The Tories won’t do themselves any favours overruling independent pay bodies on public sector pay.
We are just likely to see more and more strikes and disruption and not just from the likes of the RMT who are politically motivated.
They're in a complete bind. They'll trot out the wage-price spiral excuse to justify bearing down on public sector pay, but the plain fact is that they're struggling to find politically acceptable cuts to fund extra spending in this area, borrowing is enormous and becoming ever more expensive, and so they're left with either digging their heels in and offering workers peanuts, or raising taxes on their core supporters to pay for more generous rises. There's no violin small enough.
The reality we are reaching the end game for the Blairite/Thatcher-lite model
It used to be chunky public spending and low taxes with the difference funded by clever balance sheet tricks (PFI/securitisation) or straight up borrowing. Wages were kept down by relaxed views on immigration
Cost of borrowing is going up and the markets are twitchy after all that QE
Asset price bubbles have driven a reasonable standard of living beyond the reach of many
Effectively unlimited immigration has resulted in underinvestment in business (low wages partly due to immigration and partly due to tax credits) drove down returns (cost saving) on investment and increased the strain on public services (governments didn’t invest in capacity).
The electorate has been trained to believe the government will always bail them out
We need a grown up conversation. Either taxes have to go up massively or public services need to be completely rethought.
But neither politicians or the electorate are ready to have that conversation.
While much of this is true, it is also the case that other countries have had similar situations to us, and have managed to avoid excessively expensive housing or stagnant business investment.
They therefore cannot be the whole story.
It's almost as if our planning system might be different to theirs.
The largest cost in household budgets is Housing. Not food, not gas, not electricity or anything else it is housing.
A very large proportion of the cost of housing is the cost of land.
And the cost of land with planning permission is inflated over land without.
Resolve one and others follow.
Build new towns (or refurbish old ones) in the frozen north and left-behind regions. It solves the housing problem, levelling up and rebalancing the economy away from an overheated London in one fell swoop.
Not really
There are areas in the run down north with plenty of empty housing, just look at the photo at the top of this article....
Yes, hence the new town model, even if based on refurbishment, to include attracting new jobs. Rather than dumping grounds for borderline mentally ill drug addicts and thieves.
Why on earth would any company set up in a newly created new town that no doubt has awful connections to anywhere with any sort of existing economy ?
Government subsidies, tax concessions, northern powerhouse rail? Britain has built new towns before; there's nothing new.
NPR won't land until 2045 onwards and will connect Warrington, Manchester and Marsden, no new stops planned, just linking existing populations.
So you want to create new towns, with no links to existing economies and hope that lower taxes will attract businesses there ?
Our London based media's obsession over trains is part of the problem. Over 90% of the UK travels via Road, not Rail, especially in the North.
If you want new towns then new motorway junctions, or better yet new motorways with new junctions is the way to do it quickly. Rail can catch up afterwards.
Not just in the North, in the South away from London it's very possible too. Eg build a new motorway linking Oxford to Cambridge, extended to Bristol and Norwich perhaps, and with a junction approximately every 5 miles. New towns could spring up along that route, and not in or linked to London.
Sorry but new roads don’t solve problems - and it’s probably worth watching c4 to,or row to see Ben Elton comparing rail around London and the rest of the UK.
That sort of timid, self defeating attitude is part of the problem. Of course new roads do solve problems.
I live in a fast growing new town (they do still exist, just not enough of them). We have thousands of homes being built, all of which are getting snapped up. New shops, businesses, industry opening too.
And what is the key new transport infrastructure underpinning this? One new motorway junction, with one new A road.
There's talk we might get a train station in a few years time, I'm not holding my breath, but the new motorway junction? People who get about by road are happy with that. And outside London it's roads, not rail, that truly matters. Of course London is different but WE ARE NOT LONDON.
The problem here is that what you are now making is an argument for planning, which you claim to reject. The reason why everything is working in your development is more likely than not because decades of work went in to the new trunk roads and motorway junctions, negotiated by the Council with Highways England and the government, as well as the co-siting of commercial development and community infrastructure, and finding ways to fund all this, including through Section 106 contributions by developers. That is what planning is and the value that it adds. If you get rid of planning then none of that happens, houses get built but you can't get anywhere, there are crap roads, no shops, infrastructure etc.
You could say ok, why not just zone the land through the plan making process and then have a design code rather than having to go through the pain and delay of needing planning permission. You could well do that and some countries do. The main problem is it makes it harder to go through the first stage of the process (the plan making stage) because you need to be absolutely sure that everything is solved before you can confidently rely on a design code for the purposes of delivery.
A design code is just a delivery mechanism not an alternative to having a planning system. Looking at your example of Japan, my guess is just that they are better at planning because the state is more assertive and organised at building infrastructure. I'd guess the falling prices are more to do with historic deflation than falling demand. But I've never studied the Japanese system in detail so don't feel able to authoritively comment on it.
In summary the problem is not that a planning system exists in the first place, but because the one we have isn't working very well.
Sorry that's not remotely an argument for planning, you could not be more wrong. There isn't time for decades of work as our population levels weren't the same decades ago, and if decades of work are going into it then no wonder everything is so broken as the facts decades ago are not the facts today.
If everything is planned then I'm curious where the new railway station, new schools, new GPs and everything else are. None of them exist. I still am registered at my old GP in my old town, I've not transferred my kids schooling either, and drive across the river to a different town for those.
Organic development works better. If houses are built, but no schools etc then people will vote for what they need. Unsurprisingly at the local elections the local Lib Dem (who got elected) was not campaigning on NIMBYism, but supporting new GPs to built and new schools to be built. Because that's what the new residents need and its not all there yet. Supermarkets have opened etc because businesses like Aldi and ASDA will open branches where their customers are. Thousands of people move into an area, they'll be in like a shot to get a shot at those customers.
The state is bloody useless at planning. Design transportation, sure, then let it organically grow in what's zoned there.
Ok, so you don't think there should be planning, with the exception of road building. There should be no state provision for day to day needs etc - shops, healthcare etc, because this will follow where people choose to build houses because politicians will be elected to make it happen. There would be no public realm, or town centres, just housing and roads, and supermarkets.
This all sounds like a total disaster to me.
No. I think there should be healthcare, and schools etc but it should evolve depending upon what the voters need.
Not spend decades planning what was needed decades ago, but is totally obsolete decades later as the facts have changed so much all your plans were based on faulty assumptions.
" The public primary was the size of a country school and now has 19 demountables. The closest shops were 20 minutes away; if she forgot milk, it was a 40-minute round trip, often in traffic. Trains came hourly, even at the peak. Narrow roads were choked. The hospital repeatedly promised for nearby Rouse Hill didn’t exist, and still doesn’t. Meanwhile, the population grows exponentially."... “They knew we were coming. Where did they think we were going to shop? Where did they think our children would go to school? It comes down to better planning. Stop rushing to get people into these houses.”...
But people moving into those areas say it takes more than a bunch of rapidly constructed houses to create a community. “So here’s what’s missing,” said Angela Van Dyke of the Riverstone Neighbourhood Centre and Community Aid Service. “Everything. Public education. Public transport. Good urban design. Livability.”... Michelle Rowland, the Labor federal member for the north-west seat of Greenway (and also the communications minister), said the problem was due to a long-term failure of different levels of government to coordinate. “Developers, basically, in a lot of aspects, they do have free rein,” she said. “The incentive of the developer is to maximise land use to maximise profit. Which is why you have a lot of residents complaining [about] what normally they’d call overdevelopment, but a lot of it is to do with a lack of trees, a lack of environmental controls, houses are close together, streets are narrow.”
Presumably he'd say that given the people exist, that is better to have houses and no schools, than to have neither houses nor schools.
There is something in that argument , but I don't think that is what he is saying. I think he sees the idea of town planning as being socially destructive and a massive cost with no benefits. The usual libertarian thing. But the contradiction is, that when you go and look at the libertarian societies they hold up as examples they tend to actually be quite well planned, ie Singapore and the USA, there is always an active state authority doing the zoning, brokering the economic development etc. I am pretty sure Japan will come in to this category as well.
It kind of is what I'm saying actually, yes.
As far as zoning etc is concerned, I'm perfectly fine with that. Pick your agricultural, natural and residential zones etc and the let the Council get out of the way of development within residential zones, even if natural/agricultural zones can't be developed. Which incidentally can work with 'green belt' desires, since you don't zone the green belt residential then.
Now of course personally I'd prefer the residential zones to be bigger than they are now, but that's a semi-separate debate.
Beyond that though, I am saying since we have a shortage of 3 million homes today, and we don't have 3 million homes with planning permission let alone under construction, then JFDI applies. Just frigging do it.
Get the homes built. Better to not be homeless.
Once the homes are built, of course better ideally to have commerce, schools etc - but in the mean time better to have a home than no home.
And of course since this is the UK, not Australia or Canada, even if there's no school [yet] within your area there will be schools not very far away. This isn't rural Alberta or Western Australia where your nearest town is 400 km away.
As I said, my kids go to a different school, in a different town, than the one where I live. There is a small primary and secondary school where I live, which kind of used to be a village but is now a new town [the overwhelming majority of houses in this town did not exist in 2010], but they are small and I like my kids school so we're not transferring them. My kids still have places in the school over the river and I drive them there. Oh and if I didn't drive, there are school buses that come down our road to collect kids to take them to where my kids go to school. I'm guessing we're far from unique in crossing the river to get to school, and there's an option via dedicated school buses for those who don't drive.
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
The only figures that I can think of who have managed to serve navigate the choppy waters of recent Tory internal politics pretty well are:
Gove Barclay Baker Shapps
I suspect one of these will end up as next leader if there is we're still in power.
After the likely ballot box pummelling we'll get, I expect someone without the baggage. Badenoch will be frontrunner, but we know what happens to frontrunners in PCP elections....
I reckon it will be between Badenoch and Braverman based on the cull of cabinet ministers at the next election.
I mean Penny loses her seat on current polling.
Yep, she isn't a serious proposition.
Ironically, Liz T's majority means she is in a good position. Paging @DougSeal
I've already apologised to Doug for taking the piss out of him about that.
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
That too. Just because you are good at History or Law does not mean you would be good at Science, Maths or Engineering.
The same in reverse, you are good at Science and Maths but less so at History and English.
Only a few people at school tend to get top A grades and near 100% in every subject all the time and they tend to be quite nerdy
Re the middle para, that is not my experience. Most students who are good at the sciences are also good at other topics as well but are drawn to the sciences because they can do stuff others can't. I certainly could have picked history or geography for instance (my teachers wanted me to). Even when you drill down in to the sciences you tend to get that focus with the more mathematically able focusing down on the more mathematical subjects and not because they can't do the other stuff, but because they can do stuff others can't.
One thing that is noticeable with Doctors (who tend to be very good across the sciences, but not focused down on the more mathematical stuff) is they often have a very broad spectrum of ability across non science subjects and they are not usually nerdy either.
So assuming scientists and mathematicians do science because they are less good at History and English I believe is wrong. They do it because they can do stuff others can't do.
Well I have a friend who is outstanding at Maths but never been that great at English.
It is rather arrogant to suggest just because you are good at Maths and Science you are automatically brilliant at English and History too, not least because you actually need to read books on History for example and Historians works to be good at it and at the top end do archival research. Some Doctors may well be well read in History too for instance but by no means all are
Apropos yesterday’s disccion about commercial real estate - one of London’s biggest office blocks is about to be vacated by HSBC: 8 Canada Sq, Canary Wharf.
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
What about historians of engineering?
Asking for a friend...
I am politely going to avoid answering (just like a politician), but that reminds me of a bug bear I have which is on TV quizes where they have a science question and ask something like when was Newton born, or where is he buried. That is NOT science that IS history.
What about those of us who write about the technical development of railways?
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
The Conservative Party shows an awareness of law and of history? That's huge news to me, given the evidence of the last seven years,.
"...an interest in" doesn't imply respect for, or any positive intent.
Putin, for example, shows considerable interest in both.
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
That too. Just because you are good at History or Law does not mean you would be good at Science, Maths or Engineering.
The same in reverse, you are good at Science and Maths but less so at History and English.
Only a few people at school tend to get top A grades and near 100% in every subject all the time and they tend to be quite nerdy
Re the middle para, that is not my experience. Most students who are good at the sciences are also good at other topics as well but are drawn to the sciences because they can do stuff others can't. I certainly could have picked history or geography for instance (my teachers wanted me to). Even when you drill down in to the sciences you tend to get that focus with the more mathematically able focusing down on the more mathematical subjects and not because they can't do the other stuff, but because they can do stuff others can't.
One thing that is noticeable with Doctors (who tend to be very good across the sciences, but not focused down on the more mathematical stuff) is they often have a very broad spectrum of ability across non science subjects and they are not usually nerdy either.
So assuming scientists and mathematicians do science because they are less good at History and English I believe is wrong. They do it because they can do stuff others can't do.
One caveat to that.
Eventually, nearly everyone reaches a maths threshold, where the degree of abstraction suddenly and painfully stops fitting in their brain. That's true even for people with maths/science degrees. It's just a question of when; for some it's GCSE, for others it's A Level, for others it's graduate/postgraduate study. But it comes for everyone in the end.
The only exceptions are those who quit while they are still ahead- for example by doing maths A Levels, then PPE, then ending up in a position where you can plan for everyone to study maths for longer...
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
That too. Just because you are good at History or Law does not mean you would be good at Science, Maths or Engineering.
The same in reverse, you are good at Science and Maths but less so at History and English.
Only a few people at school tend to get top A grades and near 100% in every subject all the time and they tend to be quite nerdy
Re the middle para, that is not my experience. Most students who are good at the sciences are also good at other topics as well but are drawn to the sciences because they can do stuff others can't. I certainly could have picked history or geography for instance (my teachers wanted me to). Even when you drill down in to the sciences you tend to get that focus with the more mathematically able focusing down on the more mathematical subjects and not because they can't do the other stuff, but because they can do stuff others can't.
One thing that is noticeable with Doctors (who tend to be very good across the sciences, but not focused down on the more mathematical stuff) is they often have a very broad spectrum of ability across non science subjects and they are not usually nerdy either.
So assuming scientists and mathematicians do science because they are less good at History and English I believe is wrong. They do it because they can do stuff others can't do.
Unsurprisingly I completely agree with you and not HYUFD.
In my school we had setting and streaming and the kids in the top set in maths and science also tended to be the top set in English and other subjects.
Science and maths requires quite a bit of rounding to do well, pun semi-intended. You need to be able to think logically, break things down, understand linguistics and that assists you in languages, history, geography etc too.
That doesn't make you a nerd.
There are some people who can do maths but are poor at English, but in my experience its very much the exception not the norm.
I suspect the next Tory leader is one of Braverman, Badenoch or Mordaunt.
Both Braverman and Badenoch have safe seats so should be available. Penny’s is less so, but she has some positive name recognition etc being the High Priestess of Swords however and I suspect will probably get through a GE (but given the way polls are looking it’s not certain).
I’m not sure I see any of them dragging the Tories back to electability in one term. Mordaunt is the most likeable and personable, but will probably have to deal with a lot of carping from the right. Badenoch is an accomplished performer and will land some blows, but suffers from the Ron DeSantis issue of being purely defined by being anti-woke (which may chime with a lot of peoples sensibilities, but not many will value it above the economy, public services etc). I think we all know Braverman would be a disaster.
Apropos yesterday’s disccion about commercial real estate - one of London’s biggest office blocks is about to be vacated by HSBC: 8 Canada Sq, Canary Wharf.
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
What about historians of engineering?
Asking for a friend...
I am politely going to avoid answering (just like a politician), but that reminds me of a bug bear I have which is on TV quizes where they have a science question and ask something like when was Newton born, or where is he buried. That is NOT science that IS history.
What about those of us who write about the technical development of railways?
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
That too. Just because you are good at History or Law does not mean you would be good at Science, Maths or Engineering.
The same in reverse, you are good at Science and Maths but less so at History and English.
Only a few people at school tend to get top A grades and near 100% in every subject all the time and they tend to be quite nerdy
I hope you are not suggesting that someone with an engineering degree and a degree in PPE is some kind of nerd.
I mean, I like trains, ffs. So definitely not a nerd.
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
What about historians of engineering?
Asking for a friend...
I am politely going to avoid answering (just like a politician), but that reminds me of a bug bear I have which is on TV quizes where they have a science question and ask something like when was Newton born, or where is he buried. That is NOT science that IS history.
What about those of us who write about the technical development of railways?
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not? you must think to some extent about history and the law, by virtue of being on here, and if you have thought about them and concluded that they can be practised without the exercise of logical thinking you are not going to win any awards for general intellectual prowess.
Well maybe you have proved the point as you have made an illogical assumption. I said Engineers, Physics and Mathematics require logical thinking. I did not say (all or any) Historians and Lawyers lack logical thinking as can be proved by the posts from many on here. However you would be correct in assuming that I believe given two samples of both I would be inclined to assume the group of scientist would be more logical/intelligent, although I would also assume that sample would have a greater selection of oddballs in them as well (as per @HYUFD assumption which I do agree with).
Anyway after that ridiculous generalisation by me the other obvious flaw in your reply was how your reply started with 'Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not?' by the fact that you actually replied.
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
That too. Just because you are good at History or Law does not mean you would be good at Science, Maths or Engineering.
The same in reverse, you are good at Science and Maths but less so at History and English.
Only a few people at school tend to get top A grades and near 100% in every subject all the time and they tend to be quite nerdy
Re the middle para, that is not my experience. Most students who are good at the sciences are also good at other topics as well but are drawn to the sciences because they can do stuff others can't. I certainly could have picked history or geography for instance (my teachers wanted me to). Even when you drill down in to the sciences you tend to get that focus with the more mathematically able focusing down on the more mathematical subjects and not because they can't do the other stuff, but because they can do stuff others can't.
One thing that is noticeable with Doctors (who tend to be very good across the sciences, but not focused down on the more mathematical stuff) is they often have a very broad spectrum of ability across non science subjects and they are not usually nerdy either.
So assuming scientists and mathematicians do science because they are less good at History and English I believe is wrong. They do it because they can do stuff others can't do.
Unsurprisingly I completely agree with you and not HYUFD.
In my school we had setting and streaming and the kids in the top set in maths and science also tended to be the top set in English and other subjects.
Science and maths requires quite a bit of rounding to do well, pun semi-intended. You need to be able to think logically, break things down, understand linguistics and that assists you in languages, history, geography etc too.
That doesn't make you a nerd.
There are some people who can do maths but are poor at English, but in my experience its very much the exception not the norm.
My school setted by maths only, so for the only other compulsory subject - English - you were with people who were as good as you at maths. I was in maths set 1, which was an interesting English class to be in: these people were clever, but by and large very literal minded. We knew in principle what a metaphor was, but couldn't necessarily spot one.
Apropos yesterday’s disccion about commercial real estate - one of London’s biggest office blocks is about to be vacated by HSBC: 8 Canada Sq, Canary Wharf.
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
That too. Just because you are good at History or Law does not mean you would be good at Science, Maths or Engineering.
The same in reverse, you are good at Science and Maths but less so at History and English.
Only a few people at school tend to get top A grades and near 100% in every subject all the time and they tend to be quite nerdy
Re the middle para, that is not my experience. Most students who are good at the sciences are also good at other topics as well but are drawn to the sciences because they can do stuff others can't. I certainly could have picked history or geography for instance (my teachers wanted me to). Even when you drill down in to the sciences you tend to get that focus with the more mathematically able focusing down on the more mathematical subjects and not because they can't do the other stuff, but because they can do stuff others can't.
One thing that is noticeable with Doctors (who tend to be very good across the sciences, but not focused down on the more mathematical stuff) is they often have a very broad spectrum of ability across non science subjects and they are not usually nerdy either.
So assuming scientists and mathematicians do science because they are less good at History and English I believe is wrong. They do it because they can do stuff others can't do.
One caveat to that.
Eventually, nearly everyone reaches a maths threshold, where the degree of abstraction suddenly and painfully stops fitting in their brain. That's true even for people with maths/science degrees. It's just a question of when; for some it's GCSE, for others it's A Level, for others it's graduate/postgraduate study. But it comes for everyone in the end.
The only exceptions are those who quit while they are still ahead- for example by doing maths A Levels, then PPE, then ending up in a position where you can plan for everyone to study maths for longer...
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
That too. Just because you are good at History or Law does not mean you would be good at Science, Maths or Engineering.
The same in reverse, you are good at Science and Maths but less so at History and English.
Only a few people at school tend to get top A grades and near 100% in every subject all the time and they tend to be quite nerdy
Re the middle para, that is not my experience. Most students who are good at the sciences are also good at other topics as well but are drawn to the sciences because they can do stuff others can't. I certainly could have picked history or geography for instance (my teachers wanted me to). Even when you drill down in to the sciences you tend to get that focus with the more mathematically able focusing down on the more mathematical subjects and not because they can't do the other stuff, but because they can do stuff others can't.
One thing that is noticeable with Doctors (who tend to be very good across the sciences, but not focused down on the more mathematical stuff) is they often have a very broad spectrum of ability across non science subjects and they are not usually nerdy either.
So assuming scientists and mathematicians do science because they are less good at History and English I believe is wrong. They do it because they can do stuff others can't do.
Well I have a friend who is outstanding at Maths but never been that great at English.
It is rather arrogant to suggest just because you are good at Maths and Science you are automatically brilliant at English and History too, not least because you actually need to read books on History for example and Historians works to be good at it and at the top end do archival research. Some Doctors may well be well read in History too for instance but by no means all are
Bit of a piss poor story by the BBC to be honest though....we deliberately got a camera with 6 year old firmware and put it on a network with no protection, so we could hack. Its a bit like saying I got a 6 year old unpatched version of Windows XP running no firewall or antivirus / antimalware and a security professional found that it was dead easy to get into.
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not? you must think to some extent about history and the law, by virtue of being on here, and if you have thought about them and concluded that they can be practised without the exercise of logical thinking you are not going to win any awards for general intellectual prowess.
Well maybe you have proved the point as you have made an illogical assumption. I said Engineers, Physics and Mathematics require logical thinking. I did not say (all or any) Historians and Lawyers lack logical thinking as can be proved by the posts from many on here. However you would be correct in assuming that I believe given two samples of both I would be inclined to assume the group of scientist would be more logical/intelligent, although I would also assume that sample would have a greater selection of oddballs in them as well (as per @HYUFD assumption which I do agree with).
Anyway after that ridiculous generalisation by me the other obvious flaw in your reply was how your reply started with 'Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not?' by the fact that you actually replied.
You are really bad at this, aren't you? The posts went
Someone: Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
You: Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
That can only mean that you think PPE/law/history do nt require logical thinking. There is no other way of interpreting it. It means that, or it is pointless.
So we have established that logical parsing of your own output is beyond you.
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
That too. Just because you are good at History or Law does not mean you would be good at Science, Maths or Engineering.
The same in reverse, you are good at Science and Maths but less so at History and English.
Only a few people at school tend to get top A grades and near 100% in every subject all the time and they tend to be quite nerdy
Re the middle para, that is not my experience. Most students who are good at the sciences are also good at other topics as well but are drawn to the sciences because they can do stuff others can't. I certainly could have picked history or geography for instance (my teachers wanted me to). Even when you drill down in to the sciences you tend to get that focus with the more mathematically able focusing down on the more mathematical subjects and not because they can't do the other stuff, but because they can do stuff others can't.
One thing that is noticeable with Doctors (who tend to be very good across the sciences, but not focused down on the more mathematical stuff) is they often have a very broad spectrum of ability across non science subjects and they are not usually nerdy either.
So assuming scientists and mathematicians do science because they are less good at History and English I believe is wrong. They do it because they can do stuff others can't do.
Unsurprisingly I completely agree with you and not HYUFD.
In my school we had setting and streaming and the kids in the top set in maths and science also tended to be the top set in English and other subjects.
Science and maths requires quite a bit of rounding to do well, pun semi-intended. You need to be able to think logically, break things down, understand linguistics and that assists you in languages, history, geography etc too.
That doesn't make you a nerd.
There are some people who can do maths but are poor at English, but in my experience its very much the exception not the norm.
My school setted by maths only, so for the only other compulsory subject - English - you were with people who were as good as you at maths. I was in maths set 1, which was an interesting English class to be in: these people were clever, but by and large very literal minded. We knew in principle what a metaphor was, but couldn't necessarily spot one.
I Know What You Mean, but it's odd really. Maths, certainly applied maths and physics, are all about metaphor. These atoms are like rubber balls. That ring around Saturn is like a lasso. That thing we can see, touch and use is like the result of an equation. It's a shame that we (necessarily) get so bogged down in the manipulations at school level that we don't have time to say "it's just so pretty" enough.
It's a strange sort of poetry- that rubbish stuff that doesn't rhyme or have a story. Or the kind of music that doesn't have a tune and would never get played on Classic FM. A lot of my mathmo friends were pretty decent in some area of the arts.
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not? you must think to some extent about history and the law, by virtue of being on here, and if you have thought about them and concluded that they can be practised without the exercise of logical thinking you are not going to win any awards for general intellectual prowess.
Well maybe you have proved the point as you have made an illogical assumption. I said Engineers, Physics and Mathematics require logical thinking. I did not say (all or any) Historians and Lawyers lack logical thinking as can be proved by the posts from many on here. However you would be correct in assuming that I believe given two samples of both I would be inclined to assume the group of scientist would be more logical/intelligent, although I would also assume that sample would have a greater selection of oddballs in them as well (as per @HYUFD assumption which I do agree with).
Anyway after that ridiculous generalisation by me the other obvious flaw in your reply was how your reply started with 'Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not?' by the fact that you actually replied.
You are really bad at this, aren't you? The posts went
Someone: Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
You: Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
That can only mean that you think PPE/law/history do nt require logical thinking. There is no other way of interpreting it. It means that, or it is pointless.
So we have established that logical parsing of your own output is beyond you.
Maybe you should debate with someone who hasn't done a degree in Logic?
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not? you must think to some extent about history and the law, by virtue of being on here, and if you have thought about them and concluded that they can be practised without the exercise of logical thinking you are not going to win any awards for general intellectual prowess.
Well maybe you have proved the point as you have made an illogical assumption. I said Engineers, Physics and Mathematics require logical thinking. I did not say (all or any) Historians and Lawyers lack logical thinking as can be proved by the posts from many on here. However you would be correct in assuming that I believe given two samples of both I would be inclined to assume the group of scientist would be more logical/intelligent, although I would also assume that sample would have a greater selection of oddballs in them as well (as per @HYUFD assumption which I do agree with).
Anyway after that ridiculous generalisation by me the other obvious flaw in your reply was how your reply started with 'Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not?' by the fact that you actually replied.
You are really bad at this, aren't you? The posts went
Someone: Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
You: Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
That can only mean that you think PPE/law/history do nt require logical thinking. There is no other way of interpreting it. It means that, or it is pointless.
So we have established that logical parsing of your own output is beyond you.
Maybe you should debate with someone who hasn't done a degree in Logic?
Hahaha.
So, explain how your post does not imply that PPE/law/history do not require logical thinking.
Germany commits to station a armored brigade of 4.000 personnel in Lithuania.
For this Lithuania offers to begin construction of garrisons in 3 cities starting as early as 2025. These are to include training grounds, barracks and sustainment facilities. https://twitter.com/Jeff21461/status/1673278487845650432
Just as well they prepare for any surprises. Reportedly their intelligence services heard about Prigozhin's move some time after PB.
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
That too. Just because you are good at History or Law does not mean you would be good at Science, Maths or Engineering.
The same in reverse, you are good at Science and Maths but less so at History and English.
Only a few people at school tend to get top A grades and near 100% in every subject all the time and they tend to be quite nerdy
Re the middle para, that is not my experience. Most students who are good at the sciences are also good at other topics as well but are drawn to the sciences because they can do stuff others can't. I certainly could have picked history or geography for instance (my teachers wanted me to). Even when you drill down in to the sciences you tend to get that focus with the more mathematically able focusing down on the more mathematical subjects and not because they can't do the other stuff, but because they can do stuff others can't.
One thing that is noticeable with Doctors (who tend to be very good across the sciences, but not focused down on the more mathematical stuff) is they often have a very broad spectrum of ability across non science subjects and they are not usually nerdy either.
So assuming scientists and mathematicians do science because they are less good at History and English I believe is wrong. They do it because they can do stuff others can't do.
Unsurprisingly I completely agree with you and not HYUFD.
In my school we had setting and streaming and the kids in the top set in maths and science also tended to be the top set in English and other subjects.
Science and maths requires quite a bit of rounding to do well, pun semi-intended. You need to be able to think logically, break things down, understand linguistics and that assists you in languages, history, geography etc too.
That doesn't make you a nerd.
There are some people who can do maths but are poor at English, but in my experience its very much the exception not the norm.
My school setted by maths only, so for the only other compulsory subject - English - you were with people who were as good as you at maths. I was in maths set 1, which was an interesting English class to be in: these people were clever, but by and large very literal minded. We knew in principle what a metaphor was, but couldn't necessarily spot one.
I Know What You Mean, but it's odd really. Maths, certainly applied maths and physics, are all about metaphor. These atoms are like rubber balls. That ring around Saturn is like a lasso. That thing we can see, touch and use is like the result of an equation. It's a shame that we (necessarily) get so bogged down in the manipulations at school level that we don't have time to say "it's just so pretty" enough.
It's a strange sort of poetry- that rubbish stuff that doesn't rhyme or have a story. Or the kind of music that doesn't have a tune and would never get played on Classic FM. A lot of my mathmo friends were pretty decent in some area of the arts.
Yes indeed, and I don't disagree with any of that, but your examples are all similies. My maths set 1 colleagues could totally get on board with 'atoms are like rubber balls' - the word 'like' means that the statement is not technically false, even if like is doing a lot of work. What they - we - struggled with - was metaphor: I remember studying a poem which contained the line 'his fists were stones'; pretty much all of us interpreted this to mean his fists had literally petrified, for reasons unclear. We were 15. We weren't stupid, just not entirely comfortable with people not saying what they meant.
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not? you must think to some extent about history and the law, by virtue of being on here, and if you have thought about them and concluded that they can be practised without the exercise of logical thinking you are not going to win any awards for general intellectual prowess.
Well maybe you have proved the point as you have made an illogical assumption. I said Engineers, Physics and Mathematics require logical thinking. I did not say (all or any) Historians and Lawyers lack logical thinking as can be proved by the posts from many on here. However you would be correct in assuming that I believe given two samples of both I would be inclined to assume the group of scientist would be more logical/intelligent, although I would also assume that sample would have a greater selection of oddballs in them as well (as per @HYUFD assumption which I do agree with).
Anyway after that ridiculous generalisation by me the other obvious flaw in your reply was how your reply started with 'Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not?' by the fact that you actually replied.
You are really bad at this, aren't you? The posts went
Someone: Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
You: Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
That can only mean that you think PPE/law/history do nt require logical thinking. There is no other way of interpreting it. It means that, or it is pointless.
So we have established that logical parsing of your own output is beyond you.
Maybe you should debate with someone who hasn't done a degree in Logic?
Hahaha.
So, explain how your post does not imply that PPE/law/history do not require logical thinking.
Got to go. House clearance to sort. Come back to me in a few hours.
Thinking more broadly and historically about both the scindy and brexit movements -
Seems to me, they started off as, essentially, a tax revolt - then the proponents realised they needed win power and generate democratic consent and had to make ever increasing concessions to implement their agenda - and both ended up failing at their original aim.
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
Still leaves me scratching my head wondering what Prigozhin was playing at.
The only thing I can muster is that he either got cold feet right at the last moment and desperately tried to find a way of exiting the situation, or that he was expecting things to snowball in the Kremlin to such a degree that he would have had figures in the government coming out in support, hence essentially being welcomed into Moscow by the time he arrived.
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not? you must think to some extent about history and the law, by virtue of being on here, and if you have thought about them and concluded that they can be practised without the exercise of logical thinking you are not going to win any awards for general intellectual prowess.
Well maybe you have proved the point as you have made an illogical assumption. I said Engineers, Physics and Mathematics require logical thinking. I did not say (all or any) Historians and Lawyers lack logical thinking as can be proved by the posts from many on here. However you would be correct in assuming that I believe given two samples of both I would be inclined to assume the group of scientist would be more logical/intelligent, although I would also assume that sample would have a greater selection of oddballs in them as well (as per @HYUFD assumption which I do agree with).
Anyway after that ridiculous generalisation by me the other obvious flaw in your reply was how your reply started with 'Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not?' by the fact that you actually replied.
You are really bad at this, aren't you? The posts went
Someone: Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
You: Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
That can only mean that you think PPE/law/history do nt require logical thinking. There is no other way of interpreting it. It means that, or it is pointless.
So we have established that logical parsing of your own output is beyond you.
Maybe you should debate with someone who hasn't done a degree in Logic?
Hahaha.
So, explain how your post does not imply that PPE/law/history do not require logical thinking.
Got to go. House clearance to sort. Come back to me in a few hours.
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
That too. Just because you are good at History or Law does not mean you would be good at Science, Maths or Engineering.
The same in reverse, you are good at Science and Maths but less so at History and English.
Only a few people at school tend to get top A grades and near 100% in every subject all the time and they tend to be quite nerdy
Re the middle para, that is not my experience. Most students who are good at the sciences are also good at other topics as well but are drawn to the sciences because they can do stuff others can't. I certainly could have picked history or geography for instance (my teachers wanted me to). Even when you drill down in to the sciences you tend to get that focus with the more mathematically able focusing down on the more mathematical subjects and not because they can't do the other stuff, but because they can do stuff others can't.
One thing that is noticeable with Doctors (who tend to be very good across the sciences, but not focused down on the more mathematical stuff) is they often have a very broad spectrum of ability across non science subjects and they are not usually nerdy either.
So assuming scientists and mathematicians do science because they are less good at History and English I believe is wrong. They do it because they can do stuff others can't do.
Unsurprisingly I completely agree with you and not HYUFD.
In my school we had setting and streaming and the kids in the top set in maths and science also tended to be the top set in English and other subjects.
Science and maths requires quite a bit of rounding to do well, pun semi-intended. You need to be able to think logically, break things down, understand linguistics and that assists you in languages, history, geography etc too.
That doesn't make you a nerd.
There are some people who can do maths but are poor at English, but in my experience its very much the exception not the norm.
My school setted by maths only, so for the only other compulsory subject - English - you were with people who were as good as you at maths. I was in maths set 1, which was an interesting English class to be in: these people were clever, but by and large very literal minded. We knew in principle what a metaphor was, but couldn't necessarily spot one.
I Know What You Mean, but it's odd really. Maths, certainly applied maths and physics, are all about metaphor. These atoms are like rubber balls. That ring around Saturn is like a lasso. That thing we can see, touch and use is like the result of an equation. It's a shame that we (necessarily) get so bogged down in the manipulations at school level that we don't have time to say "it's just so pretty" enough.
It's a strange sort of poetry- that rubbish stuff that doesn't rhyme or have a story. Or the kind of music that doesn't have a tune and would never get played on Classic FM. A lot of my mathmo friends were pretty decent in some area of the arts.
At school I did the International Baccalaureate rather than A-Levels or equivalent and one subject in that which is compulsory is called "Theory of Knowledge". One area I studied was the question "are maths, logic and music languages" to which the answer is an unequivocal "yes".
Under any definition of what makes a language, each of maths, logic and music follow those rules and linguistics.
There is as you say an elegance and can a beauty to it. Its a different kind of language, but its a language nonetheless. Which is why people who are good at maths tend to also be good at languages, the skills from one set of linguistics are transferrable to another.
Germany commits to station a armored brigade of 4.000 personnel in Lithuania.
For this Lithuania offers to begin construction of garrisons in 3 cities starting as early as 2025. These are to include training grounds, barracks and sustainment facilities. https://twitter.com/Jeff21461/status/1673278487845650432
Just as well they prepare for any surprises. Reportedly their intelligence services heard about Prigozhin's move some time after PB.
Perhaps as well there was a delay. If I recall correctly some PBers by Saturday afternoon were calling for NATO to go in bawsdeep supporting Ukraine while Putin was distracted, and in any case Vlad was going to be hanging from a lamp post by Sunday.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
The Tories won’t do themselves any favours overruling independent pay bodies on public sector pay.
We are just likely to see more and more strikes and disruption and not just from the likes of the RMT who are politically motivated.
They're in a complete bind. They'll trot out the wage-price spiral excuse to justify bearing down on public sector pay, but the plain fact is that they're struggling to find politically acceptable cuts to fund extra spending in this area, borrowing is enormous and becoming ever more expensive, and so they're left with either digging their heels in and offering workers peanuts, or raising taxes on their core supporters to pay for more generous rises. There's no violin small enough.
The reality we are reaching the end game for the Blairite/Thatcher-lite model
It used to be chunky public spending and low taxes with the difference funded by clever balance sheet tricks (PFI/securitisation) or straight up borrowing. Wages were kept down by relaxed views on immigration
Cost of borrowing is going up and the markets are twitchy after all that QE
Asset price bubbles have driven a reasonable standard of living beyond the reach of many
Effectively unlimited immigration has resulted in underinvestment in business (low wages partly due to immigration and partly due to tax credits) drove down returns (cost saving) on investment and increased the strain on public services (governments didn’t invest in capacity).
The electorate has been trained to believe the government will always bail them out
We need a grown up conversation. Either taxes have to go up massively or public services need to be completely rethought.
But neither politicians or the electorate are ready to have that conversation.
While much of this is true, it is also the case that other countries have had similar situations to us, and have managed to avoid excessively expensive housing or stagnant business investment.
They therefore cannot be the whole story.
It's almost as if our planning system might be different to theirs.
The largest cost in household budgets is Housing. Not food, not gas, not electricity or anything else it is housing.
A very large proportion of the cost of housing is the cost of land.
And the cost of land with planning permission is inflated over land without.
Resolve one and others follow.
Build new towns (or refurbish old ones) in the frozen north and left-behind regions. It solves the housing problem, levelling up and rebalancing the economy away from an overheated London in one fell swoop.
Not really
There are areas in the run down north with plenty of empty housing, just look at the photo at the top of this article....
Yes, hence the new town model, even if based on refurbishment, to include attracting new jobs. Rather than dumping grounds for borderline mentally ill drug addicts and thieves.
Why on earth would any company set up in a newly created new town that no doubt has awful connections to anywhere with any sort of existing economy ?
Government subsidies, tax concessions, northern powerhouse rail? Britain has built new towns before; there's nothing new.
NPR won't land until 2045 onwards and will connect Warrington, Manchester and Marsden, no new stops planned, just linking existing populations.
So you want to create new towns, with no links to existing economies and hope that lower taxes will attract businesses there ?
Our London based media's obsession over trains is part of the problem. Over 90% of the UK travels via Road, not Rail, especially in the North.
If you want new towns then new motorway junctions, or better yet new motorways with new junctions is the way to do it quickly. Rail can catch up afterwards.
Not just in the North, in the South away from London it's very possible too. Eg build a new motorway linking Oxford to Cambridge, extended to Bristol and Norwich perhaps, and with a junction approximately every 5 miles. New towns could spring up along that route, and not in or linked to London.
Sorry but new roads don’t solve problems - and it’s probably worth watching c4 to,or row to see Ben Elton comparing rail around London and the rest of the UK.
That sort of timid, self defeating attitude is part of the problem. Of course new roads do solve problems.
I live in a fast growing new town (they do still exist, just not enough of them). We have thousands of homes being built, all of which are getting snapped up. New shops, businesses, industry opening too.
And what is the key new transport infrastructure underpinning this? One new motorway junction, with one new A road.
There's talk we might get a train station in a few years time, I'm not holding my breath, but the new motorway junction? People who get about by road are happy with that. And outside London it's roads, not rail, that truly matters. Of course London is different but WE ARE NOT LONDON.
The problem here is that what you are now making is an argument for planning, which you claim to reject. The reason why everything is working in your development is more likely than not because decades of work went in to the new trunk roads and motorway junctions, negotiated by the Council with Highways England and the government, as well as the co-siting of commercial development and community infrastructure, and finding ways to fund all this, including through Section 106 contributions by developers. That is what planning is and the value that it adds. If you get rid of planning then none of that happens, houses get built but you can't get anywhere, there are crap roads, no shops, infrastructure etc.
You could say ok, why not just zone the land through the plan making process and then have a design code rather than having to go through the pain and delay of needing planning permission. You could well do that and some countries do. The main problem is it makes it harder to go through the first stage of the process (the plan making stage) because you need to be absolutely sure that everything is solved before you can confidently rely on a design code for the purposes of delivery.
A design code is just a delivery mechanism not an alternative to having a planning system. Looking at your example of Japan, my guess is just that they are better at planning because the state is more assertive and organised at building infrastructure. I'd guess the falling prices are more to do with historic deflation than falling demand. But I've never studied the Japanese system in detail so don't feel able to authoritively comment on it.
In summary the problem is not that a planning system exists in the first place, but because the one we have isn't working very well.
Sorry that's not remotely an argument for planning, you could not be more wrong. There isn't time for decades of work as our population levels weren't the same decades ago, and if decades of work are going into it then no wonder everything is so broken as the facts decades ago are not the facts today.
If everything is planned then I'm curious where the new railway station, new schools, new GPs and everything else are. None of them exist. I still am registered at my old GP in my old town, I've not transferred my kids schooling either, and drive across the river to a different town for those.
Organic development works better. If houses are built, but no schools etc then people will vote for what they need. Unsurprisingly at the local elections the local Lib Dem (who got elected) was not campaigning on NIMBYism, but supporting new GPs to built and new schools to be built. Because that's what the new residents need and its not all there yet. Supermarkets have opened etc because businesses like Aldi and ASDA will open branches where their customers are. Thousands of people move into an area, they'll be in like a shot to get a shot at those customers.
The state is bloody useless at planning. Design transportation, sure, then let it organically grow in what's zoned there.
Ok, so you don't think there should be planning, with the exception of road building. There should be no state provision for day to day needs etc - shops, healthcare etc, because this will follow where people choose to build houses because politicians will be elected to make it happen. There would be no public realm, or town centres, just housing and roads, and supermarkets.
This all sounds like a total disaster to me.
No. I think there should be healthcare, and schools etc but it should evolve depending upon what the voters need.
Not spend decades planning what was needed decades ago, but is totally obsolete decades later as the facts have changed so much all your plans were based on faulty assumptions.
" The public primary was the size of a country school and now has 19 demountables. The closest shops were 20 minutes away; if she forgot milk, it was a 40-minute round trip, often in traffic. Trains came hourly, even at the peak. Narrow roads were choked. The hospital repeatedly promised for nearby Rouse Hill didn’t exist, and still doesn’t. Meanwhile, the population grows exponentially."... “They knew we were coming. Where did they think we were going to shop? Where did they think our children would go to school? It comes down to better planning. Stop rushing to get people into these houses.”...
But people moving into those areas say it takes more than a bunch of rapidly constructed houses to create a community. “So here’s what’s missing,” said Angela Van Dyke of the Riverstone Neighbourhood Centre and Community Aid Service. “Everything. Public education. Public transport. Good urban design. Livability.”... Michelle Rowland, the Labor federal member for the north-west seat of Greenway (and also the communications minister), said the problem was due to a long-term failure of different levels of government to coordinate. “Developers, basically, in a lot of aspects, they do have free rein,” she said. “The incentive of the developer is to maximise land use to maximise profit. Which is why you have a lot of residents complaining [about] what normally they’d call overdevelopment, but a lot of it is to do with a lack of trees, a lack of environmental controls, houses are close together, streets are narrow.”
Presumably he'd say that given the people exist, that is better to have houses and no schools, than to have neither houses nor schools.
There is something in that argument , but I don't think that is what he is saying. I think he sees the idea of town planning as being socially destructive and a massive cost with no benefits. The usual libertarian thing. But the contradiction is, that when you go and look at the libertarian societies they hold up as examples they tend to actually be quite well planned, ie Singapore and the USA, there is always an active state authority doing the zoning, brokering the economic development etc. I am pretty sure Japan will come in to this category as well.
It kind of is what I'm saying actually, yes.
As far as zoning etc is concerned, I'm perfectly fine with that. Pick your agricultural, natural and residential zones etc and the let the Council get out of the way of development within residential zones, even if natural/agricultural zones can't be developed. Which incidentally can work with 'green belt' desires, since you don't zone the green belt residential then.
Now of course personally I'd prefer the residential zones to be bigger than they are now, but that's a semi-separate debate.
Beyond that though, I am saying since we have a shortage of 3 million homes today, and we don't have 3 million homes with planning permission let alone under construction, then JFDI applies. Just frigging do it.
Get the homes built. Better to not be homeless.
Once the homes are built, of course better ideally to have commerce, schools etc - but in the mean time better to have a home than no home.
And of course since this is the UK, not Australia or Canada, even if there's no school [yet] within your area there will be schools not very far away. This isn't rural Alberta or Western Australia where your nearest town is 400 km away.
As I said, my kids go to a different school, in a different town, than the one where I live. There is a small primary and secondary school where I live, which kind of used to be a village but is now a new town [the overwhelming majority of houses in this town did not exist in 2010], but they are small and I like my kids school so we're not transferring them. My kids still have places in the school over the river and I drive them there. Oh and if I didn't drive, there are school buses that come down our road to collect kids to take them to where my kids go to school. I'm guessing we're far from unique in crossing the river to get to school, and there's an option via dedicated school buses for those who don't drive.
OK then. Your planning reform is to have residential 'zones' with planning permission granted for 3 million plus new houses. You now seem to be accepting that there is a heavy sacrifice (over and beyond what was identified in the example in linked to above) in terms of infrastructure provision, placemaking etc, but consider it is all necessary to deal with the over-riding housing need. You believe that it can and will all be worked out in some way afterwards.
I think this would be a disaster. It bakes in dependency on the car and the need for continuous expensive upgrades to roads and bridges for generations.
I also think that the JFDI direction will not actually deliver much more housing. Because as I have pointed out before, the housebuilding industry deliver about 100-150 k houses a year and nothing more and all the signs are that they would continue to do this under any new policy.
There would be some SME/self building going on but the industry is small and it is not going to be at any significant scale. It won't seriously come on stream until capacity in the construction industry is massively increased. And on these projects, someone else still has to build and fund the roads, the streetlights, the drains etc.
Prices may fall because of oversupply but they would quickly hit a level where new housebuilding becomes uneconomic in many areas because of build cost inflation. So my best guess is that you would quickly end up with lots of empty plots and a recession.
If you look through the post war history of housebuilding it is very clear that the only time the government delivers 300,000 houses a year is when it builds half of them itself.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Its almost becoming a wanker test. Yes the original meaning of decimate was to have 1 in 10 of your troops murdered by the remaining 9 as a punishment, but common use has drifted to mean a much more significant loss. Those who love to point out the former are revealing more about themselves than the person they try to mock.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
The joke being that the EV shift gives the US a chance at restructuring the world car production system in its favour.
It will probably be deleterious to legacy us car makers, though. And definitely for the car dealers. Who seem a very Trumpet group - wacko Republicans are definitely their thing.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Its almost becoming a wanker test. Yes the original meaning of decimate was to have 1 in 10 of your troops murdered by the remaining 9 as a punishment, but common use has drifted to mean a much more significant loss. Those who love to point out the former are revealing more about themselves than the person they try to mock.
Harsh.
Pedantically, it just means divide 90/10, so you can argue that doing something nasty to the 90 rather than the 10 fits the bill.
Bit of a piss poor story by the BBC to be honest though....we deliberately got a camera with 6 year old firmware and put it on a network with no protection, so we could hack. Its a bit like saying I got a 6 year old unpatched version of Windows XP running no firewall or antivirus / antimalware and a security professional found that it was dead easy to get into.
There is definitely a story to be told about insecure ‘smart home’ devices, but that isn’t it.
Trying to set up a large house to be as energy-efficient as possible, while avoiding Google/Amazon cloud services and Chinese hardware, is now way more difficult than it should be. Hell, it’s more difficult now than it was a decade ago - these things are supposed to get easier with time!
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Its almost becoming a wanker test. Yes the original meaning of decimate was to have 1 in 10 of your troops murdered by the remaining 9 as a punishment, but common use has drifted to mean a much more significant loss. Those who love to point out the former are revealing more about themselves than the person they try to mock.
Too ambiguous to be a useful word. Definitely to be avoided, like 'haver' which is used wrongly at least half the time.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
The joke being that the EV shift gives the US a chance at restructuring the world car production system in its favour.
It will probably be deleterious to legacy us car makers, though. And definitely for the car dealers. Who seem a very Trumpet group - wacko Republicans are definitely their thing.
The legal framework around the car dealership model in the US is bonkers for a country that prides itself on capitalism and competition. Its so anti-competition, its not far from something Jezza would dream up (albeit the state would own them rather than individuals).
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
Still leaves me scratching my head wondering what Prigozhin was playing at.
The only thing I can muster is that he either got cold feet right at the last moment and desperately tried to find a way of exiting the situation, or that he was expecting things to snowball in the Kremlin to such a degree that he would have had figures in the government coming out in support, hence essentially being welcomed into Moscow by the time he arrived.
Jimmy Rushton @JimmySecUK Wagner still armed, Putin's authority publicly undermined, Shoigu absent, Prigozhin still being investigated for "armed rebellion" by the FSB, whilst numerous high profile Russian figures call for his execution.
Bit of a piss poor story by the BBC to be honest though....we deliberately got a camera with 6 year old firmware and put it on a network with no protection, so we could hack. Its a bit like saying I got a 6 year old unpatched version of Windows XP running no firewall or antivirus / antimalware and a security professional found that it was dead easy to get into.
There is definitely a story to be told about insecure ‘smart home’ devices, but that isn’t it.
Trying to set up a large house to be as energy-efficient as possible, while avoiding Google/Amazon cloud services and Chinese hardware, is now way more difficult than it should be. Hell, it’s more difficult now than it was a decade ago - these things are supposed to get easier with time!
And of course not only the privacy issue but you can be de-platformed should the great tech gods decide you did something bad....see the guy in US a couple of weeks ago, who had his whole automated house system nuked because an Amazon delivery driver falsely claimed the owner had been racist towards him (when it was just his smart doorbell saying hi, how can i help).
The tying you into a specific cloud service is really insidious. You no longer buying a tech item, you are renting it only while you subscribe, and is it extremely difficult to opt of having to partake in this model (unless you are happy to buy from a Chinese company that who knows what they are doing).
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
“He isn’t creating the space and time is running out,” said one insider. “You can’t make this Brexit work. It doesn’t work.
Leave-sceptics point to Labour’s first “mission for government”, which is to achieve the highest economic growth in the G7. “I don’t see how we do that without single market access in some form,” said one source."
The Tories won’t do themselves any favours overruling independent pay bodies on public sector pay.
We are just likely to see more and more strikes and disruption and not just from the likes of the RMT who are politically motivated.
They're in a complete bind. They'll trot out the wage-price spiral excuse to justify bearing down on public sector pay, but the plain fact is that they're struggling to find politically acceptable cuts to fund extra spending in this area, borrowing is enormous and becoming ever more expensive, and so they're left with either digging their heels in and offering workers peanuts, or raising taxes on their core supporters to pay for more generous rises. There's no violin small enough.
The reality we are reaching the end game for the Blairite/Thatcher-lite model
It used to be chunky public spending and low taxes with the difference funded by clever balance sheet tricks (PFI/securitisation) or straight up borrowing. Wages were kept down by relaxed views on immigration
Cost of borrowing is going up and the markets are twitchy after all that QE
Asset price bubbles have driven a reasonable standard of living beyond the reach of many
Effectively unlimited immigration has resulted in underinvestment in business (low wages partly due to immigration and partly due to tax credits) drove down returns (cost saving) on investment and increased the strain on public services (governments didn’t invest in capacity).
The electorate has been trained to believe the government will always bail them out
We need a grown up conversation. Either taxes have to go up massively or public services need to be completely rethought.
But neither politicians or the electorate are ready to have that conversation.
While much of this is true, it is also the case that other countries have had similar situations to us, and have managed to avoid excessively expensive housing or stagnant business investment.
They therefore cannot be the whole story.
It's almost as if our planning system might be different to theirs.
The largest cost in household budgets is Housing. Not food, not gas, not electricity or anything else it is housing.
A very large proportion of the cost of housing is the cost of land.
And the cost of land with planning permission is inflated over land without.
Resolve one and others follow.
Build new towns (or refurbish old ones) in the frozen north and left-behind regions. It solves the housing problem, levelling up and rebalancing the economy away from an overheated London in one fell swoop.
Not really
There are areas in the run down north with plenty of empty housing, just look at the photo at the top of this article....
Yes, hence the new town model, even if based on refurbishment, to include attracting new jobs. Rather than dumping grounds for borderline mentally ill drug addicts and thieves.
Why on earth would any company set up in a newly created new town that no doubt has awful connections to anywhere with any sort of existing economy ?
Government subsidies, tax concessions, northern powerhouse rail? Britain has built new towns before; there's nothing new.
NPR won't land until 2045 onwards and will connect Warrington, Manchester and Marsden, no new stops planned, just linking existing populations.
So you want to create new towns, with no links to existing economies and hope that lower taxes will attract businesses there ?
Our London based media's obsession over trains is part of the problem. Over 90% of the UK travels via Road, not Rail, especially in the North.
If you want new towns then new motorway junctions, or better yet new motorways with new junctions is the way to do it quickly. Rail can catch up afterwards.
Not just in the North, in the South away from London it's very possible too. Eg build a new motorway linking Oxford to Cambridge, extended to Bristol and Norwich perhaps, and with a junction approximately every 5 miles. New towns could spring up along that route, and not in or linked to London.
Sorry but new roads don’t solve problems - and it’s probably worth watching c4 to,or row to see Ben Elton comparing rail around London and the rest of the UK.
That sort of timid, self defeating attitude is part of the problem. Of course new roads do solve problems.
I live in a fast growing new town (they do still exist, just not enough of them). We have thousands of homes being built, all of which are getting snapped up. New shops, businesses, industry opening too.
And what is the key new transport infrastructure underpinning this? One new motorway junction, with one new A road.
There's talk we might get a train station in a few years time, I'm not holding my breath, but the new motorway junction? People who get about by road are happy with that. And outside London it's roads, not rail, that truly matters. Of course London is different but WE ARE NOT LONDON.
The problem here is that what you are now making is an argument for planning, which you claim to reject. The reason why everything is working in your development is more likely than not because decades of work went in to the new trunk roads and motorway junctions, negotiated by the Council with Highways England and the government, as well as the co-siting of commercial development and community infrastructure, and finding ways to fund all this, including through Section 106 contributions by developers. That is what planning is and the value that it adds. If you get rid of planning then none of that happens, houses get built but you can't get anywhere, there are crap roads, no shops, infrastructure etc.
You could say ok, why not just zone the land through the plan making process and then have a design code rather than having to go through the pain and delay of needing planning permission. You could well do that and some countries do. The main problem is it makes it harder to go through the first stage of the process (the plan making stage) because you need to be absolutely sure that everything is solved before you can confidently rely on a design code for the purposes of delivery.
A design code is just a delivery mechanism not an alternative to having a planning system. Looking at your example of Japan, my guess is just that they are better at planning because the state is more assertive and organised at building infrastructure. I'd guess the falling prices are more to do with historic deflation than falling demand. But I've never studied the Japanese system in detail so don't feel able to authoritively comment on it.
In summary the problem is not that a planning system exists in the first place, but because the one we have isn't working very well.
Sorry that's not remotely an argument for planning, you could not be more wrong. There isn't time for decades of work as our population levels weren't the same decades ago, and if decades of work are going into it then no wonder everything is so broken as the facts decades ago are not the facts today.
If everything is planned then I'm curious where the new railway station, new schools, new GPs and everything else are. None of them exist. I still am registered at my old GP in my old town, I've not transferred my kids schooling either, and drive across the river to a different town for those.
Organic development works better. If houses are built, but no schools etc then people will vote for what they need. Unsurprisingly at the local elections the local Lib Dem (who got elected) was not campaigning on NIMBYism, but supporting new GPs to built and new schools to be built. Because that's what the new residents need and its not all there yet. Supermarkets have opened etc because businesses like Aldi and ASDA will open branches where their customers are. Thousands of people move into an area, they'll be in like a shot to get a shot at those customers.
The state is bloody useless at planning. Design transportation, sure, then let it organically grow in what's zoned there.
Ok, so you don't think there should be planning, with the exception of road building. There should be no state provision for day to day needs etc - shops, healthcare etc, because this will follow where people choose to build houses because politicians will be elected to make it happen. There would be no public realm, or town centres, just housing and roads, and supermarkets.
This all sounds like a total disaster to me.
No. I think there should be healthcare, and schools etc but it should evolve depending upon what the voters need.
Not spend decades planning what was needed decades ago, but is totally obsolete decades later as the facts have changed so much all your plans were based on faulty assumptions.
" The public primary was the size of a country school and now has 19 demountables. The closest shops were 20 minutes away; if she forgot milk, it was a 40-minute round trip, often in traffic. Trains came hourly, even at the peak. Narrow roads were choked. The hospital repeatedly promised for nearby Rouse Hill didn’t exist, and still doesn’t. Meanwhile, the population grows exponentially."... “They knew we were coming. Where did they think we were going to shop? Where did they think our children would go to school? It comes down to better planning. Stop rushing to get people into these houses.”...
But people moving into those areas say it takes more than a bunch of rapidly constructed houses to create a community. “So here’s what’s missing,” said Angela Van Dyke of the Riverstone Neighbourhood Centre and Community Aid Service. “Everything. Public education. Public transport. Good urban design. Livability.”... Michelle Rowland, the Labor federal member for the north-west seat of Greenway (and also the communications minister), said the problem was due to a long-term failure of different levels of government to coordinate. “Developers, basically, in a lot of aspects, they do have free rein,” she said. “The incentive of the developer is to maximise land use to maximise profit. Which is why you have a lot of residents complaining [about] what normally they’d call overdevelopment, but a lot of it is to do with a lack of trees, a lack of environmental controls, houses are close together, streets are narrow.”
Presumably he'd say that given the people exist, that is better to have houses and no schools, than to have neither houses nor schools.
There is something in that argument , but I don't think that is what he is saying. I think he sees the idea of town planning as being socially destructive and a massive cost with no benefits. The usual libertarian thing. But the contradiction is, that when you go and look at the libertarian societies they hold up as examples they tend to actually be quite well planned, ie Singapore and the USA, there is always an active state authority doing the zoning, brokering the economic development etc. I am pretty sure Japan will come in to this category as well.
It kind of is what I'm saying actually, yes.
As far as zoning etc is concerned, I'm perfectly fine with that. Pick your agricultural, natural and residential zones etc and the let the Council get out of the way of development within residential zones, even if natural/agricultural zones can't be developed. Which incidentally can work with 'green belt' desires, since you don't zone the green belt residential then.
Now of course personally I'd prefer the residential zones to be bigger than they are now, but that's a semi-separate debate.
Beyond that though, I am saying since we have a shortage of 3 million homes today, and we don't have 3 million homes with planning permission let alone under construction, then JFDI applies. Just frigging do it.
Get the homes built. Better to not be homeless.
Once the homes are built, of course better ideally to have commerce, schools etc - but in the mean time better to have a home than no home.
And of course since this is the UK, not Australia or Canada, even if there's no school [yet] within your area there will be schools not very far away. This isn't rural Alberta or Western Australia where your nearest town is 400 km away.
As I said, my kids go to a different school, in a different town, than the one where I live. There is a small primary and secondary school where I live, which kind of used to be a village but is now a new town [the overwhelming majority of houses in this town did not exist in 2010], but they are small and I like my kids school so we're not transferring them. My kids still have places in the school over the river and I drive them there. Oh and if I didn't drive, there are school buses that come down our road to collect kids to take them to where my kids go to school. I'm guessing we're far from unique in crossing the river to get to school, and there's an option via dedicated school buses for those who don't drive.
OK then. Your planning reform is to have residential 'zones' with planning permission granted for 3 million plus new houses. You now seem to be accepting that there is a heavy sacrifice (over and beyond what was identified in the example in linked to above) in terms of infrastructure provision, placemaking etc, but consider it is all necessary to deal with the over-riding housing need. You believe that it can and will all be worked out in some way afterwards.
I think this would be a disaster. It bakes in dependency on the car and the need for continuous expensive upgrades to roads and bridges for generations.
I also think that the JFDI direction will not actually deliver much more housing. Because as I have pointed out before, the housebuilding industry deliver about 100-150 k houses a year and nothing more and all the signs are that they would continue to do this under any new policy.
There would be some SME/self building going on but the industry is small and it is not going to be at any significant scale. It won't seriously come on stream until capacity in the construction industry is massively increased. And on these projects, someone else still has to build and fund the roads, the streetlights, the drains etc.
Prices may fall because of oversupply but they would quickly hit a level where new housebuilding becomes uneconomic in many areas because of build cost inflation. So my best guess is that you would quickly end up with lots of empty plots and a recession.
If you look through the post war history of housebuilding it is very clear that the only time the government delivers 300,000 houses a year is when it builds half of them itself.
Sorry but you've got your own assumptions then have worked backwards from there.
Firstly there's no need for it all to be dependent on the car, in fact the opposite is possible too. If existing residential zones become denser and build up then that can lead to public transport becoming more efficient, not less. Not that I have any objection to the motor vehicle, but I think my proposal if implemented would see places like London seeing building up happening and I wouldn't expect those to be all homes relying upon cars.
Secondly all the evidence from around the planet is that without planning being an insurmountable obstacle is that SME/self-building should happen at a very significant scale. In almost every country with my proposed system, SME/self-builds happen at orders of magnitude more than here.
As far as funding the roads etc is concerned that needs to happen either way, planning or no planning. That's what the tax system is for. We pay our taxes, we need roads and transportation. Politicians need to do their job. If you want to put a tax on new houses that goes to a pot to pay towards new roads, then I have no philosophical objection to that, but we pay our taxes either way.
As far as prices are concerned, too much of the price of new homes currently is planning itself. If that ceases to be the case, then prices can fall without hurting development. If land becomes cheaper, but taxed more [two prongs to this] then land-banking would never happen and people are encouraged to get on with it rather than to dawdle.
Finally its very clear in the history of housebuilding around the planet, that when competition is allowed to flourish and demand is high then people can and do get on with it. The city of Tokyo alone [population 14 million] has consistently delivered more new homes than the entirety of England combined. As a former cheese loving Prime Minister might have said: That. Is. A. Disgrace.
Saying that our current system isn't working, so therefore reform is pointless, rather misses the point don't you think?
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
The joke being that the EV shift gives the US a chance at restructuring the world car production system in its favour.
It will probably be deleterious to legacy us car makers, though. And definitely for the car dealers. Who seem a very Trumpet group - wacko Republicans are definitely their thing.
The legal framework around the car dealership model in the US is bonkers for a country that prides itself on capitalism and competition. Its so anti-competition, its not far from something Jezza would dream up (albeit the state would own them rather than individuals).
There has long been a joke that America is “The Land Of The Fee”.
The alternation between complete Free For All and weird restrictions is accepted. I recall a couple of cousins not understanding how a country where you could just open a hair dressers (in a shop) without a specific permit could exist.
For example - Texas. The land where you can do anything, right? Yet land usage is controlled by not allowing you to dig/connect to sewage systems without a permit. Or even dig a cesspit.
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
Still leaves me scratching my head wondering what Prigozhin was playing at.
The only thing I can muster is that he either got cold feet right at the last moment and desperately tried to find a way of exiting the situation, or that he was expecting things to snowball in the Kremlin to such a degree that he would have had figures in the government coming out in support, hence essentially being welcomed into Moscow by the time he arrived.
Jimmy Rushton @JimmySecUK Wagner still armed, Putin's authority publicly undermined, Shoigu absent, Prigozhin still being investigated for "armed rebellion" by the FSB, whilst numerous high profile Russian figures call for his execution.
It is interesting that Putin didn’t make a statement on Saturday evening. It surely wouldn’t have harmed to make a “unity has prevailed, we go forward stronger than ever, God Bless The Motherland” kind of speech, given his rather desperate snarly rant at the start of the mutiny.
So what does it mean that he didn’t? Perhaps it’s nothing and it’s just that he didn’t want to look like he was eating humble pie or drawing more attention to the issue. But is there a possible scenario where he is no longer in control of events, and was ordered not to by someone? Most people do theorise he is not in the Kremlin right now.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Literally is literally no 1 on the misuse front.
Its misuse has grown exponentially.
Sadly, I was one of the "literally" abusers yesterday on this very page.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
There was a wonderful example during covid: a headline in the Telegraph saying that the British economy had been decimated, supported by a graph showing it had lost 9.97% of its value. I punched the air in happiness at the rare example of seeing it used almost totally correctly, albeit possibly inadvertently.
Going back another year, there was an equally wonderful example of misuse of the word during commentary on the six nations, in which the commentator suggested that the Scotland defence was being 'dessicated'. So wonderfully wrong...
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Its almost becoming a wanker test. Yes the original meaning of decimate was to have 1 in 10 of your troops murdered by the remaining 9 as a punishment, but common use has drifted to mean a much more significant loss. Those who love to point out the former are revealing more about themselves than the person they try to mock.
I think you mean "revealing more about themselves than about the person they try to mock".
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
Still leaves me scratching my head wondering what Prigozhin was playing at.
The only thing I can muster is that he either got cold feet right at the last moment and desperately tried to find a way of exiting the situation, or that he was expecting things to snowball in the Kremlin to such a degree that he would have had figures in the government coming out in support, hence essentially being welcomed into Moscow by the time he arrived.
Jimmy Rushton @JimmySecUK Wagner still armed, Putin's authority publicly undermined, Shoigu absent, Prigozhin still being investigated for "armed rebellion" by the FSB, whilst numerous high profile Russian figures call for his execution.
It is interesting that Putin didn’t make a statement on Saturday evening. It surely wouldn’t have harmed to make a “unity has prevailed, we go forward stronger than ever, God Bless The Motherland” kind of speech, given his rather desperate snarly rant at the start of the mutiny.
So what does it mean that he didn’t? Perhaps it’s nothing and it’s just that he didn’t want to look like he was eating humble pie or drawing more attention to the issue. But is there a possible scenario where he is no longer in control of events, and was ordered not to by someone? Most people do theorise he is not in the Kremlin right now.
A quiet coup could be going on under our noses.
The Special Domestic Military Operation (SDMO) is ongoing, I think.
The absence of all parties from the usual propaganda outlets is interesting.
All dictatorships/absolute monarchies are about holding down the barons. Mainly by getting them to fight each other more than the boss. If they start doing deals without you…
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
There was a wonderful example during covid: a headline in the Telegraph saying that the British economy had been decimated, supported by a graph showing it had lost 9.97% of its value. I punched the air in happiness at the rare example of seeing it used almost totally correctly, albeit possibly inadvertently.
Going back another year, there was an equally wonderful example of misuse of the word during commentary on the six nations, in which the commentator suggested that the Scotland defence was being 'dessicated'. So wonderfully wrong...
The Scottish defence was dried out and lacking in vitality?
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
Still leaves me scratching my head wondering what Prigozhin was playing at.
The only thing I can muster is that he either got cold feet right at the last moment and desperately tried to find a way of exiting the situation, or that he was expecting things to snowball in the Kremlin to such a degree that he would have had figures in the government coming out in support, hence essentially being welcomed into Moscow by the time he arrived.
Jimmy Rushton @JimmySecUK Wagner still armed, Putin's authority publicly undermined, Shoigu absent, Prigozhin still being investigated for "armed rebellion" by the FSB, whilst numerous high profile Russian figures call for his execution.
There's been no way it could have held for very long ever since Prigozhin started publishing videos with soldiers' dead bodies and saying you f*ckers in Moscow behind your mahogany desks are sh*tting all over us and we're not going to take it any more. (I said this at the time.)
The reason why it was all "Deal, deal, peace, peace, he's going to Belarus, and all the charges have been dropped" plus "whisper whisper Shoigu and Gerasimov have been sacked" was to cool tempers among commanders below Prigozhin in Wagner and the Wagner lower ranks. If Shoigu and Gerasimov really had been sacked, the aim of the rebellion would have been achieved. The feeling in Wagner would have been OK, fine, let's allow Putin to save some face, let the media report that we didn't get to Moscow, and anyhow we deserve a rest for a month or so in Belarus, and (for some) hey, what's so bad about regularisation anyway so long as it isn't under that f*cker Shoigu.
Then he leaves Rostov, his forces have probably been defanged in some way that hasn't been reported, and after one or two days, which is where we are now, it's hell no, of course the charges haven't been dropped.
Morale. Fronts collapse when it goes.
Many regular soldiers surely aren't too keen on Wagner, given that when he's been shooting his mouth off Prigozhin hasn't only railed against Shoigu and the military staff but he's also sneered at regular soldiers, calling them a bunch of 18 year olds, etc. (Some of them are 18, but it's the way he said it.)
So Putin has to tread a careful path, and at the moment he seems to be doing it skilfully. Which just goes to show - don't f*ck with the FSB.
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
Still leaves me scratching my head wondering what Prigozhin was playing at.
The only thing I can muster is that he either got cold feet right at the last moment and desperately tried to find a way of exiting the situation, or that he was expecting things to snowball in the Kremlin to such a degree that he would have had figures in the government coming out in support, hence essentially being welcomed into Moscow by the time he arrived.
Jimmy Rushton @JimmySecUK Wagner still armed, Putin's authority publicly undermined, Shoigu absent, Prigozhin still being investigated for "armed rebellion" by the FSB, whilst numerous high profile Russian figures call for his execution.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Literally is literally no 1 on the misuse front.
The misuse of literally is out of control, especially among millenials. If you walk past a large group of people in their twenties or thirties you will almost certainly hear at least one of them say "literally" while you pass. It's not just misused though, it is also inserted into conversation when it is not technically wrong, but is redundant. It's become a verbal tic for a lot of people, and generally marks out its user as basic.
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
Still leaves me scratching my head wondering what Prigozhin was playing at.
The only thing I can muster is that he either got cold feet right at the last moment and desperately tried to find a way of exiting the situation, or that he was expecting things to snowball in the Kremlin to such a degree that he would have had figures in the government coming out in support, hence essentially being welcomed into Moscow by the time he arrived.
Jimmy Rushton @JimmySecUK Wagner still armed, Putin's authority publicly undermined, Shoigu absent, Prigozhin still being investigated for "armed rebellion" by the FSB, whilst numerous high profile Russian figures call for his execution.
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
Still leaves me scratching my head wondering what Prigozhin was playing at.
The only thing I can muster is that he either got cold feet right at the last moment and desperately tried to find a way of exiting the situation, or that he was expecting things to snowball in the Kremlin to such a degree that he would have had figures in the government coming out in support, hence essentially being welcomed into Moscow by the time he arrived.
Jimmy Rushton @JimmySecUK Wagner still armed, Putin's authority publicly undermined, Shoigu absent, Prigozhin still being investigated for "armed rebellion" by the FSB, whilst numerous high profile Russian figures call for his execution.
There's been no way it could have held for very long ever since Prigozhin started publishing videos with soldiers' dead bodies and saying you f*ckers in Moscow behind your mahogany desks are sh*tting all over us and we're not going to take it any more. (I said this at the time.)
The reason why it was all "Deal, deal, peace, peace, he's going to Belarus, and all the charges have been dropped" plus "whisper whisper Shoigu and Gerasimov have been sacked" was to cool tempers among commanders below Prigozhin in Wagner and the Wagner lower ranks. If Shoigu and Gerasimov really had been sacked, the aim of the rebellion would have been achieved. The feeling in Wagner would have been OK, fine, let's allow Putin to save some face, let the media report that we didn't get to Moscow, and anyhow we deserve a rest for a month or so in Belarus, and (for some) hey, what's so bad about regularisation anyway so long as it isn't under that f*cker Shoigu.
Then he leaves Rostov, his forces have probably been defanged in some way that hasn't been reported, and after one or two days, which is where we are now, it's hell no, of course the charges haven't been dropped.
Morale. Fronts collapse when it goes.
Many regular soldiers surely aren't too keen on Wagner, given that when he's been shooting his mouth off Prigozhin hasn't only railed against Shoigu and the military staff but he's also sneered at regular soldiers, calling them a bunch of 18 year olds, etc. (Some of them are 18, but it's the way he said it.)
So Putin has to tread a careful path, and at the moment he seems to be doing it skilfully. Which just goes to show - don't f*ck with the FSB.
"the charges haven't been dropped."
Who could have predicted that. I am shocked etc etc...
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Literally is literally no 1 on the misuse front.
The misuse of literally is out of control, especially among millenials. If you walk past a large group of people in their twenties or thirties you will almost certainly hear at least one of them say "literally" while you pass. It's not just misused though, it is also inserted into conversation when it is not technically wrong, but is redundant. It's become a verbal tic for a lot of people, and generally marks out its user as basic.
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
Still leaves me scratching my head wondering what Prigozhin was playing at.
The only thing I can muster is that he either got cold feet right at the last moment and desperately tried to find a way of exiting the situation, or that he was expecting things to snowball in the Kremlin to such a degree that he would have had figures in the government coming out in support, hence essentially being welcomed into Moscow by the time he arrived.
Jimmy Rushton @JimmySecUK Wagner still armed, Putin's authority publicly undermined, Shoigu absent, Prigozhin still being investigated for "armed rebellion" by the FSB, whilst numerous high profile Russian figures call for his execution.
There's been no way it could have held for very long ever since Prigozhin started publishing videos with soldiers' dead bodies and saying you f*ckers in Moscow behind your mahogany desks are sh*tting all over us and we're not going to take it any more. (I said this at the time.)
The reason why it was all "Deal, deal, peace, peace, he's going to Belarus, and all the charges have been dropped" plus "whisper whisper Shoigu and Gerasimov have been sacked" was to cool tempers among commanders below Prigozhin in Wagner and the Wagner lower ranks. If Shoigu and Gerasimov really had been sacked, the aim of the rebellion would have been achieved. The feeling in Wagner would have been OK, fine, let's allow Putin to save some face, let the media report that we didn't get to Moscow, and anyhow we deserve a rest for a month or so in Belarus, and (for some) hey, what's so bad about regularisation anyway so long as it isn't under that f*cker Shoigu.
Then he leaves Rostov, his forces have probably been defanged in some way that hasn't been reported, and after one or two days, which is where we are now, it's hell no, of course the charges haven't been dropped.
Morale. Fronts collapse when it goes.
Many regular soldiers surely aren't too keen on Wagner, given that when he's been shooting his mouth off Prigozhin hasn't only railed against Shoigu and the military staff but he's also sneered at regular soldiers, calling them a bunch of 18 year olds, etc. (Some of them are 18, but it's the way he said it.)
So Putin has to tread a careful path, and at the moment he seems to be doing it skilfully. Which just goes to show - don't f*ck with the FSB.
Thanks Vlad for that update.
Putin looks weak, incredibly weak, and has allowed others to gain prominence in resolving this rather than doing so himself.
He's now looking more like a latter-day Yeltsin than the master manipulator he's tried to be this past quarter century.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Literally is literally no 1 on the misuse front.
The misuse of literally is out of control, especially among millenials. If you walk past a large group of people in their twenties or thirties you will almost certainly hear at least one of them say "literally" while you pass. It's not just misused though, it is also inserted into conversation when it is not technically wrong, but is redundant. It's become a verbal tic for a lot of people, and generally marks out its user as basic.
Is it good or bad that I, as a former Cons member and Cameroonite Tory had to google Steve Barclay?
Meanwhile if we're talking about Steves I still think that Baker could be the right one to be party leader. V sensible bloke, disagree with him 100% on Brexit but he seems to be smart enough to be pragmatic now that we're here.
I've bet accordingly.
He’s a Cambridge educated lawyer, misunderestimate him at your own risk.
Suella Braverman is also a Cambridge educated lawyer.
The next Tory leadership election could herald a golden age for the Tory party and the country if Braverman and Barclay make it to the final two.
He's a Cambridge educated historian, who then trained as a lawyer.
So Suella it is.
Portillo was also a Cambridge educated historian, Ken Clarke and Michael Howard Cambridge educated lawyers too.
Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
Ducks as historians and lawyers here react.
Why? If they wanted to be engineers or physicists or mathematicians or accountants or work in industry those might be more relevant but law and history are more relevant for lawmaking and government policy. Albeit Thatcher did Chemistry of course but then did a law course as well after
Well my comment was just to get a reaction, and just to add to the wind up, is it possible that the reason they did not do, say Physics or Maths was because they lacked the ability to do it (that is my experience). I doubt most people did their specific degrees because they wanted a career in it (with the exception of vocations eg medical degrees). They did them because of a talent in that area or an interest.
Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not? you must think to some extent about history and the law, by virtue of being on here, and if you have thought about them and concluded that they can be practised without the exercise of logical thinking you are not going to win any awards for general intellectual prowess.
Well maybe you have proved the point as you have made an illogical assumption. I said Engineers, Physics and Mathematics require logical thinking. I did not say (all or any) Historians and Lawyers lack logical thinking as can be proved by the posts from many on here. However you would be correct in assuming that I believe given two samples of both I would be inclined to assume the group of scientist would be more logical/intelligent, although I would also assume that sample would have a greater selection of oddballs in them as well (as per @HYUFD assumption which I do agree with).
Anyway after that ridiculous generalisation by me the other obvious flaw in your reply was how your reply started with 'Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not?' by the fact that you actually replied.
You are really bad at this, aren't you? The posts went
Someone: Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
You: Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
That can only mean that you think PPE/law/history do nt require logical thinking. There is no other way of interpreting it. It means that, or it is pointless.
So we have established that logical parsing of your own output is beyond you.
Maybe you should debate with someone who hasn't done a degree in Logic?
Hahaha.
So, explain how your post does not imply that PPE/law/history do not require logical thinking.
Got to go. House clearance to sort. Come back to me in a few hours.
Hahaha.
Have you got a screwloose or something? I have just arrived at my deceased father's house waiting for a house clearance quote. When I said I would get back to you I meant it. Some of us have other things to do than post here. Honestly.
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
Still leaves me scratching my head wondering what Prigozhin was playing at.
The only thing I can muster is that he either got cold feet right at the last moment and desperately tried to find a way of exiting the situation, or that he was expecting things to snowball in the Kremlin to such a degree that he would have had figures in the government coming out in support, hence essentially being welcomed into Moscow by the time he arrived.
Jimmy Rushton @JimmySecUK Wagner still armed, Putin's authority publicly undermined, Shoigu absent, Prigozhin still being investigated for "armed rebellion" by the FSB, whilst numerous high profile Russian figures call for his execution.
There's been no way it could have held for very long ever since Prigozhin started publishing videos with soldiers' dead bodies and saying you f*ckers in Moscow behind your mahogany desks are sh*tting all over us and we're not going to take it any more. (I said this at the time.)
The reason why it was all "Deal, deal, peace, peace, he's going to Belarus, and all the charges have been dropped" plus "whisper whisper Shoigu and Gerasimov have been sacked" was to cool tempers among commanders below Prigozhin in Wagner and the Wagner lower ranks. If Shoigu and Gerasimov really had been sacked, the aim of the rebellion would have been achieved. The feeling in Wagner would have been OK, fine, let's allow Putin to save some face, let the media report that we didn't get to Moscow, and anyhow we deserve a rest for a month or so in Belarus, and (for some) hey, what's so bad about regularisation anyway so long as it isn't under that f*cker Shoigu.
Then he leaves Rostov, his forces have probably been defanged in some way that hasn't been reported, and after one or two days, which is where we are now, it's hell no, of course the charges haven't been dropped.
Morale. Fronts collapse when it goes.
Many regular soldiers surely aren't too keen on Wagner, given that when he's been shooting his mouth off Prigozhin hasn't only railed against Shoigu and the military staff but he's also sneered at regular soldiers, calling them a bunch of 18 year olds, etc. (Some of them are 18, but it's the way he said it.)
So Putin has to tread a careful path, and at the moment he seems to be doing it skilfully. Which just goes to show - don't f*ck with the FSB.
"the charges haven't been dropped."
Who could have predicted that. I am shocked etc etc...
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Literally is literally no 1 on the misuse front.
“Refute” is a bugbear of mine. It isn’t a synonym of “deny”.
Also “surreal”. Scoring a last minute winner against opposition from a higher division is not the same thing as a clock melting over a dead tree branch in an impossible landscape.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Literally is literally no 1 on the misuse front.
“Refute” is a bugbear of mine. It isn’t a synonym of “deny”.
Also “surreal”. Scoring a last minute winner against opposition from a higher division is not the same thing as a clock melting over a dead tree branch in an impossible landscape.
To be fair....is something that i have notice has creeped in during the past few years....every answer starts with "yeah, no, yeah, to be fair"....
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Literally is literally no 1 on the misuse front.
The misuse of literally is out of control, especially among millenials. If you walk past a large group of people in their twenties or thirties you will almost certainly hear at least one of them say "literally" while you pass. It's not just misused though, it is also inserted into conversation when it is not technically wrong, but is redundant. It's become a verbal tic for a lot of people, and generally marks out its user as basic.
I think it is widely understood as an intensifier rather than literally having its literal meaning now. Fusty types like me still use it 'properly', and find amusement in people like Jamie Redknapp saying 'he's literally been on fire this season'; 'he's literally turned his opponent inside out' etc. but I have accepted that usage has changed and we have to move on.
I still pronounce 'harassment' to rhyme with 'embarrassment' too (without, fnarr, the hard 'ass') too.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Literally is literally no 1 on the misuse front.
The misuse of literally is out of control, especially among millenials. If you walk past a large group of people in their twenties or thirties you will almost certainly hear at least one of them say "literally" while you pass. It's not just misused though, it is also inserted into conversation when it is not technically wrong, but is redundant. It's become a verbal tic for a lot of people, and generally marks out its user as basic.
True. Literally.
'Literally' being used to mean 'not literally, but I just really mean this' - as in 'my mouth was literally on fire' is old hat now. But I first noticed the misuse that OLB refers to above about six years ago when someone described his new bathroom as 'it's literally a nice light grey colour'. Since then, at least two further misuses have become common: incredibly, it is becoming increasingly common to hear it as a filler in a way we might once have used 'er', or, 20 years ago, mighy have heard 'like' used. You also hear it used in the sense of 'I can't be bothered to complete this sentence: you can guess the details from here, surely?' as in "It was just, literally ..." Audaciously, I have also heard it used by pre-teens in a way that once we might have used FFS - as in "Mum! Literally! I've got no clean socks!"
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
I refute that.
At this moment in time, that statement is not fit for purpose
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
I refute that.
At this moment in time, that statement is not fit for purpose
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Literally is literally no 1 on the misuse front.
The misuse of literally is out of control, especially among millenials. If you walk past a large group of people in their twenties or thirties you will almost certainly hear at least one of them say "literally" while you pass. It's not just misused though, it is also inserted into conversation when it is not technically wrong, but is redundant. It's become a verbal tic for a lot of people, and generally marks out its user as basic.
I think it is widely understood as an intensifier rather than literally having its literal meaning now. Fusty types like me still use it 'properly', and find amusement in people like Jamie Redknapp saying 'he's literally been on fire this season'; 'he's literally turned his opponent inside out' etc. but I have accepted that usage has changed and we have to move on.
I still pronounce 'harassment' to rhyme with 'embarrassment' too (without, fnarr, the hard 'ass') too.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Literally is literally no 1 on the misuse front.
The misuse of literally is out of control, especially among millenials. If you walk past a large group of people in their twenties or thirties you will almost certainly hear at least one of them say "literally" while you pass. It's not just misused though, it is also inserted into conversation when it is not technically wrong, but is redundant. It's become a verbal tic for a lot of people, and generally marks out its user as basic.
I think it is widely understood as an intensifier rather than literally having its literal meaning now. Fusty types like me still use it 'properly', and find amusement in people like Jamie Redknapp saying 'he's literally been on fire this season'; 'he's literally turned his opponent inside out' etc. but I have accepted that usage has changed and we have to move on.
I still pronounce 'harassment' to rhyme with 'embarrassment' too (without, fnarr, the hard 'ass') too.
I used to drive my PhD supervisor mad when discussing potential algorithms in which I would informally state "well I think that would be exponentially harder".....as short hand for its going to be bloody computationally expensive so not an option...when of course there is Big O notation when talking about the cost of an algorithm. So many pencils leads snapped by force of being pressed into the pad after being triggered by my misuse of exponentially.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
Yes, lots of examples of that, although right now, under pressure, all eyes on me, I can't think of a single one.
Literally is literally no 1 on the misuse front.
The misuse of literally is out of control, especially among millenials. If you walk past a large group of people in their twenties or thirties you will almost certainly hear at least one of them say "literally" while you pass. It's not just misused though, it is also inserted into conversation when it is not technically wrong, but is redundant. It's become a verbal tic for a lot of people, and generally marks out its user as basic.
I think it is widely understood as an intensifier rather than literally having its literal meaning now. Fusty types like me still use it 'properly', and find amusement in people like Jamie Redknapp saying 'he's literally been on fire this season'; 'he's literally turned his opponent inside out' etc. but I have accepted that usage has changed and we have to move on.
I still pronounce 'harassment' to rhyme with 'embarrassment' too (without, fnarr, the hard 'ass') too.
The reason for the rear-guard action here (though I will defend the meaning of pretty much all words) is that when used as an intsensifier, it's use is not just different to but the exact opposite of it's literal meaning. And if 'literally' no longer means 'literally', which word should I use when I mean 'literally'?
I want people to start using "figuratively" to mean literally. What a world we could have if we could figuratively have those two words swapped in meaning. I would literally orgasm.
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
What new word did little Donald learn today?
He doesn't know what decimate means. He thinks it means cutting 50% or whatever other numbers he has in his mind.
Decimate is either one of the words in the English language that is most widely misused, or its usage has strayed so far from its original meaning that the latter is no longer relevant. I tend to go with the second statement.
'Parse' is one I've recently noticed. It originally had a very technical meaning concerning grammatical analysis, but I've seen it increasing used as a mere synonym of 'understand / make sense of'. I wonder if people have heard about computers 'parsing' sentences (again a specifically technical process) and misconstrued what actually being said.
Shame, he did seem a genuinely nice bloke, not alway the case in the football community*.
*community another candidate for a term that grates due to misuse/over use. I believe I heard 'the small monkey torture community' used on the news last week.
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
Still leaves me scratching my head wondering what Prigozhin was playing at.
The only thing I can muster is that he either got cold feet right at the last moment and desperately tried to find a way of exiting the situation, or that he was expecting things to snowball in the Kremlin to such a degree that he would have had figures in the government coming out in support, hence essentially being welcomed into Moscow by the time he arrived.
Jimmy Rushton @JimmySecUK Wagner still armed, Putin's authority publicly undermined, Shoigu absent, Prigozhin still being investigated for "armed rebellion" by the FSB, whilst numerous high profile Russian figures call for his execution.
There's been no way it could have held for very long ever since Prigozhin started publishing videos with soldiers' dead bodies and saying you f*ckers in Moscow behind your mahogany desks are sh*tting all over us and we're not going to take it any more. (I said this at the time.)
The reason why it was all "Deal, deal, peace, peace, he's going to Belarus, and all the charges have been dropped" plus "whisper whisper Shoigu and Gerasimov have been sacked" was to cool tempers among commanders below Prigozhin in Wagner and the Wagner lower ranks. If Shoigu and Gerasimov really had been sacked, the aim of the rebellion would have been achieved. The feeling in Wagner would have been OK, fine, let's allow Putin to save some face, let the media report that we didn't get to Moscow, and anyhow we deserve a rest for a month or so in Belarus, and (for some) hey, what's so bad about regularisation anyway so long as it isn't under that f*cker Shoigu.
Then he leaves Rostov, his forces have probably been defanged in some way that hasn't been reported, and after one or two days, which is where we are now, it's hell no, of course the charges haven't been dropped.
Morale. Fronts collapse when it goes.
Many regular soldiers surely aren't too keen on Wagner, given that when he's been shooting his mouth off Prigozhin hasn't only railed against Shoigu and the military staff but he's also sneered at regular soldiers, calling them a bunch of 18 year olds, etc. (Some of them are 18, but it's the way he said it.)
So Putin has to tread a careful path, and at the moment he seems to be doing it skilfully. Which just goes to show - don't f*ck with the FSB.
Thanks Vlad for that update.
Putin looks weak, incredibly weak, and has allowed others to gain prominence in resolving this rather than doing so himself.
He's now looking more like a latter-day Yeltsin than the master manipulator he's tried to be this past quarter century.
Well, quite. If Putin was in such a strong place it would never have been allowed to get to the position it did on Saturday
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
Still leaves me scratching my head wondering what Prigozhin was playing at.
The only thing I can muster is that he either got cold feet right at the last moment and desperately tried to find a way of exiting the situation, or that he was expecting things to snowball in the Kremlin to such a degree that he would have had figures in the government coming out in support, hence essentially being welcomed into Moscow by the time he arrived.
Jimmy Rushton @JimmySecUK Wagner still armed, Putin's authority publicly undermined, Shoigu absent, Prigozhin still being investigated for "armed rebellion" by the FSB, whilst numerous high profile Russian figures call for his execution.
You mean the Russian government deployed lies to achieve a goal and, when that goal was achieved, carried on as if they'd never been spoken? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.
Comments
As far as zoning etc is concerned, I'm perfectly fine with that. Pick your agricultural, natural and residential zones etc and the let the Council get out of the way of development within residential zones, even if natural/agricultural zones can't be developed. Which incidentally can work with 'green belt' desires, since you don't zone the green belt residential then.
Now of course personally I'd prefer the residential zones to be bigger than they are now, but that's a semi-separate debate.
Beyond that though, I am saying since we have a shortage of 3 million homes today, and we don't have 3 million homes with planning permission let alone under construction, then JFDI applies. Just frigging do it.
Get the homes built. Better to not be homeless.
Once the homes are built, of course better ideally to have commerce, schools etc - but in the mean time better to have a home than no home.
And of course since this is the UK, not Australia or Canada, even if there's no school [yet] within your area there will be schools not very far away. This isn't rural Alberta or Western Australia where your nearest town is 400 km away.
As I said, my kids go to a different school, in a different town, than the one where I live. There is a small primary and secondary school where I live, which kind of used to be a village but is now a new town [the overwhelming majority of houses in this town did not exist in 2010], but they are small and I like my kids school so we're not transferring them. My kids still have places in the school over the river and I drive them there. Oh and if I didn't drive, there are school buses that come down our road to collect kids to take them to where my kids go to school. I'm guessing we're far from unique in crossing the river to get to school, and there's an option via dedicated school buses for those who don't drive.
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/02/04/the-liz-truss-comeback-is-on/
I don't mind admitting when I'm wrong, fortunately it is usually a once in a decade occurrence.
It is rather arrogant to suggest just because you are good at Maths and Science you are automatically brilliant at English and History too, not least because you actually need to read books on History for example and Historians works to be good at it and at the top end do archival research. Some Doctors may well be well read in History too for instance but by no means all are
Putin, for example, shows considerable interest in both.
Eventually, nearly everyone reaches a maths threshold, where the degree of abstraction suddenly and painfully stops fitting in their brain. That's true even for people with maths/science degrees. It's just a question of when; for some it's GCSE, for others it's A Level, for others it's graduate/postgraduate study. But it comes for everyone in the end.
The only exceptions are those who quit while they are still ahead- for example by doing maths A Levels, then PPE, then ending up in a position where you can plan for everyone to study maths for longer...
In my school we had setting and streaming and the kids in the top set in maths and science also tended to be the top set in English and other subjects.
Science and maths requires quite a bit of rounding to do well, pun semi-intended. You need to be able to think logically, break things down, understand linguistics and that assists you in languages, history, geography etc too.
That doesn't make you a nerd.
There are some people who can do maths but are poor at English, but in my experience its very much the exception not the norm.
Both Braverman and Badenoch have safe seats so should be available. Penny’s is less so, but she has some positive name recognition etc being the High Priestess of Swords however and I suspect will probably get through a GE (but given the way polls are looking it’s not certain).
I’m not sure I see any of them dragging the Tories back to electability in one term. Mordaunt is the most likeable and personable, but will probably have to deal with a lot of carping from the right. Badenoch is an accomplished performer and will land some blows, but suffers from the Ron DeSantis issue of being purely defined by being anti-woke (which may chime with a lot of peoples sensibilities, but not many will value it above the economy, public services etc). I think we all know Braverman would be a disaster.
I mean, I like trains, ffs. So definitely not a nerd.
Anyway after that ridiculous generalisation by me the other obvious flaw in your reply was how your reply started with 'Bit of a fail as a wind up, is it not?' by the fact that you actually replied.
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4067252-trump-takes-aim-at-ev-industry-during-speech-to-michigan-republicans/
Absurd Luddism - but this is perhaps the last electoral cycle someone might get away with such gibberish.
Like the last para.
See @BartholomewRoberts post also.
The tech flaw that lets hackers control surveillance cameras
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65975446
Bit of a piss poor story by the BBC to be honest though....we deliberately got a camera with 6 year old firmware and put it on a network with no protection, so we could hack. Its a bit like saying I got a 6 year old unpatched version of Windows XP running no firewall or antivirus / antimalware and a security professional found that it was dead easy to get into.
Someone: Cambridge educated politicians tend to do law or history at university (Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting was history too on the Labour side from Cambridge), whereas Oxford politicians Tory or Labour or LD are almost all PPE
You: Shame most of them don't do useful stuff like Engineering, Physics, Mathematics which require logical thinking.
That can only mean that you think PPE/law/history do nt require logical thinking. There is no other way of interpreting it. It means that, or it is pointless.
So we have established that logical parsing of your own output is beyond you.
Endangered marsh fritillary butterfly makes a comeback in Lake District
Species thriving again after ponies and cattle replace grazing sheep to allow growth of wildflowers
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/26/endangered-marsh-fritillary-butterfly-comeback-lake-district
It's a strange sort of poetry- that rubbish stuff that doesn't rhyme or have a story. Or the kind of music that doesn't have a tune and would never get played on Classic FM. A lot of my mathmo friends were pretty decent in some area of the arts.
So, explain how your post does not imply that PPE/law/history do not require logical thinking.
For this Lithuania offers to begin construction of garrisons in 3 cities starting as early as 2025. These are to include training grounds, barracks and sustainment facilities.
https://twitter.com/Jeff21461/status/1673278487845650432
Just as well they prepare for any surprises.
Reportedly their intelligence services heard about Prigozhin's move some time after PB.
"The investigation of the criminal case against Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Private Military Company, accused of organizing an armed mutiny, has not been closed, a source in the Russian Prosecutor General's Office confirmed to TASS:"
https://twitter.com/tassagency_en/status/1673259839538044932
Barclay is still 25/1 in a few places; Gove is 33/1 - I reckon there's a little value there. For the brave, Truss is 100/1.
BetVictor have JRM at 30
My maths set 1 colleagues could totally get on board with 'atoms are like rubber balls' - the word 'like' means that the statement is not technically false, even if like is doing a lot of work. What they - we - struggled with - was metaphor: I remember studying a poem which contained the line 'his fists were stones'; pretty much all of us interpreted this to mean his fists had literally petrified, for reasons unclear. We were 15. We weren't stupid, just not entirely comfortable with people not saying what they meant.
Thinking more broadly and historically about both the scindy and brexit movements -
Seems to me, they started off as, essentially, a tax revolt - then the proponents realised they needed win power and generate democratic consent and had to make ever increasing concessions to implement their agenda - and both ended up failing at their original aim.
There are interesting lessons there.
Was failure inevitable?
The only thing I can muster is that he either got cold feet right at the last moment and desperately tried to find a way of exiting the situation, or that he was expecting things to snowball in the Kremlin to such a degree that he would have had figures in the government coming out in support, hence essentially being welcomed into Moscow by the time he arrived.
Helicopters collecting people from Glastonbury this morning
Under any definition of what makes a language, each of maths, logic and music follow those rules and linguistics.
There is as you say an elegance and can a beauty to it. Its a different kind of language, but its a language nonetheless. Which is why people who are good at maths tend to also be good at languages, the skills from one set of linguistics are transferrable to another.
Just look at this shit show,
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12233419/Volunteers-work-great-Glastonbury-clean-sea-rubbish-left-behind.html
A few years back, I went to a Rock festival in Germany with 100k+ people and it was nothing like this at the end.
I think this would be a disaster. It bakes in dependency on the car and the need for continuous expensive upgrades to roads and bridges for generations.
I also think that the JFDI direction will not actually deliver much more housing. Because as I have pointed out before, the housebuilding industry deliver about 100-150 k houses a year and nothing more and all the signs are that they would continue to do this under any new policy.
There would be some SME/self building going on but the industry is small and it is not going to be at any significant scale. It won't seriously come on stream until capacity in the construction industry is massively increased. And on these projects, someone else still has to build and fund the roads, the streetlights, the drains etc.
Prices may fall because of oversupply but they would quickly hit a level where new housebuilding becomes uneconomic in many areas because of build cost inflation. So my best guess is that you would quickly end up with lots of empty plots and a recession.
If you look through the post war history of housebuilding it is very clear that the only time the government delivers 300,000 houses a year is when it builds half of them itself.
It will probably be deleterious to legacy us car makers, though. And definitely for the car dealers. Who seem a very Trumpet group - wacko Republicans are definitely their thing.
Pedantically, it just means divide 90/10, so you can argue that doing something nasty to the 90 rather than the 10 fits the bill.
Trying to set up a large house to be as energy-efficient as possible, while avoiding Google/Amazon cloud services and Chinese hardware, is now way more difficult than it should be. Hell, it’s more difficult now than it was a decade ago - these things are supposed to get easier with time!
No wonder AI is taking over journalism.
Jimmy Rushton
@JimmySecUK
Wagner still armed, Putin's authority publicly undermined, Shoigu absent, Prigozhin still being investigated for "armed rebellion" by the FSB, whilst numerous high profile Russian figures call for his execution.
There's no way this situation holds.
https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/1673266782570774529
The tying you into a specific cloud service is really insidious. You no longer buying a tech item, you are renting it only while you subscribe, and is it extremely difficult to opt of having to partake in this model (unless you are happy to buy from a Chinese company that who knows what they are doing).
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/preparing-for-power/2023/06/labour-brexit-european-union-time-running-out
“He isn’t creating the space and time is running out,” said one insider. “You can’t make this Brexit work. It doesn’t work.
Leave-sceptics point to Labour’s first “mission for government”, which is to achieve the highest economic growth in the G7. “I don’t see how we do that without single market access in some form,” said one source."
Firstly there's no need for it all to be dependent on the car, in fact the opposite is possible too. If existing residential zones become denser and build up then that can lead to public transport becoming more efficient, not less. Not that I have any objection to the motor vehicle, but I think my proposal if implemented would see places like London seeing building up happening and I wouldn't expect those to be all homes relying upon cars.
Secondly all the evidence from around the planet is that without planning being an insurmountable obstacle is that SME/self-building should happen at a very significant scale. In almost every country with my proposed system, SME/self-builds happen at orders of magnitude more than here.
As far as funding the roads etc is concerned that needs to happen either way, planning or no planning. That's what the tax system is for. We pay our taxes, we need roads and transportation. Politicians need to do their job. If you want to put a tax on new houses that goes to a pot to pay towards new roads, then I have no philosophical objection to that, but we pay our taxes either way.
As far as prices are concerned, too much of the price of new homes currently is planning itself. If that ceases to be the case, then prices can fall without hurting development. If land becomes cheaper, but taxed more [two prongs to this] then land-banking would never happen and people are encouraged to get on with it rather than to dawdle.
Finally its very clear in the history of housebuilding around the planet, that when competition is allowed to flourish and demand is high then people can and do get on with it. The city of Tokyo alone [population 14 million] has consistently delivered more new homes than the entirety of England combined. As a former cheese loving Prime Minister might have said: That. Is. A. Disgrace.
Saying that our current system isn't working, so therefore reform is pointless, rather misses the point don't you think?
The alternation between complete Free For All and weird restrictions is accepted. I recall a couple of cousins not understanding how a country where you could just open a hair dressers (in a shop) without a specific permit could exist.
For example - Texas. The land where you can do anything, right? Yet land usage is controlled by not allowing you to dig/connect to sewage systems without a permit. Or even dig a cesspit.
So what does it mean that he didn’t? Perhaps it’s nothing and it’s just that he didn’t want to look like he was eating humble pie or drawing more attention to the issue. But is there a possible scenario where he is no longer in control of events, and was ordered not to by someone? Most people do theorise he is not in the Kremlin right now.
A quiet coup could be going on under our noses.
Going back another year, there was an equally wonderful example of misuse of the word during commentary on the six nations, in which the commentator suggested that the Scotland defence was being 'dessicated'. So wonderfully wrong...
The absence of all parties from the usual propaganda outlets is interesting.
All dictatorships/absolute monarchies are about holding down the barons. Mainly by getting them to fight each other more than the boss. If they start doing deals without you…
Not sure how wrong that is. 🤔
That has to be the weakest Team Sky / Ineos ever for Tour de France.
The reason why it was all "Deal, deal, peace, peace, he's going to Belarus, and all the charges have been dropped" plus "whisper whisper Shoigu and Gerasimov have been sacked" was to cool tempers among commanders below Prigozhin in Wagner and the Wagner lower ranks. If Shoigu and Gerasimov really had been sacked, the aim of the rebellion would have been achieved. The feeling in Wagner would have been OK, fine, let's allow Putin to save some face, let the media report that we didn't get to Moscow, and anyhow we deserve a rest for a month or so in Belarus, and (for some) hey, what's so bad about regularisation anyway so long as it isn't under that f*cker Shoigu.
Then he leaves Rostov, his forces have probably been defanged in some way that hasn't been reported, and after one or two days, which is where we are now, it's hell no, of course the charges haven't been dropped.
Morale. Fronts collapse when it goes.
Many regular soldiers surely aren't too keen on Wagner, given that when he's been shooting his mouth off Prigozhin hasn't only railed against Shoigu and the military staff but he's also sneered at regular soldiers, calling them a bunch of 18 year olds, etc. (Some of them are 18, but it's the way he said it.)
So Putin has to tread a careful path, and at the moment he seems to be doing it skilfully. Which just goes to show - don't f*ck with the FSB.
Who could have predicted that. I am shocked etc etc...
Putin looks weak, incredibly weak, and has allowed others to gain prominence in resolving this rather than doing so himself.
He's now looking more like a latter-day Yeltsin than the master manipulator he's tried to be this past quarter century.
(Though the title ought to read 'helped doom'.)
The Liberal Giant Who Doomed Roe
His work underpins the Dobbs decision. His legacy matters enormously to what's next for constitutional law.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/john-hart-ely-dobbs-roe-legacy.html
Korea's age system to change from Wednesday
All Koreans to become one or even two years younger under international system
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2023/06/356_353696.html
Also “surreal”. Scoring a last minute winner against opposition from a higher division is not the same thing as a clock melting over a dead tree branch in an impossible landscape.
I still pronounce 'harassment' to rhyme with 'embarrassment' too (without, fnarr, the hard 'ass') too.
Audaciously, I have also heard it used by pre-teens in a way that once we might have used FFS - as in "Mum! Literally! I've got no clean socks!"
*community another candidate for a term that grates due to misuse/over use. I believe I heard 'the small monkey torture community' used on the news last week.