Gonzo McFee posted:

Depressing that all it takes to distract the press from us hurtling off the edge of a no deal cliff for no reason other than bare stupidity is them buying a loving dog.

Failed Imagineer posted:

Bloody Stupid Johnson

Borrovan posted:

Her CLP voted no confidence in her, and she's deselected herself for the next GE (presumably jumping before getting pushed, and freeing herself up to act like an arse in the meantime knowing there's nothing more the party can do)
https://mobile.twitter.com/KateHoeyMP/status/1148198081143476225

Azza Bamboo posted:

Rupert of Hentzau posted:

The Speaker is an MP who is elected to the position by other MPs. They immediately resign their existing party membership upon taking the post, and by convention none of the other parties stand candidates against them in general elections in order to preserve the neutrality of the position and to let the Speaker do their job of governing the house in a reasonably even-handed manner -- they can't do it properly if they're worrying that smacking down one party for constantly flouting procedure is going to result in their being out of a job come election time. Historically this has meant that the Speaker is Speaker until such time as they decide not to be and resign, at which point there is an election for a new Speaker.

Bercow as Speaker is a interesting, though; he was a Tory MP who started out on the right of the party, but his wife is a Labour member and appears to have had a moderating effect on his opinions over the years. He was elected Speaker as a sort of compromise candidate, since the other Tory candidates were frothing lunatics and Labour knew they didn't have the votes to put one of their own party in the chair, so they threw their weight behind Bercow as the lesser evil. The other part of this is that Bercow is an absolutely colossal narcissist -- even more so than your typical MP -- and loves putting on a performance for the cameras.

Put those two things together and you end up with an unexpectedly proactive Speaker who is willing to go out of his way to poo poo on the government whenever it gets out of line, even though it's a Tory government and he's an ex-Tory. Some of the things he's done have been without precedent, but hardly against the rules since the Speaker is the person who gets to decide what a lot of the rules are -- or at least how they are interpreted.

And now that the government is into full-on fascist mode and they're ignoring parliamentary conventions left right and centre, they've also figured that now is the time for a reckoning with Bercow. They can't make him give up the Speaker's chair and even if they win a majority in the next election he could still make life very difficult for them, so they're going to try to unseat him as an MP and install somebody who'll wave through all of their bullshit without a second thought.

Diet Crack posted:

Sounds about right, she looks like a miserable, dull piece of work - if pictures can paint a thousand words. The quip about enjoying fighting with her spouse says it all really. (20 years of marriage counselling, poor bastard.)

Beefeater1980 posted:

JFC people and dismissing statistics. Uber’s hilariously evil business practices aside, if you think app-based ride hailing , where every ride is traceable, is more likely to have unreported crime than some dude in a Xiali who picks up a customer from the roadside, you’re hugely wrong. Not every taxi driver on the planet is a London cabbie, and not all regulation has the intention or effect of improving standards.

I’m also not aware of any evidence that people are reluctant to report crime on minicabs or ride hailing cars - which makes sense, because it would be insane to not report someone assaulting or mugging you just because it was an Uber or Ola driver or whatever.

I mean if you want to argue against the gig economy go right ahead, there are plenty of good reasons, but “more safety” isn’t an accurate reason to prefer licensed taxis.

Guavanaut posted:

So what you're saying is that we should nationalize Uber and make the anonymized data public and the code open source?

Bobby Deluxe posted:

If you want to get into it, call out his circular reasoning and the fact that we can't stockpile insulin, no international trade deal has ever been completed in under 5 months and any insulin coming from the US would (A) be out of date by the time it was shipped here and (B) bankrupt us because of US healthcare prices. Type A diabetics (for whom the condition is genetic, so no stereotypes blaming weight here) are going to loving die because of this.

bump_fn posted:

who plays the space turtle

Renaissance Robot posted:

I'm struggling to parse wtf this tweet is trying to say but either way it seems like an overreaction? How does Watson staying or not really have any significant effect on our chances at a GE?

kecske posted:

uh isn't he the most successful opposition leader in UK history? also I googled effete and it says it means effeminate and I'm not sure thats a cool thing to say

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

https://twitter.com/allisonpearson/status/1176043087103238149

feedmegin posted:

Na.

.22 is far too small a calibre to be reliable. 5.56mm NATO

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

In the UK there's a difference between 'further education' and 'higher education'.
'Further' is post-16 and 'Higher' post-18. (Generally. There are exceptions to everything.)

In 'further' this may be students who are moving on from school to do A-levels etc at a college, or more vocational subjects.
Higher education takes place in Universities and is where you get your bachelors, masters, PhDs and a few other rare things.

Some universities are 'collegiate' eg Oxford, Cambridge, London, and a few others, where you study at a college of the university. Eg London University has Imperial, Queen Mary, University College, Goldsmiths, Royal Holloway and a bunch of others. Basically, they are like federations. There have been a lot of mergers in the past 35-40 years and some have lost their identity completely. Eg Queen Mary WAS Queen Mary College. Then it was Queen Mary & Westfield. Now it is Queen Mary (without the college bit). Westfield College has gone to the great library in the sky never to be heard of again.

There used to be things called Polytechnics as well, they did offer degrees but often in more vocational / technical subjects. These converted to Universities back in the late 80s I think. There was a lot of snobbery against 'red brick' universities (new ones) and the traditional ones that could trace origins back several hundred years.

mediadave posted:

True - but the Labour party policy is that we accept the outcome.