typewriter to submit one piece of work that had to be typed up rather than hand written. And I did use a calculator for hard sums.

    That second computer sounds like an Apple II to me.
    That didn't have a screen.
    The first Macintosh came out in 84, and cost a lot, so it probably wasn't that either.

    Possibly this Amstrad ?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad#/media/File:Amstrad_PCW512.JPG
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited February 2020
    Sandpit said:

    DavidL said:

    Mr. Teacher, gaming can sometimes lead to useful innovations elsewhere. VR's main drive is videogames but the technology can be used in immersion therapy to try and reduce anxiety. Not to mention when I played cassette tape videogames I spent the 30 minute loading time reading a book.

    There are a lot of clues about someone’s age given by their first memory of a computer. 😀
    That's a bit troubling. My first memory is when I was taken into my dad's work at Worthy Down outside Winchester where the payroll for all UK armed forces was done. It had reel to reel tapes and punch cards. It was the size of a gym hall and probably had less computing ability than my phone.

    I'm old :-(
    No “probably” about it: a modern smart phone has not just more computing power than any of the computers from the sixties and seventies, but all of them put together.

    What is truly depressing is the trivial uses to which we put all that power.
    Indeed. Modern developers also seem to care very little for either memory management or disk space, and of course the youngsters never even knew the time when these things were important!
    What's memory management? ;-)
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    Our school has two computers. A BBC and some other thing with a built in green screen.

    Then I went to Uni (in 1985), and we faffed with computers for a couple of hours each week in the first term. I then never touched another computer for the rest of my course. This was an engineering degree. I did borrow my cousin's typewriter to submit one piece of work that had to be typed up rather than hand written. And I did use a calculator for hard sums.

    That second computer sounds like an Apple II to me.
    Video Genie? IIRC correctly an Apple II screen was a mucky sort of brown.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    HYUFD said:

    Banterman said:

    .
    By 2024 I doubt immigration will be an issue as the new points system will be in place.

    Also I do not see how UK can do any bilateral deals as the EU always acts as one body
    No, while the UK was part of the EU, it retained control of its immigration policies towards non-EU states. As does France, I believe.
    I may have expressed myself poorly. I meant that free movement between UK and EU member states would be subject to EU requirements but of course there is no restriction on control by the UK and other countries
    I think we may still be at cross purposes. What I mean is that France is at liberty to determine its own migration policies with non-EU states, rather than having to be bound by any blanket EU requirement, so with the UK becoming a non-EU state France will be able to negotiate bilaterally with the UK. I am, admittedly, disregarding any possible limitations imposed by the withdrawal agreement, so if there are some then please correct me.
    Yes, one of the problems of the negotiation is going to be the areas where there is a common EU policy, but outside the EU it's not an EU competence and is left to the member States to regulate themselves.

    Immigration policy is one such area, corporate taxation - specifically, withholding tax - is another, as @rcs1000 points out on a regular basis.

    I maybe wrong, but I am pretty sure that the withdrawal agreement stipulates that the EU27 will operate one policy with regards to UK migration, just as the UK will operate one policy with regards to EU migration.

    Ah okay. Given the lack of time to get everything sorted out, it makes things easier for everyone if the EU side are empowered to negotiate in as many areas as possible
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092

    DavidL said:

    Mr. Teacher, gaming can sometimes lead to useful innovations elsewhere. VR's main drive is videogames but the technology can be used in immersion therapy to try and reduce anxiety. Not to mention when I played cassette tape videogames I spent the 30 minute loading time reading a book.

    There are a lot of clues about someone’s age given by their first memory of a computer. 😀
    That's a bit troubling. My first memory is when I was taken into my dad's work at Worthy Down outside Winchester where the payroll for all UK armed forces was done. It had reel to reel tapes and punch cards. It was the size of a gym hall and probably had less computing ability than my phone.

    I'm old :-(
    No “probably” about it: a modern smart phone has not just more computing power than any of the computers from the sixties and seventies, but all of them put together.

    What is truly depressing is the trivial uses to which we put all that power.
    My first computer memory is of a school trip to the NCB headquarters in Cannock, to see an enormous computer room with reel to reel tape drives, which supposedly organised the pay for the NCB.
    There are people in my peer group who would hold punched tape up to the light and read off the machine code instructions. How are we doing in the three Yorkshiremen stakes?
  • isamisam Posts: 40,730
    I think it would be a mistake for people to think of the government since 2010 in similar terms to the Thatcher/Major years and conclude that the public would think it time for a change next time, as many would see the pre and post Brexit administrations as desperate parties I reckon.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,730
    kinabalu said:

    No the lack of a majority and Tory divisions did that. Grieve was a more effective leader of the opposition than Starmer or Corbyn in that period.

    The majority being lacking because they lost it to Labour.
    The lack of credit given to Corbyn for that 40 odd % vote is absolutely extraordinary.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
    Nigelb said:

    Our school has two computers. A BBC and some other thing with a built in green screen.

    Then I went to Uni (in 1985), and we faffed with computers for a couple of hours each week in the first term. I then never touched another computer for the rest of my course. This was an engineering degree. I did borrow my cousin's typewriter to submit one piece of work that had to be typed up rather than hand written. And I did use a calculator for hard sums.

    That second computer sounds like an Apple II to me.
    That didn't have a screen.
    The first Macintosh came out in 84, and cost a lot, so it probably wasn't that either.

    Possibly this Amstrad ?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad#/media/File:Amstrad_PCW512.JPG
    Commodore PET.

  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    The 2019 manifesto said that the Tories has spent the previous three years trashing the country.

    Are you now suggesting that was wrong and they were, in fact, prevented from doing so?

    They were, really, yes. Labour took their majority away and then made their life very difficult. I do need to kibosh this new trope - Labour were a weak opposition - before it takes off. Because once these things do take off they become next to impossible to counter with rational argument.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
    isam said:

    I think it would be a mistake for people to think of the government since 2010 in similar terms to the Thatcher/Major years and conclude that the public would think it time for a change next time, as many would see the pre and post Brexit administrations as desperate parties I reckon.

    Desperate indeed.
  • isam said:

    I think it would be a mistake for people to think of the government since 2010 in similar terms to the Thatcher/Major years and conclude that the public would think it time for a change next time, as many would see the pre and post Brexit administrations as desperate parties I reckon.

    Agreed. The Tory Party is no more. What we have in its place is the Party of Boris. It's been an extraordinary takeover. I don't think we've seen its like before - not even with Blair and New Labour.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,741
    edited February 2020
    justin124 said:

    The BBC are making a documentary about Dominic Cummings, and according to the Daily Mail they are "planning to interview" Colin Perry who says that Cummings assaulted him 20 years ago by grabbing his lapels (further on in the article the reference is to grabbing his collar and tie) and pushing him against a wall. Allegedly that was when Perry had been representing the CBI on the radio, when he accused Cummings of wanting Britain not merely to retain sterling but to withdraw from the EU entirely. Perry's story is that Cummings responded with violence to such an outrageous allegation, describing it as a "lie". Cummings's story is that the men simply stumbled into each other. Both were 27. Bit of a non-story really. But the Daily Mail have really got it in for Cummings. Why?

    No date has been set for the broadcast.

    "Government sources" say Cummings has "discussed" stripping the CBI of its royal charter. Until I read that, I didn't know it had one. Does it matter much?

    The games that are being played at the moment!

    Why did Perry not press charges against Cummings?
    Perhaps he was scared of him? But also, it's hard to see how a 'he said/he said' case like this would have made it to court. At most, I think Cummings would have got a caution and he probably wouldn't have accepted it.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    No the lack of a majority and Tory divisions did that. Grieve was a more effective leader of the opposition than Starmer or Corbyn in that period.

    The majority being lacking because they lost it to Labour.
    The lack of credit given to Corbyn for that 40 odd % vote is absolutely extraordinary.
    95% of the credit for it belongs to Theresa May.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    edited February 2020
    geoffw said:

    Nigelb said:

    Our school has two computers. A BBC and some other thing with a built in green screen.

    Then I went to Uni (in 1985), and we faffed with computers for a couple of hours each week in the first term. I then never touched another computer for the rest of my course. This was an engineering degree. I did borrow my cousin's typewriter to submit one piece of work that had to be typed up rather than hand written. And I did use a calculator for hard sums.

    That second computer sounds like an Apple II to me.
    That didn't have a screen.
    The first Macintosh came out in 84, and cost a lot, so it probably wasn't that either.

    Possibly this Amstrad ?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad#/media/File:Amstrad_PCW512.JPG
    Commodore PET.

    Yes, was forgetting. Before about 1980 Apple computers were Apricots. Bought several to run our home-grown pharmacy labelling system on.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,231
    edited February 2020

    Starmer is a serious figure, with bottom...

    Fnarr, fnarr. You said "bottom"

    :)

  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    geoffw said:

    DavidL said:

    Mr. Teacher, gaming can sometimes lead to useful innovations elsewhere. VR's main drive is videogames but the technology can be used in immersion therapy to try and reduce anxiety. Not to mention when I played cassette tape videogames I spent the 30 minute loading time reading a book.

    There are a lot of clues about someone’s age given by their first memory of a computer. 😀
    That's a bit troubling. My first memory is when I was taken into my dad's work at Worthy Down outside Winchester where the payroll for all UK armed forces was done. It had reel to reel tapes and punch cards. It was the size of a gym hall and probably had less computing ability than my phone.

    I'm old :-(
    No “probably” about it: a modern smart phone has not just more computing power than any of the computers from the sixties and seventies, but all of them put together.

    What is truly depressing is the trivial uses to which we put all that power.
    My first computer memory is of a school trip to the NCB headquarters in Cannock, to see an enormous computer room with reel to reel tape drives, which supposedly organised the pay for the NCB.
    There are people in my peer group who would hold punched tape up to the light and read off the machine code instructions. How are we doing in the three Yorkshiremen stakes?
    When did they first have computers on Yorkshire?
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,231
    edited February 2020

    isam said:

    I think it would be a mistake for people to think of the government since 2010 in similar terms to the Thatcher/Major years and conclude that the public would think it time for a change next time, as many would see the pre and post Brexit administrations as desperate parties I reckon.

    Agreed. The Tory Party is no more. What we have in its place is the Party of Boris. It's been an extraordinary takeover. I don't think we've seen its like before - not even with Blair and New Labour.
    I use the phrase "New Populist Conservatives" for its current incarnation. See also "New Model Army"
  • Cyclefree said:

    ydoethur said:

    Cyclefree said:

    dodrade said:

    But, it HAS to be a woman!

    That is not a problem. He simply declares that he identifies as a woman. No further steps are needed. Job done.

    RLB and Lisa Nandy can hardly object given the stupid pledges they've adopted on this issue.

    He would be a leader for the Labour party in transition from a man to a woman.
    Ah, but under self-ID you don’t need to transition or do anything else. You just announce and, hey presto, Labour has its first woman leader.

    And anyone who objects gets expelled, apparently.

    What a joke Labour is.

    I wonder how the pro-self-identifiers would deal with a (hypothetical) sub-set of people who "self-identify" as a different race (for argument's sake) than the race they were born with.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092

    geoffw said:

    Nigelb said:

    Our school has two computers. A BBC and some other thing with a built in green screen.

    Then I went to Uni (in 1985), and we faffed with computers for a couple of hours each week in the first term. I then never touched another computer for the rest of my course. This was an engineering degree. I did borrow my cousin's typewriter to submit one piece of work that had to be typed up rather than hand written. And I did use a calculator for hard sums.

    That second computer sounds like an Apple II to me.
    That didn't have a screen.
    The first Macintosh came out in 84, and cost a lot, so it probably wasn't that either.

    Possibly this Amstrad ?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad#/media/File:Amstrad_PCW512.JPG
    Commodore PET.

    Yes, was forgetting. Before about 1980 Apple computers were Apricots. Bought several to run our how-grown pharmacy labelling system on.
    You're mixing apples and oranges. Apricots were a British cover version of early Apples.
  • geoffw said:

    isam said:

    I think it would be a mistake for people to think of the government since 2010 in similar terms to the Thatcher/Major years and conclude that the public would think it time for a change next time, as many would see the pre and post Brexit administrations as desperate parties I reckon.

    Desperate indeed.
    I read Isam's word as "disparate" :)
  • HYUFD said:

    Banterman said:

    Starmer is currently relatively positively received by voters because they don't understand what an ardent lefty he actually is.

    He's the definition of a hypocrite champagne socialist.

    It is Remainers where Starmer polls best, Leavers are not fans
    I suspect that Brexit is going to seem old news (whether good or bad) by 2024 and almost nobody will make their votes depend on what people did in the Brexit wars. There will be mood music about "closer working partnership with the EU" and potentially something about making it easier to travel and work abroad (with its inevitable corollary) but that'll be as far as it goes.

    On the Tory side, they'll have their shiny new trade deals with everyone to boast of. Or not.
    I agree Nick. Relations with the EU are going to be well down the political agenda come 2024 and as a consequence there will be plenty of scope for a Starmer-led Labour Party to re-engage with those who voted Leave nearly a decade earlier. In fact there will be scope even from the outset, because polling shows that the 2017 Labour Leave voters were also the most hostile to Corbyn generally as a leader, regardless of Brexit. Even free movement won't I think become the issue the Tories would like it to be, because any reciprocal arrangements will have to be negotiated bilaterally with individual EU states and that leaves plenty of scope for Labour to reassure voters by committing to be selective.
    By 2024 I doubt immigration will be an issue as the new points system will be in place.

    Also I do not see how UK can do any bilateral deals as the EU always acts as one body
    No, while the UK was part of the EU, it retained control of its immigration policies towards non-EU states. As does France, I believe.
    I may have expressed myself poorly. I meant that free movement between UK and EU member states would be subject to EU requirements but of course there is no restriction on control by the UK and other countries
    I think we may still be at cross purposes. What I mean is that France is at liberty to determine its own migration policies with non-EU states, rather than having to be bound by any blanket EU requirement, so with the UK becoming a non-EU state France will be able to negotiate bilaterally with the UK. I am, admittedly, disregarding any possible limitations imposed by the withdrawal agreement, so if there are some then please correct me.
    Agreed
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    DavidL said:

    malcolmg said:

    malcolmg said:

    Sandpit said:

    malcolmg said:

    Sandpit said:

    The Met Office is to spend over £1 billion on a new supercomputer, though for some reason wants to house it abroad. #Brexit
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51504002

    It has to be IBM, doesn't it? Are there any other Western players?

    In the old Met Office in Bracknell, there used to be two Cray Supercomputers, known colloquially as the Cray Twins. I believe the company is now part of HP.
    Was that some time ago , I thought they had IBM HPC system currently.
    Would have been early ‘90s. I lived close by, and a family friend who worked there gave me a tour one evening as a excitable young teenager.
    OK so I am probably correct that they have an IBM HPC power setup nowadays.
    Just checked and it looks like they put new Cray machine in in 2016, assume that replaced the IBM machine.
    Strange they are already talking about replacement.
    https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/what/technology/supercomputer
    Yes that is odd. Have things really moved forward that much in the last 4 years?
    Yes.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,741

    geoffw said:

    isam said:

    I think it would be a mistake for people to think of the government since 2010 in similar terms to the Thatcher/Major years and conclude that the public would think it time for a change next time, as many would see the pre and post Brexit administrations as desperate parties I reckon.

    Desperate indeed.
    I read Isam's word as "disparate" :)
    I prefer 'desperate.' I think that sums matters up well.

    And yet, Labour were still worse.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    Nigelb said:

    Our school has two computers. A BBC and some other thing with a built in green screen.

    Then I went to Uni (in 1985), and we faffed with computers for a couple of hours each week in the first term. I then never touched another computer for the rest of my course. This was an engineering degree. I did borrow my cousin's typewriter to submit one piece of work that had to be typed up rather than hand written. And I did use a calculator for hard sums.

    That second computer sounds like an Apple II to me.
    That didn't have a screen.
    The first Macintosh came out in 84, and cost a lot, so it probably wasn't that either.

    Possibly this Amstrad ?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad#/media/File:Amstrad_PCW512.JPG
    Commodore PET.

    Yes, was forgetting. Before about 1980 Apple computers were Apricots. Bought several to run our how-grown pharmacy labelling system on.
    You're mixing apples and oranges. Apricots were a British cover version of early Apples.
    Ah was that it? The guy who built our labelling system said those were the ones, so we bought them, I was more interested in the practicality of the system and trying to make it saleable to other pharmacy companies. Friend of mine made (and lost, because he went to law) a small fortune doing that.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,393
    This idea of winning by squeezing everyone else left of centre.

    We can squeeze until the voters are all sopranos and we won't win in my patch where Phillip Davies has over 50% of the vote. This is a seat we need to win in 2024.

    We tried squeezing Remainers and abandoning Leavers in 2019. It didn't work.

    Don't forget that in many Northern seats more of our ex-voters jumped to the Brexit Party than to the Tories. They need to go somewhere else next time. It needs to be back to Labour, if we are to stand a chance. We need to have policies that these voters find attractive. Gender-neutral tofu just won't cut it.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092

    geoffw said:

    DavidL said:

    Mr. Teacher, gaming can sometimes lead to useful innovations elsewhere. VR's main drive is videogames but the technology can be used in immersion therapy to try and reduce anxiety. Not to mention when I played cassette tape videogames I spent the 30 minute loading time reading a book.

    There are a lot of clues about someone’s age given by their first memory of a computer. 😀
    That's a bit troubling. My first memory is when I was taken into my dad's work at Worthy Down outside Winchester where the payroll for all UK armed forces was done. It had reel to reel tapes and punch cards. It was the size of a gym hall and probably had less computing ability than my phone.

    I'm old :-(
    No “probably” about it: a modern smart phone has not just more computing power than any of the computers from the sixties and seventies, but all of them put together.

    What is truly depressing is the trivial uses to which we put all that power.
    My first computer memory is of a school trip to the NCB headquarters in Cannock, to see an enormous computer room with reel to reel tape drives, which supposedly organised the pay for the NCB.
    There are people in my peer group who would hold punched tape up to the light and read off the machine code instructions. How are we doing in the three Yorkshiremen stakes?
    When did they first have computers on Yorkshire?
    My wife's first employment in Britain was in the University of York's computer centre. It was fully staffed before any computer was delivered! An Elliott of some description, in 1967.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,231
    justin124 said:

    The BBC are making a documentary about Dominic Cummings, and according to the Daily Mail they are "planning to interview" Colin Perry who says that Cummings assaulted him 20 years ago by grabbing his lapels (further on in the article the reference is to grabbing his collar and tie) and pushing him against a wall. Allegedly that was when Perry had been representing the CBI on the radio, when he accused Cummings of wanting Britain not merely to retain sterling but to withdraw from the EU entirely. Perry's story is that Cummings responded with violence to such an outrageous allegation, describing it as a "lie". Cummings's story is that the men simply stumbled into each other. Both were 27. Bit of a non-story really. But the Daily Mail have really got it in for Cummings. Why?

    No date has been set for the broadcast.

    "Government sources" say Cummings has "discussed" stripping the CBI of its royal charter. Until I read that, I didn't know it had one. Does it matter much?

    The games that are being played at the moment!

    The BBC are making a documentary about Dominic Cummings, and according to the Daily Mail they are "planning to interview" Colin Perry who says that Cummings assaulted him 20 years ago by grabbing his lapels (further on in the article the reference is to grabbing his collar and tie) and pushing him against a wall. Allegedly that was when Perry had been representing the CBI on the radio, when he accused Cummings of wanting Britain not merely to retain sterling but to withdraw from the EU entirely. Perry's story is that Cummings responded with violence to such an outrageous allegation, describing it as a "lie". Cummings's story is that the men simply stumbled into each other. Both were 27. Bit of a non-story really. But the Daily Mail have really got it in for Cummings. Why?

    No date has been set for the broadcast.

    "Government sources" say Cummings has "discussed" stripping the CBI of its royal charter. Until I read that, I didn't know it had one. Does it matter much?

    The games that are being played at the moment!

    Why did Perry not press charges against Cummings?
    Because he was an adult?
  • https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1229325571949289472

    Cabinet vegetables expected to deliver on bread and butter, while the important people work on dismantling the BBC and the judges?
  • nunu2nunu2 Posts: 1,453
    edited February 2020
    This is really sick. Labour are a complete shambles. How anyone can justify this I do not know.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1229127027329990656

    Labour are a dead party.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    This idea of winning by squeezing everyone else left of centre.

    We can squeeze until the voters are all sopranos and we won't win in my patch where Phillip Davies has over 50% of the vote. This is a seat we need to win in 2024.

    We tried squeezing Remainers and abandoning Leavers in 2019. It didn't work.

    Don't forget that in many Northern seats more of our ex-voters jumped to the Brexit Party than to the Tories. They need to go somewhere else next time. It needs to be back to Labour, if we are to stand a chance. We need to have policies that these voters find attractive. Gender-neutral tofu just won't cut it.

    Not overly long since Shiply was a Labour seat. Somebody mentioned Burnley too; not long since that was a LD seat, as was Redcar. Not for long maybe, but they were.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,393
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    This is not about CON switchers but getting the maximum LAB vote out as well as squeezing the greens and the LDs. I remember much of the commentary after the 1992 General Election when Labour had suffered its fourth defeat and people were saying can the party ever win again. In the month afterwards ththe loonies on the Tory benches made John Major's position intolerable and created an ideal environment for Tony Blair to exploit. Remember the Tories are the party of brexit and Boris was the leader of the campaign. His big gamble is brexit will produce positive outcomes. If it doesn't he and his party are screwed

    Agree (and with @Nigel_Foremain) - but the red wall is critical also and much as people might not have cared about it, for some reason, Brexit has become a point almost of honour. It is, reflecting the 2016 vote, the one thing that people feel they have some sort of control over. They showed this to the bien pensant remainers in 2016 and did so again with GE2019. No reason to think that they won't still be as bloody minded in future. Indeed the worse it gets for them under the Cons, the more they might hang on to that one element of power they hold in their hands.
    Boris recognises the danger of being overly reliant on Brexit. That is why he is going hell for leather on public sector investment in the North even if it means over-turning Treasury orthodoxy. There will be lots of pics of a yellow-jacketed Boris in a hard hat stomping over development sites in the North over the next five years. Rows about it are all the better. I think Starmer, ultimately, may struggle to compete with the sense of momentum. He's not exactly "one of us" when it comes to the average punter in Teesside.
    I would agree with that: he looks like a Tory but isn't one, but doesn't look like a grass roots Lab type either.
    I don't know. Our grass roots are in Waitrose these days, rather than a Working Men's Club.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,231
    Possibly those are the people's priorities? Or at least what the party considers to be "the people". Godwin has been pointing out for years that the near-future is socially conservative, financially liberal. And eugenics, neutering the judges and killing the BBC is part of that. Never underestimate the power of a victorious party to fuck people up for fun.

  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,393
    Nigelb said:

    Our school has two computers. A BBC and some other thing with a built in green screen.

    Then I went to Uni (in 1985), and we faffed with computers for a couple of hours each week in the first term. I then never touched another computer for the rest of my course. This was an engineering degree. I did borrow my cousin's typewriter to submit one piece of work that had to be typed up rather than hand written. And I did use a calculator for hard sums.

    That second computer sounds like an Apple II to me.
    That didn't have a screen.
    The first Macintosh came out in 84, and cost a lot, so it probably wasn't that either.

    Possibly this Amstrad ?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad#/media/File:Amstrad_PCW512.JPG
    Definitely not that.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    ydoethur said:

    justin124 said:

    The BBC are making a documentary about Dominic Cummings, and according to the Daily Mail they are "planning to interview" Colin Perry who says that Cummings assaulted him 20 years ago by grabbing his lapels (further on in the article the reference is to grabbing his collar and tie) and pushing him against a wall. Allegedly that was when Perry had been representing the CBI on the radio, when he accused Cummings of wanting Britain not merely to retain sterling but to withdraw from the EU entirely. Perry's story is that Cummings responded with violence to such an outrageous allegation, describing it as a "lie". Cummings's story is that the men simply stumbled into each other. Both were 27. Bit of a non-story really. But the Daily Mail have really got it in for Cummings. Why?

    No date has been set for the broadcast.

    "Government sources" say Cummings has "discussed" stripping the CBI of its royal charter. Until I read that, I didn't know it had one. Does it matter much?

    The games that are being played at the moment!

    Why did Perry not press charges against Cummings?
    Perhaps he was scared of him? But also, it's hard to see how a 'he said/he said' case like this would have made it to court. At most, I think Cummings would have got a caution and he probably wouldn't have accepted it.
    He really needed a witness unless evidence was available from his mobile phone.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,393

    Cyclefree said:

    ydoethur said:

    Cyclefree said:

    dodrade said:

    But, it HAS to be a woman!

    That is not a problem. He simply declares that he identifies as a woman. No further steps are needed. Job done.

    RLB and Lisa Nandy can hardly object given the stupid pledges they've adopted on this issue.

    He would be a leader for the Labour party in transition from a man to a woman.
    Ah, but under self-ID you don’t need to transition or do anything else. You just announce and, hey presto, Labour has its first woman leader.

    And anyone who objects gets expelled, apparently.

    What a joke Labour is.

    I wonder how the pro-self-identifiers would deal with a (hypothetical) sub-set of people who "self-identify" as a different race (for argument's sake) than the race they were born with.
    You say that as a joke, but I received an email advising me how to self identify as BAME in order to vote for some BAME officer role or other in the Labour Party.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    viewcode said:

    justin124 said:

    The BBC are making a documentary about Dominic Cummings, and according to the Daily Mail they are "planning to interview" Colin Perry who says that Cummings assaulted him 20 years ago by grabbing his lapels (further on in the article the reference is to grabbing his collar and tie) and pushing him against a wall. Allegedly that was when Perry had been representing the CBI on the radio, when he accused Cummings of wanting Britain not merely to retain sterling but to withdraw from the EU entirely. Perry's story is that Cummings responded with violence to such an outrageous allegation, describing it as a "lie". Cummings's story is that the men simply stumbled into each other. Both were 27. Bit of a non-story really. But the Daily Mail have really got it in for Cummings. Why?

    No date has been set for the broadcast.

    "Government sources" say Cummings has "discussed" stripping the CBI of its royal charter. Until I read that, I didn't know it had one. Does it matter much?

    The games that are being played at the moment!

    The BBC are making a documentary about Dominic Cummings, and according to the Daily Mail they are "planning to interview" Colin Perry who says that Cummings assaulted him 20 years ago by grabbing his lapels (further on in the article the reference is to grabbing his collar and tie) and pushing him against a wall. Allegedly that was when Perry had been representing the CBI on the radio, when he accused Cummings of wanting Britain not merely to retain sterling but to withdraw from the EU entirely. Perry's story is that Cummings responded with violence to such an outrageous allegation, describing it as a "lie". Cummings's story is that the men simply stumbled into each other. Both were 27. Bit of a non-story really. But the Daily Mail have really got it in for Cummings. Why?

    No date has been set for the broadcast.

    "Government sources" say Cummings has "discussed" stripping the CBI of its royal charter. Until I read that, I didn't know it had one. Does it matter much?

    The games that are being played at the moment!

    Why did Perry not press charges against Cummings?
    Because he was an adult?
    Are adults not permitted to pursue assault charges?
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,394
    DavidL said:

    Head girl gets appointment of Scottish Finance Secretary: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51530461

    If things work out sub-optimally for Nicola next month (and her comments at the weekend about how she had learned from the #metoo movement that she had put up with a lot of male behaviour that she should not have were....interesting) she may well be very well placed to take over. A remarkable rise.

    Yep. Murdo Fraser was tipping her for the top job before this parliament is out a few days ago. Basically Scottish politics is in a holding pattern until we see the outcome of the Salmond trial. Nicola is trying to keep the fundies happy in the meantime by insisting that a 2020 referendum is on the cards, but everyone knows that is bunkum.
    Kate Forbes seems to be universally liked but difficult to imagine someone so young successfully leading a charge to something so profound as Scottish independence. Just not credible, surely.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,231

    Nigelb said:

    Our school has two computers. A BBC and some other thing with a built in green screen.

    Then I went to Uni (in 1985), and we faffed with computers for a couple of hours each week in the first term. I then never touched another computer for the rest of my course. This was an engineering degree. I did borrow my cousin's typewriter to submit one piece of work that had to be typed up rather than hand written. And I did use a calculator for hard sums.

    That second computer sounds like an Apple II to me.
    That didn't have a screen.
    The first Macintosh came out in 84, and cost a lot, so it probably wasn't that either.

    Possibly this Amstrad ?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad#/media/File:Amstrad_PCW512.JPG
    Definitely not that.
    This one?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Educator_64
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,393
    nunu2 said:

    This is really sick. Labour are a complete shambles. How anyone can justify this I do not know.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1229127027329990656

    Labour are a dead party.

    Fecking mental.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    DavidL said:

    Head girl gets appointment of Scottish Finance Secretary: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51530461

    If things work out sub-optimally for Nicola next month (and her comments at the weekend about how she had learned from the #metoo movement that she had put up with a lot of male behaviour that she should not have were....interesting) she may well be very well placed to take over. A remarkable rise.

    Yep. Murdo Fraser was tipping her for the top job before this parliament is out a few days ago. Basically Scottish politics is in a holding pattern until we see the outcome of the Salmond trial. Nicola is trying to keep the fundies happy in the meantime by insisting that a 2020 referendum is on the cards, but everyone knows that is bunkum.
    Kate Forbes seems to be universally liked but difficult to imagine someone so young successfully leading a charge to something so profound as Scottish independence. Just not credible, surely.
    Depends who else throws their hat into the ring when the time comes.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,231
    justin124 said:

    viewcode said:

    justin124 said:

    The BBC are making a documentary about Dominic Cummings, and according to the Daily Mail they are "planning to interview" Colin Perry who says that Cummings assaulted him 20 years ago by grabbing his lapels (further on in the article the reference is to grabbing his collar and tie) and pushing him against a wall. Allegedly that was when Perry had been representing the CBI on the radio, when he accused Cummings of wanting Britain not merely to retain sterling but to withdraw from the EU entirely. Perry's story is that Cummings responded with violence to such an outrageous allegation, describing it as a "lie". Cummings's story is that the men simply stumbled into each other. Both were 27. Bit of a non-story really. But the Daily Mail have really got it in for Cummings. Why?

    No date has been set for the broadcast.

    "Government sources" say Cummings has "discussed" stripping the CBI of its royal charter. Until I read that, I didn't know it had one. Does it matter much?

    The games that are being played at the moment!

    The BBC are making a documentary about Dominic Cummings, and according to the Daily Mail they are "planning to interview" Colin Perry who says that Cummings assaulted him 20 years ago by grabbing his lapels (further on in the article the reference is to grabbing his collar and tie) and pushing him against a wall. Allegedly that was when Perry had been representing the CBI on the radio, when he accused Cummings of wanting Britain not merely to retain sterling but to withdraw from the EU entirely. Perry's story is that Cummings responded with violence to such an outrageous allegation, describing it as a "lie". Cummings's story is that the men simply stumbled into each other. Both were 27. Bit of a non-story really. But the Daily Mail have really got it in for Cummings. Why?

    No date has been set for the broadcast.

    "Government sources" say Cummings has "discussed" stripping the CBI of its royal charter. Until I read that, I didn't know it had one. Does it matter much?

    The games that are being played at the moment!

    Why did Perry not press charges against Cummings?
    Because he was an adult?
    Are adults not permitted to pursue assault charges?
    This might genuinely be a cultural thing. Usually, adults who are grabbed by the lapels and thrust against a wall are enjoined to fight back and would be derided if the police were called.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    viewcode said:

    Nigelb said:

    Our school has two computers. A BBC and some other thing with a built in green screen.

    Then I went to Uni (in 1985), and we faffed with computers for a couple of hours each week in the first term. I then never touched another computer for the rest of my course. This was an engineering degree. I did borrow my cousin's typewriter to submit one piece of work that had to be typed up rather than hand written. And I did use a calculator for hard sums.

    That second computer sounds like an Apple II to me.
    That didn't have a screen.
    The first Macintosh came out in 84, and cost a lot, so it probably wasn't that either.

    Possibly this Amstrad ?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad#/media/File:Amstrad_PCW512.JPG
    Definitely not that.
    This one?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Educator_64
    Commodore PET :-)
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    nunu2 said:

    This is really sick. Labour are a complete shambles. How anyone can justify this I do not know.

    https://twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1229127027329990656

    Labour are a dead party.

    While it’s great sport to watch the woke eat themselves, stuff like this tends to result in people getting hurt. Idiots.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,393
    viewcode said:

    Nigelb said:

    Our school has two computers. A BBC and some other thing with a built in green screen.

    Then I went to Uni (in 1985), and we faffed with computers for a couple of hours each week in the first term. I then never touched another computer for the rest of my course. This was an engineering degree. I did borrow my cousin's typewriter to submit one piece of work that had to be typed up rather than hand written. And I did use a calculator for hard sums.

    That second computer sounds like an Apple II to me.
    That didn't have a screen.
    The first Macintosh came out in 84, and cost a lot, so it probably wasn't that either.

    Possibly this Amstrad ?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad#/media/File:Amstrad_PCW512.JPG
    Definitely not that.
    This one?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Educator_64
    Possibly. Although I seem to remember the screen being smaller. It was 35 years ago!
  • isamisam Posts: 40,730
    geoffw said:

    isam said:

    I think it would be a mistake for people to think of the government since 2010 in similar terms to the Thatcher/Major years and conclude that the public would think it time for a change next time, as many would see the pre and post Brexit administrations as desperate parties I reckon.

    Desperate indeed.
    Oh that was meant to say different, whoops
  • nunu2 said:

    This is really sick. Labour are a complete shambles. How anyone can justify this I do not know.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1229127027329990656

    Labour are a dead party.

    Regardless of that particular issue, I'm puzzled as to why Nandy is often proclaimed as the one 'the Tories fear'. She appears to me wholly unremarkable.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,231
    edited February 2020
    MattW said:

    viewcode said:

    Nigelb said:

    Our school has two computers. A BBC and some other thing with a built in green screen.

    Then I went to Uni (in 1985), and we faffed with computers for a couple of hours each week in the first term. I then never touched another computer for the rest of my course. This was an engineering degree. I did borrow my cousin's typewriter to submit one piece of work that had to be typed up rather than hand written. And I did use a calculator for hard sums.

    That second computer sounds like an Apple II to me.
    That didn't have a screen.
    The first Macintosh came out in 84, and cost a lot, so it probably wasn't that either.

    Possibly this Amstrad ?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad#/media/File:Amstrad_PCW512.JPG
    Definitely not that.
    This one?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Educator_64
    Commodore PET :-)
    That would be probably a better guess. I don't know how much money @SandyRentool 's school had. Given that it had computers in the early 80's, it's probably "lots".

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,555
    kinabalu said:

    Morning all and I beg to differ with Mike's premis. I think from speaking to many of them that a great many Labour members want them to adhere to the 1970s "real Labour" principles and policies" and winning is not the priority. That is why Corbyn had such a fanatical following.

    We want an electable leader to give us a good chance of winning but we do not want to return to timid centrist policies.

    That was the Royal "we" there.
    How many electable yet non-Centrist leaders has Labour produced in the last forty years?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    DavidL said:

    Head girl gets appointment of Scottish Finance Secretary: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51530461

    If things work out sub-optimally for Nicola next month (and her comments at the weekend about how she had learned from the #metoo movement that she had put up with a lot of male behaviour that she should not have were....interesting) she may well be very well placed to take over. A remarkable rise.

    Yep. Murdo Fraser was tipping her for the top job before this parliament is out a few days ago. Basically Scottish politics is in a holding pattern until we see the outcome of the Salmond trial. Nicola is trying to keep the fundies happy in the meantime by insisting that a 2020 referendum is on the cards, but everyone knows that is bunkum.
    Kate Forbes seems to be universally liked but difficult to imagine someone so young successfully leading a charge to something so profound as Scottish independence. Just not credible, surely.
    Joan of Arc?
  • isamisam Posts: 40,730
    nunu2 said:

    This is really sick. Labour are a complete shambles. How anyone can justify this I do not know.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1229127027329990656

    Labour are a dead party.

    If that’s true it is complete and utter filth, and I have lost nearly all respect, and I did have quite a bit, for Nandy
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,394
    eek said:

    DavidL said:

    Head girl gets appointment of Scottish Finance Secretary: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51530461

    If things work out sub-optimally for Nicola next month (and her comments at the weekend about how she had learned from the #metoo movement that she had put up with a lot of male behaviour that she should not have were....interesting) she may well be very well placed to take over. A remarkable rise.

    Yep. Murdo Fraser was tipping her for the top job before this parliament is out a few days ago. Basically Scottish politics is in a holding pattern until we see the outcome of the Salmond trial. Nicola is trying to keep the fundies happy in the meantime by insisting that a 2020 referendum is on the cards, but everyone knows that is bunkum.
    Kate Forbes seems to be universally liked but difficult to imagine someone so young successfully leading a charge to something so profound as Scottish independence. Just not credible, surely.
    Depends who else throws their hat into the ring when the time comes.
    That's the problem for SNP. Most of the credible alternatives (Blackford, Alyn Smith, Joanne Cherry) are stuck down in Westminster or, in the case of Angus Robertson, in neither Parliament. John Swinney is certainly capable but he's been round the ring once already and I'm struggling to think of anyone else although Humza Yousaf probably fancies his chances. I don't.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,231
    edited February 2020
    Fishing said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all and I beg to differ with Mike's premis. I think from speaking to many of them that a great many Labour members want them to adhere to the 1970s "real Labour" principles and policies" and winning is not the priority. That is why Corbyn had such a fanatical following.

    We want an electable leader to give us a good chance of winning but we do not want to return to timid centrist policies.

    That was the Royal "we" there.
    How many electable yet non-Centrist leaders has Labour produced in the last forty years?
    How many electable leaders not called "Blair" has Labour produced in the last forty years? :)

    The last Labour leader not called "Blair" that won a general was Wilson in 74. Forty-six years ago.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    viewcode said:

    justin124 said:

    viewcode said:

    justin124 said:

    The BBC are making a documentary about Dominic Cummings, and according to the Daily Mailst.

    "Government sources" say Cummings has "discussed" stripping the CBI of its royal charter. Until I read that, I didn't know it had one. Does it matter much?

    The games that are being played at the moment!

    The BBC are making a documentary about Dominic Cummings, and according to the Daily Mail they are "planning to interview" Colin Perry who says that Cummings assaulted him 20 years ago by grabbing his lapels (further on in the article the reference is to grabbing his collar and tie) and pushing him against a wall. Allegedly that was when Perry had been representing the CBI on the radio, when he accused Cummings of wanting Britain not merely to retain sterling but to withdraw from the EU entirely. Perry's story is that Cummings responded with violence to such an outrageous allegation, describing it as a "lie". Cummings's story is that the men simply stumbled into each other. Both were 27. Bit of a non-story really. But the Daily Mail have really got it in for Cummings. Why?

    No date has been set for the broadcast.

    "Government sources" say Cummings has "discussed" stripping the CBI of its royal charter. Until I read that, I didn't know it had one. Does it matter much?

    The games that are being played at the moment!

    Why did Perry not press charges against Cummings?
    Because he was an adult?
    Are adults not permitted to pursue assault charges?
    This might genuinely be a cultural thing. Usually, adults who are grabbed by the lapels and thrust against a wall are enjoined to fight back and would be derided if the police were called.
    I am reminded of the 1991 incident when Alastair Campbell floored Michael White of the Guardian . The latter had referred to Robert Maxwell as 'Bob- Bobbing along' after being found floating in the Mediterranean. Had I been White, I would have gone all out to get Campbell the criminal record he so deserved. Had he done so, it might have proved more difficult for Blair to appoint him a few years later.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited February 2020
    viewcode said:

    MattW said:

    viewcode said:

    Nigelb said:

    Our school has two computers. A BBC and some other thing with a built in green screen.

    Then I went to Uni (in 1985), and we faffed with computers for a couple of hours each week in the first term. I then never touched another computer for the rest of my course. This was an engineering degree. I did borrow my cousin's typewriter to submit one piece of work that had to be typed up rather than hand written. And I did use a calculator for hard sums.

    That second computer sounds like an Apple II to me.
    That didn't have a screen.
    The first Macintosh came out in 84, and cost a lot, so it probably wasn't that either.

    Possibly this Amstrad ?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad#/media/File:Amstrad_PCW512.JPG
    Definitely not that.
    This one?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Educator_64
    Commodore PET :-)
    That would be probably a better guess. I don't know how much money @SandyRentool 's school had. Given that it had computers in the early 80's, it's probably "lots".

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET
    Commodore PET was a good one because it had an IEEE488 interface and could easily control other devices.

    I think they also started in 1977.

    Did it not even have lower case letters ?

    But belatedly I recall the screen was white not green .. unless he had an overscreen.

    /nerd
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    isam said:

    nunu2 said:

    This is really sick. Labour are a complete shambles. How anyone can justify this I do not know.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1229127027329990656

    Labour are a dead party.

    If that’s true it is complete and utter filth, and I have lost nearly all respect, and I did have quite a bit, for Nandy
    If his whatsits have been cut off, maybe. It's not perhaps PC, but I'm willing to help to hold him down.
  • geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    DavidL said:

    Mr. Teacher, gaming can sometimes lead to useful innovations elsewhere. VR's main drive is videogames but the technology can be used in immersion therapy to try and reduce anxiety. Not to mention when I played cassette tape videogames I spent the 30 minute loading time reading a book.

    There are a lot of clues about someone’s age given by their first memory of a computer. 😀
    That's a bit troubling. My first memory is when I was taken into my dad's work at Worthy Down outside Winchester where the payroll for all UK armed forces was done. It had reel to reel tapes and punch cards. It was the size of a gym hall and probably had less computing ability than my phone.

    I'm old :-(
    No “probably” about it: a modern smart phone has not just more computing power than any of the computers from the sixties and seventies, but all of them put together.

    What is truly depressing is the trivial uses to which we put all that power.
    My first computer memory is of a school trip to the NCB headquarters in Cannock, to see an enormous computer room with reel to reel tape drives, which supposedly organised the pay for the NCB.
    There are people in my peer group who would hold punched tape up to the light and read off the machine code instructions. How are we doing in the three Yorkshiremen stakes?
    When did they first have computers on Yorkshire?
    My wife's first employment in Britain was in the University of York's computer centre. It was fully staffed before any computer was delivered! An Elliott of some description, in 1967.
    Must have been round about then I went on a programming course from school at
    Loughborough University. English Electric KDF9. A whole 4K of core memory (128 bit words, though). Later, at Liverpool University, there was KDF9 running a terminal access network (COTAN) within that 4K.

    Bah gum.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    Fishing said:

    How many electable yet non-Centrist leaders has Labour produced in the last forty years?

    If electable means elected, none. If it means came close - which I suppose it does mean otherwise why have the word? - then there is probably just the one who stands out. Jeremy Corbyn.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,056

    isam said:

    nunu2 said:

    This is really sick. Labour are a complete shambles. How anyone can justify this I do not know.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1229127027329990656

    Labour are a dead party.

    If that’s true it is complete and utter filth, and I have lost nearly all respect, and I did have quite a bit, for Nandy
    If his whatsits have been cut off, maybe. It's not perhaps PC, but I'm willing to help to hold him down.
    Provided she is in an isolation block, then surely it matters little whether in a male or female prison?
  • isam said:

    nunu2 said:

    This is really sick. Labour are a complete shambles. How anyone can justify this I do not know.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1229127027329990656

    Labour are a dead party.

    If that’s true it is complete and utter filth, and I have lost nearly all respect, and I did have quite a bit, for Nandy
    If his whatsits have been cut off, maybe. It's not perhaps PC, but I'm willing to help to hold him down.
    Perhaps it is also time to think a bit differently? Segregation wings so that someone who self-identifies as female but has not undergone full medical transition can be kept in a male prison but separately from the main population (and v.v. for people going the other way).
  • sarissasarissa Posts: 1,749

    Mr. Teacher, then I'm glad I didn't tell you about my mechanical calculator.

    If you can use log tables, or even worse a slide rule, that really dates you.
    Guilty on all charges, m'lud.....
  • Consumer confidence in Britain has risen to the highest level in more than a decade after Boris Johnson’s decisive election victory, according to a survey.

    In the latest signal of a bounce for the economy since the start of the year, a poll by IHS Markit showed households’ optimism over their finances and the economy increased in February to the highest point since the survey records began 11 years ago.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/17/uk-consumer-confidence-highest-level-2009

  • Possibly. Although I seem to remember the screen being smaller. It was 35 years ago!

    The ResearchMachines 380Z was popular at the time

    image
  • sarissa said:

    Mr. Teacher, then I'm glad I didn't tell you about my mechanical calculator.

    If you can use log tables, or even worse a slide rule, that really dates you.
    Guilty on all charges, m'lud.....
    Likewise
  • isam said:

    nunu2 said:

    This is really sick. Labour are a complete shambles. How anyone can justify this I do not know.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1229127027329990656

    Labour are a dead party.

    If that’s true it is complete and utter filth, and I have lost nearly all respect, and I did have quite a bit, for Nandy
    If his whatsits have been cut off, maybe. It's not perhaps PC, but I'm willing to help to hold him down.
    Perhaps it is also time to think a bit differently? Segregation wings so that someone who self-identifies as female but has not undergone full medical transition can be kept in a male prison but separately from the main population (and v.v. for people going the other way).
    In an ideal world where resources are unlimited, perhaps. But in this one, where we need to be looking at how much things cost? How do you justify that spend?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    edited February 2020

    Deleted.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited February 2020
    kinabalu said:

    Fishing said:

    How many electable yet non-Centrist leaders has Labour produced in the last forty years?

    If electable means elected, none. If it means came close - which I suppose it does mean otherwise why have the word? - then there is probably just the one who stands out. Jeremy Corbyn.
    It's such a shame that he must stand down. One more push and I sincerely believe he will get Lab over the line. Surely the Jeremy Must Stay campaign starts here. Prop: @kinabalu.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,394

    DavidL said:

    Head girl gets appointment of Scottish Finance Secretary: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-51530461

    If things work out sub-optimally for Nicola next month (and her comments at the weekend about how she had learned from the #metoo movement that she had put up with a lot of male behaviour that she should not have were....interesting) she may well be very well placed to take over. A remarkable rise.

    Yep. Murdo Fraser was tipping her for the top job before this parliament is out a few days ago. Basically Scottish politics is in a holding pattern until we see the outcome of the Salmond trial. Nicola is trying to keep the fundies happy in the meantime by insisting that a 2020 referendum is on the cards, but everyone knows that is bunkum.
    Kate Forbes seems to be universally liked but difficult to imagine someone so young successfully leading a charge to something so profound as Scottish independence. Just not credible, surely.
    Joan of Arc?
    LOL. Didn't work out too well for St Joan though...
  • To add something to the Trans rights debate: for which political party did the UK’s first trans MEP stand?
  • northern_monkeynorthern_monkey Posts: 1,493
    edited February 2020
    viewcode said:

    Possibly those are the people's priorities? Or at least what the party considers to be "the people". Godwin has been pointing out for years that the near-future is socially conservative, financially liberal. And eugenics, neutering the judges and killing the BBC is part of that. Never underestimate the power of a victorious party to fuck people up for fun.

    At the risk of getting folk on here really angry - and I'm really not trying to - the current government's policies are not a million miles away from a kind of National Socialism. I'm currently reading volume 1 of Volker Ullrich's biography of Hitler. (Much more enjoyable than Kershaw's, by the way, profits from having access to sources that presumably remain untranslated from German that non-German speakers rarely, if ever, access.)

    I am not trying to argue that Boris et al are fascists. Not yet, anyway (joke). I mean that like the aim of the NSDAP, the government is trying to keep the right-leaning, traditional Tory, voter base happy - Brexit, nationalism - whilst hoovering up people who are socialists economically - fans of high public spending, NHS - but also socially conservative. Which they have done with Brexit - the 'fewer foreigners, send 'em back' tendency who are legion in my neck of the woods - and will now hose the north with money, or so we are told.

    Some of the rhetoric is the same - the trumpeting of the 'People', for example.

    I am honestly not trying to raise blood pressure and get people arguing with me here. I am trying to dispassionately make the point that, like in 1930s Germany, the politicians in charge are trying (and successfully in the UK at the mo) to appeal to two very different bases.

    I don't think we're going to see fascism in the UK. What I am saying is it is fascinating that Boris is attempting to build enduring support from the traditionally opposing political wings. It will be interesting to see how successful it it as time passes.

    edited to remove a grocer's apostrophe...
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited February 2020
    Fishing said:

    kinabalu said:

    Morning all and I beg to differ with Mike's premis. I think from speaking to many of them that a great many Labour members want them to adhere to the 1970s "real Labour" principles and policies" and winning is not the priority. That is why Corbyn had such a fanatical following.

    We want an electable leader to give us a good chance of winning but we do not want to return to timid centrist policies.

    That was the Royal "we" there.
    How many electable yet non-Centrist leaders has Labour produced in the last forty years?
    Mind you the only non-centrist Tory leader who won during that time was Thatcher (Boris is a centrist bar Brexit).

    Starmer is also the centrist candidate in this race compared to Long Bailey
  • sarissa said:

    Mr. Teacher, then I'm glad I didn't tell you about my mechanical calculator.

    If you can use log tables, or even worse a slide rule, that really dates you.
    Guilty on all charges, m'lud.....
    Likewise
    I used log tables at school, but electronic calculators had come in by the time I did my O-levels. They were still listed as allowed on the ruberic on the front of the paper though.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    btw having lost (ie not won) a few days in Mystique courtesy of Emily Thornberry I still think that she was the best leader Lab won't elect. Human, if flawed but who isn't, and miles better than the assorted Muppets now in the race.

    She would have been a real heavyweight to counter BoJo.

    Turn the machines back on!!
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited February 2020

    This idea of winning by squeezing everyone else left of centre.

    We can squeeze until the voters are all sopranos and we won't win in my patch where Phillip Davies has over 50% of the vote. This is a seat we need to win in 2024.

    We tried squeezing Remainers and abandoning Leavers in 2019. It didn't work.

    Don't forget that in many Northern seats more of our ex-voters jumped to the Brexit Party than to the Tories. They need to go somewhere else next time. It needs to be back to Labour, if we are to stand a chance. We need to have policies that these voters find attractive. Gender-neutral tofu just won't cut it.

    Labour might scrape a majority with the LDs if it wins seats like Chingford and Watford and Hendon and Wycombe which voted Remain or are soft Leave and if the LDs pick up Remain Tory seats like Esher and Walton and Cheltenham but yes for a majority Labour needs to gain seats like Scunthorpe and Shipley and West Bromwich
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    Foxy said:

    isam said:

    nunu2 said:

    This is really sick. Labour are a complete shambles. How anyone can justify this I do not know.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1229127027329990656

    Labour are a dead party.

    If that’s true it is complete and utter filth, and I have lost nearly all respect, and I did have quite a bit, for Nandy
    If his whatsits have been cut off, maybe. It's not perhaps PC, but I'm willing to help to hold him down.
    Provided she is in an isolation block, then surely it matters little whether in a male or female prison?
    I agree. I get very frustrated re the gender issue. People should be segregated according to their circumstances not their sex. Eg violent criminals in high security, sex offenders for their own protection, drug dependent inmates away from pushers and getting treatment, low risk criminals in open prisons, etc. In all probability that means separating the sexes, but because of circumstances, not because of their sex. This means regardless of their disputed sex this person will not be mixing with anyone whom he/she may cause harm or be harmed by.

    On that subject I can see no reason why open prisons can not be mixed sex.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    Foxy said:

    Provided she is in an isolation block, then surely it matters little whether in a male or female prison?

    Just in case people are getting the wrong end of the stick here. My understanding is that this is not an actual decision being contemplated. The individual being referenced has served their sentence (in juvenile detention) for the crime committed, was released a while ago and is not facing further jail time.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited February 2020

    HYUFD said:

    Banterman said:

    Starmer is currently relatively positively received by voters because they don't understand what an ardent lefty he actually is.

    He's the definition of a hypocrite champagne socialist.

    It is Remainers where Starmer polls best, Leavers are not fans
    I suspect that Brexit is going to seem old news (whether good or bad) by 2024 and almost nobody will make their votes depend on what people did in the Brexit wars. There will be mood music about "closer working partnership with the EU" and potentially something about making it easier to travel and work abroad (with its inevitable corollary) but that'll be as far as it goes.

    On the Tory side, they'll have their shiny new trade deals with everyone to boast of. Or not.
    I agree Nick. Relations with the EU are going to be well down the political agenda come 2024 and as a consequence there will be plenty of scope for a Starmer-led Labour Party to re-engage with those who voted Leave nearly a decade earlier. In fact there will be scope even from the outset, because polling shows that the 2017 Labour Leave voters were also the most hostile to Corbyn generally as a leader, regardless of Brexit. Even free movement won't I think become the issue the Tories would like it to be, because any reciprocal arrangements will have to be negotiated bilaterally with individual EU states and that leaves plenty of scope for Labour to reassure voters by committing to be selective.
    Actually I think you're incorrect regarding being selective. If we were to negotiate free movement then I believe we would need to negotiate with the whole of the Schengen countries or none of them. Which is now essentially every nation besides Ireland.

    Under Schengen rules now we couldn't negotiate with just say France but exclude Poland it will be all or none.
    Yes, Starmer will take us back into the single market which means free movement again
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,762

    Consumer confidence in Britain has risen to the highest level in more than a decade after Boris Johnson’s decisive election victory, according to a survey.

    In the latest signal of a bounce for the economy since the start of the year, a poll by IHS Markit showed households’ optimism over their finances and the economy increased in February to the highest point since the survey records began 11 years ago.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/17/uk-consumer-confidence-highest-level-2009

    The Guardian are, somewhat curiously, turning into a bit of an economic cheer leader for this government. Surely won't last.
  • HYUFD said:

    This idea of winning by squeezing everyone else left of centre.

    We can squeeze until the voters are all sopranos and we won't win in my patch where Phillip Davies has over 50% of the vote. This is a seat we need to win in 2024.

    We tried squeezing Remainers and abandoning Leavers in 2019. It didn't work.

    Don't forget that in many Northern seats more of our ex-voters jumped to the Brexit Party than to the Tories. They need to go somewhere else next time. It needs to be back to Labour, if we are to stand a chance. We need to have policies that these voters find attractive. Gender-neutral tofu just won't cut it.

    Labour might scrape a majority with the LDs if it wins seats like Chingford and Watford and Hendon and Wycombe which voted Remain or are soft Leave and if the LDs pick up Remain Tory seats like Esher and Walton and Cheltenham but yes for a majority Labour needs to gain seats like Scunthorpe and Shipley and West Bromwich
    The Tory majority in Wycombe in 2019 was about the same as it was in 1997.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Banterman said:

    Starmer is currently relatively positively received by voters because they don't understand what an ardent lefty he actually is.

    He's the definition of a hypocrite champagne socialist.

    It is Remainers where Starmer polls best, Leavers are not fans
    I suspect that Brexit is going to seem old news (whether good or bad) by 2024 and almost nobody will make their votes depend on what people did in the Brexit wars. There will be mood music about "closer working partnership with the EU" and potentially something about making it easier to travel and work abroad (with its inevitable corollary) but that'll be as far as it goes.

    On the Tory side, they'll have their shiny new trade deals with everyone to boast of. Or not.
    I agree Nick. Relations with the EU are going to be well down the political agenda come 2024 and as a consequence there will be plenty of scope for a Starmer-led Labour Party to re-engage with those who voted Leave nearly a decade earlier. In fact there will be scope even from the outset, because polling shows that the 2017 Labour Leave voters were also the most hostile to Corbyn generally as a leader, regardless of Brexit. Even free movement won't I think become the issue the Tories would like it to be, because any reciprocal arrangements will have to be negotiated bilaterally with individual EU states and that leaves plenty of scope for Labour to reassure voters by committing to be selective.
    Actually I think you're incorrect regarding being selective. If we were to negotiate free movement then I believe we would need to negotiate with the whole of the Schengen countries or none of them. Which is now essentially every nation besides Ireland.

    Under Schengen rules now we couldn't negotiate with just say France but exclude Poland it will be all or none.
    Yes, Starmer will take us back into the single market which means free movement again
    A cause for your rejoicing of course.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709


    Indeed. Irrespective of the case in hand, it is an exceptionally weak argument to say "the guy was a former XXX and you don't get to that position without being highly competent", whatever XXX is.

    There are abundant people in high positions who are extremely incompetent.

    Starmer seems to me to be pretty average. I don't think he'll be great, but I don't think he will be a disaster.

    I am not sure the temper of the times suits pretty average people.

    And given a choice between former lawyers (Starmer or Long Bailey) and non-lawyers (Nandy), I'd always choose a non-lawyer.

    I think Labour are making a mistake, but they have made worse ones before.

    I think suggesting Long-Bailey is a lawyer of equal standing to Starmer is a little ridiculous. He was the DPP for goodness sake, one of the most senior legal positions in the land. I am not a Labour supporter. As a former Tory who is disgusted at the direction the Tory party has taken I want a good LoTO who can forensically take Johnson and Cummings apart.

    A top level lawyer is exactly what is needed, rather than another lightweight like Nandy (let alone Long Bailey), who has achieved precisely nothing other than being a Labour MP (a fairly low bar)
    Devil's advocate. The case for RLB is that she is the only one of the three candidates with any trace of charisma, who when she starts to speak seems like she might say something interesting. (Even if usually the listener is disappointed.)

    RLB also seems to have given some thought as to why Labour lost, even if she is probably wrong.

    The case for Starmer is the case for Michael Howard after Hague and IDS. He is a serious figure; if a Tory, the papers would say he has bottom. As a barrister, he should be able to dissect Boris at PMQs. Against that, he is an oddly unattractive speaker, though that can be addressed with coaching (à la Thatcher).

    Starmer is running an oddly Boris-like campaign and saying nothing. It worked for Boris.

    RLB? Charisma? She is as much of a lightweight as Jo Swinson!
    You are conflating two different things. Starmer is a serious figure, with bottom. RLB is the more charismatic. Neither has both, which is a shame.
    RLB is not charismatic either, the only candidates with charisma were Phillips and Thornberry
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
    I see Maurice Peston's boy Robert is arguing that the Borisocracy is turning into a form of hedge-fund management.
    https://www.itv.com/news/2020-02-17/robert-peston-boris-johnson-s-hedge-fund-government/
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited February 2020

    HYUFD said:

    This idea of winning by squeezing everyone else left of centre.

    We can squeeze until the voters are all sopranos and we won't win in my patch where Phillip Davies has over 50% of the vote. This is a seat we need to win in 2024.

    We tried squeezing Remainers and abandoning Leavers in 2019. It didn't work.

    Don't forget that in many Northern seats more of our ex-voters jumped to the Brexit Party than to the Tories. They need to go somewhere else next time. It needs to be back to Labour, if we are to stand a chance. We need to have policies that these voters find attractive. Gender-neutral tofu just won't cut it.

    Labour might scrape a majority with the LDs if it wins seats like Chingford and Watford and Hendon and Wycombe which voted Remain or are soft Leave and if the LDs pick up Remain Tory seats like Esher and Walton and Cheltenham but yes for a majority Labour needs to gain seats like Scunthorpe and Shipley and West Bromwich
    The Tory majority in Wycombe in 2019 was about the same as it was in 1997.
    Except Wycombe is now 43rd on the Labour target list, easier to gain than Sedgefield and Grimsby
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    kjh said:

    Foxy said:

    isam said:

    nunu2 said:

    This is really sick. Labour are a complete shambles. How anyone can justify this I do not know.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1229127027329990656

    Labour are a dead party.

    If that’s true it is complete and utter filth, and I have lost nearly all respect, and I did have quite a bit, for Nandy
    If his whatsits have been cut off, maybe. It's not perhaps PC, but I'm willing to help to hold him down.
    Provided she is in an isolation block, then surely it matters little whether in a male or female prison?
    I agree. I get very frustrated re the gender issue. People should be segregated according to their circumstances not their sex. Eg violent criminals in high security, sex offenders for their own protection, drug dependent inmates away from pushers and getting treatment, low risk criminals in open prisons, etc. In all probability that means separating the sexes, but because of circumstances, not because of their sex. This means regardless of their disputed sex this person will not be mixing with anyone whom he/she may cause harm or be harmed by.

    On that subject I can see no reason why open prisons can not be mixed sex.
    And I have the same issue re sex on other topics eg marriage. This whole business of civil partnerships, same sex marriage etc, to try and overcome historic bigotry is nonsense.

    Marriage should be independent of the state. If you want to make a commitment to someone in a church or a civil service that is fine but the state should not be involved. If a church wants to limit it to same sex that is fine, just don't join in if you are not happy with bigots. Similarly if I want marry a rabbit and someone is will perform a ceremony that is also fine. Nobody else's business (unless there is subsequent cruelty involved!)

    Unfortunately this does screw up a lot of laws.
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