Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Valmy]

I tell you what though.... that Jenrick eh? What an odious wanker.

Yeah - and especially considering that he was to the left of Badenoch until about two minutes ago. I don't mean to be cruel but I think the switch happened around the same time he discovered Ozempic.

What's the link, the fatter you are the more liberal you are?

If that was true Texas would be a soviet socialist republic.

[HVC]

I tell you what though.... that Jenrick eh? What an odious wanker.

Yeah - and especially considering that he was to the left of Badenoch until about two minutes ago. I don't mean to be cruel but I think the switch happened around the same time he discovered Ozempic.

What's the link, the fatter you are the more liberal you are?

If that was true Texas would be a soviet socialist republic.

Are your liberal city yuppies fatter than your rural conservatives bumpkins?

Maybe it's a relative rather than absolute scale

[Sheilbh]

My particular dislike for him is based on his inauthenticity. I suspect he might even be a liberal. But his desire to be Tory leader and maybe PM trumps all this. I find Badenoch (nutter) and even Farage (authentic right wing arsehole) preferable.

Yeah I think it's really telling with him. When you talk about authenticity I think he is the opposite - which is, I think, why people react against him so much when they actually see him. They can just tell. I think he's good at the two minute guerrilla campaigning stuff on social media but I think it was true during the leadership election that the more people saw him, the less they liked him while they warmed to most of the other candidates (interestingly, not Cleverly and I wonder again if he just comes across as a bit too smooth/inauthentic).

I also think it is an interesting pattern with the Tories now, on their second leader from a minority background who is genuinely quite right-wing and was a Brexit supporter when the party leadership was pro-Remain. And in both cases their main internal opposition was from a white candidate who started on the left of the party, was a Remainer and is now running very much to their right.

FWIW on Badenoch I think she's the best choice for the Tories and I think her strategy is right. But, ultimately, the job of a Tory leader in this parliament and at the next election is simply to keep the party alive and a going concern. That's not a small challenge - as I say, I think of the options she's probably the best to do that and I think her strategy is right. I also thought her challenge in her speech to the emerging "ethno-nationalism" on the online right was effective - a bit like Shabana Mahmood's at Labour conference - if immediately undermined by Jenrick who she has to back because she's not got the capital to fire him (yet).

What's the link, the fatter you are the more liberal you are?

I've no theory, no judgment - just facts And in Jenrick's defence he apparently did a marathon and got very into running so I'm sure there's a lot going on there.

[mongers]

So any actual news happening in the UK worth putting the tv news on for? 

[Tamas]

I just can't understand how the Tories can think they can overtake Farage from the right. They have been trying since the Ukip days.

By the way there is this O'Briab fellow on LBC he had an interesting point: the Tory party has imploded because of their ideological success. In the sense that they were able to enact everything the media supported them was wishing for. We left the EU. They got Johnson, their party's and their media's darling elected. Then, heck, they even had the uber-Thatcher parody Truss to dial thst part of their ideology to 11.

They have succeeded in all their goals and thus their idiocy has been revealed,abd they collapsed.

[Savonarola]

Back when I worked in cellular there were trigger events which would result in everyone using their phone at once.  Stadiums are a good example, everyone had to text after a spectacular play.  This would overwhelm the network and we would always over-dimension the network in known problem areas.  I was reminded of that when I saw this very British technological record in the IEEE Spectrum:

Biggest Teatime Electricity Spike

Brits love their tea. That's why the United Kingdom's National Grid engineers have to manage surges in energy use during popular broadcast events, when many viewers put their kettles on simultaneously. The biggest spike occurred during the 1990 World Cup semifinal. Just after England lost the game-deciding penalty shootout, demand surged by 2,800 megawatts, equivalent to the electricity used by approximately 1.1 million kettles.

There's even an interactive graph on the site which, among other things, compares that power surge to the power needed to power a Delorean from 1955 to 1985.

[Sheilbh]

I just can't understand how the Tories can think they can overtake Farage from the right. They have been trying since the Ukip days.

That's Jenrick's pitch to take over the Tories, but that's internal party fights. It's not what the actual leader of the party is doing.

By the way there is this O'Briab fellow on LBC he had an interesting point

First time for everything

I think there's something to it - to a point. Brexit split the Tory party. Johnson was a darling of the grassroots but not the parliamentary party - he was a calculated risk (as in they knew his flaws but thought he could win, he did and then his flaws destroyed him and them). But I don't necessarily think it's idiocy or wish fulfillment or unique to the Tories because I look at this Labour government with 170 seat majority after fourteen years in opposition hitting exactly the same buffers and spinning their wheels in the sand. And so many of the challenges they're facing are the same problems and issues and syndromes are recurring.

Back when I worked in cellular there were trigger events which would result in everyone using their phone at once.  Stadiums are a good example, everyone had to text after a spectacular play.  This would overwhelm the network and we would always over-dimension the network in known problem areas.  I was reminded of that when I saw this very British technological record in the IEEE Spectrum:

A partner at the law firm I used to work with got to visit the National Grid Control Room, which I was very jealous of:


They have stories of things like the royal wedding and the 2003 Rugby World Cup final (in Australia, so in the morning here) and needing to make sure they've got supply on stream for those surges

[Savonarola]

Back when I worked in cellular there were trigger events which would result in everyone using their phone at once.  Stadiums are a good example, everyone had to text after a spectacular play.  This would overwhelm the network and we would always over-dimension the network in known problem areas.  I was reminded of that when I saw this very British technological record in the IEEE Spectrum:

A partner at the law firm I used to work with got to visit the National Grid Control Room, which I was very jealous of:


They have stories of things like the royal wedding and the 2003 Rugby World Cup final (in Australia, so in the morning here) and needing to make sure they've got supply on stream for those surges

That's cool, we have the big board in rail too.  Here's the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) one:

[Sheilbh]

I am very jealous of jobs that involve big boards - especially if analogue

[Tamas]

Badenoch wants to leave the ECHR among other things, it's not like she is far removed from this Jenrick character.

[Sheilbh]

It's not a hill I'd die on - but I'm fully aware that I currently work in media and I think ECHR jurisprudence has been an absolute disaster for press freedom. I'm also very strongly opposed to some of the emerging cases in Europe - there were a couple from Switzerland and Portugal which I think are really bad (and, interestingly, the British judge on the court strongly dissented from as being massive judicial overreach). Also it's not binding at a European level yet but there's been a couple of decisions that wealth taxes are against human rights from national supreme courts - so highly persuasive authorities if not yet at the European level. I am, at best, very ambivalent on the ECHR (as incorporated into UK law) - ironically for many of the reasons that Labour opposed the ECHR when it was being written (I find it interesting how these issues which are particularly divisive now: Israel/Palestine, ECHR, Europe all ones where left and right have flipped positions).

I wouldn't be surprised if Labour end up there before the next election - we've already got two former Labour Home Secretaries and a Lib Dem Lord and a leading human rights KC talking about it needing "reform" or "temporary suspension". They're right although I actually think the main issue is how domestic courts have interpreted it and the way it's been incorporated into domestic law under the Human Rights Act but that's less exciting. I think that's definitely the case in the press freedom cases where it's not actually the European Court but domestic courts interpreting European case

There's also criticism by that Lib Dem peer (and, indeed, Tony Blair) of the Refugee Convention - I wouldn't be surprised if there's a challenge to that before long either. Plus Reeves apparently looking at leaving the Aarhus Convention (on environmental decision making).

[Tonitrus]

I am very jealous of jobs that involve big boards - especially if analogue

I had once had a chance to visit/see the Alaskan NORAD Region big board (which also had a stuffed polar bear next to it).  Twas' pretty cool.