Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Nobody's baby (Brooklyn soul singer who sadly died a few years ago - Amy borrowed her band to record Back To Black) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnWn4U253po
I wonder if anyone will have heard any of them before..
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 used to work on a secure site.
You'd be surprised how many got through waving a random card when they'd forgotten their pass.
And I'm not entirely sure they were recognised by the gate staff.
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?
You're due to get £65 in your energy account from Rishi every month from October to March. Is that it?
Perhaps push them a lot harder.
I have reduced my monthly payment from the suggested £147 to £65, which is incidentally pretty much where it was some time ago, and will review in October depending how much I will be using in the winter and what the Govt do in the interim.
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 thought there was a visitors centre at Sellafield?! I certainly went to one at Wylfa on Angelsey in the 90s, they put on a promo video mocking renewable energy! All very 'edge of darkness' for those who remember!
NEW: Liz Truss doubling down on her failure to announce any new cost-of-living help now. “What I don't believe in is taxing people to the highest level in 70 years, and then giving them their own money back.”
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 used to work on a secure site.
You'd be surprised how many got through waving a random card when they'd forgotten their pass.
And I'm not entirely sure they were recognised by the gate staff.
I’m sure that’s true, but that’s not quite the same thing as turning up at the gate with a weird story about knowing the previous director personally!
(I’m sure I lot of us have done similar things on autopilot ourselves though.)
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Nobody's baby (Brooklyn soul singer who sadly died a few years ago - Amy borrowed her band to record Back To Black) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnWn4U253po
I wonder if anyone will have heard any of them before..
Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have both been dealt a blow after it was found neither Tory contender is more popular than Boris Johnson when pitched against Sir Keir Starmer.
New polling revealed, in a head-to-head against the Labour leader, Mr Johnson was backed as the best prime minister by 28% of voters.
The YouGov survey for The Times found Ms Truss, who is the favourite to succeed Mr Johnson, would not provide a boost for Tory support against Sir Keir.
The Foreign Secretary also polled at 28% when pitched against the Labour leader, who was backed by 31% of voters as the best PM.
Mr Sunak did slightly worse in a head-to-head against Sir Keir, with 27% backing the ex-chancellor when asked who would make the best PM.
Sir Keir was again backed by 31% of voters when they were asked to choose between the Labour leader and Mr Sunak.
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.
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.
A friend was doing the yachting round the world thing. They rocked up at one of those uninhabited atolls that are under American jurisdiction and tied up on the dock there.
Next morning he was woken up by a smart knock on the cabin door. An American military guy in very neat fatigues checked his papers and had a look round. Then left.
Only later did he realise that there was literally no habitation on the atoll, no cover and he hadn’t heard a helicopter….
NEW: Liz Truss doubling down on her failure to announce any new cost-of-living help now. “What I don't believe in is taxing people to the highest level in 70 years, and then giving them their own money back.”
I expect a u-turn in September . There’s no way her policy will last .
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.
It will if done be more like the use of a small fraction of biofuel in petrol, as pure hydrogen would not be practical in the infrastructure as it stands.
It may help, but large scale uses are likely to be transport by tanker - more as eg propane is distributed now.
And since boilers have a short lifecycle, it may be superseded by something else first.
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….
"Pope fitting" is a bit of a niche occupation, surely?
"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
That's the current tactical electoral calculus, yes, but I think the Conservatives should govern in the interests of the whole country.
Would you be happy if Labour governed in such a cynical and divisive way?
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 got it into my head I was an endearingly eccentric charmer who would melt the heart of security with my interest in the plant and my tale about my old schoolmate.
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.
I wasn't responding (didn't even read) the specifics - I was just responding to the generic point that free speech should have consequences.
I think we should allow people to express themselves, even crudely, as part of the democratic process without exposing them to very serious consequences.
"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.
I feel very sympathetic. We are at the moment looking at significant alterations to our bathroom because I can no longer use it as intended; I can't climb into the bath which means I can't use the shower. So we will have to convert the bathroom into some sort of wet room. Now that's not a life-changing issue financially, although it is significant. It is though disruptive and concerning.
And I do wonder whether my condition will deteriorate further, so that we cannot manage without professional assistance.
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….
"Pope fitting" is a bit of a niche occupation, surely?
A variable market to be sure - back in the day, several a year, sometimes. Even some at the same time
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Nobody's baby (Brooklyn soul singer who sadly died a few years ago - Amy borrowed her band to record Back To Black) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnWn4U253po
I wonder if anyone will have heard any of them before..
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.
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, he's doing his job - nuclear sites are highly regulated and under specific nuclear licence regimes (I did a tour of HPC last week and all photos were strictly prohibited) and we are currently at a heightened state of tension with Russia and China.
If you'd be dodgy they might have taken you in for further questioning, and they'd have to have serious grounds for arrest, but that'd have been it. This isn't the USA where they cock rifles if they're not sure.
Next time, go the visitor centre or apply for a site visit through the proper process!
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 got it into my head I was an endearingly eccentric charmer who would melt the heart of security with my interest in the plant and my tale about my old schoolmate.
It was pure Partridge.
I recall a story about an idiot who tried to get close to the big plutonium storage site* in Texas.
He actually managed to be upset about the but where large numbers of men jumped on him, with all the guns.
*the one where they don’t use locks. Because locks are less secure
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Nobody's baby (Brooklyn soul singer who sadly died a few years ago - Amy borrowed her band to record Back To Black) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnWn4U253po
I wonder if anyone will have heard any of them before..
That name ... périnée is French for perineum
Lol, I hope they know that!
Could have been deliberate. One thinks of Monsieur Pujol and his stage name Le Pétomane. Indeed, as recalled by Leonard Rossiter.
NEW: Liz Truss doubling down on her failure to announce any new cost-of-living help now. “What I don't believe in is taxing people to the highest level in 70 years, and then giving them their own money back.”
Stupid woman.
If she sticks to that even SKS could beat her unless he offers something equally appalling to "help" during the COLC
As far as i can see the current positions are
Energy costs
• Labour: £5bn windfall & 5% cut in bill. • Tories: £10bn windfall & £400 discount on bill. • Lib Dem’s: £36bn furlough package & £1,400 halt of October’s rise.
NEW: Liz Truss doubling down on her failure to announce any new cost-of-living help now. “What I don't believe in is taxing people to the highest level in 70 years, and then giving them their own money back.”
I expect a u-turn in September . There’s no way her policy will last .
Indeed, her whole approach is deeply unserious and an insult to everyone's intelligence.
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.
That’s interesting. I can’t help but notice they’re spending £1.2m on eight flats though, would it not be cheaper to pull the whole thing down bar the facade, and start again?
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.
Would it be unkind of me to say that you were behaving like a total bloody idiot?
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.
That’s interesting. I can’t help but notice they’re spending £1.2m on eight flats though, would it not be cheaper to pull the whole thing down bar the facade, and start again?
To some extent an experimental/prototype project, tbf. Scaling will kick in, one hopes, with others.
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.
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.
If I were his lawyer - and I’m probably no worse than the one he’s paying at the moment - I’d argue that the contrents of his show is so absurd, that no reasonable person would believe it to be anything other than a parody.
He used a similar argument when he got divorced, to persuade the custody judge that his on-screen persona is just that, a persona, and not reflective of how he behaves in real life.
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, he's doing his job - nuclear sites are highly regulated and under specific nuclear licence regimes (I did a tour of HPC last week and all photos were strictly prohibited) and we are currently at a heightened state of tension with Russia and China.
If you'd be dodgy they might have taken you in for further questioning, and they'd have to have serious grounds for arrest, but that'd have been it. This isn't the USA where they cock rifles if they're not sure.
Next time, go the visitor centre or apply for a site visit through the proper process!
No, I'm not moaning about it. Tale of lack of self-awareness.
They used to have a visitor centre in fact. Closed now though.
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 thought there was a visitors centre at Sellafield?! I certainly went to one at Wylfa on Angelsey in the 90s, they put on a promo video mocking renewable energy! All very 'edge of darkness' for those who remember!
The Visitors Centre is closed.
You can see the site from a distance just by driving along the coast road or taking the train. There are far nicer things to view along that road.
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.
Would it be unkind of me to say that you were behaving like a total bloody idiot?
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.
If I were his lawyer - and I’m probably no worse than the one he’s paying at the moment - I’d argue that the contrents of his show is so absurd, that no reasonable person would believe it to be anything other than a parody.
He used a similar argument when he got divorced, to persuade the custody judge that his on-screen persona is just that, a persona, and not reflective of how he behaves in real life.
Didn’t that Trumpet lawyer try that - that her claims of election fraud were so absurd that it was performance theatre, so she couldn’t be held accountable?
"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
That's the current tactical electoral calculus, yes, but I think the Conservatives should govern in the interests of the whole country.
Would you be happy if Labour governed in such a cynical and divisive way?
They do, Labour almost always increase public sector spending, increase immigration and raise taxes on corporations and the rich and wealthy and reduce tax relief for private pensions when in Government
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 used to work on a secure site.
You'd be surprised how many got through waving a random card when they'd forgotten their pass.
And I'm not entirely sure they were recognised by the gate staff.
I’m sure that’s true, but that’s not quite the same thing as turning up at the gate with a weird story about knowing the previous director personally!
(I’m sure I lot of us have done similar things on autopilot ourselves though.)
Mine wasn't a nuclear site but it did have some big machines and the usual 'meaning of the OSA' notices.
I was just thinking that the brazen approach might have been less suspicious! "I know the director" is definitely a flag for a visit from site police.
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.
I agree that there are problems with the way the US politicises its court system, but, come on man, Alex Jones clearly libelled the complainants and repeatedly perjured himself throughout the trial. He is guilty as f—-.
"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......
MPs and journalists.
A bit like the journalists finally waking up to the cost of living issues, as their massive London mortgages just went up lots.
NEW: Liz Truss doubling down on her failure to announce any new cost-of-living help now. “What I don't believe in is taxing people to the highest level in 70 years, and then giving them their own money back.”
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.
You're not thinking of average Joe, are you?
The average Joe in the US is far more secure regarding the risk of being sued for libel than their counterpart in the UK.
This case sets no precedent which should worry them.
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 got it into my head I was an endearingly eccentric charmer who would melt the heart of security with my interest in the plant and my tale about my old schoolmate.
It was pure Partridge.
You are an endearingly eccentric charmer - but an obvious subversive to boot.
On the subject of visiting secure sites, my mother in Dorset had a friend staying with her pre-Covid and the friend, who is interested in military history, wanted to visit the Signals Museum at Blandford. My brother said he would drive them and took his passport with him for security check. However, the museum had changed regulations since he last visited and both women were required to show ID. As neither of them were able to do so they were not admitted. My mother at the time was 90 and her friend was 96 so they didn't exactly fit the terrorist profile.
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
Hasn't happened yet. Hard to believe in a heatwave you are going to want the heating on in 10 weeks time. Falling petrol prices creating illusion of being over the worst. And specific col measures likely to be targeted at UC recipients
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.
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
I had a bit of a road to Damascus on it over the weekend. Its the sheer scale of it I think many are not 'getting' (myself very much included) People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done. Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required
Good morning everybody. The dental story on the BBC last night seems to have flashed across the sky like a comet and vanished!
With a bit of luck someone will raise the dentists question at tonight's hustings. Probably both candidates will agree something should be done in the long term (such as train more dentists) and the medium term (import more dentists with our post-Brexit points system) but that will be as far as it goes.
Yes. Neither being the answer to the problem. It's a subject which doesn't really affect the chattering classes, including to some extent at least us, and so it doesn't really get the attention it deserves. The problem appears to be the dental contract, which was brought in under the Labour government and which has been completely ignored by both the Coalition and the Conservatives. No one likes talking about dentistry! Dental treatment is usually uncomfortable and unpleasant!
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 got it into my head I was an endearingly eccentric charmer who would melt the heart of security with my interest in the plant and my tale about my old schoolmate.
It was pure Partridge.
I recall a story about an idiot who tried to get close to the big plutonium storage site* in Texas.
He actually managed to be upset about the but where large numbers of men jumped on him, with all the guns.
*the one where they don’t use locks. Because locks are less secure
Would NOT have risked it in Texas. But this was the cuddly Lake District!
Anyway, like I say, I wasn't upset about it - more relieved that it ended up just a tale to tell.
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.
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 got it into my head I was an endearingly eccentric charmer who would melt the heart of security with my interest in the plant and my tale about my old schoolmate.
It was pure Partridge.
I recall a story about an idiot who tried to get close to the big plutonium storage site* in Texas.
He actually managed to be upset about the but where large numbers of men jumped on him, with all the guns.
*the one where they don’t use locks. Because locks are less secure
Would NOT have risked it in Texas. But this was the cuddly Lake District!
Anyway, like I say, I wasn't upset about it - more relieved that it ended up just a tale to tell.
Which has both Sellafield and BaE within an hour's drive of each other, not to mention RAF jets doing their low flying training at regular intervals.
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
Hasn't happened yet. Hard to believe in a heatwave you are going to want the heating on in 10 weeks time. Falling petrol prices creating illusion of being over the worst. And specific col measures likely to be targeted at UC recipients
If you are on UC you are already in line to receive over £1000 extra this year
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
They know they themselves will be looked after, and incorrectly think younger workers are too lazy or could manage their household budgets more effectively.
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.
If I were his lawyer - and I’m probably no worse than the one he’s paying at the moment - I’d argue that the contrents of his show is so absurd, that no reasonable person would believe it to be anything other than a parody.
He used a similar argument when he got divorced, to persuade the custody judge that his on-screen persona is just that, a persona, and not reflective of how he behaves in real life.
He threw away his chance of presenting any such argument by not turning up to court.
Who knows, you might even have succeeded - though he was presented, over a number of years, with evidence of the damage his comments were doing to those he had libelled. And it was evident to all that a number of people did believe his absurd stories. Note he was being sued for those comments, not how he 'behaves in real life'. Though the latter would included perjuring himself in open court.
NEW: Liz Truss doubling down on her failure to announce any new cost-of-living help now. “What I don't believe in is taxing people to the highest level in 70 years, and then giving them their own money back.”
Turning a specific practical emergency into a platform to spout half-baked misleading ideology.
Better than Johnson but I can't say I'm looking forward to her premiership.
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
Hasn't happened yet. Hard to believe in a heatwave you are going to want the heating on in 10 weeks time. Falling petrol prices creating illusion of being over the worst. And specific col measures likely to be targeted at UC recipients
If you are on UC you are already in line to receive over £1000 extra this year
So err, the same as last year before they removed the £20 a week uplift? With costs much higher.....
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.
If I were his lawyer - and I’m probably no worse than the one he’s paying at the moment - I’d argue that the contrents of his show is so absurd, that no reasonable person would believe it to be anything other than a parody.
He used a similar argument when he got divorced, to persuade the custody judge that his on-screen persona is just that, a persona, and not reflective of how he behaves in real life.
It absolutely is reflective though as the sweaty lunatic's many public meltdowns evidence.
As with so many in the Magaverse (Jones, D'Souza, Lindelll, Trump himself) it's hard to see where the mental illness ends and the con begins.
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
I had a bit of a road to Damascus on it over the weekend. Its the sheer scale of it I think many are not 'getting' (myself very much included) People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done. Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required
Surely cheap and abundant wind and solar power will ride to the rescue?
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
Hasn't happened yet. Hard to believe in a heatwave you are going to want the heating on in 10 weeks time. Falling petrol prices creating illusion of being over the worst. And specific col measures likely to be targeted at UC recipients
If you are on UC you are already in line to receive over £1000 extra this year
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.
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.
If I were his lawyer - and I’m probably no worse than the one he’s paying at the moment - I’d argue that the contrents of his show is so absurd, that no reasonable person would believe it to be anything other than a parody.
He used a similar argument when he got divorced, to persuade the custody judge that his on-screen persona is just that, a persona, and not reflective of how he behaves in real life.
The DT tried that sort of approach, did it not, in recent years? But I forget the details.
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
I had a bit of a road to Damascus on it over the weekend. Its the sheer scale of it I think many are not 'getting' (myself very much included) People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done. Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required
Surely cheap and abundant wind and solar power will ride to the rescue?
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.
I wasn't responding (didn't even read) the specifics - I was just responding to the generic point that free speech should have consequences.
I think we should allow people to express themselves, even crudely, as part of the democratic process without exposing them to very serious consequences.
Free speech (used to hurt or harm) always has consequences, even if it's just people regarding the speaker as a bit of a dick. The level of consequences escalates with how bad it can get.
When it gets really high, legal consequences can be incurred.
NEW: Liz Truss doubling down on her failure to announce any new cost-of-living help now. “What I don't believe in is taxing people to the highest level in 70 years, and then giving them their own money back.”
Turning a specific practical emergency into a platform to spout half-baked misleading ideology.
Better than Johnson but I can't say I'm looking forward to her premiership.
The low level cabinet ministers are not going to see an end to their thankless tasks of loyally defending doomed and silly policies on breakfast TV all week before the inevitable u-turn arrives. We may even see more of 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.
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.
If I were his lawyer - and I’m probably no worse than the one he’s paying at the moment - I’d argue that the contrents of his show is so absurd, that no reasonable person would believe it to be anything other than a parody.
He used a similar argument when he got divorced, to persuade the custody judge that his on-screen persona is just that, a persona, and not reflective of how he behaves in real life.
It absolutely is reflective though as the sweaty lunatic's many public meltdowns evidence.
As with so many in the Magaverse (Jones, D'Souza, Lindelll, Trump himself) it's hard to see where the mental illness ends and the con begins.
The lunacy is such that Trump mostly eviscerated his opponents in the mid term primaries, despite them in many cases throwing millions at the races.
"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.
I feel very sympathetic. We are at the moment looking at significant alterations to our bathroom because I can no longer use it as intended; I can't climb into the bath which means I can't use the shower. So we will have to convert the bathroom into some sort of wet room. Now that's not a life-changing issue financially, although it is significant. It is though disruptive and concerning.
And I do wonder whether my condition will deteriorate further, so that we cannot manage without professional assistance.
Sorry to hear this. Hopefully the alterations to the bathroom will be sufficient for a good while yet.
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 got it into my head I was an endearingly eccentric charmer who would melt the heart of security with my interest in the plant and my tale about my old schoolmate.
It was pure Partridge.
I recall a story about an idiot who tried to get close to the big plutonium storage site* in Texas.
He actually managed to be upset about the but where large numbers of men jumped on him, with all the guns.
*the one where they don’t use locks. Because locks are less secure
Would NOT have risked it in Texas. But this was the cuddly Lake District!
Anyway, like I say, I wasn't upset about it - more relieved that it ended up just a tale to tell.
Which has both Sellafield and BaE within an hour's drive of each other, not to mention RAF jets doing their low flying training at regular intervals.
It's not all Beatrix Potter round here you know.
Those jets are really something - one of lots of memorable things from our holiday up there.
"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
True enough.
I am hoping as well that the process and the legislation is too far down the track for one of Liz's famous u-turns.
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
I had a bit of a road to Damascus on it over the weekend. Its the sheer scale of it I think many are not 'getting' (myself very much included) People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done. Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required
Surely cheap and abundant wind and solar power will ride to the rescue?
Nuclear power was going to make electricity too cheap to meter. They spaffed all the solutions up the wall. Wheres tidal? Where are the rest of the nuclear power stations? There is no vision, there has been no vision, there shall be no vision
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
I had a bit of a road to Damascus on it over the weekend. Its the sheer scale of it I think many are not 'getting' (myself very much included) People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done. Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required
Surely cheap and abundant wind and solar power will ride to the rescue?
Not by the end of this year, they won't.
But that's the hard net zero target for you. Traditional sources must be phased out and discouraged or we will never get to that complete arbitrary and meaningless goal.
They must be phased out whether the alternatives are ready or not, because the plan and the target are all.
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
I had a bit of a road to Damascus on it over the weekend. Its the sheer scale of it I think many are not 'getting' (myself very much included) People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done. Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required
Yup. People are going to die. I know BR thinks people die anyway but stories about pensioners freezing to death at home will play *badly* for the government.
On handouts whilst you are right that a complete solution is required, I don't see anything in Mistress Truss's relationships with either compassion or reality that makes me think such a solution will even be conceived.
NEW: Liz Truss doubling down on her failure to announce any new cost-of-living help now. “What I don't believe in is taxing people to the highest level in 70 years, and then giving them their own money back.”
Turning a specific practical emergency into a platform to spout half-baked misleading ideology.
Better than Johnson but I can't say I'm looking forward to her premiership.
More cheerful stuff being ignored by you know whom:
"The UK is braced for drought conditions until October, with rivers forecast to be low and exceptionally low in central and southern England, according to the UK Centre of Ecology and Hydrology.
This could have dire consequences for farming, as soil in much of the country is too dry to drill, and many crops for harvest next year and the end of this year need to be drilled by the end of October to be viable.
South-east England has had 144 days with little or no rain since January, which is the longest dry period since the 1970s, according to Met Office figures.
This comes as Minette Batters, the head of the National Farmers’ Union, called in the Guardian today for the Conservative leadership candidates to outline urgent water plans. The issue of running out of water has been barely addressed during the contest."
NEW: Liz Truss doubling down on her failure to announce any new cost-of-living help now. “What I don't believe in is taxing people to the highest level in 70 years, and then giving them their own money back.”
I expect a u-turn in September . There’s no way her policy will last .
Indeed, her whole approach is deeply unserious and an insult to everyone's intelligence.
You have to feel for her. She keeps being misunderstood.
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
I had a bit of a road to Damascus on it over the weekend. Its the sheer scale of it I think many are not 'getting' (myself very much included) People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done. Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required
Surely cheap and abundant wind and solar power will ride to the rescue?
Nuclear power was going to make electricity too cheap to meter. They spaffed all the solutions up the wall. Wheres tidal? Where are the rest of the nuclear power stations? There is no vision, there has been no vision, there shall be no vision
When the hard target, the plan, the goal is all, sanity goes completely out of the window. Nothing must be allowed to stop it, even destroying the economy and having countless thousands freeze to the bone.
Truss is absolutely correct to call time on this insane robbing of Peter to pay Paul because it is being used to hide the fact the hard net zero target is totally unachievable and completely undesirable.
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.
I wasn't responding (didn't even read) the specifics - I was just responding to the generic point that free speech should have consequences.
I think we should allow people to express themselves, even crudely, as part of the democratic process without exposing them to very serious consequences.
If someone spent years repeatedly telling a large audience that you were an actor who faked child deaths at the Hungerford massacre, how would feel?
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
I had a bit of a road to Damascus on it over the weekend. Its the sheer scale of it I think many are not 'getting' (myself very much included) People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done. Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required
Surely cheap and abundant wind and solar power will ride to the rescue?
In Ireland, because they have installed more wind power per capita than us, and because of the way they structured the wind power subsidies, consumers will be receiving a rebate from the wind energy producers.
Shame Britain didn't install more wind power years ago.
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.
I wasn't responding (didn't even read) the specifics - I was just responding to the generic point that free speech should have consequences.
I think we should allow people to express themselves, even crudely, as part of the democratic process without exposing them to very serious consequences.
Free speech (used to hurt or harm) always has consequences, even if it's just people regarding the speaker as a bit of a dick. The level of consequences escalates with how bad it can get.
When it gets really high, legal consequences can be incurred.
"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.
I feel very sympathetic. We are at the moment looking at significant alterations to our bathroom because I can no longer use it as intended; I can't climb into the bath which means I can't use the shower. So we will have to convert the bathroom into some sort of wet room. Now that's not a life-changing issue financially, although it is significant. It is though disruptive and concerning.
And I do wonder whether my condition will deteriorate further, so that we cannot manage without professional assistance.
Sorry to hear that. Had you thought about one of those baths with a door in the side?
I am in hospital after a hip replacement this morning so contemplating similar problems to yours but only for a week or 2
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….
"Pope fitting" is a bit of a niche occupation, surely?
A variable market to be sure - back in the day, several a year, sometimes. Even some at the same time
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
I had a bit of a road to Damascus on it over the weekend. Its the sheer scale of it I think many are not 'getting' (myself very much included) People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done. Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required
Surely cheap and abundant wind and solar power will ride to the rescue?
In Ireland, because they have installed more wind power per capita than us, and because of the way they structured the wind power subsidies, consumers will be receiving a rebate from the wind energy producers.
Shame Britain didn't install more wind power years ago.
Alternatively we could have kept coal and drilled for gas and oil for a while, until the new technology is actually ready and proven to work.
"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.
I feel very sympathetic. We are at the moment looking at significant alterations to our bathroom because I can no longer use it as intended; I can't climb into the bath which means I can't use the shower. So we will have to convert the bathroom into some sort of wet room. Now that's not a life-changing issue financially, although it is significant. It is though disruptive and concerning.
And I do wonder whether my condition will deteriorate further, so that we cannot manage without professional assistance.
Sorry to hear that. Had you thought about one of those baths with a door in the side?
I am in hospital after a hip replacement this morning so contemplating similar problems to yours but only for a week or 2
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.
That’s interesting. I can’t help but notice they’re spending £1.2m on eight flats though, would it not be cheaper to pull the whole thing down bar the facade, and start again?
Might be, but this is a research project to see 'what can we do without doing that, and what's feasible for £X, for £XX, for £XXXX'.
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
I had a bit of a road to Damascus on it over the weekend. Its the sheer scale of it I think many are not 'getting' (myself very much included) People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done. Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required
Yup. People are going to die. I know BR thinks people die anyway but stories about pensioners freezing to death at home will play *badly* for the government.
On handouts whilst you are right that a complete solution is required, I don't see anything in Mistress Truss's relationships with either compassion or reality that makes me think such a solution will even be conceived.
I suspect you are right. The industry will end up nationalised by default next year after a few thousand deaths of pensioners and the vulnerable and they try (and fail) to fix the cap. And still they wont come up with an integrated long term energy plan.
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 got it into my head I was an endearingly eccentric charmer who would melt the heart of security with my interest in the plant and my tale about my old schoolmate.
It was pure Partridge.
I recall a story about an idiot who tried to get close to the big plutonium storage site* in Texas.
He actually managed to be upset about the but where large numbers of men jumped on him, with all the guns.
*the one where they don’t use locks. Because locks are less secure
Would NOT have risked it in Texas. But this was the cuddly Lake District!
Anyway, like I say, I wasn't upset about it - more relieved that it ended up just a tale to tell.
Which has both Sellafield and BaE within an hour's drive of each other, not to mention RAF jets doing their low flying training at regular intervals.
It's not all Beatrix Potter round here you know.
Those jets are really something - one of lots of memorable things from our holiday up there.
When I was very small, I remember 3 Vulcans flying down a valley, below us, one after the other, in the Lake District.
"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.
Why 30k?
A full state pension is about £9500 per annum. That's why it needs a significant increase, and the triple lock is a very slow way of achieving that that may take half a century.
The actual benefit of the triple lock is not much more than 1% per annum, based on the actual numbers.
I continue to be amazed by the amount of interminable whinging it generates.
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.
That’s interesting. I can’t help but notice they’re spending £1.2m on eight flats though, would it not be cheaper to pull the whole thing down bar the facade, and start again?
To some extent an experimental/prototype project, tbf. Scaling will kick in, one hopes, with others.
Yes, it was difficult to understand from the article how much of the cost was scaleable, and also how much was being spent on the studying of the project, rather than the building work itself. If there’s 100 buildings of the same design, then at least the planning of the project should get cheaper after the first few.
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.
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 got it into my head I was an endearingly eccentric charmer who would melt the heart of security with my interest in the plant and my tale about my old schoolmate.
It was pure Partridge.
I recall a story about an idiot who tried to get close to the big plutonium storage site* in Texas.
He actually managed to be upset about the but where large numbers of men jumped on him, with all the guns.
*the one where they don’t use locks. Because locks are less secure
Would NOT have risked it in Texas. But this was the cuddly Lake District!
Anyway, like I say, I wasn't upset about it - more relieved that it ended up just a tale to tell.
Which has both Sellafield and BaE within an hour's drive of each other, not to mention RAF jets doing their low flying training at regular intervals.
It's not all Beatrix Potter round here you know.
Those jets are really something - one of lots of memorable things from our holiday up there.
When I was very small, I remember 3 Vulcans flying down a valley, below us, one after the other, in the Lake District.
Everything was vibrating with the sound….
I remember watching the Vulcan at Farnborough. Everyone assumed that Concorde, which had just taken off before it, would be the aural experience of the day. What a noise.
"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.
Why 30k?
A full state pension is about £9500 per annum. That's why it needs a significant increase, and the triple lock is a very slow way of achieving that that may take half a century.
The actual benefit of the triple lock is not much more than 1% per annum, based on the actual numbers.
I continue to be amazed by the amount of interminable whinging it generates.
Why not 30k? It is an arbitrary number but as good as any. Your average worker on 30k is significantly worse off than your average pensioner. But you are whinging about hypothetical pay rises for them I 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.
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.
One of my friends was doing a sight-seeing trip around Scotland. She parked her car at one point to try and get some photo's at the side of a loch - little bit of clambering over a barrier to get a better shot. A few minutes later some frogmen emerged from the loch and a jeep pulled up blocking her car in with some quite serious looking soldiers in it.
Turns out clambering over a barrier to take photo's next to Faslane isn't such a good idea. Especially when you have to explain yourself in a quite strong Northern Irish accent...
"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.
I feel very sympathetic. We are at the moment looking at significant alterations to our bathroom because I can no longer use it as intended; I can't climb into the bath which means I can't use the shower. So we will have to convert the bathroom into some sort of wet room. Now that's not a life-changing issue financially, although it is significant. It is though disruptive and concerning.
And I do wonder whether my condition will deteriorate further, so that we cannot manage without professional assistance.
Sorry to hear that. Had you thought about one of those baths with a door in the side?
I am in hospital after a hip replacement this morning so contemplating similar problems to yours but only for a week or 2
Get well soon!
Thank you!
Had the other one 3 years ago and touch wood it's a pretty straightforward recovery. Just amazed to have got it done what with COVID backlogs etc
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
I had a bit of a road to Damascus on it over the weekend. Its the sheer scale of it I think many are not 'getting' (myself very much included) People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done. Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required
Surely cheap and abundant wind and solar power will ride to the rescue?
In Ireland, because they have installed more wind power per capita than us, and because of the way they structured the wind power subsidies, consumers will be receiving a rebate from the wind energy producers.
Shame Britain didn't install more wind power years ago.
Alternatively we could have kept coal and drilled for gas and oil for a while, until the new technology is actually ready and proven to work.
If we had less wind power and burned more fossil fuels, then energy bills would be even more expensive. Duh.
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
I had a bit of a road to Damascus on it over the weekend. Its the sheer scale of it I think many are not 'getting' (myself very much included) People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done. Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required
Surely cheap and abundant wind and solar power will ride to the rescue?
Nuclear power was going to make electricity too cheap to meter. They spaffed all the solutions up the wall. Wheres tidal? Where are the rest of the nuclear power stations? There is no vision, there has been no vision, there shall be no vision
Because all must have prizes.
In London, Thames Water have invested in the new Thames super sewer, to add capacity. This will also end discharges.
I’ve seen the angry-old-men-in-bicycle-clips protesting about both the discharges and the sewer. They managed to hold up that project for about 5 years. At least.
With the Hammersmith Bridge, every single solution was held up by a slack handful of residents. Personally, I would have dynamited their houses, and used the rubble as a basis for a temporary military bridge….
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.
That’s interesting. I can’t help but notice they’re spending £1.2m on eight flats though, would it not be cheaper to pull the whole thing down bar the facade, and start again?
To some extent an experimental/prototype project, tbf. Scaling will kick in, one hopes, with others.
Yes, it was difficult to understand from the article how much of the cost was scaleable, and also how much was being spent on the studying of the project, rather than the building work itself. If there’s 100 buildings of the same design, then at least the planning of the project should get cheaper after the first few.
There are about 80,000 of that design in Glasgow alone. It's going to be quite an undertaking.
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.
I wasn't responding (didn't even read) the specifics - I was just responding to the generic point that free speech should have consequences.
I think we should allow people to express themselves, even crudely, as part of the democratic process without exposing them to very serious consequences.
Free speech (used to hurt or harm) always has consequences, even if it's just people regarding the speaker as a bit of a dick. The level of consequences escalates with how bad it can get.
When it gets really high, legal consequences can be incurred.
Who is setting the bar?
Who elects the person that is setting the bar?
1: The law. 2: In a democracy, us.
I genuinely don't understand this apparent desire for all speech, no matter how harmful, to always be consequence-free for the speaker.
"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.
I feel very sympathetic. We are at the moment looking at significant alterations to our bathroom because I can no longer use it as intended; I can't climb into the bath which means I can't use the shower. So we will have to convert the bathroom into some sort of wet room. Now that's not a life-changing issue financially, although it is significant. It is though disruptive and concerning.
And I do wonder whether my condition will deteriorate further, so that we cannot manage without professional assistance.
Comments
I'm going with:
Monsieur Periné - Nuestra Canción (the first tune on their Tiny Desk video I posted)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahtMpUhoj9s
Marta Ren & The Groovelvets - I'm Not Your Regular Woman (a Portuguese soul singer I really like)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0adRi0dt2s
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Nobody's baby (Brooklyn soul singer who sadly died a few years ago - Amy borrowed her band to record Back To Black)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnWn4U253po
I wonder if anyone will have heard any of them before..
You'd be surprised how many got through waving a random card when they'd forgotten their pass.
And I'm not entirely sure they were recognised by the gate staff.
Perhaps push them a lot harder.
I have reduced my monthly payment from the suggested £147 to £65, which is incidentally pretty much where it was some time ago, and will review in October depending how much I will be using in the winter and what the Govt do in the interim.
NEW: Liz Truss doubling down on her failure to announce any new cost-of-living help now. “What I don't believe in is taxing people to the highest level in 70 years, and then giving them their own money back.”
(I’m sure I lot of us have done similar things on autopilot ourselves though.)
New polling revealed, in a head-to-head against the Labour leader, Mr Johnson was backed as the best prime minister by 28% of voters.
The YouGov survey for The Times found Ms Truss, who is the favourite to succeed Mr Johnson, would not provide a boost for Tory support against Sir Keir.
The Foreign Secretary also polled at 28% when pitched against the Labour leader, who was backed by 31% of voters as the best PM.
Mr Sunak did slightly worse in a head-to-head against Sir Keir, with 27% backing the ex-chancellor when asked who would make the best PM.
Sir Keir was again backed by 31% of voters when they were asked to choose between the Labour leader and Mr Sunak.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11091277/Blow-Sunak-Truss-poll-shows-public-think-NEITHER-better-PM-Starmer.html
A friend was doing the yachting round the world thing. They rocked up at one of those uninhabited atolls that are under American jurisdiction and tied up on the dock there.
Next morning he was woken up by a smart knock on the cabin door. An American military guy in very neat fatigues checked his papers and had a look round. Then left.
Only later did he realise that there was literally no habitation on the atoll, no cover and he hadn’t heard a helicopter….
It may help, but large scale uses are likely to be transport by tanker - more as eg propane is distributed now.
And since boilers have a short lifecycle, it may be superseded by something else first.
Would you be happy if Labour governed in such a cynical and divisive way?
It was pure Partridge.
I think we should allow people to express themselves, even crudely, as part of the democratic process without exposing them to very serious consequences.
And I do wonder whether my condition will deteriorate further, so that we cannot manage without professional assistance.
If you'd be dodgy they might have taken you in for further questioning, and they'd have to have serious grounds for arrest, but that'd have been it. This isn't the USA where they cock rifles if they're not sure.
Next time, go the visitor centre or apply for a site visit through the proper process!
He actually managed to be upset about the but where large numbers of men jumped on him, with all the guns.
*the one where they don’t use locks. Because locks are less secure
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gym81fY460
If she sticks to that even SKS could beat her unless he offers something equally appalling to "help" during the COLC
As far as i can see the current positions are
Energy costs
• Labour: £5bn windfall & 5% cut in bill.
• Tories: £10bn windfall & £400 discount on bill.
• Lib Dem’s: £36bn furlough package & £1,400 halt of October’s rise.
Reality is SKS & RR need to step up fast
That’s a lovely thought. Great way for the guests to feel involved. Also a nice conversation starter between guests who don’t know each other.
I like it a lot.
1.12 Liz Truss 89%
9.6 Rishi Sunak 10%
Next Conservative leader
1.11 Liz Truss 90%
10 Rishi Sunak 10%
He used a similar argument when he got divorced, to persuade the custody judge that his on-screen persona is just that, a persona, and not reflective of how he behaves in real life.
They used to have a visitor centre in fact. Closed now though.
You can see the site from a distance just by driving along the coast road or taking the train. There are far nicer things to view along that road.
I was just thinking that the brazen approach might have been less suspicious! "I know the director" is definitely a flag for a visit from site police.
A bit like the journalists finally waking up to the cost of living issues, as their massive London mortgages just went up lots.
Tory rejects Brownism shock.
This case sets no precedent which should worry them.
People will freeze to death this winter in their homes if nothing is done.
Truss is right about handouts though, a complete structural response and solution is required
Anyway, like I say, I wasn't upset about it - more relieved that it ended up just a tale to tell.
It's not all Beatrix Potter round here you know.
Who knows, you might even have succeeded - though he was presented, over a number of years, with evidence of the damage his comments were doing to those he had libelled. And it was evident to all that a number of people did believe his absurd stories.
Note he was being sued for those comments, not how he 'behaves in real life'.
Though the latter would included perjuring himself in open court.
Better than Johnson but I can't say I'm looking forward to her premiership.
As with so many in the Magaverse (Jones, D'Souza, Lindelll, Trump himself) it's hard to see where the mental illness ends and the con begins.
Surely cheap and abundant wind and solar power will ride to the rescue?
When it gets really high, legal consequences can be incurred.
I am hoping as well that the process and the legislation is too far down the track for one of Liz's famous u-turns.
They spaffed all the solutions up the wall. Wheres tidal? Where are the rest of the nuclear power stations?
There is no vision, there has been no vision, there shall be no vision
They must be phased out whether the alternatives are ready or not, because the plan and the target are all.
Well, that's Maoism for you.
On handouts whilst you are right that a complete solution is required, I don't see anything in Mistress Truss's relationships with either compassion or reality that makes me think such a solution will even be conceived.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/aug/09/uk-braced-for-drought-conditions-in-october
"The UK is braced for drought conditions until October, with rivers forecast to be low and exceptionally low in central and southern England, according to the UK Centre of Ecology and Hydrology.
This could have dire consequences for farming, as soil in much of the country is too dry to drill, and many crops for harvest next year and the end of this year need to be drilled by the end of October to be viable.
South-east England has had 144 days with little or no rain since January, which is the longest dry period since the 1970s, according to Met Office figures.
This comes as Minette Batters, the head of the National Farmers’ Union, called in the Guardian today for the Conservative leadership candidates to outline urgent water plans. The issue of running out of water has been barely addressed during the contest."
When the hard target, the plan, the goal is all, sanity goes completely out of the window. Nothing must be allowed to stop it, even destroying the economy and having countless thousands freeze to the bone.
Truss is absolutely correct to call time on this insane robbing of Peter to pay Paul because it is being used to hide the fact the hard net zero target is totally unachievable and completely undesirable.
Shame Britain didn't install more wind power years ago.
Who elects the person that is setting the bar?
I am in hospital after a hip replacement this morning so contemplating similar problems to yours but only for a week or 2
And still they wont come up with an integrated long term energy plan.
Energy, food, transport, housing, health. Innit.
Everything was vibrating with the sound….
A full state pension is about £9500 per annum. That's why it needs a significant increase, and the triple lock is a very slow way of achieving that that may take half a century.
The actual benefit of the triple lock is not much more than 1% per annum, based on the actual numbers.
I continue to be amazed by the amount of interminable whinging it generates.
Turns out clambering over a barrier to take photo's next to Faslane isn't such a good idea. Especially when you have to explain yourself in a quite strong Northern Irish accent...
Had the other one 3 years ago and touch wood it's a pretty straightforward recovery. Just amazed to have got it done what with COVID backlogs etc
In London, Thames Water have invested in the new Thames super sewer, to add capacity. This will also end discharges.
I’ve seen the angry-old-men-in-bicycle-clips protesting about both the discharges and the sewer. They managed to hold up that project for about 5 years. At least.
With the Hammersmith Bridge, every single solution was held up by a slack handful of residents. Personally, I would have dynamited their houses, and used the rubble as a basis for a temporary military bridge….
2: In a democracy, us.
I genuinely don't understand this apparent desire for all speech, no matter how harmful, to always be consequence-free for the speaker.
https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1556949833398861824
I wrote a series of articles about that when I had to do that for mum.
Linky: "Adapting a House for People who are Frail, Elderly or Disabled"
https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/blogs/entry/622-adapting-a-house-for-people-who-are-frail-elderly-or-disabled/