vivweb01

 Looking back at this blog from before the 2024 election, it's noteworthy that Labour's internal strife is still continuing apace, and is likely to come to a head now that the predicted hammering Labour was expecting in the English local elections and the Welsh and Scottish parliamentaries on May 7th has come to fruition. If there is to be a change at the top before 2029, it will be highly likely to occur within a few weeks of this debacle. There may be a brief hiatus while Burnham, the front runner in the competition, tries to get back into the commons, but it must be a brief one if the party is to regain any sort of initiative. It's widely believed that if Burnham is beaten by Reform in the upcoming by-election, all bets are off for Labour...so expect an 'interesting' tussle in June to put it mildly. The 'Abbot affair' as I referred to it then may well turn out to have been the start of Starmer's undoing by allowing in the hard left.... Make no mistake...

  Many of us who still use a pc will, sooner or later, find they need to share larger files  with others. If these are  more than ca 10MB in size, this can present problems. The traditional, and probably still the most widely used, method of transferring smaller files to someone else is via an email attachment. This has two associated problems…the first (and perhaps best known because of the trouble it can cause) is that all mail systems prohibit attachments above a certain size, and this limit can be as little as 5 MB or even less. Even a medium-sized Word document with illustrations or images within it can easily exceed this limit, and audio and video files will almost always be larger than this, unless they are just a few minutes long.   This results in 'offending' mail messages being rejected and not reaching their destination, something which is not always obvious to the sender. The other, and less widely appreciated, issue is that emails are eminently ‘ha...

Editors note: I first compiled this blog in late 2022 in the aftermath of the ignominious fall of 'Trussonomics' and before the advent of AI. Many of the ideas are still very relevant today, so a revisit with recent developments in mind at a time when AI is really starting to affect our workplaces is probably appropriate.... Introduction This has been a momentous couple of months all told, with more than the usual quota of economic and political U-turns, a new war in the middle east, and probably more to come that we don't yet know about. The ‘new’ Labour regime’s primary task after taking office in 2024, was to act on their manifesto promise of 'restoring some sense of stability' and preventing the economic meltdown which they claim beckoned…. Did this actually happen ? I'll let the reader answer that particular question themselves. In the light of the widely predicted Labour 'rout' in the May local elections, the electorate would seem to have given...

I first published this mini-review in July 2022 - and a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, with a new and highly unpopular government in place and already faltering.  The employment situation has worsened significantly since then due to the NI surcharges leveled by Reeves on Business in October 2024 and the follow-up tightening of labour legislation, substantial rises in the minimum wage and large hikes in Business Rates in 2025.  These tax-raising measures have already hit private industry hard, with many SMEs, particularly in the enterteinment and hospitality sectors already forced out of business. I've recently updated the article to reflect recent developments and the prospects for our economic recovery; unfortunately these are pretty dire, given Reeves' repeated attacks on our only true wealth-creating sector . There has been little or no progress on addressing our low productivity and the high benefits-dependency amongst our working age population. Unem...

  I first published this rather amusing, but scathing, anecdote on the subject of having and bringing up kids last April.  However, since then the issue has become a rather more serious one for our country's future, with some interesting, and quite chilling, findings recently brought to light. These would tend to confirm a marked unwillingness to embark upon the 'reproductive journey' amongst our indigenous population (i.e. those who were actually born here). Perchance our potential parents have looked at their ever-dwindling bank balances and rocketing tax bills...and seen the light.  And who could blame them given the prospect of even worse to come over the next 3 years ? Recently announced birthrate statistics have shown a marked downward trend in the course of the last 3 years, with the overall tally for 2024 down to 1.41 births per woman in England and Wales, a record low for the 3rd year in a row. This is of course well below the replacement level of 2.1, and might...