"Was it a sticky latte?": Ex-pro cyclist Phil Gaimon returns coffee to driver... who'd left it on their car roof; 'Marco Pantani' takes Alpe d'Huez Strava KOM... and gets flagged; How not to fuel for a big ride + more on the live blog

mark1a wrote:

Louise Haigh just resigned over relevation of historic fraud conviction.

We FINALLY get a Transport secretary that might possibly care about something more than pandering to the motoring lobby, then this happens!

A stitch-up?

Seems like (according to her, and I've no reason to doubt her honesty) she unwisely followed poor legal advice in not reporting to the police that a phone she believed stolen by a mugger had not in fact been nicked. Very minor infraction in my view, and not something she'd kept secret.

Danbury wrote:

Seems like (according to her, and I've no reason to doubt her honesty) she unwisely followed poor legal advice in not reporting to the police that a phone she believed stolen by a mugger had not in fact been nicked. Very minor infraction in my view, and not something she'd kept secret.

Well she did keep it a bit secret, she disclosed it to the prime minister but had never spoken of it otherwise. She didn't have any legal advice telling her not to report to the police the fact that the phone hadn't been nicked, her solicitors did advise her to plead guilty to fraud by false representation, which she did (ETA and apparently to refuse to answer any questions when asked by the police, again, if you're innocent and have a completely innocent explanation why would you do that?). I don't know about you but if I was accused of a crime like that I most certainly would not plead guilty under any circumstances no matter what advice I was given, and if her explanation is true (that she later found the phone amongst her belongings, turned it on and that alerted the police who then asked her to come for interview) then why on earth would she refuse to answer any questions in a police interview and then plead guilty? Why did she not report to her employers that she had found the phone? It's also reported that Aviva, her employer, had investigated her for other incidents in which she had claimed company phones had been stolen or lost... I'd say there is enough there to give a reason at least to question her honesty.

Mind you, it's hardly Michelle Mone stealing £200 million from the taxpayer…

Rendel Harris wrote:

Mind you, it's hardly Michelle Mone stealing £200 million from the taxpayer…

Shurely "accidentally and incidentally making a larger profit than anticipated while attempting to help out during a national emergency, at a time when there was great uncertainty and following normal procurement processes would have imposed unacceptable delays in what was a competitive environment for limited medical supplies - and thus have posed risks to the public health" ?

Danbury wrote:

Seems like (according to her, and I've no reason to doubt her honesty) she unwisely followed poor legal advice in not reporting to the police that a phone she believed stolen by a mugger had not in fact been nicked. Very minor infraction in my view, and not something she'd kept secret.

Her explanation sounds a bit weaselly to me and I have trouble believing that someone can report a mobile phone being stolen by a mugger when it wasn't. I suppose you could have a handbag taken and you're not quite sure what was in it, but most people would know if they had their work phone in there and if not, they'd surely find it soon enough. It just doesn't sound like an honest mistake in my opinion.

I was kind of waiting... there was already a wobble due to her rightful criticism of the operator of P & O ferries (although Starmer gave her support then).

We will see. Change in the UK is major challenge though and the project of generations. Meanwhile the existing motoring industries and the new self-driving vehicle folks have budgets which wouldn't embarrass some mid- level states at their disposal to direct and shape our future. Never mind the energy corporations!

At least she very quickly - once the story broke - took the honourable course of action and resigned.

Unlike some other MPs that come to mind… 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxy1kp73y9o

Quote:

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “Louise Haigh has done the right thing in resigning. It is clear she has failed to behave to the standards expected of an MP".

Do as we say, not as we do?

Also note the correct spelling of "offence".

It's like Legnano green, but not as sexy

Is Legnano Green yellow as well? 😂

It's the colour my lawn goes if the weather is too sunny for too long

(it didn't ever go that colour over the summer of 2024, obviously…).

Spangly Shiny wrote:

"That's, at the very minimum, three or four times less what I'd be stuffing down, I reckon."

You can't get three or four times less, that's an oxymoron. What you can get is a third or a quarter as much. Sheesh! and the Q̶u̶e̶e̶n̶'̶s̶ Kings English is my second language, after guttersnipe Dundonian.

She's He's not my Queen King and certainly has no ownership of our language!

I don't know, I'm usually a stickler for these things but isn't this one of those occasions where mathematical logic is being unnecessarily applied to a commonly understood figure of speech (see also double negative)? Of course in mathematical terms it doesn't make any sense because three times less would be a negative number, but you don't actually have to interpret "times" as "multiplied by", it can just mean "lots" or "quantities". It's become quite clearly understood linguistically that if you say "He is carrying three times less than me" you mean "I am carrying three times more than him" so I don't think it's going to confuse anyone. 

Rendel Harris wrote:

... three times less would be a negative number...

Three time less means one third of (divide by 3)? Would need a subtraction to go negative?

levestane wrote:

Three time less means one third of (divide by 3)? Would need a subtraction to go negative?

I believe that if you apply strict mathematical rules you have a subtraction, e.g. if you say three times less than five mathematically that's 5 - (3x5), so minus 10. As I said, it's not always desirable to apply a strict mathematical meaning to linguistics.

Mathematically 3 times less than 5 could be anything less than 15. eg 3 times 4 is 12 or 3 times -6 is -18.

Bungle_52 wrote:

Mathematically 3 times less than 5 could be anything less than 15. eg 3 times 4 is 12 or 3 times -6 is -18.

Well yes but that's if you're looking at an equation x = n x 3 where n is any number less than 5. If you're looking for a number that is three times less than exactly 5 the equation is x = 5 - (3x5) so x = 5 - 15 so x = -10

I think you are mixing up "less than" and "less". Less can be used for subtraction eg 5 less 3 is 2. The same as 3 is 2 less than 5.

Your example would be 5 less 3 times 5 is -10 or -10 is 3 times 5 less than 5.

Bungle_52 wrote:

Your example would be... 3 times 5 less than 5.

Yes, that's exactly what it's supposed to be as we were talking about why if you apply mathematical principles to the phrase "That's three times less than I would need" the phrase is nonsensical as it would make "what I need" a negative quantity.

Clem Fandango wrote:

Stuff of nonsense.  Just guage rides based on how much malt loaf is likely to be required. 

And when in the mountains, deploy the Haribo classification scale.  Basically a reversal of the usual approach in Grand Tours - the higher the number (which reflects how many Haribo you need to consume/bribe yourself with to make it to the top) the harder the climb.

But don't forget to correct for altitude.