I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Yes, I have a friend who was part of the finance team for the Millenium Dome project. Got deep laughs for years afterwards, whenever they mentioned it.
In fact they didn’t mention it very often; but we did!
Now it's one of the most successful venues in the UK so they've had the last laugh.
George Stephenson had much the same experience on the Liverpool and Manchester, of course, where people confidently predicted disaster in crossing Chat Moss. And Robert was told he'd never live down Kilsby Tunnel.
It's quite funny now reading stories about Chat Moss, which make it sound like the Bog of Despair from the Never-ending Story.
In truth, it was just a new (and difficult) engineering challenge at the time - you couldn't go round it and knowledge of geotechnics was in its infancy.
Russia's population reached "145.1 million on Aug. 1, a fall of 475,500 since the start of the year and down from 148.3 million in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed."
Next couple of decades are going to be fascinating demographically. I don’t think most people are prepared for such a huge paradigm shift.
Essentially 4 types of population pattern around the world leading up to mid century:
1. Massive growth in sub Saharan Africa especially in working age populations. Have we quite clocked yet that, for example, the West African randstadt from Lagos to Abidjan is going to become the biggest population concentration in the world? 2. Slow peak and then flattening in South Asia, Middle East and Latam with the beginnings of ageing populations 3. Roughly flat to slightly declining populations in those Western and East Asian countries with significant immigration 4. Huge population declines across the rest of Eurasia, especially Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean
The big one is China. The demographic transition there to ageing and declining is particularly rapid.
This has geopolitical implications. The moment of peak Chinese power is approaching. There will be a temptation to use that power to shape the future before the moment passes.
It’s tragic the Tory government has stooped this low.
I’m generally pretty hot on law and order stuff: violence, sexual crimes, fraud, robbery/burglary etc, the police/criminal justice system should be properly resourced and given enhanced legal backing imo - but this public order bill stinks.
It’s one thing I am hoping to get from a Starmer government - proper policing/criminal justice reform.
He’s a smart guy who spent a long time at a high level inside the system. He must have lots of well thought through ideas for how to get the system working.
Hope so, but at present he actually wants to abolish the House which just voted down the bullshit Public Order Bill.
Let’s imagine a counter-factual in which a the HoL was elected “mid-term”. If said election had taken place late 2021 the Conservatives would likely have a majority and this bullshit bill would have passed.
Not under a fair voting system, hopefully.
Under PR there would be up to 70 Reform UK Senators in a fully elected upper house, all voting with the Tories for the Public Order Bill.
Farage may still not be Lord Farage but he would certainly be Senator Farage!
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
That's the argument of the extremely credible Andrew Gilligan: ...A report by the Policy Exchange think-tank found cancelling all sections of HS2 where main construction has not started would save around £3billion a year by 2027-28, and £44billion or more in total.
Its author, the former No10 transport adviser Andrew Gilligan wrote: “HS2 now costs more to build than the value of the benefits it will deliver.
“The official benefit cost ratio shows that for every £1 spent on the scheme, the country gets back benefits worth only 90p. Shortening the scheme improves its value for money.”..
Note, though, that the readers' poll, in the Sun article I clipped that from, was 70% in favour of completing the project.
Andrew Gilligan has always been strongly opposed to HS2 and was a friend of the infamous Joe Rukin. It is not surprising that he takes that view because, well, he always has.
The problem is you can twist the figures he's using any which way - he's using hypothetical expenditure against hypothetical income.
I would add though that by scrapping the Eastern leg the business case for HS2 has definitely been damaged.
The business case for HS2, given how expensive it is, is now highly marginal.
It's more of a strategic investment in connecting the country together better, and providing resilience, with political benefits too. Something had to be done as existing transport corridors were at capacity and it was even more difficult to significantly upgrade the live routes and it would have had mass brownfield/demolition implications, but in terms of GVA to the UK economy HS2 will probably just wash its face.
Unlocking extra growth will come from what it enables regionally, subsequently.
Support for holding a referendum on Scottish independence in the coming months has plummeted among Yes voters, according to new polling.
Research carried out by YouGov between January 23 and 26 found that backing for a referendum this year stands at 52 per cent among people who voted Yes in 2014, a fall of 13 points since December.
The new research was released as senior SNP figures poured cold water on Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to hold a “de facto” constitutional contest.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
I think this is what has happened with the Trams to Newhaven extension in Edinburgh.
Given the inquiry into the original trams has now cost more than Chilcot, you'd have to be a brave contractor to pick it up.
It's now the lowest quality and ugliest public infrastructure I've ever seen (though I haven't seen the new Inverness Airport station, which also looks horrible).
Clear that “let us finish the job” is the message for the re-election
I don't disagree with Mike that Biden is probably too old. But I also think he'll run, and will be a far better President than anyone I can imagine the Republicans selecting to run in 2024.
Doddery or not, for now he still has it. In a combative moment filled with GOP heckles, Pres. Biden got Republican lawmakers to agree not to cut Social Security and Medicare as part of the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations https://mobile.twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1623183393176403971
(Not that the Republicans will keep any such commitment.)
Biden is in some respects the Democrat Reagan.
No intellectual by any means, ageing and doddery but with an old school charm that masks a political killer instinct
Support for holding a referendum on Scottish independence in the coming months has plummeted among Yes voters, according to new polling.
Research carried out by YouGov between January 23 and 26 found that backing for a referendum this year stands at 52 per cent among people who voted Yes in 2014, a fall of 13 points since December.
The new research was released as senior SNP figures poured cold water on Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to hold a “de facto” constitutional contest.
Clear that “let us finish the job” is the message for the re-election
I don't disagree with Mike that Biden is probably too old. But I also think he'll run, and will be a far better President than anyone I can imagine the Republicans selecting to run in 2024.
Doddery or not, for now he still has it. In a combative moment filled with GOP heckles, Pres. Biden got Republican lawmakers to agree not to cut Social Security and Medicare as part of the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations https://mobile.twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1623183393176403971
(Not that the Republicans will keep any such commitment.)
Biden is in some respects the Democrat Reagan.
No intellectual by any means, ageing and doddery but with an old school charm that masks a political killer instinct
Has to be said Reagan told the better jokes.
But then, Reagan told better jokes delivered more expertly than many professional stand-up comedians.
Support for holding a referendum on Scottish independence in the coming months has plummeted among Yes voters, according to new polling.
Research carried out by YouGov between January 23 and 26 found that backing for a referendum this year stands at 52 per cent among people who voted Yes in 2014, a fall of 13 points since December.
The new research was released as senior SNP figures poured cold water on Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to hold a “de facto” constitutional contest.
Of course, there is an argument that this might be a very good time to have a second referendum from a Unionist point of view. But things are moving in an encouraging direction after being somewhat on the back foot for most of the last couple of years.
Clear that “let us finish the job” is the message for the re-election
I don't disagree with Mike that Biden is probably too old. But I also think he'll run, and will be a far better President than anyone I can imagine the Republicans selecting to run in 2024.
Doddery or not, for now he still has it. In a combative moment filled with GOP heckles, Pres. Biden got Republican lawmakers to agree not to cut Social Security and Medicare as part of the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations https://mobile.twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1623183393176403971
(Not that the Republicans will keep any such commitment.)
Biden is in some respects the Democrat Reagan.
No intellectual by any means, ageing and doddery but with an old school charm that masks a political killer instinct
Has to be said Reagan told the better jokes.
But then, Reagan told better jokes delivered more expertly than many professional stand-up comedians.
Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop using male pronouns 'He' and 'Him' when referring to God in prayers and drop phrase 'our Father' from the Lord's Prayer
Obviously a classic Daily Mail "could", but they really are getting themselves in a mess. Old Right Justin Wokeby won't do gay blessings, but could end up doing this....no wonder bugger all people want anything to do with church.
This would have to get through Synod first and given there is not even the required 2/3 majority for homosexual marriage there yet, hence the Blessings compromise, zero chance this gets through
The UK’s leading Jewish organisation and a group of MPs have called on GB News and the media regulator Ofcom to tackle the broadcaster’s indulgence of conspiracy theories, warning that some recent segments and guests risked spreading ideas linked to antisemitism.
The criticism comes as the channel faces increasing scrutiny over its mix of serious news with programmes that delve heavily into conspiracies about areas including Covid vaccines and a plot to create a world government.
The decision by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism to speak out follows a recent edition of the weekly GB News show hosted by Neil Oliver, the broadcaster and historian.
Oliver, who delivers trademark monologues to camera, used the show last Saturday to discuss what he called a “silent war” by generations of politicians to take “total control of the people” and impose a “one-world government”.
The idea seemingly echoes a noted conspiracy theory document called Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars, supposedly a secret manual for world government found by chance in 1986. This has a long section on the role of the Rothschild banking dynasty, a common antisemitic trope.
On the same show, one of Oliver’s guests was a man called William Keyte, introduced as a “constitutional expert”, who is a supporter of a fringe campaign group called the New Chartist Movement.
Keyte’s focus is on the supposed primacy of common law over parliament, which has no crossover with antisemitic ideas.
However, the New Chartist Movement website contains articles written by other members and contributors that contain antisemitic-linked ideas. It also features pieces written by David Icke, the TV presenter-turned conspiracy theorist who has claimed that a shadowy cabal controls the world, a familiar antisemitic argument.
Other articles on the New Chartist website include one arguing that the “corporate and banking Deep State, completely supported by the Zionist state of Israel” plans to take control of UK politics, another antisemitic notion. Another argues that the “House of Rothschild” has a pivotal role in world affairs.
Russia's population reached "145.1 million on Aug. 1, a fall of 475,500 since the start of the year and down from 148.3 million in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed."
You deduct at least another 130K from that and rising for Ukraine
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
That's the argument of the extremely credible Andrew Gilligan: ...A report by the Policy Exchange think-tank found cancelling all sections of HS2 where main construction has not started would save around £3billion a year by 2027-28, and £44billion or more in total.
Its author, the former No10 transport adviser Andrew Gilligan wrote: “HS2 now costs more to build than the value of the benefits it will deliver.
“The official benefit cost ratio shows that for every £1 spent on the scheme, the country gets back benefits worth only 90p. Shortening the scheme improves its value for money.”..
Note, though, that the readers' poll, in the Sun article I clipped that from, was 70% in favour of completing the project.
Andrew Gilligan has always been strongly opposed to HS2 and was a friend of the infamous Joe Rukin. It is not surprising that he takes that view because, well, he always has.
The problem is you can twist the figures he's using any which way - he's using hypothetical expenditure against hypothetical income.
I would add though that by scrapping the Eastern leg the business case for HS2 has definitely been damaged.
The business case for HS2, given how expensive it is, is now highly marginal.
It's more of a strategic investment in connecting the country together better, and providing resilience, with political benefits too. Something had to be done as existing transport corridors were at capacity and it was even more difficult to significantly upgrade the live routes and it would have had mass brownfield/demolition implications, but in terms of GVA to the UK economy HS2 will probably just wash its face.
Unlocking extra growth will come from what it enables regionally, subsequently.
I just spent a week visiting the kids up in Leamington. The HS2 work to the south and east of the town is extensive. There has been a lot of excavation and some of the tunneling work seems to have begun. In many places, the landscape is totally unrecognisable. If it all turns out to have been largely for nothing then that will represent a hell of a lot of wasted time, money and destroyed countryside, some of it very ancient.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
IANAE (by any stretch of the imagination), but I broadly feel warm towards the idea of investment in good infrastructure. There's a lot of hostility on here towards HS2. Is it just because of the massive cost? I get that an M62 'crossrail of the north' would have been a better rail investment, but what is it that makes HS2 particularly bad?
Waste of a fortune jsut so some fcukwits get to London 20 minutes quicker. Much better the money had been spent putting some actual decent transport systems in North of England rather than yet more cash splurged on the southern snowflakes.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
That's the argument of the extremely credible Andrew Gilligan: ...A report by the Policy Exchange think-tank found cancelling all sections of HS2 where main construction has not started would save around £3billion a year by 2027-28, and £44billion or more in total.
Its author, the former No10 transport adviser Andrew Gilligan wrote: “HS2 now costs more to build than the value of the benefits it will deliver.
“The official benefit cost ratio shows that for every £1 spent on the scheme, the country gets back benefits worth only 90p. Shortening the scheme improves its value for money.”..
Note, though, that the readers' poll, in the Sun article I clipped that from, was 70% in favour of completing the project.
Andrew Gilligan has always been strongly opposed to HS2 and was a friend of the infamous Joe Rukin. It is not surprising that he takes that view because, well, he always has.
The problem is you can twist the figures he's using any which way - he's using hypothetical expenditure against hypothetical income.
I would add though that by scrapping the Eastern leg the business case for HS2 has definitely been damaged.
The business case for HS2, given how expensive it is, is now highly marginal.
It's more of a strategic investment in connecting the country together better, and providing resilience, with political benefits too. Something had to be done as existing transport corridors were at capacity and it was even more difficult to significantly upgrade the live routes and it would have had mass brownfield/demolition implications, but in terms of GVA to the UK economy HS2 will probably just wash its face.
Unlocking extra growth will come from what it enables regionally, subsequently.
I just spent a week visiting the kids up in Leamington. The HS2 work to the south and east of the town is extensive. There has been a lot of excavation and some of the tunneling work seems to have begun. In many places, the landscape is totally unrecognisable. If it all turns out to have been largely for nothing then that will represent a hell of a lot of wasted time, money and destroyed countryside, some of it very ancient.
Russia's population reached "145.1 million on Aug. 1, a fall of 475,500 since the start of the year and down from 148.3 million in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed."
Next couple of decades are going to be fascinating demographically. I don’t think most people are prepared for such a huge paradigm shift.
Essentially 4 types of population pattern around the world leading up to mid century:
1. Massive growth in sub Saharan Africa especially in working age populations. Have we quite clocked yet that, for example, the West African randstadt from Lagos to Abidjan is going to become the biggest population concentration in the world? 2. Slow peak and then flattening in South Asia, Middle East and Latam with the beginnings of ageing populations 3. Roughly flat to slightly declining populations in those Western and East Asian countries with significant immigration 4. Huge population declines across the rest of Eurasia, especially Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean
I would add, big changes in the age profile within those countries with stable or falling populations, with the old age dependency ratio (retirement age people per working age people) going up by a factor of 2-4 over the course of this century.
By rights West Africa in particular should become an economic powerhouse, if they can cut the bureaucracy and trade protectionism, and build decent infrastructure. Perfect demographics this century.
Plus unlike other recent economic growth engines (with the possible exception of India) I could see West Africa starting to compete with the West for media and culture soft power. It has a more globally translatable, less insular or specific pop culture.
West African music already provides much of the cultural lineage of Western pop music and the West African diaspora many of its biggest stars. It is a region ripe with cultural and economic potential, if they can fix their political issues.
A think tank has forecast that Britain will avoid a technical recession not only in the final three months of 2022 but throughout 2023.
The economy will grow by 0.2 per cent this year, according to the latest prediction by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. Its expectation of mild growth in each quarter suggests the country will not meet the criteria of two consecutive three-month periods of negative growth needed to count as a recession.
Interesting leader approval numbers out of Scotland this morning from Ipsos. Starmer and Sturgeon basically tied. The UK Labour leader with higher net approval than the Scottish Labour leader. Sunak not very popular at all!
Support for holding a referendum on Scottish independence in the coming months has plummeted among Yes voters, according to new polling.
Research carried out by YouGov between January 23 and 26 found that backing for a referendum this year stands at 52 per cent among people who voted Yes in 2014, a fall of 13 points since December.
The new research was released as senior SNP figures poured cold water on Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to hold a “de facto” constitutional contest.
Support for holding a referendum on Scottish independence in the coming months has plummeted among Yes voters, according to new polling.
Research carried out by YouGov between January 23 and 26 found that backing for a referendum this year stands at 52 per cent among people who voted Yes in 2014, a fall of 13 points since December.
The new research was released as senior SNP figures poured cold water on Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to hold a “de facto” constitutional contest.
Of course, there is an argument that this might be a very good time to have a second referendum from a Unionist point of view. But things are moving in an encouraging direction after being somewhat on the back foot for most of the last couple of years.
I doubt it David and for sure the unionists are too cowardly to try it. Only a case of when.
The UK’s leading Jewish organisation and a group of MPs have called on GB News and the media regulator Ofcom to tackle the broadcaster’s indulgence of conspiracy theories, warning that some recent segments and guests risked spreading ideas linked to antisemitism.
The criticism comes as the channel faces increasing scrutiny over its mix of serious news with programmes that delve heavily into conspiracies about areas including Covid vaccines and a plot to create a world government.
The decision by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism to speak out follows a recent edition of the weekly GB News show hosted by Neil Oliver, the broadcaster and historian.
Oliver, who delivers trademark monologues to camera, used the show last Saturday to discuss what he called a “silent war” by generations of politicians to take “total control of the people” and impose a “one-world government”.
The idea seemingly echoes a noted conspiracy theory document called Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars, supposedly a secret manual for world government found by chance in 1986. This has a long section on the role of the Rothschild banking dynasty, a common antisemitic trope.
On the same show, one of Oliver’s guests was a man called William Keyte, introduced as a “constitutional expert”, who is a supporter of a fringe campaign group called the New Chartist Movement.
Keyte’s focus is on the supposed primacy of common law over parliament, which has no crossover with antisemitic ideas.
However, the New Chartist Movement website contains articles written by other members and contributors that contain antisemitic-linked ideas. It also features pieces written by David Icke, the TV presenter-turned conspiracy theorist who has claimed that a shadowy cabal controls the world, a familiar antisemitic argument.
Other articles on the New Chartist website include one arguing that the “corporate and banking Deep State, completely supported by the Zionist state of Israel” plans to take control of UK politics, another antisemitic notion. Another argues that the “House of Rothschild” has a pivotal role in world affairs.
I don't pretend to keep up in any manner or form but I thought that David Icke's "shadowy conspiracy" was made up of lizards, not jews. Suggesting that shadowy conspiracies are automatically an anti-Semitic trop seems to me to be overstating it somewhat.
A think tank has forecast that Britain will avoid a technical recession not only in the final three months of 2022 but throughout 2023.
The economy will grow by 0.2 per cent this year, according to the latest prediction by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. Its expectation of mild growth in each quarter suggests the country will not meet the criteria of two consecutive three-month periods of negative growth needed to count as a recession.
A think tank has forecast that Britain will avoid a technical recession not only in the final three months of 2022 but throughout 2023.
The economy will grow by 0.2 per cent this year, according to the latest prediction by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. Its expectation of mild growth in each quarter suggests the country will not meet the criteria of two consecutive three-month periods of negative growth needed to count as a recession.
Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop using male pronouns 'He' and 'Him' when referring to God in prayers and drop phrase 'our Father' from the Lord's Prayer
Obviously a classic Daily Mail "could", but they really are getting themselves in a mess. Old Right Justin Wokeby won't do gay blessings, but could end up doing this....no wonder bugger all people want anything to do with church.
This would have to get through Synod first and given there is not even the required 2/3 majority for homosexual marriage there yet, hence the Blessings compromise, zero chance this gets through
The Lord's prayer is already a disgraceful wokefest that should have all decent Mail readers frothing at the mouth. "thy will be done"... Nanny state in action! "give us this day our daily bread"... Scroungers! "as we forgive those who trespass against us"... Soft on crime! "deliver us from evil"... Deliver yourself! Don't expect something for nothing!
Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop using male pronouns 'He' and 'Him' when referring to God in prayers and drop phrase 'our Father' from the Lord's Prayer
Obviously a classic Daily Mail "could", but they really are getting themselves in a mess. Old Right Justin Wokeby won't do gay blessings, but could end up doing this....no wonder bugger all people want anything to do with church.
This would have to get through Synod first and given there is not even the required 2/3 majority for homosexual marriage there yet, hence the Blessings compromise, zero chance this gets through
The Lord's prayer is already a disgraceful wokefest that should have all decent Mail readers frothing at the mouth. "thy will be done"... Nanny state in action! "give us this day our daily bread"... Scroungers! "as we forgive those who trespass against us"... Soft on crime! "deliver us from evil"... Deliver yourself! Don't expect something for nothing!
As you say, Christianity is supposed to be woke. Which raises some questions about what the C of E, and especially its evangelical branch, are.
Clear that “let us finish the job” is the message for the re-election
I don't disagree with Mike that Biden is probably too old. But I also think he'll run, and will be a far better President than anyone I can imagine the Republicans selecting to run in 2024.
Doddery or not, for now he still has it. In a combative moment filled with GOP heckles, Pres. Biden got Republican lawmakers to agree not to cut Social Security and Medicare as part of the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations https://mobile.twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1623183393176403971
(Not that the Republicans will keep any such commitment.)
Biden is in some respects the Democrat Reagan.
No intellectual by any means, ageing and doddery but with an old school charm that masks a political killer instinct
Has to be said Reagan told the better jokes.
But then, Reagan told better jokes delivered more expertly than many professional stand-up comedians.
Reagan was a Hollywood actor.
Lots of them are seriously rubbish at telling jokes. He wasn't.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
That's the argument of the extremely credible Andrew Gilligan: ...A report by the Policy Exchange think-tank found cancelling all sections of HS2 where main construction has not started would save around £3billion a year by 2027-28, and £44billion or more in total.
Its author, the former No10 transport adviser Andrew Gilligan wrote: “HS2 now costs more to build than the value of the benefits it will deliver.
“The official benefit cost ratio shows that for every £1 spent on the scheme, the country gets back benefits worth only 90p. Shortening the scheme improves its value for money.”..
Note, though, that the readers' poll, in the Sun article I clipped that from, was 70% in favour of completing the project.
Andrew Gilligan has always been strongly opposed to HS2 and was a friend of the infamous Joe Rukin. It is not surprising that he takes that view because, well, he always has.
The problem is you can twist the figures he's using any which way - he's using hypothetical expenditure against hypothetical income.
I would add though that by scrapping the Eastern leg the business case for HS2 has definitely been damaged.
The business case for HS2, given how expensive it is, is now highly marginal.
It's more of a strategic investment in connecting the country together better, and providing resilience, with political benefits too. Something had to be done as existing transport corridors were at capacity and it was even more difficult to significantly upgrade the live routes and it would have had mass brownfield/demolition implications, but in terms of GVA to the UK economy HS2 will probably just wash its face.
Unlocking extra growth will come from what it enables regionally, subsequently.
I just spent a week visiting the kids up in Leamington. The HS2 work to the south and east of the town is extensive. There has been a lot of excavation and some of the tunneling work seems to have begun. In many places, the landscape is totally unrecognisable. If it all turns out to have been largely for nothing then that will represent a hell of a lot of wasted time, money and destroyed countryside, some of it very ancient.
Has crackley woods been bulldozed ?
It was never intended to bulldoze Crackley Woods (unlike ye olde Kenilworth-Berkswell line which cuts right through). A swathe has been dug through Broadwells Wood further north with a massive amount of new trees planted in compensation. In the fulness of time Crackley Woods will be larger than before but it's a bit messy round there at the moment.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
IANAE (by any stretch of the imagination), but I broadly feel warm towards the idea of investment in good infrastructure. There's a lot of hostility on here towards HS2. Is it just because of the massive cost? I get that an M62 'crossrail of the north' would have been a better rail investment, but what is it that makes HS2 particularly bad?
Waste of a fortune jsut so some fcukwits get to London 20 minutes quicker. Much better the money had been spent putting some actual decent transport systems in North of England rather than yet more cash splurged on the southern snowflakes.
It's a capacity, not speed, thing.
Otherwise, I agree. Look at the immense cost and subsequent success of Crossrail,for our richest city with the best public transport in the country.
If the government was really interested in levelling up, they would've started building HS2 from both ends (Glasgow/Leeds/Liverpool). Or got Northern Powerhouse in first.
Crossrail is a great example of induced demand btw - already packed out. We'll see the same happen with cycling as coherent, segregated cycle networks are put in.
Breaking - Zelensky in the UK today, addresses parliament this pm
It'd be hilarious if someone's encouraged Boris to go to Kyiv again.
EDIT: In seriousness though, that's a proper occasion.
Nothing about it in the Commons order paper as yet, but it looks like the address will reduce the time available for an important debate on local government finance....
I'm beginning to feel a little sorry for Nicola. Going fully woke on the trans debate must have seemed a good idea at the time, but it's left her open to ridicule. 'Have you seen their new slogan? The only real woman is one with a dick.'
Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop using male pronouns 'He' and 'Him' when referring to God in prayers and drop phrase 'our Father' from the Lord's Prayer
Obviously a classic Daily Mail "could", but they really are getting themselves in a mess. Old Right Justin Wokeby won't do gay blessings, but could end up doing this....no wonder bugger all people want anything to do with church.
This would have to get through Synod first and given there is not even the required 2/3 majority for homosexual marriage there yet, hence the Blessings compromise, zero chance this gets through
The Lord's prayer is already a disgraceful wokefest that should have all decent Mail readers frothing at the mouth. "thy will be done"... Nanny state in action! "give us this day our daily bread"... Scroungers! "as we forgive those who trespass against us"... Soft on crime! "deliver us from evil"... Deliver yourself! Don't expect something for nothing!
As you say, Christianity is supposed to be woke. Which raises some questions about what the C of E, and especially its evangelical branch, are.
I love everything about Christianity except the God stuff. The left in Britain has its roots far more in Methodism than Marxism.
Support for holding a referendum on Scottish independence in the coming months has plummeted among Yes voters, according to new polling.
Research carried out by YouGov between January 23 and 26 found that backing for a referendum this year stands at 52 per cent among people who voted Yes in 2014, a fall of 13 points since December.
The new research was released as senior SNP figures poured cold water on Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to hold a “de facto” constitutional contest.
There are so many issues we can't find a solution for because "if we had indepenence" is trotted out as the answer. So I hope this is the SNP starting to feel the heat finally. I still think there is a world of difference though between the drive for Independence Now coming off the boil and SNP voters deciding to bin it completely and start voting for unionist parties.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
IANAE (by any stretch of the imagination), but I broadly feel warm towards the idea of investment in good infrastructure. There's a lot of hostility on here towards HS2. Is it just because of the massive cost? I get that an M62 'crossrail of the north' would have been a better rail investment, but what is it that makes HS2 particularly bad?
Waste of a fortune jsut so some fcukwits get to London 20 minutes quicker. Much better the money had been spent putting some actual decent transport systems in North of England rather than yet more cash splurged on the southern snowflakes.
It's a capacity, not speed, thing.
Otherwise, I agree. Look at the immense cost and subsequent success of Crossrail,for our richest city with the best public transport in the country.
If the government was really interested in levelling up, they would've started building HS2 from both ends (Glasgow/Leeds/Liverpool). Or got Northern Powerhouse in first.
Crossrail is a great example of induced demand btw - already packed out. We'll see the same happen with cycling as coherent, segregated cycle networks are put in.
SAme thing (demand rising when the opportunityu comes) happened with the Edinburgh-Bathgate electrification and Edinburgh-Tweedside reopening to the extent that the vision for the latter (only partly double track, and not as far as Hawick or even Melrose) is looking very halfhearted now (and is a major timetabling constraint).
Part of the problem may be the Treasury models used in decisionmaking?
Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop using male pronouns 'He' and 'Him' when referring to God in prayers and drop phrase 'our Father' from the Lord's Prayer
Obviously a classic Daily Mail "could", but they really are getting themselves in a mess. Old Right Justin Wokeby won't do gay blessings, but could end up doing this....no wonder bugger all people want anything to do with church.
This would have to get through Synod first and given there is not even the required 2/3 majority for homosexual marriage there yet, hence the Blessings compromise, zero chance this gets through
The Lord's prayer is already a disgraceful wokefest that should have all decent Mail readers frothing at the mouth. "thy will be done"... Nanny state in action! "give us this day our daily bread"... Scroungers! "as we forgive those who trespass against us"... Soft on crime! "deliver us from evil"... Deliver yourself! Don't expect something for nothing!
As you say, Christianity is supposed to be woke. Which raises some questions about what the C of E, and especially its evangelical branch, are.
The African branch of the Anglican Communion however is very anti homosexual marriage or even homosexual blessings, let alone changing gender pronouns.
There is already something of a division between Woke now on race and sexuality, the Anglican Communion just mirrors wider society and the wider world on that.
Nigeria is certainly not Woke in the way New York City is
Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop using male pronouns 'He' and 'Him' when referring to God in prayers and drop phrase 'our Father' from the Lord's Prayer
Obviously a classic Daily Mail "could", but they really are getting themselves in a mess. Old Right Justin Wokeby won't do gay blessings, but could end up doing this....no wonder bugger all people want anything to do with church.
This would have to get through Synod first and given there is not even the required 2/3 majority for homosexual marriage there yet, hence the Blessings compromise, zero chance this gets through
The Lord's prayer is already a disgraceful wokefest that should have all decent Mail readers frothing at the mouth. "thy will be done"... Nanny state in action! "give us this day our daily bread"... Scroungers! "as we forgive those who trespass against us"... Soft on crime! "deliver us from evil"... Deliver yourself! Don't expect something for nothing!
As you say, Christianity is supposed to be woke. Which raises some questions about what the C of E, and especially its evangelical branch, are.
It's obvioiusly pro-Rejoin as well. Do we really need this "kingdom" impinging on our hard-won sovereignty?
Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop using male pronouns 'He' and 'Him' when referring to God in prayers and drop phrase 'our Father' from the Lord's Prayer
Obviously a classic Daily Mail "could", but they really are getting themselves in a mess. Old Right Justin Wokeby won't do gay blessings, but could end up doing this....no wonder bugger all people want anything to do with church.
This would have to get through Synod first and given there is not even the required 2/3 majority for homosexual marriage there yet, hence the Blessings compromise, zero chance this gets through
The Lord's prayer is already a disgraceful wokefest that should have all decent Mail readers frothing at the mouth. "thy will be done"... Nanny state in action! "give us this day our daily bread"... Scroungers! "as we forgive those who trespass against us"... Soft on crime! "deliver us from evil"... Deliver yourself! Don't expect something for nothing!
As you say, Christianity is supposed to be woke. Which raises some questions about what the C of E, and especially its evangelical branch, are.
I love everything about Christianity except the God stuff. The left in Britain has its roots far more in Methodism than Marxism.
And indeed in the Independent and Presbyterian struggles against Stuart royalism and Erastianism.
A think tank has forecast that Britain will avoid a technical recession not only in the final three months of 2022 but throughout 2023.
The economy will grow by 0.2 per cent this year, according to the latest prediction by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. Its expectation of mild growth in each quarter suggests the country will not meet the criteria of two consecutive three-month periods of negative growth needed to count as a recession.
Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop using male pronouns 'He' and 'Him' when referring to God in prayers and drop phrase 'our Father' from the Lord's Prayer
Obviously a classic Daily Mail "could", but they really are getting themselves in a mess. Old Right Justin Wokeby won't do gay blessings, but could end up doing this....no wonder bugger all people want anything to do with church.
This would have to get through Synod first and given there is not even the required 2/3 majority for homosexual marriage there yet, hence the Blessings compromise, zero chance this gets through
The Lord's prayer is already a disgraceful wokefest that should have all decent Mail readers frothing at the mouth. "thy will be done"... Nanny state in action! "give us this day our daily bread"... Scroungers! "as we forgive those who trespass against us"... Soft on crime! "deliver us from evil"... Deliver yourself! Don't expect something for nothing!
The average Daily Mail reader certainly prefers the Old Testament God to Jesus, who was a bit wet for them!
Reassuring to know there's a whole world out here beyond the UK making just as many ginormous f***-**s!
As I pointed out yesterday, beyond the sniggering headlines they haven't actually build any trains yet. "We've designed a train that's too big for the tunnel". "Bollocks, how many have we built?" "None yet" "So change the design" - less of a story.
In the real world we've had plenty of examples of new trains fouling the infrastructure. Mainly platform edge stones which can be changed, but there are an awful lot of pinchpoints on our own network where its a real squeeze. Of the tunnels on the Hastings line where to run bigger trains they removed one track and had the remaining single line run down the middle.
Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop using male pronouns 'He' and 'Him' when referring to God in prayers and drop phrase 'our Father' from the Lord's Prayer
Obviously a classic Daily Mail "could", but they really are getting themselves in a mess. Old Right Justin Wokeby won't do gay blessings, but could end up doing this....no wonder bugger all people want anything to do with church.
This would have to get through Synod first and given there is not even the required 2/3 majority for homosexual marriage there yet, hence the Blessings compromise, zero chance this gets through
The Lord's prayer is already a disgraceful wokefest that should have all decent Mail readers frothing at the mouth. "thy will be done"... Nanny state in action! "give us this day our daily bread"... Scroungers! "as we forgive those who trespass against us"... Soft on crime! "deliver us from evil"... Deliver yourself! Don't expect something for nothing!
Never mind the Lord's Prayer. If Mary (full of grace) had reported that "the Lord is with Thee" he would have been put on the sex offenders register.
I'm beginning to feel a little sorry for Nicola. Going fully woke on the trans debate must have seemed a good idea at the time, but it's left her open to ridicule. 'Have you seen their new slogan? The only real woman is one with a dick.'
Totally unfair, but a risk she took.
And this guy is a fan...
Turns out that politics requires an untidy bunch of people with untidy opinions. The more antiseptic the Sturgeon bubble, the less effective. Bad germs may kill but good germs keep you healthy.
Add all these together: Sturgeon’s shyness; her lonesome style of decision-making; her justifiable paranoia; her taste of absolute power; her belief, bordering on arrogance, that her little grey cells were the only focus group that mattered. What do you get?
You get gender reform. You get a political disaster where the basic rules of policy-making were ignored; where the normal institutional checks and balances failed; and where reasonable compromise — the friend of good government — became unacceptable surrender.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
That's the argument of the extremely credible Andrew Gilligan: ...A report by the Policy Exchange think-tank found cancelling all sections of HS2 where main construction has not started would save around £3billion a year by 2027-28, and £44billion or more in total.
Its author, the former No10 transport adviser Andrew Gilligan wrote: “HS2 now costs more to build than the value of the benefits it will deliver.
“The official benefit cost ratio shows that for every £1 spent on the scheme, the country gets back benefits worth only 90p. Shortening the scheme improves its value for money.”..
Note, though, that the readers' poll, in the Sun article I clipped that from, was 70% in favour of completing the project.
Andrew Gilligan has always been strongly opposed to HS2 and was a friend of the infamous Joe Rukin. It is not surprising that he takes that view because, well, he always has.
The problem is you can twist the figures he's using any which way - he's using hypothetical expenditure against hypothetical income.
I would add though that by scrapping the Eastern leg the business case for HS2 has definitely been damaged.
I'm beginning to feel a little sorry for Nicola. Going fully woke on the trans debate must have seemed a good idea at the time, but it's left her open to ridicule. 'Have you seen their new slogan? The only real woman is one with a dick.'
Totally unfair, but a risk she took.
And this guy is a fan...
Turns out that politics requires an untidy bunch of people with untidy opinions. The more antiseptic the Sturgeon bubble, the less effective. Bad germs may kill but good germs keep you healthy.
Add all these together: Sturgeon’s shyness; her lonesome style of decision-making; her justifiable paranoia; her taste of absolute power; her belief, bordering on arrogance, that her little grey cells were the only focus group that mattered. What do you get?
You get gender reform. You get a political disaster where the basic rules of policy-making were ignored; where the normal institutional checks and balances failed; and where reasonable compromise — the friend of good government — became unacceptable surrender.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
That's the argument of the extremely credible Andrew Gilligan: ...A report by the Policy Exchange think-tank found cancelling all sections of HS2 where main construction has not started would save around £3billion a year by 2027-28, and £44billion or more in total.
Its author, the former No10 transport adviser Andrew Gilligan wrote: “HS2 now costs more to build than the value of the benefits it will deliver.
“The official benefit cost ratio shows that for every £1 spent on the scheme, the country gets back benefits worth only 90p. Shortening the scheme improves its value for money.”..
Note, though, that the readers' poll, in the Sun article I clipped that from, was 70% in favour of completing the project.
Andrew Gilligan has always been strongly opposed to HS2 and was a friend of the infamous Joe Rukin. It is not surprising that he takes that view because, well, he always has.
The problem is you can twist the figures he's using any which way - he's using hypothetical expenditure against hypothetical income.
I would add though that by scrapping the Eastern leg the business case for HS2 has definitely been damaged.
And the political case. A big FU to Yorkshire.
Wales too - given the mess made of the electrification. Curious that the London end always gets done first ...
That Kenny Farquharson piece has a great observation which applies to just more than Sturgeon.
The first is Covid. Sturgeon made mistakes during the pandemic but so did every global leader in situ in early 2020. The times were extraordinary and so was the power invested in our rulers. The psychological effect on those in charge has perhaps been under-explored.
My hunch is it changed how politicians saw power. Governing turned into something you did to people, rather than with people. Sure, the first minister had to take careful cognisance of what the Scottish public would thole. Ultimately, though, she had the power to keep millions cooped up in their homes for 23 hours of the day. And she used it.
You do not experience power in its most raw form, with an authority unseen outwith wartime, without it making an impression on your psyche. Has it made Sturgeon more likely to give people what is good for them rather than what they might want? It certainly seems so to me.
The abduction of the wee girl in the Borders seems to be beyond Sturgeon’s worst self ID nightmares. This would, on any view a remanded pending trial case. So, remanded where? Because, correctly, the presumption of innocence will apply and the “rapist” 3rd gender will not work.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
IANAE (by any stretch of the imagination), but I broadly feel warm towards the idea of investment in good infrastructure. There's a lot of hostility on here towards HS2. Is it just because of the massive cost? I get that an M62 'crossrail of the north' would have been a better rail investment, but what is it that makes HS2 particularly bad?
Waste of a fortune jsut so some fcukwits get to London 20 minutes quicker. Much better the money had been spent putting some actual decent transport systems in North of England rather than yet more cash splurged on the southern snowflakes.
It's a capacity, not speed, thing.
Otherwise, I agree. Look at the immense cost and subsequent success of Crossrail,for our richest city with the best public transport in the country.
If the government was really interested in levelling up, they would've started building HS2 from both ends (Glasgow/Leeds/Liverpool). Or got Northern Powerhouse in first.
Crossrail is a great example of induced demand btw - already packed out. We'll see the same happen with cycling as coherent, segregated cycle networks are put in.
SAme thing (demand rising when the opportunityu comes) happened with the Edinburgh-Bathgate electrification and Edinburgh-Tweedside reopening to the extent that the vision for the latter (only partly double track, and not as far as Hawick or even Melrose) is looking very halfhearted now (and is a major timetabling constraint).
Part of the problem may be the Treasury models used in decisionmaking?
I think Waverley is the main bottleneck though, hence the plan to redevelop it.
HS2 - just finish it. The amount spent might as well as result in something to show for the tens of billions.
If only as a constant reminder of how shite government is at civil engineering projects. Always suckered in by the swanky promo videos, always believing of the initial cost estimates, always getting cold feet part way through.
Bitter truth. The support from Government needed to get the test-bed Swansea tidal lagoon power station away was of the order of 75 yards of HS2. Once the market had proof of concept, it would have been subsumed into the contracts for the much larger Cardiff project. And that support money was sat in a £500m+ BEIS-managed fund, specifically for that purpose. There it stayed. So the tens of billions of private sector funding staying put too. Along with up to 80,000 jobs and apprenticeships. (Even BEIS - whose civil servants hated tidal because it wasn't nuclear - admitted in a written answer the lagoons created at least 57,000 construction jobs.)
Swansea would now be producing power for 180,000 homes, had Theresa May supported it. A number of other power stations, primarily in Red Wall seats, would be well advanced towards powering millions and millions of homes. With the government not having to pick up any of the tab for overruns - which there wouldn't have been outside the standard contingencies. The gap for the decommissioned nuclear would have been filled. Wales would be well on the way to the first country on the planet powered entirely by the tides. And Putin would be spitting teeth.
There would have been a coherent energy policy for government to point to. Instead, they are groping around, as bills go through the roof because we are reliant on foreign energy. North Sea oil was truly wasted in making no provision for our subsequent energy needs. Our tides our the inexhaustible source that North Sea oil could never be.
Somebody in the near future will find the will to make them work. They will deserve the glory they will get. Glory that will deliver well into the next century - and probably far beyond that.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
IANAE (by any stretch of the imagination), but I broadly feel warm towards the idea of investment in good infrastructure. There's a lot of hostility on here towards HS2. Is it just because of the massive cost? I get that an M62 'crossrail of the north' would have been a better rail investment, but what is it that makes HS2 particularly bad?
It’s the Wrong Kind Of Investment.
It is very common to find people who decry lack of government action on X, who, when the government actually acts on X, denounce it as evil. The WKOI is a common theme in this.
The exploding hyper inflation in such projects will, ultimately, kill the railways. But little interest has been shown in dealing with this.
It is quite possible that what we need is a design of railway that is savagely, nastily inefficient in engineering terms. But allows us to build it for less than a billion a mile.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
That's the argument of the extremely credible Andrew Gilligan: ...A report by the Policy Exchange think-tank found cancelling all sections of HS2 where main construction has not started would save around £3billion a year by 2027-28, and £44billion or more in total.
Its author, the former No10 transport adviser Andrew Gilligan wrote: “HS2 now costs more to build than the value of the benefits it will deliver.
“The official benefit cost ratio shows that for every £1 spent on the scheme, the country gets back benefits worth only 90p. Shortening the scheme improves its value for money.”..
Note, though, that the readers' poll, in the Sun article I clipped that from, was 70% in favour of completing the project.
Andrew Gilligan has always been strongly opposed to HS2 and was a friend of the infamous Joe Rukin. It is not surprising that he takes that view because, well, he always has.
The problem is you can twist the figures he's using any which way - he's using hypothetical expenditure against hypothetical income.
I would add though that by scrapping the Eastern leg the business case for HS2 has definitely been damaged.
And the political case. A big FU to Yorkshire.
Wales too - given the mess made of the electrification. Curious that the London end always gets done first ...
There is a logic to that, since there are more people wanting to get from Birmingham to London than from Birmingham to Manchester. However, I would be cracking on with the whole network ASAP including the Eastern leg, NPR, links to Scotland and thinking about a HS line to the west country and south Wales too. Get the penny pinchers at the Treasury as far away from the project as possible. Imagine if they had been involved in building our existing rail network with their 20 year planning horizons - that we are still using 180 years later. We'd be lucky to have any infrastructure at all.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
That's the argument of the extremely credible Andrew Gilligan: ...A report by the Policy Exchange think-tank found cancelling all sections of HS2 where main construction has not started would save around £3billion a year by 2027-28, and £44billion or more in total.
Its author, the former No10 transport adviser Andrew Gilligan wrote: “HS2 now costs more to build than the value of the benefits it will deliver.
“The official benefit cost ratio shows that for every £1 spent on the scheme, the country gets back benefits worth only 90p. Shortening the scheme improves its value for money.”..
Note, though, that the readers' poll, in the Sun article I clipped that from, was 70% in favour of completing the project.
Andrew Gilligan has always been strongly opposed to HS2 and was a friend of the infamous Joe Rukin. It is not surprising that he takes that view because, well, he always has.
The problem is you can twist the figures he's using any which way - he's using hypothetical expenditure against hypothetical income.
I would add though that by scrapping the Eastern leg the business case for HS2 has definitely been damaged.
And the political case. A big FU to Yorkshire.
Wales too - given the mess made of the electrification. Curious that the London end always gets done first ...
Except for the Greenford, Windsor, Marlow and Henley branches!
The abduction of the wee girl in the Borders seems to be beyond Sturgeon’s worst self ID nightmares. This would, on any view a remanded pending trial case. So, remanded where? Because, correctly, the presumption of innocence will apply and the “rapist” 3rd gender will not work.
First Minister faces grim situation where the Scottish public seem decisively in favour of UKGov blocking the gender recognition reforms. This makes her life much harder going forward and also … (3/6
The lack of public support indicates FMs decision to take the s35 fight to the courts will only hurt her administration. It will merely keep the self-id fight in the headlines where she lacks public support. Even a third of he own party reject her framing of the issue (4/6
Given these findings I struggle to imagine there is l utility politically in her framing the fight as ‘Scottish democracy vs London rule’ etc. plus it merely keeps a damaging issue in headlines dominating for another years, all while she’s seen as failing on other key issues (5/6
A think tank has forecast that Britain will avoid a technical recession not only in the final three months of 2022 but throughout 2023.
The economy will grow by 0.2 per cent this year, according to the latest prediction by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. Its expectation of mild growth in each quarter suggests the country will not meet the criteria of two consecutive three-month periods of negative growth needed to count as a recession.
The abduction of the wee girl in the Borders seems to be beyond Sturgeon’s worst self ID nightmares. This would, on any view a remanded pending trial case. So, remanded where? Because, correctly, the presumption of innocence will apply and the “rapist” 3rd gender will not work.
The effect of this will be diluted by reporting restrictions (gentle reminder to everyone everyone posting here too).
The (reported) trans identity of the alleged perpetrator (and the GRR bill) seems irrelevant here. Unless it turns out that the abduction occured in a single sex space, for example.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
IANAE (by any stretch of the imagination), but I broadly feel warm towards the idea of investment in good infrastructure. There's a lot of hostility on here towards HS2. Is it just because of the massive cost? I get that an M62 'crossrail of the north' would have been a better rail investment, but what is it that makes HS2 particularly bad?
Waste of a fortune jsut so some fcukwits get to London 20 minutes quicker. Much better the money had been spent putting some actual decent transport systems in North of England rather than yet more cash splurged on the southern snowflakes.
It's a capacity, not speed, thing.
Otherwise, I agree. Look at the immense cost and subsequent success of Crossrail,for our richest city with the best public transport in the country.
If the government was really interested in levelling up, they would've started building HS2 from both ends (Glasgow/Leeds/Liverpool). Or got Northern Powerhouse in first.
Crossrail is a great example of induced demand btw - already packed out. We'll see the same happen with cycling as coherent, segregated cycle networks are put in.
SAme thing (demand rising when the opportunityu comes) happened with the Edinburgh-Bathgate electrification and Edinburgh-Tweedside reopening to the extent that the vision for the latter (only partly double track, and not as far as Hawick or even Melrose) is looking very halfhearted now (and is a major timetabling constraint).
Part of the problem may be the Treasury models used in decisionmaking?
It would be a good idea to reopen the Borders route all the way to Carlisle, double track it and electrify it. And then electrify from Carlisle to Leeds, already done Skipton to Leeds, and then electrify south from Leeds to Sheffield and then to complete the Midland main line electrification to Kettering.
Effectively restoring the Midland London to Scotland route in electrified form, providing a third London to Scotland route which would be good for diversions and freight.
The abduction of the wee girl in the Borders seems to be beyond Sturgeon’s worst self ID nightmares. This would, on any view a remanded pending trial case. So, remanded where? Because, correctly, the presumption of innocence will apply and the “rapist” 3rd gender will not work.
The effect of this will be diluted by reporting restrictions (gentle reminder to everyone everyone posting here too).
Your regular reminder: contempt provisions kick in *immediately upon arrest* in Scotland. Any comment thereafter must be attended with *extreme caution*.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
IANAE (by any stretch of the imagination), but I broadly feel warm towards the idea of investment in good infrastructure. There's a lot of hostility on here towards HS2. Is it just because of the massive cost? I get that an M62 'crossrail of the north' would have been a better rail investment, but what is it that makes HS2 particularly bad?
Waste of a fortune jsut so some fcukwits get to London 20 minutes quicker. Much better the money had been spent putting some actual decent transport systems in North of England rather than yet more cash splurged on the southern snowflakes.
It's a capacity, not speed, thing.
Otherwise, I agree. Look at the immense cost and subsequent success of Crossrail,for our richest city with the best public transport in the country.
If the government was really interested in levelling up, they would've started building HS2 from both ends (Glasgow/Leeds/Liverpool). Or got Northern Powerhouse in first.
Crossrail is a great example of induced demand btw - already packed out. We'll see the same happen with cycling as coherent, segregated cycle networks are put in.
SAme thing (demand rising when the opportunityu comes) happened with the Edinburgh-Bathgate electrification and Edinburgh-Tweedside reopening to the extent that the vision for the latter (only partly double track, and not as far as Hawick or even Melrose) is looking very halfhearted now (and is a major timetabling constraint).
Part of the problem may be the Treasury models used in decisionmaking?
It would be a good idea to reopen the Borders route all the way to Carlisle, double track it and electrify it. And then electrify from Carlisle to Leeds, already done Skipton to Leeds, and then electrify south from Leeds to Sheffield and then to complete the Midland main line electrification to Kettering.
Effectively restoring the Midland London to Scotland route in electrified form, providing a third London to Scotland route which would be good for diversions and freight.
Should be possible for £10 - £15bn 👍
The problem with building infrastructure to meet existing demand, is that you get exactly what has happened. Hyper development in the already successful areas, much less in the not currently successful areas.
Build high quality rail links (for example - not excluding other projects) between -
Liverpool Manchester Birmingham Edinburgh Glasgow
On a “generate all the possible routes” basis.
Not because there are 20 million passengers waiting at the platforms in Glasgow to go to Birmingham. But because there *aren’t*.
First Minister faces grim situation where the Scottish public seem decisively in favour of UKGov blocking the gender recognition reforms. This makes her life much harder going forward and also … (3/6
The lack of public support indicates FMs decision to take the s35 fight to the courts will only hurt her administration. It will merely keep the self-id fight in the headlines where she lacks public support. Even a third of he own party reject her framing of the issue (4/6
Given these findings I struggle to imagine there is l utility politically in her framing the fight as ‘Scottish democracy vs London rule’ etc. plus it merely keeps a damaging issue in headlines dominating for another years, all while she’s seen as failing on other key issues (5/6
The abduction of the wee girl in the Borders seems to be beyond Sturgeon’s worst self ID nightmares. This would, on any view a remanded pending trial case. So, remanded where? Because, correctly, the presumption of innocence will apply and the “rapist” 3rd gender will not work.
The effect of this will be diluted by reporting restrictions (gentle reminder to everyone everyone posting here too).
The (reported) trans identity of the alleged perpetrator (and the GRR bill) seems irrelevant here. Unless it turns out that the abduction occured in a single sex space, for example.
The issue is the knots Sturgeon has tied herself in over another case where she couldn’t tell whether a convicted rapist with a penis was a man or a woman which goes to the heart of self-ID
Support for holding a referendum on Scottish independence in the coming months has plummeted among Yes voters, according to new polling.
Research carried out by YouGov between January 23 and 26 found that backing for a referendum this year stands at 52 per cent among people who voted Yes in 2014, a fall of 13 points since December.
The new research was released as senior SNP figures poured cold water on Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to hold a “de facto” constitutional contest.
The next Scottish indyref will now not happen until the 2030s - if then. The moment of maximum peril for the Union has passed. Sturgeon has fucked it up with the Trans stuff - tho, to be fair to her, it was always going to be very hard to demand and receive another poll once Westminster finally grew a pair of cullions and realized it could simply say No
Where does Scot Nittery go from here? The next Sindyref is a decade away. By then Sturgeon will be long gone and the world will be transformed
I foresee grave splits and ructions in this hithero formidably disciplined party
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
IANAE (by any stretch of the imagination), but I broadly feel warm towards the idea of investment in good infrastructure. There's a lot of hostility on here towards HS2. Is it just because of the massive cost? I get that an M62 'crossrail of the north' would have been a better rail investment, but what is it that makes HS2 particularly bad?
Waste of a fortune jsut so some fcukwits get to London 20 minutes quicker. Much better the money had been spent putting some actual decent transport systems in North of England rather than yet more cash splurged on the southern snowflakes.
It's a capacity, not speed, thing.
Otherwise, I agree. Look at the immense cost and subsequent success of Crossrail,for our richest city with the best public transport in the country.
If the government was really interested in levelling up, they would've started building HS2 from both ends (Glasgow/Leeds/Liverpool). Or got Northern Powerhouse in first.
Crossrail is a great example of induced demand btw - already packed out. We'll see the same happen with cycling as coherent, segregated cycle networks are put in.
SAme thing (demand rising when the opportunityu comes) happened with the Edinburgh-Bathgate electrification and Edinburgh-Tweedside reopening to the extent that the vision for the latter (only partly double track, and not as far as Hawick or even Melrose) is looking very halfhearted now (and is a major timetabling constraint).
Part of the problem may be the Treasury models used in decisionmaking?
It would be a good idea to reopen the Borders route all the way to Carlisle, double track it and electrify it. And then electrify from Carlisle to Leeds, already done Skipton to Leeds, and then electrify south from Leeds to Sheffield and then to complete the Midland main line electrification to Kettering.
Effectively restoring the Midland London to Scotland route in electrified form, providing a third London to Scotland route which would be good for diversions and freight.
Should be possible for £10 - £15bn 👍
There is a recent report on the best way to electrify existing routes and the cost benefit analysis - there are some interesting routes that take priority due to the additional freight options it opens up...
The abduction of the wee girl in the Borders seems to be beyond Sturgeon’s worst self ID nightmares. This would, on any view a remanded pending trial case. So, remanded where? Because, correctly, the presumption of innocence will apply and the “rapist” 3rd gender will not work.
The effect of this will be diluted by reporting restrictions (gentle reminder to everyone everyone posting here too).
Your regular reminder: contempt provisions kick in *immediately upon arrest* in Scotland. Any comment thereafter must be attended with *extreme caution*.
Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop using male pronouns 'He' and 'Him' when referring to God in prayers and drop phrase 'our Father' from the Lord's Prayer
Obviously a classic Daily Mail "could", but they really are getting themselves in a mess. Old Right Justin Wokeby won't do gay blessings, but could end up doing this....no wonder bugger all people want anything to do with church.
"They" is the obvious pronoun for God. There's three of them.
The abduction of the wee girl in the Borders seems to be beyond Sturgeon’s worst self ID nightmares. This would, on any view a remanded pending trial case. So, remanded where? Because, correctly, the presumption of innocence will apply and the “rapist” 3rd gender will not work.
The effect of this will be diluted by reporting restrictions (gentle reminder to everyone everyone posting here too).
The (reported) trans identity of the alleged perpetrator (and the GRR bill) seems irrelevant here. Unless it turns out that the abduction occured in a single sex space, for example.
The abduction of the wee girl in the Borders seems to be beyond Sturgeon’s worst self ID nightmares. This would, on any view a remanded pending trial case. So, remanded where? Because, correctly, the presumption of innocence will apply and the “rapist” 3rd gender will not work.
The effect of this will be diluted by reporting restrictions (gentle reminder to everyone everyone posting here too).
The (reported) trans identity of the alleged perpetrator (and the GRR bill) seems irrelevant here. Unless it turns out that the abduction occured in a single sex space, for example.
The relevancy is in terms of what prison the alleged perpetrator will be held in on remand, and the inconsistency in terms of the police/authorities referring to the individual with their previous identity before transition, rather than the identity they have lived with for many years.
The point of law on this matter is to provide equal treatment under the law, and what we now appear to have is a mess of arbitrary decisions taken with regard to public opinion.
The abduction of the wee girl in the Borders seems to be beyond Sturgeon’s worst self ID nightmares. This would, on any view a remanded pending trial case. So, remanded where? Because, correctly, the presumption of innocence will apply and the “rapist” 3rd gender will not work.
The effect of this will be diluted by reporting restrictions (gentle reminder to everyone everyone posting here too).
The (reported) trans identity of the alleged perpetrator (and the GRR bill) seems irrelevant here. Unless it turns out that the abduction occured in a single sex space, for example.
The issue is the knots Sturgeon has tied herself in over another case where she couldn’t tell whether a convicted rapist with a penis was a man or a woman.
The sad, sad thing in all this, is that the "compromise" was small and sensible. A tiny number of nasty pieces of work need to be barred from women only spaces. Not loos or changing rooms - prisons, women's refuges and the like.
I would put such power in the hands of the courts - bring a case before a judge. X is a danger, given evidence Y. This is far superior to either trying to put all the possible strictures in the law, or giving a politician arbitrary powers.
The problem was the word "compromise" - there is a foolish idea prevalent, that all progressive granting of rights must be (and can be) compromise free. So a compromise - a messy, tricky, case by case, human way of dealing with the issue was EVUL. Forbidden.
The abduction of the wee girl in the Borders seems to be beyond Sturgeon’s worst self ID nightmares. This would, on any view a remanded pending trial case. So, remanded where? Because, correctly, the presumption of innocence will apply and the “rapist” 3rd gender will not work.
The effect of this will be diluted by reporting restrictions (gentle reminder to everyone everyone posting here too).
The (reported) trans identity of the alleged perpetrator (and the GRR bill) seems irrelevant here. Unless it turns out that the abduction occured in a single sex space, for example.
The issue is the knots Sturgeon has tied herself in over another case where she couldn’t tell whether a convicted rapist with a penis was a man or a woman which goes to the heart of self-ID
‘He’ shouldn’t have a penis much longer. Whether he wants it removed or not!
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
IANAE (by any stretch of the imagination), but I broadly feel warm towards the idea of investment in good infrastructure. There's a lot of hostility on here towards HS2. Is it just because of the massive cost? I get that an M62 'crossrail of the north' would have been a better rail investment, but what is it that makes HS2 particularly bad?
Waste of a fortune jsut so some fcukwits get to London 20 minutes quicker. Much better the money had been spent putting some actual decent transport systems in North of England rather than yet more cash splurged on the southern snowflakes.
It's a capacity, not speed, thing.
Otherwise, I agree. Look at the immense cost and subsequent success of Crossrail,for our richest city with the best public transport in the country.
If the government was really interested in levelling up, they would've started building HS2 from both ends (Glasgow/Leeds/Liverpool). Or got Northern Powerhouse in first.
Crossrail is a great example of induced demand btw - already packed out. We'll see the same happen with cycling as coherent, segregated cycle networks are put in.
Yes they always do London or start from London perspective and never manage to get to the real parts that need it.
HS2 - just finish it. The amount spent might as well as result in something to show for the tens of billions.
If only as a constant reminder of how shite government is at civil engineering projects. Always suckered in by the swanky promo videos, always believing of the initial cost estimates, always getting cold feet part way through.
Bitter truth. The support from Government needed to get the test-bed Swansea tidal lagoon power station away was of the order of 75 yards of HS2. Once the market had proof of concept, it would have been subsumed into the contracts for the much larger Cardiff project. And that support money was sat in a £500m+ BEIS-managed fund, specifically for that purpose. There it stayed. So the tens of billions of private sector funding staying put too. Along with up to 80,000 jobs and apprenticeships. (Even BEIS - whose civil servants hated tidal because it wasn't nuclear - admitted in a written answer the lagoons created at least 57,000 construction jobs.)
Swansea would now be producing power for 180,000 homes, had Theresa May supported it. A number of other power stations, primarily in Red Wall seats, would be well advanced towards powering millions and millions of homes. With the government not having to pick up any of the tab for overruns - which there wouldn't have been outside the standard contingencies. The gap for the decommissioned nuclear would have been filled. Wales would be well on the way to the first country on the planet powered entirely by the tides. And Putin would be spitting teeth.
There would have been a coherent energy policy for government to point to. Instead, they are groping around, as bills go through the roof because we are reliant on foreign energy. North Sea oil was truly wasted in making no provision for our subsequent energy needs. Our tides our the inexhaustible source that North Sea oil could never be.
Somebody in the near future will find the will to make them work. They will deserve the glory they will get. Glory that will deliver well into the next century - and probably far beyond that.
There is also the political factor at play. The Spivocracy hate anything environmental because it would be transformative and that threatens their ability now to keep syphoning our money into their pockets.
So regardless of the financial case for green energy so many Tories oppose it because its "leftie" - we should be supporting (chinese) industry with nuclear, that's the patriotic thing to do, not this namby-pamby wishy-washy liberal green nonsense.
So it doesn't happen. They wanted to ban wind turbines FFS.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
IANAE (by any stretch of the imagination), but I broadly feel warm towards the idea of investment in good infrastructure. There's a lot of hostility on here towards HS2. Is it just because of the massive cost? I get that an M62 'crossrail of the north' would have been a better rail investment, but what is it that makes HS2 particularly bad?
Waste of a fortune jsut so some fcukwits get to London 20 minutes quicker. Much better the money had been spent putting some actual decent transport systems in North of England rather than yet more cash splurged on the southern snowflakes.
It's a capacity, not speed, thing.
Otherwise, I agree. Look at the immense cost and subsequent success of Crossrail,for our richest city with the best public transport in the country.
If the government was really interested in levelling up, they would've started building HS2 from both ends (Glasgow/Leeds/Liverpool). Or got Northern Powerhouse in first.
Crossrail is a great example of induced demand btw - already packed out. We'll see the same happen with cycling as coherent, segregated cycle networks are put in.
SAme thing (demand rising when the opportunityu comes) happened with the Edinburgh-Bathgate electrification and Edinburgh-Tweedside reopening to the extent that the vision for the latter (only partly double track, and not as far as Hawick or even Melrose) is looking very halfhearted now (and is a major timetabling constraint).
Part of the problem may be the Treasury models used in decisionmaking?
It would be a good idea to reopen the Borders route all the way to Carlisle, double track it and electrify it. And then electrify from Carlisle to Leeds, already done Skipton to Leeds, and then electrify south from Leeds to Sheffield and then to complete the Midland main line electrification to Kettering.
Effectively restoring the Midland London to Scotland route in electrified form, providing a third London to Scotland route which would be good for diversions and freight.
Should be possible for £10 - £15bn 👍
There is a recent report on the best way to electrify existing routes and the cost benefit analysis - there are some interesting routes that take priority due to the additional freight options it opens up...
Back to my ides of "inefficient" engineering solutions - which will cost more?
1) Electrification with overhead wires all the way. 2) Running a train with a battery car to power it - which already being experimented with in the US.
Yes, you have the capital cost of the battery car, and extra leccy to pull it. But given the billions and decades to electrify lines with overhead wires....
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
IANAE (by any stretch of the imagination), but I broadly feel warm towards the idea of investment in good infrastructure. There's a lot of hostility on here towards HS2. Is it just because of the massive cost? I get that an M62 'crossrail of the north' would have been a better rail investment, but what is it that makes HS2 particularly bad?
Waste of a fortune jsut so some fcukwits get to London 20 minutes quicker. Much better the money had been spent putting some actual decent transport systems in North of England rather than yet more cash splurged on the southern snowflakes.
It's a capacity, not speed, thing.
Otherwise, I agree. Look at the immense cost and subsequent success of Crossrail,for our richest city with the best public transport in the country.
If the government was really interested in levelling up, they would've started building HS2 from both ends (Glasgow/Leeds/Liverpool). Or got Northern Powerhouse in first.
Crossrail is a great example of induced demand btw - already packed out. We'll see the same happen with cycling as coherent, segregated cycle networks are put in.
SAme thing (demand rising when the opportunityu comes) happened with the Edinburgh-Bathgate electrification and Edinburgh-Tweedside reopening to the extent that the vision for the latter (only partly double track, and not as far as Hawick or even Melrose) is looking very halfhearted now (and is a major timetabling constraint).
Part of the problem may be the Treasury models used in decisionmaking?
It would be a good idea to reopen the Borders route all the way to Carlisle, double track it and electrify it. And then electrify from Carlisle to Leeds, already done Skipton to Leeds, and then electrify south from Leeds to Sheffield and then to complete the Midland main line electrification to Kettering.
Effectively restoring the Midland London to Scotland route in electrified form, providing a third London to Scotland route which would be good for diversions and freight.
Should be possible for £10 - £15bn 👍
The problem with building infrastructure to meet existing demand, is that you get exactly what has happened. Hyper development in the already successful areas, much less in the not currently successful areas.
Build high quality rail links (for example - not excluding other projects) between -
Liverpool Manchester Birmingham Edinburgh Glasgow
On a “generate all the possible routes” basis.
Not because there are 20 million passengers waiting at the platforms in Glasgow to go to Birmingham. But because there *aren’t*.
Manchester and Sheffield are scarcely 30 miles apart, yet from a public transport POV on different planets. The Hope Valley line is a shocker, as I know only too well from regular frustrating journeys from Manc to Nottingham for work.
First Minister faces grim situation where the Scottish public seem decisively in favour of UKGov blocking the gender recognition reforms. This makes her life much harder going forward and also … (3/6
The lack of public support indicates FMs decision to take the s35 fight to the courts will only hurt her administration. It will merely keep the self-id fight in the headlines where she lacks public support. Even a third of he own party reject her framing of the issue (4/6
Given these findings I struggle to imagine there is l utility politically in her framing the fight as ‘Scottish democracy vs London rule’ etc. plus it merely keeps a damaging issue in headlines dominating for another years, all while she’s seen as failing on other key issues (5/6
The abduction of the wee girl in the Borders seems to be beyond Sturgeon’s worst self ID nightmares. This would, on any view a remanded pending trial case. So, remanded where? Because, correctly, the presumption of innocence will apply and the “rapist” 3rd gender will not work.
The effect of this will be diluted by reporting restrictions (gentle reminder to everyone everyone posting here too).
The (reported) trans identity of the alleged perpetrator (and the GRR bill) seems irrelevant here. Unless it turns out that the abduction occured in a single sex space, for example.
It would have been reported differently just one week ago and likely police would have used different word to describe the alleged suspect. She has really put the cat among the pigeons
It’s tragic the Tory government has stooped this low.
I’m generally pretty hot on law and order stuff: violence, sexual crimes, fraud, robbery/burglary etc, the police/criminal justice system should be properly resourced and given enhanced legal backing imo - but this public order bill stinks.
It’s one thing I am hoping to get from a Starmer government - proper policing/criminal justice reform.
He’s a smart guy who spent a long time at a high level inside the system. He must have lots of well thought through ideas for how to get the system working.
Hope so, but at present he actually wants to abolish the House which just voted down the bullshit Public Order Bill.
Let’s imagine a counter-factual in which a the HoL was elected “mid-term”. If said election had taken place late 2021 the Conservatives would likely have a majority and this bullshit bill would have passed.
Not under a fair voting system, hopefully.
Under PR there would be up to 70 Reform UK Senators in a fully elected upper house, all voting with the Tories for the Public Order Bill.
Farage may still not be Lord Farage but he would certainly be Senator Farage!
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
IANAE (by any stretch of the imagination), but I broadly feel warm towards the idea of investment in good infrastructure. There's a lot of hostility on here towards HS2. Is it just because of the massive cost? I get that an M62 'crossrail of the north' would have been a better rail investment, but what is it that makes HS2 particularly bad?
Waste of a fortune jsut so some fcukwits get to London 20 minutes quicker. Much better the money had been spent putting some actual decent transport systems in North of England rather than yet more cash splurged on the southern snowflakes.
It's a capacity, not speed, thing.
Otherwise, I agree. Look at the immense cost and subsequent success of Crossrail,for our richest city with the best public transport in the country.
If the government was really interested in levelling up, they would've started building HS2 from both ends (Glasgow/Leeds/Liverpool). Or got Northern Powerhouse in first.
Crossrail is a great example of induced demand btw - already packed out. We'll see the same happen with cycling as coherent, segregated cycle networks are put in.
SAme thing (demand rising when the opportunityu comes) happened with the Edinburgh-Bathgate electrification and Edinburgh-Tweedside reopening to the extent that the vision for the latter (only partly double track, and not as far as Hawick or even Melrose) is looking very halfhearted now (and is a major timetabling constraint).
Part of the problem may be the Treasury models used in decisionmaking?
It would be a good idea to reopen the Borders route all the way to Carlisle, double track it and electrify it. And then electrify from Carlisle to Leeds, already done Skipton to Leeds, and then electrify south from Leeds to Sheffield and then to complete the Midland main line electrification to Kettering.
Effectively restoring the Midland London to Scotland route in electrified form, providing a third London to Scotland route which would be good for diversions and freight.
Should be possible for £10 - £15bn 👍
The problem with building infrastructure to meet existing demand, is that you get exactly what has happened. Hyper development in the already successful areas, much less in the not currently successful areas.
Build high quality rail links (for example - not excluding other projects) between -
Liverpool Manchester Birmingham Edinburgh Glasgow
On a “generate all the possible routes” basis.
Not because there are 20 million passengers waiting at the platforms in Glasgow to go to Birmingham. But because there *aren’t*.
Manchester and Sheffield are scarcely 30 miles apart, yet from a public transport POV on different planets. The Hope Valley line is a shocker, as I know only too well from regular frustrating journeys from Manc to Nottingham for work.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
IANAE (by any stretch of the imagination), but I broadly feel warm towards the idea of investment in good infrastructure. There's a lot of hostility on here towards HS2. Is it just because of the massive cost? I get that an M62 'crossrail of the north' would have been a better rail investment, but what is it that makes HS2 particularly bad?
Waste of a fortune jsut so some fcukwits get to London 20 minutes quicker. Much better the money had been spent putting some actual decent transport systems in North of England rather than yet more cash splurged on the southern snowflakes.
It's a capacity, not speed, thing.
Otherwise, I agree. Look at the immense cost and subsequent success of Crossrail,for our richest city with the best public transport in the country.
If the government was really interested in levelling up, they would've started building HS2 from both ends (Glasgow/Leeds/Liverpool). Or got Northern Powerhouse in first.
Crossrail is a great example of induced demand btw - already packed out. We'll see the same happen with cycling as coherent, segregated cycle networks are put in.
Yes they always do London or start from London perspective and never manage to get to the real parts that need it.
The thing that really struck me when I first moved to London years ago - I lived there for most of the 2000s - wasn't so much the tube, but how good the bus infrastructure was. So many of them, going everywhere, running through the night and not that expensive either. Me from a bus-every-few-hours little town in Yorkshire; couldn't believe how much better the Londoners were served. I could actually *choose* the form of public transport I wanted to take to get to work!
Our non-gendered parent who art in heaven: Priests could stop using male pronouns 'He' and 'Him' when referring to God in prayers and drop phrase 'our Father' from the Lord's Prayer
Obviously a classic Daily Mail "could", but they really are getting themselves in a mess. Old Right Justin Wokeby won't do gay blessings, but could end up doing this....no wonder bugger all people want anything to do with church.
This would have to get through Synod first and given there is not even the required 2/3 majority for homosexual marriage there yet, hence the Blessings compromise, zero chance this gets through
The Lord's prayer is already a disgraceful wokefest that should have all decent Mail readers frothing at the mouth. "thy will be done"... Nanny state in action! "give us this day our daily bread"... Scroungers! "as we forgive those who trespass against us"... Soft on crime! "deliver us from evil"... Deliver yourself! Don't expect something for nothing!
As you say, Christianity is supposed to be woke. Which raises some questions about what the C of E, and especially its evangelical branch, are.
I love everything about Christianity except the God stuff. The left in Britain has its roots far more in Methodism than Marxism.
I took this photo of a hub of turn-of-the-last-century non-conformism, temperance and general leftism at the weekend. It has another popular semi-political connection, too. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to what it might be?
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
I see that previously the Levelling Up ministry had a discretionary capex budget of £30m, chicken feed within the scale of government spending and indeed the need for Levelling Up.
The new budget is zero.
Councils need to beg Whitehall if they want to so much as build a toilet block in the town centre, and in turn Gove has to beg Treasury who have never seen a capex project they like the looks of.
It's a sign of a government about to run out of money. That and the regular doom leaks about saving money on HS2 as someone desperately tries to save it from the axe.
HS2 can't be axed. It's under construction and half-built between London and Birmingham.
To do so now would be to waste billions of sunk capital and leave a pointless scar and right of way across England.
It needs to be finished. The next phases can be delayed, of course, until better economic times.
Also much building work already done in Staffs around Lichfield and Handscare. Not quite clear whether that's 'the next phase' or not.
The trouble with HS2 is that lots of the best people in the industry are avoiding it like the plague because they fear it will ruin their reputation.
This then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because performance is then a bit average-poor because you have 2nd and 3rd division staff who don't really know what they're doing.
Public reputation matters internally to a project as well as externally.
Of course it can be axed. There is no point in throwing good money after bad.
IANAE (by any stretch of the imagination), but I broadly feel warm towards the idea of investment in good infrastructure. There's a lot of hostility on here towards HS2. Is it just because of the massive cost? I get that an M62 'crossrail of the north' would have been a better rail investment, but what is it that makes HS2 particularly bad?
Waste of a fortune jsut so some fcukwits get to London 20 minutes quicker. Much better the money had been spent putting some actual decent transport systems in North of England rather than yet more cash splurged on the southern snowflakes.
It's a capacity, not speed, thing.
Otherwise, I agree. Look at the immense cost and subsequent success of Crossrail,for our richest city with the best public transport in the country.
If the government was really interested in levelling up, they would've started building HS2 from both ends (Glasgow/Leeds/Liverpool). Or got Northern Powerhouse in first.
Crossrail is a great example of induced demand btw - already packed out. We'll see the same happen with cycling as coherent, segregated cycle networks are put in.
SAme thing (demand rising when the opportunityu comes) happened with the Edinburgh-Bathgate electrification and Edinburgh-Tweedside reopening to the extent that the vision for the latter (only partly double track, and not as far as Hawick or even Melrose) is looking very halfhearted now (and is a major timetabling constraint).
Part of the problem may be the Treasury models used in decisionmaking?
It would be a good idea to reopen the Borders route all the way to Carlisle, double track it and electrify it. And then electrify from Carlisle to Leeds, already done Skipton to Leeds, and then electrify south from Leeds to Sheffield and then to complete the Midland main line electrification to Kettering.
Effectively restoring the Midland London to Scotland route in electrified form, providing a third London to Scotland route which would be good for diversions and freight.
Should be possible for £10 - £15bn 👍
There is a recent report on the best way to electrify existing routes and the cost benefit analysis - there are some interesting routes that take priority due to the additional freight options it opens up...
Of course the cheaper "lets add capacity" alternative to HS2 was the freight spine proposal which would have rebuilt the Great Central as a heavy freight railway to both take freight off the WCML and to take it off the M1 as well.
But we are where we are. A neutered part-built HS2 will be the very definition of a white elephant. Not enough capacity to remove long distance passenger traffic. Not reaching far enough to do anything at all for the east midlands and eastern England. Built at ludicrous cost because of the "yebbut if there's an earthquake in 50 years time you the contractor will be liable" from the Treasury.
As I have said, this country is shit at infrastructure. The reason why we have a poor motorway network and poor railway network and crappy overflowing airports is because since the 1970s we have basically given up trying.
Comments
In truth, it was just a new (and difficult) engineering challenge at the time - you couldn't go round it and knowledge of geotechnics was in its infancy.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-18/india-s-population-overtakes-china-to-become-world-s-biggest-analysts-estimate
Farage may still not be Lord Farage but he would certainly be Senator Farage!
It's more of a strategic investment in connecting the country together better, and providing resilience, with political benefits too. Something had to be done as existing transport corridors were at capacity and it was even more difficult to significantly upgrade the live routes and it would have had mass brownfield/demolition implications, but in terms of GVA to the UK economy HS2 will probably just wash its face.
Unlocking extra growth will come from what it enables regionally, subsequently.
Research carried out by YouGov between January 23 and 26 found that backing for a referendum this year stands at 52 per cent among people who voted Yes in 2014, a fall of 13 points since December.
The new research was released as senior SNP figures poured cold water on Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to hold a “de facto” constitutional contest.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/yes-voters-lose-appetite-for-new-scottish-independence-referendum-wzzg6gcn9
Given the inquiry into the original trams has now cost more than Chilcot, you'd have to be a brave contractor to pick it up.
It's now the lowest quality and ugliest public infrastructure I've ever seen (though I haven't seen the new Inverness Airport station, which also looks horrible).
No intellectual by any means, ageing and doddery but with an old school charm that masks a political killer instinct
But then, Reagan told better jokes delivered more expertly than many professional stand-up comedians.
T Of course, there is an argument that this might be a very good time to have a second referendum from a Unionist point of view. But things are moving in an encouraging direction after being somewhat on the back foot for most of the last couple of years.
The criticism comes as the channel faces increasing scrutiny over its mix of serious news with programmes that delve heavily into conspiracies about areas including Covid vaccines and a plot to create a world government.
The decision by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism to speak out follows a recent edition of the weekly GB News show hosted by Neil Oliver, the broadcaster and historian.
Oliver, who delivers trademark monologues to camera, used the show last Saturday to discuss what he called a “silent war” by generations of politicians to take “total control of the people” and impose a “one-world government”.
The idea seemingly echoes a noted conspiracy theory document called Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars, supposedly a secret manual for world government found by chance in 1986. This has a long section on the role of the Rothschild banking dynasty, a common antisemitic trope.
On the same show, one of Oliver’s guests was a man called William Keyte, introduced as a “constitutional expert”, who is a supporter of a fringe campaign group called the New Chartist Movement.
Keyte’s focus is on the supposed primacy of common law over parliament, which has no crossover with antisemitic ideas.
However, the New Chartist Movement website contains articles written by other members and contributors that contain antisemitic-linked ideas. It also features pieces written by David Icke, the TV presenter-turned conspiracy theorist who has claimed that a shadowy cabal controls the world, a familiar antisemitic argument.
Other articles on the New Chartist website include one arguing that the “corporate and banking Deep State, completely supported by the Zionist state of Israel” plans to take control of UK politics, another antisemitic notion. Another argues that the “House of Rothschild” has a pivotal role in world affairs.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/feb/08/jewish-groups-urge-gb-news-to-stop-indulging-conspiracy-theories
EDIT: In seriousness though, that's a proper occasion.
The economy will grow by 0.2 per cent this year, according to the latest prediction by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. Its expectation of mild growth in each quarter suggests the country will not meet the criteria of two consecutive three-month periods of negative growth needed to count as a recession.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/britain-will-dodge-recession-in-2023-think-tank-predicts-vh2zv8m73
https://twitter.com/EmilyIpsosScot/status/1623233054545248256
Cops charge 'trans' butcher in connection with disappearance of 11-year-old Scots girl
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/cops-charge-trans-butcher-connection-29160617
Fog layer was so low that a lot of lucky people in high rise flats will have woken up to a spectacular treat this morning.
I don't pretend to keep up in any manner or form but I thought that David Icke's "shadowy conspiracy" was made up of lizards, not jews. Suggesting that shadowy conspiracies are automatically an anti-Semitic trop seems to me to be overstating it somewhat.
Work for business card makers?
Er.....
Reassuring to know there's a whole world out here beyond the UK making just as many ginormous f***-**s!
"thy will be done"... Nanny state in action!
"give us this day our daily bread"... Scroungers!
"as we forgive those who trespass against us"... Soft on crime!
"deliver us from evil"... Deliver yourself! Don't expect something for nothing!
Otherwise, I agree. Look at the immense cost and subsequent success of Crossrail,for our richest city with the best public transport in the country.
If the government was really interested in levelling up, they would've started building HS2 from both ends (Glasgow/Leeds/Liverpool). Or got Northern Powerhouse in first.
Crossrail is a great example of induced demand btw - already packed out. We'll see the same happen with cycling as coherent, segregated cycle networks are put in.
Totally unfair, but a risk she took.
There are so many issues we can't find a solution for because "if we had indepenence" is trotted out as the answer. So I hope this is the SNP starting to feel the heat finally. I still think there is a world of difference though between the drive for Independence Now coming off the boil and SNP voters deciding to bin it completely and start voting for unionist parties.
Part of the problem may be the Treasury models used in decisionmaking?
There is already something of a division between Woke now on race and sexuality, the Anglican Communion just mirrors wider society and the wider world on that.
Nigeria is certainly not Woke in the way New York City is
I'm going to lose a bet, 0.2% growth is pathetic.In the real world we've had plenty of examples of new trains fouling the infrastructure. Mainly platform edge stones which can be changed, but there are an awful lot of pinchpoints on our own network where its a real squeeze. Of the tunnels on the Hastings line where to run bigger trains they removed one track and had the remaining single line run down the middle.
Turns out that politics requires an untidy bunch of people with untidy opinions. The more antiseptic the Sturgeon bubble, the less effective. Bad germs may kill but good germs keep you healthy.
Add all these together: Sturgeon’s shyness; her lonesome style of decision-making; her justifiable paranoia; her taste of absolute power; her belief, bordering on arrogance, that her little grey cells were the only focus group that mattered. What do you get?
You get gender reform. You get a political disaster where the basic rules of policy-making were ignored; where the normal institutional checks and balances failed; and where reasonable compromise — the friend of good government — became unacceptable surrender.
What a mess. What an avoidable mess.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/transgender-reform-laws-are-result-of-bunker-mentality-578ftztj0
A big FU to Yorkshire.
"Defund Scotland."
https://twitter.com/KennyFarq/status/1623242880063008768
The first is Covid. Sturgeon made mistakes during the pandemic but so did every global leader in situ in early 2020. The times were extraordinary and so was the power invested in our rulers. The psychological effect on those in charge has perhaps been under-explored.
My hunch is it changed how politicians saw power. Governing turned into something you did to people, rather than with people. Sure, the first minister had to take careful cognisance of what the Scottish public would thole. Ultimately, though, she had the power to keep millions cooped up in their homes for 23 hours of the day. And she used it.
You do not experience power in its most raw form, with an authority unseen outwith wartime, without it making an impression on your psyche. Has it made Sturgeon more likely to give people what is good for them rather than what they might want? It certainly seems so to me.
https://twitter.com/ianssmart/status/1623038378588442632
If only as a constant reminder of how shite government is at civil engineering projects. Always suckered in by the swanky promo videos, always believing of the initial cost estimates, always getting cold feet part way through.
Bitter truth. The support from Government needed to get the test-bed Swansea tidal lagoon power station away was of the order of 75 yards of HS2. Once the market had proof of concept, it would have been subsumed into the contracts for the much larger Cardiff project. And that support money was sat in a £500m+ BEIS-managed fund, specifically for that purpose. There it stayed. So the tens of billions of private sector funding staying put too. Along with up to 80,000 jobs and apprenticeships. (Even BEIS - whose civil servants hated tidal because it wasn't nuclear - admitted in a written answer the lagoons created at least 57,000 construction jobs.)
Swansea would now be producing power for 180,000 homes, had Theresa May supported it. A number of other power stations, primarily in Red Wall seats, would be well advanced towards powering millions and millions of homes. With the government not having to pick up any of the tab for overruns - which there wouldn't have been outside the standard contingencies. The gap for the decommissioned nuclear would have been filled. Wales would be well on the way to the first country on the planet powered entirely by the tides. And Putin would be spitting teeth.
There would have been a coherent energy policy for government to point to. Instead, they are groping around, as bills go through the roof because we are reliant on foreign energy. North Sea oil was truly wasted in making no provision for our subsequent energy needs. Our tides our the inexhaustible source that North Sea oil could never be.
Somebody in the near future will find the will to make them work. They will deserve the glory they will get. Glory that will deliver well into the next century - and probably far beyond that.
It is very common to find people who decry lack of government action on X, who, when the government actually acts on X, denounce it as evil. The WKOI is a common theme in this.
The exploding hyper inflation in such projects will, ultimately, kill the railways. But little interest has been shown in dealing with this.
It is quite possible that what we need is a design of railway that is savagely, nastily inefficient in engineering terms. But allows us to build it for less than a billion a mile.
(3/6
The lack of public support indicates FMs decision to take the s35 fight to the courts will only hurt her administration. It will merely keep the self-id fight in the headlines where she lacks public support. Even a third of he own party reject her framing of the issue
(4/6
Given these findings I struggle to imagine there is l utility politically in her framing the fight as ‘Scottish democracy vs London rule’ etc. plus it merely keeps a damaging issue in headlines dominating for another years, all while she’s seen as failing on other key issues
(5/6
https://twitter.com/DeanMThomson/status/1623242615607988224
Edit: Damn you, Dura Ace
Effectively restoring the Midland London to Scotland route in electrified form, providing a third London to Scotland route which would be good for diversions and freight.
Should be possible for £10 - £15bn 👍
https://twitter.com/RoddyQC/status/1623106416641818627
Does Holyrood enjoy Parliamentary privilege like Westminster?
Build high quality rail links (for example - not excluding other projects) between -
Liverpool
Manchester
Birmingham
Edinburgh
Glasgow
On a “generate all the possible routes” basis.
Not because there are 20 million passengers waiting at the platforms in Glasgow to go to Birmingham. But because there *aren’t*.
Where does Scot Nittery go from here? The next Sindyref is a decade away. By then Sturgeon will be long gone and the world will be transformed
I foresee grave splits and ructions in this hithero formidably disciplined party
The point of law on this matter is to provide equal treatment under the law, and what we now appear to have is a mess of arbitrary decisions taken with regard to public opinion.
I would put such power in the hands of the courts - bring a case before a judge. X is a danger, given evidence Y. This is far superior to either trying to put all the possible strictures in the law, or giving a politician arbitrary powers.
The problem was the word "compromise" - there is a foolish idea prevalent, that all progressive granting of rights must be (and can be) compromise free. So a compromise - a messy, tricky, case by case, human way of dealing with the issue was EVUL. Forbidden.
https://holyrood.com/news/view,health-secretarys-wife-drops-legal-case-against-nursery
So regardless of the financial case for green energy so many Tories oppose it because its "leftie" - we should be supporting (chinese) industry with nuclear, that's the patriotic thing to do, not this namby-pamby wishy-washy liberal green nonsense.
So it doesn't happen. They wanted to ban wind turbines FFS.
1) Electrification with overhead wires all the way.
2) Running a train with a battery car to power it - which already being experimented with in the US.
Yes, you have the capital cost of the battery car, and extra leccy to pull it. But given the billions and decades to electrify lines with overhead wires....
She has really put the cat among the pigeons
But we are where we are. A neutered part-built HS2 will be the very definition of a white elephant. Not enough capacity to remove long distance passenger traffic. Not reaching far enough to do anything at all for the east midlands and eastern England. Built at ludicrous cost because of the "yebbut if there's an earthquake in 50 years time you the contractor will be liable" from the Treasury.
As I have said, this country is shit at infrastructure. The reason why we have a poor motorway network and poor railway network and crappy overflowing airports is because since the 1970s we have basically given up trying.