[ali k]

did anyone really imagine that 20yrs later...

As Ali pointed out, nobody would have thought 15 years ago that Facebook could be used to deliver personalised political messages...

How did I get my maths so wrong?! It was actually only 12 years between Facebook starting and the 2016 US election and Brexit referendum. Another 5 years on and god only know what's possible today...

[petejh]

the only sensible option is to complete the NHS online type-1 opt out. Which is what I've done.   

Is this all you have to do for the opt out? I was thinking I had to send a form to my GP?

Hmm..

This page - https://digital.nhs.uk/your-data/opting-out-of-data-sharing - explains there are two types of opting out:
1. opt out of data being shared with third parties (but your GP will still share your data with NHS digital)
2. opt out of all data being shared by your GP to NHS digital.


Online to opt out of 1. Letter to GP to opt out of 2.

It may be that option 1 doesn't stop the risk of your data leaching to commercial interests.

[ali k]

Is this all you have to do for the opt out? I was thinking I had to send a form to my GP?

I printed out and returned form ('Type 1' form) to GP and also the online thing for full opt out. Sure others upthread said they just phoned and the receptionist completed the form for them. But I thought the deadline for returning the form was yesterday? Or did they extend it?

[petejh]

The deadline has been extended to August 25th.

[Will Hunt]

Thanks for the info.

[TobyD]

Reading this news:
BBC News - Russian jets and ships shadow British warship
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57587777

Isn't it a coincidence that the Royal Navy seems to come out shortly before elections which matter to the government? I'm sure this is nothing but a pea brained conspiracy theory,  but it does seem to happen.  They probably aren't actually competent enough to do something like that.

It never happened.
The reports arose from some Russian News agencies. MOD has denied it happened. The ~200 crew members all said “uh, what?” When their worried families started bombarding them with phone calls and the MOD asked relatives to stop calling them, too.
We routinely escort “Warships of hostile nations” through places like the Channel, with both ships and aircraft.

Edit.

To clarify. Yes, they heard shots.

The Russian gunnery exercise was scheduled, promulgated in good time through the normal channels and went as described.
It was “purely coincidental” that an RN ship was within earshot (read observation range) of a Russian exercise and they were not in anyway threatened. One paper (the Mail? Don’t recall) even tried to suggest bombs had been dropped in the ships path. It’s just bollocks.

We have always taken quite provocative actions with hostile Navies. I spent several very boring days in total silence, in the run up to Desert Storm, whilst the ship I was on, charged at Russian ships anchored in the Black Sea, cut power and coasted between vessels at unsafe distances, whilst listening intently with some fairly advanced passive sonar. There will have been “diplomatic protests” for sure, just as we return the favour.
That’s not even half the story, either. Vessels are often damaged in these silly games.

I'm sure you're right Matt, in that its essentially fairly routine; but it does seem  pretty drastic when the Russian captain is clearly heard on the radio  in the BBC report threatening to fire on them if they don't change course.
The way its been reported by many newspapers is horribly jingoistic and rather unpleasant. 

[ali k]

“Nobody is questioning Brexit. It was self-evidently the right thing to do” - says Frosty.

This one statement sums up perfectly the groupthink within this government, and the gaslighting of half the country’s population who didn’t want any of it.

[abarro81]

I couldn't work out whether that quote was a masterly ironic trolling of remainers or a demo of abject stupidity and lack of irony sensor

[Nigel]

I'm sure you're right Matt, in that its essentially fairly routine; but it does seem  pretty drastic when the Russian captain is clearly heard on the radio  in the BBC report threatening to fire on them if they don't change course.
The way its been reported by many newspapers is horribly jingoistic and rather unpleasant.

I think the simple fact that a BBC journalist (or "mouthpiece of state TV" as I am sure we would have it if the tables were turned!) happened to be on hand to record anything on the bridge of this ship tells you everything you need to know i.e. its theatrics. Sailing a RN warship within a few miles of Russia's main Black Sea naval base at Sebastopol (always thus regardless of status of Crimea btw) was never going to be regarded as anything other than a provocation and a polite phone call warning about a couple of loud noises does not seem "drastic" in the least. I expect we would do nothing different if the Russian's "innocently" sailed a warship within a few miles of Portsmouth with an RT journo onboard to record the reaction. We certainly did when it was French fishermen that were the problem. The whole thing is ridiculous and not in anyway newsworthy, imo. Not that that will stop the jingoistic UK press, as you say...

[Oldmanmatt]

I'm sure you're right Matt, in that its essentially fairly routine; but it does seem  pretty drastic when the Russian captain is clearly heard on the radio  in the BBC report threatening to fire on them if they don't change course.
The way its been reported by many newspapers is horribly jingoistic and rather unpleasant.

I think the simple fact that a BBC journalist (or "mouthpiece of state TV" as I am sure we would have it if the tables were turned!) happened to be on hand to record anything on the bridge of this ship tells you everything you need to know i.e. its theatrics. Sailing a RN warship within a few miles of Russia's main Black Sea naval base at Sebastopol (always thus regardless of status of Crimea btw) was never going to be regarded as anything other than a provocation and a polite phone call warning about a couple of loud noises does not seem "drastic" in the least. I expect we would do nothing different if the Russian's "innocently" sailed a warship within a few miles of Portsmouth with an RT journo onboard to record the reaction. We certainly did when it was French fishermen that were the problem. The whole thing is ridiculous and not in anyway newsworthy, imo. Not that that will stop the jingoistic UK press, as you say...

Absolutely. I am agreeing with both you and Toby. Possibly that wasn’t clear. Nothing unusual happened and no attack was threatened.
A quick google will show you several “Royal Navy escorts Russian vessel through English channel” type media reports, in only the last 12 months. You would, if you reviewed firing schedules for the various south coast ranges (Artillery, Tank and Naval) note a curious correspondence to those escort activities and the schedules. If you were to look at the traffic info for those days, you would also note that the Russian vessel was unusually slow, for a vessel capable of 30knts or so and as close to the coast as traffic separation in the channel allows.
If you’d been out fishing, you’d have noticed that your fish finder wasn’t working as well as it should within a significant radius of those escort vessels etc etc etc.
As for “provocative” there will have been so many Russian aircraft that have flown directly at our airspace border and then abruptly turned to skirt them within a few meters, all the while keeping their IFF off and sometimes making significant incursions into UK airspace; that nobody even reports it anymore. They especially love keeping an eye on the North Sea oil and gas installations…

[TobyD]

 :

I think the simple fact that a BBC journalist (or "mouthpiece of state TV" as I am sure we would have it if the tables were turned!)

...a polite phone call warning about a couple of loud noises does not seem "drastic" in the least.

Have you actually watched the report? Its definitely not a polite phone call.  I'm sure you have a point about the theatrics of these encounters though, and I generally agree with your post.
However the direct comparison of the BBC and RT is plain wrong.  If you go out and criticise Putin and the Russian government,  then you get poisoned and or imprisoned in Russia, RT will never broadcast open criticism of the government.  If you think that the BBC is the same,  you are completely wrong,  whatever its flaws, it is not a mouthpiece of an autocratic regime. 

[petejh]

The last week has seen a number of media pieces on UK military movements.
Piece about the QE aircraft carrier in eastern med.
Piece about F35 raptor jets on said QE carrier.
Piece about British paras carrying out an airborne assault exercise in Jordan with Jordanian troops - with the threat posed by Russia/Syria made explicit.
The piece about the HMS defender in the Black Sea.

All with a week. Not coincidence. Obviously there’s at least some signalling going on. Signalling to who though.. I think a bit of both directions - UK/NATO signalling intent to Russia but also perhaps to own citizens by shifting the window along a notch.

[teestub]

I try and avoid coverage of our clown PM as much as possible, but wasn’t there pics of him this week in an APC and a Lynx too? All seems very theatrical.

[Nigel]

Have you actually watched the report? Its definitely not a polite phone call.

The one I saw seemed polite. Does it really matter anyway? No phone call at all would have been the impolite option.

If you think that the BBC is the same,  you are completely wrong,  whatever its flaws, it is not a mouthpiece of an autocratic regime.

Of course not! They just happened to be covering a human interest story of RN crew / cat stuck in a cannon barrel and then this happened...

[ali k]

The last week has seen a number of media pieces on UK military movements.
All with a week. Not coincidence. Obviously there’s at least some signalling going on. Signalling to who though...

Citizens of Batley & Spen of course!

[Will Hunt]

I'm honestly stunned to see an affair reported not as an infidelity but as a breach of social distancing rules.

"Hancock admits breaking social distance rules with aide"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57612441

[remus]

Apparently he also personally appointed her to a non-exec director role in public health england (£15k / year, 15-20 days work). If that's not a conflict of interest I don't know what is.

[ali k]

Might we finally see the first sacking of a minister by the spineless one? Murdoch's clearly had enough of him now anyway...

[Will Hunt]

Might we finally see the first sacking of a minister by the spineless one? Murdoch's clearly had enough of him now anyway...

I'm not sure Johnson is going to rush to punish someone for shagging around...

[ali k]

Just on a practical note. How has The Sun got hold of CCTV footage from inside Whitehall?

[remus]

Radio 4 just ran an excellent piece on this, they dug out an interview with Matt Hancock after a scientific advisor was caught in a very similar situation. He's pretty clear in the interview that the advisor's position is untenable...

[seankenny]

Not as interesting as shagging, but this piqued my interest, partly at least because I was definitely wrong on something and it's always good to revise these things.

From Lewis Goodall's Twitter, a poll on the EU.

Become a member: 49%
Stay out: 51%

Surprisingly close, but also an interesting age break down:
Become a member

18-24: 75%
25-34: 67%
35-44: 58%
45-54: 57%
55-64: 44%
65+: 32%

My original view on a hard Brexit is that it was sensible if you believed the Brexit bullshit, because it was fundamentally a fairly stable equilibrium. Staying the CU/SM was clearly much better, but Brexiters could then actually rightfully complain they lived in a "vassal state" taking rules they had no say in making, so hard Brexit makes sense on their own terms, and the rest of us would have to take it. Five years on and a majority for returning to the EU amongst the under 55s means the current status is perhaps less stable than I imagined it would be. That is of course assuming that we ever live in a political system responsive to the needs of the majority of people who are actually working - but then if we don't, I'm not sure that's a particularly stable situation either.

[Nigel]

That is of course assuming that we ever live in a political system responsive to the needs of the majority of people who are actually working - but then if we don't, I'm not sure that's a particularly stable situation either.

The fact is that we almost certainly don't, because it was the self-same older demographic who handed the Tories their 80 seat majority, as per the British Election Study https://www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-findings/age-and-voting-behaviour-at-the-2019-general-election/#.YNYYcOhKjIU . The analysis only takes a glance if graphs are your thing.

Its a big problem.

I agree that this is not sustainable, and is diametrically opposed to the Tories' professed agenda i.e. levelling up, house building etc. Something tells me they're probably fibbing about this stuff anyway.

[TobyD]

Radio 4 just ran an excellent piece on this, they dug out an interview with Matt Hancock after a scientific advisor was caught in a very similar situation. He's pretty clear in the interview that the advisor's position is untenable...

The number of clips being played and replayed of Hancock telling people to avoid any close contact, calling for the Scottish health adviser to go etc  is fairly amusing.  The more serious issue is that she is an advisor to the health department who is supposed to be scrutinising their performance.  If a police officer, teacher or a hospital consultant was shagging a junior member of staff who  was supposed to be assessing their work,  you'd be sacked,  no?

No chance he will go unless public opinion goes the way of Cummings. 

In which case he'll probably be gifted a seat in the lords by Johnson on the excuse that he needs a rest or something. 

[TobyD]

Just on a practical note. How has The Sun got hold of CCTV footage from inside Whitehall?

I wonder if Cummings might have something to do with it,  hes been going after Hancock and feasibly would have had access.