High taxing Brexit UK doesn't seem the appealing to me.
Presumably you would be emigrating to a country in the European Union? I am always amused by people who leave "because of Brexit", to go to other Anglophone countries that aren't part of political unions with neighbouring states.
Some Tory MP on politics live has just blamed the Last Labour Government for the coming hate budget.
You think Labour are blameless from this budget and potential housing and stock exchange crashes next year (or even next week)?
They are not.
Labour had two parliaments printing the fake money to get the country in this mess.
It’s not all Labours fault, but they share the blame.
Yep but the Tories have had 12 years to fix things and they really haven't.
The idea that a Tory will be able to blame Labour for the mess they find themselves explaining when they stand for election in 2024 is just not going to work.
Hunt is going to bring back a former Labour Health Secretary* to advise on improving NHS efficiency. That is a pretty damning verdict on the last 12 years of Tory Health Secs, including himself!
High taxing Brexit UK doesn't seem the appealing to me.
Presumably you would be emigrating to a country in the European Union? I am always amused by people who leave "because of Brexit", to go to other Anglophone countries that aren't part of political unions with neighbouring states.
I wouldn’t do it myself, but it isn’t necessarily illogical - you might take the view that being an EU member was an upside of living in the UK, whereas the damage of Brexit has added to the downside, compared to which your alternative of moving the the US or Australia becomes relatively better.
A positive step forward. Though I note that they quote that political giant Jonathan Gullis who angrily says Stoke is full of migrants. What he means - and what many local voters think - is that they ALL should be sent somewhere else.
Whilst sending asylum seekers to all parts of the country makes sense, it will not be an easy time for the poor sods being sent to places who already view outsiders with suspicion. And by "outsiders" I mean people "who weren't born here and will never understand here". A direct quote from the Mayor of Thornaby-on-Tees as an example of the parochial bigotry which blights this country.
And yet for every gobby prick who pretends to be speaking for the locals, there will be ten people in the background just quietly getting on with making refugees welcome. We saw it locally with the Afghans who have been at one of the country hotels for the last year and there has been a very well supported effort to make them welcome and comfortable with people supplying all manner of gifts and essentials to make their lives as normal as possible. It rarely makes the news but I get the impression it is happening right across the country under the very noses of the bigots.
I recommend the excellent film "Limbo" about a group of asylum seekers in an isolated part of rural Scotland. Both the grinding insensitivity of the bureaucracy and the kindness of strangers are well shown. One of the best British films of recent years.
And I recommend you, and @Richard_Tyndall, for example looking at Alicia Kearn's facebook post about asylum seekers being housed in Scalford Hall (7 Nov).
Of the 82 comments I struggle to find any supportive ones.
Typical of the genre: "Totally disgusting the public don't want this to happen so please don't say we do you don't speak for us anymore sooner conservative party is voted out the better."
I mean I know it's social media and I know that for those 82 there could easily by 820 people quietly getting on with welcoming them but it is a relatively significant response if one believes that whereas there may be 10 people per gobshite who disagree, there will be X people per gobshite who agree.
The Kerch bridge explosion. We had a stramash on PB about this. With quite a few people claiming it was done by a missile or a boat crew underneath
Some of us - including me - told them they were silly. And it was a truck bomb
The NYT has the verdict. It was a truck
Oh you gullible fool.
You actually believe anything written in The New York Times?
This follows a pattern. Something weird happens in Ukraine/Russia. Multiple theories float about, some apparently sown to provoke division and confusion in Moscow (or fear in Kyiv if they come from Russia)
Once the utility of the psy-ops is exhausted, the NYT quietly says what really happened. Cf the Darya Dugina bomb, which was initially blamed on renegade Russians, then the NYT belatedly revealed it was a Ukrainian attack
High taxing Brexit UK doesn't seem the appealing to me.
Presumably you would be emigrating to a country in the European Union? I am always amused by people who leave "because of Brexit", to go to other Anglophone countries that aren't part of political unions with neighbouring states.
Just on 12 years: it's worth noting the Coalition had to try and recover after the very severe recession. And since 2020 we've had the pandemic and ensuing economic consequences.
That's not to ignore the self-obsessed incompetence of Boris Johnson and other problems (Coalition was mostly good but the slashing of judicial system spending was shortsighted). But pretending or implying the Conservatives, including Coalition, started with a blank slate rather than inheriting a vast deficit and debt from Labour, or that the pandemic hasn't affected things massively, is not reasonable.
The Kerch bridge explosion. We had a stramash on PB about this. With quite a few people claiming it was done by a missile or a boat crew underneath
Some of us - including me - told them they were silly. And it was a truck bomb
The NYT has the verdict. It was a truck
Oh you gullible fool.
You actually believe anything written in The New York Times?
This follows a pattern. Something weird happens in Ukraine/Russia. Multiple theories float about, some apparently sown to provoke division and confusion in Moscow (or fear in Kyiv if they come from Russia)
Once the utility of the psy-ops is exhausted, the NYT quietly says what really happened. Cf the Darya Dugina bomb, which was initially blamed on renegade Russians, then the NYT belatedly revealed it was a Ukrainian attack
It was a truck
I'd need a stronger source than The New York Times.
Did you know this truck used what.three.words to position the optimum place to cause the most damage?
If you sell a 2nd home or investment property what matters is the CGT rate. Whether 3k or 12k is tax free is peanuts.
I'm sure Labour will immediately equalise CGT and IT rates.
Agree for 2nd homes, but matters when selling shares and will cause a hell of a lot of admin for small sales.
As I said, most typical middle class investors have their investments in tax shelters. Those with large portfolios outside of an ISA or SIPP are the minority and can presumably afford it.
I now await apologies from the “it was a missile” mob and the “it was a boat” brigade
While I don't think I expressed an opinion either way (all I've seen is a video, which is quite inconclusive) I'd want more direct evidence than 'the NYT says' to accept something. For example, a summary of the experts' analyses showing the damage is consistent with a bomb delivered from above the roadway in a truck and why it is inconsistent with other possible causes.
I'm sure such reports could be put into a fairly accessible format by a competent journalist - e.g. this bit bends this way, which wouldn't happen is explosion was here. Here are images from missile blasts, look how they differ etc.
Tbf this approach of not cutting capital projects is correct long term I think. There's more of an argument for power projects compared to rail now though imv.
The Kerch bridge explosion. We had a stramash on PB about this. With quite a few people claiming it was done by a missile or a boat crew underneath
Some of us - including me - told them they were silly. And it was a truck bomb
The NYT has the verdict. It was a truck
The NYT piece does not afaics even address the possibility of a boat bomb - just a missile fired from a boat- and a truck bomb is assessed as "most likely".
Some Tory MP on politics live has just blamed the Last Labour Government for the coming hate budget.
You think Labour are blameless from this budget and potential housing and stock exchange crashes next year (or even next week)?
They are not.
Labour had two parliaments printing the fake money to get the country in this mess.
It’s not all Labours fault, but they share the blame.
Yep but the Tories have had 12 years to fix things and they really haven't.
The idea that a Tory will be able to blame Labour for the mess they find themselves explaining when they stand for election in 2024 is just not going to work.
I’m not saying it will work, I’m just pointing out the true history not to be lost here. It was a twenty year economic mistake, and Labour were in for eight of them.
High taxing Brexit UK doesn't seem the appealing to me.
Presumably you would be emigrating to a country in the European Union? I am always amused by people who leave "because of Brexit", to go to other Anglophone countries that aren't part of political unions with neighbouring states.
HS2 and NPR not getting cut. Its a radical idea, but investing in projects which deliver a return on investment is a Good Thing.
We need to drop the idiocy of "who will pay for it" and I'm glad he has resisted the idiots on the right saying "just fill the holes"
I've always assumed that finding big projects employs lots of people, who then spend money. Is this not what the New Deal was in the 30's?
No. Prior to the 1980s we understood that investment on targeted capex delivers a return on investment. Post 1980s we understood that investing is stupid when you can flog it off and make a profit now as the middle man. Boris understood the old way - invest, build things people need, give people jobs and thus money to circulate through the economy and we all gain. The BR/Truss lunacy wanted to slash everything. They lasted 50 days.
High taxing Brexit UK doesn't seem the appealing to me.
Presumably you would be emigrating to a country in the European Union? I am always amused by people who leave "because of Brexit", to go to other Anglophone countries that aren't part of political unions with neighbouring states.
HS2 and NPR not getting cut. Its a radical idea, but investing in projects which deliver a return on investment is a Good Thing.
We need to drop the idiocy of "who will pay for it" and I'm glad he has resisted the idiots on the right saying "just fill the holes"
I've always assumed that finding big projects employs lots of people, who then spend money. Is this not what the New Deal was in the 30's?
No. Prior to the 1980s we understood that investment on targeted capex delivers a return on investment. Post 1980s we understood that investing is stupid when you can flog it off and make a profit now as the middle man. Boris understood the old way - invest, build things people need, give people jobs and thus money to circulate through the economy and we all gain. The BR/Truss lunacy wanted to slash everything. They lasted 50 days.
Does this budget add up? They have flagged the mahoosive black hole from Loony Liz and Covid, but they're throwing vast buckets of cash at all and sundry. Yes, public services will crumble faster due to cuts, but he could have cut *everything* as demanded by BT/Trussite tories. And he hasn't.
Hunt is going to bring back a former Labour Health Secretary* to advise on improving NHS efficiency. That is a pretty damning verdict on the last 12 years of Tory Health Secs, including himself!
Anything interesting? I've been in meetings all morning.
Everything in line with what has been trailed. Patricia Hewitt appointed to conduct a review on improving NHS efficiency is the only thing worthy of an eyebrow raise.
HS2 and NPR not getting cut. Its a radical idea, but investing in projects which deliver a return on investment is a Good Thing.
We need to drop the idiocy of "who will pay for it" and I'm glad he has resisted the idiots on the right saying "just fill the holes"
I've always assumed that finding big projects employs lots of people, who then spend money. Is this not what the New Deal was in the 30's?
My understanding was that the New Deal did help stimulate economic activity but it was quite limited and had to be watered down after the failed attempt to pack the court. The real Keynesian stimulus was the war.
HS2 and NPR not getting cut. Its a radical idea, but investing in projects which deliver a return on investment is a Good Thing.
We need to drop the idiocy of "who will pay for it" and I'm glad he has resisted the idiots on the right saying "just fill the holes"
I've always assumed that finding big projects employs lots of people, who then spend money. Is this not what the New Deal was in the 30's?
No. Prior to the 1980s we understood that investment on targeted capex delivers a return on investment. Post 1980s we understood that investing is stupid when you can flog it off and make a profit now as the middle man. Boris understood the old way - invest, build things people need, give people jobs and thus money to circulate through the economy and we all gain. The BR/Truss lunacy wanted to slash everything. They lasted 50 days.
What bit does the 'no' relate to?
The question "is this not what the New Deal was in the 30s?"
Rough estimates based on the size of the fireball indicate that there was a large quantity of explosives in the truck — at least a few tons, depending on the type of explosive, said Nick Glumac, an engineering professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Other blast experts said that a smaller charge, of a ton or less, might have been sufficient.
When the bomb went off, the downward force of the blast put tremendous pressure on the bridge’s girders, the steel beams that hold up the roadway. The blast was perfectly placed in the middle of a span, where it is most prone to flex under pressure, making the beams especially vulnerable.
Some images of the wreckage suggest that the truck exploded directly over one of those beams, which could also have ripped away part of the steel. They gave way, and the span buckled.
But the damage was far more extensive than that one spot. That’s because the roadway underneath the bomb was a continuous structure over five of the piers, covering about 900 feet, according to engineers.
The span overwhelmed by the explosion happened to be near the center of that stretch of road. When the span fell, it pulled the road toward it in both directions. The free ends of the road at the joints on either side slid off the piers on which they rested and fell toward the water.”
Fiscal Conservatives can rejoice knowing the effects of paying higher tax and NI and cutting Public Services will mean that government debt will fall from from 97.6% of GDP in 2025-6 to 97.3% in 2027-8.
Question for my mouth-foaming Tory friends. Jeremy Hunt is a very good communicator and political operator. He isn't a risk to national security, or a bully, or a fondler.
Why on earth was he banished to the back benches for so long?
Question for my mouth-foaming Tory friends. Jeremy Hunt is a very good communicator and political operator. He isn't a risk to national security, or a bully, or a fondler.
Why on earth was he banished to the back benches for so long?
HS2 and NPR not getting cut. Its a radical idea, but investing in projects which deliver a return on investment is a Good Thing.
We need to drop the idiocy of "who will pay for it" and I'm glad he has resisted the idiots on the right saying "just fill the holes"
I've always assumed that finding big projects employs lots of people, who then spend money. Is this not what the New Deal was in the 30's?
No. Prior to the 1980s we understood that investment on targeted capex delivers a return on investment. Post 1980s we understood that investing is stupid when you can flog it off and make a profit now as the middle man. Boris understood the old way - invest, build things people need, give people jobs and thus money to circulate through the economy and we all gain. The BR/Truss lunacy wanted to slash everything. They lasted 50 days.
What bit does the 'no' relate to?
The question "is this not what the New Deal was in the 30s?"
So what was the new deal then? I thought capital spending projects such as the Hoover Dam were involved? Mt history is probably hazy on this!
Fiscal Conservatives can rejoice knowing the effects of paying higher tax and NI and cutting Public Services will mean that government debt will fall from from 97.6% of GDP in 2025-6 to 97.3% in 2027-8.
It is better than that, they can rejoice knowing that the effects of paying higher tax and NI and cutting Public Services will mean that optimistic projections of government debt will fall from from 97.6% of GDP in 2025-6 to 97.3% in 2027-8.
Question for my mouth-foaming Tory friends. Jeremy Hunt is a very good communicator and political operator. He isn't a risk to national security, or a bully, or a fondler.
Why on earth was he banished to the back benches for so long?
He does have a potential China problem, if things hot up between the West & Xi.
High taxing Brexit UK doesn't seem the appealing to me.
Presumably you would be emigrating to a country in the European Union? I am always amused by people who leave "because of Brexit", to go to other Anglophone countries that aren't part of political unions with neighbouring states.
I was thinking of Ireland.
Kerry or Mayo?
Donegal, no wait, Dublin.
There's a 5-bed house in the SW Dublin suburbs that the Irish government would probably be willing to sell to you at a discount if you want it.
Question for my mouth-foaming Tory friends. Jeremy Hunt is a very good communicator and political operator. He isn't a risk to national security, or a bully, or a fondler.
Why on earth was he banished to the back benches for so long?
Is the answer "there was no vacancy because the front benches were full of national security risks, bullies, and fondlers, who weren't going to step down."
There’s a reasonable chance energy suppliers will start offering fixed deals below the new £3k cap, I recon.
Why would they? Easy money to stick it at £3k and make huge profits.
Because there are hundreds of thousands of households (Inc me) who moved from their fix to a variable for the first time, and would jump at a 12 month fix below the cap?
If you sell a 2nd home or investment property what matters is the CGT rate. Whether 3k or 12k is tax free is peanuts.
I'm sure Labour will immediately equalise CGT and IT rates.
Agree for 2nd homes, but matters when selling shares and will cause a hell of a lot of admin for small sales.
As I said, most typical middle class investors have their investments in tax shelters. Those with large portfolios outside of an ISA or SIPP are the minority and can presumably afford it.
I wasn't thinking of the tax take, I was thinking of the admin. For the vast majority of people with small shareholdings they have had since privatisation CGT has been irrelevant. Most won't even do tax returns. It is madness to start bringing small shareholdings into CGT. It brings in next to nothing and causes masses of admin.
Question for my mouth-foaming Tory friends. Jeremy Hunt is a very good communicator and political operator. He isn't a risk to national security, or a bully, or a fondler.
Why on earth was he banished to the back benches for so long?
To be fair that was his choice. He was offered a Cabinet post by Johnson after he lost the leadership race but decided to return to the back benches. He said at the time he would only have stayed if he could have kept his job as FS.
The only lock that is going to apply for a while is inflation... and I don't think you can realistically expect pensioners to take the hit on that at 11%.
There’s no way anyone is going to cancel HS2. Last Sunday when out with my older daughter in Bucks I drove under a completed section of the track with cranes building more
It is ABSOLUTELY BLOODY ENORMOUS
Both me and the kiddo said “omg what’s that”?
It was so big, looming out of the autumn mist, it looked otherworldly. A vast alien structure landing on earth
If you sell a 2nd home or investment property what matters is the CGT rate. Whether 3k or 12k is tax free is peanuts.
I'm sure Labour will immediately equalise CGT and IT rates.
Agree for 2nd homes, but matters when selling shares and will cause a hell of a lot of admin for small sales.
As I said, most typical middle class investors have their investments in tax shelters. Those with large portfolios outside of an ISA or SIPP are the minority and can presumably afford it.
Question for my mouth-foaming Tory friends. Jeremy Hunt is a very good communicator and political operator. He isn't a risk to national security, or a bully, or a fondler.
Why on earth was he banished to the back benches for so long?
HS2 and NPR not getting cut. Its a radical idea, but investing in projects which deliver a return on investment is a Good Thing.
We need to drop the idiocy of "who will pay for it" and I'm glad he has resisted the idiots on the right saying "just fill the holes"
HS2 has a boondogglish whiff, but I think we're beyond the sunk-cost-fallacy point where dropping it would be viable.
Northern English cities desperately need a better train service though, and have done for decades. I'm travelling across the Pennines regularly at the mo and it's a bloody nightmare.
The WCML under Avanti is dogshit too, but that's a separate thing.
Food inflation hurting the poorest is 16%. There needs to be an intervention on eggs and milk.
No there doesn't. The government can't step in for everything and everyone. Even this level of intervention in the energy market is too much. Wages are rising at 10% for minimum wage workers and about 6-7% for everyone else. It's time to let the market dictate prices and people be responsible for their own spending again. The state clearly can't take on the burden and if we want to get inflation under control there will need to be a level of demand destruction, impossible to do that if the state intervenes and subsidises consumers and industry.
The most likely lock to be dropped is the link with earnings, so it would make no difference to this state pension increase in line with inflation. There is no political benefit and no cash saving to be made from dropping the triple lock at this time.
At first sight this looks to be a good and well-balanced budget, given the starting position.
Yes. I thought Hunt was really very good. The best budget speech for ages. However the circumstances are awful and much of what Reeves is saying is correct. She's very good too.
Question for my mouth-foaming Tory friends. Jeremy Hunt is a very good communicator and political operator. He isn't a risk to national security, or a bully, or a fondler.
Why on earth was he banished to the back benches for so long?
To be fair that was his choice. He was offered a Cabinet post by Johnson after he lost the leadership race but decided to return to the back benches. He said at the time he would only have stayed if he could have kept his job as FS.
Also he got elected to Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, so wasn't exactly sitting on the backbenches picking his nose (especially when COVID came around).
You could say the same on the other side for people like Yvette Cooper. She didn't get the call up from the sub bench for a year after Starmer took charge.
Its the silly game of internal politics that all parties play.
At first sight this looks to be a good and well-balanced budget, given the starting position.
It was always going to be the case of wait for three days on this one though, as it’s going to be stuffed with stealth taxes - the question being how progressive or regressive are those stealth taxes.
Food inflation hurting the poorest is 16%. There needs to be an intervention on eggs and milk.
No there doesn't. The government can't step in for everything and everyone. Even this level of intervention in the energy market is too much. Wages are rising at 10% for minimum wage workers and about 6-7% for everyone else. It's time to let the market dictate prices and people be responsible for their own spending again. The state clearly can't take on the burden and if we want to get inflation under control there will need to be a level of demand destruction, impossible to do that if the state intervenes and subsidises consumers and industry.
But people will literally die if everything isn't exactly the same as it was before.. where have you been?
There’s no way anyone is going to cancel HS2. Last Sunday when out with my older daughter in Bucks I drove under a completed section of the track with cranes building more
It is ABSOLUTELY BLOODY ENORMOUS
Both me and the kiddo said “omg what’s that”?
It was so big, looming out of the autumn mist, it looked otherworldly. A vast alien structure landing on earth
It’s too far gone to cancel
Agreed. Anyone who says now to cancel doesn't live nearby. We live about 5 miles from the HS2 route in Bucks. If you go and stand on top of Coombe Hill in Bucks, right next to Chequers, you can see the line of building works scythe through the land. I think it was the wrong thing to do for a number of reasons but there is no point stopping it now.
At first sight this looks to be a good and well-balanced budget, given the starting position.
I completely agree, given what is happening this is about as rational a response as you could hope for, though I still think the triple lock has to go when circumstances improve.
Will have a proper read through the OBR numbers after lunch. At first glance the inflation forecasts look too high, there's a glut of supply coming over the next two years so I don't see how inflation stays at elevated levels for that long. By mid 2024 we'll be talking about rate cuts because inflation is falling too fast.
At first sight this looks to be a good and well-balanced budget, given the starting position.
Yes. I thought Hunt was really very good. The best budget speech for ages. However the circumstances are awful and much of what Reeves is saying is correct. She's very good too.
She is. And what I think really resonates is that the Tories are having to take this action because of the lunacy of the Tories, as it did in the mid 90s.
Lets remember back. Ken Clark was a good chancellor (and a genuinely decent bloke working for another genuinely decent PM). And the Tories got eviscerated for the actions of his predecessor. It doesn't matter how gently Jeremy Hunt does this, he will be the fall guy.
Comments
You actually believe anything written in The New York Times?
They are not.
Labour had two parliaments printing the fake money to get the country in this mess.
It’s not all Labours fault, but they share the blame.
Reducing the allowances is just loose change.
If you sell a 2nd home or investment property what matters is the CGT rate. Whether 3k or 12k is tax free is peanuts.
I'm sure Labour will immediately equalise CGT and IT rates.
The idea that a Tory will be able to blame Labour for the mess they find themselves explaining when they stand for election in 2024 is just not going to work.
Accountants gonna be very for the next 4 months.
It’ll juice the govts books a bit, in the short term.
It’s not fair, though. He should have upped the rates and made it immediate.
https://twitter.com/AnushkaAsthana/status/1593212574753255427?t=8bJMpnGI8jwDK_G0oaE1fw&s=19
*quite possible the worst Health Sec of my professional career too.
We need to drop the idiocy of "who will pay for it" and I'm glad he has resisted the idiots on the right saying "just fill the holes"
But still the Gov't is pocketing VAT from my solar battery investment !
ValleyRoundabout is back again.Of the 82 comments I struggle to find any supportive ones.
Typical of the genre:
"Totally disgusting the public don't want this to happen so please don't say we do you don't speak for us anymore sooner conservative party is voted out the better."
I mean I know it's social media and I know that for those 82 there could easily by 820 people quietly getting on with welcoming them but it is a relatively significant response if one believes that whereas there may be 10 people per gobshite who disagree, there will be X people per gobshite who agree.
Once the utility of the psy-ops is exhausted, the NYT quietly says what really happened. Cf the Darya Dugina bomb, which was initially blamed on renegade Russians, then the NYT belatedly revealed it was a Ukrainian attack
It was a truck
That's not to ignore the self-obsessed incompetence of Boris Johnson and other problems (Coalition was mostly good but the slashing of judicial system spending was shortsighted). But pretending or implying the Conservatives, including Coalition, started with a blank slate rather than inheriting a vast deficit and debt from Labour, or that the pandemic hasn't affected things massively, is not reasonable.
Did you know this truck used what.three.words to position the optimum place to cause the most damage?
I'm sure such reports could be put into a fairly accessible format by a competent journalist - e.g. this bit bends this way, which wouldn't happen is explosion was here. Here are images from missile blasts, look how they differ etc.
Prior to the 1980s we understood that investment on targeted capex delivers a return on investment.
Post 1980s we understood that investing is stupid when you can flog it off and make a profit now as the middle man.
Boris understood the old way - invest, build things people need, give people jobs and thus money to circulate through the economy and we all gain. The BR/Truss lunacy wanted to slash everything. They lasted 50 days.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-63662624
In short you and I are going to pay more taxes for pensioners to live in luxury.
This budget kicks the cuts the country must make till after the next general election.
Those insults Big G got for predicting this before the speech don’t look so clever now do they.
The simplest, easiest, most obvious explanation was: a truck. It’s not exactly amazing it turned out to be: a truck
Why all the fuss?
Now Reeves to reply
Rough estimates based on the size of the fireball indicate that there was a large quantity of explosives in the truck — at least a few tons, depending on the type of explosive, said Nick Glumac, an engineering professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Other blast experts said that a smaller charge, of a ton or less, might have been sufficient.
When the bomb went off, the downward force of the blast put tremendous pressure on the bridge’s girders, the steel beams that hold up the roadway. The blast was perfectly placed in the middle of a span, where it is most prone to flex under pressure, making the beams especially vulnerable.
Some images of the wreckage suggest that the truck exploded directly over one of those beams, which could also have ripped away part of the steel. They gave way, and the span buckled.
But the damage was far more extensive than that one spot. That’s because the roadway underneath the bomb was a continuous structure over five of the piers, covering about 900 feet, according to engineers.
The span overwhelmed by the explosion happened to be near the center of that stretch of road. When the span fell, it pulled the road toward it in both directions. The free ends of the road at the joints on either side slid off the piers on which they rested and fell toward the water.”
Why on earth was he banished to the back benches for so long?
Where’s the free egg?
First mover advantage
https://www.politico.eu/article/jeremy-hunt-out-cabinet/
It is ABSOLUTELY BLOODY ENORMOUS
Both me and the kiddo said “omg what’s that”?
It was so big, looming out of the autumn mist, it looked otherworldly. A vast alien structure landing on earth
It’s too far gone to cancel
Northern English cities desperately need a better train service though, and have done for decades. I'm travelling across the Pennines regularly at the mo and it's a bloody nightmare.
The WCML under Avanti is dogshit too, but that's a separate thing.
Why don't you come down to London, it might surprise you on the upside?
You could say the same on the other side for people like Yvette Cooper. She didn't get the call up from the sub bench for a year after Starmer took charge.
Its the silly game of internal politics that all parties play.
PM in the making.
Lets remember back. Ken Clark was a good chancellor (and a genuinely decent bloke working for another genuinely decent PM). And the Tories got eviscerated for the actions of his predecessor. It doesn't matter how gently Jeremy Hunt does this, he will be the fall guy.