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So can Truss turn this round for the Tories – politicalbetting.com

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  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,104
    edited September 2022

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18.5 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    19 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Small money for Rishi

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    17 Rishi Sunak 6%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18 Rishi Sunak 6%

    It'll be interesting to see what happens to Rishi (the Parliamentary party's clear choice) if Truss convincingly wins (as I think)... my sense is Truss will perceive him to be a threat and so whilst pressure will be there to appoint him to a big office, she may step back from that, Tory MPs should rally to Truss but the Party is badly divided and I dont think Truss can unite it
    If Liz Truss has any sense, she will want to have Rishi in her Cabinet. For all the complaints about disloyalty and blue-on-blue attacks, it is mainly Truss who has been criticising governments of which she was a member, whereas Rishi generally has not, even though he has been critical of Truss's proposals.

    So a big job for Rishi will help unite a currently torn party, and although it promotes a rival, he can probably be relied on as relatively loyal. Sure, he might be plotting to take over at Number 10 but that would be true on the backbenches as well.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    edited September 2022
    Unusual to see Jockland featuring prominently in the global press. Cheers Liz! And Liz! And Oaf!

    Queen’s first meeting with U.K. prime minister to happen in Scotland, not Buckingham Palace

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/britain-queen-prime-minister-scotland/
  • Unusual to see Jockland featuring prominently in the global press. Cheers Liz! And Liz! And Oaf!

    Queen’s first meeting with U.K. prime minister to happen in Scotland, not Buckingham Palace

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/britain-queen-prime-minister-scotland/

    The first "kissing hands" outside Buckingham Palace since HH Asquith in 1908, in Biarritz in France.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Asquith#Chancellor_of_the_Exchequer,_1905–1908
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,688
    edited September 2022

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18.5 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    19 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Small money for Rishi

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    17 Rishi Sunak 6%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18 Rishi Sunak 6%

    It'll be interesting to see what happens to Rishi (the Parliamentary party's clear choice) if Truss convincingly wins (as I think)... my sense is Truss will perceive him to be a threat and so whilst pressure will be there to appoint him to a big office, she may step back from that, Tory MPs should rally to Truss but the Party is badly divided and I dont think Truss can unite it
    If Liz Truss has any sense, she will want to have Rishi in her Cabinet. For all the complaints about disloyalty and blue-on-blue attacks, it is mainly Truss who has been criticising governments of which she was a member, whereas Rishi generally has not, even though he has been critical of Truss's proposals.

    So a big job for Rishi will help unite a currently torn party, and although it promotes a rival, he can probably be relied on as relatively loyal. Sure, he might be plotting to take over at Number 10 but that would be true on the backbenches as well.
    I think Truss will formally offer Health to Sunak, and he will turn it down. It will quickly be known that he turned it down, making the former Chancellor look like the person getting in the way of the party re-unification. She might even offer Cabinet jobs to two or three other Sunakites too, and see what happens.

    I think Starmer gives it a fortnight before calling a formal vote of confidence in the government, to see if he can get a couple of defectors to crawl out of the woodwork.
  • Sandpit said:

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18.5 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    19 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Small money for Rishi

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    17 Rishi Sunak 6%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18 Rishi Sunak 6%

    It'll be interesting to see what happens to Rishi (the Parliamentary party's clear choice) if Truss convincingly wins (as I think)... my sense is Truss will perceive him to be a threat and so whilst pressure will be there to appoint him to a big office, she may step back from that, Tory MPs should rally to Truss but the Party is badly divided and I dont think Truss can unite it
    If Liz Truss has any sense, she will want to have Rishi in her Cabinet. For all the complaints about disloyalty and blue-on-blue attacks, it is mainly Truss who has been criticising governments of which she was a member, whereas Rishi generally has not, even though he has been critical of Truss's proposals.

    So a big job for Rishi will help unite a currently torn party, and although it promotes a rival, he can probably be relied on as relatively loyal. Sure, he might be plotting to take over at Number 10 but that would be true on the backbenches as well.
    I think Truss will formally offer Health to Sunak, and he will turn it down. It will quickly be known that he turned it down, making the former Chancellor look like the person getting in the way of the party re-unification. She might even offer Cabinet jobs to two or three other Sunakites too, and see what happens.

    I think Starmer gives it a fortnight before calling a formal vote of confidence in the government, to see if he can get a couple of defectors to crawl out of the woodwork.
    does anyone know when the BJ peerages get announced? that could well stir things a little (ie open partly healed wounds etc) there may be a rally Liz T but I reckon there's still a bit stabbing to be done and the pressure from a few folk getting elevated for backing BJ might just help. Its going to be an interesting run into October when the Party Conf opens (4th Oct)
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,755
    Sandpit said:

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18.5 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    19 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Small money for Rishi

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    17 Rishi Sunak 6%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18 Rishi Sunak 6%

    It'll be interesting to see what happens to Rishi (the Parliamentary party's clear choice) if Truss convincingly wins (as I think)... my sense is Truss will perceive him to be a threat and so whilst pressure will be there to appoint him to a big office, she may step back from that, Tory MPs should rally to Truss but the Party is badly divided and I dont think Truss can unite it
    If Liz Truss has any sense, she will want to have Rishi in her Cabinet. For all the complaints about disloyalty and blue-on-blue attacks, it is mainly Truss who has been criticising governments of which she was a member, whereas Rishi generally has not, even though he has been critical of Truss's proposals.

    So a big job for Rishi will help unite a currently torn party, and although it promotes a rival, he can probably be relied on as relatively loyal. Sure, he might be plotting to take over at Number 10 but that would be true on the backbenches as well.
    I think Truss will formally offer Health to Sunak, and he will turn it down. It will quickly be known that he turned it down, making the former Chancellor look like the person getting in the way of the party re-unification. She might even offer Cabinet jobs to two or three other Sunakites too, and see what happens.

    I think Starmer gives it a fortnight before calling a formal vote of confidence in the government, to
    see if he can get a couple of defectors to crawl out of the woodwork.
    Starmer would be a very silly billy if he did that. The time for that game was when partygate first broke. Not after a summer-long process to replace the partygatester and in the midst of a serious energy supply and inflation crisis.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,848

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,922
    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,922
    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    Or better still, a pber from Lancashire. Does @Dixiedean have a view?
  • Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18.5 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    19 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Small money for Rishi

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    17 Rishi Sunak 6%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18 Rishi Sunak 6%

    It'll be interesting to see what happens to Rishi (the Parliamentary party's clear choice) if Truss convincingly wins (as I think)... my sense is Truss will perceive him to be a threat and so whilst pressure will be there to appoint him to a big office, she may step back from that, Tory MPs should rally to Truss but the Party is badly divided and I dont think Truss can unite it
    How is Rishi the Parliamentary party's clear choice? The Parliamentary Party didn't make a clear choice.

    As things stand in the final round of voting Truss has more MPs publicly backing her than Rishi does.

    Yes some may be backing her now as they think its best for their career, but so too people may have backed Rishi for the same reason (since he was the long-term favourite for next leader) so that's swings and roundabouts.
  • IcarusIcarus Posts: 993
    edited September 2022
    Last nights London hustings: "What cheers were on offer all seemed to be headed Rish!’s way. Some reward for his slightly greater competence. But not enough. All the polls suggest that Radon Liz is a certainty to become the new Tory leader on Monday. What on earth have the rest of us done to deserve her?"

    From John Crace the Guardian's excellent political observer. Whilst the choice might be similar to choosing between having diarrhoea and migraine Sunak does appear to be the more competent. Is there a chance that the polls are wrong and that the Conservative membership will choose Sunak?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,104
    edited September 2022
    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    Hot off the press:-

    Half of children live across more than one household and a quarter of families are headed by a lone parent (and 90 PER CENT are women)
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11166817/Family-breakdown-modern-Britain-laid-bare-Half-children-live-one-household.html
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,104
    edited September 2022

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18.5 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    19 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Small money for Rishi

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    17 Rishi Sunak 6%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18 Rishi Sunak 6%

    It'll be interesting to see what happens to Rishi (the Parliamentary party's clear choice) if Truss convincingly wins (as I think)... my sense is Truss will perceive him to be a threat and so whilst pressure will be there to appoint him to a big office, she may step back from that, Tory MPs should rally to Truss but the Party is badly divided and I dont think Truss can unite it
    How is Rishi the Parliamentary party's clear choice? The Parliamentary Party didn't make a clear choice.

    As things stand in the final round of voting Truss has more MPs publicly backing her than Rishi does.

    Yes some may be backing her now as they think its best for their career, but so too people may have backed Rishi for the same reason (since he was the long-term favourite for next leader) so that's swings and roundabouts.
    Rishi Sunak led in every round of MPs voting; Liz Truss was third apart from the final round where she overtook Penny Mordaunt. Had there been another MPs round, how would you imagine Mordaunt's supporters might split?

    ETA and Penny Mordaunt was odds-on favourite for much of the process so if that were the basis on which MPs decided their votes, she would be on the ballot now.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,848
    edited September 2022
    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

  • DM_Andy said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Alaska at large win for the Democrats. Not a good omen for the GOP I think; Palin traded at between 74 and 79% to win.

    Though not many places have the ranked choice system that Alaska has so the good omens for the Dems is limited. Mary Peltola won enough 2nd preferences from Begich voters to beat Palin in the final round, my working out of the split of Begich + the small number of write-ins is 31.8% to Peltola, 53.6% to Palin and 14.6% non-transferable. In FPTP my sense is enough Democrats would have crossed to vote in the GOP primary for Begich to narrowly beat Palin and then Begich to easily beat Peltola in the general election.

    The general election will have the same lineup but with the addition of a Libertarian candidate. It'll be interesting to see if there's some GOP voters who would prefer Palin to Begich switch their vote to Begich rather than see the seat go to Peltola.

    A victory for AV.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phrdBWNUROY
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 22,196
    edited September 2022

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18.5 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    19 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Small money for Rishi

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    17 Rishi Sunak 6%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18 Rishi Sunak 6%

    It'll be interesting to see what happens to Rishi (the Parliamentary party's clear choice) if Truss convincingly wins (as I think)... my sense is Truss will perceive him to be a threat and so whilst pressure will be there to appoint him to a big office, she may step back from that, Tory MPs should rally to Truss but the Party is badly divided and I dont think Truss can unite it
    How is Rishi the Parliamentary party's clear choice? The Parliamentary Party didn't make a clear choice.

    As things stand in the final round of voting Truss has more MPs publicly backing her than Rishi does.

    Yes some may be backing her now as they think its best for their career, but so too people may have backed Rishi for the same reason (since he was the long-term favourite for next leader) so that's swings and roundabouts.
    Rishi Sunak led in every round of MPs voting; Liz Truss was third apart from the final round where she overtook Penny Mordaunt. Had there been another MPs round, how would you imagine Mordaunt's supporters might split?
    Its impossible to know for certain but Mordaunt is herself prominently backing Truss and so too are most of her supporters, so as it stands they're going for Truss. Which is why Truss is winning on more MPs backing her than Sunak at the moment.

    Its worth noting that Sunak was the long-term favourite so probably got a lot of people backing him early on who wanted to back the expected winner, but relatively struggled to gain transfers after that first round whereas Truss surprised on the upside frequently on transfers.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,444
    Sandpit said:

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18.5 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    19 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Small money for Rishi

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    17 Rishi Sunak 6%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18 Rishi Sunak 6%

    It'll be interesting to see what happens to Rishi (the Parliamentary party's clear choice) if Truss convincingly wins (as I think)... my sense is Truss will perceive him to be a threat and so whilst pressure will be there to appoint him to a big office, she may step back from that, Tory MPs should rally to Truss but the Party is badly divided and I dont think Truss can unite it
    If Liz Truss has any sense, she will want to have Rishi in her Cabinet. For all the complaints about disloyalty and blue-on-blue attacks, it is mainly Truss who has been criticising governments of which she was a member, whereas Rishi generally has not, even though he has been critical of Truss's proposals.

    So a big job for Rishi will help unite a currently torn party, and although it promotes a rival, he can probably be relied on as relatively loyal. Sure, he might be plotting to take over at Number 10 but that would be true on the backbenches as well.
    I think Truss will formally offer Health to Sunak, and he will turn it down. It will quickly be known that he turned it down, making the former Chancellor look like the person getting in the way of the party re-unification. She might even offer Cabinet jobs to two or three other Sunakites too, and see what happens.

    I think Starmer gives it a fortnight before calling a formal vote of confidence in the government, to see if he can get a couple of defectors to crawl out of the woodwork.
    I was going to say that I can't see SKS calling a vote of confidence when the Government has a majority of 80 - although it would give Truss a valid excuse to call a general election which may be the aim...

    Beyond that though it would be a waste of a day and any election would delay support for families for another 6 weeks which would be irresponsible under the circumstances - so I can't see it happening.

    I also can't see Sunak accepting health and remember he's already said he doesn't support Truss's tax plans which means he can't be inside her cabinet....
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,688
    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

    We remember how supportive the left-leaning press was, of David Cameron’s attempt to reward marriage within the tax system.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/28/tax-allowance-for-married-couples-unfair
  • Sandpit said:

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18.5 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    19 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Small money for Rishi

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    17 Rishi Sunak 6%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18 Rishi Sunak 6%

    It'll be interesting to see what happens to Rishi (the Parliamentary party's clear choice) if Truss convincingly wins (as I think)... my sense is Truss will perceive him to be a threat and so whilst pressure will be there to appoint him to a big office, she may step back from that, Tory MPs should rally to Truss but the Party is badly divided and I dont think Truss can unite it
    If Liz Truss has any sense, she will want to have Rishi in her Cabinet. For all the complaints about disloyalty and blue-on-blue attacks, it is mainly Truss who has been criticising governments of which she was a member, whereas Rishi generally has not, even though he has been critical of Truss's proposals.

    So a big job for Rishi will help unite a currently torn party, and although it promotes a rival, he can probably be relied on as relatively loyal. Sure, he might be plotting to take over at Number 10 but that would be true on the backbenches as well.
    I think Truss will formally offer Health to Sunak, and he will turn it down. It will quickly be known that he turned it down, making the former Chancellor look like the person getting in the way of the party re-unification. She might even offer Cabinet jobs to two or three other Sunakites too, and see what happens.

    I think Starmer gives it a fortnight before calling a formal vote of confidence in the government, to see if he can get a couple of defectors to crawl out of the woodwork.
    does anyone know when the BJ peerages get announced? that could well stir things a little (ie open partly healed wounds etc) there may be a rally Liz T but I reckon there's still a bit stabbing to be done and the pressure from a few folk getting elevated for backing BJ might just help. Its going to be an interesting run into October when the Party Conf opens (4th Oct)
    The timing of Boris's resignation honours is interesting. It would probably be best for the party if they were announced immediately rather than rolled up into the New Year Honours List in order to dampen speculation that the soon-to-be Lord Bufton Tufton had been left out of the Cabinet as a snub likely to cause a party split.

    And I'd expect the Conservatives not to move by-election writs until the new year. Liz would not want to lose by-elections before party conference!
  • Sandpit said:

    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

    We remember how supportive the left-leaning press was, of David Cameron’s attempt to reward marriage within the tax system.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/28/tax-allowance-for-married-couples-unfair
    Some Conservatives were dismissive. Ken Clarke did not get married for a tax break, you might recall.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,688
    IAEA mission to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, abandoned after Russian troops shelled their route.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1565223574528413701
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,558
    edited September 2022
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    pigeon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Thursday’s CITY A.M. - “Pound To Hit Dollar Low” #TomorrowsPapersToday https://twitter.com/AllieHBNews/status/1565077475872411658/photo/1

    Total Sterling meltdown. Truss is useless. But didn't it reach 1.05 in 1980? I may be wrong DYOR.

    Anyway inflation was lower in 1980 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡
    Rises in interest rates coming. Another thing to tip folk over the edge.
    With luck interest rates will climb into double digits and there'll then be an almighty house price crash. It's the one thing that might finally send the Conservatives' support into proper freefall.
    Just killed a purchase on account of this risk.
    Richmond?

    I think you're wise to wait. It is all far too volatile. Winter could go any which way

    London might actually benefit as a safe haven, and prices could soar. Or property prices could crater because war, famine, plague

    Either way why add this new stress to your life if you are reasonably content where you are? Which you seem to be

    I have shelved all thoughts of moving for the same reason. I like where I am. It's not perfect, but I like it a lot. I feel safe, connected and generally happy. I can walk to the Groucho Club through Regent's Park, and I regularly do so. That's good for the heart
    Glad you are back Leon 👍
    I never left. I just *threatened* to flounce in a fey balletic way

    I did get frustrated with the low-fi quality of debate on here - and most of the lefties on here are criminally fucking stupid, as we all know - but then I thought: where is better? There isn't anywhere

    There literally isn't anywhere on the entire internet, as far as I can see. And that is a credit to @MikeSmithson and @rcs1000 and @TheScreamingEagles

    I may despair of the site, at times. But I despair of the Rest of the Internet, even more
    And you mock @kinabalu for setting himself up as some kind of universal arbiter. :smile:

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,558
    Sandpit said:

    IAEA mission to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, abandoned after Russian troops shelled their route.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1565223574528413701

    That might have been by accident.... as they were carrying out false flag attacks on the plant itself.
  • Sandpit said:

    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

    We remember how supportive the left-leaning press was, of David Cameron’s attempt to reward marriage within the tax system.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/28/tax-allowance-for-married-couples-unfair
    Some Conservatives were dismissive. Ken Clarke did not get married for a tax break, you might recall.
    Which was short sighted.

    The Treasury currently tries to have its cake and eat it too, judging families as families for the benefits system, but then as individuals for the tax system.

    It should be unified to one consistent system.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,014
    edited September 2022
    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

    Although of course that kind of talk is related by marriage (!) to saying that the best upbringing for a child is by a man and a woman.

    Edit: or perhaps that is what you are saying?
  • TOPPING said:

    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

    Although of course that kind of talk is related by marriage (!) to saying that the best upbringing for a child is by a man and a woman.

    Edit: or perhaps that is what you are saying?
    Or that children are best brought up by two loving parents, who says the two parents have to be of opposite sexes?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,479
    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    IAEA mission to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, abandoned after Russian troops shelled their route.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1565223574528413701

    That might have been by accident.... as they were carrying out false flag attacks on the plant itself.
    They're so useless they can't even carry out a false flag operation without cocking the whole thing up?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,558
    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    IAEA mission to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, abandoned after Russian troops shelled their route.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1565223574528413701

    That might have been by accident.... as they were carrying out false flag attacks on the plant itself.
    They're so useless they can't even carry out a false flag operation without cocking the whole thing up?
    Yes.

  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,848

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    Hot off the press:-

    Half of children live across more than one household and a quarter of families are headed by a lone parent (and 90 PER CENT are women)
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11166817/Family-breakdown-modern-Britain-laid-bare-Half-children-live-one-household.html
    That is a good article up to a point, but leaves the elephant in the room. Why are so many families breaking up, and why the social class divide? Economics are certainly part of the answer, but I found this interesting too as a theory.

    "Lower SES (socioeconomic status) couples tend to face particular challenges in their relationships. Relative to higher SES couples, they are less likely to marry and more likely to divorce—but they do not value their romantic relationships any less. Drawing on risk regulation theory and theories of social class as culture, we suggest that lower SES individuals adapt to their more chronically precarious environments by prioritizing self-protection more than higher SES individuals do, but that the need to self-protect may undermine relationship satisfaction."

    https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/pspi0000368

    In other words, rich peoples problems and poor peoples problems are different.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,688
    edited September 2022
    Dura_Ace said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Liz Truss getting libertarians excited at the London hustings by implying she might consider axing the speed limit on motorways. I can't see it happening though.

    As someone who travels 40,000 miles a year and has done so for the last 35 years, that is f*****' nuts. The practicality, particularly on smart motorways, is that the inevitably greater number of accidents from an unlimited speed limit will slow the system down rather than speed it up.

    Still, I live in Wales so our maximum motorway speed limit of 20 mph means I only have to worry about Liz's motorway halfwittery for about 6000 miles each year.

    She is bonkers!
    I'll be pissed off if she makes it legal before I finally crack 200mph on the road.
    What’s your weapon for that attempt? E60 M5 and W211 E63 can apparently do it, if you take the restrictor off, or a W12 Bentley/Phaeton.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,558
    If Trump declassified everything, why are his lawyers agreeing with DOJ that any Special Master should have a Top Secret/SCI security clearance??
    https://mobile.twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1565137232570228736
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,848

    Sandpit said:

    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

    We remember how supportive the left-leaning press was, of David Cameron’s attempt to reward marriage within the tax system.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/28/tax-allowance-for-married-couples-unfair
    Some Conservatives were dismissive. Ken Clarke did not get married for a tax break, you might recall.
    Though undoubtedly financial issues are a leading cause of relationship conflict. Particularly so when money is tight, which I suspect was never the case in the Clarke household.
  • Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.
  • Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    Hot off the press:-

    Half of children live across more than one household and a quarter of families are headed by a lone parent (and 90 PER CENT are women)
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11166817/Family-breakdown-modern-Britain-laid-bare-Half-children-live-one-household.html
    That is a good article up to a point, but leaves the elephant in the room. Why are so many families breaking up, and why the social class divide? Economics are certainly part of the answer, but I found this interesting too as a theory.

    "Lower SES (socioeconomic status) couples tend to face particular challenges in their relationships. Relative to higher SES couples, they are less likely to marry and more likely to divorce—but they do not value their romantic relationships any less. Drawing on risk regulation theory and theories of social class as culture, we suggest that lower SES individuals adapt to their more chronically precarious environments by prioritizing self-protection more than higher SES individuals do, but that the need to self-protect may undermine relationship satisfaction."

    https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/pspi0000368

    In other words, rich peoples problems and poor peoples problems are different.
    Why do poor people's relationships fail? Hmmm, let me think - MONEY. The amount of undue stress that millions are under ordinarily trying to make ends meet adds pressure to any relationship. Doubly so now that we are heading into Mistress Truss's Winter of Pain.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,042
    Nigelb said:

    If Trump declassified everything, why are his lawyers agreeing with DOJ that any Special Master should have a Top Secret/SCI security clearance??
    https://mobile.twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1565137232570228736

    So did Donald Trump declassify the new documents found at Mar-A-Largo that he had never had but had returned anyway before or after the FBI planted them?

    https://twitter.com/DaphneRomneyQC/status/1564933234135375873

    Trump is so mad about the optics -- people may not understand it was the FBI that spread out the files from Box 2A to take a standard evidence photo -- that he's ignoring the legal implications of coming very close to acknowledging that he knew he had them in his office.
    https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1565099693713289217
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,848
    TOPPING said:

    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

    Although of course that kind of talk is related by marriage (!) to saying that the best upbringing for a child is by a man and a woman.

    Edit: or perhaps that is what you are saying?
    Gay marriage is now well established, and so are gay adoptions and surrogacy, and all can lead to stable loving families. So no, your conclusion as to my point is wrong. Obviously as heterosexual are the majority, most stable families will be too.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,922

    TOPPING said:

    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

    Although of course that kind of talk is related by marriage (!) to saying that the best upbringing for a child is by a man and a woman.

    Edit: or perhaps that is what you are saying?
    Or that children are best brought up by two loving parents, who says the two parents have to be of opposite sexes?
    It's unfashionable, and doesn't fit my family circumstances to argue as such as I have close relatives who are a lesbian couple with a small child, but I'd argue that all other things being equal a child benefits from having both a male and a female parent.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    Sandpit said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Liz Truss getting libertarians excited at the London hustings by implying she might consider axing the speed limit on motorways. I can't see it happening though.

    As someone who travels 40,000 miles a year and has done so for the last 35 years, that is f*****' nuts. The practicality, particularly on smart motorways, is that the inevitably greater number of accidents from an unlimited speed limit will slow the system down rather than speed it up.

    Still, I live in Wales so our maximum motorway speed limit of 20 mph means I only have to worry about Liz's motorway halfwittery for about 6000 miles each year.

    She is bonkers!
    I'll be pissed off if she makes it legal before I finally crack 200mph on the road.
    What’s your weapon for that attempt? E60 M5 and W211 E63 can apparently do it, if you take the restrictor off, or a W12 Bentley/Phaeton.
    997 Turbo with Akropovic exhaust/cat delete, ECU from a Turbo S with modified boost map, rpm limit lifted to 7,000, 315km/h limit disabled in ECU, lowered by 10mm F/20mm R on Ohlins coilovers, no wing rear engine cover from Carrera S, solicitor on speed dial.
  • Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    ....deckchairs.....titanic......flutters eyebrows....throw a bone to the party morons....
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,848

    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    Hot off the press:-

    Half of children live across more than one household and a quarter of families are headed by a lone parent (and 90 PER CENT are women)
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11166817/Family-breakdown-modern-Britain-laid-bare-Half-children-live-one-household.html
    That is a good article up to a point, but leaves the elephant in the room. Why are so many families breaking up, and why the social class divide? Economics are certainly part of the answer, but I found this interesting too as a theory.

    "Lower SES (socioeconomic status) couples tend to face particular challenges in their relationships. Relative to higher SES couples, they are less likely to marry and more likely to divorce—but they do not value their romantic relationships any less. Drawing on risk regulation theory and theories of social class as culture, we suggest that lower SES individuals adapt to their more chronically precarious environments by prioritizing self-protection more than higher SES individuals do, but that the need to self-protect may undermine relationship satisfaction."

    https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/pspi0000368

    In other words, rich peoples problems and poor peoples problems are different.
    Why do poor people's relationships fail? Hmmm, let me think - MONEY. The amount of undue stress that millions are under ordinarily trying to make ends meet adds pressure to any relationship. Doubly so now that we are heading into Mistress Truss's Winter of Pain.
    Certainly a big part of the issue, but the societal change is recent and the poor always with us.

    How poor people cope with financial stress has changed over the decades.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,688
    Dura_Ace said:

    Sandpit said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Liz Truss getting libertarians excited at the London hustings by implying she might consider axing the speed limit on motorways. I can't see it happening though.

    As someone who travels 40,000 miles a year and has done so for the last 35 years, that is f*****' nuts. The practicality, particularly on smart motorways, is that the inevitably greater number of accidents from an unlimited speed limit will slow the system down rather than speed it up.

    Still, I live in Wales so our maximum motorway speed limit of 20 mph means I only have to worry about Liz's motorway halfwittery for about 6000 miles each year.

    She is bonkers!
    I'll be pissed off if she makes it legal before I finally crack 200mph on the road.
    What’s your weapon for that attempt? E60 M5 and W211 E63 can apparently do it, if you take the restrictor off, or a W12 Bentley/Phaeton.
    997 Turbo with Akropovic exhaust/cat delete, ECU from a Turbo S with modified boost map, rpm limit lifted to 7,000, 315km/h limit disabled in ECU, lowered by 10mm F/20mm R on Ohlins coilovers, no wing rear engine cover from Carrera S, solicitor on speed dial.
    That’ll do it!
  • Sandpit said:

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18.5 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    19 Rishi Sunak 5%

    Small money for Rishi

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    17 Rishi Sunak 6%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.05 Liz Truss 95%
    18 Rishi Sunak 6%

    It'll be interesting to see what happens to Rishi (the Parliamentary party's clear choice) if Truss convincingly wins (as I think)... my sense is Truss will perceive him to be a threat and so whilst pressure will be there to appoint him to a big office, she may step back from that, Tory MPs should rally to Truss but the Party is badly divided and I dont think Truss can unite it
    If Liz Truss has any sense, she will want to have Rishi in her Cabinet. For all the complaints about disloyalty and blue-on-blue attacks, it is mainly Truss who has been criticising governments of which she was a member, whereas Rishi generally has not, even though he has been critical of Truss's proposals.

    So a big job for Rishi will help unite a currently torn party, and although it promotes a rival, he can probably be relied on as relatively loyal. Sure, he might be plotting to take over at Number 10 but that would be true on the backbenches as well.
    I think Truss will formally offer Health to Sunak, and he will turn it down. It will quickly be known that he turned it down, making the former Chancellor look like the person getting in the way of the party re-unification. She might even offer Cabinet jobs to two or three other Sunakites too, and see what happens.

    I think Starmer gives it a fortnight before calling a formal vote of confidence in the government, to see if he can get a couple of defectors to crawl out of the woodwork.
    does anyone know when the BJ peerages get announced? that could well stir things a little (ie open partly healed wounds etc) there may be a rally Liz T but I reckon there's still a bit stabbing to be done and the pressure from a few folk getting elevated for backing BJ might just help. Its going to be an interesting run into October when the Party Conf opens (4th Oct)
    What's the going rate? Will an offer of two weeks in a Sardinian villa make me Lord Noneoftheabove or do I need to buy them more bloody wallpaper?
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,685
    edited September 2022
    I managed 186mph in Kent in a new E320.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,444

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    Driving down the M1 last week and back up it on Tuesday I can tell you one thing - far fewer cars are doing 80+ than was previously the case.

    It's ironic that any desperate plan to win votes by removing the speed limit is being done at the first time I remember seeing fewer people breaking it...
  • Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    The more interesting motorway pledge was to abolish smart motorways. Remember that the majority of those built under this government have spent vast sums on endless roadworks to convert the hard shoulder into a running lane.

    What they *should* have done - had actual widening not been an option - was have a switchable hard shoulder. But that costs more money in the form of cameras so they did it on the cheap. The sensible thing to do would be to convert these new sections to being switchable.

    Abolish them? Crazy. A huge spike in congestion as busy motorway capacity is cut by a quarter. Does she have a clue what she is saying?
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    edited September 2022
    Jonathan said:

    I managed 186mph in Kent in a new E320.

    DId you drop it out of a C-130? The last E320 was the W211 generation and they had about 220bhp...

    E2A: Oh, it's a train thing...
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,014

    TOPPING said:

    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

    Although of course that kind of talk is related by marriage (!) to saying that the best upbringing for a child is by a man and a woman.

    Edit: or perhaps that is what you are saying?
    Or that children are best brought up by two loving parents, who says the two parents have to be of opposite sexes?
    How would you interpret the word "traditional"?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,558
    Cookie said:

    TOPPING said:

    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

    Although of course that kind of talk is related by marriage (!) to saying that the best upbringing for a child is by a man and a woman.

    Edit: or perhaps that is what you are saying?
    Or that children are best brought up by two loving parents, who says the two parents have to be of opposite sexes?
    It's unfashionable, and doesn't fit my family circumstances to argue as such as I have close relatives who are a lesbian couple with a small child, but I'd argue that all other things being equal a child benefits from having both a male and a female parent.
    All things are so far from equal, given the chaotic nature of many family circumstances, that the difference is very much a second order consideration. If even that.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,685
    In an energy crises normally politicians incentivise going slower. A few MPH saves a lot of energy. Truss is just dog whistling.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,444
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    Hot off the press:-

    Half of children live across more than one household and a quarter of families are headed by a lone parent (and 90 PER CENT are women)
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11166817/Family-breakdown-modern-Britain-laid-bare-Half-children-live-one-household.html
    That is a good article up to a point, but leaves the elephant in the room. Why are so many families breaking up, and why the social class divide? Economics are certainly part of the answer, but I found this interesting too as a theory.

    "Lower SES (socioeconomic status) couples tend to face particular challenges in their relationships. Relative to higher SES couples, they are less likely to marry and more likely to divorce—but they do not value their romantic relationships any less. Drawing on risk regulation theory and theories of social class as culture, we suggest that lower SES individuals adapt to their more chronically precarious environments by prioritizing self-protection more than higher SES individuals do, but that the need to self-protect may undermine relationship satisfaction."

    https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/pspi0000368

    In other words, rich peoples problems and poor peoples problems are different.
    Why do poor people's relationships fail? Hmmm, let me think - MONEY. The amount of undue stress that millions are under ordinarily trying to make ends meet adds pressure to any relationship. Doubly so now that we are heading into Mistress Truss's Winter of Pain.
    Certainly a big part of the issue, but the societal change is recent and the poor always with us.

    How poor people cope with financial stress has changed over the decades.
    One other factor is that the safety net available for (female) single parents is way better than it used to be now Universal Credit exists...

    That could be a deciding factor in some break-ups the risk (for the woman) isn't as high anymore. And that doesn't mean that relationship numbers are changing it just means women are leaving bad relationships earlier or in ways that previous generations just couldn't.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,315
    Cookie said:

    TOPPING said:

    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

    Although of course that kind of talk is related by marriage (!) to saying that the best upbringing for a child is by a man and a woman.

    Edit: or perhaps that is what you are saying?
    Or that children are best brought up by two loving parents, who says the two parents have to be of opposite sexes?
    It's unfashionable, and doesn't fit my family circumstances to argue as such as I have close relatives who are a lesbian couple with a small child, but I'd argue that all other things being equal a child benefits from having both a male and a female parent.
    The problem is that it is never - in real life - all other things being equal.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,688
    eek said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    Driving down the M1 last week and back up it on Tuesday I can tell you one thing - far fewer cars are doing 80+ than was previously the case.

    It's ironic that any desperate plan to win votes by removing the speed limit is being done at the first time I remember seeing fewer people breaking it...
    M6 Toll road should definitely be an Autobahn. Plenty will pay the toll if it’s actually a lot faster, because there’s no speed limit and it’s not infested with unmarked cars.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 22,196
    edited September 2022

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    The more interesting motorway pledge was to abolish smart motorways. Remember that the majority of those built under this government have spent vast sums on endless roadworks to convert the hard shoulder into a running lane.

    What they *should* have done - had actual widening not been an option - was have a switchable hard shoulder. But that costs more money in the form of cameras so they did it on the cheap. The sensible thing to do would be to convert these new sections to being switchable.

    Abolish them? Crazy. A huge spike in congestion as busy motorway capacity is cut by a quarter. Does she have a clue what she is saying?
    Did she actually promise to abolish smart motorways? I thought what she said was that she'd abolish them 'where they're not working' which is just plain sensible. If they're not working, they shouldn't be there, but if they are working then keep them.

    But yes the problem is that smart motorways were a fudge to add much needed capacity without actually widening roads or building new ones. Building new motorways would be my ideal alternative solution, certainly much more justification to build new motorways to add extra capacity than there is to build new rail lines.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,014
    Foxy said:

    TOPPING said:

    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

    Although of course that kind of talk is related by marriage (!) to saying that the best upbringing for a child is by a man and a woman.

    Edit: or perhaps that is what you are saying?
    Gay marriage is now well established, and so are gay adoptions and surrogacy, and all can lead to stable loving families. So no, your conclusion as to my point is wrong. Obviously as heterosexual are the majority, most stable families will be too.
    I don't think that gay couples are at the "traditional" stage. Yet. You need to be careful how you use language because yours was speaking to a particular set of beliefs.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    Regardless of the actual merits of the proposal (there are none) she'd be stupid do the motorway thing because every time an RS6 ploughs into the back of a minibus full of special needs kids she's going to get the blame.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,253

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    ....deckchairs.....titanic......flutters eyebrows....throw a bone to the party morons....
    I was going to write a longer reply to Bart, but I think this is a much better summary.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,479
    Sandpit said:

    eek said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    Driving down the M1 last week and back up it on Tuesday I can tell you one thing - far fewer cars are doing 80+ than was previously the case.

    It's ironic that any desperate plan to win votes by removing the speed limit is being done at the first time I remember seeing fewer people breaking it...
    M6 Toll road should definitely be an Autobahn. Plenty will pay the toll if it’s actually a lot faster, because there’s no speed limit and it’s not infested with unmarked cars.
    Plenty would also pay the toll if it was set at a vaguely sensible level. If it were £3 not £7.60 for a car it would be the most profitable toll road in Europe.

    As it is, people have still over the last two years gone through the traffic jams at Walsall to avoid paying it.
  • TOPPING said:

    Foxy said:

    TOPPING said:

    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

    Although of course that kind of talk is related by marriage (!) to saying that the best upbringing for a child is by a man and a woman.

    Edit: or perhaps that is what you are saying?
    Gay marriage is now well established, and so are gay adoptions and surrogacy, and all can lead to stable loving families. So no, your conclusion as to my point is wrong. Obviously as heterosexual are the majority, most stable families will be too.
    I don't think that gay couples are at the "traditional" stage. Yet. You need to be careful how you use language because yours was speaking to a particular set of beliefs.
    I think we're already at the stage where a stable, married gay couple more meet the "traditional" test than unmarried/divorced families do.

    Which shows just how rapidly things have changed for the better in a generation.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,688
    edited September 2022
    ydoethur said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    The more interesting motorway pledge was to abolish smart motorways. Remember that the majority of those built under this government have spent vast sums on endless roadworks to convert the hard shoulder into a running lane.

    What they *should* have done - had actual widening not been an option - was have a switchable hard shoulder. But that costs more money in the form of cameras so they did it on the cheap. The sensible thing to do would be to convert these new sections to being switchable.

    Abolish them? Crazy. A huge spike in congestion as busy motorway capacity is cut by a quarter. Does she have a clue what she is saying?
    Hate to defend Liz Truss, but actually she has a point. So-called 'smart' motorways are not only bloody dangerous, they are also chronically mismanaged. Round here, where there are far too many of them, it's perfectly possible to be limited to 60mph and ordered to stay in lane when it's 9pm and you're about the only car there, and be told it's NSLA and drive as fast as you like when traffic is actually stationary. Moreover, the obstruction signs appear to be turned on and off more or less at random and as a result verybody ignores them.

    It's claimed they're managed by computers who monitor traffic and hazards. That claim is clearly a lie. Computers would manage it much better.

    And the safety implications are appalling.

    They were a really, really stupid idea and I can't wait to see them got rid of.
    They’re a good idea in theory - but need to have full camera coverage, an alert control centre looking after them, and fast response vehicles on standby at each end to respond to emergencies. In many cases, there are not enough of the emergency refuge areas either. I think a lot of the newer ones (not been there in a while) have been done ‘on the cheap’, which makes them bloody dangerous.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,479
    Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    The more interesting motorway pledge was to abolish smart motorways. Remember that the majority of those built under this government have spent vast sums on endless roadworks to convert the hard shoulder into a running lane.

    What they *should* have done - had actual widening not been an option - was have a switchable hard shoulder. But that costs more money in the form of cameras so they did it on the cheap. The sensible thing to do would be to convert these new sections to being switchable.

    Abolish them? Crazy. A huge spike in congestion as busy motorway capacity is cut by a quarter. Does she have a clue what she is saying?
    Hate to defend Liz Truss, but actually she has a point. So-called 'smart' motorways are not only bloody dangerous, they are also chronically mismanaged. Round here, where there are far too many of them, it's perfectly possible to be limited to 60mph and ordered to stay in lane when it's 9pm and you're about the only car there, and be told it's NSLA and drive as fast as you like when traffic is actually stationary. Moreover, the obstruction signs appear to be turned on and off more or less at random and as a result verybody ignores them.

    It's claimed they're managed by computers who monitor traffic and hazards. That claim is clearly a lie. Computers would manage it much better.

    And the safety implications are appalling.

    They were a really, really stupid idea and I can't wait to see them got rid of.
    They’re a good idea in theory - but need to have full camera coverage, an alert control centre looking after them, and fast response vehicles on standby at each end to respond to emergencies. In many cases, there are not enough of the emergency refuge areas either. I think a lot of the newer ones (not been there in a while) have been done ‘on the cheap’, which makes them bloody dangerous.
    Only the newer ones? Clearly you haven't been along the M42, which was the first of them. Almost no refuge areas. The M5 from Droitwitch to Worcester is even worse. So few they might as well not have bothered at all.

    And clearly, there is nobody checking the cameras. Not even a computer.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    If you think that the problem about the breakdown of society is all to do with absent fathers, then it is worth remembering that a lot of men do fight to play a role in their children's lives, but encounter major difficulties in the family courts.

    https://www.fathers-4-justice.org/



  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 22,196
    edited September 2022
    Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    The more interesting motorway pledge was to abolish smart motorways. Remember that the majority of those built under this government have spent vast sums on endless roadworks to convert the hard shoulder into a running lane.

    What they *should* have done - had actual widening not been an option - was have a switchable hard shoulder. But that costs more money in the form of cameras so they did it on the cheap. The sensible thing to do would be to convert these new sections to being switchable.

    Abolish them? Crazy. A huge spike in congestion as busy motorway capacity is cut by a quarter. Does she have a clue what she is saying?
    Hate to defend Liz Truss, but actually she has a point. So-called 'smart' motorways are not only bloody dangerous, they are also chronically mismanaged. Round here, where there are far too many of them, it's perfectly possible to be limited to 60mph and ordered to stay in lane when it's 9pm and you're about the only car there, and be told it's NSLA and drive as fast as you like when traffic is actually stationary. Moreover, the obstruction signs appear to be turned on and off more or less at random and as a result verybody ignores them.

    It's claimed they're managed by computers who monitor traffic and hazards. That claim is clearly a lie. Computers would manage it much better.

    And the safety implications are appalling.

    They were a really, really stupid idea and I can't wait to see them got rid of.
    They’re a good idea in theory - but need to have full camera coverage, an alert control centre looking after them, and fast response vehicles on standby at each end to respond to emergencies. In many cases, there are not enough of the emergency refuge areas either.
    I think it varies from location to location. What works in some areas probably doesn't work in others - and having it applying restrictions when the road is clear is bloody dangerous.

    The M60 around Trafford Centre is much better now that its a smart motorway than it was before. Of course, that's a stretch that I'd virtually never have achieved 70 in before it was converted so having 33% extra capacity is a big improvement.

    More motorways and capacity so that cars and HGVs that don't actually want to go to Manchester don't need to drive there as that's the only point where multiple motorways merge would be an even bigger way to improve it though.

    Also there's lots of refuge areas in the areas recently converted and the areas currently being built in the M6/M62 area. It seems to be the older conversions that are the bigger issue on that.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,755
    Jonathan said:

    In an energy crises normally politicians incentivise going slower. A few MPH saves a lot of energy. Truss is just dog whistling.

    The coming energy crisis is one of electricity (via natural gas), not refined fuels. We could set a 60mph speed limit for EVs I suppose.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541

    Unusual to see Jockland featuring prominently in the global press. Cheers Liz! And Liz! And Oaf!

    Queen’s first meeting with U.K. prime minister to happen in Scotland, not Buckingham Palace

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/31/britain-queen-prime-minister-scotland/

    Rather insulting way to refer to the country you were born in.
  • ydoethur said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    The more interesting motorway pledge was to abolish smart motorways. Remember that the majority of those built under this government have spent vast sums on endless roadworks to convert the hard shoulder into a running lane.

    What they *should* have done - had actual widening not been an option - was have a switchable hard shoulder. But that costs more money in the form of cameras so they did it on the cheap. The sensible thing to do would be to convert these new sections to being switchable.

    Abolish them? Crazy. A huge spike in congestion as busy motorway capacity is cut by a quarter. Does she have a clue what she is saying?
    Hate to defend Liz Truss, but actually she has a point. So-called 'smart' motorways are not only bloody dangerous, they are also chronically mismanaged. Round here, where there are far too many of them, it's perfectly possible to be limited to 60mph and ordered to stay in lane when it's 9pm and you're about the only car there, and be told it's NSLA and drive as fast as you like when traffic is actually stationary. Moreover, the obstruction signs appear to be turned on and off more or less at random and as a result everybody ignores them.

    It's claimed they're managed by computers who monitor traffic and hazards. That claim is clearly a lie. Computers would manage it much better.

    And the safety implications are appalling.

    They were a really, really stupid idea and I can't wait to see them got rid of.
    I agree on the poor management and the safety - they're a bloody stupid idea. But - and its a big but - sections like the West Yorkshire section of the M1 now need that extra lane. You can't add the hard shoulder back on the side, so if she is to "abolish" that section its a big capacity cut. Taking the motorway all the way back to where we started - heavily congested - with a mere few dozen billions spent.

    I assume that she doesn't intend to abolish them, she will modify them. So why say "abolish"? Its like why she said no to energy rationing when its obvious that has to be a contingency plan. It feels as if she (a) doesn't understand detail, (b) doesn't think politically beyond the immediate - so both the same as Johnson - but also (c) is an ideologue. Which he wasn't.

    Which leaves her more brittle with less room to maneuver than the worst PM in recent times who she replaces on Tuesday. Fun times ahead for people entertained by politics. Just a pity that the country slides ever further into disrepair whilst she does whoops apocalypse.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,688
    In California, the power company is asking residents not to charge electric cars between 4pm and 9pm, to avoid overloading the grid.

    https://www.mystateline.com/news/national/california-asks-residents-not-to-charge-electric-vehicles-days-after-announcing-gas-car-ban/

    How will this work when every car is electric?
  • eek said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    Driving down the M1 last week and back up it on Tuesday I can tell you one thing - far fewer cars are doing 80+ than was previously the case.

    It's ironic that any desperate plan to win votes by removing the speed limit is being done at the first time I remember seeing fewer people breaking it...
    When I started driving about 30 years ago, the average pace of free flowing traffic on a clear motorway was early 80s, now it is mid sixties despite safer and more fuel efficient cars. The limit is rarely enforced below 80 anyway so this seems to be a public choice rather than driven by the limit.

    Not sure it works well with her core vote either, they are old, and like to buy cars capable of doing 150mph but drive them at no more than 57mph whatever the road or conditions.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 12,541
    ydoethur said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    The more interesting motorway pledge was to abolish smart motorways. Remember that the majority of those built under this government have spent vast sums on endless roadworks to convert the hard shoulder into a running lane.

    What they *should* have done - had actual widening not been an option - was have a switchable hard shoulder. But that costs more money in the form of cameras so they did it on the cheap. The sensible thing to do would be to convert these new sections to being switchable.

    Abolish them? Crazy. A huge spike in congestion as busy motorway capacity is cut by a quarter. Does she have a clue what she is saying?
    Hate to defend Liz Truss, but actually she has a point. So-called 'smart' motorways are not only bloody dangerous, they are also chronically mismanaged. Round here, where there are far too many of them, it's perfectly possible to be limited to 60mph and ordered to stay in lane when it's 9pm and you're about the only car there, and be told it's NSLA and drive as fast as you like when traffic is actually stationary. Moreover, the obstruction signs appear to be turned on and off more or less at random and as a result everybody ignores them.

    It's claimed they're managed by computers who monitor traffic and hazards. That claim is clearly a lie. Computers would manage it much better.

    And the safety implications are appalling.

    They were a really, really stupid idea and I can't wait to see them got rid of.
    Every single motorway accident that occurred after such an abolition would be blamed on the person who did the abolishing. It would be electorally stupid.
  • ydoethur said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    The more interesting motorway pledge was to abolish smart motorways. Remember that the majority of those built under this government have spent vast sums on endless roadworks to convert the hard shoulder into a running lane.

    What they *should* have done - had actual widening not been an option - was have a switchable hard shoulder. But that costs more money in the form of cameras so they did it on the cheap. The sensible thing to do would be to convert these new sections to being switchable.

    Abolish them? Crazy. A huge spike in congestion as busy motorway capacity is cut by a quarter. Does she have a clue what she is saying?
    Hate to defend Liz Truss, but actually she has a point. So-called 'smart' motorways are not only bloody dangerous, they are also chronically mismanaged. Round here, where there are far too many of them, it's perfectly possible to be limited to 60mph and ordered to stay in lane when it's 9pm and you're about the only car there, and be told it's NSLA and drive as fast as you like when traffic is actually stationary. Moreover, the obstruction signs appear to be turned on and off more or less at random and as a result everybody ignores them.

    It's claimed they're managed by computers who monitor traffic and hazards. That claim is clearly a lie. Computers would manage it much better.

    And the safety implications are appalling.

    They were a really, really stupid idea and I can't wait to see them got rid of.
    I agree on the poor management and the safety - they're a bloody stupid idea. But - and its a big but - sections like the West Yorkshire section of the M1 now need that extra lane. You can't add the hard shoulder back on the side, so if she is to "abolish" that section its a big capacity cut. Taking the motorway all the way back to where we started - heavily congested - with a mere few dozen billions spent.

    I assume that she doesn't intend to abolish them, she will modify them. So why say "abolish"? Its like why she said no to energy rationing when its obvious that has to be a contingency plan. It feels as if she (a) doesn't understand detail, (b) doesn't think politically beyond the immediate - so both the same as Johnson - but also (c) is an ideologue. Which he wasn't.

    Which leaves her more brittle with less room to maneuver than the worst PM in recent times who she replaces on Tuesday. Fun times ahead for people entertained by politics. Just a pity that the country slides ever further into disrepair whilst she does whoops apocalypse.
    Can you quote her saying she would abolish them, without caveat or equivocation?

    I haven't heard her saying that. Seems to me to be again you tilting at windmills attacking what you interpret her as saying, rather than what she actually said.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,014

    TOPPING said:

    Foxy said:

    TOPPING said:

    Foxy said:

    Cookie said:

    Foxy said:

    FPT: When I read the BBC article on the attacks in Chorley, I was struck by what wasn't in it: fathers. Of either the attackers or the vicims.

    Would the absence of fathers be common in such areas?

    (I have long thought that, were some enterprising reporter to investigate, they would find that few of Jeffrey Epstein's victimshad fathers in their lives.)

    Yes it would. As you move down the social scale fewer and fewer men marry, and those that do are more likely to divorce. On top of that cohabiting couples are twice as likely to split up.

    This social class inequality has worsened in recent years too. Half of children are born out of wedlock, and half of fathers have little or no contact with their children. Rates tend to be worst in post industrial areas as part of a general disintegration of traditional family life.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marriage-gap

    For all the talk of social conservatism in the working classes, it is actually middle class professionals in urban areas that have the most 1950s like family values, and are more likely to attend religious services etc.

    Yes but there's post industrial and post industrial, and Chorley is not Bootle. More like, in Midlands terms, Rugby, perhaps?
    This needs some stats. But I am too busy with this endless fucking hayfever to dig them out right now.
    I don’t know Chorley, but the effect will not be uniform in any town, and all towns will show the disintegration of traditional family life in some demographics. Immigrant families less so, and a large part of the reason for the educational success of their children, though obviously varies between different immigrant communities.

    The reason that I am most sceptical of the "Levelling Up" agenda is that it fails to address this breakdown of traditional society. Stable families are the bedrock of personal and economic success. Transplanting in a few Treasury Civil Servants to Tees-side just disguises what is going on.

    Although of course that kind of talk is related by marriage (!) to saying that the best upbringing for a child is by a man and a woman.

    Edit: or perhaps that is what you are saying?
    Gay marriage is now well established, and so are gay adoptions and surrogacy, and all can lead to stable loving families. So no, your conclusion as to my point is wrong. Obviously as heterosexual are the majority, most stable families will be too.
    I don't think that gay couples are at the "traditional" stage. Yet. You need to be careful how you use language because yours was speaking to a particular set of beliefs.
    I think we're already at the stage where a stable, married gay couple more meet the "traditional" test than unmarried/divorced families do.

    Which shows just how rapidly things have changed for the better in a generation.
    You think that but to many, perhaps a majority of people traditional means husband and wife. They would bemoan divorce as much as they might bemoan a gay couple.
  • Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    The more interesting motorway pledge was to abolish smart motorways. Remember that the majority of those built under this government have spent vast sums on endless roadworks to convert the hard shoulder into a running lane.

    What they *should* have done - had actual widening not been an option - was have a switchable hard shoulder. But that costs more money in the form of cameras so they did it on the cheap. The sensible thing to do would be to convert these new sections to being switchable.

    Abolish them? Crazy. A huge spike in congestion as busy motorway capacity is cut by a quarter. Does she have a clue what she is saying?
    Hate to defend Liz Truss, but actually she has a point. So-called 'smart' motorways are not only bloody dangerous, they are also chronically mismanaged. Round here, where there are far too many of them, it's perfectly possible to be limited to 60mph and ordered to stay in lane when it's 9pm and you're about the only car there, and be told it's NSLA and drive as fast as you like when traffic is actually stationary. Moreover, the obstruction signs appear to be turned on and off more or less at random and as a result verybody ignores them.

    It's claimed they're managed by computers who monitor traffic and hazards. That claim is clearly a lie. Computers would manage it much better.

    And the safety implications are appalling.

    They were a really, really stupid idea and I can't wait to see them got rid of.
    They’re a good idea in theory - but need to have full camera coverage, an alert control centre looking after them, and fast response vehicles on standby at each end to respond to emergencies. In many cases, there are not enough of the emergency refuge areas either.
    I think it varies from location to location. What works in some areas probably doesn't work in others - and having it applying restrictions when the road is clear is bloody dangerous.

    The M60 around Trafford Centre is much better now that its a smart motorway than it was before. Of course, that's a stretch that I'd virtually never have achieved 70 in before it was converted so having 33% extra capacity is a big improvement.

    More motorways and capacity so that cars and HGVs that don't actually want to go to Manchester don't need to drive there as that's the only point where multiple motorways merge would be an even bigger way to improve it though.

    Also there's lots of refuge areas in the areas recently converted and the areas currently being built in the M6/M62 area. It seems to be the older conversions that are the bigger issue on that.
    No no, the older conversions - like the M60 - have switchable hard shoulders and cameras everywhere. They are actually managed. And they do work - if someone breaks down they close the hard shoulder lane behind them.

    The insanely dangerous sections are all of the ones built under this government on the cheap. M1 through Yorkshire - 4 lanes, no shoulder, minimal cameras and thus nobody really monitoring it. People break down in between the long gaps between cameras and refuges and get collected by a truck.

    Dunno how many tens of billions it will cost to dig all of these sections back up and add the cabling and the camera systems and build more refuges, but it is needed.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 21,685
    If you were worried about road safety, determined to reduce injury and death, would you start with motorways (smart of otherwise)?
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,014
    There are definite merits but it relies on people being sensible. Very irritating to keep glancing at my speedo on the A1(M) in Peterborough for example when you can usually go up to 90 with no particular problems. Other places perhaps not so much.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,059
    edited September 2022
    Forget paintings - we have a proper AI breakthrough now. Pussy shite monitors:

    https://twitter.com/MetroUK/status/1565005415380836356
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,479
    DougSeal said:

    ydoethur said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    The more interesting motorway pledge was to abolish smart motorways. Remember that the majority of those built under this government have spent vast sums on endless roadworks to convert the hard shoulder into a running lane.

    What they *should* have done - had actual widening not been an option - was have a switchable hard shoulder. But that costs more money in the form of cameras so they did it on the cheap. The sensible thing to do would be to convert these new sections to being switchable.

    Abolish them? Crazy. A huge spike in congestion as busy motorway capacity is cut by a quarter. Does she have a clue what she is saying?
    Hate to defend Liz Truss, but actually she has a point. So-called 'smart' motorways are not only bloody dangerous, they are also chronically mismanaged. Round here, where there are far too many of them, it's perfectly possible to be limited to 60mph and ordered to stay in lane when it's 9pm and you're about the only car there, and be told it's NSLA and drive as fast as you like when traffic is actually stationary. Moreover, the obstruction signs appear to be turned on and off more or less at random and as a result everybody ignores them.

    It's claimed they're managed by computers who monitor traffic and hazards. That claim is clearly a lie. Computers would manage it much better.

    And the safety implications are appalling.

    They were a really, really stupid idea and I can't wait to see them got rid of.
    Every single motorway accident that occurred after such an abolition would be blamed on the person who did the abolishing. It would be electorally stupid.
    Huh? They're the cause of a great many motorway accidents!
  • ydoethur said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    The more interesting motorway pledge was to abolish smart motorways. Remember that the majority of those built under this government have spent vast sums on endless roadworks to convert the hard shoulder into a running lane.

    What they *should* have done - had actual widening not been an option - was have a switchable hard shoulder. But that costs more money in the form of cameras so they did it on the cheap. The sensible thing to do would be to convert these new sections to being switchable.

    Abolish them? Crazy. A huge spike in congestion as busy motorway capacity is cut by a quarter. Does she have a clue what she is saying?
    Hate to defend Liz Truss, but actually she has a point. So-called 'smart' motorways are not only bloody dangerous, they are also chronically mismanaged. Round here, where there are far too many of them, it's perfectly possible to be limited to 60mph and ordered to stay in lane when it's 9pm and you're about the only car there, and be told it's NSLA and drive as fast as you like when traffic is actually stationary. Moreover, the obstruction signs appear to be turned on and off more or less at random and as a result everybody ignores them.

    It's claimed they're managed by computers who monitor traffic and hazards. That claim is clearly a lie. Computers would manage it much better.

    And the safety implications are appalling.

    They were a really, really stupid idea and I can't wait to see them got rid of.
    I agree on the poor management and the safety - they're a bloody stupid idea. But - and its a big but - sections like the West Yorkshire section of the M1 now need that extra lane. You can't add the hard shoulder back on the side, so if she is to "abolish" that section its a big capacity cut. Taking the motorway all the way back to where we started - heavily congested - with a mere few dozen billions spent.

    I assume that she doesn't intend to abolish them, she will modify them. So why say "abolish"? Its like why she said no to energy rationing when its obvious that has to be a contingency plan. It feels as if she (a) doesn't understand detail, (b) doesn't think politically beyond the immediate - so both the same as Johnson - but also (c) is an ideologue. Which he wasn't.

    Which leaves her more brittle with less room to maneuver than the worst PM in recent times who she replaces on Tuesday. Fun times ahead for people entertained by politics. Just a pity that the country slides ever further into disrepair whilst she does whoops apocalypse.
    Can you quote her saying she would abolish them, without caveat or equivocation?

    I haven't heard her saying that. Seems to me to be again you tilting at windmills attacking what you interpret her as saying, rather than what she actually said.
    Whilst I didn't watch it, multiple media outlets are reporting that word this morning. You are suggesting that what she said - and all the hacks heard - has instead been misrepresented. Perhaps. Or perhaps your frit girl is just a bit gobby and says what she thinks will sound good without any real comprehension. Been enough examples to make an argument for that...
  • Sandpit said:

    In California, the power company is asking residents not to charge electric cars between 4pm and 9pm, to avoid overloading the grid.

    https://www.mystateline.com/news/national/california-asks-residents-not-to-charge-electric-vehicles-days-after-announcing-gas-car-ban/

    How will this work when every car is electric?

    Every car being electric will probably help smooth problems rather than cause them.

    Having smart chargers and smart meters ought to help balance load consumption rather than overload it.

    If the wind is heavily blowing at 2am, there's no reason why cars shouldn't be able to be able to use that to charge rather than it being "off peak" and little there to consume that potential power.
  • I haven't driven in Germany that much but from memory the autobahns are not free-for-alls. In some places there is no speed limit, but in many others there are very strictly enforced ones. Also, don't they prohibit lorries on them at the weekends or something?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,042
    A true reflection of the success of Brexit...

    Unboxed, the arts festival widely dubbed the "festival of Brexit" has seen just 238,000 visitors, against its organisers' initial "stretch target" of 66 million.
    https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/festival-of-brexit-120-million
  • Have found the exact quote: ""I agree with you, I absolutely think we need to review them [smart motorways] and stop them if they are not working as soon as possible". So "stop them" means what exactly? When she goes on to state that Smart Motorways "have not worked" and then Nick Ferrari asks her to clarify that she would "stop them" and gets the one word answer "yes".

    Dug herself quite a pit there didn't she. Later - "we've done a review and found that most of them work". "But you were definitive in the campaign that they have not worked - the exact opposite", and "Oh [insert random GBeebies presenter here] you must stop misrepresenting my words."

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/truss-hints-she-could-scrap-motorway-speed-limits/
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,042
    Magic realism in UK energy policy.

    Liz Truss, likely the next UK Prime Minister, asked last night whether she could rule out energy rationing this winter, responded: “I do rule that out. Yes.”

    Just like that! We don't know even how cold the winter would be. But sure. Ruled out.

    https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1565234015069769729

    First day of Autumn - unless Liz Truss is ruling Autumn out
    https://twitter.com/JonTonge/status/1565113352371699713
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    Scott_xP said:

    Magic realism in UK energy policy.

    Liz Truss, likely the next UK Prime Minister, asked last night whether she could rule out energy rationing this winter, responded: “I do rule that out. Yes.”

    Just like that! We don't know even how cold the winter would be. But sure. Ruled out.

    https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1565234015069769729

    First day of Autumn - unless Liz Truss is ruling Autumn out
    https://twitter.com/JonTonge/status/1565113352371699713

    Maybe she's been secretly stockpiling sunlight all summer, so that we have enough for the winter. Like Maggie did.
  • ydoethur said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    The more interesting motorway pledge was to abolish smart motorways. Remember that the majority of those built under this government have spent vast sums on endless roadworks to convert the hard shoulder into a running lane.

    What they *should* have done - had actual widening not been an option - was have a switchable hard shoulder. But that costs more money in the form of cameras so they did it on the cheap. The sensible thing to do would be to convert these new sections to being switchable.

    Abolish them? Crazy. A huge spike in congestion as busy motorway capacity is cut by a quarter. Does she have a clue what she is saying?
    Hate to defend Liz Truss, but actually she has a point. So-called 'smart' motorways are not only bloody dangerous, they are also chronically mismanaged. Round here, where there are far too many of them, it's perfectly possible to be limited to 60mph and ordered to stay in lane when it's 9pm and you're about the only car there, and be told it's NSLA and drive as fast as you like when traffic is actually stationary. Moreover, the obstruction signs appear to be turned on and off more or less at random and as a result everybody ignores them.

    It's claimed they're managed by computers who monitor traffic and hazards. That claim is clearly a lie. Computers would manage it much better.

    And the safety implications are appalling.

    They were a really, really stupid idea and I can't wait to see them got rid of.
    I agree on the poor management and the safety - they're a bloody stupid idea. But - and its a big but - sections like the West Yorkshire section of the M1 now need that extra lane. You can't add the hard shoulder back on the side, so if she is to "abolish" that section its a big capacity cut. Taking the motorway all the way back to where we started - heavily congested - with a mere few dozen billions spent.

    I assume that she doesn't intend to abolish them, she will modify them. So why say "abolish"? Its like why she said no to energy rationing when its obvious that has to be a contingency plan. It feels as if she (a) doesn't understand detail, (b) doesn't think politically beyond the immediate - so both the same as Johnson - but also (c) is an ideologue. Which he wasn't.

    Which leaves her more brittle with less room to maneuver than the worst PM in recent times who she replaces on Tuesday. Fun times ahead for people entertained by politics. Just a pity that the country slides ever further into disrepair whilst she does whoops apocalypse.
    Can you quote her saying she would abolish them, without caveat or equivocation?

    I haven't heard her saying that. Seems to me to be again you tilting at windmills attacking what you interpret her as saying, rather than what she actually said.
    Whilst I didn't watch it, multiple media outlets are reporting that word this morning. You are suggesting that what she said - and all the hacks heard - has instead been misrepresented. Perhaps. Or perhaps your frit girl is just a bit gobby and says what she thinks will sound good without any real comprehension. Been enough examples to make an argument for that...
    "reporting that word", yes once again you've run off half-cocked on a word rather than listening to what was said. Just like when you were ranting about her saying don't "just" give support as claiming she was saying there would be no support, when what was actually said was 'there will be support in the emergency budget, but we must not just give support'.

    Cut out half of what is said, and the other half makes less sense. Cut off all but one word, and that's even more true.
  • Jonathan said:

    If you were worried about road safety, determined to reduce injury and death, would you start with motorways (smart of otherwise)?

    Jonathan said:

    If you were worried about road safety, determined to reduce injury and death, would you start with motorways (smart of otherwise)?

    Good morning

    As far as I am aware German autobahns do not have speed restrictions and certainly when I last drove on one there were no limits

    Mind you I really do not see this as a priority though the dangerous Smart motorway do need urgent action
  • https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/01/shamima-begum-justin-trudeau-to-follow-up-canadian-spy-claim

    Shamima Begum was a 15 year old schoolgirl trafficked into Syria by Western intelligence, a fact that was covered up by British intelligence and the police. And you wonder why the government won't let her back in the country to face trial?
  • ydoethur said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    The more interesting motorway pledge was to abolish smart motorways. Remember that the majority of those built under this government have spent vast sums on endless roadworks to convert the hard shoulder into a running lane.

    What they *should* have done - had actual widening not been an option - was have a switchable hard shoulder. But that costs more money in the form of cameras so they did it on the cheap. The sensible thing to do would be to convert these new sections to being switchable.

    Abolish them? Crazy. A huge spike in congestion as busy motorway capacity is cut by a quarter. Does she have a clue what she is saying?
    Hate to defend Liz Truss, but actually she has a point. So-called 'smart' motorways are not only bloody dangerous, they are also chronically mismanaged. Round here, where there are far too many of them, it's perfectly possible to be limited to 60mph and ordered to stay in lane when it's 9pm and you're about the only car there, and be told it's NSLA and drive as fast as you like when traffic is actually stationary. Moreover, the obstruction signs appear to be turned on and off more or less at random and as a result everybody ignores them.

    It's claimed they're managed by computers who monitor traffic and hazards. That claim is clearly a lie. Computers would manage it much better.

    And the safety implications are appalling.

    They were a really, really stupid idea and I can't wait to see them got rid of.
    I agree on the poor management and the safety - they're a bloody stupid idea. But - and its a big but - sections like the West Yorkshire section of the M1 now need that extra lane. You can't add the hard shoulder back on the side, so if she is to "abolish" that section its a big capacity cut. Taking the motorway all the way back to where we started - heavily congested - with a mere few dozen billions spent.

    I assume that she doesn't intend to abolish them, she will modify them. So why say "abolish"? Its like why she said no to energy rationing when its obvious that has to be a contingency plan. It feels as if she (a) doesn't understand detail, (b) doesn't think politically beyond the immediate - so both the same as Johnson - but also (c) is an ideologue. Which he wasn't.

    Which leaves her more brittle with less room to maneuver than the worst PM in recent times who she replaces on Tuesday. Fun times ahead for people entertained by politics. Just a pity that the country slides ever further into disrepair whilst she does whoops apocalypse.
    Can you quote her saying she would abolish them, without caveat or equivocation?

    I haven't heard her saying that. Seems to me to be again you tilting at windmills attacking what you interpret her as saying, rather than what she actually said.
    So basically we either have a new prime minister with clear bad ideas or a new prime minister with vague bad ideas who cannot communicate her ideas through the press?
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,087
    Seems to me she’s just been issued a checklist by her mate Lord Frost of all the critical priorities facing the country during an energy and environmental crisis and is going through them methodically:

    - Expensive road fuel? Allow motorists with fast cars to drive faster
    - Shortage of cheap electricity: get rid of solar panels on farms
    - Sewage on beaches? Send any refugees found there to Rwanda (or pretend to)
    Etc

    There’s a definite frosty glimmer to a lot of Liz’s pronouncements at the moment.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,042
    In a sign of how much this leadership contest has divided the Conservative Party, Michael Gove can’t even say that he’d definitely support a budget brought forward by Liz Truss if (when) she becomes Prime Minister.
    https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1565238903019393025
  • eek said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    Driving down the M1 last week and back up it on Tuesday I can tell you one thing - far fewer cars are doing 80+ than was previously the case.

    It's ironic that any desperate plan to win votes by removing the speed limit is being done at the first time I remember seeing fewer people breaking it...
    When I started driving about 30 years ago, the average pace of free flowing traffic on a clear motorway was early 80s, now it is mid sixties despite safer and more fuel efficient cars. The limit is rarely enforced below 80 anyway so this seems to be a public choice rather than driven by the limit.

    Not sure it works well with her core vote either, they are old, and like to buy cars capable of doing 150mph but drive them at no more than 57mph whatever the road or conditions.
    People are definitely driving more slowly than before. Why? Cost of fuel? Speed monitors in the car for insurance? People in less of a hurry? I tend to do about 75-80 on the mway and it feels like suddenly I'm the fastest thing on the road.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,253

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/01/shamima-begum-justin-trudeau-to-follow-up-canadian-spy-claim

    Shamima Begum was a 15 year old schoolgirl trafficked into Syria by Western intelligence, a fact that was covered up by British intelligence and the police. And you wonder why the government won't let her back in the country to face trial?

    She wasn’t trafficked into Syria by Western intelligence. She was trafficked into Syria by a trafficker, who was also selling information to Western intelligence. There may be problematic issues around that and, more generally, about how the UK government has dealt with Begum, but it seems unhelpful to elide informant with spy.
  • Jonathan said:

    If you were worried about road safety, determined to reduce injury and death, would you start with motorways (smart of otherwise)?

    Jonathan said:

    If you were worried about road safety, determined to reduce injury and death, would you start with motorways (smart of otherwise)?

    Good morning

    As far as I am aware German autobahns do not have speed restrictions and certainly when I last drove on one there were no limits

    Mind you I really do not see this as a priority though the dangerous Smart motorway do need urgent action
    Some bits of the autobahn have limits, others don't. German roads have about 10 different speed limits and they seem to change every 100m in my (limited) experience.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,748
    edited September 2022
    Thread on Ukr-Rus by Phillips O'Brien: https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1564868346042089478
    concludes:
    Phillips P. OBrien
    @PhillipsPOBrien
    Of course reinforces the disastrous choice not to aid Ukraine properly before the invasion of Feb 24. If Ukraine had then what it has now, War would probably be over.
    8:55 pm · 31 Aug 2022·Twitter for iPhone
  • Have found the exact quote: ""I agree with you, I absolutely think we need to review them [smart motorways] and stop them if they are not working as soon as possible". So "stop them" means what exactly? When she goes on to state that Smart Motorways "have not worked" and then Nick Ferrari asks her to clarify that she would "stop them" and gets the one word answer "yes".

    Dug herself quite a pit there didn't she. Later - "we've done a review and found that most of them work". "But you were definitive in the campaign that they have not worked - the exact opposite", and "Oh [insert random GBeebies presenter here] you must stop misrepresenting my words."

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/truss-hints-she-could-scrap-motorway-speed-limits/

    "if they are not working" carrying a lot of weight there.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,444

    Sandpit said:

    ydoethur said:

    Its amusing to see the attacks coming primarily from left-wingers because of Truss simply saying she'd look into abolish motorway speed limits (not even that she'd do it).

    We should like into doing more things like European countries like Germany do. No, not that!

    Personally I wouldn't go faster than 70mph much myself even if it were legal simply due to fuel efficiency, my cars fuel efficiency drops like a rock past 70mph. But I don't think people who do 80mph on the motorway should be criminals breaking the law.

    Abolishing the national speed limit for cars on the motorway for the stretches of it where the national speed limit applies is a sensible solution. The speed limit is treated as a speed target by too many rather than a limit, so lifting the limit to 80 would be a bad idea, but nor should those who do 80 be criminalised for doing so.

    Its far safer doing 80 on a motorway than 40 in a town.

    The more interesting motorway pledge was to abolish smart motorways. Remember that the majority of those built under this government have spent vast sums on endless roadworks to convert the hard shoulder into a running lane.

    What they *should* have done - had actual widening not been an option - was have a switchable hard shoulder. But that costs more money in the form of cameras so they did it on the cheap. The sensible thing to do would be to convert these new sections to being switchable.

    Abolish them? Crazy. A huge spike in congestion as busy motorway capacity is cut by a quarter. Does she have a clue what she is saying?
    Hate to defend Liz Truss, but actually she has a point. So-called 'smart' motorways are not only bloody dangerous, they are also chronically mismanaged. Round here, where there are far too many of them, it's perfectly possible to be limited to 60mph and ordered to stay in lane when it's 9pm and you're about the only car there, and be told it's NSLA and drive as fast as you like when traffic is actually stationary. Moreover, the obstruction signs appear to be turned on and off more or less at random and as a result verybody ignores them.

    It's claimed they're managed by computers who monitor traffic and hazards. That claim is clearly a lie. Computers would manage it much better.

    And the safety implications are appalling.

    They were a really, really stupid idea and I can't wait to see them got rid of.
    They’re a good idea in theory - but need to have full camera coverage, an alert control centre looking after them, and fast response vehicles on standby at each end to respond to emergencies. In many cases, there are not enough of the emergency refuge areas either.
    I think it varies from location to location. What works in some areas probably doesn't work in others - and having it applying restrictions when the road is clear is bloody dangerous.

    The M60 around Trafford Centre is much better now that its a smart motorway than it was before. Of course, that's a stretch that I'd virtually never have achieved 70 in before it was converted so having 33% extra capacity is a big improvement.

    More motorways and capacity so that cars and HGVs that don't actually want to go to Manchester don't need to drive there as that's the only point where multiple motorways merge would be an even bigger way to improve it though.

    Also there's lots of refuge areas in the areas recently converted and the areas currently being built in the M6/M62 area. It seems to be the older conversions that are the bigger issue on that.
    No no, the older conversions - like the M60 - have switchable hard shoulders and cameras everywhere. They are actually managed. And they do work - if someone breaks down they close the hard shoulder lane behind them.

    The insanely dangerous sections are all of the ones built under this government on the cheap. M1 through Yorkshire - 4 lanes, no shoulder, minimal cameras and thus nobody really monitoring it. People break down in between the long gaps between cameras and refuges and get collected by a truck.

    Dunno how many tens of billions it will cost to dig all of these sections back up and add the cabling and the camera systems and build more refuges, but it is needed.
    The M60 also has the advantage in that you are never more than 2 miles away from an entrance / exit so it's very easy to remove a broken down vehicle.

    Far harder to do so when you are on the M62 and it's 10 miles between junctions with traffic continually building up....
  • https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/01/shamima-begum-justin-trudeau-to-follow-up-canadian-spy-claim

    Shamima Begum was a 15 year old schoolgirl trafficked into Syria by Western intelligence, a fact that was covered up by British intelligence and the police. And you wonder why the government won't let her back in the country to face trial?

    She wasn’t trafficked into Syria by Western intelligence. She was trafficked into Syria by a trafficker, who was also selling information to Western intelligence. There may be problematic issues around that and, more generally, about how the UK government has dealt with Begum, but it seems unhelpful to elide informant with spy.
    A western intelligence asset traffics a 15yo British schoolgirl to Islamic state, it gets covered up by the authorities and the girl gets stripped of her citizenship, probably to prevent the intelligence involvement ever coming out in court, and it's the semantics of my comment that bothers you? OK.
    Imagine if she was one of these white girls from Rotherham that people on here get so worked up about.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,563
    ...
    Dura_Ace said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Liz Truss getting libertarians excited at the London hustings by implying she might consider axing the speed limit on motorways. I can't see it happening though.

    As someone who travels 40,000 miles a year and has done so for the last 35 years, that is f*****' nuts. The practicality, particularly on smart motorways, is that the inevitably greater number of accidents from an unlimited speed limit will slow the system down rather than speed it up.

    Still, I live in Wales so our maximum motorway speed limit of 20 mph means I only have to worry about Liz's motorway halfwittery for about 6000 miles each year.

    She is bonkers!
    I'll be pissed off if she makes it legal before I finally crack 200mph on the road.
    You are probably significantly safer at 150mph in your 996 than Johnny Teenager is in his stripped out Saxo at 80.

    You are bolloxed not by your driving skill but by the Rover 75 driver in a hat who pulls out to pass a truck at 50mph. There will be prone lifeless motorcyclists all over the carriageways if this nonsense sees the light of day.

    The woman is mad!
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,087

    Jonathan said:

    If you were worried about road safety, determined to reduce injury and death, would you start with motorways (smart of otherwise)?

    Jonathan said:

    If you were worried about road safety, determined to reduce injury and death, would you start with motorways (smart of otherwise)?

    Good morning

    As far as I am aware German autobahns do not have speed restrictions and certainly when I last drove on one there were no limits

    Mind you I really do not see this as a priority though the dangerous Smart motorway do need urgent action
    The safety data on smart motorways are mixed and a bit more equivocal than that. Statistically all-Lane running motorways (ie without hard shoulder) seem to have lower casualty rates than traditional motorways, but higher than other types of smart motorway that retain hard shoulders.

    Comprehensive select committee report here: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmtrans/26/report.html

    The big safety bonus from going smart is the regulation of speed that preserves stopping distances, lessens the concertina effect on the highway and reduces the risk of rear collisions and spins.

  • https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/01/shamima-begum-justin-trudeau-to-follow-up-canadian-spy-claim

    Shamima Begum was a 15 year old schoolgirl trafficked into Syria by Western intelligence, a fact that was covered up by British intelligence and the police. And you wonder why the government won't let her back in the country to face trial?

    She wasn’t trafficked into Syria by Western intelligence. She was trafficked into Syria by a trafficker, who was also selling information to Western intelligence. There may be problematic issues around that and, more generally, about how the UK government has dealt with Begum, but it seems unhelpful to elide informant with spy.
    A western intelligence asset traffics a 15yo British schoolgirl to Islamic state, it gets covered up by the authorities and the girl gets stripped of her citizenship, probably to prevent the intelligence involvement ever coming out in court, and it's the semantics of my comment that bothers you? OK.
    Imagine if she was one of these white girls from Rotherham that people on here get so worked up about.
    Wow, the conspiracy ranting here by you is off the scale.
This discussion has been closed.