"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
I have not been to Canada sums it up
I haven't been to either, but I strongly suspect Albertian conservatism is very different to Trumpism. Just as British Conservatism is.
Alberta is the only part of Canada I've been to (in 2015) and I would say some of these comparisons are simplistic also given that Alberta elected an NDP provincial government in 2015 even while voters heavily back the Conservatives in national elections.
Clearly Alberta's economic needs are different from the rest of Canada but I don't think some of the comparisons with the US make sense.
We also saw the Canadian Liberals taking Alberta a bit more seriously in 2021, even if they only regained one riding in Calgary after they neglected it in 2019.
55% of Albertans voted Conservative last year even when Trudeau's Liberals were re elected nationally. In the 1990s of course it was the stronghold of the populist Conservative Reform Party of Canada when the Liberals were in power, Reform eventually merging with the more One Nation Progressive Conservative party who had fallen back to the Atlantic States to form today's Conservative Party of Canada in 2003
Which merger led to the Maritimes becoming a Liberal redoubt barely a decade later.
Not really. Even the Progressive Conservatives only won 1 MP in the Maritimes States in 1993, 10 in 1997 and 7 in 2000.
The Conservative Party of Canada won 13 MPs in 2011 there by contrast and even in 2021 the CPC won 7 MPs in the Maritimes
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 18m Interesting how the focus of the Omicron discussion has changed. First it was deaths. Then hospitalisations. Then staff-shortages. It's now moving towards Long Covid. And a broader "NHS under constant pressure" narrative. We need a proper debate about how we prioritise all this.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
I have not been to Canada sums it up
Indeed. Culturally Alberta is the Texas of Canada but there isn't a snowballs chance in hell that there'd be any desire for Albertans to join the USA ... or coastal US states to join Canada.
It is simply not something anyone is interested in. Actually Albertans if there were to want constitutional reform then the one thing I've heard discussed over there is the idea of Western Independence.
They consider, quite rightly, that a lot of taxes go from West to East while the politics is dominated by the East so Western Independence could be a thing but joining the USA simply isn't on the radar.
Here is an article from a right wing site discussing that very option.
The issue with Alberta is this. Oil, oil, oil, oil. You might think, given it is effectively a Petro Province that they might have better education or health outcomes than the rest of Canada. They don't really. You might think they could diversify so they weren't at the mercy of world prices. They don't. What they do is whinge when the oil price is low. Cos their economy goes to pot. And whinge when it is high that they are subsidising the rest of Canada. Western Independence has fallen off the radar a little, as BC has moved steadily to the Left. It simply won't work as a landlocked entity. BC doesn't want their pipeline. Ironically, Trudeau has been a supporter of it. For which he gets much grief and no credit.
That article suggests it might have been possible under Trump but Biden's Green New Deal would be as bad for Alberta as Trudeau is, if not worse
Yes. And it is rarely appreciated that Canadian Provinces actually have much more independence from Federal rule than US States do. It is one of the most decentralized Federations in the World. It even needs to torturously negotiate free trade agreements with itself to reduce internal tariffs.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 18m Interesting how the focus of the Omicron discussion has changed. First it was deaths. Then hospitalisations. Then staff-shortages. It's now moving towards Long Covid. And a broader "NHS under constant pressure" narrative. We need a proper debate about how we prioritise all this.
He has called this right. We now have a case of the the NHS tail wagging the UK plc dog. It can't go on.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
Letter to nz newspaper 1912
“The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries."
But given that we are doing pretty much sod all, knowing what we know now, they still get a pass.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
I have not been to Canada sums it up
I haven't been to either, but I strongly suspect Albertian conservatism is very different to Trumpism. Just as British Conservatism is.
Alberta is the only part of Canada I've been to (in 2015) and I would say some of these comparisons are simplistic also given that Alberta elected an NDP provincial government in 2015 even while voters heavily back the Conservatives in national elections.
Clearly Alberta's economic needs are different from the rest of Canada but I don't think some of the comparisons with the US make sense.
We also saw the Canadian Liberals taking Alberta a bit more seriously in 2021, even if they only regained one riding in Calgary after they neglected it in 2019.
55% of Albertans voted Conservative last year even when Trudeau's Liberals were re elected nationally. In the 1990s of course it was the stronghold of the populist Conservative Reform Party of Canada when the Liberals were in power, Reform eventually merging with the more One Nation Progressive Conservative party who had fallen back to the Atlantic States to form today's Conservative Party of Canada in 2003
Yes although the Conservatives got 59% of the vote in Saskatchewan in 2021 so Alberta is no longer the Conservatives strongest province in Canada at the federal level. Trudeau was an extremely bad fit for Alberta but his Deputy and likely successor is actually from there and has a greater understanding of the province. The idea of Alberta breaking away is absurd and it can continue to have influence by voting Conservative at the national level while occasionally voting NDP etc at the provincial level.
Even Montana once voted for Bill Clinton, does not mean it is anything but ultra conservative overall like Alberta. Alberta has never voted Liberal or NDP at the national level.
As for Trudeau, he is the leader who got the Liberals back into government after 9 years in opposition, if he steps down at the next general election after 10 years in power I would expect O'Toole's Conservatives to win an return to power nationally while easily holding Alberta
Alberta is conservative, but it is Canadian conservative. It is not US conservative.
Your proposal that if the Americans elect a conservative and the Canadians don't that Canadian conservative provinces will join the USA and vice-versa is as prima facie absurd as suggesting that if the French elect a Conservative President and the UK elects a left-winger that Conservative areas like Epping Forest would elect to leave the UK and join France.
An Albertan conservative is actually closer to a US Republican conservative or a Farage supporter in the UK than a conservative in Eastern Canada. A UK Tory would be closer to a conservative in Eastern Canada than in Alberta or a conservative in the US red states.
Pecresse would on most issues if she wins be closer to a UK Tory than Macron, Melenchon or Le Pen or probably Zemmour would be if they win later this year but culturally France is closer to Quebec than us or the rest of North America.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
Letter to nz newspaper 1912
“The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries."
But given that we are doing pretty much sod all, knowing what we know now, they still get a pass.
In this country we've virtually stopped burning coal. We aren't doing sod all.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
No, but "protesting" is mere moral posturing anyway, so it is even more pointless than usual if you are doing it from the moral low ground.
In fact your position spookily mirrors that of all those nimbys who haunt your dreams. Nimby: I have my des res in the country, thanks, we don't need any more. You to China: we have had our industrial revolution and lifted ourselves out of poverty, thanks, and that is quite enough IRs. Shame you never got on the ladder in time.
Quite the opposite, the notion that we shouldn't emit emissions in our own backyard even if that doesn't aid the world because even more emissions are emitted elsewhere is NIMBYism.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
We have certainly made very large reductions which is great news. But our per capita emissions are still higher than many other wealthy European countries like France, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland... as well as obviously being far higher than poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
We have certainly made very large reductions which is great news. But our per capita emissions are still higher than many other wealthy European countries like France, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland... as well as obviously being far higher than poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
The atmosphere doesn’t care about emissions per capita. It’s total emissions that are driving climate change.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
We have certainly made very large reductions which is great news. But our per capita emissions are still higher than many other wealthy European countries like France, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland... as well as obviously being far higher than poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
The atmosphere doesn’t care about emissions per capita. It’s total emissions that are driving climate change.
You're right, but being right doesn't change the politics of climate change.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
We have certainly made very large reductions which is great news. But our per capita emissions are still higher than many other wealthy European countries like France, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland... as well as obviously being far higher than poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
We get there through massive wind investment, not hair shirt microconsumerist bollocks.
I think of those countries listed, only Portugal is applicable as a comparison - France has a very long established nuclear sector which economically we won't be able to replicate (See Hinkley C); Switzerland and Sweden have hydro resources we simply don't have. The UK's advantage is wind.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 18m Interesting how the focus of the Omicron discussion has changed. First it was deaths. Then hospitalisations. Then staff-shortages. It's now moving towards Long Covid. And a broader "NHS under constant pressure" narrative. We need a proper debate about how we prioritise all this.
Yes, and the staff shortages are due to stupid isolation rules and test shortages. They are entirely self inflicted. NHS capacity is a valid longer term discussion, however, any decision on short term restrictions won't take this into account because it's just a general underlying problem of running healthcare without strategic reserve capacity (because we don't want to pay 20% more tax, understandably).
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
We have certainly made very large reductions which is great news. But our per capita emissions are still higher than many other wealthy European countries like France, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland... as well as obviously being far higher than poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
The atmosphere doesn’t care about emissions per capita. It’s total emissions that are driving climate change.
You're right, but being right doesn't change the politics of climate change.
Nailed it.
The zealots on both extremes don't care what's right and wrong. This is religion to them.
O/t I know but my Thai (well, half-Thai) family have managed a Christmas trip from Thailand to Essex, with visits to London, then one Oop North to see friends and relations, and are now back home, testing all the way, without a single positive test. T^hey've been careful, but clearly haven't locked themselves away.
Mrs C is most relieved. Delighted to have been able to hug her grandchildren, too.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
I have not been to Canada sums it up
I haven't been to either, but I strongly suspect Albertian conservatism is very different to Trumpism. Just as British Conservatism is.
Alberta is the only part of Canada I've been to (in 2015) and I would say some of these comparisons are simplistic also given that Alberta elected an NDP provincial government in 2015 even while voters heavily back the Conservatives in national elections.
Clearly Alberta's economic needs are different from the rest of Canada but I don't think some of the comparisons with the US make sense.
We also saw the Canadian Liberals taking Alberta a bit more seriously in 2021, even if they only regained one riding in Calgary after they neglected it in 2019.
55% of Albertans voted Conservative last year even when Trudeau's Liberals were re elected nationally. In the 1990s of course it was the stronghold of the populist Conservative Reform Party of Canada when the Liberals were in power, Reform eventually merging with the more One Nation Progressive Conservative party who had fallen back to the Atlantic States to form today's Conservative Party of Canada in 2003
Which merger led to the Maritimes becoming a Liberal redoubt barely a decade later.
Not really. Even the Progressive Conservatives only won 1 MP in the Maritimes States in 1993, 10 in 1997 and 7 in 2000.
The Conservative Party of Canada won 13 MPs in 2011 there by contrast and even in 2021 the CPC won 7 MPs in the Maritimes
And none at all in 2015. The Liberals won every seat East of Quebec.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
We have certainly made very large reductions which is great news. But our per capita emissions are still higher than many other wealthy European countries like France, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland... as well as obviously being far higher than poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
The atmosphere doesn’t care about emissions per capita. It’s total emissions that are driving climate change.
You're right, but being right doesn't change the politics of climate change.
The UK is doing its part by reducing emissions. Let's hope other more populous countries follow suit.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
I have not been to Canada sums it up
I haven't been to either, but I strongly suspect Albertian conservatism is very different to Trumpism. Just as British Conservatism is.
Alberta is the only part of Canada I've been to (in 2015) and I would say some of these comparisons are simplistic also given that Alberta elected an NDP provincial government in 2015 even while voters heavily back the Conservatives in national elections.
Clearly Alberta's economic needs are different from the rest of Canada but I don't think some of the comparisons with the US make sense.
We also saw the Canadian Liberals taking Alberta a bit more seriously in 2021, even if they only regained one riding in Calgary after they neglected it in 2019.
55% of Albertans voted Conservative last year even when Trudeau's Liberals were re elected nationally. In the 1990s of course it was the stronghold of the populist Conservative Reform Party of Canada when the Liberals were in power, Reform eventually merging with the more One Nation Progressive Conservative party who had fallen back to the Atlantic States to form today's Conservative Party of Canada in 2003
Yes although the Conservatives got 59% of the vote in Saskatchewan in 2021 so Alberta is no longer the Conservatives strongest province in Canada at the federal level. Trudeau was an extremely bad fit for Alberta but his Deputy and likely successor is actually from there and has a greater understanding of the province. The idea of Alberta breaking away is absurd and it can continue to have influence by voting Conservative at the national level while occasionally voting NDP etc at the provincial level.
Even Montana once voted for Bill Clinton, does not mean it is anything but ultra conservative overall like Alberta. Alberta has never voted Liberal or NDP at the national level.
As for Trudeau, he is the leader who got the Liberals back into government after 9 years in opposition, if he steps down at the next general election after 10 years in power I would expect O'Toole's Conservatives to win an return to power nationally while easily holding Alberta
Alberta is conservative, but it is Canadian conservative. It is not US conservative.
Your proposal that if the Americans elect a conservative and the Canadians don't that Canadian conservative provinces will join the USA and vice-versa is as prima facie absurd as suggesting that if the French elect a Conservative President and the UK elects a left-winger that Conservative areas like Epping Forest would elect to leave the UK and join France.
An Albertan conservative is actually closer to a US Republican conservative or a Farage supporter in the UK than a conservative in Eastern Canada. A UK Tory would be closer to a conservative in Eastern Canada than in Alberta or a conservative in the US red states.
Pecresse would on most issues if she wins be closer to a UK Tory than Macron, Melenchon or Le Pen or probably Zemmour would be if they win later this year but culturally France is closer to Quebec than us or the rest of North America.
What stunning insights. Have you ever thought about submitting a piece on Canadian politics for Mike to publish?
However the fact that many loyalists to the Crown fled from the American colonies to Canada after the War of Independence was lost meant that that never came to fruition, see also the War of 1812 where Canada was the base for British forces in the war with forces from the new United States. Even today of course the Queen is still Head of State of Canada long after the USA not only declared independence but elected their own Presidents to replace King George IIIrd
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
We have certainly made very large reductions which is great news. But our per capita emissions are still higher than many other wealthy European countries like France, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland... as well as obviously being far higher than poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
The atmosphere doesn’t care about emissions per capita. It’s total emissions that are driving climate change.
You're right, but being right doesn't change the politics of climate change.
The UK is doing its part by reducing emissions. Let's hope other more populous countries follow suit.
But other, poorer countries, simply point to emissions per capita (and possibly historic emissions) and ask why they should slow down economic growth.
You're right that the atmosphere doesn't care about emissions per capita but politicians with something to lose do, and the atmosphere doesn't get a vote.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 18m Interesting how the focus of the Omicron discussion has changed. First it was deaths. Then hospitalisations. Then staff-shortages. It's now moving towards Long Covid. And a broader "NHS under constant pressure" narrative. We need a proper debate about how we prioritise all this.
Yes, and the staff shortages are due to stupid isolation rules and test shortages. They are entirely self inflicted. NHS capacity is a valid longer term discussion, however, any decision on short term restrictions won't take this into account because it's just a general underlying problem of running healthcare without strategic reserve capacity (because we don't want to pay 20% more tax, understandably).
The rules are not 'stupid'; over-cautious in the light of experience, perhaps. Agree with you about the inanity of running without a reserve capacity.
What to do in retirement if you are a medic ... and the fossils are seriously good anyway (have had happy hours exploring the beaches with collecting friends).
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
We have certainly made very large reductions which is great news. But our per capita emissions are still higher than many other wealthy European countries like France, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland... as well as obviously being far higher than poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
The atmosphere doesn’t care about emissions per capita. It’s total emissions that are driving climate change.
You're right, but being right doesn't change the politics of climate change.
Nailed it.
The zealots on both extremes don't care what's right and wrong. This is religion to them.
Um, a circular statement there. What zealots are zealots about, is like a religion to them. No shit Sherlock. In the mean time you are happy to offshore your emissions to China, import emission limiting gear from China, and blame them because we got on the industrialising ladder quicker than they did. A bit like running someone over and charging them with criminal damage to your car.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
I have not been to Canada sums it up
I haven't been to either, but I strongly suspect Albertian conservatism is very different to Trumpism. Just as British Conservatism is.
Alberta is the only part of Canada I've been to (in 2015) and I would say some of these comparisons are simplistic also given that Alberta elected an NDP provincial government in 2015 even while voters heavily back the Conservatives in national elections.
Clearly Alberta's economic needs are different from the rest of Canada but I don't think some of the comparisons with the US make sense.
We also saw the Canadian Liberals taking Alberta a bit more seriously in 2021, even if they only regained one riding in Calgary after they neglected it in 2019.
55% of Albertans voted Conservative last year even when Trudeau's Liberals were re elected nationally. In the 1990s of course it was the stronghold of the populist Conservative Reform Party of Canada when the Liberals were in power, Reform eventually merging with the more One Nation Progressive Conservative party who had fallen back to the Atlantic States to form today's Conservative Party of Canada in 2003
Yes although the Conservatives got 59% of the vote in Saskatchewan in 2021 so Alberta is no longer the Conservatives strongest province in Canada at the federal level. Trudeau was an extremely bad fit for Alberta but his Deputy and likely successor is actually from there and has a greater understanding of the province. The idea of Alberta breaking away is absurd and it can continue to have influence by voting Conservative at the national level while occasionally voting NDP etc at the provincial level.
Even Montana once voted for Bill Clinton, does not mean it is anything but ultra conservative overall like Alberta. Alberta has never voted Liberal or NDP at the national level.
As for Trudeau, he is the leader who got the Liberals back into government after 9 years in opposition, if he steps down at the next general election after 10 years in power I would expect O'Toole's Conservatives to win an return to power nationally while easily holding Alberta
Alberta is conservative, but it is Canadian conservative. It is not US conservative.
Your proposal that if the Americans elect a conservative and the Canadians don't that Canadian conservative provinces will join the USA and vice-versa is as prima facie absurd as suggesting that if the French elect a Conservative President and the UK elects a left-winger that Conservative areas like Epping Forest would elect to leave the UK and join France.
An Albertan conservative is actually closer to a US Republican conservative or a Farage supporter in the UK than a conservative in Eastern Canada. A UK Tory would be closer to a conservative in Eastern Canada than in Alberta or a conservative in the US red states.
Pecresse would on most issues if she wins be closer to a UK Tory than Macron, Melenchon or Le Pen or probably Zemmour would be if they win later this year but culturally France is closer to Quebec than us or the rest of North America.
What stunning insights. Have you ever thought about submitting a piece on Canadian politics for Mike to publish?
How would the rest of us be able to have our usual informed, intelligent discussion though?
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
I have not been to Canada sums it up
I haven't been to either, but I strongly suspect Albertian conservatism is very different to Trumpism. Just as British Conservatism is.
Alberta is the only part of Canada I've been to (in 2015) and I would say some of these comparisons are simplistic also given that Alberta elected an NDP provincial government in 2015 even while voters heavily back the Conservatives in national elections.
Clearly Alberta's economic needs are different from the rest of Canada but I don't think some of the comparisons with the US make sense.
We also saw the Canadian Liberals taking Alberta a bit more seriously in 2021, even if they only regained one riding in Calgary after they neglected it in 2019.
55% of Albertans voted Conservative last year even when Trudeau's Liberals were re elected nationally. In the 1990s of course it was the stronghold of the populist Conservative Reform Party of Canada when the Liberals were in power, Reform eventually merging with the more One Nation Progressive Conservative party who had fallen back to the Atlantic States to form today's Conservative Party of Canada in 2003
Yes although the Conservatives got 59% of the vote in Saskatchewan in 2021 so Alberta is no longer the Conservatives strongest province in Canada at the federal level. Trudeau was an extremely bad fit for Alberta but his Deputy and likely successor is actually from there and has a greater understanding of the province. The idea of Alberta breaking away is absurd and it can continue to have influence by voting Conservative at the national level while occasionally voting NDP etc at the provincial level.
Even Montana once voted for Bill Clinton, does not mean it is anything but ultra conservative overall like Alberta. Alberta has never voted Liberal or NDP at the national level.
As for Trudeau, he is the leader who got the Liberals back into government after 9 years in opposition, if he steps down at the next general election after 10 years in power I would expect O'Toole's Conservatives to win an return to power nationally while easily holding Alberta
Alberta is conservative, but it is Canadian conservative. It is not US conservative.
Your proposal that if the Americans elect a conservative and the Canadians don't that Canadian conservative provinces will join the USA and vice-versa is as prima facie absurd as suggesting that if the French elect a Conservative President and the UK elects a left-winger that Conservative areas like Epping Forest would elect to leave the UK and join France.
An Albertan conservative is actually closer to a US Republican conservative or a Farage supporter in the UK than a conservative in Eastern Canada. A UK Tory would be closer to a conservative in Eastern Canada than in Alberta or a conservative in the US red states.
Pecresse would on most issues if she wins be closer to a UK Tory than Macron, Melenchon or Le Pen or probably Zemmour would be if they win later this year but culturally France is closer to Quebec than us or the rest of North America.
You've never even been to Alberta. I've been there frequently as I have very close family living there.
Being lectured by you on what Alberta wants is like being leftured by you on what the Red Wall wants when I live here and you have your opinions based upon your experiences from canvassing Epping Forest.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 18m Interesting how the focus of the Omicron discussion has changed. First it was deaths. Then hospitalisations. Then staff-shortages. It's now moving towards Long Covid. And a broader "NHS under constant pressure" narrative. We need a proper debate about how we prioritise all this.
Yes, and the staff shortages are due to stupid isolation rules and test shortages. They are entirely self inflicted. NHS capacity is a valid longer term discussion, however, any decision on short term restrictions won't take this into account because it's just a general underlying problem of running healthcare without strategic reserve capacity (because we don't want to pay 20% more tax, understandably).
The rules are not 'stupid'; over-cautious in the light of experience, perhaps. Agree with you about the inanity of running without a reserve capacity.
If the biggest threat to healthcare is staff shortages and the pathway to ending staff shortages is cutting isolation times and ending it for contacts that's a really easy win. We're going to have to do it eventually so doing it now makes sense if it resolves the overnight issue of not being able to staff wards properly. Positive test staff can work on COVID wards, it doesn't make a difference whether someone who is already positive comes in contact with an asymptomatically positive doctor or nurse.
I regret to inform you France is doing the "EU institutions need to speak French" thing again. Feels half-hearted (they want to encourage eurocrats and diplomats to take lessons) but they have not given up.
You’d have thought with the UK having left they’d be more relaxed about English being the lingua franca of the EU. Ireland and Malta are unlikely to disproportionately benefit from its use…
On the subject of languages, have we covered our Saudi loving, Polish born MPs £22, 000 on Polish language lessons?
If you pay the teacher 50 quid an hour, then that's 160 hours in a year, or about 3 per week. That's just about plausible, although obviously poor value for money.
In my experience it's not usual for tutors to charge £50 an hour. £30 would be more like it, although @Dura_Ace would know more about the rate for languages (obviously)!
I normally charge £35-45 for French and £50+ for Russian but I'm pretty picky who I take on as I am not really doing it for the money. That's for A level students or preparing students for the European Commission language test. You can double (French) or triple (Russian) that for the much rarer corporate clients who don't tend to be price sensitive because they are not spending their own money.
Polish would be very cheap in the UK as we've got a huge number of native Polish speakers and quite a few qualified teachers.
As a self described ‘fluent Polish speaker’ Kawczynski could have taught himself. Wouldn’t put it past him.
BBC News - Covid: Thousands needed hospital treatment after lockdown DIY
But numerous incidents, including eight people over the age of 90 who needed hospital treatment after falling from playground equipment, were recorded.
@MattW are your solar panels setup to work if the grid is down though? Most aren’t.
I 100% agree with good building standards but I don’t agree with passivhaus mech ventilation for the same reason as above - its another thing that needs regular servicing and maintenance, and active power.
That depends what you mean by "work". I get the electricity from the panels. I do not have a battery storage system as this does not yet add up in my situation.
I've just been working out one number - on the current C02 generated per MWh of UK electricity, my solar panels save as much C02 per year as would be absorbed by 30 mature trees. Which around 3x more than would be absorbed if my house and garden were replaced by a forest. (Note that my number is not a net number).
On MVHR, my experience is that power use is in pennies per week, which is negligible in terms of even the heat lost by opening a window to ventilate.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
We have certainly made very large reductions which is great news. But our per capita emissions are still higher than many other wealthy European countries like France, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland... as well as obviously being far higher than poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
The atmosphere doesn’t care about emissions per capita. It’s total emissions that are driving climate change.
You're right, but being right doesn't change the politics of climate change.
Nailed it.
The zealots on both extremes don't care what's right and wrong. This is religion to them.
Um, a circular statement there. What zealots are zealots about, is like a religion to them. No shit Sherlock. In the mean time you are happy to offshore your emissions to China, import emission limiting gear from China, and blame them because we got on the industrialising ladder quicker than they did. A bit like running someone over and charging them with criminal damage to your car.
Except I'm not happy with that so good job.
Indeed I said and you responded to me saying that we shouldn't be taxing our electricity which is cleaner than China's. I said that we shouldn't be offshoring our emissions to China of that means more global emissions since they use dirty energy.
Finding a way to tax carbon, whether domestic or imported would be better than taxing domestic energy alone.
@MattW are your solar panels setup to work if the grid is down though? Most aren’t.
I 100% agree with good building standards but I don’t agree with passivhaus mech ventilation for the same reason as above - its another thing that needs regular servicing and maintenance, and active power.
That depends what you mean by "work". I get the electricity from the panels. I do not have a battery storage system as this does not yet add up in my situation.
I've just been working out one number - on the current C02 generated per MWh of UK electricity, my solar panels save as much C02 per year as would be absorbed by 30 mature trees. Which around 3x more than would be absorbed if my house and garden were replaced by a forest. (Note that my number is not a net number).
On MVHR, my experience is that power use is in pennies per week, which is negligible in terms of even the heat lost by opening a window to ventilate.
Most inverters do not work in a power cut, so no power from the panels.
PFI - Why borrow at 0.5% when you can do so at 7 ?
Crazy and an excellent example of a general truth about commerce.
If one party to a transaction is being driven by motives other than financial - in this case the government's desire to cook the books* - it usually means the other party gets a great deal.
* In more PC language, to keep the debt off the public balance sheet.
PFI - Why borrow at 0.5% when you can do so at 7 ?
Crazy and an excellent example of a general truth about commerce.
If one party to a transaction is being driven by motives other than financial - in this case the government's desire to cook the books* - it usually means the other party gets a great deal.
* In more PC language, to keep the debt off the public balance sheet.
Bringing PFI liabilities onto the government balance sheet basically killed it off. The treasury was no longer able to simply ignore it, well done to George Osborne for unwinding Labour's (well Brown actually) dodgy accounting trick that stripped billions away from the taxpayer to a bunch of shysters.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
Er - the odds of Alberta joining the US are about the same as you admitting a mistake.
Conservative they may be, but they're also very proud Canadians, partly because of that.
Oddly HYUFD can turn into an enthusiastic secessionist at the drop of a hat.
That doesn’t look normal. Can it really be an effort to squash Omicron completely in advance of the Olympics, or is this something else, which God-knows how many people visiting for the Games might end up taking home with them?
BBC News - Covid: Thousands needed hospital treatment after lockdown DIY
But numerous incidents, including eight people over the age of 90 who needed hospital treatment after falling from playground equipment, were recorded.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
I have not been to Canada sums it up
I haven't been to either, but I strongly suspect Albertian conservatism is very different to Trumpism. Just as British Conservatism is.
Alberta is the only part of Canada I've been to (in 2015) and I would say some of these comparisons are simplistic also given that Alberta elected an NDP provincial government in 2015 even while voters heavily back the Conservatives in national elections.
Clearly Alberta's economic needs are different from the rest of Canada but I don't think some of the comparisons with the US make sense.
We also saw the Canadian Liberals taking Alberta a bit more seriously in 2021, even if they only regained one riding in Calgary after they neglected it in 2019.
55% of Albertans voted Conservative last year even when Trudeau's Liberals were re elected nationally. In the 1990s of course it was the stronghold of the populist Conservative Reform Party of Canada when the Liberals were in power, Reform eventually merging with the more One Nation Progressive Conservative party who had fallen back to the Atlantic States to form today's Conservative Party of Canada in 2003
Yes although the Conservatives got 59% of the vote in Saskatchewan in 2021 so Alberta is no longer the Conservatives strongest province in Canada at the federal level. Trudeau was an extremely bad fit for Alberta but his Deputy and likely successor is actually from there and has a greater understanding of the province. The idea of Alberta breaking away is absurd and it can continue to have influence by voting Conservative at the national level while occasionally voting NDP etc at the provincial level.
Even Montana once voted for Bill Clinton, does not mean it is anything but ultra conservative overall like Alberta. Alberta has never voted Liberal or NDP at the national level.
As for Trudeau, he is the leader who got the Liberals back into government after 9 years in opposition, if he steps down at the next general election after 10 years in power I would expect O'Toole's Conservatives to win an return to power nationally while easily holding Alberta
Alberta is conservative, but it is Canadian conservative. It is not US conservative.
Your proposal that if the Americans elect a conservative and the Canadians don't that Canadian conservative provinces will join the USA and vice-versa is as prima facie absurd as suggesting that if the French elect a Conservative President and the UK elects a left-winger that Conservative areas like Epping Forest would elect to leave the UK and join France.
An Albertan conservative is actually closer to a US Republican conservative or a Farage supporter in the UK than a conservative in Eastern Canada. A UK Tory would be closer to a conservative in Eastern Canada than in Alberta or a conservative in the US red states.
Pecresse would on most issues if she wins be closer to a UK Tory than Macron, Melenchon or Le Pen or probably Zemmour would be if they win later this year but culturally France is closer to Quebec than us or the rest of North America.
You've never even been to Alberta. I've been there frequently as I have very close family living there.
Being lectured by you on what Alberta wants is like being leftured by you on what the Red Wall wants when I live here and you have your opinions based upon your experiences from canvassing Epping Forest.
You don't need to live somewhere to see how it votes and what it votes for
PFI - Why borrow at 0.5% when you can do so at 7 ?
Crazy and an excellent example of a general truth about commerce.
If one party to a transaction is being driven by motives other than financial - in this case the government's desire to cook the books* - it usually means the other party gets a great deal.
* In more PC language, to keep the debt off the public balance sheet.
Bringing PFI liabilities onto the government balance sheet basically killed it off. The treasury was no longer able to simply ignore it, well done to George Osborne for unwinding Labour's (well Brown actually) dodgy accounting trick that stripped billions away from the taxpayer to a bunch of shysters.
Eh? Mr Major's administration brought them in, surely.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
I have not been to Canada sums it up
I haven't been to either, but I strongly suspect Albertian conservatism is very different to Trumpism. Just as British Conservatism is.
Alberta is the only part of Canada I've been to (in 2015) and I would say some of these comparisons are simplistic also given that Alberta elected an NDP provincial government in 2015 even while voters heavily back the Conservatives in national elections.
Clearly Alberta's economic needs are different from the rest of Canada but I don't think some of the comparisons with the US make sense.
We also saw the Canadian Liberals taking Alberta a bit more seriously in 2021, even if they only regained one riding in Calgary after they neglected it in 2019.
55% of Albertans voted Conservative last year even when Trudeau's Liberals were re elected nationally. In the 1990s of course it was the stronghold of the populist Conservative Reform Party of Canada when the Liberals were in power, Reform eventually merging with the more One Nation Progressive Conservative party who had fallen back to the Atlantic States to form today's Conservative Party of Canada in 2003
Yes although the Conservatives got 59% of the vote in Saskatchewan in 2021 so Alberta is no longer the Conservatives strongest province in Canada at the federal level. Trudeau was an extremely bad fit for Alberta but his Deputy and likely successor is actually from there and has a greater understanding of the province. The idea of Alberta breaking away is absurd and it can continue to have influence by voting Conservative at the national level while occasionally voting NDP etc at the provincial level.
Even Montana once voted for Bill Clinton, does not mean it is anything but ultra conservative overall like Alberta. Alberta has never voted Liberal or NDP at the national level.
As for Trudeau, he is the leader who got the Liberals back into government after 9 years in opposition, if he steps down at the next general election after 10 years in power I would expect O'Toole's Conservatives to win an return to power nationally while easily holding Alberta
Alberta is conservative, but it is Canadian conservative. It is not US conservative.
Your proposal that if the Americans elect a conservative and the Canadians don't that Canadian conservative provinces will join the USA and vice-versa is as prima facie absurd as suggesting that if the French elect a Conservative President and the UK elects a left-winger that Conservative areas like Epping Forest would elect to leave the UK and join France.
An Albertan conservative is actually closer to a US Republican conservative or a Farage supporter in the UK than a conservative in Eastern Canada. A UK Tory would be closer to a conservative in Eastern Canada than in Alberta or a conservative in the US red states.
Pecresse would on most issues if she wins be closer to a UK Tory than Macron, Melenchon or Le Pen or probably Zemmour would be if they win later this year but culturally France is closer to Quebec than us or the rest of North America.
You've never even been to Alberta. I've been there frequently as I have very close family living there.
Being lectured by you on what Alberta wants is like being leftured by you on what the Red Wall wants when I live here and you have your opinions based upon your experiences from canvassing Epping Forest.
You don't need to live somewhere to see how it votes and what it votes for
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
I have not been to Canada sums it up
I haven't been to either, but I strongly suspect Albertian conservatism is very different to Trumpism. Just as British Conservatism is.
Alberta is the only part of Canada I've been to (in 2015) and I would say some of these comparisons are simplistic also given that Alberta elected an NDP provincial government in 2015 even while voters heavily back the Conservatives in national elections.
Clearly Alberta's economic needs are different from the rest of Canada but I don't think some of the comparisons with the US make sense.
We also saw the Canadian Liberals taking Alberta a bit more seriously in 2021, even if they only regained one riding in Calgary after they neglected it in 2019.
55% of Albertans voted Conservative last year even when Trudeau's Liberals were re elected nationally. In the 1990s of course it was the stronghold of the populist Conservative Reform Party of Canada when the Liberals were in power, Reform eventually merging with the more One Nation Progressive Conservative party who had fallen back to the Atlantic States to form today's Conservative Party of Canada in 2003
Yes although the Conservatives got 59% of the vote in Saskatchewan in 2021 so Alberta is no longer the Conservatives strongest province in Canada at the federal level. Trudeau was an extremely bad fit for Alberta but his Deputy and likely successor is actually from there and has a greater understanding of the province. The idea of Alberta breaking away is absurd and it can continue to have influence by voting Conservative at the national level while occasionally voting NDP etc at the provincial level.
Even Montana once voted for Bill Clinton, does not mean it is anything but ultra conservative overall like Alberta. Alberta has never voted Liberal or NDP at the national level.
As for Trudeau, he is the leader who got the Liberals back into government after 9 years in opposition, if he steps down at the next general election after 10 years in power I would expect O'Toole's Conservatives to win an return to power nationally while easily holding Alberta
Alberta is conservative, but it is Canadian conservative. It is not US conservative.
Your proposal that if the Americans elect a conservative and the Canadians don't that Canadian conservative provinces will join the USA and vice-versa is as prima facie absurd as suggesting that if the French elect a Conservative President and the UK elects a left-winger that Conservative areas like Epping Forest would elect to leave the UK and join France.
An Albertan conservative is actually closer to a US Republican conservative or a Farage supporter in the UK than a conservative in Eastern Canada. A UK Tory would be closer to a conservative in Eastern Canada than in Alberta or a conservative in the US red states.
Pecresse would on most issues if she wins be closer to a UK Tory than Macron, Melenchon or Le Pen or probably Zemmour would be if they win later this year but culturally France is closer to Quebec than us or the rest of North America.
You've never even been to Alberta. I've been there frequently as I have very close family living there.
Being lectured by you on what Alberta wants is like being leftured by you on what the Red Wall wants when I live here and you have your opinions based upon your experiences from canvassing Epping Forest.
You don't need to live somewhere to see how it votes and what it votes for
But you do need to go there to understand the people. Votes aren't everything and not every single person is defined by how they vote. I live in London which is a Labour city, I clearly don't vote Labour. That doesn't make me want my little part of London to declare that it's in Hertfordshire which is majority Tory.
The world isn't black and white and people aren't defined by politics.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
Er - the odds of Alberta joining the US are about the same as you admitting a mistake.
Conservative they may be, but they're also very proud Canadians, partly because of that.
Oddly HYUFD can turn into an enthusiastic secessionist at the drop of a hat.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
I have not been to Canada sums it up
I haven't been to either, but I strongly suspect Albertian conservatism is very different to Trumpism. Just as British Conservatism is.
Alberta is the only part of Canada I've been to (in 2015) and I would say some of these comparisons are simplistic also given that Alberta elected an NDP provincial government in 2015 even while voters heavily back the Conservatives in national elections.
Clearly Alberta's economic needs are different from the rest of Canada but I don't think some of the comparisons with the US make sense.
We also saw the Canadian Liberals taking Alberta a bit more seriously in 2021, even if they only regained one riding in Calgary after they neglected it in 2019.
55% of Albertans voted Conservative last year even when Trudeau's Liberals were re elected nationally. In the 1990s of course it was the stronghold of the populist Conservative Reform Party of Canada when the Liberals were in power, Reform eventually merging with the more One Nation Progressive Conservative party who had fallen back to the Atlantic States to form today's Conservative Party of Canada in 2003
Yes although the Conservatives got 59% of the vote in Saskatchewan in 2021 so Alberta is no longer the Conservatives strongest province in Canada at the federal level. Trudeau was an extremely bad fit for Alberta but his Deputy and likely successor is actually from there and has a greater understanding of the province. The idea of Alberta breaking away is absurd and it can continue to have influence by voting Conservative at the national level while occasionally voting NDP etc at the provincial level.
Even Montana once voted for Bill Clinton, does not mean it is anything but ultra conservative overall like Alberta. Alberta has never voted Liberal or NDP at the national level.
As for Trudeau, he is the leader who got the Liberals back into government after 9 years in opposition, if he steps down at the next general election after 10 years in power I would expect O'Toole's Conservatives to win an return to power nationally while easily holding Alberta
Alberta is conservative, but it is Canadian conservative. It is not US conservative.
Your proposal that if the Americans elect a conservative and the Canadians don't that Canadian conservative provinces will join the USA and vice-versa is as prima facie absurd as suggesting that if the French elect a Conservative President and the UK elects a left-winger that Conservative areas like Epping Forest would elect to leave the UK and join France.
An Albertan conservative is actually closer to a US Republican conservative or a Farage supporter in the UK than a conservative in Eastern Canada. A UK Tory would be closer to a conservative in Eastern Canada than in Alberta or a conservative in the US red states.
Pecresse would on most issues if she wins be closer to a UK Tory than Macron, Melenchon or Le Pen or probably Zemmour would be if they win later this year but culturally France is closer to Quebec than us or the rest of North America.
You've never even been to Alberta. I've been there frequently as I have very close family living there.
Being lectured by you on what Alberta wants is like being leftured by you on what the Red Wall wants when I live here and you have your opinions based upon your experiences from canvassing Epping Forest.
You don't need to live somewhere to see how it votes and what it votes for
I declare that Epping votes Plaid Cymru.
I know this because some bloke I read on the internet once told me he voted Plaid.
I don't care what everyone who's ever been there said, you don't need to have visited it to know how somewhere votes.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
We have certainly made very large reductions which is great news. But our per capita emissions are still higher than many other wealthy European countries like France, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland... as well as obviously being far higher than poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
We get there through massive wind investment, not hair shirt microconsumerist bollocks.
I think of those countries listed, only Portugal is applicable as a comparison - France has a very long established nuclear sector which economically we won't be able to replicate (See Hinkley C); Switzerland and Sweden have hydro resources we simply don't have. The UK's advantage is wind.
Happy for whatever route makes sense to be chosen. Unclear to me why we can't replicate France's nuclear sector, presumably we just need to invest in it and make sure we get some of skills transfer to stay in country?
As I recall Hinckley C was hamstrung because EDF are borrowing at 9% when the government can borrow at 2%. Makes a big difference over 30+ years.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
No way will that happen!
Culturally however there is no doubt Alberta has more in common with Wyoming for example than Ontario. New England too has more in common with the Atlantic States of Canada than Texas
If you really believe that then I refuse to believe you've ever been to any of the places you mention.
I have been to the North East of the US, California, Pennsylvavia and briefly to Texas. I have not been to Canada as such but the voting patterns are clear enough.
Culturally economically Alberta is economically for small government and socially conservative ie closer to Wyoming than the socially liberal, more big government East of Canada.
Liberal left, socially liberal Democrat voting Massachussetts and Vermont are also closer to the culturally similar Canadian Atlantic States than they are to very rightwing Texas
I have not been to Canada sums it up
I haven't been to either, but I strongly suspect Albertian conservatism is very different to Trumpism. Just as British Conservatism is.
Alberta is the only part of Canada I've been to (in 2015) and I would say some of these comparisons are simplistic also given that Alberta elected an NDP provincial government in 2015 even while voters heavily back the Conservatives in national elections.
Clearly Alberta's economic needs are different from the rest of Canada but I don't think some of the comparisons with the US make sense.
We also saw the Canadian Liberals taking Alberta a bit more seriously in 2021, even if they only regained one riding in Calgary after they neglected it in 2019.
55% of Albertans voted Conservative last year even when Trudeau's Liberals were re elected nationally. In the 1990s of course it was the stronghold of the populist Conservative Reform Party of Canada when the Liberals were in power, Reform eventually merging with the more One Nation Progressive Conservative party who had fallen back to the Atlantic States to form today's Conservative Party of Canada in 2003
Which merger led to the Maritimes becoming a Liberal redoubt barely a decade later.
Not really. Even the Progressive Conservatives only won 1 MP in the Maritimes States in 1993, 10 in 1997 and 7 in 2000.
The Conservative Party of Canada won 13 MPs in 2011 there by contrast and even in 2021 the CPC won 7 MPs in the Maritimes
And none at all in 2015. The Liberals won every seat East of Quebec.
The CPC was also defeated nationally in 2015, heavily.
However the point remains post creation of the CPC and the merger of the Progressive Conservatives with what was the Reform Party, the CPC generally wins about as many seats in the Maritimes and Eastern Canada as the Progressive Conservatives did in the 1990s.
However the CPC also wins most of the seats in western Canada the Progressive Conservatives never won a single seat in unlike the Reform Party and also significant numbers of seats in Ontario (under Harper in 2008 and 2011 the CPC even won most seats in Ontario).
PFI - Why borrow at 0.5% when you can do so at 7 ?
Crazy and an excellent example of a general truth about commerce.
If one party to a transaction is being driven by motives other than financial - in this case the government's desire to cook the books* - it usually means the other party gets a great deal.
* In more PC language, to keep the debt off the public balance sheet.
Bringing PFI liabilities onto the government balance sheet basically killed it off. The treasury was no longer able to simply ignore it, well done to George Osborne for unwinding Labour's (well Brown actually) dodgy accounting trick that stripped billions away from the taxpayer to a bunch of shysters.
Eh? Mr Major's administration brought them in, surely.
Yes for limited use, Brown saw the magic of being able to book literally tens of billions in future liability off the balance sheet so PFI became a cottage industry for thieves, fraudsters and shysters looking for a quick payday. Get a contract signed at outrageous mark ups, then get the state to buy that contract out for a little bit less than the book value but still a huge, huge markup on the work delivered.
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
Er - the odds of Alberta joining the US are about the same as you admitting a mistake.
Conservative they may be, but they're also very proud Canadians, partly because of that.
Oddly HYUFD can turn into an enthusiastic secessionist at the drop of a hat.
Just looked up Epping in Wikipedia and find, slightly to my surprise, that although it's in a Conservative Parliamentary seat, the Council Council seat is Lib Dem.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 18m Interesting how the focus of the Omicron discussion has changed. First it was deaths. Then hospitalisations. Then staff-shortages. It's now moving towards Long Covid. And a broader "NHS under constant pressure" narrative. We need a proper debate about how we prioritise all this.
Yes, and the staff shortages are due to stupid isolation rules and test shortages. They are entirely self inflicted. NHS capacity is a valid longer term discussion, however, any decision on short term restrictions won't take this into account because it's just a general underlying problem of running healthcare without strategic reserve capacity (because we don't want to pay 20% more tax, understandably).
The rules are not 'stupid'; over-cautious in the light of experience, perhaps. Agree with you about the inanity of running without a reserve capacity.
If the biggest threat to healthcare is staff shortages and the pathway to ending staff shortages is cutting isolation times and ending it for contacts that's a really easy win. We're going to have to do it eventually so doing it now makes sense if it resolves the overnight issue of not being able to staff wards properly. Positive test staff can work on COVID wards, it doesn't make a difference whether someone who is already positive comes in contact with an asymptomatically positive doctor or nurse.
It is surprising we did not cut isolation time to five days as soon as the American CDC did, and astonishing we still have not done so, especially as the test shortage means no early escape for many. This cut would immediately ease staff shortages across the economy as well as in hospitals, and reduce demand for tests.
After a poll that suggests 54% think we were barking mad LEAVING and only 34% thinking it was a good decision? Despite having a Tory/UKIP government?
Are you being serious?
I'd say it's time for the REJOINERS (or similar) to mobilise.
At the lowest point in the conservative administration with problems everywhere including with the EU only 24% seek to rejoin, then that has to be a sobering thought no matter you want to see it differently
It depends how you look at it. If they'd asked the normal question 'Do you think we made the right or wrong decision leaving the EU?" The figures would have been 54% saying wrong 34% saying right.
You don't have to be Maurice and Charles Saatchi to realise that you have an excellent base with which to launch a campaign. In effect a large majority are saying they'd prefer to be in the EU but rejoining is too much trouble.
All we need is a change of government with the SNP/Libs giving Labour their majority and the rest should be relatively straightforward
Just looked up Epping in Wikipedia and find, slightly to my surprise, that although it's in a Conservative Parliamentary seat, the Council Council seat is Lib Dem.
The county council seat of Epping and Theydon Bois is Conservative as are the district council seats of Epping Lindsey and Thornwood and Theydon Bois. However, yes the district council seat of Epping Hemnall is LD and there are also 3 LD town councillors
"The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? Thomas Homer-Dixon"
Gilead is coming. They aren't going to accept being voted out of power again.
Could be a very large refugee problem at the Canada border in a few years time. The Canadians would do well to prepare.
If Trump returns to power in 2024 you could even get some of the conservative western Canadian States like Alberta looking to join the US while some of the liberal US States in New England, the upper Midwest and Pacific West coast seek to break away and join Trudeau's Canada
Er - the odds of Alberta joining the US are about the same as you admitting a mistake.
Conservative they may be, but they're also very proud Canadians, partly because of that.
Oddly HYUFD can turn into an enthusiastic secessionist at the drop of a hat.
Are we talking about Alberta or Antrim?
Orkney, I believe
And London for that matter - or was that someone else on PB?
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
We have certainly made very large reductions which is great news. But our per capita emissions are still higher than many other wealthy European countries like France, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland... as well as obviously being far higher than poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
The atmosphere doesn’t care about emissions per capita. It’s total emissions that are driving climate change.
You're right, but being right doesn't change the politics of climate change.
The UK is doing its part by reducing emissions. Let's hope other more populous countries follow suit.
But other, poorer countries, simply point to emissions per capita (and possibly historic emissions) and ask why they should slow down economic growth.
You're right that the atmosphere doesn't care about emissions per capita but politicians with something to lose do, and the atmosphere doesn't get a vote.
Talking about historic emissions there is a move towards climate reparations from wealthy nations, like ours, to poorer nations for historic emissions. It is certainly gaining support in some parts of the labour movement. Although historic emissions from 1750-1950 is small compared to where we are now.
Just looked up Epping in Wikipedia and find, slightly to my surprise, that although it's in a Conservative Parliamentary seat, the Council Council seat is Lib Dem.
The county council seat of Epping and Theydon Bois is Conservative as are the district council seats of Epping Lindsey and Thornwood and Theydon Bois. However, yes the district council seat of Epping Hemnall is LD and there are also 3 LD town councillors
Theydon Bois sounds a little too French for my liking.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
We have certainly made very large reductions which is great news. But our per capita emissions are still higher than many other wealthy European countries like France, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland... as well as obviously being far higher than poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
The atmosphere doesn’t care about emissions per capita. It’s total emissions that are driving climate change.
You're right, but being right doesn't change the politics of climate change.
The UK is doing its part by reducing emissions. Let's hope other more populous countries follow suit.
But other, poorer countries, simply point to emissions per capita (and possibly historic emissions) and ask why they should slow down economic growth.
You're right that the atmosphere doesn't care about emissions per capita but politicians with something to lose do, and the atmosphere doesn't get a vote.
Talking about historic emissions there is a move towards climate reparations from wealthy nations, like ours, to poorer nations for historic emissions. It is certainly gaining support in some parts of the labour movement. Although historic emissions from 1750-1950 is small compared to where we are now.
That's quite the leap. I don't agree with reparations of any kind, personally.
Fair enough, agreement on objectives is a good start. I'm pragmatic enough not to favour much levelling down in the south, as we need to win a consensus. Where I would tend to level down is wealth rathrer than income. The fuss about stock market brokers (and Truss) having boozy lunches is a distraction from the quite astonishing gap between people with vast, often mostly inherited, stockpiles and people who are permanently in debt and see every payday as a desperate glint of temporary relief.
I really like the Swiss model of a small wealth tax levied each year on assets over a large sum (let's say £2 million in assets, including homes), which also serves an economic function, as it encourages wealth-owners to do something with their wealth rather than have it just sit there. Anecdotally, my father used to talk about his cousin John (the elder brother of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viscount_Stuart_of_Findhorn), who was apparently a charming, other-worldly man with no real idea or interest in how far his estate extended. If he'd been nudged to sell off half a per cent of it each year for development or farming or even rewilding, I expect he'd have been fine with it.
Assets to include net present value of defined benefit pensions I take it ?
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
We have certainly made very large reductions which is great news. But our per capita emissions are still higher than many other wealthy European countries like France, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland... as well as obviously being far higher than poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
The atmosphere doesn’t care about emissions per capita. It’s total emissions that are driving climate change.
You're right, but being right doesn't change the politics of climate change.
The UK is doing its part by reducing emissions. Let's hope other more populous countries follow suit.
But other, poorer countries, simply point to emissions per capita (and possibly historic emissions) and ask why they should slow down economic growth.
You're right that the atmosphere doesn't care about emissions per capita but politicians with something to lose do, and the atmosphere doesn't get a vote.
Talking about historic emissions there is a move towards climate reparations from wealthy nations, like ours, to poorer nations for historic emissions. It is certainly gaining support in some parts of the labour movement. Although historic emissions from 1750-1950 is small compared to where we are now.
That's quite the leap. I don't agree with reparations of any kind, personally.
How do our total emissions per capita compare to China ? All the charts are present emissions, has anyone bothered to work this out
if there is to be a Labour government soon, Keir will do well to learn from the Democrats in the US. Any government must not be too conservative. Only radical levelling up will do.
Just looked up Epping in Wikipedia and find, slightly to my surprise, that although it's in a Conservative Parliamentary seat, the Council Council seat is Lib Dem.
The county council seat of Epping and Theydon Bois is Conservative as are the district council seats of Epping Lindsey and Thornwood and Theydon Bois. However, yes the district council seat of Epping Hemnall is LD and there are also 3 LD town councillors
Just looked up Epping in Wikipedia and find, slightly to my surprise, that although it's in a Conservative Parliamentary seat, the Council Council seat is Lib Dem.
The county council seat of Epping and Theydon Bois is Conservative as are the district council seats of Epping Lindsey and Thornwood and Theydon Bois. However, yes the district council seat of Epping Hemnall is LD and there are also 3 LD town councillors
Theydon Bois sounds a little too French for my liking.
It’s such a fantastic name. Living on the west side of the central line, I have often been tempted to stay on as it progresses through London and out east just to see this, to me, mythical place. I never have though.
Just looked up Epping in Wikipedia and find, slightly to my surprise, that although it's in a Conservative Parliamentary seat, the Council Council seat is Lib Dem.
The county council seat of Epping and Theydon Bois is Conservative as are the district council seats of Epping Lindsey and Thornwood and Theydon Bois. However, yes the district council seat of Epping Hemnall is LD and there are also 3 LD town councillors
Theydon Bois sounds a little too French for my liking.
Haven't been there for a while but IIRC there was an NHS training unit there. Nice place; Victorian house with woods around it.
Just looked up Epping in Wikipedia and find, slightly to my surprise, that although it's in a Conservative Parliamentary seat, the Council Council seat is Lib Dem.
The county council seat of Epping and Theydon Bois is Conservative as are the district council seats of Epping Lindsey and Thornwood and Theydon Bois. However, yes the district council seat of Epping Hemnall is LD and there are also 3 LD town councillors
Just looked up Epping in Wikipedia and find, slightly to my surprise, that although it's in a Conservative Parliamentary seat, the Council Council seat is Lib Dem.
The county council seat of Epping and Theydon Bois is Conservative as are the district council seats of Epping Lindsey and Thornwood and Theydon Bois. However, yes the district council seat of Epping Hemnall is LD and there are also 3 LD town councillors
Theydon Bois sounds a little too French for my liking.
It’s such a fantastic name. Living on the west side of the central line, I have often been tempted to stay on as it progresses through London and out east just to see this, to me, mythical place. I never have though.
Morning is best to see Theydon Bois. Or afternoon. But not evening as Theydon Bois is at the forefront of Britain's fight against global warming by not having street lights.
@MattW are your solar panels setup to work if the grid is down though? Most aren’t.
I 100% agree with good building standards but I don’t agree with passivhaus mech ventilation for the same reason as above - its another thing that needs regular servicing and maintenance, and active power.
That depends what you mean by "work". I get the electricity from the panels. I do not have a battery storage system as this does not yet add up in my situation.
I've just been working out one number - on the current C02 generated per MWh of UK electricity, my solar panels save as much C02 per year as would be absorbed by 30 mature trees. Which around 3x more than would be absorbed if my house and garden were replaced by a forest. (Note that my number is not a net number).
On MVHR, my experience is that power use is in pennies per week, which is negligible in terms of even the heat lost by opening a window to ventilate.
Most inverters do not work in a power cut, so no power from the panels.
Indeed not, as they need the a/c incoming supply to synchronise the phase with the a/c output. You’d need a battery or large capacitor in the middle of the circuit, for it to be able to re-sync when the mains power comes back on. We use similar technology in computer UPS systems.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
Because we have a. offshored our emissions to China and b. installed a huge number of renewable energy gizmos which are designed and manufactured in Hull (kidding).
If you look at consumption based data, the UK is still at the forefront of fixing it.
And our emissions per pop are now well below China's in production terms, and about the same in consumption terms. Crossover on the latter is probably this year.
And for that same level of consumption based emissions, we generate 500% as much GDP.
Just looked up Epping in Wikipedia and find, slightly to my surprise, that although it's in a Conservative Parliamentary seat, the Council Council seat is Lib Dem.
The county council seat of Epping and Theydon Bois is Conservative as are the district council seats of Epping Lindsey and Thornwood and Theydon Bois. However, yes the district council seat of Epping Hemnall is LD and there are also 3 LD town councillors
Theydon Bois sounds a little too French for my liking.
It’s such a fantastic name. Living on the west side of the central line, I have often been tempted to stay on as it progresses through London and out east just to see this, to me, mythical place. I never have though.
Morning is best to see Theydon Bois. Or afternoon. But not evening as Theydon Bois is at the forefront of Britain's fight against global warming by not having street lights.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
Letter to nz newspaper 1912
“The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries."
But given that we are doing pretty much sod all, knowing what we know now, they still get a pass.
Where is Stock and how do we get to it to collect them?
Just outside Billericay, on the road to Chelmsford. Thinks of itself as very upmarket. Claim to fame is that is for some years represented on the Council by Lord Hanningfield.
Just looked up Epping in Wikipedia and find, slightly to my surprise, that although it's in a Conservative Parliamentary seat, the Council Council seat is Lib Dem.
The county council seat of Epping and Theydon Bois is Conservative as are the district council seats of Epping Lindsey and Thornwood and Theydon Bois. However, yes the district council seat of Epping Hemnall is LD and there are also 3 LD town councillors
Theydon Bois sounds a little too French for my liking.
Haven't been there for a while but IIRC there was an NHS training unit there. Nice place; Victorian house with woods around it.
Also very expensive and the highest average house prices in Epping Forest at £844956.
PFI - Why borrow at 0.5% when you can do so at 7 ?
Crazy and an excellent example of a general truth about commerce.
If one party to a transaction is being driven by motives other than financial - in this case the government's desire to cook the books* - it usually means the other party gets a great deal.
* In more PC language, to keep the debt off the public balance sheet.
Bringing PFI liabilities onto the government balance sheet basically killed it off. The treasury was no longer able to simply ignore it, well done to George Osborne for unwinding Labour's (well Brown actually) dodgy accounting trick that stripped billions away from the taxpayer to a bunch of shysters.
I'm no buyer of the "Brown crashed the economy" narrative but I do mark him down for certain things and this one - going nuts with PFI - is right at the top of that list. I worked on a few of the contracts and you got a sense of unreality about wtf you were doing. The numbers were all just fiddled to get the outcome predetermined as the only acceptable one - risk off the books and target contractor profit met.
BBC News - Covid: Thousands needed hospital treatment after lockdown DIY
But numerous incidents, including eight people over the age of 90 who needed hospital treatment after falling from playground equipment, were recorded.
Just looked up Epping in Wikipedia and find, slightly to my surprise, that although it's in a Conservative Parliamentary seat, the Council Council seat is Lib Dem.
The county council seat of Epping and Theydon Bois is Conservative as are the district council seats of Epping Lindsey and Thornwood and Theydon Bois. However, yes the district council seat of Epping Hemnall is LD and there are also 3 LD town councillors
Theydon Bois sounds a little too French for my liking.
Nearly 20° in Alaska at the end of December. We are destroying this world.
I take it you'll be protesting outside the Chinese embassy ?
Per capita, including historical emissions, UK has contributed 4-5x China.
What possible reason would you include historical emissions, except to show how much progress the UK has made?
Plus of course the UK and China don't have the same population.
Unless you want to act like 1984's Big Brother you can't undo the past, you can only determine the future.
If we are assigning responsibility, it's helpful to look at what has happened in the past. Since the UK has had a large role in causing the problem, we ought to be at the forefront of trying to fix it.
I'm prepared to give people of the 19th and early 20th century a pass because they probably didn't know climate change would be a problem.
And looking at the change from the UK's emissions of the past to the emissions of the present its clear that we are at the forefront of trying to fix it.
We have certainly made very large reductions which is great news. But our per capita emissions are still higher than many other wealthy European countries like France, Sweden, Portugal, Switzerland... as well as obviously being far higher than poorer countries in Africa and Asia.
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
The atmosphere doesn’t care about emissions per capita. It’s total emissions that are driving climate change.
You're right, but being right doesn't change the politics of climate change.
The UK is doing its part by reducing emissions. Let's hope other more populous countries follow suit.
But other, poorer countries, simply point to emissions per capita (and possibly historic emissions) and ask why they should slow down economic growth.
You're right that the atmosphere doesn't care about emissions per capita but politicians with something to lose do, and the atmosphere doesn't get a vote.
Talking about historic emissions there is a move towards climate reparations from wealthy nations, like ours, to poorer nations for historic emissions. It is certainly gaining support in some parts of the labour movement. Although historic emissions from 1750-1950 is small compared to where we are now.
That's quite the leap. I don't agree with reparations of any kind, personally.
How do our total emissions per capita compare to China ? All the charts are present emissions, has anyone bothered to work this out
Just looked up Epping in Wikipedia and find, slightly to my surprise, that although it's in a Conservative Parliamentary seat, the Council Council seat is Lib Dem.
The county council seat of Epping and Theydon Bois is Conservative as are the district council seats of Epping Lindsey and Thornwood and Theydon Bois. However, yes the district council seat of Epping Hemnall is LD and there are also 3 LD town councillors
Theydon Bois sounds a little too French for my liking.
Haven't been there for a while but IIRC there was an NHS training unit there. Nice place; Victorian house with woods around it.
Also very expensive and the highest average house prices in Epping Forest at £844956.
It is hard to see Truss not making the final two and if she is there then she's in with a strong chance.
Why are you sure she will make the final two? Do you know what level of MP support she has?
From above, if say Sunak, Truss, Gove, Javid, Hunt and either Baker/Harper stood in a contest, which two would come through.
I don't know but my best guess would be Sunak and Hunt. Possibly Sunak and Baker/or Harper. And Gove had decent support in the 2019 (narrowly beaten by Hunt into second place). I'm far from convinced that Truss has the MPs' support.
My feel at the moment is the candidate from the pro-Brexit / Blue Collar / economically interventionist wing will make the final round. That grouping is clearly on manoeuvres (eg the letter to the Telegraph), know they have the numbers to get far (the near 100 MPs rebelling against Boris for a start) and have opinions that should appeal to many of the base.
What might be interesting are the shorts. Jeremy Hunt is a classic example of a bet where us sophisticated elites of PB.com project our own views onto the base. Truss is close by.
Do you think blue collar/interventionist has a significant following amongst the Tory members?
I think they will base their vote on who is the best placed leader to keep the Tories in power. I’m sure @HYUFD has a better view than me but I would imagine the base has moved right wards in recent years as many of the pro-EU, socially liberal types have become less comfortable.
From a betting standpoint for next Tory leader, I think the value bets are from that part of the party.
Yes. But the membership is overwhelmingly older, wealthier and more SE based than the electorate as a whole. I can't see them wanting anything approaching a levelling up agenda. Culture War and cuts yes. Culture War isn't blue collar necessarily.
Who would be against levelling up? On what basis? As an old fart of Conservative disposition in the Home Counties I would love to see successful levelling up.
Levelling up yes, as long as it does not mean levelling you down with higher tax rises on the South to pay for more spending on the redwall
There is your real Tory speaking , as long as "I am all right Jack" you peasants can F off. There will never be levelling up under the Tories , they are too selfish and greedy.
You must not attack his entitlement to a one million pound tax free inheritance Malc
And happy new year to you and your family
Hello G, Hope 2022 is a great one for you and your family. I am almost over Covid , just in time to go back to work. be happier when this miserable weather is gone .
Hello Malky. It is indeed dreich and I don't have Covid! Edit: weather's grey enough in itself without that as well, I mean ...
Hello Carnyx, yes but buds are already out, will soon be spring
Moreover, it isn’t accurate. They’re not to be tested *before* starting back, they are to be tested *on* starting back. Given the numbers to be tested that will have to go ahead as stated because there is no time to make changes (most schools starting back tomorrow).
I am very rapidly coming to the conclusion that every single member of the DfE is actively out to destroy education, rather than just being thick as mince. The whole thing is spinning to try and look as if they’re doing something to conceal the fact they have completely failed to take the only two measures that would work - smaller classes and air filters.
And yet the media aren’t even asking the basic questions about this.
Yep. I wasn't paying close attention TBH but they were interviewing Zahawi on the TV a few minutes ago, and most of the discussion seemed to revolve around masks, before it moved on to generic stuff about the NHS and staff absences.
Leaky cotton or paper masks are almost certainly useless against Omicron and, therefore, constitute futile something-must-be-done-ism, but they are also highly visible and a nuisance, divisive imposition which therefore attracts a lot of media attention and argument. Ventilation is boring so nobody's interested in talking about it.
They had a go on R4, but Zahawi rather determinedly avoided the awkward questions.
What questions did they ask, can you remember?
So far nothing from my school, but they may simply have been caught by surprise.
Something along the lines of are basic masks if any utility against Omicron, but Zahawi just moved on to other stuff and ignored the attempt at a follow up question.
Thanks for the reply but - Hmph. That says a lot. Not in a good way.
I had hopes when Zahawi was appointed that he would finally kick some arse at the DfE. So far, he has mostly been a disappointment.
Just another windbag chancer, none of this lot have any talent. Just a large team of grifters and /or dumplings.
Yes but TBF Malc you think that of every politician except Alex Salmond, Ken Clarke and possibly Joanna Cherry.
I occasionally get the (slightly unfair) impression that malcolm despises anyone who isn't him.
I seem to get on with him ok. He has made some very pleasant responses to some of my posts. Should I be worried?
Yes! This is the man that is still a fan of Alex Salmond, the only politician that I am aware of that has been described by his own QC as "a bully and a sex pest", and also described IIRC as similar by his successor.
Scumbags are out now I see, the bottom feeder of bottom feeders, Back under your rock you sad cretinous 10lb of shit in a 5lb bag.
Moreover, it isn’t accurate. They’re not to be tested *before* starting back, they are to be tested *on* starting back. Given the numbers to be tested that will have to go ahead as stated because there is no time to make changes (most schools starting back tomorrow).
I am very rapidly coming to the conclusion that every single member of the DfE is actively out to destroy education, rather than just being thick as mince. The whole thing is spinning to try and look as if they’re doing something to conceal the fact they have completely failed to take the only two measures that would work - smaller classes and air filters.
And yet the media aren’t even asking the basic questions about this.
Yep. I wasn't paying close attention TBH but they were interviewing Zahawi on the TV a few minutes ago, and most of the discussion seemed to revolve around masks, before it moved on to generic stuff about the NHS and staff absences.
Leaky cotton or paper masks are almost certainly useless against Omicron and, therefore, constitute futile something-must-be-done-ism, but they are also highly visible and a nuisance, divisive imposition which therefore attracts a lot of media attention and argument. Ventilation is boring so nobody's interested in talking about it.
They had a go on R4, but Zahawi rather determinedly avoided the awkward questions.
What questions did they ask, can you remember?
So far nothing from my school, but they may simply have been caught by surprise.
Something along the lines of are basic masks if any utility against Omicron, but Zahawi just moved on to other stuff and ignored the attempt at a follow up question.
Thanks for the reply but - Hmph. That says a lot. Not in a good way.
I had hopes when Zahawi was appointed that he would finally kick some arse at the DfE. So far, he has mostly been a disappointment.
Just another windbag chancer, none of this lot have any talent. Just a large team of grifters and /or dumplings.
Yes but TBF Malc you think that of every politician except Alex Salmond, Ken Clarke and possibly Joanna Cherry.
I occasionally get the (slightly unfair) impression that malcolm despises anyone who isn't him.
I seem to get on with him ok. He has made some very pleasant responses to some of my posts. Should I be worried?
kjh, you should just realise that makes you a normal decent chap , I only respond in kind to arseholes, hence why I have convivial responses with yourself.
if there is to be a Labour government soon, Keir will do well to learn from the Democrats in the US. Any government must not be too conservative. Only radical levelling up will do.
The Democrats are in serious trouble which given the state of the GP seems remarkable.
Just looked up Epping in Wikipedia and find, slightly to my surprise, that although it's in a Conservative Parliamentary seat, the Council Council seat is Lib Dem.
The county council seat of Epping and Theydon Bois is Conservative as are the district council seats of Epping Lindsey and Thornwood and Theydon Bois. However, yes the district council seat of Epping Hemnall is LD and there are also 3 LD town councillors
Theydon Bois sounds a little too French for my liking.
Haven't been there for a while but IIRC there was an NHS training unit there. Nice place; Victorian house with woods around it.
Also very expensive and the highest average house prices in Epping Forest at £844956.
if there is to be a Labour government soon, Keir will do well to learn from the Democrats in the US. Any government must not be too conservative. Only radical levelling up will do.
The Democrats are in serious trouble which given the state of the GP seems remarkable.
Yes, but this is partly because of their centrist wing, on economic questions, is holding up a lot of their potential momentum. Manchin and Sinema are holding up any social and material changes tangible and immediate enough to change the political narrative, and which might immediately be felt by people in their daily lives.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 2h This is wrong. The only way to avoid lockdowns is mitigating spread. And focused protection doesn't work- because it's impossible and unethical to isolate an entire group of people in society.
====
Erm, but it is ok and possible to isolate an entire society via lockdowns and curfews?
Or perhaps just everyone who can work from home with a decent house and garden and a salary from uni while the others trot up and down the drive delivering the foods and goods and keeping wifi running?
This is exactly the point. The advocates of lockdowns are almost always middle class professionals with spacious houses, nice gardens and the ability to make the best of the restrictions by working from home. For millions of people living in cramped accommodation with no access to green spaces and limited resources lockdown is utter hell.
Except. Most people continued working as normal. Particularly the ones in cramped accommodations.
I simply don't believe that is true. Certainly not during the first lockdown. The lack of vehicles on the roads, lack of people on public transport, points to the falsehood of that claim. Yes some people did have to continue to work normally but even they then had kids at home they had to look after because the schools were closed. Anyone who thinks lockdowns were easy or even 'normal' for the vast majority of people is not living in the real world.
Remarkable to see the vast outpouring of love, empathy and compassion for those in overcrowded housing and low paid, unfulfilling jobs. And the disdain for those with comfortable salaries and large gardens. I trust some form of equalisation of this benighted set of circumstances will be the sole consideration when the next election comes around?
Really not remarkable to see a lockdown fanatic like you misrepresenting what has been written here. There is no disdain for those with large gardens and comfortable salaries. Merely for those in that situation who are then happy to impose lockdowns on those who are not as fortunate as them. It is the blind ignorance that rankles.
I'm not a lockdown fanatic in the slightest. I don't even support one.
Richard's developing a habit of calling anyone who isn't foaming at the mouth against lockdowns as a 'lockdown fanatic'.
He doesn't seem to notice (or care) about the 'fanatics' on his side of the argument...
My 'side' of the argument is that we need no more lockdowns nothing more. There is nothing at all fanatical about that. It is loons like you and Dixie who consistently seem to deny they have consequences which can be worse than the illness they are trying to target. And the claim from Dixie that "Most people continued working as normal." during the first lockdown is so ludicrous as to be deserving of nothing but scorn.
Forget restrictions. The international evidence suggests they don’t work, the public have got the memo that Omicron is mild, and support for lockdowns and masking is sliding away.
The policy challenge should now be around the seven day isolation penalty, which is crippling services and private businesses. We have millions sitting at home with nothing much wrong with them.
Three days test and release seems a sensible compromise to me.
Moreover, it isn’t accurate. They’re not to be tested *before* starting back, they are to be tested *on* starting back. Given the numbers to be tested that will have to go ahead as stated because there is no time to make changes (most schools starting back tomorrow).
I am very rapidly coming to the conclusion that every single member of the DfE is actively out to destroy education, rather than just being thick as mince. The whole thing is spinning to try and look as if they’re doing something to conceal the fact they have completely failed to take the only two measures that would work - smaller classes and air filters.
And yet the media aren’t even asking the basic questions about this.
Yep. I wasn't paying close attention TBH but they were interviewing Zahawi on the TV a few minutes ago, and most of the discussion seemed to revolve around masks, before it moved on to generic stuff about the NHS and staff absences.
Leaky cotton or paper masks are almost certainly useless against Omicron and, therefore, constitute futile something-must-be-done-ism, but they are also highly visible and a nuisance, divisive imposition which therefore attracts a lot of media attention and argument. Ventilation is boring so nobody's interested in talking about it.
They had a go on R4, but Zahawi rather determinedly avoided the awkward questions.
What questions did they ask, can you remember?
So far nothing from my school, but they may simply have been caught by surprise.
Something along the lines of are basic masks if any utility against Omicron, but Zahawi just moved on to other stuff and ignored the attempt at a follow up question.
Thanks for the reply but - Hmph. That says a lot. Not in a good way.
I had hopes when Zahawi was appointed that he would finally kick some arse at the DfE. So far, he has mostly been a disappointment.
Just another windbag chancer, none of this lot have any talent. Just a large team of grifters and /or dumplings.
Yes but TBF Malc you think that of every politician except Alex Salmond, Ken Clarke and possibly Joanna Cherry.
First two anyway Ydoethur, jury out on Cherry. I did like Lord Tonypandy back in the day.
I have some gossip on Georgie including his connections with Julian Hodge and his predilection for...
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 18m Interesting how the focus of the Omicron discussion has changed. First it was deaths. Then hospitalisations. Then staff-shortages. It's now moving towards Long Covid. And a broader "NHS under constant pressure" narrative. We need a proper debate about how we prioritise all this.
He has called this right. We now have a case of the the NHS tail wagging the UK plc dog. It can't go on.
I’m a socialist/social democrat/centrist (delete as HYUFD deems appropriate) who believes in public services.
PUBLIC SERVICES. The clue is in the name. The grand vision of the NHS was to serve the public.
We seem to have entered some bizarre twilight zone whereby the public is supposed to serve the NHS.
It’s not a charity. That’s the point. It’s a socialist state body that was built to serve the people.
Deepti Gurdasani @dgurdasani1 · 2h This is wrong. The only way to avoid lockdowns is mitigating spread. And focused protection doesn't work- because it's impossible and unethical to isolate an entire group of people in society.
====
Erm, but it is ok and possible to isolate an entire society via lockdowns and curfews?
Or perhaps just everyone who can work from home with a decent house and garden and a salary from uni while the others trot up and down the drive delivering the foods and goods and keeping wifi running?
This is exactly the point. The advocates of lockdowns are almost always middle class professionals with spacious houses, nice gardens and the ability to make the best of the restrictions by working from home. For millions of people living in cramped accommodation with no access to green spaces and limited resources lockdown is utter hell.
Except. Most people continued working as normal. Particularly the ones in cramped accommodations.
I simply don't believe that is true. Certainly not during the first lockdown. The lack of vehicles on the roads, lack of people on public transport, points to the falsehood of that claim. Yes some people did have to continue to work normally but even they then had kids at home they had to look after because the schools were closed. Anyone who thinks lockdowns were easy or even 'normal' for the vast majority of people is not living in the real world.
Remarkable to see the vast outpouring of love, empathy and compassion for those in overcrowded housing and low paid, unfulfilling jobs. And the disdain for those with comfortable salaries and large gardens. I trust some form of equalisation of this benighted set of circumstances will be the sole consideration when the next election comes around?
Really not remarkable to see a lockdown fanatic like you misrepresenting what has been written here. There is no disdain for those with large gardens and comfortable salaries. Merely for those in that situation who are then happy to impose lockdowns on those who are not as fortunate as them. It is the blind ignorance that rankles.
I'm not a lockdown fanatic in the slightest. I don't even support one.
Richard's developing a habit of calling anyone who isn't foaming at the mouth against lockdowns as a 'lockdown fanatic'.
He doesn't seem to notice (or care) about the 'fanatics' on his side of the argument...
My 'side' of the argument is that we need no more lockdowns nothing more. There is nothing at all fanatical about that. It is loons like you and Dixie who consistently seem to deny they have consequences which can be worse than the illness they are trying to target. And the claim from Dixie that "Most people continued working as normal." during the first lockdown is so ludicrous as to be deserving of nothing but scorn.
Richard, this is exactly what I mean. You not only don't read what I write (I've mentioned lockdowns are an evil many times on here), but you then go off on one about things I have not said. So, in what way is saying 'lockdowns are an evil' denying that lockdowns have consequences? Go on, please let me know.
But I also think many people dying and the NHS failing are also evils. Like many other things, it is a case of weighing up these competing factors (in this case, evils). At the moment I'm heavily on the side of not locking down.
To make it clear: lockdowns are a tool. I don't think lockdowns should be removed from the tool cupboard, as some people seem to want.
I don't care about Dixie's claims, but it would be good if you actually understood other peoples arguments, even if you don't agree with them.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 18m Interesting how the focus of the Omicron discussion has changed. First it was deaths. Then hospitalisations. Then staff-shortages. It's now moving towards Long Covid. And a broader "NHS under constant pressure" narrative. We need a proper debate about how we prioritise all this.
Yes, and the staff shortages are due to stupid isolation rules and test shortages. They are entirely self inflicted. NHS capacity is a valid longer term discussion, however, any decision on short term restrictions won't take this into account because it's just a general underlying problem of running healthcare without strategic reserve capacity (because we don't want to pay 20% more tax, understandably).
Test shortages aren't particularly a problem, as many Trusts have arranged priority staff testing including my own. Neither are isolation rules stupid. Hospital acquired disease is a major issue, and potentially a fatal one as many patients are immunosuppressed or otherwise at significant risk.
"Living with Covid" cannot mean ignoring it, it needs to mean mitigating and managing it, and that cannot be done without either investment or cutting back in other areas.
Comments
The Conservative Party of Canada won 13 MPs in 2011 there by contrast and even in 2021 the CPC won 7 MPs in the Maritimes
@DPJHodges
·
18m
Interesting how the focus of the Omicron discussion has changed. First it was deaths. Then hospitalisations. Then staff-shortages. It's now moving towards Long Covid. And a broader "NHS under constant pressure" narrative. We need a proper debate about how we prioritise all this.
Canada might win a Stanley Cup however.
“The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries."
But given that we are doing pretty much sod all, knowing what we know now, they still get a pass.
Pecresse would on most issues if she wins be closer to a UK Tory than Macron, Melenchon or Le Pen or probably Zemmour would be if they win later this year but culturally France is closer to Quebec than us or the rest of North America.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/another-chinese-city-imposes-lockdown-to-stem-spread-of-virus/2463756
I'd like to see us leading the pack and showing the rest of the world how it's possible to be wealthy and zero emissions. I'm ambitious for my country.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movements_for_the_annexation_of_Canada_to_the_United_States
I think of those countries listed, only Portugal is applicable as a comparison - France has a very long established nuclear sector which economically we won't be able to replicate (See Hinkley C); Switzerland and Sweden have hydro resources we simply don't have.
The UK's advantage is wind.
The zealots on both extremes don't care what's right and wrong. This is religion to them.
Mrs C is most relieved. Delighted to have been able to hug her grandchildren, too.
You're right that the atmosphere doesn't care about emissions per capita but politicians with something to lose do, and the atmosphere doesn't get a vote.
What to do in retirement if you are a medic ... and the fossils are seriously good anyway (have had happy hours exploring the beaches with collecting friends).
Might interest @IanB2 too.
Being lectured by you on what Alberta wants is like being leftured by you on what the Red Wall wants when I live here and you have your opinions based upon your experiences from canvassing Epping Forest.
Wouldn’t put it past him.
But numerous incidents, including eight people over the age of 90 who needed hospital treatment after falling from playground equipment, were recorded.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59854919
I've just been working out one number - on the current C02 generated per MWh of UK electricity, my solar panels save as much C02 per year as would be absorbed by 30 mature trees. Which around 3x more than would be absorbed if my house and garden were replaced by a forest. (Note that my number is not a net number).
On MVHR, my experience is that power use is in pennies per week, which is negligible in terms of even the heat lost by opening a window to ventilate.
Indeed I said and you responded to me saying that we shouldn't be taxing our electricity which is cleaner than China's. I said that we shouldn't be offshoring our emissions to China of that means more global emissions since they use dirty energy.
Finding a way to tax carbon, whether domestic or imported would be better than taxing domestic energy alone.
If one party to a transaction is being driven by motives other than financial - in this case the government's desire to cook the books* - it usually means the other party gets a great deal.
* In more PC language, to keep the debt off the public balance sheet.
The world isn't black and white and people aren't defined by politics.
I know this because some bloke I read on the internet once told me he voted Plaid.
I don't care what everyone who's ever been there said, you don't need to have visited it to know how somewhere votes.
(Yes, this is a parody. But...)
As I recall Hinckley C was hamstrung because EDF are borrowing at 9% when the government can borrow at 2%. Makes a big difference over 30+ years.
However the point remains post creation of the CPC and the merger of the Progressive Conservatives with what was the Reform Party, the CPC generally wins about as many seats in the Maritimes and Eastern Canada as the Progressive Conservatives did in the 1990s.
However the CPC also wins most of the seats in western Canada the Progressive Conservatives never won a single seat in unlike the Reform Party and also significant numbers of seats in Ontario (under Harper in 2008 and 2011 the CPC even won most seats in Ontario).
You don't have to be Maurice and Charles Saatchi to realise that you have an excellent base with which to launch a campaign. In effect a large majority are saying they'd prefer to be in the EU but rejoining is too much trouble.
All we need is a change of government with the SNP/Libs giving Labour their majority and the rest should be relatively straightforward
All the charts are present emissions, has anyone bothered to work this out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Epping_Forest_District_Council_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Essex_County_Council_election
And our emissions per pop are now well below China's in production terms, and about the same in consumption terms. Crossover on the latter is probably this year.
And for that same level of consumption based emissions, we generate 500% as much GDP.
I think welsh availability has generally been a bit better ?
Claim to fame is that is for some years represented on the Council by Lord Hanningfield.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/theydon-bois.html
Jump down and they have a surprising table:
1. Canada
2. USA
3. Estonia
4. Australia...
8. UK
failed to make it to 2023
Forget restrictions. The international evidence suggests they don’t work, the public have got the memo that Omicron is mild, and support for lockdowns and masking is sliding away.
The policy challenge should now be around the seven day isolation penalty, which is crippling services and private businesses. We have millions sitting at home with nothing much wrong with them.
Three days test and release seems a sensible compromise to me.
PUBLIC SERVICES. The clue is in the name. The grand vision of the NHS was to serve the public.
We seem to have entered some bizarre twilight zone whereby the public is supposed to serve the NHS.
It’s not a charity. That’s the point. It’s a socialist state body that was built to serve the people.
But I also think many people dying and the NHS failing are also evils. Like many other things, it is a case of weighing up these competing factors (in this case, evils). At the moment I'm heavily on the side of not locking down.
To make it clear: lockdowns are a tool. I don't think lockdowns should be removed from the tool cupboard, as some people seem to want.
I don't care about Dixie's claims, but it would be good if you actually understood other peoples arguments, even if you don't agree with them.
"Living with Covid" cannot mean ignoring it, it needs to mean mitigating and managing it, and that cannot be done without either investment or cutting back in other areas.