Westminstenders: Competitive Stupidity

[RedToothBrush]

A week of wondering which MP is going to be the most dumb.

There is stiff competition between parties and remain / leave.

Expect incredible bids of ignorance and incompetence to curl your toes, with a bit of constitutional craziness thrown in for good measure.

Valentine's Day beckons...

... And so does the No Deal Divorce.

Some of our (older) friends look down at DH as just an IT geek. The MN breech and the tech issues that some banks have had does make me reflect on how little good IT staff are valued.

The tiresome regularity of banking IT outages has been driven by losing the knowledge and skills needed to keep 40 year old systems running. Working in a big long established IT department is like archaeology at times. You get beyond certain layers and all of a sudden no one knows why is there. What it's doing, what happens if it doesn't do (which isn't as easy as switch it off and see what fails - what "fails" may be a month away. Or never - until you need to run that audit function, or annual tax report ...)

Probably the worst offenders will be government civil service systems. Which is odd, given the 100% spotless track record he UK government has of delivering IT systems

When no deal happens, a lot of systems will be immediately impacted in unforeseen ways. The real challenge will be in weeks and months when we have to work with aggregated bad data ...

Conspiracy theorists must be having a field day with all this.

Did anyone else catch the Boris Johnson interview on the Today programme this morning? It had me quite literally screaming at the radio. 'there is a clear plan' NO THERE FUCKING ISN'T. And twatwaffle about fucking GATT article 24.

{ he is leading the lack of opposition } about Corbyn.
First smile of the day!
I am incensed that they are suggesting it will be illegal to eat cats and dogs and ON PRINCIPLE it must be stopped.
In practice although tempted briefly to try dog in S Korea (I think it is now illegal there too) I would not knowingly eat dog or cat.
Guinea pigs are bred for food in some parts of the world.

Not really sure how a law outlawing dog and cat eating would work. Presumably we'd need squads of specially kitted out inspectors (there's that magic money tree shaking again). I mean people sleeping rough is OK, but we need to save Fido ?

There's also the perversion factor (?). Up until about half an hour ago, I had never once contemplated the idea of eating dog or cat. But now I hear it's being banned, I want some of that woofy goodness. Miaow mince it has to be. (See also "War" on drugs, "censorship" ...)

I wonder what increasingly headline-friendly and fucking useless issues are to be covered in the next 46 days ?

Well.

Shit.

Good news here.
HS2 is dead. Hopefully. ( I think that was UKIP policy though)

www.thesun.co.uk/news/8399242/high-speed-2-rail-network-out-of-control-budget-claims/

On domestic food production, this is an interesting thread on depletion of Britain's soil.
(What is one of the most important creature in the world?
A: Worms
Why?
What do they help make?)
Keen gardeners might want to think about wormeries alongside fruit and veg growing.

twitter.com/ADorsetBumpkin/status/1092919918113243136

And this funny one too on illegal alien squirrels and muntjacs.
Looks like they are definitely on the menu!

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/grey-squirrels-brexit-illegal-aliens-muntjac-deer-injured-kill-wildlife-invasive-non-native-species-a8739316.html

Conspiracy theorists must be having a field day with all this.

It's just good old fashioned incompetence. I'm not sure if that makes me feel better.

DGR don't get me started. It doesn't help how resistant to change banks are. Good staff move on, and those who stay are the ones who are 'comfortable', often do little work and certainly don't take on the responsibility of issues. The whole culture needs changing, not just the systems. And banking infrastructure are like a crumbling hospital in many respects it just people are less aware of it.

It's why some of the newer start up banks have an advantage. They are less prone to certain problems as a result.

We are aware of problems with the public sector and how things are reaching a crisis point in infrastructure, but I don't necessarily think it's restricted to the public sector.

This is why the whole 'burn the house down and start again' mentality is very tempting. It has to have skills and visions to know what you are going to do instead and not have people determined to revert to what they know and obstruct that. There has to be a clear plan. You need visionaries, practical implementers AND work horses to drive good change.

And the lack of all three is precisely why Brexit is doomed to fail.

On domestic food production, this is an interesting thread on depletion of Britain's soil

Which was some of the most fertile in Europe - why was the Duke of Norfolk such a big cheese in the middle ages ?

It's a long term view - so not anything I'm going to buy a bumper sticker for - but I think nature is pushing back on the human experiment, and has been for a while. I really can't see the global population of 2100 exceeding the current headcount at all. Quite the reverse.

I wonder what increasingly headline-friendly and fucking useless issues are to be covered in the next 46 days ?

We are going full on National Enquirer. What do you mean the National Enquirer is embroiled in Trump related shit?

Though to be honest our tabloid press has had elements of that for decades anyway.

Don't forget The Express has a regular Armageddon column in which we are told the exact day of the end of the world when aliens will land, we will be hit by a meteroid or god will smite us down.

It's never humans being complete fuckwits.

Grey squirrels are vicious and attack humans when cornered.

I guess there's a newspaper story in there.

David Henig @DavidHenigUK
PS On the May-Corbyn letter. Given the admission that the Political Declaration is non-binding and Parliament will have more say on the next stage, why not offer a free vote on whether to have a formal Customs Union or not? This would test both sides sincerity.

From the squirrel article.
Government wildlife bosses are designating muntjac deer and grey squirrels “illegal aliens” from Brexit day, banning rescuers from saving them

From 29 March it will become illegal to nurse any that are injured and return them to the wild

Rescue groups have warned that they and vets will be forced to euthanise animals, prompting anger from wildlife lovers, with more than 37,000 signing a petition against the new rules

England has gone quite barmy.

Brexit: Thousands of UK lorry drivers face being barred from entering EU after missing out on permits

More than 10,000 HGV operators have not obtained crucial annual passes

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-british-lorry-drivers-hgv-eu-permits-barred-from-entry-imports-exports-a8772456.html

I understand that they were notified by email at 9pm on Saturday night.
Completely normal.

From 29 March it will become illegal to nurse any that are injured and return them to the wild

I thought it was already illegal to return grey squirrels to the wild?

Last autumn the DC's school found a baby grey squirrel which had lost its mother (I have to say that it was adorable) and, not knowing what else to do, the staff took it to the vet - from there, it went to some sanctuary where it would never be released.

banning the consumption of cats and dogs

When I read that article last night, my first thought was that it must be an April fool’s joke published too early.

My second thought was that it was a pointless law because a) we have a cultural aversion in the western world to eating our pets (next door’s might be ok though ) and b) if we were at a point of mass starvation, a) would prevent us far more effectively than fear of breaking the law.

Third thought was, this will pass - while FGM got blocked. What a total skewing of priorities.

we have a cultural aversion in the western world to eating our pets

I don't. I'd happily try a BonzoBurger, or KittyNugget. Although I would be pretty surprised if they were anything other that "meh". There's a reason we've arrived eating what we do, and taste plays a large part of it. Having tried an assortment of meats in Kenya (let's big it up for "Carnivore" ) you realise why cow, sheep, pig and chicken are pretty muck the staple meats of the world. (Goat=sheep, and turkey=chicken ...)

I like game, but no butchers around here can be bothered to stock it.

{ There has to be a clear plan. You need visionaries, practical implementers AND work horses to drive good change.
And the lack of all three is precisely why Brexit is doomed to fail.}

Surely you mean the reverse, Brexit won't be failing, but the UK will turn to shit (which is the first and only part of the 'Brexit' plan.

If we can't eat cats and dogs, are potential 'arresting officers' fair game? More meat on them too.
For reference, while trying to persuade a variety of small creatures not to live in my house, I apologise to mice if they get injured in the removal process. And buying a stray cat fancy catfood when most of it's time is spent small rodent hunting in the nearby field.
Playing the long game to sort out my mice here!

Still PMK with my eyes closed.

Brexit: Thousands of UK lorry drivers face being barred from entering EU after missing out on permits

Permits are nothing to do with drivers, they apply to operators.

There are expected to be extra (i.e. enough) permits issued for next year if necessary. In the meantime even in the event of no deal it's intended that UK and EU hauliers will be able to carry out UK-EU and EU-UK journeys without permits until the end of the year.

^Figures show more than 11,000 HGV operators applied for a European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) permit but less than 1,000 of the annual passes were made available."

That's 11,000 operators - businesses ranging from one man and a truck to companies like Stobarts or Curries. Each vehicle will need a separate permit when it leaves the country. So if Stobarts have 20 permits that covers 20 of their vehicles being in Europe at once.

I briefly thought that we could breed rabbits on a balcony to our fire escape route (lovely meat, fur can also turn useful, reproduce very quickly), but then I considered the amount of meat my teen is used to eat...and nah. A mastiff, that what he needs!

(I’m just kidding!)
((Not about the quantity of meat, about the dog eating))

{Brexit: Thousands of UK lorry drivers face being barred from entering EU after missing out on permits}

I read this comment in the Mail or Express last night and the comments posted show how thick some really are. All the jingoistic crap about 'we won't let the foreign drivers in' and similar.
It obviously hasn't occurred to them that food for the UK and manufactured goods, that need to travel one way or the other are on the trucks.
SKY headline about use of military force, with a picture of an aircraft carrier. The only declared 'war' that the UK is really engaging in is with itself.

I believe a diet heavily 'rabbit' oriented is not good as there are some missing nutrients. Still, you can get rabbit and snails in the supermarket here.

What are people's thought's on Germany now being technically in a recession?

Far more important news than project Fear.

Also, the French riots hit their 13th Week............

I'm off out with a friend for coffee and cake.

denial