The fact Starmer won’t even think about joining the single market is stupid too.

Joining the single market would simplify border issues but it wouldn’t solve them… We’d have to join the Customs Union and the common VAT area as well to do that. SM-only is not completely pointless but there is a massive political risk attached because it doesn’t solve all the problems its advocates pretend it does.

There are only two ways to make Brexit work. One is to be an EU member in all but name (following all the rules but having a very limited role in making the rules). The other is a united Ireland (with a lot more expenditure on customs and warehousing in Britain).

The first is politically impossible, and also pointless. The second is up to the people of the island of Ireland and requires a British govt which is willing to invest in the real economy, rather than keeping most of us around to create the illusion of a real country instead of a tax haven based on a massive casino.

It is very easy to have a play with a benefits calculator to find out what reality looks like for yourself.

In-work benefits keep working people who earn less than they need to survive at or slightly above the poverty level. For people who are unable to work, due to sickness, disability or a lack of available jobs, it keeps them stuck below the poverty level with just about enough to survive but not to thrive.

As the article points out, the philosophy this system was built on was not necessarily well thought out at the time. In the post-covid era it is disastrous.

This is disgusting. PIP is designed to help with additional costs incurred due to an illness or disability but there are loads of people who are too sick to work who don’t need it, and many others who do need it but don’t qualify.

Cold weather payments should be extended to everyone who is reliant on benefits to survive (which would mean almost every benefit other than PIP being a qualifying benefit).

The data showed that the chance of scoring rose when teammates showed their support through touch. The effect only appeared after a failed first shot, which makes sense because such a scenario is likely to spike stress levels.

Of course, the data is not shown. And the study is not able to draw causal conclusions. In this case, they’ve hunted around and found a subset of shots (second shots after a first failed shot) where it’s true. And it’s easy to make up reasons after the fact why that might make sense.

It does seem very reasonable to hypothesise that supportive team mates make it less likely you choke on the second shot. But they haven’t shown this is down to touch (they just used that as a proxy for supportive team mates). Nor that the percentage of successful second shots after a failed first shot would be improved by more touching regardless of whether team mates are genuinely supportive or quietly seething…

Amazing scientist and all round decent man. I’m glad he lived to see his particle found, or probably found, or whatever the current state of the debate is.

I especially appreciate him for saying these sorts of things, to colleagues, journalists and anyone else who might listen:

Peter Higgs: I wouldn’t be productive enough for today’s academic system

A long life, lived well. RIP

The attempt to attack Corbyn by drawing comparisons with Truss is bizarre. I can only assume that a mildly conscientious sub-editor inserted the bolded bit because it contradicts everything else he has to say about that particular analogy:

In her mix of utter conviction and utter obliviousness to how she might come across to anyone who doesn’t see the world the way she does, the politician she most resembles is Jeremy Corbyn. Like him, Truss is convinced the policies she advocates are popular with a majority of the public. For Corbyn it was nationalisation of the utilities, more money for the NHS and cheaper housing, all of which poll extremely well. For Truss it is secure borders, lower taxes and an end to burdensome environmental restrictions. In both cases, the explanation for why the things the public want never come to pass is the same: the system is stacked against the preferences of ordinary people.

London Elects said: “The Reclaim party candidate’s representatives met with London Elects for the first time on Tuesday 26 March, less than 24 hours before the close of the nominations deadline. At that time, the paperwork was incomplete.

“Mr Fox’s representatives were advised to ensure that completed forms were submitted well before the Wednesday 4pm statutory deadline. The paperwork was submitted very shortly before 4pm.

“Upon inspection, the nomination forms contained errors which – the deadline having passed – were too late for Mr Fox’s team to correct.

Monstrously unfair to disqualify incompetent fascists simply for being incompetent. Can democracy survive this outrageous attack?

Percentile points from 1 to 99 for total income before and after tax

The 96th percentile was £97,200 in 2021/22.

Which won’t happen. The Lib Dems will get the disgruntled Tory vote, as per always. All he’s doing is depressing turnout.

A pineapple could beat the Tories at the next election but he is desperately trying to follow the Dems and gift it to proto-fascists.

Well, that’s kind of the point. Any design that is intended to be worn at the front is either very small or designed to be moved to the side when it gets in the way of what you’re trying to do.

You can wear your backpack as a frontpack if you want to. You’ll soon discover why most people don’t use them that way. I have done, but only when I have two backpacks to lug some distance and can use the straps of the one worn on the back to help secure the straps of the one worn on the front.

Yes. How the fuck is this even a question?

Also, they’re not saying “Oi, step in if you see someone being harassed on this train but anywhere else, feel free to cheer the offender on as normal.” TFL just have better leadership than the country does, so they’re running the campaign.

3/14 is much weirder, only around 5% of the global population instantly know what date it refers to. The rest of us have to realise that a USian is the author to make any sense of it.

But it does give you a pi day, so there’s that.

31/4 is weeks away?

They really want to keep turnout low, huh?

Comment made by me about the exact same article.

No he didn’t.

There isn’t a realistic alternative. But you don’t have to pretend you like it. It is important to make it very clear that you do not. The least worst option is not going to evolve into a better option all of its own accord.

Lynch is saying you have to vote to keep the Tories out and you have to hold Labour’s feet to the fire afterwards.

The Crown Estate is public money. The Private Estate is larger and they’re extremely secretive about it. And some of it rightfully belongs to us: royals took more than £1bn income from controversial estates

The Private Estate is larger than the Crown Estate. And the Crown Estate is public property.

Next year, the sovereign grant will remain unchanged at £86.3m. However, in 2025, the king’s public funding will increase by a projected £38.5m, giving the monarchy an annual stipend of £124.8m. In 2026, it will be £126m.

When was the last time you got a 50% pay rise for doing fuck all? Those boots must be really fucking tasty.

Catch a grip.

Lord Turnbull, a former cabinet secretary, Whitehall’s most senior civil servant, who was involved in official discussions over royal financing, accused the Treasury of seeking to obfuscate how the monarchy was funded.

He said that linking the royal finances to the profits of the crown estate was “silly” and was motivated by a desire to promote the idea that the king was paying for himself and was reducing the burden on the taxpayer.

“You get people writing in saying: ‘Isn’t it a good thing that the king is so sensitive to public opinion that he has waived some of the money he could have had?’ I think it’s bollocks. It is deliberate – that’s really what makes me so cross about it. It is a deliberate attempt to obfuscate how the thing works.”

You reminded me of this exchange between Robert Cousins and Andrew Gelman:

Our [particle physicists’] problems and the way we approach them are quite different from some other fields of science, especially social science. As one example, I think I recall reading that you do not mind adding a parameter to your model, whereas adding (certain) parameters to our models means adding a new force of nature (!) and a Nobel Prize if true. As another example, a number of statistics papers talk about how silly it is to claim a 10^{⁻4} departure from 0.5 for a binomial parameter (ESP examples, etc), using it as a classic example of the difference between nominal (probably mismeasured) statistical significance and practical significance. In contrast, when I was a grad student, a famous experiment in our field measured a 10^{⁻4} departure from 0.5 with an uncertainty of 10% of itself, i.e., with an uncertainty of 10^{⁻5}. (Yes, the order or 10^10 Bernoulli trials—counting electrons being scattered left or right.) This led quickly to a Nobel Prize for Steven Weinberg et al., whose model (now “Standard”) had predicted the effect.

I replied:

This interests me in part because I am a former physicist myself. I have done work in physics and in statistics, and I think the principles of statistics that I have applied to social science, also apply to physical sciences. Regarding the discussion of Bem’s experiment, what I said was not that an effect of 0.0001 is unimportant, but rather that if you were to really believe Bem’s claims, there could be effects of +0.0001 in some settings, -0.002 in others, etc. If this is interesting, fine: I’m not a psychologist. One of the key mistakes of Bem and others like him is to suppose that, even if they happen to have discovered an effect in some scenario, there is no reason to suppose this represents some sort of universal truth. Humans differ from each other in a way that elementary particles to not.

And Cousins replied:

Indeed in the binomial experiment I mentioned, controlling unknown systematic effects to the level of 10^{-5}, so that what they were measuring (a constant of nature called the Weinberg angle, now called the weak mixing angle) was what they intended to measure, was a heroic effort by the experimentalists.