BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

[PurplePenguin]

Is Dan Niedle the guy who always messes with the axes on graphs to exaggerate and misrepresent?

No. That's the award winning data journalist.

 

[First Aspect]

No. That's the award winning data journalist.

Oh yes, who must be right all the time because he's award winning.

 

[C R]

Yes indeed, but there is almost plausible deniability about the phrase.

ITYM that the phrase was a dog whistle.

 

[briantrumpet]

No. That's the award winning data journalist.

I almost referred FA to you as the official bad-graph monitor, as I'd knew you'd be on the case.

 

[briantrumpet]

When Thatcher is too left wing for *real* Tories, you know something is amiss...

 

[Pblakeney]

When Thatcher is too left wing for *real* Tories, you know something is amiss...

View attachment 10592

Then again, Hitchens is a daffodil.

 

[briantrumpet]

Then again, Hitchens is a daffodil.

Ooh, steady on now, old chap. There's no need for such colourful language.

 

[AndyRM]

Ooh, steady on now, old chap. There's no need for such colourful language.

Flowery, Shirley?

 

[briantrumpet]

Flowery, Shirley?

Fair point, blossom.

 

[briantrumpet]

A thoroughly dispiriting read. Ignore the fact that it's the Graun: John Harris has a habit of getting under the skin of human problems, and writing humanely about them.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/19/britain-housing-crisis-social-rent-liverpool

Liverpool has long been credited with the so-called “scouse exceptionalism” that supposedly makes its people less prone to belligerent expressions of national identity and Little Englandism. But in many neighbourhoods, there are now streets festooned with union flags and St George’s flags. In the midst of what I heard about its housing shortage, they began to look like a desperate, distorted show of a fear laced with defiance, and proof of an unshakable political fact: that if you make people feel scared about something as basic as the roof over their heads, they will sooner or later start to behave in very unsettling ways.

 

[PurplePenguin]

OK, thanks PP, though to be fair to him, I suspect that if you politely pointed that out to him, he would be prepared to be educated. As someone who generally finds tax extremely dull, I do think he does a good job of making it much less dull.

The article you linked to was not about tax though. It was about whether Cater-Ruck crossed a line in representing their client. It could be an interesting discussion. There's a balance between everyone being entitled to legal advice and allowing lawyers to help commit the crime.

There is also the way wealthy people get to bully others through lawfare - on this point though Carter-Ruck do seem to be in a spot of bother which is unusual.

I'd happily read a well written article on those subjects written by an expert in that area. Dan Niedle fails on both those counts though.

 

[briantrumpet]

The article you linked to was not about tax though. It was about whether Cater-Ruck crossed a line in representing their client. It could be an interesting discussion. There's a balance between everyone being entitled to legal advice and allowing lawyers to help commit the crime.

There is also the way wealthy people get to bully others through lawfare - on this point though Carter-Ruck do seem to be in a spot of bother which is unusual.

I'd happily read a well written article on those subjects written by an expert in that area. Dan Niedle fails on both those counts though.

I wasn't expecting to change your mind, I'll admit.

 

[PurplePenguin]

I wasn't expecting to change your mind, I'll admit.

I was hoping to help you see the light and change your mind.

 

[briantrumpet]

I was hoping to help you see the light and change your mind.

Not yet (for the reasons I've said, viz mostly that he makes tax stuff accessible/interesting), but you can keep on trying.

Maybe his value is using his reach to alert people more expert than him to deal with miscreants, so now rather more a journalist than anything else, but other than your correction over cryptocurrency, I can't remember you specifying where he's been seriously off target or plain wrong.

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

Almost something I've been thinking recently, how many of our charities are actually addressing problems humans needlessly cause and that are quite avoidable. Charities are appealing for money to address dire situations of our own causing, situations we (as a species) have no need to have created.

I worked in the charity sector for years. One thing that always stuck with me is a colleague that said the main aim of any given charity should eventually be to no longer be necessary. You identify the need, you address and eradicate it. However, as we also discussed most charity is born out of inequality so should not be necessary in the first place. The fact that it is renders it unlikely that you will ever fully address the need.

My major issue is how much the state now relies on charities and goodwill to address social issues that one could argue should be addressed by government; mental health, unemployment, recidivism and so on. In a properly funded democracy, these are the kinds of challenges that govt at local and national level should be resourced fully to address. Look at something like mental health and how terrible public services are through lack of money, and just how much they are propped up by charitable interventions. If you suddenly took all charities away it would be calamitous.