Jehovah is definitely not woke. Very much an advocate of tough love, as the boys who mocked Elijah’s baldness found out.
Christ was woke.
Paul was not.
Nobody could believe everything the Bible says as its so full of contradictions, so people pick and choose the bits that suit them and ignore the rest. It is amusing how many who call themselves "Christians" are really Jehovans or Paulians though.
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
Ignoring the Trump interregnum (if only) and also the (admittedly huge) race angle, how about Biden as LBJ to Obama's JFK.
ie the older tougher wilier blunt and folksy successor to the young charismatic glam superarticulate President he'd served as Veep - who proves to care just as much about progressive values and be more effective in actually delivering the goods.
Is that a good one, do we think, or does it collapse in the witness box?
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.
Wind turbines on land are hitting issues with maximum size/efficiency. The next generation turbines are so large that evening moving them over land to install at sea is nearly impossible.
Politically, a small number of people cannot adapt to the sound they make. In addition to those that hate the look.
Given there is enough potential offshore wind capacity to power anything you like, why wold you put them on land?
The issue with tidal ponds seems to be in the permanent portion of the government apparatus. As Dr Palmer has told us, there is a certain report (with very flawed calculations) that gets wheeled out to any politician who brings up tidal ponds.
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....
That depends on what you mean by electrification. Until we abandoned electrification under Railtrack we had an engineering team very good at wiring routes quickly and efficiently.
But we lost all that. And started again. So for the GWR scheme they came up with a whole new robust specification. Enormous never been done before, not needed deep piles to support huge ugly heavy metalwork.
The result? Vast cost, slow speed, piling attempted and failed on the route to Oxford, route miles greatly cut back and a yard full of heavy metalwork sent for scrap. And "no we won't sign off any big electrification schemes, look at the GWR disaster" from the Treasury.
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.)
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....
That depends on what you mean by electrification. Until we abandoned electrification under Railtrack we had an engineering team very good at wiring routes quickly and efficiently.
But we lost all that. And started again. So for the GWR scheme they came up with a whole new robust specification. Enormous never been done before, not needed deep piles to support huge ugly heavy metalwork.
The result? Vast cost, slow speed, piling attempted and failed on the route to Oxford, route miles greatly cut back and a yard full of heavy metalwork sent for scrap. And "no we won't sign off any big electrification schemes, look at the GWR disaster" from the Treasury.
Abandoning electrification was nothing to do with Railtrack: it was New Labour's decision not to continue with proposed schemes. Labour's track record with electrification was hideous.
Agree with the rest of your post. In particular, changes to increase electrification clearances have been a bit of a bugger.
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.
Shocking from a private transport POV as well. Its a perfect example of why we are shit at infrastructure:
RAIL: High capacity route opened in 1955 albeit using non-standard kit. Run down so that the cost of converting it could be avoided, it went to the "wrong" bit of Sheffield (the city centre) on the wrong (Great Central) network so boooooo.
So we have a meandering southerly route with no capacity and no real ability to speed it up or make it more attractive. Complete with a pair of single track sections for added fun.
ROAD: Cross-Pennine motorway planned and built at the western end. Manchester motorway network cancelled so nowhere for traffic to go, Sheffield motorway plans also cancelled, so if we build it it generates traffic which will get stuck so why bother?
Go to France. Germany. Spain. Italy. They would have built both road and rail decades ago.
'Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.
Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look.
The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.
Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth.'
LONDON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a challenge to the lawfulness of the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol, which governs post-Brexit trade between the British province and mainland Britain.
The legal challenge, which was brought by Brexit activists and leaders and former leaders of Northern Ireland's largest unionist parties, had previously been rejected by Northern Ireland's High Court and Court of Appeal.
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.
Shocking from a private transport POV as well. Its a perfect example of why we are shit at infrastructure:
RAIL: High capacity route opened in 1955 albeit using non-standard kit. Run down so that the cost of converting it could be avoided, it went to the "wrong" bit of Sheffield (the city centre) on the wrong (Great Central) network so boooooo.
So we have a meandering southerly route with no capacity and no real ability to speed it up or make it more attractive. Complete with a pair of single track sections for added fun.
ROAD: Cross-Pennine motorway planned and built at the western end. Manchester motorway network cancelled so nowhere for traffic to go, Sheffield motorway plans also cancelled, so if we build it it generates traffic which will get stuck so why bother?
Go to France. Germany. Spain. Italy. They would have built both road and rail decades ago.
(Puts on bullet-proof coat)
I'd argue the closure of the Woodhead Route in 1981 made sense at the time. It was a freight-only route (passenger services having ceased 11 years earlier), and the freight traffic over the route was vanishing fast. It was an expensive route to maintain, and upgrading it to 25kv was going to be troublesome.
But like the March to Spalding line that closed in 1982, with hindsight the closure was a mistake. But that hindsight only came in a couple of decades later.
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
That may be so but Unionists both north and south of the border need a strategy. And a message to younger Scots. What's in it for them?
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.
Shocking from a private transport POV as well. Its a perfect example of why we are shit at infrastructure:
RAIL: High capacity route opened in 1955 albeit using non-standard kit. Run down so that the cost of converting it could be avoided, it went to the "wrong" bit of Sheffield (the city centre) on the wrong (Great Central) network so boooooo.
So we have a meandering southerly route with no capacity and no real ability to speed it up or make it more attractive. Complete with a pair of single track sections for added fun.
ROAD: Cross-Pennine motorway planned and built at the western end. Manchester motorway network cancelled so nowhere for traffic to go, Sheffield motorway plans also cancelled, so if we build it it generates traffic which will get stuck so why bother?
Go to France. Germany. Spain. Italy. They would have built both road and rail decades ago.
The perma-jam from Mottram to Tintwistle is a right pain.
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
Ignoring the Trump interregnum (if only) and also the (admittedly huge) race angle, how about Biden as LBJ to Obama's JFK..
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.
Take this, which has been in the Book of Common Prayer to be said or sung every evening;
He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.
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.)
Awesome political skill there
I don't know that it's unprecedented to engage in back and forth like that during a SOTU, but it's certainly highly unusual.
That is a big political moment, since it concerns a very large part of the disputed federal budget. The incontinent wing of the GOP precipitated their own ambush.
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.
Shocking from a private transport POV as well. Its a perfect example of why we are shit at infrastructure:
RAIL: High capacity route opened in 1955 albeit using non-standard kit. Run down so that the cost of converting it could be avoided, it went to the "wrong" bit of Sheffield (the city centre) on the wrong (Great Central) network so boooooo.
So we have a meandering southerly route with no capacity and no real ability to speed it up or make it more attractive. Complete with a pair of single track sections for added fun.
ROAD: Cross-Pennine motorway planned and built at the western end. Manchester motorway network cancelled so nowhere for traffic to go, Sheffield motorway plans also cancelled, so if we build it it generates traffic which will get stuck so why bother?
Go to France. Germany. Spain. Italy. They would have built both road and rail decades ago.
(Puts on bullet-proof coat)
I'd argue the closure of the Woodhead Route in 1981 made sense at the time. It was a freight-only route (passenger services having ceased 11 years earlier), and the freight traffic over the route was vanishing fast. It was an expensive route to maintain, and upgrading it to 25kv was going to be troublesome.
But like the March to Spalding line that closed in 1982, with hindsight the closure was a mistake. But that hindsight only came in a couple of decades later.
I agree that it made sense to shut Woodhead in 1981. What should have happened is conversion of it to AC in the early 1960s as happened with the other DC overhead routes. Woodhead was life-expired and a huge cost at the end. But switch it over in say 1962 and things would have been very different.
I don't know why, but I have a strong suspicion that the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip will make one of his vanishingly rare appearances in the Commons today. Unless he's on holiday, of course.
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
Ignoring the Trump interregnum (if only) and also the (admittedly huge) race angle, how about Biden as LBJ to Obama's JFK..
I hope not. Ukraine is not Vietnam.
Very much not as far as the morality of it goes - but it does have the potential to also turn into a long and messy conflict ending in defeat. Although let's hope not and I really don't think so.
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.
Take this, which has been in the Book of Common Prayer to be said or sung every evening;
He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.
Yes yes we know Jesus was a commie. Which is why evangelical right wing Christians exorcise him completely and only quote either the smiting or the misogyny books and none of that leftie Sermon on the Mount crap.
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.)
Awesome political skill there
I don't know that it's unprecedented to engage in back and forth like that during a SOTU, but it's certainly highly unusual.
That is a big political moment, since it concerns a very large part of the disputed federal budget. The incontinent wing of the GOP precipitated their own ambush.
Someone on Twitter said that Marjorie Taylor Green was bawling out 'Liar!' at one point. As a fervent firearms enthusiast I'm sure she'd enjoy the phrase hoist by one's own petard.
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
Ignoring the Trump interregnum (if only) and also the (admittedly huge) race angle, how about Biden as LBJ to Obama's JFK..
I hope not. Ukraine is not Vietnam.
Very much not as far as the morality of it goes - but it does have the potential to also turn into a long and messy conflict ending in defeat. Although let's hope not and I really don't think so.
It's really not comparable. In Vietnam the US got emeshed in the fag end of a corrupt and brutal French colonialism, and ended up trying to prop up a regime with precious little support, having helped partition an unwilling nation.
Ukraine would be fighting the Russian invasion, albeit with greatly reduced chances of success, even without US support.
(As an aside, I hadn't realised that Churchill/Eden's refusal of Eisenhower's request to help early on in Vietnam was a significant factor in his cutting the rug from under us during Suez.)
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.
Take this, which has been in the Book of Common Prayer to be said or sung every evening;
He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.
Yes yes we know Jesus was a commie. Which is why evangelical right wing Christians exorcise him completely and only quote either the smiting or the misogyny books and none of that leftie Sermon on the Mount crap.
These days they're trying to rebrand him as a warrior.
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.
Take this, which has been in the Book of Common Prayer to be said or sung every evening;
He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.
Yes yes we know Jesus was a commie. Which is why evangelical right wing Christians exorcise him completely and only quote either the smiting or the misogyny books and none of that leftie Sermon on the Mount crap.
These days they're trying to rebrand him as a warrior.
Who are - the religious right? A warrior for...? Rich men getting into heaven? The right of the money lenders to trade? Love for foreigners and sick people?
Ultimately this is what relapsed me into not celebrating faith. So many "christians" are massive hypocrites. They don't remotely believe or else they wouldn't be working so hard to do the direct opposite of what He commanded.
I know a couple of Ukrainians - former work colleagues. Ukraine is up and coming in the IT world, in the way that Bulgaria was a few years back.
On this topic, they keep coming back to the fact that the UK was *early* (2014) in providing real help and *outspoken* at a time before it was fashionable.
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
Ignoring the Trump interregnum (if only) and also the (admittedly huge) race angle, how about Biden as LBJ to Obama's JFK..
I hope not. Ukraine is not Vietnam.
Very much not as far as the morality of it goes - but it does have the potential to also turn into a long and messy conflict ending in defeat. Although let's hope not and I really don't think so.
It's really not comparable. In Vietnam the US got emeshed in the fag end of a corrupt and brutal French colonialism, and ended up trying to prop up a regime with precious little support,, having helped partition an unwilling nation.
Ukraine would be fighting the Russian invasion, albeit with greatly reduced chances of success, even without US support.
You could argue that Ukraine is Vietnam - the Ukrainians are the North Vietnamese, fighting off the colonial invaders and their allies.
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.
Take this, which has been in the Book of Common Prayer to be said or sung every evening;
He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.
Yes yes we know Jesus was a commie. Which is why evangelical right wing Christians exorcise him completely and only quote either the smiting or the misogyny books and none of that leftie Sermon on the Mount crap.
That was his mother saying that, which probably makes it even worse.
One of the neat things Christianity done well does is make everyone uncomfortable.
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.)
Awesome political skill there
I don't know that it's unprecedented to engage in back and forth like that during a SOTU, but it's certainly highly unusual.
That is a big political moment, since it concerns a very large part of the disputed federal budget. The incontinent wing of the GOP precipitated their own ambush.
Someone on Twitter said that Marjorie Taylor Green was bawling out 'Liar!' at one point. As a fervent firearms enthusiast I'm sure she'd enjoy the phrase hoist by one's own petard.
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.)
Awesome political skill there
I don't know that it's unprecedented to engage in back and forth like that during a SOTU, but it's certainly highly unusual.
That is a big political moment, since it concerns a very large part of the disputed federal budget. The incontinent wing of the GOP precipitated their own ambush.
Someone on Twitter said that Marjorie Taylor Green was bawling out 'Liar!' at one point. As a fervent firearms enthusiast I'm sure she'd enjoy the phrase hoist by one's own petard.
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.)
Awesome political skill there
I don't know that it's unprecedented to engage in back and forth like that during a SOTU, but it's certainly highly unusual.
That is a big political moment, since it concerns a very large part of the disputed federal budget. The incontinent wing of the GOP precipitated their own ambush.
Someone on Twitter said that Marjorie Taylor Green was bawling out 'Liar!' at one point. As a fervent firearms enthusiast I'm sure she'd enjoy the phrase hoist by one's own petard.
For someone who supposedly is too senile to serve as President he is a crafty old bastard. Anyone would think he's been doing politics for decades...
Perhaps just as significant for our betting POV is the shoutouts he was getting from the left of his party after the speech. The prospects of a significant primary challenge from that wing look much reduced to me.
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.)
Awesome political skill there
I don't know that it's unprecedented to engage in back and forth like that during a SOTU, but it's certainly highly unusual.
That is a big political moment, since it concerns a very large part of the disputed federal budget. The incontinent wing of the GOP precipitated their own ambush.
Someone on Twitter said that Marjorie Taylor Green was bawling out 'Liar!' at one point. As a fervent firearms enthusiast I'm sure she'd enjoy the phrase hoist by one's own petard.
For someone who supposedly is too senile to serve as President he is a crafty old bastard. Anyone would think he's been doing politics for decades...
Perhaps just as significant for our betting POV is the shoutouts he was getting from the left of his party after the speech. The prospects of a significant primary challenge from that wing look much reduced to me.
Yes, from the bits I heard Biden's agenda is fairly redistributive and quite green. His policies on taxation seem quite radical, albeit from a poor starting point, and he's not afraid of taking on the rich. Perhaps Starmer could learn from him.
And no wonder the Republicans are going apeshit - a socialist in the White House!
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.
Wind turbines on land are hitting issues with maximum size/efficiency. The next generation turbines are so large that evening moving them over land to install at sea is nearly impossible.
Politically, a small number of people cannot adapt to the sound they make. In addition to those that hate the look.
Given there is enough potential offshore wind capacity to power anything you like, why wold you put them on land?
The issue with tidal ponds seems to be in the permanent portion of the government apparatus. As Dr Palmer has told us, there is a certain report (with very flawed calculations) that gets wheeled out to any politician who brings up tidal ponds.
You'd put them on land, as well as offshore, because time is of the essence, we should do everything that has a chance of working, and part of the weakness of the way we approach these issues is to let a quest for the perfect hold up doing anything.
We went to look at a house a few days ago that was close to one of the local wind farms, and we decided that the rhythmic hum we could discern from the turbines was less intrusive than the background tyre noise we could hear from a different house that was a similar distance away from a main road with a 100kph speed limit, as the other was from the wind turbines.
There was a third house, which was much quieter, but we think that was because it was a non-working day for the quarry a mile away. We'll have to see what the noise is like there on a blasting day.
I don't want to seem like I'm dismissing issues to do with noise pollution from wind turbines, but they're hardly unique in creating noise.
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.)
Awesome political skill there
Not really. Social security and medicare have nice names, but they're benefits for the boomers not the whole nation and they are an unaffordable drain on the federal budget that are decades overdue reforms. But the sad reality is that both parties there know they need to pander to baby boomers to get votes so nobody is going to touch social security and medicare despite the fact they actually should.
Just like here in the UK vast wealth transfers are constantly happening from those who are productive and working to those who are unproductive, retired and frequently already wealthy rentiers who are not taxed at the same rate as those working for a living.
But those frequently already wealthy rentiers vote, and the young don't, so both parties here and there pander to them.
Getting both parties to pander to the boomer vote takes no skill, I'd be more impressed if anyone was willing to stand up and say that this is wrong. I shan't be holding my breath though.
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.
Wind turbines on land are hitting issues with maximum size/efficiency. The next generation turbines are so large that evening moving them over land to install at sea is nearly impossible.
Politically, a small number of people cannot adapt to the sound they make. In addition to those that hate the look.
Given there is enough potential offshore wind capacity to power anything you like, why wold you put them on land?
The issue with tidal ponds seems to be in the permanent portion of the government apparatus. As Dr Palmer has told us, there is a certain report (with very flawed calculations) that gets wheeled out to any politician who brings up tidal ponds.
You'd put them on land, as well as offshore, because time is of the essence, we should do everything that has a chance of working, and part of the weakness of the way we approach these issues is to let a quest for the perfect hold up doing anything.
We went to look at a house a few days ago that was close to one of the local wind farms, and we decided that the rhythmic hum we could discern from the turbines was less intrusive than the background tyre noise we could hear from a different house that was a similar distance away from a main road with a 100kph speed limit, as the other was from the wind turbines.
There was a third house, which was much quieter, but we think that was because it was a non-working day for the quarry a mile away. We'll have to see what the noise is like there on a blasting day.
I don't want to seem like I'm dismissing issues to do with noise pollution from wind turbines, but they're hardly unique in creating noise.
There are a small number of people who simply can't adapt to the noise.
Politically, it's - "Put it out to sea. Fish don't vote."
Many things work. Time is of the essence can result in flawed strategies.
The real question is whether we get more generation capacity and in what time scale, if we use land based wind. The answer seems to be that the actual amount of generation capacity you get in the next year or 2 is no different, *maybe* some advantage to allowing mass onshore in the next 5 years, and after that the differences merge again.
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.
Take this, which has been in the Book of Common Prayer to be said or sung every evening;
He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.
Yes yes we know Jesus was a commie. Which is why evangelical right wing Christians exorcise him completely and only quote either the smiting or the misogyny books and none of that leftie Sermon on the Mount crap.
These days they're trying to rebrand him as a warrior.
Who are - the religious right? A warrior for...? Rich men getting into heaven? The right of the money lenders to trade? Love for foreigners and sick people?
Ultimately this is what relapsed me into not celebrating faith. So many "christians" are massive hypocrites. They don't remotely believe or else they wouldn't be working so hard to do the direct opposite of what He commanded.
This was part of a discussion I had with one of the Cambridge college chaplains decades ago. I was discussing my lack of faith, and that I felt put out that this would apparently count against me in the final reckoning, even if I'd lived a better life than someone who believed.
His argument was that it was a mistake to compare myself to others (that, at least is good advice), and that faith in God would inspire me to live a better life than the life I would lead without faith, and that this would be true for everyone, even though those with faith would still fall short of living a perfect godly life.
I didn't think his argument was that bad, but I never found faith, and I wasn't willing to fake it, so, if there is a God I'm still anticipating receiving a bit of a raw deal for not believing in him.
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.
Anything to do with teh topic is relevant in Scotland at present unfortunately , Sturgeon has stuffed Trans big time with her shambles, aided and abetted by the Green, Labour & Lib Dem halfwits.
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.
Anything to do with teh topic is relevant in Scotland at present unfortunately , Sturgeon has stuffed Trans big time with her shambles, aided and abetted by the Green, Labour & Lib Dem halfwits.
The relevancy is that in the event of a hypothetical serious crime, the arrested individual would be placed on remand, not bailed. Flight risk etc. Which jail should the individual be sent to?
Comments
Paul was not.
Nobody could believe everything the Bible says as its so full of contradictions, so people pick and choose the bits that suit them and ignore the rest. It is amusing how many who call themselves "Christians" are really Jehovans or Paulians though.
ie the older tougher wilier blunt and folksy successor to the young charismatic glam superarticulate President he'd served as Veep - who proves to care just as much about progressive values and be more effective in actually delivering the goods.
Is that a good one, do we think, or does it collapse in the witness box?
Politically, a small number of people cannot adapt to the sound they make. In addition to those that hate the look.
Given there is enough potential offshore wind capacity to power anything you like, why wold you put them on land?
The issue with tidal ponds seems to be in the permanent portion of the government apparatus. As Dr Palmer has told us, there is a certain report (with very flawed calculations) that gets wheeled out to any politician who brings up tidal ponds.
But we lost all that. And started again. So for the GWR scheme they came up with a whole new robust specification. Enormous never been done before, not needed deep piles to support huge ugly heavy metalwork.
The result? Vast cost, slow speed, piling attempted and failed on the route to Oxford, route miles greatly cut back and a yard full of heavy metalwork sent for scrap. And "no we won't sign off any big electrification schemes, look at the GWR disaster" from the Treasury.
Agree with the rest of your post. In particular, changes to increase electrification clearances have been a bit of a bugger.
RAIL: High capacity route opened in 1955 albeit using non-standard kit. Run down so that the cost of converting it could be avoided, it went to the "wrong" bit of Sheffield (the city centre) on the wrong (Great Central) network so boooooo.
So we have a meandering southerly route with no capacity and no real ability to speed it up or make it more attractive. Complete with a pair of single track sections for added fun.
ROAD: Cross-Pennine motorway planned and built at the western end. Manchester motorway network cancelled so nowhere for traffic to go, Sheffield motorway plans also cancelled, so if we build it it generates traffic which will get stuck so why bother?
Go to France. Germany. Spain. Italy. They would have built both road and rail decades ago.
'Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.
Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look.
The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense fog is densest, and the muddy streets are muddiest near that leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation, Temple Bar. And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.
Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth.'
The legal challenge, which was brought by Brexit activists and leaders and former leaders of Northern Ireland's largest unionist parties, had previously been rejected by Northern Ireland's High Court and Court of Appeal.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-top-court-rejects-challenge-brexit-deals-nireland-protocol-2023-02-08/
I'd argue the closure of the Woodhead Route in 1981 made sense at the time. It was a freight-only route (passenger services having ceased 11 years earlier), and the freight traffic over the route was vanishing fast. It was an expensive route to maintain, and upgrading it to 25kv was going to be troublesome.
But like the March to Spalding line that closed in 1982, with hindsight the closure was a mistake. But that hindsight only came in a couple of decades later.
It is an honour to host President Zelenskyy of Ukraine in Westminster Hall later today.
The President will address Members of both Houses about the ongoing situation in his country.
https://twitter.com/PARLYapp/status/1623262506813734914
https://twitter.com/CommonsSpeaker/status/1623251291643293700
Ukraine is not Vietnam.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent empty away.
That is a big political moment, since it concerns a very large part of the disputed federal budget. The incontinent wing of the GOP precipitated their own ambush.
Some EU officials had spoken of how President Zelensky's next foreign trip would naturally be Brussels - so it's notable that he has first headed to London
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-64566762?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=63e374162e179876cd7c11e7&Zelensky comes to UK before addressing EU leaders&2023-02-08T10:13:17.981Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:52a95b7c-e090-4fb3-8735-7547965427e7&pinned_post_asset_id=63e374162e179876cd7c11e7&pinned_post_type=share
In Vietnam the US got emeshed in the fag end of a corrupt and brutal French colonialism, and ended up trying to prop up a regime with precious little support, having helped partition an unwilling nation.
Ukraine would be fighting the Russian invasion, albeit with greatly reduced chances of success, even without US support.
(As an aside, I hadn't realised that Churchill/Eden's refusal of Eisenhower's request to help early on in Vietnam was a significant factor in his cutting the rug from under us during Suez.)
Ultimately this is what relapsed me into not celebrating faith. So many "christians" are massive hypocrites. They don't remotely believe or else they wouldn't be working so hard to do the direct opposite of what He commanded.
On this topic, they keep coming back to the fact that the UK was *early* (2014) in providing real help and *outspoken* at a time before it was fashionable.
One of the neat things Christianity done well does is make everyone uncomfortable.
https://mobile.twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1623183393176403971
The prospects of a significant primary challenge from that wing look much reduced to me.
And no wonder the Republicans are going apeshit - a socialist in the White House!
We went to look at a house a few days ago that was close to one of the local wind farms, and we decided that the rhythmic hum we could discern from the turbines was less intrusive than the background tyre noise we could hear from a different house that was a similar distance away from a main road with a 100kph speed limit, as the other was from the wind turbines.
There was a third house, which was much quieter, but we think that was because it was a non-working day for the quarry a mile away. We'll have to see what the noise is like there on a blasting day.
I don't want to seem like I'm dismissing issues to do with noise pollution from wind turbines, but they're hardly unique in creating noise.
Just like here in the UK vast wealth transfers are constantly happening from those who are productive and working to those who are unproductive, retired and frequently already wealthy rentiers who are not taxed at the same rate as those working for a living.
But those frequently already wealthy rentiers vote, and the young don't, so both parties here and there pander to them.
Getting both parties to pander to the boomer vote takes no skill, I'd be more impressed if anyone was willing to stand up and say that this is wrong. I shan't be holding my breath though.
Politically, it's - "Put it out to sea. Fish don't vote."
Many things work. Time is of the essence can result in flawed strategies.
The real question is whether we get more generation capacity and in what time scale, if we use land based wind. The answer seems to be that the actual amount of generation capacity you get in the next year or 2 is no different, *maybe* some advantage to allowing mass onshore in the next 5 years, and after that the differences merge again.
His argument was that it was a mistake to compare myself to others (that, at least is good advice), and that faith in God would inspire me to live a better life than the life I would lead without faith, and that this would be true for everyone, even though those with faith would still fall short of living a perfect godly life.
I didn't think his argument was that bad, but I never found faith, and I wasn't willing to fake it, so, if there is a God I'm still anticipating receiving a bit of a raw deal for not believing in him.