Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
There is no way any EPL team will join this ESL. Not now
The ESL blew their one big chance with that botched ‘closed’ league which everyone hated. Their new proposals are more emollient but it is almost certainly too late
Thanks for engaging, ydoethur. I'd overlooked the "which decade is 1970 in" issue, although if you say 2010 was in the 2000s then the answer is the 2010s!
I meant to define "decades" as the 1950s, the 1990s etc, so I was thinking the 1940s.
Yes, I'm an irritatingly pedantic Maths teacher (who still managed to overlook the 0 issue) but even I's struggle to argue 1 was not an odd number!
My maths teacher used to argue it didn't meet the definition, because it couldn't divide by itself *and* 1.
She may well have been talking bollocks, of course. It sounded like bollocks at the time, but to be honest I just drifted amiably through my maths lessons trying not to get into trouble, so I didn't really care either way.
Still got a B, and I've no idea how.
That's the definition of a prime number, rather than an odd number.
Ah, that must have been what she meant then. Clearly I should have been paying more attention.
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
It’s remarkable what you can find in a document if you close one eye, tilt your head just so….
Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
As businesses what they want is certainty and predictability. They don't want to see one poor season on the field damage their cash flow.
Most sports fans thrive on the excitement of uncertainty and the thrill of the unexpected.
The interests of the big clubs and of the fans are diametrically opposed.
Yes, that is the fun of it all. In the last decade or so I have seen serial promotions, a relegation battle, a Premier League win, Champions League, UEFA Cup, UEFA Conference League, FA Cup win, Chartity Shield win and now another relegation battle. Being a Leicester City fan is a wild ride.
Interesting to see our new signings against Spurs today. Leicester vs Spurs matches are nearly always entertaining goal festivals, though not recently good ones for my team. Football though produces surprises so probably a grim nil nil draw or 1 goal on a contested VAR penalty!
All of this is true. The EPL is not flawless but it is great fun and a wild ride - for fans at home and abroad
But domestic football is much less fun for Scots, Germans, French fans (and many others) - when one or two teams win every year
Bayern Munich have won ten Bundesliga titles IN A ROW
On the current polling Labour are going to win a big majority. However if Sunak can win back 2019 Tories going DK or to RefUK he can still get a hung parliament. That requires cutting borrowing enough to enable tax cuts before the next general election in particular. Remember too Cameron was heading for a landslide majority in 2009 but Brown pulled it back to get to a hung parliament by polling day in 2010.
Changing the leader now would make sod all difference. Indeed if anything Sunak polls better than the Conservative Party overall now
Getting inflation under control ie sub 3% so that people can regain confidence in the value of their money is absolutely key!
And even then LAB will probably win.
Which requires an end to the Ukraine war. Even if Labour win if the war is still going on it would then be Labour's problem in government to deal with getting inflation down
Prigozhin, who seems to be one of the few people involved in this whole conflict with some connection to reality, did an interesting interview on Pegov's TG channel. He reckons 18-24 months to take Donbas (presume he means DPR/LPR) and 3 years to get to the Dnieper. Sounds about right at the current rate of RF progress.
He also said PMC Wagner are running low on zeks so they are stepping up recruitment efforts in the Balkans, SE Asia, Africa and the US.
Apologies for partially re-posting something from last night but I went to a very interesting talk and Q&A on the Ukraine war yesterday, given by Geoffrey Till, naval historian and professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College.
Some random take aways: - long conflict / frozen war the most likely near future outcome; - US can't produce ammunition at the rate it's being expended by Ukraine [which I found surprising]; - keeping the western unity is key; - nuclear escalation extremely unlikely; - taking out Putin could easily make the situation worse rather than resolve it.
And of course: no one knows because all the experts have been pitifully wrong so far.
Interesting evening though.
The war is clearly now one of attrition of men, heavy weapons and of ammunition. The war of manouvre is over. It is a different sort of a war, and one that consumes men faster when the heavy weapons are lacking. We are at the 1915 stage on the Western Front, with the retreat from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv the parallel to the German retreat from the Marne.
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
I've just added Celtic shares to my portofino. Decent upside imo.
On the current polling Labour are going to win a big majority. However if Sunak can win back 2019 Tories going DK or to RefUK he can still get a hung parliament. That requires cutting borrowing enough to enable tax cuts before the next general election in particular. Remember too Cameron was heading for a landslide majority in 2009 but Brown pulled it back to get to a hung parliament by polling day in 2010.
Changing the leader now would make sod all difference. Indeed if anything Sunak polls better than the Conservative Party overall now
Getting inflation under control ie sub 3% so that people can regain confidence in the value of their money is absolutely key!
And even then LAB will probably win.
Which requires an end to the Ukraine war. Even if Labour win if the war is still going on it would then be Labour's problem in government to deal with getting inflation down
Prigozhin, who seems to be one of the few people involved in this whole conflict with some connection to reality, did an interesting interview on Pegov's TG channel. He reckons 18-24 months to take Donbas (presume he means DPR/LPR) and 3 years to get to the Dnieper. Sounds about right at the current rate of RF progress.
He also said PMC Wagner are running low on zeks so they are stepping up recruitment efforts in the Balkans, SE Asia, Africa and the US.
Apologies for partially re-posting something from last night but I went to a very interesting talk and Q&A on the Ukraine war yesterday, given by Geoffrey Till, naval historian and professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College.
Some random take aways: - long conflict / frozen war the most likely near future outcome; - US can't produce ammunition at the rate it's being expended by Ukraine [which I found surprising]; - keeping the western unity is key; - nuclear escalation extremely unlikely; - taking out Putin could easily make the situation worse rather than resolve it.
And of course: no one knows because all the experts have been pitifully wrong so far.
Interesting evening though.
The war is clearly now one of attrition of men, heavy weapons and of ammunition. The war of manouvre is over. It is a different sort of a war, and one that consumes men faster when the heavy weapons are lacking. We are at the 1915 stage on the Western Front, with the retreat from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv the parallel to the German retreat from the Marne.
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
That we are in a 1915 situation is a terrifying thought. That war went on another three years until one side collapsed through lack of resources. Which one will that be?
Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
There is no way any EPL team will join this ESL. Not now
The ESL blew their one big chance with that botched ‘closed’ league which everyone hated. Their new proposals are more emollient but it is almost certainly too late
They ahead one shot, and they missed badly. Millions of fans have spoken, and football is a sport which is attached more than any other to local communities.
The only ways forward now are either at the domestic level, for example merging two leagues together, or at a European level through the existing UEFA structures.
Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
As businesses what they want is certainty and predictability. They don't want to see one poor season on the field damage their cash flow.
Most sports fans thrive on the excitement of uncertainty and the thrill of the unexpected.
The interests of the big clubs and of the fans are diametrically opposed.
Yes, that is the fun of it all. In the last decade or so I have seen serial promotions, a relegation battle, a Premier League win, Champions League, UEFA Cup, UEFA Conference League, FA Cup win, Chartity Shield win and now another relegation battle. Being a Leicester City fan is a wild ride.
Interesting to see our new signings against Spurs today. Leicester vs Spurs matches are nearly always entertaining goal festivals, though not recently good ones for my team. Football though produces surprises so probably a grim nil nil draw or 1 goal on a contested VAR penalty!
All of this is true. The EPL is not flawless but it is great fun and a wild ride - for fans at home and abroad
But domestic football is much less fun for Scots, Germans, French fans (and many others) - when one or two teams win every year
Bayern Munich have won ten Bundesliga titles IN A ROW
I'm not entirely opposed to a European Super League, if it operated like a new tier of football competition, and the existing national leagues effectively became the second tier of club football, and it worked in a similar way to the regional divisions that feed into the national leagues.
But my guess is that most fans would rather have reforms that enabled Dortmund and Bremen to compete on a more equal footing with Bayern, or Lyon and Montpellier to compete with PSG, than to see those Bayern and PSG use a new Super League to make the prospect of that competition more remote.
The other interesting thing is that these days, the left wing party is the one offering the centrist, safe friendly prospectus. Whereas the right wing party is the one motivated by wild radical types.
Labour is operating as the natural party of government and the conservatives increasingly like to position themselves as an opposition.
Since the next election is a change election, how will that play out?
Yes the Conservatives may try to run (again) on "the last years of government have been terrible, vote for us!" but I don't think it's going to work next time.
It’s the next Tory manifesto that befuddles me. I swear Sunak is going to a run on an “ I deliver, don’t risk it” ticket. Which after the last five years is an absurd position. It’s also hard to see what on earth they will promise. A few tax payer bribes, naturally, but the Tory party is split in pretty much every way imaginable. It’s hard to see what direction they offer.
'Don't risk change' is of course the stock incumbent position, the counter to the stock opposition position of 'Its time for change'. All the other arguments are just variations of them or lead off from them.
Youd already expect both these positions to be very strong after 14 years. The question was merely would it be strong enough to overcome the unusually very strong incumbent result after 9 years.
With a Borisite faction almost eager to lose to 'prove' he should not have been ousted, no money, and failing services and delivery across the board, it makes sense a Lab majority is seen as most likely, but not certain.
As you say what's the pitch? Boring Starmer will do something radical?
On the current polling Labour are going to win a big majority. However if Sunak can win back 2019 Tories going DK or to RefUK he can still get a hung parliament. That requires cutting borrowing enough to enable tax cuts before the next general election in particular. Remember too Cameron was heading for a landslide majority in 2009 but Brown pulled it back to get to a hung parliament by polling day in 2010.
Changing the leader now would make sod all difference. Indeed if anything Sunak polls better than the Conservative Party overall now
Getting inflation under control ie sub 3% so that people can regain confidence in the value of their money is absolutely key!
And even then LAB will probably win.
Which requires an end to the Ukraine war. Even if Labour win if the war is still going on it would then be Labour's problem in government to deal with getting inflation down
Prigozhin, who seems to be one of the few people involved in this whole conflict with some connection to reality, did an interesting interview on Pegov's TG channel. He reckons 18-24 months to take Donbas (presume he means DPR/LPR) and 3 years to get to the Dnieper. Sounds about right at the current rate of RF progress.
He also said PMC Wagner are running low on zeks so they are stepping up recruitment efforts in the Balkans, SE Asia, Africa and the US.
Apologies for partially re-posting something from last night but I went to a very interesting talk and Q&A on the Ukraine war yesterday, given by Geoffrey Till, naval historian and professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College.
Some random take aways: - long conflict / frozen war the most likely near future outcome; - US can't produce ammunition at the rate it's being expended by Ukraine [which I found surprising]; - keeping the western unity is key; - nuclear escalation extremely unlikely; - taking out Putin could easily make the situation worse rather than resolve it.
And of course: no one knows because all the experts have been pitifully wrong so far.
Interesting evening though.
The war is clearly now one of attrition of men, heavy weapons and of ammunition. The war of manouvre is over. It is a different sort of a war, and one that consumes men faster when the heavy weapons are lacking. We are at the 1915 stage on the Western Front, with the retreat from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv the parallel to the German retreat from the Marne.
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
That we are in a 1915 situation is a terrifying thought. That war went on another three years until one side collapsed through lack of resources. Which one will that be?
In WW1 it was serial collapses through lack of resources and internal collapse. By 1917 the Russians and French were mutinous, the Italians were shattered at Caporetto, the Romanians, Ottomans, Serbs all collapsed too.
The war is existential for both Ukraine and the Putin regime (though not Russia itself). I think Ukraine will have enough support to stay in the fight, but I see stalemate the most likely outcome.
On the current polling Labour are going to win a big majority. However if Sunak can win back 2019 Tories going DK or to RefUK he can still get a hung parliament. That requires cutting borrowing enough to enable tax cuts before the next general election in particular. Remember too Cameron was heading for a landslide majority in 2009 but Brown pulled it back to get to a hung parliament by polling day in 2010.
Changing the leader now would make sod all difference. Indeed if anything Sunak polls better than the Conservative Party overall now
Getting inflation under control ie sub 3% so that people can regain confidence in the value of their money is absolutely key!
And even then LAB will probably win.
Which requires an end to the Ukraine war. Even if Labour win if the war is still going on it would then be Labour's problem in government to deal with getting inflation down
Prigozhin, who seems to be one of the few people involved in this whole conflict with some connection to reality, did an interesting interview on Pegov's TG channel. He reckons 18-24 months to take Donbas (presume he means DPR/LPR) and 3 years to get to the Dnieper. Sounds about right at the current rate of RF progress.
He also said PMC Wagner are running low on zeks so they are stepping up recruitment efforts in the Balkans, SE Asia, Africa and the US.
Apologies for partially re-posting something from last night but I went to a very interesting talk and Q&A on the Ukraine war yesterday, given by Geoffrey Till, naval historian and professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College.
Some random take aways: - long conflict / frozen war the most likely near future outcome; - US can't produce ammunition at the rate it's being expended by Ukraine [which I found surprising]; - keeping the western unity is key; - nuclear escalation extremely unlikely; - taking out Putin could easily make the situation worse rather than resolve it.
And of course: no one knows because all the experts have been pitifully wrong so far.
Interesting evening though.
The war is clearly now one of attrition of men, heavy weapons and of ammunition. The war of manouvre is over. It is a different sort of a war, and one that consumes men faster when the heavy weapons are lacking. We are at the 1915 stage on the Western Front, with the retreat from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv the parallel to the German retreat from the Marne.
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
Prigozhin - was that the interview in which he talked about invading Western Europe? To do the carve up of states that the Duginites drone on about?
Edit: one change that seems to have been missed is how solidly much of the GOP in the US is behind the arms deliveries, now. The pork must flow - after some dry years, the future of the M1 tank plant is assured. The artillery shell makers are scaling up to 100k rounds a month…. A smart piece of business was sending stuff from National Guard units on the promise that they get brand new shinies, too pirority. Politicians love getting their National Guard units the best toys they can.
Mr. Roy, the Conservatives would bite your hand off to only be decimated at the next election.
Feeling quietly confident of my Lab majority bet (tipped by someone here... perhaps Ishmael Z).
I believe he tipped and backed at 5/1 and cashed out at evens. An odious fellow, but with sound instincts on some matters.
Is there a tory leader at next GE market anywhere? There sometimes is, but can't find one. If yes back Sunak at almost any price, because he will call one rather than be ousted.
I think he will be leader at the General Election, but not for the reason you give.
If neither Johnson nor Truss seriously tried to press the button on an election when they were imperilled, despite speculation they may, Sunak is hardly going to. He's a much more conventional politician than either of them.
He will be the leader at the next GE because all the ambitious ones now know that there is a decent chance of annihilation which any current incumbent cannot survive. Sunak will be a one man musical chairs at the moment the one chair is removed.
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
Haw! New level of excitement all right. Just ask any Mancunian about the last Rangers FC visit.
Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
Just to be clear, the owners of the Big 6 feel that way (especially the Americans). The fans most certainly don’t.
On the current polling Labour are going to win a big majority. However if Sunak can win back 2019 Tories going DK or to RefUK he can still get a hung parliament. That requires cutting borrowing enough to enable tax cuts before the next general election in particular. Remember too Cameron was heading for a landslide majority in 2009 but Brown pulled it back to get to a hung parliament by polling day in 2010.
Changing the leader now would make sod all difference. Indeed if anything Sunak polls better than the Conservative Party overall now
Getting inflation under control ie sub 3% so that people can regain confidence in the value of their money is absolutely key!
And even then LAB will probably win.
Which requires an end to the Ukraine war. Even if Labour win if the war is still going on it would then be Labour's problem in government to deal with getting inflation down
Prigozhin, who seems to be one of the few people involved in this whole conflict with some connection to reality, did an interesting interview on Pegov's TG channel. He reckons 18-24 months to take Donbas (presume he means DPR/LPR) and 3 years to get to the Dnieper. Sounds about right at the current rate of RF progress.
He also said PMC Wagner are running low on zeks so they are stepping up recruitment efforts in the Balkans, SE Asia, Africa and the US.
Apologies for partially re-posting something from last night but I went to a very interesting talk and Q&A on the Ukraine war yesterday, given by Geoffrey Till, naval historian and professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College.
Some random take aways: - long conflict / frozen war the most likely near future outcome; - US can't produce ammunition at the rate it's being expended by Ukraine [which I found surprising]; - keeping the western unity is key; - nuclear escalation extremely unlikely; - taking out Putin could easily make the situation worse rather than resolve it.
And of course: no one knows because all the experts have been pitifully wrong so far.
Interesting evening though.
The war is clearly now one of attrition of men, heavy weapons and of ammunition. The war of manouvre is over. It is a different sort of a war, and one that consumes men faster when the heavy weapons are lacking. We are at the 1915 stage on the Western Front, with the retreat from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv the parallel to the German retreat from the Marne.
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
The various estimates for Russian losses in this war, have between five and ten tanks a day lost. Now the Ukranians have lost a lot fewer than that, but it’s still going to be dozens per month, hundreds per year.
The modern Western tanks *should* be better, if used effectively and with good logistics, but there will still be a lot of losses.
A really good point about ammunition as well. If we’re donating kit, we need to ensure that there’s production lines open for ammo and spare parts - perhaps open a facility somewhere like Poland, close to the war.
Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
There is no way any EPL team will join this ESL. Not now
The ESL blew their one big chance with that botched ‘closed’ league which everyone hated. Their new proposals are more emollient but it is almost certainly too late
Quite. If they had any self reflection they might want to consider how no one likes UEFA, but they made UEFA the good guy of the story. That's no easy accomplishment.
Now they've come up with something else but everyone knows what they wanted to do, and would try again if they could. And they're angry at everyone but themselves for making such a hash of it.
I would be fascinated to know what they thought the reaction would be to their first proposal, as it was entirely predictable yet they were practically Truss like in their comic unpreparedness.
The other interesting thing is that these days, the left wing party is the one offering the centrist, safe friendly prospectus. Whereas the right wing party is the one motivated by wild radical types.
Labour is operating as the natural party of government and the conservatives increasingly like to position themselves as an opposition.
Since the next election is a change election, how will that play out?
Yes the Conservatives may try to run (again) on "the last years of government have been terrible, vote for us!" but I don't think it's going to work next time.
It’s the next Tory manifesto that befuddles me. I swear Sunak is going to a run on an “ I deliver, don’t risk it” ticket. Which after the last five years is an absurd position. It’s also hard to see what on earth they will promise. A few tax payer bribes, naturally, but the Tory party is split in pretty much every way imaginable. It’s hard to see what direction they offer.
'Don't risk change' is of course the stock incumbent position, the counter to the stock opposition position of 'Its time for change'. All the other arguments are just variations of them or lead off from them.
Youd already expect both these positions to be very strong after 14 years. The question was merely would it be strong enough to overcome the unusually very strong incumbent result after 9 years.
With a Borisite faction almost eager to lose to 'prove' he should not have been ousted, no money, and failing services and delivery across the board, it makes sense a Lab majority is seen as most likely, but not certain.
As you say what's the pitch? Boring Starmer will do something radical?
Don’t risk change. That was the remainer mantra. It didn’t work then either.
When the status quo is as shit as it is at the moment for so many people why not change the status quo. We are now, as Andrew Neil said on his show, poorer as a whole than Slovenia.
I’ve no love for the current Labour Party although I vote labour at a national level. But they deserve a chance and this current shower need to be removed. They’re utterly rudderless.
Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
Just to be clear, the owners of the Big 6 feel that way (especially the Americans). The fans most certainly don’t.
More than one American chairman, has supposedly had to have the concept of relegation explained to them. No, they didn’t buy an “EPL Franchise”.
The reason that football is such a wonderful sport, is that Leicester City can win the league out of nowhere.
On the current polling Labour are going to win a big majority. However if Sunak can win back 2019 Tories going DK or to RefUK he can still get a hung parliament. That requires cutting borrowing enough to enable tax cuts before the next general election in particular. Remember too Cameron was heading for a landslide majority in 2009 but Brown pulled it back to get to a hung parliament by polling day in 2010.
Changing the leader now would make sod all difference. Indeed if anything Sunak polls better than the Conservative Party overall now
Getting inflation under control ie sub 3% so that people can regain confidence in the value of their money is absolutely key!
And even then LAB will probably win.
Which requires an end to the Ukraine war. Even if Labour win if the war is still going on it would then be Labour's problem in government to deal with getting inflation down
Prigozhin, who seems to be one of the few people involved in this whole conflict with some connection to reality, did an interesting interview on Pegov's TG channel. He reckons 18-24 months to take Donbas (presume he means DPR/LPR) and 3 years to get to the Dnieper. Sounds about right at the current rate of RF progress.
He also said PMC Wagner are running low on zeks so they are stepping up recruitment efforts in the Balkans, SE Asia, Africa and the US.
Apologies for partially re-posting something from last night but I went to a very interesting talk and Q&A on the Ukraine war yesterday, given by Geoffrey Till, naval historian and professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College.
Some random take aways: - long conflict / frozen war the most likely near future outcome; - US can't produce ammunition at the rate it's being expended by Ukraine [which I found surprising]; - keeping the western unity is key; - nuclear escalation extremely unlikely; - taking out Putin could easily make the situation worse rather than resolve it.
And of course: no one knows because all the experts have been pitifully wrong so far.
Interesting evening though.
The war is clearly now one of attrition of men, heavy weapons and of ammunition. The war of manouvre is over. It is a different sort of a war, and one that consumes men faster when the heavy weapons are lacking. We are at the 1915 stage on the Western Front, with the retreat from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv the parallel to the German retreat from the Marne.
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
People said it was a war of attrition last summer, and we wouldn't see any large movements. Then the Russian army was sufficiently attrited that the Ukrainians were able to breakthrough on the Kharkiv front and forced the Russians to retreat from Kherson.
If the West can keep supplying Ukraine, and if Russia does not receive supplies from China, then I would think there's a good chance of something similar happening this year, and quite possibly sooner rather than later.
The other interesting thing is that these days, the left wing party is the one offering the centrist, safe friendly prospectus. Whereas the right wing party is the one motivated by wild radical types.
Labour is operating as the natural party of government and the conservatives increasingly like to position themselves as an opposition.
Since the next election is a change election, how will that play out?
Yes the Conservatives may try to run (again) on "the last years of government have been terrible, vote for us!" but I don't think it's going to work next time.
It’s the next Tory manifesto that befuddles me. I swear Sunak is going to a run on an “ I deliver, don’t risk it” ticket. Which after the last five years is an absurd position. It’s also hard to see what on earth they will promise. A few tax payer bribes, naturally, but the Tory party is split in pretty much every way imaginable. It’s hard to see what direction they offer.
'Don't risk change' is of course the stock incumbent position, the counter to the stock opposition position of 'Its time for change'. All the other arguments are just variations of them or lead off from them.
Youd already expect both these positions to be very strong after 14 years. The question was merely would it be strong enough to overcome the unusually very strong incumbent result after 9 years.
With a Borisite faction almost eager to lose to 'prove' he should not have been ousted, no money, and failing services and delivery across the board, it makes sense a Lab majority is seen as most likely, but not certain.
As you say what's the pitch? Boring Starmer will do something radical?
The next election will only have a winner because the rules are that the winner is deemed to be the one that can form a government. In terms of ideas, solutions and statesmanship no winners are currently available, only bad and worse losers. This will be true until there is political and public consensus on The Union and on Post Brexit EU relations. We may be waiting for a bit.
The other possible solution is a leader who isn't dishonest but who can convince the majority that the cup is half full, not half empty, and can get fuller not emptier.
Names on a postcard? Blair, Attlee, Churchill, Clinton and Obama are not candidates.
Aren't Fairbrass, Bridgen and GeeBeebies vaccine sceptics?
All a bit incongruous when Boris invented the Covid vaccine, and seldom fails to remind us he got COVID right.
TCW is the among the most radical Tory sites, I'd expect the fruitcake element to eclipse the Boris element (despise him or not he was a politician from the tory mainstream).
Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
Just to be clear, the owners of the Big 6 feel that way (especially the Americans). The fans most certainly don’t.
Certainly fans didnt support.
The irony is that the American draft system ensures constant turnover at the top of their sports (albeit within closed leagues). Imagine a system where Bournemouth or Brentford get to sign Haarland. Indeed possibly such a draft system can only work in closed leagues.
On the current polling Labour are going to win a big majority. However if Sunak can win back 2019 Tories going DK or to RefUK he can still get a hung parliament. That requires cutting borrowing enough to enable tax cuts before the next general election in particular. Remember too Cameron was heading for a landslide majority in 2009 but Brown pulled it back to get to a hung parliament by polling day in 2010.
Changing the leader now would make sod all difference. Indeed if anything Sunak polls better than the Conservative Party overall now
Getting inflation under control ie sub 3% so that people can regain confidence in the value of their money is absolutely key!
And even then LAB will probably win.
Which requires an end to the Ukraine war. Even if Labour win if the war is still going on it would then be Labour's problem in government to deal with getting inflation down
Prigozhin, who seems to be one of the few people involved in this whole conflict with some connection to reality, did an interesting interview on Pegov's TG channel. He reckons 18-24 months to take Donbas (presume he means DPR/LPR) and 3 years to get to the Dnieper. Sounds about right at the current rate of RF progress.
He also said PMC Wagner are running low on zeks so they are stepping up recruitment efforts in the Balkans, SE Asia, Africa and the US.
Apologies for partially re-posting something from last night but I went to a very interesting talk and Q&A on the Ukraine war yesterday, given by Geoffrey Till, naval historian and professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College.
Some random take aways: - long conflict / frozen war the most likely near future outcome; - US can't produce ammunition at the rate it's being expended by Ukraine [which I found surprising]; - keeping the western unity is key; - nuclear escalation extremely unlikely; - taking out Putin could easily make the situation worse rather than resolve it.
And of course: no one knows because all the experts have been pitifully wrong so far.
Interesting evening though.
The war is clearly now one of attrition of men, heavy weapons and of ammunition. The war of manouvre is over. It is a different sort of a war, and one that consumes men faster when the heavy weapons are lacking. We are at the 1915 stage on the Western Front, with the retreat from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv the parallel to the German retreat from the Marne.
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
The various estimates for Russian losses in this war, have between five and ten tanks a day lost. Now the Ukranians have lost a lot fewer than that, but it’s still going to be dozens per month, hundreds per year.
The modern Western tanks *should* be better, if used effectively and with good logistics, but there will still be a lot of losses.
A really good point about ammunition as well. If we’re donating kit, we need to ensure that there’s production lines open for ammo and spare parts - perhaps open a facility somewhere like Poland, close to the war.
The risk is that we are giving Ukraine tanks, but without the means to protect them from the air they're pretty vulnerable to missiles from Russian helicopters and jets. One possibility is that heavy losses of the first tranche of Western tanks are the trigger for convincing the West to reconstitute the Ukrainian airforce with Western jets.
On the current polling Labour are going to win a big majority. However if Sunak can win back 2019 Tories going DK or to RefUK he can still get a hung parliament. That requires cutting borrowing enough to enable tax cuts before the next general election in particular. Remember too Cameron was heading for a landslide majority in 2009 but Brown pulled it back to get to a hung parliament by polling day in 2010.
Changing the leader now would make sod all difference. Indeed if anything Sunak polls better than the Conservative Party overall now
Getting inflation under control ie sub 3% so that people can regain confidence in the value of their money is absolutely key!
And even then LAB will probably win.
Which requires an end to the Ukraine war. Even if Labour win if the war is still going on it would then be Labour's problem in government to deal with getting inflation down
Prigozhin, who seems to be one of the few people involved in this whole conflict with some connection to reality, did an interesting interview on Pegov's TG channel. He reckons 18-24 months to take Donbas (presume he means DPR/LPR) and 3 years to get to the Dnieper. Sounds about right at the current rate of RF progress.
He also said PMC Wagner are running low on zeks so they are stepping up recruitment efforts in the Balkans, SE Asia, Africa and the US.
Apologies for partially re-posting something from last night but I went to a very interesting talk and Q&A on the Ukraine war yesterday, given by Geoffrey Till, naval historian and professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College.
Some random take aways: - long conflict / frozen war the most likely near future outcome; - US can't produce ammunition at the rate it's being expended by Ukraine [which I found surprising]; - keeping the western unity is key; - nuclear escalation extremely unlikely; - taking out Putin could easily make the situation worse rather than resolve it.
And of course: no one knows because all the experts have been pitifully wrong so far.
Interesting evening though.
The war is clearly now one of attrition of men, heavy weapons and of ammunition. The war of manouvre is over. It is a different sort of a war, and one that consumes men faster when the heavy weapons are lacking. We are at the 1915 stage on the Western Front, with the retreat from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv the parallel to the German retreat from the Marne.
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
General Zaluzhny wanted 300 tanks. I think it's known that 14 Challengers won't make a huge difference but it was supposed to open the way to Europe sending some of the 2000 Leopards. Ukraine has requisitioned quite a lot of Russian kit and been given plenty of older tanks too. Some of this may be about making sure they've got plenty of stocks available as they can't really afford to use up everything. It's only about 100 miles from Zaporizhzhia to the sea of Azov
Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
There is no way any EPL team will join this ESL. Not now
The ESL blew their one big chance with that botched ‘closed’ league which everyone hated. Their new proposals are more emollient but it is almost certainly too late
Quite. If they had any self reflection they might want to consider how no one likes UEFA, but they made UEFA the good guy of the story. That's no easy accomplishment.
Now they've come up with something else but everyone knows what they wanted to do, and would try again if they could. And they're angry at everyone but themselves for making such a hash of it.
I would be fascinated to know what they thought the reaction would be to their first proposal, as it was entirely predictable yet they were practically Truss like in their comic unpreparedness.
The ECJ is making a final ruling in April as to whether UEFA and FIFA can sanction clubs that breakaway. It is highly likely they will do so, then the ESL (as it stands) will finally die
One problem ESL faces is that all the domestic leagues are against it. eg La Liga HATES the idea
On the current polling Labour are going to win a big majority. However if Sunak can win back 2019 Tories going DK or to RefUK he can still get a hung parliament. That requires cutting borrowing enough to enable tax cuts before the next general election in particular. Remember too Cameron was heading for a landslide majority in 2009 but Brown pulled it back to get to a hung parliament by polling day in 2010.
Changing the leader now would make sod all difference. Indeed if anything Sunak polls better than the Conservative Party overall now
Getting inflation under control ie sub 3% so that people can regain confidence in the value of their money is absolutely key!
And even then LAB will probably win.
Which requires an end to the Ukraine war. Even if Labour win if the war is still going on it would then be Labour's problem in government to deal with getting inflation down
Prigozhin, who seems to be one of the few people involved in this whole conflict with some connection to reality, did an interesting interview on Pegov's TG channel. He reckons 18-24 months to take Donbas (presume he means DPR/LPR) and 3 years to get to the Dnieper. Sounds about right at the current rate of RF progress.
He also said PMC Wagner are running low on zeks so they are stepping up recruitment efforts in the Balkans, SE Asia, Africa and the US.
Apologies for partially re-posting something from last night but I went to a very interesting talk and Q&A on the Ukraine war yesterday, given by Geoffrey Till, naval historian and professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College.
Some random take aways: - long conflict / frozen war the most likely near future outcome; - US can't produce ammunition at the rate it's being expended by Ukraine [which I found surprising]; - keeping the western unity is key; - nuclear escalation extremely unlikely; - taking out Putin could easily make the situation worse rather than resolve it.
And of course: no one knows because all the experts have been pitifully wrong so far.
Interesting evening though.
The war is clearly now one of attrition of men, heavy weapons and of ammunition. The war of manouvre is over. It is a different sort of a war, and one that consumes men faster when the heavy weapons are lacking. We are at the 1915 stage on the Western Front, with the retreat from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv the parallel to the German retreat from the Marne.
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
People said it was a war of attrition last summer, and we wouldn't see any large movements. Then the Russian army was sufficiently attrited that the Ukrainians were able to breakthrough on the Kharkiv front and forced the Russians to retreat from Kherson.
If the West can keep supplying Ukraine, and if Russia does not receive supplies from China, then I would think there's a good chance of something similar happening this year, and quite possibly sooner rather than later.
It’s not talked about much, but Xi deserves a lot of praise for his netrality in this war. There’s likely to have been quite the pressure put on him to supply the Russians, which he’s managed to resist.
Another reason we need a change is government soon is our international brand for business investment. It’s been ratnered and that’s a downside of our continued soft media power.
Frankly it’s embarrassing talking to - especially - American colleagues and clients at the moment. They’ve decided the UK is a basket case based on media coverage. Never mind that we’re still a pretty decent investment destination with manageable bureaucracy, flexible labour market and strong universities. The image of chaos and incompetence is damaging us more than is justified. Similar to what the French experienced when gilet jaunes were all over the international news.
A change of government even if no policies change would just help to calm this down and revert us to the mean again.
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
Would be a certain irony in having the teams from Glasgow, the area that represents the heart of the new independence movement, switching to play in England.
Another reason we need a change is government soon is our international brand for business investment. It’s been ratnered and that’s a downside of our continued soft media power.
Frankly it’s embarrassing talking to - especially - American colleagues and clients at the moment. They’ve decided the UK is a basket case based on media coverage. Never mind that we’re still a pretty decent investment destination with manageable bureaucracy, flexible labour market and strong universities. The image of chaos and incompetence is damaging us more than is justified. Similar to what the French experienced when gilet jaunes were all over the international news.
A change of government even if no policies change would just help to calm this down and revert us to the mean again.
Don’t disagree with that, but the assumption that the incoming government won’t make things more difficult for business is a big one.
Labour is almost certain to raise corporation tax, income tax on high incomes and dividends, and something on international corporate structures.
On the current polling Labour are going to win a big majority. However if Sunak can win back 2019 Tories going DK or to RefUK he can still get a hung parliament. That requires cutting borrowing enough to enable tax cuts before the next general election in particular. Remember too Cameron was heading for a landslide majority in 2009 but Brown pulled it back to get to a hung parliament by polling day in 2010.
Changing the leader now would make sod all difference. Indeed if anything Sunak polls better than the Conservative Party overall now
Getting inflation under control ie sub 3% so that people can regain confidence in the value of their money is absolutely key!
And even then LAB will probably win.
Which requires an end to the Ukraine war. Even if Labour win if the war is still going on it would then be Labour's problem in government to deal with getting inflation down
Prigozhin, who seems to be one of the few people involved in this whole conflict with some connection to reality, did an interesting interview on Pegov's TG channel. He reckons 18-24 months to take Donbas (presume he means DPR/LPR) and 3 years to get to the Dnieper. Sounds about right at the current rate of RF progress.
He also said PMC Wagner are running low on zeks so they are stepping up recruitment efforts in the Balkans, SE Asia, Africa and the US.
Apologies for partially re-posting something from last night but I went to a very interesting talk and Q&A on the Ukraine war yesterday, given by Geoffrey Till, naval historian and professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College.
Some random take aways: - long conflict / frozen war the most likely near future outcome; - US can't produce ammunition at the rate it's being expended by Ukraine [which I found surprising]; - keeping the western unity is key; - nuclear escalation extremely unlikely; - taking out Putin could easily make the situation worse rather than resolve it.
And of course: no one knows because all the experts have been pitifully wrong so far.
Interesting evening though.
The war is clearly now one of attrition of men, heavy weapons and of ammunition. The war of manouvre is over. It is a different sort of a war, and one that consumes men faster when the heavy weapons are lacking. We are at the 1915 stage on the Western Front, with the retreat from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv the parallel to the German retreat from the Marne.
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
People said it was a war of attrition last summer, and we wouldn't see any large movements. Then the Russian army was sufficiently attrited that the Ukrainians were able to breakthrough on the Kharkiv front and forced the Russians to retreat from Kherson.
If the West can keep supplying Ukraine, and if Russia does not receive supplies from China, then I would think there's a good chance of something similar happening this year, and quite possibly sooner rather than later.
A war of attrition doesn't mean a completely static war. The retreat from Kharkiv oblast was one of manouvre as Ukraine burst through and cut Russian supply lines, but Kherson was one of attrition, with a Russian retreat because of untenable losses and difficult defensive position.
War of manoevre requires strong command and communication between artillery, infantry armour and air, and between units. We see that the Russians are no longer capable of this co-ordination, at least above battalion level. It is yet to be seen if Ukraine can do so above Brigade level, or indeed has the heavy arms needed.
On the current polling Labour are going to win a big majority. However if Sunak can win back 2019 Tories going DK or to RefUK he can still get a hung parliament. That requires cutting borrowing enough to enable tax cuts before the next general election in particular. Remember too Cameron was heading for a landslide majority in 2009 but Brown pulled it back to get to a hung parliament by polling day in 2010.
Changing the leader now would make sod all difference. Indeed if anything Sunak polls better than the Conservative Party overall now
Getting inflation under control ie sub 3% so that people can regain confidence in the value of their money is absolutely key!
And even then LAB will probably win.
Which requires an end to the Ukraine war. Even if Labour win if the war is still going on it would then be Labour's problem in government to deal with getting inflation down
Prigozhin, who seems to be one of the few people involved in this whole conflict with some connection to reality, did an interesting interview on Pegov's TG channel. He reckons 18-24 months to take Donbas (presume he means DPR/LPR) and 3 years to get to the Dnieper. Sounds about right at the current rate of RF progress.
He also said PMC Wagner are running low on zeks so they are stepping up recruitment efforts in the Balkans, SE Asia, Africa and the US.
Apologies for partially re-posting something from last night but I went to a very interesting talk and Q&A on the Ukraine war yesterday, given by Geoffrey Till, naval historian and professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College.
Some random take aways: - long conflict / frozen war the most likely near future outcome; - US can't produce ammunition at the rate it's being expended by Ukraine [which I found surprising]; - keeping the western unity is key; - nuclear escalation extremely unlikely; - taking out Putin could easily make the situation worse rather than resolve it.
And of course: no one knows because all the experts have been pitifully wrong so far.
Interesting evening though.
The war is clearly now one of attrition of men, heavy weapons and of ammunition. The war of manouvre is over. It is a different sort of a war, and one that consumes men faster when the heavy weapons are lacking. We are at the 1915 stage on the Western Front, with the retreat from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv the parallel to the German retreat from the Marne.
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
People said it was a war of attrition last summer, and we wouldn't see any large movements. Then the Russian army was sufficiently attrited that the Ukrainians were able to breakthrough on the Kharkiv front and forced the Russians to retreat from Kherson.
If the West can keep supplying Ukraine, and if Russia does not receive supplies from China, then I would think there's a good chance of something similar happening this year, and quite possibly sooner rather than later.
It’s not talked about much, but Xi deserves a lot of praise for his netrality in this war. There’s likely to have been quite the pressure put on him to supply the Russians, which he’s managed to resist.
Well, there's a lot that we don't know about that. It might be that there's a lot of credit to go to Western diplomats for encouraging that decision. Or Xi may have extracted a quid pro quo of some sort in return for standing aside, not that there's much sign of one.
It's the third, and least-discussed, of the three big factors that have led to Russia failing to win the war. And it's vital that it stays that way.
Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
Just to be clear, the owners of the Big 6 feel that way (especially the Americans). The fans most certainly don’t.
Certainly fans didnt support.
The irony is that the American draft system ensures constant turnover at the top of their sports (albeit within closed leagues). Imagine a system where Bournemouth or Brentford get to sign Haarland. Indeed possibly such a draft system can only work in closed leagues.
Oh absolutely a draft system can only work in a closed league. An NFL style super league might have been worth considering to give the likes of Celtic, Benfica and Red Star the chance to compete for the title. But that was not what was being proposed.
The Saudis buying Newcastle seems to be the watershed moment. It confirms the Premier League as the Super League. The Qataris are now thinking that they need to buy into it too as the Champions League is starting to look a bit third rate.
On the current polling Labour are going to win a big majority. However if Sunak can win back 2019 Tories going DK or to RefUK he can still get a hung parliament. That requires cutting borrowing enough to enable tax cuts before the next general election in particular. Remember too Cameron was heading for a landslide majority in 2009 but Brown pulled it back to get to a hung parliament by polling day in 2010.
Changing the leader now would make sod all difference. Indeed if anything Sunak polls better than the Conservative Party overall now
Getting inflation under control ie sub 3% so that people can regain confidence in the value of their money is absolutely key!
And even then LAB will probably win.
Which requires an end to the Ukraine war. Even if Labour win if the war is still going on it would then be Labour's problem in government to deal with getting inflation down
Prigozhin, who seems to be one of the few people involved in this whole conflict with some connection to reality, did an interesting interview on Pegov's TG channel. He reckons 18-24 months to take Donbas (presume he means DPR/LPR) and 3 years to get to the Dnieper. Sounds about right at the current rate of RF progress.
He also said PMC Wagner are running low on zeks so they are stepping up recruitment efforts in the Balkans, SE Asia, Africa and the US.
Apologies for partially re-posting something from last night but I went to a very interesting talk and Q&A on the Ukraine war yesterday, given by Geoffrey Till, naval historian and professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College.
Some random take aways: - long conflict / frozen war the most likely near future outcome; - US can't produce ammunition at the rate it's being expended by Ukraine [which I found surprising]; - keeping the western unity is key; - nuclear escalation extremely unlikely; - taking out Putin could easily make the situation worse rather than resolve it.
And of course: no one knows because all the experts have been pitifully wrong so far.
Interesting evening though.
The war is clearly now one of attrition of men, heavy weapons and of ammunition. The war of manouvre is over. It is a different sort of a war, and one that consumes men faster when the heavy weapons are lacking. We are at the 1915 stage on the Western Front, with the retreat from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv the parallel to the German retreat from the Marne.
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
General Zaluzhny wanted 300 tanks. I think it's known that 14 Challengers won't make a huge difference but it was supposed to open the way to Europe sending some of the 2000 Leopards. Ukraine has requisitioned quite a lot of Russian kit and been given plenty of older tanks too. Some of this may be about making sure they've got plenty of stocks available as they can't really afford to use up everything. It's only about 100 miles from Zaporizhzhia to the sea of Azov
That is the obvious place for a further Ukranian offensive, though a push east, north of the Donbas an alternative.
Aren't Fairbrass, Bridgen and GeeBeebies vaccine sceptics?
All a bit incongruous when Boris invented the Covid vaccine, and seldom fails to remind us he got COVID right.
TCW is the among the most radical Tory sites, I'd expect the fruitcake element to eclipse the Boris element (despise him or not he was a politician from the tory mainstream).
Another reason we need a change is government soon is our international brand for business investment. It’s been ratnered and that’s a downside of our continued soft media power.
Frankly it’s embarrassing talking to - especially - American colleagues and clients at the moment. They’ve decided the UK is a basket case based on media coverage. Never mind that we’re still a pretty decent investment destination with manageable bureaucracy, flexible labour market and strong universities. The image of chaos and incompetence is damaging us more than is justified. Similar to what the French experienced when gilet jaunes were all over the international news.
A change of government even if no policies change would just help to calm this down and revert us to the mean again.
Don’t disagree with that, but the assumption that the incoming government won’t make things more difficult for business is a big one.
Labour is almost certain to raise corporation tax, income tax on high incomes and dividends, and something on international corporate structures.
They won’t raise CT. They may raise income tax on high earners and they’ll probably reform CGT (which is well overdue). If they’re sensible they’ll replace the bizarre non dom regime with something that actually incentivises people to bring investment into the country not retain it offshore. I’m in touch with them on tax policy and there’s nothing scary there. The biggest hike in corporate tax in decades was enacted by….Rishi Sunak.
But the point is that it almost doesn’t matter what the policy is. Brand wise at the moment what we need is the perception of investibility.
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
"New Dublin side"? Football isn't franchised, which is why so many fans see the Milton Keynes lot as illegitimate.
Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
Just to be clear, the owners of the Big 6 feel that way (especially the Americans). The fans most certainly don’t.
Certainly fans didnt support.
The irony is that the American draft system ensures constant turnover at the top of their sports (albeit within closed leagues). Imagine a system where Bournemouth or Brentford get to sign Haarland. Indeed possibly such a draft system can only work in closed leagues.
Oh absolutely a draft system can only work in a closed league. An NFL style super league might have been worth considering to give the likes of Celtic, Benfica and Red Star the chance to compete for the title. But that was not what was being proposed.
The Saudis buying Newcastle seems to be the watershed moment. It confirms the Premier League as the Super League. The Qataris are now thinking that they need to buy into it too as the Champions League is starting to look a bit third rate.
I can foresee a huge schism. Where a nascent ESL - with some teams from Spain, Portugal, Italy, combining in a smaller ESL, to try and tackle the dominance of the EPL
Might just work initially. EPL will say no. Pivotal nations will then be Germany and France. If the German clubs commit to the ESL then the French will do the same and then the EPL might - just might. - begin to look isolated, and less attractive
It’s bit like the early EEC
However the German clubs are unlikely to join ESL because of their innate structure, which is a massive problem for any ESL
Just for the benefit of anyone here, I will repeat my long standing recommendation to the labour party in terms of its policy on Housing. - Pick a few areas around London which are not that developed, but have little to no landscape value, and extremely high conservative majorities. - Put together a 'housing for the future plan' which involves building a million houses in these areas. - Say that you will grant 'planning permission in principle' for a million houses by way of an act of parliament in the first 100 days of office, in these areas - Watch the tories go absolutely insane, watch the internal battles, watch all the nimby tendencies in the liberal democrats and the green party come to the fore... for a total niche issue that has no political downside for the labour party, because they never win in these areas anyway.
I think there is potential for a "New Towns" programme not dissimilar to the postwar ones. The key though is not the houses themselves, but rather employment, hence the need for good transport connections.
Convert HS2 to a line with a stop every 15-20 miles between London and Brum with a New Town centered on each stop, with road junction links to the near parallel M40 for business parks. The towns themselves constructed to encourage cycling etc as a form of commuting.
I suspect such towns would be very attractive to people and businesses.
I was reading an interesting report on Poundbury, it argues that one of its problems is poor connectivity to employment.
Essentially the problem with all of this is that building new communities along the lines you are suggesting is a 50 year project, and politics intervenes, so it is hard to see it ever happening.
My idea for the labour party is not a serious solution to the housing and planning problems, it is just an equally stupid response to the policies devised in this area by the tories over the last decade.
The postwar "New Towns" were not designed as commuter towns, but rather as integrated communities with shopping centres and employment built in.
Not all of these schemes worked, not least because the decline of manufacturing industry meant that the work was ephemeral, and not well suited to the skill set of the inhabitants, largely from working class communities in inner city slums.
"Give miners baths in their houses and they'll only store coal in them."
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
"New Dublin side"? Football isn't franchised, which is why so many fans see the Milton Keynes lot as illegitimate.
Football clubs are invented all the time. Paris St Germain were basically contrived out of nothing. Out of some tiny meaningless team with little history
So Shamrock Rovers or Bohemians FC would become the big new Dublin side, with £500m to spend
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
"New Dublin side"? Football isn't franchised, which is why so many fans see the Milton Keynes lot as illegitimate.
Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
Just to be clear, the owners of the Big 6 feel that way (especially the Americans). The fans most certainly don’t.
Certainly fans didnt support.
The irony is that the American draft system ensures constant turnover at the top of their sports (albeit within closed leagues). Imagine a system where Bournemouth or Brentford get to sign Haarland. Indeed possibly such a draft system can only work in closed leagues.
Oh absolutely a draft system can only work in a closed league. An NFL style super league might have been worth considering to give the likes of Celtic, Benfica and Red Star the chance to compete for the title. But that was not what was being proposed.
The Saudis buying Newcastle seems to be the watershed moment. It confirms the Premier League as the Super League. The Qataris are now thinking that they need to buy into it too as the Champions League is starting to look a bit third rate.
I haven't even watched a CL game for years, it's far too stale.
On the current polling Labour are going to win a big majority. However if Sunak can win back 2019 Tories going DK or to RefUK he can still get a hung parliament. That requires cutting borrowing enough to enable tax cuts before the next general election in particular. Remember too Cameron was heading for a landslide majority in 2009 but Brown pulled it back to get to a hung parliament by polling day in 2010.
Changing the leader now would make sod all difference. Indeed if anything Sunak polls better than the Conservative Party overall now
Getting inflation under control ie sub 3% so that people can regain confidence in the value of their money is absolutely key!
And even then LAB will probably win.
Which requires an end to the Ukraine war. Even if Labour win if the war is still going on it would then be Labour's problem in government to deal with getting inflation down
Prigozhin, who seems to be one of the few people involved in this whole conflict with some connection to reality, did an interesting interview on Pegov's TG channel. He reckons 18-24 months to take Donbas (presume he means DPR/LPR) and 3 years to get to the Dnieper. Sounds about right at the current rate of RF progress.
He also said PMC Wagner are running low on zeks so they are stepping up recruitment efforts in the Balkans, SE Asia, Africa and the US.
Apologies for partially re-posting something from last night but I went to a very interesting talk and Q&A on the Ukraine war yesterday, given by Geoffrey Till, naval historian and professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College.
Some random take aways: - long conflict / frozen war the most likely near future outcome; - US can't produce ammunition at the rate it's being expended by Ukraine [which I found surprising]; - keeping the western unity is key; - nuclear escalation extremely unlikely; - taking out Putin could easily make the situation worse rather than resolve it.
And of course: no one knows because all the experts have been pitifully wrong so far.
Interesting evening though.
The war is clearly now one of attrition of men, heavy weapons and of ammunition. The war of manouvre is over. It is a different sort of a war, and one that consumes men faster when the heavy weapons are lacking. We are at the 1915 stage on the Western Front, with the retreat from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv the parallel to the German retreat from the Marne.
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
The various estimates for Russian losses in this war, have between five and ten tanks a day lost. Now the Ukranians have lost a lot fewer than that, but it’s still going to be dozens per month, hundreds per year.
The modern Western tanks *should* be better, if used effectively and with good logistics, but there will still be a lot of losses.
A really good point about ammunition as well. If we’re donating kit, we need to ensure that there’s production lines open for ammo and spare parts - perhaps open a facility somewhere like Poland, close to the war.
The risk is that we are giving Ukraine tanks, but without the means to protect them from the air they're pretty vulnerable to missiles from Russian helicopters and jets. One possibility is that heavy losses of the first tranche of Western tanks are the trigger for convincing the West to reconstitute the Ukrainian airforce with Western jets.
Helicopters on both sides have been heavily attrited - lots of SAMS kicking about.
The Russian air force has been conspicuous in its absence. In theory, they should have wiped out the Ukrainians by day 2. The most notable thing is that the Russian airforce is avoiding flying over Ukraine, when it can. Long range bombers firing missiles from Russian territory and Mig 31 interceptors lobbing long range AAMs at Ukrainian fighters , again from Russian territory. The later has a low hit rate - the missiles are primarily designed to go against non-manoeuvring targets - but it is wearing the Ukrainian Airforce down.
Mr. Roy, the Conservatives would bite your hand off to only be decimated at the next election.
Feeling quietly confident of my Lab majority bet (tipped by someone here... perhaps Ishmael Z).
I believe he tipped and backed at 5/1 and cashed out at evens. An odious fellow, but with sound instincts on some matters.
Is there a tory leader at next GE market anywhere? There sometimes is, but can't find one. If yes back Sunak at almost any price, because he will call one rather than be ousted.
There are next Prime Minister, and Prime Minister after the next election markets. The former is close to what you ask for, since whoever succeeds Rishi before the election will be Prime Minister, though there will be plenty of time to change again. Betfair also has separate (and very thin) markets on whether Boris or Liz Truss will be leader on election day.
Aren't Fairbrass, Bridgen and GeeBeebies vaccine sceptics?
All a bit incongruous when Boris invented the Covid vaccine, and seldom fails to remind us he got COVID right.
TCW is the among the most radical Tory sites, I'd expect the fruitcake element to eclipse the Boris element (despise him or not he was a politician from the tory mainstream).
Yes I do despise him.
I'm very much against him myself, but that was irrelevant to him being, essentially, a mainstream Tory. He wasn't and isn't some anti-establishment insurgent from the fringes of the party.
Sure, his personal standards of conduct are execreble, and he'll try new initiatives to present as radically reforming if he wants, but he isn't a crank.
On the current polling Labour are going to win a big majority. However if Sunak can win back 2019 Tories going DK or to RefUK he can still get a hung parliament. That requires cutting borrowing enough to enable tax cuts before the next general election in particular. Remember too Cameron was heading for a landslide majority in 2009 but Brown pulled it back to get to a hung parliament by polling day in 2010.
Changing the leader now would make sod all difference. Indeed if anything Sunak polls better than the Conservative Party overall now
Getting inflation under control ie sub 3% so that people can regain confidence in the value of their money is absolutely key!
And even then LAB will probably win.
Which requires an end to the Ukraine war. Even if Labour win if the war is still going on it would then be Labour's problem in government to deal with getting inflation down
Prigozhin, who seems to be one of the few people involved in this whole conflict with some connection to reality, did an interesting interview on Pegov's TG channel. He reckons 18-24 months to take Donbas (presume he means DPR/LPR) and 3 years to get to the Dnieper. Sounds about right at the current rate of RF progress.
He also said PMC Wagner are running low on zeks so they are stepping up recruitment efforts in the Balkans, SE Asia, Africa and the US.
Apologies for partially re-posting something from last night but I went to a very interesting talk and Q&A on the Ukraine war yesterday, given by Geoffrey Till, naval historian and professor of military strategy at the US Naval War College.
Some random take aways: - long conflict / frozen war the most likely near future outcome; - US can't produce ammunition at the rate it's being expended by Ukraine [which I found surprising]; - keeping the western unity is key; - nuclear escalation extremely unlikely; - taking out Putin could easily make the situation worse rather than resolve it.
And of course: no one knows because all the experts have been pitifully wrong so far.
Interesting evening though.
The war is clearly now one of attrition of men, heavy weapons and of ammunition. The war of manouvre is over. It is a different sort of a war, and one that consumes men faster when the heavy weapons are lacking. We are at the 1915 stage on the Western Front, with the retreat from Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv the parallel to the German retreat from the Marne.
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
The various estimates for Russian losses in this war, have between five and ten tanks a day lost. Now the Ukranians have lost a lot fewer than that, but it’s still going to be dozens per month, hundreds per year.
The modern Western tanks *should* be better, if used effectively and with good logistics, but there will still be a lot of losses.
A really good point about ammunition as well. If we’re donating kit, we need to ensure that there’s production lines open for ammo and spare parts - perhaps open a facility somewhere like Poland, close to the war.
The risk is that we are giving Ukraine tanks, but without the means to protect them from the air they're pretty vulnerable to missiles from Russian helicopters and jets. One possibility is that heavy losses of the first tranche of Western tanks are the trigger for convincing the West to reconstitute the Ukrainian airforce with Western jets.
Helicopters on both sides have been heavily attrited - lots of SAMS kicking about.
The Russian air force has been conspicuous in its absence. In theory, they should have wiped out the Ukrainians by day 2. The most notable thing is that the Russian airforce is avoiding flying over Ukraine, when it can. Long range bombers firing missiles from Russian territory and Mig 31 interceptors lobbing long range AAMs at Ukrainian fighters , again from Russian territory. The later has a low hit rate - the missiles are primarily designed to go against non-manoeuvring targets - but it is wearing the Ukrainian Airforce down.
The rumour is that the Russians have very few serviceable aircraft, and even fewer serviceable pilots. It was said that, before this war, most pilots only flew one hour a week, which isn’t anywhere near enough to stay sharp. It’s quite astonishing to see this persist over a year though. They should have been able to cobble together enough planes, and made sure they had enough trained and experienced pilots, by now.
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
"New Dublin side"? Football isn't franchised, which is why so many fans see the Milton Keynes lot as illegitimate.
Another reason we need a change is government soon is our international brand for business investment. It’s been ratnered and that’s a downside of our continued soft media power.
Frankly it’s embarrassing talking to - especially - American colleagues and clients at the moment. They’ve decided the UK is a basket case based on media coverage. Never mind that we’re still a pretty decent investment destination with manageable bureaucracy, flexible labour market and strong universities. The image of chaos and incompetence is damaging us more than is justified. Similar to what the French experienced when gilet jaunes were all over the international news.
A change of government even if no policies change would just help to calm this down and revert us to the mean again.
Don’t disagree with that, but the assumption that the incoming government won’t make things more difficult for business is a big one.
Labour is almost certain to raise corporation tax, income tax on high incomes and dividends, and something on international corporate structures.
They won’t raise CT. They may raise income tax on high earners and they’ll probably reform CGT (which is well overdue). If they’re sensible they’ll replace the bizarre non dom regime with something that actually incentivises people to bring investment into the country not retain it offshore. I’m in touch with them on tax policy and there’s nothing scary there. The biggest hike in corporate tax in decades was enacted by….Rishi Sunak.
But the point is that it almost doesn’t matter what the policy is. Brand wise at the moment what we need is the perception of investibility.
The trade-off at the moment looks like low tax binfire vs. high tax but no binfire. (NB "looks like" might equal "is", but doesn't have to and it doesn't really matter.)
I don't have a finger on the pulse of business, so I don't know what they want, but it's not obvious that the first is better.
Meanwhile Sam Freedman's substack today also explores "can the opposition seal the deal against an unpopular government" by being impressively catty about the 2010 Conservative campaign;
But for the rest of the time I sat at a desk idly flicking through websites looking for news (if you were a politcalbetting.com regular at that time and ever wondered who was anonymously posting accurate polls before they appeared in the media, at least some of them were me overhearing our press team talking about them). I also had a lot of time to observe the chaos around me and try to figure out why what had appeared a certain victory now looked to be seriously in doubt.
Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
Just to be clear, the owners of the Big 6 feel that way (especially the Americans). The fans most certainly don’t.
Certainly fans didnt support.
The irony is that the American draft system ensures constant turnover at the top of their sports (albeit within closed leagues). Imagine a system where Bournemouth or Brentford get to sign Haarland. Indeed possibly such a draft system can only work in closed leagues.
Oh absolutely a draft system can only work in a closed league. An NFL style super league might have been worth considering to give the likes of Celtic, Benfica and Red Star the chance to compete for the title. But that was not what was being proposed.
The Saudis buying Newcastle seems to be the watershed moment. It confirms the Premier League as the Super League. The Qataris are now thinking that they need to buy into it too as the Champions League is starting to look a bit third rate.
I haven't even watched a CL game for years, it's far too stale.
To be fair, the Man City v Real Madrid games last season were awesome. But it feels like the last hurrah for Real.
I keep telling my Arsenal friends to be prepared for the worst in this season’s competition. An English team will win it and it could very well be Spurs.
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
"New Dublin side"? Football isn't franchised, which is why so many fans see the Milton Keynes lot as illegitimate.
They’re not Illegitimate.
They are not a franchise
AFC Wimbledon fucked over Kingstonian FC as well.
You mis-spelled "Chelsea".
And I said "many fans", not "all". Some don't quite understand how damgerous the MK franchising was to the pyramid.
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
"New Dublin side"? Football isn't franchised, which is why so many fans see the Milton Keynes lot as illegitimate.
Football clubs are invented all the time. Paris St Germain were basically contrived out of nothing. Out of some tiny meaningless team with little history
So Shamrock Rovers or Bohemians FC would become the big new Dublin side, with £500m to spend
They'd have to go through the English football pyramid.
Just for the benefit of anyone here, I will repeat my long standing recommendation to the labour party in terms of its policy on Housing. - Pick a few areas around London which are not that developed, but have little to no landscape value, and extremely high conservative majorities. - Put together a 'housing for the future plan' which involves building a million houses in these areas. - Say that you will grant 'planning permission in principle' for a million houses by way of an act of parliament in the first 100 days of office, in these areas - Watch the tories go absolutely insane, watch the internal battles, watch all the nimby tendencies in the liberal democrats and the green party come to the fore... for a total niche issue that has no political downside for the labour party, because they never win in these areas anyway.
I think there is potential for a "New Towns" programme not dissimilar to the postwar ones. The key though is not the houses themselves, but rather employment, hence the need for good transport connections.
Convert HS2 to a line with a stop every 15-20 miles between London and Brum with a New Town centered on each stop, with road junction links to the near parallel M40 for business parks. The towns themselves constructed to encourage cycling etc as a form of commuting.
I suspect such towns would be very attractive to people and businesses.
I was reading an interesting report on Poundbury, it argues that one of its problems is poor connectivity to employment.
Essentially the problem with all of this is that building new communities along the lines you are suggesting is a 50 year project, and politics intervenes, so it is hard to see it ever happening.
My idea for the labour party is not a serious solution to the housing and planning problems, it is just an equally stupid response to the policies devised in this area by the tories over the last decade.
The postwar "New Towns" were not designed as commuter towns, but rather as integrated communities with shopping centres and employment built in.
Not all of these schemes worked, not least because the decline of manufacturing industry meant that the work was ephemeral, and not well suited to the skill set of the inhabitants, largely from working class communities in inner city slums.
The concept is one worth revisiting for the 21st century.
The interesting thing in that Poundbury article, is that they appear to base the success or failure of such a project, purely on people abandoning their cars. Trying to get people out of cars has been the utopia of town planners, ever since people started buying them!
If your town has everything such that families only need one car rather than two, then it’s more of a city than a town. People will still drive to the supermarket and the larger shops.
Higher-density developments are of course a better use of land, and should be encouraged. It’s just weird to see everyone obsessed with getting rid of something that many people see as aspirational.
Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
Just to be clear, the owners of the Big 6 feel that way (especially the Americans). The fans most certainly don’t.
Certainly fans didnt support.
The irony is that the American draft system ensures constant turnover at the top of their sports (albeit within closed leagues). Imagine a system where Bournemouth or Brentford get to sign Haarland. Indeed possibly such a draft system can only work in closed leagues.
Oh absolutely a draft system can only work in a closed league. An NFL style super league might have been worth considering to give the likes of Celtic, Benfica and Red Star the chance to compete for the title. But that was not what was being proposed.
The Saudis buying Newcastle seems to be the watershed moment. It confirms the Premier League as the Super League. The Qataris are now thinking that they need to buy into it too as the Champions League is starting to look a bit third rate.
I can foresee a huge schism. Where a nascent ESL - with some teams from Spain, Portugal, Italy, combining in a smaller ESL, to try and tackle the dominance of the EPL
Might just work initially. EPL will say no. Pivotal nations will then be Germany and France. If the German clubs commit to the ESL then the French will do the same and then the EPL might - just might. - begin to look isolated, and less attractive
It’s bit like the early EEC
However the German clubs are unlikely to join ESL because of their innate structure, which is a massive problem for any ESL
I still think it ends with the rest of Europe demanding UEFA tax the Premier League to be in the Champions League. Whether or not the Premier League would cough up is another matter.
If there is a schism, the Premier League has the advantage of having the money to begin with. The problem for Europe is that Bayern, Juve, Real and Barca dislike competition more so than the Big 6 in the Premier League.
Mr. Leon, does the EPL need to change? It's one of the biggest sports leagues in the world and, I believe, the biggest football league anywhere.
It sounds like Juventus and Barcelona have overspent and want a new league so they can rake in more cash.
What the "Big 6" don't like is that the other 14 teams actually give them very tough games a lot of the time, and occasionally there are usurpers like Leicester, Newcastle or Brighton. They want fewer domestic games so they can play in Europe, which they see as more exciting.
Most of all they want to fossilised that Big 6 so they get European football every year, despite being as pisspoor as Liverpool or Chelsea are at the moment. They are simply arrogant and entitled.
Just to be clear, the owners of the Big 6 feel that way (especially the Americans). The fans most certainly don’t.
Certainly fans didnt support.
The irony is that the American draft system ensures constant turnover at the top of their sports (albeit within closed leagues). Imagine a system where Bournemouth or Brentford get to sign Haarland. Indeed possibly such a draft system can only work in closed leagues.
Oh absolutely a draft system can only work in a closed league. An NFL style super league might have been worth considering to give the likes of Celtic, Benfica and Red Star the chance to compete for the title. But that was not what was being proposed.
The Saudis buying Newcastle seems to be the watershed moment. It confirms the Premier League as the Super League. The Qataris are now thinking that they need to buy into it too as the Champions League is starting to look a bit third rate.
I haven't even watched a CL game for years, it's far too stale.
If you are mainly interested in watching football for the skill the CL is the competition to watch as all the top players are involved. I'm really not sure how you can say it's too stale.
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
"New Dublin side"? Football isn't franchised, which is why so many fans see the Milton Keynes lot as illegitimate.
They’re not Illegitimate.
They are not a franchise
AFC Wimbledon fucked over Kingstonian FC as well.
You mis-spelled "Chelsea".
And I said "many fans", not "all". Some don't quite understand how damgerous the MK franchising was to the pyramid.
I really didn’t mis-spell anything.
MK Dons are not a franchise. There is no such thing as franchising in soccer and if there was so what.
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
"New Dublin side"? Football isn't franchised, which is why so many fans see the Milton Keynes lot as illegitimate.
They’re not Illegitimate.
They are not a franchise
AFC Wimbledon fucked over Kingstonian FC as well.
You mis-spelled "Chelsea".
And I said "many fans", not "all". Some don't quite understand how damgerous the MK franchising was to the pyramid.
I really didn’t mis-spell anything.
MK Dons are not a franchise. There is no such thing as franchising in soccer and if there was so what.
Then you're completely clueless about what actually happened between AFCW and Kingstonian - as clueless as you are about the Milton Keynes franchise and the risk it poses to football.
I would be confident of a Labour majority, but for the fact that the Conservatives are making it impossible for 3+ million mainly younger adults to vote without first making a lot of effort to get additional photo ID just for the purpose of voting.
I would be confident of a Labour majority, but for the fact that the Conservatives are making it impossible for 3+ million mainly younger adults to vote without first making a lot of effort to get additional photo ID just for the purpose of voting.
Ah, we're up to 3 million plus are we? A couple of days ago, it was "up to 2 million", and that was probably an overestimate.
Just for the benefit of anyone here, I will repeat my long standing recommendation to the labour party in terms of its policy on Housing. - Pick a few areas around London which are not that developed, but have little to no landscape value, and extremely high conservative majorities. - Put together a 'housing for the future plan' which involves building a million houses in these areas. - Say that you will grant 'planning permission in principle' for a million houses by way of an act of parliament in the first 100 days of office, in these areas - Watch the tories go absolutely insane, watch the internal battles, watch all the nimby tendencies in the liberal democrats and the green party come to the fore... for a total niche issue that has no political downside for the labour party, because they never win in these areas anyway.
I think there is potential for a "New Towns" programme not dissimilar to the postwar ones. The key though is not the houses themselves, but rather employment, hence the need for good transport connections.
Convert HS2 to a line with a stop every 15-20 miles between London and Brum with a New Town centered on each stop, with road junction links to the near parallel M40 for business parks. The towns themselves constructed to encourage cycling etc as a form of commuting.
I suspect such towns would be very attractive to people and businesses.
I was reading an interesting report on Poundbury, it argues that one of its problems is poor connectivity to employment.
Essentially the problem with all of this is that building new communities along the lines you are suggesting is a 50 year project, and politics intervenes, so it is hard to see it ever happening.
My idea for the labour party is not a serious solution to the housing and planning problems, it is just an equally stupid response to the policies devised in this area by the tories over the last decade.
The postwar "New Towns" were not designed as commuter towns, but rather as integrated communities with shopping centres and employment built in.
Not all of these schemes worked, not least because the decline of manufacturing industry meant that the work was ephemeral, and not well suited to the skill set of the inhabitants, largely from working class communities in inner city slums.
The concept is one worth revisiting for the 21st century.
The interesting thing in that Poundbury article, is that they appear to base the success or failure of such a project, purely on people abandoning their cars. Trying to get people out of cars has been the utopia of town planners, ever since people started buying them!
If your town has everything such that families only need one car rather than two, then it’s more of a city than a town. People will still drive to the supermarket and the larger shops.
Higher-density developments are of course a better use of land, and should be encouraged. It’s just weird to see everyone obsessed with getting rid of something that many people see as aspirational.
Trouble is that, whilst me having a car is aspirational, everyone else using cars makes my life worse.
And it looks like there isn't a stable solution. The more you provide the road and parking space for cars, the more essential cars become, because everything that makes life good has to be further apart. And a lot of the infrastructure cars need to work is fairly ugly.
There's also a reasonable case from the numbers that English cities are unproductive because they're so car based. The low density caps the gains that you should get from agglomeration.
We may want to drive cars and live in detached houses in suburbia. But are we prepared to be poorer as a result? Lots of us probably are, but only in an "I'm all right Jack" way.
Just for the benefit of anyone here, I will repeat my long standing recommendation to the labour party in terms of its policy on Housing. - Pick a few areas around London which are not that developed, but have little to no landscape value, and extremely high conservative majorities. - Put together a 'housing for the future plan' which involves building a million houses in these areas. - Say that you will grant 'planning permission in principle' for a million houses by way of an act of parliament in the first 100 days of office, in these areas - Watch the tories go absolutely insane, watch the internal battles, watch all the nimby tendencies in the liberal democrats and the green party come to the fore... for a total niche issue that has no political downside for the labour party, because they never win in these areas anyway.
I think there is potential for a "New Towns" programme not dissimilar to the postwar ones. The key though is not the houses themselves, but rather employment, hence the need for good transport connections.
Convert HS2 to a line with a stop every 15-20 miles between London and Brum with a New Town centered on each stop, with road junction links to the near parallel M40 for business parks. The towns themselves constructed to encourage cycling etc as a form of commuting.
I suspect such towns would be very attractive to people and businesses.
I was reading an interesting report on Poundbury, it argues that one of its problems is poor connectivity to employment.
Essentially the problem with all of this is that building new communities along the lines you are suggesting is a 50 year project, and politics intervenes, so it is hard to see it ever happening.
My idea for the labour party is not a serious solution to the housing and planning problems, it is just an equally stupid response to the policies devised in this area by the tories over the last decade.
The postwar "New Towns" were not designed as commuter towns, but rather as integrated communities with shopping centres and employment built in.
Not all of these schemes worked, not least because the decline of manufacturing industry meant that the work was ephemeral, and not well suited to the skill set of the inhabitants, largely from working class communities in inner city slums.
The concept is one worth revisiting for the 21st century.
The interesting thing in that Poundbury article, is that they appear to base the success or failure of such a project, purely on people abandoning their cars. Trying to get people out of cars has been the utopia of town planners, ever since people started buying them!
If your town has everything such that families only need one car rather than two, then it’s more of a city than a town. People will still drive to the supermarket and the larger shops.
Higher-density developments are of course a better use of land, and should be encouraged. It’s just weird to see everyone obsessed with getting rid of something that many people see as aspirational.
The annoying thing (and this is an “Anglo Saxon” problem) is that these discussions are so often theoretical. As if cities and towns with the right balance of vehicles and pedestrians don’t exist out there in the big wide world.
At a push someone will occasionally reference somewhere in the Netherlands where they’ve reorganised the streets. But they all ignore the perfectly functional towns all across the South and centre of Europe where people live close to amenities, walk most of the time but also potter about up cobbled streets in cars, scooters and tiny little commercial vehicles with the minimum of fuss aside from the occasional noisy altercation with an oncoming vehicle in a 2 metre wide alleyway.
I suppose part of the issue is historical. In the 19th and early 20th century we designed suburbs as places to live, with cars and gardens, and town centres as somewhere to visit to shop. Meanwhile the French, Italians and Spanish kept living in the pretty town centres and built horrendously ugly sprawling industrial suburbs as places to drive to for shopping. Complete inversion of the Anglo city-suburb pattern. Our town centres are by and large ugly and grey surrounded by leafy suburbs, theirs are pretty and colourful surrounded by ugly grey suburbs.
Another reason we need a change is government soon is our international brand for business investment. It’s been ratnered and that’s a downside of our continued soft media power.
Frankly it’s embarrassing talking to - especially - American colleagues and clients at the moment. They’ve decided the UK is a basket case based on media coverage. Never mind that we’re still a pretty decent investment destination with manageable bureaucracy, flexible labour market and strong universities. The image of chaos and incompetence is damaging us more than is justified. Similar to what the French experienced when gilet jaunes were all over the international news.
A change of government even if no policies change would just help to calm this down and revert us to the mean again.
Don’t disagree with that, but the assumption that the incoming government won’t make things more difficult for business is a big one.
Labour is almost certain to raise corporation tax, income tax on high incomes and dividends, and something on international corporate structures.
They won’t raise CT. They may raise income tax on high earners and they’ll probably reform CGT (which is well overdue). If they’re sensible they’ll replace the bizarre non dom regime with something that actually incentivises people to bring investment into the country not retain it offshore. I’m in touch with them on tax policy and there’s nothing scary there. The biggest hike in corporate tax in decades was enacted by….Rishi Sunak.
But the point is that it almost doesn’t matter what the policy is. Brand wise at the moment what we need is the perception of investibility.
The trade-off at the moment looks like low tax binfire vs. high tax but no binfire. (NB "looks like" might equal "is", but doesn't have to and it doesn't really matter.)
I don't have a finger on the pulse of business, so I don't know what they want, but it's not obvious that the first is better.
Meanwhile Sam Freedman's substack today also explores "can the opposition seal the deal against an unpopular government" by being impressively catty about the 2010 Conservative campaign;
But for the rest of the time I sat at a desk idly flicking through websites looking for news (if you were a politcalbetting.com regular at that time and ever wondered who was anonymously posting accurate polls before they appeared in the media, at least some of them were me overhearing our press team talking about them). I also had a lot of time to observe the chaos around me and try to figure out why what had appeared a certain victory now looked to be seriously in doubt.
Paywalled but what is the gist? My own take is that 2010 was the first trial of Cameron/Osborne's negative campaigning and its limits, to be repeated in the Sindy and Brexit referendums (and would have been in 2015 as well but for the SNP wiping out Labour north of the border).
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
Shocking . Absolutely disgusting . Wtf is wrong with the USA where common sense and something most people would agree with as in keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is ignored so that they can bang on about their frigging gun rights .
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
Shocking . Absolutely disgusting . Wtf is wrong with the USA where common sense and something most people would agree with as in keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is ignored so that they can bang on about their frigging gun rights .
The Second Amendment is wrong in the context of the 21st century. But it's there and we can't pretend it isn't.
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
"New Dublin side"? Football isn't franchised, which is why so many fans see the Milton Keynes lot as illegitimate.
They’re not Illegitimate.
They are not a franchise
AFC Wimbledon fucked over Kingstonian FC as well.
You mis-spelled "Chelsea".
And I said "many fans", not "all". Some don't quite understand how damgerous the MK franchising was to the pyramid.
I really didn’t mis-spell anything.
MK Dons are not a franchise. There is no such thing as franchising in soccer and if there was so what.
Then you're completely clueless about what actually happened between AFCW and Kingstonian - as clueless as you are about the Milton Keynes franchise and the risk it poses to football.
I’m really not. I’m aware of what happened, I’m aware of the deal with the Khosla’s who used to own K’s and the ‘help’ offered to K’s at the time from them.
A lot of which was covered on the old Kingstonian forum at the time. Indeed AFCFC fans used to drop by to demand compliance and gratitude from the ungrateful Ks serfs for daring to complain.
Indeed I used to go down K’s regularly at the time and went to the SSC final where the AFC fans abused K’s fans on the way to the game and on the way out when they were losing.
There is no love for AFC FC at K’s to this day. Rightly so.
The Khosla’s were to K’s what Koppel was to Wimbledon yet AFCFC bought the ground from them while the K’s trust were trying to get funding to do the same and presented it as an act of benevolence. It wasn’t. So fuck Wimbledon.
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
"New Dublin side"? Football isn't franchised, which is why so many fans see the Milton Keynes lot as illegitimate.
They’re not Illegitimate.
They are not a franchise
AFC Wimbledon fucked over Kingstonian FC as well.
You mis-spelled "Chelsea".
And I said "many fans", not "all". Some don't quite understand how damgerous the MK franchising was to the pyramid.
I really didn’t mis-spell anything.
MK Dons are not a franchise. There is no such thing as franchising in soccer and if there was so what.
Then you're completely clueless about what actually happened between AFCW and Kingstonian - as clueless as you are about the Milton Keynes franchise and the risk it poses to football.
I’m really not. I’m aware of what happened, I’m aware of the deal with the Khosla’s who used to own K’s and the ‘help’ offered to K’s at the time from them.
A lot of which was covered on the old Kingstonian forum at the time. Indeed AFCFC fans used to drop by to demand compliance and gratitude from the ungrateful Ks serfs for daring to complain.
Indeed I used to go down K’s regularly at the time and went to the SSC final where the AFC fans abused K’s fans on the way to the game and on the way out when they were losing.
There is no love for AFC FC at K’s to this day. Rightly so.
The Khosla’s were to K’s what Koppel was to Wimbledon yet AFCFC bought the ground from them while the K’s trust were trying to get funding to do the same and presented it as an act of benevolence. It wasn’t. So fuck Wimbledon.
I mean, you write that just as if I wasn't there at the same time. The absolutely critical word in your comment is "trying".
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
Shocking . Absolutely disgusting . Wtf is wrong with the USA where common sense and something most people would agree with as in keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is ignored so that they can bang on about their frigging gun rights .
The Second Amendment is wrong in the context of the 21st century. But it's there and we can't pretend it isn't.
Then they need to modify it to stop violent people owning guns . Oh how lucky we are to live in a civilized country where people care more about the lives of others than owning a gun.
Another reason we need a change is government soon is our international brand for business investment. It’s been ratnered and that’s a downside of our continued soft media power.
Frankly it’s embarrassing talking to - especially - American colleagues and clients at the moment. They’ve decided the UK is a basket case based on media coverage. Never mind that we’re still a pretty decent investment destination with manageable bureaucracy, flexible labour market and strong universities. The image of chaos and incompetence is damaging us more than is justified. Similar to what the French experienced when gilet jaunes were all over the international news.
A change of government even if no policies change would just help to calm this down and revert us to the mean again.
Don’t disagree with that, but the assumption that the incoming government won’t make things more difficult for business is a big one.
Labour is almost certain to raise corporation tax, income tax on high incomes and dividends, and something on international corporate structures.
They won’t raise CT. They may raise income tax on high earners and they’ll probably reform CGT (which is well overdue). If they’re sensible they’ll replace the bizarre non dom regime with something that actually incentivises people to bring investment into the country not retain it offshore. I’m in touch with them on tax policy and there’s nothing scary there. The biggest hike in corporate tax in decades was enacted by….Rishi Sunak.
But the point is that it almost doesn’t matter what the policy is. Brand wise at the moment what we need is the perception of investibility.
The trade-off at the moment looks like low tax binfire vs. high tax but no binfire. (NB "looks like" might equal "is", but doesn't have to and it doesn't really matter.)
I don't have a finger on the pulse of business, so I don't know what they want, but it's not obvious that the first is better.
Meanwhile Sam Freedman's substack today also explores "can the opposition seal the deal against an unpopular government" by being impressively catty about the 2010 Conservative campaign;
But for the rest of the time I sat at a desk idly flicking through websites looking for news (if you were a politcalbetting.com regular at that time and ever wondered who was anonymously posting accurate polls before they appeared in the media, at least some of them were me overhearing our press team talking about them). I also had a lot of time to observe the chaos around me and try to figure out why what had appeared a certain victory now looked to be seriously in doubt.
Paywalled but what is the gist? My own take is that 2010 was the first trial of Cameron/Osborne's negative campaigning and its limits, to be repeated in the Sindy and Brexit referendums (and would have been in 2015 as well but for the SNP wiping out Labour north of the border).
Incompatible chiefs (Coulson vs. Hilton) wanting different things (trad tabloid Toryism vs. Big Society) and hating each other. And a Big Idea (Big Society) that never really turned into workable policies and half the campaign thought was a joke anyway.
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
Shocking . Absolutely disgusting . Wtf is wrong with the USA where common sense and something most people would agree with as in keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is ignored so that they can bang on about their frigging gun rights .
The Second Amendment is wrong in the context of the 21st century. But it's there and we can't pretend it isn't.
Then they need to modify it to stop violent people owning guns . Oh how lucky we are to live in a civilized country where people care more about the lives of others than owning a gun.
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
Shocking . Absolutely disgusting . Wtf is wrong with the USA where common sense and something most people would agree with as in keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is ignored so that they can bang on about their frigging gun rights .
The Second Amendment is wrong in the context of the 21st century. But it's there and we can't pretend it isn't.
'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed'
I don't want to get into the tired debate about which clause is the most important in that wording, but it strikes me that the 2nd Amendment's language could be open to a number of interpretations. Practically speaking, a person's right to keep and bear certain arms are already infringed; you can't keep a battle-ready tank, for example. There are restrictions on where individuals can bear arms, such as court rooms.
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
Shocking . Absolutely disgusting . Wtf is wrong with the USA where common sense and something most people would agree with as in keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is ignored so that they can bang on about their frigging gun rights .
The Second Amendment is wrong in the context of the 21st century. But it's there and we can't pretend it isn't.
Then they need to modify it to stop violent people owning guns . Oh how lucky we are to live in a civilized country where people care more about the lives of others than owning a gun.
Trying to think what our equivalent is. Something massively damaging but so ingrained in centuries of British tradition that nobody dare change or ban it, or even tighten regulations.
Any candidates I can think of: alcohol, smoking, driving, boxing, hunting, waste disposal etc. have all been progressively regulated to reduce harm.
I see the European Super League is back from the tomb
It is, again, destined for failure because they won’t get any English teams, almost certainly no German teams. PSG also unlikely, and lesser teams in Spain and Italy will be deeply wary
Which doesn’t leave much
What European league football needs is consolidation. Benelux should be a league, perhaps with France. Germany should incorporate Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordic countries? Italy would be in an Adriatic league with Croatia, Slovenia etc
A British Isles league would be UK plus Eire. Maybe a western Med league of Spain and Portugal. Etc
Then you could regularly see Rangers v Man United. Benfica v Barca. PSG v Ajax
The Football Association of Ireland is gearing up for the new soccer season in Ireland by releasing the good news that a handful of teams have sold more than 1,000 season tickets for the season ahead. I don't know what level of the English football pyramid that would put the biggest Irish clubs at, probably struggling to cling on in League 2, and it would make the chances of soccer competing against rugby, or GAA, even slimmer.
It's one thing to have Shamrock Rovers competing against Derry City to become Irish champions, quite another to have them scrapping against Crawley Town and Hartlepool United to stay in the fourth or fifth, or even sixth, tier of a football pyramid for all of Britain and Ireland.
No, because money would flow into Irish football from England. I can see a new Dublin side competing in the EPL+ with good crowds
But Ireland is a sideshow anyway
The big win for British footie would be rescuing Rangers and Celtic. If the Old Firm had regular games against Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool that would be a new level of excitement for everyone. And then the big Scottish teams could return to European greatness
"New Dublin side"? Football isn't franchised, which is why so many fans see the Milton Keynes lot as illegitimate.
They’re not Illegitimate.
They are not a franchise
AFC Wimbledon fucked over Kingstonian FC as well.
You mis-spelled "Chelsea".
And I said "many fans", not "all". Some don't quite understand how damgerous the MK franchising was to the pyramid.
I really didn’t mis-spell anything.
MK Dons are not a franchise. There is no such thing as franchising in soccer and if there was so what.
Then you're completely clueless about what actually happened between AFCW and Kingstonian - as clueless as you are about the Milton Keynes franchise and the risk it poses to football.
I’m really not. I’m aware of what happened, I’m aware of the deal with the Khosla’s who used to own K’s and the ‘help’ offered to K’s at the time from them.
A lot of which was covered on the old Kingstonian forum at the time. Indeed AFCFC fans used to drop by to demand compliance and gratitude from the ungrateful Ks serfs for daring to complain.
Indeed I used to go down K’s regularly at the time and went to the SSC final where the AFC fans abused K’s fans on the way to the game and on the way out when they were losing.
There is no love for AFC FC at K’s to this day. Rightly so.
The Khosla’s were to K’s what Koppel was to Wimbledon yet AFCFC bought the ground from them while the K’s trust were trying to get funding to do the same and presented it as an act of benevolence. It wasn’t. So fuck Wimbledon.
I mean, you write that just as if I wasn't there at the same time. The absolutely critical word in your comment is "trying".
They would have achieved it too. The funding was being put in place. The salient point was AFCFC bought the ground before K’s had a chance to get the funding. The Ks trust were fucked over.
Wimbledon fans were supposedly so anti franchising but set theirs up in Kingstonian. All the reasons they gave against a move to MK applied to a move to Kingston.
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
Shocking . Absolutely disgusting . Wtf is wrong with the USA where common sense and something most people would agree with as in keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is ignored so that they can bang on about their frigging gun rights .
The Second Amendment is wrong in the context of the 21st century. But it's there and we can't pretend it isn't.
Then they need to modify it to stop violent people owning guns . Oh how lucky we are to live in a civilized country where people care more about the lives of others than owning a gun.
Yes, they do. Good luck with that.
It won’t happen because the gun nutjobs will portray it as an attempt to remove all guns and the violence and murder will just continue . Do Americans still think they live in the greatest country in the world .
And they have the cheek to look down on their northern neighbours. Canada has a vastly superior quality of life where you can go and buy a pint of milk without getting your head blown off !
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
Shocking . Absolutely disgusting . Wtf is wrong with the USA where common sense and something most people would agree with as in keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is ignored so that they can bang on about their frigging gun rights .
The Second Amendment is wrong in the context of the 21st century. But it's there and we can't pretend it isn't.
'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed'
I don't want to get into the tired debate about which clause is the most important in that wording, but it strikes me that the 2nd Amendment's language could be open to a number of interpretations. Practically speaking, a person's right to keep and bear certain arms are already infringed; you can't keep a battle-ready tank, for example. There are restrictions on where individuals can bear arms, such as court rooms.
In a number of States, you absolutely can keep a battle-ready tank! (There are a pile of restrictions, taxes, and paperwork requirements though, and you’ll need to find someone to sell it to you with the big gun working).
I would be confident of a Labour majority, but for the fact that the Conservatives are making it impossible for 3+ million mainly younger adults to vote without first making a lot of effort to get additional photo ID just for the purpose of voting.
I think you're overstating this. A lot will depend on what forms of photo ID will be acceptable. After all, many working people have photo ID on security passes, we obviously have driving licences and a number of travel concessionary cards require photos.
Mrs Stodge doesn't have a driving licence so may be forced to take her passport to the polling station. She is worried it will get lost or stolen so would prefer to be able to take something else.
I also saw there was some nonsense the 60+ Oyster card or Freedom pass would be acceptable but not a younger persons card (even though both have photos). I hope I'm wrong about this because that would be insidious and wrong and a clear political attempt to encourage older people to vote and discourage younger people.
The whole thing is of course a complete nonsense - the facts about electoral malpractice suggest it's a sledgehammer to crack a nut and it would be better to talk to Agents and remind them of the rules on postal and proxy voting and ballots. Unfortunately, the propaganda about this has seeped into the public consciousness and there is a perception vote-tampering is widespread (which it isn't) and voter fraud is endemic (which again it isn't).
Making it harder for certain groups to vote is the kind of gerrymandering we associate with the current Republican Party or some of the more odious elective dictatorships.
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
Shocking . Absolutely disgusting . Wtf is wrong with the USA where common sense and something most people would agree with as in keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is ignored so that they can bang on about their frigging gun rights .
The Second Amendment is wrong in the context of the 21st century. But it's there and we can't pretend it isn't.
Then they need to modify it to stop violent people owning guns . Oh how lucky we are to live in a civilized country where people care more about the lives of others than owning a gun.
Trying to think what our equivalent is. Something massively damaging but so ingrained in centuries of British tradition that nobody dare change or ban it, or even tighten regulations.
Any candidates I can think of: alcohol, smoking, driving, boxing, hunting, waste disposal etc. have all been progressively regulated to reduce harm.
I can’t think of anything . But that’s because the UK and the rest of Europe is generally inhabited by sane people !
I would be confident of a Labour majority, but for the fact that the Conservatives are making it impossible for 3+ million mainly younger adults to vote without first making a lot of effort to get additional photo ID just for the purpose of voting.
I think you're overstating this. A lot will depend on what forms of photo ID will be acceptable. After all, many working people have photo ID on security passes, we obviously have driving licences and a number of travel concessionary cards require photos.
Mrs Stodge doesn't have a driving licence so may be forced to take her passport to the polling station. She is worried it will get lost or stolen so would prefer to be able to take something else.
I also saw there was some nonsense the 60+ Oyster card or Freedom pass would be acceptable but not a younger persons card (even though both have photos). I hope I'm wrong about this because that would be insidious and wrong and a clear political attempt to encourage older people to vote and discourage younger people.
The whole thing is of course a complete nonsense - the facts about electoral malpractice suggest it's a sledgehammer to crack a nut and it would be better to talk to Agents and remind them of the rules on postal and proxy voting and ballots. Unfortunately, the propaganda about this has seeped into the public consciousness and there is a perception vote-tampering is widespread (which it isn't) and voter fraud is endemic (which again it isn't).
Making it harder for certain groups to vote is the kind of gerrymandering we associate with the current Republican Party or some of the more odious elective dictatorships.
ETA one imagines other parties will campaign to alert their supporters to the need to secure the correct documents, but there is no sign yet. Cynics might suggest both main parties are happy to suppress the wrong sort of votes in the wrong places.
"Will Self on the pleasure of walking without purpose, with no final destination in mind, and the freedom that comes from getting lost once in a while.
He reflects on the rising perception that our public spaces are becoming ever more threatening - especially for women.
'Our movements about this wide and wonderful world are for the most part painfully constrained,' he writes. 'Comfort zones have become more and more constricted'.
He argues that there are many reasons for this, including the grim revelations in recent years about the criminal activities of police officers."
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
Shocking . Absolutely disgusting . Wtf is wrong with the USA where common sense and something most people would agree with as in keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is ignored so that they can bang on about their frigging gun rights .
The Second Amendment is wrong in the context of the 21st century. But it's there and we can't pretend it isn't.
Then they need to modify it to stop violent people owning guns . Oh how lucky we are to live in a civilized country where people care more about the lives of others than owning a gun.
Trying to think what our equivalent is. Something massively damaging but so ingrained in centuries of British tradition that nobody dare change or ban it, or even tighten regulations.
Any candidates I can think of: alcohol, smoking, driving, boxing, hunting, waste disposal etc. have all been progressively regulated to reduce harm.
I can’t think of anything . But that’s because the UK and the rest of Europe is generally inhabited by sane people !
The NHS. Everyone agrees it doesn't work. But politically impossible to reform.
Alcohol is slightly different. That us culturally ingrained rather than politically ingrained. Not alcohol, actually, but drunkenness. The British aren't great drunk. Regulating alcohol is politicaly quite easy because it appeals to the British keenness to disapprove of others. But it's culturally so ingrained that doing so is largely ineffective. Personally, I will be manning tge barricades if you try to introduce New England puritanism towards my drunkenness.
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
Shocking . Absolutely disgusting . Wtf is wrong with the USA where common sense and something most people would agree with as in keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is ignored so that they can bang on about their frigging gun rights .
The Second Amendment is wrong in the context of the 21st century. But it's there and we can't pretend it isn't.
Then they need to modify it to stop violent people owning guns . Oh how lucky we are to live in a civilized country where people care more about the lives of others than owning a gun.
Yes, they do. Good luck with that.
It won’t happen because the gun nutjobs will portray it as an attempt to remove all guns and the violence and murder will just continue . Do Americans still think they live in the greatest country in the world .
And they have the cheek to look down on their northern neighbours. Canada has a vastly superior quality of life where you can go and buy a pint of milk without getting your head blown off !
Canada has decent healthcare that won’t bankrupt you as well. Yet almost nobody migrates from the US to Canada.
You can’t just blame the weather, either, as there is no real difference between say Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo etc and Toronto.
"Will Self on the pleasure of walking without purpose, with no final destination in mind, and the freedom that comes from getting lost once in a while.
He reflects on the rising perception that our public spaces are becoming ever more threatening - especially for women.
'Our movements about this wide and wonderful world are for the most part painfully constrained,' he writes. 'Comfort zones have become more and more constricted'.
He argues that there are many reasons for this, including the grim revelations in recent years about the criminal activities of police officers."
I used to amble aimlessly round London. Rather than criminal coppers, probably mobile phone theft and low-level sexual harassment are bigger factors.
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
Shocking . Absolutely disgusting . Wtf is wrong with the USA where common sense and something most people would agree with as in keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is ignored so that they can bang on about their frigging gun rights .
The Second Amendment is wrong in the context of the 21st century. But it's there and we can't pretend it isn't.
Then they need to modify it to stop violent people owning guns . Oh how lucky we are to live in a civilized country where people care more about the lives of others than owning a gun.
Trying to think what our equivalent is. Something massively damaging but so ingrained in centuries of British tradition that nobody dare change or ban it, or even tighten regulations.
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
Shocking . Absolutely disgusting . Wtf is wrong with the USA where common sense and something most people would agree with as in keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is ignored so that they can bang on about their frigging gun rights .
Balancing of rights does not exist with guns. You should be allowed everything, end of.
Appeals court ruling says alleged domestic abusers have a constitutional right to keep their guns
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/02/09/guns-domestic-abuse-second-amendment/ Advocates for domestic violence victims were stunned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which continued a string of court decisions citing the Second Amendment to erase gun restrictions… … In 2021 alone, 127 women in Texas were murdered by their male intimate partners with firearms, according to the Texas Council on Family Violence. Across the country, an average of 70 women each month are killed by their partners with guns. Research has shown that a domestic violence victim’s risk of death is five times higher when their abuser has access to a gun...
Shocking . Absolutely disgusting . Wtf is wrong with the USA where common sense and something most people would agree with as in keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is ignored so that they can bang on about their frigging gun rights .
The Second Amendment is wrong in the context of the 21st century. But it's there and we can't pretend it isn't.
Then they need to modify it to stop violent people owning guns . Oh how lucky we are to live in a civilized country where people care more about the lives of others than owning a gun.
Yes, they do. Good luck with that.
It won’t happen because the gun nutjobs will portray it as an attempt to remove all guns and the violence and murder will just continue . Do Americans still think they live in the greatest country in the world .
And they have the cheek to look down on their northern neighbours. Canada has a vastly superior quality of life where you can go and buy a pint of milk without getting your head blown off !
Just for the benefit of anyone here, I will repeat my long standing recommendation to the labour party in terms of its policy on Housing. - Pick a few areas around London which are not that developed, but have little to no landscape value, and extremely high conservative majorities. - Put together a 'housing for the future plan' which involves building a million houses in these areas. - Say that you will grant 'planning permission in principle' for a million houses by way of an act of parliament in the first 100 days of office, in these areas - Watch the tories go absolutely insane, watch the internal battles, watch all the nimby tendencies in the liberal democrats and the green party come to the fore... for a total niche issue that has no political downside for the labour party, because they never win in these areas anyway.
I think there is potential for a "New Towns" programme not dissimilar to the postwar ones. The key though is not the houses themselves, but rather employment, hence the need for good transport connections.
Convert HS2 to a line with a stop every 15-20 miles between London and Brum with a New Town centered on each stop, with road junction links to the near parallel M40 for business parks. The towns themselves constructed to encourage cycling etc as a form of commuting.
I suspect such towns would be very attractive to people and businesses.
I was reading an interesting report on Poundbury, it argues that one of its problems is poor connectivity to employment.
Essentially the problem with all of this is that building new communities along the lines you are suggesting is a 50 year project, and politics intervenes, so it is hard to see it ever happening.
My idea for the labour party is not a serious solution to the housing and planning problems, it is just an equally stupid response to the policies devised in this area by the tories over the last decade.
The postwar "New Towns" were not designed as commuter towns, but rather as integrated communities with shopping centres and employment built in.
Not all of these schemes worked, not least because the decline of manufacturing industry meant that the work was ephemeral, and not well suited to the skill set of the inhabitants, largely from working class communities in inner city slums.
The concept is one worth revisiting for the 21st century.
The interesting thing in that Poundbury article, is that they appear to base the success or failure of such a project, purely on people abandoning their cars. Trying to get people out of cars has been the utopia of town planners, ever since people started buying them!
If your town has everything such that families only need one car rather than two, then it’s more of a city than a town. People will still drive to the supermarket and the larger shops.
Higher-density developments are of course a better use of land, and should be encouraged. It’s just weird to see everyone obsessed with getting rid of something that many people see as aspirational.
Trouble is that, whilst me having a car is aspirational, everyone else using cars makes my life worse.
And it looks like there isn't a stable solution. The more you provide the road and parking space for cars, the more essential cars become, because everything that makes life good has to be further apart. And a lot of the infrastructure cars need to work is fairly ugly.
There's also a reasonable case from the numbers that English cities are unproductive because they're so car based. The low density caps the gains that you should get from agglomeration.
We may want to drive cars and live in detached houses in suburbia. But are we prepared to be poorer as a result? Lots of us probably are, but only in an "I'm all right Jack" way.
What needs to happen is for the planners to accept that every house will have two cars, and not want to be stuck in traffic, then work from there to design their town, with features such as grade-separated walkways and places to park cars close to amenities. Many European towns and cities build huge parking areas underground, for example.
Comments
The ESL blew their one big chance with that botched ‘closed’ league which everyone hated. Their new proposals are more emollient but it is almost certainly too late
And not bother to read the actual document.
But domestic football is much less fun for Scots, Germans, French fans (and many others) - when one or two teams win every year
Bayern Munich have won ten Bundesliga titles IN A ROW
War is an expensive business and sophisticated weapons like aircraft and tanks particularly so, and they too will be consumed in the destruction. A dozen Challengers is probably only a weeks worth of losses in any major fight, even a successful one.
Which one will that be?
The only ways forward now are either at the domestic level, for example merging two leagues together, or at a European level through the existing UEFA structures.
But my guess is that most fans would rather have reforms that enabled Dortmund and Bremen to compete on a more equal footing with Bayern, or Lyon and Montpellier to compete with PSG, than to see those Bayern and PSG use a new Super League to make the prospect of that competition more remote.
Youd already expect both these positions to be very strong after 14 years. The question was merely would it be strong enough to overcome the unusually very strong incumbent result after 9 years.
With a Borisite faction almost eager to lose to 'prove' he should not have been ousted, no money, and failing services and delivery across the board, it makes sense a Lab majority is seen as most likely, but not certain.
As you say what's the pitch? Boring Starmer will do something radical?
The war is existential for both Ukraine and the Putin regime (though not Russia itself). I think Ukraine will have enough support to stay in the fight, but I see stalemate the most likely outcome.
Edit: one change that seems to have been missed is how solidly much of the GOP in the US is behind the arms deliveries, now. The pork must flow - after some dry years, the future of the M1 tank plant is assured. The artillery shell makers are scaling up to 100k rounds a month…. A smart piece of business was sending stuff from National Guard units on the promise that they get brand new shinies, too pirority. Politicians love getting their National Guard units the best toys they can.
The modern Western tanks *should* be better, if used effectively and with good logistics, but there will still be a lot of losses.
A really good point about ammunition as well. If we’re donating kit, we need to ensure that there’s production lines open for ammo and spare parts - perhaps open a facility somewhere like Poland, close to the war.
All a bit incongruous when Boris invented the Covid vaccine, and seldom fails to remind us he got COVID right.
Now they've come up with something else but everyone knows what they wanted to
do, and would try again if they could. And they're angry at everyone but themselves for making such a hash of it.
I would be fascinated to know what they thought the reaction would be to their first proposal, as it was entirely predictable yet they were practically Truss like in their comic unpreparedness.
When the status quo is as shit as it is at the moment for so many people why not change the status quo. We are now, as Andrew Neil said on his show, poorer as a whole than Slovenia.
I’ve no love for the current Labour Party although I vote labour at a national level. But they deserve a chance and this current shower need to be removed. They’re utterly rudderless.
The reason that football is such a wonderful sport, is that Leicester City can win the league out of nowhere.
If the West can keep supplying Ukraine, and if Russia does not receive supplies from China, then I would think there's a good chance of something similar happening this year, and quite possibly sooner rather than later.
The other possible solution is a leader who isn't dishonest but who can convince the majority that the cup is half full, not half empty, and can get fuller not emptier.
Names on a postcard? Blair, Attlee, Churchill, Clinton and Obama are not candidates.
The irony is that the American draft system ensures constant turnover at the top of their sports (albeit within closed leagues). Imagine a system where Bournemouth or Brentford get to sign Haarland. Indeed possibly such a draft system can only work in closed leagues.
One problem ESL faces is that all the domestic leagues are against it. eg La Liga HATES the idea
I can’t see it happening
Frankly it’s embarrassing talking to - especially - American colleagues and clients at the moment. They’ve decided the UK is a basket case based on media coverage. Never mind that we’re still a pretty decent investment destination with manageable bureaucracy, flexible labour market and strong universities. The image of chaos and incompetence is damaging us more than is justified. Similar to what the French experienced when gilet jaunes were all over the international news.
A change of government even if no policies change would just help to calm this down and revert us to the mean again.
Labour is almost certain to raise corporation tax, income tax on high incomes and dividends, and something on international corporate structures.
War of manoevre requires strong command and communication between artillery, infantry armour and air, and between units. We see that the Russians are no longer capable of this co-ordination, at least above battalion level. It is yet to be seen if Ukraine can do so above Brigade level, or indeed has the heavy arms needed.
It's the third, and least-discussed, of the three big factors that have led to Russia failing to win the war. And it's vital that it stays that way.
The Saudis buying Newcastle seems to be the watershed moment. It confirms the Premier League as the Super League. The Qataris are now thinking that they need to buy into it too as the Champions League is starting to look a bit third rate.
But the point is that it almost doesn’t matter what the policy is. Brand wise at the moment what we need is the perception of investibility.
Might just work initially. EPL will say no. Pivotal nations will then be Germany and France. If the German clubs commit to the ESL then the French will do the same and then the EPL might - just might. - begin to look isolated, and less attractive
It’s bit like the early EEC
However the German clubs are unlikely to join ESL because of their innate structure, which is a massive problem for any ESL
So Shamrock Rovers or Bohemians FC would become the big new Dublin side, with £500m to spend
The Russian air force has been conspicuous in its absence. In theory, they should have wiped out the Ukrainians by day 2. The most notable thing is that the Russian airforce is avoiding flying over Ukraine, when it can. Long range bombers firing missiles from Russian territory and Mig 31 interceptors lobbing long range AAMs at Ukrainian fighters , again from Russian territory. The later has a low hit rate - the missiles are primarily designed to go against non-manoeuvring targets - but it is wearing the Ukrainian Airforce down.
Sure, his personal standards of conduct are execreble, and he'll try new initiatives to present as radically reforming if he wants, but he isn't a crank.
They are not a franchise
AFC Wimbledon fucked over Kingstonian FC as well.
I don't have a finger on the pulse of business, so I don't know what they want, but it's not obvious that the first is better.
Meanwhile Sam Freedman's substack today also explores "can the opposition seal the deal against an unpopular government" by being impressively catty about the 2010 Conservative campaign;
But for the rest of the time I sat at a desk idly flicking through websites looking for news (if you were a politcalbetting.com regular at that time and ever wondered who was anonymously posting accurate polls before they appeared in the media, at least some of them were me overhearing our press team talking about them). I also had a lot of time to observe the chaos around me and try to figure out why what had appeared a certain victory now looked to be seriously in doubt.
I keep telling my Arsenal friends to be prepared for the worst in this season’s competition. An English team will win it and it could very well be Spurs.
And I said "many fans", not "all". Some don't quite understand how damgerous the MK franchising was to the pyramid.
If your town has everything such that families only need one car rather than two, then it’s more of a city than a town. People will still drive to the supermarket and the larger shops.
Higher-density developments are of course a better use of land, and should be encouraged. It’s just weird to see everyone obsessed with getting rid of something that many people see as aspirational.
If there is a schism, the Premier League has the advantage of having the money to begin with. The problem for Europe is that Bayern, Juve, Real and Barca dislike competition more so than the Big 6 in the Premier League.
MK Dons are not a franchise. There is no such thing as franchising in soccer and if there was so what.
And it looks like there isn't a stable solution. The more you provide the road and parking space for cars, the more essential cars become, because everything that makes life good has to be further apart. And a lot of the
infrastructure cars need to work is fairly ugly.
There's also a reasonable case from the numbers that English cities are unproductive because they're so car based. The low density caps the gains that you should get from agglomeration.
We may want to drive cars and live in detached houses in suburbia. But are we prepared to be poorer as a result? Lots of us probably are, but only in an "I'm all right Jack" way.
At a push someone will occasionally reference somewhere in the Netherlands where they’ve reorganised the streets. But they all ignore the perfectly functional towns all across the South and centre of Europe where people live close to amenities, walk most of the time but also potter about up cobbled streets in cars, scooters and tiny little commercial vehicles with the minimum of fuss aside from the occasional noisy altercation with an oncoming vehicle in a 2 metre wide alleyway.
I suppose part of the issue is historical. In the 19th and early 20th century we designed suburbs as places to live, with cars and gardens, and town centres as somewhere to visit to shop. Meanwhile the French, Italians and Spanish kept living in the pretty town centres and built horrendously ugly sprawling industrial suburbs as places to drive to for shopping. Complete inversion of the Anglo city-suburb pattern. Our town centres are by and large ugly and grey surrounded by leafy suburbs, theirs are pretty and colourful surrounded by ugly grey suburbs.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/11/toronto-mayor-quits-after-admitting-affair-with-former-staffer
John Tory anyways.
A lot of which was covered on the old Kingstonian forum at the time. Indeed AFCFC fans used to drop by to demand compliance and gratitude from the ungrateful Ks serfs for daring to complain.
Indeed I used to go down K’s regularly at the time and went to the SSC final where the AFC fans abused K’s fans on the way to the game and on the way out when they were losing.
There is no love for AFC FC at K’s to this day. Rightly so.
The Khosla’s were to K’s what Koppel was to Wimbledon yet AFCFC bought the ground from them while the K’s trust were trying to get funding to do the same and presented it as an act of benevolence. It wasn’t. So fuck Wimbledon.
Milton Keynes did not have a league team so no rule was broken in moving there. Furthermore, they’ve built a nice new stadium.
Should West Ham have been allowed to move on to Orient’s territory? That seemed more problematic to me.
I don't want to get into the tired debate about which clause is the most important in that wording, but it strikes me that the 2nd Amendment's language could be open to a number of interpretations. Practically speaking, a person's right to keep and bear certain arms are already infringed; you can't keep a battle-ready tank, for example. There are restrictions on where individuals can bear arms, such as court rooms.
Any candidates I can think of: alcohol, smoking, driving, boxing, hunting, waste disposal etc. have all been progressively regulated to reduce harm.
Wimbledon fans were supposedly so anti franchising but set theirs up in Kingstonian. All the reasons they gave against a move to MK applied to a move to Kingston.
And they have the cheek to look down on their northern neighbours. Canada has a vastly superior quality of life where you can go and buy a pint of milk without getting your head blown off !
(There are a pile of restrictions, taxes, and paperwork requirements though, and you’ll need to find someone to sell it to you with the big gun working).
https://www.drivetanks.com/ <<—- Texas Baby!
Mrs Stodge doesn't have a driving licence so may be forced to take her passport to the polling station. She is worried it will get lost or stolen so would prefer to be able to take something else.
I also saw there was some nonsense the 60+ Oyster card or Freedom pass would be acceptable but not a younger persons card (even though both have photos). I hope I'm wrong about this because that would be insidious and wrong and a clear political attempt to encourage older people to vote and discourage younger people.
The whole thing is of course a complete nonsense - the facts about electoral malpractice suggest it's a sledgehammer to crack a nut and it would be better to talk to Agents and remind them of the rules on postal and proxy voting and ballots. Unfortunately, the propaganda about this has seeped into the public consciousness and there is a perception vote-tampering is widespread (which it isn't) and voter fraud is endemic (which again it isn't).
Making it harder for certain groups to vote is the kind of gerrymandering we associate with the current Republican Party or some of the more odious elective dictatorships.
https://www.gov.uk/how-to-vote/photo-id-youll-need
ETA one imagines other parties will campaign to alert their supporters to the need to secure the correct documents, but there is no sign yet. Cynics might suggest both main parties are happy to suppress the wrong sort of votes in the wrong places.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001hxcj
"Will Self on the pleasure of walking without purpose, with no final destination in mind, and the freedom that comes from getting lost once in a while.
He reflects on the rising perception that our public spaces are becoming ever more threatening - especially for women.
'Our movements about this wide and wonderful world are for the most part painfully constrained,' he writes. 'Comfort zones have become more and more constricted'.
He argues that there are many reasons for this, including the grim revelations in recent years about the criminal activities of police officers."
Alcohol is slightly different. That us culturally ingrained rather than politically ingrained. Not alcohol, actually, but drunkenness. The British aren't great drunk.
Regulating alcohol is politicaly quite easy because it appeals to the British keenness to disapprove of others. But it's culturally so ingrained that doing so is largely ineffective.
Personally, I will be manning tge barricades if you try to introduce New England puritanism towards my drunkenness.
You can’t just blame the weather, either, as there is no real difference between say Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo etc and Toronto.
I find this quite interesting.