news & politics:discussion

[charlierc]

While not as high profile as France, this was an interesting democratic tidbit from the mainland over the weekend... Slovenia election: liberal newcomer Robert Golob defeats populist PM | Slovenia | The Guardian

[Ozanne]

 

[steviewevie]

[steviewevie]

 

[Kurosagi]

https://samf.substack.com/p/its-not-a-dead-cat?s=r

An interesting article about dead cats of the politics variety. I hadn't realised it was BJ that had written an article about it when he was still doing a column. I've been falling into the trap recently of giving too much intelligence and agency to the BJ comms team and I've ended up thinking everything is a dead cat...Rawanda, Rayner's legs etc.

I'm not sure I buy the strict three criteria he sets out as, despite the chaos, I think there is a concerted effort to 'save BJ' behind the scenes that is so desperate they'll torpedo their own policies by shoving them out early for distraction purposes. There's a bit of back and forth discussion about his criteria for 'dead cat' in the comments.

[Kurosagi]

Clever idea to introduce a measure of audience ideological diversity into the algorithm that recommends news-feeds (in an attempt to de-amplify fake news):

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01276-5

But I'm not sure it tackles the human behaviour issue that people tend to like information that skews towards their world views. For example, BBC would probably score highly on their measure of audience diversity, but dear god the beeb's attempts at impartiality can result in really dull articles.

[steviewevie]

31 minutes ago, Kurosagi said:

https://samf.substack.com/p/its-not-a-dead-cat?s=r

An interesting article about dead cats of the politics variety. I hadn't realised it was BJ that had written an article about it when he was still doing a column. I've been falling into the trap recently of giving too much intelligence and agency to the BJ comms team and I've ended up thinking everything is a dead cat...Rawanda, Rayner's legs etc.

I'm not sure I buy the strict three criteria he sets out as, despite the chaos, I think there is a concerted effort to 'save BJ' behind the scenes that is so desperate they'll torpedo their own policies by shoving them out early for distraction purposes. There's a bit of back and forth discussion about his criteria for 'dead cat' in the comments.

The Rwanda thing looked like it had been pushed out early...Patel's unreadiness for many questions about it, Rwanda's president not being in country when she was there to announce etc

[Kurosagi]

3 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

The Rwanda thing looked like it had been pushed out early...Patel's unreadiness for many questions about it, Rwanda's president not being in country when she was there to announce etc

Agree, so it looks like Freedman is trying to make a pedantic point that it's not officially a dead cat because it screws the govt by releasing it early. Not quite sure why he's trying to keep the integrity of the original classification in the face of evidence that the govt are clearly trying to influence the news cycle for distraction purposes. We need another animal term for what team BJ are doing - a rabid hyena perhaps?

[steviewevie]

27 minutes ago, Kurosagi said:

Agree, so it looks like Freedman is trying to make a pedantic point that it's not officially a dead cat because it screws the govt by releasing it early. Not quite sure why he's trying to keep the integrity of the original classification in the face of evidence that the govt are clearly trying to influence the news cycle for distraction purposes. We need another animal term for what team BJ are doing - a rabid hyena perhaps?

I didn't know original meaning of dead cat, just thought it meant deliberate distraction, and I guess many people think the same..and is hardly a new thing!

[squirrelarmy]

39 minutes ago, Kurosagi said:

We need another animal term for what team BJ are doing - a rabid hyena perhaps?

[Kurosagi]

1 hour ago, squirrelarmy said:

1 hour ago, Kurosagi said:

We need another animal term for what team BJ are doing - a rabid hyena perhaps?

"Dancing Squirrel". Perfect.

I'll be referring to that the next time team BJ put out another bollox distraction.

[steviewevie]

 

[steviewevie]

 

[steviewevie]

 

[Ozanne]

1 minute ago, steviewevie said:

 

So no more money for people just random half baked ideas? This government have no clue. 

[Ozanne]

It really isn’t hard to sort out the cost of living:

- cap energy prices

- tax energy companies more

- ensure people have more money (scrap NI rise etc)

[steviewevie]

come on then

 

[Neil]

Putins big table is sat on cable reels 

[charlierc]

Poland's government has said Russia will be cutting their gas supply from tomorrow Russia to halt gas supply to Poland, government told | Poland | The Guardian

Would be surprised if it stopped there. Much as Russia were saying in front of the UN Secretary General earlier that they want a diplomatic negotiated solution, it's not exactly coming very soon tbh.

[charlierc]

2 hours ago, steviewevie said:

 

 

2 hours ago, steviewevie said:

 

Neither of these exactly screams like the magic innovation to stop this spiral getting out of hand. There's a strange degree of inflexibility showing up.

[lost]

3 minutes ago, charlierc said:

Poland's government has said Russia will be cutting their gas supply from tomorrow Russia to halt gas supply to Poland, government told | Poland | The Guardian

Would be surprised if it stopped there. Much as Russia were saying in front of the UN Secretary General earlier that they want a diplomatic negotiated solution, it's not exactly coming very soon tbh.

The countries being harder on Russia are definitely getting the worst of the cost of living crisis. That's whilst the ECB keeps ZIRP for the benefit of Germany. There could be tensions further down the road in the EU.

[steviewevie]

45 minutes ago, lost said:

The countries being harder on Russia are definitely getting the worst of the cost of living crisis. That's whilst the ECB keeps ZIRP for the benefit of Germany. There could be tensions further down the road in the EU.

They have gas storage to keep them going through spring/summer...but could be a big problem by end of summer...but at same time looking more and more desperate for Russia.

[Ozanne]

 

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, Ozanne said:

 

Pippa Crerar been tweeting about this...for this one he may be innocent...

 

[Ozanne]

2 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Pippa Crerar been tweeting about this...for this one he may be innocent...

 

His contrition has conveniently disappeared.