Yes, ICE cars will always have the edge when it comes to range. But there's diminishing utility here. It's dead easy to add another 100 miles to a petrol car's range. But how much better is a car that goes 700 miles between a top-up and one that goes 800 miles?
I reckon you could do over a hundred thousand miles in one of these
It would interesting to look at the range equation, since you are hauling more weight to get the range….
EVs are already down to 15 minute top ups every so often - the trick is *not* to drive to empty and fill to 100%.
It's all about planning your trip.
My Leaf is great for local trips, and I usually change it once a week or so from about 20% to 80% on my home charger.
Every now and again though, I have to make a longer trip down to Oxford. In theory, the car could just about make it there and back, but it would be pretty tight. So what I do is charge it to 100% at home before travelling, then stop for half an hour at the rapid charging hub near Banbury for a coffee and a top-up. This adds enough range to make it comfortably the rest of the way there and back home again.
I got back yesterday after 5 days on the road in my Tesla Model Y. Charging stops almost always combined with meetings - both at customer sites and sat in the back of the car using it as an office. Had to haul various boxes around for part of the trip before acquiring a big heavy box which filled the boot for the trip home from Sheffield.
Charging just isn't any more of a consideration than when I had Outlander PHEVs and was needing to plan supermarket petrol stops every 300 miles.
A range of 300 miles is pathetic for a car with an ICE. Our old diesel has a range well above 1000 km. Having to plan refueling is an alien concept.
Yes, ICE cars will always have the edge when it comes to range. But there's diminishing utility here. It's dead easy to add another 100 miles to a petrol car's range. But how much better is a car that goes 700 miles between a top-up and one that goes 800 miles?
I reckon you could do over a hundred thousand miles in one of these
It would interesting to look at the range equation, since you are hauling more weight to get the range….
EVs are already down to 15 minute top ups every so often - the trick is *not* to drive to empty and fill to 100%.
It's all about planning your trip.
My Leaf is great for local trips, and I usually change it once a week or so from about 20% to 80% on my home charger.
Every now and again though, I have to make a longer trip down to Oxford. In theory, the car could just about make it there and back, but it would be pretty tight. So what I do is charge it to 100% at home before travelling, then stop for half an hour at the rapid charging hub near Banbury for a coffee and a top-up. This adds enough range to make it comfortably the rest of the way there and back home again.
Yes, friends have EVs and do this sort of calculation all the time. For me, as someone who'd like to electric for environmental reasons, it's very alienating. When I can find somewhere to top up quickly anywhere in the country, as is the case with petrol, then i'll switch, but otherwise only if forced to. I'm not proud of that attitude, but if it's how a green leftie like me thinks, it must reflect quite a lot of folk.
Range anxiety fades very quickly when buying an EV if buying a contemporary model like my Kia eniro which does 285 miles on a full charge, pretty similar to a full tank in my old car. I charge overnight in my own driveway on low tariff electricity every couple of weeks.
It's 185 miles to go to the IOW, so comfortably within range, and a return trip to London is so too, so in 3 years of ownership I have only used public chargers 3 times. Obviously more problematic if you don't have your own drive, but 60% of car owners do.
I think the Government is right to switch the EV subsidy from car purchase to expanding the charging network in order to make EVs more practical for everyone. If (like parking) there was a single app or electronic payment system it would be very helpful too.
Modern EVs are really not a hairshirt experience. They are smooth and powerful, with outstanding acceleration compared to ICE cars, and near zero maintenance.
285 miles is less than half of what I get in my Jag so it is still quite a negative factor, especially when the charging time is significantly longer than filling up with fuel.
We do not have the infrastructure for EVs yet, certainly in Scotland where there is a lot of empty spaces and range can cause anxiety even in an ICE vehicle. I will be buying a new car in the next 18 months and I would like it to be electric but I am still needing persuaded it is going to work. Will the government or the market assuage these fears by the time I buy? I am not seeing much sign of it.
Most of you car charging will happen when you are asleep. Your 560+ mile Jaaaaag range - how often do you drive that distance non-stop?
It's more like 630 miles and the short answer is never. But I stay away from home a lot on my job and I would not be confident of having a charger available where I go. It's an infrastructure problem. If, say, most carparks had a decent number of chargers it would be a different story.
Yes, ICE cars will always have the edge when it comes to range. But there's diminishing utility here. It's dead easy to add another 100 miles to a petrol car's range. But how much better is a car that goes 700 miles between a top-up and one that goes 800 miles?
I reckon you could do over a hundred thousand miles in one of these
It would interesting to look at the range equation, since you are hauling more weight to get the range….
EVs are already down to 15 minute top ups every so often - the trick is *not* to drive to empty and fill to 100%.
It's all about planning your trip.
My Leaf is great for local trips, and I usually change it once a week or so from about 20% to 80% on my home charger.
Every now and again though, I have to make a longer trip down to Oxford. In theory, the car could just about make it there and back, but it would be pretty tight. So what I do is charge it to 100% at home before travelling, then stop for half an hour at the rapid charging hub near Banbury for a coffee and a top-up. This adds enough range to make it comfortably the rest of the way there and back home again.
Yes, friends have EVs and do this sort of calculation all the time. For me, as someone who'd like to electric for environmental reasons, it's very alienating. When I can find somewhere to top up quickly anywhere in the country, as is the case with petrol, then i'll switch, but otherwise only if forced to. I'm not proud of that attitude, but if it's how a green leftie like me thinks, it must reflect quite a lot of folk.
It's a monumental failure that governments have set a deadline to ban sales of ICE cars, but have failed to implement a massive project to build charging points anywhere and everywhere.
The latter is so obviously a precondition for the former.
The public charging network is a major problem. In the region of 40 competing providers, with several of them overlapping (one bought by another, or one using another to do billing). Most require an app which is faff and takes minutes to actually start vending power when you plug in. Some are branded by oil companies - BP and Shell - which are reliably broken.
On my 1,200 mile trip this week I saw the best and worst of charging infrastructure. Best: Tesla Superchargers as always, but also the new Gridserve chargers being installed at Grantham services (350kW max for the handful of 800v cars). Worst: brand new BP Pulse "rapid" chargers which max out at a pitiful 50kW once you sign away your soul in getting their app set-up and the units actually work.
From the BBC: "Boris Johnson has been warned public funding for his legal representation to the Covid inquiry could be withdrawn if he tries to "undermine" the government. "
It was bad enough that the taxpayer was funding Johnson's defence of his crimes in the first place. But now the government is using that funding to try to force him to back its defiance of the law?
Standards in public life are at sub-banana-republic level in this country now.
I do not wish to defend the government but there is some misunderstanding here and, not for the first time, poor reporting by the press.
Johnson's communications as PM do not belong to him personally. They were not made in his personal capacity. Bluntly, they belong to the government and it is for the government to produce them to the inquiry. Johnson is wrong to act as if what he did and said as PM was somehow separate and only he has the right to decide what to do with his Prime Ministerial communications.
Second, when an employee (or ex-employee, in Johnson's case) has his legal fees paid by the employer, the employer is entitled to impose conditions on their payment for it.
Employers usually pay for an employee's legal fees in an investigation when (a) there are good reasons why the employers' lawyers cannot act for both employer and employee; and (b) the acts of the employee are being done in his capacity as an employee ie for and on behalf of the employer. It is also usual for that payment to be withdrawn if the individual does - or turns out to have done - something which prejudices the employer's position.
That is what is happening here. The government is judicially reviewing the inquiry's S.21 Notice. They are legally entitled to do so (even if I and many others think that this is politically unwise, probably legally untenable and not how inquiries should be run). Until that challenge has been heard and decided, the government is entitled to expect Johnson not to do - at their expense - stuff which would prejudice that challenge. It is possible that the government might win and such a win would be rendered pointless if Johnson decided to do what the hell he wanted regardless of what the courts decide. It is also reasonable to tell an employee who decides to go off-piste that he can do so at his own expense.
More Spanish election polling and all show growing leads for PP compared to their previous polls before the locals. Still no sign of an absolute majority but PSOE are not close even if all the minority parties except Vox supported them - which they won't
Looks like by July both Italy and Spain will have hard right governments then. The Anglo Saxon world may be shifting to the centre left, Southern Europe though clearly shifting right
The PP are very much centre right and Vox have little choice but to support them. As on so many of these matters you are plain wrong.
Yes, ICE cars will always have the edge when it comes to range. But there's diminishing utility here. It's dead easy to add another 100 miles to a petrol car's range. But how much better is a car that goes 700 miles between a top-up and one that goes 800 miles?
I reckon you could do over a hundred thousand miles in one of these
It would interesting to look at the range equation, since you are hauling more weight to get the range….
EVs are already down to 15 minute top ups every so often - the trick is *not* to drive to empty and fill to 100%.
It's all about planning your trip.
My Leaf is great for local trips, and I usually change it once a week or so from about 20% to 80% on my home charger.
Every now and again though, I have to make a longer trip down to Oxford. In theory, the car could just about make it there and back, but it would be pretty tight. So what I do is charge it to 100% at home before travelling, then stop for half an hour at the rapid charging hub near Banbury for a coffee and a top-up. This adds enough range to make it comfortably the rest of the way there and back home again.
I got back yesterday after 5 days on the road in my Tesla Model Y. Charging stops almost always combined with meetings - both at customer sites and sat in the back of the car using it as an office. Had to haul various boxes around for part of the trip before acquiring a big heavy box which filled the boot for the trip home from Sheffield.
Charging just isn't any more of a consideration than when I had Outlander PHEVs and was needing to plan supermarket petrol stops every 300 miles.
A range of 300 miles is pathetic for a car with an ICE. Our old diesel has a range well above 1000 km. Having to plan refueling is an alien concept.
I could refuel the thing anywhere! But why pay big oil prices when supermarkets are so much cheaper...?
Willingness to have children is one of those indicator species of a happy confident people.
Which is presumably why Boris has so many.
Robert Jenrick rails against migrants refusing to sleep four to a room.
In a rather striking inversion of that situation, Jenrick himself owns two homes in London and a 17th-century manor house in Herefordshire, as well as renting a property in his constituency for £2,000 a month.
Still, fair dos. He did work for a living for six years before he - like the migrants - became taxpayer-funded.
Yes, ICE cars will always have the edge when it comes to range. But there's diminishing utility here. It's dead easy to add another 100 miles to a petrol car's range. But how much better is a car that goes 700 miles between a top-up and one that goes 800 miles?
I reckon you could do over a hundred thousand miles in one of these
It would interesting to look at the range equation, since you are hauling more weight to get the range….
EVs are already down to 15 minute top ups every so often - the trick is *not* to drive to empty and fill to 100%.
It's all about planning your trip.
My Leaf is great for local trips, and I usually change it once a week or so from about 20% to 80% on my home charger.
Every now and again though, I have to make a longer trip down to Oxford. In theory, the car could just about make it there and back, but it would be pretty tight. So what I do is charge it to 100% at home before travelling, then stop for half an hour at the rapid charging hub near Banbury for a coffee and a top-up. This adds enough range to make it comfortably the rest of the way there and back home again.
Yes, friends have EVs and do this sort of calculation all the time. For me, as someone who'd like to electric for environmental reasons, it's very alienating. When I can find somewhere to top up quickly anywhere in the country, as is the case with petrol, then i'll switch, but otherwise only if forced to. I'm not proud of that attitude, but if it's how a green leftie like me thinks, it must reflect quite a lot of folk.
Range anxiety fades very quickly when buying an EV if buying a contemporary model like my Kia eniro which does 285 miles on a full charge, pretty similar to a full tank in my old car. I charge overnight in my own driveway on low tariff electricity every couple of weeks.
It's 185 miles to go to the IOW, so comfortably within range, and a return trip to London is so too, so in 3 years of ownership I have only used public chargers 3 times. Obviously more problematic if you don't have your own drive, but 60% of car owners do.
I think the Government is right to switch the EV subsidy from car purchase to expanding the charging network in order to make EVs more practical for everyone. If (like parking) there was a single app or electronic payment system it would be very helpful too.
Modern EVs are really not a hairshirt experience. They are smooth and powerful, with outstanding acceleration compared to ICE cars, and near zero maintenance.
285 miles is less than half of what I get in my Jag so it is still quite a negative factor, especially when the charging time is significantly longer than filling up with fuel.
We do not have the infrastructure for EVs yet, certainly in Scotland where there is a lot of empty spaces and range can cause anxiety even in an ICE vehicle. I will be buying a new car in the next 18 months and I would like it to be electric but I am still needing persuaded it is going to work. Will the government or the market assuage these fears by the time I buy? I am not seeing much sign of it.
Norway is bigger and more rural than Scotland, yet 80% of new car sales there are full electric. It is completely practical if a government is interested.
(An interesting policy too for Europe's biggest oil producer)
Yes, its all down to infrastructure. There will come a point when finding a remaining garage for fuel is going to become a lot more hassle than a charging point because demand for the former will gradually decline and more will go out of business. There are quite a few ex petrol pump garage sites around here already with the supermarkets having driven competition out of business. If the likes of Tesco or Asda start to rethink that strategy with a lot more charging points in their carparks then we may get rapid change.
More Spanish election polling and all show growing leads for PP compared to their previous polls before the locals. Still no sign of an absolute majority but PSOE are not close even if all the minority parties except Vox supported them - which they won't
Willingness to have children is one of those indicator species of a happy confident people.
Which is presumably why Boris has so many.
Robert Jenrick rails against migrants refusing to sleep four to a room.
In a rather striking inversion of that situation, Jenrick himself owns two homes in London and a 17th-century manor house in Herefordshire, as well as renting a property in his constituency for £2,000 a month.
Still, fair dos. He did work for a living for six years before he - like the migrants - became taxpayer-funded.
I did like the comment in the article that having excess pupil spaces in schools was bad.
Everyone has become conditioned to the “99% usage is good”‘ nonsense.
Operational Research tells you that if you run your organisation at 99% of capacity, staff morale will collapse. Sickness and absenteeism will soar. Quality will suffer. A slight problem causes massive collapses. Secondary goals will be forgotten and ignored.
From the BBC: "Boris Johnson has been warned public funding for his legal representation to the Covid inquiry could be withdrawn if he tries to "undermine" the government. "
It was bad enough that the taxpayer was funding Johnson's defence of his crimes in the first place. But now the government is using that funding to try to force him to back its defiance of the law?
Standards in public life are at sub-banana-republic level in this country now.
I do not wish to defend the government but there is some misunderstanding here and, not for the first time, poor reporting by the press.
Johnson's communications as PM do not belong to him personally. They were not made in his personal capacity. Bluntly, they belong to the government and it is for the government to produce them to the inquiry. Johnson is wrong to act as if what he did and said as PM was somehow separate and only he has the right to decide what to do with his Prime Ministerial communications.
Second, when an employee (or ex-employee, in Johnson's case) has his legal fees paid by the employer, the employer is entitled to impose conditions on their payment for it.
Employers usually pay for an employee's legal fees in an investigation when (a) there are good reasons why the employers' lawyers cannot act for both employer and employee; and (b) the acts of the employee are being done in his capacity as an employee ie for and on behalf of the employer. It is also usual for that payment to be withdrawn if the individual does - or turns out to have done - something which prejudices the employer's position.
That is what is happening here. The government is judicially reviewing the inquiry's S.21 Notice. They are legally entitled to do so (even if I and many others think that this is politically unwise, probably legally untenable and not how inquiries should be run). Until that challenge has been heard and decided, the government is entitled to expect Johnson not to do - at their expense - stuff which would prejudice that challenge. It is possible that the government might win and such a win would be rendered pointless if Johnson decided to do what the hell he wanted regardless of what the courts decide. It is also reasonable to tell an employee who decides to go off-piste that he can do so at his own expense.
At the risk of serious understatement, the public perception, fuelled by Johnson, that he has any part to play in the decision process here is unhelpful.
More Spanish election polling and all show growing leads for PP compared to their previous polls before the locals. Still no sign of an absolute majority but PSOE are not close even if all the minority parties except Vox supported them - which they won't
Looks like by July both Italy and Spain will have hard right governments then. The Anglo Saxon world may be shifting to the centre left, Southern Europe though clearly shifting right
The PP are very much centre right and Vox have little choice but to support them. As on so many of these matters you are plain wrong.
There's also the small matter of the voting first as well... The polls do show PP/Vox winning a majority. But, at the moment it is small, and far from a nailed on certainty. The absence of Ciudadanos from the scene leaves only a ragtag of regional parties as potential allies if they fall a few short. Not convinced many will want to get into bed with Vox. In summary, they are leading by a little. But with many laps to go.
But when Osborne said poor people shouldn't have kids and when Sunak boasted about diverting money to richer areas that wasn't class war at all. The Tories love class war, they just don't want the other side to fight it.
The big flaw is that lifetime emissions (from actually driving it) dominate the emissions that a car produces.
Yes, and in the article he appears to assume that we all buy brand new cars and then scrap them after 3 years.
"Electric motoring is, in theory, a subject about which I should know something. My first university degree was in electrical and electronic engineering, with a subsequent master’s in control systems."
Begins Rowan Atkinson. I'm assuming his degrees were done in the 1970s. The fact that he thinks this gives him some current expertise on electric vehicles already makes the rest of the article unlikely to be worth reading. Why didn't the Guardian get someone who actually knows something to write on this? I guess Guardian readers are sick of experts and prefer celebrity clickbait.
I have a degree in Civil Engineering - which is almost as completely applicable today as it was when I did it. But if you studied Electronics (or computing or biotechnology etc) then its applicability degrades rapidly with time - If you are not working in the field and staying up to date with technology you might as well have a degree in history (which has always been worthless)
Yes. As I sit here in my hovel, with only the meagre takings of a partner in a City law firm to tide me over, I think to myself, “it all went wrong when I decided to do history”.
So you agree - History was so worthless that you retrained to become a lawyer???
More Spanish election polling and all show growing leads for PP compared to their previous polls before the locals. Still no sign of an absolute majority but PSOE are not close even if all the minority parties except Vox supported them - which they won't
Why are the Left lagging?
PSOE went into coalition with Podemos and the stuff Podemos has been allowed to do to keep it onside has been massively unpopular, as have deals PSOE has done with radical Catalan and Basque separatist parties to get measures through the Parliament. At the same time Ciudadanos has collapsed. The centrist vote that was up for grabs has largely gone to PP, as a result. The PSOE vote is actually relatively stable, but all around it big changes are happening with the general drift being rightwards. A PP minority government is by far the likeliest outcome, but I would not rule out PSOE staying in power if it looks like PP might do a deal with Vox. I think PP will rule that out, though. Spain is not a country of extremes.
In the interests of strict scientific inquiry, I am currently in the middle of an experiment:
Aim: to see if it is possible to die from an overdose of Baklava. Subject: 50 year old male; hungry at start of experiment. Control: those poor people reading this with no immediate access to baklava. Interim result: a very happy 50 year old male...
Yes, ICE cars will always have the edge when it comes to range. But there's diminishing utility here. It's dead easy to add another 100 miles to a petrol car's range. But how much better is a car that goes 700 miles between a top-up and one that goes 800 miles?
I reckon you could do over a hundred thousand miles in one of these
It would interesting to look at the range equation, since you are hauling more weight to get the range….
EVs are already down to 15 minute top ups every so often - the trick is *not* to drive to empty and fill to 100%.
It's all about planning your trip.
My Leaf is great for local trips, and I usually change it once a week or so from about 20% to 80% on my home charger.
Every now and again though, I have to make a longer trip down to Oxford. In theory, the car could just about make it there and back, but it would be pretty tight. So what I do is charge it to 100% at home before travelling, then stop for half an hour at the rapid charging hub near Banbury for a coffee and a top-up. This adds enough range to make it comfortably the rest of the way there and back home again.
Yes, friends have EVs and do this sort of calculation all the time. For me, as someone who'd like to electric for environmental reasons, it's very alienating. When I can find somewhere to top up quickly anywhere in the country, as is the case with petrol, then i'll switch, but otherwise only if forced to. I'm not proud of that attitude, but if it's how a green leftie like me thinks, it must reflect quite a lot of folk.
It's a monumental failure that governments have set a deadline to ban sales of ICE cars, but have failed to implement a massive project to build charging points anywhere and everywhere.
The latter is so obviously a precondition for the former.
The public charging network is a major problem. In the region of 40 competing providers, with several of them overlapping (one bought by another, or one using another to do billing). Most require an app which is faff and takes minutes to actually start vending power when you plug in. Some are branded by oil companies - BP and Shell - which are reliably broken.
On my 1,200 mile trip this week I saw the best and worst of charging infrastructure. Best: Tesla Superchargers as always, but also the new Gridserve chargers being installed at Grantham services (350kW max for the handful of 800v cars). Worst: brand new BP Pulse "rapid" chargers which max out at a pitiful 50kW once you sign away your soul in getting their app set-up and the units actually work.
I was in Glasgow for a trial again this last week and my car was parked in an NCP carpark for 3 days (cost nearly £50). There are no charging points in that carpark and, frankly, even if there were I would have been nervous about using them (the court is not in a particularly salubrious part of Glasgow) or leaving my car connected to them.
What is needed is not only charging points that work, as you point out, but secure charging points where idiots are not going to cause damage if you leave your car there. Building up an infrastructure with not compatible chargers also seems insane.
More Spanish election polling and all show growing leads for PP compared to their previous polls before the locals. Still no sign of an absolute majority but PSOE are not close even if all the minority parties except Vox supported them - which they won't
Why are the Left lagging?
Some fragmentation with the far left and a coalition which requires nationalist support as well. Also food prices, high taxes, the usual suspects.
From the BBC: "Boris Johnson has been warned public funding for his legal representation to the Covid inquiry could be withdrawn if he tries to "undermine" the government. "
It was bad enough that the taxpayer was funding Johnson's defence of his crimes in the first place. But now the government is using that funding to try to force him to back its defiance of the law?
Standards in public life are at sub-banana-republic level in this country now.
I do not wish to defend the government but there is some misunderstanding here and, not for the first time, poor reporting by the press.
Johnson's communications as PM do not belong to him personally. They were not made in his personal capacity. Bluntly, they belong to the government and it is for the government to produce them to the inquiry. Johnson is wrong to act as if what he did and said as PM was somehow separate and only he has the right to decide what to do with his Prime Ministerial communications.
Second, when an employee (or ex-employee, in Johnson's case) has his legal fees paid by the employer, the employer is entitled to impose conditions on their payment for it.
Employers usually pay for an employee's legal fees in an investigation when (a) there are good reasons why the employers' lawyers cannot act for both employer and employee; and (b) the acts of the employee are being done in his capacity as an employee ie for and on behalf of the employer. It is also usual for that payment to be withdrawn if the individual does - or turns out to have done - something which prejudices the employer's position.
That is what is happening here. The government is judicially reviewing the inquiry's S.21 Notice. They are legally entitled to do so (even if I and many others think that this is politically unwise, probably legally untenable and not how inquiries should be run). Until that challenge has been heard and decided, the government is entitled to expect Johnson not to do - at their expense - stuff which would prejudice that challenge. It is possible that the government might win and such a win would be rendered pointless if Johnson decided to do what the hell he wanted regardless of what the courts decide. It is also reasonable to tell an employee who decides to go off-piste that he can do so at his own expense.
With Johnson it is more likely he was on the piste than off it....
From the BBC: "Boris Johnson has been warned public funding for his legal representation to the Covid inquiry could be withdrawn if he tries to "undermine" the government. "
It was bad enough that the taxpayer was funding Johnson's defence of his crimes in the first place. But now the government is using that funding to try to force him to back its defiance of the law?
Standards in public life are at sub-banana-republic level in this country now.
I do not wish to defend the government but there is some misunderstanding here and, not for the first time, poor reporting by the press.
Johnson's communications as PM do not belong to him personally. They were not made in his personal capacity. Bluntly, they belong to the government and it is for the government to produce them to the inquiry. Johnson is wrong to act as if what he did and said as PM was somehow separate and only he has the right to decide what to do with his Prime Ministerial communications.
Second, when an employee (or ex-employee, in Johnson's case) has his legal fees paid by the employer, the employer is entitled to impose conditions on their payment for it.
Employers usually pay for an employee's legal fees in an investigation when (a) there are good reasons why the employers' lawyers cannot act for both employer and employee; and (b) the acts of the employee are being done in his capacity as an employee ie for and on behalf of the employer. It is also usual for that payment to be withdrawn if the individual does - or turns out to have done - something which prejudices the employer's position.
That is what is happening here. The government is judicially reviewing the inquiry's S.21 Notice. They are legally entitled to do so (even if I and many others think that this is politically unwise, probably legally untenable and not how inquiries should be run). Until that challenge has been heard and decided, the government is entitled to expect Johnson not to do - at their expense - stuff which would prejudice that challenge. It is possible that the government might win and such a win would be rendered pointless if Johnson decided to do what the hell he wanted regardless of what the courts decide. It is also reasonable to tell an employee who decides to go off-piste that he can do so at his own expense.
At the risk of serious understatement, the public perception, fuelled by Johnson, that he has any part to play in the decision process here is unhelpful.
Indeed. Anything that Johnson (or people on his behalf) says on this should be treated with the utmost caution. He is both lying and playing games.
In the interests of strict scientific inquiry, I am currently in the middle of an experiment:
Aim: to see if it is possible to die from an overdose of Baklava. Subject: 50 year old male; hungry at start of experiment. Control: those poor people reading this with no immediate access to baklava. Interim result: a very happy 50 year old male...
I have an incredibly sweet tooth but even for me there are definite limits on how much baklava I can actually enjoy. But it sounds a better Sunday morning than mine.
Willingness to have children is one of those indicator species of a happy confident people.
Which is presumably why Boris has so many.
Robert Jenrick rails against migrants refusing to sleep four to a room.
In a rather striking inversion of that situation, Jenrick himself owns two homes in London and a 17th-century manor house in Herefordshire, as well as renting a property in his constituency for £2,000 a month.
Still, fair dos. He did work for a living for six years before he - like the migrants - became taxpayer-funded.
I did like the comment in the article that having excess pupil spaces in schools was bad.
Everyone has become conditioned to the “99% usage is good”‘ nonsense.
Operational Research tells you that if you run your organisation at 99% of capacity, staff morale will collapse. Sickness and absenteeism will soar. Quality will suffer. A slight problem causes massive collapses. Secondary goals will be forgotten and ignored.
Strangely….
A beautifully concise analysis of the problem of the NHS. Surge capacity only exists by stopping elective work, hence waiting lists.
I've just read the Daily Mail confected bollocks you have just posted. As it stands everyone irrespective of postcode is subject to reductions in services like GP access, libraries and bin collections.
When your genius Prime Minister launches his unfunded whopping 2% reduction in income tax there will be a whole lot less access to GPs, libraries and bin collections.
From the BBC: "Boris Johnson has been warned public funding for his legal representation to the Covid inquiry could be withdrawn if he tries to "undermine" the government. "
It was bad enough that the taxpayer was funding Johnson's defence of his crimes in the first place. But now the government is using that funding to try to force him to back its defiance of the law?
Standards in public life are at sub-banana-republic level in this country now.
I do not wish to defend the government but there is some misunderstanding here and, not for the first time, poor reporting by the press.
Johnson's communications as PM do not belong to him personally. They were not made in his personal capacity. Bluntly, they belong to the government and it is for the government to produce them to the inquiry. Johnson is wrong to act as if what he did and said as PM was somehow separate and only he has the right to decide what to do with his Prime Ministerial communications.
Second, when an employee (or ex-employee, in Johnson's case) has his legal fees paid by the employer, the employer is entitled to impose conditions on their payment for it.
Employers usually pay for an employee's legal fees in an investigation when (a) there are good reasons why the employers' lawyers cannot act for both employer and employee; and (b) the acts of the employee are being done in his capacity as an employee ie for and on behalf of the employer. It is also usual for that payment to be withdrawn if the individual does - or turns out to have done - something which prejudices the employer's position.
That is what is happening here. The government is judicially reviewing the inquiry's S.21 Notice. They are legally entitled to do so (even if I and many others think that this is politically unwise, probably legally untenable and not how inquiries should be run). Until that challenge has been heard and decided, the government is entitled to expect Johnson not to do - at their expense - stuff which would prejudice that challenge. It is possible that the government might win and such a win would be rendered pointless if Johnson decided to do what the hell he wanted regardless of what the courts decide. It is also reasonable to tell an employee who decides to go off-piste that he can do so at his own expense.
At the risk of serious understatement, the public perception, fuelled by Johnson, that he has any part to play in the decision process here is unhelpful.
Indeed. Anything that Johnson (or people on his behalf) says on this should be treated with the utmost caution. He is both lying and playing games.
The big flaw is that lifetime emissions (from actually driving it) dominate the emissions that a car produces.
Yes, and in the article he appears to assume that we all buy brand new cars and then scrap them after 3 years.
"Electric motoring is, in theory, a subject about which I should know something. My first university degree was in electrical and electronic engineering, with a subsequent master’s in control systems."
Begins Rowan Atkinson. I'm assuming his degrees were done in the 1970s. The fact that he thinks this gives him some current expertise on electric vehicles already makes the rest of the article unlikely to be worth reading. Why didn't the Guardian get someone who actually knows something to write on this? I guess Guardian readers are sick of experts and prefer celebrity clickbait.
I have a degree in Civil Engineering - which is almost as completely applicable today as it was when I did it. But if you studied Electronics (or computing or biotechnology etc) then its applicability degrades rapidly with time - If you are not working in the field and staying up to date with technology you might as well have a degree in history (which has always been worthless)
Yes. As I sit here in my hovel, with only the meagre takings of a partner in a City law firm to tide me over, I think to myself, “it all went wrong when I decided to do history”.
So you agree - History was so worthless that you retrained to become a lawyer???
No. Clearly your Civil Engineering degree did not teach you how to read or comprehend. I got a job as a lawyer off the back of my history degree. While even law graduates have to go to law school in the meantime most, like non-law grads, get the job offer before they go. After that, law or non-law, you spend two years (solicitors) or one year (barristers) as a trainee/pupil. Show me any job that doesn’t require their graduates, of any discipline, to do on the job training.
As I say, sitting here in the sunshine regretting my life choices after your devastating post.
More Spanish election polling and all show growing leads for PP compared to their previous polls before the locals. Still no sign of an absolute majority but PSOE are not close even if all the minority parties except Vox supported them - which they won't
Looks like by July both Italy and Spain will have hard right governments then. The Anglo Saxon world may be shifting to the centre left, Southern Europe though clearly shifting right
The PP are very much centre right and Vox have little choice but to support them. As on so many of these matters you are plain wrong.
There's also the small matter of the voting first as well... The polls do show PP/Vox winning a majority. But, at the moment it is small, and far from a nailed on certainty. The absence of Ciudadanos from the scene leaves only a ragtag of regional parties as potential allies if they fall a few short. Not convinced many will want to get into bed with Vox. In summary, they are leading by a little. But with many laps to go.
They are about 10 short, some of the small parties will support them and PSOE are in a much weaker position. If Vox ask too much there may be a grand coalition. There are less than 7 weeks to go and the far left are still riven. As I said a formal Coalition with Vox is very unlikely. All the post announcement polls see the PP lead growing. We will see.
Yes, ICE cars will always have the edge when it comes to range. But there's diminishing utility here. It's dead easy to add another 100 miles to a petrol car's range. But how much better is a car that goes 700 miles between a top-up and one that goes 800 miles?
I reckon you could do over a hundred thousand miles in one of these
It would interesting to look at the range equation, since you are hauling more weight to get the range….
EVs are already down to 15 minute top ups every so often - the trick is *not* to drive to empty and fill to 100%.
It's all about planning your trip.
My Leaf is great for local trips, and I usually change it once a week or so from about 20% to 80% on my home charger.
Every now and again though, I have to make a longer trip down to Oxford. In theory, the car could just about make it there and back, but it would be pretty tight. So what I do is charge it to 100% at home before travelling, then stop for half an hour at the rapid charging hub near Banbury for a coffee and a top-up. This adds enough range to make it comfortably the rest of the way there and back home again.
Yes, friends have EVs and do this sort of calculation all the time. For me, as someone who'd like to electric for environmental reasons, it's very alienating. When I can find somewhere to top up quickly anywhere in the country, as is the case with petrol, then i'll switch, but otherwise only if forced to. I'm not proud of that attitude, but if it's how a green leftie like me thinks, it must reflect quite a lot of folk.
It's a monumental failure that governments have set a deadline to ban sales of ICE cars, but have failed to implement a massive project to build charging points anywhere and everywhere.
The latter is so obviously a precondition for the former.
The public charging network is a major problem. In the region of 40 competing providers, with several of them overlapping (one bought by another, or one using another to do billing). Most require an app which is faff and takes minutes to actually start vending power when you plug in. Some are branded by oil companies - BP and Shell - which are reliably broken.
On my 1,200 mile trip this week I saw the best and worst of charging infrastructure. Best: Tesla Superchargers as always, but also the new Gridserve chargers being installed at Grantham services (350kW max for the handful of 800v cars). Worst: brand new BP Pulse "rapid" chargers which max out at a pitiful 50kW once you sign away your soul in getting their app set-up and the units actually work.
I was in Glasgow for a trial again this last week and my car was parked in an NCP carpark for 3 days (cost nearly £50). There are no charging points in that carpark and, frankly, even if there were I would have been nervous about using them (the court is not in a particularly salubrious part of Glasgow) or leaving my car connected to them.
What is needed is not only charging points that work, as you point out, but secure charging points where idiots are not going to cause damage if you leave your car there. Building up an infrastructure with not compatible chargers also seems insane.
Why would you need to charge your car for 3 days on a Dundee - Glasgow - Dundee journey? Or charge it at all?
But when Osborne said poor people shouldn't have kids and when Sunak boasted about diverting money to richer areas that wasn't class war at all. The Tories love class war, they just don't want the other side to fight it.
To be fair, it isn't entirely surprising that teenage Rishi had no working class friends when attending one of the poshest schools in the country, with prosperous middle class parents.
I suspect that the same would be true in reverse at any gritty inner city Comprehensive.
The big flaw is that lifetime emissions (from actually driving it) dominate the emissions that a car produces.
Yes, and in the article he appears to assume that we all buy brand new cars and then scrap them after 3 years.
"Electric motoring is, in theory, a subject about which I should know something. My first university degree was in electrical and electronic engineering, with a subsequent master’s in control systems."
Begins Rowan Atkinson. I'm assuming his degrees were done in the 1970s. The fact that he thinks this gives him some current expertise on electric vehicles already makes the rest of the article unlikely to be worth reading. Why didn't the Guardian get someone who actually knows something to write on this? I guess Guardian readers are sick of experts and prefer celebrity clickbait.
I have a degree in Civil Engineering - which is almost as completely applicable today as it was when I did it. But if you studied Electronics (or computing or biotechnology etc) then its applicability degrades rapidly with time - If you are not working in the field and staying up to date with technology you might as well have a degree in history (which has always been worthless)
Yes. As I sit here in my hovel, with only the meagre takings of a partner in a City law firm to tide me over, I think to myself, “it all went wrong when I decided to do history”.
So you agree - History was so worthless that you retrained to become a lawyer???
No. Clearly your Civil Engineering degree did not teach you how to read or comprehend. I got a job as a lawyer off the back of my history degree. While even law graduates have to go to law school in the meantime most, like non-law grads, get the job offer before they go. After that, law or non-law, you spend two years (solicitors) or one year (barristers) as a trainee/pupil. Show me any job that doesn’t require their graduates, of any discipline, to do on the job training.
As I say, sitting here in the sunshine regretting my life choices after your devastating post.
In 50 years I have never sought employment as a philosopher, politician or economist in spite of a prestigious qualification in all three. Such a glaring waste of talent (and taxpayers' money). Something Must Be Done (but not by me).
The big flaw is that lifetime emissions (from actually driving it) dominate the emissions that a car produces.
Yes, and in the article he appears to assume that we all buy brand new cars and then scrap them after 3 years.
"Electric motoring is, in theory, a subject about which I should know something. My first university degree was in electrical and electronic engineering, with a subsequent master’s in control systems."
Begins Rowan Atkinson. I'm assuming his degrees were done in the 1970s. The fact that he thinks this gives him some current expertise on electric vehicles already makes the rest of the article unlikely to be worth reading. Why didn't the Guardian get someone who actually knows something to write on this? I guess Guardian readers are sick of experts and prefer celebrity clickbait.
I have a degree in Civil Engineering - which is almost as completely applicable today as it was when I did it. But if you studied Electronics (or computing or biotechnology etc) then its applicability degrades rapidly with time - If you are not working in the field and staying up to date with technology you might as well have a degree in history (which has always been worthless)
Yes. As I sit here in my hovel, with only the meagre takings of a partner in a City law firm to tide me over, I think to myself, “it all went wrong when I decided to do history”.
So you agree - History was so worthless that you retrained to become a lawyer???
No. Clearly your Civil Engineering degree did not teach you how to read or comprehend. I got a job as a lawyer off the back of my history degree. While even law graduates have to go to law school in the meantime most, like non-law grads, get the job offer before they go. After that, law or non-law, you spend two years (solicitors) or one year (barristers) as a trainee/pupil. Show me any job that doesn’t require their graduates, of any discipline, to do on the job training.
As I say, sitting here in the sunshine regretting my life choices after your devastating post.
In 50 years I have never sought employment as a philosopher, politician or economist in spite of a prestigious qualification in all three. Such a glaring waste of talent (and taxpayers' money). Something Must Be Done (but not by me).
And to be honest, I don't use much of what I learned at Med School during my MBBS. Don't ask me about the bones in the foot for example.
I am reasonably open to the new Apprentice style medical qualification, which should be best aimed at those with a first degree in an appropriate biomedical science, rather than those straight from school.
The massive gap is the capacity to train these people (should I cancel a clinic every week to train these rookies?) and the absence of funding. The proposal to double medical school places for £1billion over 5 years in the Sunday Times today is delusional. A proper workforce plan for the NHS requires much more money, freeing up of time for experienced trainers like yours truly, and attention to retention.
More Spanish election polling and all show growing leads for PP compared to their previous polls before the locals. Still no sign of an absolute majority but PSOE are not close even if all the minority parties except Vox supported them - which they won't
Looks like by July both Italy and Spain will have hard right governments then. The Anglo Saxon world may be shifting to the centre left, Southern Europe though clearly shifting right
The PP are very much centre right and Vox have little choice but to support them. As on so many of these matters you are plain wrong.
There's also the small matter of the voting first as well... The polls do show PP/Vox winning a majority. But, at the moment it is small, and far from a nailed on certainty. The absence of Ciudadanos from the scene leaves only a ragtag of regional parties as potential allies if they fall a few short. Not convinced many will want to get into bed with Vox. In summary, they are leading by a little. But with many laps to go.
They are about 10 short, some of the small parties will support them and PSOE are in a much weaker position. If Vox ask too much there may be a grand coalition. There are less than 7 weeks to go and the far left are still riven. As I said a formal Coalition with Vox is very unlikely. All the post announcement polls see the PP lead growing. We will see.
Well indeed. I was merely tempering @HYUFD's obvious delight at the certainty of a "hard Right" government in Spain. We are many, many steps from that. Like you, I wouldn't rule out a grand coalition. Although, again we are some way from that.
Willingness to have children is one of those indicator species of a happy confident people.
Which is presumably why Boris has so many.
Robert Jenrick rails against migrants refusing to sleep four to a room.
In a rather striking inversion of that situation, Jenrick himself owns two homes in London and a 17th-century manor house in Herefordshire, as well as renting a property in his constituency for £2,000 a month.
Still, fair dos. He did work for a living for six years before he - like the migrants - became taxpayer-funded.
I did like the comment in the article that having excess pupil spaces in schools was bad.
Everyone has become conditioned to the “99% usage is good”‘ nonsense.
Operational Research tells you that if you run your organisation at 99% of capacity, staff morale will collapse. Sickness and absenteeism will soar. Quality will suffer. A slight problem causes massive collapses. Secondary goals will be forgotten and ignored.
Strangely….
A beautifully concise analysis of the problem of the NHS. Surge capacity only exists by stopping elective work, hence waiting lists.
It’s only been in the textbooks for about a century. Far too soon to expect someone government to read then.
Difficult to pose as the party of home ownership when you're not building nearly enough homes for people to own.
And, which people often overlook in their fixation numbers built, the houses that are built are low quality and far too small.
The irony is that Labour now have the only half way credible policy to do something about that - and it involves giving local authorities greatly increased powers to build homes. Something that was removed from them under PM Thatcher.
...If the Tories want to start winning future general elections they need to embrace their inner Thatcher and turn the UK into a home owning democracy again... Doesn't mean anything at all without a realistic set of proposals to achieve it. At the moment, they have nothing.
But when Osborne said poor people shouldn't have kids and when Sunak boasted about diverting money to richer areas that wasn't class war at all. The Tories love class war, they just don't want the other side to fight it.
To be fair, it isn't entirely surprising that teenage Rishi had no working class friends when attending one of the poshest schools in the country, with prosperous middle class parents.
I suspect that the same would be true in reverse at any gritty inner city Comprehensive.
True, but more of the electorate have experienced the trials and tribulations associated with attending a gritty comprehensive than we do the altogether different trials and tribulations associated with attending Winchester College.
The fact that as a nation we are more comfortable voting for our betters than we are ourselves should be comforting for the ruling classes.
More Spanish election polling and all show growing leads for PP compared to their previous polls before the locals. Still no sign of an absolute majority but PSOE are not close even if all the minority parties except Vox supported them - which they won't
Looks like by July both Italy and Spain will have hard right governments then. The Anglo Saxon world may be shifting to the centre left, Southern Europe though clearly shifting right
The PP are very much centre right and Vox have little choice but to support them. As on so many of these matters you are plain wrong.
There's also the small matter of the voting first as well... The polls do show PP/Vox winning a majority. But, at the moment it is small, and far from a nailed on certainty. The absence of Ciudadanos from the scene leaves only a ragtag of regional parties as potential allies if they fall a few short. Not convinced many will want to get into bed with Vox. In summary, they are leading by a little. But with many laps to go.
They are about 10 short, some of the small parties will support them and PSOE are in a much weaker position. If Vox ask too much there may be a grand coalition. There are less than 7 weeks to go and the far left are still riven. As I said a formal Coalition with Vox is very unlikely. All the post announcement polls see the PP lead growing. We will see.
It’s 176 seats for an overall majority. The best polling for PP puts them on around 145. The regional parties will be mostly Basque and Catalan, so there’ll be little to pick up there beyond the Canary Island party and one or two loners from elsewhere. A minority PP government looks by far the likeliest outcome.
The big flaw is that lifetime emissions (from actually driving it) dominate the emissions that a car produces.
Yes, and in the article he appears to assume that we all buy brand new cars and then scrap them after 3 years.
"Electric motoring is, in theory, a subject about which I should know something. My first university degree was in electrical and electronic engineering, with a subsequent master’s in control systems."
Begins Rowan Atkinson. I'm assuming his degrees were done in the 1970s. The fact that he thinks this gives him some current expertise on electric vehicles already makes the rest of the article unlikely to be worth reading. Why didn't the Guardian get someone who actually knows something to write on this? I guess Guardian readers are sick of experts and prefer celebrity clickbait.
I have a degree in Civil Engineering - which is almost as completely applicable today as it was when I did it. But if you studied Electronics (or computing or biotechnology etc) then its applicability degrades rapidly with time - If you are not working in the field and staying up to date with technology you might as well have a degree in history (which has always been worthless)
Yes. As I sit here in my hovel, with only the meagre takings of a partner in a City law firm to tide me over, I think to myself, “it all went wrong when I decided to do history”.
So you agree - History was so worthless that you retrained to become a lawyer???
No. Clearly your Civil Engineering degree did not teach you how to read or comprehend. I got a job as a lawyer off the back of my history degree. While even law graduates have to go to law school in the meantime most, like non-law grads, get the job offer before they go. After that, law or non-law, you spend two years (solicitors) or one year (barristers) as a trainee/pupil. Show me any job that doesn’t require their graduates, of any discipline, to do on the job training.
As I say, sitting here in the sunshine regretting my life choices after your devastating post.
In 50 years I have never sought employment as a philosopher, politician or economist in spite of a prestigious qualification in all three. Such a glaring waste of talent (and taxpayers' money). Something Must Be Done (but not by me).
And to be honest, I don't use much of what I learned at Med School during my MBBS. Don't ask me about the bones in the foot for example.
I am reasonably open to the new Apprentice style medical qualification, which should be best aimed at those with a first degree in an appropriate biomedical science, rather than those straight from school.
The massive gap is the capacity to train these people (should I cancel a clinic every week to train these rookies?) and the absence of funding. The proposal to double medical school places for £1billion over 5 years in the Sunday Times today is delusional. A proper workforce plan for the NHS requires much more money, freeing up of time for experienced trainers like yours truly, and attention to retention.
Surely, the beatings will continue until retention is improved?
With apologies to the Imperial Japanese Navy. Or not.
The capacity issue in Secondary is a real issue round here. We have kids, (supported by their parents and teachers) who desperately need and want a different placement, but nowhere is available to send them. Meanwhile, we've a waiting list of c 250 to get in. Parental choice, eh? Still. At least Jenrick isn't moaning at us.
But when Osborne said poor people shouldn't have kids and when Sunak boasted about diverting money to richer areas that wasn't class war at all. The Tories love class war, they just don't want the other side to fight it.
To be fair, it isn't entirely surprising that teenage Rishi had no working class friends when attending one of the poshest schools in the country, with prosperous middle class parents.
I suspect that the same would be true in reverse at any gritty inner city Comprehensive.
It's actually quite endearing but if the Mail want to champion such silly stories as this morning's then a bit of old fashioned class warfare does no harm at all
It seems to me that we are reaching the point where the Tories now face long-term extinction.
People have said for a long time housing is a big risk because homeowners are what become Tories. This is no longer happening, the polling is quite clear on this.
So the Tories need to make a decision, which will lose them a lot of older votes but long term they'll be strong with the younger (currently) age group.
I hope Keir Starmer will transition us to a proper Norway-style democracy.
PR and then investment to become the world leader in renewables is essential.
We are very unlikely ever to become 'the world leader' in renewables. Such slogans are just Boris style bluster.
Other countries have either the most abundant and cheapest resources - solar in N Africa or the Middle East - or better developed manufacturing and technology. However, we should at least aspire to make better efforts with what we have, which is far from negligible.
Sone of us on here have said for years as soon as interest rates started to return to more normal historic levels, whoever was in power at the time would be in for a very rough ride. I am actually surprised it hasn't been worse.
Sone of us on here have said for years as soon as interest rates started to return to more normal historic levels, whoever was in power at the time would be in for a very rough ride. I am actually surprised it hasn't been worse.
There's still time. I wonder if in hindsight Rishi shouldn't have gone for an election as soon as he was voted in.
Sone of us on here have said for years as soon as interest rates started to return to more normal historic levels, whoever was in power at the time would be in for a very rough ride. I am actually surprised it hasn't been worse.
There's still time. I wonder if in hindsight Rishi shouldn't have gone for an election as soon as he was voted in.
When he is actually voted in, maybe he'll think about it?
Sone of us on here have said for years as soon as interest rates started to return to more normal historic levels, whoever was in power at the time would be in for a very rough ride. I am actually surprised it hasn't been worse.
There's still time. I wonder if in hindsight Rishi shouldn't have gone for an election as soon as he was voted in.
If he'd beaten Truss in the Party popular vote that might have worked, but after Mad Lizzie had done her business all over the nation that was not really a viable option.
More Spanish election polling and all show growing leads for PP compared to their previous polls before the locals. Still no sign of an absolute majority but PSOE are not close even if all the minority parties except Vox supported them - which they won't
Looks like by July both Italy and Spain will have hard right governments then. The Anglo Saxon world may be shifting to the centre left, Southern Europe though clearly shifting right
The PP are very much centre right and Vox have little choice but to support them. As on so many of these matters you are plain wrong.
There's also the small matter of the voting first as well... The polls do show PP/Vox winning a majority. But, at the moment it is small, and far from a nailed on certainty. The absence of Ciudadanos from the scene leaves only a ragtag of regional parties as potential allies if they fall a few short. Not convinced many will want to get into bed with Vox. In summary, they are leading by a little. But with many laps to go.
They are about 10 short, some of the small parties will support them and PSOE are in a much weaker position. If Vox ask too much there may be a grand coalition. There are less than 7 weeks to go and the far left are still riven. As I said a formal Coalition with Vox is very unlikely. All the post announcement polls see the PP lead growing. We will see.
It’s 176 seats for an overall majority. The best polling for PP puts them on around 145. The regional parties will be mostly Basque and Catalan, so there’ll be little to pick up there beyond the Canary Island party and one or two loners from elsewhere. A minority PP government looks by far the likeliest outcome.
Yes I'm unsure how accurate the seat projections are and some minor parties will get no seats. I think Andalucía could be critical . The PP landslide last year has produced a popular centre right party which continues to do well . Without Andalucía it's very hard to see Sanchez get to highest party especially after the failure to break through in Catalonia.
Yes--this war has opened up the question of the future of drones. They will undoubtedly become faster, smaller, more accurate, more powerful etc. We think we see what UAVs are, but really we are looking at what aircraft can do in 1916 and have only a vague idea of what's coming.
A sixth poll from Sociometric just added showing a big jump for PP and little change for Vox. Again the overall immediate trend is for the centre right lead to grow.
From the BBC: "Boris Johnson has been warned public funding for his legal representation to the Covid inquiry could be withdrawn if he tries to "undermine" the government. "
It was bad enough that the taxpayer was funding Johnson's defence of his crimes in the first place. But now the government is using that funding to try to force him to back its defiance of the law?
Standards in public life are at sub-banana-republic level in this country now.
I do not wish to defend the government but there is some misunderstanding here and, not for the first time, poor reporting by the press.
Johnson's communications as PM do not belong to him personally. They were not made in his personal capacity. Bluntly, they belong to the government and it is for the government to produce them to the inquiry. Johnson is wrong to act as if what he did and said as PM was somehow separate and only he has the right to decide what to do with his Prime Ministerial communications.
Second, when an employee (or ex-employee, in Johnson's case) has his legal fees paid by the employer, the employer is entitled to impose conditions on their payment for it.
Employers usually pay for an employee's legal fees in an investigation when (a) there are good reasons why the employers' lawyers cannot act for both employer and employee; and (b) the acts of the employee are being done in his capacity as an employee ie for and on behalf of the employer. It is also usual for that payment to be withdrawn if the individual does - or turns out to have done - something which prejudices the employer's position.
That is what is happening here. The government is judicially reviewing the inquiry's S.21 Notice. They are legally entitled to do so (even if I and many others think that this is politically unwise, probably legally untenable and not how inquiries should be run). Until that challenge has been heard and decided, the government is entitled to expect Johnson not to do - at their expense - stuff which would prejudice that challenge. It is possible that the government might win and such a win would be rendered pointless if Johnson decided to do what the hell he wanted regardless of what the courts decide. It is also reasonable to tell an employee who decides to go off-piste that he can do so at his own expense.
At the risk of serious understatement, the public perception, fuelled by Johnson, that he has any part to play in the decision process here is unhelpful.
Indeed. Anything that Johnson (or people on his behalf) says on this should be treated with the utmost caution. He is both lying and playing games.
All you say about him, and his antics with the messages, is quite true. But it is at the same time a stark illustration of how useless is the government's handling and communication of their side of the affair, that the media are paying far more attention to his nonsense than anything that they are saying.
It seems to me that we are reaching the point where the Tories now face long-term extinction.
People have said for a long time housing is a big risk because homeowners are what become Tories. This is no longer happening, the polling is quite clear on this.
So the Tories need to make a decision, which will lose them a lot of older votes but long term they'll be strong with the younger (currently) age group.
I don't understand what the party represents any more. There is an enormous gulf between libertarian nutballs like the Trussites and the social conservative minceballs like Jonathan Gullis. They literally represent different worlds and promote contradictory ideologies.
Their big play appears to be culture wars - tell people that their lived experience doesn't matter, what they let people say in universities and lady cocks is what really matters. And with the exception of a few excitable gobshites nobody is falling for this.
Sone of us on here have said for years as soon as interest rates started to return to more normal historic levels, whoever was in power at the time would be in for a very rough ride. I am actually surprised it hasn't been worse.
There's still time. I wonder if in hindsight Rishi shouldn't have gone for an election as soon as he was voted in.
Alternative decisions - which can never in reality be tested - always look attractive in hindsight.
Sone of us on here have said for years as soon as interest rates started to return to more normal historic levels, whoever was in power at the time would be in for a very rough ride. I am actually surprised it hasn't been worse.
There's still time. I wonder if in hindsight Rishi shouldn't have gone for an election as soon as he was voted in.
Alternative decisions - which can never in reality be tested - always look attractive in hindsight.
From the BBC: "Boris Johnson has been warned public funding for his legal representation to the Covid inquiry could be withdrawn if he tries to "undermine" the government. "
It was bad enough that the taxpayer was funding Johnson's defence of his crimes in the first place. But now the government is using that funding to try to force him to back its defiance of the law?
Standards in public life are at sub-banana-republic level in this country now.
I do not wish to defend the government but there is some misunderstanding here and, not for the first time, poor reporting by the press.
Johnson's communications as PM do not belong to him personally. They were not made in his personal capacity. Bluntly, they belong to the government and it is for the government to produce them to the inquiry. Johnson is wrong to act as if what he did and said as PM was somehow separate and only he has the right to decide what to do with his Prime Ministerial communications.
Second, when an employee (or ex-employee, in Johnson's case) has his legal fees paid by the employer, the employer is entitled to impose conditions on their payment for it.
Employers usually pay for an employee's legal fees in an investigation when (a) there are good reasons why the employers' lawyers cannot act for both employer and employee; and (b) the acts of the employee are being done in his capacity as an employee ie for and on behalf of the employer. It is also usual for that payment to be withdrawn if the individual does - or turns out to have done - something which prejudices the employer's position.
That is what is happening here. The government is judicially reviewing the inquiry's S.21 Notice. They are legally entitled to do so (even if I and many others think that this is politically unwise, probably legally untenable and not how inquiries should be run). Until that challenge has been heard and decided, the government is entitled to expect Johnson not to do - at their expense - stuff which would prejudice that challenge. It is possible that the government might win and such a win would be rendered pointless if Johnson decided to do what the hell he wanted regardless of what the courts decide. It is also reasonable to tell an employee who decides to go off-piste that he can do so at his own expense.
At the risk of serious understatement, the public perception, fuelled by Johnson, that he has any part to play in the decision process here is unhelpful.
Indeed. Anything that Johnson (or people on his behalf) says on this should be treated with the utmost caution. He is both lying and playing games.
So, behaving normally then?
Yes - but now being portrayed as some sort of "hero" because he "appears" to be against the government.
From the BBC: "Boris Johnson has been warned public funding for his legal representation to the Covid inquiry could be withdrawn if he tries to "undermine" the government. "
It was bad enough that the taxpayer was funding Johnson's defence of his crimes in the first place. But now the government is using that funding to try to force him to back its defiance of the law?
Standards in public life are at sub-banana-republic level in this country now.
I do not wish to defend the government but there is some misunderstanding here and, not for the first time, poor reporting by the press.
Johnson's communications as PM do not belong to him personally. They were not made in his personal capacity. Bluntly, they belong to the government and it is for the government to produce them to the inquiry. Johnson is wrong to act as if what he did and said as PM was somehow separate and only he has the right to decide what to do with his Prime Ministerial communications.
Second, when an employee (or ex-employee, in Johnson's case) has his legal fees paid by the employer, the employer is entitled to impose conditions on their payment for it.
Employers usually pay for an employee's legal fees in an investigation when (a) there are good reasons why the employers' lawyers cannot act for both employer and employee; and (b) the acts of the employee are being done in his capacity as an employee ie for and on behalf of the employer. It is also usual for that payment to be withdrawn if the individual does - or turns out to have done - something which prejudices the employer's position.
That is what is happening here. The government is judicially reviewing the inquiry's S.21 Notice. They are legally entitled to do so (even if I and many others think that this is politically unwise, probably legally untenable and not how inquiries should be run). Until that challenge has been heard and decided, the government is entitled to expect Johnson not to do - at their expense - stuff which would prejudice that challenge. It is possible that the government might win and such a win would be rendered pointless if Johnson decided to do what the hell he wanted regardless of what the courts decide. It is also reasonable to tell an employee who decides to go off-piste that he can do so at his own expense.
At the risk of serious understatement, the public perception, fuelled by Johnson, that he has any part to play in the decision process here is unhelpful.
Indeed. Anything that Johnson (or people on his behalf) says on this should be treated with the utmost caution. He is both lying and playing games.
So, behaving normally then?
Yes - but now being portrayed as some sort of "hero" because he "appears" to be against the government.
Johnson has always been one of those able to fool some of the people all of the time. It's his one outstanding skill, which he's rarely used for anyone's benefit but his own.
More Spanish election polling and all show growing leads for PP compared to their previous polls before the locals. Still no sign of an absolute majority but PSOE are not close even if all the minority parties except Vox supported them - which they won't
Looks like by July both Italy and Spain will have hard right governments then. The Anglo Saxon world may be shifting to the centre left, Southern Europe though clearly shifting right
The PP are very much centre right and Vox have little choice but to support them. As on so many of these matters you are plain wrong.
There's also the small matter of the voting first as well... The polls do show PP/Vox winning a majority. But, at the moment it is small, and far from a nailed on certainty. The absence of Ciudadanos from the scene leaves only a ragtag of regional parties as potential allies if they fall a few short. Not convinced many will want to get into bed with Vox. In summary, they are leading by a little. But with many laps to go.
They are about 10 short, some of the small parties will support them and PSOE are in a much weaker position. If Vox ask too much there may be a grand coalition. There are less than 7 weeks to go and the far left are still riven. As I said a formal Coalition with Vox is very unlikely. All the post announcement polls see the PP lead growing. We will see.
Well indeed. I was merely tempering @HYUFD's obvious delight at the certainty of a "hard Right" government in Spain. We are many, many steps from that. Like you, I wouldn't rule out a grand coalition. Although, again we are some way from that.
PP = Falange = Dragging grannies out of polling stations in Catalonia
But when Osborne said poor people shouldn't have kids and when Sunak boasted about diverting money to richer areas that wasn't class war at all. The Tories love class war, they just don't want the other side to fight it.
To be fair, it isn't entirely surprising that teenage Rishi had no working class friends when attending one of the poshest schools in the country, with prosperous middle class parents.
I suspect that the same would be true in reverse at any gritty inner city Comprehensive.
Yes, in general I think we shouldn't criticise anyone for their childhood experiences, which are largely determined by parents and others. A more reasonable question is whether one has done anything to broaden one's experience after growing up. My very traditional posh dad who grew up in Sussex and went to prep school and Winchester chose on leaving school to spend a year helping to run a boys' club in Bermondsey, living with a local family (bath under the kitchen table to be dragged out and filled once a week). He wasn't boastful about it, just thought it was important to learn was real life was like for other sorts of people.
He continued to vote Tory until the 70s, but was very much a one-nation type who found Heath and even more Thatcher to be alien types, so he switched to Liberal. In a very different context, I think a lot of Blue Wall voters today are migrating similarly.
It seems to me that we are reaching the point where the Tories now face long-term extinction.
People have said for a long time housing is a big risk because homeowners are what become Tories. This is no longer happening, the polling is quite clear on this.
So the Tories need to make a decision, which will lose them a lot of older votes but long term they'll be strong with the younger (currently) age group.
I don't understand what the party represents any more. There is an enormous gulf between libertarian nutballs like the Trussites and the social conservative minceballs like Jonathan Gullis. They literally represent different worlds and promote contradictory ideologies.
Their big play appears to be culture wars - tell people that their lived experience doesn't matter, what they let people say in universities and lady cocks is what really matters. And with the exception of a few excitable gobshites nobody is falling for this.
Also there are too many nutballs and minceballs. These ought to be fringe areas of the party, making spicy little contributions every now and again, but instead they are the party now. Still, it's not for me to say really. I'm not close to the Tory Party, never have been. Up to them what they get up to. Free country.
From the BBC: "Boris Johnson has been warned public funding for his legal representation to the Covid inquiry could be withdrawn if he tries to "undermine" the government. "
It was bad enough that the taxpayer was funding Johnson's defence of his crimes in the first place. But now the government is using that funding to try to force him to back its defiance of the law?
Standards in public life are at sub-banana-republic level in this country now.
I do not wish to defend the government but there is some misunderstanding here and, not for the first time, poor reporting by the press.
Johnson's communications as PM do not belong to him personally. They were not made in his personal capacity. Bluntly, they belong to the government and it is for the government to produce them to the inquiry. Johnson is wrong to act as if what he did and said as PM was somehow separate and only he has the right to decide what to do with his Prime Ministerial communications.
Second, when an employee (or ex-employee, in Johnson's case) has his legal fees paid by the employer, the employer is entitled to impose conditions on their payment for it.
Employers usually pay for an employee's legal fees in an investigation when (a) there are good reasons why the employers' lawyers cannot act for both employer and employee; and (b) the acts of the employee are being done in his capacity as an employee ie for and on behalf of the employer. It is also usual for that payment to be withdrawn if the individual does - or turns out to have done - something which prejudices the employer's position.
That is what is happening here. The government is judicially reviewing the inquiry's S.21 Notice. They are legally entitled to do so (even if I and many others think that this is politically unwise, probably legally untenable and not how inquiries should be run). Until that challenge has been heard and decided, the government is entitled to expect Johnson not to do - at their expense - stuff which would prejudice that challenge. It is possible that the government might win and such a win would be rendered pointless if Johnson decided to do what the hell he wanted regardless of what the courts decide. It is also reasonable to tell an employee who decides to go off-piste that he can do so at his own expense.
At the risk of serious understatement, the public perception, fuelled by Johnson, that he has any part to play in the decision process here is unhelpful.
Indeed. Anything that Johnson (or people on his behalf) says on this should be treated with the utmost caution. He is both lying and playing games.
All you say about him, and his antics with the messages, is quite true. But it is at the same time a stark illustration of how useless is the government's handling and communication of their side of the affair, that the media are paying far more attention to his nonsense than anything that they are saying.
Quite so.
That is down to two things:-
1.The government being unable to express clearly in one or two sentences why they are challenging the inquiry. Or being unable to because the real reason is not one they really want to make clear.
2. The media - and too many of the public - viewing this only as a personal drama between Boris and Rishi and refusing to look more critically at what is actually going on. No-one for instance has really noticed that Boris has not said he wants to produce all his communications but only all the relevant ones. Which is pretty much the same position as that of the government. It would help if journalists actually read in full what people say and not the spin or shortened version.
The A-G who is responsible for giving advice to the government and conducting litigation on its behalf should be making this clear. But, honestly, being a government legal advisor to this government must be hellish - trying to combine your professional responsibilities with dealing with the nest of vipers that are your clients, not to mention the utterly amoral, irresponsible and untrustworthy ex-employees. I hope they have a brick wall handy for the head beating they will need to do every day.
Yes, ICE cars will always have the edge when it comes to range. But there's diminishing utility here. It's dead easy to add another 100 miles to a petrol car's range. But how much better is a car that goes 700 miles between a top-up and one that goes 800 miles?
I reckon you could do over a hundred thousand miles in one of these
It would interesting to look at the range equation, since you are hauling more weight to get the range….
EVs are already down to 15 minute top ups every so often - the trick is *not* to drive to empty and fill to 100%.
It's all about planning your trip.
My Leaf is great for local trips, and I usually change it once a week or so from about 20% to 80% on my home charger.
Every now and again though, I have to make a longer trip down to Oxford. In theory, the car could just about make it there and back, but it would be pretty tight. So what I do is charge it to 100% at home before travelling, then stop for half an hour at the rapid charging hub near Banbury for a coffee and a top-up. This adds enough range to make it comfortably the rest of the way there and back home again.
As I said on the previous thread I am really keen to get an EV but it is pointless until I can get pretty much anywhere in the UK on a single tank/charge as I can with my diesel. I don't use cars much for pleasure - I don't actually enjoy driving at all and am not particularly good at it. It is a tool. A comfy seat to get me from A to B with the least hassle possible and in the most effective time.
When an EV can get me 400+ miles without having to stop and I can pick up a second hand one at a reasonable price (I have never bought a new car in my life) then I will be looking at them seriously. Until then they are an impractical and ineffective tool for me.
Still awaiting the "hottest day of the year." 12°C and overcast.
25 degrees here yesterday at one point.
Pretty pleasant in Yorkshire, too. But the west of the country has had by far the best of the weather this week.
Its been noticably cool in Lincolnshire this year so far, especially at night. I am noticing it because of moth trapping (I wonder how Marquee Mark is finding it down in Devont on that score?) and I have not had a single night above 10 degrees so far in 2023. A couple of nights ago we were down at 5 degrees. I know it will warm up but I wish it would hurry up.
Still awaiting the "hottest day of the year." 12°C and overcast.
25 degrees here yesterday at one point.
Pretty pleasant in Yorkshire, too. But the west of the country has had by far the best of the weather this week.
Its been noticably cool in Lincolnshire this year so far, especially at night. I am noticing it because of moth trapping (I wonder how Marquee Mark is finding it down in Devont on that score?) and I have not had a single night above 10 degrees so far in 2023. A couple of nights ago we were down at 5 degrees. I know it will warm up but I wish it would hurry up.
There’s a noticeable shortage of insects this year. I think I’ve seen no more than a few butterflies, although we’ve had quite a few bees refreshing or washing themselves in out bird-bath. And the blue-tits which nested in our nest box laid eight eggs but only managed to get two chicks to fledge.
We have seen a modest fall in house prices which is a start. No policy that increases house prices like help to buy did is worth anything. Getting down to an earnings/prices ratio of 5/6 would be advisable. As I've said before this could be done over a decade or less with relatively little pain. The biggest problem seems to be governments' inability to get short term growth without pump priming the housing market.
The rightward swing in many European countries is surely an early reaction to this? Racist Brexit Britain is the outlier - possibly the most tolerant large country in Europe, and swinging left at the next election. For now
It seems to me that we are reaching the point where the Tories now face long-term extinction.
People have said for a long time housing is a big risk because homeowners are what become Tories. This is no longer happening, the polling is quite clear on this.
So the Tories need to make a decision, which will lose them a lot of older votes but long term they'll be strong with the younger (currently) age group.
It isn't non homeowners Labour have gained an overall poll lead with, it is voters with mortgages 40-65 hit by rising mortgage rates after the Truss disaster budget and rising cost of living after the Ukraine war
More Spanish election polling and all show growing leads for PP compared to their previous polls before the locals. Still no sign of an absolute majority but PSOE are not close even if all the minority parties except Vox supported them - which they won't
Looks like by July both Italy and Spain will have hard right governments then. The Anglo Saxon world may be shifting to the centre left, Southern Europe though clearly shifting right
The PP are very much centre right and Vox have little choice but to support them. As on so many of these matters you are plain wrong.
There's also the small matter of the voting first as well... The polls do show PP/Vox winning a majority. But, at the moment it is small, and far from a nailed on certainty. The absence of Ciudadanos from the scene leaves only a ragtag of regional parties as potential allies if they fall a few short. Not convinced many will want to get into bed with Vox. In summary, they are leading by a little. But with many laps to go.
They are about 10 short, some of the small parties will support them and PSOE are in a much weaker position. If Vox ask too much there may be a grand coalition. There are less than 7 weeks to go and the far left are still riven. As I said a formal Coalition with Vox is very unlikely. All the post announcement polls see the PP lead growing. We will see.
Well indeed. I was merely tempering @HYUFD's obvious delight at the certainty of a "hard Right" government in Spain. We are many, many steps from that. Like you, I wouldn't rule out a grand coalition. Although, again we are some way from that.
The hard right Vox replacing the liberal Citizens as the conservative PP's allies for government if as looks likely they win the July Spanish election would mean a pretty hard right government in Spain to me
Still awaiting the "hottest day of the year." 12°C and overcast.
25 degrees here yesterday at one point.
Pretty pleasant in Yorkshire, too. But the west of the country has had by far the best of the weather this week.
Its been noticably cool in Lincolnshire this year so far, especially at night. I am noticing it because of moth trapping (I wonder how Marquee Mark is finding it down in Devont on that score?) and I have not had a single night above 10 degrees so far in 2023. A couple of nights ago we were down at 5 degrees. I know it will warm up but I wish it would hurry up.
There’s a noticeable shortage of insects this year. I think I’ve seen no more than a few butterflies, although we’ve had quite a few bees refreshing or washing themselves in out bird-bath. And the blue-tits which nested in our nest box laid eight eggs but only managed to get two chicks to fledge.
The midges have been horrific. May/June used to be fairly safe in Scotland
It seems to me that we are reaching the point where the Tories now face long-term extinction.
People have said for a long time housing is a big risk because homeowners are what become Tories. This is no longer happening, the polling is quite clear on this.
So the Tories need to make a decision, which will lose them a lot of older votes but long term they'll be strong with the younger (currently) age group.
It isn't non homeowners Labour have gained an overall poll lead with, it is voters with mortgages 40-65 hit by rising mortgage rates after the Truss disaster budget and rising cost of living after the Ukraine war
Not those aged 25-40, who are still renting and not yet married?
People who, a generation ago, were homeowners with children.
Seems to be a distinct E/W weather split. Had my Mum raving about glorious Lancashire Sun! A couple of nice-ish days here this week when the clouds cleared. But nowt special.
More Spanish election polling and all show growing leads for PP compared to their previous polls before the locals. Still no sign of an absolute majority but PSOE are not close even if all the minority parties except Vox supported them - which they won't
Looks like by July both Italy and Spain will have hard right governments then. The Anglo Saxon world may be shifting to the centre left, Southern Europe though clearly shifting right
The PP are very much centre right and Vox have little choice but to support them. As on so many of these matters you are plain wrong.
There's also the small matter of the voting first as well... The polls do show PP/Vox winning a majority. But, at the moment it is small, and far from a nailed on certainty. The absence of Ciudadanos from the scene leaves only a ragtag of regional parties as potential allies if they fall a few short. Not convinced many will want to get into bed with Vox. In summary, they are leading by a little. But with many laps to go.
They are about 10 short, some of the small parties will support them and PSOE are in a much weaker position. If Vox ask too much there may be a grand coalition. There are less than 7 weeks to go and the far left are still riven. As I said a formal Coalition with Vox is very unlikely. All the post announcement polls see the PP lead growing. We will see.
Well indeed. I was merely tempering @HYUFD's obvious delight at the certainty of a "hard Right" government in Spain. We are many, many steps from that. Like you, I wouldn't rule out a grand coalition. Although, again we are some way from that.
The hard right Vox replacing the liberal Citizens as the conservative PP's coalition partners if as looks likely they win the July Spanish election would mean a pretty hard right government in Spain to me
Like Suella dreams of flights to Rwanda, you dream of right wing governments across the planet.
However extreme, so long as they identify as right wing they are OK with HYUFD. As a one nation Conservative the far right are not your friends.
More Spanish election polling and all show growing leads for PP compared to their previous polls before the locals. Still no sign of an absolute majority but PSOE are not close even if all the minority parties except Vox supported them - which they won't
Looks like by July both Italy and Spain will have hard right governments then. The Anglo Saxon world may be shifting to the centre left, Southern Europe though clearly shifting right
The Anglo-Saxon world? What’s that? I’m not sure that even England qualifies as ‘Anglo-Saxon’ now.
The Anglo Saxon world ie UK (albeit mainly England), Germany, Denmark, Australia, the USA and Canada (excluding Quebec) and New Zealand
More Spanish election polling and all show growing leads for PP compared to their previous polls before the locals. Still no sign of an absolute majority but PSOE are not close even if all the minority parties except Vox supported them - which they won't
Looks like by July both Italy and Spain will have hard right governments then. The Anglo Saxon world may be shifting to the centre left, Southern Europe though clearly shifting right
The PP are very much centre right and Vox have little choice but to support them. As on so many of these matters you are plain wrong.
There's also the small matter of the voting first as well... The polls do show PP/Vox winning a majority. But, at the moment it is small, and far from a nailed on certainty. The absence of Ciudadanos from the scene leaves only a ragtag of regional parties as potential allies if they fall a few short. Not convinced many will want to get into bed with Vox. In summary, they are leading by a little. But with many laps to go.
They are about 10 short, some of the small parties will support them and PSOE are in a much weaker position. If Vox ask too much there may be a grand coalition. There are less than 7 weeks to go and the far left are still riven. As I said a formal Coalition with Vox is very unlikely. All the post announcement polls see the PP lead growing. We will see.
Well indeed. I was merely tempering @HYUFD's obvious delight at the certainty of a "hard Right" government in Spain. We are many, many steps from that. Like you, I wouldn't rule out a grand coalition. Although, again we are some way from that.
The hard right Vox replacing the liberal Citizens as the conservative PP's allies for government if as looks likely they win the July Spanish election would mean a pretty hard right government in Spain to me
But. As others have said. We are some way from that scenario happening.
We have seen a modest fall in house prices which is a start. No policy that increases house prices like help to buy did is worth anything. Getting down to an earnings/prices ratio of 5/6 would be advisable. As I've said before this could be done over a decade or less with relatively little pain. The biggest problem seems to be governments' inability to get short term growth without pump priming the housing market.
The house price fall is temporary - related to a lot of landlords getting out of the market and the rises in interest rates.
Yes, ICE cars will always have the edge when it comes to range. But there's diminishing utility here. It's dead easy to add another 100 miles to a petrol car's range. But how much better is a car that goes 700 miles between a top-up and one that goes 800 miles?
I reckon you could do over a hundred thousand miles in one of these
It would interesting to look at the range equation, since you are hauling more weight to get the range….
EVs are already down to 15 minute top ups every so often - the trick is *not* to drive to empty and fill to 100%.
It's all about planning your trip.
My Leaf is great for local trips, and I usually change it once a week or so from about 20% to 80% on my home charger.
Every now and again though, I have to make a longer trip down to Oxford. In theory, the car could just about make it there and back, but it would be pretty tight. So what I do is charge it to 100% at home before travelling, then stop for half an hour at the rapid charging hub near Banbury for a coffee and a top-up. This adds enough range to make it comfortably the rest of the way there and back home again.
As I said on the previous thread I am really keen to get an EV but it is pointless until I can get pretty much anywhere in the UK on a single tank/charge as I can with my diesel. I don't use cars much for pleasure - I don't actually enjoy driving at all and am not particularly good at it. It is a tool. A comfy seat to get me from A to B with the least hassle possible and in the most effective time.
When an EV can get me 400+ miles without having to stop and I can pick up a second hand one at a reasonable price (I have never bought a new car in my life) then I will be looking at them seriously. Until then they are an impractical and ineffective tool for me.
We're probably about 4-6 years from that, I'd guess.
Some EVs can reach up towards that already, but they're expensive. Mine is close to 300 miles, which is ample for me (but not for some others, like you).
I'd guesstimate the 400 mile range ones are about 2-3 years from becoming more widespread, and then give it 2-3 years more for some to come onto the second hand market.
Personally, I reckon when the 400+ mile range becomes widespread, we'll see ICE car sales collapse anyway.
Seems to be a distinct E/W weather split. Had my Mum raving about glorious Lancashire Sun! A couple of nice-ish days here this week when the clouds cleared. But nowt special.
Way down south here we’ve had really weird weather. No rain for 23 days now, very little cloud but for the last two weeks it has been fiercely windy, every day has been force four gusting force 5 and 6 from the north east so despite it being sunny and dry if you aren’t in shelter the wind has been strong and icy cold. Very strange and is forecast the same for the next week as well.
But when Osborne said poor people shouldn't have kids and when Sunak boasted about diverting money to richer areas that wasn't class war at all. The Tories love class war, they just don't want the other side to fight it.
To be fair, it isn't entirely surprising that teenage Rishi had no working class friends when attending one of the poshest schools in the country, with prosperous middle class parents.
I suspect that the same would be true in reverse at any gritty inner city Comprehensive.
Yes, in general I think we shouldn't criticise anyone for their childhood experiences, which are largely determined by parents and others. A more reasonable question is whether one has done anything to broaden one's experience after growing up. My very traditional posh dad who grew up in Sussex and went to prep school and Winchester chose on leaving school to spend a year helping to run a boys' club in Bermondsey, living with a local family (bath under the kitchen table to be dragged out and filled once a week). He wasn't boastful about it, just thought it was important to learn was real life was like for other sorts of people.
He continued to vote Tory until the 70s, but was very much a one-nation type who found Heath and even more Thatcher to be alien types, so he switched to Liberal. In a very different context, I think a lot of Blue Wall voters today are migrating similarly.
Being an MP alone brings you into more regular contact with working class people through canvassing them, holding surgeries with them etc. Being a PM too through visits and campaigning.
Had Rishi stayed in finance and hedge funds he could have never really come into many working class people at all, having gone from Winchester to Oxford, Stanford and Goldman Sachs and having a high income and living in expensive areas with his wealthy wife.
Yes, ICE cars will always have the edge when it comes to range. But there's diminishing utility here. It's dead easy to add another 100 miles to a petrol car's range. But how much better is a car that goes 700 miles between a top-up and one that goes 800 miles?
I reckon you could do over a hundred thousand miles in one of these
It would interesting to look at the range equation, since you are hauling more weight to get the range….
EVs are already down to 15 minute top ups every so often - the trick is *not* to drive to empty and fill to 100%.
It's all about planning your trip.
My Leaf is great for local trips, and I usually change it once a week or so from about 20% to 80% on my home charger.
Every now and again though, I have to make a longer trip down to Oxford. In theory, the car could just about make it there and back, but it would be pretty tight. So what I do is charge it to 100% at home before travelling, then stop for half an hour at the rapid charging hub near Banbury for a coffee and a top-up. This adds enough range to make it comfortably the rest of the way there and back home again.
As I said on the previous thread I am really keen to get an EV but it is pointless until I can get pretty much anywhere in the UK on a single tank/charge as I can with my diesel. I don't use cars much for pleasure - I don't actually enjoy driving at all and am not particularly good at it. It is a tool. A comfy seat to get me from A to B with the least hassle possible and in the most effective time.
When an EV can get me 400+ miles without having to stop and I can pick up a second hand one at a reasonable price (I have never bought a new car in my life) then I will be looking at them seriously. Until then they are an impractical and ineffective tool for me.
We're probably about 4-6 years from that, I'd guess.
Some EVs can reach up towards that already, but they're expensive. Mine is close to 300 miles, which is ample for me (but not for some others, like you).
I'd guesstimate the 400 mile range ones are about 2-3 years from becoming more widespread, and then give it 2-3 years more for some to come onto the second hand market.
Personally, I reckon when the 400+ mile range becomes widespread, we'll see ICE car sales collapse anyway.
If that is the case then that works very well for me. It comes before the 2030 onslaught against ICE and hopefully means it will be a peretty seamless transition for me personally.
None of this is earth shattering of course, just inconvenient at the moment. I drive to Aberdeen and Cornwall becase it is more convenient to have a car when I am in Aberdeen and miles easier and cheaper to get the family to Cornwall or the South Coast by car than by public transport. If that changes then my habits will change accordingly.
The Tories are hard right then HYUFD, thanks for admitting it finally
No they aren't, had the Tories relied on UKIP to stay in government (which would have happened in 2015 under your beloved PR) that might have happened but Sunak's Tories aren't now
Yes, ICE cars will always have the edge when it comes to range. But there's diminishing utility here. It's dead easy to add another 100 miles to a petrol car's range. But how much better is a car that goes 700 miles between a top-up and one that goes 800 miles?
I reckon you could do over a hundred thousand miles in one of these
It would interesting to look at the range equation, since you are hauling more weight to get the range….
EVs are already down to 15 minute top ups every so often - the trick is *not* to drive to empty and fill to 100%.
It's all about planning your trip.
My Leaf is great for local trips, and I usually change it once a week or so from about 20% to 80% on my home charger.
Every now and again though, I have to make a longer trip down to Oxford. In theory, the car could just about make it there and back, but it would be pretty tight. So what I do is charge it to 100% at home before travelling, then stop for half an hour at the rapid charging hub near Banbury for a coffee and a top-up. This adds enough range to make it comfortably the rest of the way there and back home again.
As I said on the previous thread I am really keen to get an EV but it is pointless until I can get pretty much anywhere in the UK on a single tank/charge as I can with my diesel. I don't use cars much for pleasure - I don't actually enjoy driving at all and am not particularly good at it. It is a tool. A comfy seat to get me from A to B with the least hassle possible and in the most effective time.
When an EV can get me 400+ miles without having to stop and I can pick up a second hand one at a reasonable price (I have never bought a new car in my life) then I will be looking at them seriously. Until then they are an impractical and ineffective tool for me.
We're probably about 4-6 years from that, I'd guess.
Some EVs can reach up towards that already, but they're expensive. Mine is close to 300 miles, which is ample for me (but not for some others, like you).
I'd guesstimate the 400 mile range ones are about 2-3 years from becoming more widespread, and then give it 2-3 years more for some to come onto the second hand market.
Personally, I reckon when the 400+ mile range becomes widespread, we'll see ICE car sales collapse anyway.
The collapse will really come when EV prices drop substantially below ICE. And they will.
The primary price driver for EVs is the battery. Prices are steadily falling for these and will fall for at least a decade to come. This is just the incremental improvements, not including any new breakthroughs. A few percent better each year.
With a lot less mechanicals, an EV can be cheaper than the equivalent ICE. Some say that we are at that point already.
It is quite possible that by 2030, EVs will be 2/3rds the price of an equivalent ICE.
The Tories are hard right then HYUFD, thanks for admitting it finally
No they aren't, had the Tories relied on UKIP to stay in government (which would have happened in 2015 under your beloved PR) that might have happened but Sunak's Tories aren't now
By your definitions yes they are. They are as hard right as the Spanish Government you are describing my friend
It seems to me that we are reaching the point where the Tories now face long-term extinction.
People have said for a long time housing is a big risk because homeowners are what become Tories. This is no longer happening, the polling is quite clear on this.
So the Tories need to make a decision, which will lose them a lot of older votes but long term they'll be strong with the younger (currently) age group.
It isn't non homeowners Labour have gained an overall poll lead with, it is voters with mortgages 40-65 hit by rising mortgage rates after the Truss disaster budget and rising cost of living after the Ukraine war
Not those aged 25-40, who are still renting and not yet married?
People who, a generation ago, were homeowners with children.
No, Corbyn won them even in 2019, the Tories won a landslide anyway.
Yes it might morally be right to help more 30-40 year olds on the property ladder and help them raise a family but electorally the median voter is 50 not 30 or even 40
Yes, ICE cars will always have the edge when it comes to range. But there's diminishing utility here. It's dead easy to add another 100 miles to a petrol car's range. But how much better is a car that goes 700 miles between a top-up and one that goes 800 miles?
I reckon you could do over a hundred thousand miles in one of these
It would interesting to look at the range equation, since you are hauling more weight to get the range….
EVs are already down to 15 minute top ups every so often - the trick is *not* to drive to empty and fill to 100%.
It's all about planning your trip.
My Leaf is great for local trips, and I usually change it once a week or so from about 20% to 80% on my home charger.
Every now and again though, I have to make a longer trip down to Oxford. In theory, the car could just about make it there and back, but it would be pretty tight. So what I do is charge it to 100% at home before travelling, then stop for half an hour at the rapid charging hub near Banbury for a coffee and a top-up. This adds enough range to make it comfortably the rest of the way there and back home again.
As I said on the previous thread I am really keen to get an EV but it is pointless until I can get pretty much anywhere in the UK on a single tank/charge as I can with my diesel. I don't use cars much for pleasure - I don't actually enjoy driving at all and am not particularly good at it. It is a tool. A comfy seat to get me from A to B with the least hassle possible and in the most effective time.
When an EV can get me 400+ miles without having to stop and I can pick up a second hand one at a reasonable price (I have never bought a new car in my life) then I will be looking at them seriously. Until then they are an impractical and ineffective tool for me.
We're probably about 4-6 years from that, I'd guess.
Some EVs can reach up towards that already, but they're expensive. Mine is close to 300 miles, which is ample for me (but not for some others, like you).
I'd guesstimate the 400 mile range ones are about 2-3 years from becoming more widespread, and then give it 2-3 years more for some to come onto the second hand market.
Personally, I reckon when the 400+ mile range becomes widespread, we'll see ICE car sales collapse anyway.
The collapse will really come when EV prices drop substantially below ICE. And they will.
The primary price driver for EVs is the battery. Prices are steadily falling for these and will fall for at least a decade to come. This is just the incremental improvements, not including any new breakthroughs. A few percent better each year.
With a lot less mechanicals, an EV can be cheaper than the equivalent ICE. Some say that we are at that point already.
It is quite possible that by 2030, EVs will be 2/3rds the price of an equivalent ICE.
All of which which means that today’s new EV will be close to worthless in a few years’ time. It will be like wanting to buy today’s iPhone in 2030.
The rightward swing in many European countries is surely an early reaction to this? Racist Brexit Britain is the outlier - possibly the most tolerant large country in Europe, and swinging left at the next election. For now
Yes Meloni PM in Italy, hard right government in Poland of Law and Justice, Vox may well hold the balance of power in Spain, Sweden Democrats are Kingmakers in Sweden, in Germany the AfD making big gains forcing Scholz to either consider a grand coalition with the Union after the next election or risk an AfD supported Merz Union government. Even in France Le Pen leads a few 2027 polls now.
The UK like the US and Australia though going the other way, either swung or swinging centre left
Seems to be a distinct E/W weather split. Had my Mum raving about glorious Lancashire Sun! A couple of nice-ish days here this week when the clouds cleared. But nowt special.
Way down south here we’ve had really weird weather. No rain for 23 days now, very little cloud but for the last two weeks it has been fiercely windy, every day has been force four gusting force 5 and 6 from the north east so despite it being sunny and dry if you aren’t in shelter the wind has been strong and icy cold. Very strange and is forecast the same for the next week as well.
It’s a north east wind blowing cold and cloud over a still-frigid North Sea
Some parts of Eastern Europe - Estonia etc - have experienced record cold (for the time of year) this week
The Tories are hard right then HYUFD, thanks for admitting it finally
No they aren't, had the Tories relied on UKIP to stay in government (which would have happened in 2015 under your beloved PR) that might have happened but Sunak's Tories aren't now
By your definitions yes they are. They are as hard right as the Spanish Government you are describing my friend
No they aren't, the Tories are not in government with Farage and RefUK are they, as PP are likely to be in Government propped up by Vox.
The rightward swing in many European countries is surely an early reaction to this? Racist Brexit Britain is the outlier - possibly the most tolerant large country in Europe, and swinging left at the next election. For now
Yes Meloni PM in Italy, hard right government in Poland of Law and Justice, Vox may well hold the balance of power in Spain, Sweden Democrats are Kingmakers in Sweden, in Germany the AfD making big gains forcing Scholz to either consider a grand coalition with the Union after the next election or risk an AfD supported Merz Union government. Even in France Le Pen leads a few 2027 polls now.
The UK like the US and Australia though going the other way, either swung or swinging centre left
Current migration patterns are similar to those which populated Europe in the first place. All that is required now is for Galicians and Portuguese to start making their way to Wales and Ireland via the Biscay coast.
The Tories are hard right then HYUFD, thanks for admitting it finally
No they aren't, had the Tories relied on UKIP to stay in government (which would have happened in 2015 under your beloved PR) that might have happened but Sunak's Tories aren't now
By your definitions yes they are. They are as hard right as the Spanish Government you are describing my friend
No they aren't, the Tories are not in government with Farage and RefUK are they, as PP are likely to be in Government propped up by Vox.
Don’t you believe there is a bit of overlap with their policies?
Yes, ICE cars will always have the edge when it comes to range. But there's diminishing utility here. It's dead easy to add another 100 miles to a petrol car's range. But how much better is a car that goes 700 miles between a top-up and one that goes 800 miles?
I reckon you could do over a hundred thousand miles in one of these
It would interesting to look at the range equation, since you are hauling more weight to get the range….
EVs are already down to 15 minute top ups every so often - the trick is *not* to drive to empty and fill to 100%.
It's all about planning your trip.
My Leaf is great for local trips, and I usually change it once a week or so from about 20% to 80% on my home charger.
Every now and again though, I have to make a longer trip down to Oxford. In theory, the car could just about make it there and back, but it would be pretty tight. So what I do is charge it to 100% at home before travelling, then stop for half an hour at the rapid charging hub near Banbury for a coffee and a top-up. This adds enough range to make it comfortably the rest of the way there and back home again.
As I said on the previous thread I am really keen to get an EV but it is pointless until I can get pretty much anywhere in the UK on a single tank/charge as I can with my diesel. I don't use cars much for pleasure - I don't actually enjoy driving at all and am not particularly good at it. It is a tool. A comfy seat to get me from A to B with the least hassle possible and in the most effective time.
When an EV can get me 400+ miles without having to stop and I can pick up a second hand one at a reasonable price (I have never bought a new car in my life) then I will be looking at them seriously. Until then they are an impractical and ineffective tool for me.
We're probably about 4-6 years from that, I'd guess.
Some EVs can reach up towards that already, but they're expensive. Mine is close to 300 miles, which is ample for me (but not for some others, like you).
I'd guesstimate the 400 mile range ones are about 2-3 years from becoming more widespread, and then give it 2-3 years more for some to come onto the second hand market.
Personally, I reckon when the 400+ mile range becomes widespread, we'll see ICE car sales collapse anyway.
The collapse will really come when EV prices drop substantially below ICE. And they will.
The primary price driver for EVs is the battery. Prices
Yes, ICE cars will always have the edge when it comes to range. But there's diminishing utility here. It's dead easy to add another 100 miles to a petrol car's range. But how much better is a car that goes 700 miles between a top-up and one that goes 800 miles?
I reckon you could do over a hundred thousand miles in one of these
It would interesting to look at the range equation, since you are hauling more weight to get the range….
EVs are already down to 15 minute top ups every so often - the trick is *not* to drive to empty and fill to 100%.
It's all about planning your trip.
My Leaf is great for local trips, and I usually change it once a week or so from about 20% to 80% on my home charger.
Every now and again though, I have to make a longer trip down to Oxford. In theory, the car could just about make it there and back, but it would be pretty tight. So what I do is charge it to 100% at home before travelling, then stop for half an hour at the rapid charging hub near Banbury for a coffee and a top-up. This adds enough range to make it comfortably the rest of the way there and back home again.
As I said on the previous thread I am really keen to get an EV but it is pointless until I can get pretty much anywhere in the UK on a single tank/charge as I can with my diesel. I don't use cars much for pleasure - I don't actually enjoy driving at all and am not particularly good at it. It is a tool. A comfy seat to get me from A to B with the least hassle possible and in the most effective time.
When an EV can get me 400+ miles without having to stop and I can pick up a second hand one at a reasonable price (I have never bought a new car in my life) then I will be looking at them seriously. Until then they are an impractical and ineffective tool for me.
We're probably about 4-6 years from that, I'd guess.
Some EVs can reach up towards that already, but they're expensive. Mine is close to 300 miles, which is ample for me (but not for some others, like you).
I'd guesstimate the 400 mile range ones are about 2-3 years from becoming more widespread, and then give it 2-3 years more for some to come onto the second hand market.
Personally, I reckon when the 400+ mile range becomes widespread, we'll see ICE car sales collapse anyway.
The collapse will really come when EV prices drop substantially below ICE. And they will.
The primary price driver for EVs is the battery. Prices are steadily falling for these and will fall for at least a decade to come. This is just the incremental improvements, not including any new breakthroughs. A few percent better each year.
With a lot less mechanicals, an EV can be cheaper than the equivalent ICE. Some say that we are at that point already.
It is quite possible that by 2030, EVs will be 2/3rds the price of an equivalent ICE.
All of which which means that today’s new EV will be close to worthless in a few years’ time. It will be like wanting to buy today’s iPhone in 2030.
The mechanicals will be fine - there will probably be a considerable market in replacing batteries with newer, better ones.
Much like the vast market for second hand phones. Where battery replacement is the main thing, as it happens.
Comments
PR and then investment to become the world leader in renewables is essential.
On my 1,200 mile trip this week I saw the best and worst of charging infrastructure. Best: Tesla Superchargers as always, but also the new Gridserve chargers being installed at Grantham services (350kW max for the handful of 800v cars). Worst: brand new BP Pulse "rapid" chargers which max out at a pitiful 50kW once you sign away your soul in getting their app set-up and the units actually work.
Johnson's communications as PM do not belong to him personally. They were not made in his personal capacity. Bluntly, they belong to the government and it is for the government to produce them to the inquiry. Johnson is wrong to act as if what he did and said as PM was somehow separate and only he has the right to decide what to do with his Prime Ministerial communications.
Second, when an employee (or ex-employee, in Johnson's case) has his legal fees paid by the employer, the employer is entitled to impose conditions on their payment for it.
Employers usually pay for an employee's legal fees in an investigation when (a) there are good reasons why the employers' lawyers cannot act for both employer and employee; and (b) the acts of the employee are being done in his capacity as an employee ie for and on behalf of the employer. It is also usual for that payment to be withdrawn if the individual does - or turns out to have done - something which prejudices the employer's position.
That is what is happening here. The government is judicially reviewing the inquiry's S.21 Notice. They are legally entitled to do so (even if I and many others think that this is politically unwise, probably legally untenable and not how inquiries should be run). Until that challenge has been heard and decided, the government is entitled to expect Johnson not to do - at their expense - stuff which would prejudice that challenge. It is possible that the government might win and such a win would be rendered pointless if Johnson decided to do what the hell he wanted regardless of what the courts decide. It is also reasonable to tell an employee who decides to go off-piste that he can do so at his own expense.
In a rather striking inversion of that situation, Jenrick himself owns two homes in London and a 17th-century manor house in Herefordshire, as well as renting a property in his constituency for £2,000 a month.
Still, fair dos. He did work for a living for six years before he - like the migrants - became taxpayer-funded.
Everyone has become conditioned to the “99% usage is good”‘ nonsense.
Operational Research tells you that if you run your organisation at 99% of capacity, staff morale will collapse. Sickness and absenteeism will soar. Quality will suffer. A slight problem causes massive collapses. Secondary goals will be forgotten and ignored.
Strangely….
The polls do show PP/Vox winning a majority. But, at the moment it is small, and far from a nailed on certainty.
The absence of Ciudadanos from the scene leaves only a ragtag of regional parties as potential allies if they fall a few short.
Not convinced many will want to get into bed with Vox.
In summary, they are leading by a little. But with many laps to go.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2022/jul/11/rishi-sunak-criticised-footage-no-working-class-friends-video
Aim: to see if it is possible to die from an overdose of Baklava.
Subject: 50 year old male; hungry at start of experiment.
Control: those poor people reading this with no immediate access to baklava.
Interim result: a very happy 50 year old male...
What is needed is not only charging points that work, as you point out, but secure charging points where idiots are not going to cause damage if you leave your car there. Building up an infrastructure with not compatible chargers also seems insane.
When your genius Prime Minister launches his unfunded whopping 2% reduction in income tax there will be a whole lot less access to GPs, libraries and bin collections.
As I say, sitting here in the sunshine regretting my life choices after your devastating post.
Lewis Goodall is my absolute fave.
I suspect that the same would be true in reverse at any gritty inner city Comprehensive.
I am reasonably open to the new Apprentice style medical qualification, which should be best aimed at those with a first degree in an appropriate biomedical science, rather than those straight from school.
The massive gap is the capacity to train these people (should I cancel a clinic every week to train these rookies?) and the absence of funding. The proposal to double medical school places for £1billion over 5 years in the Sunday Times today is delusional. A proper workforce plan for the NHS requires much more money, freeing up of time for experienced trainers like yours truly, and attention to retention.
I was merely tempering @HYUFD's obvious delight at the certainty of a "hard Right" government in Spain.
We are many, many steps from that.
Like you, I wouldn't rule out a grand coalition. Although, again we are some way from that.
Something that was removed from them under PM Thatcher.
...If the Tories want to start winning future general elections they need to embrace their inner Thatcher and turn the UK into a home owning democracy again...
Doesn't mean anything at all without a realistic set of proposals to achieve it. At the moment, they have nothing.
The fact that as a nation we are more comfortable voting for our betters than we are ourselves should be comforting for the ruling classes.
With apologies to the Imperial Japanese Navy. Or not.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e97786dc-0226-11ee-b730-2607a18701aa?shareToken=ff5c79d7262d1ce24d80248105a171e3
We have kids, (supported by their parents and teachers) who desperately need and want a different placement, but nowhere is available to send them. Meanwhile, we've a waiting list of c 250 to get in.
Parental choice, eh?
Still. At least Jenrick isn't moaning at us.
People have said for a long time housing is a big risk because homeowners are what become Tories. This is no longer happening, the polling is quite clear on this.
So the Tories need to make a decision, which will lose them a lot of older votes but long term they'll be strong with the younger (currently) age group.
Other countries have either the most abundant and cheapest resources - solar in N Africa or the Middle East - or better developed manufacturing and technology. However, we should at least aspire to make better efforts with what we have, which is far from negligible.
https://twitter.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1665295054070579206?s=20
12°C and overcast.
But it is at the same time a stark illustration of how useless is the government's handling and communication of their side of the affair, that the media are paying far more attention to his nonsense than anything that they are saying.
Their big play appears to be culture wars - tell people that their lived experience doesn't matter, what they let people say in universities and lady cocks is what really matters. And with the exception of a few excitable gobshites nobody is falling for this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65789136
That's Hard Right in my book.
He continued to vote Tory until the 70s, but was very much a one-nation type who found Heath and even more Thatcher to be alien types, so he switched to Liberal. In a very different context, I think a lot of Blue Wall voters today are migrating similarly.
That is down to two things:-
1.The government being unable to express clearly in one or two sentences why they are challenging the inquiry. Or being unable to because the real reason is not one they really want to make clear.
2. The media - and too many of the public - viewing this only as a personal drama between Boris and Rishi and refusing to look more critically at what is actually going on. No-one for instance has really noticed that Boris has not said he wants to produce all his communications but only all the relevant ones. Which is pretty much the same position as that of the government. It would help if journalists actually read in full what people say and not the spin or shortened version.
The A-G who is responsible for giving advice to the government and conducting litigation on its behalf should be making this clear. But, honestly, being a government legal advisor to this government must be hellish - trying to combine your professional responsibilities with dealing with the nest of vipers that are your clients, not to mention the utterly amoral, irresponsible and untrustworthy ex-employees. I hope they have a brick wall handy for the head beating they will need to do every day.
But the west of the country has had by far the best of the weather this week.
When an EV can get me 400+ miles without having to stop and I can pick up a second hand one at a reasonable price (I have never bought a new car in my life) then I will be looking at them seriously. Until then they are an impractical and ineffective tool for me.
And the blue-tits which nested in our nest box laid eight eggs but only managed to get two chicks to fledge.
A quite good Times article (££) on the overwhelming migration coming Europe’s way:
“World on the move: my journey across the Alps with the migrants fleeing Africa”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/829fef16-015a-11ee-91d8-175820cfdf88?shareToken=1646155852e6cbf3b77a2236fc013996
The rightward swing in many European countries is surely an early reaction to this? Racist Brexit Britain is the outlier - possibly the most tolerant large country in Europe, and swinging left at the next election. For now
People who, a generation ago, were homeowners with children.
Had my Mum raving about glorious Lancashire Sun!
A couple of nice-ish days here this week when the clouds cleared. But nowt special.
However extreme, so long as they identify as right wing they are OK with HYUFD. As a one nation Conservative the far right are not your friends.
Canada (excluding Quebec) and New Zealand
Rental rates are soaring.
Some EVs can reach up towards that already, but they're expensive. Mine is close to 300 miles, which is ample for me (but not for some others, like you).
I'd guesstimate the 400 mile range ones are about 2-3 years from becoming more widespread, and then give it 2-3 years more for some to come onto the second hand market.
Personally, I reckon when the 400+ mile range becomes widespread, we'll see ICE car sales collapse anyway.
Had Rishi stayed in finance and hedge funds he could have never really come into many working class people at all, having gone from Winchester to Oxford, Stanford and Goldman Sachs and having a high income and living in expensive areas with his wealthy wife.
None of this is earth shattering of course, just inconvenient at the moment. I drive to Aberdeen and Cornwall becase it is more convenient to have a car when I am in Aberdeen and miles easier and cheaper to get the family to Cornwall or the South Coast by car than by public transport. If that changes then my habits will change accordingly.
The primary price driver for EVs is the battery. Prices are steadily falling for these and will fall for at least a decade to come. This is just the incremental improvements, not including any new breakthroughs. A few percent better each year.
With a lot less mechanicals, an EV can be cheaper than the equivalent ICE. Some say that we are at that point already.
It is quite possible that by 2030, EVs will be 2/3rds the price of an equivalent ICE.
Yes it might morally be right to help more 30-40 year olds on the property ladder and help them raise a family but electorally the median voter is 50 not 30 or even 40
The UK like the US and Australia though going the other way, either swung or swinging centre left
Some parts of Eastern Europe - Estonia etc - have experienced record cold (for the time of year) this week
The Scandal-Hit Candidates Starmer’s Labour Let Run for Parliament
From praising 'progressive' Saudi to telling 'racist' jokes.
https://novaramedia.com/2023/02/17/the-scandal-hit-candidates-starmers-labour-let-run-for-parliament/
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-65786868
"Water scarcity across Scotland is expected to escalate quickly, the nation's environment agency has warned.
With little rain forecast in the next few weeks, most of the country has been put on early warning."
The primary price driver for EVs is the battery. Prices The mechanicals will be fine - there will probably be a considerable market in replacing batteries with newer, better ones.
Much like the vast market for second hand phones. Where battery replacement is the main thing, as it happens.