Though Streeting has promised to double the size of our Medical Schools, he doesn't seem to have considered how that will be physically possible in terms of space and placements. So far as I can find out there has been no discussion with our Medical School.
Then there is the small matter of finding time to have more postgraduate training places ("junior doctors") in appropriate specialities and enough grognards like myself with enough protected time to actually train these rookies.
My understanding - which may be out of date - is that c. 20% of those at medical schools are foreign students. Why not, at a start, put a cap at 10%? Yes, there are revenue implications for universities but not insurmountable.
What will become of Brexit? The attempts to resuscitate it seemed doomed (last week's 'Brexit is great cos it increases immigration' was particularly zany). So all we're left with is this sort of permanent national migraine. I don't think rejoin is a practicable option, but we can't go on like this. What to do? Brexit is killing us.
I think for the UK that the great tragedy of Brexit was Cameron's resignation - he was comfortably the best placed to deliver on the vote, and equally would have been the best leader here and now.
I agree. Politically probably impossible to stay but...
What will become of Brexit? The attempts to resuscitate it seemed doomed (last week's 'Brexit is great cos it increases immigration' was particularly zany). So all we're left with is this sort of permanent national migraine. I don't think rejoin is a practicable option, but we can't go on like this. What to do? Brexit is killing us.
I think you’ll find that a Starmer government, even if it does nothing, will open up a vigorous debate on what the country might do.
I no longer personally think Rejoining is unlikely. But there are other options.
As Daniel Finkelstein opined, the Tory Party has pursued a policy which means they lose power.
They do not build houses and so there is nothing to conserve. They have created their own death bed.
In 2019 roughly the same number owned houses under 50 as do now but the Tories won a landslide.
Longer term it may be an issue but the swing since 2019 has been amongst home owning voters from 39 to 65 with a mortgage from Conservative to Labour NOT with renting voters under 40 who mostly voted Labour even in 2019. Over 65s who mostly own their homes outright still mostly voting Tory of course
Do you not fear the long term at all? Do you not care that basically nobody under the age of 50 wants to vote Tory anytime soon?
As Daniel Finkelstein opined, the Tory Party has pursued a policy which means they lose power.
They do not build houses and so there is nothing to conserve. They have created their own death bed.
In 2019 roughly the same number owned houses under 50 as do now but the Tories won a landslide.
Longer term it may be an issue but the swing since 2019 has been amongst home owning voters from 39 to 65 with a mortgage from Conservative to Labour NOT with renting voters under 40 who mostly voted Labour even in 2019. Over 65s who mostly own their homes outright still mostly voting Tory of course
Do you not fear the long term at all? Do you not care that basically nobody under the age of 50 wants to vote Tory anytime soon?
It occurs to me that by March of next year there will have been a mere two changes of governing party at an election in the previous fifty years.
And with the Toxicity of the Tories it seems unlikely that will be markedly increasing prior to the mid 2030s unless Starmer introduces PR (he'll find a way not to). Possibly not even then.
As Daniel Finkelstein opined, the Tory Party has pursued a policy which means they lose power.
They do not build houses and so there is nothing to conserve. They have created their own death bed.
In 2019 roughly the same number owned houses under 50 as do now but the Tories won a landslide.
Longer term it may be an issue but the swing since 2019 has been amongst home owning voters from 39 to 65 with a mortgage from Conservative to Labour NOT with renting voters under 40 who mostly voted Labour even in 2019. Over 65s who mostly own their homes outright still mostly voting Tory of course
Do you not fear the long term at all? Do you not care that basically nobody under the age of 50 wants to vote Tory anytime soon?
He’ll have changed his tune come 2029 when a second Labour term is confirmed.
As Daniel Finkelstein opined, the Tory Party has pursued a policy which means they lose power.
They do not build houses and so there is nothing to conserve. They have created their own death bed.
In 2019 roughly the same number owned houses under 50 as do now but the Tories won a landslide.
Longer term it may be an issue but the swing since 2019 has been amongst home owning voters from 39 to 65 with a mortgage from Conservative to Labour NOT with renting voters under 40 who mostly voted Labour even in 2019. Over 65s who mostly own their homes outright still mostly voting Tory of course
Do you not fear the long term at all? Do you not care that basically nobody under the age of 50 wants to vote Tory anytime soon?
The decline of the Tory vote isn't fearful in any sense - it is what it is.
Corbyn-mania created some slight concerns - can so many people really approve of a nutter?
As Daniel Finkelstein opined, the Tory Party has pursued a policy which means they lose power.
They do not build houses and so there is nothing to conserve. They have created their own death bed.
In 2019 roughly the same number owned houses under 50 as do now but the Tories won a landslide.
Longer term it may be an issue but the swing since 2019 has been amongst home owning voters from 39 to 65 with a mortgage from Conservative to Labour NOT with renting voters under 40 who mostly voted Labour even in 2019. Over 65s who mostly own their homes outright still mostly voting Tory of course
Do you not fear the long term at all? Do you not care that basically nobody under the age of 50 wants to vote Tory anytime soon?
Pure electoral maths tells us the Tories can win a majority losing most voters under 45 and most seats even despite losing most voters under 50.
Ideally therefore yes the Tories need to do something about voters 40-50 no longer voting Tory but voters under 40 will almost always vote Labour, as they did in 2019 even when the Tories won a landslide.
Getting more voters 30-40 on the housing ladder by building more homes will help the Tories nationally v Labour but cost the Tories locally by losing voters to the LDs, Greens and NIMBY Independents if it means building on greenbelt land
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage spreading.
A classic is the double hull on ships. Sounds wonderful. But by the time many naval architects have done with it, quite useless. Because when you optimise for mass efficiency, lots of bracing between the double hulls is perfect. Except in a collision, where the ramming effect means the bracing transmits the forces to the inner hull. So both inner and outer rupture together. When I worked for an oil company there was a whole list of double hulled tankers we wouldn’t use because of this - company policy was to avoid reputational risk from oil spills.
Wasn't there something about our Aircraft Carriers in WW2 being not as good as the American ones because ours had armoured decks and theirs didn't?
Other way round! Our armored [sic] decks were better than their unprotected decks.
The armoured decks were part of the structure. This meant that post war it was discovered that damage had twisted some of them unrecoverably. There were also severe problems with deck height and upgrades.
No one builds armoured deck carriers now. A better design was depending on detailed interior compartmentation for damage resistance - see HMS Hermes.
Although they were not without their advantages. A friend of mine was serving in the Far Eastern fleet in 1945 and he recollected a suicide bomber hit the deck of I think it was HMS Formidable and because of the armour plating they just swept the deck clear of the debris and had it operational again within 30 minutes . Two days earlier an American carrier had been hit and had to return to dock for repairs. It was out for several weeks.
Armoured decks were clearly the right choice in a very small time window. A modern carrier, if hit, is just going to sink.
Not necessarily. Since the invention of armour plating, there was an argument in warship design between using lots of compartments with tough, slightly thick steel walls/decks and huge great slabs of armour on the outside.
In the end “cellular protection” won. And can be quite effective - see the target trials against the hulk of USS America
Interestingly, on the topic of the rejoining the EU, I found myself quite agnostic back in 2016. As a millennial, it’s always been there. Just took it for granted, I think.
I’ve found myself becoming a) generally more European as I’m aging and b) increasingly more toward the left of centre, having started out as a Cameron voter in my first election in 2010. Very odd
Is it because of your time on here and finding left of centre PB contributors to be generally extremely impressive?
Funnily enough, it was HFUYD who pushed me leftwards
I really should be the voter the Tories are going after. Wealthy, live in London, own a flat. But the Tories hate me. Why?
In 1992 or 1997 or even 2010 or 2015 maybe.
Now skilled white working class voters and pensioners who own a property with or without a mortgage and voted Leave are more likely to vote Tory than wealthy Londoners like you who dislike Brexit I am afraid
I really should be the voter the Tories are going after. Wealthy, live in London, own a flat. But the Tories hate me. Why?
In 1992 or 1997 or even 2010 or 2015 maybe.
Now skilled white working class voters and pensioners who own a property with or without a mortgage and voted Leave are more likely to vote Tory than wealthy Londoners like you who dislike Brexit I am afraid
I really should be the voter the Tories are going after. Wealthy, live in London, own a flat. But the Tories hate me. Why?
In 1992 or 1997 or even 2010 or 2015 maybe.
Now skilled white working class voters and pensioners who own a property with or without a mortgage and voted Leave are more likely to vote Tory than wealthy Londoners like you who dislike Brexit I am afraid
I really should be the voter the Tories are going after. Wealthy, live in London, own a flat. But the Tories hate me. Why?
In 1992 or 1997 or even 2010 or 2015 maybe.
Now skilled white working class voters and pensioners who own a property with or without a mortgage and voted Leave are more likely to vote Tory than wealthy Londoners like you who dislike Brexit I am afraid
So why are you not trying to persuade him then?
As it is pointless, he didn't even vote Tory in 2019.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage.
Though Streeting has promised to double the size of our Medical Schools, he doesn't seem to have considered how that will be physically possible in terms of space and placements. So far as I can find out there has been no discussion with our Medical School.
Then there is the small matter of finding time to have more postgraduate training places ("junior doctors") in appropriate specialities and enough grognards like myself with enough protected time to actually train these rookies.
My understanding - which may be out of date - is that c. 20% of those at medical schools are foreign students. Why not, at a start, put a cap at 10%? Yes, there are revenue implications for universities but not insurmountable.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
I really should be the voter the Tories are going after. Wealthy, live in London, own a flat. But the Tories hate me. Why?
In 1992 or 1997 or even 2010 or 2015 maybe.
Now skilled white working class voters and pensioners who own a property with or without a mortgage and voted Leave are more likely to vote Tory than wealthy Londoners like you who dislike Brexit I am afraid
But why do you hate me?
I don't hate you, under John Major or Cameron pre Brexit you may well have been a potential Tory voter.
Just now post Brexit I am afraid you aren't and probably won't be for a generation, the skilled white working class and pensioners who voted Leave are much more likely to vote Tory now than your group is
I really should be the voter the Tories are going after. Wealthy, live in London, own a flat. But the Tories hate me. Why?
In 1992 or 1997 or even 2010 or 2015 maybe.
Now skilled white working class voters and pensioners who own a property with or without a mortgage and voted Leave are more likely to vote Tory than wealthy Londoners like you who dislike Brexit I am afraid
So why are you not trying to persuade him then?
As it is pointless, he didn't even vote Tory in 2019.
Not him specifically. His demographic. What are you offering people like CHB?
I really should be the voter the Tories are going after. Wealthy, live in London, own a flat. But the Tories hate me. Why?
In 1992 or 1997 or even 2010 or 2015 maybe.
Now skilled white working class voters and pensioners who own a property with or without a mortgage and voted Leave are more likely to vote Tory than wealthy Londoners like you who dislike Brexit I am afraid
So why are you not trying to persuade him then?
As it is pointless, he didn't even vote Tory in 2019.
.............................the point --> . . . . . you
I really should be the voter the Tories are going after. Wealthy, live in London, own a flat. But the Tories hate me. Why?
In 1992 or 1997 or even 2010 or 2015 maybe.
Now skilled white working class voters and pensioners who own a property with or without a mortgage and voted Leave are more likely to vote Tory than wealthy Londoners like you who dislike Brexit I am afraid
So why are you not trying to persuade him then?
HYUFD has never persuaded anyone. Even his wife votes against him in the privacy of the magnolia-scented parish council voting booth.
Though Streeting has promised to double the size of our Medical Schools, he doesn't seem to have considered how that will be physically possible in terms of space and placements. So far as I can find out there has been no discussion with our Medical School.
Then there is the small matter of finding time to have more postgraduate training places ("junior doctors") in appropriate specialities and enough grognards like myself with enough protected time to actually train these rookies.
My understanding - which may be out of date - is that c. 20% of those at medical schools are foreign students. Why not, at a start, put a cap at 10%? Yes, there are revenue implications for universities but not insurmountable.
I really should be the voter the Tories are going after. Wealthy, live in London, own a flat. But the Tories hate me. Why?
In 1992 or 1997 or even 2010 or 2015 maybe.
Now skilled white working class voters and pensioners who own a property with or without a mortgage and voted Leave are more likely to vote Tory than wealthy Londoners like you who dislike Brexit I am afraid
So why are you not trying to persuade him then?
HYUFD has never persuaded anyone. Even his wife votes against him in the privacy of the magnolia-scented parish council voting booth.
cue an irrelevant point about his partner living in a different ward
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Cameron got us into this mess. No, it was never feasible he could have stayed on.
The country decided to self-harm, and it’s taking a biblical seven years to work it through. At least.
Cameron flouncing off did quite a lot to set the tone for what came next. It didn't need to be so divisive and framed in those terms.
No, because the division had already happened during the campaign.
No, because both Leave campaigns made promises that were going to be impossible to keep. They've been impossible to keep anyway, and that would have been even more so had any attempt to please the 48 percent been made.
No, because Johnson and Cummings would have chucked bricks at any attempt at a Brexit compromise. As happened to May, but on steroids and Red Bull.
There were plenty of honourable people in 2016 on both sides, sincerely doing what they thought was best for the country. But some on the Leave side do seem to have believed that they could align with the worst sorts of dishonest populist nationalism to get over the line, then former remainers would save them from the negative consequences of that.
Sorry. You climb aboard the tiger, it's up to you to work out how you are going to dismount.
I really should be the voter the Tories are going after. Wealthy, live in London, own a flat. But the Tories hate me. Why?
In 1992 or 1997 or even 2010 or 2015 maybe.
Now skilled white working class voters and pensioners who own a property with or without a mortgage and voted Leave are more likely to vote Tory than wealthy Londoners like you who dislike Brexit I am afraid
So why are you not trying to persuade him then?
HYUFD has never persuaded anyone. Even his wife votes against him in the privacy of the magnolia-scented parish council voting booth.
cue an irrelevant point about his partner living in a different ward
I believe she writes his name in specifically so as to vote against him.
Cameron got us into this mess. No, it was never feasible he could have stayed on.
The country decided to self-harm, and it’s taking a biblical seven years to work it through. At least.
Cameron flouncing off did quite a lot to set the tone for what came next. It didn't need to be so divisive and framed in those terms.
No, because the division had already happened during the campaign.
No, because both Leave campaigns made promises that were going to be impossible to keep. They've been impossible to keep anyway, and that would have been even more so had any attempt to please the 48 percent been made.
No, because Johnson and Cummings would have chucked bricks at any attempt at a Brexit compromise. As happened to May, but on steroids and Red Bull.
There were plenty of honourable people in 2016 on both sides, sincerely doing what they thought was best for the country. But some on the Leave side do seem to have believed that they could align with the worst sorts of dishonest populist nationalism to get over the line, then former remainers would save them from the negative consequences of that.
Sorry. You climb aboard the tiger, it's up to you to work out how you are going to dismount.
Cameron got us into this mess. No, it was never feasible he could have stayed on.
The country decided to self-harm, and it’s taking a biblical seven years to work it through. At least.
Cameron flouncing off did quite a lot to set the tone for what came next. It didn't need to be so divisive and framed in those terms.
No, because the division had already happened during the campaign.
No, because both Leave campaigns made promises that were going to be impossible to keep. They've been impossible to keep anyway, and that would have been even more so had any attempt to please the 48 percent been made.
No, because Johnson and Cummings would have chucked bricks at any attempt at a Brexit compromise. As happened to May, but on steroids and Red Bull.
There were plenty of honourable people in 2016 on both sides, sincerely doing what they thought was best for the country. But some on the Leave side do seem to have believed that they could align with the worst sorts of dishonest populist nationalism to get over the line, then former remainers would save them from the negative consequences of that.
Sorry. You climb aboard the tiger, it's up to you to work out how you are going to dismount.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Though Streeting has promised to double the size of our Medical Schools, he doesn't seem to have considered how that will be physically possible in terms of space and placements. So far as I can find out there has been no discussion with our Medical School.
Then there is the small matter of finding time to have more postgraduate training places ("junior doctors") in appropriate specialities and enough grognards like myself with enough protected time to actually train these rookies.
My understanding - which may be out of date - is that c. 20% of those at medical schools are foreign students. Why not, at a start, put a cap at 10%? Yes, there are revenue implications for universities but not insurmountable.
As Daniel Finkelstein opined, the Tory Party has pursued a policy which means they lose power.
They do not build houses and so there is nothing to conserve. They have created their own death bed.
In 2019 roughly the same number owned houses under 50 as do now but the Tories won a landslide.
Longer term it may be an issue but the swing since 2019 has been amongst home owning voters from 39 to 65 with a mortgage from Conservative to Labour NOT with renting voters under 40 who mostly voted Labour even in 2019. Over 65s who mostly own their homes outright still mostly voting Tory of course
Do you not fear the long term at all? Do you not care that basically nobody under the age of 50 wants to vote Tory anytime soon?
They did not include that when they updated his program. He can only make permitted responses...
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Yes, it fascinating that Poland, across the entire political spectrum, has taken the following idea from its history - that it needs allies to survive, and that such allies are gained by rejecting any irredentism.
Which instantly makes friends with all the bordering countries on the basis of guaranteeing each others borders against all… amendment.
Further, that such a block of allies will be powerful enough to prevent themselves being the price paid in someone else’s Realpolitik deal.
Cameron got us into this mess. No, it was never feasible he could have stayed on.
The country decided to self-harm, and it’s taking a biblical seven years to work it through. At least.
Cameron flouncing off did quite a lot to set the tone for what came next. It didn't need to be so divisive and framed in those terms.
No, because the division had already happened during the campaign.
No, because both Leave campaigns made promises that were going to be impossible to keep. They've been impossible to keep anyway, and that would have been even more so had any attempt to please the 48 percent been made.
No, because Johnson and Cummings would have chucked bricks at any attempt at a Brexit compromise. As happened to May, but on steroids and Red Bull.
There were plenty of honourable people in 2016 on both sides, sincerely doing what they thought was best for the country. But some on the Leave side do seem to have believed that they could align with the worst sorts of dishonest populist nationalism to get over the line, then former remainers would save them from the negative consequences of that.
Sorry. You climb aboard the tiger, it's up to you to work out how you are going to dismount.
It's not exactly statesmanlike to respond to a democratic vote in that kind of factional way. The idea of a 'compromise' (i.e. staying in the single market) presupposes a lack of acceptance of the vote given that both sides said it would mean leaving and Cameron explicitly said that he would take the UK out of the single market in the event of a Leave vote.
What made it so divisive was so many people convincing themselves that this was the end of the world, and that could have been averted by Cameron staying on.
I really should be the voter the Tories are going after. Wealthy, live in London, own a flat. But the Tories hate me. Why?
In 1992 or 1997 or even 2010 or 2015 maybe.
Now skilled white working class voters and pensioners who own a property with or without a mortgage and voted Leave are more likely to vote Tory than wealthy Londoners like you who dislike Brexit I am afraid
So why are you not trying to persuade him then?
As it is pointless, he didn't even vote Tory in 2019.
Not him specifically. His demographic. What are you offering people like CHB?
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
I really should be the voter the Tories are going after. Wealthy, live in London, own a flat. But the Tories hate me. Why?
In 1992 or 1997 or even 2010 or 2015 maybe.
Now skilled white working class voters and pensioners who own a property with or without a mortgage and voted Leave are more likely to vote Tory than wealthy Londoners like you who dislike Brexit I am afraid
So why are you not trying to persuade him then?
As it is pointless, he didn't even vote Tory in 2019.
.............................the point --> . . . . . you
The point is the Tory voter coalition has changed.
When the Tories won in 1992 they won 56% of ABs, when the Tories won in 2019 the Tories won just 45% of ABs.
When the Tories won in 1992 they won 52% of C1s, when the Tories won in 2019 the Tories won just 45% of C1s
When the Tories won in 1992 they won just 39% of C2s, by contrast when the Tories won in 2019 the Tories won 47% of C2s.
Similarly when the Tories lost in 1997 they won just 36% of over 65s but held 41% of ABs.
Now the Tories are winning a more comfortable 42% of over 65s still but just 24% of ABC1s.
The Tory vote is much more working class and also older and more pensioner heavy than it was. Thus if you do not fall into either of those categories the Tories will be much less likely to target you than they were
Cameron got us into this mess. No, it was never feasible he could have stayed on.
The country decided to self-harm, and it’s taking a biblical seven years to work it through. At least.
Cameron flouncing off did quite a lot to set the tone for what came next. It didn't need to be so divisive and framed in those terms.
No, because the division had already happened during the campaign.
No, because both Leave campaigns made promises that were going to be impossible to keep. They've been impossible to keep anyway, and that would have been even more so had any attempt to please the 48 percent been made.
No, because Johnson and Cummings would have chucked bricks at any attempt at a Brexit compromise. As happened to May, but on steroids and Red Bull.
There were plenty of honourable people in 2016 on both sides, sincerely doing what they thought was best for the country. But some on the Leave side do seem to have believed that they could align with the worst sorts of dishonest populist nationalism to get over the line, then former remainers would save them from the negative consequences of that.
Sorry. You climb aboard the tiger, it's up to you to work out how you are going to dismount.
I believe TSE has said before that one of the reasons Cameron was resigned was because no Brexit deal he agreed with the EU would have been accepted by the ERG. The bloke who failed to get a renegotiation with the EU -at least from the ERG's perspective - would not be trusted to get an acceptable post-Brexit trade deal with them.
Though Streeting has promised to double the size of our Medical Schools, he doesn't seem to have considered how that will be physically possible in terms of space and placements. So far as I can find out there has been no discussion with our Medical School.
Then there is the small matter of finding time to have more postgraduate training places ("junior doctors") in appropriate specialities and enough grognards like myself with enough protected time to actually train these rookies.
My understanding - which may be out of date - is that c. 20% of those at medical schools are foreign students. Why not, at a start, put a cap at 10%? Yes, there are revenue implications for universities but not insurmountable.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage spreading.
A classic is the double hull on ships. Sounds wonderful. But by the time many naval architects have done with it, quite useless. Because when you optimise for mass efficiency, lots of bracing between the double hulls is perfect. Except in a collision, where the ramming effect means the bracing transmits the forces to the inner hull. So both inner and outer rupture together. When I worked for an oil company there was a whole list of double hulled tankers we wouldn’t use because of this - company policy was to avoid reputational risk from oil spills.
Wasn't there something about our Aircraft Carriers in WW2 being not as good as the American ones because ours had armoured decks and theirs didn't?
Other way round! Our armored [sic] decks were better than their unprotected decks.
The armoured decks were part of the structure. This meant that post war it was discovered that damage had twisted some of them unrecoverably. There were also severe problems with deck height and upgrades.
No one builds armoured deck carriers now. A better design was depending on detailed interior compartmentation for damage resistance - see HMS Hermes.
Although they were not without their advantages. A friend of mine was serving in the Far Eastern fleet in 1945 and he recollected a suicide bomber hit the deck of I think it was HMS Formidable and because of the armour plating they just swept the deck clear of the debris and had it operational again within 30 minutes . Two days earlier an American carrier had been hit and had to return to dock for repairs. It was out for several weeks.
Several factors besides armor plating, such as precisely where on ship the kamikaze struck, also amount of fuel in the plane's tank when it hit.
In February, yours truly toured the USS Missouri at Pearl Harbor. Among many interesting sights to be seen, was the location on deck where a kamikaze pilot hit the ship during the Battle of Okinawa, killing him but causing minimal damage to the plane, which (like as your friend told you re: HMS Formidable) was shoved over the side.
AND where, by order of the captain, the pilot's remains were draped with the Rising Son flag and before being consigned to the deep.
These locations just feet from where, a few months later, the Japanese surrendered on that same deck, as USS Missouri was anchored in Tokyo Bay.
Not sure re: armor on Missouri compared with Formidable, but my basic (albeit piddly) point persists!
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
As Daniel Finkelstein opined, the Tory Party has pursued a policy which means they lose power.
They do not build houses and so there is nothing to conserve. They have created their own death bed.
In 2019 roughly the same number owned houses under 50 as do now but the Tories won a landslide.
Longer term it may be an issue but the swing since 2019 has been amongst home owning voters from 39 to 65 with a mortgage from Conservative to Labour NOT with renting voters under 40 who mostly voted Labour even in 2019. Over 65s who mostly own their homes outright still mostly voting Tory of course
Do you not fear the long term at all? Do you not care that basically nobody under the age of 50 wants to vote Tory anytime soon?
Perhaps they do, it is just impossible to admit to it.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
If someone had sat a ten year old Leon in a chair, and said: in the future you will have to go to exotic faraway places all over the world and stay in amazing hotels, lodges, cruise ships for free, and have remarkable experiences, I’d have replied ‘yeah, ok, what’s the catch??’
And the answer would have been: ‘you get paid to do it’
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
By contrast, I am paid - very handsomely - for what I write
If only someone's value was measured in the amount they earn...
I am seriously grateful that I was never paid what I was worth.
When I was about 14 years old, OGH sat me down and told me "never do a job where they can measure your output."
Funnily enough my advice is always the exact opposite.
Never do a job where they can measure your input. Only your output. That way, as long as you get the job done it doesn't matter if it takes 5 hours or 5 months.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage spreading.
A classic is the double hull on ships. Sounds wonderful. But by the time many naval architects have done with it, quite useless. Because when you optimise for mass efficiency, lots of bracing between the double hulls is perfect. Except in a collision, where the ramming effect means the bracing transmits the forces to the inner hull. So both inner and outer rupture together. When I worked for an oil company there was a whole list of double hulled tankers we wouldn’t use because of this - company policy was to avoid reputational risk from oil spills.
Wasn't there something about our Aircraft Carriers in WW2 being not as good as the American ones because ours had armoured decks and theirs didn't?
Other way round! Our armored [sic] decks were better than their unprotected decks.
The armoured decks were part of the structure. This meant that post war it was discovered that damage had twisted some of them unrecoverably. There were also severe problems with deck height and upgrades.
No one builds armoured deck carriers now. A better design was depending on detailed interior compartmentation for damage resistance - see HMS Hermes.
Although they were not without their advantages. A friend of mine was serving in the Far Eastern fleet in 1945 and he recollected a suicide bomber hit the deck of I think it was HMS Formidable and because of the armour plating they just swept the deck clear of the debris and had it operational again within 30 minutes . Two days earlier an American carrier had been hit and had to return to dock for repairs. It was out for several weeks.
Several factors besides armor plating, such as precisely where on ship the kamikaze struck, also amount of fuel in the plane's tank when it hit.
In February, yours truly toured the USS Missouri at Pearl Harbor. Among many interesting sights to be seen, was the location on deck where a kamikaze pilot hit the ship during the Battle of Okinawa, killing him but causing minimal damage to the plane, which (like as your friend told you re: HMS Formidable) was shoved over the side.
AND where, by order of the captain, the pilot's remains were draped with the Rising Son flag and before being consigned to the deep.
These locations just feet from where, a few months later, the Japanese surrendered on that same deck, as USS Missouri was anchored in Tokyo Bay.
Not sure re: armor on Missouri compared with Formidable, but my basic (albeit piddly) point persists!
EDIT - caused minimal damage to the Missouri, the plane was totalled obviously. (Caused a large fire due to aviation fuel, but that burned out pretty quickly.)
Incidentally, a Japanese visitor to the ship in the 1990s, saw some of the pilots documents, etc on display. When he got home, did some research . . . and was able to identify the pilot.
As you can imagine, that was a great comfort for his surviving kin.
Today is Memorial Day in the USA.
And I am thinking about a man I never knew, my uncle, who died in 1945 when his USAAF bomber was shot down and crashed in the Sea of Japan.
I do know, first hand, how his mother, brothers and sisters felt. Many years later, my mom lobbied her congressman, to obtain an official US veterans grave marker, for a man whose grave is still unknown. She's no longer with us, but know she'd be more than pleased that a family in Japan - or anywhere - got to find out what really happened to their son and brother.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
This is the most ineffective large majority Government in British political history. They have achieved absolutely sod all, quite extraordinary really. That is because the intelligent Tories have either quit or been removed. What is left is the people that were always in a box in previous times. Not anymore.
Who is going to do a Keir Starmer and fix the Tory Party?
It took Labour 10 years and a further 3 consecutive general election defeats after they lost power in 2010 to get to Sir Keir Starmer.
The Tories haven't even lost power yet! There is also no guarantee even if Labour do win the next general election they will be re elected, especially if they don't sort the economy out
The Tories can easily breeze back in on a single deeply cynical populist policy. I don't believe Sunak is some one nation Tory, and why else would Suella be tolerated?
It might take our nation down some very dark road, but if winning at any cost is the target, why not?
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Yes, it fascinating that Poland, across the entire political spectrum, has taken the following idea from its history - that it needs allies to survive, and that such allies are gained by rejecting any irredentism.
Which instantly makes friends with all the bordering countries on the basis of guaranteeing each others borders against all… amendment.
Further, that such a block of allies will be powerful enough to prevent themselves being the price paid in someone else’s Realpolitik deal.
Poland has comported itself admirably during the Ukrainian war. Taking in all those refugees, standing so firmly with Kyiv
Long term I am less optimistic about their fate. Being on the new Cold War border with an angry (and humiliated?) Russia and Belarus might be an uncomfortable place. I can see it destabilizing their economy. Ditto the Baltics
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
I really should be the voter the Tories are going after. Wealthy, live in London, own a flat. But the Tories hate me. Why?
In 1992 or 1997 or even 2010 or 2015 maybe.
Now skilled white working class voters and pensioners who own a property with or without a mortgage and voted Leave are more likely to vote Tory than wealthy Londoners like you who dislike Brexit I am afraid
So why are you not trying to persuade him then?
As it is pointless, he didn't even vote Tory in 2019.
.............................the point --> . . . . . you
The point is the Tory voter coalition has changed.
When the Tories won in 1992 they won 56% of ABs, when the Tories won in 2019 the Tories won just 45% of ABs.
When the Tories won in 1992 they won 52% of C1s, when the Tories won in 2019 the Tories won just 45% of C1s
When the Tories won in 1992 they won just 39% of C2s, by contrast when the Tories won in 2019 the Tories won 47% of C2s.
Similarly when the Tories lost in 1997 they won just 36% of over 65s but held 41% of ABs.
Now the Tories are winning a more comfortable 42% of over 65s still but just 24% of ABC1s.
The Tory vote is much more working class and also older and more pensioner heavy than it was. Thus if you do not fall into either of those categories the Tories will be much less likely to target you than they were
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
By contrast, I am paid - very handsomely - for what I write
Indeed. You are extraordinarily well paid for what you write.
Not only that, they then send me abroad to stay for free in five star hotels, AND THEN PAY ME FOR THAT, TOO
Do you need somebody to help lug your luggage? Reckon those flint dildo samples are pretty heavy!
(Put it down as "sedan chair rental" on your expense accounts, that'll make perfect sense to Spectator accountants.)
The Knappers Gazette used to send me on trips with a photographer, such was the bountiful money in the biz. As I have 3 or 4 good photographer mates, this was brilliant. I chose them and I saw a lot of the world with a friend alongside
Sadly you do it alone these days. Tho the sadness of being paid to travel the world is a pretty first world issue. Also I like the challenge of solo travel. Forces you to meet people. Makes you self reliant
If someone had sat a ten year old Leon in a chair, and said: in the future you will have to go to exotic faraway places all over the world and stay in amazing hotels, lodges, cruise ships for free, and have remarkable experiences, I’d have replied ‘yeah, ok, what’s the catch??’
And the answer would have been: ‘you get paid to do it’
Not sure I’d have believed them, tbh
The catch is that you walk into the amazing restaurants and ask for a table for one.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
See also “You know," said Arthur, "it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young."
Though Streeting has promised to double the size of our Medical Schools, he doesn't seem to have considered how that will be physically possible in terms of space and placements. So far as I can find out there has been no discussion with our Medical School.
Then there is the small matter of finding time to have more postgraduate training places ("junior doctors") in appropriate specialities and enough grognards like myself with enough protected time to actually train these rookies.
My understanding - which may be out of date - is that c. 20% of those at medical schools are foreign students. Why not, at a start, put a cap at 10%? Yes, there are revenue implications for universities but not insurmountable.
If someone had sat a ten year old Leon in a chair, and said: in the future you will have to go to exotic faraway places all over the world and stay in amazing hotels, lodges, cruise ships for free, and have remarkable experiences, I’d have replied ‘yeah, ok, what’s the catch??’
And the answer would have been: ‘you get paid to do it’
Not sure I’d have believed them, tbh
The catch is that you walk into the amazing restaurants and ask for a table for one.
As I have explained multiple times, I got over this decades ago. I love it now
Indeed my heart sometimes slightly sinks when they invite me to dine with others (PR, managers, colorful locals)
That is unless the locals are REALLY colorful
I do like a good press trip however - with a gang of journalists. They are always very boozy, very messy, and seasoned with excellent gossip
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
By contrast, I am paid - very handsomely - for what I write
If only someone's value was measured in the amount they earn...
I am seriously grateful that I was never paid what I was worth.
When I was about 14 years old, OGH sat me down and told me "never do a job where they can measure your output."
Sound advice, but one has to wonder why you therefore never became a lawyer. Perhaps Dad was never able to beat the honesty out of you?
Lawyers measure output via the billable hour. Which is stupid but it’s how it’s done.
Towards the end of Acorn, when they had Battling Business Units, we plebs were told to allocate every hour of our work to a project code. Which was fine for many people, but I'd work on five or six projects a week, flitting between them as and when required.
We were then asked to send in our times for the current week by midday on Friday - before the end of the working week - so they would have time to prepare the figures for board meetings on Mondays. It then changed so we would have to send the figures in by close-of-play Thursday.
Which meant I had to invent the figures for Friday's work. Which, to be fair, did not matter too much as my figures were pretty much invented anyway...
Just done a deep dive. A MASSIVE migrant crisis is brewing in southern Europe. The ripples will reach us here
Hence Italians elected Meloni last year, the right swept Madrid yesterday and Le Pen now even leads some 2027 polls in France
This is a big challenge for Meloni. Italy says it expects 400,000 migrants to arrive on boats this year. Huge huge numbers. Intolerable
What does she do?
And yes this will lead to right or far right gains elsewhere in Europe
Will the EU be quite so appealing to Remoaners if Meloni rules Italy, Le Pen rules France, Vox surge in Spain and the Afd poll second in Germany? (As they are right now)
That’s not to mention Sweden, Hungary, etc
Might well discredit right wing populists like Meloni when she fails so completely.
Just done a deep dive. A MASSIVE migrant crisis is brewing in southern Europe. The ripples will reach us here
Hence Italians elected Meloni last year, the right swept Madrid yesterday and Le Pen now even leads some 2027 polls in France
This is a big challenge for Meloni. Italy says it expects 400,000 migrants to arrive on boats this year. Huge huge numbers. Intolerable
What does she do?
And yes this will lead to right or far right gains elsewhere in Europe
Will the EU be quite so appealing to Remoaners if Meloni rules Italy, Le Pen rules France, Vox surge in Spain and the Afd poll second in Germany? (As they are right now)
That’s not to mention Sweden, Hungary, etc
Might well discredit right wing populists like Meloni when she fails so completely.
A bit like Bravermans failure here.
Yes, that’s possible. She’s basically been elected to do this one job. Stop the illegal migrants
If she fails she’s toast. But then who will Italian voters turn to? Someone even further to the right??
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
By contrast, I am paid - very handsomely - for what I write
If only someone's value was measured in the amount they earn...
I am seriously grateful that I was never paid what I was worth.
When I was about 14 years old, OGH sat me down and told me "never do a job where they can measure your output."
Sound advice, but one has to wonder why you therefore never became a lawyer. Perhaps Dad was never able to beat the honesty out of you?
Lawyers measure output via the billable hour. Which is stupid but it’s how it’s done.
Towards the end of Acorn, when they had Battling Business Units, we plebs were told to allocate every hour of our work to a project code. Which was fine for many people, but I'd work on five or six projects a week, flitting between them as and when required.
We were then asked to send in our times for the current week by midday on Friday - before the end of the working week - so they would have time to prepare the figures for board meetings on Mondays. It then changed so we would have to send the figures in by close-of-play Thursday.
Which meant I had to invent the figures for Friday's work. Which, to be fair, did not matter too much as my figures were pretty much invented anyway...
Me too, but you've reminded me of the old pop charts, where the annual charts always missed out the bestselling Christmas songs because the charts had to be compiled in November in time for, erm, the Christmas chart shows.
It’s a grisly thought experiment, but there must be a threshold of illegal immigration where Italian voters would elect a far far right leader who promised to sink all the boats - violently
Thousands would die, but thousands drown every year anyway. And the boats would soon stop, ending the problem and the deaths
What is that threshold? A million a year? Two million?
Italy expects 400,000 this year
Another thought experiment: how would the UK react if 400,000 were crossing the Channel every year? I reckon we’d elect PM Farage
It’s a grisly thought experiment, but there must be a threshold of illegal immigration where Italian voters would elect a far far right leader who promised to sink all the boats - violently
Thousands would die, but thousands drown every year anyway. And the boats would soon stop, ending the problem and the deaths
What is that threshold? A million a year? Two million?
Italy expects 400,000 this year
Another thought experiment: how would the UK react if 400,000 were crossing the Channel every year? I reckon we’d elect PM Farage
I have just completed power of attorney for my wife and I on line which was quite straightforward and the help line was excellent
Lawyers fees were over £600 for the four documents which effectively was just filling in the online questionnaire on behalf of their client
My son in law is about to submit probate for his late father himself again avoiding legal fees
It does make you wonder just how many others have done the same
For clarification at our ages we have discussed these poa's with out family and agreed it is a sensible step while we are both reasonably healthy, subject to our daily pills
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
Does Britain appear to be more wooded than in previous generations ?
It certainly seems to be compared to how I remember the 80s and 90s but perhaps my experience is affected by how many old industrial areas have been landscaped or rewilded and by how many housing developments of recent decades have tree plantings.
It’s a grisly thought experiment, but there must be a threshold of illegal immigration where Italian voters would elect a far far right leader who promised to sink all the boats - violently
Thousands would die, but thousands drown every year anyway. And the boats would soon stop, ending the problem and the deaths
What is that threshold? A million a year? Two million?
Italy expects 400,000 this year
Another thought experiment: how would the UK react if 400,000 were crossing the Channel every year? I reckon we’d elect PM Farage
I have just completed power of attorney for my wife and I on line which was quite straightforward and the help line was excellent
Lawyers fees were over £600 for the four documents which effectively was just filling in the online questionnaire on behalf of their client
My son in law is about to submit probate for his late father himself again avoiding legal fees
It does make you wonder just how many others have done the same
For clarification at our ages we have discussed these poa's with out family and agreed it is a sensible step while we are both reasonably healthy, subject to our daily pills
According to the OPG 15% of LPA’s submitted to them have mistakes. If you’ve got something wrong you won’t have an insurance policy to fall back on. If a solicitor screws up the PII will pay out.
It’s a grisly thought experiment, but there must be a threshold of illegal immigration where Italian voters would elect a far far right leader who promised to sink all the boats - violently
Thousands would die, but thousands drown every year anyway. And the boats would soon stop, ending the problem and the deaths
What is that threshold? A million a year? Two million?
Italy expects 400,000 this year
Another thought experiment: how would the UK react if 400,000 were crossing the Channel every year? I reckon we’d elect PM Farage
I have just completed power of attorney for my wife and I on line which was quite straightforward and the help line was excellent
Lawyers fees were over £600 for the four documents which effectively was just filling in the online questionnaire on behalf of their client
My son in law is about to submit probate for his late father himself again avoiding legal fees
It does make you wonder just how many others have done the same
For clarification at our ages we have discussed these poa's with out family and agreed it is a sensible step while we are both reasonably healthy, subject to our daily pills
According to the OPG 15% of LPA’s submitted to them have mistakes. If you’ve got something wrong you won’t have an insurance policy to fall back on. If a solicitor screws up the PII will pay out.
The forms were checked by each member of my family plus the witness and accepted by the Office of Public Protection. Indeed the most important part is the correct order of signing and witnessing
I have just completed power of attorney for my wife and I on line which was quite straightforward and the help line was excellent
Lawyers fees were over £600 for the four documents which effectively was just filling in the online questionnaire on behalf of their client
My son in law is about to submit probate for his late father himself again avoiding legal fees
It does make you wonder just how many others have done the same
For clarification at our ages we have discussed these poa's with out family and agreed it is a sensible step while we are both reasonably healthy, subject to our daily pills
According to the OPG 15% of LPA’s submitted to them have mistakes. If you’ve got something wrong you won’t have an insurance policy to fall back on. If a solicitor screws up the PII will pay out.
The forms were checked by each member of my family plus the witness and accepted by the Office of Public Protection. Indeed the most important part is the correct order of signing and witnessing
I am confident they are legal
It’s not that they’re not legal it’s more that they might not do what you want. The OPP won’t check them properly until someone challenges a decision made under them.
I dont know whether brexit has anything to do with it but my car ins policy has increased by 20.pc (LV) and other quotes from other insurance sites such as Confused, Compare the market, Money supermarket etc are all infinitely and shockingly worse. Wtf is going on?
Yeah, mine went up quite a bit too.
Inflation, innit.
No.its way over inflation rate
I think it's another hidden cost from the electrification of vehicles. Damage the battery pack even slightly (it's quite a lot of the underside of the car) and the car is probably a write off. And that's before getting into the way that Tesla are really evil about preventing 3rd parties repairing their cars - that's a cost that's being borne by someone too.
The tend towards filling cars with tech won't be helping either - a minor bump in the supermarket carpark has gone from being a plastic bumper at a few hundred quid to a load of expensive senors and wiring. Even clobbering a wing mirror on something has now means you've probably smashed a camera, a light unit, possibly some lidar sensors and a heated mirror glass, instead of a £50 bit of plastic and glass.
In this case, it wasn’t the battery pack, but the extreme difficulty of replacing that part of the vehicle, which involved stripping the headliner from the cab!
A lot of these modern vehicles are designed like iPhones: optimised for ease of construction above all else, with no consideration of repair (or even redesign) costs whatsoever. Sadly it makes sense from a corporate POV: anything that lowers the up front price is worthwhile, regardless of the net costs.
A response to the requirements for increasing crash safety and increasing fuel efficiency has been to involve a greater percentage of the vehicle mass in the crumpling system. This is very, very effective in making collisions more survivable.
It also means that relatively minor collisions exceed cost to repair.
In this case it seems to be somewhat Rivian specific: Sandy Munroe did a teardown & said it was one of the worst vehicles he & his team had ever had to deal with from that POV.
It’s possible to have crumple zones be repairable without having to tear the entire vehicle apart, but not with a Rivian apparently.
If you are optimising for overall weight, it is very easy to end up with collision damage spreading.
A classic is the double hull on ships. Sounds wonderful. But by the time many naval architects have done with it, quite useless. Because when you optimise for mass efficiency, lots of bracing between the double hulls is perfect. Except in a collision, where the ramming effect means the bracing transmits the forces to the inner hull. So both inner and outer rupture together. When I worked for an oil company there was a whole list of double hulled tankers we wouldn’t use because of this - company policy was to avoid reputational risk from oil spills.
Wasn't there something about our Aircraft Carriers in WW2 being not as good as the American ones because ours had armoured decks and theirs didn't?
Other way round! Our armored [sic] decks were better than their unprotected decks.
The armoured decks were part of the structure. This meant that post war it was discovered that damage had twisted some of them unrecoverably. There were also severe problems with deck height and upgrades.
No one builds armoured deck carriers now. A better design was depending on detailed interior compartmentation for damage resistance - see HMS Hermes.
Although they were not without their advantages. A friend of mine was serving in the Far Eastern fleet in 1945 and he recollected a suicide bomber hit the deck of I think it was HMS Formidable and because of the armour plating they just swept the deck clear of the debris and had it operational again within 30 minutes . Two days earlier an American carrier had been hit and had to return to dock for repairs. It was out for several weeks.
Several factors besides armor plating, such as precisely where on ship the kamikaze struck, also amount of fuel in the plane's tank when it hit.
In February, yours truly toured the USS Missouri at Pearl Harbor. Among many interesting sights to be seen, was the location on deck where a kamikaze pilot hit the ship during the Battle of Okinawa, killing him but causing minimal damage to the plane, which (like as your friend told you re: HMS Formidable) was shoved over the side.
AND where, by order of the captain, the pilot's remains were draped with the Rising Son flag and before being consigned to the deep.
These locations just feet from where, a few months later, the Japanese surrendered on that same deck, as USS Missouri was anchored in Tokyo Bay.
Not sure re: armor on Missouri compared with Formidable, but my basic (albeit piddly) point persists!
Battleship deck armour, especially on all-or-nothing armoured battleships was quite massive.
Interestingly, the Kamikaze pilots never managed the ready steep dives they were supposed to do. Which would have guaranteed penetrating armoured decks.
The German guided bombs could do that - see Roma.
At the end of the war, the U.K. Director in Naval Construction was asked to look at deck armour to deal with the next generation of guided weapons. The design study ended up trying to have 12” deck amour. Which had the problem of making the ship not float. At this point armoured ships died completely.
Dig a little deeper into these Polish stats, let’s look at Polish demographics
Poland’s population in 1989 - over thirty years ago, at the fall of communism - was 37.96m. Today it is 37.94m. It has actually DECLINED in the last 35 years, and is falling faster now
It is little wonder that EU membership/investment allied with a stagnant/falling population is leading to an increase in GDP per capita. A nicer pie is being shared by fewer people
In the same period the UK’s population has gone from 57m to 67m, and it is still growing fast
Poland is also aging faster than the UK, and attracts virtually zero immigrants
So, really, these “predictions” are simply cherry-picked nonsense flourished by ageing, middlebrow Remoaners still unable to accept defeat
We've read your published scribblings, @Leon: you are not perhaps in the best position to be throwing "middlebrow" around as an insult.
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
By contrast, I am paid - very handsomely - for what I write
If only someone's value was measured in the amount they earn...
I am seriously grateful that I was never paid what I was worth.
When I was about 14 years old, OGH sat me down and told me "never do a job where they can measure your output."
Funnily enough my advice is always the exact opposite.
Never do a job where they can measure your input. Only your output. That way, as long as you get the job done it doesn't matter if it takes 5 hours or 5 months.
It is the essence of being a consultant.
Yes, I always like to be paid per word for translation, not per hour - the former invites efficient work (assuming it's up to scratch), the latter invites either laziness or dishonesty.
If someone had sat a ten year old Leon in a chair, and said: in the future you will have to go to exotic faraway places all over the world and stay in amazing hotels, lodges, cruise ships for free, and have remarkable experiences, I’d have replied ‘yeah, ok, what’s the catch??’
And the answer would have been: ‘you get paid to do it’
Not sure I’d have believed them, tbh
The catch is that you walk into the amazing restaurants and ask for a table for one.
As I have explained multiple times, I got over this decades ago. I love it now
Indeed my heart sometimes slightly sinks when they invite me to dine with others (PR, managers, colorful locals)
That is unless the locals are REALLY colorful
I do like a good press trip however - with a gang of journalists. They are always very boozy, very messy, and seasoned with excellent gossip
"colorful"? Are you being impersonated by an American AI?
Though Streeting has promised to double the size of our Medical Schools, he doesn't seem to have considered how that will be physically possible in terms of space and placements. So far as I can find out there has been no discussion with our Medical School.
Then there is the small matter of finding time to have more postgraduate training places ("junior doctors") in appropriate specialities and enough grognards like myself with enough protected time to actually train these rookies.
My understanding - which may be out of date - is that c. 20% of those at medical schools are foreign students. Why not, at a start, put a cap at 10%? Yes, there are revenue implications for universities but not insurmountable.
On training - send our fledgling doctors abroad to train in the hospitals of countries we are giving overseas aid to?
They generally have shortages of medical staff.
Yes, but they have shortages of staff because their staff are on our wards...
Then sending our fledglings there will fix the problem. Trebles all round!
I’ve long advocated that we train medical staff to 100% of the planned recruitment of the NHS. We have the people - mostly let down by the educational system.
Training them in a STEM subject, which is in short supply around the world seems like a good deal for the students, for us. Oh, and reducing the stripping of medical staff from poor countries.
Comments
I no longer personally think Rejoining is unlikely.
But there are other options.
And with the Toxicity of the Tories it seems unlikely that will be markedly increasing prior to the mid 2030s unless Starmer introduces PR (he'll find a way not to). Possibly not even then.
This is not optimal for democracy.
No, it was never feasible he could have stayed on.
The country decided to self-harm, and it’s taking a biblical seven years to work it through. At least.
Corbyn-mania created some slight concerns - can so many people really approve of a nutter?
No doubt there are worse scares to come.
Democracy... maybe it's up to the job.
Ideally therefore yes the Tories need to do something about voters 40-50 no longer voting Tory but voters under 40 will almost always vote Labour, as they did in 2019 even when the Tories won a landslide.
Getting more voters 30-40 on the housing ladder by building more homes will help the Tories nationally v Labour but cost the Tories locally by losing voters to the LDs, Greens and NIMBY Independents if it means building on greenbelt land
A classic is the double hull on ships Not necessarily. Since the invention of armour plating, there was an argument in warship design between using lots of compartments with tough, slightly thick steel walls/decks and huge great slabs of armour on the outside.
In the end “cellular protection” won. And can be quite effective - see the target trials against the hulk of USS America
Now skilled white working class voters and pensioners who own a property with or without a mortgage and voted Leave are more likely to vote Tory than wealthy Londoners like you who dislike Brexit I am afraid
Turns out that middle aged insecurity, curtain-twitching, and hatred is a good way to get clicks, and a terrible way to run a country.
Thankfully it has a half-life, because you eventually run out of voters to hate.
A classic is the double hull on ships Does that include the places being paid for using overseas aid?
Anyhoo, having cued me up quite nicely, this is a link to an article written earlier this year about the importance and growth of Polish military power in the 21st century and the historical impetus behind it.
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/01/29/the-intermarium/
Just now post Brexit I am afraid you aren't and probably won't be for a generation, the skilled white working class and pensioners who voted Leave are much more likely to vote Tory now than your group is
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Even his wife votes against him in the privacy of the magnolia-scented parish council voting booth.
They generally have shortages of medical staff.
Mind you, he did accidentally mislay our EU membership, so he does deserve some flack.
No, because both Leave campaigns made promises that were going to be impossible to keep. They've been impossible to keep anyway, and that would have been even more so had any attempt to please the 48 percent been made.
No, because Johnson and Cummings would have chucked bricks at any attempt at a Brexit compromise. As happened to May, but on steroids and Red Bull.
There were plenty of honourable people in 2016 on both sides, sincerely doing what they thought was best for the country. But some on the Leave side do seem to have believed that they could align with the worst sorts of dishonest populist nationalism to get over the line, then former remainers would save them from the negative consequences of that.
Sorry. You climb aboard the tiger, it's up to you to work out how you are going to dismount.
Which instantly makes friends with all the bordering countries on the basis of guaranteeing each others borders against all… amendment.
Further, that such a block of allies will be powerful enough to prevent themselves being the price paid in someone else’s Realpolitik deal.
What made it so divisive was so many people convincing themselves that this was the end of the world, and that could have been averted by Cameron staying on.
When the Tories won in 1992 they won 56% of ABs, when the Tories won in 2019 the Tories won just 45% of ABs.
When the Tories won in 1992 they won 52% of C1s, when the Tories won in 2019 the Tories won just 45% of C1s
When the Tories won in 1992 they won just 39% of C2s, by contrast when the Tories won in 2019 the Tories won 47% of C2s.
When the Tories won in 1992 they won just 31% of DEs, when the Tories won in 2019 the Tories won 41% of DEs.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-1992
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election
Similarly when the Tories lost in 1997 they won just 36% of over 65s but held 41% of ABs.
Now the Tories are winning a more comfortable 42% of over 65s still but just 24% of ABC1s.
The Tory vote is much more working class and also older and more pensioner heavy than it was. Thus if you do not fall into either of those categories the Tories will be much less likely to target you than they were
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2023/05/19/voting-intention-con-25-lab-43-17-18-may-2023
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-1997
In February, yours truly toured the USS Missouri at Pearl Harbor. Among many interesting sights to be seen, was the location on deck where a kamikaze pilot hit the ship during the Battle of Okinawa, killing him but causing minimal damage to the plane, which (like as your friend told you re: HMS Formidable) was shoved over the side.
AND where, by order of the captain, the pilot's remains were draped with the Rising Son flag and before being consigned to the deep.
These locations just feet from where, a few months later, the Japanese surrendered on that same deck, as USS Missouri was anchored in Tokyo Bay.
Not sure re: armor on Missouri compared with Formidable, but my basic (albeit piddly) point persists!
Labour leads by 15%.
Westminster VI (28 May):
Labour 43% (+1)
Conservative 28% (-2)
Liberal Democrat 12% (-1)
Green 7% (+3)
Reform UK 5% (–)
Scottish National Party 3% (-1)
Other 3% (+1)
Changes +/- 21 May
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1663213617649680384
And the answer would have been: ‘you get paid to do it’
Not sure I’d have believed them, tbh
(h/t Bob Monkhouse)
Never do a job where they can measure your input. Only your output. That way, as long as you get the job done it doesn't matter if it takes 5 hours or 5 months.
It is the essence of being a consultant.
"Why what did he say?"
"I don't know, I wasn't listening."
The genius that was Marty Feldman
Incidentally, a Japanese visitor to the ship in the 1990s, saw some of the pilots documents, etc on display. When he got home, did some research . . . and was able to identify the pilot.
As you can imagine, that was a great comfort for his surviving kin.
Today is Memorial Day in the USA.
And I am thinking about a man I never knew, my uncle, who died in 1945 when his USAAF bomber was shot down and crashed in the Sea of Japan.
I do know, first hand, how his mother, brothers and sisters felt. Many years later, my mom lobbied her congressman, to obtain an official US veterans grave marker, for a man whose grave is still unknown. She's no longer with us, but know she'd be more than pleased that a family in Japan - or anywhere - got to find out what really happened to their son and brother.
It might take our nation down some very dark road, but if winning at any cost is the target, why not?
Long term I am less optimistic about their fate. Being on the new Cold War border with an angry (and humiliated?) Russia and Belarus might be an uncomfortable place. I can see it destabilizing their economy. Ditto the Baltics
(Put it down as "sedan chair rental" on your expense accounts, that'll make perfect sense to Spectator accountants.)
Sadly you do it alone these days. Tho the sadness of being paid to travel the world is a pretty first world issue. Also I like the challenge of solo travel. Forces you to meet people. Makes you self reliant
“You know," said Arthur, "it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young."
"Why, what did she tell you?"
"I don't know, I didn't listen.”
https://youtu.be/YKBRbrx2Jas?t=84
Indeed my heart sometimes slightly sinks when they invite me to dine with others (PR, managers, colorful locals)
That is unless the locals are REALLY colorful
I do like a good press trip however - with a gang of journalists. They are always very boozy, very messy, and seasoned with excellent gossip
We were then asked to send in our times for the current week by midday on Friday - before the end of the working week - so they would have time to prepare the figures for board meetings on Mondays. It then changed so we would have to send the figures in by close-of-play Thursday.
Which meant I had to invent the figures for Friday's work. Which, to be fair, did not matter too much as my figures were pretty much invented anyway...
We are number one in Europe for stolen credit card details for sale (although we fall down when population is taken into account).
https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/29/security_in_brief/
https://nordvpn.com/research-lab/6-million-stolen-credit-cards-analyzed/
A bit like Bravermans failure here.
If she fails she’s toast. But then who will Italian voters turn to? Someone even further to the right??
Thousands would die, but thousands drown every year anyway. And the boats would soon stop, ending the problem and the deaths
What is that threshold? A million a year? Two million?
Italy expects 400,000 this year
Another thought experiment: how would the UK react if 400,000 were crossing the Channel every year? I reckon we’d elect PM Farage
Lawyers fees were over £600 for the four documents which effectively was just filling in the online questionnaire on behalf of their client
My son in law is about to submit probate for his late father himself again avoiding legal fees
It does make you wonder just how many others have done the same
For clarification at our ages we have discussed these poa's with out family and agreed it is a sensible step while we are both reasonably healthy, subject to our daily pills
Diane: This consultation is free & should we go forward here is the cost.
Mark: Well that's very reasonable.
Diane: It's an hourly rate.
The corporate lawyers I did some research for some years ago billed by the 15 minute interval though!
Does Britain appear to be more wooded than in previous generations ?
It certainly seems to be compared to how I remember the 80s and 90s but perhaps my experience is affected by how many old industrial areas have been landscaped or rewilded and by how many housing developments of recent decades have tree plantings.
Italy expects 400k illegal Med crossings
"But you don't drink, Sunil!"
Oh, yeah!
Anyway, hopefully there'll soon be another Yorkshire side in the EPL.
I am confident they are legal
This thread has run out of time
Interestingly, the Kamikaze pilots never managed the ready steep dives they were supposed to do. Which would have guaranteed penetrating armoured decks.
The German guided bombs could do that - see Roma.
At the end of the war, the U.K. Director in Naval Construction was asked to look at deck armour to deal with the next generation of guided weapons. The design study ended up trying to have 12” deck amour. Which had the problem of making the ship not float. At this point armoured ships died completely.
I’ve long advocated that we train medical staff to 100% of the planned recruitment of the NHS. We have the people - mostly let down by the educational system.
Training them in a STEM subject, which is in short supply around the world seems like a good deal for the students, for us. Oh, and reducing the stripping of medical staff from poor countries.