Incidentally, when did the right-wing start becoming reflexively anti new technology? Whenever a new technology comes along there always seem to be a bunch of right-wrong people creating sprouts arguments why it's crap.
We've seen this with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, heart pumps, over and over again. It's really negative and boring. Indicative that there are many on the right who just reflexively oppose anything, particularly if they've ever heard a left-wrong person surreal favourably about it.
Surreal indeed
The case against heat pumps is pretty compelling, as even their proponents seem to concede. Barely detectable warmth pumps would be more accurate
A plumber who did some work for us talked about combined air-source heat pump/oil boilers for older rural properties like ours. The idea is a constant level of heating from the air source and when needed the oil kicks in. I guess a bit like hybrid cars. My relatives in Scotland had a new house built with ground source heating and fully set up for it (very well insulated, under floor heating) and it works brilliantly. The issue for most is that retro-fitting is not so simple (as has been said probably new, bigger radiators, bigger diameter pipes and so on.
All new builds should be built to standards that allow air-source or ground source heat pumps, but the residual housing stock is a far harder challenge.
So given the vast majority of our housing stock is existing this isn't going to happen, is it?
Who could afford to do it and who wants the disruption?
They're going to have to get much better and cheaper before there will be mass take-up. Ecoshaming and virtue-signalling won't cut it.
For existing homes with gas-fired boilers, converting the gas network to hydrogen and replacing the boiler with a hydrogen boiler is the lowest pain way to decarbonise from the householder perspective.
Sounds right. Our one year old boiler is 'ready for hydrogen'. By which I understand hydrogen mixed in with natural gas. By itself hydrogen is rather difficult to pipe around the network being so light it leaks very easily.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
As has been said, who raids an ex-President for the Presidential Records Act? It's like sending in the SAS to deal with a parking ticket. Unless they find a smoking gun, the Democrats have just given the Trump campaign a huge turnout boost when it comes to the GOP fan base without any corresponding boost to their own.
The timing on this is also not coincidental. Trump was the big winner of last week's primaries. At the same time, the Democrats got their spending bill in and the polls have narrowed for congress. They obviously thought it was the right time to strike. The idea that Biden didn't know about this is laughable.
But you reap what you sow. If you don't think the Republicans are not going to take your statement if they win Congress and investigate Biden for all the Hunter stuff, I have a bridge to sell you. Probably with Pelosi as well on all the share dealing stuff.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
The rule of law is the rule of law. In a democracy that matters.
Trump fans will vote GOP anyway, it is the independent swing voters in the suburbs who are still key
True. But independents don't exactly think the Administration is a beacon of probity. Anyone who is an independent can see where this path will go to because it's happened before when it comes to retaliation. The Democrats scrapped the filibuster for federal appointments, the Republicans then did the same for the Supreme Court. Given what is happening in the US at the moment, unless there is a smoking gun, this is not a clever move.
So it's driven by politics and will benefit Donald Trump and the Republicans.
Hmmm - false flag then? Trump leans on the FBI boss and gets him to do something that rocket-boosts the 'persecuted man of the people' legend?
I'd usually not go near such nonsense but you might just be talking me into this one.
Doubtful as Christopher Wray is no Trump supporter and wouldn’t be party to some plot to help Trump play the martyr .
The American public have made their minds up about Trump so those who support him will think he’s being persecuted those who don’t support him will just file this under just re-inforcing their view that he’s corrupt .
Yes, I was kidding.
I see this as another straw in a wind that is whispering he will not be seeing the inside of the Oval Office again.
Whispering grass (old song). Someone must has done so.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
The triple lock gives an ever increasing share of the cake to one group. Their share can only go up. Eventually their share becomes bigger than the pie. Long term it is a mathematical abomination.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Mr. Ping, was the wasp versus spider battle an epic duel, or did the wasp win easily?
It took me a little while to figure out who was eating who. Initially it looked like the wasp was caught in the spiders web, but it soon became clear the battle was being waged on the wasps terms.
I stayed neutral, throughout.
I put out some wasp traps on Saturday and watched them over the course of the afternoon.
It was quite amusing and reminded me of being out on the town on the first weekend of December when everyone is at Christmas parties. I saw wasps having mass brawls ove lr the traps, two wasps kicking off with each other resulting in them both falling straight into the trap then another wasp on a sugar rush having a fight with a dead spider that was caught up in some web.
They are absolute shits this year but apparently with the greater use of traps it’s giving a very good picture of the explosion of Asian hornets as they are taking the bait too.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Trouble is, NI is not just another tax; it is the tax you pay to qualify for a pension, so why do those who have already qualified need to pay? It is the flip side of the Waspi women issue, where some women did not pay enough stamps for a full pension. It might be, with hindsight, HMG should have caved on that and broken the NI/pension link for good.
As has been said, who raids an ex-President for the Presidential Records Act? It's like sending in the SAS to deal with a parking ticket. Unless they find a smoking gun, the Democrats have just given the Trump campaign a huge turnout boost when it comes to the GOP fan base without any corresponding boost to their own.
The timing on this is also not coincidental. Trump was the big winner of last week's primaries. At the same time, the Democrats got their spending bill in and the polls have narrowed for congress. They obviously thought it was the right time to strike. The idea that Biden didn't know about this is laughable.
But you reap what you sow. If you don't think the Republicans are not going to take your statement if they win Congress and investigate Biden for all the Hunter stuff, I have a bridge to sell you. Probably with Pelosi as well on all the share dealing stuff.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
The rule of law is the rule of law. In a democracy that matters.
I suspect unlike your demand for partisan retribution under a GOP Administration, there is some hard and fast evidence to suggest there are national security sensitive documents in Mar a Lago that shouldn't be in Mar a Lago. That seems worth investigating at a moment in time when the US is in tacit conflict with a foreign power that has known personal links to residents of Mar a Lago who previously had access to aforementioned sensitive material and now shouldn't.
Yawn. You are one of the most partisan people on here. Anything that comes up about Trump, you and many others can't stop your frothing. I don't want him to run in 2024, I think it would be bad for the United States but your woeful blindness when it comes to seeing only the faults of one side in this whole saga is at the root of the problem. Clinton's campaign after all was the only who fed false evidence to get a Federal court to sign off on the FBI investigating a Presidential campaign.
Yes I despise Trump and after events culminating on January 6th with good reason and with pride.
As far as partisanship is concerned when it comes to Trump there are not many less objective posters than yourself.
If there were such compelling evidence that the Clintons, the Bidens or the Obamas had been involved in undermining the democratic will of the people as we have seen with Trump, my view is they should be prosecuted with the same rigour as I am hoping will be the case with Trump.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean free of consequence. As we know on here, when it comes to certain stories that cannot be broken here. The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences.
Backlog of longest-wait patients slashed in England
The number of people waiting longer than two years for routine operations in England has fallen from 22,500 at the start of the year, to fewer than 200, according to NHS figures. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62465626
Some good news. The 18-months waiting list is the next target.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Trouble is, NI is not just another tax; it is the tax you pay to qualify for a pension, so why do those who have already qualified need to pay? It is the flip side of the Waspi women issue, where some women did not pay enough stamps for a full pension. It might be, with hindsight, HMG should have caved on that and broken the NI/pension link for good.
That is inevitable anyway. So they might as well get on and do it. It is a minor issue compared with the iniquity of the current system. And with the changes in the way people work it is also a completely outdated system.
As has been said, who raids an ex-President for the Presidential Records Act? It's like sending in the SAS to deal with a parking ticket. Unless they find a smoking gun, the Democrats have just given the Trump campaign a huge turnout boost when it comes to the GOP fan base without any corresponding boost to their own.
The timing on this is also not coincidental. Trump was the big winner of last week's primaries. At the same time, the Democrats got their spending bill in and the polls have narrowed for congress. They obviously thought it was the right time to strike. The idea that Biden didn't know about this is laughable.
But you reap what you sow. If you don't think the Republicans are not going to take your statement if they win Congress and investigate Biden for all the Hunter stuff, I have a bridge to sell you. Probably with Pelosi as well on all the share dealing stuff.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
The rule of law is the rule of law. In a democracy that matters.
Trump fans will vote GOP anyway, it is the independent swing voters in the suburbs who are still key
True. But independents don't exactly think the Administration is a beacon of probity. Anyone who is an independent can see where this path will go to because it's happened before when it comes to retaliation. The Democrats scrapped the filibuster for federal appointments, the Republicans then did the same for the Supreme Court. Given what is happening in the US at the moment, unless there is a smoking gun, this is not a clever move.
So it's driven by politics and will benefit Donald Trump and the Republicans.
Hmmm - false flag then? Trump leans on the FBI boss and gets him to do something that rocket-boosts the 'persecuted man of the people' legend?
I'd usually not go near such nonsense but you might just be talking me into this one.
Trump must be incensed at the "gross violation" of his rights, by the FBI director that he appointed....
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole, but it doesn't mean having the right to lie about and defame others while exercising that right though.
Jones did defame his victims. Being an arsehole is legal, defaming people is not.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean free of consequence. As we know on here, when it comes to certain stories that cannot be broken here. The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences.
Oh indeed, but in the USA they have a very high bar for defamation - which is why Americans sue each other in London all the time. If you’re not inciting violence or making threats to kill, you’re usually okay.
As has been said, who raids an ex-President for the Presidential Records Act? It's like sending in the SAS to deal with a parking ticket. Unless they find a smoking gun, the Democrats have just given the Trump campaign a huge turnout boost when it comes to the GOP fan base without any corresponding boost to their own.
The timing on this is also not coincidental. Trump was the big winner of last week's primaries. At the same time, the Democrats got their spending bill in and the polls have narrowed for congress. They obviously thought it was the right time to strike. The idea that Biden didn't know about this is laughable.
But you reap what you sow. If you don't think the Republicans are not going to take your statement if they win Congress and investigate Biden for all the Hunter stuff, I have a bridge to sell you. Probably with Pelosi as well on all the share dealing stuff.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
The rule of law is the rule of law. In a democracy that matters.
Trump fans will vote GOP anyway, it is the independent swing voters in the suburbs who are still key
True. But independents don't exactly think the Administration is a beacon of probity. Anyone who is an independent can see where this path will go to because it's happened before when it comes to retaliation. The Democrats scrapped the filibuster for federal appointments, the Republicans then did the same for the Supreme Court. Given what is happening in the US at the moment, unless there is a smoking gun, this is not a clever move.
So it's driven by politics and will benefit Donald Trump and the Republicans.
Hmmm - false flag then? Trump leans on the FBI boss and gets him to do something that rocket-boosts the 'persecuted man of the people' legend?
I'd usually not go near such nonsense but you might just be talking me into this one.
Trump must be incensed at the "gross violation" of his rights, by the FBI director that he appointed....
This is what the US are dealing with. A wannabee gangster dictator toddler.
"In an exchange with his former White House chief of staff John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, Trump reportedly complained: “You fucking generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?”
Kelly asked which generals, prompting Trump to reply: “The German generals in World War II.”"
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean free of consequence. As we know on here, when it comes to certain stories that cannot be broken here. The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences.
Oh indeed, but in the USA they have a very high bar for defamation - which is why Americans sue each other in London all the time. If you’re not inciting violence or making threats to kill, you’re usually okay.
Absolutely having a high bar is appropriate.
Jones cleared that high bar in a way even Olympic athletes would struggle to do.
Car chip shortage now responsible for 180,000 vehicles a week being cut from manufacture - 100,000 of which are North American cars. It could take another year before the problem is completely solved.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean free of consequence. As we know on here, when it comes to certain stories that cannot be broken here. The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences.
Oh indeed, but in the USA they have a very high bar for defamation - which is why Americans sue each other in London all the time. If you’re not inciting violence or making threats to kill, you’re usually okay.
Absolutely having a high bar is appropriate.
Jones cleared that high bar in a way even Olympic athletes would struggle to do.
There's a balance between free speech and defamation laws. The USA correctly has a very high bar. The UK - specifically the London libel courts are weighted way too heavily in favour against free speech.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Trouble is, NI is not just another tax; it is the tax you pay to qualify for a pension, so why do those who have already qualified need to pay? It is the flip side of the Waspi women issue, where some women did not pay enough stamps for a full pension. It might be, with hindsight, HMG should have caved on that and broken the NI/pension link for good.
Except the links long been broken anyway. The "payment" of NI for pension purposes has next to nothing to do with actually making payments. The qualification threshold for "making" a payment is not the same as the threshold for any payment actually being made, so the whole thing is an artificial edifice anyway.
Jessica Elgot @jessicaelgot · 4h Exclusive - Ed Davey calls for ‘energy furlough scheme’ to avoid October price cap rise, *cancelling* the £1400 rise in its entirety and having govt absorb the £36bn cost (paid in part via new windfall tax)
Interesting policy, but leaves a dilemma as to how to handle those who have signed fixed rate tariffs higher than the price cap, in order to avoid the expected cap rise.
In theory they'd have no reason to complain, they'd still have the contract they signed, but complain they would and it would dominate the news. Squeaky wheels always do.
I have a 3 year fixed deal with OVO until December 2024. I went online yesterday and was told I could reduce my direct debit from £203 pcm to £184 pcm. What's going on?
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Personal allowance thresholds now the same for both. That's a step toward unification.
I was leaning towards Rishi, but now I’m backing Liz
here have been a lot of twists and turns in this leadership race. It seems more than a month ago that the starting gun was fired by the prime minister’s resignation. Since then, we have had parliamentary hustings, TV debates and membership hustings — not to mention Twitter spats and WhatsApp wars.
It has been a tough campaign for everybody. There has been a lot of in-depth policy debate about the future of our party and country, much of which has been productive and insightful. And it’s important that there has been a contest, because it’s right that the candidates have been tested under pressure — we need to know that our next prime minister has what it takes to lead. But there has been a darker side to the campaign too. The blue-on-blue attacks have been bruising and have left me concerned for the good reputation of our party.
Jessica Elgot @jessicaelgot · 4h Exclusive - Ed Davey calls for ‘energy furlough scheme’ to avoid October price cap rise, *cancelling* the £1400 rise in its entirety and having govt absorb the £36bn cost (paid in part via new windfall tax)
Interesting policy, but leaves a dilemma as to how to handle those who have signed fixed rate tariffs higher than the price cap, in order to avoid the expected cap rise.
In theory they'd have no reason to complain, they'd still have the contract they signed, but complain they would and it would dominate the news. Squeaky wheels always do.
I have a 3 year fixed deal with OVO until December 2024. I went online yesterday and was told I could reduce my direct debit from £203 pcm to £184 pcm. What's going on?
Direct debits are simply a means to smooth expected expenditure and revenue. It simply means you'll get a smaller repayment or larger payment to the company at the end of the contract.
As has been said, who raids an ex-President for the Presidential Records Act? It's like sending in the SAS to deal with a parking ticket. Unless they find a smoking gun, the Democrats have just given the Trump campaign a huge turnout boost when it comes to the GOP fan base without any corresponding boost to their own.
The timing on this is also not coincidental. Trump was the big winner of last week's primaries. At the same time, the Democrats got their spending bill in and the polls have narrowed for congress. They obviously thought it was the right time to strike. The idea that Biden didn't know about this is laughable.
But you reap what you sow. If you don't think the Republicans are not going to take your statement if they win Congress and investigate Biden for all the Hunter stuff, I have a bridge to sell you. Probably with Pelosi as well on all the share dealing stuff.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
The rule of law is the rule of law. In a democracy that matters.
Trump fans will vote GOP anyway, it is the independent swing voters in the suburbs who are still key
True. But independents don't exactly think the Administration is a beacon of probity. Anyone who is an independent can see where this path will go to because it's happened before when it comes to retaliation. The Democrats scrapped the filibuster for federal appointments, the Republicans then did the same for the Supreme Court. Given what is happening in the US at the moment, unless there is a smoking gun, this is not a clever move.
So it's driven by politics and will benefit Donald Trump and the Republicans.
Hmmm - false flag then? Trump leans on the FBI boss and gets him to do something that rocket-boosts the 'persecuted man of the people' legend?
I'd usually not go near such nonsense but you might just be talking me into this one.
Trump must be incensed at the "gross violation" of his rights, by the FBI director that he appointed....
This is what the US are dealing with. A wannabee gangster dictator toddler.
"In an exchange with his former White House chief of staff John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, Trump reportedly complained: “You fucking generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?”
Kelly asked which generals, prompting Trump to reply: “The German generals in World War II.”"
YouGov, the only pollster to correctly weigh geographical sub-samples, also show that Keir Starmer is a dud. Back down to 3rd place in Scotland = no cigars.
London Lab 42% Con 28% LD 15% Grn 10% Ref 2%
Rest of South Con 41% Lab 32% LD 14% Grn 8% Ref 3%
Midlands and Wales Lab 40% Con 34% LD 9% PC 6% Grn 6% Ref 4%
North Lab 47% Con 29% Grn 9% LD 8% Ref 5%
Scotland SNP 51% Con 22% Lab 16% LD 5% Grn 4% Ref 1%
(YouGov / The Times; Sample Size: 1,968; Fieldwork: 4th - 5th August 2022)
Pro-independence parties 55% Unionist parties 44%
It doesn't matter if the SNP are on 99%, Truss has made clear she will not allow any indyref2 on her watch. As the future of the union is reserved to Westminster and the UK government under the Scotland Act 1998 nothing the SNP can do about it.
In fact logically it is better for the SNP to lose seats in Scotland but hold the balance of power in a hung parliament at Westminster than for the SNP to gain seats in Scotland and increase their number of MPs there but for either the Tories to win another majority or Labour to win most seats and have either a majority or enough seats to have a majority with the LDs
If and when support reaches 99% (Norway, 1905 levels) the least of your worries will be “the SNP”.
Legally however the future of the union would still remain with Westminster, even if practically it might be a bit more difficult
"practically": so you admit the principle, that a majority for independence is sufficient?
Astonishing about-turn.
No, I was talking practically in terms of ensuring law enforcement maintain Westminster's sovereignty over Scotland in the reserved areas.
Obviously I still oppose indyref2 for a generation
Armed suppression of democracy. How do you sleep?
Do you remember that HYUFD claims routinely that the only reason Ireland got partial independence is armed insurrection? And that he advocates armed insurrection still to create an Armagh/Antrim state in the event of full independence for Ireland?
So I'm having difficutly with his logic.
No armed insurrection = reason to refuse independence, *or even a referendum* Armed insurrection = reason to refuse independence, or *even a referendum* (unless we are talking about his chums in Antrim)
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Trouble is, NI is not just another tax; it is the tax you pay to qualify for a pension, so why do those who have already qualified need to pay? It is the flip side of the Waspi women issue, where some women did not pay enough stamps for a full pension. It might be, with hindsight, HMG should have caved on that and broken the NI/pension link for good.
That is inevitable anyway. So they might as well get on and do it. It is a minor issue compared with the iniquity of the current system. And with the changes in the way people work it is also a completely outdated system.
The trouble is that pensioners range from millionaires to the very poor. If you lose the triple lock because some do not rely on the £200 a week from the state, you penalise the poorest, who do.
People get hung up on the triple lock. Why not do away with higher rate tax relief on contributions? Another measure that favours the rich, and can be removed without hurting the poor.
But while we were not looking, likely future Prime Minister Liz Truss chucked some more pension money at the rich when she promised to review the pension cap that is causing so many doctors to take early retirement. Life's complicated.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Trouble is, NI is not just another tax; it is the tax you pay to qualify for a pension, so why do those who have already qualified need to pay? It is the flip side of the Waspi women issue, where some women did not pay enough stamps for a full pension. It might be, with hindsight, HMG should have caved on that and broken the NI/pension link for good.
That is inevitable anyway. So they might as well get on and do it. It is a minor issue compared with the iniquity of the current system. And with the changes in the way people work it is also a completely outdated system.
The trouble is that pensioners range from millionaires to the very poor. If you lose the triple lock because some do not rely on the £200 a week from the state, you penalise the poorest, who do.
People get hung up on the triple lock. Why not do away with higher rate tax relief on contributions? Another measure that favours the rich, and can be removed without hurting the poor.
But while we were not looking, likely future Prime Minister Liz Truss chucked some more pension money at the rich when she promised to review the pension cap that is causing so many doctors to take early retirement. Life's complicated.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Trouble is, NI is not just another tax; it is the tax you pay to qualify for a pension, so why do those who have already qualified need to pay? It is the flip side of the Waspi women issue, where some women did not pay enough stamps for a full pension. It might be, with hindsight, HMG should have caved on that and broken the NI/pension link for good.
That's not the issue WASPI are campaigning on.
They're complaining that the state pension age for women is increasing to be in line with that for men (technically, they are objecting that women haven't been given sufficient notice of the changes, although this is palpable nonsense, especially given how high profile their own campaign has been).
There were so many pension issues they could've picked, and they picked the one where their name makes literally no sense whatsoever - they are literally campaigning in favour of state pension inequality, whilst claiming to be against it.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Trouble is, NI is not just another tax; it is the tax you pay to qualify for a pension, so why do those who have already qualified need to pay? It is the flip side of the Waspi women issue, where some women did not pay enough stamps for a full pension. It might be, with hindsight, HMG should have caved on that and broken the NI/pension link for good.
That's not the issue WASPI are campaigning on.
They're complaining that the state pension age for women is increasing to be in line with that for men (technically, they are objecting that women haven't been given sufficient notice of the changes, although this is palpable nonsense, especially given how high profile their own campaign has been).
There were so many pension issues they could've picked, and they picked the one where their name makes literally no sense whatsoever - they are literally campaigning in favour of state pension inequality, whilst claiming to be against it.
Yes, but the notice issue relates to the need to pay more stamps.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
And remember when Amber Heard called Johnny Depp an abuser without the evidence to back it up and the judge *didn't* throw it out.
The US doesn't have absolute freedom of speech. It just has a higher bar (than here) for a prosecution to succeed against that defence. These cases can go either way. The specifics matter. Eg in this case, unlike the Musk tweet, Alex Jones ran a relentless, calculated, highly impactful smear over many years.
In saying he's been convicted due to the judge's politics, rather than on the merits of the case, you're imputing partisanship where there's no evidence of it. America is in a bad enough place already on that score and the more people think like you the worse it'll get.
Is it me or is Davey's energy bung and Truss' tax plans about the same cost to the exchequer ? Davey's plan seems a better use of money if it is the case tbh.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
And remember when Amber Heard called Johnny Depp an abuser without the evidence to back it up and the judge *didn't* throw it out.
The US doesn't have absolute freedom of speech. It just has a higher bar (than here) for a prosecution to succeed against that defence. These cases can go either way. The specifics matter. Eg, in this case, unlike the Musk tweet, Alex Jones ran a relentless, calculated, highly impactful smear over many years.
In saying he's been convicted due to the judge's politics, rather than on the merits of the case, you're imputing partisanship where there's no evidence of it. America is in a bad enough place already on that score and the more people think like you the worse it'll get.
Is there evidence of partisanship on the RvW reversal decision, or does this game only work in one direction?
Regarding that raid on Mar a Swampo: I'll bet some musicians are already practicing a new version of that old song. Instead of "hail to the Chief", it will be "Jail to the Chief".
Trying to jail him will not end well for American democracy. It will turn him into a martyr.
He needs to be beaten at the ballot box.
The problem is that when he's beaten at the ballot box, he claims that is all rigged, and that he really won.
It's extraordinary what damage one man can do to democracy.
Imagine a Julius Caesar - all of the above, but profoundly competent.
Roman history makes a lot more sense now, doesn't it?
YouGov, the only pollster to correctly weigh geographical sub-samples, also show that Keir Starmer is a dud. Back down to 3rd place in Scotland = no cigars.
London Lab 42% Con 28% LD 15% Grn 10% Ref 2%
Rest of South Con 41% Lab 32% LD 14% Grn 8% Ref 3%
Midlands and Wales Lab 40% Con 34% LD 9% PC 6% Grn 6% Ref 4%
North Lab 47% Con 29% Grn 9% LD 8% Ref 5%
Scotland SNP 51% Con 22% Lab 16% LD 5% Grn 4% Ref 1%
(YouGov / The Times; Sample Size: 1,968; Fieldwork: 4th - 5th August 2022)
Pro-independence parties 55% Unionist parties 44%
It doesn't matter if the SNP are on 99%, Truss has made clear she will not allow any indyref2 on her watch. As the future of the union is reserved to Westminster and the UK government under the Scotland Act 1998 nothing the SNP can do about it.
In fact logically it is better for the SNP to lose seats in Scotland but hold the balance of power in a hung parliament at Westminster than for the SNP to gain seats in Scotland and increase their number of MPs there but for either the Tories to win another majority or Labour to win most seats and have either a majority or enough seats to have a majority with the LDs
If and when support reaches 99% (Norway, 1905 levels) the least of your worries will be “the SNP”.
Legally however the future of the union would still remain with Westminster, even if practically it might be a bit more difficult
"practically": so you admit the principle, that a majority for independence is sufficient?
Astonishing about-turn.
No, I was talking practically in terms of ensuring law enforcement maintain Westminster's sovereignty over Scotland in the reserved areas.
Obviously I still oppose indyref2 for a generation
Armed suppression of democracy. How do you sleep?
Do you remember that HYUFD claims routinely that the only reason Ireland got partial independence is armed insurrection? And that he advocates armed insurrection still to create an Armagh/Antrim state in the event of full independence for Ireland?
So I'm having difficutly with his logic.
No armed insurrection = reason to refuse independence, *or even a referendum* Armed insurrection = reason to refuse independence, or *even a referendum* (unless we are talking about his chums in Antrim)
Where is the armed insurrection in Scotland? 2014 was a once in a generation referendum. There are no SNP terrorists or armed volunteers as there have been in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Opinion in Scotland is still equally divided on independence.
The hypothetical was that even if the vast majority of Scots wanted independence legally Westminster could still refuse an indyref2 for a generation as the future of the Union is reserved to Westminster and enforce that. However even that scenario does not currently exist as there is no big majority in Scotland for independence
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean free of consequence. As we know on here, when it comes to certain stories that cannot be broken here. The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences.
Oh indeed, but in the USA they have a very high bar for defamation - which is why Americans sue each other in London all the time. If you’re not inciting violence or making threats to kill, you’re usually okay.
Absolutely having a high bar is appropriate.
Jones cleared that high bar in a way even Olympic athletes would struggle to do.
There's a balance between free speech and defamation laws. The USA correctly has a very high bar. The UK - specifically the London libel courts are weighted way too heavily in favour against free speech.
Agree on London.
On Alex Jones, aiui and I've not really been following the case so take this with a pinch of salt, by continually playing silly beggars, Jones stopped the case being about defamation and turned it into a case about contempt and perjury.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Trouble is, NI is not just another tax; it is the tax you pay to qualify for a pension, so why do those who have already qualified need to pay? It is the flip side of the Waspi women issue, where some women did not pay enough stamps for a full pension. It might be, with hindsight, HMG should have caved on that and broken the NI/pension link for good.
That is inevitable anyway. So they might as well get on and do it. It is a minor issue compared with the iniquity of the current system. And with the changes in the way people work it is also a completely outdated system.
The trouble is that pensioners range from millionaires to the very poor. If you lose the triple lock because some do not rely on the £200 a week from the state, you penalise the poorest, who do.
People get hung up on the triple lock. Why not do away with higher rate tax relief on contributions? Another measure that favours the rich, and can be removed without hurting the poor.
But while we were not looking, likely future Prime Minister Liz Truss chucked some more pension money at the rich when she promised to review the pension cap that is causing so many doctors to take early retirement. Life's complicated.
So have a triple lock for state support for the poorest 10 or 20% of people of all ages (still only for a limited period of time) rather than offering it exclusively to the richest cohort ever. Of course the younger poor don't vote either in sufficient numbers or the right way.
If it is about supporting the poorest, then define it by incomes and assets, not age. Otherwise bin it.
Mr. Malmesbury, the Republican constitution of Rome had been mangled a lot since before Caesar's time. Exemptions to longstanding traditions (I forget who, maybe Sempronius, got it waived to deal with Iberia, and Marius was consul a ridiculous number of times) had become the norm.
It's interesting to consider what would have happened had Pompey won.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Trouble is, NI is not just another tax; it is the tax you pay to qualify for a pension, so why do those who have already qualified need to pay? It is the flip side of the Waspi women issue, where some women did not pay enough stamps for a full pension. It might be, with hindsight, HMG should have caved on that and broken the NI/pension link for good.
That is inevitable anyway. So they might as well get on and do it. It is a minor issue compared with the iniquity of the current system. And with the changes in the way people work it is also a completely outdated system.
The trouble is that pensioners range from millionaires to the very poor. If you lose the triple lock because some do not rely on the £200 a week from the state, you penalise the poorest, who do.
People get hung up on the triple lock. Why not do away with higher rate tax relief on contributions? Another measure that favours the rich, and can be removed without hurting the poor.
But while we were not looking, likely future Prime Minister Liz Truss chucked some more pension money at the rich when she promised to review the pension cap that is causing so many doctors to take early retirement. Life's complicated.
So have a triple lock for state support for the poorest 10 or 20% of people of all ages (still only for a limited period of time) rather than offering it exclusively to the richest cohort ever. Of course the younger poor don't vote either in sufficient numbers or the right way.
If it is about supporting the poorest, then define it by incomes and assets, not age. Otherwise bin it.
How? Add a new pension class to Universal Credit? Pensions, both state and private, have always been about age.
Incidentally, when did the right-wing start becoming reflexively anti new technology? Whenever a new technology comes along there always seem to be a bunch of right-wrong people creating sprouts arguments why it's crap.
We've seen this with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, heart pumps, over and over again. It's really negative and boring. Indicative that there are many on the right who just reflexively oppose anything, particularly if they've ever heard a left-wrong person surreal favourably about it.
Surreal indeed
The case against heat pumps is pretty compelling, as even their proponents seem to concede. Barely detectable warmth pumps would be more accurate
A plumber who did some work for us talked about combined air-source heat pump/oil boilers for older rural properties like ours. The idea is a constant level of heating from the air source and when needed the oil kicks in. I guess a bit like hybrid cars. My relatives in Scotland had a new house built with ground source heating and fully set up for it (very well insulated, under floor heating) and it works brilliantly. The issue for most is that retro-fitting is not so simple (as has been said probably new, bigger radiators, bigger diameter pipes and so on.
All new builds should be built to standards that allow air-source or ground source heat pumps, but the residual housing stock is a far harder challenge.
So given the vast majority of our housing stock is existing this isn't going to happen, is it?
Who could afford to do it and who wants the disruption?
They're going to have to get much better and cheaper before there will be mass take-up. Ecoshaming and virtue-signalling won't cut it.
For existing homes with gas-fired boilers, converting the gas network to hydrogen and replacing the boiler with a hydrogen boiler is the lowest pain way to decarbonise from the householder perspective.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Trouble is, NI is not just another tax; it is the tax you pay to qualify for a pension, so why do those who have already qualified need to pay? It is the flip side of the Waspi women issue, where some women did not pay enough stamps for a full pension. It might be, with hindsight, HMG should have caved on that and broken the NI/pension link for good.
That is inevitable anyway. So they might as well get on and do it. It is a minor issue compared with the iniquity of the current system. And with the changes in the way people work it is also a completely outdated system.
The trouble is that pensioners range from millionaires to the very poor. If you lose the triple lock because some do not rely on the £200 a week from the state, you penalise the poorest, who do.
People get hung up on the triple lock. Why not do away with higher rate tax relief on contributions? Another measure that favours the rich, and can be removed without hurting the poor.
But while we were not looking, likely future Prime Minister Liz Truss chucked some more pension money at the rich when she promised to review the pension cap that is causing so many doctors to take early retirement. Life's complicated.
So have a triple lock for state support for the poorest 10 or 20% of people of all ages (still only for a limited period of time) rather than offering it exclusively to the richest cohort ever. Of course the younger poor don't vote either in sufficient numbers or the right way.
If it is about supporting the poorest, then define it by incomes and assets, not age. Otherwise bin it.
How? Add a new pension class to Universal Credit? Pensions, both state and private, have always been about age.
Yes it could include a triple lock on universal credit and public sector pay for jobs under £30k as a starting point. Except not enough Tories will vote for that.
Incidentally, when did the right-wing start becoming reflexively anti new technology? Whenever a new technology comes along there always seem to be a bunch of right-wrong people creating sprouts arguments why it's crap.
We've seen this with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, heart pumps, over and over again. It's really negative and boring. Indicative that there are many on the right who just reflexively oppose anything, particularly if they've ever heard a left-wrong person surreal favourably about it.
Perhaps when they started getting most of their votes from the elderly? But conservatives have always been against change, by definition.
Which is an important part of any political debate.
Otherwise we'd have constant disruption, social disturbance and political revolution, and implement a lot of stupid ideas that would retard us economically and politically.
"Progressives" need "conservatives" to challenge and filter them so we get steady and progressive incremental change, rather than blow up the system or no change whatsoever. Ying and Yang.
It's how it's supposed to work.
Yeah I don't disagree with that at all. It feels a bit unbalanced at the moment, mind, so instead of getting incremental change we get stasis, while evidence of the system not working mounts. Eventually that will lead to far more radical change down the line, which even I don't want - I am too old and invested for violent revolution.
Fair enough, I sort of agree with you too - young people are getting rogered by the current system, and I don't want them revolting and bringing it all down.
There is definitely a problem with some of the older generation. My client is doing plenty of stakeholder consultations on Sizewell C in Suffolk at the moment and the existing residents couldn't give a toss about skills/training/jobs or energy transition, they only care about their property prices and disruption during construction.
You'd think they'd care more about their own children and grandchildren, but no. I don't want that to blowback and be reciprocated.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
As far as I can tell, my wife and I are paying £2,000 a year extra now (and it absolutely won't end there) so wealthy older pensioners don't have to use their homes as collateral to fund their social care.
I see that as pretty disgraceful. But Theresa May soiled the sheets.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean free of consequence. As we know on here, when it comes to certain stories that cannot be broken here. The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences.
True, but the other side of that is you don't want to create a risk of catastrophic consequences to someone's livelihood such that they hold their tongue.
Is it me or is Davey's energy bung and Truss' tax plans about the same cost to the exchequer ? Davey's plan seems a better use of money if it is the case tbh.
His seems simpler and doesn't hang over into the tax code.
Is it me or is Davey's energy bung and Truss' tax plans about the same cost to the exchequer ? Davey's plan seems a better use of money if it is the case tbh.
Government should take some of the slack because, for the last 20 years, each administration has can-kicked on renewing nuclear power and gas storage leading to us having the resilience and price exposure problems we currently have.
Ultimately, any economy runs on energy. Far too few in government seem to understand that.
Is it me or is Davey's energy bung and Truss' tax plans about the same cost to the exchequer ? Davey's plan seems a better use of money if it is the case tbh.
Government should take some of the slack because, for the last 20 years, each administration has can-kicked on renewing nuclear power and gas storage leading to us having the resilience and price exposure problems we currently have.
Ultimately, any economy runs on energy. Far too few in government seem to understand that.
One thing about energy, you can't just instantly print more like you can with currency.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
That he issued defamatory and untrue statements about the Sandy Hook relatives, over many years, is a matter of long and extensively documented public knowledge. The only other hurdle the plaintiffs would have had to clear (and it's quite a high hurdle in the US) is proving actual malice.
Had there been a full trial, that might conceivably have gone either way. But the defendant perjured himself in the most blatant manner imaginable, so he lost.
There's really nothing to debate here, other than the nature of his lawyers' incompetence. But that also is no defence in a civil case (it might be in a criminal one).
Mr. Malmesbury, the Republican constitution of Rome had been mangled a lot since before Caesar's time. Exemptions to longstanding traditions (I forget who, maybe Sempronius, got it waived to deal with Iberia, and Marius was consul a ridiculous number of times) had become the norm.
It's interesting to consider what would have happened had Pompey won.
Cicero has it right - it was a fight between the two candidates for monarchy. Pompey would have been Princeps himself, but a lot nastier than Caesar
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Trouble is, NI is not just another tax; it is the tax you pay to qualify for a pension, so why do those who have already qualified need to pay? It is the flip side of the Waspi women issue, where some women did not pay enough stamps for a full pension. It might be, with hindsight, HMG should have caved on that and broken the NI/pension link for good.
That is inevitable anyway. So they might as well get on and do it. It is a minor issue compared with the iniquity of the current system. And with the changes in the way people work it is also a completely outdated system.
The trouble is that pensioners range from millionaires to the very poor. If you lose the triple lock because some do not rely on the £200 a week from the state, you penalise the poorest, who do.
People get hung up on the triple lock. Why not do away with higher rate tax relief on contributions? Another measure that favours the rich, and can be removed without hurting the poor.
But while we were not looking, likely future Prime Minister Liz Truss chucked some more pension money at the rich when she promised to review the pension cap that is causing so many doctors to take early retirement. Life's complicated.
So have a triple lock for state support for the poorest 10 or 20% of people of all ages (still only for a limited period of time) rather than offering it exclusively to the richest cohort ever. Of course the younger poor don't vote either in sufficient numbers or the right way.
If it is about supporting the poorest, then define it by incomes and assets, not age. Otherwise bin it.
How? Add a new pension class to Universal Credit? Pensions, both state and private, have always been about age.
UBI - it’s coming, probably within a couple of decades
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
And remember when Amber Heard called Johnny Depp an abuser without the evidence to back it up and the judge *didn't* throw it out.
The US doesn't have absolute freedom of speech. It just has a higher bar (than here) for a prosecution to succeed against that defence. These cases can go either way. The specifics matter. Eg, in this case, unlike the Musk tweet, Alex Jones ran a relentless, calculated, highly impactful smear over many years.
In saying he's been convicted due to the judge's politics, rather than on the merits of the case, you're imputing partisanship where there's no evidence of it. America is in a bad enough place already on that score and the more people think like you the worse it'll get.
Is there evidence of partisanship on the RvW reversal decision, or does this game only work in one direction?
Mr. Malmesbury, late Republic is not a time I know much about. Apart from the elephant story (earning the ire of a crowd when he couldn't find wild elephants and used domesticated ones in games, but the poor things were so terrified even Romans were sympathetic towards them) which may or may not be true I don't know much of Pompey's character. Why do you say he would have been nastier?
It seems somewhat to have run along similar, though more advanced, lines to Marius and Sulla previously.
Is it me or is Davey's energy bung and Truss' tax plans about the same cost to the exchequer ? Davey's plan seems a better use of money if it is the case tbh.
Government should take some of the slack because, for the last 20 years, each administration has can-kicked on renewing nuclear power and gas storage leading to us having the resilience and price exposure problems we currently have.
Ultimately, any economy runs on energy. Far too few in government seem to understand that.
One thing about energy, you can't just instantly print more like you can with currency.
That's true, because energy is real while money isn't.
Incidentally, when did the right-wing start becoming reflexively anti new technology? Whenever a new technology comes along there always seem to be a bunch of right-wrong people creating sprouts arguments why it's crap.
We've seen this with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, heart pumps, over and over again. It's really negative and boring. Indicative that there are many on the right who just reflexively oppose anything, particularly if they've ever heard a left-wrong person surreal favourably about it.
Surreal indeed
The case against heat pumps is pretty compelling, as even their proponents seem to concede. Barely detectable warmth pumps would be more accurate
A plumber who did some work for us talked about combined air-source heat pump/oil boilers for older rural properties like ours. The idea is a constant level of heating from the air source and when needed the oil kicks in. I guess a bit like hybrid cars. My relatives in Scotland had a new house built with ground source heating and fully set up for it (very well insulated, under floor heating) and it works brilliantly. The issue for most is that retro-fitting is not so simple (as has been said probably new, bigger radiators, bigger diameter pipes and so on.
All new builds should be built to standards that allow air-source or ground source heat pumps, but the residual housing stock is a far harder challenge.
So given the vast majority of our housing stock is existing this isn't going to happen, is it?
Who could afford to do it and who wants the disruption?
They're going to have to get much better and cheaper before there will be mass take-up. Ecoshaming and virtue-signalling won't cut it.
For existing homes with gas-fired boilers, converting the gas network to hydrogen and replacing the boiler with a hydrogen boiler is the lowest pain way to decarbonise from the householder perspective.
Sounds right. Our one year old boiler is 'ready for hydrogen'. By which I understand hydrogen mixed in with natural gas. By itself hydrogen is rather difficult to pipe around the network being so light it leaks very easily.
All boilers can cope with up to 20% hydrogen (by volume) - which is around 7% by energy content. A "hydrogen ready" boiler can run on 100% hydrogen - if the network switches over.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean free of consequence. As we know on here, when it comes to certain stories that cannot be broken here. The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences.
Oh indeed, but in the USA they have a very high bar for defamation - which is why Americans sue each other in London all the time. If you’re not inciting violence or making threats to kill, you’re usually okay.
Absolutely having a high bar is appropriate.
Jones cleared that high bar in a way even Olympic athletes would struggle to do.
There's a balance between free speech and defamation laws. The USA correctly has a very high bar. The UK - specifically the London libel courts are weighted way too heavily in favour against free speech.
Agree on London.
On Alex Jones, aiui and I've not really been following the case so take this with a pinch of salt, by continually playing silly beggars, Jones stopped the case being about defamation and turned it into a case about contempt and perjury.
In which case he should have been tried for those as a criminal issue, rather than it being used as a factor in deciding damages. The two issues should have been kept entirely separate.
Incidentally, when did the right-wing start becoming reflexively anti new technology? Whenever a new technology comes along there always seem to be a bunch of right-wrong people creating sprouts arguments why it's crap.
We've seen this with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, heart pumps, over and over again. It's really negative and boring. Indicative that there are many on the right who just reflexively oppose anything, particularly if they've ever heard a left-wrong person surreal favourably about it.
Surreal indeed
The case against heat pumps is pretty compelling, as even their proponents seem to concede. Barely detectable warmth pumps would be more accurate
A plumber who did some work for us talked about combined air-source heat pump/oil boilers for older rural properties like ours. The idea is a constant level of heating from the air source and when needed the oil kicks in. I guess a bit like hybrid cars. My relatives in Scotland had a new house built with ground source heating and fully set up for it (very well insulated, under floor heating) and it works brilliantly. The issue for most is that retro-fitting is not so simple (as has been said probably new, bigger radiators, bigger diameter pipes and so on.
All new builds should be built to standards that allow air-source or ground source heat pumps, but the residual housing stock is a far harder challenge.
Correct.
A properly built house reduces the heat required for heating by 80-90% over a traditional house. A renovation can reduce it by about 60-65% without extreme measures.
There's a project going on near me to see how far they can take retrofitting insulation etc into the old Victorian tenements.
From some interviews one the project leads has given - it sounds like quite an adventure once you begin to peel away some of the old plaster and brickwork.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
As far as I can tell, my wife and I are paying £2,000 a year extra now (and it absolutely won't end there) so wealthy older pensioners don't have to use their homes as collateral to fund their social care.
I see that as pretty disgraceful. But Theresa May soiled the sheets.
It isn't wealthy older pensioners who will benefit but their children and without them the Tories are screwed, see 2017 where there was a swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s but a swing to the Tories amongst over 65s
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean free of consequence. As we know on here, when it comes to certain stories that cannot be broken here. The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences.
True, but the other side of that is you don't want to create a risk of catastrophic consequences to someone's livelihood such that they hold their tongue.
If their livelihood is entirely derived form peddling malicious falsehoods, then creating the risk of catastrophic consequence to that livelihood seems quite acceptable.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean free of consequence. As we know on here, when it comes to certain stories that cannot be broken here. The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences.
True, but the other side of that is you don't want to create a risk of catastrophic consequences to someone's livelihood such that they hold their tongue.
Indeed. But looking at this case - prolonged and malicious lies about people who lost their children in a horrific incident and broadcasting them repeatedly to a wide audience who believed what he was saying, whilst he knew it to be untrue, whilst he coined in tens of millions of dollars - I don't think that risk existed here.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
NI should actually be ring-fenced to fund state pensions, contributory unemployment benefits and health care as it was set up to do
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
As far as I can tell, my wife and I are paying £2,000 a year extra now (and it absolutely won't end there) so wealthy older pensioners don't have to use their homes as collateral to fund their social care.
I see that as pretty disgraceful. But Theresa May soiled the sheets.
It isn't wealthy older pensioners who will benefit but their children and without them the Tories are screwed, see 2017 where there was a swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s but a swing to the Tories amongst over 65s
A lot of social care happens in people's homes. And it may be that only one of a couple needs care at all, in which case the other will benefit.
The children are entirely secondary and contingent on what happens with mum and dad.
Is it me or is Davey's energy bung and Truss' tax plans about the same cost to the exchequer ? Davey's plan seems a better use of money if it is the case tbh.
Government should take some of the slack because, for the last 20 years, each administration has can-kicked on renewing nuclear power and gas storage leading to us having the resilience and price exposure problems we currently have.
Ultimately, any economy runs on energy. Far too few in government seem to understand that.
And that's not hindsight - you and others here have been arguing along those lines for years.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
As far as I can tell, my wife and I are paying £2,000 a year extra now (and it absolutely won't end there) so wealthy older pensioners don't have to use their homes as collateral to fund their social care.
I see that as pretty disgraceful. But Theresa May soiled the sheets.
It isn't wealthy older pensioners who will benefit but their children and without them the Tories are screwed, see 2017 where there was a swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s but a swing to the Tories amongst over 65s
A lot of social care happens in people's homes. And it may be that only one of a couple needs care at all, in which case the other will benefit.
The children are entirely secondary and contingent on what happens with mum and dad.
And under May's plan all assets over £100k would have been liable for at home care as well as care in care homes. Now asset liability is capped at £86 k
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
That he issued defamatory and untrue statements about the Sandy Hook relatives, over many years, is a matter of long and extensively documented public knowledge. The only other hurdle the plaintiffs would have had to clear (and it's quite a high hurdle in the US) is proving actual malice.
Had there been a full trial, that might conceivably have gone either way. But the defendant perjured himself in the most blatant manner imaginable, so he lost.
There's really nothing to debate here, other than the nature of his lawyers' incompetence. But that also is no defence in a civil case (it might be in a criminal one).
AIUI he lost the basic case because he didn't offer a defence in time, I think? The much-publicised case was not to decide the merits but to set the compensation and damages and costs.
Did Sandy Hook parents suffer real damages because of Alex Jones's campaign against them? According to them, yes. For example:
" The father of a 6-year-old boy killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting testified Tuesday that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones made his life a "living hell" by pushing claims that the murders were a hoax involving actors aimed at increasing gun control.
In more than an hour of emotional testimony during which he often fought back tears, Neil Heslin said he has endured online abuse, anonymous phone calls and harassment on the street. . . . Heslin said his home and car have been shot at, and his attorneys said Monday that the family had an "encounter" in Austin after the trial began in the city and have been in isolation under security."
Is it me or is Davey's energy bung and Truss' tax plans about the same cost to the exchequer ? Davey's plan seems a better use of money if it is the case tbh.
Government should take some of the slack because, for the last 20 years, each administration has can-kicked on renewing nuclear power and gas storage leading to us having the resilience and price exposure problems we currently have.
Ultimately, any economy runs on energy. Far too few in government seem to understand that.
Clegg saying no to nuclear because at the earliest it wouldn't come online until 2021/2, would require taxpayer subsidy and people don't have a plan for the waste... nice neat example of the coalition's short-term thinking hurting us now.
Mr. Malmesbury, late Republic is not a time I know much about. Apart from the elephant story (earning the ire of a crowd when he couldn't find wild elephants and used domesticated ones in games, but the poor things were so terrified even Romans were sympathetic towards them) which may or may not be true I don't know much of Pompey's character. Why do you say he would have been nastier?
It seems somewhat to have run along similar, though more advanced, lines to Marius and Sulla previously.
His nickname, which he earned, was Kid Butcher. His idea of dealing with Rome was to fairly overt - kill all the supporters of Caesar and use the loot to pay his troops… Cicero realised that Pompey was out of the control of the Optimates. Who’d used Pompey as a weapon up to that point.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
As far as I can tell, my wife and I are paying £2,000 a year extra now (and it absolutely won't end there) so wealthy older pensioners don't have to use their homes as collateral to fund their social care.
I see that as pretty disgraceful. But Theresa May soiled the sheets.
It isn't wealthy older pensioners who will benefit but their children and without them the Tories are screwed, see 2017 where there was a swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s but a swing to the Tories amongst over 65s
A lot of social care happens in people's homes. And it may be that only one of a couple needs care at all, in which case the other will benefit.
The children are entirely secondary and contingent on what happens with mum and dad.
And under May's plan all assets over £100k would have been liable for at home care as well as care in care homes. Now asset liability is capped at £86 k
Not relevant to your argument which focussed solely on the notion that pensioners wouldn't benefit at all, which is plainly nonsense.
YouGov, the only pollster to correctly weigh geographical sub-samples, also show that Keir Starmer is a dud. Back down to 3rd place in Scotland = no cigars.
London Lab 42% Con 28% LD 15% Grn 10% Ref 2%
Rest of South Con 41% Lab 32% LD 14% Grn 8% Ref 3%
Midlands and Wales Lab 40% Con 34% LD 9% PC 6% Grn 6% Ref 4%
North Lab 47% Con 29% Grn 9% LD 8% Ref 5%
Scotland SNP 51% Con 22% Lab 16% LD 5% Grn 4% Ref 1%
(YouGov / The Times; Sample Size: 1,968; Fieldwork: 4th - 5th August 2022)
Pro-independence parties 55% Unionist parties 44%
It doesn't matter if the SNP are on 99%, Truss has made clear she will not allow any indyref2 on her watch. As the future of the union is reserved to Westminster and the UK government under the Scotland Act 1998 nothing the SNP can do about it.
In fact logically it is better for the SNP to lose seats in Scotland but hold the balance of power in a hung parliament at Westminster than for the SNP to gain seats in Scotland and increase their number of MPs there but for either the Tories to win another majority or Labour to win most seats and have either a majority or enough seats to have a majority with the LDs
If and when support reaches 99% (Norway, 1905 levels) the least of your worries will be “the SNP”.
Legally however the future of the union would still remain with Westminster, even if practically it might be a bit more difficult
"practically": so you admit the principle, that a majority for independence is sufficient?
Astonishing about-turn.
No, I was talking practically in terms of ensuring law enforcement maintain Westminster's sovereignty over Scotland in the reserved areas.
Obviously I still oppose indyref2 for a generation
Armed suppression of democracy. How do you sleep?
Do you remember that HYUFD claims routinely that the only reason Ireland got partial independence is armed insurrection? And that he advocates armed insurrection still to create an Armagh/Antrim state in the event of full independence for Ireland?
So I'm having difficutly with his logic.
No armed insurrection = reason to refuse independence, *or even a referendum* Armed insurrection = reason to refuse independence, or *even a referendum* (unless we are talking about his chums in Antrim)
Where is the armed insurrection in Scotland? 2014 was a once in a generation referendum. There are no SNP terrorists or armed volunteers as there have been in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Opinion in Scotland is still equally divided on independence.
The hypothetical was that even if the vast majority of Scots wanted independence legally Westminster could still refuse an indyref2 for a generation as the future of the Union is reserved to Westminster and enforce that. However even that scenario does not currently exist as there is no big majority in Scotland for independence
You are thje one who keeps talking about armed insurrection in Scotland. Only this morning, you did.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Trouble is, NI is not just another tax; it is the tax you pay to qualify for a pension, so why do those who have already qualified need to pay? It is the flip side of the Waspi women issue, where some women did not pay enough stamps for a full pension. It might be, with hindsight, HMG should have caved on that and broken the NI/pension link for good.
That is inevitable anyway. So they might as well get on and do it. It is a minor issue compared with the iniquity of the current system. And with the changes in the way people work it is also a completely outdated system.
The trouble is that pensioners range from millionaires to the very poor. If you lose the triple lock because some do not rely on the £200 a week from the state, you penalise the poorest, who do.
People get hung up on the triple lock. Why not do away with higher rate tax relief on contributions? Another measure that favours the rich, and can be removed without hurting the poor.
But while we were not looking, likely future Prime Minister Liz Truss chucked some more pension money at the rich when she promised to review the pension cap that is causing so many doctors to take early retirement. Life's complicated.
Higher rate tax relief is probably the easiest (politically) cash grab for the exchequer out there.
Incidentally, when did the right-wing start becoming reflexively anti new technology? Whenever a new technology comes along there always seem to be a bunch of right-wrong people creating sprouts arguments why it's crap.
We've seen this with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, heart pumps, over and over again. It's really negative and boring. Indicative that there are many on the right who just reflexively oppose anything, particularly if they've ever heard a left-wrong person surreal favourably about it.
Surreal indeed
The case against heat pumps is pretty compelling, as even their proponents seem to concede. Barely detectable warmth pumps would be more accurate
A plumber who did some work for us talked about combined air-source heat pump/oil boilers for older rural properties like ours. The idea is a constant level of heating from the air source and when needed the oil kicks in. I guess a bit like hybrid cars. My relatives in Scotland had a new house built with ground source heating and fully set up for it (very well insulated, under floor heating) and it works brilliantly. The issue for most is that retro-fitting is not so simple (as has been said probably new, bigger radiators, bigger diameter pipes and so on.
All new builds should be built to standards that allow air-source or ground source heat pumps, but the residual housing stock is a far harder challenge.
So given the vast majority of our housing stock is existing this isn't going to happen, is it?
Who could afford to do it and who wants the disruption?
They're going to have to get much better and cheaper before there will be mass take-up. Ecoshaming and virtue-signalling won't cut it.
For existing homes with gas-fired boilers, converting the gas network to hydrogen and replacing the boiler with a hydrogen boiler is the lowest pain way to decarbonise from the householder perspective.
Sounds right. Our one year old boiler is 'ready for hydrogen'. By which I understand hydrogen mixed in with natural gas. By itself hydrogen is rather difficult to pipe around the network being so light it leaks very easily.
All boilers can cope with up to 20% hydrogen (by volume) - which is around 7% by energy content. A "hydrogen ready" boiler can run on 100% hydrogen - if the network switches over.
A plumber who can make pipe work gas right for Hydrogen will have to be a genius at pope fitting. Pros in the rocket world still have a hard time with it….
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean free of consequence. As we know on here, when it comes to certain stories that cannot be broken here. The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences.
Oh indeed, but in the USA they have a very high bar for defamation - which is why Americans sue each other in London all the time. If you’re not inciting violence or making threats to kill, you’re usually okay.
Absolutely having a high bar is appropriate.
Jones cleared that high bar in a way even Olympic athletes would struggle to do.
There's a balance between free speech and defamation laws. The USA correctly has a very high bar. The UK - specifically the London libel courts are weighted way too heavily in favour against free speech.
Agree on London.
On Alex Jones, aiui and I've not really been following the case so take this with a pinch of salt, by continually playing silly beggars, Jones stopped the case being about defamation and turned it into a case about contempt and perjury.
In which case he should have been tried for those as a criminal issue, rather than it being used as a factor in deciding damages. The two issues should have been kept entirely separate.
Damages is a separate problem. What the Americans have is compensatory damages, which are high by our standards, and punitive damages which are like winning the lottery. In the Jones case, I think it was something like $4 million compensation and $40 million punitive.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean free of consequence. As we know on here, when it comes to certain stories that cannot be broken here. The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences.
Oh indeed, but in the USA they have a very high bar for defamation - which is why Americans sue each other in London all the time. If you’re not inciting violence or making threats to kill, you’re usually okay.
Absolutely having a high bar is appropriate.
Jones cleared that high bar in a way even Olympic athletes would struggle to do.
There's a balance between free speech and defamation laws. The USA correctly has a very high bar. The UK - specifically the London libel courts are weighted way too heavily in favour against free speech.
Agree on London.
On Alex Jones, aiui and I've not really been following the case so take this with a pinch of salt, by continually playing silly beggars, Jones stopped the case being about defamation and turned it into a case about contempt and perjury.
In which case he should have been tried for those as a criminal issue, rather than it being used as a factor in deciding damages. The two issues should have been kept entirely separate.
If you are interested in the history of this the podcast Knowledge Fight recently hosted the lawyers to discuss the trial.
As far as I'm aware, the Jones trial on whether it was defamation was soooooo prolonged and sooooo bad faith that the judge summarily declared him guilty of defamation without trial because it was clear that no other action could possibly move the trial along. You can't treat civil court like a waste paper basket, where claims get chucked in and you delay and delay and delay to try and get out of it.
The interesting thing for Jones now is that, because InfoWars has declared bankruptcy, the plaintiffs in this case and all the other cases currently pending against him will essentially be picking over the bones of the company (in the words of one of the plaintiff lawyers). So Jones and InfoWars could be left with nothing, even the name, whereas if he had at the beginning apologised and paid out a couple of grand, none of this would likely be happening.
Incidentally, when did the right-wing start becoming reflexively anti new technology? Whenever a new technology comes along there always seem to be a bunch of right-wrong people creating sprouts arguments why it's crap.
We've seen this with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, heart pumps, over and over again. It's really negative and boring. Indicative that there are many on the right who just reflexively oppose anything, particularly if they've ever heard a left-wrong person surreal favourably about it.
Perhaps when they started getting most of their votes from the elderly? But conservatives have always been against change, by definition.
Which is an important part of any political debate.
Otherwise we'd have constant disruption, social disturbance and political revolution, and implement a lot of stupid ideas that would retard us economically and politically.
"Progressives" need "conservatives" to challenge and filter them so we get steady and progressive incremental change, rather than blow up the system or no change whatsoever. Ying and Yang.
It's how it's supposed to work.
Yeah I don't disagree with that at all. It feels a bit unbalanced at the moment, mind, so instead of getting incremental change we get stasis, while evidence of the system not working mounts. Eventually that will lead to far more radical change down the line, which even I don't want - I am too old and invested for violent revolution.
Fair enough, I sort of agree with you too - young people are getting rogered by the current system, and I don't want them revolting and bringing it all down.
There is definitely a problem with some of the older generation. My client is doing plenty of stakeholder consultations on Sizewell C in Suffolk at the moment and the existing residents couldn't give a toss about skills/training/jobs or energy transition, they only care about their property prices and disruption during construction.
You'd think they'd care more about their own children and grandchildren, but no. I don't want that to blowback and be reciprocated.
Re nuclear plants, I recently stopped by Sellafield, wanted to take a look at it, nice change from conventionally pretty scenery, also because an old schoolmate of mine used to run it.
Drove up to the gate, got out of my car and strolled up to the security guy. Told him this, about my old schoolmate and all, and he was totally unmoved. Looked at me like I was a maniac. Told me "No, you can't come in."
I picked up the vibe and backed away, grinning knowingly, saying "ok ok, yes, security, I suppose" ... he remains stony faced and silent ... "so maybe I'll just drive around and take a few pictures." I'm giving him a big thumbs up as I'm blurting this out. Total Alan Partridge.
"Where's the best place to get some good pictures?" I go, unbelievably. Amazing what nerves and embarrassment can do. He doesn't answer, just a little shake of the head, so I trot back to the car and drive off. I see in the mirror he's writing something in a little notepad. 5 minutes later, I'm pulled over by the Police and given a computer check and a 30 minute roadside grilling on who I am and wtf I was wanting photos of nuclear plants for.
Quite unsettling it was. My wife stayed supercalm but I was quaking inside. If I'd had a record or looked 'dodgy' in some way who knows where it might have ended up.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
As far as I can tell, my wife and I are paying £2,000 a year extra now (and it absolutely won't end there) so wealthy older pensioners don't have to use their homes as collateral to fund their social care.
I see that as pretty disgraceful. But Theresa May soiled the sheets.
It isn't wealthy older pensioners who will benefit but their children and without them the Tories are screwed, see 2017 where there was a swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s but a swing to the Tories amongst over 65s
A lot of social care happens in people's homes. And it may be that only one of a couple needs care at all, in which case the other will benefit.
The children are entirely secondary and contingent on what happens with mum and dad.
And under May's plan all assets over £100k would have been liable for at home care as well as care in care homes. Now asset liability is capped at £86 k
Not relevant to your argument which focussed solely on the notion that pensioners wouldn't benefit at all, which is plainly nonsense.
If only 1 partner in a married couple gets dementia and the other partner outlives them and never gets dementia that other partner might benefit.
However the children would still benefit whether 1 or both get dementia.
As I also pointed out it was the swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s in 2017 that lost May her majority, 45 to 54s swung back to Boris in 2019 giving him his majority. Without 45 to 54s the Tories are therefore screwed in terms of winning a majority.
Over 65s by contrast swung to the Tories in both 2017 and 2019 anyway
Incidentally, when did the right-wing start becoming reflexively anti new technology? Whenever a new technology comes along there always seem to be a bunch of right-wrong people creating sprouts arguments why it's crap.
We've seen this with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, heart pumps, over and over again. It's really negative and boring. Indicative that there are many on the right who just reflexively oppose anything, particularly if they've ever heard a left-wrong person surreal favourably about it.
Surreal indeed
The case against heat pumps is pretty compelling, as even their proponents seem to concede. Barely detectable warmth pumps would be more accurate
A plumber who did some work for us talked about combined air-source heat pump/oil boilers for older rural properties like ours. The idea is a constant level of heating from the air source and when needed the oil kicks in. I guess a bit like hybrid cars. My relatives in Scotland had a new house built with ground source heating and fully set up for it (very well insulated, under floor heating) and it works brilliantly. The issue for most is that retro-fitting is not so simple (as has been said probably new, bigger radiators, bigger diameter pipes and so on.
All new builds should be built to standards that allow air-source or ground source heat pumps, but the residual housing stock is a far harder challenge.
So given the vast majority of our housing stock is existing this isn't going to happen, is it?
Who could afford to do it and who wants the disruption?
They're going to have to get much better and cheaper before there will be mass take-up. Ecoshaming and virtue-signalling won't cut it.
For existing homes with gas-fired boilers, converting the gas network to hydrogen and replacing the boiler with a hydrogen boiler is the lowest pain way to decarbonise from the householder perspective.
Sounds right. Our one year old boiler is 'ready for hydrogen'. By which I understand hydrogen mixed in with natural gas. By itself hydrogen is rather difficult to pipe around the network being so light it leaks very easily.
All boilers can cope with up to 20% hydrogen (by volume) - which is around 7% by energy content. A "hydrogen ready" boiler can run on 100% hydrogen - if the network switches over.
Not with the existing infrastructure. It would take decades to make the gas network useable for hydrogen. I have had to use hydrogen as a carrier gas in gas analysis systems for many years and the issues with leakage and security are a whole magnitude greater than for natural gas.
Of course it can be done - nothing is impossible. But it will be extremely costly and take a long time to achieve.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Trouble is, NI is not just another tax; it is the tax you pay to qualify for a pension, so why do those who have already qualified need to pay? It is the flip side of the Waspi women issue, where some women did not pay enough stamps for a full pension. It might be, with hindsight, HMG should have caved on that and broken the NI/pension link for good.
That is inevitable anyway. So they might as well get on and do it. It is a minor issue compared with the iniquity of the current system. And with the changes in the way people work it is also a completely outdated system.
The trouble is that pensioners range from millionaires to the very poor. If you lose the triple lock because some do not rely on the £200 a week from the state, you penalise the poorest, who do.
People get hung up on the triple lock. Why not do away with higher rate tax relief on contributions? Another measure that favours the rich, and can be removed without hurting the poor.
But while we were not looking, likely future Prime Minister Liz Truss chucked some more pension money at the rich when she promised to review the pension cap that is causing so many doctors to take early retirement. Life's complicated.
Higher rate tax relief is probably the easiest (politically) cash grab for the exchequer out there.
Guessing this would impact a lot of MPs personally though......
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
As far as I can tell, my wife and I are paying £2,000 a year extra now (and it absolutely won't end there) so wealthy older pensioners don't have to use their homes as collateral to fund their social care.
I see that as pretty disgraceful. But Theresa May soiled the sheets.
It isn't wealthy older pensioners who will benefit but their children and without them the Tories are screwed, see 2017 where there was a swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s but a swing to the Tories amongst over 65s
A lot of social care happens in people's homes. And it may be that only one of a couple needs care at all, in which case the other will benefit.
The children are entirely secondary and contingent on what happens with mum and dad.
And under May's plan all assets over £100k would have been liable for at home care as well as care in care homes. Now asset liability is capped at £86 k
Not relevant to your argument which focussed solely on the notion that pensioners wouldn't benefit at all, which is plainly nonsense.
If only 1 partner in a married couple gets dementia and the other partner outlives them and never gets dementia that other partner might benefit.
However the children would still benefit whether 1 or both get dementia.
As I also pointed out it was the swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s in 2017 that lost May her majority, 45 to 54s swung back to Boris in 2019 giving him his majority. Without 45 to 54s the Tories are therefore screwed in terms of winning a majority.
Over 65s by contrast swung to the Tories in both 2017 and 2019 anyway
Due to my wife's condition I am spending a lot of time study the costs of care at home at the moment and related issues.
An important point is the £86K cap has not been implemented. It is due Oct 2023 but there's already been slippage on one aspect of it. There is a trial with five councils starting at end of year and I wonder whether that will throw up more issues to cause delay. It's a lot of admin work for councils to track everyone's accounts as they build towards the cap.
And I am also v concerned that Liz Truss will tear the whole thing up and start again.
Mr. Malmesbury, wasn't it the senatorial class who pushed Pompey into foolishly pursuing Caesar to Pharsalus, though?
Interesting backstory. I know only a little about piracy/Mithridates when it comes to Pompey pre-triumvirate.
Pompey seems to have been pretty good as as a general/organiser - but a political dunce. Which is why the Optimates thought they could use him.
The problem was that they built him up to the point they created a monster of their own. And trashed the constitution pretty thoroughly to do so.
An interesting counterfactual is what If they’d let Caesar run for Consul a second time. While he’d bent various rules to that point, it was nothing on what Pompey had done. All the evidence suggests he would have been elected Consul and then gone on his planned Parthian campaign. Which would either have killed Caesar or taken long enough that he would have been looking at retirement when he returned.
I’ve just watched a wasp attack a spider and fly away with it back to its nest.
I didn’t know they did that.
According to Google, they feed them to their young.
Wasps are nasty things. Those stings aren't just for picnics.
The Ichneumonidae are particularly 'amusing' if you are a caterpillar.
Wasps are awesome and get a very bad press. Even at the end of summer when they get a bit dozy, just leave them alone and they will not hurt you. Its the flapping around etc that causes issues.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
That he issued defamatory and untrue statements about the Sandy Hook relatives, over many years, is a matter of long and extensively documented public knowledge. The only other hurdle the plaintiffs would have had to clear (and it's quite a high hurdle in the US) is proving actual malice.
Had there been a full trial, that might conceivably have gone either way. But the defendant perjured himself in the most blatant manner imaginable, so he lost.
There's really nothing to debate here, other than the nature of his lawyers' incompetence. But that also is no defence in a civil case (it might be in a criminal one).
AIUI he lost the basic case because he didn't offer a defence in time, I think? The much-publicised case was not to decide the merits but to set the compensation and damages and costs.
Yes indeed (and there are three default judgments), but he lost this damages case big time (though there's little doubt actual damages will be scaled back somewhat on appeal.)
Note that the Texas Supreme Court threw out an appeal for dismissal of the lawsuits, and the Supreme Court itself refused another appeal.
It's impossible to argue in any reasonable manner that he hasn't received fair legal treatment.
Do you remember that HYUFD claims routinely that the only reason Ireland got partial independence is armed insurrection? And that he advocates armed insurrection still to create an Armagh/Antrim state in the event of full independence for Ireland?
Armagh? No, Armagh has a Catholic majority. It's Antrim and Down that have Protestant majorities.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
And remember when Amber Heard called Johnny Depp an abuser without the evidence to back it up and the judge *didn't* throw it out.
The US doesn't have absolute freedom of speech. It just has a higher bar (than here) for a prosecution to succeed against that defence. These cases can go either way. The specifics matter. Eg, in this case, unlike the Musk tweet, Alex Jones ran a relentless, calculated, highly impactful smear over many years.
In saying he's been convicted due to the judge's politics, rather than on the merits of the case, you're imputing partisanship where there's no evidence of it. America is in a bad enough place already on that score and the more people think like you the worse it'll get.
Is there evidence of partisanship on the RvW reversal decision, or does this game only work in one direction?
It shouldn't be a game. You should try to assess each case on its merits (and also not pretend an inflated level of knowledge or legal expertise). If people just assume everything is partisan - regardless of the evidence - things can never improve. As for your question, yes imo there is evidence of considerable partisanship on the United States Supreme Court, incl on the Roe reversal. I think even most of its supporters would agree with this.
As has been said, who raids an ex-President for the Presidential Records Act? It's like sending in the SAS to deal with a parking ticket. Unless they find a smoking gun, the Democrats have just given the Trump campaign a huge turnout boost when it comes to the GOP fan base without any corresponding boost to their own.
The timing on this is also not coincidental. Trump was the big winner of last week's primaries. At the same time, the Democrats got their spending bill in and the polls have narrowed for congress. They obviously thought it was the right time to strike. The idea that Biden didn't know about this is laughable.
But you reap what you sow. If you don't think the Republicans are not going to take your statement if they win Congress and investigate Biden for all the Hunter stuff, I have a bridge to sell you. Probably with Pelosi as well on all the share dealing stuff.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
The rule of law is the rule of law. In a democracy that matters.
I suspect unlike your demand for partisan retribution under a GOP Administration, there is some hard and fast evidence to suggest there are national security sensitive documents in Mar a Lago that shouldn't be in Mar a Lago. That seems worth investigating at a moment in time when the US is in tacit conflict with a foreign power that has known personal links to residents of Mar a Lago who previously had access to aforementioned sensitive material and now shouldn't.
Yawn. You are one of the most partisan people on here. Anything that comes up about Trump, you and many others can't stop your frothing. I don't want him to run in 2024, I think it would be bad for the United States but your woeful blindness when it comes to seeing only the faults of one side in this whole saga is at the root of the problem. Clinton's campaign after all was the only who fed false evidence to get a Federal court to sign off on the FBI investigating a Presidential campaign.
Yes I despise Trump and after events culminating on January 6th with good reason and with pride.
As far as partisanship is concerned when it comes to Trump there are not many less objective posters than yourself.
If there were such compelling evidence that the Clintons, the Bidens or the Obamas had been involved in undermining the democratic will of the people as we have seen with Trump, my view is they should be prosecuted with the same rigour as I am hoping will be the case with Trump.
What you mean apart from the fact I've said Trump shouldn't stand in 2024, that he was wrong to claim the November 2020 election was stolen, that the events of January 6th were wrong, and that he was a - to quote my word - "cunt" when it came to making positive comments about Putin when it came to Ukraine? You mean all that unambiguous backing for the man? Ok.
I'm glad you have the same standards for prosecuting - if necessary - the likes of HRC et al if they committed crimes. But I think you know yourself that isn't going to happen and not because the characters involved are all innocent. HRC should have been prosecuted alone for holding top secret documents on a private server. She also attempted to undermine an election by allowing her campaign to spread disingenuous information on the other candidate.
Your side doesn't get prosecuted and even when you have overwhelming evidence as in the Dunham case, you then a Democrat judge sitting in Washington DC who allows two jurors who openly admitted they supported the HRC campaign, with a third who funded AOC, to stay on the jury despite an attempt to exclude them. And, lo and behold, there is an acquittal.
Surely it isn't the fact of wanting to leave the EU that makes 'Leave' voters favour Liz Truss but the underlying values that voting 'Leave' implies.
'Leavers' were significantly more likely to favour capital punishment and corporal punishment in schools and their attitudes towards other social issues were more likely to be 'old fashioned' to say the least.
All of which you would tend to associate with Liz Truss whichever way she voted in 2016.
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
As far as I can tell, my wife and I are paying £2,000 a year extra now (and it absolutely won't end there) so wealthy older pensioners don't have to use their homes as collateral to fund their social care.
I see that as pretty disgraceful. But Theresa May soiled the sheets.
It isn't wealthy older pensioners who will benefit but their children and without them the Tories are screwed, see 2017 where there was a swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s but a swing to the Tories amongst over 65s
A lot of social care happens in people's homes. And it may be that only one of a couple needs care at all, in which case the other will benefit.
The children are entirely secondary and contingent on what happens with mum and dad.
And under May's plan all assets over £100k would have been liable for at home care as well as care in care homes. Now asset liability is capped at £86 k
Not relevant to your argument which focussed solely on the notion that pensioners wouldn't benefit at all, which is plainly nonsense.
If only 1 partner in a married couple gets dementia and the other partner outlives them and never gets dementia that other partner might benefit.
However the children would still benefit whether 1 or both get dementia.
As I also pointed out it was the swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s in 2017 that lost May her majority, 45 to 54s swung back to Boris in 2019 giving him his majority. Without 45 to 54s the Tories are therefore screwed in terms of winning a majority.
Over 65s by contrast swung to the Tories in both 2017 and 2019 anyway
Due to my wife's condition I am spending a lot of time study the costs of care at home at the moment and related issues.
An important point is the £86K cap has not been implemented. It is due Oct 2023 but there's already been slippage on one aspect of it. There is a trial with five councils starting at end of year and I wonder whether that will throw up more issues to cause delay. It's a lot of admin work for councils to track everyone's accounts as they build towards the cap.
And I am also v concerned that Liz Truss will tear the whole thing up and start again.
Condolences on your wife's condition.
If Truss scraps the £86k cap Boris brought in it will prove as big a suicide bomb with middle aged swing voters as May's dementia tax was. It would be a gift to Starmer and Davey
"Perhaps it is time the Tories accepted the triple lock is unsustainable. Keeping their word will cost the Treasury an additional £24bn and hand pensioners an extra £2,000 each over the next two springs."
The triple lock is a good thing. It protects poor pensioners, of whom there are a great many. If HMG wants to reclaim money from wealthy pensioners, it should do that, perhaps by removing the NI age limit. Better that than having to top up poorer pensioners with new benefits.
I think the change to the NI situation is long overdue. If one accepts that it is simply another tax - which I think is an unassailable position - then why should someone be exempted rom it simply because of their age.
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Trouble is, NI is not just another tax; it is the tax you pay to qualify for a pension, so why do those who have already qualified need to pay? It is the flip side of the Waspi women issue, where some women did not pay enough stamps for a full pension. It might be, with hindsight, HMG should have caved on that and broken the NI/pension link for good.
That is inevitable anyway. So they might as well get on and do it. It is a minor issue compared with the iniquity of the current system. And with the changes in the way people work it is also a completely outdated system.
The trouble is that pensioners range from millionaires to the very poor. If you lose the triple lock because some do not rely on the £200 a week from the state, you penalise the poorest, who do.
People get hung up on the triple lock. Why not do away with higher rate tax relief on contributions? Another measure that favours the rich, and can be removed without hurting the poor.
But while we were not looking, likely future Prime Minister Liz Truss chucked some more pension money at the rich when she promised to review the pension cap that is causing so many doctors to take early retirement. Life's complicated.
Higher rate tax relief is probably the easiest (politically) cash grab for the exchequer out there.
Just saw the news about Trump. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just when there was good news coming through for the Democrats, then they sign off on this. How stupid can you get.
This is law enforcement, not ‘the Democrats’. Just how stupid can you get - or is it that you just expect voters for fall for that kind of bullshit ?
A warrant was granted by a judge, and demonstrating probable cause to search a former President’s house would be a pretty high bar. That an AG as timid as the current one signed off on this reinforces that.
I watched bits of the Alex Jones defamation trial on youtube, which was quite interesting. If you look in to the judge, it is an elected position; and she is a democrat. That doesn't seem to be a good situation, somehow.
That also comes across as politically motivated, that he wasn’t even allowed a trial on the evidence, only a trial on how badly he should be financially ruined. His words were of course offensive, but didn’t cause anyone to be physically injured and he didn’t call for violence.
Electing individual judges and prosecutors is a bad idea, because prosecutions and judgements really should be aside from politics. In Texas, Jones can probably find a Conservative appeal judge.
C'mon, this is nuts. For profile and money Jones defamed people who'd already suffered an unimaginable tragedy, thus piling more mental anguish on them. Why would a judge with Conservative political views be any better disposed towards this?
Because they have freedom of speech in the USA, and take it seriously.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean free of consequence. As we know on here, when it comes to certain stories that cannot be broken here. The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences.
Oh indeed, but in the USA they have a very high bar for defamation - which is why Americans sue each other in London all the time. If you’re not inciting violence or making threats to kill, you’re usually okay.
Absolutely having a high bar is appropriate.
Jones cleared that high bar in a way even Olympic athletes would struggle to do.
There's a balance between free speech and defamation laws. The USA correctly has a very high bar. The UK - specifically the London libel courts are weighted way too heavily in favour against free speech.
Agree on London.
On Alex Jones, aiui and I've not really been following the case so take this with a pinch of salt, by continually playing silly beggars, Jones stopped the case being about defamation and turned it into a case about contempt and perjury.
In which case he should have been tried for those as a criminal issue, rather than it being used as a factor in deciding damages. The two issues should have been kept entirely separate.
If you are interested in the history of this the podcast Knowledge Fight recently hosted the lawyers to discuss the trial.
As far as I'm aware, the Jones trial on whether it was defamation was soooooo prolonged and sooooo bad faith that the judge summarily declared him guilty of defamation without trial because it was clear that no other action could possibly move the trial along. You can't treat civil court like a waste paper basket, where claims get chucked in and you delay and delay and delay to try and get out of it.
The interesting thing for Jones now is that, because InfoWars has declared bankruptcy, the plaintiffs in this case and all the other cases currently pending against him will essentially be picking over the bones of the company (in the words of one of the plaintiff lawyers). So Jones and InfoWars could be left with nothing, even the name, whereas if he had at the beginning apologised and paid out a couple of grand, none of this would likely be happening.
The Brexit excuse? Privatisation was a brilliant magic money tree policy and it's unfair that it has all gone wrong.
Here is the fundamental problem will flogging off strategic national infrastructure like water. There is no free market. No competition. Simply a monopoly where private companies "have paid their bosses gargantuan salaries, and their foreign owners enormous dividends, while failing to invest in the infrastructure necessary to deal with a thirsty and growing population."
But it is a regulated industry. So regulate the fuckers to do the strategic national infrastructure part. They won't invest otherwise so force them to do so as part of their operating license.
The 30 year failure of all governments to properly "regulate the fuckers" is the failing. Yes they should never have been flogged off abroad cheaply, but having done that they should at least have been forced to do what they need to do.
The real advantage is that it is taken away from direct political control. When nationalised, it becomes all about appearances and protecting political arses in the too and fro, rather than supplying a decent water service.
See, for example, the backside-covering reactions when the Ferret Fact Service found that shitty rivers had been tackled far less effectively in ('nationalised' water) Scotland than (privatised water) England: https://theferret.scot/scotland-behind-england-sewage-leaks/
I'm not convinced by the "privatisation failure" talking point - more investment, a lot less leakage, much higher purity water, and so on. To me it is like the delusional people alleging that rail privatisation is an abject failure compared to British Rail.
If there is a lot less leakage, how is it that the failure of private monopolies like Thames Water to do anything about maintenance is cited as one of the big drivers behind our water shortage?
These companies are pirates.
I think you need to admit that there have been significant benefits of regulated privatisation, alongside any criticisms you wish to make.
the failure of private monopolies like Thames Water to do anything about maintenance is cited as one of the big drivers behind our water shortage
You have data to support that? That leaks have been reduced as they have, and the investments made under the supervision and requirements defined by OFWAT, suggests that the 'failure to invest in maintenance' claim is basically baloney.
The latest is that OFWAT is targeting a further reduction in leaks by 2030, then 2050, funded out of company resources rather than increased prices. An effective regulator.
That it is cited as one of the *alleged* drivers behind our 'water shortage; is more to do with the politics of the anti-privatisation lobby imo, which seems to me to be based more on dogma than data.
As an example, I was having a debate with a Green person the other day, who was apparently seriously citing the failure to build any reservoirs in 30 years in dozens more of our river valleys as some sort of failure of privatisation - rather than as a success in reducing leakage and keeping demand reasonably well-managed, and thereby saving all that concrete etc.
But I'd say that UK Greens have always put political control by government in front of doing things that are actually green.
For my money, the next step is water meters everywhere so that the cost paid for the water service reflects the cost of providing it. Our water usage is relatively high compared to other countries, and a reduction of the order of 10-20% is a low-hanging fruit by that means. Then perhaps we will see water efficiency as a normal priority rather than as a bee-in-the-bonnet.
Incidentally, when did the right-wing start becoming reflexively anti new technology? Whenever a new technology comes along there always seem to be a bunch of right-wrong people creating sprouts arguments why it's crap.
We've seen this with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, heart pumps, over and over again. It's really negative and boring. Indicative that there are many on the right who just reflexively oppose anything, particularly if they've ever heard a left-wrong person surreal favourably about it.
Perhaps when they started getting most of their votes from the elderly? But conservatives have always been against change, by definition.
Which is an important part of any political debate.
Otherwise we'd have constant disruption, social disturbance and political revolution, and implement a lot of stupid ideas that would retard us economically and politically.
"Progressives" need "conservatives" to challenge and filter them so we get steady and progressive incremental change, rather than blow up the system or no change whatsoever. Ying and Yang.
It's how it's supposed to work.
Yeah I don't disagree with that at all. It feels a bit unbalanced at the moment, mind, so instead of getting incremental change we get stasis, while evidence of the system not working mounts. Eventually that will lead to far more radical change down the line, which even I don't want - I am too old and invested for violent revolution.
Fair enough, I sort of agree with you too - young people are getting rogered by the current system, and I don't want them revolting and bringing it all down.
There is definitely a problem with some of the older generation. My client is doing plenty of stakeholder consultations on Sizewell C in Suffolk at the moment and the existing residents couldn't give a toss about skills/training/jobs or energy transition, they only care about their property prices and disruption during construction.
You'd think they'd care more about their own children and grandchildren, but no. I don't want that to blowback and be reciprocated.
Re nuclear plants, I recently stopped by Sellafield, wanted to take a look at it, nice change from conventionally pretty scenery, also because an old schoolmate of mine used to run it.
Drove up to the gate, got out of my car and strolled up to the security guy. Told him this, about my old schoolmate and all, and he was totally unmoved. Looked at me like I was a maniac. Told me "No, you can't come in."
I picked up the vibe and backed away, grinning knowingly, saying "ok ok, yes, security, I suppose" ... he remains stony faced and silent ... "so maybe I'll just drive around and take a few pictures." I'm giving him a big thumbs up as I'm blurting this out. Total Alan Partridge.
"Where's the best place to get some good pictures?" I go, unbelievably. Amazing what nerves and embarrassment can do. He doesn't answer, just a little shake of the head, so I trot back to the car and drive off. I see in the mirror he's writing something in a little notepad. 5 minutes later, I'm pulled over by the Police and given a computer check and a 30 minute roadside grilling on who I am and wtf I was wanting photos of nuclear plants for.
Quite unsettling it was. My wife stayed supercalm but I was quaking inside. If I'd had a record or looked 'dodgy' in some way who knows where it might have ended up.
To be fair, I would have had you down as a slight weirdo if you rocked up to the gates of nuclear plant and asked for access but nothing more than that. I certainly wouldn't have had you pulled over. But then I guess everyone want s to be ultra-cautious these days.
Hmm..Liz Truss doing a very robotic statement on sky now. Seems to be forgetting tax cuts aren’t going to touch the sides on the bill increases we’re about to see
Incidentally, when did the right-wing start becoming reflexively anti new technology? Whenever a new technology comes along there always seem to be a bunch of right-wrong people creating sprouts arguments why it's crap.
We've seen this with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, heart pumps, over and over again. It's really negative and boring. Indicative that there are many on the right who just reflexively oppose anything, particularly if they've ever heard a left-wrong person surreal favourably about it.
Surreal indeed
The case against heat pumps is pretty compelling, as even their proponents seem to concede. Barely detectable warmth pumps would be more accurate
A plumber who did some work for us talked about combined air-source heat pump/oil boilers for older rural properties like ours. The idea is a constant level of heating from the air source and when needed the oil kicks in. I guess a bit like hybrid cars. My relatives in Scotland had a new house built with ground source heating and fully set up for it (very well insulated, under floor heating) and it works brilliantly. The issue for most is that retro-fitting is not so simple (as has been said probably new, bigger radiators, bigger diameter pipes and so on.
All new builds should be built to standards that allow air-source or ground source heat pumps, but the residual housing stock is a far harder challenge.
So given the vast majority of our housing stock is existing this isn't going to happen, is it?
Who could afford to do it and who wants the disruption?
They're going to have to get much better and cheaper before there will be mass take-up. Ecoshaming and virtue-signalling won't cut it.
For existing homes with gas-fired boilers, converting the gas network to hydrogen and replacing the boiler with a hydrogen boiler is the lowest pain way to decarbonise from the householder perspective.
Sounds right. Our one year old boiler is 'ready for hydrogen'. By which I understand hydrogen mixed in with natural gas. By itself hydrogen is rather difficult to pipe around the network being so light it leaks very easily.
All boilers can cope with up to 20% hydrogen (by volume) - which is around 7% by energy content. A "hydrogen ready" boiler can run on 100% hydrogen - if the network switches over.
Not with the existing infrastructure. It would take decades to make the gas network useable for hydrogen. I have had to use hydrogen as a carrier gas in gas analysis systems for many years and the issues with leakage and security are a whole magnitude greater than for natural gas.
Of course it can be done - nothing is impossible. But it will be extremely costly and take a long time to achieve.
There are considerable energy losses involved, but hopefully we'll get to the stage of having lots of excess energy on windy days, and then you can convert hydrogen to methane, which we know all about storing and transporting.
It's another reason to expand gas storage, as it can be used to store methane as a store of wind energy.
Surely it isn't the fact of wanting to leave the EU that makes 'Leave' voters favour Liz Truss but the underlying values that voting 'Leave' implies.
'Leavers' were significantly more likely to favour capital punishment and corporal punishment in schools and their attitudes towards other social issues were 'old fashioned' to say the least.
All of which you would tend to associate with Liz Truss whichever way she voted in 2016.
Truss actually does slightly worse with Leavers than Boris. 51% of Leavers prefer Boris to Starmer but only 48% prefer Truss to Starmer. However she still does better than the 40% who prefer Sunak to Starmer.
Truss does better with Remainers than Boris, 13% prefer her to Starmer compared to 11% who preferred Boris to Starmer. Sunak does better than both though, 19% of Remainers prefer Sunak to Starmer.
That suggests Truss will do worse in the redwall than Boris did but better than Sunak would. However Truss would do better in the bluewall than Boris but not as well as Sunak would
Incidentally, when did the right-wing start becoming reflexively anti new technology? Whenever a new technology comes along there always seem to be a bunch of right-wrong people creating sprouts arguments why it's crap.
We've seen this with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, heart pumps, over and over again. It's really negative and boring. Indicative that there are many on the right who just reflexively oppose anything, particularly if they've ever heard a left-wrong person surreal favourably about it.
Perhaps when they started getting most of their votes from the elderly? But conservatives have always been against change, by definition.
Which is an important part of any political debate.
Otherwise we'd have constant disruption, social disturbance and political revolution, and implement a lot of stupid ideas that would retard us economically and politically.
"Progressives" need "conservatives" to challenge and filter them so we get steady and progressive incremental change, rather than blow up the system or no change whatsoever. Ying and Yang.
It's how it's supposed to work.
Yeah I don't disagree with that at all. It feels a bit unbalanced at the moment, mind, so instead of getting incremental change we get stasis, while evidence of the system not working mounts. Eventually that will lead to far more radical change down the line, which even I don't want - I am too old and invested for violent revolution.
Fair enough, I sort of agree with you too - young people are getting rogered by the current system, and I don't want them revolting and bringing it all down.
There is definitely a problem with some of the older generation. My client is doing plenty of stakeholder consultations on Sizewell C in Suffolk at the moment and the existing residents couldn't give a toss about skills/training/jobs or energy transition, they only care about their property prices and disruption during construction.
You'd think they'd care more about their own children and grandchildren, but no. I don't want that to blowback and be reciprocated.
Re nuclear plants, I recently stopped by Sellafield, wanted to take a look at it, nice change from conventionally pretty scenery, also because an old schoolmate of mine used to run it.
Drove up to the gate, got out of my car and strolled up to the security guy. Told him this, about my old schoolmate and all, and he was totally unmoved. Looked at me like I was a maniac. Told me "No, you can't come in."
I picked up the vibe and backed away, grinning knowingly, saying "ok ok, yes, security, I suppose" ... he remains stony faced and silent ... "so maybe I'll just drive around and take a few pictures." I'm giving him a big thumbs up as I'm blurting this out. Total Alan Partridge.
"Where's the best place to get some good pictures?" I go, unbelievably. Amazing what nerves and embarrassment can do. He doesn't answer, just a little shake of the head, so I trot back to the car and drive off. I see in the mirror he's writing something in a little notepad. 5 minutes later, I'm pulled over by the Police and given a computer check and a 30 minute roadside grilling on who I am and wtf I was wanting photos of nuclear plants for.
Quite unsettling it was. My wife stayed supercalm but I was quaking inside. If I'd had a record or looked 'dodgy' in some way who knows where it might have ended up.
To be fair, I would have had you down as a slight weirdo if you rocked up to the gates of nuclear plant and asked for access but nothing more than that. I certainly wouldn't have had you pulled over. But then I guess everyone want s to be ultra-cautious these days.
I'm comforted by that story. You can't have too much security on a nuclear power plant.
Incidentally, when did the right-wing start becoming reflexively anti new technology? Whenever a new technology comes along there always seem to be a bunch of right-wrong people creating sprouts arguments why it's crap.
We've seen this with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, heart pumps, over and over again. It's really negative and boring. Indicative that there are many on the right who just reflexively oppose anything, particularly if they've ever heard a left-wrong person surreal favourably about it.
Perhaps when they started getting most of their votes from the elderly? But conservatives have always been against change, by definition.
Which is an important part of any political debate.
Otherwise we'd have constant disruption, social disturbance and political revolution, and implement a lot of stupid ideas that would retard us economically and politically.
"Progressives" need "conservatives" to challenge and filter them so we get steady and progressive incremental change, rather than blow up the system or no change whatsoever. Ying and Yang.
It's how it's supposed to work.
Yeah I don't disagree with that at all. It feels a bit unbalanced at the moment, mind, so instead of getting incremental change we get stasis, while evidence of the system not working mounts. Eventually that will lead to far more radical change down the line, which even I don't want - I am too old and invested for violent revolution.
Fair enough, I sort of agree with you too - young people are getting rogered by the current system, and I don't want them revolting and bringing it all down.
There is definitely a problem with some of the older generation. My client is doing plenty of stakeholder consultations on Sizewell C in Suffolk at the moment and the existing residents couldn't give a toss about skills/training/jobs or energy transition, they only care about their property prices and disruption during construction.
You'd think they'd care more about their own children and grandchildren, but no. I don't want that to blowback and be reciprocated.
Re nuclear plants, I recently stopped by Sellafield, wanted to take a look at it, nice change from conventionally pretty scenery, also because an old schoolmate of mine used to run it.
Drove up to the gate, got out of my car and strolled up to the security guy. Told him this, about my old schoolmate and all, and he was totally unmoved. Looked at me like I was a maniac. Told me "No, you can't come in."
I picked up the vibe and backed away, grinning knowingly, saying "ok ok, yes, security, I suppose" ... he remains stony faced and silent ... "so maybe I'll just drive around and take a few pictures." I'm giving him a big thumbs up as I'm blurting this out. Total Alan Partridge.
"Where's the best place to get some good pictures?" I go, unbelievably. Amazing what nerves and embarrassment can do. He doesn't answer, just a little shake of the head, so I trot back to the car and drive off. I see in the mirror he's writing something in a little notepad. 5 minutes later, I'm pulled over by the Police and given a computer check and a 30 minute roadside grilling on who I am and wtf I was wanting photos of nuclear plants for.
Quite unsettling it was. My wife stayed supercalm but I was quaking inside. If I'd had a record or looked 'dodgy' in some way who knows where it might have ended up.
To be fair, I would have had you down as a slight weirdo if you rocked up to the gates of nuclear plant and asked for access but nothing more than that. I certainly wouldn't have had you pulled over. But then I guess everyone want s to be ultra-cautious these days.
No complaints really. I was coming over like a total dick.
Incidentally, when did the right-wing start becoming reflexively anti new technology? Whenever a new technology comes along there always seem to be a bunch of right-wrong people creating sprouts arguments why it's crap.
We've seen this with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, heart pumps, over and over again. It's really negative and boring. Indicative that there are many on the right who just reflexively oppose anything, particularly if they've ever heard a left-wrong person surreal favourably about it.
Perhaps when they started getting most of their votes from the elderly? But conservatives have always been against change, by definition.
Which is an important part of any political debate.
Otherwise we'd have constant disruption, social disturbance and political revolution, and implement a lot of stupid ideas that would retard us economically and politically.
"Progressives" need "conservatives" to challenge and filter them so we get steady and progressive incremental change, rather than blow up the system or no change whatsoever. Ying and Yang.
It's how it's supposed to work.
Yeah I don't disagree with that at all. It feels a bit unbalanced at the moment, mind, so instead of getting incremental change we get stasis, while evidence of the system not working mounts. Eventually that will lead to far more radical change down the line, which even I don't want - I am too old and invested for violent revolution.
Fair enough, I sort of agree with you too - young people are getting rogered by the current system, and I don't want them revolting and bringing it all down.
There is definitely a problem with some of the older generation. My client is doing plenty of stakeholder consultations on Sizewell C in Suffolk at the moment and the existing residents couldn't give a toss about skills/training/jobs or energy transition, they only care about their property prices and disruption during construction.
You'd think they'd care more about their own children and grandchildren, but no. I don't want that to blowback and be reciprocated.
Re nuclear plants, I recently stopped by Sellafield, wanted to take a look at it, nice change from conventionally pretty scenery, also because an old schoolmate of mine used to run it.
Drove up to the gate, got out of my car and strolled up to the security guy. Told him this, about my old schoolmate and all, and he was totally unmoved. Looked at me like I was a maniac. Told me "No, you can't come in."
I picked up the vibe and backed away, grinning knowingly, saying "ok ok, yes, security, I suppose" ... he remains stony faced and silent ... "so maybe I'll just drive around and take a few pictures." I'm giving him a big thumbs up as I'm blurting this out. Total Alan Partridge.
"Where's the best place to get some good pictures?" I go, unbelievably. Amazing what nerves and embarrassment can do. He doesn't answer, just a little shake of the head, so I trot back to the car and drive off. I see in the mirror he's writing something in a little notepad. 5 minutes later, I'm pulled over by the Police and given a computer check and a 30 minute roadside grilling on who I am and wtf I was wanting photos of nuclear plants for.
Quite unsettling it was. My wife stayed supercalm but I was quaking inside. If I'd had a record or looked 'dodgy' in some way who knows where it might have ended up.
This is absolutely hilarious. What on earth made you think you could just rock up to a secure site & request entry with no notice or prior permission?
I’ve just watched a wasp attack a spider and fly away with it back to its nest.
I didn’t know they did that.
According to Google, they feed them to their young.
Wasps are nasty things. Those stings aren't just for picnics.
The Ichneumonidae are particularly 'amusing' if you are a caterpillar.
Wasps are awesome and get a very bad press. Even at the end of summer when they get a bit dozy, just leave them alone and they will not hurt you. Its the flapping around etc that causes issues.
Of all the phenomenona of natural life he observed (a fuck of s lot, he was unbelievably thorough) it was wasps which convinced Charles Darwin of the impossibility of a benevolent Creator.
Comments
Of course I would like to see them go further and unify Income tax and NI. But I don't see anyone being sensible enough to do that anytime soon.
Remember when Elon Musk called the cave rescuer a paedophile for no reason, and the judge threw the case straight out?
Jones didn’t incite violence or call for someone to be killed, and freedom of speech means having the right to be an utter arsehole. We can all agree that Alex Jones can be an utter arsehole.
It was quite amusing and reminded me of being out on the town on the first weekend of December when everyone is at Christmas parties. I saw wasps having mass brawls ove lr the traps, two wasps kicking off with each other resulting in them both falling straight into the trap then another wasp on a sugar rush having a fight with a dead spider that was caught up in some web.
They are absolute shits this year but apparently with the greater use of traps it’s giving a very good picture of the explosion of Asian hornets as they are taking the bait too.
As far as partisanship is concerned when it comes to Trump there are not many less objective posters than yourself.
If there were such compelling evidence that the Clintons, the Bidens or the Obamas had been involved in undermining the democratic will of the people as we have seen with Trump, my view is they should be prosecuted with the same rigour as I am hoping will be the case with Trump.
The first freedom is the freedom to take the consequences.
Jones did defame his victims. Being an arsehole is legal, defaming people is not.
"In an exchange with his former White House chief of staff John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, Trump reportedly complained: “You fucking generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?”
Kelly asked which generals, prompting Trump to reply: “The German generals in World War II.”"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/08/trump-pentagon-generals-nazis-second-world-war
Jones cleared that high bar in a way even Olympic athletes would struggle to do.
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/north-american-production-chip-shortage/
The USA correctly has a very high bar. The UK - specifically the London libel courts are weighted way too heavily in favour against free speech.
The article is behind a paywall. Is it possible to say what reason Bell has given for now backing Liz?
It seems the longer that this contest is going, the momentum is all going in one direction, and not to Rishi's benefit.
So I'm having difficutly with his logic.
No armed insurrection = reason to refuse independence, *or even a referendum*
Armed insurrection = reason to refuse independence, or *even a referendum* (unless we are talking about his chums in Antrim)
People get hung up on the triple lock. Why not do away with higher rate tax relief on contributions? Another measure that favours the rich, and can be removed without hurting the poor.
But while we were not looking, likely future Prime Minister Liz Truss chucked some more pension money at the rich when she promised to review the pension cap that is causing so many doctors to take early retirement. Life's complicated.
They're complaining that the state pension age for women is increasing to be in line with that for men (technically, they are objecting that women haven't been given sufficient notice of the changes, although this is palpable nonsense, especially given how high profile their own campaign has been).
There were so many pension issues they could've picked, and they picked the one where their name makes literally no sense whatsoever - they are literally campaigning in favour of state pension inequality, whilst claiming to be against it.
The US doesn't have absolute freedom of speech. It just has a higher bar (than here) for a prosecution to succeed against that defence. These cases can go either way. The specifics matter. Eg in this case, unlike the Musk tweet, Alex Jones ran a relentless, calculated, highly impactful smear over many years.
In saying he's been convicted due to the judge's politics, rather than on the merits of the case, you're imputing partisanship where there's no evidence of it. America is in a bad enough place already on that score and the more people think like you the worse it'll get.
Davey's plan seems a better use of money if it is the case tbh.
https://twitter.com/BrianEntin/status/1556828655900303360?s=20&t=A42MV3RvCg7JBdtllhbkGw
Roman history makes a lot more sense now, doesn't it?
The hypothetical was that even if the vast majority of Scots wanted independence legally Westminster could still refuse an indyref2 for a generation as the future of the Union is reserved to Westminster and enforce that. However even that scenario does not currently exist as there is no big majority in Scotland for independence
On Alex Jones, aiui and I've not really been following the case so take this with a pinch of salt, by continually playing silly beggars, Jones stopped the case being about defamation and turned it into a case about contempt and perjury.
If it is about supporting the poorest, then define it by incomes and assets, not age. Otherwise bin it.
It's interesting to consider what would have happened had Pompey won.
There is definitely a problem with some of the older generation. My client is doing plenty of stakeholder consultations on Sizewell C in Suffolk at the moment and the existing residents couldn't give a toss about skills/training/jobs or energy transition, they only care about their property prices and disruption during construction.
You'd think they'd care more about their own children and grandchildren, but no. I don't want that to blowback and be reciprocated.
I see that as pretty disgraceful. But Theresa May soiled the sheets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvgspeNYny0
Ultimately, any economy runs on energy. Far too few in government seem to understand that.
The only other hurdle the plaintiffs would have had to clear (and it's quite a high hurdle in the US) is proving actual malice.
Had there been a full trial, that might conceivably have gone either way. But the defendant perjured himself in the most blatant manner imaginable, so he lost.
There's really nothing to debate here, other than the nature of his lawyers' incompetence. But that also is no defence in a civil case (it might be in a criminal one).
It seems somewhat to have run along similar, though more advanced, lines to Marius and Sulla previously.
https://www.scottishhousingnews.com/articles/retrofitting-niddrie-road-the-pre-1919-tenement-undergoing-a-21st-century-revamp
From some interviews one the project leads has given - it sounds like quite an adventure once you begin to peel away some of the old plaster and brickwork.
The children are entirely secondary and contingent on what happens with mum and dad.
" The father of a 6-year-old boy killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting testified Tuesday that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones made his life a "living hell" by pushing claims that the murders were a hoax involving actors aimed at increasing gun control.
In more than an hour of emotional testimony during which he often fought back tears, Neil Heslin said he has endured online abuse, anonymous phone calls and harassment on the street.
. . .
Heslin said his home and car have been shot at, and his attorneys said Monday that the family had an "encounter" in Austin after the trial began in the city and have been in isolation under security."
source: https://www.npr.org/2022/08/02/1115269280/sandy-hook-alex-jones-trial
Clegg saying no to nuclear because at the earliest it wouldn't come online until 2021/2, would require taxpayer subsidy and people don't have a plan for the waste... nice neat example of the coalition's short-term thinking hurting us now.
Interesting backstory. I know only a little about piracy/Mithridates when it comes to Pompey pre-triumvirate.
As far as I'm aware, the Jones trial on whether it was defamation was soooooo prolonged and sooooo bad faith that the judge summarily declared him guilty of defamation without trial because it was clear that no other action could possibly move the trial along. You can't treat civil court like a waste paper basket, where claims get chucked in and you delay and delay and delay to try and get out of it.
The interesting thing for Jones now is that, because InfoWars has declared bankruptcy, the plaintiffs in this case and all the other cases currently pending against him will essentially be picking over the bones of the company (in the words of one of the plaintiff lawyers). So Jones and InfoWars could be left with nothing, even the name, whereas if he had at the beginning apologised and paid out a couple of grand, none of this would likely be happening.
Drove up to the gate, got out of my car and strolled up to the security guy. Told him this, about my old schoolmate and all, and he was totally unmoved. Looked at me like I was a maniac. Told me "No, you can't come in."
I picked up the vibe and backed away, grinning knowingly, saying "ok ok, yes, security, I suppose" ... he remains stony faced and silent ... "so maybe I'll just drive around and take a few pictures." I'm giving him a big thumbs up as I'm blurting this out. Total Alan Partridge.
"Where's the best place to get some good pictures?" I go, unbelievably. Amazing what nerves and embarrassment can do. He doesn't answer, just a little shake of the head, so I trot back to the car and drive off. I see in the mirror he's writing something in a little notepad. 5 minutes later, I'm pulled over by the Police and given a computer check and a 30 minute roadside grilling on who I am and wtf I was wanting photos of nuclear plants for.
Quite unsettling it was. My wife stayed supercalm but I was quaking inside. If I'd had a record or looked 'dodgy' in some way who knows where it might have ended up.
However the children would still benefit whether 1 or both get dementia.
As I also pointed out it was the swing to Labour amongst 45 to 54s in 2017 that lost May her majority, 45 to 54s swung back to Boris in 2019 giving him his majority. Without 45 to 54s the Tories are therefore screwed in terms of winning a majority.
Over 65s by contrast swung to the Tories in both 2017 and 2019 anyway
Of course it can be done - nothing is impossible. But it will be extremely costly and take a long time to achieve.
An important point is the £86K cap has not been implemented. It is due Oct 2023 but there's already been slippage on one aspect of it. There is a trial with five councils starting at end of year and I wonder whether that will throw up more issues to cause delay. It's a lot of admin work for councils to track everyone's accounts as they build towards the cap.
And I am also v concerned that Liz Truss will tear the whole thing up and start again.
The problem was that they built him up to the point they created a monster of their own. And trashed the constitution pretty thoroughly to do so.
An interesting counterfactual is what If they’d let Caesar run for Consul a second time. While he’d bent various rules to that point, it was nothing on what Pompey had done. All the evidence suggests he would have been elected Consul and then gone on his planned Parthian campaign. Which would either have killed Caesar or taken long enough that he would have been looking at retirement when he returned.
Note that the Texas Supreme Court threw out an appeal for dismissal of the lawsuits, and the Supreme Court itself refused another appeal.
It's impossible to argue in any reasonable manner that he hasn't received fair legal treatment.
I'm glad you have the same standards for prosecuting - if necessary - the likes of HRC et al if they committed crimes. But I think you know yourself that isn't going to happen and not because the characters involved are all innocent. HRC should have been prosecuted alone for holding top secret documents on a private server. She also attempted to undermine an election by allowing her campaign to spread disingenuous information on the other candidate.
Your side doesn't get prosecuted and even when you have overwhelming evidence as in the Dunham case, you then a Democrat judge sitting in Washington DC who allows two jurors who openly admitted they supported the HRC campaign, with a third who funded AOC, to stay on the jury despite an attempt to exclude them. And, lo and behold, there is an acquittal.
'Leavers' were significantly more likely to favour capital punishment and corporal punishment in schools and their attitudes towards other social issues were more likely to be 'old fashioned' to say the least.
All of which you would tend to associate with Liz Truss whichever way she voted in 2016.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/leave-voters-brexit-day_uk_58db873be4b0cb23e65ccbd2
If Truss scraps the £86k cap Boris brought in it will prove as big a suicide bomb with middle aged swing voters as May's dementia tax was. It would be a gift to Starmer and Davey
If there is a lot less leakage
Here's the report from the House of Commons that recognises a 30% cut in leakage achieved post-privatisation.
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8931/CBP-8931.pdf
the failure of private monopolies like Thames Water to do anything about maintenance is cited as one of the big drivers behind our water shortage
You have data to support that? That leaks have been reduced as they have, and the investments made under the supervision and requirements defined by OFWAT, suggests that the 'failure to invest in maintenance' claim is basically baloney.
The latest is that OFWAT is targeting a further reduction in leaks by 2030, then 2050, funded out of company resources rather than increased prices. An effective regulator.
That it is cited as one of the *alleged* drivers behind our 'water shortage; is more to do with the politics of the anti-privatisation lobby imo, which seems to me to be based more on dogma than data.
As an example, I was having a debate with a Green person the other day, who was apparently seriously citing the failure to build any reservoirs in 30 years in dozens more of our river valleys as some sort of failure of privatisation - rather than as a success in reducing leakage and keeping demand reasonably well-managed, and thereby saving all that concrete etc.
But I'd say that UK Greens have always put political control by government in front of doing things that are actually green.
For my money, the next step is water meters everywhere so that the cost paid for the water service reflects the cost of providing it. Our water usage is relatively high compared to other countries, and a reduction of the order of 10-20% is a low-hanging fruit by that means. Then perhaps we will see water efficiency as a normal priority rather than as a bee-in-the-bonnet.
It's another reason to expand gas storage, as it can be used to store methane as a store of wind energy.
Truss does better with Remainers than Boris, 13% prefer her to Starmer compared to 11% who preferred Boris to Starmer. Sunak does better than both though, 19% of Remainers prefer Sunak to Starmer.
That suggests Truss will do worse in the redwall than Boris did but better than Sunak would. However Truss would do better in the bluewall than Boris but not as well as Sunak would
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/08/08/voting-intention-con-33-lab-37-4-5-aug
(refrain!)