Best Of

Some good opportunities for Starmer to start showing that Labour could be a Party of change and at the same time show some dynamic and popular leadership. If he cant do it now while the right are fighting like rats in a sack and with an unhinged common enemy also of the right then probably time to start looking for a new more charismatic and decisive leader.

Another way of looking at this is: The Tories have finally seen that their only future is to lead the right of centre in people, policy, communications and showing clear difference between Tories and Reform. They only have one right of centre party to overcome and it is full of tricksters.

Labour face a larger challenge: LD, Green, Islamists, Jezbollah, SNP, PC. And the challenge of being in government in hard times. And these are not great times for changing who is PM, which is a messy process anyway.

Tory stock is rising steadily.

You may of course be correct. PB Tories are all talking a good job, but unless I am mistaken Mr Jenrick and Mr Rossindale beg to differ.

You should be pleased that Kemi has slammed Gill this am

Also Jenrick is not a conservative and Rossindale has denied the rumours

In an age of u turns does Badenoch finally realising Reform are not her friends constitute a u turn?

Every politician from the Conservatives on the right to Your Party on the extremities of reality needs to remind themselves that Nathan Gill took cash to speak up on behalf Putin-Russia, whilst some of his more illustrious friends did so, apparently, for free.

Some good opportunities for Starmer to start showing that Labour could be a Party of change and at the same time show some dynamic and popular leadership. If he cant do it now while the right are fighting like rats in a sack and with an unhinged common enemy also of the right then probably time to start looking for a new more charismatic and decisive leader.

Another way of looking at this is: The Tories have finally seen that their only future is to lead the right of centre in people, policy, communications and showing clear difference between Tories and Reform. They only have one right of centre party to overcome and it is full of tricksters.

Labour face a larger challenge: LD, Green, Islamists, Jezbollah, SNP, PC. And the challenge of being in government in hard times. And these are not great times for changing who is PM, which is a messy process anyway.

Tory stock is rising steadily.

There can only be one market leader for the left and that will be Labour. The niche Lib Dems will no doubt keep their seats but the other relatively fringe parties will disappear into the ether. The battle is between the two parties of the right and it's pretty certain that will be resoved before the next election. I can't see it being Reform simply because I can't vizualise the UK having a government quite as ugly as one led by Farage.

GREENLAND CAMPAIGN DIARY. DAY #2

Pvt. Leon has been crying in his bunk for a day and a half because the corned beef in his rat pack was too salty. Pvt. Roberts has been sewn into his sleeping bag by other members of the platoon because he wouldn't stop talking about how a resolution to this conflict could be achieved by liberalising planning regulations in the Greater Nuuk area. Pvt. Malmesbury was captured on patrol by a chalk of US Delta Force operators, they brought him back 10 minutes later under a flag of truce. Efforts to co-ordinate with the local insurgents continue, with Pvt. HYUFD instructing them on how to make Bangalore Torpedoes from fishing rods before he was driven off by a hail of thrown fish heads.

Conditions in the FOB remain habitable despite cold temperatures outside. We are warmed by the immense amounts of IR radiation coming off Cpl. Casino's face after he was issued a rainbow lanyard.

I might shoot them all myself.

Cdr. Dura Ace, Officer Commanding, PB Expeditionary Force, Greenland

Surely the calibre of PB armchair Generals warrants a range of commissioned ranks.

GREENLAND CAMPAIGN DIARY. DAY #2

Pvt. Leon has been crying in his bunk for a day and a half because the corned beef in his rat pack was too salty. Pvt. Roberts has been sewn into his sleeping bag by other members of the platoon because he wouldn't stop talking about how a resolution to this conflict could be achieved by liberalising planning regulations in the Greater Nuuk area. Pvt. Malmesbury was captured on patrol by a chalk of US Delta Force operators, they brought him back 10 minutes later under a flag of truce. Efforts to co-ordinate with the local insurgents continue, with Pvt. HYUFD instructing them on how to make Bangalore Torpedoes from fishing rods before he was driven off by a hail of thrown fish heads.

Conditions in the FOB remain habitable despite cold temperatures outside. We are warmed by the immense amounts of IR radiation coming off Cpl. Casino's face after he was issued a rainbow lanyard.

I might shoot them all myself.

Cdr. Dura Ace, Officer Commanding, PB Expeditionary Force, Greenland

That’s a lot of privates.
I would claim the crusty old Jock regularly pointing out that ‘we’re doomed, doomed ah tell ye’ role, but I feel there are stronger candidates.

trump to Europe: "Give US Greenland or I will make Americans pay more for your goods".

He still seems to think we pay the tariffs rather than the importer.

FTSE100 company and exporter of goods manufactured in Britain to the US, Games Workshop, has absorbed 100% of the cost of tariffs charged on their exports to the US. That represents 2% off their profit margin, averaged over their global sales.

That's less profit returned to investors in dividends, less tax paid to the Exchequer.

The same is true for lots of companies selling goods to the US.

It will depend on the inco terms. Unless DDP then importer pays all duties and tariffs. Most trades to US or out of US, for goods (not services) aren’t DDP.

A commercial decision to reduce prices to offset the tariffs still means the tariff gets paid by the importer (caveat above)

There is also the currency difference to be considered.

Games Workshop stock price is up by over 40% last 12 months. They have had a record year. Warhammer seems popular. If they grow their volume then they can easily make up any lost profit.

GW are opening a Warhammer World in the US in 2027 and already have some of their production over there for the US market. Their exposure to tariffs will be very limited.

They shut down their US production ages ago.

Wargames Atlantic are going to the trouble of shipping moulds back and forth across the Atlantic to do manufacturing on both sides, which I thought was a mad thing no-one would ever do, so perhaps GW will consider it in the future, but they aren't doing it now.

Why ship moulds back and forth ? Why not just make some new ones for local production or if they have multiple sets just transfer some ?

They cannot be their only set. What if they went astray. They’d be screwed.

Also, depending on the size of the moulds, the cost of shipping will be expensive too.

It’s thin margins and moulds/tools representing £10ks of investment, not to mention the skills required to use them properly. Less of an issue if you’re GW, but if you’re GW you can just ship there.

It’s WarGames Atlantic doing it.

Well if they ship back and forth clearly both sides have the skill to not only use them but service and maintain them. They won’t just ship from factory A to factory B and run perfectly. They will have been packed for transport so will need stripping and reassembling.

If they are the only set then it’s a massive risk if they go astray. Still I guess they must do risk mitigation on these things and deemed it not an issue.

The investment in the tooling can be depreciated over the life of the product, several years. Paid upfront from the tooling budget but depreciated over several years.

Its a shame they moved away from spin moulding in metal. That is easy. You just spin up a set of masters and send them across the pond. Making up new production moulds is simple and cheap. Still the way the majority of figure manufacturers work (including me). I must admit I don't like plastics or the sorts of resins that Warlord make. Definitely metals for me still.

What sort of cycle time would that be ? I’d guess it ideal for low volume batch production,

I’ve never come across spin moulding in my career only in my ONC/HNC/HND years. I’ve sourced metal spun products but that’s different.

Certainly with these figures they feel different in metal. A little bit more robust and substantive. But I guess plastic moulding has the advantage of being quick as a process for larger volume runs and less labour intensive.

You can spin 30 figures in an 11" vulcanised mould in about 2 minutes. It is farly labour intensive but with the exception of GW, Warlord and Atlantic, most companies including Foundry still produce metal miniatures by spin casting. I have a spin casting machine in my shed.

The problem with spin casting is that most model designers for GW work in 3-ups these days rather than to scale. The conversion to 35mm is much easier when you are injection moulding for plastic rather than metal spin moulding.

I’d guess the downside is, for the larger volume producers, the tool life and cycle time.

Fascinating though.

This afternoon I’m going to look this up on YouTube. Still have a strong affection for engineering even though retired.