UK Politics - Weeny, Weedy, Weaky

[EnglishEdward]

No I don't. If the good lord had wanted me to use metres, then
he would have given me a metre on the end of each leg.

 

[Arakhor]

Unless your physical foot is by some chance 30.48 cm long, then he didn't give you an Imperial foot either.

 

[EnglishEdward]

They are near enough that when I have put my shoes on.

 

[Ferocitus]

Apparenlly there has been a boom in sex dolls and other devices.

Pffft!

 

[Kyriakos]

Political anathema, or democratically ethical, english idiosyncratic hermitism re (geographically based) archaic meters is a paradigm of idiocy in Europe.

 

[AmazonQueen]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coro...t-shake-up/ar-BB14W3XQ?ocid=spartan-ntp-feeds

Boris takes charge in coronavirus crisis.
Which makes me wonder what hes been doing up to now. Wasn't this important enough for his attention before?

 

[Arakhor]

According to an anecdote published in the Sunday Times (I think) and then repeated in the Guardian, the Prime Minister allegedly asked his chief civil servant who was responsible for implementing the govt's coronavirus strategy, which was met by a long silence and the civil servant pointing out that it was the PM's job. When that anecdote sounds like parody but could easily be true, you know that we have a problem.

 

[EnglishEdward]

If that is true, it does not say very much for the chief civil servant.

When I was in the civil service the line was that it was for ministers to set policy and
strategic direction, but the implementation of policey and strategy was for the civil service.

 

[Gorbles]

How long ago were you in the civil service, if you don't mind me asking? If it's prying (and I do understand that), would you consider it a safe assumption that things may have changed in the time since?

 

[EnglishEdward]

I left five years ago. Of course things changed while I was in the civil service, and have no doubt since changed some more.

However the concept that the Prime Minister is himself responsible for the implementation of strategy seems very strange to me..
It all seems a bit like the captain of the battleship personally firing its 16 inch guns. While he/she is the person at the top and
must take resposibility for outcomes, it seems to me that they should employ others, e.g. programme managers, for that role.
There was a strong tendency to bring in short term consultants for changes, in which case it is surely Dominatrix Cummings' job.

 

[EnglishEdward]

On a separate topic, I think it is a mistake to reconvene Parliament at Westminster; it is an old bulding
and there is a very real limit to the extent that can be done safely with regard to not catching Covid 19.

Parliament should instead meet at somewhere like Wembly football stadium where there is oodles of space.

 

[Hrothbern]

If that is true, it does not say very much for the chief civil servant.

When I was in the civil service the line was that it was for ministers to set policy and
strategic direction, but the implementation of policey and strategy was for the civil service.

But when a minister is doing micromanagement in that implementing to a degree where heads of civil service cannot implement policy and strategy anymore....

And if that minister is no longer able to have and order any kind of consistent enough policy and strategy because of politics, newsmedia, negotiations, etc....

Ad hoc continuously changing micro management...

I think that needs a special breed of heads of the civil services

 

[Samson]

Apparently, if you want a test you have to give your PII to the multi-billion dollar US credit reporting agency TransUnion, and the government will not say why.

The Department of Health and Social Care is remaining tight-lipped about its decision to award a contract to the UK subsidiary of a multi-billion dollar US credit reporting agency that checks patient data when attempting to book a Coronavirus home test online.
Tens of thousands of people have already visited the Government website to book their test. Users are told that, in order to confirm their identity, they need to share their information with TransUnion. It is the smallest of the three largest credit agencies, along with Experian and Equifax.
Privacy and civil liberties campaigners have already warned about tech firms getting their hands on patient data in the battle against the Coroanvirus.
NHSX – a NHS subsidiary focused on digital innovation – and NHS England Improvement reported at the end of March that they had engaged Palantir alongside Microsoft, Google and London-based artificial intelligence (AI) firm Faculty to build a “data platform” to make their COVID-19 response as efficient and effective as possible.
Palantir and Faculty are highly controversial either because of links to the CIA and the Donald Trump administration; or to Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s chief advisor and the former head of the Vote Leave campaign during the 2016 EU Referendum, which was found to have breached UK electoral law by overspending.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I think that needs a special breed of heads of the civil services

At the moment, it seems that Dominic Cummings thinks he is the Head of the Civil Service when it suits him, and just an adviser when it does not.

@Samson As has been pointed out many times before, the total spent by the Remain campaigns was more than the total spent by the Leave campaigns.
The Electoral Commission never got a conviction there; while the conservative who overspent in Thanet, when Nigel Farage stood to be MP, was convicted.

 

[Arakhor]

@Samson As has been pointed out many times before, the total spent by the Remain campaigns was more than the total spent by the Leave campaigns.
The Electoral Commission never got a conviction there; while the conservative who overspent in Thanet, when Nigel Farage stood to be MP, was convicted.

That's hardly relevant to the conversation about personal data though, even if it was entirely true.

 

[EnglishEdward]

My post was relevant to the last line of the text that Samson quoted.

 

[Arakhor]

The first 80% of the quote just wasn't that important, I take it?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

That's all the police ever say. Its up to the courts to decide when it gets that far.

So why did you say "Police conclude Cummings did break law" when you know that is not correct then?

They say they would have advised him to return home and if he followed that advice no further action would have been taken which clearly indicates if he had refused to they would've taken further action

Yes, I'm sure if he'd pulled a gun on them they would have taken further action too, but that didn't happen either.

Not sure where you get reads as them saying "we don't think this really matters" apart from your already thinking that.

Well they said "Durham Constabulary will take no further action in this matter", so they can't think it's all that important surely?

The last thing we want is the police supplanting the courts, right? After all, we wouldn't want the Attorney General to be on Twitter saying that all this fuss was a waste of time or the Prime Minister saying, "this is over! This is over!" like a petulant child either, but we've already had the latter two and I for one am pretty glad that the police don't get to decide what is or isn't lawful, otherwise we might end up even more like the US than we already are.

Okay? So you agree that "Police conclude Cummings did break law" is in inaccurate summary of the story then?

 

[EnglishEdward]

The last 20% of the quote is perfectly adequate to identify the political bias of the author.
Having thereby discredited themselves, I need not take their article seriously.

Now going back to data protection, the last time I tried to re-register at HMCR, the
Experian authorisation agent tool required me to give it lots of detail which I did, and
it no doubt kept it all to sell on before declining to validate me, so I take a dim view
of government trying to get ICT on the cheap by compromising its citizens data.

 

[AmazonQueen]

So why did you say "Police conclude Cummings did break law" when you know that is not correct then?

They concluded what he had done broke the regulations and would've warrented a warning and possibly further action.

Yes, I'm sure if he'd pulled a gun on them they would have taken further action too, but that didn't happen either.

Since they didn't catch him in the act.

Well they said "Durham Constabulary will take no further action in this matter", so they can't think it's all that important surely?

No, as they have said it means they aren't taking retrospective action against people they don't catch in the act.

Okay? So you agree that "Police conclude Cummings did break law" is in inaccurate summary of the story then?

No