William Barter

a return to the days of explosive fuel on airships!

I don't actually mind waiting. I'm British, I can queue. But I do mind the lying.

I just get annoyed that these phone lines are always experiencing an unusual volume of calls and tell you so with a pre-recorded message. If it's always this busy, then it's not unusual.

Put simply it feels like they existed for as long as they weren't needed, then the second they were, they disappeared...

Re: Drayson partitions - STFC also had them in their 2016-2020 delivery plan (see start of section 2 - www.ukri.org/wp-content/u...) and Mark had them in his 2024 r-ECFA presentation (slide 5 - indico.cern.ch/event/134850...). So they were in existence as recently as September 2024.

Both Tories and Labour have changed mayoral systems without referendums, so there is a clear precedent.

Doubly ironic when you consider how Davey's 2024 use of election campaign stunts was very much from Kennedy's easy-going 'approachable' approach.

How long before we get The Power Test about the green party? ;)

Did yougov ever put out pollster notes during the Reform rises?

The Wheels on the Bus - John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme YouTube video by John Finnemore

We have taken to singing this version of the song to the boy wonder
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOEk...

I'm not sure the Labour party is equipped for being 'hated' - there's a lot of (in some places deserved) moral self-righteousness in the party that means when progressive voters hate the party they are viewed as wrong rather than worth listening to.

Some (enough) people also say what they want canvassers to hear even when they dislike a party. I think Lib Dems (2015), Tories (2024) have experience of this and have learnt to be careful, but I'm not sure Labour have had this experience.

As I was saying ;)

Does this also mean Goodwin will no longer be on the BBC as an 'independent commentator' status? His partisan position is now official

Does this also mean Goodwin has also lost his 'independent commentator' status? Even if he always has this partisan position, it's now official...

But also that despair comes from evil. Denethor was valiant and gave years of long service before being corrupted to despair by evil by the palantir.

Okay so we are a hive mind

My personal fave is oregano

This was fun for a Sunday morning. I was okay up to and including 1300, 1200 had me stymied apart from the odd word though.

So presumably those who weren't, and who did go to university, should have to pay a higher tax to repay society for giving them that as advantage?

At least we have a progressive government that can make the necessary changes that...oh

At least we have a government that has growth as its number one priority*, as growth enables improvements elsewhere.

* Except when it leads to bad publicity, increased immigration, higher spending in the interim, difficult conversations, it's a day ending in y.

Re:age explaining everything...there's a reason that student loans are now suddenly back on the agenda.

These cuts to physics research will be a disaster for UK scientists – and for our standing in the world | Jon Butterworth If plans by the UK’s science funding body go ahead, we won’t be able to benefit from Britain’s membership of Cern and other large international projects, says Jon Butterworth, professor of physics at ...

These cuts to physics research will be a disaster for UK scientists – and for our standing in the world
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Screenshot from above link

It's also in some slides from Mark Thomson in 2024 (indico.cern.ch/event/134850... - see slide 5).

It feels a bit...awkward...that this entire setup at STFC seems to have fallen apart when it actually comes under budgetary pressure?

Screenshot of above document

What I find really interesting is that STFC had partitions to separate spending on different items and ensure they didn't cross-subsidise (see eg section 2 of 2016-2020 STFC Delivery Plan www.ukri.org/wp-content/u...) but this seems to have just disappeared from all the discussion.

Abysmal policy to tax eg people who need to have a hysterectomy

School really made Benelux out to be far more important than it has turned out to be in my life.

Agreed - but even if people on average have the same number of kids as before, but later in life, then the stats will also look (for a few years) like a decreasing birth rate.

One of my friends pointed out to me that the 'decreasing birth rate' stuff is also just the stats shifting for later births rather than that many fewer ones (alongside fewer teen pregnancies) and it certainly recontextualises that viewpoint