In the news

Actually Trump is living proof that embarrassing social media posts and other scandals have no bearing on whether you can be a politician, good point

*right wing politician.

you bet your arse it counts if you're left-wing.

I find it interesting that they all like Snapchat.

Yes, who would have thought that deletion of what you post could be attractive in a medium in which we were told perfect records would be kept and there would be a collective memory of all that happens ... :)

How long before the Tories try to ban humble addresses?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/05/labour-to-use-humble-address-to-force-release-of-universal-credit-studies

I imagine their (re-?)discovery must be due to Keir Starmer being on the Labour frontbench. It looks like a very lawyerly thing to know about such procedures.

This is interesting (and was on the radio this morning)

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/perils-perception-2017

Why does it happen? Step forward The Daily Mail etc.

At a risk of being shot down... I am not sure that the DM & co are entirely to blame here. Besides various pollsters showed over the last few years that the readers of said publications aren't the likeliest to respond to this type of poll or frankly any type of poll.

Bad news seems to be reported disproportionately by pretty much all news/media outlets and the exceptionally bad news makes the headlines because, well, precisely because it is exceptional. But the perception of the public may be skewed because these pieces of exceptional news are reported more and more - competing journalists trying hard to fill rolling 24 hrs news channels/internetz news channels part of the problem here?

Very interesting piece though.

lfgss?

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/313195/?offset=300#comment13991332

Waterloo Station Rupert Murdoch's house is on fire

Mulholland Drive and Bel-Air

https://latest.com/2017/12/rupert-murdochs-30-million-la-mansion-is-burning-down-right-now-in-california-wildfires/

Bet he's insured out his arse unfortunately.

Also that video looks unbelievably fake. I'm not saying it is, just wondering how they managed to make such a low-quality recording.

He’ll probably make £30million profit from this.

I hope his children’s first ever drawings were in there.

i hope none of his staff were in there.

the low quality video matches murdochs media output

can we be happy about it burning and shout burn baby burn, or would that be a sad indictment of the current state of hatred engendered by the media

People are inherently pessimistic and this isn't actually the fault of the media (although the Daily Mail etc. do a pretty good job).

Citation needed: Paul Rozin and Edward Royzman showed that a negative perspective is more contagous than a positive one: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0504_2

Also John Cacioppo et al showed that our attitudes are more heavily influenced by bad news than good news:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327957pspr0101_2

Also that video looks unbelievably fake.

Seems to be real according to Variety:
http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/fire-los-angeles-bel-air-residents-evacuate-from-wildfire-near-skirball-center-1202632008/

Always good to question though. Won't somebody think of Gordon Ramsey or Babyface Edmonds?

Some great torying from Hammond.

The chancellor, Philip Hammond, faces an outcry this morning after appearing to partly blame people with disabilities for a fall in Britain’s productivity.

Hammond said “far higher levels of participation by marginal groups” in the workforce was almost certainly a cause of sluggish productivity in Britain’s economy.

My guess is that the numbers entering the workforce are not high enough to cause a significant effect.

Unless by marginal group he means millennials.

Holy shit-balls.

https://mobile.twitter.com/wlv_investor/status/938410022538682368

no one has a real incentive to work hard

I want a new motorbike.

Unless by marginal group he means millennials.

Blame the Snowflakes
https://www.yahoo.com/news/don-apos-t-call-us-000100517.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2016/11/14/in-defence-of-generation-snowflake--everyones-favourite-punching/

Yeah.

I was doing the maths on it the other day.

In Y2k I bought a house in a ropey market town for £60k on a £14k salary with a £6k deposit.

17 years later that house looks to be £200k, so would need a £20k deposit and a £45k salary.

I work in the same industry and the salary now for the job I was doing is about £25k.

So the house has risen about twice as fast as salaries have.

And that's a small, sad market town in Suffolk, in big thriving cities I'm sure it's worse.

It seems you really can't win.

Disabled, not working: Get benefits you can't live on, only not die on
Disabled and working: Get blamed for productivity issues.

If Sauron drove to work.

Well done Coventry !

The chancellor, Philip Hammond, faces an outcry this morning after appearing to partly blame people with disabilities for a fall in Britain’s productivity.

lols.

Can't win em all.