This thread is packed with Mensa members it appears

Listened to an interesting podcast on IQ at the weekend, would recommend. Is controversial though…
Sam Harris – Forbidden Knowledge with Charles Murray

Worked as a site engineer for a while and lived out the back of an astra van, you wouldn’t believe how many people are living in the back of vans on a week night…
Was fine, leave windor ajar and wrap up warm

No, another Look Keo fan, would recommend

Seeing Minority Report mentioned reminded me of this article that mentioned that Tobago wanted use an analytics platform analysing online data and phonecalls to identify pre-crime
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy

Budget?

Did we do, Labour spending plans endorsed by 129 economists?
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/jun/03/the-big-issue-labour-manifesto-what-economy-needs

austerity excuse for police cuts for too long

Great thread and very interesting, will follow

Dave Brailsford was interviewed at the end of the Giro last week and asked that question and said he believes it is doable, would need the stars to align, the right courses, perfect health, maybe some bad luck for rivals etc. but he does think it can be done and does think he will see it done which surprised me, as I was of the opinion its a no as too demanding

I know someone else posted a link on the same subject but this really needs addressing by Government for things to progress:

Sensitive’ UK terror funding inquiry may never be published

An investigation into the foreign funding and support of jihadi groups that was authorised by David Cameron may never be published, the Home Office has admitted.

The inquiry into revenue streams for extremist groups operating in the UK was commissioned by the former prime minister and is thought to focus on Saudi Arabia, which has repeatedly been highlighted by European leaders as a funding source for Islamist jihadis.

The investigation was launched as part of a deal with the Liberal Democrats in exchange for the party supporting the extension of British airstrikes against Islamic State into Syria in December 2015.

Tom Brake, the Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman, has written to the prime minister asking her to confirm that the investigation will not be shelved.

The Observer reported in January last year that the Home Office’s extremism analysis unit had been directed by Downing Street to investigate overseas funding of extremist groups in the UK, with findings to be shown to Theresa May, then home secretary, and Cameron.

However, 18 months later, the Home Office confirmed the report had not yet been completed and said it would not necessarily be published, calling the contents “very sensitive”.

A decision would be taken “after the election by the next government” about the future of the investigation, a Home Office spokesman said.

In his letter to May, Brake wrote: “As home secretary at the time, your department was one of those leading on the report. Eighteen months later, and following two horrific terrorist attacks by British-born citizens, that report still remains incomplete and unpublished.

“It is no secret that Saudi Arabia in particular provides funding to hundreds of mosques in the UK, espousing a very hardline Wahhabist interpretation of Islam. It is often in these institutions that British extremism takes root.”

The contents of the report may prove politically as well as legally sensitive. Saudi Arabia, which has been a funding source for fundamentalist Islamist preachers and mosques, was visited by May earlier this year.

Last December, a leaked report from Germany’s federal intelligence service accused several Gulf groups of funding religious schools and radical Salafist preachers in mosques, calling it “a long-term strategy of influence”.

The Lib Dem leader, Tim Farron, said he felt the government had not held up its side of the bargain made ahead of the vote on airstrikes. The report must be published when it was completed, he insisted, despite the Home Office caution that information in the document would be sensitive.

“That short-sighted approach needs to change. It is critical that these extreme, hardline views are confronted head on, and that those who fund them are called out publicly,” he said.

“If the Conservatives are serious about stopping terrorism on our shores, they must stop stalling and reopen investigation into foreign funding of violent extremism in the UK.”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/31/sensitive-uk-terror-funding-inquiry-findings-may-never-be-published-saudi-arabia

Seems this former Met Office agrees with Corbyn
https://twitter.com/alexnunns/status/871338697127538688

Lim dems do terribly under fptp

Lol

I use premium every forth or fifth tank for a clean

cps statement[/url]

Guess it could of gone in the Brexit thread but as May is the only one promoting no deal is ok, I’ve put it hear

A good piece from Martin Wolf in the FT on the ‘no deal’ nonsense (paywall)

https://www.ft.com/content/83396e2a-45ef­-11e7-8519-9f94ee97d996

Trade realities expose the absurdity of a Brexit ‘no deal’
The UK has imposed a diversion of effort upon its partners at a testing time

No deal is better than a bad deal. That, as almost everybody must now know, is the position of the woman who is and would be UK prime minister. But this proposition is either empty or nonsensical.

Why empty? The deal the UK will have with the EU has to be worse than the one it has now: that is what Brexit means. Why, after all, would the EU offer better terms to a non-member? So, it will be bad. Theresa May’s proposition only has meaning if she indicates what sort of bad deal, in the range of bad deals, would be worse than no deal at all. But this the prime minister has not deigned to indicate.

Why nonsensical? For trade to continue after Brexit, there must be deals. Brexiters find it difficult to understand that the UK must co-operate with the EU, even after Brexit. Co-operation means deals. The question is not whether the UK needs deals, but rather which deals it must have.

Many seem to think that “no deal” would mean trading with the EU on “World Trade Organization terms”. The UK could in theory trade with the EU in the same way as the latter trades with the US. A series of posts on Conservative Home, a website for Tory activists, discusses what this might mean. But that analysis is done in terms of policy, not the likely effects on trade. The latter is far more relevant.

The UK would be leaving the world’s most integrated trading arrangement. We know that the deeper such arrangements are, the bigger their impact on trade. This is why trade within countries, the most integrated arrangements of all, is far greater than geography alone would suggest. A recent World Bank study argues that if the UK shifted from EU to WTO terms, trade in goods with the EU would halve and trade in services would fall 60 per cent.

Yet a shift to trading on WTO terms is not what “no deal” might mean. Trading after Brexit requires a great many deals on new administrative procedures governing certification of regulatory standards, customs processes and so forth. Trade requires not only such deals, but changes in procedures that would make them work, post-Brexit. So deals will not only have to be reached, but they must be done well before March 2019. In fact, it is hard to see how trade would continue to flow if these deals were not done by the summer of 2018.

Malcolm Barr of JPMorgan has outlined these issues. When the UK leaves the EU, its goods would cease to be “EU goods”. A new set of procedures would be needed to keep trade between the UK and EU running smoothly. Otherwise, the administrative burdens would become impossibly cumbersome. Such facilitation agreements exist between the EU and all its main trading partners.

One difficulty, notes Mr Barr, is that 25 per cent of UK exports to the EU by value go via Calais, which has limited capacity to process non-EU goods. Another is that, without a deal (or deals), UK drivers of heavy-goods vehicles would not be licensed to drive inside the EU. A well-known difficulty is the arrangements to handle the border inside Ireland. Particular difficulties will arise with trade in food and food products, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Quite simply, continuing trade at anything like current levels will require a host of technical deals.

“No deal” is an absurd notion. To this, optimists will declare: yes, but it will be easy to reach agreement with the EU on such technical deals, because it is in the economic interests of the latter’s members to do so. To this glib optimism, I offer two answers.

First, the two sides will have little time to agree and then set up the new procedures. Above all, they cannot start until they know what to prepare for. The framework for post-Brexit trade will first need to be known. They need, for example, to decide soon that there will be no transitional arrangement if they are to shift early enough to WTO terms.

Second, it is ludicrous to presume that the rest of the EU will co-operate enthusiastically in creating the new trading procedures that are needed. Do Brexiters find it so hard to believe EU members would accept some costs in order to satisfy political objectives? Do they ever look in the mirror?

The UK has imposed a diversion of effort upon its partners at an exceptionally testing time. It has undermined the credibility of a project viewed as existential by many of its members, including its most powerful ones. Brexiters have poured ridicule and scorn on the whole venture. Now they imagine the UK can refuse the EU’s terms for an amicable divorce and yet still count upon active and enthusiastic co-operation in ensuring the smooth flow of trade.

The idea of “no deal” is just ridiculous.

Popbitch election voting analysis

“One week to go until the general election and the polls seem to be all over the place. Can we learn anything more about the state of the campaign from the betting markets? We spoke to @LadPolitics to see what was happening online and in Ladbrokes stores, and they told us something interesting.

Back in the EU referendum, the betting odds favoured Remain because more money had been placed on it, even though a greater number of individual bets were on Leave.

In the US Presidential election, Clinton was favourite because more money was put on her, but many more people were betting on Trump.

In this general election more money has been placed on the Conservatives, but a shitload more bets are on Labour.

It can’t happen, can it? Two is a coincidence but three would be a trend, right? ”

They are trolling UKIP so hard right now, poor Paul looks ready to explode

And too think, this morning he wasn’t even going to be there and then turns up and plays a blinder

Non-partisan audience you say? Its like a pantomime of growning at Amber and applauding Jeremy

75-100 seat majority remains my call

You’ve halved your prediction?

that off camera laugh
https://twitter.com/JakeWiafe/status/869848994272362497

Musashi: An Epic Novel of the Samurai Era by Eiji Yoshikawa

Ireland is hardly the model tax strategy though is it, it has the IMF and EU warning that its tax base is so narrow it is as vulnerable to needing a bail out in the event of a down turn as it was previously

the masses are clueless. they’d be more engaged in the process if the elections were ran in a big brother/ x-factor/ britain’s got talent format

The format you are looking for is televised leaders debate

Yet somehow despite being abysmal at thinking on her feet or performing in challenging situations, she manages to sell to the masses that she is the safe pair of hands for doing negotiations and they buy it

Big n daft, do you hold May to the same level of scrutiny for supporting state sponsors of terrorism such as Saudi?

Yep great move by Corbyn, all I hear people saying in the office after seeing him on tv is he was much better than they expected and not like the media make him out to be

All these people leaving will help get the net migration figures down anyway won’t they? bluekip supporters should be happy

Had one leaflet through the door from an independent but I am in a seat where a pact has been done, so not all major parties standing and the I would of voted for the incumbent anyway (Caroline Lucas) but do find it a bit weak I haven’t had door knockers or leaflets from her, seems a bit complacent which I don’t like but think all the volunteers are probably busy trying to ensure the marginal Tory doesn’t get back in, in the adjacent constituency which is less than a mile down the road from me.

Just reading how they have tried to weight the pollings differently this time around as labour supporters dont turn out, providing that continues like last time the polls should be pretty accurate but if Corbyn has mobilised the youth vote the polls really underestimate labour

Meh, they’re just old aren’t they, they’re like slightly bigoted grand parents, you just have to accept things were different back then. People moan about Froome and riders riding to numbers, you don’t get that with the Spanish doping duo, they love to ride on feel and makes for exciting racing.

Aru is back for the tour as well isn’t he?

Dimbelby complains about rightwing media bias

Doumalin must of changed his mind and he wasn’t supposed to be doing the tour.

Can’t look past Froome but do think Quintana was riding himself into form so should hopefully put a fight.

Would be nice to see G break out and Porte do something but he was in such good form at the start of the season, wouldn’t be surprised if he will of lost it.

Would be nice to see Bardet, Chaves and Yates bro’s do well and can’t believe people want to see Valverde and Contador gone! Will be much more boring without them. Valverde looked in great form as well earlier in the season.

Don’t own one but I like Thorn. They know what they think works and are uncompromising in it. If I wanted a bike to ride in remote places going around the world and durability and relibility were key, I would look at Thorn. Plenty of folks over on crazyguy riding Thorns.

You need to listen to the audio, you get the full heavy breathing thing as well, and the pauses….

I’m sure Eddie Mair will play it for me on the way home tonight, it’s the pauses that are the worst, just excruciating voids of panic and your career crashing infront of you

I wonder how much postal votes play in to it.is there any data for how early most postal votes are cast? Surely the earlier they were cast, the less benefical that would be to Labour?

Yeh just read women’s hour was full Diane Abbott