Once again, the LD under performance in Wakefield was not a 'big thing', they are mince in Wakefield anyway. They lost 1200 votes, 800 or so of which are just gone on 'lower turnout'. So maybe 400 votes to Labour tactically at best. Jinkies! Labour did not benefit appreciably from tactical voting, the LDs in Tiv and Hon did. Its not rocket science. The actual questions are Will LDs continue to get high level tactical transfers in a GE? Will Labour start getting any? Edit - and will Tory vote strikers return?
Yes.
No.
No. (Well, actually a Maybe, but only if the Tories replace Johnson with a kind, pleasant, competent person. Therefore: No.)
The upshot of those three answers is:
Blue Wall Tories are, with justification, filling their breeks.
The Red Wall is never going to return: the North and Midlands are going to be a complicated patchwork.
Rather than being their salvation, Brexit has permanently crippled the Conservative Party. By the time they recover, in a decade or two, FPTP will be history, and they’ll have to start being nice, pleasant, moderate, sensible, cooperative people, like most centre-right parties in Europe, because that’s the only way to build effective coalition governments.
NOM at 1.75 (and shortening) is good value
Con Maj at 3.85 (and lengthening) is poor value.
Lab Maj at 5.1 (and lengthening) is appalling value.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
It will definitely carry over into the General Election if Johnson remains. People are very angry and there's the strongest anti-tory sentiment around now since 1997.
Something I mentioned yesterday in this light is that standard national opinion polling won't be able to read this tactical voting.
I know this doesn't quite apply but if you took Peter Kellner's chart you'd have Labour and Conservatives neck and neck. In fact it was an absolute drubbing for the tories.
Tactical voting will mean the end of the Conservative majority. I guess that's why the Daily Mail front page are leading with it today and they appear so rattled. They've backed the losing horse.
The Tory voteshares of 30% and 38% were not far off national polling, it was tactical voting which did for them
Indeed. The polling, which is amazingly stable, looks to be an accurate reflection of real Voting Intentions.
The Tories really are in the low 30s in England, the mid 20s in Wales and the teens in Scotland.
Normally, I’d say that Swingback would save a lot of Con MPs, but these are not normal times. Boris just ain’t right, and the party he has created is dysfunctional beyond comprehension. Voters can sense the madness in the air. I’m beginning to think Swingback ain’t gonna happen this time.
And low turnout will create a lot of odd swings in odd places. Expect to see rock-solid majorities disappear and obscure characters with wafer-thin majorities survive. Remember, the one Scottish Labour MP to survive the wipeout was Ian Murray. Ian flippin Murray!! Nobody, but nobody could have predicted that before the event. Murray is the survivor king, because he is the king of tactical voting: droves of SLDs and SCons vote for him in leafy Edinburgh South. He’s a very clever guy.
Watch out for clever, pleasant Tories surviving the storm, and complete idjits (cf Jim Murphy, Wee Dougie Alexander et al) becoming history.
Mr. Dickson, I think the PM is loathed enough to strongly encourage tactical voting on the left and apathy from many who would otherwise vote Conservative. Still weighing up whether to back a Labour outright majority.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada, Alaska and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
America is generally top toeing towards civil war. As we have often discussed. This SCOTUS ruling is more of an obvious large step on that road
America is one of the two most important countries on earth, it is also the ultimate guarantor of Western freedom. If it is tearing itself apart that IS headline news elsewhere in the western world
I do fear this. One reason I'm so keen to see Russia defeated in Ukraine ASAP.
Given the Russians are winning currently you could be waiting a long time
How is their plan to tale Kyiv going?
The Donbas will be a mess for generations, but the Ukranians are pretty effectively denazifying and neutering the Russian military. By the time this is over the Russian army will be as weak as a kitten, and finished as an offensive force for decades too. Very costly for Ukraine in blood and treasure but a service to the rest of the world.
By the time the war is over you might be able to get to see a GP foxy
The longer it goes on the weaker the Russian army gets. NATO is getting great value for money out of its surplus weapons. The Russian Army has been useful for field testing, and its own weapons found to be grossly inferior. One of Russias main export earnings has been arms, but no one will want them anymore. They will want the good stuff. Another area of Russian inferiority has been exposed to the world.
That's not how the arms industry works. Whether the equipment is any good or not is a second order issue (Ajax). What matters much more is strategic alliances secured thereby, industrial offsets and straightforward bribery.
First and foremost there is little point in buying any weapon system if you won't be able to secure supplies of spare parts or ammunition for it.
If we take the example of India, one of the reasons they've bought weapons from Russia is that the Russians have been willing to share the technology to allow domestic Indian production, which is something the US hasn't been willing to do. India doesn't want to have to secure US support before going to war, they want to retain strategic autonomy. So there's a risk that the US will turn off supplies of spare parts and ammunition.
👀Boris Johnson planned to build a £150,000 treehouse for son Wilf at Chequers - paid for by a Tory donor - but was forced to abandon the idea after the police raised security concerns.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
👀Boris Johnson planned to build a £150,000 treehouse for son Wilf at Chequers - paid for by a Tory donor - but was forced to abandon the idea after the police raised security concerns.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Mr. Dickson, I think the PM is loathed enough to strongly encourage tactical voting on the left and apathy from many who would otherwise vote Conservative. Still weighing up whether to back a Labour outright majority.
I defer to your greater knowledge regarding English voter sentiment. But just remember that Lab Maj is (almost*) entirely dependent on total SNP collapse. You have access to exactly the same data as I do. That ain’t happening. At least, not prior to the next UK GE.
(* the other possibility is a near total Con collapse in central and southern England, which I suppose we must now consider? Seems profoundly unlikely to me, but what do I know?)
Mr. Dickson, ha, well, I've got a patchier record than most on here.
He does still have supporters. I spoke with someone yesterday (who was pro a 10% pension rise *and* wage restraint) who was mostly in favour of the PM.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Oh, come off it. I was not building a 'straw man': I was pointing out that there are risks in what you say. All investments carry risks, but this would be a very long-term investment with lose-all-your-investment style risks.
"“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…"
Yes, remote. Lots of Russia is; it is a massive country and large parts are undeveloped, let alone partly developed. Getting decent transport links to many places will be a long-term ambition.
As for the rest: grow up and don't be such a hateful little soul.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You can use a similar argument for many inner cities in England.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Oh, come off it. I was not building a 'straw man': I was pointing out that there are risks in what you say. All investments carry risks, but this would be a very long-term investment with lose-all-your-investment style risks.
"“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…"
Yes, remote. Lots of Russia is; it is a massive country and large parts are undeveloped, let alone partly developed. Getting decent transport links to many places will be a long-term ambition.
As for the rest: grow up and don't be such a hateful little soul.
As I feared, you are not interested in ideas. File under tedious.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You can use a similar argument for many inner cities in England.
Been to the West Highlands recently?
This is a global phenomenon, as @LostPassword correctly identifies. Let’s not get too parochial 😉
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You’re talking about Chatham.
I very, very briefly lived in the Medway area. Can’t recall hearing any French.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Oh, come off it. I was not building a 'straw man': I was pointing out that there are risks in what you say. All investments carry risks, but this would be a very long-term investment with lose-all-your-investment style risks.
"“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…"
Yes, remote. Lots of Russia is; it is a massive country and large parts are undeveloped, let alone partly developed. Getting decent transport links to many places will be a long-term ambition.
As for the rest: grow up and don't be such a hateful little soul.
As I feared, you are not interested in ideas. File under tedious.
I am very interested in ideas. By all means, debate them - you seem unwilling. My post gave a series of points. You disagree, but instead of 'debating'. you emit a barely-coherent spray of diarrhetic anti-English diatribe.
Talking of which, you might fit in well in Putin's Russia.
Mr. Dickson, ha, well, I've got a patchier record than most on here.
He does still have supporters. I spoke with someone yesterday (who was pro a 10% pension rise *and* wage restraint) who was mostly in favour of the PM.
There’s always one.
Where would salesmen be if fools weren’t born every minute?
You can look at some truly preposterous twats (Berlusconi, Trump, Johnson) and they have pockets of extremely strong support. Luckily, in a democracy, the effects of these minorities can usually be tempered.
Large parts of Russia will be pretty badly affected by climate change. The Taiga is already seeing regular droughts, nasty heatwaves and huge forest fires. Continental landmasses are heating much faster than the oceans.
The most muted effects will continue to be along Western coastal fringes: Norway, Britain, Ireland, Portugal and Galicia, British Columbia, Southern Chile, NZ etc. Some Easteen coasts too.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Oh, come off it. I was not building a 'straw man': I was pointing out that there are risks in what you say. All investments carry risks, but this would be a very long-term investment with lose-all-your-investment style risks.
"“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…"
Yes, remote. Lots of Russia is; it is a massive country and large parts are undeveloped, let alone partly developed. Getting decent transport links to many places will be a long-term ambition.
As for the rest: grow up and don't be such a hateful little soul.
As I feared, you are not interested in ideas. File under tedious.
I am very interested in ideas. By all means, debate them - you seem unwilling. My post gave a series of points. You disagree, but instead of 'debating'. you emit a barely-coherent spray of diarrhetic anti-English diatribe.
Talking of which, you might fit in well in Putin's Russia.
Pointing out that the English are exceptionally good as exceptionalism is hardly ground-breaking research. It is a mundane truth. And it’s not remotely “anti-English”. It’s one of your cute idiosyncrasies that makes you so loveable.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You can use a similar argument for many inner cities in England.
Been to the West Highlands recently?
This is a global phenomenon, as @LostPassword correctly identifies. Let’s not get too parochial 😉
Labour and Lib Dems should agree not to stand a candidate in XX super marginals. We can't risk more Boris from tactical miscoordination.
The "progressive alliance" ain't happening - Labour doesn't want to do anything to open the door to electoral reform, and will need to be dragged in that direction after the next election should it find itself in a position of relative weakness. Basically, if they are a long way short of a majority and end up being reliant on both the SNP and the Liberal Democrats then they might be persuaded to yield.
The good news, however, is that the Conservatives will need to hold on to the vast bulk of their 2019 voter coalition to stay in office - and there are a lot of those people who will now find them repellent either on moral grounds (for obvious reasons,) or transactional grounds (because they are financially much worse off.)
Without any tactical voting at all, a uniform 4% swing from Government to Opposition would cost the Conservatives 56 seats (42 to Labour, ten to the Lib Dems and four to the SNP.) That's enough to see them thrown out. And I think it's reasonable to assume that the amount of Anti-Tory vote lending in the next election will be considerably greater than zero.
Large parts of Russia will be pretty badly affected by climate change. The Taiga is already seeing regular droughts, nasty heatwaves and huge forest fires. Continental landmasses are heating much faster than the oceans.
The most muted effects will continue to be along Western coastal fringes: Norway, Britain, Ireland, Portugal and Galicia, British Columbia, Southern Chile, NZ etc. Some Easteen coasts too.
Kamchatka and Sakhalin probably worth a look.
Duly noted.
I’m not saying that Russia will be some new Eden in 2150, just that it is going to be *a lot* more pleasant than the Costa del Sol North Sahara.
Labour and Lib Dems should agree not to stand a candidate in XX super marginals. We can't risk more Boris from tactical miscoordination.
I used to agree with you there, but there has to be a vessel for some voters to vote for who in the end will not lend their vote. At the last election there were a few examples of Libdems/green stepping down, and didn't really help.
The presence of a candidate in all constituencies will spike the Tory guns about their ridiculous comments and hypocrisy about electoral pacts. There isn't/wasn't an electoral pact. The libdems will concentrate their very limited finances in area where they have a chance. Labour will concentrate in their areas where they have a chance. It's only common sense.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Oh, come off it. I was not building a 'straw man': I was pointing out that there are risks in what you say. All investments carry risks, but this would be a very long-term investment with lose-all-your-investment style risks.
"“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…"
Yes, remote. Lots of Russia is; it is a massive country and large parts are undeveloped, let alone partly developed. Getting decent transport links to many places will be a long-term ambition.
As for the rest: grow up and don't be such a hateful little soul.
As I feared, you are not interested in ideas. File under tedious.
I am very interested in ideas. By all means, debate them - you seem unwilling. My post gave a series of points. You disagree, but instead of 'debating'. you emit a barely-coherent spray of diarrhetic anti-English diatribe.
Talking of which, you might fit in well in Putin's Russia.
Pointing out that the English are exceptionally good as exceptionalism is hardly ground-breaking research. It is a mundane truth. And it’s not remotely “anti-English”. It’s one of your cute idiosyncrasies that makes you so loveable.
It is bullshit, not a mundane truth.
You appear uninterested in debate. By all means, debate the points I made and where you think I have got them wrong. But the idea that parts of Russia that might be most worthy of investment because of climate change are not 'remote' seems rather laughable.
If you can show that I'm wrong, I, and others on here, might actually learn something.
I was going to use this tweet to headline a piece on Sunday entitled
'The Tories are really going to regret opposing AV, they should champion electoral reform now'
The question is not whether we should have a form of AV - it’s which version of AV will give you the result you want.
Full Single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member Constituencies.
Multi member yes, but with d'Hondt.
I want to know the result by Friday breakfast, not Sunday dinner!
d'Hondt (a curse in Klingon?) is fab. But serves a specific purpose in Scotland. It isn't needed in the whole UK for GEs. Yes it would remove the joy of walking up and down the tables at a count. But so what.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
Time is of the essence. The largest population cohort in China is now in their early 30s*. It's possible that the Chinese population could start to shrink this year. Which might have implications for their housing market, construction industry and banking.
It's interesting to compare to the US. Live births in China are about three times those in the US, which is a much lower ratio than the 4.25 : 1 for the population as a whole.
* The number of females in the cohort fifteen years later is barely half as large. The demographic transition in China will be sharp.
Labour and Lib Dems should agree not to stand a candidate in XX super marginals. We can't risk more Boris from tactical miscoordination.
The "progressive alliance" ain't happening - Labour doesn't want to do anything to open the door to electoral reform, and will need to be dragged in that direction after the next election should it find itself in a position of relative weakness. Basically, if they are a long way short of a majority and end up being reliant on both the SNP and the Liberal Democrats then they might be persuaded to yield.
The good news, however, is that the Conservatives will need to hold on to the vast bulk of their 2019 voter coalition to stay in office - and there are a lot of those people who will now find them repellent either on moral grounds (for obvious reasons,) or transactional grounds (because they are financially much worse off.)
Without any tactical voting at all, a uniform 4% swing from Government to Opposition would cost the Conservatives 56 seats (42 to Labour, ten to the Lib Dems and four to the SNP.) That's enough to see them thrown out. And I think it's reasonable to assume that the amount of Anti-Tory vote lending in the next election will be considerably greater than zero.
I wonder where you get this 4% UNS figure from. The present estimate is in the region of 9%. According to Electoral calculus this could result in a loss of 130 Tory seats. With vote lending on top it can only get better/worse (delete for your prejudices).
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You’re talking about Chatham.
I very, very briefly lived in the Medway area. Can’t recall hearing any French.
They’ve massed in South Kensington for now, just waiting for the right moment to push out east.
Large parts of Russia will be pretty badly affected by climate change. The Taiga is already seeing regular droughts, nasty heatwaves and huge forest fires. Continental landmasses are heating much faster than the oceans.
The most muted effects will continue to be along Western coastal fringes: Norway, Britain, Ireland, Portugal and Galicia, British Columbia, Southern Chile, NZ etc. Some Easteen coasts too.
Kamchatka and Sakhalin probably worth a look.
If looking for somewhere likely to find land more valuable following climate change then it is probably worth thinking of why it is more valuable. Is the value for agricultural purposes or for urban settlement?
For agriculture the land needs to be fairly flat, well watered, and have fertile soils as well as infrastructure, a history of the rule of law, and an employable population. I would have thought Northern Canada or Southern Argentina were better bets.
The Atlantic coast of Europe may well be battered by storms and flooding, but in terms of temperature will be amongst the most liveable places still. The Atlantic provinces of Canada and BC may be worth a look too.
Large parts of Africa, Middle East, India will become uninhabitable, so expect a couple of billion climate refugees by the early 2100's. Those channel crossings are stopping no time soon.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You’re talking about Chatham.
I very, very briefly lived in the Medway area. Can’t recall hearing any French.
They’ve massed in South Kensington for now, just waiting for the right moment to push out east.
Last time I was in east Kent, it was full of British people trying to get out. Mostly driving lorries.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You’re talking about Chatham.
I very, very briefly lived in the Medway area. Can’t recall hearing any French.
They’ve massed in South Kensington for now, just waiting for the right moment to push out east.
Ukraine made advances in South Donetsk yesterday. They now hold more of the Oblast than they did the day before. Not sure how that fits the "Russia is winning" narrative.
NEW: 50% of Americans oppose the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, including 41% who say they're strongly opposed. 37% support today's decision.
So will all these women stop voting for Republican fanatics who want to take the options they had away from their daughters? I genuinely think this is possible and that local democracy might get a boost from this in some of the red states.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You’re talking about Chatham.
I very, very briefly lived in the Medway area. Can’t recall hearing any French.
They’ve massed in South Kensington for now, just waiting for the right moment to push out east.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You’re talking about Chatham.
I very, very briefly lived in the Medway area. Can’t recall hearing any French.
Canterbury in the days of school parties coming over from northern France?
And Good Morning everyone! Bright morning here, a busy day for the Cole's. I did wonder, given the news from America, if today might be an example of Boris the greased piglet but it appears that it isn't!
NEW: 50% of Americans oppose the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, including 41% who say they're strongly opposed. 37% support today's decision.
So will all these women stop voting for Republican fanatics who want to take the options they had away from their daughters? I genuinely think this is possible and that local democracy might get a boost from this in some of the red states.
That's assuming they are able to vote. No idea how the current discriminatory plans targeted at the poor and non-white will interact with your point.
Large parts of Russia will be pretty badly affected by climate change. The Taiga is already seeing regular droughts, nasty heatwaves and huge forest fires. Continental landmasses are heating much faster than the oceans.
The most muted effects will continue to be along Western coastal fringes: Norway, Britain, Ireland, Portugal and Galicia, British Columbia, Southern Chile, NZ etc. Some Easteen coasts too.
Kamchatka and Sakhalin probably worth a look.
If looking for somewhere likely to find land more valuable following climate change then it is probably worth thinking of why it is more valuable. Is the value for agricultural purposes or for urban settlement?
For agriculture the land needs to be fairly flat, well watered, and have fertile soils as well as infrastructure, a history of the rule of law, and an employable population. I would have thought Northern Canada or Southern Argentina were better bets.
The Atlantic coast of Europe may well be battered by storms and flooding, but in terms of temperature will be amongst the most liveable places still. The Atlantic provinces of Canada and BC may be worth a look too.
Large parts of Africa, Middle East, India will become uninhabitable, so expect a couple of billion climate refugees by the early 2100's. Those channel crossings are stopping no time soon.
An issue is that we have little idea what requirements there will be in the 2100s. It's like someone in 1820 trying to work out what the requirements of 1900 or 1950 would be.
It's the same now. For instance, will agricultural land be as valuable then as now? Perhaps. But if world populations fall, will the value of agricultural land fall as well (leaving aside the changing patters due to climate change)? Or will technology allow vast amount of cheap hydroponics?
The same with resources. 150 years ago, coal and iron ore were king. Then, from 100 years ago, oil took over. Now it might be lithium and other rare earths. Perhaps. Of may we have asteroid and space mining that is cheap enough to make most earth-based resource extraction irrelevant? I don't *think* so, but it is possible.
Poland is in the EU and already has laws which make abortion mostly illegal. In Ireland abortion was also illegal until a few years ago. Most US States will also probably keep abortion legal despite today's judgement
America is a federal system and you can argue the balance between the federal administration and the states as much as you like. The Supreme Court has given the legal power back to the individual states and they can now decide with all that flows from it.
We aren't a federal country - I presume you wouldn't argue Surrey should have a different abortion policy to Essex or Newham to Bromley. The law applies to the whole of England equally on this issue and I presume you would support that concept.
England is not a federal country, and it was one of the more bewildering errors of the Blair/Brown governments that they tried to make it one. In a particularly half-assed manner
The thing is, if 61% of the electorate consistently voted Democrat in the Generals and in the mid-terms, then the Dems would have the numbers. But they don't, unfortunately.
You need 66% of the House and Senate to vote for a constitutional amendment and 3/4 of state legislatures to make it become law and the Senate has a filibuster on Federal legislation too.
US wide polling anyway is not really relevant as the Supreme Court did not impose a US wide abortion ban to replace the US wide right to an abortion given by Roe v Wade but left it to the states. Polling in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana, West Virginia, South Carolina, Arizona etc is more relevant as that is where the GOP governors and GOP state legislatures have the votes to make abortion mostly illegal
Ukraine made advances in South Donetsk yesterday. They now hold more of the Oblast than they did the day before. Not sure how that fits the "Russia is winning" narrative.
IMV it is pointless looking at the day-by-day lines on the map and trying to discern victory or loss - particularly when the movements are akin to General Melchett's map of he ground gained.
All I can say is that Russia is not where it would have wanted to be in late February. Or late March. Or late April. Or late May. This is a trend I can see continuing.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You’re talking about Chatham.
I very, very briefly lived in the Medway area. Can’t recall hearing any French.
Canterbury in the days of school parties coming over from northern France?
And Good Morning everyone! Bright morning here, a busy day for the Cole's. I did wonder, given the news from America, if today might be an example of Boris the greased piglet but it appears that it isn't!
Good morning. Mini heatwave here, which is not helping my Midsommar hangover. Luckily I restricted myself to one, yes one, “nubbe” (strict spouse’s orders). Followed by a lengthy evening swim and tons of food to soak up the booze. Still, I’d prefer it if it was 5 degrees cooler.
Do French schoolchildren no longer visit Canterbury? Why not?
Never been myself. I must get round to the great cathedrals of England. I’ve done most of the French and Italian biggies.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Remote doesn't seem like an exceptionalist point, which you in particular are prone to see everywhere, it follows on from your own comments - If you are talking about an area as being reasonably empty then it is remote in human terms hence the need for infrastructure investment mentioned.
Doesn't matter if somewhere is not that far away if you cannot get to it. The middle of the Sahara is not remote by your reasoning, but itd take a bit of work.
The thing is, if 61% of the electorate consistently voted Democrat in the Generals and in the mid-terms, then the Dems would have the numbers. But they don't, unfortunately.
You need 66% of the House and Senate to vote for a constitutional amendment and 3/4 of state legislatures to make it become law and the Senate has a filibuster on Federal legislation too.
US wide polling anyway is not really relevant as the Supreme Court did not impose a US wide abortion ban to replace the US wide right to an abortion given by Roe v Wade but left it to the states. Polling in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana, West Virginia, South Carolina, Arizona etc is more relevant as that is where the GOP governors and GOP state legislatures have the votes to make abortion mostly illegal
If the Dems had 61% of votes, they would certainly have more than 61% of seats. That's FPTP for you.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You’re talking about Chatham.
I very, very briefly lived in the Medway area. Can’t recall hearing any French.
Canterbury in the days of school parties coming over from northern France?
And Good Morning everyone! Bright morning here, a busy day for the Cole's. I did wonder, given the news from America, if today might be an example of Boris the greased piglet but it appears that it isn't!
Good morning. Mini heatwave here, which is not helping my Midsommar hangover. Luckily I restricted myself to one, yes one, “nubbe” (strict spouse’s orders). Followed by a lengthy evening swim and tons of food to soak up the booze. Still, I’d prefer it if it was 5 degrees cooler.
Do French schoolchildren no longer visit Canterbury? Why not?
Never been myself. I must get round to the great cathedrals of England. I’ve done most of the French and Italian biggies.
A little tip (*): when you do, try to arrange it so you can go on tower tours (not all hold them every day, and they are often only two or three a day). You get an altogether different perspective on a cathedral from high up, and a much greater appreciation of the builders. Ely's was good, as was Durham's.
The thing is, if 61% of the electorate consistently voted Democrat in the Generals and in the mid-terms, then the Dems would have the numbers. But they don't, unfortunately.
You need 66% of the House and Senate to vote for a constitutional amendment and 3/4 of state legislatures to make it become law and the Senate has a filibuster on Federal legislation too.
US wide polling anyway is not really relevant as the Supreme Court did not impose a US wide abortion ban to replace the US wide right to an abortion given by Roe v Wade but left it to the states. Polling in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana, West Virginia, South Carolina, Arizona etc is more relevant as that is where the GOP governors and GOP state legislatures have the votes to make abortion mostly illegal
If the Dems had 61% of votes, they would certainly have more than 61% of seats. That's FPTP for you.
In the House and EC but not in the Senate necessarily where Wyoming and Alabama have the same number of Senators as California and New York.
Large parts of Russia will be pretty badly affected by climate change. The Taiga is already seeing regular droughts, nasty heatwaves and huge forest fires. Continental landmasses are heating much faster than the oceans.
The most muted effects will continue to be along Western coastal fringes: Norway, Britain, Ireland, Portugal and Galicia, British Columbia, Southern Chile, NZ etc. Some Easteen coasts too.
Kamchatka and Sakhalin probably worth a look.
If looking for somewhere likely to find land more valuable following climate change then it is probably worth thinking of why it is more valuable. Is the value for agricultural purposes or for urban settlement?
For agriculture the land needs to be fairly flat, well watered, and have fertile soils as well as infrastructure, a history of the rule of law, and an employable population. I would have thought Northern Canada or Southern Argentina were better bets.
The Atlantic coast of Europe may well be battered by storms and flooding, but in terms of temperature will be amongst the most liveable places still. The Atlantic provinces of Canada and BC may be worth a look too.
Large parts of Africa, Middle East, India will become uninhabitable, so expect a couple of billion climate refugees by the early 2100's. Those channel crossings are stopping no time soon.
Gerald Grosvenor bought 150,000 acres in Northern Canada as a climate change hedge
My god, she relaxes and enjoys herself on occasion? Will no one stop this mad leftist?
And at the opera of all places! Who does she think she is? Probably distracting the singers by crossing her legs or confusing them with her horrible thick northern accent!
The thing is, if 61% of the electorate consistently voted Democrat in the Generals and in the mid-terms, then the Dems would have the numbers. But they don't, unfortunately.
You need 66% of the House and Senate to vote for a constitutional amendment and 3/4 of state legislatures to make it become law and the Senate has a filibuster on Federal legislation too.
US wide polling anyway is not really relevant as the Supreme Court did not impose a US wide abortion ban to replace the US wide right to an abortion given by Roe v Wade but left it to the states. Polling in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana, West Virginia, South Carolina, Arizona etc is more relevant as that is where the GOP governors and GOP state legislatures have the votes to make abortion mostly illegal
If the Dems had 61% of votes, they would certainly have more than 61% of seats. That's FPTP for you.
Not in the Senate necessarily where Wyoming and Alabama have the same number of Senators as California and New York
For them to get 61%, nationwide, they would be doing very well in enough states that that would not be an issue.
Bear in mind, you mention Montana (and oddly, Alabama, which is not exactly unpopulated) but Vermont, Rhode Island, Maine and Delaware also have very small populations. Although a lot of the states in the mid-West are (as Republican and (b) have small populations it's not as clear cut as 'smaller states vote Republican.'
Ta for tower tour tip, but I have a bit of an allergy for guided tours, which is a bit ironic as I am a qualified tour guide myself!
I don’t mind getting an individual show round by a good guide, but there is something about being a member of a group being shown round that puts me off. Give me the microphone and I’m like a pig in shit.
The thing is, if 61% of the electorate consistently voted Democrat in the Generals and in the mid-terms, then the Dems would have the numbers. But they don't, unfortunately.
You need 66% of the House and Senate to vote for a constitutional amendment and 3/4 of state legislatures to make it become law and the Senate has a filibuster on Federal legislation too.
US wide polling anyway is not really relevant as the Supreme Court did not impose a US wide abortion ban to replace the US wide right to an abortion given by Roe v Wade but left it to the states. Polling in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana, West Virginia, South Carolina, Arizona etc is more relevant as that is where the GOP governors and GOP state legislatures have the votes to make abortion mostly illegal
If the Dems had 61% of votes, they would certainly have more than 61% of seats. That's FPTP for you.
In the Wisconsin state Assembly election in 2018 the Dems got 53% of the vote to 45% for the GOP.
A margin of 8 points.
There are 99 seats in the Assembly - the GOP won 63 of them for a 27 seat majority. Despite being 8 points behind. As of 2018 It was estimated that the Dems would need to win statewide by 14 points to get a bare majority of 1 seat (my own calculation has it needing to be higher but I defer to the experts on this). The districts have been further gerrymandered since then making the 2022 figure they need to hit some absurd target.
Ukraine made advances in South Donetsk yesterday. They now hold more of the Oblast than they did the day before. Not sure how that fits the "Russia is winning" narrative.
It is very fluid, and the position of Ukraine in the Luhansk Oblast does look increasingly exposed, but on the other hand Ukraine seems to be making gains like this on the Southern front, and around Kherson, backed up by partisan activity. A senior pro-Russian collaborator was killed by an IED in Kherson yesterday.
Events in Belarus are worth noting too, as air and missile strike on Ukraine have resumed. This seems to be a way to pin down Ukranian forces and hit supply and training infrastructure.
Also in Belarus, 100 box cars of artillery ammunition are being loaded, to go to Russia:
This suggests that Russia too is running short of shells, having had some major losses at forward supply dumps. It also makes an attack on Lithuania less viable.
Large parts of Russia will be pretty badly affected by climate change. The Taiga is already seeing regular droughts, nasty heatwaves and huge forest fires. Continental landmasses are heating much faster than the oceans.
The most muted effects will continue to be along Western coastal fringes: Norway, Britain, Ireland, Portugal and Galicia, British Columbia, Southern Chile, NZ etc. Some Easteen coasts too.
Kamchatka and Sakhalin probably worth a look.
If looking for somewhere likely to find land more valuable following climate change then it is probably worth thinking of why it is more valuable. Is the value for agricultural purposes or for urban settlement?
For agriculture the land needs to be fairly flat, well watered, and have fertile soils as well as infrastructure, a history of the rule of law, and an employable population. I would have thought Northern Canada or Southern Argentina were better bets.
The Atlantic coast of Europe may well be battered by storms and flooding, but in terms of temperature will be amongst the most liveable places still. The Atlantic provinces of Canada and BC may be worth a look too.
Large parts of Africa, Middle East, India will become uninhabitable, so expect a couple of billion climate refugees by the early 2100's. Those channel crossings are stopping no time soon.
One safe bet is that the same people who attack net zero will be saying that climate refugees need to claim asylum somewhere else.
👀Boris Johnson planned to build a £150,000 treehouse for son Wilf at Chequers - paid for by a Tory donor - but was forced to abandon the idea after the police raised security concerns.
Stunning lack of self-awareness. The man has no conception of how idiotic he looks. What Boris really needs is a minder. Or sectioning.
He's always looked mildly idiotic and its helped him be more relatable than he actually is.
Really he needs to win the lottery or something, he seems to want to live like the super rich but despite earning bucket loads has his people moan he is skint.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You’re talking about Chatham.
I very, very briefly lived in the Medway area. Can’t recall hearing any French.
Canterbury in the days of school parties coming over from northern France?
And Good Morning everyone! Bright morning here, a busy day for the Cole's. I did wonder, given the news from America, if today might be an example of Boris the greased piglet but it appears that it isn't!
Good morning. Mini heatwave here, which is not helping my Midsommar hangover. Luckily I restricted myself to one, yes one, “nubbe” (strict spouse’s orders). Followed by a lengthy evening swim and tons of food to soak up the booze. Still, I’d prefer it if it was 5 degrees cooler.
Do French schoolchildren no longer visit Canterbury? Why not?
Never been myself. I must get round to the great cathedrals of England. I’ve done most of the French and Italian biggies.
It is, I understand, much more difficult to arrange school trips nowadays.
Each child must have its own passport; when we were in the EU ID cards would have been adequate! It's particularly difficult if there are refugee children in the class.
Large parts of Russia will be pretty badly affected by climate change. The Taiga is already seeing regular droughts, nasty heatwaves and huge forest fires. Continental landmasses are heating much faster than the oceans.
The most muted effects will continue to be along Western coastal fringes: Norway, Britain, Ireland, Portugal and Galicia, British Columbia, Southern Chile, NZ etc. Some Easteen coasts too.
Kamchatka and Sakhalin probably worth a look.
If looking for somewhere likely to find land more valuable following climate change then it is probably worth thinking of why it is more valuable. Is the value for agricultural purposes or for urban settlement?
For agriculture the land needs to be fairly flat, well watered, and have fertile soils as well as infrastructure, a history of the rule of law, and an employable population. I would have thought Northern Canada or Southern Argentina were better bets.
The Atlantic coast of Europe may well be battered by storms and flooding, but in terms of temperature will be amongst the most liveable places still. The Atlantic provinces of Canada and BC may be worth a look too.
Large parts of Africa, Middle East, India will become uninhabitable, so expect a couple of billion climate refugees by the early 2100's. Those channel crossings are stopping no time soon.
One safe bet is that the same people who attack net zero will be saying that climate refugees need to claim asylum somewhere else.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You’re talking about Chatham.
I very, very briefly lived in the Medway area. Can’t recall hearing any French.
Canterbury in the days of school parties coming over from northern France?
And Good Morning everyone! Bright morning here, a busy day for the Cole's. I did wonder, given the news from America, if today might be an example of Boris the greased piglet but it appears that it isn't!
Good morning. Mini heatwave here, which is not helping my Midsommar hangover. Luckily I restricted myself to one, yes one, “nubbe” (strict spouse’s orders). Followed by a lengthy evening swim and tons of food to soak up the booze. Still, I’d prefer it if it was 5 degrees cooler.
Do French schoolchildren no longer visit Canterbury? Why not?
Never been myself. I must get round to the great cathedrals of England. I’ve done most of the French and Italian biggies.
It is, I understand, much more difficult to arrange school trips nowadays.
Each child must have its own passport; when we were in the EU ID cards would have been adequate! It's particularly difficult if there are refugee children in the class.
The thing is, if 61% of the electorate consistently voted Democrat in the Generals and in the mid-terms, then the Dems would have the numbers. But they don't, unfortunately.
You need 66% of the House and Senate to vote for a constitutional amendment and 3/4 of state legislatures to make it become law and the Senate has a filibuster on Federal legislation too.
US wide polling anyway is not really relevant as the Supreme Court did not impose a US wide abortion ban to replace the US wide right to an abortion given by Roe v Wade but left it to the states. Polling in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana, West Virginia, South Carolina, Arizona etc is more relevant as that is where the GOP governors and GOP state legislatures have the votes to make abortion mostly illegal
If the Dems had 61% of votes, they would certainly have more than 61% of seats. That's FPTP for you.
In the Wisconsin state Assembly election in 2018 the Dems got 53% of the vote to 45% for the GOP.
A margin of 8 points.
There are 99 seats in the Assembly - the GOP won 63 of them for a 27 seat majority. Despite being 8 points behind. As of 2018 It was estimated that the Dems would need to win statewide by 14 points to get a bare majority of 1 seat (my own calculation has it needing to be higher but I defer to the experts on this). The districts have been further gerrymandered since then making the 2022 figure they need to hit some absurd target.
While I take your point, I was talking about federal elections.
I know the gerrymandering and fraud the Republicans indulge in there is also industrial in scale, but the Senate can't really be gerrymandered by its very nature and once we're looking at a minimum 22 point margin I think Republican strongholds would start falling rapidly. As we saw in Scotland with the SNP surging on 50% of the vote in 2015.
The point is moot as I don't see it ever happening. Not enough people are willing to change their views merely because of policy disasters. But it would be quite funny to watch some Republican faces if it ever did.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You’re talking about Chatham.
I very, very briefly lived in the Medway area. Can’t recall hearing any French.
Canterbury in the days of school parties coming over from northern France?
And Good Morning everyone! Bright morning here, a busy day for the Cole's. I did wonder, given the news from America, if today might be an example of Boris the greased piglet but it appears that it isn't!
Good morning. Mini heatwave here, which is not helping my Midsommar hangover. Luckily I restricted myself to one, yes one, “nubbe” (strict spouse’s orders). Followed by a lengthy evening swim and tons of food to soak up the booze. Still, I’d prefer it if it was 5 degrees cooler.
Do French schoolchildren no longer visit Canterbury? Why not?
Never been myself. I must get round to the great cathedrals of England. I’ve done most of the French and Italian biggies.
It is, I understand, much more difficult to arrange school trips nowadays.
Each child must have its own passport; when we were in the EU ID cards would have been adequate! It's particularly difficult if there are refugee children in the class.
We always had to have their own passports, so I'm not sure what your point is there.
Overseas visits involving students that are non-British nationals might be trickier. You used to be able to get a visa waiver form from the British Council listing them and their passports and just get it stamped on entry and exit. I'm not sure if that still holds good.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You’re talking about Chatham.
I very, very briefly lived in the Medway area. Can’t recall hearing any French.
Canterbury in the days of school parties coming over from northern France?
And Good Morning everyone! Bright morning here, a busy day for the Cole's. I did wonder, given the news from America, if today might be an example of Boris the greased piglet but it appears that it isn't!
Good morning. Mini heatwave here, which is not helping my Midsommar hangover. Luckily I restricted myself to one, yes one, “nubbe” (strict spouse’s orders). Followed by a lengthy evening swim and tons of food to soak up the booze. Still, I’d prefer it if it was 5 degrees cooler.
Do French schoolchildren no longer visit Canterbury? Why not?
Never been myself. I must get round to the great cathedrals of England. I’ve done most of the French and Italian biggies.
It is, I understand, much more difficult to arrange school trips nowadays.
Each child must have its own passport; when we were in the EU ID cards would have been adequate! It's particularly difficult if there are refugee children in the class.
Aha! Another Brexit benefit.
Indeed! And of course it works both ways; you don't want good British children seeing 'forrin' do you!
Abortion would be a free pill available at the 24/7 convenience store if men could get pregnant.
I remember a talk describing how slowly the oral contraceptive went through regulatory processes in various countries compared to how quickly viagra did, even though viagra is the more dangerous drug. It’s almost as if the middle-aged men on committees saw their right to an erection as being more important…
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You’re talking about Chatham.
I very, very briefly lived in the Medway area. Can’t recall hearing any French.
Canterbury in the days of school parties coming over from northern France?
And Good Morning everyone! Bright morning here, a busy day for the Cole's. I did wonder, given the news from America, if today might be an example of Boris the greased piglet but it appears that it isn't!
Good morning. Mini heatwave here, which is not helping my Midsommar hangover. Luckily I restricted myself to one, yes one, “nubbe” (strict spouse’s orders). Followed by a lengthy evening swim and tons of food to soak up the booze. Still, I’d prefer it if it was 5 degrees cooler.
Do French schoolchildren no longer visit Canterbury? Why not?
Never been myself. I must get round to the great cathedrals of England. I’ve done most of the French and Italian biggies.
It is, I understand, much more difficult to arrange school trips nowadays.
Each child must have its own passport; when we were in the EU ID cards would have been adequate! It's particularly difficult if there are refugee children in the class.
We always had to have their own passports, so I'm not sure what your point is there.
Overseas visits involving students that are non-British nationals might be trickier. You used to be able to get a visa waiver form from the British Council listing them and their passports and just get it stamped on entry and exit. I'm not sure if that still holds good.
Somebody's throwing Big Dog a bone today when he can truly needs something nice to chew on.
You think he has such goodwill abroad that leaders from Kyiv to Delhi want to prop him up?
Indian FTA will involve more free movement of Indians with visas to UK I suspect.
Farage on standby.
The older I get, the more I suspect that I'm not into the EU per se, but I think I just like political unions. I think the EU is great, but I'd take CANZUK as a consolation. I'd also be keen for free movement with India. The idea of having the opportunity to live in India sounds pretty cool.
The way I see it, the world is forming into big blocs. The USA, China and even Russia are lucky enough to be nation states and big blocs at the same time. The rest must either form part of a bloc or be left behind. In my opinion the future is continent-sized polities. As a good patriot, I thin we need to be part of one, or accept irrelevance.
I dont see Russia as a big bloc, rapidly falling population, language in decline, a lot of hydrocarbons etc and landmass but apart from nuclear weapons not much else going for it,
Au contraire.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
BiB: IMO a risky investment for several reasons: *) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold. *) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise. *) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy? *) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If investments didn’t carry risks, there would be no returns 😉 How much fun is that?
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
Perhaps. Big story of the 21st century will be the demographic transition. We have a glimpse of this in countries like Italy and Japan, but to date the impact has been masked by immigration into many developed countries undergoing the transition.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
Oh, I dunno. I saw a truly terrifying documentary about the Manchurian/Russian Far East borderlands a couple of years ago. The Han invasion is *well* underway already. It is just that it is very, very cautious and under the radar. The Russians are, rightly, terrified.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
You’re talking about Chatham.
I very, very briefly lived in the Medway area. Can’t recall hearing any French.
Canterbury in the days of school parties coming over from northern France?
And Good Morning everyone! Bright morning here, a busy day for the Cole's. I did wonder, given the news from America, if today might be an example of Boris the greased piglet but it appears that it isn't!
Good morning. Mini heatwave here, which is not helping my Midsommar hangover. Luckily I restricted myself to one, yes one, “nubbe” (strict spouse’s orders). Followed by a lengthy evening swim and tons of food to soak up the booze. Still, I’d prefer it if it was 5 degrees cooler.
Do French schoolchildren no longer visit Canterbury? Why not?
Never been myself. I must get round to the great cathedrals of England. I’ve done most of the French and Italian biggies.
It is, I understand, much more difficult to arrange school trips nowadays.
Each child must have its own passport; when we were in the EU ID cards would have been adequate! It's particularly difficult if there are refugee children in the class.
We always had to have their own passports, so I'm not sure what your point is there.
Overseas visits involving students that are non-British nationals might be trickier. You used to be able to get a visa waiver form from the British Council listing them and their passports and just get it stamped on entry and exit. I'm not sure if that still holds good.
AIUI it's day trips where there's the problem.
Well, the same rules applied before Brexit on passports and visas. I remember endless trouble trying to get a non-EU National a Schengen visa so he could go on an educational day visit to Auschwitz (because there were no staff from the school on the trip) and that was in 2015!
Abortion would be a free pill available at the 24/7 convenience store if men could get pregnant.
I remember a talk describing how slowly the oral contraceptive went through regulatory processes in various countries compared to how quickly viagra did, even though viagra is the more dangerous drug. It’s almost as if the middle-aged men on committees saw their right to an erection as being more important…
NEW: 50% of Americans oppose the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, including 41% who say they're strongly opposed. 37% support today's decision.
So will all these women stop voting for Republican fanatics who want to take the options they had away from their daughters? I genuinely think this is possible and that local democracy might get a boost from this in some of the red states.
It isn't just about numbers though, or even electoral geography. Those wishing to control young women's bodies are highly motivated to do so. It clinches their vote even for politicians who are economically hostile to them. Apart from the young women themselves, is abortion rights such a strong motivator? I don't think so.
Said Cabinet minister pissed he didn't come to run his/hers?
Rishi resignation early next week?
If Rishi goes, other runners and riders will too.
They will still have to answer why now, when it was obvious to backbenchers weeks ago.
And that will be their excuse for not resigning and blaming the backbenchers instead. They cannot quit because there would not be a further challenge you see so there's no point, if only the rebels had not jumped the gun etc. But secretly they are on side.
I was going to use this tweet to headline a piece on Sunday entitled
'The Tories are really going to regret opposing AV, they should champion electoral reform now'
The question is not whether we should have a form of AV - it’s which version of AV will give you the result you want.
Full Single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member Constituencies.
Multi member yes, but with d'Hondt.
I want to know the result by Friday breakfast, not Sunday dinner!
d'Hondt (a curse in Klingon?) is fab. But serves a specific purpose in Scotland. It isn't needed in the whole UK for GEs. Yes it would remove the joy of walking up and down the tables at a count. But so what.
That purpose being… ?
A balancing of parties. No party can absolutely dominate.
The thing is, if 61% of the electorate consistently voted Democrat in the Generals and in the mid-terms, then the Dems would have the numbers. But they don't, unfortunately.
You need 66% of the House and Senate to vote for a constitutional amendment and 3/4 of state legislatures to make it become law and the Senate has a filibuster on Federal legislation too.
US wide polling anyway is not really relevant as the Supreme Court did not impose a US wide abortion ban to replace the US wide right to an abortion given by Roe v Wade but left it to the states. Polling in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana, West Virginia, South Carolina, Arizona etc is more relevant as that is where the GOP governors and GOP state legislatures have the votes to make abortion mostly illegal
If the Dems had 61% of votes, they would certainly have more than 61% of seats. That's FPTP for you.
In the Wisconsin state Assembly election in 2018 the Dems got 53% of the vote to 45% for the GOP.
A margin of 8 points.
There are 99 seats in the Assembly - the GOP won 63 of them for a 27 seat majority. Despite being 8 points behind. As of 2018 It was estimated that the Dems would need to win statewide by 14 points to get a bare majority of 1 seat (my own calculation has it needing to be higher but I defer to the experts on this). The districts have been further gerrymandered since then making the 2022 figure they need to hit some absurd target.
While I take your point, I was talking about federal elections.
I know the gerrymandering and fraud the Republicans indulge in there is also industrial in scale, but the Senate can't really be gerrymandered by its very nature and once we're looking at a minimum 22 point margin I think Republican strongholds would start falling rapidly. As we saw in Scotland with the SNP surging on 50% of the vote in 2015.
The point is moot as I don't see it ever happening. Not enough people are willing to change their views merely because of policy disasters. But it would be quite funny to watch some Republican faces if it ever did.
And to hear their excuses...
Apologies, I misunderstood you. Yes indeed, at the Senate level if it got to 61% Dem nationally then that would be guaranteed sweeping gains level for the Dems.
Senate elections in America are super weird and constantly puzzle me. Like, the 2022 group that is up this year is the same group of Senate seats that were up for election when Trump won. Nine of the seats had a winning margin under 10%. One of those seats was Missouri with just a 2.8% winning margin for the GOP, Indianan was 'only' 9.7%
What the decision in Dobbs-v-Jackson Women's Health Organization shows very clearly is the dangers of those who think that courts and fundamental documents have in a democracy. What we have here is a bunch of old men (and, sadly, not so old men) who lied and dissembled about their political and religious beliefs to get through their accession hearings who can overrule the clear majority of the public's views on contested issues (and anyone who thinks that this will stop at abortion hasn't read the decision or listened to Thomas J). Their basis for doing so is interpreting some holy writ, just as that was the basis for allowing people to carry concealed handguns in New York earlier in the week.
People really need to think about this in the context of the ECHR. The Judges appointed to that court don't get the same scrutiny as Supreme Court Justices but they have the same power to determine what democratically elected rulers can do. Just as Democrats were content to have a court determine what their rights were in 1973 most liberals seem fixed on the idea that this is a good thing. But times, and courts, can change. As a lawyer I see the limitations of courts daily, the narrowness of their view, the rules which lead them to logical conclusions that seem surprising. Those who think that there is something magical and inherently good about a document drafted in 1950 telling us what we can and cannot do today should reflect on the consequences of deciding rights by a document drawn up in 1787.
Abortion would be a free pill available at the 24/7 convenience store if men could get pregnant.
I remember a talk describing how slowly the oral contraceptive went through regulatory processes in various countries compared to how quickly viagra did, even though viagra is the more dangerous drug. It’s almost as if the middle-aged men on committees saw their right to an erection as being more important…
They had a hard time seeing the real issues?
I'd be tumescent with rage at such an implication.
I was going to use this tweet to headline a piece on Sunday entitled
'The Tories are really going to regret opposing AV, they should champion electoral reform now'
The question is not whether we should have a form of AV - it’s which version of AV will give you the result you want.
Full Single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member Constituencies.
Multi member yes, but with d'Hondt.
I want to know the result by Friday breakfast, not Sunday dinner!
d'Hondt (a curse in Klingon?) is fab. But serves a specific purpose in Scotland. It isn't needed in the whole UK for GEs. Yes it would remove the joy of walking up and down the tables at a count. But so what.
That purpose being… ?
A balancing of parties. No party can absolutely dominate.
Unless it is a Slab-SLD coalition, in that particularly degenerate form of d'Hondt. In original theory and original practice, anyway.
Abortion would be a free pill available at the 24/7 convenience store if men could get pregnant.
I remember a talk describing how slowly the oral contraceptive went through regulatory processes in various countries compared to how quickly viagra did, even though viagra is the more dangerous drug. It’s almost as if the middle-aged men on committees saw their right to an erection as being more important…
Oral contraceptives as a concept was new. Viagra, as part of a drug class, was longer established but I agree with you; I was very surprised at how quickly it went through the regulatory system. Although by that time the committee was not all male! IIRC!!
The thing is, if 61% of the electorate consistently voted Democrat in the Generals and in the mid-terms, then the Dems would have the numbers. But they don't, unfortunately.
You need 66% of the House and Senate to vote for a constitutional amendment and 3/4 of state legislatures to make it become law and the Senate has a filibuster on Federal legislation too.
US wide polling anyway is not really relevant as the Supreme Court did not impose a US wide abortion ban to replace the US wide right to an abortion given by Roe v Wade but left it to the states. Polling in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana, West Virginia, South Carolina, Arizona etc is more relevant as that is where the GOP governors and GOP state legislatures have the votes to make abortion mostly illegal
If the Dems had 61% of votes, they would certainly have more than 61% of seats. That's FPTP for you.
In the Wisconsin state Assembly election in 2018 the Dems got 53% of the vote to 45% for the GOP.
A margin of 8 points.
There are 99 seats in the Assembly - the GOP won 63 of them for a 27 seat majority. Despite being 8 points behind. As of 2018 It was estimated that the Dems would need to win statewide by 14 points to get a bare majority of 1 seat (my own calculation has it needing to be higher but I defer to the experts on this). The districts have been further gerrymandered since then making the 2022 figure they need to hit some absurd target.
Democracy needs defending. There are always corrupt people manipulating power. Are there enough people in the USA to vote in such a way that an electoral commission can be created so that gerrymandering is nullified by its neutrality? Somehow we manage it reasonably well here.
If the SC can get Americans to learn that if you want something you have to turn up and vote about it, there will be benefits.
In a sense the votes of 2014 and 2016 in Scotland the UK sharpened this awareness here.
What the decision in Dobbs-v-Jackson Women's Health Organization shows very clearly the dangers of those who think that courts and fundamental documents have in a democracy. What we have here is a bunch of old men (and, sadly, not so old men) who lied and dissembled about their political and religious beliefs to get through their accession hearings who can overrule the clear majority of the public's views on contested issues (and anyone who thinks that this will stop at abortion hasn't read the decision or listened to Thomas J). Their basis for doing so is interpreting some holy writ, just as that was the basis for allowing people to carry concealed handguns in New York earlier in the week.
People really need to think about this in the context of the ECHR. The Judges appointed to that court don't get the same scrutiny as Supreme Court Justices but they have the same power to determine what democratically elected rulers can do. Just as Democrats were content to have a court determine what their rights were in 1973 most liberals seem fixed on the idea that this is a good thing. But times, and courts, can change. As a lawyer I see the limitations of courts daily, the narrowness of their view, the rules which lead them to logical conclusions that seem surprising. Those who think that there is something magical and inherently good about a document drafted in 1950 telling us what we can and cannot do today should reflect on the consequences of deciding rights by a document drawn up in 1787.
That's not quite true re the ECHR though, is it? My understanding is they can advise, but they cannot enforce, especially not now we've left the EU. Votes for prisoners being an example. And a court that cannot enforce its rulings is junket for old white men who want a cushy number and to feel important, while not being so.
Even the European Courts couldn't, or France would have had to pay us a stonking fine for illegal bans on our beef they were repeatedly ordered to lift and refused to.
You're the lawyer of course, not me, but that does seem a very clear difference between the ECHR and the SCOTUS.
That being said, I agree we don't want to end up with our own Supreme Court (and what a silly name that is, by the way) going down the same route. But the different appointments process makes that less likely.
Boris Johnson interview with Mishal Husain turns arrogance and complacency into a new art form - an object lesson in utter self delusion @BBCr4today
Boris Johnson tells Mishal Husain: "If you're saying you want me to undergo some sort of psychological transformation, I think that our listeners would know that is not going to happen." https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1540595151244038145
BoZo's message to Tory MPS, "I will always be a cunt. What are you going to do about it?"
Said Cabinet minister pissed he didn't come to run his/hers?
Rishi resignation early next week?
Surely the cabinet have all performed the ritual 'what the public are saying by voting against us and mentioning the PM is they support him fully and want him to keep doing exactly what hes doing, but more of it. Also they did it as they want us to deliver, so what we're saying is we've been doing a bad job delivering . Vote for us'.
People make mistakes. I do, I’m sure you have. At a quiz once the question setter asked ‘what was special about Apollo 2?’. Much bemusement all round. Turned out she’d seen Apollo 11 and read it as two. Innocent mistake. People do love to judge.
Boris Johnson, told the problem his own MPs and advisors have with him are about his character, says: “As a leader you've got to distinguish between the criticisms that really matter and those that don't.” https://twitter.com/mikeysmith/status/1540597075129294850
NEW: 50% of Americans oppose the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, including 41% who say they're strongly opposed. 37% support today's decision.
So will all these women stop voting for Republican fanatics who want to take the options they had away from their daughters? I genuinely think this is possible and that local democracy might get a boost from this in some of the red states.
There was one of the Trump anti-abortion campaigners being interviewed on the Today programme this morning and she made it very clear that their next steps would be to get anti-abortion laws passed in those states which do not have them and then at the Federal level.
Comments
No.
No. (Well, actually a Maybe, but only if the Tories replace Johnson with a kind, pleasant, competent person. Therefore: No.)
The upshot of those three answers is:
Blue Wall Tories are, with justification, filling their breeks.
The Red Wall is never going to return: the North and Midlands are going to be a complicated patchwork.
Rather than being their salvation, Brexit has permanently crippled the Conservative Party. By the time they recover, in a decade or two, FPTP will be history, and they’ll have to start being nice, pleasant, moderate, sensible, cooperative people, like most centre-right parties in Europe, because that’s the only way to build effective coalition governments.
NOM at 1.75 (and shortening) is good value
Con Maj at 3.85 (and lengthening) is poor value.
Lab Maj at 5.1 (and lengthening) is appalling value.
It will definitely carry over into the General Election if Johnson remains. People are very angry and there's the strongest anti-tory sentiment around now since 1997.
Something I mentioned yesterday in this light is that standard national opinion polling won't be able to read this tactical voting.
I know this doesn't quite apply but if you took Peter Kellner's chart you'd have Labour and Conservatives neck and neck. In fact it was an absolute drubbing for the tories.
Tactical voting will mean the end of the Conservative majority. I guess that's why the Daily Mail front page are leading with it today and they appear so rattled. They've backed the losing horse.
If they delay agreement further, there is a risk the FTA will not be ratified in case Boris calls a snap election this autumn and miscalculates.
Web search for abortion providers? Health apps tracking periods? Phones providing location data?
https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/24/big_tech_post_roe_wade/
The Tories really are in the low 30s in England, the mid 20s in Wales and the teens in Scotland.
Normally, I’d say that Swingback would save a lot of Con MPs, but these are not normal times. Boris just ain’t right, and the party he has created is dysfunctional beyond comprehension. Voters can sense the madness in the air. I’m beginning to think Swingback ain’t gonna happen this time.
And low turnout will create a lot of odd swings in odd places. Expect to see rock-solid majorities disappear and obscure characters with wafer-thin majorities survive. Remember, the one Scottish Labour MP to survive the wipeout was Ian Murray. Ian flippin Murray!! Nobody, but nobody could have predicted that before the event. Murray is the survivor king, because he is the king of tactical voting: droves of SLDs and SCons vote for him in leafy Edinburgh South. He’s a very clever guy.
Watch out for clever, pleasant Tories surviving the storm, and complete idjits (cf Jim Murphy, Wee Dougie Alexander et al) becoming history.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/24/rage-against-the-labour-party-from-disillusionment-to-meltdown-in-scotland
Mr. Dickson, I think the PM is loathed enough to strongly encourage tactical voting on the left and apathy from many who would otherwise vote Conservative. Still weighing up whether to back a Labour outright majority.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/25/eighteen-killed-as-throng-of-migrants-storms-spains-melilla-border-from-morocco
Eighteen people have died after a mass attempt by a huge crowd of African migrants to cross from Morocco into Spain’s enclave of Melilla.
Climate change is a boon to Russia. If and when Russia becomes accepted back into civilised society, and foreign investment is welcomed and safe from unjust state or legal actions, I am sorely tempted to invest in Russian land/forest.
In the not too distant future, the entire Mediterranean region is going to become an unpleasant place to be, while large parts of northern Europe are going to become more pleasant. The further east you go, into less Atlantic and more continental climate zones, the more stable the weather. The Tundra will thaw and the Taiga and Steppe will drift north. Compared to Scotland, Canada, Alaska and Scandinavia, Russian land is cheap as chips. Reasonably empty too. That land is a future goldmine.
Ditto Greenland (note Trump’s jape).
*) Climate change is an average; when temperatures rise and fall, some places rise more, others less. It is possible that parts of Siberia will remain very cold.
*) "The Tundra will thaw' leads to lots of other issues with the ground and ground conditions; these may take several generations to stabilise.
*) What will the political situation in Russia be? Will it still be an authoritarian would-be empire, or s series of small states? Wil it be a modern democracy?
*) The fact it is so remote means that vast investment will be required in infrastructure. This will take years/decades to come into fruition.
Basically: if you do invest in Russian land in the hope climate change will increase land values, expect it to benefit your grandchildren, not you. And also accept you might lose all your investment.
If we take the example of India, one of the reasons they've bought weapons from Russia is that the Russians have been willing to share the technology to allow domestic Indian production, which is something the US hasn't been willing to do. India doesn't want to have to secure US support before going to war, they want to retain strategic autonomy. So there's a risk that the US will turn off supplies of spare parts and ammunition.
Mind-boggling story from @Steven_Swinford https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-planned-150-000-treehouse-for-son-wilf-at-chequers-m8dthdf9v
"Oslo shooting: Two killed in nightlife district attack"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61933817
You are borderline building up a Straw Man. If you look carefully at what I wrote you will see caution not recklessness.
I didn’t mention Siberia. There’s an awful lot of Russia that isn’t Siberia. I was actually thinking more about the bits west of the Urals, between the Urals and Finland/Baltics/Belarus.
I’m not advocating buying Tundra, but southern Taiga and northern Steppe looks interesting.
“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…
I was thinking of my grandchildren. Climate catastrophe is not going to affect me nor you (much). It is going to be a living hell for billions of people in the coming centuries. But maybe not for Russians so much…
Of course, the most realistic scenario is not decadent westerners buying Russian land, but hostile Chinese simply appropriating it.
When the whole world experiences the demographic transition it becomes harder to hide the effects with immigration, and China will be front and centre. They aren't simply going to be able to flood Siberia with Han Chinese in the way they could Tibet decades ago.
(* the other possibility is a near total Con collapse in central and southern England, which I suppose we must now consider? Seems profoundly unlikely to me, but what do I know?)
He does still have supporters. I spoke with someone yesterday (who was pro a 10% pension rise *and* wage restraint) who was mostly in favour of the PM.
Imagine if nearly all the enterprises in Kent and Sussex gradually came into French ownership over a few decades. And nearly all the workers were French. One day, English folk would wake up and wonder if Kent and Sussex were still part of England? Legally, yes. But culturally?
"“Remote”?? Ha ha. English exceptionalism par excellence. Daft wee country on the edge of the planet thinks that the middle of Eurasia is “remote”. Fog cuts off continent…"
Yes, remote. Lots of Russia is; it is a massive country and large parts are undeveloped, let alone partly developed. Getting decent transport links to many places will be a long-term ambition.
As for the rest: grow up and don't be such a hateful little soul.
This is a global phenomenon, as @LostPassword correctly identifies. Let’s not get too parochial 😉
Talking of which, you might fit in well in Putin's Russia.
Where would salesmen be if fools weren’t born every minute?
You can look at some truly preposterous twats (Berlusconi, Trump, Johnson) and they have pockets of extremely strong support. Luckily, in a democracy, the effects of these minorities can usually be tempered.
The most muted effects will continue to be along Western coastal fringes: Norway, Britain, Ireland, Portugal and Galicia, British Columbia, Southern Chile, NZ etc. Some Easteen coasts too.
Kamchatka and Sakhalin probably worth a look.
The good news, however, is that the Conservatives will need to hold on to the vast bulk of their 2019 voter coalition to stay in office - and there are a lot of those people who will now find them repellent either on moral grounds (for obvious reasons,) or transactional grounds (because they are financially much worse off.)
Without any tactical voting at all, a uniform 4% swing from Government to Opposition would cost the Conservatives 56 seats (42 to Labour, ten to the Lib Dems and four to the SNP.) That's enough to see them thrown out. And I think it's reasonable to assume that the amount of Anti-Tory vote lending in the next election will be considerably greater than zero.
I’m not saying that Russia will be some new Eden in 2150, just that it is going to be *a lot* more pleasant than the Costa del Sol North Sahara.
The presence of a candidate in all constituencies will spike the Tory guns about their ridiculous comments and hypocrisy about electoral pacts. There isn't/wasn't an electoral pact. The libdems will concentrate their very limited finances in area where they have a chance. Labour will concentrate in their areas where they have a chance. It's only common sense.
You appear uninterested in debate. By all means, debate the points I made and where you think I have got them wrong. But the idea that parts of Russia that might be most worthy of investment because of climate change are not 'remote' seems rather laughable.
If you can show that I'm wrong, I, and others on here, might actually learn something.
It's interesting to compare to the US. Live births in China are about three times those in the US, which is a much lower ratio than the 4.25 : 1 for the population as a whole.
* The number of females in the cohort fifteen years later is barely half as large. The demographic transition in China will be sharp.
For agriculture the land needs to be fairly flat, well watered, and have fertile soils as well as infrastructure, a history of the rule of law, and an employable population. I would have thought Northern Canada or Southern Argentina were better bets.
The Atlantic coast of Europe may well be battered by storms and flooding, but in terms of temperature will be amongst the most liveable places still. The Atlantic provinces of Canada and BC may be worth a look too.
Large parts of Africa, Middle East, India will become uninhabitable, so expect a couple of billion climate refugees by the early 2100's. Those channel crossings are stopping no time soon.
https://twitter.com/War_Mapper/status/1540496806051708928?s=20&t=Q9EoQQCQi-C100miq0xCtA
And Good Morning everyone! Bright morning here, a busy day for the Cole's. I did wonder, given the news from America, if today might be an example of Boris the greased piglet but it appears that it isn't!
It's the same now. For instance, will agricultural land be as valuable then as now? Perhaps. But if world populations fall, will the value of agricultural land fall as well (leaving aside the changing patters due to climate change)? Or will technology allow vast amount of cheap hydroponics?
The same with resources. 150 years ago, coal and iron ore were king. Then, from 100 years ago, oil took over. Now it might be lithium and other rare earths. Perhaps. Of may we have asteroid and space mining that is cheap enough to make most earth-based resource extraction irrelevant? I don't *think* so, but it is possible.
US wide polling anyway is not really relevant as the Supreme Court did not impose a US wide abortion ban to replace the US wide right to an abortion given by Roe v Wade but left it to the states. Polling in Tennessee,
Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana, West Virginia, South Carolina, Arizona etc is more relevant as that is where the GOP governors and GOP state legislatures have the votes to make abortion mostly illegal
All I can say is that Russia is not where it would have wanted to be in late February. Or late March. Or late April. Or late May. This is a trend I can see continuing.
Do French schoolchildren no longer visit Canterbury? Why not?
Never been myself. I must get round to the great cathedrals of England. I’ve done most of the French and Italian biggies.
Doesn't matter if somewhere is not that far away if you cannot get to it. The middle of the Sahara is not remote by your reasoning, but itd take a bit of work.
(*) You probably already know this.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ad50bb06-f3ea-11ec-b7b8-d1bfbe7f1c7e?shareToken=a878800d4c1468d0d8531db53a57dd21 https://twitter.com/SophiaSleigh/status/1540591648652120064/photo/1
Bear in mind, you mention Montana (and oddly, Alabama, which is not exactly unpopulated) but Vermont, Rhode Island, Maine and Delaware also have very small populations. Although a lot of the states in the mid-West are (as Republican and (b) have small populations it's not as clear cut as 'smaller states vote Republican.'
I don’t mind getting an individual show round by a good guide, but there is something about being a member of a group being shown round that puts me off. Give me the microphone and I’m like a pig in shit.
A margin of 8 points.
There are 99 seats in the Assembly - the GOP won 63 of them for a 27 seat majority. Despite being 8 points behind. As of 2018 It was estimated that the Dems would need to win statewide by 14 points to get a bare majority of 1 seat (my own calculation has it needing to be higher but I defer to the experts on this). The districts have been further gerrymandered since then making the 2022 figure they need to hit some absurd target.
Events in Belarus are worth noting too, as air and missile strike on Ukraine have resumed. This seems to be a way to pin down Ukranian forces and hit supply and training infrastructure.
Also in Belarus, 100 box cars of artillery ammunition are being loaded, to go to Russia:
https://twitter.com/MotolkoHelp/status/1540354447163146240?t=Prfi6BW0sNvcqNww1uf-yA&s=19
This suggests that Russia too is running short of shells, having had some major losses at forward supply dumps. It also makes an attack on Lithuania less viable.
Really he needs to win the lottery or something, he seems to want to live like the super rich but despite earning bucket loads has his people moan he is skint.
Each child must have its own passport; when we were in the EU ID cards would have been adequate! It's particularly difficult if there are refugee children in the class.
I know the gerrymandering and fraud the Republicans indulge in there is also industrial in scale, but the Senate can't really be gerrymandered by its very nature and once we're looking at a minimum 22 point margin I think Republican strongholds would start falling rapidly. As we saw in Scotland with the SNP surging on 50% of the vote in 2015.
The point is moot as I don't see it ever happening. Not enough people are willing to change their views merely because of policy disasters. But it would be quite funny to watch some Republican faces if it ever did.
And to hear their excuses...
Overseas visits involving students that are non-British nationals might be trickier. You used to be able to get a visa waiver form from the British Council listing them and their passports and just get it stamped on entry and exit. I'm not sure if that still holds good.
They will still have to answer why now, when it was obvious to backbenchers weeks ago.
Senate elections in America are super weird and constantly puzzle me. Like, the 2022 group that is up this year is the same group of Senate seats that were up for election when Trump won. Nine of the seats had a winning margin under 10%. One of those seats was Missouri with just a 2.8% winning margin for the GOP, Indianan was 'only' 9.7%
People really need to think about this in the context of the ECHR. The Judges appointed to that court don't get the same scrutiny as Supreme Court Justices but they have the same power to determine what democratically elected rulers can do. Just as Democrats were content to have a court determine what their rights were in 1973 most liberals seem fixed on the idea that this is a good thing. But times, and courts, can change. As a lawyer I see the limitations of courts daily, the narrowness of their view, the rules which lead them to logical conclusions that seem surprising. Those who think that there is something magical and inherently good about a document drafted in 1950 telling us what we can and cannot do today should reflect on the consequences of deciding rights by a document drawn up in 1787.
It's so sad that it's funny.
https://twitter.com/Bee_Face_Ka_Boo/status/1540325594906460163
Although by that time the committee was not all male! IIRC!!
If the SC can get Americans to learn that if you want something you have to turn up and vote about it, there will be benefits.
In a sense the votes of 2014 and 2016 in Scotland the UK sharpened this awareness here.
Even the European Courts couldn't, or France would have had to pay us a stonking fine for illegal bans on our beef they were repeatedly ordered to lift and refused to.
You're the lawyer of course, not me, but that does seem a very clear difference between the ECHR and the SCOTUS.
That being said, I agree we don't want to end up with our own Supreme Court (and what a silly name that is, by the way) going down the same route. But the different appointments process makes that less likely.
Boris Johnson tells Mishal Husain: "If you're saying you want me to undergo some sort of psychological transformation, I think that our listeners would know that is not going to happen."
https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1540595151244038145
BoZo's message to Tory MPS, "I will always be a cunt. What are you going to do about it?"
At a quiz once the question setter asked ‘what was special about Apollo 2?’. Much bemusement all round. Turned out she’d seen Apollo 11 and read it as two.
Innocent mistake.
People do love to judge.
https://twitter.com/mikeysmith/status/1540597075129294850