FlyTheNest

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:ONS says it can't be blamed on the Beast from the East, though that did contribute a bit.

Brian Klaas
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41m41 minutes ago
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“Shocks” tend to be unpredictable. An eventual economic slowdown bordering on contraction in the UK was extremely predictable.

Danny Blanchflower
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@D_Blanchflower
19h19 hours ago
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UK car prodn falls retail sales fall house prices flat down in London nominal wage growth falls from 3.1% to 2.8% to 2.3% last 3 months real wages fall in Feb inflation falling pmis falling gdp growth falling underempt still above pre recession levels perfect time for a rate cut

Only in one area are the founders of New Labour ready to see a direct line of responsibility and blame, and that is in the area that wounds them most deeply: the current plight of the Labour party, a few weeks out from what promises to be a very different general election.

“We have to take some responsibility for the state Labour is in today,” Campbell says. “We can’t say Corbyn happened in a vacuum. We didn’t cement the legacy.” Hyman goes further: “Nothing is more damning than the fact that, 20 years later, Jeremy Corbyn is leading the party and Labour is about to be annihilated.”

Jeremy Corbyn’s strong performance during the election campaign must not disguise the fact that the party lost a contest that was “easily winnable”, a former senior aide to Tony Blair has warned.

Peter Hyman, the former prime minister’s head of strategic communications, said that Corbyn deserved significant credit for an effective campaign and an ability to energise young voters.

Brexit Secretary David Davis has repeatedly claimed that a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic can be avoided using new technology. Just last month, Mr Davis stated that “a whole load of new technology” exists to prevent the need for physical checks and controls at the border.

But in response to a freedom of information request submitted by i, officials at the Department for Exiting the European Union admitted the number of companies it had spoken to about such technology was “nil”.

gilsey wrote: It gets better, in the course of finding that piece online, I found this from after the election
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ion-corbyn" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Jeremy Corbyn’s strong performance during the election campaign must not disguise the fact that the party lost a contest that was “easily winnable”, a former senior aide to Tony Blair has warned.

Peter Hyman, the former prime minister’s head of strategic communications, said that Corbyn deserved significant credit for an effective campaign and an ability to energise young voters.

SNP admits contacting Cambridge Analytica over election campaign
Emails suggest party approached controversial data firm for help fighting 2016 Holyrood elections

The party argued the documentation, which began when the SNP sought out Cambridge Analytica in February 2016, shed light on the firm’s relationship with another company called SCL Elections, which has links to the Conservative party.

It has sent to the documents to the UK information commissioner, who has launched a major investigation into the firm’s operations, because the papers appear to challenge Cambridge Analytica’s claim that it and SCL Elections operated separately.

The SNP said its suspicions began after Cambridge Analytica sent it a non-disclosure agreement from SCL Elections, which the party refused to sign.

One email on 15 February 2016 from a Cambridge Analytica executive, Livia Krisandova, who used an SCL email address, said Cambridge Analytica was the “US operating affiliate of SCL Group”.

Tory donors among investors in Cambridge Analytica parent firm
SCL Group’s shareholders and officers have included two former Tory ministers

Labour election candidate resigns from Portsmouth party after anti-semitism row and says ‘politics is poison’(Portsmouth News)

PorFavor wrote:

Labour election candidate resigns from Portsmouth party after anti-semitism row and says ‘politics is poison’(Portsmouth News)

https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/polit ... -1-8478116

The Conservative Mayor of Wokingham has quit his role following an investigation by the Wokingham Paper which brought to light a slew of ‘Islamaphobic social media posts’ related to racist far-right groups online, including the EDL.

Willow904 wrote:Afternoon all.

I'm picking up some hints on Twitter that there is something to come out re Cambridge Analytica and Labour. Doubtless if there is anything it will hit in time for the local elections. Could be connected to the Labour Leave campaign, perhaps? Could be nothing. The only thing that worries me is that ever since the whole CA/Facebook/Trump campaign stuff came out it's been rattling around in the back of my mind that Momentum were extremely full of themselves over how they were using social media to reach people in new ways. Presumably honestly and innocently using Labour's far superior membership base. Certainly they have been credited as being particularly successful online during the last GE (as in the G article linked below). Any kind of Cambridge Analytica association could rather sour that success, though. Could of course just be a rumour to attempt to spike Labour with no actual substance.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ok-twitter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Amber Rudd’s insistence that she knew nothing of Home Office targets for immigration removals risks unravelling following the leak of a secret internal document prepared for her and other senior ministers.

The six-page memo, passed to the Guardian, says the department has set “a target of achieving 12,800 enforced returns in 2017-18” and boasts that “we have exceeded our target of assisted returns”.

It adds that progress has been made on a “path towards the 10% increased performance on enforced returns, which we promised the home secretary earlier this year”.

adam wrote:

Willow904 wrote:Afternoon all.

I'm picking up some hints on Twitter that there is something to come out re Cambridge Analytica and Labour. Doubtless if there is anything it will hit in time for the local elections. Could be connected to the Labour Leave campaign, perhaps? Could be nothing. The only thing that worries me is that ever since the whole CA/Facebook/Trump campaign stuff came out it's been rattling around in the back of my mind that Momentum were extremely full of themselves over how they were using social media to reach people in new ways. Presumably honestly and innocently using Labour's far superior membership base. Certainly they have been credited as being particularly successful online during the last GE (as in the G article linked below). Any kind of Cambridge Analytica association could rather sour that success, though. Could of course just be a rumour to attempt to spike Labour with no actual substance.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ok-twitter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There were hints a few days ago that there was a london poll coming out that was really bad news for labour. In fact it said that labour were on course for their best london performance in years, allbeit a performance not quite as good as an earlier poll had suggested.

Although it would make sense for other people to be caught up in dodgy data-mining and so on...

“Candidate preferences in 2016 reflected increasing anxiety among high-status groups rather than complaints about past treatment among low-status groups. Both growing domestic racial diversity and globalization contributed to a sense that white Americans are under siege by these engines of change.”

What the authors call “subjective and objective cognitive inflexibility” (but others might call the inability to adapt to changing circumstances) predicted greater nationalism, conservatism, and support for authoritarian policies. On the plus side, people with these sorts of attitudes were also more likely to be conscientious and emotionally stable. The paper concludes that the results of these tests accounted for almost half (47.6 percent) of the variability in support for Brexit.

Michael Crick
Michael Crick
@MichaelLCrick
·
30m
It's three hours since Guardian broke their exclusive story about memo copied in to Amber Rudd about deportation targets. Despite several messages, still no response from Rudd's political team. They're taking a long time to consider her options.

Pound slides as UK growth slows to brink of stagnation - as it happened
Economists fear Britain’s economy is losing momentum as quarterly growth falls to just 0.1%, the weakest since 2012

The pound has hit an eight-week low today
BREAKING: UK growth slows to just 0.1%
Construction slumps, manufacturing is sluggish
GDP-per-head has shrunk!
Government blames the snow
Opposition blames the government
US grew by around 0.6% per quarter
France grew by 0.3%; Spain by 0.7%

https://www.theguardian.com/business/li ... iness-live" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

RogerOThornhill wrote:If she hasn't gone by the time I get back from tonight's gig, I'll be amazed.

To recap:
"There are no targets"
"Oh. There are targets..but I knew nothing about them. I'll get rid of them"
"Oh. Apparently I did know about them"

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:Interesting Twitter slant on Rudd's non-resignation that I can actually believe. Folk are suggesting she wants to resign but May is persuading her to stay.