UK Politics: Statues of Limitations

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Of all the things I can get worked up about, hackers trying to access vaccine information is not one of them, or am I missing something? They weren't trying to sabotage it, they were trying to steal it right?

Bigger picture of industrial espionage. While I agree, in the case of a vaccine this probably the least outrages bit (in terms of getting access to a vaccine), but in the bigger picture Russian companies just free riding on the costs of research with the aid of the Russian Intelligence is not a particularly benign act either.

[Fragile Bird]

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Of all the things I can get worked up about, hackers trying to access vaccine information is not one of them, or am I missing something? They weren't trying to sabotage it, they were trying to steal it right?

You never know what they are actually going to do with hacked information. It could form the basis for a disinformation campaign when a vaccine comes out, for example. I'm sure they already know about nut-case anti-vaxxers (they have them in Russia as well) and they could easily use information about side-effects, actual, potential or issues discussed in e-mails, to stir up fear. Why not have more dead in western countries? We have no idea how many tens of thousands have died in Russia because they are hiding the numbers.

[Which Tyler]

 

An officer has been suspended after footage emerged which appears to show police kneeling on a man's neck.

Video recorded in Islington, London, shows two officers holding a handcuffed suspect, who is black, on the pavement.

A second officer has been removed from operational duty after the arrest on Thursday evening.

Deputy Met Police commissioner Sir Steve House said the footage was "extremely disturbing" and had been referred to the police watchdog.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53443641

 

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[BigFatCoward]

Mentioned in the police thread. Fuck him. 

[AncalagonTheBlack]

Just saw this on BBC's youtube channel, very disturbing.My question to the UK boarders is how widespread is this? Is it just a very tiny fringe among the youth ?

Inside the global network of Neo-Nazis recruiting in the UK

 

[Derfel Cadarn]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-53472289
 

Tory MP facing allegations of inappropriate behaviour.

[Werthead]

On 7/19/2020 at 8:52 PM, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Just saw this on BBC's youtube channel, very disturbing.My question to the UK boarders is how widespread is this? Is it just a very tiny fringe among the youth ?

Inside the global network of Neo-Nazis recruiting in the UK

Compared to the US it's very minor, but it's still more prevalent than it was, say, twenty years ago. It's something that is concerning but not hugely widespread at the moment. Obviously the fact they have moved towards making preparations for terror attacks is a major concern, though, especially after the assassination of Jo Cox and the fact that British police and intelligence now rate white extremism as the fastest-growing terror threat in the country (even if the overall threat level is still second to fundamentalist Islamic terrorism).

[Werthead]

I must admit that the UK government's solution to the problem of Russian interference is creative.

"If we don't look for evidence they interfered, then they never interfered in the first place!" * beams *

[A wilding]

I suppose it should not have been a surprise. Just listen for all the times that politicians say "there is no evidence of ..." when they want to ignore or deny something.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

59 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I must admit that the UK government's solution to the problem of Russian interference is creative.

"If we don't look for evidence they interfered, then they never interfered in the first place!" * beams *

Not really. It's basically copy and paste from the official US corona policy.

If we don't test for it, then there's no covid spread.

[Mosi Mynn]

Looking forward to PMQs tomorrow! 

[Isis]

Fascinating how the general public appear to be capable of seeing as civil servants as non-political and not to blame for any political failures. But, they don't seem able to extend the same understanding to the security service and refer to them as 'a branch of the tories'. LOL

[mormont]

18 minutes ago, Isis said:

Fascinating how the general public appear to be capable of seeing as civil servants as non-political and not to blame for any political failures. But, they don't seem able to extend the same understanding to the security service and refer to them as 'a branch of the tories'. LOL

Culturally, I'd imagine they're very similar - ie they've traditionally and largely are still open to criticism for being small-c conservative, overwhelmingly white, male, middle-class from the traditionally big-name universities, and so on?

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

Culturally, I'd imagine they're very similar - ie they've traditionally and largely are still open to criticism for being small-c conservative, overwhelmingly white, male, middle-class from the traditionally big-name universities, and so on?

What’s the relevance of that?

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

Culturally, I'd imagine they're very similar - ie they've traditionally and largely are still open to criticism for being small-c conservative, overwhelmingly white, male, middle-class from the traditionally big-name universities, and so on?

I can only speak to the civil service office I worked in, but that was very much not the case. The department I worked in (Transport) had a huge number of women and ethnic minorities working in it.

The senior civil servants, the direct ministerial aides and the heads of departments, were certainly mostly white and male, but the rank and file were much more diverse. It'd be interesting to see if there were hard figures available for the civil service as a whole.

[BigFatCoward]

18 hours ago, Mosi Mynn said:

Looking forward to PMQs tomorrow! 

From the little I saw it was like it is every week. KS completely embarrasses BJ. 

[Mosi Mynn]

41 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

From the little I saw it was like it is every week. KS completely embarrasses BJ. 

Yep.  But Johnson brings it on himself by not answering any of the questions, going for personal attacks, flustering and blustering, and reciting pre-prepared juvenile jokes.

Our PM 

[Spockydog]

3 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

From the little I saw it was like it is every week. KS completely embarrasses BJ. 

I'd like him to ask the prime minister why, when Foreign Secretary, he ditched his Special Branch close protection officer in order to leave the country and attend a sex party thrown by a 'former' KGB agent. Now, that would be embarrassing.

 

[Isis]

5 hours ago, mormont said:

Culturally, I'd imagine they're very similar - ie they've traditionally and largely are still open to criticism for being small-c conservative, overwhelmingly white, male, middle-class from the traditionally big-name universities, and so on?

Not quite, no. It's actually harder to get into the civil service. But it is largely as you describe in terms of intake. But even so...these are literally public servants (much like MPs, haha joking) and the public are generally like 'ooh, poor civil servants being bullied by ministers'. Ok, cool. 

Crown servants are more diverse, lots of different types of roles so lots of different types of people from a huge variety of backgrounds. Yes, you still see the typical expected types there but it looks a lot less 'mostly middle class white dudes'.  

[Werthead]

Bit bemused by opposition complaints for the government acting decisively and quickly in reimposing restrictions on Spain and requiring people to quarantine upon returning. If the government hadn't done that, the opposition would have been screaming blue murder about not acting and letting potential cases back into the country from overseas. It's fair to criticise the government when they've fucked up massively, which has been the default norm for quite a few years now, but in this case it feels opportunistic and incoherent.

What is a much more valid question is how exactly we can really even think about getting back to normal whilst virus transmission is ongoing anywhere else in the world, let alone almost next door. This reflects the difficulties in how a country can be on the downswing in cases itself but, without a much more cohesive international response, can be in danger of letting infections come flooding back in (in particular, I'm not sure why all-out quarantines on flights from the USA, Brazil and other high-rate countries have not been imposed globally)..