Is there any greater sign of political weakness than when 3 cabinet ministers need to write op-ed pieces in the sundays urging Tory MPs to give Liz Truss a chance, and the PM today saying she’s listening and going on a charm offensive? https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1579386027223166978
Didn't a certain B Johnson spend a decade in a North London townhouse a short taxi ride for his many trips to appear on the BBC? I assume he is the kind of person they are upset about - a *journalist* to boot.
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
Remember that farming has become increasingly unviable over recent decades and that process has accelerated as we have replaced EU subsidies with £less. If the cracking pasture land was still capable of generating an income they wouldn't be covering it over.
As for ill-informed, can you at least recognise the gross hypocrisy at play? They want to ban red tape when it comes to fracking and house-building in your park, but add to red tape when it comes to what farmers do on private land when they choose to add much-needed power generating capacity?
The Tories have no interest in cutting red tape. They just want to dictate what happens. Which is red tape.
The choice is between two different ways of generating income, not income vs no income.
The in some ways silly thing is we have millions of acres of almost unproductive bare land. Instead of putting solar all over it we designate it national parks.
Further to the discussion on DB pensions the other day I've put a couple of researchers on the task of collating all UK private sector pension funds, deficits, pay out timeframes and number of beneficiaries.
I think over the next 5-7 years legacy UK companies with big DB pension schemes will become uninvestible and the market meltdown triggered by Kwasi is slowly making investors realise that the UK economy is on the path to bankruptcy.
There's another overlay: the big DB schemes have lots of investments. Where are they invested? Are they mostly in UK long-dated bonds chasing yield (bad), or do they have lots of USD denominated assets (good).
Yeah they're on this too. Specifically I want to know how big the funding shortfall is per company vs their current equity value. My gut feeling is that it's going to look absolutely terrible for some companies, especially in our once great engineering sector.
I did a little project on this many, many moons ago (2003?), and IIRC, pension schemes are run off a couple of assumptions:
- employee payrises - portfolio returns - longevity of employees
It is worth remembering that if someone leaves at age 35 on £35k a year, accruing 15 years of benefits, that is massively better than if they leave at 50 on £60k a year, having accrued 30 years of benefits.
The worst of your liabilities come from the 20% of employees who spend a lot of time with you.
Does this not just aggregate itself out, with some workers having a dozen small pensions over a portfolio career?
OK. I need to go to bed.
*But*.
Imagine two people on final salary pension schemes.
One works for 10 years at three different institutions, earning - in real terms - at departure at £20k, £30k and £40k.
Another works for 30 years at one institution, retiring at £40k.
The second person will get 33% more pension.
Many schemes use average salary now instead of final salary. And in your example, the earleier two pensions may be index-linked.
They probably are index linked, but the point is that your pension is fixed at the rank at which you left the institution. In a final salary scheme, people who don’t get promoted & those who leave for other employers end up subsidising the very expensive pensions of those who remain at a single institution their entire careers & manage to rise up the ranks out of their own pension contributions.
The sector has shifted to career average pension schemes which do at least solve this inequality in the future, but for the next few decades these liabilities are going to remain & current employees are going to have to pay for them.
You have to ask though - where the hell are these promised anti-missile batteries? Kyiv, Odessa, Cherniv, Kharkiv, Lviv - they at a minimum should all have them. Stopping Russian terror attacks with missiles can hardly be described as giving Ukraine an offensive capability.
41 of 71 missiles launched today were intercepted according to Ukraine.
That's not bad going!
Taking out the submarines they're launched from would be even better.
Is there any greater sign of political weakness than when 3 cabinet ministers need to write op-ed pieces in the sundays urging Tory MPs to give Liz Truss a chance, and the PM today saying she’s listening and going on a charm offensive? https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1579386027223166978
Also, she has zero charm...
She's probably going to focus on the 'offensive' part.
They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals.
You what? They absolutely have in Devon, which has been one of the major objections to them. Go and look at the maps south of the A38 around Diptford/Avonwick - large areas of solar farms that were previously very productive arable/dairy fields.
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
If its perfectly good and productive pasture land that's more productive than farming solar energy then the farmers will get more money for that, so won't install the panels.
If the farmers are installing the panels, they presumably don't think that land is productive.
Who should we listen to on what land is productive and what isn't? Bureaucrats in Whitehall, or farmers making their own choice via their own expertise?
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Moscow stock exchange down 12% this morning, and now even the Chinese are calling for a de-escalation of the situation. 41 of 75 Russian missiles taken out by air defences, some of the missiles said to have come from Iranian-built drones.
Further to the discussion on DB pensions the other day I've put a couple of researchers on the task of collating all UK private sector pension funds, deficits, pay out timeframes and number of beneficiaries.
I think over the next 5-7 years legacy UK companies with big DB pension schemes will become uninvestible and the market meltdown triggered by Kwasi is slowly making investors realise that the UK economy is on the path to bankruptcy.
Are you looking at universities as well? I mean, I know it's a grey area as to whether they're state or private but if you ever want to see a shambles, take a good look at the Universities' Superannuation Scheme.
uss is a last man standing scheme - so if i have understood it, that means if uss goes down the entire university sector goes under as well unless they can bail it out.
That's one of the reasons I was asking about it.
There would be a certain irony if the government pension mistakes ended up wrecking the entire Russell Group while leaving post 92 unis (mostly in the TPS) untouched!
Blaming Truss and Kwarteng for pension issues is shooting the messenger. They might have done us a favour in the long run by exposing it now.
Yes, we had a guy at my last workplace sounding the alarm over this a few years ago suggesting that UK companies are sitting on a time bomb.
From 1985 to 1977 I worked for Nat West Bank, I earnt £75 per week and the total contributions to my pension were £204.
It was a final salary scheme. I was not aware that I even had a pension until they found me 5 years ago. The transer value of this pension is around £50k.
I saw a pensions advisor who confirmed that if I has stayed at the Nat West for 25 years, just in a middling role, the value of my pension would be over a £1million.
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
Remember that farming has become increasingly unviable over recent decades and that process has accelerated as we have replaced EU subsidies with £less. If the cracking pasture land was still capable of generating an income they wouldn't be covering it over.
As for ill-informed, can you at least recognise the gross hypocrisy at play? They want to ban red tape when it comes to fracking and house-building in your park, but add to red tape when it comes to what farmers do on private land when they choose to add much-needed power generating capacity?
The Tories have no interest in cutting red tape. They just want to dictate what happens. Which is red tape.
The choice is between two different ways of generating income, not income vs no income.
The in some ways silly thing is we have millions of acres of almost unproductive bare land. Instead of putting solar all over it we designate it national parks.
When opex is higher than revenue it is not income. And that is the reality for so many of our farmers on various kinds of classic agricultural products. So it really is income vs not income. Sadly.
You have to ask though - where the hell are these promised anti-missile batteries? Kyiv, Odessa, Cherniv, Kharkiv, Lviv - they at a minimum should all have them. Stopping Russian terror attacks with missiles can hardly be described as giving Ukraine an offensive capability.
41 of 71 missiles launched today were intercepted according to Ukraine.
That's not bad going!
Taking out the submarines they're launched from would be even better.
Yes. Lets have USN fast attack boats take out their Russian equivalents. There definitely won't be any reprisals...
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
If its perfectly good and productive pasture land that's more productive than farming solar energy then the farmers will get more money for that, so won't install the panels.
If the farmers are installing the panels, they presumably don't think that land is productive.
Who should we listen to on what land is productive and what isn't? Bureaucrats in Whitehall, or farmers making their own choice via their own expertise?
The land could be productive in crops, but it’s still more lucrative for the farmer to install solar panels. At the moment, electricity prices are high, but so are seed and fertiliser prices, tipping the balance further in favour of solar.
You have to ask though - where the hell are these promised anti-missile batteries? Kyiv, Odessa, Cherniv, Kharkiv, Lviv - they at a minimum should all have them. Stopping Russian terror attacks with missiles can hardly be described as giving Ukraine an offensive capability.
41 of 71 missiles launched today were intercepted according to Ukraine.
That's not bad going!
Taking out the submarines they're launched from would be even better.
I believe most of them were cruise missiles launched from outside of Ukraine by Tu-95s which are the Russian (turboprop) equivalent of a B-52.
Either their cruise missiles are wildly inaccurate or they have prioritised destroying a pedestrian footbridge and a children's park. Given Russia's record it is very hard to say which is more likely!
You have to ask though - where the hell are these promised anti-missile batteries? Kyiv, Odessa, Cherniv, Kharkiv, Lviv - they at a minimum should all have them. Stopping Russian terror attacks with missiles can hardly be described as giving Ukraine an offensive capability.
41 of 71 missiles launched today were intercepted according to Ukraine.
That's not bad going!
It's still 30 power stations, waterworks, tower blocks being hit.
Although in wasting them in a temper tantrum rather than using them for troop concentrations on the battlefield, he isn't helping the war effort. Like when Hitler turned from bombing RAF airfields and started the Blitz. It gave us a breathing space to get them operational again.
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
Either their cruise missiles are wildly inaccurate or they have prioritised destroying a pedestrian footbridge and a children's park. Given Russia's record it is very hard to say which is more likely!
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
If its perfectly good and productive pasture land that's more productive than farming solar energy then the farmers will get more money for that, so won't install the panels.
If the farmers are installing the panels, they presumably don't think that land is productive.
Who should we listen to on what land is productive and what isn't? Bureaucrats in Whitehall, or farmers making their own choice via their own expertise?
This is the same issue with biofuels though. You have demand for energy competing with demand for food, and the land can only give so much.
Moscow stock exchange down 12% this morning, and now even the Chinese are calling for a de-escalation of the situation. 41 of 75 Russian missiles taken out by air defences, some of the missiles said to have come from Iranian-built drones.
I have a 5-acre sloping site growing grapes for wine, otherwise known as a vineyard. We are, of course, not self-sufficient in wine in this country and my little enterprise isn't going to change that. But nobody in government is telling me this land shouldn't be planted with vines because they are not helping to feed the nation.
No, the solar panel thing is pure virtue signalling.
What's more, if I planted my field with a PV array it would generate something like 1 mw of electricity. I've not done the full maths but at something around £50 an hour (5p per kwh x 1000) and 5 hours of decent generation a day that's a pretty good return. Infinitely more than I could get from my vines (which cost a significant amount of capital to establish) or grazing sheep which was the previous landuse.
The extra money farmers - and by extension the country - get from solar PV can then be used to buy the foregone food production many times over.
Just anti-growth coalition nonsense from Truss and her band of supposedly free market but actually autarchy-fetishist Redwood clones.
Further to the discussion on DB pensions the other day I've put a couple of researchers on the task of collating all UK private sector pension funds, deficits, pay out timeframes and number of beneficiaries.
I think over the next 5-7 years legacy UK companies with big DB pension schemes will become uninvestible and the market meltdown triggered by Kwasi is slowly making investors realise that the UK economy is on the path to bankruptcy.
Are you looking at universities as well? I mean, I know it's a grey area as to whether they're state or private but if you ever want to see a shambles, take a good look at the Universities' Superannuation Scheme.
uss is a last man standing scheme - so if i have understood it, that means if uss goes down the entire university sector goes under as well unless they can bail it out.
That's one of the reasons I was asking about it.
There would be a certain irony if the government pension mistakes ended up wrecking the entire Russell Group while leaving post 92 unis (mostly in the TPS) untouched!
Blaming Truss and Kwarteng for pension issues is shooting the messenger. They might have done us a favour in the long run by exposing it now.
Yes, we had a guy at my last workplace sounding the alarm over this a few years ago suggesting that UK companies are sitting on a time bomb.
From 1985 to 1977 I worked for Nat West Bank, I earnt £75 per week and the total contributions to my pension were £204.
It was a final salary scheme. I was not aware that I even had a pension until they found me 5 years ago. The transer value of this pension is around £50k.
I saw a pensions advisor who confirmed that if I has stayed at the Nat West for 25 years, just in a middling role, the value of my pension would be over a £1million.
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
If its perfectly good and productive pasture land that's more productive than farming solar energy then the farmers will get more money for that, so won't install the panels.
If the farmers are installing the panels, they presumably don't think that land is productive.
Who should we listen to on what land is productive and what isn't? Bureaucrats in Whitehall, or farmers making their own choice via their own expertise?
Thanks, Barty, your Ladybird Book of Economics has turned out to be a gold mine.
I don't disagree with your main point, but you don't seem able to distinguish between more vs less productive, and productive vs unproductive.
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
If its perfectly good and productive pasture land that's more productive than farming solar energy then the farmers will get more money for that, so won't install the panels.
If the farmers are installing the panels, they presumably don't think that land is productive.
Who should we listen to on what land is productive and what isn't? Bureaucrats in Whitehall, or farmers making their own choice via their own expertise?
Thanks, Barty, your Ladybird Book of Economics has turned out to be a gold mine.
I don't disagree with your main point, but you don't seem able to distinguish between more vs less productive, and productive vs unproductive.
I am able to distinguish, are you familiar with the concept of Opportunity Cost?
If its less productive, then I wouldn't consider that "perfectly ... productive", would you?
If its less productive than an alternative then switching to a more productive option is a pro-growth option.
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
If its perfectly good and productive pasture land that's more productive than farming solar energy then the farmers will get more money for that, so won't install the panels.
If the farmers are installing the panels, they presumably don't think that land is productive.
Who should we listen to on what land is productive and what isn't? Bureaucrats in Whitehall, or farmers making their own choice via their own expertise?
This is the same issue with biofuels though. You have demand for energy competing with demand for food, and the land can only give so much.
Solar and biofuels strike me as two rather different propositions. Solar farms go on quite low grade land, which remains of some utility for grazing even once the panels are installed. AIUI, biofuel production eats up fields that could otherwise be used for food crops. One activity is a great deal more problematic than the other.
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
I have a 5-acre sloping site growing grapes for wine, otherwise known as a vineyard. We are, of course, not self-sufficient in wine in this country and my little enterprise isn't going to change that. But nobody in government is telling me this land shouldn't be planted with vines because they are not helping to feed the nation.
No, the solar panel thing is pure virtue signalling.
What's more, if I planted my field with a PV array it would generate something like 1 mw of electricity. I've not done the full maths but at something around £50 an hour (5p per kwh x 1000) and 5 hours of decent generation a day that's a pretty good return. Infinitely more than I could get from my vines (which cost a significant amount of capital to establish) or grazing sheep which was the previous landuse.
The extra money farmers - and by extension the country - get from solar PV can then be used to buy the foregone food production many times over.
Just anti-growth coalition nonsense from Truss and her band of supposedly free market but actually autarchy-fetishist Redwood clones.
It's autarky but I don't think that is what this is about, it's liz discovering via focus group that to the Tory membership objecting to solar panels is the crack version of everyday nimby cocaine
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
It does do psychological damage though. The sooner Putin is stopped the more people in Ukraine are saved from future PTSD.
Our young Ukrainian lodger is from Ternopil which was hit this morning, where the rest of her older family still live. I can't imagine how she feels on days like this.
This whole conflict is so much like a national scale version of a breakup from an abusive marriage. "If I can't have you then I'll make sure nobody else will want you". Russia's behaviour is that of a sociopathic former partner, jealous and outraged that the person he considered his property should have the temerity to want to live without him.
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
You can't "win" a war against a nuclear power?
Please explain Vietnam and Afghanistan (twice!) then.
In Kyiv, reportedly a pedestrian bridge, and a kids' playground. Fortunately empty at the time.
They won't have been the targets. Russian 'precision' missiles have always been rumoured to be of less precision than western ones (which is one of the reasons why they went for larger nuclear warheads). And I bet the sanctions have made the situation worse.
We're at the lob-missiles-into-a-city phase.
And power plants, apparently. Civilians and power supplies are the targets.
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
If you can't win a war against a nuclear power why aren't (a) Russia and (b) USA still in Afghanistan?
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
If its perfectly good and productive pasture land that's more productive than farming solar energy then the farmers will get more money for that, so won't install the panels.
If the farmers are installing the panels, they presumably don't think that land is productive.
Who should we listen to on what land is productive and what isn't? Bureaucrats in Whitehall, or farmers making their own choice via their own expertise?
This is the same issue with biofuels though. You have demand for energy competing with demand for food, and the land can only give so much.
Solar and biofuels strike me as two rather different propositions. Solar farms go on quite low grade land, which remains of some utility for grazing even once the panels are installed. AIUI, biofuel production eats up fields that could otherwise be used for food crops. One activity is a great deal more problematic than the other.
Yeah, also, from my limited understanding, you can have the option of growing things under solar panels anyway, and it may provide a minor green house like environment - protecting the produce and such. I assume it would be more labour intensive (you're not going to drive under the panels with your tractor or harvester), but it is still useful.
They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals.
You what? They absolutely have in Devon, which has been one of the major objections to them. Go and look at the maps south of the A38 around Diptford/Avonwick - large areas of solar farms that were previously very productive arable/dairy fields.
Define productive? Very easy for farmers to work fields and grow crops / animals and LOSE money doing so. Farming is a business, we need it to be profitable so that we can grow our own food.
Yet this lot and the knobheads they listen to like Minford think farming is a waste of time. Scrapping subsidies and refusing to work with farmers is win win for them - sticking it to the EU and sticking it to net zero...
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
If its perfectly good and productive pasture land that's more productive than farming solar energy then the farmers will get more money for that, so won't install the panels.
If the farmers are installing the panels, they presumably don't think that land is productive.
Who should we listen to on what land is productive and what isn't? Bureaucrats in Whitehall, or farmers making their own choice via their own expertise?
This is the same issue with biofuels though. You have demand for energy competing with demand for food, and the land can only give so much.
Solar and biofuels strike me as two rather different propositions. Solar farms go on quite low grade land, which remains of some utility for grazing even once the panels are installed. AIUI, biofuel production eats up fields that could otherwise be used for food crops. One activity is a great deal more problematic than the other.
I agree. I'm overall fairly supportive of solar farms, and more opposed to biofuels. But I think when it comes to food production then the government has a legitimate interest in ensuring a secure and cheap supply of food, and so we can't simply allow food production to compete with other land uses in a completely unrestrained free market.
Further to the discussion on DB pensions the other day I've put a couple of researchers on the task of collating all UK private sector pension funds, deficits, pay out timeframes and number of beneficiaries.
I think over the next 5-7 years legacy UK companies with big DB pension schemes will become uninvestible and the market meltdown triggered by Kwasi is slowly making investors realise that the UK economy is on the path to bankruptcy.
Are you looking at universities as well? I mean, I know it's a grey area as to whether they're state or private but if you ever want to see a shambles, take a good look at the Universities' Superannuation Scheme.
uss is a last man standing scheme - so if i have understood it, that means if uss goes down the entire university sector goes under as well unless they can bail it out.
That's one of the reasons I was asking about it.
There would be a certain irony if the government pension mistakes ended up wrecking the entire Russell Group while leaving post 92 unis (mostly in the TPS) untouched!
Blaming Truss and Kwarteng for pension issues is shooting the messenger. They might have done us a favour in the long run by exposing it now.
Yes, we had a guy at my last workplace sounding the alarm over this a few years ago suggesting that UK companies are sitting on a time bomb.
From 1985 to 1977 I worked for Nat West Bank, I earnt £75 per week and the total contributions to my pension were £204.
It was a final salary scheme. I was not aware that I even had a pension until they found me 5 years ago. The transer value of this pension is around £50k.
I saw a pensions advisor who confirmed that if I has stayed at the Nat West for 25 years, just in a middling role, the value of my pension would be over a £1million.
Final Salary schemes are incredibly generous
A quick look at the FTSE total return indices suggests that £200 would be worth about £6k now. (I can’t find full historical data right now, so this is patching together a few different sources. Someone with access to a terminal can probably just read it off..)
It’s likely that your employer’s pension contributions were much greater than yours, but £50k is still an excellect return on that investment...
Further to the discussion on DB pensions the other day I've put a couple of researchers on the task of collating all UK private sector pension funds, deficits, pay out timeframes and number of beneficiaries.
I think over the next 5-7 years legacy UK companies with big DB pension schemes will become uninvestible and the market meltdown triggered by Kwasi is slowly making investors realise that the UK economy is on the path to bankruptcy.
Are you looking at universities as well? I mean, I know it's a grey area as to whether they're state or private but if you ever want to see a shambles, take a good look at the Universities' Superannuation Scheme.
uss is a last man standing scheme - so if i have understood it, that means if uss goes down the entire university sector goes under as well unless they can bail it out.
That's one of the reasons I was asking about it.
There would be a certain irony if the government pension mistakes ended up wrecking the entire Russell Group while leaving post 92 unis (mostly in the TPS) untouched!
Blaming Truss and Kwarteng for pension issues is shooting the messenger. They might have done us a favour in the long run by exposing it now.
Yes, we had a guy at my last workplace sounding the alarm over this a few years ago suggesting that UK companies are sitting on a time bomb.
From 1985 to 1977 I worked for Nat West Bank, I earnt £75 per week and the total contributions to my pension were £204.
It was a final salary scheme. I was not aware that I even had a pension until they found me 5 years ago. The transer value of this pension is around £50k.
I saw a pensions advisor who confirmed that if I has stayed at the Nat West for 25 years, just in a middling role, the value of my pension would be over a £1million.
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
Letting Putin steal some chunks of Ukraine in the hope that he will be satisfied and won't come back in a few years for more, still making nuclear threats, is also a very high stakes bet.
And a silly one, because it's already been shown to not work (see: 2014).
Moscow stock exchange down 12% this morning, and now even the Chinese are calling for a de-escalation of the situation. 41 of 75 Russian missiles taken out by air defences, some of the missiles said to have come from Iranian-built drones.
Although some of those will be drones, this has to be a significant proportion of Russia's remaining long-range capability.
Yes, the reason behind the ceasing of the nightly attacks on many Ukranian cities a few months back, was a lack of long-range weapons remaining. The Russians likely have hundreds of missiles, rather than thousands, in their inventory.
They are also hamstrung as regards manufacturing capability of these, as they contain complex electronics and jet/rocket motors subject to sanctions. Many of the jet power units are Ukranian in origin, which they definitely won’t be getting their hands on any time soon!
Meanwhile, Western stockpiles of weapons are still holding up, and production lines are opening in the States for the GMRLS rockets to keep Ukraine’s HIMARS supplied. Despite being close to obsolete in NATO countries, it’s been a total game-changer in this conflict, giving the defenders the advantages of range and accuracy.
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
If you can't win a war against a nuclear power why aren't (a) Russia and (b) USA still in Afghanistan?
Neither of those was remotely existential for Moscow and Washington
The Ukraine war has become existential for Putin. He’s mobilised 300,000 men. He’s conscripting civilians. Ukraine winning very probably means Putin gone
I speculated last night that the Russians didn't have many missiles left. Their indiscriminate attacks overnight show that they do have a few but they are now being used as random terror weapons. Specifically targeting civilians rather than infrastructure. Whilst the attacks are shocking they do not indicate a military that can overwhelm their opposition. However, we should be trying to get more air defence systems to Ukraine.
IIRC they had a fair stockpile of moderately old, heavy anti ship missiles - mostly air launched. They’ve been using these in land attack mode.
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
If you can't win a war against a nuclear power why aren't (a) Russia and (b) USA still in Afghanistan?
Neither of those was remotely existential for Moscow and Washington
The Ukraine war has become existential for Putin. He’s mobilised 300,000 men. He’s conscripting civilians. Ukraine winning very probably means Putin gone
2.2 million Americans got conscripted in Vietnam, and they had nukes too.
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
You can't win a war against a nuclear power if you define winning a war as seizing their capital city and overthrowing their government. But you can win a war against a nuclear power if you define winning a war as defeating an imperialist war of aggression.
That's what happened to the Americans in Vietnam, to the Soviets in Afghanistan and to the Russians in the First Chechen War (which, incidentally, was more of a threat to the continuity of the Russian state than losing in Ukraine would be, since Chechnya is part of internationally-recognised Russia).
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
If its perfectly good and productive pasture land that's more productive than farming solar energy then the farmers will get more money for that, so won't install the panels.
If the farmers are installing the panels, they presumably don't think that land is productive.
Who should we listen to on what land is productive and what isn't? Bureaucrats in Whitehall, or farmers making their own choice via their own expertise?
This is the same issue with biofuels though. You have demand for energy competing with demand for food, and the land can only give so much.
Solar and biofuels strike me as two rather different propositions. Solar farms go on quite low grade land, which remains of some utility for grazing even once the panels are installed. AIUI, biofuel production eats up fields that could otherwise be used for food crops. One activity is a great deal more problematic than the other.
Bollocks, mate, and self-contradictory. Either this land is low grade, or it is so high grade that it can support solar and grazing simultaneously. Which is it?
In fact, solar farms are observably put on high grade pasture. There are in theory some set ups where you can put the solar on stilts and graze underneath it, but it is never in practice done - panels are at ground level and securely fenced off. It's also a quart in a pint pot sort of concept - grass and solar panels compete for the same sunshine, and can't both have it.
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
If its perfectly good and productive pasture land that's more productive than farming solar energy then the farmers will get more money for that, so won't install the panels.
If the farmers are installing the panels, they presumably don't think that land is productive.
Who should we listen to on what land is productive and what isn't? Bureaucrats in Whitehall, or farmers making their own choice via their own expertise?
This is the same issue with biofuels though. You have demand for energy competing with demand for food, and the land can only give so much.
Solar and biofuels strike me as two rather different propositions. Solar farms go on quite low grade land, which remains of some utility for grazing even once the panels are installed. AIUI, biofuel production eats up fields that could otherwise be used for food crops. One activity is a great deal more problematic than the other.
I agree. I'm overall fairly supportive of solar farms, and more opposed to biofuels. But I think when it comes to food production then the government has a legitimate interest in ensuring a secure and cheap supply of food, and so we can't simply allow food production to compete with other land uses in a completely unrestrained free market.
But that approach should then apply to other forms of non-food producing landuse.
In the valley where my vineyard is planted (itself hardly a priority for food security) the surrounding fields have a variety of uses:
- horse paddocks - alpacas - sheep grazing - crops - a dog walking field - uncultivated - glamping site
By Truss's logic we should stop allowing people to use land for horses, dog walking, glamping or Alpacas (or we should start eating Alpaca meat).
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
I'm not saying we shouldn't be worried but purely factually: Vietnam won a war against a nuclear power, Afghanistan won two wars each against a different nuclear power, and Chechyna won a war against a nuclear power, albeit then it lost the next one.
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
If you can't win a war against a nuclear power why aren't (a) Russia and (b) USA still in Afghanistan?
Neither of those was remotely existential for Moscow and Washington
The Ukraine war has become existential for Putin. He’s mobilised 300,000 men. He’s conscripting civilians. Ukraine winning very probably means Putin gone
The French-Algerian war is probably a better comparison. It was existential for France and involved the mobilisation of 1.5 million. They had nuclear weapons, and they still gave up.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
If you can't win a war against a nuclear power why aren't (a) Russia and (b) USA still in Afghanistan?
Neither of those was remotely existential for Moscow and Washington
The Ukraine war has become existential for Putin. He’s mobilised 300,000 men. He’s conscripting civilians. Ukraine winning very probably means Putin gone
2.2 million Americans got conscripted in Vietnam, and they had nukes too.
They still lost.
Partly because of the asymmetry whereby the enemy had nothing to nuke.
Russia is convinced the bridge bomb was a truck (I’m still not so sure), and blames Ukraine special forces (that bit is almost certainly true) for the attack.
Retaliatory strikes on Kiev early this morning, most of which were caught by air defences - but he doesn’t have a lot of long-range missiles left in stock, and has to use them sparingly.
Are they convinced, or is it just less embarrassing to Putin for it to be a fictional truck bomb rather than a Ukranian military operation which seems to have involved a boat carrying explosives.
You wouldn't trust a Russian if he told you the sky was blue. It's likely that they are lying. A waterborne raid on a high value asset carried out by an opponent with no navy would indicate astonishing levels of incompetence, but that would be no surprise given everything else we know of the tragi-comic pantomime that's been laid on by the Kremlin.
Russians are no more or less trustworthy than anyone else. It is Putin and the Russian Government that is corrupt, untrustworty and all the other negative adjectives you can think of.
In the same way, you, your family and your friends are not the bunch of incompetent ideological fools, that are currently running the British government.
Of the Russians I know personally, there seems to a theme of extreme personal honesty - speak the truth even if it is detrimental to yourself.
The problem comes with a society where there is no trust and stability outside the close family. This reminds me of Nigeria, in many ways - you have to play the system for *your family* to survive.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Kerch bridge is a clearly legitimate military target. Apartment blocks in Kyiv are not.
And it was almost certainly not a truck bomb. The explosion came from underneath, not from above, which is why it was able to cause so much damage (bridges are designed far better for damage from above than below for fairly obvious reasons).
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
If you can't win a war against a nuclear power why aren't (a) Russia and (b) USA still in Afghanistan?
Neither of those was remotely existential for Moscow and Washington
The Ukraine war has become existential for Putin. He’s mobilised 300,000 men. He’s conscripting civilians. Ukraine winning very probably means Putin gone
2.2 million Americans got conscripted in Vietnam, and they had nukes too.
They still lost.
Partly because of the asymmetry whereby the enemy had nothing to nuke.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
If you can't win a war against a nuclear power why aren't (a) Russia and (b) USA still in Afghanistan?
Neither of those was remotely existential for Moscow and Washington
The Ukraine war has become existential for Putin. He’s mobilised 300,000 men. He’s conscripting civilians. Ukraine winning very probably means Putin gone
The French-Algerian war is probably a better comparison. It was existential for France and involved the mobilisation of 1.5 million. They had nuclear weapons, and they still gave up.
They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals.
You what? They absolutely have in Devon, which has been one of the major objections to them. Go and look at the maps south of the A38 around Diptford/Avonwick - large areas of solar farms that were previously very productive arable/dairy fields.
Define productive? Very easy for farmers to work fields and grow crops / animals and LOSE money doing so. Farming is a business, we need it to be profitable so that we can grow our own food.
Yet this lot and the knobheads they listen to like Minford think farming is a waste of time. Scrapping subsidies and refusing to work with farmers is win win for them - sticking it to the EU and sticking it to net zero...
Productive is a relative term in Devon. Top grade agricultural land is quite limited, Take Dartmoor out of Devon and the periphery has to supply your high-production arable and dairy. But because of Dartmoor National Park being untouchable, solar farms have been placed on this top grade land.
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
If you can't win a war against a nuclear power why aren't (a) Russia and (b) USA still in Afghanistan?
Neither of those was remotely existential for Moscow and Washington
The Ukraine war has become existential for Putin. He’s mobilised 300,000 men. He’s conscripting civilians. Ukraine winning very probably means Putin gone
The French-Algerian war is probably a better comparison. It was existential for France and involved the mobilisation of 1.5 million. They had nuclear weapons, and they still gave up.
Yes that’s a more interesting comparison
But putin is not de Gaulle, that’s one problem
All the more reason his aggression needs to be comprehensively defeated.
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
If you can't win a war against a nuclear power why aren't (a) Russia and (b) USA still in Afghanistan?
Neither of those was remotely existential for Moscow and Washington
The Ukraine war has become existential for Putin. He’s mobilised 300,000 men. He’s conscripting civilians. Ukraine winning very probably means Putin gone
2.2 million Americans got conscripted in Vietnam, and they had nukes too.
They still lost.
Yes but had Nixon gone mad and nuked Hanoi and Beijing who knows what would have happened.
Being widely reported that KT will be holding charm offensive meetings at Nos 10 & 11 all week. Also that the rebels will simply force all of the u-turns needed to try and make the government look less sociopathic.
The problem remains that the Truss brand is destroyed. That she is to be held hostage by her own MPs is not a positive thing to sell to the electorate. It now seems clear that they will raise UC in line with inflation but they *wanted* to cut it. They aren't abolishing 45p but they *wanted* to. And once this is inevitably thrown out they won't be fracking or housebuilding in your local park but they *wanted* to.
It is a matter of time before Tory backbenchers accept this. U-turns are not enough. Their government wanted to fuck over the voters. Said voters will not say "ah well, at least they failed, and that Starmer bloke took the knee so I'll vote Tory".
She will go. Lets see how well the charmless offensive works - still time for her to go this year if she fucks up again in that clueless "you are all fools" manner of hers.
It is not just MPs holding LizT hostage, but also the guardians of Financial Orthodoxy, castigated for decades of low growth by Team Truss — the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury was sacked; the Bank of England ignored; the OBR sidelined by rebranding Kwasi's budget a financial statement. A week later, the Bank of England has intervened to rescue the gilts market and bail out the pensions industry; the OBR is pictured with LizT and Kwasi; the Treasury is fully engaged in drawing up the next budget, which has been brought forward.
The problem of low growth is the one thing she's been right about. Unfortunately she never had the first clue about what a solution might look like.
Yes, that is the irony. Liz Truss is right that we need growth, rather than trying either to cut or to tax our way to prosperity. Trouble is that if she has a plan for growth, she's not divulged it to anyone, which is what discombobulated the City. Rishi did have a plan, which LizT has abandoned. Labour might have a plan but I'm not holding my breath.
My impression is that she understands little about economics and has relied on Kwasi to tell her what to do and say.
Kwasi does understand, but is wedded to ideas that are suspect in theory and have never been seen to work in the past.
Yes, and I think we saw that in the leadership campaign when Truss ditched regional pay and denied raised interest rates. To employ an elderly metaphor, Kwasi is Sir Keith Joseph to LizT's Margaret Thatcher.
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
If you can't win a war against a nuclear power why aren't (a) Russia and (b) USA still in Afghanistan?
Neither of those was remotely existential for Moscow and Washington
The Ukraine war has become existential for Putin. He’s mobilised 300,000 men. He’s conscripting civilians. Ukraine winning very probably means Putin gone
Unconvinced that Putin using nuclear weapons increases his personal chances of survival. Losing a war might be survivable, but losing a war & going nuclear & losing all his international allies seems worse. Big caveat that I have no idea!
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
If its perfectly good and productive pasture land that's more productive than farming solar energy then the farmers will get more money for that, so won't install the panels.
If the farmers are installing the panels, they presumably don't think that land is productive.
Who should we listen to on what land is productive and what isn't? Bureaucrats in Whitehall, or farmers making their own choice via their own expertise?
This is the same issue with biofuels though. You have demand for energy competing with demand for food, and the land can only give so much.
Solar and biofuels strike me as two rather different propositions. Solar farms go on quite low grade land, which remains of some utility for grazing even once the panels are installed. AIUI, biofuel production eats up fields that could otherwise be used for food crops. One activity is a great deal more problematic than the other.
I agree. I'm overall fairly supportive of solar farms, and more opposed to biofuels. But I think when it comes to food production then the government has a legitimate interest in ensuring a secure and cheap supply of food, and so we can't simply allow food production to compete with other land uses in a completely unrestrained free market.
But that approach should then apply to other forms of non-food producing landuse.
In the valley where my vineyard is planted (itself hardly a priority for food security) the surrounding fields have a variety of uses:
- horse paddocks - alpacas - sheep grazing - crops - a dog walking field - uncultivated - glamping site
By Truss's logic we should stop allowing people to use land for horses, dog walking, glamping or Alpacas (or we should start eating Alpaca meat).
I'm not supporting the Truss policy. Not sure what it is in detail, if there is any detail.
However, we do provide incentives, or at least used to, for the land to be used for food production rather than horse paddocks, etc, by providing subsidies on that basis. We also have planning rules to govern use of land for accommodation purposes (such as glamping).
I'm not advocating for the state to minutely determine how each acre of land is used, but I do think that some degree of intervention is desirable to balance the competing demands placed upon land, and encourage those that society determines are a higher priority.
Since we can generate energy with solar panels on roof space, wind turbines in the North Sea (and other methods), it doesn't seem controversial to suggest that you wouldn't want to displace food production from agricultural land with unconstrained solar farm development. I wouldn't ban it either.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
Yes its insane that Russia is impotently wasting its remaining valuable resources, but they're badly led which is why they're losing the war.
A targeted strike to destroy an enemies major military transport infrastructure is a successful and legitimate target and would be in any war, ever. There will be movies getting made about that strike in years to come.
An untargeted temper tantrum hitting apartment blocs, is not, and is why they're losing and deserve to lose.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
Why? What was strategic about a toddlers' playground?
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
Kerch bridge is a valid military target because it's a supply route for military material to the front line. We don't know how it was attacked.
Pedestrian and cycle bridge in Kyiv? Not so much a military target.
Why do you think you can draw an equivalence between these?
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
If you can't win a war against a nuclear power why aren't (a) Russia and (b) USA still in Afghanistan?
Neither of those was remotely existential for Moscow and Washington
The Ukraine war has become existential for Putin. He’s mobilised 300,000 men. He’s conscripting civilians. Ukraine winning very probably means Putin gone
2.2 million Americans got conscripted in Vietnam, and they had nukes too.
They still lost.
Yes but had Nixon gone mad and nuked Hanoi and Beijing who knows what would have happened.
Even Nixon then was not as mad as Putin is now
That's why in Nixon's last days in office when he was very depressed and usually drunker than SeanT the SecDef issued orders that any order to launch nuclear weapons should be checked with him or the SecState.
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
If its perfectly good and productive pasture land that's more productive than farming solar energy then the farmers will get more money for that, so won't install the panels.
If the farmers are installing the panels, they presumably don't think that land is productive.
Who should we listen to on what land is productive and what isn't? Bureaucrats in Whitehall, or farmers making their own choice via their own expertise?
This is the same issue with biofuels though. You have demand for energy competing with demand for food, and the land can only give so much.
Solar and biofuels strike me as two rather different propositions. Solar farms go on quite low grade land, which remains of some utility for grazing even once the panels are installed. AIUI, biofuel production eats up fields that could otherwise be used for food crops. One activity is a great deal more problematic than the other.
On Saturday I ran past a solar farm on the fens to the north of Waterbeach. I really, really doubt that it was 'low grade' land.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
Why? What was strategic about a toddlers' playground?
Was Darya Dugina, killed by a Ukrainian car bomb in Moscow, a strategic target?
Putin is the evil aggressor here, but both sides are now fighting a dirty horrible war. Which is escalating exactly as some of us predicted
Ukraine will now take further revenge. Etc. This quite likely ends in nukes
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
Russia claims three civilians died.
And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes. This would have had to be a truck bomb bigger than that the IRA used to level Manchester city centre. Go and look at images of that and other truck bombings. There is mess EVERYWHERE. The sections of bridge were ridiculously clean. Even the white lines still on the sunken sections. The only debris visible was what fell off the burning bridge above.
It embarrasses Russia that its prestigious bridge - Putin's bridge - protected by 20 different systems, was badly damaged by the Ukrainians (with or without help). It embarrasses you that you spout the Russian attempts at face-saving talking points.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
Yes its insane that Russia is impotently wasting its remaining valuable resources, but they're badly led which is why they're losing the war.
A targeted strike to destroy an enemies major military transport infrastructure is a successful and legitimate target and would be in any war, ever. There will be movies getting made about that strike in years to come.
An untargeted temper tantrum hitting apartment blocs, is not, and is why they're losing and deserve to lose.
And the Ukrainian car bomb that killed Darya Dugina?
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
You're shilling for Putin now.
You just can't help yourself. He's your kind of leader, with your kind of values.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
Yes its insane that Russia is impotently wasting its remaining valuable resources, but they're badly led which is why they're losing the war.
A targeted strike to destroy an enemies major military transport infrastructure is a successful and legitimate target and would be in any war, ever. There will be movies getting made about that strike in years to come.
An untargeted temper tantrum hitting apartment blocs, is not, and is why they're losing and deserve to lose.
And the Ukrainian car bomb that killed Darya Dugina?
What evidence do you have that the Ukrainians did that?
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
Why? What was strategic about a toddlers' playground?
Was Darya Dugina, killed by a Ukrainian car bomb in Moscow, a strategic target?
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
Why? What was strategic about a toddlers' playground?
Was Darya Dugina, killed by a Ukrainian car bomb in Moscow, a strategic target?
Putin is the evil aggressor here, but both sides are now fighting a dirty horrible war. Which is escalating exactly as some of us predicted
Ukraine will now take further revenge. Etc. This quite likely ends in nukes
Her father was, given his influence on Putin. And was fairly clearly the intended target. She seems to have been very unlucky. Rather like the victim of the Salisbury poisonings. Doesn't excuse it, but does explain it.
I can think of no conceivable way bombing facilities designed to keep small children amused could bring this war nearer a successful end for Putin.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
There are plenty of videos shown trains of military vehicles going over the Kerch Bridge towards Crimea during this war. That train carried fuel that could well have been used by the military. The bridge was a military target.
You would have to be an Amnesty-level idiot to think it was not.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
Yes its insane that Russia is impotently wasting its remaining valuable resources, but they're badly led which is why they're losing the war.
A targeted strike to destroy an enemies major military transport infrastructure is a successful and legitimate target and would be in any war, ever. There will be movies getting made about that strike in years to come.
An untargeted temper tantrum hitting apartment blocs, is not, and is why they're losing and deserve to lose.
And the Ukrainian car bomb that killed Darya Dugina?
What evidence do you have that the Ukrainians did that?
Good God almighty, what a bunch of fucking spazmos we have reigning over us in ignominy. Notwithstanding the fact that, as is made clear by the linked article, solar tends to go on not particularly productive land, it isn't even as if it renders it totally unusable for agriculture. Solar farms often double as sheep pasture.
It doesn't take much imagination to see what's more likely to be behind this. The same as the reason why the Tories practically banned onshore wind years ago. Nimbies wetting their knickers about their precious views and their fucking house prices.
No, I do not think it is Nimbies against solar farms on agricultural land. The Farming Lobby perhaps?
It isn't even that. Farmers need revenue for their land and this is revenue. They aren't putting solar farms on fields that are otherwise producing crops / animals. What this is about is wazzock Tories who dislike "woke" which includes environmentalism which apparently means that despite the VERY real danger of brownouts this winter that we should further restrict our ability to produce power.
I did call them wazzocks didn't I? Complete and total fucking wazzocks. "We want to cut the red tape on planning" / "no no, you famers can't put solar panels up, we need more red tape on planning to stop you making productive use of your land".
Fuckers. And there are still a hardcore intending to vote for them.
You sound a bit angry and ill-informed. Solar panels are being put on perfectly cracking pasture land. Why do you think it has been counted as farmland for literally millennia if it is incapable of producing crops or animals?
If its perfectly good and productive pasture land that's more productive than farming solar energy then the farmers will get more money for that, so won't install the panels.
If the farmers are installing the panels, they presumably don't think that land is productive.
Who should we listen to on what land is productive and what isn't? Bureaucrats in Whitehall, or farmers making their own choice via their own expertise?
This is the same issue with biofuels though. You have demand for energy competing with demand for food, and the land can only give so much.
Solar and biofuels strike me as two rather different propositions. Solar farms go on quite low grade land, which remains of some utility for grazing even once the panels are installed. AIUI, biofuel production eats up fields that could otherwise be used for food crops. One activity is a great deal more problematic than the other.
Bollocks, mate, and self-contradictory. Either this land is low grade, or it is so high grade that it can support solar and grazing simultaneously. Which is it?
In fact, solar farms are observably put on high grade pasture. There are in theory some set ups where you can put the solar on stilts and graze underneath it, but it is never in practice done - panels are at ground level and securely fenced off. It's also a quart in a pint pot sort of concept - grass and solar panels compete for the same sunshine, and can't both have it.
The position of solar panels are computer modelled to maximise the capture of sunlight. As you would expect. Anywhere that can still create photosynthesis is a lose for the computer model....
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
Yes its insane that Russia is impotently wasting its remaining valuable resources, but they're badly led which is why they're losing the war.
A targeted strike to destroy an enemies major military transport infrastructure is a successful and legitimate target and would be in any war, ever. There will be movies getting made about that strike in years to come.
An untargeted temper tantrum hitting apartment blocs, is not, and is why they're losing and deserve to lose.
And the Ukrainian car bomb that killed Darya Dugina?
What evidence do you have that the Ukrainians did that?
Solar farms. Bloody ridiculous. Look ugly and gobble up land that could either be cultivated or rewilded.
Firstly, if we really want solar, then put it on every suitable roof, above carparks, in other urban settings - where people use electricity.
Secondly, in the UK solar generates power during minimum demand periods. In countries where the power spike comes from A/C on hot summer days, fair enough, but in the UK we need the power on cold, dark January evenings. Unless you couple the solar with a storage vector (batteries or hydrogen) then you are backing the wrong horse. Wind and tidal are the better renewable options for this country.
As an aside, I have noticed a few houses round our way getting panels installed in the last few weeks. Presumably the payback now looks much better than this time last year, but does anyone have up to date figures?
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
Yes its insane that Russia is impotently wasting its remaining valuable resources, but they're badly led which is why they're losing the war.
A targeted strike to destroy an enemies major military transport infrastructure is a successful and legitimate target and would be in any war, ever. There will be movies getting made about that strike in years to come.
An untargeted temper tantrum hitting apartment blocs, is not, and is why they're losing and deserve to lose.
And the Ukrainian car bomb that killed Darya Dugina?
What evidence do you have that the Ukrainians did that?
As plenty of us predicted, Putin’s revenge is large scale conventional missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
Most of the missiles launched were intercepted, and those that hit haven't hit strategic targets. He's just lashing out impotently, while HIMARS keep taking out ammunition dumps etc
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
I remember PB-ers telling us Coronavirus would be a bad season of flu. Let’s hope the same characters aren’t being equally complacent today
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
If you can't win a war against a nuclear power why aren't (a) Russia and (b) USA still in Afghanistan?
Neither of those was remotely existential for Moscow and Washington
The Ukraine war has become existential for Putin. He’s mobilised 300,000 men. He’s conscripting civilians. Ukraine winning very probably means Putin gone
The French-Algerian war is probably a better comparison. It was existential for France and involved the mobilisation of 1.5 million. They had nuclear weapons, and they still gave up.
Was it existential for France?
It was for French-Algeria, as a province of metropolitan France, but not for France proper.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
Why? What was strategic about a toddlers' playground?
Was Darya Dugina, killed by a Ukrainian car bomb in Moscow, a strategic target?
Putin is the evil aggressor here, but both sides are now fighting a dirty horrible war. Which is escalating exactly as some of us predicted
Ukraine will now take further revenge. Etc. This quite likely ends in nukes
Hang on have we gone from one sixth probability to quite likely now? I am losing track….
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
Russia claims three civilians died.
And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes. This would have had to be a truck bomb bigger than that the IRA used to level Manchester city centre. Go and look at images of that and other truck bombings. There is mess EVERYWHERE. The sections of bridge were ridiculously clean. Even the white lines still on the sunken sections. The only debris visible was what fell off the burning bridge above.
It embarrasses Russia that its prestigious bridge - Putin's bridge - protected by 20 different systems, was badly damaged by the Ukrainians (with or without help). It embarrasses you that you spout the Russian attempts at face-saving talking points.
You’ve all gone completely mad. The idea it was a truck bomb is not some crazy Russian lie. It’s regarded as the most likely explanation, but we just don’t know. Here’s the FT today. Is it in the pay of Putin?
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
The Ukrainian attack was precisely targeted. The attacks by Russia were random and indiscriminate.
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
Yes its insane that Russia is impotently wasting its remaining valuable resources, but they're badly led which is why they're losing the war.
A targeted strike to destroy an enemies major military transport infrastructure is a successful and legitimate target and would be in any war, ever. There will be movies getting made about that strike in years to come.
An untargeted temper tantrum hitting apartment blocs, is not, and is why they're losing and deserve to lose.
And the Ukrainian car bomb that killed Darya Dugina?
What evidence do you have that the Ukrainians did that?
The Americans have said it was Ukraine.
I can see the future posture of Ukraine and its relationship with NATO shaping up a little like Israel's towards its neighbours. Zelenskyy has talked about turning the country into a "hedgehog", a liberal democracy but one that that is much more highly militarised than most as a deterrent to future Russian aggression. Ukraine's security services will I expect do things in future - assassinations, sabotage, cyber-attacks - that the US will disapprove of, but will stop short of fully condemning. It will be a tricky and occasionally prickly relationship.
After this war Ukraine is going to want significant influence both within the Western military establishment and the EU if and when it joins. It will feel it's earned the right to be listened to. It isn't going to settle back into being a 3rd tier power. This will irritate Germany and France in particular, but it will be joined in this attitude by Poland and the Baltics, and possibly by a post-Lukashenka Belarus too.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
Russia claims three civilians died.
And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes. This would have had to be a truck bomb bigger than that the IRA used to level Manchester city centre. Go and look at images of that and other truck bombings. There is mess EVERYWHERE. The sections of bridge were ridiculously clean. Even the white lines still on the sunken sections. The only debris visible was what fell off the burning bridge above.
It embarrasses Russia that its prestigious bridge - Putin's bridge - protected by 20 different systems, was badly damaged by the Ukrainians (with or without help). It embarrasses you that you spout the Russian attempts at face-saving talking points.
You’ve all gone completely mad. The idea it was a truck bomb is not some crazy Russian lie. It’s regarded as the most likely explanation, but we just don’t know. Here’s the FT today. Is it in the pay of Putin?
Since when did you accept "regarded as the most likely explanation"? You certainly didn't over the origins of Covid!
Yes, it might. Whether before or after another attempt to invade Ukraine from Belarus, I don't know. I would think that's a more likely development than nuclear weapons though.
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you. https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
They’ve lost the moral high ground tho
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
Russia claims three civilians died.
And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes. This would have had to be a truck bomb bigger than that the IRA used to level Manchester city centre. Go and look at images of that and other truck bombings. There is mess EVERYWHERE. The sections of bridge were ridiculously clean. Even the white lines still on the sunken sections. The only debris visible was what fell off the burning bridge above.
It embarrasses Russia that its prestigious bridge - Putin's bridge - protected by 20 different systems, was badly damaged by the Ukrainians (with or without help). It embarrasses you that you spout the Russian attempts at face-saving talking points.
You’ve all gone completely mad. The idea it was a truck bomb is not some crazy Russian lie. It’s regarded as the most likely explanation, but we just don’t know. Here’s the FT today. Is it in the pay of Putin?
Since when did you accept "regarded as the most likely explanation"? You certainly didn't over the origins of Covid!
So let me get this right. In PB Universe, Putin is paying off the editor of the Financial Times?
Comments
https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1579386027223166978
Also, she has zero charm...
He's too woke...
Epic.
The in some ways silly thing is we have millions of acres of almost unproductive bare land. Instead of putting solar all over it we designate it national parks.
The sector has shifted to career average pension schemes which do at least solve this inequality in the future, but for the next few decades these liabilities are going to remain & current employees are going to have to pay for them.
If the farmers are installing the panels, they presumably don't think that land is productive.
Who should we listen to on what land is productive and what isn't? Bureaucrats in Whitehall, or farmers making their own choice via their own expertise?
It won’t work. It won’t stop the Ukes no more than the Blitz stopped the Brits. Putin surely knows this, he’s doing it to look hard and hide his blushes
It does mean he’s nearly cornered, entirely. Out of further options. And that’s when he will go nuclear. Or not
41 of 75 Russian missiles taken out by air defences, some of the missiles said to have come from Iranian-built drones.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/10/10/ukraine-russia-war-latest-putin-nuclear-crimea-bridge-zaporizhzhia/
It was a final salary scheme. I was not aware that I even had a pension until they found me 5 years ago. The transer value of this pension is around £50k.
I saw a pensions advisor who confirmed that if I has stayed at the Nat West for 25 years, just in a middling role, the value of my pension would be over a £1million.
Final Salary schemes are incredibly generous
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95
Either their cruise missiles are wildly inaccurate or they have prioritised destroying a pedestrian footbridge and a children's park. Given Russia's record it is very hard to say which is more likely!
Although in wasting them in a temper tantrum rather than using them for troop concentrations on the battlefield, he isn't helping the war effort. Like when Hitler turned from bombing RAF airfields and started the Blitz. It gave us a breathing space to get them operational again.
There's a reason why Ukraine is winning this war. This temper tantrum today by Putin won't change that.
unlike...
No, the solar panel thing is pure virtue signalling.
What's more, if I planted my field with a PV array it would generate something like 1 mw of electricity. I've not done the full maths but at something around £50 an hour (5p per kwh x 1000) and 5 hours of decent generation a day that's a pretty good return. Infinitely more than I could get from my vines (which cost a significant amount of capital to establish) or grazing sheep which was the previous landuse.
The extra money farmers - and by extension the country - get from solar PV can then be used to buy the foregone food production many times over.
Just anti-growth coalition nonsense from Truss and her band of supposedly free market but actually autarchy-fetishist Redwood clones.
I don't disagree with your main point, but you don't seem able to distinguish between more vs less productive, and productive vs unproductive.
If its less productive, then I wouldn't consider that "perfectly ... productive", would you?
If its less productive than an alternative then switching to a more productive option is a pro-growth option.
The problem is you can’t “win” a war against a nuclear power. Because they can use nukes. So then you are betting the farm that - for some reason: a failed chain of command, a lack of will - Putin won’t get to use the nukes
That’s a very high stakes bet
So, russkies, you really think you can compensate for your impotence on the battlefield with missile strikes on peaceful cities? You just don’t get it do you - your terrorist strikes only make us stronger. We are coming after you.
https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1579388767336648706
New Leeds Wetherspoon pub sparks fears over drunken yobs as 'conservative' residents say it should be put in another town
Residents in the quaint 'conservative' market town of Wetherby have asked the pub chain giant to 'find somewhere more suitable in another town'
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.leeds-live.co.uk/best-in-leeds/restaurants-bars/new-leeds-wetherspoon-pub-sparks-25175177.amp
Our young Ukrainian lodger is from Ternopil which was hit this morning, where the rest of her older family still live. I can't imagine how she feels on days like this.
This whole conflict is so much like a national scale version of a breakup from an abusive marriage. "If I can't have you then I'll make sure nobody else will want you". Russia's behaviour is that of a sociopathic former partner, jealous and outraged that the person he considered his property should have the temerity to want to live without him.
Please explain Vietnam and Afghanistan (twice!) then.
Civilians and power supplies are the targets.
This morning, Russia launched 75 missiles, 41 of them were neutralized by Ukrainian air defenses - Comander-in-Chief Zaluzhnyi
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1579380887820849152
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/feb/22/kenya-to-use-solar-panels-to-boost-crops-by-harvesting-the-sun-twice
Yet this lot and the knobheads they listen to like Minford think farming is a waste of time. Scrapping subsidies and refusing to work with farmers is win win for them - sticking it to the EU and sticking it to net zero...
It’s likely that your employer’s pension contributions were much greater than yours, but £50k is still an excellect return on that investment...
And a silly one, because it's already been shown to not work (see: 2014).
They are also hamstrung as regards manufacturing capability of these, as they contain complex electronics and jet/rocket motors subject to sanctions. Many of the jet power units are Ukranian in origin, which they definitely won’t be getting their hands on any time soon!
Meanwhile, Western stockpiles of weapons are still holding up, and production lines are opening in the States for the GMRLS rockets to keep Ukraine’s HIMARS supplied. Despite being close to obsolete in NATO countries, it’s been a total game-changer in this conflict, giving the defenders the advantages of range and accuracy.
Neither of those was remotely existential for Moscow and Washington
The Ukraine war has become existential for Putin. He’s mobilised 300,000 men. He’s conscripting civilians. Ukraine winning very probably means Putin gone
They still lost.
That's what happened to the Americans in Vietnam, to the Soviets in Afghanistan and to the Russians in the First Chechen War (which, incidentally, was more of a threat to the continuity of the Russian state than losing in Ukraine would be, since Chechnya is part of internationally-recognised Russia).
In fact, solar farms are observably put on high grade pasture. There are in theory some set ups where you can put the solar on stilts and graze underneath it, but it is never in practice done - panels are at ground level and securely fenced off. It's also a quart in a pint pot sort of concept - grass and solar panels compete for the same sunshine, and can't both have it.
In the valley where my vineyard is planted (itself hardly a priority for food security) the surrounding fields have a variety of uses:
- horse paddocks
- alpacas
- sheep grazing
- crops
- a dog walking field
- uncultivated
- glamping site
By Truss's logic we should stop allowing people to use land for horses, dog walking, glamping or Alpacas (or we should start eating Alpaca meat).
There are Ukrainian govt officials on Twitter complaining about “Russian terror attacks on civilians”
Er, what was the Kerch bridge?! Civilians died. It was probably a truck bomb, possibly by suicide. It was a terror attack on Russia by that definition
"There's the response for you," RT's Margarita Simonyan writes.
"The Crimean bridge was the red line from the very beginning. It was obvious," she adds
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1579391085562179584
Elon
The problem comes with a society where there is no trust and stability outside the close family. This reminds me of Nigeria, in many ways - you have to play the system for *your family* to survive.
And it was almost certainly not a truck bomb. The explosion came from underneath, not from above, which is why it was able to cause so much damage (bridges are designed far better for damage from above than below for fairly obvious reasons).
But putin is not de Gaulle, that’s one problem
Even Nixon then was not as mad as Putin is now
Losing a war might be survivable, but losing a war & going nuclear & losing all his international allies seems worse. Big caveat that I have no idea!
If you take a step back, you will hear how insane this sounds
However, we do provide incentives, or at least used to, for the land to be used for food production rather than horse paddocks, etc, by providing subsidies on that basis. We also have planning rules to govern use of land for accommodation purposes (such as glamping).
I'm not advocating for the state to minutely determine how each acre of land is used, but I do think that some degree of intervention is desirable to balance the competing demands placed upon land, and encourage those that society determines are a higher priority.
Since we can generate energy with solar panels on roof space, wind turbines in the North Sea (and other methods), it doesn't seem controversial to suggest that you wouldn't want to displace food production from agricultural land with unconstrained solar farm development. I wouldn't ban it either.
A targeted strike to destroy an enemies major military transport infrastructure is a successful and legitimate target and would be in any war, ever. There will be movies getting made about that strike in years to come.
An untargeted temper tantrum hitting apartment blocs, is not, and is why they're losing and deserve to lose.
Pedestrian and cycle bridge in Kyiv? Not so much a military target.
Why do you think you can draw an equivalence between these?
Precisely to avoid finding out...
Putin is the evil aggressor here, but both sides are now fighting a dirty horrible war. Which is escalating exactly as some of us predicted
Ukraine will now take further revenge. Etc. This quite likely ends in nukes
And stop repeating their line of it being a truck bomb. It wasn't - and you have nothing other than Russian propaganda to say so. Unless you want to look a complete twerp/Russian useful idiot, use the evidence of your eyes. This would have had to be a truck bomb bigger than that the IRA used to level Manchester city centre. Go and look at images of that and other truck bombings. There is mess EVERYWHERE. The sections of bridge were ridiculously clean. Even the white lines still on the sunken sections. The only debris visible was what fell off the burning bridge above.
It embarrasses Russia that its prestigious bridge - Putin's bridge - protected by 20 different systems, was badly damaged by the Ukrainians (with or without help). It embarrasses you that you spout the Russian attempts at face-saving talking points.
You just can't help yourself. He's your kind of leader, with your kind of values.
Your bombs are indiscriminate and evil
His bombs are a WAR CRIME
I can think of no conceivable way bombing facilities designed to keep small children amused could bring this war nearer a successful end for Putin.
You would have to be an Amnesty-level idiot to think it was not.
Yes taking out the enemies primary military supply route is precisely targeted.
No taking out a toddlers swing and slide is not.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/05/us/politics/ukraine-russia-dugina-assassination.html
Possibly not the Ukrainian government directly, but as with Russia, there are elements within it that consider state control a theoretical thing.
Firstly, if we really want solar, then put it on every suitable roof, above carparks, in other urban settings - where people use electricity.
Secondly, in the UK solar generates power during minimum demand periods. In countries where the power spike comes from A/C on hot summer days, fair enough, but in the UK we need the power on cold, dark January evenings. Unless you couple the solar with a storage vector (batteries or hydrogen) then you are backing the wrong horse. Wind and tidal are the better renewable options for this country.
As an aside, I have noticed a few houses round our way getting panels installed in the last few weeks. Presumably the payback now looks much better than this time last year, but does anyone have up to date figures?
Faytuks News Δ
@Faytuks
BREAKING: Russia and Belarus agreed to deploy a joint "regional group of troops" - BelTa
https://mobile.twitter.com/Faytuks/status/1579395361378291712
It was for French-Algeria, as a province of metropolitan France, but not for France proper.
That's Jeremy Corbyn's argument.
Get a grip on yourself.
I can see the future posture of Ukraine and its relationship with NATO shaping up a little like Israel's towards its neighbours. Zelenskyy has talked about turning the country into a "hedgehog", a liberal democracy but one that that is much more highly militarised than most as a deterrent to future Russian aggression. Ukraine's security services will I expect do things in future - assassinations, sabotage, cyber-attacks - that the US will disapprove of, but will stop short of fully condemning. It will be a tricky and occasionally prickly relationship.
After this war Ukraine is going to want significant influence both within the Western military establishment and the EU if and when it joins. It will feel it's earned the right to be listened to. It isn't going to settle back into being a 3rd tier power. This will irritate Germany and France in particular, but it will be joined in this attitude by Poland and the Baltics, and possibly by a post-Lukashenka Belarus too.
then
Ukraine and Russia, they're just the same really.
Go figure