Questions Of The Day (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

We can't keep changing prime ministers.
True, but we had no choice.
We can't just have a coronation for this new chap.
True, there'll be no discussion of policies.
We can't have a full-on election.
True, it will take months.
Who first got us into this mess?
David Cameron.
What did he do?
He resigned because of the referendum result.
You mean he did the honourable thing?
Yes, the bastard.

[Mick Harper]

An AE-ist writes

The underlying problem is the constant pre-occupation with process. Living in a twenty-four hour news cycle, everything has to be pored over, worried about and declared to be evidence of terminal decline.

Now consider this:
1. The top man has been found wanting
2. He needs to be dispatched speedily without drama
3. A suitable successor has to be identified
4. He needs to be installed speedily without drama.

We have just achieved all these things -- or soon will have. Yet the whole thing has been presented as the end of days.

[Wile E. Coyote]

This is being treated as the the equivalent of King Charles II's return to England. Its the end of the austerity Puritans, cut to shots of gloomy Reeves and killjoy Starmer. The BBC and Sky felt the need to welcome the returning King with live helicopter shots of his train arriving into London.

Its time to be merry again, pump it up with Angela.

[Mick Harper]

Talking of Andy and Trains

1. Our prime minister-in-waiting made his name as Mayor of Madchester largely through his transport policies.

2. And especially because of his lambasting of Northern Trains, a franchise that had unending problems providing Mancunians with trains that ran on time. Or at all, thousands every year would be cancelled.

3. The reason given was almost always 'unavailability of staff' which allowed Mayor Burnham to accuse Northern Trains management of preferring to pay themselves dividends rather than other people to staff trains.

4. However, as Boss Burnham well knew, the actual reason was that the rail unions were exploiting a lacuna in the local Rest Day Working agreements to lever more and more money out of Northern Trains, and could do so because another lacuna in agreements over One-Person-Operation meant they only had to withdraw a few guards in order to wreck the timetables.

5. Passengers were in despair, Northern Trains was steadily going bankrupt and Andy Burnham was earning his stripes with the 'wider labour movement' via his constant clarion calls of "Down with Northern Trains! Up with rail nationalisation!"

And now he's got the whole country to play trains with.

[Mick Harper]

A far right desperado has just won the Colombian presidential election. Squeaked it by O point O something or other. The Left are, you guessed it, complaining about widespread voting irregularities. The twist is that it was the Left that was conducting the election, being the government at the present time.

As my old mum used to say, "Mick, never vote for a party that's so incompetent it can't even rig its own elections." "You got my name right," I replied.

[Mick Harper]

All eyes should be on Burnham's 'leadership' qualities. In olden times, when the Prime Minister was an ex-public schoolboy, this could be assumed. But the days of Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson and Sunak are long gone. First impressions is that Burnham hasn't got it. So he's in with a chance.

[Mick Harper]

The police--especially the Met Police--are being given another bashing over the policy of placing facial recognition cameras all over the place. There are two rational positions to take over this:

1. It is fully justified as a crime prevention measure
2. It should not be permitted because of privacy concerns.

Naturally the media has adopted a completely daft third position

3. It is an excellent crime prevention measure, privacy concerns can be disregarded, but it ought not to be rolled out because it is unfair to minorities. The software has more difficulty identifying 'brown and black' people than it does with whites.

What they are referring to is 'false positives'. But let's think about this for a microsecond. Any recognition programme will have varying difficulties with all categories. Babies in prams, people in dark glasses, the list is endless. It will only be adopted if the overall success rate is in the high nineties (or whatever).

We can take it--we are never told--that with adult males it is ninety-seven per cent (or whatever) for whites, and ninety-four per cent (or whatever) for non-whites. Three whites and six non-whites per hundred (or whatever) are in danger of a false-positive.

"Strewth, that's double the rate. Pure racism. We're not having that. No way. Take those cameras down at once."

Or is it? Face recognition cameras are not used as probative evidence for the committing of a crime. It is not (yet) a crime to be sauntering down a street in London. They are for drawing the police's attention to people who are wanted for committing a crime. Followed swiftly by

"Are you Leroy Wildebeest, the Brixton gang leader wanted for a string of offences?"
"No, I'm John Smith from Bexleyheath. Here's my ID."
"Sorry to have bothered you, sir."

I acknowledge it's not quite as simple as this, but nearly.

[Wile E. Coyote]

There was a recent interesting case in Gemany. Daniela Klette, a infamous, former member of the Red Army Faction, was arrested after years on the run, after being tracked down by an investigative journalist using facial recognition technology, which the Police in Germany are not legally allowed to use. Police officers who raided Klettes home, (she was living in Berlin under a fake name), found gold, a fake grenade launcher and 240,000 euros, or roughly $280,000, in cash.

This backs up Wiley that these terrorist folks tend to hide in plain sight in hip, fashionale neighbourhoods, rather than frugal romantic retreats mountain caves etc.

Note to terrorists: Joining facebook is bad idea, as facial recognition AI will identify you decades later, it wont be enough to convict you, but if you have a fake grenade launcher and a lot of Euros, the jury is probaly going to work it out.......Klette got 13 years.....

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

Looks like Daniela at a venerable 67, did it for the buzz.

Daniella got a lot of adulation from her fans duiring the trial.

When I was sweet sixteen
I was the jukebox queen
Down in Devil Gate Drive
I lead the angel pack on the road to sin
Knock down the gates!
Let me in. Let me in
Don't mess me 'round, cause you know where I've been
To 'The Dive' down in Devil Gate Drive

She was still touring.....still being the bad girl......its what she was good at.....

[Mick Harper]

Quite an interesting discussion on Newsnight about Andy Burnham's sense of humour. It all revolves round my well-known dictum:

[Grant]

What I don't understand is why didn't Starmer say, "I am a man who loves democracy. I was proud that the public voted me their PM and I am determined to carry out my duty until the election in three years.

Such is my love of democracy if anyone brings in a vote of no confidence, or starts writing letters to the chief whip (or whatever the Labour Party's rules are about removing a leader) I will immediately call a general election.