Noit

I loved mine, but sitting a year or two the flash memory had degraded to the point it was completely unusable, even just as a digital photo frame.

The small tablet market is still underserved today, I’m running an iPad mini, which is great, but it’s definitely a second-class citizen compared to the bigger iPads.

Q: Did you really tell the shadow cabinet you don’t like tree huggers?

Starmer said he was talking to the shadow cabinet about a visit to Scunthorpe steel works. He was making the point about the workers there not being tree huggers, but being very committed to the shift to green energy. Guardian Liveblog

Assuming he’s not stretching the truth too far, that’s not a bad as I thought. Sounds like he was making a rhetorical point, rather than automatically denigrating anyone who thinks the environment should be our priority.

What are the health benefits of entire countries becoming uninhabitable, and seeing Britain as somewhere they can send their entire population?

I love how Viking-rune-looking it is. Everything old is new again.

Was this game named by a Bojack Horseman character?

New Futurama is starting to appear on Disney+. Watched the first one last night, and it’s good. Got a few chuckles, re-set the scene, it’s not the absolute peak of the show but if it maintains this level of quality then I’ll not be upset about it being revived again.

Now that access to the phone has been gained I suspect the contents will be reviewed by several lawyers in depth, probably with Boris right there. Given that there will be months if not several years of messages to review, I’d not expect an update for a few weeks, unless a decision is made to trickle stuff through to the committee as it gets cleared.

I haven’t seen any good evidence either way, but my suspicion would be that it doesn’t particularly matter. If the GE is tomorrow or eighteen months away, those politically switched-on will be unlikely to change their minds, and those who aren’t will make their minds up when campaigning starts.

Plus BEs usually have significantly reduced turnout, so any change in results can simply be due to more people voting rather than changing the minds of those who do vote.

About the only impact it could have is if the economy can improve in that time. If inflation were stopped dead and fuel and food prices went down, we might well see a swing back to the Tories for “weathering the storm”. Probably not enough to get them a win, but it’d soften their losses. I don’t see that economic win appearing though.

To start week, I’ve set up a bunch of play money prediction markets on whether or not the winners of the recent by-election big swings will retain the seats at the next election.

• Tiverton and Honiton - this seat having a strong LD history is what I think is suggestive. If this is a return to the mean and the Conservatives don’t start piling much more strongly then it should stay LD.
• Selby and Ainsty - I think this is likely to swing back Conservative. Historically it always has been, and having been won by a very young candidate who isn’t going to have much time to establish himself, I suspect it will revert to the mean when national focus isn’t on this seat.
• Somerton and Frome - similar to T&H, I think this one is a Lib Dem reversion to the mean. I can’t decide which I think is going to be the stronger LD seat at the next election, but I’d suspect one will be a close run thing.

Some time on the morning of the 21st. They’ll be counting through the night, but it won’t be like a general election where results will pour in through the night. They may be done in the time for the morning news, but there’s no guarantees.

Any idle speculation on the potential cabinet reshuffle rumoured to be planned for after the by-elections?

I reckon this might finally be the time Sunak gets shot of Braverman. Maybe Coffey as well. Tommy Tugs will be the new defence sec.

It’s not odd really, strikes basically never get top billing on the news. If you scroll down past the key digital real estate you’ll generally find something on them. I don’t think that’s a good thing, but it is expected.

Friday will be by-election coverage which will likely take up the whole weekend.