Judging by the home page of today’s Reach plc Daily Post/North Wales Live title, one could be led to believe that human trafficking and forced marriage are alive and well in Talybont north of Abermaw/Barmouth in Gwynedd.
However, it is only when one reads the article that it is revealed that brown envelopes of cash have been proffered, not marriageable women.
The front page has since been amended.
The world’s top greenwashing event COP27 is currently taking place in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt.
To give an idea of the under-achievement of previous UN conferences on climate change, it’s worth pointing out that activist Greta Thunberg is boycotting the event, stating that it will be an opportunity for “greenwashing, lying and cheating“. Greta is famously critical of politicians as her “blah, blah, blah” speech showed.
Anyway, in anticipation of a lack of any serious commitments and outcomes from the world’s political elite allegedly having a conferenceshores of the Red Sea, here’s a reminder from the past, in the shape of Ronnie Barker’s Ministry of Pollution sketch from the second season of The Two Ronnies, first aired in 1972.
Your ‘umble scribe likes to think he was properly brought up: polite, courteous, not swearing people, particularly women, and such like. As regards swearing, his sister has more than once revealed that when she and my late father were on a bus once, he admonished fellow passengers for swearing because women were present.
As regards swearing, step forward over-promoted former fireplace salesman “Sir” Gavin Alexander Williamson CBE MP, the dishonourable member for South Staffordshire who has been inexplicably elevated to cabinet rank (again!) as Minister of State without Portfolio, who appears to have been taught and abide by completely different standards of social conduct to those of your correspondent.
News has emerged over the weekend that Williamson sent ‘expletive-laden’ text messages to the then Conservative chief whip Wendy Morton all moaning about not being invited to attend the late queen’s funeral.
According to the messages published by today’s Sunday Times, Williamson accused Morton of exploiting the Queen’s death for political purposes, particularly as he was out of favour at the time with the English Empire’s shortest serving ever prime minister, one Elizabeth Mary Truss, now safely removed from high office and returned to the back benches.
The actual words quoted by the press reveal that Williamson has a fine command of monosyllabic swear words having their roots in Old English (which some still call Anglo-Saxon. Ed.), particularly ones beginning with f and s.
Not only did Williamson use foul language towards a woman, but this morning his cabinet colleague Oliver Dowden (also inexplicably honoured with a CBE like Williamson. Ed.)defended Williamson on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme, claiming Williamson’s offensive text messages were sent ‘in the heat of the moment‘.
I blame both of their sets of parents.
German newspaper <a href="https://www.welt.de/regionales/bayern/article241937155/Urteil-Buerger-duerfen-Falschparker-fuer-Anzeige-fotografieren.html".Die Welt states that it’s so obvious: people wanting to report an illegal parker just pull out their smartphone and then send the picture to the police. However, two men in Bavariahad trouble with the state’s data protection authorities. A court has now decided who acted corrected.
Anyone who sends photos of illegal parkers as part of a report to the police does not normally violate data protection legislation. This emerged on Thursday from two landmark rulings published by the Ansbach Administrative Court. With these the court agreed with two men who corroborated their reports of parking infringements on footways and cycleways with photos. For using this they received a warning and a fine of €100 each from the Bavarian State Data Protection Office (LDA). Both objected and went to court with the support of Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V. (DUH)
The administrative court combined the two procedures in a joint hearing because of the identical questions and ultimately ruled that the procedure involved lawful data processing. However, the actual statement of is not available. The verdicts are of fundamental significance from the legal point of view, but are still not absolute.
The DUH, which supported one of the two plaintiffs in a test case, welcomed the verdict. “Illegal parking is no trivial offence, but endangers people who are travelling by bike, wheeled walking frame, wheelchair or pram”, commented Jürgen Resch, its Federal director. “The authorities should not take action against civil society commitment, but rather take consistent measures against blocked footpaths and cycle paths, illegal parking in front of dropped kerbs or at junctions; and do so not just in Bavaria, but nationwide.»
The crux of the proceedings was the question of whether digital transmission of the photos constituted lawful data processing within the meaning of the General Data Protection Regulation since there must be a legitimate interest in forwarding the image files. On the other hand, data transmission and processing must be necessary.
Accordingly, the parties to the proceedings before the court argued about whether the plaintiffs had to be personally affected by the parking violations and whether a written or telephone description of the facts including the vehicle registration number, was not sufficient. In addition, the LDA pointed out that other data such as other cars with registration plates and people can often be seen in the pictures. In reply, the plaintiffs stressed that the police had asked them to document the parking situation as accurately as possible with photos as evidence.
The LDA stated that once the judgment’s statement of grounds was available, it would examine whether the decision was an individual case or whether a reassessment of the use of photos in public places that was critical for data protection had been initiated. In addition, it wants to agree clear and uniform guidelines with the police regarding which information is required when reporting illegal parking and which communication channel should be used.
The disgraced former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, one Matthew John David Hancock, has lost the Conservative Party whip for agreeing to take part in trash TV show I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, The Guardian reports.
Tory chief whip Simon Hart is quoted as saying, “Following a conversation with Matt Hancock, I have considered the situation and believe this is a matter serious enough to warrant suspension of the whip with immediate effect”.
The dictionary definition of a celebrity is someone who is famous, especially in areas of entertainment such as films, music, writing, or sport. Unless politics has become a branch of the entertainment business, classifying Hancock as a celebrity is a tad far-fetched, even though politics has previously been described as show business for ugly people.
Your ‘umble scribe would contend that Hancock is no celebrity. However, what he does have is notoriety, particularly from his term of office as health secretary. In June 2021, after it was shown he had breached COVID-19 social distancing restrictions by kissing and embracing an aide, Gina Coladangelo, in his Whitehall office, Hancock resigned as Health Secretary, having been caught not only cheating on his wife, but also breaking his own social distancing rules. At the time Ms Coladangelo was a non-executive director at the Department of Health and Social Care. She was also an old college friend of Hancock’s from his time studying PPE at Exeter College, Oxford.
However, Ms Coladangelo’s appointment to the DHSC is not the only example of Hancock’s cronyism. There was the revelation of his ownership of shares in a family company used by the NHS, not to mention the award of an NHS contract to a neighbour. Furthermore, Hancock is the member of parliament for the West Suffolk constituency, which includes Newmarket, capital of the country’s horse-racing business. One of the reasons the pandemic took such a strong hold in the country was the delay in locking the country down, which allowed such superspreader events as the traditional March Cheltenham Festival to take place.
Of course, Hancock is not the first MP to be lured onto I’m A Celebrity. There was of course the notoriously useless Right Dishonourable Member for Mid-Bedfordshire, one Nadine Vanessa Dorries. Dorries also famously lost the whip for appearing on the show (where she famously ate ostrich anus in the bushtucker challenge. Ed.), apparently for committing the ultimate discourtesy of not informing the whips’ office of her absence from Halitosis Hall. However, this disciplinary action did not do much to dent her career prospects as she was subsequently and inexplicably elevated to the cabinet position of Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport by disgraced former alleged party-time prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.
Come the next election, will the good burghers of West Suffolk decide that Hancock belongs on a show entitled He’s A Calamity… Get Him Out Of Here!?
Update 5/11/22: Hancock’s decision to take part in the show and leave his constituents without parliamentary representation while he earns a fat fee – rumoured in the media to be £350-400K – in addition to his £84,144 p.a. salary as an MP has not gone down well with some constituents, The Guardian reports.
Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser first introduced in 2008. Based largely on the open source Chromium browser, perhaps the best description for it is proprietary freeware.
French IT news website Le Monde Informatique reports that a federal judge in California is examining complaints against Google alleging that the company is tricking users into believing that their private life is protected when using the browser’s incognito mode. The lawsuit which was initiated before the North California District Court more than 2 years ago by 5 users is now awaiting a more recent petition from these plaintiff in a class action. One of the complaints concerns Chrome users with a Google account who accessed a non-Google website containing Google tracking or advertising code and who were browsing in incognito mode; a second covers all users of Safari, Edge and Internet Explorer with a Google account who accessed a non-Google website containing Google tracking or advertising code in private browsing mode. According to legal documents first disclosed by Bloomberg, Google employees joked about the browser’s incognito mode and the fact that it was not really private. They also took the company to task for not having done more to provide users with the privacy they though they were enjoying.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who presides over the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, will decide whether the tens of thousands of users of Chrome’s incognito mode can be grouped together to seek statutory damages of $100 to $1,000 per violation, which could potentially increase the fine to over $5 bn. The definition of the word incognito is to disguise or conceal one’s identity. The confidentiality settings of web browsers are intended to delete local traces of sites visited by a user, as well as web searches and information provided when filling in online forms. Simply put, private modes such as incognito are not supposed to track and record data from web searches and sites visited by users. Google is also facing proceedings linked to user confidentiality from the justice ministers and public prosecutors of several federal states including Texas, the District of Columbia and Washington. Earlier this month Google settled a lawsuit filed by the attorney general of Arizona for $85 mn. Initially filed in June 2020, the class action was asking for at least $5 bn., accusing Google of surreptitiously collecting data on what people were viewing online and where they were browsing despite using private browsing mode. Lawyers for the plaintiffs say they have a large number of internal Google emails proving that managers have known for years that private browsing mode does not do what it claims. When a user chooses to use this incognito mode, Google’s browser is supposed to delete browsing history and cookies automatically at the end of a session.
The plaintiffs, who are Google Account holders, alleged that the search engine collected their data, distributed it and sold it for targeted advertising through a real-time auction system (RTB). LThe plaintiffs allege that even in incognito mode, Google can see what sites Chrome users are visiting and collect data by means which include Analytics, digital fingerprinting techniques, concurrent applications and processes on a user’s device and AdManager. The latter is a Google service enabling businesses to distribute and create web, mobile and video advertising reports for a company.
According to one report, more than 70% of all website use one of more of Google’s services. More specifically, the plaintiffs allege that every time a user with private browsing mode active visits a website running Analytics or AdManager, the search giant’s software scripts on the site surreptitiously order the user’s browser to send a secret separate message to its servers in California. “Google learns exactly what content the user’s browser software was asking the website to display, and it also passes a header containing the URL information of what the user viewed and requested online. Device IP address, geolocation data and user ID are all tracked and logged by Google”, according to one report in the lawsuit. “Once collected, this mountain of data is analyzed to build digital records on millions of consumers, in some cases identifying us by name, gender, age, and medical conditions and political issues we researched online”, the lawsuit claims.
In March 2021, a California judge denied 82 motions by Google’s attorneys to end the lawsuit and ruled against the company, allowing it to proceed. In July that year the company was sentenced to pay almost one million dollars in legal fees and expenses as a penalty for not having disclosed evidence concerning the lawsuit in a timely manner.
This week a spokesperson for Google told the Washington Post it had been frank with users about what its incognito mode offers in terms of privacy and that the plaintiffs “deliberately misrepresented our statements”. Jack Gold, senior analyst at J. Gold Associates, said the company makes the majority of its revenue by tracking everyone and selling ad space. “If they’re really creating a completely private browsing experience, then the revenue stream is gone,” he said. “So, I suspect there is a ‘balancing act’ going on internally as to where the borders are around privacy vs. tracking. No company builds a free browser without being able to generate revenues somehow”. The plaintiffs in the case said they chose “private browsing mode” to prevent others from learning what they’re viewing on the internet. When it comes to using Google Chrome and other browsers, “let the user beware,” Gold said. “You have to trust the maker to take care of your privacy, but it’s not always in their best interest to do so”.
The security breach was discovered when Truss was campaigning for the Tory Party leadership in the summer, but was apparently hushed up on the orders of Truss’ predecessor, the equally useless disgraced alleged former party-time PM, one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who has since returned to his old habits of doing no work for his long-suffering constituents in Uxbridge & South Ruislip.
It is also claimed that private conversations between Truss and her equally useless (and rapidly dismissed, serving less time in office than his boss. Ed.) Chancer of the Exchequer Kamikwasi Kwarteng criticising Johnson were also amongst the information acquired by the hackers, leaving the Britannia Unhinged duo at risk of being blackmailed. One has to wonder how much kompromat the Kremlin has on Truss, Kwarteng and other present and former members of the alleged government.
Whilst all this is highly amusing to those of us on the left of the political spectrum, one disturbing aspect is the tone of the typical official .denial that a breach has occurred. According to The Guardian, a government spokesperson is reported as having stated the following:
The government has robust systems in place to protect against cyber threats. That includes regular security briefings for ministers, and advice on protecting their personal data and mitigating cyber threats.
Robust is another of those weasel words and stock phrases trotted out by officialdom when its shortcomings have been exposed.
The adjective has two dictionary definitions, depending upon whether people/animals or objects/systems are involved:
(of a person or animal) strong and healthy: and
(of an object or system) strong and unlikely to break or fail.
The only comment your ‘umble scribe can make on that is that the security breach would not have occurred had the government’s systems been robust enough, besides adding that if security is a major concern, Suella ‘Leaky Sue’ Braverman would not have been re-appointed as Home Secretary by this month’s Prime Minister only 6 days after she had been sacked by Ms Truss for a major security breach by using a personal – not official – email account to send privileged government information to a right-wing Tory MP and accidentally copying the message to another MP’s aide, who alerted Number 10.
The corpse of the political career of one Mary Elizabeth Truss, briefly the English Empire’s shortest serving prime minister is scarcely cold and the vultures of the fourth estate have already surrounded the corpse and are tucking in heartily with the aim of depriving the gullible each to part with the sum of twenty of your English pounds; or so they would like to think.
Harper Collins have somehow engaged Messrs Harry Cole and James Heale to draft her political biography.
Cole’s Wikipedia page describes him as (journalist). Note the brackets; they are most important. Cole works for The S*n, so therefore cannot be a proper journalist. At this point, your ‘umble scribe is reminded of the wise words of John McDonnell MP, former shadow chancellor, as reported by Adam Bienkov of Byline Times.
James Heale is political editor of The Spectator, reputed to be the world’s oldest surviving weekly magazine. It also acts as a cheerleader for the Conservative Party.
Your correspondent is wondering if, given the pedigree of the authors and their role to date as stenographers to the Blue Team, the original draft has been/is being written in crayon.
Update 07/11/2022: The book is now out and Andrew Anothony in The Guardian has characterised it as “a 300-leaved lettuce that was past its sell-by date before it reached the shelves“.
Today’s Bristol Post website features an article with an absolute howler, as reproduced in the screenshot below.
The section of Cheltenham Road involved is a few hundred metres of the main A38 road, running between Bodmin in Cornwall and Mansfield in Nottinghamshire.
Following some ridicule in the comments below the piece, the headline has now been corrected.
Good news was received by your ‘umble scribe late yesterday evening: disgraced former party-time alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was withdrawing his candidacy for the Tory party leadership and this his bid to regain the premiership just three months after he had been ousted from 10 Downing Street in the wake of a mass resignation by no fewer than sixty government ministers.
Since resigning as prime minister, Johnson has spent very little time doing the job he should be doing, i.e. representing the interests of his long-suffering constituents in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, speaking in debates and filing through the division lobbies to vote on legislation, preferring instead to take 3 holidays, whilst managing to fit in a lucrative public speaking engagement in the USA. On the return flight from his last holiday in the Dominican Republic, Johnson was reportedly booed by fellow passengers.
Given his preferences, any sensible person would question what Johnson’s priorities actually are.
AS per usual, Johnson’s priority is – as always – Johnson, as is apparent from his withdrawal statement, which was faithfully reported by this morning’s Grauniad and reproduced below.
In the last few days I have been overwhelmed by the number of people who suggested that I should once again contest the Conservative party leadership, both among the public and among friends and colleagues in parliament.
I have been attracted because I led our party into a massive election victory less than three years ago – and I believe I am therefore uniquely placed to avert a general election now.
A general election would be a further disastrous distraction just when the government must focus on the economic pressures faced by families across the country.
I believe I am well placed to deliver a Conservative victory in 2024 – and tonight I can confirm that I have cleared the very high hurdle of 102 nominations, including a proposer and a seconder, and I could put my nomination in tomorrow.
There is a very good chance that I would be successful in the election with Conservative Party members – and that I could indeed be back in Downing Street on Friday.
But in the course of the last days I have sadly come to the conclusion that this would simply not be the right thing to do. You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament.
And though I have reached out to both Rishi [Sunak] and Penny [Mordaunt] – because I hoped that we could come together in the national interest – we have sadly not been able to work out a way of doing this.
Therefore I am afraid the best thing is that I do not allow my nomination to go forward and commit my support to whoever succeeds.
I believe I have much to offer but I am afraid that this is simply not the right time.
There are a number of comments one could make on Johnson’s statement.
Firstly there’s the assertion at the very end ‘that this is simply not the right time‘. Indeed it isn’t. Johnson is under investigation for misleading the House of Commons, specifically for lying in the Commons chamber about the Partygate scandal. If found guilty, Johnson could faced suspension from the Commons (not a good look for a serving PM. Ed.) and if suspended would more than likely face a recall by-election, which polls suggest he would lose.
Then there’s ‘I believe I am therefore uniquely placed to avert a general election now‘. Modest aren’t we sir? Johnson re-emerging as PM after having done more in living memory to disgrace the office (think of being the first serving premier to be sanctioned by the police whilst in office – and for breaking his own government’s regulations too – never mind lying to the queen to prorogue parliament, an action subsequently ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court.Ed.) would be indicative not only of his but his party’s lack of integrity, morals and standards.
Turning to the rifts in the Conservative party, Johnson remarks: ‘ I have reached out to both Rishi [Sunak] and Penny [Mordaunt] – because I hoped that we could come together in the national interest – we have sadly not been able to work out a way of doing this.‘ This is a well-aimed swipe at the 2 other leadership contenders, implying it’s their fault that the rifts in the Tory Party can’t be healed.
Your ‘umble scribe doubts very much that with which Johnson tried reaching out to Sunak and Mordaunt was not an olive branch, but to ask them to withdraw and leave the field clear for him. When they refused Johnson issued the statement above,
Finally, there is the widely reported claim – repeated above – that Johnson had the backing of 102 MPs. As a list of those 102 supporters has never been disclosed, this also must be regarded as more of Johnson’s dishonesty.
PS: Never trust a man who combs his hair with a balloon.