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.
An American observed that only the British could have built a plane powered by 4 Olympus engines that was subsonic*.
*there are various stories about Vulcans nearly going supersonic. It developed a savage Mach tuck at high speed. One pilot, apparently, considered pushing the stick forward and doing a loop, on an attempt to save the rear crew
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.
America's heating gas bills are a fraction of ours. Is that because they have more wind and sun? or is it because until recently they fracked like f8ck?
"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.
It seems rather hyperbolic comparing a threshold of essentially average salary with a state pension level well under a third of that.
Incidentally, when did the right-wing start becoming reflexively anti new technology? Whenever a new technology comes along there always seem to be a bunch of right-wrong people creating sprouts arguments why it's crap.
We've seen this with wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, heart pumps, over and over again. It's really negative and boring. Indicative that there are many on the right who just reflexively oppose anything, particularly if they've ever heard a left-wrong person surreal favourably about it.
Perhaps when they started getting most of their votes from the elderly? But conservatives have always been against change, by definition.
Which is an important part of any political debate.
Otherwise we'd have constant disruption, social disturbance and political revolution, and implement a lot of stupid ideas that would retard us economically and politically.
"Progressives" need "conservatives" to challenge and filter them so we get steady and progressive incremental change, rather than blow up the system or no change whatsoever. Ying and Yang.
It's how it's supposed to work.
Yeah I don't disagree with that at all. It feels a bit unbalanced at the moment, mind, so instead of getting incremental change we get stasis, while evidence of the system not working mounts. Eventually that will lead to far more radical change down the line, which even I don't want - I am too old and invested for violent revolution.
Fair enough, I sort of agree with you too - young people are getting rogered by the current system, and I don't want them revolting and bringing it all down.
There is definitely a problem with some of the older generation. My client is doing plenty of stakeholder consultations on Sizewell C in Suffolk at the moment and the existing residents couldn't give a toss about skills/training/jobs or energy transition, they only care about their property prices and disruption during construction.
You'd think they'd care more about their own children and grandchildren, but no. I don't want that to blowback and be reciprocated.
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.
Is the visitor centre still open? We went there on a school field trip in 1996.
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.
An American observed that only the British could have built a plane powered by 4 Olympus engines that was subsonic*.
*there are various stories about Vulcans nearly going supersonic. It developed a savage Mach tuck at high speed. One pilot, apparently, considered pushing the stick forward and doing a loop, on an attempt to save the rear crew
I saw one at some airshow somewhere and it flew over us as it took off. Seemed to last forever, like those panoramic shots in Star Trek or Close Encounters where the alien craft is ginormous
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.
America's heating gas bills are a fraction of ours. Is that because they have more wind and sun? or is it because until recently they fracked like f8ck?
America is mostly hotter than here. You’d think that would be part of it.
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….
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….
"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
Hey welcome to the club. Where did you get yours done?
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.
An American observed that only the British could have built a plane powered by 4 Olympus engines that was subsonic*.
*there are various stories about Vulcans nearly going supersonic. It developed a savage Mach tuck at high speed. One pilot, apparently, considered pushing the stick forward and doing a loop, on an attempt to save the rear crew
An ‘outside loop’ is horrible, unless you’re prepared for it and very well strapped in. That said, ‘mach tuck’ is also horrible for the pilot, who sees a positive feedback loop that’s always going to exceed design limits, even with speed brakes extended.
IIRC, the rear occupants of the Vulcan weren’t officers, and (therefore!) didn’t have parachutes.
The GOP have now started fighting amongst themselves over the abortion issue . The total anti abortionists are now accusing those of wanting exceptions for rape or incest as not being pro-life .
It really shows just how bad things have become in the USA. Forcing a woman to carry a baby full term after a rape or incest is utterly disgusting and inhumane .
I don't get Truss's obsession with cutting Corporation Tax. The level at which it is levied has never once entered into our calculations when we have made investment decisions, largely because it is only charged against profits.
I don't get Truss's obsession with cutting Corporation Tax. The level at which it is levied has never once entered into our calculations when we have made investment decisions, largely because it is only charged against profits.
She’s wanting to actually cut CT, or she’s against Rishi’s rise from 19% to 25% planned for next year?
Is the cost of living issue really not registering with Tory members? Are they all completely minted?
There's no single cost of living, mostly because people's cost of housing varies so much. So people with smallish incomes can be very well off in a Micawber sense, much more so than people with more money coming in.
And I hope that that mutual incomprehension is a large part of why the comfortably-off (mortgage paid off, so they can afford to retire early) are so reluctant to chip in more.
Becuase the alternative is that they're irredeemably selfish
"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.
It seems rather hyperbolic comparing a threshold of essentially average salary with a state pension level well under a third of that.
Further, the 5 minutes having expired.
Your previous comment explicitly stated the "bottom 10-20%", whilst your identified number encompasses the bottom approx 60% of workers, and bottom ~40% of full time workers.
The bottom 20% is more like 17k than 30k, at which level I think the point could stand.
That's a significant change of position between 2 comments.
I'm not at all convinced that your average worker on 30k is worse off than your average pensioner, and certainly than your pensioner with only a state pension.
Rather than targeting state pensioners, I think say a 10% extra rate on final salary pension might be appropriate.
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.
America's heating gas bills are a fraction of ours. Is that because they have more wind and sun? or is it because until recently they fracked like f8ck?
America is mostly hotter than here. You’d think that would be part of it.
In winter, America is mostly colder than here.
In fact -- excluding Alaska & Hawaii -- average US winter temperature is at about the freezing point.
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.
An American observed that only the British could have built a plane powered by 4 Olympus engines that was subsonic*.
*there are various stories about Vulcans nearly going supersonic. It developed a savage Mach tuck at high speed. One pilot, apparently, considered pushing the stick forward and doing a loop, on an attempt to save the rear crew
An ‘outside loop’ is horrible, unless you’re prepared for it and very well strapped in. That said, ‘mach tuck’ is also horrible for the pilot, who sees a positive feedback loop that’s always going to exceed design limits, even with speed brakes extended.
IIRC, the rear occupants of the Vulcan weren’t officers, and (therefore!) didn’t have parachutes.
I think they may have had parachutes but no ejection seats? The navigator definitely didn't have one.
XH588 was of course based here and it usually did a mini display on returning, which was always fun. The scary thing about it was not the noise but how quietly it could do a low approach. Without visual there was very little warning of its arrival.
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.
An American observed that only the British could have built a plane powered by 4 Olympus engines that was subsonic*.
*there are various stories about Vulcans nearly going supersonic. It developed a savage Mach tuck at high speed. One pilot, apparently, considered pushing the stick forward and doing a loop, on an attempt to save the rear crew
An ‘outside loop’ is horrible, unless you’re prepared for it and very well strapped in. That said, ‘mach tuck’ is also horrible for the pilot, who sees a positive feedback loop that’s always going to exceed design limits, even with speed brakes extended.
IIRC, the rear occupants of the Vulcan weren’t officers, and (therefore!) didn’t have parachutes.
The lack of rear ejection seats was more to do with lack of knowledge and skill in designing pressure cabins. So they just built it like a bridge, without much fine calculation. Which made big holes in it problematic.
"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
Hey welcome to the club. Where did you get yours done?
Clinic attached to Derriford in Plymouth
Weirdly I paid for one 3 years ago, about two thirds of a full monty Nuffield, but migrated onto the NHS list for this one. Administrative cock up I suspect. I was keeping a bit quiet about this but now it's done I don't suppose they will come and take it out again.
"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
Hey welcome to the club. Where did you get yours done?
Clinic attached to Derriford in Plymouth
Weirdly I paid for one 3 years ago, about two thirds of a full monty Nuffield, but migrated onto the NHS list for this one. Administrative cock up I suspect. I was keeping a bit quiet about this but now it's done I don't suppose they will come and take it out again.
Jeremy Latham is at the Nuffield I think, down your way. He probably takes the bus from there to the NHS to do both lists.
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..
Just in case they're impressed with my selection (all, unusually for me, from the 21st C) and they ask me for three more (I doubt it, I've got a feeling my sister might think "I'm not your regular woman" was aimed at her!), I've nonetheless prepared and decided to go back to some obscure singers and songs from one of my favourite periods. The songs are from 68, 69 and 70
Doris - Beatmaker (funky Swedish singer called Doris Svensson. There are a few tracks of hers that have been picked up by rare groove DJs. The title track of this album has just about the loveliest sentiment for a song I've ever heard - Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crNtwZ8JVCc ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5grA80Zkv4
The GOP have now started fighting amongst themselves over the abortion issue . The total anti abortionists are now accusing those of wanting exceptions for rape or incest as not being pro-life .
It really shows just how bad things have become in the USA. Forcing a woman to carry a baby full term after a rape or incest is utterly disgusting and inhumane .
Yet some in the GOP think this is acceptable .
13% of Americans, more than 10% of the population, think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances without exception
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.
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..
Just in case they're impressed with my selection (all, unusually for me, from the 21st C) and they ask me for three more (I doubt it, I've got a feeling my sister might think "I'm not your regular woman" was aimed at her!), I've nonetheless prepared and decided to go back to some obscure singers and songs from one of my favourite periods. The songs are from 68, 69 and 70
Doris - Beatmaker (funky Swedish singer called Doris Svensson. There are a few tracks of hers that have been picked up by rare groove DJs. The title track of this album has just about the loveliest sentiment for a song I've ever heard - Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crNtwZ8JVCc ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5grA80Zkv4
Thanks again. By the way I am in the state of Maine on “vacay”, but live in Manhattan, not “Maine, NY”.
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.
An American observed that only the British could have built a plane powered by 4 Olympus engines that was subsonic*.
*there are various stories about Vulcans nearly going supersonic. It developed a savage Mach tuck at high speed. One pilot, apparently, considered pushing the stick forward and doing a loop, on an attempt to save the rear crew
An ‘outside loop’ is horrible, unless you’re prepared for it and very well strapped in. That said, ‘mach tuck’ is also horrible for the pilot, who sees a positive feedback loop that’s always going to exceed design limits, even with speed brakes extended.
IIRC, the rear occupants of the Vulcan weren’t officers, and (therefore!) didn’t have parachutes.
Americans don't like admitting than Vulcans nuked them twice in exercises, whilst all commercial flights had been grounded in the USA for the exercise and they had 1000+ interceptors on the hunt.
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..
Just in case they're impressed with my selection (all, unusually for me, from the 21st C) and they ask me for three more (I doubt it, I've got a feeling my sister might think "I'm not your regular woman" was aimed at her!), I've nonetheless prepared and decided to go back to some obscure singers and songs from one of my favourite periods. The songs are from 68, 69 and 70
Doris - Beatmaker (funky Swedish singer called Doris Svensson. There are a few tracks of hers that have been picked up by rare groove DJs. The title track of this album has just about the loveliest sentiment for a song I've ever heard - Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crNtwZ8JVCc ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5grA80Zkv4
Thanks again. By the way I am in the state of Maine on “vacay”, but live in Manhattan, not “Maine, NY”.
Bit too early for leef peaping, shame. Maine is fantastic I really enjoyed it, apart from the Naychur I really liked Portland for its easy vibe and friendly coffee shops. Enjoy.
The GOP have now started fighting amongst themselves over the abortion issue . The total anti abortionists are now accusing those of wanting exceptions for rape or incest as not being pro-life .
It really shows just how bad things have become in the USA. Forcing a woman to carry a baby full term after a rape or incest is utterly disgusting and inhumane .
Yet some in the GOP think this is acceptable .
13% of Americans, more than 10% of the population, think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances without exception
That’s the issue . Why should a tiny minority try and force their views onto legislation . These people will of course change their tune if they needed an exception . Some of the biggest hypocrites seem to be the religious hard liners . It reminds me of a US hate preacher who was anti-gay on steroids . It turns out he spent most of his evenings blowing male escorts !
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….
Seen Jaguars, Harriers, Tornados, A10s and Typhoons having fun across Ullswater, over the years. Strangest thing I ever saw was an F104, presumably on some NATO exercise, flying nap of the earth over Hadrian's Wall. Loud and low.
"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
Hey welcome to the club. Where did you get yours done?
Clinic attached to Derriford in Plymouth
Weirdly I paid for one 3 years ago, about two thirds of a full monty Nuffield, but migrated onto the NHS list for this one. Administrative cock up I suspect. I was keeping a bit quiet about this but now it's done I don't suppose they will come and take it out again.
Jeremy Latham is at the Nuffield I think, down your way. He probably takes the bus from there to the NHS to do both lists.
Is it your first?
Naah had the right one done 3 years ago. That was life changing. This one not nearly so bad (but weirdly looks worse on X ray than the other one did). Same Polish surgeon both times
The funny thing is - all the warning signs are there with Truss. Yet more Tory MPs come out and endorse- presumably because they see which way the membership will vote and they’re hoping for a job.
Though not sure what advantage a job in what will be a deeply unpopular government will have
They would and did go just supersonic with no adverse handling (normally) but never in an operational trim.
The three rear crew (AEO, Nav (Plotter), Nav (Radar)) were all commissioned officers. Though NCO gingers (hobbit sized preferred) were occasionally carried in the #6 and #7 seats on bolthole ops. Such was the legendary reliability of the Vulcan. If it landed anywhere that wasn't an active Vulcan station it took a great deal of expertise to get it flying again.
The GOP have now started fighting amongst themselves over the abortion issue . The total anti abortionists are now accusing those of wanting exceptions for rape or incest as not being pro-life .
It really shows just how bad things have become in the USA. Forcing a woman to carry a baby full term after a rape or incest is utterly disgusting and inhumane .
Yet some in the GOP think this is acceptable .
13% of Americans, more than 10% of the population, think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances without exception
That’s the issue . Why should a tiny minority try and force their views onto legislation . These people will of course change their tune if they needed an exception . Some of the biggest hypocrites seem to be the religious hard liners . It reminds me of a US hate preacher who was anti-gay on steroids . It turns out he spent most of his evenings blowing male escorts !
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.
Yep, it's very much of relevance to a major category of Scottish housing stock, and cruciual to the townscape. And I suppose not too much of a disaster if something goes wrong!
It's also applicable to 2 and 3 bed flats, with (probably) rather smaller costs pro rata (perimeter and area versus volume scaling).
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..
Just in case they're impressed with my selection (all, unusually for me, from the 21st C) and they ask me for three more (I doubt it, I've got a feeling my sister might think "I'm not your regular woman" was aimed at her!), I've nonetheless prepared and decided to go back to some obscure singers and songs from one of my favourite periods. The songs are from 68, 69 and 70
Doris - Beatmaker (funky Swedish singer called Doris Svensson. There are a few tracks of hers that have been picked up by rare groove DJs. The title track of this album has just about the loveliest sentiment for a song I've ever heard - Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crNtwZ8JVCc ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5grA80Zkv4
Thanks again. By the way I am in the state of Maine on “vacay”, but live in Manhattan, not “Maine, NY”.
Ah cool, so NYC gig recommendations would be welcome?
If so, I'd highly recommend keeping an eye on what Daptone Records are up to. From their website it seems there's been a touring hiatus since 2019, but a couple of their bands are doing some gigs now but outside NY. If you see Lee Fields, Saun and Starr, The Budos Band, or Menahan Street Band playing, they'd be some top tips
"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.
Very interesting reading indeed. I was particularly seized by the prices; one of the problems is that one starts without an idea of how much such things should cost.
So many thanks again, and thanks to those who have expressed good wishes!
The funny thing is - all the warning signs are there with Truss. Yet more Tory MPs come out and endorse- presumably because they see which way the membership will vote and they’re hoping for a job.
Though not sure what advantage a job in what will be a deeply unpopular government will have
If PM Truss is going to happen (and it now looks like it would take something HUGE to stop her), you might as well enjoy the ride.
Even if they are already writing off ther hopes for 2024, they might as well be a minister now than never.
"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
Hey welcome to the club. Where did you get yours done?
Clinic attached to Derriford in Plymouth
Weirdly I paid for one 3 years ago, about two thirds of a full monty Nuffield, but migrated onto the NHS list for this one. Administrative cock up I suspect. I was keeping a bit quiet about this but now it's done I don't suppose they will come and take it out again.
Jeremy Latham is at the Nuffield I think, down your way. He probably takes the bus from there to the NHS to do both lists.
Is it your first?
Naah had the right one done 3 years ago. That was life changing. This one not nearly so bad (but weirdly looks worse on X ray than the other one did). Same Polish surgeon both times
Nice - I have had both done also; one 10 years ago (by Sarah M-A) and the other very recently by one of her proteges. It really is a life-changing op and, we're all happy to say, perfectly routine. When I had the first one done I asked Sarah when I could get back on a horse and she said as soon as possible but don't fall off for six months. Which instruction I duly obeyed if only with some degree of luck.
I don't get Truss's obsession with cutting Corporation Tax. The level at which it is levied has never once entered into our calculations when we have made investment decisions, largely because it is only charged against profits.
According to studies, it is the tax that most damages economic growth.
I don't get Truss's obsession with cutting Corporation Tax. The level at which it is levied has never once entered into our calculations when we have made investment decisions, largely because it is only charged against profits.
She’s wanting to actually cut CT, or she’s against Rishi’s rise from 19% to 25% planned for next year?
Against the rise but she's probably committed to it going down to 1% some point in the last 2 weeks.
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.
An American observed that only the British could have built a plane powered by 4 Olympus engines that was subsonic*.
*there are various stories about Vulcans nearly going supersonic. It developed a savage Mach tuck at high speed. One pilot, apparently, considered pushing the stick forward and doing a loop, on an attempt to save the rear crew
An ‘outside loop’ is horrible, unless you’re prepared for it and very well strapped in. That said, ‘mach tuck’ is also horrible for the pilot, who sees a positive feedback loop that’s always going to exceed design limits, even with speed brakes extended.
IIRC, the rear occupants of the Vulcan weren’t officers, and (therefore!) didn’t have parachutes.
Americans don't like admitting than Vulcans nuked them twice in exercises, whilst all commercial flights had been grounded in the USA for the exercise and they had 1000+ interceptors on the hunt.
I don't get Truss's obsession with cutting Corporation Tax. The level at which it is levied has never once entered into our calculations when we have made investment decisions, largely because it is only charged against profits.
According to studies, it is the tax that most damages economic growth.
Payroll taxes do most damage to employment.
Although not, apparently, according to Treasury. But I have seen some counter-arguments to the Treasury’s counter-argument.
My instinct is to avoid hiking it. The U.K. really needs to look open for investment.
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.
An American observed that only the British could have built a plane powered by 4 Olympus engines that was subsonic*.
*there are various stories about Vulcans nearly going supersonic. It developed a savage Mach tuck at high speed. One pilot, apparently, considered pushing the stick forward and doing a loop, on an attempt to save the rear crew
An ‘outside loop’ is horrible, unless you’re prepared for it and very well strapped in. That said, ‘mach tuck’ is also horrible for the pilot, who sees a positive feedback loop that’s always going to exceed design limits, even with speed brakes extended.
IIRC, the rear occupants of the Vulcan weren’t officers, and (therefore!) didn’t have parachutes.
Americans don't like admitting than Vulcans nuked them twice in exercises, whilst all commercial flights had been grounded in the USA for the exercise and they had 1000+ interceptors on the hunt.
I don't get Truss's obsession with cutting Corporation Tax. The level at which it is levied has never once entered into our calculations when we have made investment decisions, largely because it is only charged against profits.
According to studies, it is the tax that most damages economic growth.
Payroll taxes do most damage to employment.
Conservatives described employer NI as a “tax on jobs” when Labour wanted to raise it. It’s still a “tax on jobs” when Conservatives want to raise it.
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..
Just in case they're impressed with my selection (all, unusually for me, from the 21st C) and they ask me for three more (I doubt it, I've got a feeling my sister might think "I'm not your regular woman" was aimed at her!), I've nonetheless prepared and decided to go back to some obscure singers and songs from one of my favourite periods. The songs are from 68, 69 and 70
Doris - Beatmaker (funky Swedish singer called Doris Svensson. There are a few tracks of hers that have been picked up by rare groove DJs. The title track of this album has just about the loveliest sentiment for a song I've ever heard - Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crNtwZ8JVCc ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5grA80Zkv4
Thanks again. By the way I am in the state of Maine on “vacay”, but live in Manhattan, not “Maine, NY”.
Ah cool, so NYC gig recommendations would be welcome?
If so, I'd highly recommend keeping an eye on what Daptone Records are up to. From their website it seems there's been a touring hiatus since 2019, but a couple of their bands are doing some gigs now but outside NY. If you see Lee Fields, Saun and Starr, The Budos Band, or Menahan Street Band playing, they'd be some top tips
"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
Hey welcome to the club. Where did you get yours done?
Clinic attached to Derriford in Plymouth
Weirdly I paid for one 3 years ago, about two thirds of a full monty Nuffield, but migrated onto the NHS list for this one. Administrative cock up I suspect. I was keeping a bit quiet about this but now it's done I don't suppose they will come and take it out again.
Jeremy Latham is at the Nuffield I think, down your way. He probably takes the bus from there to the NHS to do both lists.
Is it your first?
Naah had the right one done 3 years ago. That was life changing. This one not nearly so bad (but weirdly looks worse on X ray than the other one did). Same Polish surgeon both times
Nice - I have had both done also; one 10 years ago (by Sarah M-A) and the other very recently by one of her proteges. It really is a life-changing op and, we're all happy to say, perfectly routine. When I had the first one done I asked Sarah when I could get back on a horse and she said as soon as possible but don't fall off for six months. Which instruction I duly obeyed if only with some degree of luck.
That's your season buggered isn't it, that said?
Sarah M-A, best hip surgeon in the country! A friend of my late mother's and did my aunt's hip.
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..
Just in case they're impressed with my selection (all, unusually for me, from the 21st C) and they ask me for three more (I doubt it, I've got a feeling my sister might think "I'm not your regular woman" was aimed at her!), I've nonetheless prepared and decided to go back to some obscure singers and songs from one of my favourite periods. The songs are from 68, 69 and 70
Doris - Beatmaker (funky Swedish singer called Doris Svensson. There are a few tracks of hers that have been picked up by rare groove DJs. The title track of this album has just about the loveliest sentiment for a song I've ever heard - Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crNtwZ8JVCc ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5grA80Zkv4
Thanks again. By the way I am in the state of Maine on “vacay”, but live in Manhattan, not “Maine, NY”.
Bit too early for leef peaping, shame. Maine is fantastic I really enjoyed it, apart from the Naychur I really liked Portland for its easy vibe and friendly coffee shops. Enjoy.
I love it. It’s incredibly easy, the living is inexpensive, the lobsters are plentiful, it doesn’t get too hot. It’s my second time up here, this time with children in tow.
I don't get Truss's obsession with cutting Corporation Tax. The level at which it is levied has never once entered into our calculations when we have made investment decisions, largely because it is only charged against profits.
According to studies, it is the tax that most damages economic growth.
Payroll taxes do most damage to employment.
Which is why the increase is attached to significant allowances for investment..
And one reason for the increase is because UK business investment has been dire for years with companies using overtime and casual labour rather than investing...
"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
Hey welcome to the club. Where did you get yours done?
Clinic attached to Derriford in Plymouth
Weirdly I paid for one 3 years ago, about two thirds of a full monty Nuffield, but migrated onto the NHS list for this one. Administrative cock up I suspect. I was keeping a bit quiet about this but now it's done I don't suppose they will come and take it out again.
Jeremy Latham is at the Nuffield I think, down your way. He probably takes the bus from there to the NHS to do both lists.
Is it your first?
Naah had the right one done 3 years ago. That was life changing. This one not nearly so bad (but weirdly looks worse on X ray than the other one did). Same Polish surgeon both times
Nice - I have had both done also; one 10 years ago (by Sarah M-A) and the other very recently by one of her proteges. It really is a life-changing op and, we're all happy to say, perfectly routine. When I had the first one done I asked Sarah when I could get back on a horse and she said as soon as possible but don't fall off for six months. Which instruction I duly obeyed if only with some degree of luck.
That's your season buggered isn't it, that said?
Naah. I have lent this horse out for the season cos he is a bit young and impetuous, and confining myself to an older and steadier one. But there's 1000 ways falling off a horse can seriously bugger you up, and I don't see any reason to alter ones habits because that ticks up to 1001. Eyes on the opening meet
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.
America's heating gas bills are a fraction of ours. Is that because they have more wind and sun? or is it because until recently they fracked like f8ck?
It's because they don't have the LNG export infrastructure to make their domestic gas supplies available on the world market, and subject to the world market prices.
If the UK had fracked in a big way, we would have exported that gas, and we would still be subject to the world price of gas.
I don't get Truss's obsession with cutting Corporation Tax. The level at which it is levied has never once entered into our calculations when we have made investment decisions, largely because it is only charged against profits.
According to studies, it is the tax that most damages economic growth.
Payroll taxes do most damage to employment.
I'd love to see those studies. The UK is being outgrown and out-innovated by a lot of countries that have higher Corporation Tax rates than we do - and which also have better productivity than we do.
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.
An American observed that only the British could have built a plane powered by 4 Olympus engines that was subsonic*.
*there are various stories about Vulcans nearly going supersonic. It developed a savage Mach tuck at high speed. One pilot, apparently, considered pushing the stick forward and doing a loop, on an attempt to save the rear crew
An ‘outside loop’ is horrible, unless you’re prepared for it and very well strapped in. That said, ‘mach tuck’ is also horrible for the pilot, who sees a positive feedback loop that’s always going to exceed design limits, even with speed brakes extended.
IIRC, the rear occupants of the Vulcan weren’t officers, and (therefore!) didn’t have parachutes.
Americans don't like admitting than Vulcans nuked them twice in exercises, whilst all commercial flights had been grounded in the USA for the exercise and they had 1000+ interceptors on the hunt.
"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.
It seems rather hyperbolic comparing a threshold of essentially average salary with a state pension level well under a third of that.
Further, the 5 minutes having expired.
Your previous comment explicitly stated the "bottom 10-20%", whilst your identified number encompasses the bottom approx 60% of workers, and bottom ~40% of full time workers.
The bottom 20% is more like 17k than 30k, at which level I think the point could stand.
That's a significant change of position between 2 comments.
I'm not at all convinced that your average worker on 30k is worse off than your average pensioner, and certainly than your pensioner with only a state pension.
Rather than targeting state pensioners, I think say a 10% extra rate on final salary pension might be appropriate.
Why do we keep coming back to saying it is about the poorest pensioners when it is applied to all those receiving the state pension?
I am happy to protect and increase the incomes of the poorest, but see absolutely no reason why this should be only available to the first generation to be richer than their parents, grand parents, children and grand children. It should be done whatever their age.
The details of how that can best be achieved can be fine tuned by the Treasury but the principle of protecting and boosting the incomes of the poorest is what I am for and those defending the status quo make impossible as we cannot afford to boost the incomes of both all pensioners and the working poor faster than we grow the economy on an indefinite basis.
"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
Hey welcome to the club. Where did you get yours done?
Clinic attached to Derriford in Plymouth
Weirdly I paid for one 3 years ago, about two thirds of a full monty Nuffield, but migrated onto the NHS list for this one. Administrative cock up I suspect. I was keeping a bit quiet about this but now it's done I don't suppose they will come and take it out again.
Jeremy Latham is at the Nuffield I think, down your way. He probably takes the bus from there to the NHS to do both lists.
Is it your first?
Naah had the right one done 3 years ago. That was life changing. This one not nearly so bad (but weirdly looks worse on X ray than the other one did). Same Polish surgeon both times
Nice - I have had both done also; one 10 years ago (by Sarah M-A) and the other very recently by one of her proteges. It really is a life-changing op and, we're all happy to say, perfectly routine. When I had the first one done I asked Sarah when I could get back on a horse and she said as soon as possible but don't fall off for six months. Which instruction I duly obeyed if only with some degree of luck.
That's your season buggered isn't it, that said?
Naah. I have lent this horse out for the season cos he is a bit young and impetuous, and confining myself to an older and steadier one. But there's 1000 ways falling off a horse can seriously bugger you up, and I don't see any reason to alter ones habits because that ticks up to 1001. Eyes on the opening meet
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.
America's heating gas bills are a fraction of ours. Is that because they have more wind and sun? or is it because until recently they fracked like f8ck?
It's because they don't have the LNG export infrastructure to make their domestic gas supplies available on the world market, and subject to the world market prices.
If the UK had fracked in a big way, we would have exported that gas, and we would still be subject to the world price of gas.
You know that it wasn't possible to frack to the extent it has been done in the US...
I don't get Truss's obsession with cutting Corporation Tax. The level at which it is levied has never once entered into our calculations when we have made investment decisions, largely because it is only charged against profits.
She’s wanting to actually cut CT, or she’s against Rishi’s rise from 19% to 25% planned for next year?
Against the rise but she's probably committed to it going down to 1% some point in the last 2 weeks.
Those remarks were misinterpreted.
Truss is going to be an utter fiasco isn't she? The tories have managed to select the candidate who is least temperamentally, intellectually and ideologically equipped to navigate the country's passage through the multiple co-morbid crises which are enveloping it.
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….
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..
Just in case they're impressed with my selection (all, unusually for me, from the 21st C) and they ask me for three more (I doubt it, I've got a feeling my sister might think "I'm not your regular woman" was aimed at her!), I've nonetheless prepared and decided to go back to some obscure singers and songs from one of my favourite periods. The songs are from 68, 69 and 70
Doris - Beatmaker (funky Swedish singer called Doris Svensson. There are a few tracks of hers that have been picked up by rare groove DJs. The title track of this album has just about the loveliest sentiment for a song I've ever heard - Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crNtwZ8JVCc ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5grA80Zkv4
Thanks again. By the way I am in the state of Maine on “vacay”, but live in Manhattan, not “Maine, NY”.
Ah cool, so NYC gig recommendations would be welcome?
If so, I'd highly recommend keeping an eye on what Daptone Records are up to. From their website it seems there's been a touring hiatus since 2019, but a couple of their bands are doing some gigs now but outside NY. If you see Lee Fields, Saun and Starr, The Budos Band, or Menahan Street Band playing, they'd be some top tips
Thanks, yes. I loved Sharon Jones, especially the “I Learned the Hard Way” album, which I think has magical songwriting.
It was on the tour for the release of that album that I first saw her live, at Koko in Camden, formerly Camden Palace. And the gig I met Steve Davis at!
It's amazing that she wasn't signed until she was in her forties; she was working as a guard in a women's prison when she was discovered by Gabe Roth from Daptone at a local talent show in a bar.
Have you seen the documentary about her and her time touring with cancer? Called "Miss Sharon Jones!" and it used to be on Netflix, but not sure if it still is. It's beautiful and heart-breaking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Sharon_Jones!
I don't get Truss's obsession with cutting Corporation Tax. The level at which it is levied has never once entered into our calculations when we have made investment decisions, largely because it is only charged against profits.
A proportion of the tax cut ends up as donations to the Tory Party. That's the plan.
I don't get Truss's obsession with cutting Corporation Tax. The level at which it is levied has never once entered into our calculations when we have made investment decisions, largely because it is only charged against profits.
According to studies, it is the tax that most damages economic growth.
Payroll taxes do most damage to employment.
I'd love to see those studies. The UK is being outgrown and out-innovated by a lot of countries that have higher Corporation Tax rates than we do - and which also have better productivity than we do.
The most influential is a Canadian one from 20 years ago iirc. It is quite dense and algebraic though.
Nobody said that company profits tax is the only, or indeed the major, factor in growth or innovation, merely that it is a significant one.
Comments
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/gcpvj0v07#?date=2022-08-09
Once again their figures are 3 degrees below than what the BBC is forecasting.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2643743
*there are various stories about Vulcans nearly going supersonic. It developed a savage Mach tuck at high speed. One pilot, apparently, considered pushing the stick forward and doing a loop, on an attempt to save the rear crew
https://twitter.com/sophielouisecc/status/1556933135866150918
The worst affected pay no or very little NI
Thanks for coming Liz 👿
Where’s that Boyes .55 ?
IIRC, the rear occupants of the Vulcan weren’t officers, and (therefore!) didn’t have parachutes.
It really shows just how bad things have become in the USA. Forcing a woman to carry a baby full term after a rape or incest is utterly disgusting and inhumane .
Yet some in the GOP think this is acceptable .
And I hope that that mutual incomprehension is a large part of why the comfortably-off (mortgage paid off, so they can afford to retire early) are so reluctant to chip in more.
Becuase the alternative is that they're irredeemably selfish
Your previous comment explicitly stated the "bottom 10-20%", whilst your identified number encompasses the bottom approx 60% of workers, and bottom ~40% of full time workers.
The bottom 20% is more like 17k than 30k, at which level I think the point could stand.
That's a significant change of position between 2 comments.
I'm not at all convinced that your average worker on 30k is worse off than your average pensioner, and certainly than your pensioner with only a state pension.
Rather than targeting state pensioners, I think say a 10% extra rate on final salary pension might be appropriate.
In fact -- excluding Alaska & Hawaii -- average US winter temperature is at about the freezing point.
XH588 was of course based here and it usually did a mini display on returning, which was always fun. The scary thing about it was not the noise but how quietly it could do a low approach. Without visual there was very little warning of its arrival.
I suppose that was the point...
Weirdly I paid for one 3 years ago, about two thirds of a full monty Nuffield, but migrated onto the NHS list for this one. Administrative cock up I suspect. I was keeping a bit quiet about this but now it's done I don't suppose they will come and take it out again.
Is it your first?
Spanky Wilson - Sunshine Of Your Love (cover of the Cream song. She did a great live album with Quantic and his Soul Orchestra in Paris a few years back https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKEk18ODSJ0 )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIPL1NwQAY0
Betty Barney - Momma Momma (all I know about this is that they're all from New York - I heard it on an NYC funk compilation - that the band it's recorded with are called The Chili Peppers and they released an instrumental version called Chicken Scratch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awf67aQXG3Y )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=endRujmvpro
Doris - Beatmaker (funky Swedish singer called Doris Svensson. There are a few tracks of hers that have been picked up by rare groove DJs. The title track of this album has just about the loveliest sentiment for a song I've ever heard - Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crNtwZ8JVCc )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5grA80Zkv4
What exactly constitutes living standards? Quantity of Chinese Tat? Number of Dishwashers? Freezer capacity?
I mean, we all carry the equivalent of an 80's supercomputer around but I'm yet to be convinced they improve daily life...
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
By the way I am in the state of Maine on “vacay”, but live in Manhattan, not “Maine, NY”.
(Operations Skyshield 1 and 2 in 1960 and 1961)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wx6npt421c
Strangest thing I ever saw was an F104, presumably on some NATO exercise, flying nap of the earth over Hadrian's Wall. Loud and low.
Though not sure what advantage a job in what will be a deeply unpopular government will have
How populist is Liz Truss?
Only Project Fear will save Sunak
BY ERIC KAUFMANN"
https://unherd.com/2022/08/how-populist-is-liz-truss/
They would and did go just supersonic with no adverse handling (normally) but never in an operational trim.
The three rear crew (AEO, Nav (Plotter), Nav (Radar)) were all commissioned officers. Though NCO gingers (hobbit sized preferred) were occasionally carried in the #6 and #7 seats on bolthole ops. Such was the legendary reliability of the Vulcan. If it landed anywhere that wasn't an active Vulcan station it took a great deal of expertise to get it flying again.
Only in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia do over 50% of voters think abortion should be mostly illegal
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/compare/views-about-abortion/by/state/
It's also applicable to 2 and 3 bed flats, with (probably) rather smaller costs pro rata (perimeter and area versus volume scaling).
If so, I'd highly recommend keeping an eye on what Daptone Records are up to. From their website it seems there's been a touring hiatus since 2019, but a couple of their bands are doing some gigs now but outside NY. If you see Lee Fields, Saun and Starr, The Budos Band, or Menahan Street Band playing, they'd be some top tips
https://daptonerecords.com/events/
So many thanks again, and thanks to those who have expressed good wishes!
Even if they are already writing off ther hopes for 2024, they might as well be a minister now than never.
That's your season buggered isn't it, that said?
Payroll taxes do most damage to employment.
So I pressed the red button. Worked a treat.
But I have seen some counter-arguments to the Treasury’s counter-argument.
My instinct is to avoid hiking it. The U.K. really needs to look open for investment.
https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/documents/research/RAF-Historical-Society-Journals/Journal-13-Seminar-Confrontation-with-Indonesia.pdf
I loved Sharon Jones, especially the “I Learned the Hard Way” album, which I think has magical songwriting.
I can't find any real comparative numbers with 1980, but eg cars are relatively much cheaper.
And one reason for the increase is because UK business investment has been dire for years with companies using overtime and casual labour rather than investing...
If the UK had fracked in a big way, we would have exported that gas, and we would still be subject to the world price of gas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-R9lNdDIvI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOUhdYe2MS8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAbH2IKtevw
Americans reacting to Al Murray is more fun at a teabreak, though.
I am happy to protect and increase the incomes of the poorest, but see absolutely no reason why this should be only available to the first generation to be richer than their parents, grand parents, children and grand children. It should be done whatever their age.
The details of how that can best be achieved can be fine tuned by the Treasury but the principle of protecting and boosting the incomes of the poorest is what I am for and those defending the status quo make impossible as we cannot afford to boost the incomes of both all pensioners and the working poor faster than we grow the economy on an indefinite basis.
Our Geology is rather different.
If folks like it so much, they might try emigrating to somewhere with 1980 levels of income. Romania perhaps.
Truss is going to be an utter fiasco isn't she? The tories have managed to select the candidate who is least temperamentally, intellectually and ideologically equipped to navigate the country's passage through the multiple co-morbid crises which are enveloping it.
All fresh and organic from the Farmers' Market is what the chattering classes aspire to.
It's amazing that she wasn't signed until she was in her forties; she was working as a guard in a women's prison when she was discovered by Gabe Roth from Daptone at a local talent show in a bar.
Have you seen the documentary about her and her time touring with cancer? Called "Miss Sharon Jones!" and it used to be on Netflix, but not sure if it still is. It's beautiful and heart-breaking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Sharon_Jones!
https://twitter.com/thomasforth/status/1123243220086005760
Nobody said that company profits tax is the only, or indeed the major, factor in growth or innovation, merely that it is a significant one.