Britain - The Official Thread

  • Thread starter Ross
  • 12,481 comments
  • 501,223 views

How will you vote in the 2019 UK General Election?

  • The Brexit Party

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Change UK/The Independent Group

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Conservative Party

    Votes: 3 7.5%

  • Green Party

    Votes: 2 5.0%

  • Labour Party

    Votes: 11 27.5%

  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 8 20.0%

  • Other (Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland)

    Votes: 3 7.5%

  • Other Independents

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Other Parties

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Spoiled Ballot

    Votes: 2 5.0%

  • Will Not/Cannot Vote

    Votes: 11 27.5%
  • Total voters
    40
  • Poll closed .
I think she should be lying in a British prison bed. As it is the identity of her mother seems to be unknown to Bangladeshi authorities and the other issue (literally and figuratively) becomes the problem of the Dutch government now. That's only if Begum's mother is positively documented by Bangladesh of course.
 
3 Tory MPs have quit the party to join the Independent group.

Meanwhile, George Galloway is re-applying to join Labour.

A staunch defender of Jeremy Corbyn and a pro-Brexiteer, Galloway is notorious for his combative approach... and I guess he will get some bad press today after his comments on Sky News this morning, calling the accusations of anti-Semitism from the MPs who quit the Labour party this week 'a Goebellian lie' - interesting choice of words to say the least...
 
Last edited:
TheCracker
Question is, what will they eventually call themselves? 'Newish Labour'?
Click to expand...
It is kind of ironic that they are pretty much a grouping based on the concept of holding a second vote on Brexit because circumstances have changed, and yet none of them seem to think that they should call a by-election in their constituencies and let the people decide if they still want those MPs to represent them in Parliament despite their circumstances having changed.
 
Touring Mars
none of them seem to think that they should call a by-election in their constituencies and let the people decide if they still want those MPs to represent them in Parliament despite their circumstances having changed.
Click to expand...

The "Independent Group" isn't a party so there's no natural compulsion to a by-election. There is if they form a new party. In effect these ex-Con and ex-Lab members have simply resigned from a whip, a specifically-protected action. If their views and mandate haven't changed then there's no reason to think that their constituents will be affected - if anything the lack of a whip may lead them to follow their constituents' wishes more faithfully than those being called in the seemingly ever-present 3-liners of recent times.

EDIT: Bloody hell, a conservative who agrees with me! And I agree with him - there should be a better recall system for constituencies.

EDIT 2: A by-election isn't automatically triggered under a new whip either, my mistake.
 
Last edited:
There isn't a defined precedent for MPs to contest a by-election in the event of party defection or abandonment. I think it's only happened 4 times since the 20th century.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be one but let's not pretend like it's an ancient tradition.
 
Liquid
There isn't a defined precedent for MPs to contest a by-election in the event of party defection or abandonment. I think it's only happened 4 times since the 20th century.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be one but let's not pretend like it's an ancient tradition.
Click to expand...

I agree. Labour are pushing for such a law to be passed, I'm not sure how much appetite there would be. I erroneously thought that a by-election was triggered a certain length of time under a new whip but it isn't. The whip most definitely is an old (if not ancient) term. "Crossing the floor" probably goes back to the dawn of human meetings, and definitely in our Parliament since the 1600s.
 
UKMikey
I thought they just left the party?
Click to expand...
There are 70 odd of them still in the Conservative party, I'd say. Certainly more that the right wing, the EU is a red rag to the bull, brigade of loonies.

There are a lot more in the Labour party as well. If they all left both sides and joined the independents...
 
After the farce with the one in Scotland last week where it turns out a UKIP guy had been to three different shows and been asked for comment three times, Question Time was in Chester. The UKIP candidate for Chester was in the audience and made comments.

What are the chances?!
 
Anyone else in the UK got a PPI refund yet?

I did a free check with my bank and it turned out I did have PPI on a credit card from 10 years ago (that I practically never used), but I just got a refund of £250 :D

I was pretty convinced that I would never have had PPI, but it turns out I did - I was put off by some of those PPI check websites that make it sound/look quite complicated, but my own bank made it easy to make an enquiry, and then I made a claim even though I couldn't answer most of the questions. Given that I didn't expect a result, I'm pretty happy with what feels like a free wad of cash.
 
Touring Mars
Anyone else in the UK got a PPI refund yet?

I did a free check with my bank and it turned out I did have PPI on a credit card from 10 years ago (that I practically never used), but I just got a refund of £250 :D

I was pretty convinced that I would never have had PPI, but it turns out I did - I was put off by some of those PPI check websites that make it sound/look quite complicated, but my own bank made it easy to make an enquiry, and then I made a claim even though I couldn't answer most of the questions. Given that I didn't expect a result, I'm pretty happy with what feels like a free wad of cash.
Click to expand...

Which bank was it with, if you don't mind me asking? I've had a credit card for the last 15 years or so so I'm pretty sure I would have taken out PPI on it but I have no idea how to even start making a claim without using one of those awful websites.
 
After a bit of searching I managed to find the HSBC form for checking if I have it (before making a claim) and have sent it off, I should hear back within 30 days 👍
 
Why is PPI payout a thing though?

I'm probably too young to have been affected by it so I don't know what it was or why it was so prevalent yet hidden.
 
Liquid
Why is PPI payout a thing though?

I'm probably too young to have been affected by it so I don't know what it was or why it was so prevalent yet hidden.
Click to expand...
PPI is an insurance policy that was sold alongside credit cards, mortgages etc., but the way it was sold was found to be illegal because many people were not aware that they were buying a separate product. As such, the government told lenders that anyone who was mis-sold a PPI policy must be refunded, including any interest. My PPI, for example, was only about £15 a year - but it lasted for ten years, which with interest adds up to £250.
 
PPI had its genuine uses but it was the fact that people had it added on without asking for it which was the issue. It's unfortunate that all these PPI adverts and cold calls made the whole thing really scammy. Plus the appalling government Terminator themed adverts didn't help.
 
Yeh - alot of the adverts are, in effect, scams in their own right. These companies offer to carry out PPI checks on your behalf and operate on a 'no win no fee' basis, but they will take a slice (e.g. I've seen at least one that takes 20%) of any refund you are entitled to - meanwhile, checking with your own bank/lender is free anyway, and you don't have to split your refund with a company that basically isn't doing anything you couldn't do yourself.
 
The worst thing about PPI isn't the miss-selling or the cold calling, it's the fact every financial service takes 20 minutes to read the small print and they ask a million times if you understand.
 
Did anyone catch this on the BBC news this morning? Instagram biggest for child grooming online - NSPCC finds

My biggest issue is with this line in the article:
Ahead of the government publishing a delayed white paper on online harm, the charity is pushing for statutory regulation to enforce a legal duty of care to children on social networks, with a penalty of substantial fines if they fail.

A National Crime Agency spokesperson said: "It is vital that online platforms used by children and young people have in place robust mechanisms and processes to prevent, identify and report sexual exploitation and abuse, including online grooming.

"Children and young people also need easy access to mechanisms allowing them to alert platforms to potential offending."
Click to expand...

Now assuming that children aren't aware that they're being groomed until it's too late (which I find extremely hard to believe nowadays), let's see what options that service providers as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, et al, have in order to help.

Ban IP addresses - this won't work because with DHCP no user has the same IP twice over a long enough period of time, unless they choose a static address, which isn't going to happen while they're trying to evade capture.
Ban physical addresses/MAC address/IMEI - for the same reason as above, this isn't going to work.
Ban email addresses - that one's going work(!)

The only way to make this workable is for the hosts of such service providers as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, et al, is to be actively listening to every piece of communication which passes through their server. Before this, service providers were simply sat there idly earwigging to any message, picture, file or anything else, but now they are going to have to be actively listening in to everything. To me, that doesn't sound like a comfortable position to be in.

giphy.gif


Ignorance is no excuse today, and this generation of children are being brought up by parents who are aware of computers, phones, consoles and what they can do.

Assuming we forget about the analogy of rape prevention where the victim should do everything they can to avoid being raped (and I'm no way suggesting that rape victims ever deserve it) and applying it to preventing children from being exposed to grooming by not giving them access to said service providers when underage in the first place, isn't it about time we had proper active parental controls on computers/mobile devices/consoles/fridges which cannot be overridden and prevents content from specific servers from being downloaded on the device, requiring two-stage separate-device authentication to edit.

We can focus later on 'curing' those are responsible for these acts, but let's stop the victims from being in the firing line in the first place.
 
DG_Silva
Did anyone catch this on the BBC news this morning? Instagram biggest for child grooming online - NSPCC finds

My biggest issue is with this line in the article:


Now assuming that children aren't aware that they're being groomed until it's too late (which I find extremely hard to believe nowadays), let's see what options that service providers as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, et al, have in order to help.

Ban IP addresses - this won't work because with DHCP no user has the same IP twice over a long enough period of time, unless they choose a static address, which isn't going to happen while they're trying to evade capture.
Ban physical addresses/MAC address/IMEI - for the same reason as above, this isn't going to work.
Ban email addresses - that one's going work(!)
Click to expand...

You're forgetting that users are logging into persistent accounts. Matching accounts to IPs isn't usually that difficult, an admin like @Famine might be prepared to give us a little more on how a large site like GTP handles that for 'troublesome' accounts.

DG_Silva
The only way to make this workable is for the hosts of such service providers as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, et al, is to be actively listening to every piece of communication which passes through their server. Before this, service providers were simply sat there idly earwigging to any message, picture, file or anything else, but now they are going to have to be actively listening in to everything.
Click to expand...

Companies like FB, Instagram and so on aren't going to find it too difficult to find suspicious methods through automated scripting if they choose to. To exercise a duty of care they should then have a human review process for flagged conversations. These are services provided by private companies so adding the relevant small print to the ToS isn't going to be a big deal. I certainly wouldn't imagine that they'd have particular trouble scraping relevant information from message feeds, it's their raison d'etre.
 
DG_Silva
Did anyone catch this on the BBC news this morning? Instagram biggest for child grooming online - NSPCC finds

My biggest issue is with this line in the article:


Now assuming that children aren't aware that they're being groomed until it's too late (which I find extremely hard to believe nowadays), let's see what options that service providers as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, et al, have in order to help.

Ban IP addresses - this won't work because with DHCP no user has the same IP twice over a long enough period of time, unless they choose a static address, which isn't going to happen while they're trying to evade capture.
Ban physical addresses/MAC address/IMEI - for the same reason as above, this isn't going to work.
Ban email addresses - that one's going work(!)

The only way to make this workable is for the hosts of such service providers as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, et al, is to be actively listening to every piece of communication which passes through their server. Before this, service providers were simply sat there idly earwigging to any message, picture, file or anything else, but now they are going to have to be actively listening in to everything. To me, that doesn't sound like a comfortable position to be in.

Ignorance is no excuse today, and this generation of children are being brought up by parents who are aware of computers, phones, consoles and what they can do.

Assuming we forget about the analogy of rape prevention where the victim should do everything they can to avoid being raped (and I'm no way suggesting that rape victims ever deserve it) and applying it to preventing children from being exposed to grooming by not giving them access to said service providers when underage in the first place, isn't it about time we had proper active parental controls on computers/mobile devices/consoles/fridges which cannot be overridden and prevents content from specific servers from being downloaded on the device, requiring two-stage separate-device authentication to edit.

We can focus later on 'curing' those are responsible for these acts, but let's stop the victims from being in the firing line in the first place.
Click to expand...

How about parents actually talking to their children about these dangers? Or talk about sexuality and what is okay and what isn't? (around the age of 12 or 13 can be ideal to start the conversation nowadays, especially with girls). Banning is an ultimate, final option of course, but we have to search other methods too.
 
TenEightyOne
You're forgetting that users are logging into persistent accounts. Matching accounts to IPs isn't usually that difficult, an admin like @Famine might be prepared to give us a little more on how a large site like GTP handles that for 'troublesome' accounts.
Click to expand...

We can do that at work with Livechat and can ban individual IP addresses (not something we like to do as it can block genuine customers), but a determined individual would easily have a way of circumnavigating this problem. Another alternative is to have multiple accounts.

TenEightyOne
Companies like FB, Instagram and so on aren't going to find it too difficult to find suspicious methods through automated scripting if they choose to. To exercise a duty of care they should then have a human review process for flagged conversations. These are services provided by private companies so adding the relevant small print to the ToS isn't going to be a big deal. I certainly wouldn't imagine that they'd have particular trouble scraping relevant information from message feeds, it's their raison d'etre.
Click to expand...

No, I completely agree, and with AWS/AI technology it's not going to be too hard to find the messages they're looking for. This does mean though that every message that goes through their systems will be under the scrutiny of these AI systems. How much longer before the Government declares these messages have to stay on their servers for x period of time?

Dobermann92
How about parents actually talking to their children about these dangers? Or talk about sexuality and what is okay and what isn't? (around the age of 12 or 13 can be ideal to start the conversation nowadays, especially with girls). Banning is an ultimate, final option of course, but we have to search other methods too.
Click to expand...

Yup, absolutely agree with this, and this is what I meant about the rape prevention analogy where we teach children how to prevent themselves from being victims.
 
TenEightyOne
I think she should be lying in a British prison bed. As it is the identity of her mother seems to be unknown to Bangladeshi authorities and the other issue (literally and figuratively) becomes the problem of the Dutch government now. That's only if Begum's mother is positively documented by Bangladesh of course.
Click to expand...

Update!

Her hubby is in a Kurdish prison, he will get no help from the Dutch government, and as a result there is nothing that will make this Miss Daesh turd a Dutch citizen.
 

Latest Posts

Back