Wednesday 16th December 2020

[refitman]

Morning all.

[citizenJA]

Good morning, everyone!

[gilsey]

Good morning.

This was entirely predictable.

Outcry from MPs leads government into U-turn on ‘mutant algorithm’ for building in south-east

I couldn't understand why they'd proposed something that would obviously have rural tories up in arms. Idiots.

[AnatolyKasparov]

I know he has other stuff on his plate right now, but didn't our PM once promise to lie down in front of the bulldozers if the third runway at Heathrow ever got started?

[gilsey]

As someone just pointed out on twitter, going ahead with Heathrow and cancelling NE branch of HS2 wouldn't look good for levelling-up.

[RogerOThornhill]

Afternoon. Hope everyone is well.

Braverman did not have a good day in court last month and went against her legal advisers in presenting the case herself even though she wasn't a criminal barrister.

So guess what happened?

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The Secret Barrister
@BarristerSecret
Replying to
@BarristerSecret
The Court of Appeal turns to the Attorney General’s legal argument.

These are words that you don’t want to hear from a judge.

“Striking.” “Unusual.”

“Regrettable” that a key point - the structure and ambit of the relevant Sentencing Guideline - was “not addressed”.

Oops.

[gilsey]

Sparrow's PMQ's verdict is quite good, reflecting on Johnson's continuing popularity despite the virus shitshow, worth reading.

In Democracy for Realists, one of the best studies of this subject, Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels conclude:

The primary implication of our analyses of retrospective voting is that election outcomes are mostly just erratic reflections of the current balance of partisan loyalties in a given political system ... Elections are capricious collective decisions based on considerations that ought, from the viewpoint of the folk theory [the idea that elections are about rewarding performance], to be largely irrelevant.

[gilsey]

The most interesting graph I saw during the US campaign, showed Trump's popularity against each of the last 5-6 Presidents.
The swings in the approval ratings are huge, except for Trump, whose rating moved in a small range around 40%.

Here's the same thing from 538.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/tr ... l-ratings/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Whatever the explanation for that is*, would probably apply to the tories here.


* changes in media ownership?

[AnatolyKasparov]

Though the US media isn't as bad as ours in terms of overt partisan bias at least, and Trump still had over 40% willing to back him almost no matter what.

One thing is that this is age related (more so here than in the States, though even there relatively few young voters support the GOP)

[gilsey]

It's the difference between Trump and previous incumbents that I find interesting.

There's always been old people.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Yes, but the present stark age differentials in voting are a very recent thing.

[RogerOThornhill]

In the latest in the series of Shocked Etc...

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Warwick Mansell
@warwickmansell
New: fact-checking Rachel de Souza. https://educationuncovered.co.uk/analys ... ouza.thtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; The government’s pick for Children’s Commissioner appears to have made two out-and-out false statements to MPs yesterday, with a third one seemingly at odds with a news report.
9:21 AM · Dec 16, 2020·Twitter Web App

As someone said, she'll fit right in...

[AnatolyKasparov]

And the year finishes with what may have been Starmer's best performance yet at PMQs - and one of Johnson's very worst.

I know it doesn't actually alter that much, but its still better than the alternative

[RogerOThornhill]

Here's Joshua Rozenberg's take on the Braverman debacle.

https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/an-unusual-submission" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Where does all this leave Braverman now? A spokesman for the attorney general said after the ruling that she believed the sentences should be increased, but “respects the decision of the Court of Appeal”.

That’s very generous of her, given how little respect the Court of Appeal has shown for the decision of the attorney general.

Ouch.

[RogerOThornhill]

Oh.

Exclusive: DfE considering delay to start of next term

https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-dfe- ... -next-term" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The government is considering delaying the start of next term in the New Year, Tes understands.

The Department for Education is expected to make an announcement about the later start tomorrow, according to sources close to the DfE.

It comes after the government ordered mass testing of secondary school age pupils in Covid hotspots in the South East and has been involved in ongoing controversy about whether schools move to online learning in the last week of this term.

[citizenJA]

Goodnight, everyone.
love,
cJA

[RogerOThornhill]

Ho ho...all I did was to remind him about the PM's previous position on the runway, and then look.

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[Sky'sGoneOut]

I can't help but note certain similarities between Suella Braverman's comedy legal antics documented by Roger above and those of a certain Mr Giuliani. Trying to use 'public opinion' as a legal cudgel has been the modus operandi of despots and totalitarian ne'er do wells for 2500 years, and in times like this when everything's a bit shit we can at least take some solace in the fact we have judges, both here and in the U.S, who will laugh it out of court.

Of course when you have an Attorney General attempting to subvert the legal system it does help that when she fell out of the stupid tree she hit every branch on the way down.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Inspired by Johnson here's Judy Garland and a weird kid.

(I've never seen Meet Me in St. Louis so have no idea what the kid's problem is).

[youtube]MKG5X0QMSWA[/youtube]

[PorFavor]

Thanks to Boris Johnson I've also got bloody Celine Dion's bloody "Think Twice" stuck in my head. Playing the above link has at least alleviated it.

[PorFavor]

And to anyone who's thinking of doing it - please don't.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Ho ho...all I did was to remind him about the PM's previous position on the runway, and then look.

Look indeed.

https://twitter.com/rodbishop15/status/ ... 89/photo/1

If there's one thing I hate it's shoes with those stupid tassles on them.

[RogerOThornhill]

Inspired by Johnson here's Judy Garland and a weird kid.

(I've never seen Meet Me in St. Louis so have no idea what the kid's problem is).

[youtube]MKG5X0QMSWA[/youtube]

Christmas Eve
BBC 2
1.25pm

Great film & well worth watching.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Thanks to Boris Johnson I've also got bloody Celine Dion's bloody "Think Twice" stuck in my head.

Being suggestible I couldn't help but investigate. I managed to endure 24 seconds.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Great film & well worth watching.

The weird kid and inclusion of songs concern me.

There's only one good musical that's ever been made and it's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

So we'll get the tier reviews tomorrow. It was supposed to be today but hey no sweat, it's not like people's lives or businesses are being affected or anything.

Here in Leeds we've got the infection rate down to below the national average but the mood music the government are putting out is that no region is going to have its tier reduced, but some are going to be raised. Which should be interesting as a quick check of the Covid map reveals swathes of the South East not yet in tier 3 with infection rates substantially higher than here. Sussex is looking bad, Hastings in particular and Portsmouth is looking rather iffy.

But you never know, with Hancock joking in Parliament about seeing what's in Santa's bag we might all get a pair of socks.

[PorFavor]

"I've Never Been to Three" - or is it "I've Never Been to Me"? Anyway, Celine Dion's got competition.

[youtube]SZgIk2b68gQ[/youtube]

Apologies, but I refuse to suffer alone.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Yeah that's awful, an affront to anyone who's ever been involved in the musical process and there's no way I just wafted my hands around in the air to it and secretly enjoyed the experience.

[PorFavor]

No-one could enjoy that. Could they?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

You have no idea what depths of depravity I'm capable of enjoying.

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[Sky'sGoneOut]

[youtube]26cPPigb61k[/youtube]

[PorFavor]

I was just about to listen again to the sound of rotting fruit. I'll listen to Broadcast instead.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

The sound of rotting fruit was inappropriate.

If you wish to make a complaint all our operators are currently unavailable.

[PorFavor]

The sound of rotting fruit was inappropriate.

If you wish to make a complaint all our operators are currently unavailable.

Ha! No, that wasn't actually a complaint - just what the thing conjured up to me what with the flies and all (and an absence of any measure of fluency in German on my part).

[Sky'sGoneOut]

I see, so the picture of rotting fruit had no effect on you whatsoever?

[PorFavor]

It didn't look rotting already. Just ripe (no pun intended) for rotting. Or I suppose it could have been rotting from the inside out - but then that wouldn't be visible, would it? Of course, I saw (and I thought heard) flies.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

[youtube]lVZ1c_VMWYM[/youtube]

[PorFavor]

Night night.