London on Monday seems to be the hot zone. 40C on BBC.
Still up for grabs. Quite a few of the models topping out at 37 or 38. Still damn hot, but may not breach the record. In favour of record breaking is it only needs ones weather station to do it. Interesting and worrying times.
Yes, I’m sure we’ll get through the next few days without the Armageddon some are forecasting. But the really concerning aspect of this is that it seems we’re now going to have to get used to temperatures in the high 30s or even more on a pretty much annual basis.
The evidence of the recent red storm warning is probably that they feel they need to over-egg things in an attempt to get people to behave sensibly. A friend who is an A&E doctor treated a number of people who were blown over, including one guy blown off a ladder while attempting to fix the garage roof while the storm was still going on, and a colleague had a roof blown onto the car while taking the kids swimming. What part of "don't go out" is difficult to understand I don't know. Hospitals will be treating people who think that the same behaviour is sensible at 40 degrees as at 25.
One problem is the number of people who seem to think because they’ve been to Dubai or Turkey that 40c is nothing. If you have air con that sucks in pets and small children then yes, no problem.
The idiots who walk up mountains as if it is another, literal, walk in the park come to mind….
I’ve actually been through that kind of weather in a country where air con isnt wide spread. Monday is going to be a fuck up for some people…
I wonder if that PB-er is still playing golf Monday and Tuesday
It is very difficult to imagine in advance what it is going to be like. Never mind Death Valley or Kenya, I went to Rome in the 2010 heatwave and when the plane doors opened I thought Fuck we've been hijacked to the Middle East and they didn't tell us. Spent the first day doing the Vatican tour of rome bus trip, twice (with small children) because of the efficiency of the aircon. And that whole heatwave peaked at a mere 38. Serious killer.
Dr Seth Thévoz🇺🇦 @SAThevoz Liz Truss opened on her childhood, saying she was inspired to go into politics by "lots of children being let down by low educational standards".
Truss (b.1975) was entirely educated under Conservative governments, from primary school to university (1979-96).🤨
She was educated at a Comprehensive in a Labour Local Education Authority, with a Labour ran Council.
Run by me again please how Labour ran LEAs were entirely Conservative?
The governments were Conservative; right now, Liz Truss is running to be Head of Government, not Deputy Chair of Leeds LEA. Truss, in mentioning education, therefore presumably has government in mind. She would have been an early subject of the Thatcher government's National Curriculum.
After this morning's slight downgrade, now a minor upgrade
41C for London and Kent on Tuesday: perhaps
Here's my guess: the UK record will be broken but nowhere will reach 40°C.
I could be wrong on both counts of course.
I wonder if there is some normalcy bias at work here, however. Breaking a record of "38.7C" doesn't sound outrageous. 38.8C - meh (tho it is still brutally and remarkably hot of course)
Breaking 40C tramples on all our expectations of weather (it is not a temperature I really expected to see in the UK in my lifetime). So there is mental resistance, perhaps? Dunno. Certainly, a lot of reliable forecasters now say it is highly possible. The Met gives it a 50% chance
But, still, 40 bloody Celsius? That's an Indian temperature. That's a heatwave in New Delhi. And yet it is in London
For comparison, about 20 years ago when climate changers were trying to scare us with possible future temperatures, they would say "we could seen 40C in London by 2050" (there are actual mock-ups of a 2050 forecast showing 40C). But here we are: in 2022
The Met Office forecasts don't have anywhere hitting 40C as far as I can see, whereas the BBC forecasts do.
Bizarre by the met office given their own high res model, and the models they use most for medium term prediction, all show 40C+.
They will know if their models tend to underdo cloud in this sort of situation, which would make the raw model maximum temperatures too high.
Channel 4 has said an investigation has found no evidence to support claims by the culture secretary that parts of its show Tower Block of Commons were faked.
The 2010 series featured MPs, including Nadine Dorries, spending time living in UK tower blocks and council estates.
In May, Ms Dorries alleged that some people portrayed as living on her estate were actors and "were not real".
Yes, the downgrades have begun, as is often the case as the event nears. It’s now forecast to be a mild 39c in London. Wrap up warm!
Good news is the nighttime forecast has dropped to 19. Might actually be possible to get some sleep.
I'm not sure where these 'downgrades' are. MO have 42C here in the Flatlands in their high resolution model:
There is a hint that high cloud associated with the front might limit Tuesday's max, but it is effin hot all the way.
I think it is almost certain somewhere will see 40C.
Edit: Also, don't see anything lower than 26C in London on Monday night
It's certainly not being downgraded up here at all! A couple of days ago it was 23° predicted. Now 27 on Met Office, 31 on that map.
Yes 32C forecast for Edinburgh on Tuesday. The current record is 31.6C
Just creeping up to 17C at the moment, so I've got the windows open to make a start on cooling the place down in advance (and my wife is gamely playing along by wearing a jumper).
I’m looking forward to a day in my unairconditioned office building…
London on Monday seems to be the hot zone. 40C on BBC.
Still up for grabs. Quite a few of the models topping out at 37 or 38. Still damn hot, but may not breach the record. In favour of record breaking is it only needs ones weather station to do it. Interesting and worrying times.
Yes, I’m sure we’ll get through the next few days without the Armageddon some are forecasting. But the really concerning aspect of this is that it seems we’re now going to have to get used to temperatures in the high 30s or even more on a pretty much annual basis.
The evidence of the recent red storm warning is probably that they feel they need to over-egg things in an attempt to get people to behave sensibly. A friend who is an A&E doctor treated a number of people who were blown over, including one guy blown off a ladder while attempting to fix the garage roof while the storm was still going on, and a colleague had a roof blown onto the car while taking the kids swimming. What part of "don't go out" is difficult to understand I don't know. Hospitals will be treating people who think that the same behaviour is sensible at 40 degrees as at 25.
One problem is the number of people who seem to think because they’ve been to Dubai or Turkey that 40c is nothing. If you have air con that sucks in pets and small children then yes, no problem.
The idiots who walk up mountains as if it is another, literal, walk in the park come to mind….
I’ve actually been through that kind of weather in a country where air con isnt wide spread. Monday is going to be a fuck up for some people…
Where can I buy the air con that sucks in pets and small children? (Maybe not the pets.)
After this morning's slight downgrade, now a minor upgrade
41C for London and Kent on Tuesday: perhaps
Here's my guess: the UK record will be broken but nowhere will reach 40°C.
I could be wrong on both counts of course.
I wonder if there is some normalcy bias at work here, however. Breaking a record of "38.7C" doesn't sound outrageous. 38.8C - meh (tho it is still brutally and remarkably hot of course)
Breaking 40C tramples on all our expectations of weather (it is not a temperature I really expected to see in the UK in my lifetime). So there is mental resistance, perhaps? Dunno. Certainly, a lot of reliable forecasters now say it is highly possible. The Met gives it a 50% chance
But, still, 40 bloody Celsius? That's an Indian temperature. That's a heatwave in New Delhi. And yet it is in London
For comparison, about 20 years ago when climate changers were trying to scare us with possible future temperatures, they would say "we could seen 40C in London by 2050" (there are actual mock-ups of a 2050 forecast showing 40C). But here we are: in 2022
Indeed. Not many Climate Change deniers about these days.
Who was the guy on here a few years back who was confidently predicting a mini-ice age in a year or two? (Not a trick question - I know it wasn't you!)
I flat guarantee that someone, somewhere, will (completely wrongly) insist: "it was hotter in 1976"
"Heathrow had 16 consecutive days over 30 °C (86 °F) from 23 June to 8 July[5] and for 15 consecutive days from 23 June to 7 July temperatures reached 32.2 °C (90 °F) somewhere in England"
This is just 2 days
Yes. There is a qualitative difference between length of heat and intensity of heat. This particular event will probably not even qualify as a heat wave due to the shortness (I understand the high temperatures have to last for 3 or more days to be a heatwave).
There may be a discussion to be had as to which is better/worse - two weeks of 30+ degrees, or two days of around 40 degrees
Plus we get slightly longer nights and shorter days
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
A COBRA meeting will be held later to discuss the heatwave as forecasts suggest a new record UK temperature could be set early next week.
Meteorologists have said there is an 80% chance the mercury will top the UK's record temperature of 38.7C (101.7F) set in Cambridge in 2019.
There is a 50% chance of temperatures reaching 40C (104F) somewhere in the UK on Tuesday, with the Met Office issuing its first-ever red warning for extreme heat.
I do hope a future PM will change that committee's name to something less crass and American sounding.
It isn't a committee. It's a room where emergency committees including and chaired by cabinet ministers meet. But they are strictly speaking ad hoc so don't have names.
Really they should make it more formal and call it the Emergency Response Committee.
Americans thought the same about Trump after his 2020 defeat, yet he is back leading polls for the 2024 GOP nomination.
If Johnson stays in the Commons who knows what will happen
Johnson has three options:
1) He can rapidly leave politics and do other things (Cameron, Thatcher) 2) He can sit as an embittered soul on the backbenches sniping occasionally at the leadership (Heath, May) 3) He can try to become a respected "elder statesman" supportive of the leadership and offering such counsel as is asked (Hague, Duncan-Smith, Howard)
None of those in brackets was or has ever been seriously entertained as a second round at being leader.
Can we count HH Asquith as a double leader albeit of thr Liberal Party (yes, I know, major party, blah, blah, blah)?
Had Sinclair regained Caithness & Sutherland in 1950 he'd have probably re-taken the Liberal leadership from Clement Davies. Churchill and Sinclair were great friends and I believe Churchill might have offered Sinclair a Cabinet place for merging the remnants of the Liberal Party into the Conservatives.
OTOH, Sinclair suffered a stroke in 1952 and had he been unable to carry on, Grimond would have got to the leadership earlier and perhaps started an earlier Liberal revival.
However we have also never had a party leader who won a landslide general election victory, which was not the case for Heath and May or Hague, IDS and Howard and was removed by his party after less than a term in office, which also was not the case for Cameron and Thatcher both who served over 10 years as party leader and over 5 years as PM
More importantly, none of Boris's predecessors have an ego the size of the United Kingdom.
If, hypothetically, you were the next PM, would you arrange for a certain amount of dirt on BoJo to... emerge... to reduce his comeback chances?
Dr Seth Thévoz🇺🇦 @SAThevoz Liz Truss opened on her childhood, saying she was inspired to go into politics by "lots of children being let down by low educational standards".
Truss (b.1975) was entirely educated under Conservative governments, from primary school to university (1979-96).🤨
She was educated at a Comprehensive in a Labour Local Education Authority, with a Labour ran Council.
Run by me again please how Labour ran LEAs were entirely Conservative?
The governments were Conservative; right now, Liz Truss is running to be Head of Government, not Deputy Chair of Leeds LEA. Truss, in mentioning education, therefore presumably has government in mind. She would have been an early subject of the Thatcher government's National Curriculum.
She was also an early person educated in a Comprehensive which was Labour policy introduced then ran by Labour LEAs.
Successive policies in recent years, especially from Blair onwards, have sought to defang and remove powers from LEAs and reform education so it's really not incompatible that education is what drove her into politics, or ultimately the Tories.
That's an interesting point - two of the three top contenders probably do have self-doubt issues that are impacting their performance. For PM, it's what you mention below. For LT, it looks like the classic "paralysis by analysis" and being so scared of blowing things that she actually does blow it.
Of the two, I think PM's issues are probably the easiest to get past. You can put yourself in a mind of "fuck em" and be yourself. I'm less sure on LT's issues and I can see a situation where she has a semi-meltdown in the debates if the stress gets to her.
A good point re Truss - I think you’re absolutely right that “paralysis by analysis” comes into it.
I think Truss is actually a fascinating case study when it comes to her presentation style or lack thereof.
She has clearly had some kind of training since the cheese incident - no awkward grinning to camera and much lower voice. By lowering her voice though she seems to have removed the modulation and now comes across as very monotone - - she has actually excised some of the genuine enthusiasm she delivered in her public performances/appearances and actually ended up more wooden. Im not sure if she’s had professional advice (I assume so) but they either deserve a bad review or they have more work to do with her, because teaching someone to speak in a lower register doesn’t mean turning them into a droning bore.
There is another curious thing about Truss that I have noticed. If you look at any high level politician in a debate or interview or public setting, what is the key thing that they try to do? They try to communicate with the person at home, the voter, the person they owe their job to. As a politician your number one job is to make that connection and convince people you want to help them. Thatcher, Truss’ idol, was a master at this. She had a reputation of being unfeeling and cold but she was always communicating to and speaking to her voters in every appearance she made - what she wanted to do and how she wanted to help them.
Truss just doesn’t seem to try to build any connection with the public which is a very curious position for a public figure to be in. It’s all low tax, mercantile competitive global Britain and whilst its great she has a vision she doesn’t seem to be able to say to people HOW that helps them. Or why she wants to help them. She speaks as an administrator and a back room operator, not as a front line saleswoman. Thing is, you can be as good an administrator as you want but if you can’t then package and sell your vision to the country you are in the wrong job as a politician.
I think Truss is a small-state Theresa May.
Is that a bad thing?
Theresa May's big state authoritarianism was the worst thing about her.
I mean, in terms of her communication and leadership skills.
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
Spell out in plain and simple terms how and where spending is to be reduced and stand for election on that.
The Conservatives won't cut defence or the NHS or education - there's the usual old nonsense about "welfare" and the numbers of civil servants and so on and so forth.
There's absolutely no coherent thinking in your party how to reduce the size of the state currently - until recently borrowing was a cheap option but that's becoming more expensive and you wont raise taxes and some of your sillier candidates want to take some of the £26 billion the Treasury gets from fuel duty.
Cuts to the armed forces and reduce pensions by 10% - credible ways to cut spending but politically impossible for any Conservative (presumably) so you are prisoners of your core vote and trapped with few options.
Americans thought the same about Trump after his 2020 defeat, yet he is back leading polls for the 2024 GOP nomination.
If Johnson stays in the Commons who knows what will happen
Johnson has three options:
1) He can rapidly leave politics and do other things (Cameron, Thatcher) 2) He can sit as an embittered soul on the backbenches sniping occasionally at the leadership (Heath, May) 3) He can try to become a respected "elder statesman" supportive of the leadership and offering such counsel as is asked (Hague, Duncan-Smith, Howard)
None of those in brackets was or has ever been seriously entertained as a second round at being leader.
Can we count HH Asquith as a double leader albeit of thr Liberal Party (yes, I know, major party, blah, blah, blah)?
Had Sinclair regained Caithness & Sutherland in 1950 he'd have probably re-taken the Liberal leadership from Clement Davies. Churchill and Sinclair were great friends and I believe Churchill might have offered Sinclair a Cabinet place for merging the remnants of the Liberal Party into the Conservatives.
OTOH, Sinclair suffered a stroke in 1952 and had he been unable to carry on, Grimond would have got to the leadership earlier and perhaps started an earlier Liberal revival.
However we have also never had a party leader who won a landslide general election victory, which was not the case for Heath and May or Hague, IDS and Howard and was removed by his party after less than a term in office, which also was not the case for Cameron and Thatcher both who served over 10 years as party leader and over 5 years as PM
More importantly, none of Boris's predecessors have an ego the size of the United Kingdom.
If, hypothetically, you were the next PM, would you arrange for a certain amount of dirt on BoJo to... emerge... to reduce his comeback chances?
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
But the only credible things to cut are the NHS and Pensions. Everything else is chickenfeed or would cause catastrophic damage.
Which is it?
The former would ensure that Brenda waits a year in pain to her hip op and therefore won’t happen (and IMO fits the catastrophic damage bracket due to various pandemic backlogs) and the latter would involve pissing off the grey mass, and therefore won’t happen.
Mr. Borough, perhaps, but all of England, Wales, and much of Scotland are in the amber zone, so I hope nobody has the bright idea of going mountain climbing because it'll be 'cooler'.
It’s the night-time temperatures that are the real killer. Down here in Sidmouth, Monday has a high if a perfectly fine 75 degrees, but the low is a horrific 70!!!
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
After this morning's slight downgrade, now a minor upgrade
41C for London and Kent on Tuesday: perhaps
Here's my guess: the UK record will be broken but nowhere will reach 40°C.
I could be wrong on both counts of course.
I wonder if there is some normalcy bias at work here, however. Breaking a record of "38.7C" doesn't sound outrageous. 38.8C - meh (tho it is still brutally and remarkably hot of course)
Breaking 40C tramples on all our expectations of weather (it is not a temperature I really expected to see in the UK in my lifetime). So there is mental resistance, perhaps? Dunno. Certainly, a lot of reliable forecasters now say it is highly possible. The Met gives it a 50% chance
But, still, 40 bloody Celsius? That's an Indian temperature. That's a heatwave in New Delhi. And yet it is in London
For comparison, about 20 years ago when climate changers were trying to scare us with possible future temperatures, they would say "we could seen 40C in London by 2050" (there are actual mock-ups of a 2050 forecast showing 40C). But here we are: in 2022
Perhaps because climate change is happening faster than activists thought 20 years ago?
One of the problems with the way globally warning is talked about is that we talk about global average temperatures, say, limiting them to +1.5C. However, two-thirds of the globe is ocean, and will warm up much more slowly. We all live on the one-third that is land, and that will, and is, warming up more quickly.
But it's the lower global figures that anchor our expectations. A lot of people have accused scientists and activists of being alarmists, but there are lots of ways that the issue is talked about that have done exactly the opposite.
Boris won’t come back. He’s done the job, he can make money from having done the job, the bonus will come if his successors do a bad job so he can live off some kind of myth that “it would all have been better if Boris had been in charge.” It’s far easier trading on a myth or supposition than actually coming back and b*uggering it up again.
See also: reasons why I suspect when it comes to the crunch Trump will not run again. However, the ego is bigger with that one.
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
A COBRA meeting will be held later to discuss the heatwave as forecasts suggest a new record UK temperature could be set early next week.
Meteorologists have said there is an 80% chance the mercury will top the UK's record temperature of 38.7C (101.7F) set in Cambridge in 2019.
There is a 50% chance of temperatures reaching 40C (104F) somewhere in the UK on Tuesday, with the Met Office issuing its first-ever red warning for extreme heat.
I do hope a future PM will change that committee's name to something less crass and American sounding.
It isn't a committee. It's a room where emergency committees including and chaired by cabinet ministers meet. But they are strictly speaking ad hoc so don't have names.
Really they should make it more formal and call it the Emergency Response Committee.
Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. Hence COBRA.
Presumably the room isn’t only used for COBRA meetings. I mean, they must use it on other days. What do they call it then? Do civil servants and spaces say, “Where are we meeting?” “Oh, COBRA today.” “Thanks, I wasn’t certain whether we were there or in COBRB.”
Figurehead surely? A newspaper editor's typo? The masthead is (depending on the vessel) the grating at the crosstrees at the base of the uppermost mast, and being sent to the masthead to cool off for a few hours was a traditional punishment in sailing navy days, especially for the younger trainee crew such as midshipmen.
Inspires the image of Lieutenant Bush ordering a rorty midshipman to get astride Penny to cool off.
I knew the Tele was going to the dogs when they put up a pic of Meteors attached to a story about those mythical buried Spitfires in Burma a few years ago.
Another example of the Tele going to the dogs: in the Travel Section today Fuerteventura is descibed as a Balearic Island. Doesn't the paper employ sub-editors any more?
That's a cracking result for an OK-but-got-potential England team
Because they might now release that potential, using the confidence they get from this
Three/four good northern hemisphere sides: Ireland, England, France, maybe Wales, might completely exclude the South from the World Cup. Which would make a refreshing change
That's a cracking result for an OK-but-got-potential England team
Because they might now release that potential, using the confidence they get from this
Three/four good northern hemisphere sides: Ireland, England, France, maybe Wales, might completely exclude the South from the World Cup. Which would make a refreshing change
England brilliant at NOT utilising their best players.
And WTF was all that kicking with 3 mins to go, just hold the f##king ball, drive 3 yards, recycle.
Figurehead surely? A newspaper editor's typo? The masthead is (depending on the vessel) the grating at the crosstrees at the base of the uppermost mast, and being sent to the masthead to cool off for a few hours was a traditional punishment in sailing navy days, especially for the younger trainee crew such as midshipmen.
Inspires the image of Lieutenant Bush ordering a rorty midshipman to get astride Penny to cool off.
I knew the Tele was going to the dogs when they put up a pic of Meteors attached to a story about those mythical buried Spitfires in Burma a few years ago.
Another example of the Tele going to the dogs: in the Travel Section today Fuerteventura is descibed as a Balearic Island. Doesn't the paper employ sub-editors any more?
No. Sub-editing is a lost art.
I remember reading the Telegraph axed a lot of editorial staff a few years ago. Makes sense when you’re just a pamphlet for the loony wing of the Tories.
That's a cracking result for an OK-but-got-potential England team
Because they might now release that potential, using the confidence they get from this
Three/four good northern hemisphere sides: Ireland, England, France, maybe Wales, might completely exclude the South from the World Cup. Which would make a refreshing change
England brilliant at NOT utilising their best players.
And WTF was all that kicking with 3 mins to go, just hold the f##king ball, drive 3 yards, recycle.
Yes, I didn't quite understand that, especially as the pack was looking dominant. However TBF England did nearly score at the end
Marcus Smith had an interesting game. Missed a couple of tackles by being too small, but scored an excellent break out try and did some great moves. If he achieves his potential.... plus Arundell....
After this morning's slight downgrade, now a minor upgrade
41C for London and Kent on Tuesday: perhaps
Here's my guess: the UK record will be broken but nowhere will reach 40°C.
I could be wrong on both counts of course.
I wonder if there is some normalcy bias at work here, however. Breaking a record of "38.7C" doesn't sound outrageous. 38.8C - meh (tho it is still brutally and remarkably hot of course)
Breaking 40C tramples on all our expectations of weather (it is not a temperature I really expected to see in the UK in my lifetime). So there is mental resistance, perhaps? Dunno. Certainly, a lot of reliable forecasters now say it is highly possible. The Met gives it a 50% chance
But, still, 40 bloody Celsius? That's an Indian temperature. That's a heatwave in New Delhi. And yet it is in London
For comparison, about 20 years ago when climate changers were trying to scare us with possible future temperatures, they would say "we could seen 40C in London by 2050" (there are actual mock-ups of a 2050 forecast showing 40C). But here we are: in 2022
Indeed. Not many Climate Change deniers about these days.
Who was the guy on here a few years back who was confidently predicting a mini-ice age in a year or two? (Not a trick question - I know it wasn't you!)
I flat guarantee that someone, somewhere, will (completely wrongly) insist: "it was hotter in 1976"
"Heathrow had 16 consecutive days over 30 °C (86 °F) from 23 June to 8 July[5] and for 15 consecutive days from 23 June to 7 July temperatures reached 32.2 °C (90 °F) somewhere in England"
This is just 2 days
Yes. There is a qualitative difference between length of heat and intensity of heat. This particular event will probably not even qualify as a heat wave due to the shortness (I understand the high temperatures have to last for 3 or more days to be a heatwave).
There may be a discussion to be had as to which is better/worse - two weeks of 30+ degrees, or two days of around 40 degrees
This will be better for most people. Several weeks of 30 degree temperatures isn't great in a country with little air conditioning.
That's a cracking result for an OK-but-got-potential England team
Because they might now release that potential, using the confidence they get from this
Three/four good northern hemisphere sides: Ireland, England, France, maybe Wales, might completely exclude the South from the World Cup. Which would make a refreshing change
England brilliant at NOT utilising their best players.
And WTF was all that kicking with 3 mins to go, just hold the f##king ball, drive 3 yards, recycle.
Yes, I didn't quite understand that, especially as the pack was looking dominant. However TBF England did nearly score at the end
Marcus Smith had an interesting game. Missed a couple of tackles by being too small, but scored an excellent break out try and did some great moves. If he achieves his potential.... plus Arundell....
England need to stop with the repeat of England football days of trying to shoe horn Gerrard / Lampard into the same team. You pick Marcus Smith or Farrell, then utilise the power runners across the backs.
For me Smith gets the nod every time, better attacking option and Farrell is nowhere near as reliable kicker as he once was.
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
But the only credible things to cut are the NHS and Pensions. Everything else is chickenfeed or would cause catastrophic damage.
Which is it?
I don't like this answer, but I think the best option might be to pick a dependency ratio we think we can afford (including children and pensioners) and then set the state pension age to hit that ratio.
I reckon there are probably ways to change the way in which we live so that we'd be healthier, and save money on the NHS that way, but adjusting the pension age is probably the only way to be sure of balancing the budget, without continual increases in taxes.
Americans thought the same about Trump after his 2020 defeat, yet he is back leading polls for the 2024 GOP nomination.
If Johnson stays in the Commons who knows what will happen
Johnson has three options:
1) He can rapidly leave politics and do other things (Cameron, Thatcher) 2) He can sit as an embittered soul on the backbenches sniping occasionally at the leadership (Heath, May) 3) He can try to become a respected "elder statesman" supportive of the leadership and offering such counsel as is asked (Hague, Duncan-Smith, Howard)
None of those in brackets was or has ever been seriously entertained as a second round at being leader.
Can we count HH Asquith as a double leader albeit of thr Liberal Party (yes, I know, major party, blah, blah, blah)?
Had Sinclair regained Caithness & Sutherland in 1950 he'd have probably re-taken the Liberal leadership from Clement Davies. Churchill and Sinclair were great friends and I believe Churchill might have offered Sinclair a Cabinet place for merging the remnants of the Liberal Party into the Conservatives.
OTOH, Sinclair suffered a stroke in 1952 and had he been unable to carry on, Grimond would have got to the leadership earlier and perhaps started an earlier Liberal revival.
However we have also never had a party leader who won a landslide general election victory, which was not the case for Heath and May or Hague, IDS and Howard and was removed by his party after less than a term in office, which also was not the case for Cameron and Thatcher both who served over 10 years as party leader and over 5 years as PM
More importantly, none of Boris's predecessors have an ego the size of the United Kingdom.
If, hypothetically, you were the next PM, would you arrange for a certain amount of dirt on BoJo to... emerge... to reduce his comeback chances?
What sort of dirt do you imagine might damage Boris? Extra-marital affairs? Taking money from hostile foreign powers? Breaking his own laws?
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
But the only credible things to cut are the NHS and Pensions. Everything else is chickenfeed or would cause catastrophic damage.
Which is it?
And counter intuitively some of the real costs we could cut elsewhere require higher spending initially.
i.e. Fund the courts and police properly and you avoid delays that lower productivity and make people repeat work on a case that takes 3 years to go through the system rather than 3 months.
or Fix pot holes so that the road surface will last for 20 years rather than 2 years, but at higher initial cost and lower average annual cost
Better air filtration in public buildings could be another.
I think there are quite a lot of these around, but once the budgets have been given one year it is hard to get them back the following year, even if not needed for the specific purpose that they were granted.
West Midlands Metro are opening their extension from Library to Edgbaston tomorrow, while TfL are opening the Overground extension to Barking Riverside on Monday.
They had to choose the bloody hottest weekend ever, didn't they?
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
To provide some balance to my view that Truss would be a disaster:
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 2h Truss is the answer for running Britain well & making it a better country for its citizens & a better contributor internationally. That is the point of politics & I have faith in the voters that they will reward delivering on that.
Sunak: May have the best idea, of those still standing, for moving the levers of government to win the next election. Still I think the best the Tories could hope for with him as leader would be an absolutely tiny majority, or the largest party in a hung parliament (so no guarantee of government).
Truss: I do not personally find her particularly objectionable, but she is clearly an awful communicator. If she were Prime Minister in the next election she would lose to Starmer (hardly a startling revelation). She has been in government longer than all other candidates, and longer than Johnson, so to characterise herself purely as the Boris continuity candidate was a big error.
Mordaunt: Seems to be a good campaigner and is generally appealing but seems to possess various flaws that are being aired very publicly by people who have worked with her fairly closely. She could well beat Starmer in theory - certainly she is a better speaker - but a government she leads could well be more dysfunctional even than the default, again making a GE win less likely.
Tugendhat and Badenoch: Between them they probably represent the future of the party and either of them could well be the obvious choice for Tory leader if the party enters Opposition. Either of these as Tory leader while in government could well be a risk but may end up being most effective against Starmer; while a Labour campaign against Sunak writes itself, it's difficult to imagine exactly how they could personalise a campaign against either Tugendhat or Badenoch.
That's a cracking result for an OK-but-got-potential England team
Because they might now release that potential, using the confidence they get from this
Three/four good northern hemisphere sides: Ireland, England, France, maybe Wales, might completely exclude the South from the World Cup. Which would make a refreshing change
England brilliant at NOT utilising their best players.
And WTF was all that kicking with 3 mins to go, just hold the f##king ball, drive 3 yards, recycle.
Yes, I didn't quite understand that, especially as the pack was looking dominant. However TBF England did nearly score at the end
Marcus Smith had an interesting game. Missed a couple of tackles by being too small, but scored an excellent break out try and did some great moves. If he achieves his potential.... plus Arundell....
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
Has he come up with a serious proposal for what to cut?
Make all motorways toll roads. Most people don't use them. My idea not his.
Problem with that is you just drive loads of traffic onto A roads. I have seen that in Portugal where there the major highway between North and South are toll roads e.g. between Porto and Lisbon, then down to the Algarve, and they are basically just used by a handful of BMW and Merc drivers, while everybody else uses minor roads.
"The Met Office, being British-based, more heavily staffed, and with a much bigger computer, is far more reliable than the Dutch Meteo Group who provide the BBC's forecasts."
"The Met Office, being British-based, more heavily staffed, and with a much bigger computer, is far more reliable than the Dutch Meteo Group who provide the BBC's forecasts."
Well, we won't have long to find out who was right. FWIW the Met Office forecast, as well as being a bit less fierce, seems to have been firmer and less prone to upward creep over the last two or three days.
That's a cracking result for an OK-but-got-potential England team
Because they might now release that potential, using the confidence they get from this
Three/four good northern hemisphere sides: Ireland, England, France, maybe Wales, might completely exclude the South from the World Cup. Which would make a refreshing change
England brilliant at NOT utilising their best players.
And WTF was all that kicking with 3 mins to go, just hold the f##king ball, drive 3 yards, recycle.
Yes, I didn't quite understand that, especially as the pack was looking dominant. However TBF England did nearly score at the end
Marcus Smith had an interesting game. Missed a couple of tackles by being too small, but scored an excellent break out try and did some great moves. If he achieves his potential.... plus Arundell....
You don't miss tackles through being too small.
Smith missed one or two he should have got, but on other occasions he tackled fine but the opponent was just too big. To my mind
It's a flaw in his game but when he's good he's brilliant, so I think he's well worth it
eg that try, if you don't look hard it seems easy, just an intercept and over he goes?
Except if you DO examine it, it's a brilliant try, he grabs the ball out of the air, pivots 180 degrees, then hares off with half a dozen Aussie players chasing after him - but he's super fast AND he chooses the perfect line, so he makes it
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
But the only credible things to cut are the NHS and Pensions. Everything else is chickenfeed or would cause catastrophic damage.
Which is it?
And counter intuitively some of the real costs we could cut elsewhere require higher spending initially.
i.e. Fund the courts and police properly and you avoid delays that lower productivity and make people repeat work on a case that takes 3 years to go through the system rather than 3 months.
or Fix pot holes so that the road surface will last for 20 years rather than 2 years, but at higher initial cost and lower average annual cost
Better air filtration in public buildings could be another.
I think there are quite a lot of these around, but once the budgets have been given one year it is hard to get them back the following year, even if not needed for the specific purpose that they were granted.
And some of the immediate cuts lead to long term spending. Closing cheap Council pools and leisure centres and selling school playing fields. Then dealing with obesity for example.
"The Met Office, being British-based, more heavily staffed, and with a much bigger computer, is far more reliable than the Dutch Meteo Group who provide the BBC's forecasts."
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
Spell out in plain and simple terms how and where spending is to be reduced and stand for election on that.
The Conservatives won't cut defence or the NHS or education - there's the usual old nonsense about "welfare" and the numbers of civil servants and so on and so forth.
There's absolutely no coherent thinking in your party how to reduce the size of the state currently - until recently borrowing was a cheap option but that's becoming more expensive and you wont raise taxes and some of your sillier candidates want to take some of the £26 billion the Treasury gets from fuel duty.
Cuts to the armed forces and reduce pensions by 10% - credible ways to cut spending but politically impossible for any Conservative (presumably) so you are prisoners of your core vote and trapped with few options.
It is a good point.
Without the slightest need to get elected or elected for anything at all I would axe:
Northern Ireland subsidies £15bn/yr Foreign aid c. £14bn Farming subsidies £4bn Net zero - hundreds of billions over the next generation
I would also take a serious look at making over-90s fund their own non-palliative healthcare and at whether HS2 is the right solution.
Also all the diversity officers and woke bs spinners in government. That would save relatively little money but would be intensely satisfying.
@KarlMathiesen A 60yr old Madrid City Council street cleaner died today after collapsing at work at 5:30 p.m. Friday. His body temperature when he was discovered was 41.6C.
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
But the only credible things to cut are the NHS and Pensions. Everything else is chickenfeed or would cause catastrophic damage.
Which is it?
I don't like this answer, but I think the best option might be to pick a dependency ratio we think we can afford (including children and pensioners) and then set the state pension age to hit that ratio.
I reckon there are probably ways to change the way in which we live so that we'd be healthier, and save money on the NHS that way, but adjusting the pension age is probably the only way to be sure of balancing the budget, without continual increases in taxes.
The state pension age probably needs to be seriously ramped, but good luck to anyone willing to tell today's fifty something's that they must now work until they're 75.
Figurehead surely? A newspaper editor's typo? The masthead is (depending on the vessel) the grating at the crosstrees at the base of the uppermost mast, and being sent to the masthead to cool off for a few hours was a traditional punishment in sailing navy days, especially for the younger trainee crew such as midshipmen.
Inspires the image of Lieutenant Bush ordering a rorty midshipman to get astride Penny to cool off.
I knew the Tele was going to the dogs when they put up a pic of Meteors attached to a story about those mythical buried Spitfires in Burma a few years ago.
Another example of the Tele going to the dogs: in the Travel Section today Fuerteventura is descibed as a Balearic Island. Doesn't the paper employ sub-editors any more?
No. Sub-editing is a lost art.
I remember reading the Telegraph axed a lot of editorial staff a few years ago. Makes sense when you’re just a pamphlet for the loony wing of the Tories.
If you read the article, the insiders who know her describe her in terms very similar to Boris "... she did not do the work or know the stuff; she was often absent from meetings. In the early, desperate days of Covid, for example, she was the minister for civil contingencies. The most urgent anxiety was the lack of ventilators. She failed to remedy this...."
So she is a better presenter than Truss, but possibly as "talented" as Boris.
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
Spell out in plain and simple terms how and where spending is to be reduced and stand for election on that.
The Conservatives won't cut defence or the NHS or education - there's the usual old nonsense about "welfare" and the numbers of civil servants and so on and so forth.
There's absolutely no coherent thinking in your party how to reduce the size of the state currently - until recently borrowing was a cheap option but that's becoming more expensive and you wont raise taxes and some of your sillier candidates want to take some of the £26 billion the Treasury gets from fuel duty.
Cuts to the armed forces and reduce pensions by 10% - credible ways to cut spending but politically impossible for any Conservative (presumably) so you are prisoners of your core vote and trapped with few options.
It is a good point.
Without the slightest need to get elected or elected for anything at all I would axe:
Northern Ireland subsidies £15bn/yr Foreign aid c. £14bn Farming subsidies £4bn Net zero - hundreds of billions over the next generation
I would also take a serious look at making over-90s fund their own non-palliative healthcare and at whether HS2 is the right solution.
Also all the diversity officers and woke bs spinners in government. That would save relatively little money but would be intensely satisfying.
You are a Conservative leadership election candidate and I claim my £5 !!
Hang on, you can't be - you haven't promised to abolish fuel duty and cut income tax by 20p.
"The Met Office, being British-based, more heavily staffed, and with a much bigger computer, is far more reliable than the Dutch Meteo Group who provide the BBC's forecasts."
I’ve heard that from the Met Office themselves (unsurprisingly). They all think the BBC are daft for switching.
I've deleted the BBC weather app and use the Met Office's own.
I've found it pretty good on 48-72 hour forecasts. Certainly at least 90% accurate. Gets less accurate the further ahead you go but in our climate it would be astonishing if it didn't.
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
But the only credible things to cut are the NHS and Pensions. Everything else is chickenfeed or would cause catastrophic damage.
Which is it?
Education, surely? Cutting the NHS or Pensions would affect elderly Tory voters, who are ringfenced.
Why not carry on as before, racking up debt upon debt? Student debt, Covid debt, QE debt, Heat pump debt, etc etc. Future generations can pay it back, after all, they have longer to live....
"The Met Office, being British-based, more heavily staffed, and with a much bigger computer, is far more reliable than the Dutch Meteo Group who provide the BBC's forecasts."
Well, we won't have long to find out who was right. FWIW the Met Office forecast, as well as being a bit less fierce, seems to have been firmer and less prone to upward creep over the last two or three days.
I don't know about temperatures, but didn't the Met Office ramp their estimated probability of 40C being hit from 10% to 50% in two days?
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
But the only credible things to cut are the NHS and Pensions. Everything else is chickenfeed or would cause catastrophic damage.
Which is it?
And counter intuitively some of the real costs we could cut elsewhere require higher spending initially.
i.e. Fund the courts and police properly and you avoid delays that lower productivity and make people repeat work on a case that takes 3 years to go through the system rather than 3 months.
or Fix pot holes so that the road surface will last for 20 years rather than 2 years, but at higher initial cost and lower average annual cost
Better air filtration in public buildings could be another.
I think there are quite a lot of these around, but once the budgets have been given one year it is hard to get them back the following year, even if not needed for the specific purpose that they were granted.
And some of the immediate cuts lead to long term spending. Closing cheap Council pools and leisure centres and selling school playing fields. Then dealing with obesity for example.
Not to mention the ghastly give a civil servant on £60k a year a £30k redundancy pay off only to re-hire them six months later on £400 a day consultancy rates. And then wonder why older workers choose to work part time.
"The Met Office, being British-based, more heavily staffed, and with a much bigger computer, is far more reliable than the Dutch Meteo Group who provide the BBC's forecasts."
I’ve heard that from the Met Office themselves (unsurprisingly). They all think the BBC are daft for switching.
I've deleted the BBC weather app and use the Met Office's own.
I've found it pretty good on 48-72 hour forecasts. Certainly at least 90% accurate. Gets less accurate the further ahead you go but in our climate it would be astonishing if it didn't.
The Met Office is undoubtedly the place to go. Put in your location and the next few hours are spookily accurate.
"The Met Office, being British-based, more heavily staffed, and with a much bigger computer, is far more reliable than the Dutch Meteo Group who provide the BBC's forecasts."
I’ve heard that from the Met Office themselves (unsurprisingly). They all think the BBC are daft for switching.
I've deleted the BBC weather app and use the Met Office's own.
I've found it pretty good on 48-72 hour forecasts. Certainly at least 90% accurate. Gets less accurate the further ahead you go but in our climate it would be astonishing if it didn't.
The Met Office is undoubtedly the place to go. Put in your location and the next few hours are spookily accurate.
DarkSky is very good I find. But Apple bought them so I think they've been consumed into the weather app on iOS (or are in the process of being).
"In certain places, the asphalt is going to start melting, not everywhere of course, but it is going to get much softer. So you can imagine how that might end?
"The solution will be to pour water on it. We will have vehicles with 10,000 litres of water taken along the way, the regional departments are going to help us to cool the roads."
"You have to do it at just the right moment, if you do it too early it just heats up again. If you do it too late the peloton rides onto wet surfaces. It has to be around 15 minutes before they get there."
"The Met Office, being British-based, more heavily staffed, and with a much bigger computer, is far more reliable than the Dutch Meteo Group who provide the BBC's forecasts."
I’ve heard that from the Met Office themselves (unsurprisingly). They all think the BBC are daft for switching.
Not many people actually pay that much attention to the BBC weather forecasts. At the level of "it will be hot tomorrow" it doesn't make much difference who you get the forecast from.
In any case, I don't think Meteogroup are any less accurate than the Met Office. They have just as big a computer, because they buy in model data from the Met Office (and ECMWF, and NCEP).
A lot of councils and infrastructure companies also use Meteogroup so I'm not sure why the BBC shouldn't. They seem to provide a better commercial service.
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
Spell out in plain and simple terms how and where spending is to be reduced and stand for election on that.
The Conservatives won't cut defence or the NHS or education - there's the usual old nonsense about "welfare" and the numbers of civil servants and so on and so forth.
There's absolutely no coherent thinking in your party how to reduce the size of the state currently - until recently borrowing was a cheap option but that's becoming more expensive and you wont raise taxes and some of your sillier candidates want to take some of the £26 billion the Treasury gets from fuel duty.
Cuts to the armed forces and reduce pensions by 10% - credible ways to cut spending but politically impossible for any Conservative (presumably) so you are prisoners of your core vote and trapped with few options.
It is a good point.
Without the slightest need to get elected or elected for anything at all I would axe:
Northern Ireland subsidies £15bn/yr Foreign aid c. £14bn Farming subsidies £4bn Net zero - hundreds of billions over the next generation
I would also take a serious look at making over-90s fund their own non-palliative healthcare and at whether HS2 is the right solution.
Also all the diversity officers and woke bs spinners in government. That would save relatively little money but would be intensely satisfying.
Axing decarbonisation is batshit crazy, and the rest is chicken feed.
Regardless, there are no low tax solutions to dealing with a population that is getting older, fatter and sicker with every passing year, unless you're willing to make quite radical spending cuts that abandon at least some vulnerable groups to drown in the process. You can't have American levels of tax without American levels of deprivation.
"The Met Office, being British-based, more heavily staffed, and with a much bigger computer, is far more reliable than the Dutch Meteo Group who provide the BBC's forecasts."
I’ve heard that from the Met Office themselves (unsurprisingly). They all think the BBC are daft for switching.
Not many people actually pay that much attention to the BBC weather forecasts. At the level of "it will be hot tomorrow" it doesn't make much difference who you get the forecast from.
In any case, I don't think Meteogroup are any less accurate than the Met Office. They have just as big a computer, because they buy in model data from the Met Office (and ECMWF, and NCEP).
A lot of councils and infrastructure companies also use Meteogroup so I'm not sure why the BBC shouldn't. They seem to provide a better commercial service than the Met Office do.
It worth remembering there is a big difference between the weather is going to be roughly x tomorrow and the next day in these large geographical areas and the sort of forecasts that industry require which require precise hour by hour prediction within small localities.
If Truss was any good, she would still have been some threat in this contest even now. But She got herself lost at her own campaign launch, this is magnitude worse than Marcus Brody getting lost in his own museum, Truss got herself lost in effectively just one room, wandering into a dead end, looking left and right and then appearing confused incapable of movement until helped away by a kindly gentleman. Let’s be honest, lost at your own hustings and led away by your staff, you can’t ask to lead a country.
Her continued presence is making it farcical. The 1922 should have a word.
If Truss was any good, she would still have been some threat in this contest even now. But She got herself lost at her own campaign launch, this is magnitude worse than Marcus Brody getting lost in his own museum, Truss got herself lost in effectively just one room, wandering into a dead end, looking left and right and then appearing confused incapable of movement until helped away by a kindly gentleman. Let’s be honest, lost at your own hustings and led away by your staff, you can’t ask to lead a country.
Her continued presence is making it farcical. The 1922 should have a word.
Good grief, you're talking about Ms Truss almost like some on PB talk about Mr Biden.
I didn’t watch it live, I was partying. But I have watched it now, and despite the PB spin room I thought Penny very well. She certainly put Badenoch back in her box.
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
Boris won’t come back. He’s done the job, he can make money from having done the job, the bonus will come if his successors do a bad job so he can live off some kind of myth that “it would all have been better if Boris had been in charge.” It’s far easier trading on a myth or supposition than actually coming back and b*uggering it up again.
See also: reasons why I suspect when it comes to the crunch Trump will not run again. However, the ego is bigger with that one.
+1. The clown never wanted to do anything for us or leave the country a better place, anyway; he simply wanted to sit in the big chair. Being frustrated from his ejection from the big chair prematurely- as he would see it - is very different from wanting to put in the legwork to get back there.
Indeed, when he sees the bad news coming down the track he will probably thank his luck - as he has done so many times before.
I didn’t watch it live, I was partying. But I have watched it now, and despite the PB spin room I thought Penny very well. She certainly put Badenoch back in her box.
"The Met Office, being British-based, more heavily staffed, and with a much bigger computer, is far more reliable than the Dutch Meteo Group who provide the BBC's forecasts."
I’ve heard that from the Met Office themselves (unsurprisingly). They all think the BBC are daft for switching.
I've deleted the BBC weather app and use the Met Office's own.
I've found it pretty good on 48-72 hour forecasts. Certainly at least 90% accurate. Gets less accurate the further ahead you go but in our climate it would be astonishing if it didn't.
The Met Office is undoubtedly the place to go. Put in your location and the next few hours are spookily accurate.
I use them a lot for work. They’re very accurate for telling me when I’m going to get wet in a field.
If Truss was any good, she would still have been some threat in this contest even now. But She got herself lost at her own campaign launch, this is magnitude worse than Marcus Brody getting lost in his own museum, Truss got herself lost in effectively just one room, wandering into a dead end, looking left and right and then appearing confused incapable of movement until helped away by a kindly gentleman. Let’s be honest, lost at your own hustings and led away by your staff, you can’t ask to lead a country.
Her continued presence is making it farcical. The 1922 should have a word.
Gerald Ford did that once, but at least he had the excuse that the door handle broke.
"The Met Office, being British-based, more heavily staffed, and with a much bigger computer, is far more reliable than the Dutch Meteo Group who provide the BBC's forecasts."
Well, we won't have long to find out who was right. FWIW the Met Office forecast, as well as being a bit less fierce, seems to have been firmer and less prone to upward creep over the last two or three days.
Don’t get misled by the automated Met Office forecasts which come from their global model output with no human intervention. The global model is too low resolution to generate true max temps so it undercooks a bit.
They manually adjust certain locations where there is a weather recording site. Like Heathrow.
The Met themselves are loudly talking about maxes at or above 40C.
There is no Met Office vs Meteogroup battle here. All major forecasting organisations look at all of the major model output.
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
But the only credible things to cut are the NHS and Pensions. Everything else is chickenfeed or would cause catastrophic damage.
Which is it?
I don't like this answer, but I think the best option might be to pick a dependency ratio we think we can afford (including children and pensioners) and then set the state pension age to hit that ratio.
I reckon there are probably ways to change the way in which we live so that we'd be healthier, and save money on the NHS that way, but adjusting the pension age is probably the only way to be sure of balancing the budget, without continual increases in taxes.
At some stage either the government finds a way to tap into the unearned wealth gain that people sitting in bog standard houses, particularly in London, have made, and/or it needs to recognise that pensions can’t be index-linked alongside a big decline in real wages.
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
Spell out in plain and simple terms how and where spending is to be reduced and stand for election on that.
The Conservatives won't cut defence or the NHS or education - there's the usual old nonsense about "welfare" and the numbers of civil servants and so on and so forth.
There's absolutely no coherent thinking in your party how to reduce the size of the state currently - until recently borrowing was a cheap option but that's becoming more expensive and you wont raise taxes and some of your sillier candidates want to take some of the £26 billion the Treasury gets from fuel duty.
Cuts to the armed forces and reduce pensions by 10% - credible ways to cut spending but politically impossible for any Conservative (presumably) so you are prisoners of your core vote and trapped with few options.
Look at this. Education and general services have been cut. Defence has flatlined.
Which ones are the real problem? (ignore the one-off Covid spike)
"In certain places, the asphalt is going to start melting, not everywhere of course, but it is going to get much softer. So you can imagine how that might end?
"The solution will be to pour water on it. We will have vehicles with 10,000 litres of water taken along the way, the regional departments are going to help us to cool the roads."
"You have to do it at just the right moment, if you do it too early it just heats up again. If you do it too late the peloton rides onto wet surfaces. It has to be around 15 minutes before they get there."
We might have to move the Tour to September and the Vuelta to October. These mid-summer races might just become infeasible.
1976: not only were the Synoptics absolutely unique and not yet repeated, but the UK had the biggest warm anomaly of anywhere on earth that summer, with blues on the anomaly map across much of the rest of the planet. Now we are just one bit of a vast sea of red and orange, despite it being a (relatively cool) La Niña year globally.
If we saw June-July Synoptics in 2022 we would get a repeat of 1976, but with temperatures a degree of two higher.
Indeed this morning’s GFS run showed essentially a 1976-style run of hot days from next weekend, 34-36C day after day. Massive outlier big shows what would happen if we ever repeated the pattern.
June 1976 averaged 17.0C in central England, the same as July 2022 so far, before the heatwave.
After this morning's slight downgrade, now a minor upgrade
41C for London and Kent on Tuesday: perhaps
Here's my guess: the UK record will be broken but nowhere will reach 40°C.
I could be wrong on both counts of course.
I wonder if there is some normalcy bias at work here, however. Breaking a record of "38.7C" doesn't sound outrageous. 38.8C - meh (tho it is still brutally and remarkably hot of course)
Breaking 40C tramples on all our expectations of weather (it is not a temperature I really expected to see in the UK in my lifetime). So there is mental resistance, perhaps? Dunno. Certainly, a lot of reliable forecasters now say it is highly possible. The Met gives it a 50% chance
But, still, 40 bloody Celsius? That's an Indian temperature. That's a heatwave in New Delhi. And yet it is in London
For comparison, about 20 years ago when climate changers were trying to scare us with possible future temperatures, they would say "we could seen 40C in London by 2050" (there are actual mock-ups of a 2050 forecast showing 40C). But here we are: in 2022
Indeed. Not many Climate Change deniers about these days.
Who was the guy on here a few years back who was confidently predicting a mini-ice age in a year or two? (Not a trick question - I know it wasn't you!)
I flat guarantee that someone, somewhere, will (completely wrongly) insist: "it was hotter in 1976"
"Heathrow had 16 consecutive days over 30 °C (86 °F) from 23 June to 8 July[5] and for 15 consecutive days from 23 June to 7 July temperatures reached 32.2 °C (90 °F) somewhere in England"
This is just 2 days
Yes. There is a qualitative difference between length of heat and intensity of heat. This particular event will probably not even qualify as a heat wave due to the shortness (I understand the high temperatures have to last for 3 or more days to be a heatwave).
There may be a discussion to be had as to which is better/worse - two weeks of 30+ degrees, or two days of around 40 degrees
This will be better for most people. Several weeks of 30 degree temperatures isn't great in a country with little air conditioning.
I’d agree. If only for night times. Two nights of hardly sleeping due to the heat versus fourteen-plus of hardly sleeping. Not contest. Plus - it’s realistic to avoid going out/doing things for two days of extreme heat. Not so much if it’s fourteen days of very high heat.
Not to downplay the stress of the extreme heat. Some will go through hell. But at least it’ll be quick to get to the other side.
The real problem is when we get two weeks or so of 40 degree heat. Not on the cards, this time, mercifully.
We need to start thinking imaginatively and coming up with some (sigh) win-win solutions.
One big area is around higher education and 18-21 year olds generally. Incentivise hugely employers to take 18 year olds from school for what are now graduate level roles (but where a degree is actually unnecessary). That (a) reduces potential lost student loans over x decades and (b) means these 18 year olds are paying taxes for three years (as well as the contributions from employers).
In a similar vein, reverse the graduatisation of jobs such as nurses and Police, and go back to when 16 year olds could leave school and enter into careers. Similar effects to the above.
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
Spell out in plain and simple terms how and where spending is to be reduced and stand for election on that.
The Conservatives won't cut defence or the NHS or education - there's the usual old nonsense about "welfare" and the numbers of civil servants and so on and so forth.
There's absolutely no coherent thinking in your party how to reduce the size of the state currently - until recently borrowing was a cheap option but that's becoming more expensive and you wont raise taxes and some of your sillier candidates want to take some of the £26 billion the Treasury gets from fuel duty.
Cuts to the armed forces and reduce pensions by 10% - credible ways to cut spending but politically impossible for any Conservative (presumably) so you are prisoners of your core vote and trapped with few options.
Look at this. Education and general services have been cut. Defence has flatlined.
Which ones are the real problem? (ignore the one-off Covid spike)
I didn’t watch it live, I was partying. But I have watched it now, and despite the PB spin room I thought Penny very well. She certainly put Badenoch back in her box.
After this morning's slight downgrade, now a minor upgrade
41C for London and Kent on Tuesday: perhaps
Here's my guess: the UK record will be broken but nowhere will reach 40°C.
I could be wrong on both counts of course.
I wonder if there is some normalcy bias at work here, however. Breaking a record of "38.7C" doesn't sound outrageous. 38.8C - meh (tho it is still brutally and remarkably hot of course)
Breaking 40C tramples on all our expectations of weather (it is not a temperature I really expected to see in the UK in my lifetime). So there is mental resistance, perhaps? Dunno. Certainly, a lot of reliable forecasters now say it is highly possible. The Met gives it a 50% chance
But, still, 40 bloody Celsius? That's an Indian temperature. That's a heatwave in New Delhi. And yet it is in London
For comparison, about 20 years ago when climate changers were trying to scare us with possible future temperatures, they would say "we could seen 40C in London by 2050" (there are actual mock-ups of a 2050 forecast showing 40C). But here we are: in 2022
Indeed. Not many Climate Change deniers about these days.
Who was the guy on here a few years back who was confidently predicting a mini-ice age in a year or two? (Not a trick question - I know it wasn't you!)
I flat guarantee that someone, somewhere, will (completely wrongly) insist: "it was hotter in 1976"
"Heathrow had 16 consecutive days over 30 °C (86 °F) from 23 June to 8 July[5] and for 15 consecutive days from 23 June to 7 July temperatures reached 32.2 °C (90 °F) somewhere in England"
This is just 2 days
I flew back from New York that summer. When we landed at Heathrow the captain said it was over 100F.
I've been trying to work out what Mordaunt was talking about with her "top 180 innovations" and her lament that none of them are used in the NHS.
It's very difficult to work out what she means. So I went to look at the top ten out of this list of the top forty-five, figuring that obviously they'd be in the top 180, and tried to imagine what she'd mandate.
Firstly - every hospital must have a reflecting telescope on the roof, as invented by Isaac Newton.
Secondly - every hospital must have mass-produced toothbrushes. Frankly, I'm shocked that no-one in the NHS uses toothbrushes, if she's right; this must be changed.
I'm not clear as to where the NHS can use seed drills, but we can ask each hospital to come up with their own plans.
And as for steam engines at number four - well, it'd be nice to see a comeback, I suppose. Steam-operated MRI machines, perhaps?
If hospitals don't use tin cans in their canteens, perhaps they should from now on.
Using modern torpedoes might stretch the imagination, but Penny will provide.
As for thermos flasks, hovercraft, turbo-jet engines, and pneumatic tyres - well. For some, I'd have thought they are used where necessary; for others, the mind boggles.
She's deleted her tweet, possibly because so many people pointed out that she was talking nonsense.
It is unbelievably depressing to watch a Conservative government frame the choice as higher taxes versus higher borrowing. The answer is LOWER SPENDING.
But the only credible things to cut are the NHS and Pensions. Everything else is chickenfeed or would cause catastrophic damage.
Which is it?
I don't like this answer, but I think the best option might be to pick a dependency ratio we think we can afford (including children and pensioners) and then set the state pension age to hit that ratio.
I reckon there are probably ways to change the way in which we live so that we'd be healthier, and save money on the NHS that way, but adjusting the pension age is probably the only way to be sure of balancing the budget, without continual increases in taxes.
Dependency ratio doesn't really work, since we now have 1.3m people over 65 in work, and that has pretty much doubled in a decade.
There are nearly 20% of the UK workforce who can also draw a pension of some some sort.
You need a better measure, with a more sensitive definition.
I've been trying to work out what Mordaunt was talking about with her "top 180 innovations" and her lament that none of them are used in the NHS.
It's very difficult to work out what she means. So I went to look at the top ten out of this list of the top forty-five, figuring that obviously they'd be in the top 180, and tried to imagine what she'd mandate.
Firstly - every hospital must have a reflecting telescope on the roof, as invented by Isaac Newton.
Secondly - every hospital must have mass-produced toothbrushes. Frankly, I'm shocked that no-one in the NHS uses toothbrushes, if she's right; this must be changed.
I'm not clear as to where the NHS can use seed drills, but we can ask each hospital to come up with their own plans.
And as for steam engines at number four - well, it'd be nice to see a comeback, I suppose. Steam-operated MRI machines, perhaps?
If hospitals don't use tin cans in their canteens, perhaps they should from now on.
Using modern torpedoes might stretch the imagination, but Penny will provide.
As for thermos flasks, hovercraft, turbo-jet engines, and pneumatic tyres - well. For some, I'd have thought they are used where necessary; for others, the mind boggles.
She's deleted her tweet, possibly because so many people pointed out that she was talking nonsense.
Comments
The day I was there it was 50C...... There was going to be a drilling crew out there for months.
Beat the Aussies away
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/donald-trump-russia-nuclear-submarines
Channel 4 has said an investigation has found no evidence to support claims by the culture secretary that parts of its show Tower Block of Commons were faked.
The 2010 series featured MPs, including Nadine Dorries, spending time living in UK tower blocks and council estates.
In May, Ms Dorries alleged that some people portrayed as living on her estate were actors and "were not real".
If, hypothetically, you were the next PM, would you arrange for a certain amount of dirt on BoJo to... emerge... to reduce his comeback chances?
Successive policies in recent years, especially from Blair onwards, have sought to defang and remove powers from LEAs and reform education so it's really not incompatible that education is what drove her into politics, or ultimately the Tories.
Which is it?
Spell out in plain and simple terms how and where spending is to be reduced and stand for election on that.
The Conservatives won't cut defence or the NHS or education - there's the usual old nonsense about "welfare" and the numbers of civil servants and so on and so forth.
There's absolutely no coherent thinking in your party how to reduce the size of the state currently - until recently borrowing was a cheap option but that's becoming more expensive and you wont raise taxes and some of your sillier candidates want to take some of the £26 billion the Treasury gets from fuel duty.
Cuts to the armed forces and reduce pensions by 10% - credible ways to cut spending but politically impossible for any Conservative (presumably) so you are prisoners of your core vote and trapped with few options.
https://youtu.be/nQVl34JxrPo
But it's the lower global figures that anchor our expectations. A lot of people have accused scientists and activists of being alarmists, but there are lots of ways that the issue is talked about that have done exactly the opposite.
See also: reasons why I suspect when it comes to the crunch Trump will not run again. However, the ego is bigger with that one.
Because they might now release that potential, using the confidence they get from this
Three/four good northern hemisphere sides: Ireland, England, France, maybe Wales, might completely exclude the South from the World Cup. Which would make a refreshing change
And WTF was all that kicking with 3 mins to go, just hold the f##king ball, drive 3 yards, recycle.
Second Cobra meeting is held over heatwave as one expert says 'thousands could die'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11019683/Britain-enjoys-sun-gets-hot-Temperatures-hit-80F-hitting-86F-tomorrow.html
Marcus Smith had an interesting game. Missed a couple of tackles by being too small, but scored an excellent break out try and did some great moves. If he achieves his potential.... plus Arundell....
For me Smith gets the nod every time, better attacking option and Farrell is nowhere near as reliable kicker as he once was.
I reckon there are probably ways to change the way in which we live so that we'd be healthier, and save money on the NHS that way, but adjusting the pension age is probably the only way to be sure of balancing the budget, without continual increases in taxes.
i.e. Fund the courts and police properly and you avoid delays that lower productivity and make people repeat work on a case that takes 3 years to go through the system rather than 3 months.
or Fix pot holes so that the road surface will last for 20 years rather than 2 years, but at higher initial cost and lower average annual cost
Better air filtration in public buildings could be another.
I think there are quite a lot of these around, but once the budgets have been given one year it is hard to get them back the following year, even if not needed for the specific purpose that they were granted.
Being the most wooden performer in the debate last night, who should become head of the Forestry Commission?
Truss: I do not personally find her particularly objectionable, but she is clearly an awful communicator. If she were Prime Minister in the next election she would lose to Starmer (hardly a startling revelation). She has been in government longer than all other candidates, and longer than Johnson, so to characterise herself purely as the Boris continuity candidate was a big error.
Mordaunt: Seems to be a good campaigner and is generally appealing but seems to possess various flaws that are being aired very publicly by people who have worked with her fairly closely. She could well beat Starmer in theory - certainly she is a better speaker - but a government she leads could well be more dysfunctional even than the default, again making a GE win less likely.
Tugendhat and Badenoch: Between them they probably represent the future of the party and either of them could well be the obvious choice for Tory leader if the party enters Opposition. Either of these as Tory leader while in government could well be a risk but may end up being most effective against Starmer; while a Labour campaign against Sunak writes itself, it's difficult to imagine exactly how they could personalise a campaign against either Tugendhat or Badenoch.
"The Met Office, being British-based, more heavily staffed, and with a much bigger computer, is far more reliable than the Dutch Meteo Group who provide the BBC's forecasts."
https://vote-2012.proboards.com/thread/219/weather-thread?page=75
It's a flaw in his game but when he's good he's brilliant, so I think he's well worth it
eg that try, if you don't look hard it seems easy, just an intercept and over he goes?
Except if you DO examine it, it's a brilliant try, he grabs the ball out of the air, pivots 180 degrees, then hares off with half a dozen Aussie players chasing after him - but he's super fast AND he chooses the perfect line, so he makes it
See here
https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/rugby-union/12653077/outstanding-solo-effort-from-marcus-smith
Closing cheap Council pools and leisure centres and selling school playing fields. Then dealing with obesity for example.
Without the slightest need to get elected or elected for anything at all I would axe:
Northern Ireland subsidies £15bn/yr
Foreign aid c. £14bn
Farming subsidies £4bn
Net zero - hundreds of billions over the next generation
I would also take a serious look at making over-90s fund their own non-palliative healthcare and at whether HS2 is the right solution.
Also all the diversity officers and woke bs spinners in government. That would save relatively little money but would be intensely satisfying.
A 60yr old Madrid City Council street cleaner died today after collapsing at work at 5:30 p.m. Friday. His body temperature when he was discovered was 41.6C.
https://twitter.com/KarlMathiesen/status/1548247349809463296
So she is a better presenter than Truss, but possibly as "talented" as Boris.
Hang on, you can't be - you haven't promised to abolish fuel duty and cut income tax by 20p.
I've found it pretty good on 48-72 hour forecasts. Certainly at least 90% accurate. Gets less accurate the further ahead you go but in our climate it would be astonishing if it didn't.
"In certain places, the asphalt is going to start melting, not everywhere of course, but it is going to get much softer. So you can imagine how that might end?
"The solution will be to pour water on it. We will have vehicles with 10,000 litres of water taken along the way, the regional departments are going to help us to cool the roads."
"You have to do it at just the right moment, if you do it too early it just heats up again. If you do it too late the peloton rides onto wet surfaces. It has to be around 15 minutes before they get there."
In any case, I don't think Meteogroup are any less accurate than the Met Office. They have just as big a computer, because they buy in model data from the Met Office (and ECMWF, and NCEP).
A lot of councils and infrastructure companies also use Meteogroup so I'm not sure why the BBC shouldn't. They seem to provide a better commercial service.
Regardless, there are no low tax solutions to dealing with a population that is getting older, fatter and sicker with every passing year, unless you're willing to make quite radical spending cuts that abandon at least some vulnerable groups to drown in the process. You can't have American levels of tax without American levels of deprivation.
Her continued presence is making it farcical. The 1922 should have a word.
It's the one way we get a highly skilled-workforce to drive a highly productive economy in future. It is quite literally an investment.
Pensions and healthcare for 75+ year olds is just a huge fiscal/economic drag, nothing more nothing less.
Indeed, when he sees the bad news coming down the track he will probably thank his luck - as he has done so many times before.
They manually adjust certain locations where there is a weather recording site. Like Heathrow.
The Met themselves are loudly talking about maxes at or above 40C.
There is no Met Office vs Meteogroup battle here. All major forecasting organisations look at all of the major model output.
Look at this. Education and general services have been cut. Defence has flatlined.
Which ones are the real problem? (ignore the one-off Covid spike)
What a waste.
If we saw June-July Synoptics in 2022 we would get a repeat of 1976, but with temperatures a degree of two higher.
Indeed this morning’s GFS run showed essentially a 1976-style run of hot days from next weekend, 34-36C day after day. Massive outlier big shows what would happen if we ever repeated the pattern.
June 1976 averaged 17.0C in central England, the same as July 2022 so far, before the heatwave.
Two nights of hardly sleeping due to the heat versus fourteen-plus of hardly sleeping. Not contest.
Plus - it’s realistic to avoid going out/doing things for two days of extreme heat. Not so much if it’s fourteen days of very high heat.
Not to downplay the stress of the extreme heat. Some will go through hell. But at least it’ll be quick to get to the other side.
The real problem is when we get two weeks or so of 40 degree heat. Not on the cards, this time, mercifully.
We need to start thinking imaginatively and coming up with some (sigh) win-win solutions.
One big area is around higher education and 18-21 year olds generally. Incentivise hugely employers to take 18 year olds from school for what are now graduate level roles (but where a degree is actually unnecessary). That (a) reduces potential lost student loans over x decades and (b) means these 18 year olds are paying taxes for three years (as well as the contributions from employers).
In a similar vein, reverse the graduatisation of jobs such as nurses and Police, and go back to when 16 year olds could leave school and enter into careers. Similar effects to the above.
The PB equivalent would be “shut the **** up” 😇
There are nearly 20% of the UK workforce who can also draw a pension of some some sort.
You need a better measure, with a more sensitive definition.
https://ageing-better.org.uk/work-state-ageing-2020/