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September 2018

Well, no, they haven’t been, have they?

Blackpool activists jailed for anti-fracking protest
Three protesters given prison sentences for blocking Cuadrilla lorry convoy

No, not really.

Three environmental activists are believed to be the first people to receive jail sentences for an anti-fracking protest in the UK.

Nope, all of that is their own justification for what they’ve done. What they’ve been jailed or is something different:

Simon Roscoe Blevins, 26, and Richard Roberts, 36, were given 16 months in prison and Richard Loizou, 31, got 15 months on Wednesday after being convicted of causing a public nuisance by a jury at Preston crown court in August. Another defendant, Julian Brock, 47, was given a 12-month suspended sentence after pleading guilty to the same offence.

They’ve been jailed for causing a public nuisance.

Their justification of it being something the jury didn’t find to be a justification. Yes, yes, we don’t have jury nullification in England, they decide purely and only on points of law and fact. And here’s the bridge in Brooklyn I’ve for sale…..by the way, on Tuesday, the Guardian was telling us that conviction rates of young men for the crime of rape were low because juries didn’t like to convict young men with their lives ahead of them. No no, we’ve not got jury nullification at all.

So, what’s the effect on prices of this?

The National Farmers Union has warned of “catastrophic” consequences for the industry if there is no Brexit deal, after being warned by the EU that the UK faces a six-month wait to be certified as an approved third-country supplier.

This would be a major setback to the food and drink sector, where exports to the EU are worth £13.2bn a year.

The NFU says it has been told informally that although Britain is in complete regulatory alignment with the EU, if there is no deal, the same health checks countries such as China and the US undergo will apply to UK suppliers.

“What we are talking about in effect is a six-month trade embargo until such time we can get the product in, from that point we will face the European’s external tariff wall meaning we will be priced out of the market,” said the NFU’s director general, Terry Jones.

We’re told that Brexit will mean higher food pries. We’re told that Brexit will mean foo can’t leave he country. Not really possible for both to be true now, is it?

It’s the subtext that’s so much fun here

‘This guy doesn’t know anything’: the inside story of Trump’s shambolic transition team
Illustration: Nathalie Lees
Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and The Big Short, reveals how Trump’s bungled presidential transition set the template for his time in the White House

It’s the voice of the permanent ruling class, that deep state of the right people, complaining about the irruption of the rubes. The Beltway Bandits missing why these people from Flyover Country are there. Simply because large portions of the people don’t like the world the Bandits have built.

Have you ever read such a butchery?

Whatever it is that Barclay’s said it’s presumably not this:

Food import prices are set to rocket under a no-deal Brexit as punitive EU trade tariffs are slapped on food shipped in from abroad.

A report by Barclays found suppliers and retailers are facing a £9.3bn bill if the Government fails to strike a deal with Brussels before the end of March.

Live poultry imports would be slapped with tariffs of 130pc – handing Brussels a £686m windfall – if World Trade Organisation (WTO) Most Favoured Nation tariffs are imposed.

Other products that would be badly hit include orange juice at 180.1pc, lamb carcasses at 82.3pc and garlic at 71pc, the report found.

I can’t quite find that Barclay’s report but even they’re not dim enough to be claiming that if we’re outside the EU we must impose EU tariffs – and pay the money to Brussels – on imports into the UK? The Telegraph on the other hand…..

The Horror, The Horror

Two big shackles hold in check the growth of more alternatives. Easily the biggest is capital: ventures such as co-ops struggle to raise the necessary cash. The holders of capital often seek short-term rewards, are unwilling to take large risks, and have no place on their spreadsheets for social purpose.

But if it has outside capital then it’s not a co op, is it?

Jeez.

It’s just occurred to me

10% of the equity of firms over 250 people goes to the workers.

The Guardian is a ltd, with more than 250 staff. Thus Scott Trust Ltd will lose 10% of Guardian equity.

a) The staff will be so chuffed to get equity in a loss maker.

b) Actually, Scott Trust Ltd is no longer a charity, it’s a business. So staff get 10% of the equity there.

Hmm….

So, encourage the nuclear family then

The number of “lonely” over 50-year-olds is set to hit two million within seven years, Age UK has warned.

The charity said that the growing population of older people means more of them are going to be lonely and isolated in the future.

The figures came as a separate report showed that thousands of roles in the adult social care sector were left unfilled.

Hmm, what’s that? Why reverse course on half a century of killing the nuclear family you say?

Well, possibly because humans don’t do very well without that nuclear family? There being a reason we’re likely descended from those who were in one?

Just to remind everybody

No one, no one at all, is measuring life expectancy. Also, no one is measuring anything about people born in a particular place.

The first drop in life expectancy in Scotland for 35 years should “shame” both the Scottish and UK governments, it has been claimed.

Official figures revealed that life expectancy for men had fallen slightly from 77.07 years for boys born in 2014-16, to 77.02 years for those born in 2015-17. Over the same period, the figure for women fell from 81.15 years to 81.09 years.

Opposition parties said the data from the National Records of Scotland was a “wake up call” for the SNP administration and all those involved in public health.

What is being measured is the length of life of those born 70 and 80 years ago. We then assume that those born today will live that long. Umm, mean age of death or summat, median?, so once we’ve got past 50% of them being dead we’ve a good idea.

We also don’t measure it from births in Scotland. We measure where people die, not where they’re born. This might not be so important over a nation, but it definitely matters more locally. Measuring the age at which people die in the Gorbals is an extremely bad guide the the age at which people born there die. Because migration.

Well, there’s a start to a Labour proposal

Best to nail your colours to the mast early on:

CHAPTER 4
A DEMOCRATIC REGIME FOR LARGE CORPORATIONS
The essential starting point for reform of corporate governance is the recognition that
large corporations are not the private property of their shareholders and should not
be controlled only by executives and directors in the sole or primary interest of
shareholders.

What actually is private property then?

Polly’s One-Eyed Viking

Polly Toynbee seems to have found a new gusset wetner:

He bestrides this conference like a colossus. Big Mac is the one they want to hear, from Andrew Marr to Mumsnet. Lobbyists for every cause are eager to catch his coat-tails. John McDonnell is the man who matters because what he says goes when it comes to almost everything at this Labour gathering in Liverpool. His imprimatur is stamped on every card vote and each frontbench speech; it is as disciplined as in the old New Labour pager-control days.

And it’s always some man wielding the rod of political power, isn’t it?

Add some black footy bags an it’s almost fascist in its attraction to the power of will.

Joyous, just joyous

Prosecutors in England and Wales have been urged to take a more risk-averse approach in rape cases to help stem widespread criticism of the service’s low conviction rates, the Guardian can reveal.

The controversial advice to take a proportion of “weak cases out of the system” has been given to specialist rape prosecutors in training seminars, which has led some staff to fear the service has undertaken an undeclared change in policy.

The advice has also caused alarm among experts and campaigners, who say it could severely limit victims’ access to justice. They warn it could lead to cases involving younger victims, students, or those with mental health issues being less likely to result in a charge.

On Sunday, the Guardian revealed that less than a third of prosecutions brought against young men result in a conviction, with men aged 18 to 24 in England and Wales less likely to be found guilty than older men on trial.

A low accusation to trial ratio shows that the CPS is tossing cases early on. A low trial to conviction rate shows that the CPS is putting forward dodgy cases for trial.

Yesterday The Guardian complained about the CPS not being selective enough with the cases sent to trial, today The Guardian complains about the CPS considering being more selective about the cases sent for trial.

One wonders which gender runs The Guardian’s rape coverage?

Seems reasonable and fair, no?

EU diplomats have accused Theresa May of trying to delay resolution of the Irish border problem until after Brexit day by insisting upon Stormont having a final veto before any “backstop” solution can come into force.

Senior diplomats involved in the negotiations have reacted furiously to the details of a fresh UK proposal for avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland, briefed to the Irish PM, Leo Varadkar, at last week’s Salzburg summit.

Under the solution, May will agree to Northern Ireland potentially staying, in effect, in the single market, as the rest of the UK exits after the transition period, should there be no other way to avoid a hard border at the time.

However, crucially, the UK is insisting that the Northern Ireland assembly, known as Stormont, would have to vote in support of this move before it came into force.

The local government should have a vote on what the system of governance is?

And isn’t that what the Remoaners are screaming anyway, that the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly should have a say?

If only he knew some economics

This chart shows the labour share of GDP (or national income) over more than two centuries……And that long-term downward trend is precisely why Labour has to take radical action now. People are simply not paid enough. And that has to end.

So when people say Labour will destroy the economy by giving people a fair share the simple response is, ‘no they won’t: they’re repairing the damage that’s brought us to our knees’.

Great, OK, the bit of national income that has risen is taxes upon consumption – VAT. So, lower VAT and the labour share will rise again. Over to you Murph.

Rilly Willy?

For markets, even though neither Gove nor Fox wants openly to concede it, don’t work as the ideology predicts. Market economies need the state, European-style.

That’s why all the richest economies in the world are in continental Europe, are they?

Amusing

So increasingly, I wonder: What is the socialism of the Amazon age? How will it be expressed? And can it be shaped into something that might credibly take power? Put another way, while proudly hanging on to immovable ideas of equality and solidarity, are Labour and the left finally ready to leave the 20th century?

I’m a socialist me. Dunno what it means nor what I’m going to do but socialism, it’s the right thing, innit?

Cliche alert, Pole gets lost by 10,800 miles

‘I went loopy’: the photographer who walked 12,000 miles from Wales to Poland
Sean O’Hagan

Michal Iwanowski came across some graffiti in Cardiff that said: ‘Go home, Polish.’ So he did. The 105-day slog almost broke him – but it restored his faith in a volatile, fractured Europe

Ah:

On 27 April this year, Michal Iwanowski left his house in Cardiff to walk to his home village of Mokrzeszów in Poland. Carrying British and Polish passports and wearing a T-shirt bearing the word “Polska”, he began his 1,200-mile journey east, sticking as closely as possible to a straight line he had drawn on a map. Over 105 days, it would take him through Wales, England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the Czech Republic.

Stand down, stand down. It’s just the usual innumeracy of the arts graduates at The Guardian.

Someone really should test this assertion

So Serrato started digging, looking for information on every Chemnitz-related video published on YouTube this year. What he found, according to a New York Times report, is that the platform’s recommendation system consistently directed people toward extremist videos on the riots — then on to far-right videos on other subjects. “Users searching for news on Chemnitz would be sent down a rabbit hole of misinformation and hate. And as interest in Chemnitz grew, it appears, YouTube funnelled many Germans to extremist pages, whose view-counts skyrocketed.”

Nobody who knows anything about YouTube will be surprised. Time and again, researchers have discovered that when videos with political or ideological content are uploaded to the platform, YouTube’s “recommender” algorithm will direct viewers to more extremist content after they have watched the first one. Given that most people probably have the autoplay feature left on by default, that means that watching YouTube videos often leads people to extremist sites.

So, how many iterations of the recommendation engine gets you from a Jezza speech to an insistence that we’ve got to starve 8 million Ukrainian kulaks? Is it more or less via Seumas Milne or Andrew Murray?

Investigate this, FBI!

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faces a second allegation of sexual misconduct after another woman came forward accusing him of inappropriate sexual behaviour during his college years at Yale University.

The New Yorker magazine reported on Sunday evening that a 53-year-old woman, Deborah Ramirez, who attended university with Kavanaugh, has alleged that the judge appeared to have thrust his genitals in her face at a drunken party during their freshman year in 1983-4 academic calendar. She said she clearly remembers the judge, then a teenager, pulling up his pants after a penis was thrust in her face during a drinking game. She also accused Kavanaugh of laughing at her in the aftermath and has said the FBI should investigate the incident.

A police organisation specifically set up so as to deal with interstate crime should be investigating a flashing incident at college decades ago?

Sirsly?

There’s no shame to these people, is there?