We want a market to be people buying and selling to and from each other, in a specific physical location, ideally with visible prices. In this new market, the principal actors are not human beings, but algorithms; the real action happens inside computers at the exchanges, and the old market is now nothing more than a stage set whose main function is to be a backdrop for news stories about the stock market. As for the prices, they move when you try to act on them, and anyway, as Lewis says, there’s the problem of the ‘dark pools’, which are in effect private stock markets, owned for the most part by big investment banks, whose entire function is to execute trades out of sight of the wider public: nobody knows who’s buying, nobody knows who’s selling, and nobody knows the prices paid.As so often, it seems that those who defend "the market" are, in reality, defending the exercise of naked corporate power.
After finishing Flash Boys, I found it hard not to think about those missing oceanographers, the computer geniuses and engineers and physicists and entrepreneurs, all those brilliant minds, all that passion and energy disappearing into the black hole of money, lost to all the more productive and interesting things that we humans can do. It’s hard not to feel a sense of loss when you think of what these people would have done, if they hadn’t been sucked into the enterprise of making money out of money. If we ever get enough distance to look back with some sense of perspective on the delirium of modern finance, I think this is what will stand out clearly: that sense of human and intellectual waste.
Take a look over the road bridge wall and there are still 5 platform faces still in existence, and a large footbridge. There are many trains which pass this point every hour and large sidings adjacent to the station.
The station was rebuilt in the early 1960's with a booking office at road level, and the footbridge linking it to the platforms. It was the first to close after privatisation of British Rail in 1994.
Unfortunately the view is obscured by surrounding vegetation, but it is still a very eerie place despite all the passing trains.You can see pictures of the station in happier days on the Disused Stations site.
The new act will mean that, from birth, each child in Scotland will have a specific state-appointed professional, a ‘named person’, to oversee their interests, and, in particular, to oversee their safety. Initially, this named person is likely to be a health visitor or midwife, the role later being taken over by school teachers who will have the ‘duty’ and responsibility to act as the child’s guardian.The trouble with nationalism as a political ideology is that it does not give you any clue about what line you should take on many issues.
For Campbell, the new powers and duties being given to the state guardians are simply another service to help families in trouble and further ensure that children are protected in society.
Indeed, Aileen Campbell at times appears to be nonplussed by her critics, incapable of seeing why her caring approach is not instantly celebrated. The claims of state snoops undermining the family, she argues, are simply ‘misunderstandings’ and ‘misrepresentations’ of the new law.
When someone raised the point that this act undermined the role of parents in child-rearing, Campbell, somewhat comically, replied, ‘we recognise that parents also have a role’.
believes that the party must "stop looking in the rear view mirror" - in other words stop mourning the voters they've lost as a result of forming a coalition with the Tories.
They need instead, he argues, to look forward to the voters they can gain by proving that they are a serious party of government with responsible economic policies.Nick Clegg, or whoever it was from his office who briefed Nick Robinson, is merely repeating a line from his speech to the party's 2012 spring conference. There is no sign of a willingness to listen or of new thinking.
In May, I posted here about Clegg’s statement after the local elections and his speech to last September’s party conference. On both occasions, he said that his way is the only way; anyone who disagrees is simply not interested in winning power. His way is the future; anyone who disagrees wants a return to the past.
He referred to the Liberal Democrats as having been a “party of protest” before he took charge. He travestied party members as people who want to “turn back” and create a “stop the world I want to get off” party. He warned them to “stop looking in the rear view mirror”.
In his speech at the ALDC conference in Manchester last Saturday, he repeated similar arguments. He scorned party members who want to “turn back the clock” and be “the third party forever”, who are calling for “an eternity in opposition” and “hankering for the comfort blanket of national opposition”.
These are straw men. We know this because in none of these attacks does Clegg ever name his critics or supply specific references to the speeches or writings where they have expressed such views. These imaginary enemies are conjured up because Clegg needs a ‘defining other’, a pantomime villain against whom he can contrast his virtues.If Nick is determined to go on using this tactic, it makes James Gurling and his review look pretty silly, doesn't it?
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There was no sandy beach there, Punch and Judy or amusements of any kind, all it consisted of was marshland, muddy creeks to bathe in, borstal boys and old gun placements designed to keep the Germans away if they tried to conquer England through Lincolnshire.That was the 1950s and 1960s, but the post also records a serious (and failed) 19th-century attempt to turn Freiston into a proper seaside resort.
The answers are very unhelpful for our current strategy. Optimistic voters think – by over 5 to 1 – that we are not responsible for the conditions that give rise to their optimism. In contrast, those same optimists think the Conservatives can claim credit for the coming economic improvement by a majority of 4 to 1.
If one looks at crucial subgroups of voters, such as electors who voted Liberal Democrat in 2010 but have moved to Don’t Know (more than a fifth of our 2010 vote), the situation is nearly as bad: a 4 to 1 majority against giving us credit and a majority of 4 to 3 in favour of giving the Conservatives credit.The problem here, as David points out, is that the argument that austerity has led to recovery is an inherently Conservative point of view so, not surprisingly, it is the Conservatives who get the credit for it.
What are the views, for example, of voters who have a high propensity to vote for us but who are not voting for us now? By more than 2 to 1 they favour redistribution of income, by 3 to 1 they are for greater environmental protection and by 8 to 1 they oppose further privatisation of public services.In short, potential Lib Dem voters believe in the policies the party has traditionally stood for. Over to you, Nick.
We’re delighted to have a series of talks coming up from three award-winning writers: Sara Maitland, Iain Sinclair and Louis de Bernières. All three will be exploring the notion of place in relation to their writing.
Celebrated author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières will be talking on the 3rd June; on the 5th of June we have the great cartographer of the London of the imagination, Iain Sinclair; and on the 12th June we have novelist, non-fiction writer, and explorer of solitude, Sara Maitland.
All events will be in the Clephan building on Bonner’s Lane, at the main DMU campus, and begin at 6pm. These events are entirely free of charge.
A neighbouring squire ... objected to Dixie barring access to a footpath across his land. The ensuing fight must have been memorable, for Dixie at least: when he was presented to the Germanic King George II at a levee as Sir Wolstan Dixie “of Bosworth Park”, the king, wanting perhaps to show some knowledge of important English battles, said, “’Bosworth-Bosworth! Big battle at Bosworth, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, Sire. But I thrashed him’, replied Sir Wolstan, oblivious of any other fight than his own”This reminds me of a story told of the late Otto Hardy from Loughborough, who took his chess very seriously. (Since you ask, we met once in the county league and I won.)
This video is unlisted. Be considerate and think twice before sharing.Second, take a look at the still image you get before you start playing it. Is that the image of Nick you want to project?
Dear Jonathan Calder
I'm sure you will have heard from the news that unfortunately we were not successful in our bid to retain an MEP in the East Midlands. Results from across the country have sadly not gone our way.
Despite the best efforts of members across the region, we have not been able to overcome the national tide and the UKIP surge has cost us dear. We bucked the trend in 2009 but sadly we couldn't repeat that result this time.
I wanted to say thank you for all the support you have given me, not just in this campaign but ever since I joined the Lib Dems over 13 years ago. Representing the East Midlands in the European Parliament for over 30 years has been a great joy and I am proud of what we have achieved together for the region.
Over the next few days there is bound to be all sorts of media comment and speculation about the future of the party. It is vital that we remain united and dig deep to rebuild and look ahead to next year's local and Westminster elections. The first step on this path is the Newark By-election on June 5th.
I look forward to continue working with you in order to ensure future success for the Lib Dems in the East Midlands.
With thanks and best wishes
BillMind you, as Liberally Scott proves, Bill expressed himself rather more saltily in a live interview with BBC Radio Five Live.
This shrinking of the child's world has had numbers put on it by the filmmaker David Bond. His mother, he calculates, roamed across 50 square miles at the age of 11, but as a boy in the 1970s he was confined to just one. Today, his son and daughter do not leave the garden unaccompanied.
Books for children reflect this narrowing. Where adventure stories used to depict a landscape alive with youngsters finding buried treasure, thwarting robbers and rounding up Nazi spies, the constraints on modern children mean authors must now invent whole fantastic worlds before their young heroes can enjoy any freedom. It's not just outdoor play that has disappeared: a whole school of literature has died with it.
A big problem is finding candidates who have enough character to stand out in a campaign, thus easing the pressure on Farage to be constantly front-of-house, and without looking creepy or betraying views that make wavering supporters flinch.
A very senior figure in Ukip once complained to me that it attracted “people who have failed at everything else in life, are feeling angry about it and are looking for someone to blame”.
A Leicester city councillor has quit the city's Labour party after claiming his former colleagues were divided and guilty of backstabbing.
Councillor Wayne Naylor says he has left the party with “a heavy heart” after 12 years and will now represent the city’s Braunstone Park and Rowley Fields as an independent member.Why the resignation? Apart from some unlikely claims about Labour members "being suspended or expelled across the country for actively demonstrating against Tory cuts," it seems that Naylor's support for another councillor who recently resigned from the Labour group, Barbara Potter, is behind this decision.
We agree that it is time for Richard III to be given a dignified reburial, and finally laid to rest.As to why I am so pleased, besides the obvious benefits to Leicester, see my post from last September on Richard III and The Hon. Mr Justice Haddon-Cave. At least the old boy came out on the side of the angels today. Top judging. I bet he has the Latin.
I do not want to have to impose change on you, because I want you to show the public that you want to change. I want you to show them that you have the best interests of the police and of the public at heart. But make no mistake. If you do not make significant progress towards the implementation of the Normington reforms, if the Federation does not start to turn itself around, you must not be under the impression that the government will let things remain as they are.
The Federation was created by an Act of Parliament and it can be reformed by an Act of Parliament. If you do not change of your own accord, we will impose change on you.
And there are three changes I plan to make even before we reach that point. First, it is not acceptable that when the Federation is sitting on vast reserves worth tens of millions of pounds, it is in receipt of public funds to pay for the salaries and expenses of the chairman, general secretary and treasurer. We have already said we would reduce this spending from £320,000 to £190,000 per year but I can announce today that this funding will be stopped altogether from August. Instead, the money will go into a new fund to accelerate the introduction of Police First – a new scheme designed to attract the brightest young university graduates into the police.
Second, I want Federation representatives to earn the right to represent their members. So in common with changes made elsewhere in the public sector, I plan to change the law so that officers will have to opt in to join the Federation. This will mean that officers no longer become Fed members by default.
I also plan to change the law so that officers who have chosen to become members also have to opt in to pay full subscription fees. Federation members already have the option of not paying full fees if they do not want to use all Federation services. But not many officers know this, and, again, the default position in practice is that officers should automatically pay full fees, regardless. I believe that’s wrong, and it promotes some of the worst problems exposed by the Normington Review.
Third, I want to make the Police Federation more accountable. That means, today and on an annual basis thereafter, the Home Office will use its existing legal powers to call in the Federation’s central accounts. I will also change the law so the Home Office can without any question call in the accounts for any money held by the Federation – including all so-called “Number Two‟ accounts. And I will bring forward proposals to make the Police Federation – that is, the national organisation and all the regional branches – subject to the Freedom of Information Act.Everyone has said it is a speech that only a Conservative home secretary could have made, and that is true. But that does not tell the half of it.
The proposed route for the second phase of HS2 has been announced, and if it is accepted the line will pass between Appleby Magna village and the M42.
As part of the county council cutbacks, the No. 7 bus is to be replaced by a much reduced on-demand service.
The woman - known as “Jane” to protect her identity - told Exaro how the ex-minister, before he became an MP, tricked her into his flat, locked her in, then raped her. She was a 19-year-old student at the time.
Jane believes his modus operandi was well practised and is convinced that she is not his only victim.
We are identifying neither the former Conservative cabinet minister nor the alleged victim for legal reasons. Jane gave a detailed account of the alleged attack, and of how the Metropolitan Police Service decided against proceeding with the case.I will admit to being too fond of political scandal and gossip, but it is well worth listening to Jane's story.
If the Ministry of Justice document is revoked, it means the former monarch’s final resting place is no longer determined, and a public consultation will be carried out to decide where his remains will be reinterred.
However, if the three judges choose to support the exhumation licence, which is held by the University of Leicester, the remains of Richard III will be reburied at Leicester Cathedral next spring. The cathedral and Leicester City Council will be able to press on with preparations for a grand royal ceremony.
It’s almost as if someone is trying to get David Cameron, Boris Johnson and George Osborne’s backs up. First, Laura Wade’s acclaimed play, Posh, started its run at the Royal Court during the 2010 election campaign.
Now, the film adaptation — The Riot Club — has released its barnstorming trailer during another election season, a year before the General Election and with a release date (September 12) set so that it will be showing in cinemas just before the senior Conservatives whose university lives it lampoons and denounces are gathering in Birmingham for their crucial party conference.He goes on to describe the play on which the film is based:
Posh, by playwright Laura Wade, now 36, debuted on the Royal Court’s main stage in 2010, opening during the election campaign. Set in a country pub outside Oxford, where the exclusive Riot Club (read Bullingdon Club) are drinking port and eating a 10-bird roast, it was a critical success — nominated for Best New Play at both the Evening Standard Awards and Theatregoers’ Choice Awards in 2011.
When director Lyndsey Turner brought it back in a bigger production at the Duke of York’s theatre (with a few cast changes), the Standard’s chief theatre critic, Henry Hitchings, described it as “a heady blend of timely satire and outrageous romp”, writing that: “Wade deftly skewers the sense of entitlement that swirls like a sickly perfume around a certain kind of upper-class thug. Her characters seem to have everything, yet whinge relentlessly.”
"He is a very determined guy, a very good role model and he and his family are very much the sort of people we want the England captain and his family to be."Over to Daniel Brigham on The Cricketer site:
To be clear, Clarke – who runs the English game, remember – thinks that the England captain and his family should be a certain “sort of people”. ...
Just as George Bush wanted American families to be more like the Waltons than the Simpsons, it appears that Clarke wants the England captain’s family to be more like the Crawleys than the Royles.
We can only guess, but being nicely dressed, owning a big pile in the country and enjoying a penchant for shooting wildlife might tick some big boxes.
There is, of course, absolutely nothing wrong with the England captain having a nice family. At very best, though, it should be a bonus. It certainly should not be a prerequisite.I do hope I am not going to have to make this award too often.
"I just wonder if her dad, because he has obviously been the most influential person in her life, did say to her when she was 12, 13, 14 maybe, 'listen, you are never going to be, you know, a looker.
"'You are never going to be somebody like a Sharapova, you're never going to be 5ft 11, you're never going to be somebody with long legs, so you have to compensate for that.
"'You are going to have to be the most dogged, determined fighter that anyone has ever seen on the tennis court if you are going to make it', and she kind of is."Why did he come out with all that? Apparently he tells the Radio Times:
"I was feeling so ill that day, I had terrible hay fever and all I could think of was that I wanted to go home to bed. I had Andy Murray in the final the next day. I knew I had to be on form. Your mind is going all over the place, we're on air from 12 noon till 7pm with not a single word written and you've got to fill the time."Inverdale helpfully adds:
"I'm not making excuses here, just trying to explain."
T.E. Lawrence - "Lawrence of Arabia" - died on this day in 1935. I had long been an admirer of his novels and was shocked to hear the news.
It later transpired that he died in a motorcycle accident after, uncharacteristically, swerving to avoid two schoolboys.Lord Bonkers went on to assure me that there is no truth in Alan Bennett's suggestion in Forty Years On that Lawrence "was known at school as 'Tee Hee Lawrence' because of his high-pitched girlish giggle".
A police chief has said more than half of his force's armed officers could stop carrying weapons because of plans by the police watchdog to ban them from conferring with each other as they write up statements following a shooting.The police chief quoted is Commander Neil Basu of Scotland Yard.
Just to inform you that whilst out delivering Euro-leaflets today in the Forest Fields area of Nottingham, a few of the glossy pages fell to the floor and my foot accidentally stepped onto them. I then slipped and fell with the full weight of my body falling onto my left ankle. The result is that I fell and broke my bone in two places above my ankle!Get well soon, Issan.
I asked about Romanians, he talked about people-traffickers. I asked about Germans, he talked about easily identifiable ‘difference’.
I have no explanation for this save a conviction on Farage’s part that one’s country of origin or ethnicity determines one’s values and decency.
When we moved on to the question of his finances, events took an even stranger turn.
Asked why he had reverse - ferreted on a pledge to publish his personal accounts, I offered him the transparency agreement employed by every Labour MEP in the European Parliament.
He sneered, stumbled, spoke of employing an auditor and finally looked up in shock as communications director Patrick O’Flynn tried to halt proceedings, eventually ‘helping’ Farage from the studio by those tailored lapels.
Born in London in 1944, he was encouraged to explore the medieval and Elizabethan lute tradition by his classical guitar teacher.
He was drawn, by way of skiffle, to the American blues picking of Elizabeth Cotten, Brownie McGhee and Ramblin' Jack Elliott while studying at Kingston College of Art, which at that moment was a breeding ground for as many upcoming musicians as artists - undergraduates included Eric Clapton, Sandy Denny and members of The Yardbirds.
Renbourn's beatnik credentials were as impeccable as his art-school grounding: in the early 1960s he lived in a barge on the Thames and followed the European busking trail, even writing a bluesy eulogy to the National 7 highway through France to St Tropez.In 1967 he formed Pentangle with, among others, Bert Jansch and Danny Thompson. That band split at the start of 1973, and Renbourn recorded Just Like Me the same year.
It is a fragment of Wales taken up and set down boldly in the heart of England, for no ostensible reason save the freakishness of Nature. In this small space are found are found all the varied delights of the most picturesque scenery – hills and airy summits clad with heath and bracken, pleasant woods, spacious parks, fair sheets of water, and the ruins of ancient mansions and religious houses. There is nothing like Charnwood Forest elsewhere in England.I was in Charnwood Forest today, visiting Woodhouse Eaves. It is a large village, so large that I suspect it began as a number of townships that have grown together. This was once marginal land and the surviving early artisan dwellings, together with the surprisingly wild landscape, put me in mind of the Stiperstones.
As the city of Leicester and the other towns of north-west Leicestershire were industrialised during the 19th century, and their air became polluted or ‘unwholesome’ in the terminology of the time, people felt a need to escape to the country, even for the briefest of periods.
At the same time rising prosperity meant that larger numbers of people were able to have short holidays. The advent of the railways also made it easier for ordinary working people as well as members of the more prosperous middle class to reach outlying villages such as Woodhouse Eaves.
With its already varied natural attractions and rural, almost upland setting, Woodhouse Eaves thus became an early tourist destination. Numerous tea-rooms, bed-and-breakfast establishments, shops and other services came into existence during the late Victorian period. Several of the most architecturally interesting houses in the village were just such commercial premises during Woodhouse Eaves’ period as a significant tourist venue.
These years similarly saw the opening of a remarkable number of recovery and convalescent homes, these being established to take advantage of the relatively high altitude and fresh breezes during the late Victorian, Edwardian and post-First World War years.
These large new buildings were, however, on or beyond the outskirts of the main village itself. One such establishment proclaimed that ‘our country residence with beautiful grounds, an abundance of fresh air untainted by obnoxious fumes of city traffic, helps to restore health together with a high standard of nursing care’.
These were the decades when the Charnwood Forest, including Woodhouse Eaves, became known as ‘the playground and the sanatorium of the Leicestershire towns’And today, the first hot day of the year, the countryside was alive with hikers and Scouts, giving it something of the atmosphere of its 1930s heyday
The court’s desire to protect victims of misunderstanding and malice is understandable. But a right to be forgotten would be hard to implement.
Even if Google is made to censor its search results in Europe, in America the First Amendment’s free-speech provision usually trumps privacy concerns.
With modest technical know-how, European internet users will be able to make American-style searches. Europe will hardly want to build a Chinese-style firewall to prevent that.
For Mr Baker it means trying to assert himself with a Secretary of State famed for her work ethic, attention to detail – and occasional reluctance to delegate. He has amassed a wide-ranging brief that brings in crime reduction, tackling violence against women, reducing animal experiments and gun licensing.
After an initial wariness, the pair have built a mutual respect and Mr Baker has achieved a higher profile than his predecessor, Jeremy Browne, who found himself isolated.
Mr Hughes has only been at the MoJ less than five months and has spoken of his determination to boost diversity in the legal profession and cut the number of women in prison.
The outside observer might imagine there is precious little meeting of minds with Chris Grayling. But the Tory Secretary of State’s hawkish language belies a strong commitment to rehabilitation shared with his Lib Dem minister.
Google has received fresh takedown requests after a European court ruled that an individual could force it to remove "irrelevant and outdated" search results, the BBC has learned.
An ex-politician seeking re-election has asked to have links to an article about his behaviour in office removed.
A man convicted of possessing child abuse images has requested links to pages about his conviction to be wiped.
And a doctor wants negative reviews from patients removed from the results.I expect "the BBC has learned" all this because Google has been careful to tell it, but this report does show some of the dangers of this newly minted right.
The European Court has shown the horrible danger of an ephemeral electronic storage system.
Suddenly a government or court can rule that information no longer exists in an easily accessible form. A paragraph from an electronic book, an article in an electronic newspaper, cannot be searched. And whoosh, history has changed.
It sounds like an excerpt from George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 where The Ministry of Truth could decide which facts were acceptable.
"For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes," Orwell wrote. "When one knew that any document was due for destruction … it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building."
