User Profile

[malvolio]

Actually, having worked in Belfast in the late 70s and with relatives serving in what was the Ulster Constabulary, I think they were. And the GFD and the cotinuing persecution of the serving military is another example of settling a dispute with a total lack of justice. Feel free to dissgree.
...

[malvolio]

Inviting Hamas to the HOC and actively supporting calls for a Palestinian state doesn't exactly shout pro-semitic to me....

[malvolio]

Johnson bumbled into the job because he was so appalled at the running away Cameron and the supine May, thinking he couldn't do any worse. Snag is he was far too casual about it all and forgot to study the detail. He was, however a pretty charismatic leader - unless you had to work with him - and had...

[malvolio]

Oh grow up. It's not a binary situation of my dad is bigger than your dad. If you want to take that to the extreme, do you prefer Charles I to Cromwell?

Both Labour and the Tories are complicit in the mess we are in now. Just try to understand the historical reality; a lot of the current...

[malvolio]

Which is when most government infrastructure projects were hived off to the private sector under ruinous (and continuing) PFI deals, the civil service was politicised, the Cabinet was side-lined in favour of personally appointed (and often unqualified) friends, relations, SPADS and other advisors, regulatory...

[malvolio]

That was 50 years ago. And more to the point, the public sector bodies they replaced were bloody awful.

Where it started to go wrong was when the regulation of the privatised bodies was hived off to an ever-growing pile of quangos and away from ministers, so they, just like all those crap...

[malvolio]

So th0se jumps are nothing to do with having to repair Brown's mistakes and Covid I suppose?

The real point is that Reeves is borrowing to support expenditure rather than building the reserves that expenditure would need, and claiming the economy is doing well......

[malvolio]

It was PCG that led the argument for the last rise, which begrudgingly went from from 40p to 45p a mile, in the days when they were listened to in Whitehall That took a few years to happen, and the original call was for 60ppm...

Given the current nonentities, in charge of economy I have...

[malvolio]

I get this terrible feeling of Deja vu... ...

[malvolio]

I think that you are missing the point. What we needed to happen for the modestly growing economy left by the Tories to be properly supported until we had a genuinely stable economy (i.e. not the one Reeves keeps on bragging about). What we got was more borrowing at higher rates, and a series of measures...

[malvolio]

Hope is about all I have left. At my age I doubt I'll be around long enough to see today's bollocks put right... ...

[malvolio]

The old Tories are gone (including Jenrick and a few other failures), either to Reform or out on their ear at the last election. Badenoch and team are proposing positive ideas if they get back in - which is doubtful as things stand. But if she can keep the rabble in line and kill off their mad focus...

[malvolio]

Jeez, change the record. Or stop reading the Guardian....

[malvolio]

Just to be clear on something most people forget...

SC is not a personal attribute. It goes with the role, not the person filling it. On other words, they have to match the required risk profile for the role (which is hat the vetting is doing) and when the role expires, so does the worker's...

[malvolio]

Just been reading the reports on his speech to Davos. Most of it seems to have been incomprehensible, but there was one clear point, if I may paraphrase:

- "Right now we need Greenland to act as a defensive cover for the USA. Right now I can move as many troops and other materiel into...

[malvolio]

Agreed. But by any other piece of statute in this area you are not an employee. Good, innit!


Not a bad thing though. No need to be bound by minimum wage or maximum hours for instance....

[malvolio]

Yes I do. It's the negative, pointless, zero-value ones I have problems with......

[malvolio]

True, but a four nodeVAX multiprocessor cluster did a oretty good impression of one under VMS5 and above.

VME/ B and variants was ICL 2900s, also a good impersonisation of a mainframe...

[malvolio]

Because the modern coders who use structured client/server languages don't understand batch processing and the management layer think mainframes are old hat, while simultaneously insisting on a cloud-based architecture that behaves just like a mainframe...?

Or is it the old adage of "it...

[malvolio]

Well lucky old you. The major benefit of working on niche, outdated technology I suppose... But sadly it doesn't make you special, or representative....