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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Britain is now falling apart over precisely how to buy a second hand vehicle.
Wiley is here to help.
First off do your research..... If a car has been written off a couple of times it is unlikley to be good.
Inspect in bright daylight......That way you can see the damage.
Dont go on first looks...... The car might well look good, appear well polished, but appearences can be deceptive. Check the interior.
Dont pay for the car, and take it for a test drive unless it has a full MOT.... It might turn out to be not roadworthy or safe after all
Check that you have been given the relevant paperwork....in your excitement to buy, it is easy to forget this final step, but having all the relevant paperwork is essential.
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Finally if you are incapable of following these simple basic rules....remember the Latin.... Caveat Emptor
Toodle Pip.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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All this 'Did he know?' and 'Should he have known?' and 'Why didn't he know?' is all total bollocks. I suppose it falls to me to explain to our rioting parliamentarians what the actual position is
| and what it has always been. |
Security vetting is one of the most secretive processes known to man. It has to be because it wholly relies on people blagging individuals for having connections that are germane to the position he or she is being vetted for. They won't do that if their name has even the smallest chance of being bandied around outside the security services.
Hence nothing is divulged outside the security services apart from a recommendation going to the relevant senior civil servant (either in the Home Office, the Foreign Office or the Justice Department) with the reasons attached.
| The mandarin decides whether the appointment should or should not go ahead. |
Nothing ever goes to politicians (who haven't got the necessary clearance for one thing). Not the Home Secretary, not the Foreign Secretary, and certainly not the Prime Minister. It doesn't even go to the chief mandarin, the Cabinet Secretary.
| Starmer simply hasn't got a case to answer. |
I'm not saying it's a good system, I'm just saying it is the system.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Starmer does know how it works.
What we are witnessing is well known to insiders, information enters perfectly sensibly into government, from which simple and obvious conclusions could be drawn, and yet, after a tortuous institutional journey, emerge as decisions that are over-complicated, often dangerous and costly.
This happens not because of deception, but because insiders adopt a mix of creative interpretive storytelling, (spin) to get what a chief wants, hopefully just within the rules, even though a decision appears to these insiders bad or flawed or risky.
When it goes wrong a review will be agreed, which in theory will make for less future bad decisions, the motivation will be good, but actually the more rules the more loopholes....(which is what good story tellers exploit)
The paradox of over regulation.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Wiley wrote: | | Starmer does know how it works. |
If I know, I'm pretty sure he knows.
| What we are witnessing is well known to insiders, information enters perfectly sensibly into government, from which simple and obvious conclusions could be drawn, and yet, after a tortuous institutional journey, emerge as decisions that are over-complicated, often dangerous and costly. |
OK
| This happens not because of deception, but because insiders adopt a mix of creative interpretive storytelling, (spin) to get what a chief wants, hopefully just within the rules, even though a decision appears to these insiders bad or flawed or risky. |
OK. Except the vetting process isn't a matter of Yes/No, Pass/Fail. It all depends what job is being vetted for. Ambassador in Washington is pretty high up that totem pole but Mandelson was not being vetted for the possibilities he was a Russian spy, but maybe whether his private life made him susceptible to blackmail from the Russians. (Or from the Americans, if it came to that.)
The irony is that Mandelson was a spy. He had been passing cabinet secrets to Jeffrey Epstein! This, as far as we know, was completely missed by the Security Services, or at any rate it only emerged from the release of the Congressional Papers.
| When it goes wrong a review will be agreed, which in theory will make for less future bad decisions, the motivation will be good, but actually the more rules the more loopholes....(which is what good story tellers exploit) The paradox of over regulation. |
OK.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Ollie also knows how the game works, he somehow managed to get in that No 10 were trying to get an ambassadorship, for Matthew Doyle, Keirs former Director of Communications, who subsequently Keir then elevated to the House of Lords. Matthew has like Mandy been friends with a known paedo, even after charged, which also was not disclosed to Keir.....
Ollie skillfully left the impression that Keir was arranging for former Labour Spin Doctors and known friends of convicted peados to be fastracked into ambassadors.
Less clear was why Ollie went along with allowing Mandelson. Ollie was adamant that the vetting process was a state secret, shrouded in mystery and poorly understood, only Ollie will know why he, and his team, made this decision. Maybe their are rules that stop folks like Ollie using Google.
Who knows. I dont.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The fact remains that Mandelson was exactly the right man for the job. There has been no dispute about that. (I'm not endorsing it personally, just saying what was said at the time.) Nor did any of the vetting--basic or advanced--disclose anything relevant to Mandelson's carrying out the functions of ambassadorship.
Since nobody knew about Mandelson's extensive relationship with Epstein--we all knew he knew him--I can't see that anyone has done anything but behaved with exemplary efficiency. Remember the AE adage: 'never judge by results.'
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Outrage that Shabana spends £1600 on furniture and fittings for her private office. Bargain according to Wiley. Make her Chancellor.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Are you sure? I thought that was just for her novelty blotting paper. But if what you say is true, I disagree. I don't want an Argos cheapskate in charge of the nation's finances. It's time to splurge. Splurge, I tell you.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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All my adult life I have lived in a stable, prosperous country with no unduly bothersome threats from abroad. Yet in all my adult life I have never heard anyone mention this, so busy are they saying the complete opposite.
I never mention it myself either of course. Everyone would then turn their ire on me.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| When people disparage Reform UK, they are disrespecting all those people who voted for them. Arlene Foster on Newsnight. |
This is a fair point, and it applies to Trump supporters in America too. The problem though is how, after years of disparaging Nigel Farage (with no doubt good reason), do you alter this mindset when it turns out that he is 'democratically' correct? I don't think this is humanly possible.
The trick is not to have disparaged him in the first place. But, for most people, that was even less humanly possible.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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When people disparage Reform UK, they are disrespecting all those people who voted for them. Arlene Foster on Newsnight.
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The whole point is to defeat the other sides leadership, by either dividing their leadership, or much better by winning over their supporters ( actually back in many cases).
I doubt these attacks on Reform supporters (Fascists bigots) or indeed Green supporters (bonkers idealistic) by Labour are going to work, the problem for Labour is that in truth they jeered when many of these folks left to explore the alternatives ( "what are they going to do? they have nowhere else to go"-Mandy).
That might be true, but where are Labour without much of the traditional manual working class or the idealistic student radicals ?
Hmm? About 20% for now..........
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Wiley wrote: | | The whole point is to defeat the other sides leadership, by either dividing their leadership, or much better by winning over their supporters ( actually back in many cases). |
I don't recognise any of these characteristics of political parties. They are far too 'blobby' to go in for any of this kind of strategic manoeuvring. Though partisans of policies within political parties frequently cite these as reasons for adopting their policies.
| I doubt these attacks on Reform supporters (Fascists bigots) or indeed Green supporters (bonkers idealistic) by Labour are going to work |
Why not? They seem to have worked until quite recently.
| the problem for Labour is that in truth they jeered when many of these folks left to explore the alternatives ( "what are they going to do? they have nowhere else to go"-Mandy). |
That is very true (of the Conservatives also). Because under the first-past-the-post system they normally haven't.
| That might be true, but where are Labour without much of the traditional manual working class or the idealistic student radicals?Hmm? About 20% for now.......... |
I would have thought it more accurate to say 'they are reduced to their 20% of core supporters, the traditional manual working class and idealistic student radicals'.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Do you remember that day when a plane was revving up at Stansted Airport ready to fly the first illegal migrant/asylum applicant off to Rwanda and a bloke hurrying across the tarmac with news that some judge or other had called a halt?
I can't help thinking that was the defining moment in recent British politics. Whatever you think of the policy itself, it would undoubtedly have stopped the small boats in their tracks. This in turn would have had a decisive effect on subsequent Labour and Conservative fortunes.
The fact that boat-crossings are up three per cent on last year has a lot to do with the demise of both our major parties and Britain's introduction to multi-party politics. For the first time since 1680 (o.n.o.), let it not be forgotten.
Well done, that judge. Or not as the case may be.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Speaking of Stansted Airport, did you know it played a pivotal part in a railway company's fortunes? It's a bizarrely interesting and still relevant story.
Unlike London's four other airports, Stansted has only one means of getting there: a rail line operated by the (now former) rail franchisee, Greater Anglia. They were always a poor relation because East Anglia is not fertile territory either for commuter or intercity travel. But one of their bright sparks had an idea:
| Call it The Stansted Express. |
After all, both Heathrow and Gatwick had done it and were reaping the rewards. The fact that it was still just what it always was--a twice an hour stopping service to Liverpool Street--made no difference. Now it was the Stansted Express they could jack the price up no end and everybody would have to pay it, it was the only way to get to and from Stansted. That made millions.
They quietly removed Stansted from all the various ticketing schemes and posted Revenue Protection Officers permanently at the gates. Streams of hapless souls would turn up with their various cards only to be told they weren't valid and that meant ye olde Penalty Fare would have to be paid, at £120 a time. That made more millions.
| Eventually Panorama put a stop to that. |
So they bumped the price up a bit more and relied on tourists not knowing any better to buy special tickets for The Stansted Express. It was, they told them, the quickest way to get to London. Which was true. They were making a hundred million from that when their franchise came to an end.
| It costs £9.90 to get to Stansted now. | |
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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We are quite used to having to put up with minority languages being quite unnecessarily added to signs, announcements etc for political reasons, even though everyone is fluent in the majority language, but the Montreal metro goes one worse.
They have a nice lady saying everything in French. And that's your lot. Si vous don't comprendez, cette est votre tough luck, chéri. Tu pouvez shove off back to your own country.
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