BC GOVERNMENT
Saved by @Alex1Powell

On the face of it, this looks good, govt extending the Seasonal Agricultural Workers' visa scheme from 10,000 to 30,000 to address lack of labour for farming industry after the end of Free Movement.
Here's grinchy Zoe to explain why it's bad. Sorry...

 Until now, most seasonal agricultural work was taken on by migrants benefitting from the right to Freedom of Movement in the EU. This meant they could come, pick on this farm, move to that farm with the changing harvest, switch into other work, basically just live.
With the end of Free Mov the Home Office insists less & less convincingly that all lower-paid work our industries need can be covered by the domestic work force.

The "pick for Britain" drive to get British workers into these jobs was a car wreck, filling just 15% of vacancies.
So, yes. There is an urgent need for an alternative source of probably migrant labour to pick, sort and package food on British farms from January.

Two years ago they introduced a pilot visa scheme for this, originally to bring over 2,500 workers for 6 months at a time.
One year ago they extended and expanded the "pilot" scheme to 10,000 workers. There was of course no evaluation of the pilot's success before this expansion, no consultation with expert groups, no evaluation of the risks of the scheme (which I'll explain, are many).
Knowing the "pilot" was due to end again we, with @NadiaWhittomeMP's help, submitted a parliamentary question asking what evaluation was to be carried out of the pilot scheme before it was expanded.

I mean, that is the meaning of a pilot scheme... right? https://t.co/kGmD7kRB1d
We asked, 1. what evaluation was being carried out & when would it be published? 2. what plans are in place to consult w migrant rights orgs (as required by the recommendations of the Windrush review, which the Home Office claims it is implementing...)

No prizes for the answer.
So what's the problem? Farms need these workers, don't they? Yes. They do. & farmers deserve a govt capable of providing a system where they can access the workers they need.

A good e.g. of a system like that was Free Movement. A system based on the rights of migrant workers.
The new seasonal agricultural worker's visa is, to put it mildly, not based on those rights.

It is a strictly time-limited visa, restricting workers to 6 months in and 6 months out of the country. It relies on workers being housed on-site in shared accommodation.
In a pandemic scenario, it's hardly surprising why this model didn't work particularly well, but even in normal times it entails serious risks.

A person accommodated at their work place & who must leave in 6-months is not a person empowered to challenge exploitative conditions.
A person who, regardless of circumstances, is turned into an overstayer and a criminal if they exceed 6 months in the country is at the mercy of traffickers and has no escape to get back on track or seek help if this happens.
2 companies run the Seasonal Workers Pilot scheme. On 25 February 2020, Stephanie Maurel, CEO of one of these, described in an MPI seminar I attended how they have taken extreme care to monitor the risk of exploitation & trafficking with in person interviews & inspections etc.
She stated that if the scheme were expanded much more it would be impossible to continue to provide the high level of monitoring required to guarantee the standards that they have so far.

The government is expanding the scheme without, as far as I know, hearing that evidence.
This scheme is unfit for purpose. It is a recipe guaranteed to produce exploited migrant labourers & to vastly increase the population of undocumented migrants in the country.

Calling it a pilot is a lie. There are no plans to publish any assessment, they're just barrelling on.
I know that there are a million & 1 ways the government is fucking up at the moment, and most of it seems a lot more dramatic than this, but this is about our rights, or food chain, our democracy and the right to scrutinise policies and develop them on the basis of evidence.
I don't know how to end this thread. It's depressing to try to use the mechanisms of our democracy to ensure people's rights are protected & to fail.

Why do they even bother to call it a pilot? So they can get away with another back-of-a-fag-packet scheme without consultation.

More from Government

David Begnaud
David Begnaud
@DavidBegnaud
Riley J. Williams is charged in the Capitol riot.
She allegedly stole a computer from @SpeakerPelosi’s office, & now @FBI is investigating a tip that she intended to send the computer to a friend in Russia who’d sell it to Russian intelligence.
Williams appears to have “fled”.


From the affidavit against her: Riley Williams’ former romantic partner called the FBI several times in the days following the riots to report that they had seen her in videos inside the Capitol, but friends of Williams had shown the tipster a video of Williams taking a laptop...

... computer or hard drive from Speaker Pelosi’s office. The witness told the FBI that “WILLIAMS intended to send the computer device to a friend in Russia, who then planned to sell the device to SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service...”

“... but that the transfer of the computer device to Russia fell through for unknown reasons and Williams still has the computer device or destroyed it. “This matter remains under investigation.”

Williams has appeared to have fled, she packed a bag & did not tell her mother where she was going but said she would be gone for a couple of weeks. She has changed her telephone number & deleted what are believed to have been her social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram...
GOVERNMENT
Ernie Plumley-POTUS WON\u2b50\ufe0f\u2b50\ufe0f\u2b50\ufe0f
Ernie Plumley-POTUS WO...
@ernie_plumley
1 of 19) A number of tweets were posted by @LLinWood beginning late last night and into the morning. There are a total of 19. This thread has compiled all.

{“Shots fired across the bow”}
{Warning to traitors}
{Light will reveal the evil plans}
{You were warned traitors}
GOVERNMENT
Advertisement
J.B. White
J.B. White
@RattlerGator
1 of 52

As our national civics lesson continues to unfold on its march toward our 59th Presidential Inauguration on January 20, 2021 and Donald Trump’s second term, 45’s unmasking exercise (that’s a large part of what his first term had to be) continues toward its big climax.

2 of 52

In his 2017 Inaugural Address, President Trump proclaimed on behalf of his administration, “we are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the people.”

3 of 52

From my very biased vantage point, here’s how I like to think of that sentence.

It likely was the announcement of his two-pronged military campaign.

The first prong is obvious; it’s against foreign interference.

4 of 52

As we now clearly see, nothing short of a military campaign would suffice when global influencers have totally co-opted elements of our two major political parties.

5 of 52

The other prong has an internal focus: Washington, D.C.
GOVERNMENT
David Cranmer Underdown
David Cranmer Underdow...
@DavidCranmerUn1
Lodestone - Wikipedia

Pieces of lodestone, suspended so they could turn, were the first magnetic compasses,[3][4][5][6] and their importance to early navigation is indicated by the name lodestone, which in Middle English means "course stone" or "leading
GOVERNMENT
Dr. Alexander Hamilton | Alter Ego: AHAM
Dr. Alexander Hamilton...
@DrAlexHamilton
SPOILS OF WAR

#2allthosewhothoughtIwascrazy:

"When I see Harris & her husband, I see us. Will more BW begin to see the same potential 4 romantic love w/white men? Harris' next 4 yrs in the WH could help provide an answer. The power of Harris'

Black men, you are officially expendable, at least have the media tell you. And black women, to hell w/black men. White people will reward you handsomely following Harris' lead. Never forget this country was founded on breaking up black families. I predicted this would happen.

Make Michelle Obama white & Barack Obama's campaign doesn't sniff an ounce of support from black women. The reason being was that the picture of an intact black family in power was a beautiful sight for black women & fulfilled their greatest dreams. There is nothing wrong w/this.

There is nothing wrong w/wanting to see black people in love together in power. It's a beautiful sight, but what of Harris? If the Obama's marriage communicated to black people the power of black love in power, what does Kamala Harris' marriage to a white man communicate?

That black men are expendable & that 2 rise in a white world, black men are baggage that U need 2 discard. Think I'm off kilter w/this? Consider the fact that many black women in powerful positions either say little of or attribute little of their success 2 their black fathers.
GOVERNMENT

You May Also Like

Peter McCormack [Jan/3\u279e\u20bf \U0001f511\u220e]
Peter McCormack [Jan/3...
@PeterMcCormack
1/ So here is a thread on how I turned $32,000 into $1.2m and back to pretty much zero (once taxes are paid).

Just note, I am not bitter or salty in any way at all, the last 2 years have been an amazing ride - travelled the world, been wealthy, been poor.

2/ Dec '16, my advertising agency folded, I had a little bit of money left and I put $32k into Bitcoin and Ether. As it started to go up I diversified into everything, Monero, Dash, this that, any crap - even Ripplecoin. Everything just kept going up.

3/ By March I think I had around $300k and $500k by the summer. I used to take 25% out but towards the end of the summer I got greedy and put it all back in and by December it was $1.2m.

4/ Thinking I was an absolute genius I decided to start a bunch of businesses. As silly as it sounds I had this goal of making $5m as I wanted to buy Bedford Town Football Club and get them in the league, and as Crypto was going up forever I needed 6 months.

5/ So:
- Trading (income 1)
- Podcast (income 2)
- Mining (income 3)
- Mining pool (income 4)
- Consulting (income 5)

Yes - all of the above as a one-man army :)
LIFE
Andrew Chen
Andrew Chen
@andrewchen
👇Thread.

Published a new essay: The red flags and magic numbers that investors look for in your startup’s metrics – 80 slide deck included!


This was a deck that I created on my (longish) interview process with @a16z. It was a long path, starting with meeting folks at the firm 10 years ago. But the purpose of the deck was to explain how I would use my superpower in an investing context

Here's what I explain in the deck. As investors (whether angel or VC) we're often confronted with an up-and-to-the-right graph. Is it going to go up? Or down?


One solution to forecast these growth curves is the Growth Accounting Framework, where you add up New+Reactivated and subtract churned users. In each time period that gives you the difference in monthly actives.


The problem with this is that it's a lagging metric, not a leading one. We need to go one level deeper and look at the underlying loops that drive these numbers, to understand the quality.
STARTUPS
Advertisement
Tinker \u274e
Tinker ❎
@TinkerSec
Singing the Blues:
Taking Down an Insider Threat

"I had all of the advantages. I was already inside the network. No one suspected me. But they found my hack, kicked me off the network...

...and physically hunted me down."


Many pentests start from the outside, wanting to see how the perimeter might be breached.

This pentest started from the inside. My client wanted to assume they had already been breached, and, if breached, how far could an attacker go.

Could they stop me once I was inside?

So they snuck me in. Disguised me as a new employee. Gave me a work computer, an ID badge, an account in their system... hell, I even had a cubicle w/my assumed name on it.

The only person who knew who I really was was their CISO. Everyone else thought I was Jeremy in Marketing.

During most of the first morning, I completed onboarding, made introductions, and completed menial tasks.

But I had to act quick. I only had a week onsite. I had to hack their network while not raising suspicion.

So I set about it.

You have to understand... most "Internal Pentests" are straight forward. The hard part is breaching the network, but once you're inside, it's a target rich environment. End of Life computers, default passwords, everyone a Local Administrator...
TECH
Quinn Cummings
Quinn Cummings
@quinncy
Gather round, Gentle Readers. It is time I tell the story of the worst decision I ever made in an office. Some of you have heard this. Some have not. Whatever you do in your office today, this week, the rest of this year, you can console yourself by recalling this tale.

A long time ago, I was a talent agent. I worked for a woman named Susan Smith, who had her own small boutique agency. She was known for three things:

1. She had fantastic taste in clients. If there is someone you admire, odds are good that at some point, she was their agent,

2. She could negotiate a deal like few who have ever trod the earth. Casting would give her all the money they had budgeted for that part, plus a little more, plus promising to get her dog Barnaby groomed. She was magnificent to watch.

3. She was insane.

I'm sure you're thinking, "Quinn, it's the entertainment industry, they are all insane." Yes, many are. So consider this; if you told someone you worked for Susan, people who worked for insane people would look and you and whisper, "I hear she's insane."
LIFE
Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
Most software founders, particularly in B2B, need to get radically better at sales. @Steli , who is the best person for explaining the scrappy stages in the beginning and then building out a team with scripts and processes, wrote a guide to:

For technical founders it is irrationally, obscenely hard to reverse years of programming (ba dum bum) that sales is a value-destroying activity. Sales is CLEARLY a value-creating activity, contingent on you have a value-creating product.

The world will not drop what they are doing to adopt your work. This is particularly true in B2B, where simply building a better mousetrap won't overcome the activation energy required to get people with additional non-mice problems to prioritize changing mousetraps today.

This is very non-obvious for founders because founders are not often people who *want* to be sold to. We often come from a background where trying out tools is a bit of a fun hobby. We like looking at all the options, making charts, and ripping out partially complete tests.

"This week I unsuccessfully trialed four software options for automating that thing that has been killing us. Our actual production process remains the same as last week. Don't worry; this was a great use of time." is not a thing you want to write in a progress report to manager.
TECH