Westminstenders: Pah International Law. Who needs it?

[RedToothBrush]

I mean its not as if trade deals and human rights are relevant is it?

(sorry eating my dinner so must be brief)

There are various .gov services which have been fully operational for a long time while officially being 'beta'. Companies House and various HMRC services for example.

Just to say how much I appreciate reading this thread when everything is so complex and seems so awful. It helps me understand much more even if I don't feel any more optimistic about the UK going to hell on a handcart :(

By now they know that the British government has no qualms sacrificing thousands of subjects on the altar of their power, and that the British public will happily queue up to be blown to bits rather than try to understand and engage with the problem Whilst blowing up people got the IRA nowhere, blowing up the city and causing £350m with the Bishopsgate bomb and £150m with Canary Wharf bomb in 1996 -3 years later arguably strengthened their hand in the negotiations. Gove of course thinks we capitulated in those negotiations, that the GFA is a humiliation and we should have faced up to the IRA with continued military operations in Northern Ireland. Is this the Gove Johnson Cummings three headed monster seeing a chance to play the global hard men on two fronts? Or as I think of it, pathetic macho willy waving in place of engaging brain and doing the hard work of understanding the issues and coming up with evidence based policy /strategy like say the role of the traditional Civil Service.......

Gove of course thinks we capitulated in those negotiations, that the GFA is a humiliation and we should have faced up to the IRA with continued military operations in Northern Ireland.

Because that was working so well....

ITV London
@itvlondon
Grenfell files ‘lost forever’ after laptop wiped, inquiry hears

www.itv.com/news/london/2020-09-14/grenfell-files-lost-forever-after-laptop-wiped-inquiry-hears

@hitchedhiker

There are various .gov services which have been fully operational for a long time while officially being 'beta'. Companies House and various HMRC services for example.

Modern software development has moved decades beyond the release cycle "beta" refers to. It's all devops now.

A/B testing still has discrete releases.

But - as we all know - the "facts" of Brexit are 15 years old.

It was the amazement of my Irish friends I made at Uni that the British Public were more interested in who Joan Collins was shagging than why they were expected to line up to become dog food that alerted me to weird nature of the "armed conflict". In the UKs defence it was also the SOP for the US at the time. Remember how dangerous it was to even ask why the US was in Vietnam.

So I'd be surprised and upset (maybe not as much as some ) if we saw a return to the stratagies of the 70s and 80s. Much has changed since then. If Fathers4Justice can bring the entire country to a standstill by pratting about on a motorway gantry for an hour, imagine what chaos you could deliver if you really tried ...

BBC News - Law officer 'offers resignation' over Brexit bill row
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-54179745

[quote SwedishEdith]ITV London
@itvlondon
Grenfell files ‘lost forever’ after laptop wiped, inquiry hears

www.itv.com/news/london/2020-09-14/grenfell-files-lost-forever-after-laptop-wiped-inquiry-hears[/quote]
If that had happened on my watch as manager, I'd be out the door.

Alls not lost though. Just ask Google for the backup. Or failing that GCHQ.

[quote SwedishEdith]ITV London
@itvlondon
Grenfell files ‘lost forever’ after laptop wiped, inquiry hears

www.itv.com/news/london/2020-09-14/grenfell-files-lost-forever-after-laptop-wiped-inquiry-hears[/quote]
In any other case, if someone was relying in "lost" evidence to assert a position, they'd be told to jog on.

"Yes Officer. You may think I was breaking the law. But in fact I was told to by my boss in these emails I can't produce anymore".

Because that was working so well.... And if the GFA collapses as a result of Boris’s Brexit the flow of American money that funded the £3000, I think it was, for the Bishopsgate bomb would not become a torrent....

PMK
My Face to Face team meeting with added Zoom went really well this morning
but my brain hurts.

Will read and digest

@Jason118

The recent Japan trade deal obviously didn't include power stations

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54158091?fbclid=IwAR0qN7CrLmGY7RtaGWZu2NXUWQDahHzpoZp5YdYTYi-gDYHRDOOHadqiZ-w

I think the reason is that the deal would have involved financial guarantees around operating conditions - particularly in regards to renewables and subsidies.

Guarantees that now can't be given, so Hitachi walked.

www.hitachi.eu/en/hitachi-uk-end-nuclear-power-stations

regulars to this thread will appreciate the .eu domain

@Emilyontmoor

Because that was working so well.... And if the GFA collapses as a result of Boris’s Brexit the flow of American money that funded the £3000, I think it was, for the Bishopsgate bomb would not become a torrent....

Bombs are a bit old fashioned, really.

Given the non existent pisspoor security on the IoT that was the craze a while back, a decent hacker physically outside the UK could have a field day randomly popping locks, turning off plugs, hijacking nannycams, and generally causing a right old flap without a shot fired.

Imagine how many people-hours were lost to the TalkTalk/HSBC/Tesco hacks and/or crashes ? And it's hardly like the UK was winning any productivity awards to start with.

Angela Rayner getting some QDos ...

www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/pmqs-sept-16th-rayner-reins-in-johnson-and-milks-him-dry/16/09/

In "the world is a small place" news, my best friend's FIL had been a senior manager at Wylfa years ago. He was one of the nursing home Covid casualties

I am in my late 60s- history lessons were a mish mash - one week ancient Greece, later the Vikings, then ancient Egypt, then the bronze age..... The Empire stuff was taught
in Geography.

DGR I wasn’t particularly focused on bombs as a strategy for undermining macho hard man tactics (devoid of a strategy for them actually to serve). With sufficient funding we have already seen more efficient ways and means.. It’s just undermining the GFA would be a very effective way to add dollars to the roubles already funding them.

@Emilyontmoor

Because that was working so well.... And if the GFA collapses as a result of Boris’s Brexit the flow of American money that funded the £3000, I think it was, for the Bishopsgate bomb would not become a torrent....

I'm not sure what your point is? I was referring to the UK's attempt to wipe out the IRA militarily. Given many of the actions taken by the british (internment, hunger strikes etc) acted as effective recruitment campaigns for the IRA, they obviously had no understanding of how best to defeat the IRA.

If the GFA collapses as a result of brexit, then yes, there is a possibility of a new nationalist campaign. Whether it will continue to get funding and support from the US, or other traditional sources, is debatable.

If there is a hard brexit where the UK complies with the WA, there is a possibility of a new loyalist campaign. Whether it will continue to get funding and support from its traditional sources, the british government and security sources, is debatable, although presumably unlikely as Britain is likely to be the target this time.

My DD was actually going to be taught a module on the troubles for GCSE History but it was withdrawn at the last minute 🤔. She did however get taught modules on 70s Britain (Always good to have easily accessible if highly biased personal sources 😂😂) and the scramble for Africa including the independence movements, at A level. Prior to that they focused on local history which obviously had to have the National context but I wouldn’t quibble with it as a way to learn skills and understand that political history impacts real people.

I did get taught History at school, as in memorising and regurgitating one damn thing after another starting with Ur and getting us to circa 1849 but what really got me in the road to Master’s level was Rosemary Sutcliffe, Henry Treece (deploy problematic it turns out 😮) and Rosemary Plaidy.... (70s equivalent of Philippa Gregory) ... You really got desperate flailing around for inspiration when studying History in Gove’s golden era

I was referring to the UK's attempt to wipe out the IRA militarily.

It was accepted by both sides in the mid 80s that neither could win an armed conflict.

At that point, the Uk government should have started talking - no matter how distasteful it may have seemed. If they were scared of the public backlash then they only had themselves to blame.

And the long and dishonourable history of decline of the British Empire is a series of negotiations with "terrorists" of every stripe.

We return to my memory of Ken Livingstone explaining his stance on the IRA to our 6th form, rather than reading the Daily Mails invention of it. TL;DR: "We can't win a war. So if we want to save lives we need to talk".

The fact "we" didn't means the UK government had no interest in saving lives that didn't benefit their agenda. Or as some might say "business as usual then" (slowly looks at the Covid response ....)

@Emilyontmoor

DGR I wasn’t particularly focused on bombs as a strategy for undermining macho hard man tactics (devoid of a strategy for them actually to serve). With sufficient funding we have already seen more efficient ways and means.. It’s just undermining the GFA would be a very effective way to add dollars to the roubles already funding them.

The russians never funded the IRA.

Rosemary Sutcliffe, Henry Treece (deploy problematic it turns out 😮) and Rosemary Plaidy

I can highly recommend Nigel Tranter for a Scottish angle. Loads of series, but "The Wisest Fool" is a nice one-volume primer.

@Emilyontmoor - She did however get taught modules on 70s Britain

No, I'm sorry, but I can't accept that. The 70's is not history. It's only yesterday.

Ochon I get that, but could the IRA have been so effective if there had not been flows of money from America? Why do you doubt that the IRA could and would not mobilise that support again? I also have absolutely no faith that this government won’t settle on no deal and no border in the Irish Sea and then blame the EU/Ireland for a hard border appearing in Ireland for which there is no majority support in Northern Ireland. I know many moderates who were driving forces in the peace process (the integrated school movement for instance ) who are now thinking about the serious prospect of a United Ireland or even moving to the Republic in the event of that version of a hard Brexit. A prospect that would also mobilise international support unlike any action from the UDF....