Today's discussion about the news

Must be why tents and caravan awnings famously never blow away in a stiff breeze.

Re Lucy Letby... Phil Hammond's not letting go. As time goes on, there seem to be more and more questions marks about the conviction. My bold prediction is that the conviction will be reviewed, as it does appear that the jury did not have enough information to reach a safe verdict, especially regarding evidence which might have cast doubt on the evidence of the key prosecution expert witness. Why that counter-evidence was not presented is intriguing, but it certainly seems there are strong reasons to doubt that the conviction is safe (or, at minimum, needs to be reviewed).

Of course, but he's not the only person with these concerns... AFAIK he's got no connection with the Graun reporters in the quoted report (though he's obviously quoted it because it chimes with his worries).

The crux is not that the conviction is necessarily wrong, but if evidence that might have given jurors cause to doubt the only expert witness was ignored or withheld (for whatever reaons), then it would suggest it's an unsafe verdict. The current enquiry is starting with the premiss that the verdict was de facto correct, so is in no way helping (and probably hindering) an unbiased consideration of the matter, though obviously it's not within their purview (in effect) to retry the case. But, and it's a big 'but', if the causes of death were because of a ward operating way beyond its capability, and thereby a major institutional failure, an enquiry whose remit is to discover 'How did this murderer do these awful crimes?', will produce a report which is without any relevance whatsoever.

Fair enough, it's just that normally institutional failings don't end up with someone in prison for multiple murders, so it's understandable that this case arouses extra interest.

Takes me back to my old network days.

Worth reading the whole tweet and listening to the whole interview.

She managed not to say the quiet part out loud. Just.

One for @First.Aspect, given his admiration for what Scotland has achieved with devolution. Just think of their sources of wealth, such as daffodils, and tin, and tech giants setting up shop in places like Redruth, Camborne, and Bugle...

At least they could discuss my modest proposal of scooping out the entire inland area of Cornwall, so the middle turns into one big beautiful lake, so you have a lot more scope for waterside properties, Camborne and Redruth disappear along with all the spoil tips, and all the stuff scooped out could be taken to the Somerset Levels to make them into mountains, and Bridgwater & Highbridge disappear. I can't see that there would be any objections.

Maybe it needs competitive bidding for who gets the mountains.