Best Of

Good Scotland result.

I wonder how much of the Kilted Army (if what I hear from Boston is correct) have rooms booked for the second stage of the competition.

Got to get there first… But can do no more than win. Morocco and Brazil are a tougher test.

That said I can see England losing to Croatia and I anticipate howls of joy from the frozen north…

There can be upsets in any football match but England is a class above Croatia.

11th in FIFA rankings is not too shabby , usual England complacency before heading home perhaps.

I don't think that Croatia is quite the team they were when Suker was playing up front and Modric was in his pomp but they are still a useful side. I have also yet to be persuaded that Tuchel has any idea how to get the best out of his talented squad. But in Kane they have probably the best forward in the world at the moment and I suspect that will be enough.

One of my pals sent me a social media image last night made up of flags wishing every country in the WC good luck. In the middle was the cross of St George and on that it said "not you". I really don't get that and will be cheering England on on Wednesday, just as I would support any other British team, unless they were playing Scotland, of course.

I've always found this antipathy really tedious. My divided loyalty comes from the fact that I'm Scottish on my mother's side and English on my father's. I generally do not know who to support when England play Scotland (though the hooligan element among the English support has on occasion inclined me towards Scotland).

...

Heh.

The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:

In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.

His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.

Thanks for the reply.

The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.

The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.

The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.

It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.

The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.

In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.

Milliband is a completely fake arse and should have been out on it many years ago. Typifies the type of usual grubbing twat in government that has the country in the state it is in. The clown could not run a bath but manages to fill his boots from the public. Another moron who has never had a real job , just spent his time in politics sliming up the greasy pole.

Go and crawl down your GB News worm hole.

In 25 years when coastal erosion and flooding in many parts of the Country is the norm youll have your epitaph

F888ing lunatic , go and have aeronautical sexual intercourse with a rolling doughnut you sad loser. I seriously hope I am here to see it and still be laughing at absolute arseholes like you benefits junkies.

7/10 on the quality insult scale. A partial return to lost form from @malcolmg. Inventive, but needs more depth and carry through.

Have a shot of the cask strength turnip juice.

Form is temporary, class is permanent.

Cut welfare and spend the money on defence instead. No need for tax rises

So let's look into where the so-called peace dividend went. What did governments spend more on after the 1990s as they spent less on defence? Because we will have to spend less on these things if we want to increase spending on defence without raising taxes.

Turns out the big increases are health then pensioner welfare and non pensioner welfare.

So when Badenoch and others glibly talk about funding defence through welfare cuts do they actually want to reduce people's access to healthcare and do a triple unlock to reduce pensions?




https://bsky.app/profile/ruthcurtice.bsky.social/post/3mo3ziif3g22r

That debt interest is absolutely catastrophic. A gross act of fiscal vandalism to have incurred all that debt during COVID without coming up with a way to pay for it. I'm afraid national crises like pandemic and war need eye-watering taxes on high earners (like me) and we'll be paying the price for decaes to come because we ignored that reality.

My headache is also catastrophic.

I take it you managed to stay up for the game.

I did want to get up to watch it but failed.

I did, my partner is on nights so had the opportunity to invite people round without pissing her off. Except for the first 15 minutes it was a grim affair to be honest, Haiti were very good value and with someone decent in the box we would have lost.

Got the pub booked for the next two games, Edinburgh was crackling last night.

Cut welfare and spend the money on defence instead. No need for tax rises

So let's look into where the so-called peace dividend went. What did governments spend more on after the 1990s as they spent less on defence? Because we will have to spend less on these things if we want to increase spending on defence without raising taxes.

Turns out the big increases are health then pensioner welfare and non pensioner welfare.

So when Badenoch and others glibly talk about funding defence through welfare cuts do they actually want to reduce people's access to healthcare and do a triple unlock to reduce pensions?




https://bsky.app/profile/ruthcurtice.bsky.social/post/3mo3ziif3g22r

That debt interest is absolutely catastrophic. A gross act of fiscal vandalism to have incurred all that debt during COVID without coming up with a way to pay for it. I'm afraid national crises like pandemic and war need eye-watering taxes on high earners (like me) and we'll be paying the price for decaes to come because we ignored that reality.

My headache is also catastrophic.

Sorry about the headache. Hope it improves fast.

On the debt, surely it has ever been thus.

We didn't pay off our WW2 debt until 2006
We didn't pay off our WW1 debt until even later. 2015.

Strange to think that by winning the war we ended up in a far worse place economically than Germany who lost. They had all their debt written off at the London Conference in 1950.

"A Labour MP has hit out at “neo-colonial” animal rights activists after they launched a campaign to ban gannet hunting on Scotland’s Isle of Lewis.

Torcuil Crichton, the MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, told The Telegraph he had been attempting to ignore the English activist group Protect the Wild, but that he could no longer keep silent over its campaign.

He said: “When it gets so far, it is time to speak.”

Mr Crichton said: “It’s a kind of neo-colonialism – people thinking that they know better than people who have lived with the environment and with the bird life and sea life for centuries.”"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/06/14/labour-mp-animal-rights-activist-scottish-hunting-ban/

That reminds me of my youth in the mid fifties when we used to climb the rocky cliffs around St Abbs Head (by Eyemouth) for gulls eggs and gannets would fiercely attack us and vomit over us

It was a time when people collected gulls eggs, indeed most birds eggs, a practice which thankfully is now illegal

Cut welfare and spend the money on defence instead. No need for tax rises

So let's look into where the so-called peace dividend went. What did governments spend more on after the 1990s as they spent less on defence? Because we will have to spend less on these things if we want to increase spending on defence without raising taxes.

Turns out the big increases are health then pensioner welfare and non pensioner welfare.

So when Badenoch and others glibly talk about funding defence through welfare cuts do they actually want to reduce people's access to healthcare and do a triple unlock to reduce pensions?




https://bsky.app/profile/ruthcurtice.bsky.social/post/3mo3ziif3g22r

That debt interest is absolutely catastrophic. A gross act of fiscal vandalism to have incurred all that debt during COVID without coming up with a way to pay for it. I'm afraid national crises like pandemic and war need eye-watering taxes on high earners (like me) and we'll be paying the price for decaes to come because we ignored that reality.

My headache is also catastrophic.

Indeed. But debt interest isn't something you can adjust spending on unlike defence, health and welfare.

I am open to spending more on defence but I think there needs to be a proper debate leading to a consensus on how it gets paid for. And the military needs to get its house in order. It's unreasonable to expect us to pay more when they aren't managing their current (large) budget properly.

...

...

Heh.

The GB News bungalows are quite agitated about Mr Milliband:

In Germany the NAZIS had lots of Gauleiters like Millipede, they caused havoc and deaths, he is going to bring about scores of deaths this next winter, time he was actually PRACTICING what HE preaches, his carbon footprint is shocking.

His carbon footprint is enormous. In his private life as well as his public life. There is something deeply unsettling about the psychology of someone who wants other people to give up their tumble dryers and underfloor heating, yet lives an enormously privileged life largely at the expense of the same taxpayers he would like to have lower living standards. It's the reason why the public despise politicians.

Thanks for the reply.

The "personal carbon footprint 12x larger than average" stuff seems to be around a pretence that Ed Milliband's carbon footprint as a Government Minister is somehow "personal"; it is not personal. That's how they got to their "12 times bigger than average" nonsense. It's a spurious comparison, which is what I expect from UK media on the right, or perhaps more generally.

The only data I could get on Miliband's private life carbon footprint would be to look at the energy efficiency of his house in Kentish Town, which if he is serious should be in Band C for the basic structure, and perhaps a B if he has solar etc. One reason I treat Emma Nicholson (flew to London 1st Class to make a green speech) with a measure of contempt is that her London house has a poor EPC number; she is not doing the basics. If you have more data, I would like to see it.

The GB News and Telegraph talking points on the Miliband stuff are a series of fairy stories, on a level with Boris Johnson's reporting from Brussels. UFH or towel rails or tumble dryers being banned, or wanting people to abandon their current ones - NOPE, though it makes sense to not use your tumble dryer if you want to save on electricity bills as things like washing lines are out there.

It's just about normal market regulation, and things like the UFH setups being able to work at a flow temperature of 55C max are to make sure that installations are functional; it is a common error to overestimate the heating capacity of small emitter areas. We start by improving the efficiency of new products in the marketplace.

The poor ones get regulated out as we progress. Something as simple as double glazing is no different - there is constant improvement. My policy has always been to install the highest quality I can without using exotic products, and the high end 2G I was installing just 12-14 years ago is now below minimum standard.

In a way it is encouraging that the populist far right having nothing to offer but barrel scrapings and manufactured outrage; all they have is a bullshit firehose to keep the gullibles down the rabbit hole. It's a harbinger that before long they will go pop, just as they did in the 1930s, 1950s, the 1970s, and the 2000s.

Thanks for your reply.

I think what you are describing as vicious calumnies are in fact just normal rhetoric. I know that David Milliband is not sending the rozzers round to confiscate peoples' dryers. What he is doing is introducing an intrusive and in my view unwarranted ban on the sale of the most effective forms of tumble dryer - those that work well in a garage - those that are quicker. It may make sense to save the energy - if that is so, the market will sort it out. If it isn't so, it's frankly none of Milliband's business. The same goes for the banning of underfloor heating systems that use 'too much' energy. 1. Fuck off you Stalinist little weasel, 2. I don't think 'giving up' is a particularly outrageous way to describe something being banned from sale. The net outcome will eventually be the same.

Regarding Milliband's carbon footprint, you seem to be implying that his ministerial flying is essential to his Ministerial duties, and should therefore be exempt from scrutiny. That is patently absurd. For comparison, we know after six months in the role, Milliband's department had spent £62,712 on international travel - Claire Coutinho spent £6,155 during her first six months in the same job. That is 10 times the amount. And Coutinho wasn't making some sort of 'anti Net Zero' point - the Tories policy was pro Net Zero at that time.

Was travelling to multiple cities in Brazil to highlight our climate leadership a particularly good use of carbon or money? Was a private jet (one way, he slummed it in Business the other way) to NYC for 'New York Climate Week' with over 100 civil servants from the deparment also in attendence? These things are at the Minister's discretion.

Claire Couthino was not doing her job properly. Miliband attands and is a ket global leader and respected for that in Eco matters. Thats the difference, some one who understands the calamity bearing down on us and wanting to do all he can to stop it and on the other hand a vaccuous minister who just wants to car and title!

A "global leader" who:

* inflicts self harm on his own country by stopping the utilisation of resources from the North Sea, complete and utter madness.
* insists on spending billions on carbon capture for no obvious reasons.
*Seems to welcome the closure of manufacturing in the UK because it moves us closer to net zero, even when we then have to import the same things we used to make for ourselves.

What he absolutely isn't is any kind of leader for the UK national interest.

The obvious reason for spending money on CCS is to reduce CO2 emissions.

Those cleverer than me have determined that CCS is one of the pieces of the jigsaw we need to utilise to achieve Net Zero.

Without CCS, industries such as cement and EfW cannot decarbonise. However, with CCS the latter can become net negative and offset other sectors.

One thing I will say is that sticking CCS on the back end of a CCGT with a 50% load factor is a daft idea.

CCS is heavily promoted by oil producers so they can continue to pump out their product while getting others to pay for the clean up. It has little to do with Net Zero.

It was also was a project of the previous Conservative government. Miliband hasn't done anything beyond not actually shutting it down. I am beginning to think Miliband Derangement Syndrome might really be a thing on here.

About one thing, Sir Keir is absolutely right. “There are no easy decisions,” he said on Friday. “Whoever is prime minister is going to face the same prevailing winds as I am facing.” A leadership change will not magically produce additional resources for defence – or for anything else for that matter. Sorting out the dangerous mess over security will be at the top of the groaning plate of challenges facing any of the possible successors to Sir Keir. They’ll need to have a solution if they aspire to be an improvement on a Fubar government.

The same challenge also affects every other alternative Government including ones headed by Farage, Badenoch, Polanski and Davey.

It's the first of a series (I suspect) of such crunch issues which challenge how we have jogged on arguably over the last 5-7 years.

Essentially, the question is - IF you think more should be spent on defence, from where does the funding come absent significant economic growth? The options are either to cut spending - "welfare" seems the favoured option but whose welfare and by how much or raise taxes - a hypothecated 2p increase in basic rate tax to fund additional defence?

The problem is the former will be opposed by those who enjoy their welfare and benefits and the latter by those who think they pay too much tax as it is and each will point to the other and day they should pay.

The poor Government is caught in the middle - it has three options, pick a side, anatagonise both sides by doing both or doing neither and hoping, pace Micawber, something will turn up.

What governments have done recently is to find a short-term expedient that will make things look okay in the short-term, but make things even harder to sort out after the next election.

All the bills for the can-kicking of the past are falling due. The only sane way out is to convince the public that there's a tough road ahead, but we can get out of the hole if we're honest about the mistakes made in the past.

It might be quicker and easier to invent a time machine than trying to convince the voters of reality.

We ought to at least give it a decent try.

Agreed, I'll start work on the flux capacitor, do you want to have a go at designing the vessel?

Cut welfare and spend the money on defence instead. No need for tax rises

So let's look into where the so-called peace dividend went. What did governments spend more on after the 1990s as they spent less on defence? Because we will have to spend less on these things if we want to increase spending on defence without raising taxes.

Turns out the big increases are health then pensioner welfare and non pensioner welfare.

So when Badenoch and others glibly talk about funding defence through welfare cuts do they actually want to reduce people's access to healthcare and do a triple unlock to reduce pensions?




https://bsky.app/profile/ruthcurtice.bsky.social/post/3mo3ziif3g22r

That debt interest is absolutely catastrophic. A gross act of fiscal vandalism to have incurred all that debt during COVID without coming up with a way to pay for it. I'm afraid national crises like pandemic and war need eye-watering taxes on high earners (like me) and we'll be paying the price for decaes to come because we ignored that reality.

My headache is also catastrophic.