Hold on a sec. Aren’t you to this day a vocal apologist for the clusterf*cl of a govt that was the Coalition?
Which cut our strategic natural gas storage off at the knees.
That cow towed to the Russian regime and willingly accepted its money (even after the latter invaded Crimea and used radiological weapons on British soil), rather than underlining to allies the collective danger of them relying on Russian hydrocarbons?
Which failed to move forward domestic nuclear, so in awe were they with achieving a superficially balanced budget and a pathetic schoolboy crush on the Chinese Communist Party, leading to a dishonest sleight of hand to shift the construction liability off balance sheet and recklessly hand the Chinese a foothold in the most key and sensitive of industries?
That spurned tidal? Set solar back years? Which imposed “windfall” taxes on the North Sea which achieved nothing apart from disincentivising investment?
Rather than snide smugly about a Brexit wedge issue such as this tweet, I personally am ready to give Truss a chance. She can’t do worse than those chimps “The Quad”, who to a man have shown their true colours since leaving office with the company they’ve kept. Chinese autocrats, Russian oligarchs, crooked commodity barons and Mark Zuckerburg. Not sure which is scoring worst on that front!
If she turns out to be shit then we’ll all vote against her (or not vote). But she deserves as much of a chance as any other incoming Prime Minister from any party, until her record in office says otherwise.
Off topic, but have you seen the latest analyses of the Calvine photo?
Increasingly looks like it is not a “rock in a loch”. Mick West is struggling to debunk it. More eye witness testimony has emerged
So we are left with two hypotheses
1. It is a massively elaborate hoax over decades
2. It shows a genuine and anomalous object in the sky over Scotland. Which could be: what?
It’s a little maddening because we do not have all the data. There’s five photos missing. We don’t have anything more than brief written eye witness testimony from anonymous sources so it’s very difficult to assess their credibility. And there’s no military report or telemetrics, from the plane/planes or ground radar, if indeed there even were any such reports written of such an incident. The only public witness is second hand in the form of Nick Pope, and he may not be a credible witness because he’s been making a career since leaving the MOD out of being “Britain’s Fox Molder”.
So it’s an order of magnitude less compelling than the US Navy cases, where anyone that looks objectively at all the available data in the round (including the behaviour of those with top clearance that have seen evidence we have not) can only conclude something very strange indeed is going on.
And yet… the very long period of secrecy for Calvine (extended in 2020 for another 52 years!) is intriguing. As are the declassified documents that showed that certain cabinet members received a briefing. And there’s an apparent letter to the US Air Force online (I have not verified the source), advising them of the incident, with what it must be said are curiously worded comments, apparently confirming the photo’s legitimacy:
What’s most curious of all, is that the negatives were apparently returned to the Daily Record of Glasgow and they still did not publish them! Tabloids knowingly publish all manner of nonsense, from toast that looks like the messiah to Elvis alive in Marbella. It is said that the editor at the time (now deceased) was on the D-Notice Committee. A thicker plot than it might seem perhaps.
So as you say, we are either left with an elaborate hoax, with the two “witnesses” embarrassed that the MoD ever got involved and wanting to stay in obscurity. Or, they really did see something amazing. As with the public US Navy cases, it’s difficult to see how this could be allied tech, there are joint chiefs and clear processes to ensure the secrecy of such programmes is preserved. This story leaked out easily and was given legs by the MOD staff involved in investigating it because they apparently were not being told to this day of any black ops project.
You know where I lean. But this is not the smoking gun that convinces any waverers. If anything it feels like the sort of case that gets given a wave of publicity only to be subsequently debunked, to take attention from the extraordinary evidence, statements and political / academic processes going on in the US.
Do you read Fortean Times at all? Piece in the latest issue very scathing about the uap nonsense from the states. Essentially saying all the ‘actors’ have long running interest in the area.
You may be right, but you also know which way I lean too!
Hold on a sec. Aren’t you to this day a vocal apologist for the clusterf*cl of a govt that was the Coalition?
Which cut our strategic natural gas storage off at the knees.
That cow towed to the Russian regime and willingly accepted its money (even after the latter invaded Crimea and used radiological weapons on British soil), rather than underlining to allies the collective danger of them relying on Russian hydrocarbons?
Which failed to move forward domestic nuclear, so in awe were they with achieving a superficially balanced budget and a pathetic schoolboy crush on the Chinese Communist Party, leading to a dishonest sleight of hand to shift the construction liability off balance sheet and recklessly hand the Chinese a foothold in the most key and sensitive of industries?
That spurned tidal? Set solar back years? Which imposed “windfall” taxes on the North Sea which achieved nothing apart from disincentivising investment?
Rather than snide smugly about a Brexit wedge issue such as this tweet, I personally am ready to give Truss a chance. She can’t do worse than those chimps “The Quad”, who to a man have shown their true colours since leaving office with the company they’ve kept. Chinese autocrats, Russian oligarchs, crooked commodity barons and Mark Zuckerburg. Not sure which is scoring worst on that front!
If she turns out to be shit then we’ll all vote against her (or not vote). But she deserves as much of a chance as any other incoming Prime Minister from any party, until her record in office says otherwise.
Off topic, but have you seen the latest analyses of the Calvine photo?
Increasingly looks like it is not a “rock in a loch”. Mick West is struggling to debunk it. More eye witness testimony has emerged
So we are left with two hypotheses
1. It is a massively elaborate hoax over decades
2. It shows a genuine and anomalous object in the sky over Scotland. Which could be: what?
Malcolm?
Would explain why he hasn't been posting.
Seriously, though, I hope he is OK.
Yes hope so - I was thinking another ban thing but it's been a while.
So WHY is Lizz Truss going to surprise us, I keep reading this but I am curious as to why. From a betting perspective it would be useful.
A lot of people seem to expect her to be a combination of IDS and Bubble from Absolutely Fabulous. It’s this expectation that she can scarcely fail to confound.
That's not saying she's going to be good though? Why should she not be rubbish?
She’s a new kind of PM that we haven’t seen before: a generation younger than Starmer, a modern Tory not in the shadow of Blair, a moderniser not in the shadow of Cameron, and a post-Brexit PM not overly encumbered by the divisions of the referendum.
A modern Tory? She's trying be another Thatcher, what is modern about that?
What is she trying to modernise? She's trying to continue Johnson's policies and leadership style.
She might be very good, she doesn't seem to be a "different kind of PM", rather more of the same.
She’ll be the PM of the “#Uber-riding #Airbnb-ing #Deliveroo-eating #freedomfighters”
Or, to put it another way, the PM of shit wages, zero=hour contracts and expensive housing.
Yeah exactly, this stuff was so cringeworthy at the time, and still is. She comes across as though she is for rich people that want a low wage, deregulated economy with lots of cheap labour, and with low taxes.... because they believe in 'freedom'. She was almost like a satirical caricature of everything that was wrong with the 2010-2016 Conservative party. Her political survival after Brexit is a mystery.
So WHY is Lizz Truss going to surprise us, I keep reading this but I am curious as to why. From a betting perspective it would be useful.
A lot of people seem to expect her to be a combination of IDS and Bubble from Absolutely Fabulous. It’s this expectation that she can scarcely fail to confound.
That's not saying she's going to be good though? Why should she not be rubbish?
She’s a new kind of PM that we haven’t seen before: a generation younger than Starmer, a modern Tory not in the shadow of Blair, a moderniser not in the shadow of Cameron, and a post-Brexit PM not overly encumbered by the divisions of the referendum.
A modern Tory? She's trying be another Thatcher, what is modern about that?
What is she trying to modernise? She's trying to continue Johnson's policies and leadership style.
She might be very good, she doesn't seem to be a "different kind of PM", rather more of the same.
She’ll be the PM of the “#Uber-riding #Airbnb-ing #Deliveroo-eating #freedomfighters”
Or, to put it another way, the PM of shit wages, zero=hour contracts and expensive housing.
Yeah exactly, this stuff was so cringeworthy at the time, and still is. She comes across as though she is for rich people that want a low wage, deregulated economy with lots of cheap labour, and with low taxes.... because they believe in 'freedom'. She was almost like a satirical caricature of everything that was wrong with the 2010-2016 Conservative party. Her political survival after Brexit is a mystery.
She’s a weathervane. She’s adaptable. She says what she needs to.
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
If there was any residual doubt, the way the centre left coalition built, or rather failed to, in the last fortnight has delivered the election on a plate to the right.
All parties and alliances were registered today, and essentially there are 4 main players:
Centre-right alliance: Lega - Forza - Fratelli (polling 49%)
Large constituency FPTP plus a non-balancing proportional system likely means a very large overall majority for the centre/right coalition.
Their agreement was confirmed that the largest party of the alliance nominates the PM, almost certainly Meloni.
Smarkets have an illiquid "PM after next election" market - with Meloni at 1.28 for some small stakes free interest. The scenarios that prevent Meloni becoming PM* don't amount to anywhere near 20% imho.
The more interesting market might be most votes overall where PD are tight in the polls with FdI and could well take the cold consolation prize, even with a shellacking in seats.
* centre-right don't get majority / FdI not biggest centre-right party / alliance fail to nominate her / presidential intervention / early enough legislative change to an elected presidential system that Meloni skips being PM.
Hold on a sec. Aren’t you to this day a vocal apologist for the clusterf*cl of a govt that was the Coalition?
Which cut our strategic natural gas storage off at the knees.
That cow towed to the Russian regime and willingly accepted its money (even after the latter invaded Crimea and used radiological weapons on British soil), rather than underlining to allies the collective danger of them relying on Russian hydrocarbons?
Which failed to move forward domestic nuclear, so in awe were they with achieving a superficially balanced budget and a pathetic schoolboy crush on the Chinese Communist Party, leading to a dishonest sleight of hand to shift the construction liability off balance sheet and recklessly hand the Chinese a foothold in the most key and sensitive of industries?
That spurned tidal? Set solar back years? Which imposed “windfall” taxes on the North Sea which achieved nothing apart from disincentivising investment?
Rather than snide smugly about a Brexit wedge issue such as this tweet, I personally am ready to give Truss a chance. She can’t do worse than those chimps “The Quad”, who to a man have shown their true colours since leaving office with the company they’ve kept. Chinese autocrats, Russian oligarchs, crooked commodity barons and Mark Zuckerburg. Not sure which is scoring worst on that front!
If she turns out to be shit then we’ll all vote against her (or not vote). But she deserves as much of a chance as any other incoming Prime Minister from any party, until her record in office says otherwise.
Off topic, but have you seen the latest analyses of the Calvine photo?
Increasingly looks like it is not a “rock in a loch”. Mick West is struggling to debunk it. More eye witness testimony has emerged
So we are left with two hypotheses
1. It is a massively elaborate hoax over decades
2. It shows a genuine and anomalous object in the sky over Scotland. Which could be: what?
Malcolm?
Would explain why he hasn't been posting.
Seriously, though, I hope he is OK.
Yes hope so - I was thinking another ban thing but it's been a while.
Quickly checked. Not banned. Not on PB since 4 July.
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Hold on a sec. Aren’t you to this day a vocal apologist for the clusterf*cl of a govt that was the Coalition?
Which cut our strategic natural gas storage off at the knees.
That cow towed to the Russian regime and willingly accepted its money (even after the latter invaded Crimea and used radiological weapons on British soil), rather than underlining to allies the collective danger of them relying on Russian hydrocarbons?
Which failed to move forward domestic nuclear, so in awe were they with achieving a superficially balanced budget and a pathetic schoolboy crush on the Chinese Communist Party, leading to a dishonest sleight of hand to shift the construction liability off balance sheet and recklessly hand the Chinese a foothold in the most key and sensitive of industries?
That spurned tidal? Set solar back years? Which imposed “windfall” taxes on the North Sea which achieved nothing apart from disincentivising investment?
Rather than snide smugly about a Brexit wedge issue such as this tweet, I personally am ready to give Truss a chance. She can’t do worse than those chimps “The Quad”, who to a man have shown their true colours since leaving office with the company they’ve kept. Chinese autocrats, Russian oligarchs, crooked commodity barons and Mark Zuckerburg. Not sure which is scoring worst on that front!
If she turns out to be shit then we’ll all vote against her (or not vote). But she deserves as much of a chance as any other incoming Prime Minister from any party, until her record in office says otherwise.
Off topic, but have you seen the latest analyses of the Calvine photo?
Increasingly looks like it is not a “rock in a loch”. Mick West is struggling to debunk it. More eye witness testimony has emerged
So we are left with two hypotheses
1. It is a massively elaborate hoax over decades
2. It shows a genuine and anomalous object in the sky over Scotland. Which could be: what?
Malcolm?
Would explain why he hasn't been posting.
Seriously, though, I hope he is OK.
Yes hope so - I was thinking another ban thing but it's been a while.
Quickly checked. Not banned. Not on PB since 4 July.
Hope all is well with him and he’s just taking a break, enjoying the weather and tipping some winning gee gees
Hold on a sec. Aren’t you to this day a vocal apologist for the clusterf*cl of a govt that was the Coalition?
Which cut our strategic natural gas storage off at the knees.
That cow towed to the Russian regime and willingly accepted its money (even after the latter invaded Crimea and used radiological weapons on British soil), rather than underlining to allies the collective danger of them relying on Russian hydrocarbons?
Which failed to move forward domestic nuclear, so in awe were they with achieving a superficially balanced budget and a pathetic schoolboy crush on the Chinese Communist Party, leading to a dishonest sleight of hand to shift the construction liability off balance sheet and recklessly hand the Chinese a foothold in the most key and sensitive of industries?
That spurned tidal? Set solar back years? Which imposed “windfall” taxes on the North Sea which achieved nothing apart from disincentivising investment?
Rather than snide smugly about a Brexit wedge issue such as this tweet, I personally am ready to give Truss a chance. She can’t do worse than those chimps “The Quad”, who to a man have shown their true colours since leaving office with the company they’ve kept. Chinese autocrats, Russian oligarchs, crooked commodity barons and Mark Zuckerburg. Not sure which is scoring worst on that front!
If she turns out to be shit then we’ll all vote against her (or not vote). But she deserves as much of a chance as any other incoming Prime Minister from any party, until her record in office says otherwise.
Off topic, but have you seen the latest analyses of the Calvine photo?
Increasingly looks like it is not a “rock in a loch”. Mick West is struggling to debunk it. More eye witness testimony has emerged
So we are left with two hypotheses
1. It is a massively elaborate hoax over decades
2. It shows a genuine and anomalous object in the sky over Scotland. Which could be: what?
It’s a little maddening because we do not have all the data. There’s five photos missing. We don’t have anything more than brief written eye witness testimony from anonymous sources so it’s very difficult to assess their credibility. And there’s no military report or telemetrics, from the plane/planes or ground radar, if indeed there even were any such reports written of such an incident. The only public witness is second hand in the form of Nick Pope, and he may not be a credible witness because he’s been making a career since leaving the MOD out of being “Britain’s Fox Molder”.
So it’s an order of magnitude less compelling than the US Navy cases, where anyone that looks objectively at all the available data in the round (including the behaviour of those with top clearance that have seen evidence we have not) can only conclude something very strange indeed is going on.
And yet… the very long period of secrecy for Calvine (extended in 2020 for another 52 years!) is intriguing. As are the declassified documents that showed that certain cabinet members received a briefing. And there’s an apparent letter to the US Air Force online (I have not verified the source), advising them of the incident, with what it must be said are curiously worded comments, apparently confirming the photo’s legitimacy:
What’s most curious of all, is that the negatives were apparently returned to the Daily Record of Glasgow and they still did not publish them! Tabloids knowingly publish all manner of nonsense, from toast that looks like the messiah to Elvis alive in Marbella. It is said that the editor at the time (now deceased) was on the D-Notice Committee. A thicker plot than it might seem perhaps.
So as you say, we are either left with an elaborate hoax, with the two “witnesses” embarrassed that the MoD ever got involved and wanting to stay in obscurity. Or, they really did see something amazing. As with the public US Navy cases, it’s difficult to see how this could be allied tech, there are joint chiefs and clear processes to ensure the secrecy of such programmes is preserved. This story leaked out easily and was given legs by the MOD staff involved in investigating it because they apparently were not being told to this day of any black ops project.
You know where I lean. But this is not the smoking gun that convinces any waverers. If anything it feels like the sort of case that gets given a wave of publicity only to be subsequently debunked, to take attention from the extraordinary evidence, statements and political / academic processes going on in the US.
Do you read Fortean Times at all? Piece in the latest issue very scathing about the uap nonsense from the states. Essentially saying all the ‘actors’ have long running interest in the area.
You may be right, but you also know which way I lean too!
Sorry never heard of it. My interest in this topic only arose in 2020 when a highly rationalist friend who helped design the FLIR pod software said he has “no better explanation (of the Pentagon UAP videos) than aliens”.
After that I soaked up all the public testimonies I could find from of those present. Fravor, Graves, Dietrich etc… And I’ve watched hour upon hour of Lue Elizondo and Christopher Mellon, who are more responsible for this wave of political interest than anyone else. And I have to say, I take them all at face value.
What’s clear is that the weight of the US security establishment does so too. We’ve seen admissions of such by not only more Jr congresspeople but acting Gang of 8 members and multiple past intelligence chiefs. And of course, we’ve got people like Avi Loeb from Harvard, Garry Nolan from Stanford and Bill Nelson at NASA now acting as the faces of science / academia in pursuing the topic.
To be honest I rule out the secret tech explanation. There are far too many contradictions for that to be true. I think either a small group of people have successfully hijacked the narrative of almost the entire US security establishment in a conspiracy that would be too implausible for a movie but might just be true in real life. Or it’s as simple as it looks, in the vastness of space and time someone else out there found our little corner and is bit by bit revealing themselves in a form of slow exposure therapy.
If there was any residual doubt, the way the centre left coalition built, or rather failed to, in the last fortnight has delivered the election on a plate to the right.
All parties and alliances were registered today, and essentially there are 4 main players:
Centre-right alliance: Lega - Forza - Fratelli (polling 49%)
Large constituency FPTP plus a non-balancing proportional system likely means a very large overall majority for the centre/right coalition.
Their agreement was confirmed that the largest party of the alliance nominates the PM, almost certainly Meloni.
Smarkets have an illiquid "PM after next election" market - with Meloni at 1.28 for some small stakes free interest. The scenarios that prevent Meloni becoming PM* don't amount to anywhere near 20% imho.
The more interesting market might be most votes overall where PD are tight in the polls with FdI and could well take the cold consolation prize, even with a shellacking in seats.
* centre-right don't get majority / FdI not biggest centre-right party / alliance fail to nominate her / presidential intervention / early enough legislative change to an elected presidential system that Meloni skips being PM.
Quibble with your terms here. Lega, Forza and Fratelli are not by any stretch "centre-right", unless Mussolini was also "centre-right"
Hold on a sec. Aren’t you to this day a vocal apologist for the clusterf*cl of a govt that was the Coalition?
Which cut our strategic natural gas storage off at the knees.
That cow towed to the Russian regime and willingly accepted its money (even after the latter invaded Crimea and used radiological weapons on British soil), rather than underlining to allies the collective danger of them relying on Russian hydrocarbons?
Which failed to move forward domestic nuclear, so in awe were they with achieving a superficially balanced budget and a pathetic schoolboy crush on the Chinese Communist Party, leading to a dishonest sleight of hand to shift the construction liability off balance sheet and recklessly hand the Chinese a foothold in the most key and sensitive of industries?
That spurned tidal? Set solar back years? Which imposed “windfall” taxes on the North Sea which achieved nothing apart from disincentivising investment?
Rather than snide smugly about a Brexit wedge issue such as this tweet, I personally am ready to give Truss a chance. She can’t do worse than those chimps “The Quad”, who to a man have shown their true colours since leaving office with the company they’ve kept. Chinese autocrats, Russian oligarchs, crooked commodity barons and Mark Zuckerburg. Not sure which is scoring worst on that front!
If she turns out to be shit then we’ll all vote against her (or not vote). But she deserves as much of a chance as any other incoming Prime Minister from any party, until her record in office says otherwise.
Off topic, but have you seen the latest analyses of the Calvine photo?
Increasingly looks like it is not a “rock in a loch”. Mick West is struggling to debunk it. More eye witness testimony has emerged
So we are left with two hypotheses
1. It is a massively elaborate hoax over decades
2. It shows a genuine and anomalous object in the sky over Scotland. Which could be: what?
It’s a little maddening because we do not have all the data. There’s five photos missing. We don’t have anything more than brief written eye witness testimony from anonymous sources so it’s very difficult to assess their credibility. And there’s no military report or telemetrics, from the plane/planes or ground radar, if indeed there even were any such reports written of such an incident. The only public witness is second hand in the form of Nick Pope, and he may not be a credible witness because he’s been making a career since leaving the MOD out of being “Britain’s Fox Molder”.
So it’s an order of magnitude less compelling than the US Navy cases, where anyone that looks objectively at all the available data in the round (including the behaviour of those with top clearance that have seen evidence we have not) can only conclude something very strange indeed is going on.
And yet… the very long period of secrecy for Calvine (extended in 2020 for another 52 years!) is intriguing. As are the declassified documents that showed that certain cabinet members received a briefing. And there’s an apparent letter to the US Air Force online (I have not verified the source), advising them of the incident, with what it must be said are curiously worded comments, apparently confirming the photo’s legitimacy:
What’s most curious of all, is that the negatives were apparently returned to the Daily Record of Glasgow and they still did not publish them! Tabloids knowingly publish all manner of nonsense, from toast that looks like the messiah to Elvis alive in Marbella. It is said that the editor at the time (now deceased) was on the D-Notice Committee. A thicker plot than it might seem perhaps.
So as you say, we are either left with an elaborate hoax, with the two “witnesses” embarrassed that the MoD ever got involved and wanting to stay in obscurity. Or, they really did see something amazing. As with the public US Navy cases, it’s difficult to see how this could be allied tech, there are joint chiefs and clear processes to ensure the secrecy of such programmes is preserved. This story leaked out easily and was given legs by the MOD staff involved in investigating it because they apparently were not being told to this day of any black ops project.
You know where I lean. But this is not the smoking gun that convinces any waverers. If anything it feels like the sort of case that gets given a wave of publicity only to be subsequently debunked, to take attention from the extraordinary evidence, statements and political / academic processes going on in the US.
Do you read Fortean Times at all? Piece in the latest issue very scathing about the uap nonsense from the states. Essentially saying all the ‘actors’ have long running interest in the area.
You may be right, but you also know which way I lean too!
Sorry never heard of it. My interest in this topic only arose in 2020 when a highly rationalist friend who helped design the FLIR pod software said he has “no better explanation (of the Pentagon UAP videos) than aliens”.
After that I soaked up all the public testimonies I could find from of those present. Fravor, Graves, Dietrich etc… And I’ve watched hour upon hour of Lue Elizondo and Christopher Mellon, who are more responsible for this wave of political interest than anyone else. And I have to say, I take them all at face value.
What’s clear is that the weight of the US security establishment does so too. We’ve seen admissions of such by not only more Jr congresspeople but acting Gang of 8 members and multiple past intelligence chiefs. And of course, we’ve got people like Avi Loeb from Harvard, Garry Nolan from Stanford and Bill Nelson at NASA now acting as the faces of science / academia in pursuing the topic.
To be honest I rule out the secret tech explanation. There are far too many contradictions for that to be true. I think either a small group of people have successfully hijacked the narrative of almost the entire US security establishment in a conspiracy that would be too implausible for a movie but might just be true in real life. Or it’s as simple as it looks, in the vastness of space and time someone else out there found our little corner and is bit by bit revealing themselves in a form of slow exposure therapy.
Fortean Times is the go to for all things Fortean (a bit tautological), but basically ghosts, ufos, cryptozoology, esp etc. Anything weird. Elizondo has a long interest in ufos etc. Essentially I have been interested in this stuff since I was 10, and I just don’t see anything new here, and that is the Fortean Times opinion too.
Studying the evidence of the last 60 years or more, the sociology of flying saucers into ufos into UAPs etc and the types of alien etc are fascinating. Many reports are obvious lies, hoaxes or simple misidentifications. There are some examples with no conclusive proof, but that’s not to say it’s inexplicable.
If you are interested in the wider world of wierd, I’d suggest trying Fortean times.
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I think the shortages will go away. This winter will be grim, next year will be tight but not so bad and 2024 will probably be OK. Prices won't come back to 2021 levels in the medium term but they shouldn't be so extreme as they will be this year and next.
The hazard with energy caps is that they remove the incentive to reduce consumption and therefore demand, demand reduction being an important part of the solution to affordable fuel. But there isn't an easy other way to protect those with limited incomes and avoid societal harm.
One can only imagine the violence that will break out if Trump is charged. His moronic supporters tend to have a lot of guns ! There’s also the issue of the upcoming mid-terms . The FBI aren’t supposed to do anything that has political ramifications within 90 days of elections . If only Comey hadn’t interfered we might not have had the stain on humanity elected !
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I'm probably being bit thick here but where did 10% of gas supply go? And why? And why cant we get it back again?
Liz Truss will be the first ex-Liberal to lead a Tory government since David Lloyd George in 1922.
But there, of course, the resemblance ends. Nobody accuses her of being a sex maniac, a crook, or banging on and on about her provincial background while living in London.
Have you not forgotten someone else who was an ex-Liberal who led a Tory government in 1955?
An actual Liberal was Deputy PM in a Tory led government from 2010 to 2015, Nick Clegg.
And that government was better than any government since 2015.
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I'm probably being bit thick here but where did 10% of gas supply go? And why? And why cant we get it back again?
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I think the shortages will go away. This winter will be grim, next year will be tight but not so bad and 2024 will probably be OK. Prices won't come back to 2021 levels in the medium term but they shouldn't be so extreme as they will be this year and next.
The hazard with energy caps is that they remove the incentive to reduce consumption and therefore demand, demand reduction being an important part of the solution to affordable fuel. But there isn't an easy other way to protect those with limited incomes and avoid societal harm.
Yep. More LNG terminals coming, France getting its nuclear reactors back up to capacity, masses of new wind and solar coming online in the next couple of years all suggest things will get better. It's the next few months (and possibly next winter) that will be grim.
As you say, the dilemma is, subsidise energy and you disincentivise people from reducing usage. When what we really need to do is reduce demand.
I wouldn't be surprised if govt subsidies came hand in hand with rolling blackouts throughout the winter to bring demand down. An hour out here, followed by an hour out there, etc, so nobody freezes but overall demand (and thus the cost of the subsidy) is brought down.
If there was any residual doubt, the way the centre left coalition built, or rather failed to, in the last fortnight has delivered the election on a plate to the right.
All parties and alliances were registered today, and essentially there are 4 main players:
Centre-right alliance: Lega - Forza - Fratelli (polling 49%)
Large constituency FPTP plus a non-balancing proportional system likely means a very large overall majority for the centre/right coalition.
Their agreement was confirmed that the largest party of the alliance nominates the PM, almost certainly Meloni.
Smarkets have an illiquid "PM after next election" market - with Meloni at 1.28 for some small stakes free interest. The scenarios that prevent Meloni becoming PM* don't amount to anywhere near 20% imho.
The more interesting market might be most votes overall where PD are tight in the polls with FdI and could well take the cold consolation prize, even with a shellacking in seats.
* centre-right don't get majority / FdI not biggest centre-right party / alliance fail to nominate her / presidential intervention / early enough legislative change to an elected presidential system that Meloni skips being PM.
Quibble with your terms here. Lega, Forza and Fratelli are not by any stretch "centre-right", unless Mussolini was also "centre-right"
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
Liz Truss will be the first ex-Liberal to lead a Tory government since David Lloyd George in 1922.
But there, of course, the resemblance ends. Nobody accuses her of being a sex maniac, a crook, or banging on and on about her provincial background while living in London.
Have you not forgotten someone else who was an ex-Liberal who led a Tory government in 1955?
He was such a nonentity he was easy to forget
(Literally, he was. For a moment I was genuinely puzzled and wondering whether Eden had been a Liberal.)
I just read a diverting counterfactual about what might have happened if the taxi that hit him in New York had been better aimed
If there was any residual doubt, the way the centre left coalition built, or rather failed to, in the last fortnight has delivered the election on a plate to the right.
All parties and alliances were registered today, and essentially there are 4 main players:
Centre-right alliance: Lega - Forza - Fratelli (polling 49%)
Large constituency FPTP plus a non-balancing proportional system likely means a very large overall majority for the centre/right coalition.
Their agreement was confirmed that the largest party of the alliance nominates the PM, almost certainly Meloni.
Smarkets have an illiquid "PM after next election" market - with Meloni at 1.28 for some small stakes free interest. The scenarios that prevent Meloni becoming PM* don't amount to anywhere near 20% imho.
The more interesting market might be most votes overall where PD are tight in the polls with FdI and could well take the cold consolation prize, even with a shellacking in seats.
* centre-right don't get majority / FdI not biggest centre-right party / alliance fail to nominate her / presidential intervention / early enough legislative change to an elected presidential system that Meloni skips being PM.
Quibble with your terms here. Lega, Forza and Fratelli are not by any stretch "centre-right", unless Mussolini was also "centre-right"
I have used quote marks, right of centre and centre/right at various points, so I too am looking for terminology here, but this does remain the most common parlance of Italian political discourse when describing the alliance - an alliance that has been around in similar forms for almost 3 decades.
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
If there was any residual doubt, the way the centre left coalition built, or rather failed to, in the last fortnight has delivered the election on a plate to the right.
All parties and alliances were registered today, and essentially there are 4 main players:
Centre-right alliance: Lega - Forza - Fratelli (polling 49%)
Large constituency FPTP plus a non-balancing proportional system likely means a very large overall majority for the centre/right coalition.
Their agreement was confirmed that the largest party of the alliance nominates the PM, almost certainly Meloni.
Smarkets have an illiquid "PM after next election" market - with Meloni at 1.28 for some small stakes free interest. The scenarios that prevent Meloni becoming PM* don't amount to anywhere near 20% imho.
The more interesting market might be most votes overall where PD are tight in the polls with FdI and could well take the cold consolation prize, even with a shellacking in seats.
* centre-right don't get majority / FdI not biggest centre-right party / alliance fail to nominate her / presidential intervention / early enough legislative change to an elected presidential system that Meloni skips being PM.
Quibble with your terms here. Lega, Forza and Fratelli are not by any stretch "centre-right", unless Mussolini was also "centre-right"
I have used quote marks, right of centre and centre/right at various points, so I too am looking for terminology here, but this does remain the most common parlance of Italian political discourse when describing the alliance - an alliance that has been around in similar forms for almost 3 decades.
I would say "populist right". They certainly aren't the Christian Democrats.
Russia starting to make a tactical withdrawal from the west of the Dnipro river starting with their command staff. That won't make those left on the ground a tad nervous, no sirree.
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I'm probably being bit thick here but where did 10% of gas supply go? And why? And why cant we get it back again?
Russia has turned the taps down.
Thanks. So what caused the jump in late 2021 before the ukraine invasion?
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
Hold on a sec. Aren’t you to this day a vocal apologist for the clusterf*cl of a govt that was the Coalition?
Which cut our strategic natural gas storage off at the knees.
That cow towed to the Russian regime and willingly accepted its money (even after the latter invaded Crimea and used radiological weapons on British soil), rather than underlining to allies the collective danger of them relying on Russian hydrocarbons?
Which failed to move forward domestic nuclear, so in awe were they with achieving a superficially balanced budget and a pathetic schoolboy crush on the Chinese Communist Party, leading to a dishonest sleight of hand to shift the construction liability off balance sheet and recklessly hand the Chinese a foothold in the most key and sensitive of industries?
That spurned tidal? Set solar back years? Which imposed “windfall” taxes on the North Sea which achieved nothing apart from disincentivising investment?
Rather than snide smugly about a Brexit wedge issue such as this tweet, I personally am ready to give Truss a chance. She can’t do worse than those chimps “The Quad”, who to a man have shown their true colours since leaving office with the company they’ve kept. Chinese autocrats, Russian oligarchs, crooked commodity barons and Mark Zuckerburg. Not sure which is scoring worst on that front!
If she turns out to be shit then we’ll all vote against her (or not vote). But she deserves as much of a chance as any other incoming Prime Minister from any party, until her record in office says otherwise.
Off topic, but have you seen the latest analyses of the Calvine photo?
Increasingly looks like it is not a “rock in a loch”. Mick West is struggling to debunk it. More eye witness testimony has emerged
So we are left with two hypotheses
1. It is a massively elaborate hoax over decades
2. It shows a genuine and anomalous object in the sky over Scotland. Which could be: what?
It’s a little maddening because we do not have all the data. There’s five photos missing. We don’t have anything more than brief written eye witness testimony from anonymous sources so it’s very difficult to assess their credibility. And there’s no military report or telemetrics, from the plane/planes or ground radar, if indeed there even were any such reports written of such an incident. The only public witness is second hand in the form of Nick Pope, and he may not be a credible witness because he’s been making a career since leaving the MOD out of being “Britain’s Fox Molder”.
So it’s an order of magnitude less compelling than the US Navy cases, where anyone that looks objectively at all the available data in the round (including the behaviour of those with top clearance that have seen evidence we have not) can only conclude something very strange indeed is going on.
And yet… the very long period of secrecy for Calvine (extended in 2020 for another 52 years!) is intriguing. As are the declassified documents that showed that certain cabinet members received a briefing. And there’s an apparent letter to the US Air Force online (I have not verified the source), advising them of the incident, with what it must be said are curiously worded comments, apparently confirming the photo’s legitimacy:
What’s most curious of all, is that the negatives were apparently returned to the Daily Record of Glasgow and they still did not publish them! Tabloids knowingly publish all manner of nonsense, from toast that looks like the messiah to Elvis alive in Marbella. It is said that the editor at the time (now deceased) was on the D-Notice Committee. A thicker plot than it might seem perhaps.
So as you say, we are either left with an elaborate hoax, with the two “witnesses” embarrassed that the MoD ever got involved and wanting to stay in obscurity. Or, they really did see something amazing. As with the public US Navy cases, it’s difficult to see how this could be allied tech, there are joint chiefs and clear processes to ensure the secrecy of such programmes is preserved. This story leaked out easily and was given legs by the MOD staff involved in investigating it because they apparently were not being told to this day of any black ops project.
You know where I lean. But this is not the smoking gun that convinces any waverers. If anything it feels like the sort of case that gets given a wave of publicity only to be subsequently debunked, to take attention from the extraordinary evidence, statements and political / academic processes going on in the US.
Do you read Fortean Times at all? Piece in the latest issue very scathing about the uap nonsense from the states. Essentially saying all the ‘actors’ have long running interest in the area.
You may be right, but you also know which way I lean too!
Sorry never heard of it. My interest in this topic only arose in 2020 when a highly rationalist friend who helped design the FLIR pod software said he has “no better explanation (of the Pentagon UAP videos) than aliens”.
After that I soaked up all the public testimonies I could find from of those present. Fravor, Graves, Dietrich etc… And I’ve watched hour upon hour of Lue Elizondo and Christopher Mellon, who are more responsible for this wave of political interest than anyone else. And I have to say, I take them all at face value.
What’s clear is that the weight of the US security establishment does so too. We’ve seen admissions of such by not only more Jr congresspeople but acting Gang of 8 members and multiple past intelligence chiefs. And of course, we’ve got people like Avi Loeb from Harvard, Garry Nolan from Stanford and Bill Nelson at NASA now acting as the faces of science / academia in pursuing the topic.
To be honest I rule out the secret tech explanation. There are far too many contradictions for that to be true. I think either a small group of people have successfully hijacked the narrative of almost the entire US security establishment in a conspiracy that would be too implausible for a movie but might just be true in real life. Or it’s as simple as it looks, in the vastness of space and time someone else out there found our little corner and is bit by bit revealing themselves in a form of slow exposure therapy.
Fortean Times is the go to for all things Fortean (a bit tautological), but basically ghosts, ufos, cryptozoology, esp etc. Anything weird. Elizondo has a long interest in ufos etc. Essentially I have been interested in this stuff since I was 10, and I just don’t see anything new here, and that is the Fortean Times opinion too.
Studying the evidence of the last 60 years or more, the sociology of flying saucers into ufos into UAPs etc and the types of alien etc are fascinating. Many reports are obvious lies, hoaxes or simple misidentifications. There are some examples with no conclusive proof, but that’s not to say it’s inexplicable.
If you are interested in the wider world of wierd, I’d suggest trying Fortean times.
Ghosts aka 5th dimensional beings… ;-)
Elizondo says he had no interest in UFO’s before being asked by his superiors to work in the field. But that the evidence he was presented with left no other satisfactory explanation beyond “non human” or however you wish to term it.
While you may not see compelling new evidence, what’s certainly new is the sudden ending of the culture of taboo / ridicule in the US. Such culture is still going strong here (witness pb!).
Most of what you see posted on Twitter and a Reddit are blurry iPhone videos of planes, lanterns, birds or whatever else. Tales of zeta reticulans and cow mutilations are a different class beyond that! But I’ve seen no one present a credible counter to the multi point public data of the Nimitz encounter.
And then we get to upcoming data on our place isn the cosmos. We’re going to soon be landing on Mars. Plenty think it likely that we’ll confirm at least fossilised basic life. And missions too to Europa and Enceladus. But long before that is James Webb. Seems to me highly likely that in its operational lifetime its spectrometer will find an exoplanet with free oxygen, from which it’s reasonable to conclude photosynthesis. Who knows we might even strike gold and find CFCs which means an industrialised society. Such findings would dramatically change the conversation (and narrow down the ranges within the Drake equation). And then there’s the chance of us filling in some of the blanks in our physics, that would show that general relativity (always pointed to as the reason why no one could make it to us) is but a crude map in understanding a far more complex reality.
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I'm probably being bit thick here but where did 10% of gas supply go? And why? And why cant we get it back again?
Russia has turned the taps down.
Thanks. So what caused the jump in late 2021 before the ukraine invasion?
A few things according to,this, including Russia reducing supply to try to get Nord Stream 2 approved.
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I'm probably being bit thick here but where did 10% of gas supply go? And why? And why cant we get it back again?
Russia has turned the taps down.
Thanks. So what caused the jump in late 2021 before the ukraine invasion?
I think various reasons. Russia already turning off the taps in the summer of 2021; post-pandemic demand for fuel; people no longer investing in fossil fuels because of net-zero ; and France losing half of its electricity production due to issues with it nuclear plant.
Incidentally France is in worse place for this winter than Germany. Should give another pause for thought to those thinking nuclear is a solution to our energy needs.
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I'm probably being bit thick here but where did 10% of gas supply go? And why? And why cant we get it back again?
You are being a bit dense if you haven't noticed that Russia is reducing the supply of gas.
Hold on a sec. Aren’t you to this day a vocal apologist for the clusterf*cl of a govt that was the Coalition?
Which cut our strategic natural gas storage off at the knees.
That cow towed to the Russian regime and willingly accepted its money (even after the latter invaded Crimea and used radiological weapons on British soil), rather than underlining to allies the collective danger of them relying on Russian hydrocarbons?
Which failed to move forward domestic nuclear, so in awe were they with achieving a superficially balanced budget and a pathetic schoolboy crush on the Chinese Communist Party, leading to a dishonest sleight of hand to shift the construction liability off balance sheet and recklessly hand the Chinese a foothold in the most key and sensitive of industries?
That spurned tidal? Set solar back years? Which imposed “windfall” taxes on the North Sea which achieved nothing apart from disincentivising investment?
Rather than snide smugly about a Brexit wedge issue such as this tweet, I personally am ready to give Truss a chance. She can’t do worse than those chimps “The Quad”, who to a man have shown their true colours since leaving office with the company they’ve kept. Chinese autocrats, Russian oligarchs, crooked commodity barons and Mark Zuckerburg. Not sure which is scoring worst on that front!
If she turns out to be shit then we’ll all vote against her (or not vote). But she deserves as much of a chance as any other incoming Prime Minister from any party, until her record in office says otherwise.
Off topic, but have you seen the latest analyses of the Calvine photo?
Increasingly looks like it is not a “rock in a loch”. Mick West is struggling to debunk it. More eye witness testimony has emerged
So we are left with two hypotheses
1. It is a massively elaborate hoax over decades
2. It shows a genuine and anomalous object in the sky over Scotland. Which could be: what?
Malcolm?
Would explain why he hasn't been posting.
Seriously, though, I hope he is OK.
Yes hope so - I was thinking another ban thing but it's been a while.
Quickly checked. Not banned. Not on PB since 4 July.
Hope all is well with him and he’s just taking a break, enjoying the weather and tipping some winning gee gees
Has to be the fav. In my experience - although people are different - it's quite hard to stay off here for a few days but once you've done that you break the habit and then it's easier and you can choose when (or indeed if) to return, old name or new.
Hold on a sec. Aren’t you to this day a vocal apologist for the clusterf*cl of a govt that was the Coalition?
Which cut our strategic natural gas storage off at the knees.
That cow towed to the Russian regime and willingly accepted its money (even after the latter invaded Crimea and used radiological weapons on British soil), rather than underlining to allies the collective danger of them relying on Russian hydrocarbons?
Which failed to move forward domestic nuclear, so in awe were they with achieving a superficially balanced budget and a pathetic schoolboy crush on the Chinese Communist Party, leading to a dishonest sleight of hand to shift the construction liability off balance sheet and recklessly hand the Chinese a foothold in the most key and sensitive of industries?
That spurned tidal? Set solar back years? Which imposed “windfall” taxes on the North Sea which achieved nothing apart from disincentivising investment?
Rather than snide smugly about a Brexit wedge issue such as this tweet, I personally am ready to give Truss a chance. She can’t do worse than those chimps “The Quad”, who to a man have shown their true colours since leaving office with the company they’ve kept. Chinese autocrats, Russian oligarchs, crooked commodity barons and Mark Zuckerburg. Not sure which is scoring worst on that front!
If she turns out to be shit then we’ll all vote against her (or not vote). But she deserves as much of a chance as any other incoming Prime Minister from any party, until her record in office says otherwise.
Off topic, but have you seen the latest analyses of the Calvine photo?
Increasingly looks like it is not a “rock in a loch”. Mick West is struggling to debunk it. More eye witness testimony has emerged
So we are left with two hypotheses
1. It is a massively elaborate hoax over decades
2. It shows a genuine and anomalous object in the sky over Scotland. Which could be: what?
Malcolm?
Would explain why he hasn't been posting.
Seriously, though, I hope he is OK.
Yes hope so - I was thinking another ban thing but it's been a while.
Quickly checked. Not banned. Not on PB since 4 July.
Hope all is well with him and he’s just taking a break, enjoying the weather and tipping some winning gee gees
Can it get more embarrassing? Gee gees? And why would he tip losing ones?
Russia starting to make a tactical withdrawal from the west of the Dnipro river starting with their command staff. That won't make those left on the ground a tad nervous, no sirree.
This is looking like Ukraine's biggest victory since the Russians turned back from Kyiv.
Unfortunately The Telegraph is a shitty newspaper full of bullshit. All my well-informed Twitter list has on this is an unconfirmed report of the command center getting moved back across the river. But even if that's true (it seems dubious) the unlucky people with guns and artillary are still there.
On the face of it I agree with Packham - not a common occurrence for me.
The argument the Norwegians make is that the Walrus was dangerous if people went too near it. They warned people to stay away but people ignored the warnings. At this point the obvious solution would have been to say if you get hurt it is your own stupid fault. Why kill the walrus when it is the people who are in the wrong?
This is very strange for a country that has Preikestolen as one of its most popular tourist attractions.
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I'm probably being bit thick here but where did 10% of gas supply go? And why? And why cant we get it back again?
Russia has turned the taps down.
Thanks. So what caused the jump in late 2021 before the ukraine invasion?
A few things according to,this, including Russia reducing supply to try to get Nord Stream 2 approved.
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I think the shortages will go away. This winter will be grim, next year will be tight but not so bad and 2024 will probably be OK. Prices won't come back to 2021 levels in the medium term but they shouldn't be so extreme as they will be this year and next.
The hazard with energy caps is that they remove the incentive to reduce consumption and therefore demand, demand reduction being an important part of the solution to affordable fuel. But there isn't an easy other way to protect those with limited incomes and avoid societal harm.
Is it hard to send the people on low incomes more money? Generally they should already be getting benefits or tax credits or whatever, no? Should be cheaper than subsidizing everyone who uses energy?
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I'm probably being bit thick here but where did 10% of gas supply go? And why? And why cant we get it back again?
You are being a bit dense if you haven't noticed that Russia is reducing the supply of gas.
Opportunity for courtesy IMO.
Actually Europe may well start importing gas from Russia again in a year or so, if it collectively gets fed up with sanctions, if Russia is defeated and/or there is an agreement between Ukraine and Russia. I don't think it will trust Russia with 40% of its fuel supplies any more. The days of cheap and reliable Russian gas are gone.
On the face of it I agree with Packham - not a common occurrence for me.
The argument the Norwegians make is that the Walrus was dangerous if people went too near it. They warned people to stay away but people ignored the warnings. At this point the obvious solution would have been to say if you get hurt it is your own stupid fault. Why kill the walrus when it is the people who are in the wrong?
This is very strange for a country that has Preikestolen as one of its most popular tourist attractions.
They shouldn't prioritise humans behaving like idiots unless they are young children or incapable of knowing better. We make choices and should accept the consequences of those choices. When I go skiing and hurt myself I don't blame others.
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
Sounds like a great idea to me. Even without PR, I strongly recommend we follow the Italians and split our right-of-centre parties into three discrete and competing parties.
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
No you won't. The brand value in the 2 main parties is so humongous that whoever wins the name, wins. We haven't had a proper new party for way over a century.
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
Sounds like a great idea to me. I strongly recommend we follow the Italians and split our right-of-centre parties into three discrete and competing parties.
As I have also pointed out the left would also split into 2 or 3 discrete and competing parties under PR too.
Only FPTP keeps Labour and the Conservatives as one united block
I wouldn't be surprised if govt subsidies came hand in hand with rolling blackouts throughout the winter to bring demand down. An hour out here, followed by an hour out there, etc, so nobody freezes but overall demand (and thus the cost of the subsidy) is brought down.
How well does that actually work as demand reduction these days? You can't do a rolling blackout of gas supplies, obviously. For electric heating, an hour blackout probably mostly just shifts the usage to the following hour as the system works flat out to bring the house back up to temperature. Shops, offices and industrial, maybe -- but nobody's proposing to subsidise them yet, I think.
Russia starting to make a tactical withdrawal from the west of the Dnipro river starting with their command staff. That won't make those left on the ground a tad nervous, no sirree.
This is looking like Ukraine's biggest victory since the Russians turned back from Kyiv.
Unfortunately The Telegraph is a shitty newspaper full of bullshit. All my well-informed Twitter list has on this is an unconfirmed report of the command center getting moved back across the river. But even if that's true (it seems dubious) the unlucky people with guns and artillary are still there.
They are extremely partisan in their support for Ukraine but they also have more information about what is actually happening and twitter videos etc than any other source that I have found in English.
It may be true or it may not but the taking out of the bridges over the Dnipro has undoubtedly left the forces on the north and west banks dangerously isolated.
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
Hold on a sec. Aren’t you to this day a vocal apologist for the clusterf*cl of a govt that was the Coalition?
Which cut our strategic natural gas storage off at the knees.
That cow towed to the Russian regime and willingly accepted its money (even after the latter invaded Crimea and used radiological weapons on British soil), rather than underlining to allies the collective danger of them relying on Russian hydrocarbons?
Which failed to move forward domestic nuclear, so in awe were they with achieving a superficially balanced budget and a pathetic schoolboy crush on the Chinese Communist Party, leading to a dishonest sleight of hand to shift the construction liability off balance sheet and recklessly hand the Chinese a foothold in the most key and sensitive of industries?
That spurned tidal? Set solar back years? Which imposed “windfall” taxes on the North Sea which achieved nothing apart from disincentivising investment?
Rather than snide smugly about a Brexit wedge issue such as this tweet, I personally am ready to give Truss a chance. She can’t do worse than those chimps “The Quad”, who to a man have shown their true colours since leaving office with the company they’ve kept. Chinese autocrats, Russian oligarchs, crooked commodity barons and Mark Zuckerburg. Not sure which is scoring worst on that front!
If she turns out to be shit then we’ll all vote against her (or not vote). But she deserves as much of a chance as any other incoming Prime Minister from any party, until her record in office says otherwise.
Off topic, but have you seen the latest analyses of the Calvine photo?
Increasingly looks like it is not a “rock in a loch”. Mick West is struggling to debunk it. More eye witness testimony has emerged
So we are left with two hypotheses
1. It is a massively elaborate hoax over decades
2. It shows a genuine and anomalous object in the sky over Scotland. Which could be: what?
It’s a little maddening because we do not have all the data. There’s five photos missing. We don’t have anything more than brief written eye witness testimony from anonymous sources so it’s very difficult to assess their credibility. And there’s no military report or telemetrics, from the plane/planes or ground radar, if indeed there even were any such reports written of such an incident. The only public witness is second hand in the form of Nick Pope, and he may not be a credible witness because he’s been making a career since leaving the MOD out of being “Britain’s Fox Molder”.
So it’s an order of magnitude less compelling than the US Navy cases, where anyone that looks objectively at all the available data in the round (including the behaviour of those with top clearance that have seen evidence we have not) can only conclude something very strange indeed is going on.
And yet… the very long period of secrecy for Calvine (extended in 2020 for another 52 years!) is intriguing. As are the declassified documents that showed that certain cabinet members received a briefing. And there’s an apparent letter to the US Air Force online (I have not verified the source), advising them of the incident, with what it must be said are curiously worded comments, apparently confirming the photo’s legitimacy:
What’s most curious of all, is that the negatives were apparently returned to the Daily Record of Glasgow and they still did not publish them! Tabloids knowingly publish all manner of nonsense, from toast that looks like the messiah to Elvis alive in Marbella. It is said that the editor at the time (now deceased) was on the D-Notice Committee. A thicker plot than it might seem perhaps.
So as you say, we are either left with an elaborate hoax, with the two “witnesses” embarrassed that the MoD ever got involved and wanting to stay in obscurity. Or, they really did see something amazing. As with the public US Navy cases, it’s difficult to see how this could be allied tech, there are joint chiefs and clear processes to ensure the secrecy of such programmes is preserved. This story leaked out easily and was given legs by the MOD staff involved in investigating it because they apparently were not being told to this day of any black ops project.
You know where I lean. But this is not the smoking gun that convinces any waverers. If anything it feels like the sort of case that gets given a wave of publicity only to be subsequently debunked, to take attention from the extraordinary evidence, statements and political / academic processes going on in the US.
Do you read Fortean Times at all? Piece in the latest issue very scathing about the uap nonsense from the states. Essentially saying all the ‘actors’ have long running interest in the area.
You may be right, but you also know which way I lean too!
Sorry never heard of it. My interest in this topic only arose in 2020 when a highly rationalist friend who helped design the FLIR pod software said he has “no better explanation (of the Pentagon UAP videos) than aliens”.
After that I soaked up all the public testimonies I could find from of those present. Fravor, Graves, Dietrich etc… And I’ve watched hour upon hour of Lue Elizondo and Christopher Mellon, who are more responsible for this wave of political interest than anyone else. And I have to say, I take them all at face value.
What’s clear is that the weight of the US security establishment does so too. We’ve seen admissions of such by not only more Jr congresspeople but acting Gang of 8 members and multiple past intelligence chiefs. And of course, we’ve got people like Avi Loeb from Harvard, Garry Nolan from Stanford and Bill Nelson at NASA now acting as the faces of science / academia in pursuing the topic.
To be honest I rule out the secret tech explanation. There are far too many contradictions for that to be true. I think either a small group of people have successfully hijacked the narrative of almost the entire US security establishment in a conspiracy that would be too implausible for a movie but might just be true in real life. Or it’s as simple as it looks, in the vastness of space and time someone else out there found our little corner and is bit by bit revealing themselves in a form of slow exposure therapy.
Fortean Times is the go to for all things Fortean (a bit tautological), but basically ghosts, ufos, cryptozoology, esp etc. Anything weird. Elizondo has a long interest in ufos etc. Essentially I have been interested in this stuff since I was 10, and I just don’t see anything new here, and that is the Fortean Times opinion too.
Studying the evidence of the last 60 years or more, the sociology of flying saucers into ufos into UAPs etc and the types of alien etc are fascinating. Many reports are obvious lies, hoaxes or simple misidentifications. There are some examples with no conclusive proof, but that’s not to say it’s inexplicable.
If you are interested in the wider world of wierd, I’d suggest trying Fortean times.
++++++
I've been reading the Fortean Times for 30 years and indeed, as an esoteric flint knapper, I have actually written for them multiple times. I know the editor, subs, writers, etc
If they are dismissing this latest UAP flap then they are simply wrong. This is several orders of magnitude bigger than anything we have seen for 50 years, and, possibly, ever
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I think the shortages will go away. This winter will be grim, next year will be tight but not so bad and 2024 will probably be OK. Prices won't come back to 2021 levels in the medium term but they shouldn't be so extreme as they will be this year and next.
The hazard with energy caps is that they remove the incentive to reduce consumption and therefore demand, demand reduction being an important part of the solution to affordable fuel. But there isn't an easy other way to protect those with limited incomes and avoid societal harm.
Is it hard to send the people on low incomes more money? Generally they should already be getting benefits or tax credits or whatever, no? Should be cheaper than subsidizing everyone who uses energy?
I think the sudden requirement to find thousands of pounds will massively expand the number of people being brought into the social security net. Also there are lots more people on low incomes than high incomes.
For the sake of illustration, let's say a blanket fuel cap costs £30 billion a year. Let's also say support targeted at those on low incomes costs £15 billion. But this introduces many edge cases so you need another £7 billion of universal subsidy to ease some of that pain. At which point you are spending 3/4 of the cost of the cap on a much messier solution.
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
Yes, I've just reviewed 2018 and the Forza-Lega-FdL alliance polled 37% and won 265 seats in the Chamber of Deputies - Lega won 125, Forza 104 and FdL 32.
M5S under Grillo won 32.7% and 227 seats.
It looks as though M5S will collapse to 10% but Lega will also be lower at around 15% with the two winners FdL and the Social Democrats so Salvini, having played second fiddle to Conte and later Draghi will presumably end up doing the same for Meloni but the three centre-right parties are close to 50%.
On the centre-left, the Social Democrats will do pretty well and may run FdL close for first in terms of the popular viote but their electoral bloc trails badly and currently it looks as though the centre-right will have a 90-seat majority in the new Chamber of Deputies (245-155).
These days photos often look better than real life.
The new iPhones can certainly take night time photos which - one feels - produce images that are superior to what you actually see
Nonetheless that is a pretty good impression of what Little Venice looked like, about 5 minutes ago. I have just had wonderful drinks with polyamorous old friends, and the night was warm and the conversation salacious. I confess I told them THE FINLAND RUMOUR,.As I was in such a good mood and in my cups
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
3 Cons and 3 Labs = 6.
You've lost the LibDems by my calculations.
Bit careless.
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Only 2 parties have over 50 seats or 10% of seats in Parliament in the UK with FPTP. In Germany which has PR 5 parties have over 50 seats, in Italy which has PR 4 parties have over 50 seats, in Spain which has PR 4 parties have over 10% of seats. In Israel and Ireland which have PR 3 parties have over 10% of seats. In New Zealand which has PR there are 2 main parties and another 2 parties just short of 10% of the seats.
In the UK only the SNP of the minor parties gets anywhere close to 10% or more of seats, Parliament under FPTP is dominated by Labour and the Tories
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Yes, but largely because we're under FPTP! There's no reason all 6 of the parties which split out from Labour and the Tories would be "main parties" just because their predecessor party was. Indeed it seems fairly likely to me that eg the far-left Corbyn-ish party would not have enough support to be a big party after the shakeout. The LDs have the advantage of being an already known quantity with an established local support base which in a hypothetical PR future wouldn't have just split into several competing pieces, so they have a fairly strong chance of coming out as one of the 4 or so 'bigger' parties when the dust settles.
"Research found that record numbers of British students have been rejected from the UK’s most selective institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, in favour of their overseas peers who pay far higher tuition fees."
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
3 Cons and 3 Labs = 6.
You've lost the LibDems by my calculations.
Bit careless.
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Only 2 parties have over 50 seats or 10% of seats in Parliament in the UK with FPTP. In Germany which has PR 5 parties have over 50 seats, in Italy which has PR 4 parties have over 50 seats, in Spain which has PR 4 parties have over 10% of seats. In Israel and Ireland which have PR 3 parties have over 10% of seats. In New Zealand which has PR there are 2 main parties and another 2 parties just short of 10% of the seats.
In the UK only the SNP of the minor parties gets anywhere close to 10% or more of seats, Parliament under FPTP is dominated by Labour and the Tories
Japan which has PR too has 4 parties with over 30 seats
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Yes, but largely because we're under FPTP! There's no reason all 6 of the parties which split out from Labour and the Tories would be "main parties" just because their predecessor party was. Indeed it seems fairly likely to me that eg the far-left Corbyn-ish party would not have enough support to be a big party after the shakeout. The LDs have the advantage of being an already known quantity with an established local support base which in a hypothetical PR future wouldn't have just split into several competing pieces, so they have a fairly strong chance of coming out as one of the 4 or so 'bigger' parties when the dust settles.
Even with PR I would expect the Conservative and Labour parties to still be the largest parties, at least initially but far less dominant than they were and with more smaller parties having more MPs, including the LDs as well as hardline parties of left and right
These days photos often look better than real life.
The new iPhones can certainly take night time photos which - one feels - produce images that are superior to what you actually see
Nonetheless that is a pretty good impression of what Little Venice looked like, about 5 minutes ago. I have just had wonderful drinks with polyamorous old friends, and the night was warm and the conversation salacious. I confess I told them THE FINLAND RUMOUR,.As I was in such a good mood and in my cups
MI6, you know where I live
You big tease. I haven’t done a Google translate to Finnish and back in days now. I really don’t want to waste more time tomorrow trying again.
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
3 Cons and 3 Labs = 6.
You've lost the LibDems by my calculations.
Bit careless.
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Only 2 parties have over 50 seats or 10% of seats in Parliament in the UK with FPTP. In Germany which has PR 5 parties have over 50 seats, in Italy which has PR 4 parties have over 50 seats, in Spain which has PR 4 parties have over 10% of seats. In Israel and Ireland which have PR 3 parties have over 10% of seats. In New Zealand which has PR there are 2 main parties and another 2 parties just short of 10% of the seats.
In the UK only the SNP of the minor parties gets anywhere close to 10% or more of seats, Parliament under FPTP is dominated by Labour and the Tories
Yes fair enough. But if the Cons and Lab splintered into aggregate 6, I reckon the LDs (if they stayed intact) might well become a 'main party' in this new more thinly spread political landscape.
Perhaps one day we'll get to find out what would actually happen. I'd vote for PR, I think.
"Research found that record numbers of British students have been rejected from the UK’s most selective institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, in favour of their overseas peers who pay far higher tuition fees."
"Research found that record numbers of British students have been rejected from the UK’s most selective institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, in favour of their overseas peers who pay far higher tuition fees."
As long as the overseas students are at least as equally qualified if not better qualified then no problem with that. Oxford and Cambridge are in the top 10 best universities in the world, so will obviously attract top candidates from across the world. As will other top UK universities like UCL and Imperial
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
3 Cons and 3 Labs = 6.
You've lost the LibDems by my calculations.
Bit careless.
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Only 2 parties have over 50 seats or 10% of seats in Parliament in the UK with FPTP. In Germany which has PR 5 parties have over 50 seats, in Italy which has PR 4 parties have over 50 seats, in Spain which has PR 4 parties have over 10% of seats. In Israel and Ireland which have PR 3 parties have over 10% of seats. In New Zealand which has PR there are 2 main parties and another 2 parties just short of 10% of the seats.
In the UK only the SNP of the minor parties gets anywhere close to 10% or more of seats, Parliament under FPTP is dominated by Labour and the Tories
Yes fair enough. But if the Cons and Lab splintered into aggregate 6, I reckon the LDs (if they stayed intact) might well become a 'main party' in this new more thinly spread political landscape.
Perhaps one day we'll get to find out what would actually happen. I'd vote for PR, I think.
I am also not particularly opposed to PR, I voted for AV in 2011
"Research found that record numbers of British students have been rejected from the UK’s most selective institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, in favour of their overseas peers who pay far higher tuition fees."
As long as the overseas students are at least as equally qualified if not better qualified then no problem with that. Oxford and Cambridge are in the top 10 best universities in the world, so will obviously attract top candidates from across the world. As will other top UK universities like UCL and Imperial
yes a proud "export" - certainly more so than arms sales!
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
3 Cons and 3 Labs = 6.
You've lost the LibDems by my calculations.
Bit careless.
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Only 2 parties have over 50 seats or 10% of seats in Parliament in the UK with FPTP. In Germany which has PR 5 parties have over 50 seats, in Italy which has PR 4 parties have over 50 seats, in Spain which has PR 4 parties have over 10% of seats. In Israel and Ireland which have PR 3 parties have over 10% of seats. In New Zealand which has PR there are 2 main parties and another 2 parties just short of 10% of the seats.
In the UK only the SNP of the minor parties gets anywhere close to 10% or more of seats, Parliament under FPTP is dominated by Labour and the Tories
Yes fair enough. But if the Cons and Lab splintered into aggregate 6, I reckon the LDs (if they stayed intact) might well become a 'main party' in this new more thinly spread political landscape.
Perhaps one day we'll get to find out what would actually happen. I'd vote for PR, I think.
I am also not particularly opposed to PR, I voted for AV in 2011
On the face of it I agree with Packham - not a common occurrence for me.
The argument the Norwegians make is that the Walrus was dangerous if people went too near it. They warned people to stay away but people ignored the warnings. At this point the obvious solution would have been to say if you get hurt it is your own stupid fault. Why kill the walrus when it is the people who are in the wrong?
This is very strange for a country that has Preikestolen as one of its most popular tourist attractions.
Protecting the terminally stupid from their own idiocy does a Government no credit. Better they should have made the pages of the Darwin Awards and given us all a proper laugh.
The question of what would happen in the UK under a PR system depends primarily on what kind of system you introduce.
Many countries still retain some form of constituency link (New Zealand, Germany for two) so a proportion of MPs re elected at constituency level and the rest come from a proportional allocation of either party votes or second votes whether you have MMP or some variation thereof.
If, in the UK, 400 MPs are elected at constituency level and 200 were elected via proportional top up, my suspicion is the current party structure would remain largely intact as it has in Germany, New Zealand and other places.
In countries with more proportional systems, the outcome is variable. There are those which have a national threshold (say 4-5%) but a higher local threshold (15%) so regional parties might get a look in if they do well enough. In many countries, parties split not ideologically but personally. Look at places like Slovenia and the Czech Republic where parties are often the extension of an individual's platform and that individual was previously a member of another party - I have to say Ukraine and Russia are also examples of where individuals set up parties as their own vehicles.
The analogy here would be Boris Johnson leaving the Conservatives and forming his own Boris Johnson List running against Conservative candidates - there are many instances of similar.
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
3 Cons and 3 Labs = 6.
You've lost the LibDems by my calculations.
Bit careless.
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Only 2 parties have over 50 seats or 10% of seats in Parliament in the UK with FPTP. In Germany which has PR 5 parties have over 50 seats, in Italy which has PR 4 parties have over 50 seats, in Spain which has PR 4 parties have over 10% of seats. In Israel and Ireland which have PR 3 parties have over 10% of seats. In New Zealand which has PR there are 2 main parties and another 2 parties just short of 10% of the seats.
In the UK only the SNP of the minor parties gets anywhere close to 10% or more of seats, Parliament under FPTP is dominated by Labour and the Tories
Yes fair enough. But if the Cons and Lab splintered into aggregate 6, I reckon the LDs (if they stayed intact) might well become a 'main party' in this new more thinly spread political landscape.
Perhaps one day we'll get to find out what would actually happen. I'd vote for PR, I think.
@Richard_Tyndall 's idea of abolishing parties is more attractive than PR.
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I think the shortages will go away. This winter will be grim, next year will be tight but not so bad and 2024 will probably be OK. Prices won't come back to 2021 levels in the medium term but they shouldn't be so extreme as they will be this year and next.
The hazard with energy caps is that they remove the incentive to reduce consumption and therefore demand, demand reduction being an important part of the solution to affordable fuel. But there isn't an easy other way to protect those with limited incomes and avoid societal harm.
Is it hard to send the people on low incomes more money? Generally they should already be getting benefits or tax credits or whatever, no? Should be cheaper than subsidizing everyone who uses energy?
I think the sudden requirement to find thousands of pounds will massively expand the number of people being brought into the social security net. Also there are lots more people on low incomes than high incomes.
For the sake of illustration, let's say a blanket fuel cap costs £30 billion a year. Let's also say support targeted at those on low incomes costs £15 billion. But this introduces many edge cases so you need another £7 billion of universal subsidy to ease some of that pain. At which point you are spending 3/4 of the cost of the cap on a much messier solution.
Running a bit further with these randomish numbers. The average household energy bill is slated to increase by about £2500 between now and April 2023. Median household income after housing costs (AHC) is £24 000. Taking the median case is it acceptable for those people to cut expenses worth10% of their disposable income to fund fuel bill increases? If it isn't acceptable, a £400 subsidy is neither here nor there. They will need most of that £2500.
Bear in mind that those percentages of disposable income will be greater for the half of the population below the median and also there other non-fuel pressures on their income including rampant food inflation. Also any mortgage increases will lead to a reduction in their AHC income.
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
3 Cons and 3 Labs = 6.
You've lost the LibDems by my calculations.
Bit careless.
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Only 2 parties have over 50 seats or 10% of seats in Parliament in the UK with FPTP. In Germany which has PR 5 parties have over 50 seats, in Italy which has PR 4 parties have over 50 seats, in Spain which has PR 4 parties have over 10% of seats. In Israel and Ireland which have PR 3 parties have over 10% of seats. In New Zealand which has PR there are 2 main parties and another 2 parties just short of 10% of the seats.
In the UK only the SNP of the minor parties gets anywhere close to 10% or more of seats, Parliament under FPTP is dominated by Labour and the Tories
Yes fair enough. But if the Cons and Lab splintered into aggregate 6, I reckon the LDs (if they stayed intact) might well become a 'main party' in this new more thinly spread political landscape.
Perhaps one day we'll get to find out what would actually happen. I'd vote for PR, I think.
@Richard_Tyndall 's idea of abolishing parties is more attractive than PR.
You need parties to unite legislators of similar ideology and so voters know what they are voting for and to form an effective government
"Research found that record numbers of British students have been rejected from the UK’s most selective institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, in favour of their overseas peers who pay far higher tuition fees."
As long as the overseas students are at least as equally qualified if not better qualified then no problem with that. Oxford and Cambridge are in the top 10 best universities in the world, so will obviously attract top candidates from across the world. As will other top UK universities like UCL and Imperial
yes a proud "export" - certainly more so than arms sales!
I was looking in to doing a part time masters degree at Cambridge in a subject related to my work, but it costs £20k, probably another £6k on accommodation costs. You can do it for a fraction of the price at the local ex poly. From a professional angle, its the same thing.
The monetisation of the reputation of these institutions is pretty sad, and is tied to the decline of these institutions in general. Even if they are top 10 in the world or whatever. Its like the top 10 detergents or whatever, you can just get a cheaper one and it does essentially the same job.
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
3 Cons and 3 Labs = 6.
You've lost the LibDems by my calculations.
Bit careless.
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Only 2 parties have over 50 seats or 10% of seats in Parliament in the UK with FPTP. In Germany which has PR 5 parties have over 50 seats, in Italy which has PR 4 parties have over 50 seats, in Spain which has PR 4 parties have over 10% of seats. In Israel and Ireland which have PR 3 parties have over 10% of seats. In New Zealand which has PR there are 2 main parties and another 2 parties just short of 10% of the seats.
In the UK only the SNP of the minor parties gets anywhere close to 10% or more of seats, Parliament under FPTP is dominated by Labour and the Tories
Yes fair enough. But if the Cons and Lab splintered into aggregate 6, I reckon the LDs (if they stayed intact) might well become a 'main party' in this new more thinly spread political landscape.
Perhaps one day we'll get to find out what would actually happen. I'd vote for PR, I think.
I am also not particularly opposed to PR, I voted for AV in 2011
AV is NOT a proportional system.
It was a step in that direction however given the alternative of retaining FPTP
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I think the shortages will go away. This winter will be grim, next year will be tight but not so bad and 2024 will probably be OK. Prices won't come back to 2021 levels in the medium term but they shouldn't be so extreme as they will be this year and next.
The hazard with energy caps is that they remove the incentive to reduce consumption and therefore demand, demand reduction being an important part of the solution to affordable fuel. But there isn't an easy other way to protect those with limited incomes and avoid societal harm.
Is it hard to send the people on low incomes more money? Generally they should already be getting benefits or tax credits or whatever, no? Should be cheaper than subsidizing everyone who uses energy?
I think the sudden requirement to find thousands of pounds will massively expand the number of people being brought into the social security net. Also there are lots more people on low incomes than high incomes.
For the sake of illustration, let's say a blanket fuel cap costs £30 billion a year. Let's also say support targeted at those on low incomes costs £15 billion. But this introduces many edge cases so you need another £7 billion of universal subsidy to ease some of that pain. At which point you are spending 3/4 of the cost of the cap on a much messier solution.
The step that would surprise me there is that you need to splurge £7 billion of universal subsidy across the entire nation to be sure of reaching the edge cases. How many British people are neither getting receiving benefits nor paying taxes?
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Even utility companies have accepted the inevitable, hence trying to get in with their own plans.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
Indeed - the utility companies offering up their own suggestions (taking out long term loans paid back gradually through increased bills over 10 years, or general taxation) says to me they know the jig is up. They can try to charge higher prices, but they'll either a) never get the money (and it will take an age to pursue millions of debtors through court), or b) they'll get nationalised/taxed into oblivion.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
I think the shortages will go away. This winter will be grim, next year will be tight but not so bad and 2024 will probably be OK. Prices won't come back to 2021 levels in the medium term but they shouldn't be so extreme as they will be this year and next.
The hazard with energy caps is that they remove the incentive to reduce consumption and therefore demand, demand reduction being an important part of the solution to affordable fuel. But there isn't an easy other way to protect those with limited incomes and avoid societal harm.
Is it hard to send the people on low incomes more money? Generally they should already be getting benefits or tax credits or whatever, no? Should be cheaper than subsidizing everyone who uses energy?
I think the sudden requirement to find thousands of pounds will massively expand the number of people being brought into the social security net. Also there are lots more people on low incomes than high incomes.
For the sake of illustration, let's say a blanket fuel cap costs £30 billion a year. Let's also say support targeted at those on low incomes costs £15 billion. But this introduces many edge cases so you need another £7 billion of universal subsidy to ease some of that pain. At which point you are spending 3/4 of the cost of the cap on a much messier solution.
The step that would surprise me there is that you need to splurge £7 billion of universal subsidy across the entire nation to be sure of reaching the edge cases. How many British people are neither getting receiving benefits nor paying taxes?
TBH I don't know because I don't have the numbers but I am becoming more convinced that a universal approach will work better than a targeted one. I think once you accept any workable solution is going to be in the tens of billions, doing it the straightforward way starts looking preferable.
"Research found that record numbers of British students have been rejected from the UK’s most selective institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, in favour of their overseas peers who pay far higher tuition fees."
Good. At least someone is bringing money in to the country.
Looking at their accounts for 2021, Oxford and Cambridge receive almost as much in public funding from the taxpayer as they do from student fees. If they want to reject British students in favour of those from overseas perhaps now would be a good time to end that taxpayer funding.
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
3 Cons and 3 Labs = 6.
You've lost the LibDems by my calculations.
Bit careless.
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Only 2 parties have over 50 seats or 10% of seats in Parliament in the UK with FPTP. In Germany which has PR 5 parties have over 50 seats, in Italy which has PR 4 parties have over 50 seats, in Spain which has PR 4 parties have over 10% of seats. In Israel and Ireland which have PR 3 parties have over 10% of seats. In New Zealand which has PR there are 2 main parties and another 2 parties just short of 10% of the seats.
In the UK only the SNP of the minor parties gets anywhere close to 10% or more of seats, Parliament under FPTP is dominated by Labour and the Tories
Yes fair enough. But if the Cons and Lab splintered into aggregate 6, I reckon the LDs (if they stayed intact) might well become a 'main party' in this new more thinly spread political landscape.
Perhaps one day we'll get to find out what would actually happen. I'd vote for PR, I think.
I am also not particularly opposed to PR, I voted for AV in 2011
AV is NOT a proportional system.
It was a step in that direction however given the alternative of retaining FPTP
"Research found that record numbers of British students have been rejected from the UK’s most selective institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, in favour of their overseas peers who pay far higher tuition fees."
Good. At least someone is bringing money in to the country.
Looking at their accounts for 2021, Oxford and Cambridge receive almost as much in public funding from the taxpayer as they do from student fees. If they want to reject British students in favour of those from overseas perhaps now would be a good time to end that taxpayer funding.
Fine by me, though that would probably result in no British students at all.
A family member is on this flight from Dublin to Boston and I've just noticed that it's done a weird change of direction as it gets close to Boston. Would it be because of bad weather?
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
3 Cons and 3 Labs = 6.
You've lost the LibDems by my calculations.
Bit careless.
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Only 2 parties have over 50 seats or 10% of seats in Parliament in the UK with FPTP. In Germany which has PR 5 parties have over 50 seats, in Italy which has PR 4 parties have over 50 seats, in Spain which has PR 4 parties have over 10% of seats. In Israel and Ireland which have PR 3 parties have over 10% of seats. In New Zealand which has PR there are 2 main parties and another 2 parties just short of 10% of the seats.
In the UK only the SNP of the minor parties gets anywhere close to 10% or more of seats, Parliament under FPTP is dominated by Labour and the Tories
Yes fair enough. But if the Cons and Lab splintered into aggregate 6, I reckon the LDs (if they stayed intact) might well become a 'main party' in this new more thinly spread political landscape.
Perhaps one day we'll get to find out what would actually happen. I'd vote for PR, I think.
I am also not particularly opposed to PR, I voted for AV in 2011
AV is NOT a proportional system.
It was a step in that direction however given the alternative of retaining FPTP
Not necessarily. 1997 would have been even more disproportionate under AV. Labour with 43% of votes would probably have won a majority of over 200 instead of 179.
"Research found that record numbers of British students have been rejected from the UK’s most selective institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, in favour of their overseas peers who pay far higher tuition fees."
Good. At least someone is bringing money in to the country.
Looking at their accounts for 2021, Oxford and Cambridge receive almost as much in public funding from the taxpayer as they do from student fees. If they want to reject British students in favour of those from overseas perhaps now would be a good time to end that taxpayer funding.
Fine by me, though that would probably result in no British students at all.
In which case they serve no useful purpose and can be shut down.
In the end the Universities made their names on the back of the British taxpayer and the state and they have no innate right to survive if they chose to turn their backs on the country. Let them move to Dubai and see how long they can survive on their fading laurels.
Of course the far simpler answer is just to nationalise them. Education is a public service and should not be run with profit as the main driver.
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
3 Cons and 3 Labs = 6.
You've lost the LibDems by my calculations.
Bit careless.
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Only 2 parties have over 50 seats or 10% of seats in Parliament in the UK with FPTP. In Germany which has PR 5 parties have over 50 seats, in Italy which has PR 4 parties have over 50 seats, in Spain which has PR 4 parties have over 10% of seats. In Israel and Ireland which have PR 3 parties have over 10% of seats. In New Zealand which has PR there are 2 main parties and another 2 parties just short of 10% of the seats.
In the UK only the SNP of the minor parties gets anywhere close to 10% or more of seats, Parliament under FPTP is dominated by Labour and the Tories
Yes fair enough. But if the Cons and Lab splintered into aggregate 6, I reckon the LDs (if they stayed intact) might well become a 'main party' in this new more thinly spread political landscape.
Perhaps one day we'll get to find out what would actually happen. I'd vote for PR, I think.
@Richard_Tyndall 's idea of abolishing parties is more attractive than PR.
You need parties to unite legislators of similar ideology and so voters know what they are voting for and to form an effective government
You do not need parties in their current for to do that. Parties should win over support amongst MPs through strength of argument not threats and bribes. Make every vote in Parliament a free vote. Allow MPs to represent their constituents not their party.
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
3 Cons and 3 Labs = 6.
You've lost the LibDems by my calculations.
Bit careless.
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Only 2 parties have over 50 seats or 10% of seats in Parliament in the UK with FPTP. In Germany which has PR 5 parties have over 50 seats, in Italy which has PR 4 parties have over 50 seats, in Spain which has PR 4 parties have over 10% of seats. In Israel and Ireland which have PR 3 parties have over 10% of seats. In New Zealand which has PR there are 2 main parties and another 2 parties just short of 10% of the seats.
In the UK only the SNP of the minor parties gets anywhere close to 10% or more of seats, Parliament under FPTP is dominated by Labour and the Tories
Yes fair enough. But if the Cons and Lab splintered into aggregate 6, I reckon the LDs (if they stayed intact) might well become a 'main party' in this new more thinly spread political landscape.
Perhaps one day we'll get to find out what would actually happen. I'd vote for PR, I think.
I am also not particularly opposed to PR, I voted for AV in 2011
AV is NOT a proportional system.
It was a step in that direction however given the alternative of retaining FPTP
Not necessarily. 1997 would have been even more disproportionate under AV. Labour with 43% of votes would probably have won a majority of over 200 instead of 179.
In terms of breaking up the 2 party duopoly by giving multiple preferences however it certainly was
Forza now is centre right, certainly compared to Lega and Fratelli
So you have the opposition centre-right grouping (FdL prospered because they were the main opposition party - most of the other parties were in the government coalition) joining forces with two centre-right groupings which were in the Government.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
Forza and Lega have now both withdrawn from the Draghi government, if we had PR like Italy we could well have 2 or even 3 main rightwing parties like they do. You could have a Hunt/Sunak led centre right party, a Truss led harder right party and a Farage led populist nationalist right party
The left would also fragment. Corbyn style left, new labour style social democrats and just a conventional left wing party.
I agree. You would have a Corbyn hard left party, a Brownite/Starmerite Labour Party and a Blairite New Labour party too led by someone like David Miliband or Wes Streeting.
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
3 Cons and 3 Labs = 6.
You've lost the LibDems by my calculations.
Bit careless.
I added the LDs too but they are not a main UK party on the level of Labour and the Conservatives.
Only 2 parties have over 50 seats or 10% of seats in Parliament in the UK with FPTP. In Germany which has PR 5 parties have over 50 seats, in Italy which has PR 4 parties have over 50 seats, in Spain which has PR 4 parties have over 10% of seats. In Israel and Ireland which have PR 3 parties have over 10% of seats. In New Zealand which has PR there are 2 main parties and another 2 parties just short of 10% of the seats.
In the UK only the SNP of the minor parties gets anywhere close to 10% or more of seats, Parliament under FPTP is dominated by Labour and the Tories
Yes fair enough. But if the Cons and Lab splintered into aggregate 6, I reckon the LDs (if they stayed intact) might well become a 'main party' in this new more thinly spread political landscape.
Perhaps one day we'll get to find out what would actually happen. I'd vote for PR, I think.
@Richard_Tyndall 's idea of abolishing parties is more attractive than PR.
You need parties to unite legislators of similar ideology and so voters know what they are voting for and to form an effective government
You do not need parties in their current for to do that. Parties should win over support amongst MPs through strength of argument not threats and bribes. Make every vote in Parliament a free vote. Allow MPs to represent their constituents not their party.
You can't have an effective government if every vote on legislation is a free vote. Voters also elect MPs on the basis of a party manifesto
"Research found that record numbers of British students have been rejected from the UK’s most selective institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, in favour of their overseas peers who pay far higher tuition fees."
Good. At least someone is bringing money in to the country.
Looking at their accounts for 2021, Oxford and Cambridge receive almost as much in public funding from the taxpayer as they do from student fees. If they want to reject British students in favour of those from overseas perhaps now would be a good time to end that taxpayer funding.
Fine by me, though that would probably result in no British students at all.
In which case they serve no useful purpose and can be shut down.
In the end the Universities made their names on the back of the British taxpayer and the state and they have no innate right to survive if they chose to turn their backs on the country. Let them move to Dubai and see how long they can survive on their fading laurels.
Of course the far simpler answer is just to nationalise them. Education is a public service and should not be run with profit as the main driver.
Maybe when 10% went to university, now nearly 50% do the half of the population that don't go to university cannot pay taxes to subsidise them all. Plus they need private funds and fees to compete with the Ivy league and top US and Far East universities
"Research found that record numbers of British students have been rejected from the UK’s most selective institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, in favour of their overseas peers who pay far higher tuition fees."
Good. At least someone is bringing money in to the country.
Looking at their accounts for 2021, Oxford and Cambridge receive almost as much in public funding from the taxpayer as they do from student fees. If they want to reject British students in favour of those from overseas perhaps now would be a good time to end that taxpayer funding.
Fine by me, though that would probably result in no British students at all.
The University of Cambridge has been doubling in size every 50 years for the last 300 years. You would need to look at the percentage of places going to brits vs the population, or some such measure, to get a good picture.
Also, there is a huge difference between the percentages of foreign undergrads (few) and postgrads (many many)
All this stuff varies hugely between universities.
Comments
You may be right, but you also know which way I lean too!
She comes across as though she is for rich people that want a low wage, deregulated economy with lots of cheap labour, and with low taxes.... because they believe in 'freedom'.
She was almost like a satirical caricature of everything that was wrong with the 2010-2016 Conservative party.
Her political survival after Brexit is a mystery.
The Conservatives can say, you can have an energy cap with Labour and the Lib Dems or you can have completely unaffordable fuel bills running into thousands with us.
But they won't. At least not yet.
So where does Liz Truss' tax cut headroom fit into that?
Also people do expect the State to provide healthcare.
Renato Mariotti
@renato_mariotti
·
7h
THREAD: Will DOJ charge Donald Trump? How strong of a case do they have against him?
https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/1558805036347555841
If there was any residual doubt, the way the centre left coalition built, or rather failed to, in the last fortnight has delivered the election on a plate to the right.
All parties and alliances were registered today, and essentially there are 4 main players:
Centre-right alliance:
Lega - Forza - Fratelli (polling 49%)
Centre-left alliance:
PD - Left/Green - Civic (Di Maio) - +E (27%)
M5S (alone again) (11%)
Centre (third pole):
Azione/Italia Viva (Renzi) (8%)
Approximate seat projection (FPTP / proportional):
Centre-right: 130 / 130 = 260
Centre-left: 15 / 70 = 85
M5S: 0 / 30 = 30
Centre 0 / 20 = 20
Others 2 / 3 = 5
Large constituency FPTP plus a non-balancing proportional system likely means a very large overall majority for the centre/right coalition.
Their agreement was confirmed that the largest party of the alliance nominates the PM, almost certainly Meloni.
Smarkets have an illiquid "PM after next election" market - with Meloni at 1.28 for some small stakes free interest. The scenarios that prevent Meloni becoming PM* don't amount to anywhere near 20% imho.
The more interesting market might be most votes overall where PD are tight in the polls with FdI and could well take the cold consolation prize, even with a shellacking in seats.
* centre-right don't get majority / FdI not biggest centre-right party / alliance fail to nominate her / presidential intervention / early enough legislative change to an elected presidential system that Meloni skips being PM.
Curiously the politicians making the pace on this are Ed Davey and Gordon Brown. Davey for being willing to state the scale of the necessary response and that the cap is the simplest way of delivering it. Brown for making the moral and political case for it, and in the process demonstrating he is head and shoulders above all his successors, despite his flaws that have had extensive airing on this forum.
After that I soaked up all the public testimonies I could find from of those present. Fravor, Graves, Dietrich etc… And I’ve watched hour upon hour of Lue Elizondo and Christopher Mellon, who are more responsible for this wave of political interest than anyone else. And I have to say, I take them all at face value.
What’s clear is that the weight of the US security establishment does so too. We’ve seen admissions of such by not only more Jr congresspeople but acting Gang of 8 members and multiple past intelligence chiefs. And of course, we’ve got people like Avi Loeb from Harvard, Garry Nolan from Stanford and Bill Nelson at NASA now acting as the faces of science / academia in pursuing the topic.
To be honest I rule out the secret tech explanation. There are far too many contradictions for that to be true. I think either a small group of people have successfully hijacked
the narrative of almost the entire US security establishment in a conspiracy that would be too implausible for a movie but might just be true in real life. Or it’s as simple as it looks, in the vastness of space and time someone else out there found our little corner and is bit by bit revealing themselves in a form of slow exposure therapy.
Studying the evidence of the last 60 years or more, the sociology of flying saucers into ufos into UAPs etc and the types of alien etc are fascinating. Many reports are obvious lies, hoaxes or simple misidentifications. There are some examples with no conclusive proof, but that’s not to say it’s inexplicable.
If you are interested in the wider world of wierd, I’d suggest trying Fortean times.
Fundamentally though, I agree with RCS's point that subsidising energy in the UK isn't going to make the (global) problem that 10% of gas has disappeared off the market go away.
The hazard with energy caps is that they remove the incentive to reduce consumption and therefore demand, demand reduction being an important part of the solution to affordable fuel. But there isn't an easy other way to protect those with limited incomes and avoid societal harm.
As you say, the dilemma is, subsidise energy and you disincentivise people from reducing usage. When what we really need to do is reduce demand.
I wouldn't be surprised if govt subsidies came hand in hand with rolling blackouts throughout the winter to bring demand down. An hour out here, followed by an hour out there, etc, so nobody freezes but overall demand (and thus the cost of the subsidy) is brought down.
It would be like an opposition Conservative party deciding to form an electoral alliance with a governing Conservative Party.
Are FdL going to be able to convincingly attack a Government in which its allies were both members and supporters? Is Meloni going to be able to keep the party together IF they get into Government or is there going to be yet another schism and a new opposition centre-right grouping formed?
https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/collections/doughnut-recipes
Unpatriotic, you lot.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/russia-leaves-20-000-soldiers-stranded-in-tactical-withdrawal-to-the-west/ar-AA10Eovc?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0d7227023ae3490e8908e4e22a263849
This is looking like Ukraine's biggest victory since the Russians turned back from Kyiv.
Elizondo says he had no interest in UFO’s before being asked by his superiors to work in the field. But that the evidence he was presented with left no other satisfactory explanation beyond “non human” or however you wish to term it.
While you may not see compelling new evidence, what’s certainly new is the sudden ending of the culture of taboo / ridicule in the US. Such culture is still going strong here (witness pb!).
Most of what you see posted on Twitter and a Reddit are blurry iPhone videos of planes, lanterns, birds or whatever else. Tales of zeta reticulans and cow mutilations are a different class beyond that! But I’ve seen no one present a credible counter to the multi point public data of the Nimitz encounter.
And then we get to upcoming data on our place isn the cosmos. We’re going to soon be landing on Mars. Plenty think it likely that we’ll confirm at least fossilised basic life. And missions too to Europa and Enceladus. But long before that is James Webb. Seems to me highly likely that in its operational lifetime its spectrometer will find an exoplanet with free oxygen, from which it’s reasonable to conclude photosynthesis. Who knows we might even strike gold and find CFCs which means an industrialised society. Such findings would dramatically change the conversation (and narrow down the ranges within the Drake equation). And then there’s the chance of us filling in some of the blanks in our physics, that would show that general relativity (always pointed to as the reason why no one could make it to us) is but a crude map in understanding a far more complex reality.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/28/uk-wholesale-gas-prices-highs-winter-energy-crisis-suppliers
Incidentally France is in worse place for this winter than Germany. Should give another pause for thought to those thinking nuclear is a solution to our energy needs.
Doughnuts - not
Do you swallow?
So you would have at least 6 main UK parties rather than the current 2 + the LDs, the Greens + Scottish and Welsh nationalists and NI parties all with more seats as well
Actually Europe may well start importing gas from Russia again in a year or so, if it collectively gets fed up with sanctions, if Russia is defeated and/or there is an agreement between Ukraine and Russia. I don't think it will trust Russia with 40% of its fuel supplies any more. The days of cheap and reliable Russian gas are gone.
Even without PR, I strongly recommend we follow the Italians and split our right-of-centre parties into three discrete and competing parties.
Little Venice. 30 seconds ago
Only FPTP keeps Labour and the Conservatives as one united block
They are extremely partisan in their support for Ukraine but they also have more information about what is actually happening and twitter videos etc than any other source that I have found in English.
It may be true or it may not but the taking out of the bridges over the Dnipro has undoubtedly left the forces on the north and west banks dangerously isolated.
You've lost the LibDems by my calculations.
Bit careless.
Studying the evidence of the last 60 years or more, the sociology of flying saucers into ufos into UAPs etc and the types of alien etc are fascinating. Many reports are obvious lies, hoaxes or simple misidentifications. There are some examples with no conclusive proof, but that’s not to say it’s inexplicable.
If you are interested in the wider world of wierd, I’d suggest trying Fortean times.
++++++
I've been reading the Fortean Times for 30 years and indeed, as an esoteric flint knapper, I have actually written for them multiple times. I know the editor, subs, writers, etc
If they are dismissing this latest UAP flap then they are simply wrong. This is several orders of magnitude bigger than anything we have seen for 50 years, and, possibly, ever
For the sake of illustration, let's say a blanket fuel cap costs £30 billion a year. Let's also say support targeted at those on low incomes costs £15 billion. But this introduces many edge cases so you need another £7 billion of universal subsidy to ease some of that pain. At which point you are spending 3/4 of the cost of the cap on a much messier solution.
M5S under Grillo won 32.7% and 227 seats.
It looks as though M5S will collapse to 10% but Lega will also be lower at around 15% with the two winners FdL and the Social Democrats so Salvini, having played second fiddle to Conte and later Draghi will presumably end up doing the same for Meloni but the three centre-right parties are close to 50%.
On the centre-left, the Social Democrats will do pretty well and may run FdL close for first in terms of the popular viote but their electoral bloc trails badly and currently it looks as though the centre-right will have a 90-seat majority in the new Chamber of Deputies (245-155).
Nonetheless that is a pretty good impression of what Little Venice looked like, about 5 minutes ago. I have just had wonderful drinks with polyamorous old friends, and the night was warm and the conversation salacious. I confess I told them THE FINLAND RUMOUR,.As I was in such a good mood and in my cups
MI6, you know where I live
Only 2 parties have over 50 seats or 10% of seats in Parliament in the UK with FPTP. In Germany which has PR 5 parties have over 50 seats, in Italy which has PR 4 parties have over 50 seats, in Spain which has PR 4 parties have over 10% of seats. In Israel and Ireland which have PR 3 parties have over 10% of seats. In New Zealand which has PR there are 2 main parties and another 2 parties just short of 10% of the seats.
In the UK only the SNP of the minor parties gets anywhere close to 10% or more of seats, Parliament under FPTP is dominated by Labour and the Tories
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/14/a-level-pupils-should-brace-disappointment-watchdog-warns/
Perhaps one day we'll get to find out what would actually happen. I'd vote for PR, I think.
Many countries still retain some form of constituency link (New Zealand, Germany for two) so a proportion of MPs re elected at constituency level and the rest come from a proportional allocation of either party votes or second votes whether you have MMP or some variation thereof.
If, in the UK, 400 MPs are elected at constituency level and 200 were elected via proportional top up, my suspicion is the current party structure would remain largely intact as it has in Germany, New Zealand and other places.
In countries with more proportional systems, the outcome is variable. There are those which have a national threshold (say 4-5%) but a higher local threshold (15%) so regional parties might get a look in if they do well enough. In many countries, parties split not ideologically but personally. Look at places like Slovenia and the Czech Republic where parties are often the extension of an individual's platform and that individual was previously a member of another party - I have to say Ukraine and Russia are also examples of where individuals set up parties as their own vehicles.
The analogy here would be Boris Johnson leaving the Conservatives and forming his own Boris Johnson List running against Conservative candidates - there are many instances of similar.
Bear in mind that those percentages of disposable income will be greater for the half of the population below the median and also there other non-fuel pressures on their income including rampant food inflation. Also any mortgage increases will lead to a reduction in their AHC income.
You can do it for a fraction of the price at the local ex poly.
From a professional angle, its the same thing.
The monetisation of the reputation of these institutions is pretty sad, and is tied to the decline of these institutions in general. Even if they are top 10 in the world or whatever. Its like the top 10 detergents or whatever, you can just get a cheaper one and it does essentially the same job.
A family member is on this flight from Dublin to Boston and I've just noticed that it's done a weird change of direction as it gets close to Boston. Would it be because of bad weather?
https://www.flightstats.com/v2/flight-tracker/EI/137
In the end the Universities made their names on the back of the British taxpayer and the state and they have no innate right to survive if they chose to turn their backs on the country. Let them move to Dubai and see how long they can survive on their fading laurels.
Of course the far simpler answer is just to nationalise them. Education is a public service and should not be run with profit as the main driver.
Still the best interview of all time
Also, there is a huge difference between the percentages of foreign undergrads (few) and postgrads (many many)
All this stuff varies hugely between universities.