I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
I don't see any 'ultra-woke' agenda in my son's primary school. He's just about to start Year 4. Does it start later?
Nor mine. The ethos of primary schools seems broadly comparable (indeed an improvement on) the ethos of primary schools 30 years ago, from my observations. Which is why looking at secondaries has been such a shock.
I find Raab swinging behind Sunak one of the more interesting of the endorsements thus far, and seemingly not talked about much.
I mean, this is the guy who Boris seemingly trusted enough to be his official number 2, but he swung behind the guy Boris and his acolytes are doing everything in their power to ensure does not win.
He didn't trust him enough to be acting PM through the election of a successor though.....
Renewable energy. Stop talking, start doing. Solves so many problems. It needs to be approached with some urgency.
Tell it to these boys:
Nothing there to stop us investing in renewables and becoming an energy self sufficient, low carbon UK. Time to end the political BS, we can do this.
I agree but my point is we are never going to race well-ahead of the pack where this causes us huge relative economic pain.
We will go as fast as we can that makes logical political and economic sense to do so in the short-medium term.
The solution, of course, is tech, engineering and megaproject delivery skills.
Moving the Treasury to Darlo could help with this - especially if you can tap into the down to earth engineering talent pool in the North.
I've never really understood the idea that the weight of government bureaucracy will shift if the offices are located in another location.
I mean, is the DVLA of particularly Welsh character because it is in Swansea? Why would location drive thinking?
Well it should if the recruitment pool (and hiring policies) are different. You definitely have a different pool of candidates on Teesside than you in London whatever way you look at it.
The Treasury recruits new civil servants straight from university. It is cleaners and catering staff who might come from a Teeside Jobcentre but they do not set economic policy. There might be an indirect effect in the medium term as senior mandarins live in the North-East but more likely it would just make recruitment more difficult.
Of course, it would benefit the town in which it is based in the same way having any new, large employer would do, in terms of jobs and wages spent locally.
Universities are all over the country, only having one city for graduates is hardly healthy.
As it stands, the one area it would make a difference is that I would want all mandarins Treasury and Transport related out of London and into an out of city town 'campus'. Get rid of mandarins who think that trains are all that matter and that drivers are cash cows and instead have them drive into work like over 80% of the country does.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Maybe I'm too taken in by the public image, but I'm inclined to file this under "Johnson doesn't think rules are worth bothering with" (which is bad but not exactly news) rather than anything more sinister. His policies don't strike me as pro-Russian (unlike, at least intermittently, Trump).
There's a credible theory that the Italian trip's sole purpose was to pursue an illicit romance somewhere out of Carrie's line of sight. Politically entirely innocent, but he can't say so. Delicious if true
How is it a credible theory that Boris flew to Italy and met Lebedev for an illicit romance? It's nonsense on stilts. The closest you might get is if Boris was honeytrapped by the KGB at Chez Lebedev but that surely makes things even worse.
If you had heard what I have heard about Boris at Eton...
No. The suggestion is that Lebedevs role was that of pander; that he hosted Boris and a talented young female.
Potentially a KGB honeytrap then? That makes things worse.
The Sunday Mail hatchet job on Maudaunt today is extreme, nasty, and frankly disgusting, while at the same time they have Johnson in the cockpit of a fighter jet extolling him as if he is a deity
However, it is reported more sensible senior conservatives are demanding Johnson resigns his seat on the 6th September as they do not want the Johnson drama continuing, with all the investigations into his behaviour due in the Autumn
The Mail? Hatchet job? Extreme, nasty, and frankly disgusting?
Renewable energy. Stop talking, start doing. Solves so many problems. It needs to be approached with some urgency.
Tell it to these boys:
Nothing there to stop us investing in renewables and becoming an energy self sufficient, low carbon UK. Time to end the political BS, we can do this.
I agree but my point is we are never going to race well-ahead of the pack where this causes us huge relative economic pain.
We will go as fast as we can that makes logical political and economic sense to do so in the short-medium term.
The solution, of course, is tech, engineering and megaproject delivery skills.
Moving the Treasury to Darlo could help with this - especially if you can tap into the down to earth engineering talent pool in the North.
I've never really understood the idea that the weight of government bureaucracy will shift if the offices are located in another location.
I mean, is the DVLA of particularly Welsh character because it is in Swansea? Why would location drive thinking?
Well it should if the recruitment pool (and hiring policies) are different. You definitely have a different pool of candidates on Teesside than you in London whatever way you look at it.
The Treasury recruits new civil servants straight from university. It is cleaners and catering staff who might come from a Teeside Jobcentre but they do not set economic policy. There might be an indirect effect in the medium term as senior mandarins live in the North-East but more likely it would just make recruitment more difficult.
Of course, it would benefit the town in which it is based in the same way having any new, large employer would do, in terms of jobs and wages spent locally.
Though will such a Treasury move outlive Sunak? It is an easy target for cuts.
Merging the FCO (London based) with DFID (largely in East Kilbride) has been problematic, with WFH the only viable solution for many teams.
I think that Badenoch's take on woke is less important than her take on the role of the state. She has said that 'the state should do less, but do it better'.
Net Zero is a much bigger and juicier target than trans bathrooms during an energy crisis.
Yes, because we'd be in a much better position today if we still got all our energy from hydrocarbons.
Back in 2021, you could (rightly) claim that renewables were increasing the price of our electricity.
Today, the government paying a guaranteed £43/MWh for wind looks like like utter genius.
Building tidal lagoons instead of endlessly faffing around with overpriced and probably never to be built nuclear power stations would have looked much more like utter genius.
We hear a lot about tidal lagoons, but I am (currently) unconvinced. The scale required to make a difference is massive, and despite what the proponents say, the costs will likewise be massive.
Having said that, I'm in favour if having as varied a power generation system in the UK as possible; we should throw everything into the mix. It's just that I doubt tidal lagoons will prove to be as cheap or effective as their proponents claim.
Whether you are convinced or not has become irrelevant because the government vetoed large scale trials, claiming it would undoubtedly be more expensive, shorter lived and less reliable than the nuclear options they were exploring. Which was clearly bullshit.
They don't have to be a silver bullet. Only more reliable than wind, cheaper than gas and longer lasting than nuclear.
Which they undoubtedly would be. There is no realistic way you can juggle the numbers to come out with a different answer.
If we'd built five lagoons five years ago we'd be in a much better situation now.
"Which they undoubtedly would be."
We are talking about new tech done on a scale that had not been attempted before. Worse, we are talking about a new tech that almost wholly involves groundworks and water: perhaps the most complex and troublesome types of civil engineering. And to make a difference, they need to be large in scale (even if individual ones are small).
If we'd started building five lagoons five years ago, we'd probably still be building them. In fact, we'd probably still be in the planning stage.
This is not a reason not to build them: but I can't see them being anywhere near as advantageous or easy as you make out.
The Swansea proposal was around the same size as the Sihwa or Rance power stations. The latter has been operating for nearly 60 years. The former for over a decade.
We are not really talking new technology here.
We are at this scale. The proponents of the Swansea scheme refer to it thus: "Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon will be the world’s first tidal lagoon power plant."
Now, dams have been built. Barriers have been built. Barrages have been built. The Sihwa scheme is impressive. But the scale of these schemes is still impressive from a civ eng point of view.
Well, they were talking nonsense then, because their projected output for the initial lagoon AIUI was around 230 MWH - slightly less than Rance at 240.
Swansea was a small scale proof of concept project. It would have had 15 operative turbines. It was a testbed for the Cardiff lagoon that will have 160 operative turbines that power 1.6 million homes.
The anti-tidal lobby (largely nuclear) have cleverly extrapolated the Swansea numbers when the prize (and the economics) is a series of Cardiff-scale projects around our coast.
So, how do we unlock progress? Is it conceivable on this issue, our political leaders could agree and push something through?
The way forward is a vaccines-type task force. The existing BEIS civil servants either out the loop or with a firm choice. "Tell me how to develop large scale tidal lagoon power stations in a way which makes economic and environmental sense. A report that says that can't be done will come with your P45s."
This is a masterpiece of political ambivalence. Depending on what you put in "simplified regulations" it either means a glorious YIMBY orgy of construction, or that nobody will ever build another house.
Agreed with the thread header. Unfortunately Badenoch especially seems to be too interested in the "woke" issues, so I'd have her as my last choice preference.
From what I've seen of the candidates so far, ignoring my betting position (which puts Sunak as #1 preference for entirely book-related reasons) my preference would be:
1. Truss - Seems very sound on the economy etc, also came up with the excellent NI solution 2. Tugendhat - Less dry, but pro more housing which is always a big tick 3. Mordaunt - Neutral, seems to change her positions based on what's popular today, ironically like a continuity Boris 4. Sunak - Too high tax 5. Badenoch - Anti-woke
I appreciate that's probably a pretty unusual preference list.
The woke stuff is Badenoch's hook - it is what she was most known for going in to the contest, since she has little other experience to draw on, and it provides differentiation.
It may be she would have a number of interesting or distinct other positions, but it would be a gamble as currently she has little to go on.
I think that Badenoch's take on woke is less important than her take on the role of the state. She has said that 'the state should do less, but do it better'.
I think that Badenoch needs to be pinned down on exactly which areas of public life the state should withdraw from, how much this would save, and the social impact of the state withdrawing.
Good luck with that: once you've taken out pensions spending (rising), the NHS (rising), social care (rising) and education (already stretched), and defence (new demands?), what's left is a small proportion and mostly already under-funded.
Lol yeah blame the civil servants and not the politicians making the decisions. If they’re too stupid to understand what the civil servants are doing then maybe they shouldn’t have gone into politics.
I can offer some partial light on the process here, as I was involved as PPS to Malcolm Wicks in the energy review in something like 2008. Malcolm used me to discuss ideas (some PPS jobs really are just bag-carrying) and we went over the data carefully. At that stage, the figures for tidal lagoons supplied by the civil service researchers were an order of magnitude worse (in terms of return on investment) than any other way of producing more energy - I forget the exact figures but they were off the scale. I'm used to analysing data in detail, though not an expert in engineering, and I couldn't see any reason to doubt the calculations. What was obviously best at that point was lots of wind, preferably on-shore if the Nimby opposition could be overcome (because installation and maintenance is far cheaper), though I think we did underestimate the need for nuclear baseload.
I don't think we were really in a position to demolish the civil service calculations, or any particular reason why they should have been biased. It's possible that they were simply wrong, or that subsequent events have changed the balance, but Occam's Razor is that the civil servants do their best to present the options and the politicians try to make sensible decisions based on them which won't be too unpopular. We don't need to demonise the people involved, but perhaps there's scope for more independent challenging of the data before decisions are made.
What is economically sensible is determined by the anticipated price of the alternatives. When a strike price was agreed for Hinckly Point at £92.50 per megawat hour I was appalled and wrote several posts pointing out that this was likely to make large scale manufacturing in this country uncompetitive. It may still prove to be but the current price is £70.59 and rising fairly fast. If the risk of hydrocarbons massively increasing in price was not in your calculations then they would have been wrong.
Agreed with the thread header. Unfortunately Badenoch especially seems to be too interested in the "woke" issues, so I'd have her as my last choice preference.
From what I've seen of the candidates so far, ignoring my betting position (which puts Sunak as #1 preference for entirely book-related reasons) my preference would be:
1. Truss - Seems very sound on the economy etc, also came up with the excellent NI solution 2. Tugendhat - Less dry, but pro more housing which is always a big tick 3. Mordaunt - Neutral, seems to change her positions based on what's popular today, ironically like a continuity Boris 4. Sunak - Too high tax 5. Badenoch - Anti-woke
I appreciate that's probably a pretty unusual preference list.
I'm surprised that you have Truss as sound on the economy when her policy is to massively expand public borrowing in order to add masses more money to an inflation crisis.
I can't imagine you regarding the policy as sound if it were suggested by a Labour politician. I can understand that you would be well-disposed towards Truss because of her Brexit policy, but I think you're showing that to distort your judgement.
The Sunday Mail hatchet job on Maudaunt today is extreme, nasty, and frankly disgusting, while at the same time they have Johnson in the cockpit of a fighter jet extolling him as if he is a deity
However, it is reported more sensible senior conservatives are demanding Johnson resigns his seat on the 6th September as they do not want the Johnson drama continuing, with all the investigations into his behaviour due in the Autumn
Why would the Mail be so hostile to her? Because she is seen as too liberal? Not a proper Thatcherite? Or is there something darker going on?
The Sunday Mail hatchet job on Maudaunt today is extreme, nasty, and frankly disgusting, while at the same time they have Johnson in the cockpit of a fighter jet extolling him as if he is a deity
However, it is reported more sensible senior conservatives are demanding Johnson resigns his seat on the 6th September as they do not want the Johnson drama continuing, with all the investigations into his behaviour due in the Autumn
I'll be interesting to watch the DM and MoS flip to undying support the moment Mordaunt wins.
You do have to wonder what goes through the minds of the editorial staff. Do they have to have a Masters in Hypocrisy to join the team?
As an aside, just seen that Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous is coming to consoles 29 September.
Had mixed feelings on Kingmaker. I liked a lot of it, but load times were on the slow side and I think the strategic side (managing the kingdom) did not work well. It just annoyed me (which was surprising as this was after strategy games came to console so I was familiar with, and liked, Civ VI and Stellaris).
Anybody happen to know if the buggy mess that Pillars of Eternity 2, for PS4, apparently was got resolved by patches?
I'm still a PC gamer so didn't encounter the load issues, but I agree the strategic side of Kingmaker feels a bit half-baked (and I like you I enjoyed Civ VI and Stellaris) - the sort of add-on that someone not very familiar with strategy gaming might design. It does add some variety, though - Kingmaker is so long that some of the missions can feel like a bit of a chore. A friend who really likes Kingmaker is enthusiastic about Wrath (to the point that he gave it to me as a birthday present, but I want to finish Kingmaker first), but even he says Wrath is loooooooong! If you don't mind that (after all, means you've got something to enjoy all year), it's apparently very good.
Have you been keeping an eye on Terra Invicta? Looks like barrel of fun, if a bit of Stellaris level time investment.
Is that the one from the people who created the XCOM Long War mod? That really added a new dimension to the game, and becoming an actual company as a result is very intriguing.
Agreed with the thread header. Unfortunately Badenoch especially seems to be too interested in the "woke" issues, so I'd have her as my last choice preference.
From what I've seen of the candidates so far, ignoring my betting position (which puts Sunak as #1 preference for entirely book-related reasons) my preference would be:
1. Truss - Seems very sound on the economy etc, also came up with the excellent NI solution 2. Tugendhat - Less dry, but pro more housing which is always a big tick 3. Mordaunt - Neutral, seems to change her positions based on what's popular today, ironically like a continuity Boris 4. Sunak - Too high tax 5. Badenoch - Anti-woke
I appreciate that's probably a pretty unusual preference list.
The woke stuff is Badenoch's hook - it is what she was most known for going in to the contest, since she has little other experience to draw on, and it provides differentiation.
It may be she would have a number of interesting or distinct other positions, but it would be a gamble as currently she has little to go on.
I think that Badenoch's take on woke is less important than her take on the role of the state. She has said that 'the state should do less, but do it better'.
I think that Badenoch needs to be pinned down on exactly which areas of public life the state should withdraw from, how much this would save, and the social impact of the state withdrawing.
Good luck with that: once you've taken out pensions spending (rising), the NHS (rising), social care (rising) and education (already stretched), and defence (new demands?), what's left is a small proportion and mostly already under-funded.
Well yes, that was my point. But Badenoch has yet to be challenged on it, and some people are wanting her to be PM shortly.
Lol yeah blame the civil servants and not the politicians making the decisions. If they’re too stupid to understand what the civil servants are doing then maybe they shouldn’t have gone into politics.
I can offer some partial light on the process here, as I was involved as PPS to Malcolm Wicks in the energy review in something like 2008. Malcolm used me to discuss ideas (some PPS jobs really are just bag-carrying) and we went over the data carefully. At that stage, the figures for tidal lagoons supplied by the civil service researchers were an order of magnitude worse (in terms of return on investment) than any other way of producing more energy - I forget the exact figures but they were off the scale. I'm used to analysing data in detail, though not an expert in engineering, and I couldn't see any reason to doubt the calculations. What was obviously best at that point was lots of wind, preferably on-shore if the Nimby opposition could be overcome (because installation and maintenance is far cheaper), though I think we did underestimate the need for nuclear baseload.
I don't think we were really in a position to demolish the civil service calculations, or any particular reason why they should have been biased. It's possible that they were simply wrong, or that subsequent events have changed the balance, but Occam's Razor is that the civil servants do their best to present the options and the politicians try to make sensible decisions based on them which won't be too unpopular. We don't need to demonise the people involved, but perhaps there's scope for more independent challenging of the data before decisions are made.
What is economically sensible is determined by the anticipated price of the alternatives. When a strike price was agreed for Hinckly Point at £92.50 per megawat hour I was appalled and wrote several posts pointing out that this was likely to make large scale manufacturing in this country uncompetitive. It may still prove to be but the current price is £70.59 and rising fairly fast. If the risk of hydrocarbons massively increasing in price was not in your calculations then they would have been wrong.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.
I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Lol yeah blame the civil servants and not the politicians making the decisions. If they’re too stupid to understand what the civil servants are doing then maybe they shouldn’t have gone into politics.
I can offer some partial light on the process here, as I was involved as PPS to Malcolm Wicks in the energy review in something like 2008. Malcolm used me to discuss ideas (some PPS jobs really are just bag-carrying) and we went over the data carefully. At that stage, the figures for tidal lagoons supplied by the civil service researchers were an order of magnitude worse (in terms of return on investment) than any other way of producing more energy - I forget the exact figures but they were off the scale. I'm used to analysing data in detail, though not an expert in engineering, and I couldn't see any reason to doubt the calculations. What was obviously best at that point was lots of wind, preferably on-shore if the Nimby opposition could be overcome (because installation and maintenance is far cheaper), though I think we did underestimate the need for nuclear baseload.
I don't think we were really in a position to demolish the civil service calculations, or any particular reason why they should have been biased. It's possible that they were simply wrong, or that subsequent events have changed the balance, but Occam's Razor is that the civil servants do their best to present the options and the politicians try to make sensible decisions based on them which won't be too unpopular. We don't need to demonise the people involved, but perhaps there's scope for more independent challenging of the data before decisions are made.
I think that there is very little chance of him being in the next cabinet which means these stories will matter less but yet another interesting pick by Boris.
What we need is a byelection in Stratford on Avon.
Agreed with the thread header. Unfortunately Badenoch especially seems to be too interested in the "woke" issues, so I'd have her as my last choice preference.
From what I've seen of the candidates so far, ignoring my betting position (which puts Sunak as #1 preference for entirely book-related reasons) my preference would be:
1. Truss - Seems very sound on the economy etc, also came up with the excellent NI solution 2. Tugendhat - Less dry, but pro more housing which is always a big tick 3. Mordaunt - Neutral, seems to change her positions based on what's popular today, ironically like a continuity Boris 4. Sunak - Too high tax 5. Badenoch - Anti-woke
I appreciate that's probably a pretty unusual preference list.
The woke stuff is Badenoch's hook - it is what she was most known for going in to the contest, since she has little other experience to draw on, and it provides differentiation.
It may be she would have a number of interesting or distinct other positions, but it would be a gamble as currently she has little to go on.
I think that Badenoch's take on woke is less important than her take on the role of the state. She has said that 'the state should do less, but do it better'.
I think that Badenoch needs to be pinned down on exactly which areas of public life the state should withdraw from, how much this would save, and the social impact of the state withdrawing.
Good luck with that: once you've taken out pensions spending (rising), the NHS (rising), social care (rising) and education (already stretched), and defence (new demands?), what's left is a small proportion and mostly already under-funded.
Quite - I don't think people realise that a lot of dead wood really was cut away, and I supported that, but at the end of the day you cannot make significant reductions forever will making them in the areas of biggest expenditure.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.
I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
Perhaps Trans people will be cast as modern day witches? Will the madder Tories think that burning transwomen at the stake might reverse the economic woes?
It could generate Community Heat. Simply assemble the poor around the wicker man, lecture them about the evils of woke, and burn the tranny. Solve all of society's problems at once!
At least transmen will be safe since, from the rabid foaming on the right, you would think that only transwomen are going to destabilise society and bring it crashing down. I presume that non-binary and intersex people are also not "Enemies of Right Thinking People"?
Lol yeah blame the civil servants and not the politicians making the decisions. If they’re too stupid to understand what the civil servants are doing then maybe they shouldn’t have gone into politics.
I can offer some partial light on the process here, as I was involved as PPS to Malcolm Wicks in the energy review in something like 2008. Malcolm used me to discuss ideas (some PPS jobs really are just bag-carrying) and we went over the data carefully. At that stage, the figures for tidal lagoons supplied by the civil service researchers were an order of magnitude worse (in terms of return on investment) than any other way of producing more energy - I forget the exact figures but they were off the scale. I'm used to analysing data in detail, though not an expert in engineering, and I couldn't see any reason to doubt the calculations. What was obviously best at that point was lots of wind, preferably on-shore if the Nimby opposition could be overcome (because installation and maintenance is far cheaper), though I think we did underestimate the need for nuclear baseload.
I don't think we were really in a position to demolish the civil service calculations, or any particular reason why they should have been biased. It's possible that they were simply wrong, or that subsequent events have changed the balance, but Occam's Razor is that the civil servants do their best to present the options and the politicians try to make sensible decisions based on them which won't be too unpopular. We don't need to demonise the people involved, but perhaps there's scope for more independent challenging of the data before decisions are made.
Nick, appreciate it was after your time but the report that went up to Theresa May on Swansea was the apotheosis of the Blob in action. The civil servants developed their own new metrics for the job. One of their numbers was £30 billion wrong - in favour of nuclear. Another £60 billion wrong - in favour of nuclear.
There is a hell of a story about what has gone on in the energy planning of this country - a story that will one day come out.
Lol yeah blame the civil servants and not the politicians making the decisions. If they’re too stupid to understand what the civil servants are doing then maybe they shouldn’t have gone into politics.
I can offer some partial light on the process here, as I was involved as PPS to Malcolm Wicks in the energy review in something like 2008. Malcolm used me to discuss ideas (some PPS jobs really are just bag-carrying) and we went over the data carefully. At that stage, the figures for tidal lagoons supplied by the civil service researchers were an order of magnitude worse (in terms of return on investment) than any other way of producing more energy - I forget the exact figures but they were off the scale. I'm used to analysing data in detail, though not an expert in engineering, and I couldn't see any reason to doubt the calculations. What was obviously best at that point was lots of wind, preferably on-shore if the Nimby opposition could be overcome (because installation and maintenance is far cheaper), though I think we did underestimate the need for nuclear baseload.
I don't think we were really in a position to demolish the civil service calculations, or any particular reason why they should have been biased. It's possible that they were simply wrong, or that subsequent events have changed the balance, but Occam's Razor is that the civil servants do their best to present the options and the politicians try to make sensible decisions based on them which won't be too unpopular. We don't need to demonise the people involved, but perhaps there's scope for more independent challenging of the data before decisions are made.
What is economically sensible is determined by the anticipated price of the alternatives. When a strike price was agreed for Hinckly Point at £92.50 per megawat hour I was appalled and wrote several posts pointing out that this was likely to make large scale manufacturing in this country uncompetitive. It may still prove to be but the current price is £70.59 and rising fairly fast. If the risk of hydrocarbons massively increasing in price was not in your calculations then they would have been wrong.
That £92.50 has an inflation kicker though....
I know, it is still worrying me but I am less confident that it is absolutely outrageous than I was. The other thing that has happened since it was agreed is that the cost per megawatt hour for offshore wind and solar has collapsed.
I actually think this BBC write up is a bit unfair on Raab with the 'being reminded' point. I think even he knows that, he's obviously just making a point that he thinks the members should pick the one who looks like they will do best at a GE. Dominic Raab says the UK needs "serious" and "credible" suggestions when it's put to him that other leadership candidates - notably Penny Mordaunt - are saying their suggested tax cuts can be self-funding.
On Mordaunt's favourability in polls in the last week, Raab goes back to Rishi Sunak's ability to win votes at a general election.
"He's the only one that can win," Raab says, before being reminded this isn't a general election.
He carries on, repeating that people from the north and the south of England can see Sunak is "the only one" who'll be able to win votes.
Renewable energy. Stop talking, start doing. Solves so many problems. It needs to be approached with some urgency.
Tell it to these boys:
Nothing there to stop us investing in renewables and becoming an energy self sufficient, low carbon UK. Time to end the political BS, we can do this.
I agree but my point is we are never going to race well-ahead of the pack where this causes us huge relative economic pain.
We will go as fast as we can that makes logical political and economic sense to do so in the short-medium term.
The solution, of course, is tech, engineering and megaproject delivery skills.
Moving the Treasury to Darlo could help with this - especially if you can tap into the down to earth engineering talent pool in the North.
I've never really understood the idea that the weight of government bureaucracy will shift if the offices are located in another location.
I mean, is the DVLA of particularly Welsh character because it is in Swansea? Why would location drive thinking?
Well it should if the recruitment pool (and hiring policies) are different. You definitely have a different pool of candidates on Teesside than you in London whatever way you look at it.
You also lose institutional knowledge. Therese an example in DEFRA of a chap who is the guy who knows everything about specific areas or organic food law. If he were to leave because he didn’t want to relocate to Stoke on Trent (and the lobbying firms would be circling after him with chequebooks) then you’d need to train someone else up. Certainly possible, but you’re looking at 5 years of not having your walking encyclopaedia in the department. You can mitigate that with extensive knowledge sharing and documentation, but even private companies I’ve worked for never actually do. I can name someone at each firm who, if they were hit by a bus, would cause their department to sink or collapse in efficiency. Multiply that across an entire government department and your going to have to make some serious investments to get your staff up to speed quickly (which might end up costing more).
My wife worked for an Irish government department/agency for a few months after it was relocated out of Dublin. The department had only managed to retain one senior member of staff who knew what needed to be done, and how, but he seemed to struggle with the situation and was hard to get hold of as he was mired in alcoholism. So she got very bored very quickly as there was little for her to do and no-one to help her find something to do or train her in how to do it. She didn't stay long.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
Not a trans deviant probably, a heterosexual shit who got in a position to do what he did because of tedious dweebs who think they are being right on. Amusing post though.
You've just reinforced my argument. These are fringe of the fringe cases - how many real world examples like the one in the McExpress are there? Vs how many real world examples of people really feeling the squeeze and by the autumn the onset of rising panic/anger.
The number of women raped on hospital wards - microscopic. By trans people? Even more so. The number of people already in a dreadful mess trying to pay their bills? Millions. And in the autumn? Millions more.
So the trans "threat" isn't a threat except for in extremely rare edge cases, whereas the COL crisis is a direct threat to vast numbers. So if the Tories want to foam on about the cock-tucking deviants thats their loss.
Ken Dodd tax evasion trial
KD my accountant died Prosecutor Did that really matter? KD Well, it mattered to him
I am sure this woman will realise how trivial her problems are when she learns that she is a "fringe issue" and "edge case" to a white flightist posting on an Internet forum from somewhere near Aberdeen. Women, hey? Mountains and molehills.
Edge cases matter. But the moral panic being created with the claim that these are not edge cases but widespread?
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
Not a trans deviant probably, a heterosexual shit who got in a position to do what he did because of tedious dweebs who think they are being right on. Amusing post though.
You've just reinforced my argument. These are fringe of the fringe cases - how many real world examples like the one in the McExpress are there? Vs how many real world examples of people really feeling the squeeze and by the autumn the onset of rising panic/anger.
The number of women raped on hospital wards - microscopic. By trans people? Even more so. The number of people already in a dreadful mess trying to pay their bills? Millions. And in the autumn? Millions more.
So the trans "threat" isn't a threat except for in extremely rare edge cases, whereas the COL crisis is a direct threat to vast numbers. So if the Tories want to foam on about the cock-tucking deviants thats their loss.
The threat is not from trans people ie those who are genuinely trans. It is those who wrongly claim to be so in order to get access to the vulnerable. That is already happening: a recent FoI request showed that in 2018 the overwhelming majority of sexual assault cases occurred in unisex changing rooms not single sex ones. Self-ID creates an open door for sexual predators. The proposed Self-ID reforms in Scotland for instance would allow any man or boy over the age of 16 to legally call themselves a woman after 6 months with no evidence of dysphoria or anything at all - simply a statement by them. The Scottish government has rejected a proposal to prevent those with convictions for sexual offences from taking advantage of this.
The reference to sexual assaults on women as "edge" cases is frankly revolting. Sexual assaults on women are widespread. They are not edge cases. They are not trivial. A government has a duty to prevent the vulnerable from being put in a position where they are at risk. And it is something which governments can and should do in addition to everything else.
Agreed with the thread header. Unfortunately Badenoch especially seems to be too interested in the "woke" issues, so I'd have her as my last choice preference.
From what I've seen of the candidates so far, ignoring my betting position (which puts Sunak as #1 preference for entirely book-related reasons) my preference would be:
1. Truss - Seems very sound on the economy etc, also came up with the excellent NI solution 2. Tugendhat - Less dry, but pro more housing which is always a big tick 3. Mordaunt - Neutral, seems to change her positions based on what's popular today, ironically like a continuity Boris 4. Sunak - Too high tax 5. Badenoch - Anti-woke
I appreciate that's probably a pretty unusual preference list.
Truss sound on the economy? Had no idea you were so supportive of borrowing vast sums of money to pay for spending. A bit more socialist than your usual libertarian positions...
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
Not a trans deviant probably, a heterosexual shit who got in a position to do what he did because of tedious dweebs who think they are being right on. Amusing post though.
You've just reinforced my argument. These are fringe of the fringe cases - how many real world examples like the one in the McExpress are there? Vs how many real world examples of people really feeling the squeeze and by the autumn the onset of rising panic/anger.
The number of women raped on hospital wards - microscopic. By trans people? Even more so. The number of people already in a dreadful mess trying to pay their bills? Millions. And in the autumn? Millions more.
So the trans "threat" isn't a threat except for in extremely rare edge cases, whereas the COL crisis is a direct threat to vast numbers. So if the Tories want to foam on about the cock-tucking deviants thats their loss.
Ken Dodd tax evasion trial
KD my accountant died Prosecutor Did that really matter? KD Well, it mattered to him
I am sure this woman will realise how trivial her problems are when she learns that she is a "fringe issue" and "edge case" to a white flightist posting on an Internet forum from somewhere near Aberdeen. Women, hey? Mountains and molehills.
Edge cases matter. But the moral panic being created with the claim that these are not edge cases but widespread?
Silly boy
Also, what's wrong with being somewhere near Aberdeen?
The Sunday Mail hatchet job on Maudaunt today is extreme, nasty, and frankly disgusting, while at the same time they have Johnson in the cockpit of a fighter jet extolling him as if he is a deity
However, it is reported more sensible senior conservatives are demanding Johnson resigns his seat on the 6th September as they do not want the Johnson drama continuing, with all the investigations into his behaviour due in the Autumn
Why would the Mail be so hostile to her? Because she is seen as too liberal? Not a proper Thatcherite? Or is there something darker going on?
Its clear from reading conhome and the conhome survey that the membership do not want Sunak or Mordaunt, and don't much like Truss either
If Sunak or Mordaunt is the choice we could see a very low turnout amongst members with no mandate whatsoever for the winning candidate - followed by a meltdown in the polls after many tory voters decided enough was enough.
Whatever the view on here, its clear from the enthusiasm for Badenoch on conhome that culture issues are very important for tory members.
I think that there is very little chance of him being in the next cabinet which means these stories will matter less but yet another interesting pick by Boris.
What we need is a byelection in Stratford on Avon.
Well if more many more stories emerge we might get one soon.
This threader is an example of the People cannot think about more than one thing at once fallacy. It is reasonable at this stage for the conservatives to think about where as a party they want to stand on all sorts of points. It may even be strategically very smart to resolve it now to increase the chances of Labour disarray at the next GE
People might be able to think about more than one thing, but you can only talk about one thing at a time. If you waste the precious oxygen of publicity on a third-tier issue, it's a huge opportunity cost.
It isn't even third tier - going off the number of real world cases it's more like thirtieth tier. That isn't to say that there isn't the need to rethink how we manage these occasional edge cases, but the associated moral panic is more "it's ok to hate the gayers" than there is an actual societal problem.
Are the Tories focussing on culture wars? It’s seems to me that they are focussing on honesty and integrity.
Penny Mordaunt has been caught in a lie. Not a great place to be given why this contest is happening.
Has Mordaunt been caught in a lie? See my post earlier in the thread: neither the Mail nor the Sunday Times have a smoking gun. Of course, impressions are often more important.
Its clear from reading conhome and the conhome survey that the membership do not want Sunak or Mordaunt, and don't much like Truss either
If Sunak or Mordaunt is the choice we could see a very low turnout amongst members with no mandate whatsoever for the winning candidate - followed by a meltdown in the polls after many tory voters decided enough was enough.
Whatever the view on here, its clear from the enthusiasm for Badenoch on conhome that culture issues are very important for tory members.
Lol yeah blame the civil servants and not the politicians making the decisions. If they’re too stupid to understand what the civil servants are doing then maybe they shouldn’t have gone into politics.
I can offer some partial light on the process here, as I was involved as PPS to Malcolm Wicks in the energy review in something like 2008. Malcolm used me to discuss ideas (some PPS jobs really are just bag-carrying) and we went over the data carefully. At that stage, the figures for tidal lagoons supplied by the civil service researchers were an order of magnitude worse (in terms of return on investment) than any other way of producing more energy - I forget the exact figures but they were off the scale. I'm used to analysing data in detail, though not an expert in engineering, and I couldn't see any reason to doubt the calculations. What was obviously best at that point was lots of wind, preferably on-shore if the Nimby opposition could be overcome (because installation and maintenance is far cheaper), though I think we did underestimate the need for nuclear baseload.
I don't think we were really in a position to demolish the civil service calculations, or any particular reason why they should have been biased. It's possible that they were simply wrong, or that subsequent events have changed the balance, but Occam's Razor is that the civil servants do their best to present the options and the politicians try to make sensible decisions based on them which won't be too unpopular. We don't need to demonise the people involved, but perhaps there's scope for more independent challenging of the data before decisions are made.
What is economically sensible is determined by the anticipated price of the alternatives. When a strike price was agreed for Hinckly Point at £92.50 per megawat hour I was appalled and wrote several posts pointing out that this was likely to make large scale manufacturing in this country uncompetitive. It may still prove to be but the current price is £70.59 and rising fairly fast. If the risk of hydrocarbons massively increasing in price was not in your calculations then they would have been wrong.
That £92.50 has an inflation kicker though....
I know, it is still worrying me but I am less confident that it is absolutely outrageous than I was. The other thing that has happened since it was agreed is that the cost per megawatt hour for offshore wind and solar has collapsed.
We still have to see how long those offshore developments last. Seawater is going to expose every possible weakness in their build. If many last 30 years I will be seriously surprised. Then they need rebuilding from the seabed up.
Contrast with tidal lagoons that have a 120 year minimum life expectancy - but in reality, they will likely last centuries with a bit of tlc. Sure, the turbines will need changing out. They recently did that at La Rance - they should last another 60 years.
La Rance is the cheapest power production in France.
Agreed with the thread header. Unfortunately Badenoch especially seems to be too interested in the "woke" issues, so I'd have her as my last choice preference.
From what I've seen of the candidates so far, ignoring my betting position (which puts Sunak as #1 preference for entirely book-related reasons) my preference would be:
1. Truss - Seems very sound on the economy etc, also came up with the excellent NI solution 2. Tugendhat - Less dry, but pro more housing which is always a big tick 3. Mordaunt - Neutral, seems to change her positions based on what's popular today, ironically like a continuity Boris 4. Sunak - Too high tax 5. Badenoch - Anti-woke
I appreciate that's probably a pretty unusual preference list.
I'm surprised that you have Truss as sound on the economy when her policy is to massively expand public borrowing in order to add masses more money to an inflation crisis.
I can't imagine you regarding the policy as sound if it were suggested by a Labour politician. I can understand that you would be well-disposed towards Truss because of her Brexit policy, but I think you're showing that to distort your judgement.
From what I understand she's suggesting that Covid-related borrowing should be spread over a longer time period, like war bonds.
That's exactly what I suggested at the time of Sunak's stupid NI tax rise.
Day to day spending should not be getting borrowed, but Covid-spending should be
A large sum of the money Sunak's tax rise is going to clear the Covid backlog, despite hundreds of billions of borrowing. What I suggested is that previously was that the Treasury should calculate the cost of clearing the Covid backlog and add that to the Covid borrowing. That borrowing should then be amortised over a timespan rather than just a couple of years as Sunak wanted. We should then return to standard borrowing targets, taking into account the amortisation of Covid borrowing.
That's completely different to Brownian borrowing for day-to-day expenditure.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.
I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.
I must admit that I do find the focus on such an obscure figure rather odd.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
Perhaps Trans people will be cast as modern day witches? Will the madder Tories think that burning transwomen at the stake might reverse the economic woes?
It could generate Community Heat. Simply assemble the poor around the wicker man, lecture them about the evils of woke, and burn the tranny. Solve all of society's problems at once!
At least transmen will be safe since, from the rabid foaming on the right, you would think that only transwomen are going to destabilise society and bring it crashing down. I presume that non-binary and intersex people are also not "Enemies of Right Thinking People"?
Recently a trans man was beaten up for using the female toilet at a campsite in Ohio, as asked to do by the owners.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
Not a trans deviant probably, a heterosexual shit who got in a position to do what he did because of tedious dweebs who think they are being right on. Amusing post though.
You've just reinforced my argument. These are fringe of the fringe cases - how many real world examples like the one in the McExpress are there? Vs how many real world examples of people really feeling the squeeze and by the autumn the onset of rising panic/anger.
The number of women raped on hospital wards - microscopic. By trans people? Even more so. The number of people already in a dreadful mess trying to pay their bills? Millions. And in the autumn? Millions more.
So the trans "threat" isn't a threat except for in extremely rare edge cases, whereas the COL crisis is a direct threat to vast numbers. So if the Tories want to foam on about the cock-tucking deviants thats their loss.
The threat is not from trans people ie those who are genuinely trans. It is those who wrongly claim to be so in order to get access to the vulnerable. That is already happening: a recent FoI request showed that in 2018 the overwhelming majority of sexual assault cases occurred in unisex changing rooms not single sex ones. Self-ID creates an open door for sexual predators. The proposed Self-ID reforms in Scotland for instance would allow any man or boy over the age of 16 to legally call themselves a woman after 6 months with no evidence of dysphoria or anything at all - simply a statement by them. The Scottish government has rejected a proposal to prevent those with convictions for sexual offences from taking advantage of this.
The reference to sexual assaults on women as "edge" cases is frankly revolting. Sexual assaults on women are widespread. They are not edge cases. They are not trivial. A government has a duty to prevent the vulnerable from being put in a position where they are at risk. And it is something which governments can and should do in addition to everything else.
Surely the "overwhelming majority of sexual assault cases" did not occur in changing rooms at all, but in any case, why would self-ID questions matter in unisex changing rooms? The clue is in the name.
This threader is an example of the People cannot think about more than one thing at once fallacy. It is reasonable at this stage for the conservatives to think about where as a party they want to stand on all sorts of points. It may even be strategically very smart to resolve it now to increase the chances of Labour disarray at the next GE
People might be able to think about more than one thing, but you can only talk about one thing at a time. If you waste the precious oxygen of publicity on a third-tier issue, it's a huge opportunity cost.
It isn't even third tier - going off the number of real world cases it's more like thirtieth tier. That isn't to say that there isn't the need to rethink how we manage these occasional edge cases, but the associated moral panic is more "it's ok to hate the gayers" than there is an actual societal problem.
But your preferred policy would make these sorts of events more likely to happen. Surely you can see why that would cause concern?
Yes focusing on the cost of living crisis is key and that means targeted tax cuts, controlling spending and increasing energy supplies.
However that does not mean there are no votes to be had in the culture wars, especially if it means pushing back at the extremes of the left attacking our culture and heritage, even ballet now under threat
Ah, yes, defending ballet, guaranteed Red Wall vote winner.
Guaranteed blue wall winner in Kensington, Westminster and the Home counties, defending Churchill and our history guaranteed red wall winner and ensuring trans rights are balanced with womens' rights important to win the latter
The way to win the red wall is to tax the blue wall until the pips squeak.
Its clear from reading conhome and the conhome survey that the membership do not want Sunak or Mordaunt, and don't much like Truss either
If Sunak or Mordaunt is the choice we could see a very low turnout amongst members with no mandate whatsoever for the winning candidate - followed by a meltdown in the polls after many tory voters decided enough was enough.
Whatever the view on here, its clear from the enthusiasm for Badenoch on conhome that culture issues are very important for tory members.
Reading Conhome should come with a health warning.
I agree with @DecrepiterJohnL that the ST article is not quite as damning as it seems to think. The better case against Mordaunt is that her own words in the Commons show what her views were. It is her now claiming that she didn't say or believe those words that raises serious questions about her integrity as @DavidL points out.
One reason why this issue has taken up time is because Mordaunt was Minister for Equalities for some time and because she doesn't have much else to her name. 1 tiny trade deal as Trade Minister. What did she do or champion on Overseas Aid when responsible for that? She apparently suggested that part of the Overseas Aid budget could be used for a new Royal Yacht, which seems an eccentric use, at best. It is also telling that none of the MPs who worked with her in those Ministries have publicly supported her. Is there maybe a touch of the "Everyone likes Boris until they get to know him about her"?
For Badenoch, the risk is that this is the only issue she will be remembered for. Again it is because this has been her brief. She needs more experience and to talk about other issues.
The big ones for me are energy security and cost - fuel bills are a big source of anxiety for us even though we have done everything we can to insulate, be as energy efficient as possible, installed solar panels etc etc - and housing for my children. As well as the cost of living.
Tax cuts simply don't feature. And if this is what the Tories bang on about - instead of focusing help on the poorest - they will lose. And deservedly so.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
Not a trans deviant probably, a heterosexual shit who got in a position to do what he did because of tedious dweebs who think they are being right on. Amusing post though.
You've just reinforced my argument. These are fringe of the fringe cases - how many real world examples like the one in the McExpress are there? Vs how many real world examples of people really feeling the squeeze and by the autumn the onset of rising panic/anger.
The number of women raped on hospital wards - microscopic. By trans people? Even more so. The number of people already in a dreadful mess trying to pay their bills? Millions. And in the autumn? Millions more.
So the trans "threat" isn't a threat except for in extremely rare edge cases, whereas the COL crisis is a direct threat to vast numbers. So if the Tories want to foam on about the cock-tucking deviants thats their loss.
Ken Dodd tax evasion trial
KD my accountant died Prosecutor Did that really matter? KD Well, it mattered to him
I am sure this woman will realise how trivial her problems are when she learns that she is a "fringe issue" and "edge case" to a white flightist posting on an Internet forum from somewhere near Aberdeen. Women, hey? Mountains and molehills.
Edge cases matter. But the moral panic being created with the claim that these are not edge cases but widespread?
Silly boy
You still aren't thinking about what is the correct response to this case from the point of view of justice, you are thinking in terms of what response makes you look most right on. Not convinced you have bothered to read it even but the appalling thing is not just that a woman was raped, but that the official response to the allegation from an NHS hospital was: this cannot have happened because the rapist, despite possessing a functioning penis, was legally a woman. it's not the incident, it's the framework for further such incidents which you get when you get rational adults in responsible positions signing up to looking glass gibberish like that.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.
I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.
Not at all, nor Rosa Parks. But it is astonishing how ubiquitous she is. And to be clear, I'm definitely not arguing for a return to the 1950s, or even the 1980s, when growing up gay must have been very painful. (I remember nothing in my childhood to remember race being an issue - don't remember any racist attitudes being expressed, whereas there were certainly homophobic attitudes, in both sense of the word - though the number of non- white people in my year could be counted on the fingers of one hand, so maybe it just wasn't visible.) I just think the amount of prominence that schools give to woke issues is massively disproportionate. Reflecting on the way I've expressed this, the point is I don't actually oppose 'woke'. If woke means don't be racist or homophobic and treat everyone with respect, then of course I'm all in. What I'm opposed to is the prominence given to it, as if your race and gender identity and sexuality are the only important things about you, and the 'if you're not with us your against us' attitude: that if you're not prominently displaying your woke credentials at every opportunity you're a horrible old gammon.
This threader is an example of the People cannot think about more than one thing at once fallacy. It is reasonable at this stage for the conservatives to think about where as a party they want to stand on all sorts of points. It may even be strategically very smart to resolve it now to increase the chances of Labour disarray at the next GE
People might be able to think about more than one thing, but you can only talk about one thing at a time. If you waste the precious oxygen of publicity on a third-tier issue, it's a huge opportunity cost.
It’s just the disconnect between what they see as important to the selectorate and what’s of importance to the electorate.
Brexit provided them, briefly, with something that was both. Now that’s absolutely not the case, they have a structural problem they haven’t yet even thought about addressing. A period in opposition beckons, possibly a very long one if they can’t sort themselves out.
Lol yeah blame the civil servants and not the politicians making the decisions. If they’re too stupid to understand what the civil servants are doing then maybe they shouldn’t have gone into politics.
I can offer some partial light on the process here, as I was involved as PPS to Malcolm Wicks in the energy review in something like 2008. Malcolm used me to discuss ideas (some PPS jobs really are just bag-carrying) and we went over the data carefully. At that stage, the figures for tidal lagoons supplied by the civil service researchers were an order of magnitude worse (in terms of return on investment) than any other way of producing more energy - I forget the exact figures but they were off the scale. I'm used to analysing data in detail, though not an expert in engineering, and I couldn't see any reason to doubt the calculations. What was obviously best at that point was lots of wind, preferably on-shore if the Nimby opposition could be overcome (because installation and maintenance is far cheaper), though I think we did underestimate the need for nuclear baseload.
I don't think we were really in a position to demolish the civil service calculations, or any particular reason why they should have been biased. It's possible that they were simply wrong, or that subsequent events have changed the balance, but Occam's Razor is that the civil servants do their best to present the options and the politicians try to make sensible decisions based on them which won't be too unpopular. We don't need to demonise the people involved, but perhaps there's scope for more independent challenging of the data before decisions are made.
What is economically sensible is determined by the anticipated price of the alternatives. When a strike price was agreed for Hinckly Point at £92.50 per megawat hour I was appalled and wrote several posts pointing out that this was likely to make large scale manufacturing in this country uncompetitive. It may still prove to be but the current price is £70.59 and rising fairly fast. If the risk of hydrocarbons massively increasing in price was not in your calculations then they would have been wrong.
That £92.50 has an inflation kicker though....
I know, it is still worrying me but I am less confident that it is absolutely outrageous than I was. The other thing that has happened since it was agreed is that the cost per megawatt hour for offshore wind and solar has collapsed.
We still have to see how long those offshore developments last. Seawater is going to expose every possible weakness in their build. If many last 30 years I will be seriously surprised. Then they need rebuilding from the seabed up.
Contrast with tidal lagoons that have a 120 year minimum life expectancy - but in reality, they will likely last centuries with a bit of tlc. Sure, the turbines will need changing out. They recently did that at La Rance - they should last another 60 years.
La Rance is the cheapest power production in France.
It depends upon the strike price for those 120 years though surely?
120 years at rip off strike prices is a problem. 120 years at a low price is great.
If tidal lagoons can be built, privately, with the same strike price commitments as granted to offshore wind etc then the state should get out of the way and ensure planning consent is granted. If it can't, then it might not be economic.
Agreed with the thread header. Unfortunately Badenoch especially seems to be too interested in the "woke" issues, so I'd have her as my last choice preference.
From what I've seen of the candidates so far, ignoring my betting position (which puts Sunak as #1 preference for entirely book-related reasons) my preference would be:
1. Truss - Seems very sound on the economy etc, also came up with the excellent NI solution 2. Tugendhat - Less dry, but pro more housing which is always a big tick 3. Mordaunt - Neutral, seems to change her positions based on what's popular today, ironically like a continuity Boris 4. Sunak - Too high tax 5. Badenoch - Anti-woke
I appreciate that's probably a pretty unusual preference list.
I'm surprised that you have Truss as sound on the economy when her policy is to massively expand public borrowing in order to add masses more money to an inflation crisis.
I can't imagine you regarding the policy as sound if it were suggested by a Labour politician. I can understand that you would be well-disposed towards Truss because of her Brexit policy, but I think you're showing that to distort your judgement.
From what I understand she's suggesting that Covid-related borrowing should be spread over a longer time period, like war bonds.
That's exactly what I suggested at the time of Sunak's stupid NI tax rise.
Day to day spending should not be getting borrowed, but Covid-spending should be
A large sum of the money Sunak's tax rise is going to clear the Covid backlog, despite hundreds of billions of borrowing. What I suggested is that previously was that the Treasury should calculate the cost of clearing the Covid backlog and add that to the Covid borrowing. That borrowing should then be amortised over a timespan rather than just a couple of years as Sunak wanted. We should then return to standard borrowing targets, taking into account the amortisation of Covid borrowing.
That's completely different to Brownian borrowing for day-to-day expenditure.
I don't think you can just magic half our existing debt into war bonds. But that's by-the-by, because, when challenged on the policy during the debate, Truss defended it by explicitly arguing we could borrow more because our current debt levels were lower than other countries.
That is an explicit argument for borrowing to pay for tax cuts, to borrow to cover day-to-day expenditure rather than take the hard choice of taxing or cutting spending. And it's a massive inflationary kick to the economy when inflation is already high.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.
I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.
I must admit that I do find the focus on such an obscure figure rather odd.
Surely Seacole is only 'an obscure figure' because she was overlooked for a century due to her skin colour. C.f. Florence Nightingale.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.
I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.
Not at all, nor Rosa Parks. But it is astonishing how ubiquitous she is. And to be clear, I'm definitely not arguing for a return to the 1950s, or even the 1980s, when growing up gay must have been very painful. (I remember nothing in my childhood to remember race being an issue - don't remember any racist attitudes being expressed, whereas there were certainly homophobic attitudes, in both sense of the word - though the number of non- white people in my year could be counted on the fingers of one hand, so maybe it just wasn't visible.) I just think the amount of prominence that schools give to woke issues is massively disproportionate. Reflecting on the way I've expressed this, the point is I don't actually oppose 'woke'. If woke means don't be racist or homophobic and treat everyone with respect, then of course I'm all in. What I'm opposed to is the prominence given to it, as if your race and gender identity and sexuality are the only important things about you, and the 'if you're not with us your against us' attitude: that if you're not prominently displaying your woke credentials at every opportunity you're a horrible old gammon.
Lol yeah blame the civil servants and not the politicians making the decisions. If they’re too stupid to understand what the civil servants are doing then maybe they shouldn’t have gone into politics.
I can offer some partial light on the process here, as I was involved as PPS to Malcolm Wicks in the energy review in something like 2008. Malcolm used me to discuss ideas (some PPS jobs really are just bag-carrying) and we went over the data carefully. At that stage, the figures for tidal lagoons supplied by the civil service researchers were an order of magnitude worse (in terms of return on investment) than any other way of producing more energy - I forget the exact figures but they were off the scale. I'm used to analysing data in detail, though not an expert in engineering, and I couldn't see any reason to doubt the calculations. What was obviously best at that point was lots of wind, preferably on-shore if the Nimby opposition could be overcome (because installation and maintenance is far cheaper), though I think we did underestimate the need for nuclear baseload.
I don't think we were really in a position to demolish the civil service calculations, or any particular reason why they should have been biased. It's possible that they were simply wrong, or that subsequent events have changed the balance, but Occam's Razor is that the civil servants do their best to present the options and the politicians try to make sensible decisions based on them which won't be too unpopular. We don't need to demonise the people involved, but perhaps there's scope for more independent challenging of the data before decisions are made.
‘Order of magnitude’ worse than what ? Certainly not nuclear. And how did they calculate “return on investment” ? Seems very strange indeed.
And note that Swansea was a pilot project - and also that Sihwa was significantly cheaper to construct per MW of capacity (less than half the cost).
Nuclear came out very badly too, though from memory tidal was twice as bad as nuclear on the 2008 (?) figures. We decided against it too, and I've come to feel that was a mistake. The "return on investment" was IIRC based on "energy production over 30 years at current projected prices compared with cost of construction".
My post wasn't trying to argue that we made the right decisions, though I still think that the investment in wind has turned out to be right. Rather, I was illustrating the process. Ministers can question the reports they get, but are not really in a position to decide that the figures are totally wrong. I don't see a particular motivation for civil servants to be biased in the calculations (though I note Marquee Mark's point above about a later review). But different people come to different conclusions based on their assumptions, and where I think the policy process can be improved is to give more scope for NGOs and indeed interest groups to influence policy before it'd made. We were largely looking at the civil service brief (which to be fair seemed to have looked at input from NGOs etc.), and if we'd had five different reports we'd have been better able to say "But xxx says your figures are wrong because ..., what do you say to that?"
Even in my current modest role on a district council executive, I've been stressing to the officers that I never want to see a simple reocmmendation to sign off - I want a range of options with pros and cons to choose from (and I'm experience enough to spot a biased set where you're being steered to the middle one). Otherwise the political process is largely a formality.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.
I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.
I must admit that I do find the focus on such an obscure figure rather odd.
Surely Seacole is only 'an obscure figure' because she was overlooked for a century due to her skin colour. C.f. Florence Nightingale.
But it's not as if Florence Nightingale was ever a core figure of primary school history.
I think actually TSE is toying with us anyway. Paper headlines today are EU red tape, housing, climate, Phewwotascorcher, is Mordaunt a liar? Only Mordaunt is a gender story, and actually it isn't it is about integrity (the story would be the same if it was about what she had said about what she had said about manhole cover design regulations).
On the hot weather, there’s going to be a decent breeze, which should take the edge off.
A Southerly, which will therefore be like turning on a hairdryer to compound the misery. There's nothing to be done but keep indoors as much as possible.
Agreed with the thread header. Unfortunately Badenoch especially seems to be too interested in the "woke" issues, so I'd have her as my last choice preference.
From what I've seen of the candidates so far, ignoring my betting position (which puts Sunak as #1 preference for entirely book-related reasons) my preference would be:
1. Truss - Seems very sound on the economy etc, also came up with the excellent NI solution 2. Tugendhat - Less dry, but pro more housing which is always a big tick 3. Mordaunt - Neutral, seems to change her positions based on what's popular today, ironically like a continuity Boris 4. Sunak - Too high tax 5. Badenoch - Anti-woke
I appreciate that's probably a pretty unusual preference list.
I'm surprised that you have Truss as sound on the economy when her policy is to massively expand public borrowing in order to add masses more money to an inflation crisis.
I can't imagine you regarding the policy as sound if it were suggested by a Labour politician. I can understand that you would be well-disposed towards Truss because of her Brexit policy, but I think you're showing that to distort your judgement.
From what I understand she's suggesting that Covid-related borrowing should be spread over a longer time period, like war bonds.
That's exactly what I suggested at the time of Sunak's stupid NI tax rise.
Day to day spending should not be getting borrowed, but Covid-spending should be
A large sum of the money Sunak's tax rise is going to clear the Covid backlog, despite hundreds of billions of borrowing. What I suggested is that previously was that the Treasury should calculate the cost of clearing the Covid backlog and add that to the Covid borrowing. That borrowing should then be amortised over a timespan rather than just a couple of years as Sunak wanted. We should then return to standard borrowing targets, taking into account the amortisation of Covid borrowing.
That's completely different to Brownian borrowing for day-to-day expenditure.
I don't think you can just magic half our existing debt into war bonds. But that's by-the-by, because, when challenged on the policy during the debate, Truss defended it by explicitly arguing we could borrow more because our current debt levels were lower than other countries.
That is an explicit argument for borrowing to pay for tax cuts, to borrow to cover day-to-day expenditure rather than take the hard choice of taxing or cutting spending. And it's a massive inflationary kick to the economy when inflation is already high.
Of course you can treat half our existing debt as war bonds, war bonds are just bonds with an attitude attached to them not a different type of bond.
Borrowing to reverse the tax rise may be a tax cut but limited to Covid borrowing is also absolutely the right thing to do and what should have been done all along.
Reversing the NI hike may be "inflationary" but it is the right thing to do. If non-working people have to face a bit more inflation rather than putting all the burden on working people, then that's not an issue for me.
Lol yeah blame the civil servants and not the politicians making the decisions. If they’re too stupid to understand what the civil servants are doing then maybe they shouldn’t have gone into politics.
I can offer some partial light on the process here, as I was involved as PPS to Malcolm Wicks in the energy review in something like 2008. Malcolm used me to discuss ideas (some PPS jobs really are just bag-carrying) and we went over the data carefully. At that stage, the figures for tidal lagoons supplied by the civil service researchers were an order of magnitude worse (in terms of return on investment) than any other way of producing more energy - I forget the exact figures but they were off the scale. I'm used to analysing data in detail, though not an expert in engineering, and I couldn't see any reason to doubt the calculations. What was obviously best at that point was lots of wind, preferably on-shore if the Nimby opposition could be overcome (because installation and maintenance is far cheaper), though I think we did underestimate the need for nuclear baseload.
I don't think we were really in a position to demolish the civil service calculations, or any particular reason why they should have been biased. It's possible that they were simply wrong, or that subsequent events have changed the balance, but Occam's Razor is that the civil servants do their best to present the options and the politicians try to make sensible decisions based on them which won't be too unpopular. We don't need to demonise the people involved, but perhaps there's scope for more independent challenging of the data before decisions are made.
What is economically sensible is determined by the anticipated price of the alternatives. When a strike price was agreed for Hinckly Point at £92.50 per megawat hour I was appalled and wrote several posts pointing out that this was likely to make large scale manufacturing in this country uncompetitive. It may still prove to be but the current price is £70.59 and rising fairly fast. If the risk of hydrocarbons massively increasing in price was not in your calculations then they would have been wrong.
That £92.50 has an inflation kicker though....
I know, it is still worrying me but I am less confident that it is absolutely outrageous than I was. The other thing that has happened since it was agreed is that the cost per megawatt hour for offshore wind and solar has collapsed.
We still have to see how long those offshore developments last. Seawater is going to expose every possible weakness in their build. If many last 30 years I will be seriously surprised. Then they need rebuilding from the seabed up.
Contrast with tidal lagoons that have a 120 year minimum life expectancy - but in reality, they will likely last centuries with a bit of tlc. Sure, the turbines will need changing out. They recently did that at La Rance - they should last another 60 years.
La Rance is the cheapest power production in France.
It depends upon the strike price for those 120 years though surely?
120 years at rip off strike prices is a problem. 120 years at a low price is great.
If tidal lagoons can be built, privately, with the same strike price commitments as granted to offshore wind etc then the state should get out of the way and ensure planning consent is granted. If it can't, then it might not be economic.
Let's say it is £50-£55. For 120 years. That needs a new set of turbines at 60 years. That will deliver guaranteed power at predictable rates (how much on February 18th 2089 - check the tide charts). Clean, waste-free power. Putin-interference free. Zero carbon once running, some carbon for the concrete and steel that can be offset/utilise new low carbon cement techniques. Virtually no abandonment costs, in however many centuries hence that might be.
In that scenario, you have to ask - why has there been such determined effort to build nuclear instead of tidal? Keep asking yourself that....
I don't know who will win this Tory leadership contest but I'm feeling increasingly disappointed. Maybe it is the need to appeal to the Tory selectorate but it doesn't feel as if the big challenges are being dealt with. I did like the fact that Kemi talked about trade offs in the C4 debate even if her solutions would be more to the right than I would probably want.
Are we prepared to have an excess of supply in the housing market? If a farmer takes rotten food to the market he has to accept that no-one will likely buy it. Housebuilders don't seem to face the same consumer pressure. I'm not convinced removing regulations is likely to improve that. Has Truss set herself against Nimbyism?
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
Not a trans deviant probably, a heterosexual shit who got in a position to do what he did because of tedious dweebs who think they are being right on. Amusing post though.
You've just reinforced my argument. These are fringe of the fringe cases - how many real world examples like the one in the McExpress are there? Vs how many real world examples of people really feeling the squeeze and by the autumn the onset of rising panic/anger.
The number of women raped on hospital wards - microscopic. By trans people? Even more so. The number of people already in a dreadful mess trying to pay their bills? Millions. And in the autumn? Millions more.
So the trans "threat" isn't a threat except for in extremely rare edge cases, whereas the COL crisis is a direct threat to vast numbers. So if the Tories want to foam on about the cock-tucking deviants thats their loss.
The threat is not from trans people ie those who are genuinely trans. It is those who wrongly claim to be so in order to get access to the vulnerable. That is already happening: a recent FoI request showed that in 2018 the overwhelming majority of sexual assault cases occurred in unisex changing rooms not single sex ones. Self-ID creates an open door for sexual predators. The proposed Self-ID reforms in Scotland for instance would allow any man or boy over the age of 16 to legally call themselves a woman after 6 months with no evidence of dysphoria or anything at all - simply a statement by them. The Scottish government has rejected a proposal to prevent those with convictions for sexual offences from taking advantage of this.
The reference to sexual assaults on women as "edge" cases is frankly revolting. Sexual assaults on women are widespread...
That wasn’t the reference.
What proportion of sex assaults on women, in changing rooms or elsewhere, are committed by men claiming to be trans ? That was the basis of the comment you call revolting.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.
I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.
I must admit that I do find the focus on such an obscure figure rather odd.
Surely Seacole is only 'an obscure figure' because she was overlooked for a century due to her skin colour. C.f. Florence Nightingale.
Florence Nightingale was a far, far more significant figure than Mary Seacole. Nightingale shaped modern nursing, hospital design, infection control and epidemiology. Mary Seacole probably was overlooked because of her skin colour but she is more on the level of Grace Darling in showing courage and determination in a humanitarian cause.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.
I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.
I must admit that I do find the focus on such an obscure figure rather odd.
Surely Seacole is only 'an obscure figure' because she was overlooked for a century due to her skin colour. C.f. Florence Nightingale.
But it's not as if Florence Nightingale was ever a core figure of primary school history.
Mary Seacole is interesting largely through being the first non-white person of historical note in Britain. From this though the wrong conclusion is often drawn I.e. non-white people have just as big a role as white people but have been overlooked, rather than the conclusion that there were very, very few non-whute people in Britain before the second half of the twentieth century. The past looks very unlike the present. She is interesting precisely because she is unrepresentative.
On the hot weather, there’s going to be a decent breeze, which should take the edge off.
A Southerly, which will therefore be like turning on a hairdryer to compound the misery. There's nothing to be done but keep indoors as much as possible.
Well that’s why we’re getting the hot weather. This was the same a few years ago when the record was last broken and it certainly didn’t feel that hot. Whereas that Sunday in August 2003, there wasn’t a breath of wind. Now that was hot.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.
I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.
I must admit that I do find the focus on such an obscure figure rather odd.
Surely Seacole is only 'an obscure figure' because she was overlooked for a century due to her skin colour. C.f. Florence Nightingale.
Seacole was very famous in her lifetime. She was one of those heroes of the 19th century Empire, who dropped into obscurity in the 20th century.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Lol yeah blame the civil servants and not the politicians making the decisions. If they’re too stupid to understand what the civil servants are doing then maybe they shouldn’t have gone into politics.
I can offer some partial light on the process here, as I was involved as PPS to Malcolm Wicks in the energy review in something like 2008. Malcolm used me to discuss ideas (some PPS jobs really are just bag-carrying) and we went over the data carefully. At that stage, the figures for tidal lagoons supplied by the civil service researchers were an order of magnitude worse (in terms of return on investment) than any other way of producing more energy - I forget the exact figures but they were off the scale. I'm used to analysing data in detail, though not an expert in engineering, and I couldn't see any reason to doubt the calculations. What was obviously best at that point was lots of wind, preferably on-shore if the Nimby opposition could be overcome (because installation and maintenance is far cheaper), though I think we did underestimate the need for nuclear baseload.
I don't think we were really in a position to demolish the civil service calculations, or any particular reason why they should have been biased. It's possible that they were simply wrong, or that subsequent events have changed the balance, but Occam's Razor is that the civil servants do their best to present the options and the politicians try to make sensible decisions based on them which won't be too unpopular. We don't need to demonise the people involved, but perhaps there's scope for more independent challenging of the data before decisions are made.
What is economically sensible is determined by the anticipated price of the alternatives. When a strike price was agreed for Hinckly Point at £92.50 per megawat hour I was appalled and wrote several posts pointing out that this was likely to make large scale manufacturing in this country uncompetitive. It may still prove to be but the current price is £70.59 and rising fairly fast. If the risk of hydrocarbons massively increasing in price was not in your calculations then they would have been wrong.
That £92.50 has an inflation kicker though....
I know, it is still worrying me but I am less confident that it is absolutely outrageous than I was. The other thing that has happened since it was agreed is that the cost per megawatt hour for offshore wind and solar has collapsed.
We still have to see how long those offshore developments last. Seawater is going to expose every possible weakness in their build. If many last 30 years I will be seriously surprised. Then they need rebuilding from the seabed up.
Contrast with tidal lagoons that have a 120 year minimum life expectancy - but in reality, they will likely last centuries with a bit of tlc. Sure, the turbines will need changing out. They recently did that at La Rance - they should last another 60 years.
La Rance is the cheapest power production in France.
It depends upon the strike price for those 120 years though surely?
120 years at rip off strike prices is a problem. 120 years at a low price is great.
If tidal lagoons can be built, privately, with the same strike price commitments as granted to offshore wind etc then the state should get out of the way and ensure planning consent is granted. If it can't, then it might not be economic.
Let's say it is £50-£55. For 120 years. That needs a new set of turbines at 60 years. That will deliver guaranteed power at predictable rates (how much on February 18th 2089 - check the tide charts). Clean, waste-free power. Putin-interference free. Zero carbon once running, some carbon for the concrete and steel that can be offset/utilise new low carbon cement techniques. Virtually no abandonment costs, in however many centuries hence that might be.
In that scenario, you have to ask - why has there been such determined effort to build nuclear instead of tidal? Keep asking yourself that....
Considering £50-£55 is above the strike price for most alternative investments, and you want to lock that in for even longer, that seems like a poor investment to my uneducated eyes - if it can even be achieved for that, every independent report I've seen on Swansea showed massively higher strike prices into three figures.
Nuclear may be higher, but it provides a baseload and we aren't locking ourselves in to that for centuries.
PS predictability isn't a pro, given that it needs to supplement the far cheaper and unpredictable wind, being on-demand is more valuable than being predictable.
I don't know who will win this Tory leadership contest but I'm feeling increasingly disappointed. Maybe it is the need to appeal to the Tory selectorate but it doesn't feel as if the big challenges are being dealt with. I did like the fact that Kemi talked about trade offs in the C4 debate even if her solutions would be more to the right than I would probably want.
Are we prepared to have an excess of supply in the housing market? If a farmer takes rotten food to the market he has to accept that no-one will likely buy it. Housebuilders don't seem to face the same consumer pressure. I'm not convinced removing regulations is likely to improve that. Has Truss set herself against Nimbyism?
Sadly, you don't get discussions of downsides in a leadership contest, just as you don't in an election. You don't get the much between those times either, to be fair. This isn't a feature of the modern age; I don't ever remember an advocate of any given position presenting a measured consideration of its costs as well as its benefits. I agree it's a bit depressing though.
Net Zero is a much bigger and juicier target than trans bathrooms during an energy crisis.
Yes, because we'd be in a much better position today if we still got all our energy from hydrocarbons.
Back in 2021, you could (rightly) claim that renewables were increasing the price of our electricity.
Today, the government paying a guaranteed £43/MWh for wind looks like like utter genius.
Building tidal lagoons instead of endlessly faffing around with overpriced and probably never to be built nuclear power stations would have looked much more like utter genius.
Particularly with renewables, you want a portfolio approach.
But I still find it astonishing that at a time when hydrocarbon prices are through the roof, a few people come out of the woodwork and say "Well, if only we'd not increased our reliance on renewables, we'd be fine."
I'm not a man to through around the "retard" word lightly. But W.T.F.
The issue with wind is it went hand in hand with the expansion of CCGT power, which was the only realistic way of balancing the load when the wind wasn't blowing.
And that's now coming home to roost with a vengeance.
If there were effective storage solutions available for wind generation things would be different. But there are none available yet.
With all due respect, there's really nothing complicated about storing gas. The UK used to have sites all across the country.
UK gas storage capacity - whether at the utility level (Rough) or at the local level (the Oval) - cost almost nothing to maintain, and yet was still shut down.
It appears there is actually nothing about bringing back gas storage (or seemingly much about energy security full stop) in the 'energy security' bill. Most of what pertains to the oil and has industry here seems to be putting costs on to them and new regulations concerning spillage and habitats. Both of which might be warranted, but seem a little out of kilter with the times. Increasing domestic output and being able to store it are surely the priorities?
It is clear that this bill must be amended to reopen any gas storage facilities that have been decommissioned but which are still intact. Otherwise we will be in the ludicrous position of asking Europe if we can buy back some of the gas we sold them.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.
I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.
I must admit that I do find the focus on such an obscure figure rather odd.
Surely Seacole is only 'an obscure figure' because she was overlooked for a century due to her skin colour. C.f. Florence Nightingale.
But it's not as if Florence Nightingale was ever a core figure of primary school history.
In the BBC's "Great Britons" series, Nightingale ended up in position 52. Bafflingly, James Clerk Maxwell comes in at 91, below Robbie Williams, the Queen Mum, and Bono.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.
I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.
I must admit that I do find the focus on such an obscure figure rather odd.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
Perhaps Trans people will be cast as modern day witches? Will the madder Tories think that burning transwomen at the stake might reverse the economic woes?
It could generate Community Heat. Simply assemble the poor around the wicker man, lecture them about the evils of woke, and burn the tranny. Solve all of society's problems at once!
At least transmen will be safe since, from the rabid foaming on the right, you would think that only transwomen are going to destabilise society and bring it crashing down. I presume that non-binary and intersex people are also not "Enemies of Right Thinking People"?
Recently a trans man was beaten up for using the female toilet at a campsite in Ohio, as asked to do by the owners.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
But it's not really an either/or, it it? We'll be cold and hungry anyway. Gas has got much more expensive and no amount of accounting tricks will change that. Whereas we can choose whether we invite Stonewall in to our institutions to advance their gender agenda. But for the record, if government could either prevent food prices from doubling or stop schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda, I would rather they stopped schools from advancing their ultra-woke agenda. I don't watch kids growing up with a sense of shame about being straight and white.
If that was happening en masse then perhaps.
But as it isn't...
But it is, Rochdale. Or at least, in a sample size of 5 secondary schools I have visited recently, the incidence of it was 100%. If you infer the schools' orders of priorities from the visibility of display materials, they are: 1) now you're in secondary school, you need to pick a sexuality and identity from this list. This is very important and if you're not sure it's probably because you're bi, rather than, you know, 11 or 12 and not actually sexual at all yet. Why not join the Rainbow Club? =2) woohoo for BLM! Mary Seacombe and Rosa Parks. Why not join the equality club? =2) the environment: we're all doomed. 4) while you're here, if you want to indulge in a little education, or perhaps sport, that would also be fine.
Seacole. Bloody autocorrect.
I agree about autocorrect. I fail to see the problem with teaching kids about Mary Seacole.
Not at all, nor Rosa Parks. But it is astonishing how ubiquitous she is. And to be clear, I'm definitely not arguing for a return to the 1950s, or even the 1980s, when growing up gay must have been very painful. (I remember nothing in my childhood to remember race being an issue - don't remember any racist attitudes being expressed, whereas there were certainly homophobic attitudes, in both sense of the word - though the number of non- white people in my year could be counted on the fingers of one hand, so maybe it just wasn't visible.) I just think the amount of prominence that schools give to woke issues is massively disproportionate. Reflecting on the way I've expressed this, the point is I don't actually oppose 'woke'. If woke means don't be racist or homophobic and treat everyone with respect, then of course I'm all in. What I'm opposed to is the prominence given to it, as if your race and gender identity and sexuality are the only important things about you, and the 'if you're not with us your against us' attitude: that if you're not prominently displaying your woke credentials at every opportunity you're a horrible old gammon.
Lucky you
Farooq, yes, I was trying to make clear that this was en entirely personal perspective as a white child growing up in an entirely white environment. But non-white people weren't casually disparaged in conversation in the same way that gay people were.
On the hot weather, there’s going to be a decent breeze, which should take the edge off.
A Southerly, which will therefore be like turning on a hairdryer to compound the misery. There's nothing to be done but keep indoors as much as possible.
9 MPH Southerly winds where I am.
I am dreading Tuesday when I am back in work. I work in an old building on our Hospital site that has no aircon in a small office full of computers. This building keeps the heat, in three years working there I have never had to wear a jumper. I have a desk fan but that's about it.
A great number of people will be coming during the day for appointments and to get their bloods tests and vaccinations. They will be masked up, sitting in a very warm waiting area and then having a blood test or vaccination which in the past has proved for some a bad combination. Will have to watch out for people feeling sick or faint all day.
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
Not a trans deviant probably, a heterosexual shit who got in a position to do what he did because of tedious dweebs who think they are being right on. Amusing post though.
You've just reinforced my argument. These are fringe of the fringe cases - how many real world examples like the one in the McExpress are there? Vs how many real world examples of people really feeling the squeeze and by the autumn the onset of rising panic/anger.
The number of women raped on hospital wards - microscopic. By trans people? Even more so. The number of people already in a dreadful mess trying to pay their bills? Millions. And in the autumn? Millions more.
So the trans "threat" isn't a threat except for in extremely rare edge cases, whereas the COL crisis is a direct threat to vast numbers. So if the Tories want to foam on about the cock-tucking deviants thats their loss.
The threat is not from trans people ie those who are genuinely trans. It is those who wrongly claim to be so in order to get access to the vulnerable. That is already happening: a recent FoI request showed that in 2018 the overwhelming majority of sexual assault cases occurred in unisex changing rooms not single sex ones. Self-ID creates an open door for sexual predators. The proposed Self-ID reforms in Scotland for instance would allow any man or boy over the age of 16 to legally call themselves a woman after 6 months with no evidence of dysphoria or anything at all - simply a statement by them. The Scottish government has rejected a proposal to prevent those with convictions for sexual offences from taking advantage of this.
The reference to sexual assaults on women as "edge" cases is frankly revolting. Sexual assaults on women are widespread...
That wasn’t the reference.
What proportion of sex assaults on women, in changing rooms or elsewhere, are committed by men claiming to be trans ? That was the basis of the comment you call revolting.
A bloke was convicted yesterday of murdering his wife 40 years ago. What proportion of the female population was one woman in 1980? Why are we even spending time on him when the energy cap is so well into 4 figures this year?
I think TSE is wrong on this - at least for some aspects of the culture war. Even on a heavily "champagne" forum like this, I'm sure many of us are aware of some quite extraordinary things that have been said to children at schools, anecdotes worth as much as a the cited focus group. When it comes to a secret ballot with the government at stake I think the results may surprise.
To borrow the Chilean saying, trans extremism is god's way of keeping the left out of power forever.
The gamble for the Tories is this: as people get cold and hungry this winter, will the supposed threat of cock-wielding trans deviants persuade them to ignore their hunger and cold and the anger that generates towards the Tories, and instead be kept warm in a Mail-induced fury about bathrooms?
Not a trans deviant probably, a heterosexual shit who got in a position to do what he did because of tedious dweebs who think they are being right on. Amusing post though.
You've just reinforced my argument. These are fringe of the fringe cases - how many real world examples like the one in the McExpress are there? Vs how many real world examples of people really feeling the squeeze and by the autumn the onset of rising panic/anger.
The number of women raped on hospital wards - microscopic. By trans people? Even more so. The number of people already in a dreadful mess trying to pay their bills? Millions. And in the autumn? Millions more.
So the trans "threat" isn't a threat except for in extremely rare edge cases, whereas the COL crisis is a direct threat to vast numbers. So if the Tories want to foam on about the cock-tucking deviants thats their loss.
The threat is not from trans people ie those who are genuinely trans. It is those who wrongly claim to be so in order to get access to the vulnerable. That is already happening: a recent FoI request showed that in 2018 the overwhelming majority of sexual assault cases occurred in unisex changing rooms not single sex ones. Self-ID creates an open door for sexual predators. The proposed Self-ID reforms in Scotland for instance would allow any man or boy over the age of 16 to legally call themselves a woman after 6 months with no evidence of dysphoria or anything at all - simply a statement by them. The Scottish government has rejected a proposal to prevent those with convictions for sexual offences from taking advantage of this.
The reference to sexual assaults on women as "edge" cases is frankly revolting. Sexual assaults on women are widespread. They are not edge cases. They are not trivial. A government has a duty to prevent the vulnerable from being put in a position where they are at risk. And it is something which governments can and should do in addition to everything else.
I wasn't describing sexual assaults on women as edge cases - just the example given. Men need to be stopped from assaulting women and there is a huge amount that men need to do to educate and motivate ourselves as a gender to not have this macho predatory women as chattel bullshit that drives it.
My point is that if you want to go and assault and rape women you don't need to pretend to be trans to do it - just drag them off as the vast majority of cases are. The endless obsession about the trans threat let's this government off the hook who seemingly make little effort to bother investigating and prosecuting rapists.
Comments
The best way to stimulate economic growth is bottom-up with tax incentives for investment and simplified regulations.
https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1548585397478883328
Be interesting if we have the same minor movement on the markets initially, and then a big move a day later.
As it stands, the one area it would make a difference is that I would want all mandarins Treasury and Transport related out of London and into an out of city town 'campus'. Get rid of mandarins who think that trains are all that matter and that drivers are cash cows and instead have them drive into work like over 80% of the country does.
Hatchet job?
Extreme, nasty, and frankly disgusting?
I cannot believe this for one minute.
Merging the FCO (London based) with DFID (largely in East Kilbride) has been problematic, with WFH the only viable solution for many teams.
I won't hold my breath that they'll happen though.
I can't imagine you regarding the policy as sound if it were suggested by a Labour politician. I can understand that you would be well-disposed towards Truss because of her Brexit policy, but I think you're showing that to distort your judgement.
You do have to wonder what goes through the minds of the editorial staff. Do they have to have a Masters in Hypocrisy to join the team?
Sunak 2.74
Mordaunt 2.76
Truss 6.8
Badenoch 10
Tugendhat 140
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.160663234
Penny Mordaunt has been caught in a lie. Not a great place to be given why this contest is happening.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/06/13/tidal-power-still-expensive-still-unlikely-contribute-much/
‘Order of magnitude’ worse than what ? Certainly not nuclear.
And how did they calculate “return on investment” ?
Seems very strange indeed.
And note that Swansea was a pilot project - and also that Sihwa was significantly cheaper to construct per MW of capacity (less than half the cost).
Gordon Brown 1.1
David Cameron 1.67
Tony Blair 34
Betway
There is a hell of a story about what has gone on in the energy planning of this country - a story that will one day come out.
Dominic Raab says the UK needs "serious" and "credible" suggestions when it's put to him that other leadership candidates - notably Penny Mordaunt - are saying their suggested tax cuts can be self-funding.
On Mordaunt's favourability in polls in the last week, Raab goes back to Rishi Sunak's ability to win votes at a general election.
"He's the only one that can win," Raab says, before being reminded this isn't a general election.
He carries on, repeating that people from the north and the south of England can see Sunak is "the only one" who'll be able to win votes.
Silly boy
LICIPM.
The reference to sexual assaults on women as "edge" cases is frankly revolting. Sexual assaults on women are widespread. They are not edge cases. They are not trivial. A government has a duty to prevent the vulnerable from being put in a position where they are at risk. And it is something which governments can and should do in addition to everything else.
Tidal lagoons are sourced 85% domestically.
If Sunak or Mordaunt is the choice we could see a very low turnout amongst members with no mandate whatsoever for the winning candidate - followed by a meltdown in the polls after many tory voters decided enough was enough.
Whatever the view on here, its clear from the enthusiasm for Badenoch on conhome that culture issues are very important for tory members.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/17/zahawi-urged-to-explain-source-of-26m-mystery-loans
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nadhim-zahawi-may-have-avoided-millions-in-tax-with-trust-0n8mt7kj7 £££
Bernard is my idol.
Contrast with tidal lagoons that have a 120 year minimum life expectancy - but in reality, they will likely last centuries with a bit of tlc. Sure, the turbines will need changing out. They recently did that at La Rance - they should last another 60 years.
La Rance is the cheapest power production in France.
That's exactly what I suggested at the time of Sunak's stupid NI tax rise.
Day to day spending should not be getting borrowed, but Covid-spending should be
A large sum of the money Sunak's tax rise is going to clear the Covid backlog, despite hundreds of billions of borrowing. What I suggested is that previously was that the Treasury should calculate the cost of clearing the Covid backlog and add that to the Covid borrowing. That borrowing should then be amortised over a timespan rather than just a couple of years as Sunak wanted. We should then return to standard borrowing targets, taking into account the amortisation of Covid borrowing.
That's completely different to Brownian borrowing for day-to-day expenditure.
https://www.advocate.com/news/2022/7/12/trans-man-brutally-assaulted-using-womens-restroom-campground
One reason why this issue has taken up time is because Mordaunt was Minister for Equalities for some time and because she doesn't have much else to her name. 1 tiny trade deal as Trade Minister. What did she do or champion on Overseas Aid when responsible for that? She apparently suggested that part of the Overseas Aid budget could be used for a new Royal Yacht, which seems an eccentric use, at best. It is also telling that none of the MPs who worked with her in those Ministries have publicly supported her. Is there maybe a touch of the "Everyone likes Boris until they get to know him about her"?
For Badenoch, the risk is that this is the only issue she will be remembered for. Again it is because this has been her brief. She needs more experience and to talk about other issues.
The big ones for me are energy security and cost - fuel bills are a big source of anxiety for us even though we have done everything we can to insulate, be as energy efficient as possible, installed solar panels etc etc - and housing for my children. As well as the cost of living.
Tax cuts simply don't feature. And if this is what the Tories bang on about - instead of focusing help on the poorest - they will lose. And deservedly so.
And to be clear, I'm definitely not arguing for a return to the 1950s, or even the 1980s, when growing up gay must have been very painful. (I remember nothing in my childhood to remember race being an issue - don't remember any racist attitudes being expressed, whereas there were certainly homophobic attitudes, in both sense of the word - though the number of non- white people in my year could be counted on the fingers of one hand, so maybe it just wasn't visible.) I just think the amount of prominence that schools give to woke issues is massively disproportionate.
Reflecting on the way I've expressed this, the point is I don't actually oppose 'woke'. If woke means don't be racist or homophobic and treat everyone with respect, then of course I'm all in. What I'm opposed to is the prominence given to it, as if your race and gender identity and sexuality are the only important things about you, and the 'if you're not with us your against us' attitude: that if you're not prominently displaying your woke credentials at every opportunity you're a horrible old gammon.
Brexit provided them, briefly, with something that was both. Now that’s absolutely not the case, they have a structural problem they haven’t yet even thought about addressing.
A period in opposition beckons, possibly a very long one if they can’t sort themselves out.
120 years at rip off strike prices is a problem.
120 years at a low price is great.
If tidal lagoons can be built, privately, with the same strike price commitments as granted to offshore wind etc then the state should get out of the way and ensure planning consent is granted. If it can't, then it might not be economic.
That is an explicit argument for borrowing to pay for tax cuts, to borrow to cover day-to-day expenditure rather than take the hard choice of taxing or cutting spending. And it's a massive inflationary kick to the economy when inflation is already high.
My post wasn't trying to argue that we made the right decisions, though I still think that the investment in wind has turned out to be right. Rather, I was illustrating the process. Ministers can question the reports they get, but are not really in a position to decide that the figures are totally wrong. I don't see a particular motivation for civil servants to be biased in the calculations (though I note Marquee Mark's point above about a later review). But different people come to different conclusions based on their assumptions, and where I think the policy process can be improved is to give more scope for NGOs and indeed interest groups to influence policy before it'd made. We were largely looking at the civil service brief (which to be fair seemed to have looked at input from NGOs etc.), and if we'd had five different reports we'd have been better able to say "But xxx says your figures are wrong because ..., what do you say to that?"
Even in my current modest role on a district council executive, I've been stressing to the officers that I never want to see a simple reocmmendation to sign off - I want a range of options with pros and cons to choose from (and I'm experience enough to spot a biased set where you're being steered to the middle one). Otherwise the political process is largely a formality.
Borrowing to reverse the tax rise may be a tax cut but limited to Covid borrowing is also absolutely the right thing to do and what should have been done all along.
Reversing the NI hike may be "inflationary" but it is the right thing to do. If non-working people have to face a bit more inflation rather than putting all the burden on working people, then that's not an issue for me.
In that scenario, you have to ask - why has there been such determined effort to build nuclear instead of tidal? Keep asking yourself that....
Are we prepared to have an excess of supply in the housing market? If a farmer takes rotten food to the market he has to accept that no-one will likely buy it. Housebuilders don't seem to face the same consumer pressure. I'm not convinced removing regulations is likely to improve that. Has Truss set herself against Nimbyism?
What proportion of sex assaults on women, in changing rooms or elsewhere, are committed by men claiming to be trans ?
That was the basis of the comment you call revolting.
Nuclear may be higher, but it provides a baseload and we aren't locking ourselves in to that for centuries.
PS predictability isn't a pro, given that it needs to supplement the far cheaper and unpredictable wind, being on-demand is more valuable than being predictable.
I agree it's a bit depressing though.
It is quite the honour that Opinium have selected me to be part of 1,000 or so ordinary voters in this panel.
https://www.herbertsmithfreehills.com/insight/uk-energy-security-bill-introduced-amid-political-turmoil-has-wide-ranging-implications-for
It is clear that this bill must be amended to reopen any gas storage facilities that have been decommissioned but which are still intact. Otherwise we will be in the ludicrous position of asking Europe if we can buy back some of the gas we sold them.
Bafflingly, James Clerk Maxwell comes in at 91, below Robbie Williams, the Queen Mum, and Bono.
https://www.christianpost.com/news/woman-sues-fishbones-restaurant-after-security-orders-her-out-of-female-bathroom-thinking-she-was-a-man.html
I am dreading Tuesday when I am back in work. I work in an old building on our Hospital site that has no aircon in a small office full of computers. This building keeps the heat, in three years working there I have never had to wear a jumper. I have a desk fan but that's about it.
A great number of people will be coming during the day for appointments and to get their bloods tests and vaccinations. They will be masked up, sitting in a very warm waiting area and then having a blood test or vaccination which in the past has proved for some a bad combination. Will have to watch out for people feeling sick or faint all day.
Wednesday can't come quick enough!
Are you disappointed that Mordaunt is trying to appear to be anti-woke?
My point is that if you want to go and assault and rape women you don't need to pretend to be trans to do it - just drag them off as the vast majority of cases are. The endless obsession about the trans threat let's this government off the hook who seemingly make little effort to bother investigating and prosecuting rapists.