Watson has zero integrity and isn’t fit to be an MP. Remember all those MPs / public figures that he outed as members of a VIP sex ring and whom were subsequently exonerated? Did he apologise – did he hell..

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/11/deserved-downfall-tom-watson-leon-brittan

The last thing we need is a Labour Party led by someone who spreads fake news, destroys the lives of others and then has nothing to see when proven wrong. We already have far too many MPs who do this.

Since Brexit I’ve yet to meet a single person who can name our MEP. For all the froth over the EU is / isn’t democratic the fact no one even knows their elected representative is more than worrying.

With my cynics hat on the reason they are casting themselves as a “political movement” rather than a “political
Party” is because it gives them a convenient get out on policy.

The platitudes / hope / optimism we heard at today’s press conference is all well and good but tells us nothing about their values, approach or intentions – it’s just hot air.

What will likely happen is they will find the very same divisions as they try to nail down their positions on important things and will probably have very little impact in the interim. Most voters vote party-first so without the party machine behind them they are almost certain to be voted out on to their derrieres at the next time election – there’s a chance Alexander and Wollaston may avoid that on the basis they have good local support.

“Why would tesla set up in the UK? Their market would be europe not the uk alone, and setting up in the UK would incur tariffs to mast of that market, the UK government would have to subsidise them at least to offset those tariffs, which brings me back to my comments on another thread.”

For many of the same transfer pricing and corporation tax reasons that led to Dyson automotive setting up manufacturing in Singapore.

From the BBC’s reporting of Honda’s press conference:

“Honda said the move was due to global changes in the car industry and the need to launch electric vehicles and had nothing to do with Brexit.”

If the government had any ability to think beyond Brexit they would be picking up the phone to Tesla and seeing what it would take to get Tesla to set up operations in Swindon. Although honda’s plant is relatively small (159k cars / year) that might work quite well for Tesla given they are not going for high volume / low margin.

I think it can work but it does require some patience and a willingness to listen, hear and reflect afterwards.

It also requires some personal awareness – my wife phoned up the Relate head office to complain that our counselor “couldn’t deal with her strong personality” which funnily enough was the main reason we were there as I couldn’t either.

By all accounts he’s a very diligent and extremely responsive constituency MP – or at least that’s been the experience of my extended family who are both labour and Tory voters and have asked for his help on a range of matters.

On the point of “The first thing he did after the referendum was open up an office in Ireland” – this is completely untrue.

He has no control of Somerset Capital / involvement in the day to day decision making and furthermore you’d struggle to find most investment firms not having a legal entity in Ireland. As I recall it, Somerset Capital opened a new investment fund in Ireland – so an Irish legal entity would be a precursor to doing this.

I agree that he’s stuck in a time warp though.

The only thing Vodafone consistently comes first place in these days is the awards for worst customer service:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43822624

DrJ “Well here’s a thought, Lord Sacks – shut the f up about what Jeremy Corbyn did or didn’t say and let us know what you think about your pals killing children, health workers and journalists”

Bravo.

Well done for conflating the opinions of a British born Jew with “pals killing children, health workers etc.”

I’m assuming you are referring to Israel but last time I checked being born on Britain doesn’t automatically make anyone an Israeli cheerleader, likewise being born a Jew here (or anywhere else for that matter ). In further breaking news, not all Jews support Israel either.

Re: The bbc article linked to above:

BBC and DCMS Committee Push Fake News About Vote Leave Facebook Adverts

More nonsense from channel4 as well:

Channel 4 News Admit No Evidence

Brexit has shown up some fascinating contradictions:

– Being “in” the EU means the Commission will negotiate trade deals on our behalf (1)- we are stronger as part of a bigger trade bloc and better placed to get trade deals – but Switzerland (outside) has negotiated 25% more trade deals despite being tiny

– Being “in” the EU means the Commission will negotiate trade deals on our behalf (2) – but the latest trade deal with Canada didn’t negotiate on all Services despite the fact that the UK is critically very different to other EU member states in the role services plays as a contributor to GDP

– Being “in” the EU requires UK companies to comply with standards – but many of the standards are set in Germany, flouted by other countries and in many cases shown to be completely fake (Nox in cars, boiler efficiency etc etc.) In these cases no action is taken by the Commission or the ECJ

– The Commission requires states to liberalise services and enact European treaties – but invariably takes no action when france and germany fail to do this

– David Cameron tried to negotiate controls on freedom of movement and the role of the EECJ and was laughed out of town and patronised for his efforts – since when Merkel et al have repeatedly interfered in UK politics stating free trade requires freedom of movement and ongoing supervision by the ECJ – but the EU has just signed a free trade deal with Japan that does not include freedom of movement or supervision by the ECJ

– The Commission requires the Uk to continue to observe rules in a transitional  period – whilst blatantly breaking its own rules e.g. freezing the UK out of satellite constortia, medicines control etc before a deal is even concluded

– The Commission says that brexit will undermine security in Europe and creates concern for continual EU citizens living in the UK – but when the UK unilaterally makes pledges on security (intell) and right to remain the rest of the EU member states fail to reciprocate and the commission has nothing to say on the matter

– The Commission is legally required to negotiate in good faith and avoid cliff edge trade disputes as part of its bi-lateral agreements with the WTO – but is demonstrably doing the very opposite of this in the sequencing of the brexit negotiations

– The Commission says that in the brexit negotiations we must agree to coupling free trade, freedom of movement, common standards and the ECJ, but signs a free trade deal on behalf of member states with Japan that has none of these

– Unelected Commission officials says they don’t wish to interfere in domestic politics – but solicit negotiations with the leader of the opposition party to our elected government and continually resort to highly personal attacks and leaks that are clearly designed to undermine our own elected representatives

– the British public is obsessed by the potential for chlorinated chicken imported from the States, but is happy that c70% of the chicken we can buy has salmonella, and blissfully unaware that most vegetables and salad served in restaurants since the 1990s has been chlorinated to improve food safety – most people haven’t grown two heads or a tail in this period.

My reading of the above is that:

1) the public are mad

2) the conduct of the Commission on behalf of the EU member states shows it is highly political, mainly interested in preserving itself, and that the direction of travel if we remain in the EU is quite concerning from both a trade and sovereign state perspective.

As the OP himself? stated – simplistic.

1. The following Brexit, Trump, Farage, Rees Mogg, Putin, de regulation, reduction of human rights, Nation States a sort of Facist “light”

This conflates a number of things that aren’t necessarily related. Rees Mogg isn’t Putin or Trump and supporting the “nation state” is different to Fascism unless the meaning of the latter has changed recently.

2. The following EU, Freedom of Movement, Social responsibility, NHS, protection of workers rights and human rights, Macron, Merkel, Stamer, Gina Miller a sort of Socialist “light”

And this also conflates a number of things that aren’t directly related, as well as conflating some that are entirely opposite to each other e.g. freedom of movement acts as a supply side lever on employment, potentially forcing down wages in some sectors and in others at very least removing the incentive for employers to invest in training their workforces ergo workers have “rights” but many of them will never be able to progress or earn more for their families.

This thread would seem to be to be reflective of a much broader problem namely that politics has become dominated by single issue groups – who are often very shouty and resort to making personal judgements and sometimes progressing to outright abuse of anyone that disagrees with them.

Politics requires discussion, listening, reflection and debate to find the achievable middle ground – often balancing a number of things that are all very complex. It’s difficult doing this, but drowning out debate and resorting to making highly personal judgements (racist, facist, sexist, misogynist, the various “phobics” etc. ) and using name calling just makes it even less likely that capable experienced people will consider going into politics.

Ergo we land up with buffoons being paid £80K a year that are incapable of deciding how to get their own foot of out their mouth let alone make decisions that affect the country.

Case in point: https://order-order.com/people/jared-omara/

A long but very interesting read…

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n11/andrew-ohagan/the-tower

Not sure stamp duty was payable on the Jeremy Hunt transactions – I think he bought 8 flats – but 6 property transactions all completed on the same day count as a commercial transaction with the result that domestic stamp duty rules don’t apply – as and when they are disposed of corporate tax rules would apply to any  capital gain or loss.

Awesome – thanks

Most of the mobile networks now offer Wi-fi calling on compatible handsets – would that be an option?

Vodafone and EE still offer signal boosters for 4g – but both need broadband in which case Wi-fi calling should work as well.

Maybe “Black terry” always wears a black suit / black clothes. The OP may well need to go on some unconscious bias training 😉

unless it’s been sent recorded delivery just bin it. And don’t sign for anything recorded delivery for the next 6 months.

What kind of house is it and is the bad coverage on all networks? A lot of modern houses get poor indoor reception due to the oxides on double / triple glazing and the use of foil backed insulation.

If the EE reception is ok outside just use WiFi calling – it’s on all recent iPhones and many other devices now – it basically does all the “phone” stuff using wifi instead of the phone network.

no catch as such – UK based customer service, the network is connect to is what was Cable and Wireless’ fibre network and the router is pretty good.

Obviously a complete contrast to Vodafone’s UK mobile network which is abysmal and also has “customer service” processes designed to tip the calmest person into becoming a complete psycho.

as per the advice above, don’t call voicemail using the phone network. What you can do is to use Skype over wifi to call the voicemail box and check it that way – if you’re handy with a phone you can also set up the Skype phone book entry to call the EE voicemail number then enter your phone number and pin automatically – and that will only cost a few p each time.

It’s not quite the same as EE so if any of the following might be of use then consider EE over BT.

– no wifi calling / texting in areas of no coverage
– EE’s new 800Mhz network won’t be made available to BT users
– limited / no choice of roaming packages

For a few quid more a month I’d personally go for EE over BT. Even though BT “use” EE’s network the range of network services is different.

we had rats and the only way of getting them out was an electrocution cage with cooked smoked bacon inside it… worked a treat

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Victor-M240-Electronic-Rat-Trap/dp/B000LNX06C

Is that chap at the front the Secretary for Peace and Disarmament in Corbyn’s new Shadow Cabinet?

Again, where’s the evidence for this?

Of course some men suffer from domestic violence, but all the evidence shows it is, by a very large margin, women who suffer at the hands of men.

40% of domestic violence victims are men

40% of spousal murder victims in USA are men

Number of bully wives triples[/url]

Of course we don’t really know the true figures because a number of studies have shown that male victims are significantly less likely to report abuse to the police than female victims. We also know that CPS data collection in this area is abysmal.

P-Jay – which are the other providers that do Line Rental and 76Mbps broadband over the whole life of the contract for £28/month all in?

Genuinely interested because I haven’t managed to find anything close to that after the usual 3/6 month promotional reduced rates end.

Its obvious the government dont give a crap about social mobility

This year the proportion of students entering Oxford from State Schools is the highest for at least 40 years.

Fuzzy, the vodafone service is built of the Cable & Wireless business they bought a few years back. That wasn’t new and Vodafone are already very big players in BB in Spain and Germany. I agree their mobile network and mobile customer service are both abysmal though!

If the employer consulted with staff on the basis of a redundancy termination date at the end of Sept then the employees that elected to leave effectively contracted around that date.

Depending on notice period, with VR the notice period is often waived, so the proposed redundancy termination date still stands.

I’m not sure the employer can consult on one date and ask for people to elect for VR, then accept their individual nominations but with a new date. The employer would either have to abide by the original date proposed, or consult on a new date, or allow employees who previously elected VR to withdraw on the basis of the date change.

Either way, the problem is now sitting in the Employer’s lap rather than the employee’s lap.

Also worth noting that an Employer can only reverse the decision by withdrawing the notice of redundancy – which requires the written agreement of the employee.

Vodafone is £28 a month for the 76Mbps fibre broadband product. There’s no line rental cost on top of that and installation is £49.

I’ve just come back from Sri Lanka, a country decades behind the UK in terms of infrastructure and economic development, but I could get a 3g signal everywhere, but I can’t in Hebden Bridge, a town halfway between the two biggest cities in the north of England. Energy privatisation has resulted in fuel poverty where people have to decide between buying food and heating their homes.

The problem is that although the “sri lanka is cheaper and better” observation might be true that doesn’t actually tell us anything about privatisation in the UK.

Taking the specific example of mobile phone coverage, the main reasons coverage until recently has been poor in the UK are two fold:

1. The Labour Government decided to extract around £23B in license costs for 3G – this had the exact effect of constraining rollout / capital spend on the networks that everyone said it would do

2. 3G coverage in the UK was licensed by the Government in the 2100MHz band which requires a lot more masts and is harder to get good in-building coverage with. One of the reasons lower / better wavelengths could not be used is they were already licensed for military, civil protection and TV use.

On a different KPI, we continue to enjoy some of the most competitive pricing for telecoms and utilities anywhere in Europe – the latter retail price is distorted by carbon tariffs, renewable feed in costs and such like but the fact remains that the “privatised” industries aren’t always expensive or bad solely because they are accountable to shareholders.

I’ve only named one bike and it’s the one I used to cycle to the station and leave there all day. I called it Station Jim after the stuffed dog in a glass box on one of the platforms at Slough station.

They are under perfect control Hora albeit in the OPs post there’s a good chance they are not due to knucklehead owners.

Just ask yourself – if someone runs straight at you at sprint speed, would you stand there and do nothing when they were only 1m away, or put your arms to shove them back?

If you’re seriously saying you would stand there and do nothing you’ll be doing very well – most people’s instinct would be to put their arms out and by your definition would not be in control of themselves.

For me, I can’t see why any of the hundreds if not thousands of momentary small changes I’ve made on my bike to stop a horse from being scared wouldn’t apply as a standing principle to other animals – it’s no effort at all and if I’m on my bike out for a ride the whole enjoyment comes from being outdoors.

Try talking to the dog. I usually greet them with “hello doggy”, or for big slavering hell hounds, “hello little doggy”.
You may feel like a tit, but it works.

+1

Maybe I had a different upbringing to everyone else but I was taught that animals don’t always understand the intentions of humans so when approaching horses / cows / dogs etc. to always take simple steps to put them at ease, particularly if there’s nowhere for them to move to or if they are on a lead.

It’s for this reason most of the people reading this thread will probably do the following when encountering a horse with a rider on it:

– slow down
– make clicking / friendly noises so it knows you’re no threat
– move to one side and wait for it to pass or pass slowly carrying on making friendly noises

Animals and humans can live together well but there is some onus on humans as the brighter species to help animals feel relaxed / under no threat from things we do that are understood by us but can be confusing to the animal.

Dog walkers need to keep dogs on leads and make sure they are trained but with the best will in the world most animals will assume the worst when a human is charging at them – small shifts in behaviour and good training of animals completely removes the conditions for conflict.

Running at a person and making no sign that you’ve recognised they are there, are going to slow down or change directly would in most cases result in the non runner putting their arms / hands out to deflect the blow – animals don’t have hands so will protect themselves accordingly e.g. running at you (cows), head butting your nuts (goats), rearing up (horses), jumping at you (dogs), jumping at you and scratching (cats).

As a dog owner and with a wife who’s a runner I’ve consistently noticed that many of the runners in our local running club actually create the issues with dogs they then complain about – albeit the original poster’s wife may have already tried this and may just be dealing with stupid owners and badly trained dogs.

Our local runners constantly sprint right at dogs being walked on leads and make no effort whatsoever to slow down, make a human like noise, slow down or do anything that would help an animal understand that the person running at it isn’t a threat. Most people wouldn’t do this with a horse or a cow but for some reason think all dogs will know they aren’t a threat.

It’s often made worse by runners trying for personal bests or listening to music as this results in them being completely oblivious to what’s going on around them – to the point where a friend carrying a baby in a sling was recently knocked over by a runner barging straight past her from behind and effectively elbow barging her out of the way. Rather than checking if she and the baby we’re OK he gave her a mouthful of abuse for getting in his way and walking in the middle of the path.

I’m pretty sure running clubs use to train runners on how to handle dogs I.e. Let them know you’re coming, move to the side, slow down and talk to it if necessary – but judging by the local runners the clubs don’t do this anymore.

I’d rather his wife’s hairdresser got a £0 award than pick up the €10K a month tab that President Hollande’s retained hairdresser costs!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/13/bad-hair-days-for-francois-hollande-over-10000-coiffeur-bill

Graham A – the handoff between Wifi Calling and the cellular network only works on 4G – it needs IMS running for that to happen and works very reliably. So if you don’t already have one you’ll need a phone that supports Voice over LTE (VOLTE) or “4G Calling”. A lot of recent phones already have this enabled (most iphones after the 5c) and many android handsets from the last 12 months – some of the android manufacturers are a bit behind in updates to their current and recent handsets though.

it’s just a change in the legislation / associated regulations and is the pre-cursor to blocking overseas use of iPlayer without payment of fees.. which will ultimately enable the BBC to build an additional revenue stream to fund more innovative high quality programming such as Bargain Hunt / Homes under the Hammer / Tramps go ballroom dancing etc.

😆

E2E Won the recent Emergency Services Network tender based on coverage based on their 4g and 3G coverage, both of which are miles ahead of the other operators so you’re very unlikely to find better overall coverage.

So far EE have deployed 12,000 4G base stations and got to 97% population coverage on 4G and 99.5 for 2G. There are another 7,000 cell sites still to be upgraded which will take coverage to 99.9% population coverage / 97% landmass coverage on 4G. As a comparison, EE currently have more coverage than anyone else but the landmass % is below 70% – so the latter will see a big improvement.

They have also nearly finished the readiness prep before making their 800 Mhz network available for voice and data on 4G. Many users will see a significant improvement on the already good coverage when that happens.

Also, the Wifi Calling service works incredibly well – I turn off the “phone” bit now at home as the battery lasts longer and the calls are nearly all Hi-Def audio, so the quality is better too.