At this point we have to accept they are an actively hostile power. Withdraw from any co-operation, and meanwhile encourage Putin to invade them, while maintaining Splendid Isolation
A bit of a losing battle for them though, the commission granted an indefinite waver on clearing.
It's a classic piece of triangulation.
1) Propose an action you don't really mean, but sounds cool to your supporters 2) Get told you can't because of treaties, constitution etc. 3) Don't do it. To your supporters you've been tough, but thwarted by The Rules. To others you've followed The Rules.
For Completeness here is the 6th and final result from last night. Good night for Tories overall holding their seats and getting a swing from Lab in 4 of the 5 where both stood. Very odd given National Polling
Yesterdays results are extraordinary given the news every day of how terrible the current Government is. It can't all be issues with mad local labour partys.
They are not 'extraordinary' and, yes, they can all be 'local'
I always vote for local issues in local elections, especially if they are by-elections. People tend to want to focus in local elections on, erm, local issues.
How is that not extraordinary?
Seriously, taking a handful of local by-elections as if they mean anything national, when you don't live in those wards or know the circumstances, is going down a nerdish rabbit hole.
I appreciate things are very very tough for you tories right now but swivel-eyed lunacy isn't the answer.
Clue: Rishi Sunak's calm and measured approach yesterday was really impressive (to me and others).
Why am I a Tory for just for pointing out out Labours poor performance in all 5 of the by-elections that they took part in yesterday? It may well be all down to local issues, but normally the major opposition party that has been in opposition for 12 years does not lose votes like this even in calm times, yet only the crazy times we are in now.
So come May, do you think Labour will lose votes in totality in the locals?
Absolutely not, but yesterday was the first time this year where there had been such a range of by elections in differing areas. With all that had happened in January I thought the tories vote share would be down massively and labours would be significantly up.
We were getting these types of results last October when the Tories were ahead in the polls and I was pointing out then that Labour should be winning local by-elections if they wanted to win a GE at this point in the electoral cycle. Now we have Labour around 10% clear in the polls and the local by-elections seem the same as 4 months ago before the partygate stuff happened.
I reckon if there was a market on Labour losing vote share in all 5 wards yesterday you would have got 1000/1 easily.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
At this point we have to accept they are an actively hostile power. Withdraw from any co-operation, and meanwhile encourage Putin to invade them, while maintaining Splendid Isolation
Your stupidity index just soared to an all time high.
Nevertheless, it seems an entirely nationalistic type of argument that the French keep on pushing (albeit in the intersts of an 'European market', showing again it is not only Brits who use Europe to mean EU), exactly the sort of attitude that would be criticised in the other direction.
On this one we really don't seem to be the unreasonable ones.
I see Ben Bradshaw, Labour, Exeter, is standing down. He’s No.8.
MPs not seeking re-election:
Ben Bradshaw, Lab, Exeter Alex Cunningham, Lab, Stockton North Harriet Harman, Lab, Camberwell and Peckham Margaret Hodge, Lab, Barking Barry Sheerman, Lab, Huddersfield Charles Walker, Con, Broxbourne Alan Whitehead, Con, Southampton Test
Douglas Ross, SCon, Moray
He is/was pretty good.
Whilst pondering the betting markets the other day it struck me that Chris Bryant has, so far as I recall, never been talked about as a future Labour leader. SKS isn't likely to depart any time soon in my view, so it's a moot issue, but I do rather puzzle over it. Is there a reason?
Yes. I don't think Bryant is remotely interested in being Leader. He's a backbencher par excellence, and doesn't want to change. A bit like a great teacher who never wants to be promoted out of the classroom.
Now Sajid Javid follows Sunak in distancing himself from PM over Savile:
"Keir Starmer deserves respect for taking on such a big public job and doing well [as DPP]... The Prime Minister has already clarified his remarks... I think that was important."
Maybe he's one of the briefers. With the Mail saying "the government is bracing for the potential resignation of some ministers", I wonder if he'd be one of the first most likely, that they're already working to factor in. Sacked by Boris early on and then reinstated in a more junior position, he's hardly likely to have much loyalty.
Less briefing. More action.
They're pathetic.
Yes, it's all dragging somewhat. Every other day there's predictions that "this is crunch day".
I think it will carry on for about three weeks minimum
Well, if it does I hope we never again hear about how ruthless the Tories are at getting rid of their leaders.
They're about as ruthless as a child trying - and failing - to take the skin off a rice pudding.
I suspect there are quite a lot of MPs at the moment who would not VONC him if it were tomorrow. Another few weeks and a few more revelations then they will have had enough. I may be over complicating this, but I guess MPs know how the mood is and how it is shifting. I would far prefer we have to wait a few weeks than have a failed VONC attempt
The risk is the public let him back into their good books. By 'public' I mean a large proportion of the people who were thinking "Boris" and "Brexit" rather than "Tory" when they put their cross in the Con box at GE19. They were where his landslide and big mandate came from and it was a bit of a personal one.
If he stays in place until the local elections, and they turn out not terrible, and the polls improve, in particular in those crucial seats in the North and the Midlands, then he could yet fight another general election as Tory leader. I make it about a 33% chance that this happens. Down from 50% a week ago but still more than the betting gives him.
I would not disagree. but think the tories would be in a much better place now with a new leader. It is clear that Starmer has not sealed the deal or anywhere near it yet. One reason for thye yelps of outrage on hear whenever he is criticised.
I always felt rather sorry for Jeremy Corbyn when he was Leader. He isn't, wasn't, and never has been, Leader material. The function of someone like him is to be a bit of an oddity; reminding members of the existence of similar oddities who are generally on-side but mainly can be tactfully listened to and ignored, but conversely every so often come up with a flash of brilliance. He is, I think, a classic example of the Peter Principle. Whoever persuaded him to stand, and those who signed his nomination papers, did him, and the Party, no favours whatsoever.
He got himself into a dreadful mess with his views on Palestine and Israel, and tried, so far as I could see, to ride both tigers at once. Sitting on the back benches he could express views contrary to the official ones, and there's be the odd spat and no more. As Leader, he was held to account.
Yes, I felt, and still feel, sorry for Jeremy Corbyn. I'm not a Labour member; I often, but not invariably vote for them.
I didn't. His conduct with the IRA and then sundry other terrorists who seem to have enticed him into anti-Semetism was, in my view, driven by a deep dislike of and shame for his own country. If he had a wretched time of it that is more than he deserved.
Or seeing too many sides of the question? The IRA were dealing (badly and 'unwisely') with a State where the systems had been deliberately designed to keep what they as their side down. Pre Good Friday agreement, and STV it would have been impossible for there ever to be a N. Irish Administration which wasn't dominated by Unionists.
I see Ben Bradshaw, Labour, Exeter, is standing down. He’s No.8.
MPs not seeking re-election:
Ben Bradshaw, Lab, Exeter Alex Cunningham, Lab, Stockton North Harriet Harman, Lab, Camberwell and Peckham Margaret Hodge, Lab, Barking Barry Sheerman, Lab, Huddersfield Charles Walker, Con, Broxbourne Alan Whitehead, Con, Southampton Test
Douglas Ross, SCon, Moray
That will be a hard seat for Labour to hold without his personal vote.
If Labour don't hold Exeter (10,000 majority in 2019!) Boris Johnson and/or his successor are in even bigger landslide territory... unless you are having a punt on the LDs doing a N. Shropshire.
Bradshaw really does have a HUGE personal vote. My Lib Demmy neighbours used to travel 25 miles to go and canvass for him. Without Bradshaw, it could have been quite close in 2019.
There's also a lot of new housebuilding going on around Exeter. It is certainly changing.
I'd vote for whoever could claim to cut the time from the M5 to Marsh Barton. Two hours from Cowbridge to Sowton and the best part of another hour onto the Industrial Estate. Madness!
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now)
I'll grant you that it's "European-style" in the sense of Ceaucescu's Bucharest, yes.
It's a right mess - and actually makes a difference to pedestrians who have to wait ages to to cross the bloody thing (not to mention squeezing past cars; the wider pavements now being used as parking spaces with seeming impunity). It's somehow worse all round for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, and is ugly to boot.
For anyone regularly walking into town from Ancoats it's a routine low-level nuisance.
Drives me fucking nuts. The British used to build beautiful cities. Some of the most beautiful in the world, from Edinburgh to Cambridge, central London to Bath, Winchester, Oxford, Victorian Glasgow, chunks of Liverpool, Georgian Newcastle, why the fucking fuck can't we do it now?
And if we can't do it now, just admit it, and rebuild all our cities exactly as they were before the bombs and the developers, as they are doing across central and eastern Europe, to great effect
LOOK WHAT THEY HAVE DONE IN FRANKFURT
"Our #DailyDrone shows you the reconstructed old town of #Frankfurt, which was destroyed in World War II by bombing raids. In the Dom-Römer-Projekt, the oldest core of the city was rebuilt."
Whatever party eventually proposes this in the UK will sweep local council elections. People want this. It is wildly popular in Germany
See a big chunk of Warsaw, as well.
The main problem in Britain is the architects. A bunch of moaning lefty narcissists who whine about "pastiche" if you suggest something like this
In Frankfurt there was a big political battle over the Rebuild - and it really was and is a left/right battle. The left wanted new exciting crap architecture, the right fought back, and won. And now New Old Frankfurt wins architectural prizes
I now regret 'liking' your original comment about Frankfurt, seeing what a great job they'd done on the video you linked to.
You then spoil it with a preposterous assertion about 'moaning left narcissists'. Does your culture war never end? Most of us lefties want beautiful town centres - and we're more willing to pay for them than the tax-cutting, low council tax, cut public spending righties.
But I'm correct. As ever.
The left sees the Rebuilding of Frankfurt as... er.... white supremacism. Try reading before commenting
"Is far-right ideology twisting the concept of 'heritage' in German architecture? Two restoration projects are raising fears that the idea of ‘tradition’ is being hijacked"
"Krier himself may not be fascist. Nor are most of the people involved in reconstructing the Garrison church or the new Old Town. But the defence of the political neutrality of architecture is wearing thin. Why exactly, of all the treasures lost in the war, is it so important to rebuild this particular church? Why does it so happen that Wolfschlag’s favourite buildings are imperial or Nazi? Why is Speer so fascinating?"
I'm left and I don't want any town centres. I want us to reconnect with the country. I hate the cities and I absolutely hate the internal combustion engine (though I admit I will fly to far off countries).
But then I'd like to see the complete collapse of capitalism, the end of working at 'jobs'.*
The happiest moments of my life have been with almost no money but living off the land, in far away places and without electricity or running water. I've lived in a village cut off from what other people call civilisation which was, yet, more civilised than anything I see in London these days.
But I'm also not a vegan type, which is a middle class metropolitan woke luxury. You live close to the land you need to be able to catch fish, fillet, cook and eat them.
Now Sajid Javid follows Sunak in distancing himself from PM over Savile:
"Keir Starmer deserves respect for taking on such a big public job and doing well [as DPP]... The Prime Minister has already clarified his remarks... I think that was important."
Maybe he's one of the briefers. With the Mail saying "the government is bracing for the potential resignation of some ministers", I wonder if he'd be one of the first most likely, that they're already working to factor in. Sacked by Boris early on and then reinstated in a more junior position, he's hardly likely to have much loyalty.
Less briefing. More action.
They're pathetic.
Yes, it's all dragging somewhat. Every other day there's predictions that "this is crunch day".
I think it will carry on for about three weeks minimum
Well, if it does I hope we never again hear about how ruthless the Tories are at getting rid of their leaders.
They're about as ruthless as a child trying - and failing - to take the skin off a rice pudding.
I suspect there are quite a lot of MPs at the moment who would not VONC him if it were tomorrow. Another few weeks and a few more revelations then they will have had enough. I may be over complicating this, but I guess MPs know how the mood is and how it is shifting. I would far prefer we have to wait a few weeks than have a failed VONC attempt
The risk is the public let him back into their good books. By 'public' I mean a large proportion of the people who were thinking "Boris" and "Brexit" rather than "Tory" when they put their cross in the Con box at GE19. They were where his landslide and big mandate came from and it was a bit of a personal one.
If he stays in place until the local elections, and they turn out not terrible, and the polls improve, in particular in those crucial seats in the North and the Midlands, then he could yet fight another general election as Tory leader. I make it about a 33% chance that this happens. Down from 50% a week ago but still more than the betting gives him.
I would not disagree. but think the tories would be in a much better place now with a new leader. It is clear that Starmer has not sealed the deal or anywhere near it yet. One reason for thye yelps of outrage on hear whenever he is criticised.
I don't know about yelps, but I would say it correct he has not sealed the deal. Labour has increased support, not merely Tories dropped it, and Starmer's careful approach made him a suitable focus for increased support when opportunity came. But the right opponent could wrest some support back, and the bubbling under left would clearly welcome the opportunity to hamstring him.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now)
I'll grant you that it's "European-style" in the sense of Ceaucescu's Bucharest, yes.
It's a right mess - and actually makes a difference to pedestrians who have to wait ages to to cross the bloody thing (not to mention squeezing past cars; the wider pavements now being used as parking spaces with seeming impunity). It's somehow worse all round for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, and is ugly to boot.
For anyone regularly walking into town from Ancoats it's a routine low-level nuisance.
Drives me fucking nuts. The British used to build beautiful cities. Some of the most beautiful in the world, from Edinburgh to Cambridge, central London to Bath, Winchester, Oxford, Victorian Glasgow, chunks of Liverpool, Georgian Newcastle, why the fucking fuck can't we do it now?
And if we can't do it now, just admit it, and rebuild all our cities exactly as they were before the bombs and the developers, as they are doing across central and eastern Europe, to great effect
LOOK WHAT THEY HAVE DONE IN FRANKFURT
"Our #DailyDrone shows you the reconstructed old town of #Frankfurt, which was destroyed in World War II by bombing raids. In the Dom-Römer-Projekt, the oldest core of the city was rebuilt."
Whatever party eventually proposes this in the UK will sweep local council elections. People want this. It is wildly popular in Germany
See a big chunk of Warsaw, as well.
The main problem in Britain is the architects. A bunch of moaning lefty narcissists who whine about "pastiche" if you suggest something like this
In Frankfurt there was a big political battle over the Rebuild - and it really was and is a left/right battle. The left wanted new exciting crap architecture, the right fought back, and won. And now New Old Frankfurt wins architectural prizes
I now regret 'liking' your original comment about Frankfurt, seeing what a great job they'd done on the video you linked to.
You then spoil it with a preposterous assertion about 'moaning left narcissists'. Does your culture war never end? Most of us lefties want beautiful town centres - and we're more willing to pay for them than the tax-cutting, low council tax, cut public spending righties. And us leftie greenies want town centres not given over to the motor car, which many Tories think should be given precedence over people.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now)
I'll grant you that it's "European-style" in the sense of Ceaucescu's Bucharest, yes.
It's a right mess - and actually makes a difference to pedestrians who have to wait ages to to cross the bloody thing (not to mention squeezing past cars; the wider pavements now being used as parking spaces with seeming impunity). It's somehow worse all round for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, and is ugly to boot.
For anyone regularly walking into town from Ancoats it's a routine low-level nuisance.
Drives me fucking nuts. The British used to build beautiful cities. Some of the most beautiful in the world, from Edinburgh to Cambridge, central London to Bath, Winchester, Oxford, Victorian Glasgow, chunks of Liverpool, Georgian Newcastle, why the fucking fuck can't we do it now?
And if we can't do it now, just admit it, and rebuild all our cities exactly as they were before the bombs and the developers, as they are doing across central and eastern Europe, to great effect
LOOK WHAT THEY HAVE DONE IN FRANKFURT
"Our #DailyDrone shows you the reconstructed old town of #Frankfurt, which was destroyed in World War II by bombing raids. In the Dom-Römer-Projekt, the oldest core of the city was rebuilt."
Whatever party eventually proposes this in the UK will sweep local council elections. People want this. It is wildly popular in Germany
See a big chunk of Warsaw, as well.
The main problem in Britain is the architects. A bunch of moaning lefty narcissists who whine about "pastiche" if you suggest something like this
In Frankfurt there was a big political battle over the Rebuild - and it really was and is a left/right battle. The left wanted new exciting crap architecture, the right fought back, and won. And now New Old Frankfurt wins architectural prizes
I now regret 'liking' your original comment about Frankfurt, seeing what a great job they'd done on the video you linked to.
You then spoil it with a preposterous assertion about 'moaning left narcissists'. Does your culture war never end? Most of us lefties want beautiful town centres - and we're more willing to pay for them than the tax-cutting, low council tax, cut public spending righties.
Even if he's right (and that would be something!) this constant leftie witchfinding is pointless. There are left-wing people. IF they bring their lefty values to the careers, what of it? Should people STFU about their politics just because it triggers Leon? Hardly. And does the corollary apply? Should people in finance STFU about their politics? Should small business owners keep quiet about the sorts of policies they'd like to hear?
It seems really odd that, in a place where people gather to talk about politics, certain people object so strongly to political talk. Get a fucking grip, Leon.
You're just so fucking DUMB. There comes a point when that is all that needs to be said
Architecture was politicised decades ago, and the argument about pastiche-v-modernity is massively political, in the UK, Germany, and elsewhere, and it is the Left which opposes rebuilding, as that Guardian article shows
You wittering on cluelessly in an area where you clearly know nothing does not alter the facts of the matter
As Wiki says of the last days of the Johnsonian, sorry Japanese Empire,
"Mokusatsu (黙殺) is a Japanese word meaning "ignore", "take no notice of" or "treat with silent contempt".[1][2][a][3][4] It is composed of two kanji characters: 黙 (moku "silence") and 殺 (satsu "killing"). It is one of the terms frequently cited to argue that problems encountered by Japanese in the sphere of international politics arise from misunderstandings or mistranslations of their language.[5]
[...]
It was the adoption of this term by the government of Japan that first gave rise to the prominence of the word abroad. Mokusatsu was used in a response to the Allied demand in the Potsdam Declaration that Japan surrender unconditionally in World War II. It was understood to mean that Japan had rejected those terms, a perceived outright rejection that contributed to President Harry S. Truman's decision to carry out the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,[6] implying that, in spurning the terms, Japan had brought down on its own head the destruction of those two cities.[7]
When, in 1950, an argument emerged claiming that mokusatsu had been misunderstood by the Allies due to a mistranslation that interpreted the word to signify ignore rather than withhold comment, the third edition of the authoritative Kenkyūsha Japanese-English dictionary (1954) responded by adding an innovative gloss to its former definitions[b] by stating that it also bore the meaning of 'remain in a wise and masterly inactivity'.[8]"
Except that if you read the accounts of the actions of the Japanese government, that explanation has a small problem. It's not true.
The state of play was
- Hiroshima - Nagasaki - The Russians entering the war and going through the Japanese army like a chainsaw through cheese - The Americans had run out of Japanese ships to sink, so they'd stopped building submarines. - The Americans were running low of Japanese cities to burn to the ground - Due to collapse of trade (see above) and the absence of most of the adult male population in the army, a famine was on the horizon for 1946. - Japan had run out of virtually all high tech war making materials and equipment. - They did have large chunks of the population practicing with bamboo spears.
The war cabinet met. And was split 3-3 on continuing the war. Hirohito cast a vote - which caused the military to stage a coup....
The coup was defeated, not because it was half-hearted, but because an American air raid interrupted the plotters before they could find and destroy the recording of the surrender announcement.
NO surprise really given his comments over the last few days. Surely we must be getting close.
We are nowhere near.
My estimate is 25-30 letters.
Based on what indicators?
The fact most Tory MPs don't have a backbone, moral compass or enough common sense to know that Bozo sitting in control is doing the party (and them) long term damage as they demonstrate a complete inability to deal with an obvious problem.
He’s showing why he’s lost every leadership election he’s stood in.
Don’t local governments essentially have to legally introduce these to meet the government clean air and emission targets? That’s the justification Newcastle City Council seem to give - that they’d rather not but have to…
I think there were are few cities, five or something like that, told by central government that they had to introduce them. Leeds was one, but IIRC it doesn't have to now because air quality's improved enough for it not to be needed. Whether they included Newcastle and Manchester in those I can't remember, but I wouldn't be surprised. I can't see any area introducing them without compulsion. The political pain isn't worth it, currently, I don't think.
Still a lot of resistance to this green stuff. I wonder if it'll become more accepted over time. The younger generations seem keener, the oldies generally don't care.
The slight problem with traffic = pollution, is when electric cars start to dominate.
The "particulates from tires" thing is an tempt to address that. But falls down on a funny point.
Effective electric cars need substantial cooling system to operate - the batteries and the motors are liquid cooled, which in turn uses a classic air cooling system, to cool the liquid. Since you don't want the works full of dirt, there are filters on the air intakes...
Yes, quite a few electric cars clean the air as they drive...
George Eustice was claiming the other day that EVs might be more polluting than people think due to, among other things, their greater weight resulting in increased brake wear and dust. He is apparently unaware that almost all EVs use regenerative braking and hence experience far less brake wear than ICE vehicles.
I had my (ICE) car serviced the other day and was told I have less than 10% wear on my 45,000 mile old brake pads. They asked me where I'd had them changed (wanted to make sure it was done by an approved mechanic with genuine parts) and were rather shocked to find out they were the original ones.
He’s showing why he’s lost every leadership election he’s stood in.
Don’t local governments essentially have to legally introduce these to meet the government clean air and emission targets? That’s the justification Newcastle City Council seem to give - that they’d rather not but have to…
At this point we have to accept they are an actively hostile power. Withdraw from any co-operation, and meanwhile encourage Putin to invade them, while maintaining Splendid Isolation
At this point? They have never, ever, stopped being a hostile power. The hundred years war never ended. Sure we fought in France in 1914-18, but that was for the Belgians. We did the same in 1939-45, but that was for the Belgians and the Dutch. And the French are not grateful to us for liberating them. Oh no. It was the worst thing we could do.
When Britain and France together built probably the world's most beautiful ever aircraft and fastest airliner, the Concorde, the CIA sent a message to Douglas-Home saying "Britain was biting off more than it can chew". Were it not the fuel crisis of the 1970's, it could also have single-handedly revived a major global British industry ; that had also already been partly finished off by U.S. copying of aircraft like the Comet to begin with, from the early 1950's onward.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
Part of The Lanes in Brighton has been rebuilt over the last few years. It's great - you'd approve - no brutalist modernism there. But on the other hand, because it was under the watch of a Labour then a Green Council you'd probably find a reason........
Boris Johnson has emailed Conservative MPs this afternoon vowing to give them a 'direct line' into 10 Downing Street as he battles to save his premiership.
Having a weird unreadable script for your signature seems the way most of us go. I'm not sure I would ever want to have 'best wishes', and 'yours sincerely' join that.
Sorry but my experience is that there are equal numbers of both on both sides of the divide, but the amount of wankerdom increases with the fanaticism of their position in both directions
@FT@BorisJohnson@BETAUK The government -- fearing a political backlash -- waved these concerns away as alarmist. But come November 2021, as schools made their booking, it became clear that trip numbers were indeed collapsing. /5
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now)
I'll grant you that it's "European-style" in the sense of Ceaucescu's Bucharest, yes.
It's a right mess - and actually makes a difference to pedestrians who have to wait ages to to cross the bloody thing (not to mention squeezing past cars; the wider pavements now being used as parking spaces with seeming impunity). It's somehow worse all round for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, and is ugly to boot.
For anyone regularly walking into town from Ancoats it's a routine low-level nuisance.
Drives me fucking nuts. The British used to build beautiful cities. Some of the most beautiful in the world, from Edinburgh to Cambridge, central London to Bath, Winchester, Oxford, Victorian Glasgow, chunks of Liverpool, Georgian Newcastle, why the fucking fuck can't we do it now?
And if we can't do it now, just admit it, and rebuild all our cities exactly as they were before the bombs and the developers, as they are doing across central and eastern Europe, to great effect
LOOK WHAT THEY HAVE DONE IN FRANKFURT
"Our #DailyDrone shows you the reconstructed old town of #Frankfurt, which was destroyed in World War II by bombing raids. In the Dom-Römer-Projekt, the oldest core of the city was rebuilt."
Whatever party eventually proposes this in the UK will sweep local council elections. People want this. It is wildly popular in Germany
See a big chunk of Warsaw, as well.
The main problem in Britain is the architects. A bunch of moaning lefty narcissists who whine about "pastiche" if you suggest something like this
In Frankfurt there was a big political battle over the Rebuild - and it really was and is a left/right battle. The left wanted new exciting crap architecture, the right fought back, and won. And now New Old Frankfurt wins architectural prizes
I now regret 'liking' your original comment about Frankfurt, seeing what a great job they'd done on the video you linked to.
You then spoil it with a preposterous assertion about 'moaning left narcissists'. Does your culture war never end? Most of us lefties want beautiful town centres - and we're more willing to pay for them than the tax-cutting, low council tax, cut public spending righties.
But I'm correct. As ever.
The left sees the Rebuilding of Frankfurt as... er.... white supremacism. Try reading before commenting
"Is far-right ideology twisting the concept of 'heritage' in German architecture? Two restoration projects are raising fears that the idea of ‘tradition’ is being hijacked"
"Krier himself may not be fascist. Nor are most of the people involved in reconstructing the Garrison church or the new Old Town. But the defence of the political neutrality of architecture is wearing thin. Why exactly, of all the treasures lost in the war, is it so important to rebuild this particular church? Why does it so happen that Wolfschlag’s favourite buildings are imperial or Nazi? Why is Speer so fascinating?"
I'm left and I don't want any town centres. I want us to reconnect with the country. I hate the cities and I absolutely hate the internal combustion engine (though I admit I will fly to far off countries).
But then I'd like to see the complete collapse of capitalism, the end of working at 'jobs'.*
The happiest moments of my life have been with almost no money but living off the land, in far away places and without electricity or running water. I've lived in a village cut off from what other people call civilisation which was, yet, more civilised than anything I see in London these days.
But I'm also not a vegan type, which is a middle class metropolitan woke luxury. You live close to the land you need to be able to catch fish, fillet, cook and eat them.
(*I'm not joking by the way.)
There is a Green streak in me which is definitely drawn to the live-off-the-land ethos. But this is not a left right thing. Hitler was Green. In fact it is arguable that modern Greenism has deeper roots in blood-and-soil hard right thinking than it does in any equivalent intellectual tradition on the Left
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now)
I'll grant you that it's "European-style" in the sense of Ceaucescu's Bucharest, yes.
It's a right mess - and actually makes a difference to pedestrians who have to wait ages to to cross the bloody thing (not to mention squeezing past cars; the wider pavements now being used as parking spaces with seeming impunity). It's somehow worse all round for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, and is ugly to boot.
For anyone regularly walking into town from Ancoats it's a routine low-level nuisance.
Drives me fucking nuts. The British used to build beautiful cities. Some of the most beautiful in the world, from Edinburgh to Cambridge, central London to Bath, Winchester, Oxford, Victorian Glasgow, chunks of Liverpool, Georgian Newcastle, why the fucking fuck can't we do it now?
And if we can't do it now, just admit it, and rebuild all our cities exactly as they were before the bombs and the developers, as they are doing across central and eastern Europe, to great effect
LOOK WHAT THEY HAVE DONE IN FRANKFURT
"Our #DailyDrone shows you the reconstructed old town of #Frankfurt, which was destroyed in World War II by bombing raids. In the Dom-Römer-Projekt, the oldest core of the city was rebuilt."
Whatever party eventually proposes this in the UK will sweep local council elections. People want this. It is wildly popular in Germany
See a big chunk of Warsaw, as well.
The main problem in Britain is the architects. A bunch of moaning lefty narcissists who whine about "pastiche" if you suggest something like this
In Frankfurt there was a big political battle over the Rebuild - and it really was and is a left/right battle. The left wanted new exciting crap architecture, the right fought back, and won. And now New Old Frankfurt wins architectural prizes
I now regret 'liking' your original comment about Frankfurt, seeing what a great job they'd done on the video you linked to.
You then spoil it with a preposterous assertion about 'moaning left narcissists'. Does your culture war never end? Most of us lefties want beautiful town centres - and we're more willing to pay for them than the tax-cutting, low council tax, cut public spending righties. And us leftie greenies want town centres not given over to the motor car, which many Tories think should be given precedence over people.
I see Ben Bradshaw, Labour, Exeter, is standing down. He’s No.8.
MPs not seeking re-election:
Ben Bradshaw, Lab, Exeter Alex Cunningham, Lab, Stockton North Harriet Harman, Lab, Camberwell and Peckham Margaret Hodge, Lab, Barking Barry Sheerman, Lab, Huddersfield Charles Walker, Con, Broxbourne Alan Whitehead, Con, Southampton Test
Douglas Ross, SCon, Moray
That will be a hard seat for Labour to hold without his personal vote.
If Labour don't hold Exeter (10,000 majority in 2019!) Boris Johnson and/or his successor are in even bigger landslide territory... unless you are having a punt on the LDs doing a N. Shropshire.
Bradshaw really does have a HUGE personal vote. My Lib Demmy neighbours used to travel 25 miles to go and canvass for him. Without Bradshaw, it could have been quite close in 2019.
A Conservative friend of mine who lives in Bradshaw's constituency votes for him.
NO surprise really given his comments over the last few days. Surely we must be getting close.
We are nowhere near.
My estimate is 25-30 letters.
Based on what indicators?
The fact most Tory MPs don't have a backbone, moral compass or enough common sense to know that Bozo sitting in control is doing the party (and them) long term damage as they demonstrate a complete inability to deal with an obvious problem.
I think they may know a little bit more about politics than you give them credit for.
At this point we have to accept they are an actively hostile power. Withdraw from any co-operation, and meanwhile encourage Putin to invade them, while maintaining Splendid Isolation
The various actors in the financial services "industry" have incompatible agendas: providers, consumers, regulators want different things from regulation (often departments disagree within the same institution, as do different regulators).
Broadly, service providers in the EU want to bring clearing into the EU because it's lucrative; consumers don't want it because the UK product is cheaper. Regulators are conflicted - there is less liquidity risk in the short term if they leave the business in the UK but a greater systemic risk. More precisely regulators are deeply uncomfortable with risks they are accountable for but which they have no control over.
As regulators ultimately call the shots, I would expect ESMA eventually to insist clearing for EU institutions moves to the EU
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now)
I'll grant you that it's "European-style" in the sense of Ceaucescu's Bucharest, yes.
It's a right mess - and actually makes a difference to pedestrians who have to wait ages to to cross the bloody thing (not to mention squeezing past cars; the wider pavements now being used as parking spaces with seeming impunity). It's somehow worse all round for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, and is ugly to boot.
For anyone regularly walking into town from Ancoats it's a routine low-level nuisance.
Drives me fucking nuts. The British used to build beautiful cities. Some of the most beautiful in the world, from Edinburgh to Cambridge, central London to Bath, Winchester, Oxford, Victorian Glasgow, chunks of Liverpool, Georgian Newcastle, why the fucking fuck can't we do it now?
And if we can't do it now, just admit it, and rebuild all our cities exactly as they were before the bombs and the developers, as they are doing across central and eastern Europe, to great effect
LOOK WHAT THEY HAVE DONE IN FRANKFURT
"Our #DailyDrone shows you the reconstructed old town of #Frankfurt, which was destroyed in World War II by bombing raids. In the Dom-Römer-Projekt, the oldest core of the city was rebuilt."
Whatever party eventually proposes this in the UK will sweep local council elections. People want this. It is wildly popular in Germany
See a big chunk of Warsaw, as well.
The main problem in Britain is the architects. A bunch of moaning lefty narcissists who whine about "pastiche" if you suggest something like this
In Frankfurt there was a big political battle over the Rebuild - and it really was and is a left/right battle. The left wanted new exciting crap architecture, the right fought back, and won. And now New Old Frankfurt wins architectural prizes
I now regret 'liking' your original comment about Frankfurt, seeing what a great job they'd done on the video you linked to.
You then spoil it with a preposterous assertion about 'moaning left narcissists'. Does your culture war never end? Most of us lefties want beautiful town centres - and we're more willing to pay for them than the tax-cutting, low council tax, cut public spending righties.
But I'm correct. As ever.
The left sees the Rebuilding of Frankfurt as... er.... white supremacism. Try reading before commenting
"Is far-right ideology twisting the concept of 'heritage' in German architecture? Two restoration projects are raising fears that the idea of ‘tradition’ is being hijacked"
"Krier himself may not be fascist. Nor are most of the people involved in reconstructing the Garrison church or the new Old Town. But the defence of the political neutrality of architecture is wearing thin. Why exactly, of all the treasures lost in the war, is it so important to rebuild this particular church? Why does it so happen that Wolfschlag’s favourite buildings are imperial or Nazi? Why is Speer so fascinating?"
I'm left and I don't want any town centres. I want us to reconnect with the country. I hate the cities and I absolutely hate the internal combustion engine (though I admit I will fly to far off countries).
But then I'd like to see the complete collapse of capitalism, the end of working at 'jobs'.*
The happiest moments of my life have been with almost no money but living off the land, in far away places and without electricity or running water. I've lived in a village cut off from what other people call civilisation which was, yet, more civilised than anything I see in London these days.
But I'm also not a vegan type, which is a middle class metropolitan woke luxury. You live close to the land you need to be able to catch fish, fillet, cook and eat them.
(*I'm not joking by the way.)
There is a Green streak in me which is definitely drawn to the live-off-the-land ethos. But this is not a left right thing. Hitler was Green. In fact it is arguable that modern Greenism has deeper roots in blood-and-soil hard right thinking than it does in any equivalent intellectual tradition on the Left
To misquote Abraham Lincoln - every time I hear a man advocating subsistence farming, I have a strong desire to see it practised upon him. In a drought year.
At this point we have to accept they are an actively hostile power. Withdraw from any co-operation, and meanwhile encourage Putin to invade them, while maintaining Splendid Isolation
The various actors in the financial services "industry" have incompatible agendas: providers, consumers, regulators want different things from regulation (often departments disagree within the same institution, as do different regulators).
Broadly, service providers in the EU want to bring clearing into the EU because it's lucrative; consumers don't want it because the UK product is cheaper. Regulators are conflicted - there is less liquidity risk in the short term if they leave the business in the UK but a greater systemic risk. More precisely regulators are deeply uncomfortable with risks they are accountable for but which they have no control over.
As regulators ultimately call the shots, I would expect ESMA eventually to insist clearing for EU institutions moves to the EU
They won't. An indefinite extension on clearing was granted and both the ECB and commission just want the problem to go away so are blankly refusing to revisit the decision.
There's something about the 1950's/60's Brave New World, living under the shadow of the Cold War and 5-minute warning, which sends a visceral thrill through me.
And the centre of London is astonishingly brilliant. An amazing cocktail of stunning buildings, old and new. Walk along the South Bank from Waterloo to Tower Bridge and there's no finer city line in the world.
At the other end of the scale is Paris. I like the city in all sorts of ways but it's architecturally ditchwater compared to London.
@FT@BorisJohnson@BETAUK The government -- fearing a political backlash -- waved these concerns away as alarmist. But come November 2021, as schools made their booking, it became clear that trip numbers were indeed collapsing. /5
If anyone fancies a cheap holiday, head off to Turkey. Just counted out wads and wads of lira for some work colleagues. Took ages.
However, according to FCDO advice: “The wearing of masks is mandatory at all times outside the home throughout Turkey. This includes, but is not limited to, all public places, including streets, side streets, parks, gardens, picnic areas, markets, sea side and public transportation including Metro, buses, taxis and ferries. Masks are also mandatory in all shops, restaurants, hairdressers and barber shops.” So you'll be coming back with a very peculiar tan.
I've enjoyed a couple of stays at the Conrad Istanbul Bosporus, and never paid much more than £100 a day. *****. On top of the hill with fantastic views if a little stolid-corporate in some decor. It's a good plan to have access to the Exec Lounge, which is good, so it's quite possible not to need most meals.
But I have an excellent ME neighbour who reminds me what murderous bastards various Turkish governments have been over the years, so I would balk at doing a big holiday there - and tend to use it in transit.
I see Ben Bradshaw, Labour, Exeter, is standing down. He’s No.8.
MPs not seeking re-election:
Ben Bradshaw, Lab, Exeter Alex Cunningham, Lab, Stockton North Harriet Harman, Lab, Camberwell and Peckham Margaret Hodge, Lab, Barking Barry Sheerman, Lab, Huddersfieldt...
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now)
I'll grant you that it's "European-style" in the sense of Ceaucescu's Bucharest, yes.
It's a right mess - and actually makes a difference to pedestrians who have to wait ages to to cross the bloody thing (not to mention squeezing past cars; the wider pavements now being used as parking spaces with seeming impunity). It's somehow worse all round for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians, and is ugly to boot.
For anyone regularly walking into town from Ancoats it's a routine low-level nuisance.
Drives me fucking nuts. The British used to build beautiful cities. Some of the most beautiful in the world, from Edinburgh to Cambridge, central London to Bath, Winchester, Oxford, Victorian Glasgow, chunks of Liverpool, Georgian Newcastle, why the fucking fuck can't we do it now?
And if we can't do it now, just admit it, and rebuild all our cities exactly as they were before the bombs and the developers, as they are doing across central and eastern Europe, to great effect
LOOK WHAT THEY HAVE DONE IN FRANKFURT
"Our #DailyDrone shows you the reconstructed old town of #Frankfurt, which was destroyed in World War II by bombing raids. In the Dom-Römer-Projekt, the oldest core of the city was rebuilt."
Whatever party eventually proposes this in the UK will sweep local council elections. People want this. It is wildly popular in Germany
See a big chunk of Warsaw, as well.
The main problem in Britain is the architects. A bunch of moaning lefty narcissists who whine about "pastiche" if you suggest something like this
In Frankfurt there was a big political battle over the Rebuild - and it really was and is a left/right battle. The left wanted new exciting crap architecture, the right fought back, and won. And now New Old Frankfurt wins architectural prizes
I now regret 'liking' your original comment about Frankfurt, seeing what a great job they'd done on the video you linked to.
You then spoil it with a preposterous assertion about 'moaning left narcissists'. Does your culture war never end? Most of us lefties want beautiful town centres - and we're more willing to pay for them than the tax-cutting, low council tax, cut public spending righties.
But I'm correct. As ever.
The left sees the Rebuilding of Frankfurt as... er.... white supremacism. Try reading before commenting
"Is far-right ideology twisting the concept of 'heritage' in German architecture? Two restoration projects are raising fears that the idea of ‘tradition’ is being hijacked"
"Krier himself may not be fascist. Nor are most of the people involved in reconstructing the Garrison church or the new Old Town. But the defence of the political neutrality of architecture is wearing thin. Why exactly, of all the treasures lost in the war, is it so important to rebuild this particular church? Why does it so happen that Wolfschlag’s favourite buildings are imperial or Nazi? Why is Speer so fascinating?"
I'm left and I don't want any town centres. I want us to reconnect with the country. I hate the cities and I absolutely hate the internal combustion engine (though I admit I will fly to far off countries).
But then I'd like to see the complete collapse of capitalism, the end of working at 'jobs'.*
The happiest moments of my life have been with almost no money but living off the land, in far away places and without electricity or running water. I've lived in a village cut off from what other people call civilisation which was, yet, more civilised than anything I see in London these days.
But I'm also not a vegan type, which is a middle class metropolitan woke luxury. You live close to the land you need to be able to catch fish, fillet, cook and eat them.
(*I'm not joking by the way.)
There is a Green streak in me which is definitely drawn to the live-off-the-land ethos. But this is not a left right thing. Hitler was Green. In fact it is arguable that modern Greenism has deeper roots in blood-and-soil hard right thinking than it does in any equivalent intellectual tradition on the Left
One of the hilarious things about the book and film "Look Who's Back" is that a time travelling Hitler ends up lending his support to the Green Party.
You seem to be utterly obsessed by SKS for reasons that I cannot at all fathom.
The Labour Party has decided to stop navel gazing and wishes to get back into power, yet you would prefer Bozo and co to be in charge rather than someone whose views are more left wing than any labour leader even similarly close to getting power.
It is extremely weird, even creepy, just how obsessed Owls is with Keir.
I guess he would like the anti_Semite Mr Thicky to still be in charge. It is far better to be pure than be in power.
I find it very strange the site owners, allow Posters on a regular basis to call Jezza an Anti Semite, which i am pretty sure would be proved to be liable if tested.
The BBC always correct such comments and say the BBC does not believe that JC is Antisemitic.
I believe Tim ex of this Parish has either been contacted by lawyers today or will be early next week re such comments
I think I might follow Mr Eds lead from today at least for a while.
I will of course return at GE 2024 when SKS is defeated heavily
A shame - I disagree profoundly with your politics but like even less the way the current 'herd' pile in on you because no criticism of SKS is allowed by them.
I agree, not a word can be said against our lord SKS.
Not really, it's fine to say he's crap about XYZ or even that he screwed things up at the CPS but that isn't BJO's attack points. It's never anything valid it's very much from the Militant Tendency playbook of if it's not my preferred form of left wing politics so it's utterly wrong.
I just find it weird how a large number of more left wing people would prefer a Right wing (even seriously right wing) Tory Government to a moderately left wing Labour Government.
Allegedly because a more hardline rightwing Tory government is more likely to bring about a Marxist revolution if you cannot have a leftwing Labour government. In reality it just means longer for the Tories in power if Labour are far from the centre too
That would be a crazy view and you do come across it on the Left. What isn't crazy, however, at least not imo, is to feel unenthused by Labour winning if they do so by jettisoning anything that would seriously tilt the scales in favour of those without wealth and opportunity and against those with lots of both. Because there are scales. Win/win policies are great if you can unearth some but in reality are few and far between and usually of a minor nature. So I both really want to see PM Starmer, being heartily sick of Tory governments, but I'm also interested in the policies and if they turn out 'meh' (eg if you think they're ok and not even slightly bad and scary) I'll be disappointed.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing and replacement with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
At this point we have to accept they are an actively hostile power. Withdraw from any co-operation, and meanwhile encourage Putin to invade them, while maintaining Splendid Isolation
At this point? They have never, ever, stopped being a hostile power. The hundred years war never ended. Sure we fought in France in 1914-18, but that was for the Belgians. We did the same in 1939-45, but that was for the Belgians and the Dutch. And the French are not grateful to us for liberating them. Oh no. It was the worst thing we could do.
When Britain and France together built probably the world's most beautiful ever aircraft and fastest airliner, the Concorde, the CIA sent a message to Douglas-Home saying "Britain was biting off more than it can chew". Were it not the fuel crisis of the 1970's, it could also have single-handedly revived a major global British industry ; that had also already been partly finished off by U.S. copying of aircraft like the Comet to begin with, from the early 1950's onward.
That is so wrong it is hard to know where to start. Concorde was built on a lie.
When the jet age began, the phenomenon of apparent increases in fuel efficiency the faster you went seem to make Mach 2 cruise use less fuel than subsonic.
Unfortunately, when real world data became available, it turned out that the cross over was past Mach 3.
A Mach 3 cruise airliner was beyond the technical capabilities of the day - you could build Mach 3 cruising airplanes. The Americans built 2 completely different approaches to that. But the design, build and maintenance was nearly impossible.
But Concorde was now rolling. So the politicians and engineers bullshitted along. They were too invested to stop.
In the end they created a very nice, very small airliner, which could *just* make it across the Atlantic. With massive fuel costs and high maintenance costs.
The airlines hadn't been really enthused before the fuel crisis. It was already obvious the market was moving rapidly towards cheap mass transit.
As to the Comet, no. Boeing had successfully built multiple aircraft with whole fuselage pressurisation - see the B-29. So when they built the 707, they got it right. You only have to look at the British wartime ideas about pressurised aircraft to understand what went wrong....
There's something about the 1950's/60's Brave New World, living under the shadow of the Cold War and 5-minute warning, which sends a visceral thrill through me.
And the centre of London is astonishingly brilliant. An amazing cocktail of stunning buildings, old and new. Walk along the South Bank from Waterloo to Tower Bridge and there's no finer city line in the world.
At the other end of the scale is Paris. I like the city in all sorts of ways but it's architecturally ditchwater compared to London.
I'm still amused that Norman St John-Stevas bitterly complained about the London Eye, saying it was a monstrosity and a carbuncle and would be gone in a year.
It's in fact one of the great iconic monuments and triumphs of contemporary London, so brilliantly juxtaposed against the Houses of Parliament which are, themselves, after all a mock-up: a brilliant Gothic revival that is best served in small doses.
I know Boris Johnson is quite funny and we can all have a jolly good laugh at his clownish antics.
But let's not lose sight of the fact that in more serious terms the man is an obscenity and it's deeply depressing that any political party with any pretensions to responsibility could view the man as remotely fit to hold office.
There's something about the 1950's/60's Brave New World, living under the shadow of the Cold War and 5-minute warning, which sends a visceral thrill through me.
And the centre of London is astonishingly brilliant. An amazing cocktail of stunning buildings, old and new. Walk along the South Bank from Waterloo to Tower Bridge and there's no finer city line in the world.
At the other end of the scale is Paris. I like the city in all sorts of ways but it's architecturally ditchwater compared to London.
lol. Paris? Architectural ditchwater?
That's.... an interesting take. Others might say it is the most beautifully harmonious big city in the world, and I would probably agree with them. Venice is lovelier, but Paris, thanks to Hausmann, manages to be gorgeous, sonorous and massive at the same time, no mean feat
However Paris can also be monotonous, which London is definitely not (in zones 1 and 2)
And I agree the walk from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge is probably the greatest urban walk in the world, for multiple reasons: history, culture, architecture, views, poetry, weirdness
What is striking is that much of that walk is relatively new (the Shard, the Globe, Tate Modern, and much more). Whole chunks of it were derelict nothingness in the 1980s, with views to match
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing and replacement with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
If I can, when I next go there - hopefully in the next few days - I will take a photo.
There's something about the 1950's/60's Brave New World, living under the shadow of the Cold War and 5-minute warning, which sends a visceral thrill through me.
And the centre of London is astonishingly brilliant. An amazing cocktail of stunning buildings, old and new. Walk along the South Bank from Waterloo to Tower Bridge and there's no finer city line in the world.
At the other end of the scale is Paris. I like the city in all sorts of ways but it's architecturally ditchwater compared to London.
Agree on Paris; it's an architecturally dreary city, Ile de la Cite and Eiffel Tower aside (the latter of which is ace in it's pure silliness). Lacks the baroque ostentation of Vienna, or Rome's rickety historical layer cake. As French cities go, I've always liked Bordeaux.
There's something about the 1950's/60's Brave New World, living under the shadow of the Cold War and 5-minute warning, which sends a visceral thrill through me.
And the centre of London is astonishingly brilliant. An amazing cocktail of stunning buildings, old and new. Walk along the South Bank from Waterloo to Tower Bridge and there's no finer city line in the world.
At the other end of the scale is Paris. I like the city in all sorts of ways but it's architecturally ditchwater compared to London.
Agree on Paris; it's an architecturally dreary city, Ile de la Cite and Eiffel Tower aside (the latter of which is ace in it's pure silliness). Lacks the baroque ostentation of Vienna, or Rome's rickety historical layer cake. As French cities go, I've always liked Bordeaux.
Though I should add that (like London, as it goes) I've always found it a far friendlier place than its reputation would lead you to expect.
If anyone fancies a cheap holiday, head off to Turkey. Just counted out wads and wads of lira for some work colleagues. Took ages.
However, according to FCDO advice: “The wearing of masks is mandatory at all times outside the home throughout Turkey. This includes, but is not limited to, all public places, including streets, side streets, parks, gardens, picnic areas, markets, sea side and public transportation including Metro, buses, taxis and ferries. Masks are also mandatory in all shops, restaurants, hairdressers and barber shops.” So you'll be coming back with a very peculiar tan.
I've enjoyed a couple of stays at the Conrad Istanbul Bosporus, and never paid much more than £100 a day. *****. On top of the hill with fantastic views if a little stolid-corporate in some decor. It's a good plan to have access to the Exec Lounge, which is good, so it's quite possible not to need most meals.
But I have an excellent ME neighbour who reminds me what murderous bastards various Turkish governments have been over the years, so I would balk at doing a big holiday there - and tend to use it in transit.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing and replacement with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Last time I was in Ancoats it was to go clubbing in the nineties at Sankeys Soap. It was, memorably, a slightly terrifying dump in those days. Sounds like I should pay it another visit.
Generally, the renaissance of central Manchester has been astounding.
There's something about the 1950's/60's Brave New World, living under the shadow of the Cold War and 5-minute warning, which sends a visceral thrill through me.
And the centre of London is astonishingly brilliant. An amazing cocktail of stunning buildings, old and new. Walk along the South Bank from Waterloo to Tower Bridge and there's no finer city line in the world.
At the other end of the scale is Paris. I like the city in all sorts of ways but it's architecturally ditchwater compared to London.
lol. Paris? Architectural ditchwater?
That's.... an interesting take. Others might say it is the most beautifully harmonious big city in the world,
Therein lies the problem. With a few great exceptions (see Ghedebrev) it's monochromatic.
I still love Paris but architecturally, it's dreary.
London has so much pizzazz: a city constantly reinventing itself. Everything you described about that walk is right and I include in that the Southbank Centre which I think is fantastic in its awful brutalism. It's a hideous wonder. A marvel. An adamantine warning.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
It's a mess. They have space to separate the travel modes and have failed to do so. And the cycle facilities are just bits of paint, which do not stop dosy or stuck-in-their-phones dangerous drivers.
There were petitions against this lunacy back in 2019.
Other parts of Central Manchester are exemplary (I am told).
At this point we have to accept they are an actively hostile power. Withdraw from any co-operation, and meanwhile encourage Putin to invade them, while maintaining Splendid Isolation
At this point? They have never, ever, stopped being a hostile power. The hundred years war never ended. Sure we fought in France in 1914-18, but that was for the Belgians. We did the same in 1939-45, but that was for the Belgians and the Dutch. And the French are not grateful to us for liberating them. Oh no. It was the worst thing we could do.
When Britain and France together built probably the world's most beautiful ever aircraft and fastest airliner, the Concorde, the CIA sent a message to Douglas-Home saying "Britain was biting off more than it can chew". Were it not the fuel crisis of the 1970's, it could also have single-handedly revived a major global British industry ; that had also already been partly finished off by U.S. copying of aircraft like the Comet to begin with, from the early 1950's onward.
That is so wrong it is hard to know where to start. Concorde was built on a lie.
When the jet age began, the phenomenon of apparent increases in fuel efficiency the faster you went seem to make Mach 2 cruise use less fuel than subsonic.
Unfortunately, when real world data became available, it turned out that the cross over was past Mach 3.
A Mach 3 cruise airliner was beyond the technical capabilities of the day - you could build Mach 3 cruising airplanes. The Americans built 2 completely different approaches to that. But the design, build and maintenance was nearly impossible.
But Concorde was now rolling. So the politicians and engineers bullshitted along. They were too invested to stop.
In the end they created a very nice, very small airliner, which could *just* make it across the Atlantic. With massive fuel costs and high maintenance costs.
The airlines hadn't been really enthused before the fuel crisis. It was already obvious the market was moving rapidly towards cheap mass transit.
As to the Comet, no. Boeing had successfully built multiple aircraft with whole fuselage pressurisation - see the B-29. So when they built the 707, they got it right. You only have to look at the British wartime ideas about pressurised aircraft to understand what went wrong....
But there was still strong interest at the turn of the '70s. The Jumbo had only just come out, and almost 20 airlines wanted them, from Iran to the USA. Most of those orders were cancelled straight after the 1973 oil crisis.
The US had been very unhappy about the project to begin with, as it had been with the earlier U.K. lead in jet technology. McCone of the CIA attempted both industrial espionage and effective intimidation of the British government. What emerged was a compromise, but it still could have done a significant amount to revive a major UK global and strategic industry that was effectively ended by U.S. competition.
On their own, the UK and France were too small until Airbus, with the the help of other nations, which the UK government has now idiotically sold its stake in ; with the same weird strategic sense that has given us Chinese-built nuclear power stations and German-owned rail.
Deja vu all over again. ONS reckons Omicron prevalence has now peaked in youngest (at last). So now we watch the parental "resonance" and hope there isn't a grandparental one
There's something about the 1950's/60's Brave New World, living under the shadow of the Cold War and 5-minute warning, which sends a visceral thrill through me.
And the centre of London is astonishingly brilliant. An amazing cocktail of stunning buildings, old and new. Walk along the South Bank from Waterloo to Tower Bridge and there's no finer city line in the world.
At the other end of the scale is Paris. I like the city in all sorts of ways but it's architecturally ditchwater compared to London.
lol. Paris? Architectural ditchwater?
That's.... an interesting take. Others might say it is the most beautifully harmonious big city in the world,
Therein lies the problem. With a few great exceptions (see Ghedebrev) it's monochromatic.
I still love Paris but architecturally, it's dreary.
London has so much pizzazz: a city constantly reinventing itself. Everything you described about that walk is right and I include in that the Southbank Centre which I think is fantastic in its awful brutalism. It's a hideous wonder. A marvel. An adamantine warning.
Removing 140k parking spaces from the Champs Elysees sounds like a good idea
I see Ben Bradshaw, Labour, Exeter, is standing down. He’s No.8.
MPs not seeking re-election:
Ben Bradshaw, Lab, Exeter Alex Cunningham, Lab, Stockton North Harriet Harman, Lab, Camberwell and Peckham Margaret Hodge, Lab, Barking Barry Sheerman, Lab, Huddersfield Charles Walker, Con, Broxbourne Alan Whitehead, Con, Southampton Test
Douglas Ross, SCon, Moray
That will be a hard seat for Labour to hold without his personal vote.
If Labour don't hold Exeter (10,000 majority in 2019!) Boris Johnson and/or his successor are in even bigger landslide territory... unless you are having a punt on the LDs doing a N. Shropshire.
There's no chance this variation of the Conservative Party has any chance of winning Exeter. You'd need a 'Cameroon' Conservative Party for it to be a viable target seat.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
He’s showing why he’s lost every leadership election he’s stood in.
Don’t local governments essentially have to legally introduce these to meet the government clean air and emission targets? That’s the justification Newcastle City Council seem to give - that they’d rather not but have to…
We are not alone. Bath, Birmingham and Portsmouth have Clean Air Zones, Bradford is due to start charging this year too....
The Portsmouth council leader was on R$ this morning saying something similar.
It certainly fits the pattern of central government legally mandating responsibilities to local government.
Hm. It's actually European legislation. All of this was started before we left the EU, because Client Earth (consortrium of activists) were suing British cities because they were not meeting their mandated responsibilities of bringing emissions below 40mg per million(?) of NO2 in the shortest possible time.
Now I suppose this legislation doesn't need to still be on the books. I'm sure Government could now say these regulations are not something they propose to keep committing to meet. Though I'm not sure that would be portraying the freedoms of Brexit in the best possible light.
It's all based on modelled data anyway - will any links in 2024 still show exceedances? And as we know, it's remarkably difficult to accurately model at the micro level things which are subject to thousands of individuals' personal choices, together with levels of congestion, driver behaviour, etc. You can just about do it, within fairly high tolerances, for 'how many vehciles will be on this link'? - but to introduce 'if we introduce this legislation, what will be the mix of electrics/internal combustion? How will drivers respond to congestion (as it is static, idling traffic, which is the killer)? How will traffic levels change post-covid (all the modelling was done on pre-covid data)? I could go on...
There's something about the 1950's/60's Brave New World, living under the shadow of the Cold War and 5-minute warning, which sends a visceral thrill through me.
And the centre of London is astonishingly brilliant. An amazing cocktail of stunning buildings, old and new. Walk along the South Bank from Waterloo to Tower Bridge and there's no finer city line in the world.
At the other end of the scale is Paris. I like the city in all sorts of ways but it's architecturally ditchwater compared to London.
lol. Paris? Architectural ditchwater?
That's.... an interesting take. Others might say it is the most beautifully harmonious big city in the world,
Therein lies the problem. With a few great exceptions (see Ghedebrev) it's monochromatic.
I still love Paris but architecturally, it's dreary.
London has so much pizzazz: a city constantly reinventing itself. Everything you described about that walk is right and I include in that the Southbank Centre which I think is fantastic in its awful brutalism. It's a hideous wonder. A marvel. An adamantine warning.
The National Theatre is a masterpiece. Denys Lasdun was one guy who could do Brutalism well. See also his exquisite Royal College of Physicians in Regent's Park. I even have a soft spot for his super controversial Institute of Education, Bedford Way, tho it is a damn shame they knocked down half of Woburn Square to build it
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
I love Manchester beyond the point of reasonableness, but I'd never describe it as handsome. Unlike e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow or Newcastle, it's never known true grandeur, despite a few genuinely gorgeous buildings.
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
Yes, you're quite right - we're starting from a much lower base than other cities, architecturally.
Angel Meadow is particularly depressing. I'm not one for ghosts, but there is an air of hopeless sadness about the place. And when you learn it is, I think, the site of a mass children's paupers' grave(?) - you hurry onto brighter corners of the city. I certainly wouldn't fancy living there.
I see Ben Bradshaw, Labour, Exeter, is standing down. He’s No.8.
MPs not seeking re-election:
Ben Bradshaw, Lab, Exeter Alex Cunningham, Lab, Stockton North Harriet Harman, Lab, Camberwell and Peckham Margaret Hodge, Lab, Barking Barry Sheerman, Lab, Huddersfield Charles Walker, Con, Broxbourne Alan Whitehead, Con, Southampton Test
Douglas Ross, SCon, Moray
That will be a hard seat for Labour to hold without his personal vote.
If Labour don't hold Exeter (10,000 majority in 2019!) Boris Johnson and/or his successor are in even bigger landslide territory... unless you are having a punt on the LDs doing a N. Shropshire.
There's no chance this variation of the Conservative Party has any chance of winning Exeter. You'd need a 'Cameroon' Conservative Party for it to be a viable target seat.
Even Cameron did not win Exeter.
Bradshaw held it in 2010 and 2015 and got a 10,403 majority for Labour in 2019.
As a city which voted Remain and is full of students, Exeter is now a safe Labour seat
Now Sajid Javid follows Sunak in distancing himself from PM over Savile:
"Keir Starmer deserves respect for taking on such a big public job and doing well [as DPP]... The Prime Minister has already clarified his remarks... I think that was important."
Maybe he's one of the briefers. With the Mail saying "the government is bracing for the potential resignation of some ministers", I wonder if he'd be one of the first most likely, that they're already working to factor in. Sacked by Boris early on and then reinstated in a more junior position, he's hardly likely to have much loyalty.
Less briefing. More action.
They're pathetic.
Yes, it's all dragging somewhat. Every other day there's predictions that "this is crunch day".
I think it will carry on for about three weeks minimum
Well, if it does I hope we never again hear about how ruthless the Tories are at getting rid of their leaders.
They're about as ruthless as a child trying - and failing - to take the skin off a rice pudding.
I suspect there are quite a lot of MPs at the moment who would not VONC him if it were tomorrow. Another few weeks and a few more revelations then they will have had enough. I may be over complicating this, but I guess MPs know how the mood is and how it is shifting. I would far prefer we have to wait a few weeks than have a failed VONC attempt
The risk is the public let him back into their good books. By 'public' I mean a large proportion of the people who were thinking "Boris" and "Brexit" rather than "Tory" when they put their cross in the Con box at GE19. They were where his landslide and big mandate came from and it was a bit of a personal one.
If he stays in place until the local elections, and they turn out not terrible, and the polls improve, in particular in those crucial seats in the North and the Midlands, then he could yet fight another general election as Tory leader. I make it about a 33% chance that this happens. Down from 50% a week ago but still more than the betting gives him.
I would not disagree. but think the tories would be in a much better place now with a new leader. It is clear that Starmer has not sealed the deal or anywhere near it yet. One reason for thye yelps of outrage on hear whenever he is criticised.
For context, it's longer to the GE than the time he's been LOTO. He certainly hasn't sealed the deal - not even close - but I wouldn't have expected that from where he started less than 2 years ago. What he has done - continues to do - is construct a serious alternative that will at the very least be competitive with the Tories at the next GE. He's doing pretty well but no more. He's on track for Downing St but the track is narrow and muddy. My main worry about him is he maybe struggles to connect emotionally with the (sizable) demographic I call the Shallow Apoliticals who went for Muscly big time. But on the whole I feel quite bullish. And btw did even before all this partygate stuff. I've felt good about Labour's prospects since they held Batley. That was extremely important.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing and replacement with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Last time I was in Ancoats it was to go clubbing in the nineties at Sankeys Soap. It was, memorably, a slightly terrifying dump in those days. Sounds like I should pay it another visit.
Generally, the renaissance of central Manchester has been astounding.
Yes, it is. Much of it of it is far from perfect, it should be said. But so much of it. 'Just do SOMETHING - we can always do it again, later' seems to be the motto. We have ended up with a lot as a result.
It says "The image you are requesting does not exist".
Yes - I mistakenly posted some old data. My bad.
Not sure I should spam PB with the whole thing over again....
Well, please just keep up the good work. I do think it would be worth your posting comparative data for other countries though. Maybe all the EU member states plus a dozen other major industrialised nations for comparison.
Re Ancoats & Beswick. I know the area fairly well (I work just over the other side of Gt Ancoats Street) and while the New Islington bit is becoming a bit yuppified, most of Beswick, Miles Platting and Bradford is still very solidly working class.
As I understand it, a lot of the vote here has gone against Labour because of a bullying issue forcing out the previous councillor. There's also the background issue of how badly the refurbishment of Great Ancoats Street has gone (city centre LDs have focused on transport in their campaigning for a while now), and perhaps an underlying discontent with the absolute (unrepresentative) stranglehold Labour councillors have on Manchester, with attendant complacency and sloppiness.
I wouldn't draw any conclusions at all about the national picture from this.
I'd say Great Ancoats Street is looking splendid. A real success story. Granted the works were a right kerfuffle. But which works aren't?
It's not my idea of splendour, though I'd have accepted merely practical.
Well ok, it's not the Champs Elysees, yet. But it's almost unrecognisable from what it was 15 years ago. Importantly, it's lined with active frontages of businesses you might like to frequent. And the interruption of the canal and the space next to it is rather nicely done. I'd say a step up from 'practical' - Trinity Way is 'practical'. Manchester does get some things wrong, but it gets far more right than it does wrong, and it does such a lot, that the frequency of success is gratifyingly high. And I'd put Great Ancoats Street firmly in the 'success' category.
Er, what? It looks boring and in parts hideous on that Google Street View
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
That Streetview is from 18 months ago and a lot has changed since then. Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
Fair enough, and Yay if it is true. You are right, I need to see it for myself. And I have heard this from others: Manc is much improved, becoming a proper, handsome European city
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
When I visit our Manchester office I can see the statue of Engels out of the window. Reason enough to pay a visit.
Comments
1) Propose an action you don't really mean, but sounds cool to your supporters
2) Get told you can't because of treaties, constitution etc.
3) Don't do it. To your supporters you've been tough, but thwarted by The Rules. To others you've followed The Rules.
We were getting these types of results last October when the Tories were ahead in the polls and I was pointing out then that Labour should be winning local by-elections if they wanted to win a GE at this point in the electoral cycle.
Now we have Labour around 10% clear in the polls and the local by-elections seem the same as 4 months ago before the partygate stuff happened.
I reckon if there was a market on Labour losing vote share in all 5 wards yesterday you would have got 1000/1 easily.
And I would LOVE to believe you. It would be great to think we are rebuilding our cities better. Any links?
On this one we really don't seem to be the unreasonable ones.
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1489628317963722752
Pre Good Friday agreement, and STV it would have been impossible for there ever to be a N. Irish Administration which wasn't dominated by Unionists.
But then I'd like to see the complete collapse of capitalism, the end of working at 'jobs'.*
The happiest moments of my life have been with almost no money but living off the land, in far away places and without electricity or running water. I've lived in a village cut off from what other people call civilisation which was, yet, more civilised than anything I see in London these days.
But I'm also not a vegan type, which is a middle class metropolitan woke luxury. You live close to the land you need to be able to catch fish, fillet, cook and eat them.
(*I'm not joking by the way.)
Architecture was politicised decades ago, and the argument about pastiche-v-modernity is massively political, in the UK, Germany, and elsewhere, and it is the Left which opposes rebuilding, as that Guardian article shows
You wittering on cluelessly in an area where you clearly know nothing does not alter the facts of the matter
It's the Right I pity. [Edited
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/papers-pavement-850-cameras-ring-22669215
...Greater Manchester's councils insist they have been legally mandated by the government to introduce the CAZ to achieve compliance by 2024 at the latest.
We are not alone. Bath, Birmingham and Portsmouth have Clean Air Zones, Bradford is due to start charging this year too....
The Portsmouth council leader was on R$ this morning saying something similar.
It certainly fits the pattern of central government legally mandating responsibilities to local government.
Chris Addison
@mrchrisaddison
For Whom Aaron Bell Tolls.
Boris Johnson has emailed Conservative MPs this afternoon vowing to give them a 'direct line' into 10 Downing Street as he battles to save his premiership.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/exclusive-boris-johnson-emails-tory-mps-promising-to-listen_uk_61fd43e6e4b09170e9d01acf?utm_campaign=share_twitter&ncid=engmodushpmg00000004 via @HuffPostUKPol
Lots of EU kids only have ID cards, not passports, and most EU countries have a 'all go or none go' rule/2
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/dec/26/school-trips-to-uk-slump-brexit
@FT @BorisJohnson @BETAUK The government -- fearing a political backlash -- waved these concerns away as alarmist. But come November 2021, as schools made their booking, it became clear that trip numbers were indeed collapsing. /5
https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1460318993730969610?lang=en
Broadly, service providers in the EU want to bring clearing into the EU because it's lucrative; consumers don't want it because the UK product is cheaper. Regulators are conflicted - there is less liquidity risk in the short term if they leave the business in the UK but a greater systemic risk. More precisely regulators are deeply uncomfortable with risks they are accountable for but which they have no control over.
As regulators ultimately call the shots, I would expect ESMA eventually to insist clearing for EU institutions moves to the EU
There's something about the 1950's/60's Brave New World, living under the shadow of the Cold War and 5-minute warning, which sends a visceral thrill through me.
And the centre of London is astonishingly brilliant. An amazing cocktail of stunning buildings, old and new. Walk along the South Bank from Waterloo to Tower Bridge and there's no finer city line in the world.
At the other end of the scale is Paris. I like the city in all sorts of ways but it's architecturally ditchwater compared to London.
But I have an excellent ME neighbour who reminds me what murderous bastards various Turkish governments have been over the years, so I would balk at doing a big holiday there - and tend to use it in transit.
Look, it's a dual carriageway. It's part of the Manchester and Salford Inner Ring Road. It's not the Shambles in York. But it looks substantially better than that now. It's moderatly pleasant to walk down - that section which has recently been redone, anyway. It's certainly got life and businesses on it, where it used to be a godforsaken stretch of tamac and a rubbish retail park. It separates Ancoats and the Northern Quarter but doesn't sever them. Where once was a ring road there emerges a neighbourhood.
This is not a 60s demolition of the commercial core of the city to replace with something uglier, but a 2020s demolition of post-inudtrial nothing and replacement with a functioning neighbourhood.
You should, when you get the chance, come to Manchester; take a walk around Ancoats, and the Northern Quarter, and Crown Street, and the left bank, and Chapel Street, and NOMA. Regeneration far outranks decay. Not all of it perfect. But Leon, the energy and pace of change: not something I ever thought I'd see in this country outside of London.
Sure, I'd like perfect Georgian cityscapes. But we never had that to start with in Manchester. Ancoats moved straight from dark satanic mills to post-industrial wasteland. And now it is one of the most sought-after areas in the North. It is astonishing.
When the jet age began, the phenomenon of apparent increases in fuel efficiency the faster you went seem to make Mach 2 cruise use less fuel than subsonic.
Unfortunately, when real world data became available, it turned out that the cross over was past Mach 3.
A Mach 3 cruise airliner was beyond the technical capabilities of the day - you could build Mach 3 cruising airplanes. The Americans built 2 completely different approaches to that. But the design, build and maintenance was nearly impossible.
But Concorde was now rolling. So the politicians and engineers bullshitted along. They were too invested to stop.
In the end they created a very nice, very small airliner, which could *just* make it across the Atlantic. With massive fuel costs and high maintenance costs.
The airlines hadn't been really enthused before the fuel crisis. It was already obvious the market was moving rapidly towards cheap mass transit.
As to the Comet, no. Boeing had successfully built multiple aircraft with whole fuselage pressurisation - see the B-29. So when they built the 707, they got it right. You only have to look at the British wartime ideas about pressurised aircraft to understand what went wrong....
It's in fact one of the great iconic monuments and triumphs of contemporary London, so brilliantly juxtaposed against the Houses of Parliament which are, themselves, after all a mock-up: a brilliant Gothic revival that is best served in small doses.
But let's not lose sight of the fact that in more serious terms the man is an obscenity and it's deeply depressing that any political party with any pretensions to responsibility could view the man as remotely fit to hold office.
That's.... an interesting take. Others might say it is the most beautifully harmonious big city in the world, and I would probably agree with them. Venice is lovelier, but Paris, thanks to Hausmann, manages to be gorgeous, sonorous and massive at the same time, no mean feat
However Paris can also be monotonous, which London is definitely not (in zones 1 and 2)
And I agree the walk from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge is probably the greatest urban walk in the world, for multiple reasons: history, culture, architecture, views, poetry, weirdness
What is striking is that much of that walk is relatively new (the Shard, the Globe, Tate Modern, and much more). Whole chunks of it were derelict nothingness in the 1980s, with views to match
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_City_Colombo
I seldom ever go there, the last time was maybe 15-20 years ago, and it was quite depressing then. For some reason my job/life takes me to many other UK cities, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Newcastle, Bristol, but not Manchester
However, on my last visit, I DO remember wandering around some of the down-at-heel Victorian districts and thinking: wow, if they ever do this up, it will be spectacular. Glasgow's Victorian quarter, for example, is now quite something
Generally, the renaissance of central Manchester has been astounding.
I still love Paris but architecturally, it's dreary.
London has so much pizzazz: a city constantly reinventing itself. Everything you described about that walk is right and I include in that the Southbank Centre which I think is fantastic in its awful brutalism. It's a hideous wonder. A marvel. An adamantine warning.
There were petitions against this lunacy back in 2019.
Other parts of Central Manchester are exemplary (I am told).
The US had been very unhappy about the project to begin with, as it had been with the earlier U.K. lead in jet technology. McCone of the CIA attempted both industrial espionage and effective intimidation of the British government. What emerged was a compromise, but it still could have done a significant amount to revive a major UK global and strategic industry that was effectively ended by U.S. competition.
On their own, the UK and France were too small until Airbus, with the the help of other nations, which the UK government has now idiotically sold its stake in ; with the same weird strategic sense that has given us Chinese-built nuclear power stations and German-owned rail.
ONS reckons Omicron prevalence has now peaked in youngest (at last).
So now we watch the parental "resonance" and hope there isn't a grandparental one
https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1489577800138993670?s=20&t=xPVNnYdg7je8bHbbrVrjIQ
https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1406473649968713732
Not sure how that compares with other reports
That said, I do enjoy strolling round NQ and seeing all the knackered old former garment factories, mucky book shops and abandoned slum flats amid the fancy shops and bars. It's a compelling place, full of life. Still one or two proper old boozers as well. And I agree - some of the new development has been good; not all of it though: a lot of big box ugly skyscrapers (the Angel Meadow development is especially crummy).
Incidentally, it's not unusual to see the streets dressed up to look like the US, as it's often used as a substitute for New York in films and TV. Lots of external fire escapes and whatnot.
https://twitter.com/Mike_Blackley/status/1489623930637795332?s=20&t=xPVNnYdg7je8bHbbrVrjIQ
It's actually European legislation. All of this was started before we left the EU, because Client Earth (consortrium of activists) were suing British cities because they were not meeting their mandated responsibilities of bringing emissions below 40mg per million(?) of NO2 in the shortest possible time.
Now I suppose this legislation doesn't need to still be on the books. I'm sure Government could now say these regulations are not something they propose to keep committing to meet. Though I'm not sure that would be portraying the freedoms of Brexit in the best possible light.
It's all based on modelled data anyway - will any links in 2024 still show exceedances? And as we know, it's remarkably difficult to accurately model at the micro level things which are subject to thousands of individuals' personal choices, together with levels of congestion, driver behaviour, etc. You can just about do it, within fairly high tolerances, for 'how many vehciles will be on this link'? - but to introduce 'if we introduce this legislation, what will be the mix of electrics/internal combustion? How will drivers respond to congestion (as it is static, idling traffic, which is the killer)? How will traffic levels change post-covid (all the modelling was done on pre-covid data)?
I could go on...
That has Aaron's letter submitted on 22nd January, FWIW.
Case R is around 1. Still the younger groups above 1, older below.
Admissions - R solidly below 1
MV Beds - down
In hospital - down
Deaths - down
Not sure I should spam PB with the whole thing over again....
Angel Meadow is particularly depressing. I'm not one for ghosts, but there is an air of hopeless sadness about the place. And when you learn it is, I think, the site of a mass children's paupers' grave(?) - you hurry onto brighter corners of the city. I certainly wouldn't fancy living there.
Bradshaw held it in 2010 and 2015 and got a 10,403 majority for Labour in 2019.
As a city which voted Remain and is full of students, Exeter is now a safe Labour seat