Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
How does it compare to the pension of investment bankers?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming investment bankers who are not, as far as I'm aware, paid for by the state.
OK - how does it compare to the pension of MPs?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming MPs, if that is the pension they want.
So then why did @HYUFD make the stupid comparison in the first place?
It is not stupid, the point remains teachers get a good pension compared to the average worker
But teaching used to be a reasonably high status profession - high enough to rank alongside medics and lawyers to sign a passport photo, for example. "Average worker" is what? Shop assistant? Delivery driver? Teachers used to be professionals, and having been appointed, just got on with the job.
As a profession, it has been downgraded and deskilled by a succession of third rate Tory ministers, who were just about good enough to be accountants. I think that is what some of our friends are complaining of, at heart.
What did labour do for teaching exactly ? Why just the Tories get a mention.
As for professions with a diminished status try Engineers. A profession that is valued on the continent but here has slid down the ranks over many years
@TOPPING thanks for posting the article earlier. It was an interesting read. A few bits of it provided potential explanations to things that I'd been wondering about.
Like, why were people perversely viewing Ukraine as the good guys in all this?
I don't think that was the thrust of the article. It seemed quite dispassionate about both sides.
It was more about the location of Mariupol being the main location of the Azov Brigade (the neo-Nazi sympathising ones), and that the Russians were unlikely to show them any quarter.
It did occur to me that looking at it very cynically, perhaps this is another advantage for Zelensky in delaying a peace settlement - the Russians seem to be in the process of wiping out his embarrassing neo-Nazi wing, with the rest of his army left nicely intact.
Meanwhile Putin is deploying the Wagner Group whose leaders seem to be Rodnoverists (Slavic pagans) which normally seems to ensure you are a complete c**t.
Yes, there are of course extreme undesirables on the Russian side.
If you are defending your country against invaders, I don't think your political persuasion matters. If the Azov Brigade can kill Muscovites, good luck to them.
They are also very good at defending their country against Jews, gypsies and homosexuals. Not people I'd be wishing good luck to
@DanielKorski Perhaps Ukraine should be invited to join The Commonwealth @BorisJohnson? Ukraine should become an EU member but the bloc struggles to swap its technocratic model of accession for a strategic move. Inviting Ukraine to The @commonwealthsec would be a valuable signal of support
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I think in general tax on wealth has to go up. As we are, if you're loaded but with a modest income you make little fiscal contribution to the nation's finances.
Income tax rates have been high for many years. I've quite happily paid those taxes, and have finally managed to reach retirement. It'd be a little harsh if the burden now switches back on to me (and all the others similarly positioned)
If you can find some way to assess wealth, then it's a reasonable tax, but anything along those lines surely should take into account the tax you've already paid. Such a model could be dovetailed quite nicely into inheritance tax too.
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
How does it compare to the pension of investment bankers?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming investment bankers who are not, as far as I'm aware, paid for by the state.
OK - how does it compare to the pension of MPs?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming MPs, if that is the pension they want.
So then why did @HYUFD make the stupid comparison in the first place?
It is not stupid, the point remains teachers get a good pension compared to the average worker
But teaching used to be a reasonably high status profession - high enough to rank alongside medics and lawyers to sign a passport photo, for example. "Average worker" is what? Shop assistant? Delivery driver? Teachers used to be professionals, and having been appointed, just got on with the job.
As a profession, it has been downgraded and deskilled by a succession of third rate Tory ministers, who were just about good enough to be accountants. I think that is what some of our friends are complaining of, at heart.
I think you underplay the role of Labour, but I agree that is part of the problem.
However, I think it's the chaos brought to a head by Covid caused by years of maladministration and ill-thought-through reforms that is the real problem.
I apologise if my previous posts this afternoon were too cheerful which is why they ignored and no likes. I do appreciate the truth is We all feel Complete opposite from safe and happy. We all have a shadow cast across us. And how we each react our different ways to such things, short tempered or angry with others in what we can’t control, or depressed and weighed down by what we can’t control. Catching up on The news from war zone is worst thing ever 😣 I find my resilience tested. Almost like Putin has merely been moving into position from outside to in position inside last few weeks before now he is properly getting on with serious and brutal total takeover all over the place.
This country is bread basket of the world too As Zelenskyy said they should be sowing, not shooting. Even if an explosion doesn’t kill anyone there, the explosion causes starving in Africa (to steal bit from someone else’s sermon.)
All talk from Moscow of progress in negotiation is just bollocks, Putin isn’t going to stop, every elected politician at all levels in Ukraine is going to disappear with a bag over their head and be replaced by a puppet.
Thank goodness Lesia Vasylenko is out the country and safe in Europe! she become the new recognised leader in exile I am suspecting now if things continue to go wrong like this
Several friends have independently told me that the first thing they do, these days, on waking - is pick up the phone and see if Putin has dropped a nuke or gassed a city. I am the same
That is not good for the nerves
First thing I do when I wake up is check the news. It isn’t good for the nerves. Some people I know, including my wife, are really stressed by it.
Reminds me of Early Covid, or Jan-Feb 2021. We're all doomscrolling again
Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
How does it compare to the pension of investment bankers?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming investment bankers who are not, as far as I'm aware, paid for by the state.
OK - how does it compare to the pension of MPs?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming MPs, if that is the pension they want.
So then why did @HYUFD make the stupid comparison in the first place?
It is not stupid, the point remains teachers get a good pension compared to the average worker
But teaching used to be a reasonably high status profession - high enough to rank alongside medics and lawyers to sign a passport photo, for example. "Average worker" is what? Shop assistant? Delivery driver? Teachers used to be professionals, and having been appointed, just got on with the job.
As a profession, it has been downgraded and deskilled by a succession of third rate Tory ministers, who were just about good enough to be accountants. I think that is what some of our friends are complaining of, at heart.
I think you underplay the role of Labour, but I agree that is part of the problem.
However, I think it's the chaos brought to a head by Covid caused by years of maladministration and ill-thought-through reforms that is the real problem.
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Lancashire South of Preston is shit but Bowland and the Wyre valley which I think are fracking country are among the most beautiful bits of England
I apologise if my previous posts this afternoon were too cheerful which is why they ignored and no likes. I do appreciate the truth is We all feel Complete opposite from safe and happy. We all have a shadow cast across us. And how we each react our different ways to such things, short tempered or angry with others in what we can’t control, or depressed and weighed down by what we can’t control. Catching up on The news from war zone is worst thing ever 😣 I find my resilience tested. Almost like Putin has merely been moving into position from outside to in position inside last few weeks before now he is properly getting on with serious and brutal total takeover all over the place.
This country is bread basket of the world too As Zelenskyy said they should be sowing, not shooting. Even if an explosion doesn’t kill anyone there, the explosion causes starving in Africa (to steal bit from someone else’s sermon.)
All talk from Moscow of progress in negotiation is just bollocks, Putin isn’t going to stop, every elected politician at all levels in Ukraine is going to disappear with a bag over their head and be replaced by a puppet.
Thank goodness Lesia Vasylenko is out the country and safe in Europe! she become the new recognised leader in exile I am suspecting now if things continue to go wrong like this
Several friends have independently told me that the first thing they do, these days, on waking - is pick up the phone and see if Putin has dropped a nuke or gassed a city. I am the same
That is not good for the nerves
First thing I do when I wake up is check the news. It isn’t good for the nerves. Some people I know, including my wife, are really stressed by it.
Reminds me of Early Covid, or Jan-Feb 2021. We're all doomscrolling again
What a fucking hideous decade, so far!
Yes, it’s not a vintage decade. More a table wine.
@TOPPING thanks for posting the article earlier. It was an interesting read. A few bits of it provided potential explanations to things that I'd been wondering about.
Like, why were people perversely viewing Ukraine as the good guys in all this?
I don't think that was the thrust of the article. It seemed quite dispassionate about both sides.
It was more about the location of Mariupol being the main location of the Azov Brigade (the neo-Nazi sympathising ones), and that the Russians were unlikely to show them any quarter.
It did occur to me that looking at it very cynically, perhaps this is another advantage for Zelensky in delaying a peace settlement - the Russians seem to be in the process of wiping out his embarrassing neo-Nazi wing, with the rest of his army left nicely intact.
Meanwhile Putin is deploying the Wagner Group whose leaders seem to be Rodnoverists (Slavic pagans) which normally seems to ensure you are a complete c**t.
Yes, there are of course extreme undesirables on the Russian side.
If you are defending your country against invaders, I don't think your political persuasion matters. If the Azov Brigade can kill Muscovites, good luck to them.
They are also very good at defending their country against Jews, gypsies and homosexuals. Not people I'd be wishing good luck to
Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Lancashire South of Preston is shit but Bowland and the Wyre valley which I think are fracking country are among the most beautiful bits of England
We need to find huge reserves under Swindon, Luton, or Derby. Or, of course, Wick.
Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
How does it compare to the pension of investment bankers?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming investment bankers who are not, as far as I'm aware, paid for by the state.
OK - how does it compare to the pension of MPs?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming MPs, if that is the pension they want.
So then why did @HYUFD make the stupid comparison in the first place?
It is not stupid, the point remains teachers get a good pension compared to the average worker
But teaching used to be a reasonably high status profession - high enough to rank alongside medics and lawyers to sign a passport photo, for example. "Average worker" is what? Shop assistant? Delivery driver? Teachers used to be professionals, and having been appointed, just got on with the job.
As a profession, it has been downgraded and deskilled by a succession of third rate Tory ministers, who were just about good enough to be accountants. I think that is what some of our friends are complaining of, at heart.
What did labour do for teaching exactly ? Why just the Tories get a mention.
As for professions with a diminished status try Engineers. A profession that is valued on the continent but here has slid down the ranks over many years
But at least engineers enjoy what they are doing and can get paid very well for it...
Though it always confused me that in the civil service scientific and technical people are limited in the roles they can (perhaps could) go for, while the others with no particularly useful skill sets ( history, PPE, etc) had a lot wider choice of roles.
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Lancashire South of Preston is shit but Bowland and the Wyre valley which I think are fracking country are among the most beautiful bits of England
We need to find huge reserves under Swindon, Luton, or Derby. Or, of course, Wick.
A few of those pumpy pumpy things would do wonders for Milton Keynes.
I said a couple of weeks ago this was a huge opportunity for Xi to establish China definitively as the world's other superpower by brokering a peace deal.
The 21st century will likely be the Sino-American century (he wrongly predicted) with the Chinese leading on soft power and the Americans on hard power. One can but hope that relationship doesn't become as dysfunctional and adversarial as the Soviet-American relationship from 1945-91.
I apologise if my previous posts this afternoon were too cheerful which is why they ignored and no likes. I do appreciate the truth is We all feel Complete opposite from safe and happy. We all have a shadow cast across us. And how we each react our different ways to such things, short tempered or angry with others in what we can’t control, or depressed and weighed down by what we can’t control. Catching up on The news from war zone is worst thing ever 😣 I find my resilience tested. Almost like Putin has merely been moving into position from outside to in position inside last few weeks before now he is properly getting on with serious and brutal total takeover all over the place.
This country is bread basket of the world too As Zelenskyy said they should be sowing, not shooting. Even if an explosion doesn’t kill anyone there, the explosion causes starving in Africa (to steal bit from someone else’s sermon.)
All talk from Moscow of progress in negotiation is just bollocks, Putin isn’t going to stop, every elected politician at all levels in Ukraine is going to disappear with a bag over their head and be replaced by a puppet.
Thank goodness Lesia Vasylenko is out the country and safe in Europe! she become the new recognised leader in exile I am suspecting now if things continue to go wrong like this
Several friends have independently told me that the first thing they do, these days, on waking - is pick up the phone and see if Putin has dropped a nuke or gassed a city. I am the same
That is not good for the nerves
You are absolutely right. It is doing something to us too. Obviously our first thoughts are the horrors on shocked refugee faces and the people losing beloved ones (rather than poor Farooq under his blanket feeling a bit chilly this March day). But the homes with the long loved vase in window and the artisan shops long in the family and the factory’s and tea rooms look like they could just be streets away from us, and hell is visiting it. 🤮
Back to *politics *betting Have to expect polls are showing some rally to flag for current government in US and with Macron and Boris. If Starmer was PM you would expect Starmer and Labour to enjoy rally to flag in crisis bounce even if Tory opposition not doing too much wrong at all, such as in nature of rally in crisis bounces.
But surely the bit we should be focussing on is that there doesn’t seem to be much government bounce in all three of these countries? Surely that is our BIG political betting story? A limp rally to flag bounce in such serious crisis, what does it mean, what does it tell us about what happens next?
In France I think all Macron has is gobbled up the Pecresses voters who won’t abstain in second round early, to top himself up a bit - that might not even be war related, just pecrasse less convincing than fillion - but doesn’t help President for second round at all by picking low lying fruit early. Thinking ahead if Putin annexation on current Ukraine boundaries, I wonder how history books will view Sleepy Joe Biden? Will he be viewed as too old and sleepy and ultimately rubbish in this crisis? There already seems to be a growing opposition to Biden’s Ukraine sleepiness in favour of firmer and stated red lines in US politics have you noticed, not just from Trump and his brood but from across left to right of the political spectrum including moderates? In political betting sense could Biden be brought down by this before end of his term (standing and winning again already looking unlikely) and actually be out even before Putin?
At that point of Putin’s annexation of Ukraine you see it’s positions reversed, Putin with all his shit like training bases, listening posts, radar, missile launchers, build up of troops, airstrips on all those Ukraine borders, just miles from EU and NATO everyday cities towns & villages. ☹️ Having a Ukraine friendly to us was brilliant for us. If Putin gets into that position, can you think of a more bigger and frustrating middle finger up to the West? How would the western leaders look in eyes of their own voters with Putin’s middle finger up at us? Will the alliance start to blame one another, as the Ukrainians already are taking sides and blaming some in West for this over others in todays news? (Basically Love Boris, hating France and Germany and Turkey).
Are my political betting musings helpful to this site at all, or would my time be better spent catching up on Emmerdale and Farndale? 💁♀️
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
As a nimby resident near Llandow, an earlier Cuadrilla target, I concur.
Not keen on the risk of geological destabilisation either.
That particular scare story is rubbish though. I find it particularly amusing when areas with centuries of history of various sorts of mining - which really can cause your house to collapse - start shouting about supposed destabilisation from fracking which is largely based on nothing more than ignorance. There are many reasons to be opposed to fracking, some of which are very valid, but geological destabilisation is not one of them.
@TOPPING thanks for posting the article earlier. It was an interesting read. A few bits of it provided potential explanations to things that I'd been wondering about.
Like, why were people perversely viewing Ukraine as the good guys in all this?
I don't think that was the thrust of the article. It seemed quite dispassionate about both sides.
It was more about the location of Mariupol being the main location of the Azov Brigade (the neo-Nazi sympathising ones), and that the Russians were unlikely to show them any quarter.
It did occur to me that looking at it very cynically, perhaps this is another advantage for Zelensky in delaying a peace settlement - the Russians seem to be in the process of wiping out his embarrassing neo-Nazi wing, with the rest of his army left nicely intact.
Meanwhile Putin is deploying the Wagner Group whose leaders seem to be Rodnoverists (Slavic pagans) which normally seems to ensure you are a complete c**t.
Yes, there are of course extreme undesirables on the Russian side.
If you are defending your country against invaders, I don't think your political persuasion matters. If the Azov Brigade can kill Muscovites, good luck to them.
They are also very good at defending their country against Jews, gypsies and homosexuals. Not people I'd be wishing good luck to
I said a couple of weeks ago this was a huge opportunity for Xi to establish China definitively as the world's other superpower by brokering a peace deal.
The 21st century will likely be the Sino-American century (he wrongly predicted) with the Chinese leading on soft power and the Americans on hard power. One can but hope that relationship doesn't become as dysfunctional and adversarial as the Soviet-American relationship from 1945-91.
There's perhaps a parallel with the Suez Crisis where the Americans effecively sided with the USSR against Britain and France in order to assert their status as the sole Western superpower.
I apologise if my previous posts this afternoon were too cheerful which is why they ignored and no likes. I do appreciate the truth is We all feel Complete opposite from safe and happy. We all have a shadow cast across us. And how we each react our different ways to such things, short tempered or angry with others in what we can’t control, or depressed and weighed down by what we can’t control. Catching up on The news from war zone is worst thing ever 😣 I find my resilience tested. Almost like Putin has merely been moving into position from outside to in position inside last few weeks before now he is properly getting on with serious and brutal total takeover all over the place.
This country is bread basket of the world too As Zelenskyy said they should be sowing, not shooting. Even if an explosion doesn’t kill anyone there, the explosion causes starving in Africa (to steal bit from someone else’s sermon.)
All talk from Moscow of progress in negotiation is just bollocks, Putin isn’t going to stop, every elected politician at all levels in Ukraine is going to disappear with a bag over their head and be replaced by a puppet.
Thank goodness Lesia Vasylenko is out the country and safe in Europe! she become the new recognised leader in exile I am suspecting now if things continue to go wrong like this
Several friends have independently told me that the first thing they do, these days, on waking - is pick up the phone and see if Putin has dropped a nuke or gassed a city. I am the same
That is not good for the nerves
You are absolutely right. It is doing something to us too. Obviously our first thoughts are the horrors on shocked refugee faces and the people losing beloved ones (rather than poor Farooq under his blanket feeling a bit chilly this March day). But the homes with the long loved vase in window and the artisan shops long in the family and the factory’s and tea rooms look like they could just be streets away from us, and hell is visiting it. 🤮
Back to *politics *betting Have to expect polls are showing some rally to flag for current government in US and with Macron and Boris. If Starmer was PM you would expect Starmer and Labour to enjoy rally to flag in crisis bounce even if Tory opposition not doing too much wrong at all, such as in nature of rally in crisis bounces.
But surely the bit we should be focussing on is that there doesn’t seem to be much government bounce in all three of these countries? Surely that is our BIG political betting story? A limp rally to flag bounce in such serious crisis, what does it mean, what does it tell us about what happens next?
In France I think all Macron has is gobbled up the Pecresses voters who won’t abstain in second round early, to top himself up a bit - that might not even be war related, just pecrasse less convincing than fillion - but doesn’t help President for second round at all by picking low lying fruit early. Thinking ahead if Putin annexation on current Ukraine boundaries, I wonder how history books will view Sleepy Joe Biden? Will he be viewed as too old and sleepy and ultimately rubbish in this crisis? There already seems to be a growing opposition to Biden’s Ukraine sleepiness in favour of firmer and stated red lines in US politics have you noticed, not just from Trump and his brood but from across left to right of the political spectrum including moderates? In political betting sense could Biden be brought down by this before end of his term (standing and winning again already looking unlikely) and actually be out even before Putin?
At that point of Putin’s annexation of Ukraine you see it’s positions reversed, Putin with all his shit like training bases, listening posts, radar, missile launchers, build up of troops, airstrips on all those Ukraine borders, just miles from EU and NATO everyday cities towns & villages. ☹️ Having a Ukraine friendly to us was brilliant for us. If Putin gets into that position, can you think of a more bigger and frustrating middle finger up to the West? How would the western leaders look in eyes of their own voters with Putin’s middle finger up at us? Will the alliance start to blame one another, as the Ukrainians already are taking sides and blaming some in West for this over others in todays news? (Basically Love Boris, hating France and Germany and Turkey).
Are my political betting musings helpful to this site at all, or would my time be better spent catching up on Emmerdale and Farndale? 💁♀️
Very helpful! You add, perhaps, a more feminine perspective to a very male site. Tho of course I do not know your gender
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Lancashire South of Preston is shit but Bowland and the Wyre valley which I think are fracking country are among the most beautiful bits of England
We need to find huge reserves under Swindon, Luton, or Derby. Or, of course, Wick.
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I think in general tax on wealth has to go up. As we are, if you're loaded but with a modest income you make little fiscal contribution to the nation's finances.
Income tax rates have been high for many years. I've quite happily paid those taxes, and have finally managed to reach retirement. It'd be a little harsh if the burden now switches back on to me (and all the others similarly positioned)
If you can find some way to assess wealth, then it's a reasonable tax, but anything along those lines surely should take into account the tax you've already paid. Such a model could be dovetailed quite nicely into inheritance tax too.
In a sense it's harsh (on some). But I think we have a genuine case of TINA here. Either we find a way to squeeze more tax from wealth or we scale back what we expect the state to provide (inc for high priorities like health and defence).
Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
How does it compare to the pension of investment bankers?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming investment bankers who are not, as far as I'm aware, paid for by the state.
OK - how does it compare to the pension of MPs?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming MPs, if that is the pension they want.
So then why did @HYUFD make the stupid comparison in the first place?
It is not stupid, the point remains teachers get a good pension compared to the average worker
But teaching used to be a reasonably high status profession - high enough to rank alongside medics and lawyers to sign a passport photo, for example. "Average worker" is what? Shop assistant? Delivery driver? Teachers used to be professionals, and having been appointed, just got on with the job.
As a profession, it has been downgraded and deskilled by a succession of third rate Tory ministers, who were just about good enough to be accountants. I think that is what some of our friends are complaining of, at heart.
What did labour do for teaching exactly ? Why just the Tories get a mention.
As for professions with a diminished status try Engineers. A profession that is valued on the continent but here has slid down the ranks over many years
But at least engineers enjoy what they are doing and can get paid very well for it...
Though it always confused me that in the civil service scientific and technical people are limited in the roles they can (perhaps could) go for, while the others with no particularly useful skill sets ( history, PPE, etc) had a lot wider choice of roles.
Engineering is not a highly paid profession. Some can earn good salaries, others get by.
As for enjoying what they do that’s not my experience, some do, many don’t.
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Lancashire South of Preston is shit but Bowland and the Wyre valley which I think are fracking country are among the most beautiful bits of England
We need to find huge reserves under Swindon, Luton, or Derby. Or, of course, Wick.
Of course, if we are wrong and it formed a massive sink hole, then Middlesbrough is the place to be fracking.....
I apologise if my previous posts this afternoon were too cheerful which is why they ignored and no likes. I do appreciate the truth is We all feel Complete opposite from safe and happy. We all have a shadow cast across us. And how we each react our different ways to such things, short tempered or angry with others in what we can’t control, or depressed and weighed down by what we can’t control. Catching up on The news from war zone is worst thing ever 😣 I find my resilience tested. Almost like Putin has merely been moving into position from outside to in position inside last few weeks before now he is properly getting on with serious and brutal total takeover all over the place.
This country is bread basket of the world too As Zelenskyy said they should be sowing, not shooting. Even if an explosion doesn’t kill anyone there, the explosion causes starving in Africa (to steal bit from someone else’s sermon.)
All talk from Moscow of progress in negotiation is just bollocks, Putin isn’t going to stop, every elected politician at all levels in Ukraine is going to disappear with a bag over their head and be replaced by a puppet.
Thank goodness Lesia Vasylenko is out the country and safe in Europe! she become the new recognised leader in exile I am suspecting now if things continue to go wrong like this
I didn't feel I could like a post which invited Leon to imagine you in your pyjamas. I just didn't altogether feel comfortable with this image...
Glad you had a nice day though. It's just started raining here again.
I’m sure Leon clicked the link intrigued by such an animation 😉
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I think in general tax on wealth has to go up. As we are, if you're loaded but with a modest income you make little fiscal contribution to the nation's finances.
Income tax rates have been high for many years. I've quite happily paid those taxes, and have finally managed to reach retirement. It'd be a little harsh if the burden now switches back on to me (and all the others similarly positioned)
If you can find some way to assess wealth, then it's a reasonable tax, but anything along those lines surely should take into account the tax you've already paid. Such a model could be dovetailed quite nicely into inheritance tax too.
Those who have paid least always want to soak those that have toiled for 50 years.
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Lancashire South of Preston is shit but Bowland and the Wyre valley which I think are fracking country are among the most beautiful bits of England
We need to find huge reserves under Swindon, Luton, or Derby. Or, of course, Wick.
A few of those pumpy pumpy things would do wonders for Milton Keynes.
Fracking is something for the old coalfield areas, or Red Wall as it had become known in electoral terms. Suicide for the Tories, as despoils the area and provides few jobs.
I apologise if my previous posts this afternoon were too cheerful which is why they ignored and no likes. I do appreciate the truth is We all feel Complete opposite from safe and happy. We all have a shadow cast across us. And how we each react our different ways to such things, short tempered or angry with others in what we can’t control, or depressed and weighed down by what we can’t control. Catching up on The news from war zone is worst thing ever 😣 I find my resilience tested. Almost like Putin has merely been moving into position from outside to in position inside last few weeks before now he is properly getting on with serious and brutal total takeover all over the place.
This country is bread basket of the world too As Zelenskyy said they should be sowing, not shooting. Even if an explosion doesn’t kill anyone there, the explosion causes starving in Africa (to steal bit from someone else’s sermon.)
All talk from Moscow of progress in negotiation is just bollocks, Putin isn’t going to stop, every elected politician at all levels in Ukraine is going to disappear with a bag over their head and be replaced by a puppet.
Thank goodness Lesia Vasylenko is out the country and safe in Europe! she become the new recognised leader in exile I am suspecting now if things continue to go wrong like this
I didn't feel I could like a post which invited Leon to imagine you in your pyjamas. I just didn't altogether feel comfortable with this image...
Glad you had a nice day though. It's just started raining here again.
I’m sure Leon clicked the link intrigued by such an animation 😉
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Lancashire South of Preston is shit but Bowland and the Wyre valley which I think are fracking country are among the most beautiful bits of England
Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
How does it compare to the pension of investment bankers?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming investment bankers who are not, as far as I'm aware, paid for by the state.
OK - how does it compare to the pension of MPs?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming MPs, if that is the pension they want.
So then why did @HYUFD make the stupid comparison in the first place?
It is not stupid, the point remains teachers get a good pension compared to the average worker
But teaching used to be a reasonably high status profession - high enough to rank alongside medics and lawyers to sign a passport photo, for example. "Average worker" is what? Shop assistant? Delivery driver? Teachers used to be professionals, and having been appointed, just got on with the job.
As a profession, it has been downgraded and deskilled by a succession of third rate Tory ministers, who were just about good enough to be accountants. I think that is what some of our friends are complaining of, at heart.
What did labour do for teaching exactly ? Why just the Tories get a mention.
As for professions with a diminished status try Engineers. A profession that is valued on the continent but here has slid down the ranks over many years
But at least engineers enjoy what they are doing and can get paid very well for it...
Though it always confused me that in the civil service scientific and technical people are limited in the roles they can (perhaps could) go for, while the others with no particularly useful skill sets ( history, PPE, etc) had a lot wider choice of roles.
Engineering is not a highly paid profession. Some can earn good salaries, others get by.
As for enjoying what they do that’s not my experience, some do, many don’t.
Some engineers certainly don't enjoy their jobs.
One meeting changed my life. When a student (geo eng), I used to go to weekly meetings at the Institute of Civil Engineers. I wasn't a member, but I went with a friend who was, and they didn't seem to mind.
Whilst there one day, I met a man who was deeply unhappy. He was an expert on designing concrete beams, and his company used him to design beams, and nothing else. He wanted to get chartered status, but his experience was not wide enough, and if he wanted to change jobs, the only thing he could get was ... designing beams.
It changed my life as I really wanted to do site work (tunnelling), but my health wasn't good enough for that. And if I was going to be sitting in an office designing beams, I might as well earn more in computing.
So I chucked in my degree and haven't really looked back. All because of that one unhappy man ...
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I think in general tax on wealth has to go up. As we are, if you're loaded but with a modest income you make little fiscal contribution to the nation's finances.
Income tax rates have been high for many years. I've quite happily paid those taxes, and have finally managed to reach retirement. It'd be a little harsh if the burden now switches back on to me (and all the others similarly positioned)
If you can find some way to assess wealth, then it's a reasonable tax, but anything along those lines surely should take into account the tax you've already paid. Such a model could be dovetailed quite nicely into inheritance tax too.
In a sense it's harsh (on some). But I think we have a genuine case of TINA here. Either we find a way to squeeze more tax from wealth or we scale back what we expect the state to provide (inc for high priorities like health and defence).
Edit to myself -
So therefore it's NOT a matter of TINA, you dork! The alternative is what you yourself just said - we scale back what we expect the state to provide.
@TOPPING thanks for posting the article earlier. It was an interesting read. A few bits of it provided potential explanations to things that I'd been wondering about.
Like, why were people perversely viewing Ukraine as the good guys in all this?
I don't think that was the thrust of the article. It seemed quite dispassionate about both sides.
It was more about the location of Mariupol being the main location of the Azov Brigade (the neo-Nazi sympathising ones), and that the Russians were unlikely to show them any quarter.
It did occur to me that looking at it very cynically, perhaps this is another advantage for Zelensky in delaying a peace settlement - the Russians seem to be in the process of wiping out his embarrassing neo-Nazi wing, with the rest of his army left nicely intact.
Meanwhile Putin is deploying the Wagner Group whose leaders seem to be Rodnoverists (Slavic pagans) which normally seems to ensure you are a complete c**t.
Yes, there are of course extreme undesirables on the Russian side.
If you are defending your country against invaders, I don't think your political persuasion matters. If the Azov Brigade can kill Muscovites, good luck to them.
They are also very good at defending their country against Jews, gypsies and homosexuals. Not people I'd be wishing good luck to
Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
How does it compare to the pension of investment bankers?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming investment bankers who are not, as far as I'm aware, paid for by the state.
OK - how does it compare to the pension of MPs?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming MPs, if that is the pension they want.
So then why did @HYUFD make the stupid comparison in the first place?
It is not stupid, the point remains teachers get a good pension compared to the average worker
But teaching used to be a reasonably high status profession - high enough to rank alongside medics and lawyers to sign a passport photo, for example. "Average worker" is what? Shop assistant? Delivery driver? Teachers used to be professionals, and having been appointed, just got on with the job.
As a profession, it has been downgraded and deskilled by a succession of third rate Tory ministers, who were just about good enough to be accountants. I think that is what some of our friends are complaining of, at heart.
What did labour do for teaching exactly ? Why just the Tories get a mention.
As for professions with a diminished status try Engineers. A profession that is valued on the continent but here has slid down the ranks over many years
But at least engineers enjoy what they are doing and can get paid very well for it...
Though it always confused me that in the civil service scientific and technical people are limited in the roles they can (perhaps could) go for, while the others with no particularly useful skill sets ( history, PPE, etc) had a lot wider choice of roles.
Engineering is not a highly paid profession. Some can earn good salaries, others get by.
As for enjoying what they do that’s not my experience, some do, many don’t.
On the other hand, investment banks and hedge funds love people with engineering degrees - as it's more real world than degree level mathematics, but contains lots of concepts that are very useful.
@TOPPING thanks for posting the article earlier. It was an interesting read. A few bits of it provided potential explanations to things that I'd been wondering about.
Like, why were people perversely viewing Ukraine as the good guys in all this?
I don't think that was the thrust of the article. It seemed quite dispassionate about both sides.
It was more about the location of Mariupol being the main location of the Azov Brigade (the neo-Nazi sympathising ones), and that the Russians were unlikely to show them any quarter.
It did occur to me that looking at it very cynically, perhaps this is another advantage for Zelensky in delaying a peace settlement - the Russians seem to be in the process of wiping out his embarrassing neo-Nazi wing, with the rest of his army left nicely intact.
Meanwhile Putin is deploying the Wagner Group whose leaders seem to be Rodnoverists (Slavic pagans) which normally seems to ensure you are a complete c**t.
Yes, there are of course extreme undesirables on the Russian side.
If you are defending your country against invaders, I don't think your political persuasion matters. If the Azov Brigade can kill Muscovites, good luck to them.
They are also very good at defending their country against Jews, gypsies and homosexuals. Not people I'd be wishing good luck to
That sounds excessively hysterical. And if they can kill the enemy, they can kill the enemy. Zelenskiy might want to stitch them up afterwards though. It's important to note that they haven't really started with the no quarter stuff. Most of the Molotovs seem to remain unused.
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
No.
I did a four week course with FutureLearn on the politics and science of fracking. Fascinating. I went into it open minded and came out convinced it was not a sensible option for the UK. The course is free. It covers all opinions as well as geological and economic facts. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shale-gas
Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
How does it compare to the pension of investment bankers?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming investment bankers who are not, as far as I'm aware, paid for by the state.
OK - how does it compare to the pension of MPs?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming MPs, if that is the pension they want.
So then why did @HYUFD make the stupid comparison in the first place?
It is not stupid, the point remains teachers get a good pension compared to the average worker
But teaching used to be a reasonably high status profession - high enough to rank alongside medics and lawyers to sign a passport photo, for example. "Average worker" is what? Shop assistant? Delivery driver? Teachers used to be professionals, and having been appointed, just got on with the job.
As a profession, it has been downgraded and deskilled by a succession of third rate Tory ministers, who were just about good enough to be accountants. I think that is what some of our friends are complaining of, at heart.
What did labour do for teaching exactly ? Why just the Tories get a mention.
As for professions with a diminished status try Engineers. A profession that is valued on the continent but here has slid down the ranks over many years
But at least engineers enjoy what they are doing and can get paid very well for it...
Though it always confused me that in the civil service scientific and technical people are limited in the roles they can (perhaps could) go for, while the others with no particularly useful skill sets ( history, PPE, etc) had a lot wider choice of roles.
"no particularly useful skill sets (history etc.)". Is this another attempt to wind up ydoethur?
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Lancashire South of Preston is shit but Bowland and the Wyre valley which I think are fracking country are among the most beautiful bits of England
And heavily Tory.
Fracking has very low, temporary impact unlike solar farms! Small surface footprint. Yes, increased road traffic can be an issue but similar to quarrying.
Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
How does it compare to the pension of investment bankers?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming investment bankers who are not, as far as I'm aware, paid for by the state.
OK - how does it compare to the pension of MPs?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming MPs, if that is the pension they want.
So then why did @HYUFD make the stupid comparison in the first place?
It is not stupid, the point remains teachers get a good pension compared to the average worker
But teaching used to be a reasonably high status profession - high enough to rank alongside medics and lawyers to sign a passport photo, for example. "Average worker" is what? Shop assistant? Delivery driver? Teachers used to be professionals, and having been appointed, just got on with the job.
As a profession, it has been downgraded and deskilled by a succession of third rate Tory ministers, who were just about good enough to be accountants. I think that is what some of our friends are complaining of, at heart.
What did labour do for teaching exactly ? Why just the Tories get a mention.
As for professions with a diminished status try Engineers. A profession that is valued on the continent but here has slid down the ranks over many years
But at least engineers enjoy what they are doing and can get paid very well for it...
Though it always confused me that in the civil service scientific and technical people are limited in the roles they can (perhaps could) go for, while the others with no particularly useful skill sets ( history, PPE, etc) had a lot wider choice of roles.
Engineering is not a highly paid profession. Some can earn good salaries, others get by.
As for enjoying what they do that’s not my experience, some do, many don’t.
I guess it depends on people's experiences. Though there is also the labelling issue, many people called engineers here would be technicians or mechanics etc elsewhere. Which isn't to denigrate those jobs.
And there is also the context, in terms of employment by a massive company such as bae where you might be on the same project/product for decades (and generally not get paid very well) compared to the more consultancy focused end of things, which pay better.
Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
How does it compare to the pension of investment bankers?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming investment bankers who are not, as far as I'm aware, paid for by the state.
OK - how does it compare to the pension of MPs?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming MPs, if that is the pension they want.
So then why did @HYUFD make the stupid comparison in the first place?
It is not stupid, the point remains teachers get a good pension compared to the average worker
But teaching used to be a reasonably high status profession - high enough to rank alongside medics and lawyers to sign a passport photo, for example. "Average worker" is what? Shop assistant? Delivery driver? Teachers used to be professionals, and having been appointed, just got on with the job.
As a profession, it has been downgraded and deskilled by a succession of third rate Tory ministers, who were just about good enough to be accountants. I think that is what some of our friends are complaining of, at heart.
What did labour do for teaching exactly ? Why just the Tories get a mention.
As for professions with a diminished status try Engineers. A profession that is valued on the continent but here has slid down the ranks over many years
But at least engineers enjoy what they are doing and can get paid very well for it...
Though it always confused me that in the civil service scientific and technical people are limited in the roles they can (perhaps could) go for, while the others with no particularly useful skill sets ( history, PPE, etc) had a lot wider choice of roles.
Engineering is not a highly paid profession. Some can earn good salaries, others get by.
As for enjoying what they do that’s not my experience, some do, many don’t.
Some engineers certainly don't enjoy their jobs.
One meeting changed my life. When a student (geo eng), I used to go to weekly meetings at the Institute of Civil Engineers. I wasn't a member, but I went with a friend who was, and they didn't seem to mind.
Whilst there one day, I met a man who was deeply unhappy. He was an expert on designing concrete beams, and his company used him to design beams, and nothing else. He wanted to get chartered status, but his experience was not wide enough, and if he wanted to change jobs, the only thing he could get was ... designing beams.
It changed my life as I really wanted to do site work (tunnelling), but my health wasn't good enough for that. And if I was going to be sitting in an office designing beams, I might as well earn more in computing.
So I chucked in my degree and haven't really looked back. All because of that one unhappy man ...
My Dad was going to join the RAF, having had a great time flying in the University air squadron, until a friend who was a year ahead and commissioned got posted down a Blue Streak silo for a few years. So he became a salesman for IBM instead .
I think inheritances will have to be taxed more heavily. The introduction of residential nil rate relief, means that at some point in this decade I will likely enjoy an additional £50,000 over and above what I would otherwise have inherited. That £50,000 is nice to have, but it's less essential than this country having adequate defences.
I think in general tax on wealth has to go up. As we are, if you're loaded but with a modest income you make little fiscal contribution to the nation's finances.
Income tax rates have been high for many years. I've quite happily paid those taxes, and have finally managed to reach retirement. It'd be a little harsh if the burden now switches back on to me (and all the others similarly positioned)
If you can find some way to assess wealth, then it's a reasonable tax, but anything along those lines surely should take into account the tax you've already paid. Such a model could be dovetailed quite nicely into inheritance tax too.
Your generation have received a massive windfall in asset rises, both through house prices and other assets such as pensions, due to QE inflating assets.
The under 40s generations are receiving the opposite of a windfall with higher living costs and finding assets such as homes that they need to purchase over inflated (by govt policies).
The fair solution is to give redress to the younger generation by taxing assets more and incomes less.
FWIW before I am accused of bias, I am pretty much halfway between those generations, and would likely do worse under a more asset tax, less jobs tax environment.
Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
How does it compare to the pension of investment bankers?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming investment bankers who are not, as far as I'm aware, paid for by the state.
OK - how does it compare to the pension of MPs?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming MPs, if that is the pension they want.
So then why did @HYUFD make the stupid comparison in the first place?
It is not stupid, the point remains teachers get a good pension compared to the average worker
But teaching used to be a reasonably high status profession - high enough to rank alongside medics and lawyers to sign a passport photo, for example. "Average worker" is what? Shop assistant? Delivery driver? Teachers used to be professionals, and having been appointed, just got on with the job.
As a profession, it has been downgraded and deskilled by a succession of third rate Tory ministers, who were just about good enough to be accountants. I think that is what some of our friends are complaining of, at heart.
What did labour do for teaching exactly ? Why just the Tories get a mention.
As for professions with a diminished status try Engineers. A profession that is valued on the continent but here has slid down the ranks over many years
But at least engineers enjoy what they are doing and can get paid very well for it...
Though it always confused me that in the civil service scientific and technical people are limited in the roles they can (perhaps could) go for, while the others with no particularly useful skill sets ( history, PPE, etc) had a lot wider choice of roles.
Engineering is not a highly paid profession. Some can earn good salaries, others get by.
As for enjoying what they do that’s not my experience, some do, many don’t.
Some engineers certainly don't enjoy their jobs.
One meeting changed my life. When a student (geo eng), I used to go to weekly meetings at the Institute of Civil Engineers. I wasn't a member, but I went with a friend who was, and they didn't seem to mind.
Whilst there one day, I met a man who was deeply unhappy. He was an expert on designing concrete beams, and his company used him to design beams, and nothing else. He wanted to get chartered status, but his experience was not wide enough, and if he wanted to change jobs, the only thing he could get was ... designing beams.
It changed my life as I really wanted to do site work (tunnelling), but my health wasn't good enough for that. And if I was going to be sitting in an office designing beams, I might as well earn more in computing.
So I chucked in my degree and haven't really looked back. All because of that one unhappy man ...
My Dad was going to join the RAF, having had a great time flying in the University air squadron, until a friend who was a year ahead and commissioned got posted down a Blue Streak silo for a few years. So he became a salesman for IBM instead .
@TOPPING thanks for posting the article earlier. It was an interesting read. A few bits of it provided potential explanations to things that I'd been wondering about.
Like, why were people perversely viewing Ukraine as the good guys in all this?
I don't think that was the thrust of the article. It seemed quite dispassionate about both sides.
It was more about the location of Mariupol being the main location of the Azov Brigade (the neo-Nazi sympathising ones), and that the Russians were unlikely to show them any quarter.
It did occur to me that looking at it very cynically, perhaps this is another advantage for Zelensky in delaying a peace settlement - the Russians seem to be in the process of wiping out his embarrassing neo-Nazi wing, with the rest of his army left nicely intact.
Meanwhile Putin is deploying the Wagner Group whose leaders seem to be Rodnoverists (Slavic pagans) which normally seems to ensure you are a complete c**t.
Yes, there are of course extreme undesirables on the Russian side.
If you are defending your country against invaders, I don't think your political persuasion matters. If the Azov Brigade can kill Muscovites, good luck to them.
They are also very good at defending their country against Jews, gypsies and homosexuals. Not people I'd be wishing good luck to
That sounds excessively hysterical. And if they can kill the enemy, they can kill the enemy. Zelenskiy might want to stitch them up afterwards though. It's important to note that they haven't really started with the no quarter stuff. Most of the Molotovs seem to remain unused.
"Excessively hysterical"? Meaning what, that they are anti semitic, but not to an unreasonable degree?
Guardian's Kyiv reporter corroborating stories of executions.
This is just going to get more and more awful and nazi war machine very sadly. Sickening.
Interestingly, opinion piece in Observer by their foreign editor says NATO needs to intervene now because it will have to anyway shortly or Putin will just keep going.
I don't buy that position, but I think it will happen anyway.
Sadly, because they will be the most anti-putin and well informed, they would also have been the people to spear head any anti Putin Revelation. But I don't blame them one bit.
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Plus there's the demand side to the equation: UK generators have really shied away from buying natural gas on long-term contracts. And I simply can't see any energy company (even one that is highly experienced at tight/shale gas) committing to a substantial UK drilling programme without some guarantee there will be demand at a given price.
There's an awful lot of LNG that can come on stream in the next few years too. Let's not forget that US natural gas prices are less than $5, compared to $40 to 60 in Europe. The reason that there isn't more convergence is (principally) a lack of LNG vessels - simply there's enough US export capacity and enough European import terminals... but there are only about 600 LNG carriers in the world, and they're mostly contracted on existing routes.
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Lancashire South of Preston is shit but Bowland and the Wyre valley which I think are fracking country are among the most beautiful bits of England
And heavily Tory.
Fracking has very low, temporary impact unlike solar farms! Small surface footprint. Yes, increased road traffic can be an issue but similar to quarrying.
Don't tell me. Tell the wealthy Tory voters in those areas.
Guardian's Kyiv reporter corroborating stories of executions.
Desolating
Random shooting of civilians just to instil terror. This is like ISIS, maybe even Hitler
How can the Ukrainians possibly make a peace with Putin? He is breeding a hatred that will last for decades
Very bleak long term as well as now. Hard to envisage these 2 large countries living next door in peace for a long long time. And whatever happens they will remain immediate neighbours.
Guardian's Kyiv reporter corroborating stories of executions.
This is just going to get more and more awful and nazi war machine very sadly. Sickening.
Interestingly, opinion piece in Observer by their foreign editor says NATO needs to intervene now because it will have to anyway shortly or Putin will just keep going.
I don't buy that position, but I think it will happen anyway.
It's going to mean the sanctions have a life of their own outside of however Ukraine resolves. Russia is fast leaving behind any pretext of being seen as a civilised nation. They are going to be punished for decades if they don't desist.
And China will be forced to abandon them to their crumbling economic fate.
Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
How does it compare to the pension of investment bankers?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming investment bankers who are not, as far as I'm aware, paid for by the state.
OK - how does it compare to the pension of MPs?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming MPs, if that is the pension they want.
So then why did @HYUFD make the stupid comparison in the first place?
It is not stupid, the point remains teachers get a good pension compared to the average worker
But teaching used to be a reasonably high status profession - high enough to rank alongside medics and lawyers to sign a passport photo, for example. "Average worker" is what? Shop assistant? Delivery driver? Teachers used to be professionals, and having been appointed, just got on with the job.
As a profession, it has been downgraded and deskilled by a succession of third rate Tory ministers, who were just about good enough to be accountants. I think that is what some of our friends are complaining of, at heart.
What did labour do for teaching exactly ? Why just the Tories get a mention.
As for professions with a diminished status try Engineers. A profession that is valued on the continent but here has slid down the ranks over many years
But at least engineers enjoy what they are doing and can get paid very well for it...
Though it always confused me that in the civil service scientific and technical people are limited in the roles they can (perhaps could) go for, while the others with no particularly useful skill sets ( history, PPE, etc) had a lot wider choice of roles.
"no particularly useful skill sets (history etc.)". Is this another attempt to wind up ydoethur?
It might have been... There have been rather a lot of historian focused discussions of late!
I apologise if my previous posts this afternoon were too cheerful which is why they ignored and no likes. I do appreciate the truth is We all feel Complete opposite from safe and happy. We all have a shadow cast across us. And how we each react our different ways to such things, short tempered or angry with others in what we can’t control, or depressed and weighed down by what we can’t control. Catching up on The news from war zone is worst thing ever 😣 I find my resilience tested. Almost like Putin has merely been moving into position from outside to in position inside last few weeks before now he is properly getting on with serious and brutal total takeover all over the place.
This country is bread basket of the world too As Zelenskyy said they should be sowing, not shooting. Even if an explosion doesn’t kill anyone there, the explosion causes starving in Africa (to steal bit from someone else’s sermon.)
All talk from Moscow of progress in negotiation is just bollocks, Putin isn’t going to stop, every elected politician at all levels in Ukraine is going to disappear with a bag over their head and be replaced by a puppet.
Thank goodness Lesia Vasylenko is out the country and safe in Europe! she become the new recognised leader in exile I am suspecting now if things continue to go wrong like this
Several friends have independently told me that the first thing they do, these days, on waking - is pick up the phone and see if Putin has dropped a nuke or gassed a city. I am the same
That is not good for the nerves
You are absolutely right. It is doing something to us too. Obviously our first thoughts are the horrors on shocked refugee faces and the people losing beloved ones (rather than poor Farooq under his blanket feeling a bit chilly this March day). But the homes with the long loved vase in window and the artisan shops long in the family and the factory’s and tea rooms look like they could just be streets away from us, and hell is visiting it. 🤮
Back to *politics *betting Have to expect polls are showing some rally to flag for current government in US and with Macron and Boris. If Starmer was PM you would expect Starmer and Labour to enjoy rally to flag in crisis bounce even if Tory opposition not doing too much wrong at all, such as in nature of rally in crisis bounces.
But surely the bit we should be focussing on is that there doesn’t seem to be much government bounce in all three of these countries? Surely that is our BIG political betting story? A limp rally to flag bounce in such serious crisis, what does it mean, what does it tell us about what happens next?
In France I think all Macron has is gobbled up the Pecresses voters who won’t abstain in second round early, to top himself up a bit - that might not even be war related, just pecrasse less convincing than fillion - but doesn’t help President for second round at all by picking low lying fruit early. Thinking ahead if Putin annexation on current Ukraine boundaries, I wonder how history books will view Sleepy Joe Biden? Will he be viewed as too old and sleepy and ultimately rubbish in this crisis? There already seems to be a growing opposition to Biden’s Ukraine sleepiness in favour of firmer and stated red lines in US politics have you noticed, not just from Trump and his brood but from across left to right of the political spectrum including moderates? In political betting sense could Biden be brought down by this before end of his term (standing and winning again already looking unlikely) and actually be out even before Putin?
At that point of Putin’s annexation of Ukraine you see it’s positions reversed, Putin with all his shit like training bases, listening posts, radar, missile launchers, build up of troops, airstrips on all those Ukraine borders, just miles from EU and NATO everyday cities towns & villages. ☹️ Having a Ukraine friendly to us was brilliant for us. If Putin gets into that position, can you think of a more bigger and frustrating middle finger up to the West? How would the western leaders look in eyes of their own voters with Putin’s middle finger up at us? Will the alliance start to blame one another, as the Ukrainians already are taking sides and blaming some in West for this over others in todays news? (Basically Love Boris, hating France and Germany and Turkey).
Are my political betting musings helpful to this site at all, or would my time be better spent catching up on Emmerdale and Farndale? 💁♀️
Very helpful! You add, perhaps, a more feminine perspective to a very male site. Tho of course I do not know your gender
Okay More *political betting musings (as I don’t have the television, she’s watching Arsenal) Much as we want this anger and determination to remove Putin regime to go on till job is done, Will voters rally behind sanction hardships they need to endure in the middle and longer term when war is no longer in the news? A government cannot promise when the end to belt tightening sanctions will come?
Like you go into a military war, you MUST start with clear achievable objectives, knowing your time frames, have an exit strategy when bogged down or going wrong? Generals and subject matter experts not advising influencing political leaders properly if don’t have these things.
However Have we entered into a sanction war without clear achievable objectives? knowing our time frames, have an exit strategy when bogged down or going wrong? Sanction war very easy so far because if anything the everyday people across US and Europe actually want our leaders to go even further - because Zelenskyy is our hero and we want to save Ukraine from evil Putin aggression and Ukraine win this war. But if at a point Ukraine is annexed, as looking possible now, does our ongoing sanction war have clear achievable objectives, our government can explain our time frames for victory, have an exit strategy when bogged down - because although electorate say push harder now, they might also disrespect government in future who can’t answer these questions whilst there’s ongoing chaos and pain to deal with?
You see what I mean? It can slip from being an obvious popular reaction policy, needing no sell, to one that needs clear definition to continue explain and sell. That’s what political strategists need to be saying to politicians?
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Lancashire South of Preston is shit but Bowland and the Wyre valley which I think are fracking country are among the most beautiful bits of England
And heavily Tory.
Fracking has very low, temporary impact unlike solar farms! Small surface footprint. Yes, increased road traffic can be an issue but similar to quarrying.
Massively unpopular with locals though, and that is democracy.
Guardian's Kyiv reporter corroborating stories of executions.
This is just going to get more and more awful and nazi war machine very sadly. Sickening.
Interestingly, opinion piece in Observer by their foreign editor says NATO needs to intervene now because it will have to anyway shortly or Putin will just keep going.
I don't buy that position, but I think it will happen anyway.
It's going to mean the sanctions have a life of their own outside of however Ukraine resolves. Russia is fast leaving behind any pretext of being seen as a civilised nation. They are going to be punished for decades if they don't desist.
And China will be forced to abandon them to their crumbling economic fate.
It also means they will NEVER subdue Ukr. Putin's mad fantasy about the country falling into a resigned but accepting fate of being part of Russia is now dead and buried. They will be so angry about the barbarity that partisans will fight for decades imho.
Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
How does it compare to the pension of investment bankers?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming investment bankers who are not, as far as I'm aware, paid for by the state.
OK - how does it compare to the pension of MPs?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming MPs, if that is the pension they want.
So then why did @HYUFD make the stupid comparison in the first place?
It is not stupid, the point remains teachers get a good pension compared to the average worker
But teaching used to be a reasonably high status profession - high enough to rank alongside medics and lawyers to sign a passport photo, for example. "Average worker" is what? Shop assistant? Delivery driver? Teachers used to be professionals, and having been appointed, just got on with the job.
As a profession, it has been downgraded and deskilled by a succession of third rate Tory ministers, who were just about good enough to be accountants. I think that is what some of our friends are complaining of, at heart.
What did labour do for teaching exactly ? Why just the Tories get a mention.
As for professions with a diminished status try Engineers. A profession that is valued on the continent but here has slid down the ranks over many years
But at least engineers enjoy what they are doing and can get paid very well for it...
Though it always confused me that in the civil service scientific and technical people are limited in the roles they can (perhaps could) go for, while the others with no particularly useful skill sets ( history, PPE, etc) had a lot wider choice of roles.
Engineering is not a highly paid profession. Some can earn good salaries, others get by.
As for enjoying what they do that’s not my experience, some do, many don’t.
On the other hand, investment banks and hedge funds love people with engineering degrees - as it's more real world than degree level mathematics, but contains lots of concepts that are very useful.
Could be a sign we've cracked it, when the best of such graduates compete like crazy for engineering jobs and only consider the City as a Plan B or C.
Sadly, because they will be the most anti-putin and well informed, they would also have been the people to spear head any anti Putin Revelation. But I don't blame them one bit.
200,000 is quite a lot. They will also be of the generation most likely to produce more Russians. Add in Russia's excessive covid deaths, deaths in the war and, most of all, the unfavourable demographics - pretty soon it feels like there will be no Russians left.
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
No.
I did a four week course with FutureLearn on the politics and science of fracking. Fascinating. I went into it open minded and came out convinced it was not a sensible option for the UK. The course is free. It covers all opinions as well as geological and economic facts. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shale-gas
Was the course pretty fair minded then ? I’m sceptical about fracking in the U.K. I also think that this ship has pretty much sailed now.
Ukrainian use of social media is genius. Tragically, I suspect that is because they have so much "good" material that is guaranteed to make people cry
If this war were being decided by media prowess, Putin would already be suing for the best terms he could get from the Ukrainian army encircling Moscow.
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Lancashire South of Preston is shit but Bowland and the Wyre valley which I think are fracking country are among the most beautiful bits of England
And heavily Tory.
Fracking has very low, temporary impact unlike solar farms! Small surface footprint. Yes, increased road traffic can be an issue but similar to quarrying.
Massively unpopular with locals though, and that is democracy.
Foxes getting anything from this game?
She is excited, but looks to me like usual fluff and garter performance from Arsenal.
The objection to a windfall tax on Shell is that it hits peoples' pensions. a shit argument because any pension fund which is more than 1% in Shell and BP combined needs its trustees' heads feeling, and the pensioners receive the benefit of the windfall tax along with the non-pensioners, a large and very impecunious group.
I will repeat what I said on here a few weeks ago. Politicians are fecking stupid. There is no need for a windfall tax. There is an existing mechanism for levying additional tax against oil revenues which has existed for decades - The Petroleum Revenue Tax. It was specifically designed so that it could be adjusted up and down to reflect the variations in oil price and the effect that has on oil companies viability - although the big companies survive, lots of Oil companies do go bust or get bought out during downturns. Since 2016 it has been set at zero because of the long slump in oil prices starting almost a decade ago. But the upturn of the last year or more and particularly the most recent jump, means that it could and should be increased from zero with little fuss and no arguments about 'windfalls'. And since it is charged on production it would have an equal effect on all UK oil and gas producers.
This would be a very simple change to make but of course it might not have the fanfare that politicians like.
Genuine question - is it charged on all production (no matter where located) from UK based companies - or on all UK production (no matter which company is doing/responsible for the producing?). If it is the latter then it is presumably problematic at a time when we want to reduce the amount of foreign produced oil and increase domestic production?
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Lancashire South of Preston is shit but Bowland and the Wyre valley which I think are fracking country are among the most beautiful bits of England
And heavily Tory.
Fracking has very low, temporary impact unlike solar farms! Small surface footprint. Yes, increased road traffic can be an issue but similar to quarrying.
Massively unpopular with locals though, and that is democracy.
Foxes getting anything from this game?
She is excited, but looks to me like usual fluff and garter performance from Arsenal.
We did beat Arsenal at home recently, but haven't won away there in ages.
Playing a bit better after the first 20 min though, so always possible.
Curt Monash, PhD (Game Theory) @CurtMonash · 3h 1/ (Thesis: The Ukraine War CAN still be ended quickly, if we focus on that goal.) The Western powers have done much right in the Russia/Ukraine crisis. But I fear they’re pursuing the wrong strategic objective. It should be: “End the war quickly, without letting Ukraine lose.”
Curt Monash, PhD (Game Theory) @CurtMonash · 3h 18/ That concludes the main argument, which boils down to: There are huge humanitarian and practical reasons to want Putin out of Ukraine quickly. He has strong reasons to leave quickly too. So give him the maximum possible shove and try to make it happen.
Guardian's Kyiv reporter corroborating stories of executions.
Desolating
Random shooting of civilians just to instil terror. This is like ISIS, maybe even Hitler
How can the Ukrainians possibly make a peace with Putin? He is breeding a hatred that will last for decades
Very bleak long term as well as now. Hard to envisage these 2 large countries living next door in peace for a long long time. And whatever happens they will remain immediate neighbours.
Trying to resist despair, I guess one could argue that the French and Germans patched it up pretty quickly after WW2, despite Nazism, and the Chinese and Japanese have managed to be neighbours, without renewed conflict, despite the Rape of Nanjing, Unit 731, etc
The key element in both cases, however, is that the aggressor was defeated and seen to suffer terribly. Germany was bombed and raped into submission, Japan got nuked
If Putin and his regime escape unpunished for their crimes then the Ukrainians will want violent revenge
Clever. Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp are never getting back into Russia:
War is not only a military opposition on UA land. It is also a fierce battle in the informational space. I want to thank @Meta and other platforms that have an active position that help and stand side by side with the Ukrainians.
I apologise if my previous posts this afternoon were too cheerful which is why they ignored and no likes. I do appreciate the truth is We all feel Complete opposite from safe and happy. We all have a shadow cast across us. And how we each react our different ways to such things, short tempered or angry with others in what we can’t control, or depressed and weighed down by what we can’t control. Catching up on The news from war zone is worst thing ever 😣 I find my resilience tested. Almost like Putin has merely been moving into position from outside to in position inside last few weeks before now he is properly getting on with serious and brutal total takeover all over the place.
This country is bread basket of the world too As Zelenskyy said they should be sowing, not shooting. Even if an explosion doesn’t kill anyone there, the explosion causes starving in Africa (to steal bit from someone else’s sermon.)
All talk from Moscow of progress in negotiation is just bollocks, Putin isn’t going to stop, every elected politician at all levels in Ukraine is going to disappear with a bag over their head and be replaced by a puppet.
Thank goodness Lesia Vasylenko is out the country and safe in Europe! she become the new recognised leader in exile I am suspecting now if things continue to go wrong like this
Several friends have independently told me that the first thing they do, these days, on waking - is pick up the phone and see if Putin has dropped a nuke or gassed a city. I am the same
That is not good for the nerves
You are absolutely right. It is doing something to us too. Obviously our first thoughts are the horrors on shocked refugee faces and the people losing beloved ones (rather than poor Farooq under his blanket feeling a bit chilly this March day). But the homes with the long loved vase in window and the artisan shops long in the family and the factory’s and tea rooms look like they could just be streets away from us, and hell is visiting it. 🤮
Back to *politics *betting Have to expect polls are showing some rally to flag for current government in US and with Macron and Boris. If Starmer was PM you would expect Starmer and Labour to enjoy rally to flag in crisis bounce even if Tory opposition not doing too much wrong at all, such as in nature of rally in crisis bounces.
But surely the bit we should be focussing on is that there doesn’t seem to be much government bounce in all three of these countries? Surely that is our BIG political betting story? A limp rally to flag bounce in such serious crisis, what does it mean, what does it tell us about what happens next?
In France I think all Macron has is gobbled up the Pecresses voters who won’t abstain in second round early, to top himself up a bit - that might not even be war related, just pecrasse less convincing than fillion - but doesn’t help President for second round at all by picking low lying fruit early. Thinking ahead if Putin annexation on current Ukraine boundaries, I wonder how history books will view Sleepy Joe Biden? Will he be viewed as too old and sleepy and ultimately rubbish in this crisis? There already seems to be a growing opposition to Biden’s Ukraine sleepiness in favour of firmer and stated red lines in US politics have you noticed, not just from Trump and his brood but from across left to right of the political spectrum including moderates? In political betting sense could Biden be brought down by this before end of his term (standing and winning again already looking unlikely) and actually be out even before Putin?
At that point of Putin’s annexation of Ukraine you see it’s positions reversed, Putin with all his shit like training bases, listening posts, radar, missile launchers, build up of troops, airstrips on all those Ukraine borders, just miles from EU and NATO everyday cities towns & villages. ☹️ Having a Ukraine friendly to us was brilliant for us. If Putin gets into that position, can you think of a more bigger and frustrating middle finger up to the West? How would the western leaders look in eyes of their own voters with Putin’s middle finger up at us? Will the alliance start to blame one another, as the Ukrainians already are taking sides and blaming some in West for this over others in todays news? (Basically Love Boris, hating France and Germany and Turkey).
Are my political betting musings helpful to this site at all, or would my time be better spent catching up on Emmerdale and Farndale? 💁♀️
Do you remember watching it when it was Emmerdale FARM? The days of Amos Brearly and Joe Sugden? This latter played by the dishy Frazer Hines - all the rage back then and once tipped to be James Bond, but somehow he didn't kick on and become the huge star that people thought he would be.
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Lancashire South of Preston is shit but Bowland and the Wyre valley which I think are fracking country are among the most beautiful bits of England
And heavily Tory.
Fracking has very low, temporary impact unlike solar farms! Small surface footprint. Yes, increased road traffic can be an issue but similar to quarrying.
Massively unpopular with locals though, and that is democracy.
Foxes getting anything from this game?
She is excited, but looks to me like usual fluff and garter performance from Arsenal.
We did beat Arsenal at home recently, but haven't won away there in ages.
Playing a bit better after the first 20 min though, so always possible.
The way he whipped hand away after fingers touched it gave it away. But it’s not in yet.
To change the mood a little, apost from Wythenshawe Hospital, where I sit in a wheelchair waiting for my foot to be bandaged up following a lawnmowing incident this afternoon. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. But oh, the blood! I managed to get the remnants of my shoe off and for a horrible moment thought that was bone sticking out of my second toe. But it was just skin. Then a knock at the door and Tony over the back fence - who I speak to, what, once a year on average - was there because he'd heard the screams and wanted to know if he could do anything. So my wife wrapped my bleeding foot in a towel and put it in a plastic bag and Tony drove me to hospital. Despite the discouraging sign saying 'average wait 6 hours' I was given a wheelchair as soon as I came through the door and triaged and x-rayed within half an hour. Not sure how long I'll be here for now - it's furiously busy - but it's looking likely I'll still have the use of all my toes by the time I'm done. I've lost my third choice trainers and a favourite pair of socks, but such is life. I don't really have a political or betting angle to this but thought I'd share.
Guardian's Kyiv reporter corroborating stories of executions.
This is just going to get more and more awful and nazi war machine very sadly. Sickening.
Interestingly, opinion piece in Observer by their foreign editor says NATO needs to intervene now because it will have to anyway shortly or Putin will just keep going.
I don't buy that position, but I think it will happen anyway.
It's going to mean the sanctions have a life of their own outside of however Ukraine resolves. Russia is fast leaving behind any pretext of being seen as a civilised nation. They are going to be punished for decades if they don't desist.
And China will be forced to abandon them to their crumbling economic fate.
China wants a broken, sanction-ridden, Russia who is forced to sell its natural resources at a discount rate to... ah yes... China.
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
No.
I did a four week course with FutureLearn on the politics and science of fracking. Fascinating. I went into it open minded and came out convinced it was not a sensible option for the UK. The course is free. It covers all opinions as well as geological and economic facts. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shale-gas
Was the course pretty fair minded then ? I’m sceptical about fracking in the U.K. I also think that this ship has pretty much sailed now.
Yes I thought it was fair minded.
In the discussion forum there were keen supporters of fracking but the informed debate convinced me that fracking in not feasible in the UK. It was partly the geology/geography of the UK (very different from the US), partly the economics and partly the politics. I'm certain it is a non-starter. Invest in LNG vessels instead.
Curt Monash, PhD (Game Theory) @CurtMonash · 3h 1/ (Thesis: The Ukraine War CAN still be ended quickly, if we focus on that goal.) The Western powers have done much right in the Russia/Ukraine crisis. But I fear they’re pursuing the wrong strategic objective. It should be: “End the war quickly, without letting Ukraine lose.”
Curt Monash, PhD (Game Theory) @CurtMonash · 3h 18/ That concludes the main argument, which boils down to: There are huge humanitarian and practical reasons to want Putin out of Ukraine quickly. He has strong reasons to leave quickly too. So give him the maximum possible shove and try to make it happen.
To change the mood a little, apost from Wythenshawe Hospital, where I sit in a wheelchair waiting for my foot to be bandaged up following a lawnmowing incident this afternoon. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. But oh, the blood! I managed to get the remnants of my shoe off and for a horrible moment thought that was bone sticking out of my second toe. But it was just skin. Then a knock at the door and Tony over the back fence - who I speak to, what, once a year on average - was there because he'd heard the screams and wanted to know if he could do anything. So my wife wrapped my bleeding foot in a towel and put it in a plastic bag and Tony drove me to hospital. Despite the discouraging sign saying 'average wait 6 hours' I was given a wheelchair as soon as I came through the door and triaged and x-rayed within half an hour. Not sure how long I'll be here for now - it's furiously busy - but it's looking likely I'll still have the use of all my toes by the time I'm done. I've lost my third choice trainers and a favourite pair of socks, but such is life. I don't really have a political or betting angle to this but thought I'd share.
Sorry to hear this. Hope it's not too serious and wish you a full, speedy recovery.
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
No.
I did a four week course with FutureLearn on the politics and science of fracking. Fascinating. I went into it open minded and came out convinced it was not a sensible option for the UK. The course is free. It covers all opinions as well as geological and economic facts. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shale-gas
I have a friend who is a county council planning officer who deals with fracking applications. He is pretty knowledgeable on it. His view is that there is no impact-on-the-community reason not to frack, if it is done properly - though he takes no view of the economics of it.
To change the mood a little, apost from Wythenshawe Hospital, where I sit in a wheelchair waiting for my foot to be bandaged up following a lawnmowing incident this afternoon. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. But oh, the blood! I managed to get the remnants of my shoe off and for a horrible moment thought that was bone sticking out of my second toe. But it was just skin. Then a knock at the door and Tony over the back fence - who I speak to, what, once a year on average - was there because he'd heard the screams and wanted to know if he could do anything. So my wife wrapped my bleeding foot in a towel and put it in a plastic bag and Tony drove me to hospital. Despite the discouraging sign saying 'average wait 6 hours' I was given a wheelchair as soon as I came through the door and triaged and x-rayed within half an hour. Not sure how long I'll be here for now - it's furiously busy - but it's looking likely I'll still have the use of all my toes by the time I'm done. I've lost my third choice trainers and a favourite pair of socks, but such is life. I don't really have a political or betting angle to this but thought I'd share.
Sounds nasty, but not as bad as could have been! Hope you get sorted and home. What happened?
Do people think fracking is feasible as a supply of gas to Europe?
Depends on the country. Yes in Poland, no in the UK.
This is all in dispute. If petrol hits £20 a litre and the economy goes into energy-starved Depression I suspect we’d suddenly find that those UK shale reserves are ‘recoverable’, after all
Its not a question of recoverable. It is whether it is practical on a scale to make a difference. The scale of operations is radically different from conventional drilling either onshore or offshore. I can effectively drain a reasonably sized oil field with 4 or 5 wells all from a central wellhead- less if it is gas because the injector requirements are less. To effectively exploit the UK shale gas reserves you would need between 4000 and 6000 wells. In the US they have rigs sat a few hundreds yards from each other in a long rows marching across the countryside drilling wells because the tight formations can only be exploited to small multiples of the the length of the fractures. So you need LOTS of wells. I am not sure the least nimby of residents is prepared for such industrial levels of activity in the UK countryside.
Depends how shit the countryside is
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
Lancashire South of Preston is shit but Bowland and the Wyre valley which I think are fracking country are among the most beautiful bits of England
And heavily Tory.
Fracking has very low, temporary impact unlike solar farms! Small surface footprint. Yes, increased road traffic can be an issue but similar to quarrying.
Massively unpopular with locals though, and that is democracy.
Can't be denied. My point is that the gigantic square mile solar arrays will be even less popular. There needs to be a new settlement for all planning where individuals and households directly affected are given financial compensation. That should apply to small scale things like a house extension that lowers sunlight into a garden as well as big infrastructure. The gainer compensates for at least some externalities. I suspect that then NIMBYism would decline. I also suspect that some "locals" are in favour of fracking but keep their heads down.
Unless you're a teacher, in which case it's 'real terms pay freeze and massive cut in your pension.'
While the DfE buy cheap booze and party illegally. And get away with it.
This is not being well received, oddly.
New teachers got a 5.5% payrise in 2020 and of course teachers still get better pensions than the average worker
You may not have noticed, but the majority of teachers are not new teachers.
And removing the index linking by stealth doesn't even guarantee the second part of your sentence is true.
What are they doing to the pension? The Civil Service scheme is now a career average scheme, with an NRA of State Pension Age, but they've maintained the index linking. And everyone got to keep accrued benefits of course.
They have declared that there is to be no index linking for anyone who didn't get a pay rise this year. They also refused a nominal £1 pay rise to resolve the situation on the grounds 'this would not be an appropriate use of public money.'
They apparently said that without irony, which given the ways they are using public money, often illegally, is even more shocking.
Officially the removal is for this year only, but given they are on their own admission criminals I don't trust them not to find a way to extend it.
Average teacher pension though still equates to £30,000 a year compared to the average British pension of only £21,000 a year
How does it compare to the pension of investment bankers?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming investment bankers who are not, as far as I'm aware, paid for by the state.
OK - how does it compare to the pension of MPs?
Nothing to stop teachers becoming MPs, if that is the pension they want.
So then why did @HYUFD make the stupid comparison in the first place?
It is not stupid, the point remains teachers get a good pension compared to the average worker
But teaching used to be a reasonably high status profession - high enough to rank alongside medics and lawyers to sign a passport photo, for example. "Average worker" is what? Shop assistant? Delivery driver? Teachers used to be professionals, and having been appointed, just got on with the job.
As a profession, it has been downgraded and deskilled by a succession of third rate Tory ministers, who were just about good enough to be accountants. I think that is what some of our friends are complaining of, at heart.
What did labour do for teaching exactly ? Why just the Tories get a mention.
As for professions with a diminished status try Engineers. A profession that is valued on the continent but here has slid down the ranks over many years
But at least engineers enjoy what they are doing and can get paid very well for it...
Though it always confused me that in the civil service scientific and technical people are limited in the roles they can (perhaps could) go for, while the others with no particularly useful skill sets ( history, PPE, etc) had a lot wider choice of roles.
Engineering is not a highly paid profession. Some can earn good salaries, others get by.
As for enjoying what they do that’s not my experience, some do, many don’t.
I have mostly enjoyed my work, but I would stop right now if I didn't need the money.
I have been fortunate in being able to work mainly in roles doing more interesting stuff, rather than the mundane and repetitive. Some engineering roles are, in my mind, extremely tedious and / or far too stressful.
I get a good wage, am able to WFH and have a good bunch of colleagues. It was certainly worth putting the graft in at school and university to set me up for the career I have had.
Guardian's Kyiv reporter corroborating stories of executions.
This is just going to get more and more awful and nazi war machine very sadly. Sickening.
Interestingly, opinion piece in Observer by their foreign editor says NATO needs to intervene now because it will have to anyway shortly or Putin will just keep going.
I don't buy that position, but I think it will happen anyway.
It's going to mean the sanctions have a life of their own outside of however Ukraine resolves. Russia is fast leaving behind any pretext of being seen as a civilised nation. They are going to be punished for decades if they don't desist.
And China will be forced to abandon them to their crumbling economic fate.
China wants a broken, sanction-ridden, Russia who is forced to sell its natural resources at a discount rate to... ah yes... China.
Well, depends how much grief comes China's way for dealing with Russia at all. Not if concerted effort impacts their markets in the West they won't.
Guardian's Kyiv reporter corroborating stories of executions.
This is just going to get more and more awful and nazi war machine very sadly. Sickening.
Interestingly, opinion piece in Observer by their foreign editor says NATO needs to intervene now because it will have to anyway shortly or Putin will just keep going.
I don't buy that position, but I think it will happen anyway.
It's going to mean the sanctions have a life of their own outside of however Ukraine resolves. Russia is fast leaving behind any pretext of being seen as a civilised nation. They are going to be punished for decades if they don't desist.
And China will be forced to abandon them to their crumbling economic fate.
US sanctions have a life of their own - lasting for decades - even after the proximate cause of their introduction is long gone.
How will Russian airlines fly internationally again? Interesting comparison between two BRICS countries - Russia and Brazil. Only one of them makes and sells commercial passenger planes in any scale - and it’s not Russia.
Comments
As for professions with a diminished status try Engineers. A profession that is valued on the continent but here has slid down the ranks over many years
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/
Of course, as the successor state, it would inherit Poland & the Baltics EU and NATO memberships…
If you can find some way to assess wealth, then it's a reasonable tax, but anything along those lines surely should take into account the tax you've already paid. Such a model could be dovetailed quite nicely into inheritance tax too.
Lancashire is pretty bleak in places, anyway
I accept it is unlikely to happen in the Kentish Weald
What a fucking hideous decade, so far!
We can only hope it gets better.
And they are typically limited to £4k of tax advantaged contributions
And Pebbles the brown collie scores the first clear round at 32.2 seconds, goes into the lead!
Fate, another brown collie, goes clear but is 0.3 seconds slower. One to go. Zest the black and white collie fast…he does, clear at 32.1 seconds!
Zest the intermediate winner!
Edge of the seat as we move on to the large competition….
Though it always confused me that in the civil service scientific and technical people are limited in the roles they can (perhaps could) go for, while the others with no particularly useful skill sets ( history, PPE, etc) had a lot wider choice of roles.
The 21st century will likely be the Sino-American century (he wrongly predicted) with the Chinese leading on soft power and the Americans on hard power. One can but hope that relationship doesn't become as dysfunctional and adversarial as the Soviet-American relationship from 1945-91.
Back to *politics *betting
Have to expect polls are showing some rally to flag for current government in US and with Macron and Boris. If Starmer was PM you would expect Starmer and Labour to enjoy rally to flag in crisis bounce even if Tory opposition not doing too much wrong at all, such as in nature of rally in crisis bounces.
But surely the bit we should be focussing on is that there doesn’t seem to be much government bounce in all three of these countries? Surely that is our BIG political betting story? A limp rally to flag bounce in such serious crisis, what does it mean, what does it tell us about what happens next?
In France I think all Macron has is gobbled up the Pecresses voters who won’t abstain in second round early, to top himself up a bit - that might not even be war related, just pecrasse less convincing than fillion - but doesn’t help President for second round at all by picking low lying fruit early. Thinking ahead if Putin annexation on current Ukraine boundaries, I wonder how history books will view Sleepy Joe Biden? Will he be viewed as too old and sleepy and ultimately rubbish in this crisis? There already seems to be a growing opposition to Biden’s Ukraine sleepiness in favour of firmer and stated red lines in US politics have you noticed, not just from Trump and his brood but from across left to right of the political spectrum including moderates? In political betting sense could Biden be brought down by this before end of his term (standing and winning again already looking unlikely) and actually be out even before Putin?
At that point of Putin’s annexation of Ukraine you see it’s positions reversed, Putin with all his shit like training bases, listening posts, radar, missile launchers, build up of troops, airstrips on all those Ukraine borders, just miles from EU and NATO everyday cities towns & villages. ☹️ Having a Ukraine friendly to us was brilliant for us. If Putin gets into that position, can you think of a more bigger and frustrating middle finger up to the West? How would the western leaders look in eyes of their own voters with Putin’s middle finger up at us? Will the alliance start to blame one another, as the Ukrainians already are taking sides and blaming some in West for this over others in todays news? (Basically Love Boris, hating France and Germany and Turkey).
Are my political betting musings helpful to this site at all, or would my time be better spent catching up on Emmerdale and Farndale? 💁♀️
I think that targeted online advertising makes it easier and is a neglected aspect.
Leicester to play Everton twice still.
https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1502958738642452484
"BREAKING: Iranian Revolutionary Guards claim responsibility for Erbil missile attack, call targeted area the 'center of the Zionist conspiracy'"
As for enjoying what they do that’s not my experience, some do, many don’t.
Clippie the Collie goes clear on 31.2 seconds!
Lots of the handlers dressed in Ukrainian colours today
Geek clear on 33.6, takes second.
Dobbie the brown collie is fast….but gets five faults for a hesitation
Guardian's Kyiv reporter corroborating stories of executions.
"According to one estimate by a Russian economist, as many as 200,000 Russians have left their country since the start of the war."
They will be the best of the best. Young, well educated, tech savvy, open minded, resourceful.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60697763
Final dog, Crazy from Scotland, the same handler who won yesterday….
Clear on 31.2 - takes second place missing by just one thousandth of a second!!
Clippie wins!
One meeting changed my life. When a student (geo eng), I used to go to weekly meetings at the Institute of Civil Engineers. I wasn't a member, but I went with a friend who was, and they didn't seem to mind.
Whilst there one day, I met a man who was deeply unhappy. He was an expert on designing concrete beams, and his company used him to design beams, and nothing else. He wanted to get chartered status, but his experience was not wide enough, and if he wanted to change jobs, the only thing he could get was ... designing beams.
It changed my life as I really wanted to do site work (tunnelling), but my health wasn't good enough for that. And if I was going to be sitting in an office designing beams, I might as well earn more in computing.
So I chucked in my degree and haven't really looked back. All because of that one unhappy man ...
So therefore it's NOT a matter of TINA, you dork! The alternative is what you yourself just said - we scale back what we expect the state to provide.
Give it a year and Russia will be just Putin and four babooshkas.
There'll be money to made on our every game till it does.
Random shooting of civilians just to instil terror. This is like ISIS, maybe even Hitler
How can the Ukrainians possibly make a peace with Putin? He is breeding a hatred that will last for decades
Zest and Clippie get their rosettes…
I did a four week course with FutureLearn on the politics and science of fracking. Fascinating. I went into it open minded and came out convinced it was not a sensible option for the UK. The course is free. It covers all opinions as well as geological and economic facts.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shale-gas
Is this another attempt to wind up ydoethur?
And there is also the context, in terms of employment by a massive company such as bae where you might be on the same project/product for decades (and generally not get paid very well) compared to the more consultancy focused end of things, which pay better.
The under 40s generations are receiving the opposite of a windfall with higher living costs and finding assets such as homes that they need to purchase over inflated (by govt policies).
The fair solution is to give redress to the younger generation by taxing assets more and incomes less.
FWIW before I am accused of bias, I am pretty much halfway between those generations, and would likely do worse under a more asset tax, less jobs tax environment.
Interestingly, opinion piece in Observer by their foreign editor says NATO needs to intervene now because it will have to anyway shortly or Putin will just keep going.
I don't buy that position, but I think it will happen anyway.
There's an awful lot of LNG that can come on stream in the next few years too. Let's not forget that US natural gas prices are less than $5, compared to $40 to 60 in Europe. The reason that there isn't more convergence is (principally) a lack of LNG vessels - simply there's enough US export capacity and enough European import terminals... but there are only about 600 LNG carriers in the world, and they're mostly contracted on existing routes.
Tell the wealthy Tory voters in those areas.
And China will be forced to abandon them to their crumbling economic fate.
Much as we want this anger and determination to remove Putin regime to go on till job is done, Will voters rally behind sanction hardships they need to endure in the middle and longer term when war is no longer in the news? A government cannot promise when the end to belt tightening sanctions will come?
Like you go into a military war, you MUST start with clear achievable objectives, knowing your time frames, have an exit strategy when bogged down or going wrong? Generals and subject matter experts not advising influencing political leaders properly if don’t have these things.
However Have we entered into a sanction war without clear achievable objectives? knowing our time frames, have an exit strategy when bogged down or going wrong? Sanction war very easy so far because if anything the everyday people across US and Europe actually want our leaders to go even further - because Zelenskyy is our hero and we want to save Ukraine from evil Putin aggression and Ukraine win this war. But if at a point Ukraine is annexed, as looking possible now, does our ongoing sanction war have clear achievable objectives, our government can explain our time frames for victory, have an exit strategy when bogged down - because although electorate say push harder now, they might also disrespect government in future who can’t answer these questions whilst there’s ongoing chaos and pain to deal with?
You see what I mean? It can slip from being an obvious popular reaction policy, needing no sell, to one that needs clear definition to continue explain and sell. That’s what political strategists need to be saying to politicians?
"Before leaving her apartment in Kiev she plays the piano for the last time.."
https://twitter.com/LordAshcroft/status/1503010995282788355?s=20&t=epkTWBK8Y-H-UfZuD2-y6Q
Ukrainian use of social media is genius. Tragically, I suspect that is because they have so much "good" material that is guaranteed to make people cry
They will also be of the generation most likely to produce more Russians.
Add in Russia's excessive covid deaths, deaths in the war and, most of all, the unfavourable demographics - pretty soon it feels like there will be no Russians left.
She is excited, but looks to me like usual fluff and garter performance from Arsenal.
Do they still have these? I dunno.
Anyway the names of these 2 Ukrainian Mayors should not be forgotten.
https://twitter.com/cyclefree2/status/1502999796474392576?s=21
(1) Ivan Fedorov - Mayor of Melitopol
(2) Yevhen Matveyev - Mayor of Dniprorudne
Let's hope they are still alive.
- Coming on stream in the next 1-2 years, to provide alternatives to Russian supplies
- Pay back, possibly with a subsidy element within 10 years, as we move to renewables in the medium term
- Some delivery sooner is more useful than lots of delivery later.
If fracking meets these requirements, I don't see why not. I suspect there are better sources however.https://www.politico.eu/article/western-europe-listen-to-the-baltic-countries-that-know-russia-best-ukraine-poland/
Playing a bit better after the first 20 min though, so always possible.
Curt Monash, PhD (Game Theory)
@CurtMonash
·
3h
1/ (Thesis: The Ukraine War CAN still be ended quickly, if we focus on that goal.) The Western powers have done much right in the Russia/Ukraine crisis. But I fear they’re pursuing the wrong strategic objective. It should be: “End the war quickly, without letting Ukraine lose.”
Curt Monash, PhD (Game Theory)
@CurtMonash
·
3h
18/ That concludes the main argument, which boils down to: There are huge humanitarian and practical reasons to want Putin out of Ukraine quickly. He has strong reasons to leave quickly too. So give him the maximum possible shove and try to make it happen.
https://twitter.com/CurtMonash/status/1503009376369618946
The key element in both cases, however, is that the aggressor was defeated and seen to suffer terribly. Germany was bombed and raped into submission, Japan got nuked
If Putin and his regime escape unpunished for their crimes then the Ukrainians will want violent revenge
Next, the guide dog demonstration…
War is not only a military opposition on UA land. It is also a fierce battle in the informational space. I want to thank @Meta and other platforms that have an active position that help and stand side by side with the Ukrainians.
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1503046528071618562
Edit. It is now.
It wasn't as bad as it sounds. But oh, the blood! I managed to get the remnants of my shoe off and for a horrible moment thought that was bone sticking out of my second toe. But it was just skin. Then a knock at the door and Tony over the back fence - who I speak to, what, once a year on average - was there because he'd heard the screams and wanted to know if he could do anything. So my wife wrapped my bleeding foot in a towel and put it in a plastic bag and Tony drove me to hospital.
Despite the discouraging sign saying 'average wait 6 hours' I was given a wheelchair as soon as I came through the door and triaged and x-rayed within half an hour.
Not sure how long I'll be here for now - it's furiously busy - but it's looking likely I'll still have the use of all my toes by the time I'm done. I've lost my third choice trainers and a favourite pair of socks, but such is life.
I don't really have a political or betting angle to this but thought I'd share.
In the discussion forum there were keen supporters of fracking but the informed debate convinced me that fracking in not feasible in the UK. It was partly the geology/geography of the UK (very different from the US), partly the economics and partly the politics. I'm certain it is a non-starter. Invest in LNG vessels instead.
The local orchestra and choir plays Verdi in the lovely, sunlit city streets. A city that waits to be assaulted and destroyed
Ah, God, I am close to tears
I will never again take European freedom and civilisation for granted
https://twitter.com/pierre_alonso/status/1502613188336136194?s=20&t=hyMucs0KNWuMCoxDTWbXlQ
As an aside though, I note that as far as I could see he does not mention how US policy would change when Trump is reelected in 2024.
I have been fortunate in being able to work mainly in roles doing more interesting stuff, rather than the mundane and repetitive. Some engineering roles are, in my mind, extremely tedious and / or far too stressful.
I get a good wage, am able to WFH and have a good bunch of colleagues. It was certainly worth putting the graft in at school and university to set me up for the career I have had.
How will Russian airlines fly internationally again? Interesting comparison between two BRICS countries - Russia and Brazil. Only one of them makes and sells commercial passenger planes in any scale - and it’s not Russia.