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Reply | And some good news
at 08:27 21 Feb 2025
Lived in Neath Road in our fair city at the time of the conviction. Wonder whether he had work here. Reports variously say he was previously a PhD student and "professor" (probably meaning a lower academic grade) at Nottingham University. |
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Reply | Sexual Harassment Or Not?
at 14:48 20 Feb 2025
Must admit I didn't think that the kiss aspect would lead to a conviction, but thought LR might get hit hard for the coercion charge. In the event he was found not guilty of that 2nd potentially more serious offense. It looks as though the court did not put much weight on the lip reading evidence that he asked permission, and instead went with Jenni's story that she did not hear what he said with so much crowd noise and did not consent. It would be interesting to get more detail on the reasoning. Expensive kiss at 10,000 euros, losing a job, and I'd guess hefty legal expenses |
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Reply | More fibs from Rachel?
at 14:35 20 Feb 2025
The latest rumoured whizz from Rachel is to cut the ISA annual deposit limit from £20K to £4K. Hope this doesn't happen as I wanted to transfer the full amount in April having been hit hard with an end-of-year tax adjustment demand for the last year, as savings interest rates have gone up. Unclear whether this is investment ISAs as well as cash ISAs, and of course the rumoured change may not happen at all. [Post edited 20 Feb 14:49]
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Reply | More fibs from Rachel?
at 14:17 20 Feb 2025
This is the best I can do on Chancellor nicknames. Gwyn may have underestimated how nasty politicians are to each other. Are any worse than Rachel's?
Geoffrey Howe = Mogadon Man.
Denis Healey = Pug
Nigel Lawson = Smuggins
Norman Lamont ?
Ken Clarke = Ken the Zen (based on something Bercow said about his zen-like calm).
Gordon Brown = ‘The Big Clunking Fist’ (from Blair)
Alistair Darling ?
George Osborne = “The Submarine” (because he dives from sight at the first sign of trouble).
Sajid Javid = CHINO ( name coined by Dom Cummings to mean chancellor in name only because of his alleged lack of control over the economy). [Post edited 21 Feb 8:02]
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Reply | More fibs from Rachel?
at 13:31 20 Feb 2025
Well there was "Spreadsheet Phil". It is quite fun to see if anybody can think of any others. 
Edit. And during COVID Rishi while C of E was "Dr Death". [Post edited 20 Feb 13:35]
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Reply | European security
at 11:57 20 Feb 2025
Worries about European security have been ratcheted up several notches in the last day or two. I can't help thinking that Trump and Vance have needlessly alienated a large number of European conservatives who would have otherwise taken onboard the need for higher defence spending. The untruths about who started the Ukraine war and Zelensky being a dictator are such a blatant perversion of reality that only a very few (even counting this forum) believe. The Daily Star is hardly a left-wing paper, seeming to me more interested in froth than politics under the Reach Group, but it published a scathing cartoon of Trump as Putin's poodle today.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/putins-poodle-loses-manbaby-donald-3
Scroll down to see the cartoon that appeared on the front page. |
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Reply | Ban
at 14:43 19 Feb 2025
Saw Ivan Mauger a few times at the County Ground in the 1970s when he rode for the Exeter Falcons. With his help they won the 1974 League Championship. It wasn't really my sport, but my step father was keen. I mainly remember the smell and noise of the bikes. The Falcons got quite good crowds in those days - pity about Carmarthen. The County Ground was also a greyhound track, as well as the home of the rugby team - now the Exeter Chiefs. That stadium too was demolished some years ago. [Post edited 19 Feb 14:48]
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Reply | Ban
at 08:16 19 Feb 2025
It would be interesting to know how many people in Swansea who have dogs will be affected by the ban. Presumably the demise of the old greyhound racing track near Harris Brothers on Ystrad Road meant that interest was decreasing. I often wondered what happened with the mystery fire that preceded the closure. The fire is not mentioned in the Wiki entry below. Does anybody know?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swansea_Greyhound_Stadium |
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Reply | Latest mass casualty attack in Germany
at 11:26 17 Feb 2025
I thought you were posting about "these sort of incidents". There may be all kinds of reasons for the incidents across Europe, but there is a certain pattern when one looks at the majority of perpetrators. You really are all over the place with some of your posts. |
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Reply | Next Swansea manager odds 🤯
at 04:00 17 Feb 2025
I wondered about the first two myself. A bit of a gamble but both probably within our financial means. |
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Reply | Monk Sacked Again
at 19:02 16 Feb 2025
Saw Monk's final game when Cambridge lost 0-1 to Exeter on Sky TV. It was a pretty dire affair with a lot of midfield moves that broke down, rather like some of our games. Exeter had been on a bad run too with no wins since the turn of the year, but they shaded this one. I did wonder how long Monk could survive after that. |
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Reply | European security
at 15:32 16 Feb 2025
Well, that is a question I don't know the answer to. The anti-globalists will mutter about elites or Western liberal establishments, but it is probably also the case that relational networks form within legal circles that promote particular interpretations or approaches. |
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Reply | Latest mass casualty attack in Germany
at 15:20 16 Feb 2025
Add up the number of casualties and you will see where the main problem lies. I think you meant the Dunblane shootings (15 dead) not the Lockerbie PA 103 bombing, which was certainly connected with an Islamic country (whether by Libyans or the PLO), and led to 270 fatalities. |
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Reply | Latest mass casualty attack in Germany
at 12:22 16 Feb 2025
There speaks somebody with a very short memory, or more likely a highly selective perception of reality. I will only mention events with over 12 casualties, as obviously there are many more incidents with fewer killed. All the ones I list involve Islamists.
2004 Madrid train bombings (193 killed, 2,050 injured), 2005 London 7/7 attacks (56 killed, 784 injured), January 2015 Île-de-France attacks (20 killed, 22 injured), November 2015 Paris attacks (137 killed, 413 injured), 2016 Brussels bombings (35 killed, 340 injured), 2016 Nice truck attack (87 killed, 434 injured), 2016 Berlin Christmas market attack (13 killed, 55 injured), 2017 Manchester Arena bombing (23 killed, 250 injured), 2017 Barcelona attacks (24 killed, 152 injured).
For smaller scale UK attacks see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain [Post edited 16 Feb 12:27]
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Reply | European security
at 11:55 16 Feb 2025
Many of these bones of contention can be argued both ways, but I want to focus on something in the last paragraph that I think misunderstands what is happening. It isn't just that laws are expanding to deal with changing circumstances and technologies, but rather that there is a change in the relationship between national legislative bodies and judiciaries. Traditionally Parliaments made laws and judges determined whether laws had been broken, if necessary interpreting their meaning. However, what is happening now is that interpretation has moved on to extrapolation, in effect re-making laws without seeking consent from the governments that put them in statues or treaties. Former Supreme Court judge, Jonathan Sumption, has discussed this in a recent Spectator article, which gives several examples where the ECoHR has applied law in new ways.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/judgment-day-the-case-for-leaving-the-echr/
Sumption writes that "in 1978 the Strasbourg judges proclaimed what they called the ‘living instrument doctrine’. According to this, the court claims the right to develop the convention by recognising new rights thought to be in the spirit of the original treaty although never envisaged in it." Specific examples, include applying ECHR law outside European territories, moving from the traditional doctrine that governments are bound only by the final decision of a court to impose binding interim orders (as happened with the Rwanda flights), and extending Article 8 of the ECHR, which pertains to right to a family life, to include almost anything that intrudes upon an individual’s personal autonomy.
More widely, this is about a process of "juridification", whereby law start to invade other domains of social life, especially politics. Anybody interested can read classic literature about this by Jurgen Habermas and Gunther Teubner, and lots of recent stuff on judicial activism. It is a trend that has accelerated in recent years, on both sides of the Atlantic, and, as you say, is one that may be used by both Left and Right. Europe and the EU in particular have taken it further than any other international trading block. |
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