Best Of

I think it's funny that somehow the Scottish independence debate is expected, indeed required, to reach levels of political discourse far in excess of anything else that consists the political reality of the UK now since the Brexit campaign. Everything else has merely been cheap slogans and shouting that the other side are wrong/incompetent/shit and that your dream, your vision, is the one true path to salvation, even if you can hardly articulate what that vision is.

I mean it'd be absolutely bloody marvellous if the pro-independence side had brilliant detailed answers to the main questions (or indeed even made some effort to move their answers on from where they were in 2014), but if we've learnt anything from the last decade it's that actually you don't need any of that at all.

Yes, and a bit strange for a betting site. If the experience of the last few years is anything to go by, these wanky arguments about economics and currency and trade don't matter at all.

(and I say that as someone who wishes that wasn't the case)

"Reeves to ban luxury cars for benefit claimants

Chancellor plans sweeping changes to controversial Motability scheme considered by many to be “unfair” to the taxpayer" (£)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/11/02/rachel-reeves-to-ban-luxury-cars-for-benefit-claimants

Again just more nonsense. The benefit is not means tested, so those who want a nicer car can put money towards a nicer car. Hairshirt headline grabbing which will do nothing for the benefits bill.

compared to the PIP amount given up it is massively subsidised.

Plus no 20% VAT. It is hugely subsidised compared to privately purchased vehicles.

Abolish PIP and tax everyone the same. Problem solved.

Want a car? Get a job and pay for it out of your wages.

Do you mean abolish PIP or abolish Motability?

Abolish PIP. Everyone needs transport, just pay for it out of your wages, same as everyone else.

I'd have a scheme to pay for eg wheelchairs if required, but transport? Just pay for it as everyone else has to.

PIP isn't just about getting around Barty. You've kneejerking a bit too hard.

The mobility element is.

Just scrap it and scrap taxes on transport so that people can afford transport without a subsidy.

Ah, so you didn't mean abolish PIP. Did you just say that to get some attention?

No, its called context. We were talking about the mobility element of PIP, we were talking about Motability, so you should be able to infer from context what is being spoken about.

Anyway, you did hit a nail on the head, as the problem is the amount of bullshit being said to get some attention, but its not from me.

Any time this is discussed you get absurd extremes like "can not go to the toilet by themselves" as justification for funding which then translates to Motability vehicles.

I am curious how many people lie in the intersection of the Venn Diagram that they are both incapable of going to the toilet by themselves, but capable of handling a motor vehicle and getting a driving licence, without being a danger to themselves or others.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd imagine that anyone capable of getting and holding a drivers licence, without being a hazard to themselves or others, would generally be capable of going to the bathroom without assistance from third parties.

Unless you mean something absurd by "can not go to the toilet by themselves" such as they actually can go by themselves.

You know you can get a Motobility car and the driver doesn't need to be the person with the disability (which is a strike against your argument)

Now the car should really only be used for the person who has the disability but we all know that isn't the case (which is I think the point you are aiming for).

Precisely, the whole argument is bullshit.

If someone is a carer they should be to afford a car from their own wages.

If someone is too disabled to drive, they don't need a vehicle.

The whole thing is a nice rort for people who can play the system and then treat the PIP as income as if they were working for the money, which they're not.

You have demonstrated time and again that you don't understand what PIP is. It's designed to help people with the cost of being disabled. Being disabled costs a lot more money than being fully able. It costs more to get to work if you can't catch public transport due to your disability or use a regular car. It costs more money if you can't use the bathroom which comes with the property you rent or own. PIP saves the taxpayer money because it helps disabled people to work rather than become fully dependent on the state.

Blockquotes gone up in smoke.

Re - Toyota and EV -

Although they were pretty early with say the Prius. I drive an Auris (and the wife has a Yaris) - both excellent hybrids. I would guess the main issues with full EV will be battery related.

The main issue was that the head of Toyota was full on for the Hydrogen Religion, and hated the idea of EVs. So Toyota spent vast sums on not getting (well, they got some pre-production, insanely expensive examples running) hydrogen fuel cell cars into production.

So, after spending vast sums on fuel cells and nothing on EV development, strangely, they didn't have EVs.

They are trying to catch up, frantically, now.

If they had evolved the Prius into a full EV, they would have cleaned up, I reckon. But they didn't.

Alternatively, we could extend official EV love to hybrids. Aside from anything else, this would mean an end to range anxiety and take away the necessity for chargers in every lamp post. We'd get most of the EV benefit for almost no extra cost.

Prius is about 50 mpg.which is nice, but nowhere near zero emissions.

Range anxiety is about people not understanding EVs. There's high capacity charging stations at all the motorway services in the country, and many other places. Where you can charge the latest EVs from 20-80% in about 15 minutes. Lamp posts are about trickle charging at night.

For pootling around town which is what most people do, hybrids are fine. Range anxiety is range anxiety and claiming people don't understand does not really get us anywhere. It is one reason people slow down on motorways, thus rendering them less efficient and more dangerous.

Hybrids are better than ICE and worse than EV (other things being equal). Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Do you have an EV? Never had range anxiety, it's something that mostly exists in the heads of ICE drivers.

I have more than once been a passenger in EVs being driven slowly to conserve range.

I now have a petrol Jag which replaced my diesel Jag after a RTA at the beginning of this year. The diesel was the bigger car (XF v XE) and the tanks are approximately the same size. What I have been stunned at is that a full tank of diesel gave me about 630 miles and a full tank of petrol only gives me 430. It really puts the few extra pence per litre for diesel into perspective. Having switched from one to the other I have had several episodes of range anxiety and occasions where I have had to be ripped off by service stations charging extortionate amounts for fuel.

Certainly in my job 430 miles really isn't far.

Diesel vs petrol mileage is essentially chemistry. Diesel is mainly molecules with 12 to 20 carbon atoms. Petrol is mainly 4 to 12 carbons. Hence diesel is more energy dense. (Actual density - petrol is 0.71-0.78 g ml-1, diesel 0.82-0.85 g, ml-1).

Forget the rise of Reform. More interested in the cost of plastering if anyone has recent experience.

Think we paid £500 for the kitchen and a hallway wall to be done back in August

About £620 for a day's work in the new shop last year. Bargain tbh. It's just about the messiest trades job, and requires a fair bit of skill that cannot be easily shortcutted by technology.

I'd want about £1500 for the same amount of effort!

Plastering is art.

I could happily do most domestic electrics or modern plastic plumbing, and am willing to learn new skills as often as I can, but stuff like plastering is one of those things I can immediately see I could never do!

Which is quite funny where I live, where the default is not DIY but always calling a man in. Other cultures see working with hands and trades as beneath them.

A friend of mine who did a late career change from tech in finance to building work tells me that plastering is the most zen thing you can do. He loves the process of it, and he loves that it marks the beginning of the end for a project - the moment when everything that will be is visible.

It would have to be, for the paltry amount plasterers charge.

It's one of the mysteries of the universe to me - why aren't plasterers about three times the price they are? Like Sandpit, it's about the only trade I have baulked at trying to learn.

The only other trade I won’t do is data cabling. They’re the plasterers of the IT world.

They charge half my hourly rate, take at most half of the hours I would use, and do a job that’s an order of magnitude better quality and appearance than mine.

Excitement builds.
Will it be be over by 11.01am?

Nigel Farage MP
@Nigel_Farage
·
1h
I will set out our economic vision for a future Reform government at 11am.

https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1985252405361950978

The general issue is significant. If Reform form a government they will of course have to govern as a high spend, welfare state, massive state provision government. The social democratic post WWII consensus will not have been abolished by the voters. Ask the voters of Clacton what they want in the way of pensions, NHS, free education, police, welfare safety net. All the big costs are there.

So Farage has to move away from both libertarian small state - interesting idea but wanted by almost no-one, and those who want it are rich - and unicorn stuff about savings made on rainbow flags and lanyards. He will have to run a high spend (loud voice) and therefore high tax (quieter voice) government. Even more so WRT tax if he wants to remove the deficit and start paying back the debt.

He’s had to cut all his tax reduction policies by the look of it - so what’s left is Government spending vita and his plans to destroy the NHS.

He doesn’t plan to destroy the NHS. It would still be free at point of use. Just another change to it.

As for tax, I saw a graphic (wish I could find it) showing how many Reform target seats had rather a lot of PIP and UC claimants. They would be mad to cut that for their client vote.

I'm fascinated by the obsession some have that the right is planning to destroy the NHS. How many years of Tory government have we had since the NHS was formed? And yet its still here. The main principle behind the NHS - free at the point of use - is only broadly true. I pay for dental treatments and prescription charges, for instance. I cannot imagine any government abandoning free at the point of use. But you can imagine a big change to how the NHS is paid for. And to be honest we ought to do more to look at how our competitor nations in Europe do healthcare and nick the best bits.

Efficiency will come from public health initiatives (lifestyle changes so that people don't get as ill), reducing waiting lists so people get treated at a less severe stage and evaluating and implementing best practice.
Any means of paying for the NHS, patient contribution, insurance etc, will require more bureaucracy and therefore be less efficient so more costly.

Efficiency for the NHS

- Setup an *internal* consultancy, within the NHS. Its job is to go round improving processes, and joining stuff up. You'll be looking at "We saved 1.46% in area X this year, by reducing form entry duplication". A slow, steady thing, over years. It will never end, so it is *core* to NHS operations.
- Expand training of medical staff by 1% above the natural growth required for the increasing population etc per year. Until the training of staff exceeds 100% of planned NHS demand.
- This is connected with reducing and finally eliminating agency staffing which is insanely expensive.
- Redesign the contracts for doctors and nurses so that instead of "Beatings will continue until morale improves", a slightly more modern approach to management-staff relations is taken.