I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
Close! We're in Zone 4, and we've got a diesel Volvo saloon :
So, does that mean you’re anti?
Yes, we got a letter from TfL via the DVLA explaining what's happening in August - it openly admits ULEZ is a revenue-earning exercise "to fund public transport". I mean £12.50 a DAY?
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
Close! We're in Zone 4, and we've got a diesel Volvo saloon :
So, does that mean you’re anti?
Yes, we got a letter from TfL via the DVLA explaining what's happening in August - it openly admits ULEZ is a revenue-earning exercise "to fund public transport". I mean £12.50 a DAY?
24 hours a day seven days a week as well. Should have started at £5 a day for outer London and only 7-7 when congestion is a problem.
Hmm, almost as low as in the Trussonomic trough. Mortgages increasingly preoccupying folk as rates go up and more people come to the end of fixed deals? And (as pigeon said) renters finding themselves up shit creek, even more so than houseowners (however partial)?
Maybe we could send mortgage defaulters to Rwanda and add £63,000 to their default? It could be like a big workhouse until they pay off their debt.
It would take pressure of the housing market and is in line with other sound Conservative policies for a happier Britain...
Workhouses would be a far more economical model to deal with the destitute.
Can you imagine the guardian if the tories ever said workhouses what a good idea?
I would hope the condemnation would be universal.
I wasn't saying they were a good idea. Merely saying they would be politically dynamite
If anyone can pull it off PM Suella could.
Well if Suella ever ends up as pm I suspect we are in end of days country in any case
After the rapid Trussian era it seemed as though every Tory MP might get to be PM at some point, if only for a day. They might yet still try it - good luck targeting an attack against the Leader then, Labour!
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I’d be interested to see a ‘what if Tories were still led by Boris’ version of this polling.
You could certainly add some that 9% RefUK total to the Tories then
...and even more of that 26% Tory total to the LDs and Labour.
Labour maybe, the lib dems will not end up on anymore seats than they currently get
You think the LDs will end up with just 12 or so seats?
Now, I'm pretty LibDemsceptic, but even I think they're going to make gains. Simply, if the LD vote is largely flat on 2019, while the Conservative vote is down (say) five percentage points, they'll win a couple.
I'd say Cheltenham, Winchester, and Guilford all look highly vulnerable to them, and all have seen the LDs surge at the local level.
Yes I do for the two simple reasons they have pissed off people with 3 policy's
1) advocating a wealth tax which hurts those with mortgages 2) they are seen as rejoiners which annoys brexiters 3) They have suggested a 300£ a month to help out people with mortgages which annoys renters while not get mortgagers to vote for them as they know the chance of the LD's being in a position to deliver this is slightly less than a snowball surviving in hell
So when you exclude brexiters, mortgagees and renters how well do you think they will do?
I think you are making the mistake of thinking that people vote on the basis of policy.
The LibDems were, and are becoming again, the general protest vote repository and also the anti-Conservative repository in the leafy South. No-one expects the LibDems to end up as the Party in power, so interest in their actual policies is marginal.
Those two repositories are pretty big. And to make gains they don't actually need to increase their number of votes, they merely need to not lose as many as the Conservatives. (See 1997, when they managed to lose around a fifth of their voters, but more than doubled their number of seats.)
I was going to say that Littlejohn shouldn’t give up the day job.
But, on second thoughts, he should probably give that up as well.
Let's not forget it wasn't Labour, the Liberal Democrats or the Greens who toppled Johnson. It was Johnson himself aided and abetted by the Conservative Parliamentary Party.
Instead of trying to blame "Remainers", Littlejohn and those like him who bemoan the departure of Johnson should be blaming the Conservative Party.
Some do of course, and it's one reason quite a few Johnsonian MPs very early on seemed quite happy at the prospect of losing.
I believe the line that is used to reconcile the 'blame remainers' and 'blame MPs' line is to say that inexplicably a majority of Tory MPs suddenly decided, for no reason at all, to fall under the spell of the remainer opposition.
Not only did the House Speaker bat way above his league here, he (allegedly) also managed to get some group sex into the action. Some people really are desperate for favours.
Interesting to hear the idea a depleted Conservative Party after the next election would mean a reduced leadership contest.
It didn't in 1997 - there were six contenders.
The likes of Braverman (Fareham, 331st on the Tory marginal seats list), Badenoch (Saffron Walden, 320th), Dowden (Hertsmere, 293rd), Cleverly (Braintree, 349th), and Barclay (NE Cambridgeshire, 360th) would all survive if the Conservatives went below 100 seats.
You also have Alex Burghart (Brentwood & Ongar, 356th) as your unfancied long shot outsider.
Blanche L, with respect to the map of ethnic Europe you posted to last thread, it's very interesting, and gives pretty good picture of situation when it was created between WWI and WW2.
HOWEVER note that it does have a few inaccuracies, which interestingly pertain to Italy, where the map was published during the rule of Il Duce, which almost certainly explains why:
> in far northwest corner of Italy, map shows Val d'Aosta as being Italian-speaking, when the local majority language was (and still is) French
> in northeastern Italy, south of Austria the South Tyrol region is shown as being of mixed language, when majority was German (and still is).
> shows division of French between south & north, without noting at all the more significant (IIRC) differences within Italy, for example Sardinian which is NOT strictly speaking Italian.
> map does show Albanian and Greek language islands in southern Italy, as well as Slavic-language speakers in far northeastern Italy, including areas now in Slovenia and Croatia, albeit while understating them compared with Italians.
Addendum - Also note that this, and most similar maps, minimize URBAN ethnic concentrations, for example Yiddish-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe.
I’d be interested to see a ‘what if Tories were still led by Boris’ version of this polling.
You could certainly add some that 9% RefUK total to the Tories then
...and even more of that 26% Tory total to the LDs and Labour.
Labour maybe, the lib dems will not end up on anymore seats than they currently get
You think the LDs will end up with just 12 or so seats?
Now, I'm pretty LibDemsceptic, but even I think they're going to make gains. Simply, if the LD vote is largely flat on 2019, while the Conservative vote is down (say) five percentage points, they'll win a couple.
I'd say Cheltenham, Winchester, and Guilford all look highly vulnerable to them, and all have seen the LDs surge at the local level.
Yes I do for the two simple reasons they have pissed off people with 3 policy's
1) advocating a wealth tax which hurts those with mortgages 2) they are seen as rejoiners which annoys brexiters 3) They have suggested a 300£ a month to help out people with mortgages which annoys renters while not get mortgagers to vote for them as they know the chance of the LD's being in a position to deliver this is slightly less than a snowball surviving in hell
So when you exclude brexiters, mortgagees and renters how well do you think they will do?
But you seem not to notice that Brexit now polls worse than a turd in a swimming pool. Rejoin is a vote winner for the LDs.
I reckon on 25 seats after the GE.
Because those polls never point out the reality, I will start taking them seriously when they ask do you support rejoining the eu if it means joining the euro, schengen and having no opt outs.
Well that would be better than the half-arsed membership we had prior to Brexit.
I make no judgement on whether it would be better. My point was that if it is pointed out the enthusiam for rejoin would be substantially less
Still a big driver of the LD vote. Not that the LD plan is to Rejoin immediately, just the SM.
I wouldn’t think they would win any of these Red Wall seats, but in the Blue Wall Rejoin is a definite vote winner.
The Tories are peering into the abyss. Under a hundred seats is very possible on current polls.
The Tories are the abyss these days. Just a big empty space where a party used to be.
The Tories are not just empty. They are a void within a vacuum surrounded by a vast inanition.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I mean I’m not generally in favour of cancelling people for what they say, but in what world could that possibly be remotely acceptable?
America.
Remember Trump fans chant 'Jews will not replace us.'
T.S. Eliot, in 1946, said the holocaust was all very well but if the jews kept breeding we were only a couple of generations away from having exactly the same problems as it was meant to solve. I wish I could say that this exposes the essential worthlessness of The Waste Land and 4 Quartets, but it doesn't. But I have a real ethical dilemma, is it still right to read him?
I’d be interested to see a ‘what if Tories were still led by Boris’ version of this polling.
You could certainly add some that 9% RefUK total to the Tories then
...and even more of that 26% Tory total to the LDs and Labour.
Labour maybe, the lib dems will not end up on anymore seats than they currently get
You think the LDs will end up with just 12 or so seats?
Now, I'm pretty LibDemsceptic, but even I think they're going to make gains. Simply, if the LD vote is largely flat on 2019, while the Conservative vote is down (say) five percentage points, they'll win a couple.
I'd say Cheltenham, Winchester, and Guilford all look highly vulnerable to them, and all have seen the LDs surge at the local level.
Yes I do for the two simple reasons they have pissed off people with 3 policy's
1) advocating a wealth tax which hurts those with mortgages 2) they are seen as rejoiners which annoys brexiters 3) They have suggested a 300£ a month to help out people with mortgages which annoys renters while not get mortgagers to vote for them as they know the chance of the LD's being in a position to deliver this is slightly less than a snowball surviving in hell
So when you exclude brexiters, mortgagees and renters how well do you think they will do?
But you seem not to notice that Brexit now polls worse than a turd in a swimming pool. Rejoin is a vote winner for the LDs.
I reckon on 25 seats after the GE.
Because those polls never point out the reality, I will start taking them seriously when they ask do you support rejoining the eu if it means joining the euro, schengen and having no opt outs.
I would support joining Schengen, but not the EU. There are many good reasons to be a member of Schengen, and not a lot to be a member of the EU.
On topic, perhaps Liz Truss wasn't so bad after all.
Er, no. She is as bad as it gets.
Sunak’s premiership is proving a more chronic ailment to Truss’s acute attack, though. A sort of Long-Tory syndrome.
Sunak's doing nothing terribly wrong, but little right.
Truss? 'Let's crash the car!'
Braverman, Williamson, Zahawi and Raab all terribly wrong to many of us.
Williamson and Zahawi are just back-benchers under Sunak. So now is Raab.
Yes but he appointed them, mistake number 1, and was weak in discipling them, bigger mistake number 2.
He can't dismiss people from parliament (W&Z). Raab he appointed and then dismissed. I'm struggling to see your argument here.
They were all in his cabinet, obviously appointed by him. Zahawi in particular had clearly done wrong (remember the "careless" HMRC repayment and series of omissions and obfuscations about his family trusts?) and yet Sunak dithered hiding behind waiting for an investigation. Weak and poor politics.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
Voting doesn't work like that though. It is a good policy (albeit could have been implemented better and more gently) and one many people are (marginally) in favour of and will see (marginal benefits). A small minority will be paying many thousands for a replacement car, another minority will be paying regular charges, and a third minority will pick up unexpected fines as they were unaware, forgot about it or got lost.
Out of the many group, very few people are going to be switching their votes to Labour based on slightly cleaner air. A lot of the people passionate about that subject will vote Green (or for a local independent or LD) anyway.
Out of the smaller groups, a much higher percentage will switch votes because they feel unfairly picked on or its hurt them significantly economically.
It is very similar to taxing private schools. Most people will be in favour, but very few will switch to Labour because of the policy, but Labour will definitely lose votes from some of those who pay fees and don't want them taxed.
There is also another knock on effect, probably small but maybe not, to take into account, namely does the policy motivate normally non-voters to vote.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
I suppose there are those in the Home Counties who drive to West Drayton or similar and then get TfL to take them the rest of the way into London, and maybe it’s a bit annoying that they’ll now have to park on the fringes of outer London to avoid the charge?
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Because it's London. Don't you understand? It's important.
Sheesh.
Next you'll be questioning why a major crime in Lancashire gets no mention on the news where-as a crisp packet being dropped in St James's Park is a headline grabber.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
Blanche L, with respect to the map of ethnic Europe you posted to last thread, it's very interesting, and gives pretty good picture of situation when it was created between WWI and WW2.
HOWEVER note that it does have a few inaccuracies, which interestingly pertain to Italy, where the map was published during the rule of Il Duce, which almost certainly explains why:
> in far northwest corner of Italy, map shows Val d'Aosta as being Italian-speaking, when the local majority language was (and still is) French
> in northeastern Italy, south of Austria the South Tyrol region is shown as being of mixed language, when majority was German (and still is).
> shows division of French between south & north, without noting at all the more significant (IIRC) differences within Italy, for example Sardinian which is NOT strictly speaking Italian.
> map does show Albanian and Greek language islands in southern Italy, as well as Slavic-language speakers in far northeastern Italy, including areas now in Slovenia and Croatia, albeit while understating them compared with Italians.
I think you'll find Val d'Aosta is mainly Italian-speaking. Some use a French dialect but the majority are Italian speakers.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
Not sure it's that bizarre. The general pattern with War On Cars stuff is that the prospect tends to be more daunting than the reality.
Politicians should remember that the same is usually true of housing development, and grow some balls there too. Let things be built and in 10 years and people will have gotten over it, and the people in the new houses will moan about any new housing possibilities.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I mean I’m not generally in favour of cancelling people for what they say, but in what world could that possibly be remotely acceptable?
Just get a load of this.
Barr, who identifies as Jewish, has previously attracted criticism for her controversial views on Jews and Israel.
How does one reconcile that, with 'the holocaust didn't happen (but should have)'?
By definition, if you claim the Holocaust didn't happen, you are batshit insane. At that point it doesn't really make much difference whether you identify as Jewish, or a cat, or a pineappletarian.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
Big victory for the mainstream conservatives in Greece.
Of more a big worry, is the reappearance of the far-right there. One party, with about 4%, is a descendant of Golden Dawn, and another two, with about four percent each, are loopy pro-Russian parties. There's a stubborn group of about 20%, in both Italy and Greece, but for slightly different reasons, who always tend to give Russia the benefit of the doubt, even while most of the parties have abandoned that sort of thing there since Ukraine.
Re Greece, don't forget they're both Orthodox countries.
Blanche L, with respect to the map of ethnic Europe you posted to last thread, it's very interesting, and gives pretty good picture of situation when it was created between WWI and WW2.
HOWEVER note that it does have a few inaccuracies, which interestingly pertain to Italy, where the map was published during the rule of Il Duce, which almost certainly explains why:
> in far northwest corner of Italy, map shows Val d'Aosta as being Italian-speaking, when the local majority language was (and still is) French
> in northeastern Italy, south of Austria the South Tyrol region is shown as being of mixed language, when majority was German (and still is).
> shows division of French between south & north, without noting at all the more significant (IIRC) differences within Italy, for example Sardinian which is NOT strictly speaking Italian.
> map does show Albanian and Greek language islands in southern Italy, as well as Slavic-language speakers in far northeastern Italy, including areas now in Slovenia and Croatia, albeit while understating them compared with Italians.
It's counter intuitive stuff. Just been in Transylvania and tried to learn the Romanian for beer and please before going, only to find this bit (but not all) of Transylvania is Hungarian - as in, speaks Hungarian, is forced to learn Romanian at school but takes pride in learning as little as possible, hangs Hungarian flags anf cheers Anyone But Romania in football matches.
Not only did the House Speaker bat way above his league here, he (allegedly) also managed to get some group sex into the action. Some people really are desperate for favours.
I do wish we had a regular poster on here able to comment with authority on the topic of politicians engaging in group sex.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I mean I’m not generally in favour of cancelling people for what they say, but in what world could that possibly be remotely acceptable?
Just get a load of this.
Barr, who identifies as Jewish, has previously attracted criticism for her controversial views on Jews and Israel.
How does one reconcile that, with 'the holocaust didn't happen (but should have)'?
By definition, if you claim the Holocaust didn't happen, you are batshit insane. At that point it doesn't really make much difference whether you identify as Jewish, or a cat, or a pineappletarian.
Even insane people sometimes have an internal logic. 'Jews run the world' is crazy, but actions which flow from that can be predicted and understood. Her combination lacks even that coherence.
Not only did the House Speaker bat way above his league here, he (allegedly) also managed to get some group sex into the action. Some people really are desperate for favours.
I do wish we had a regular poster on here able to comment with authority on the topic of politicians engaging in group sex.
1 in 4 people fantasise about group sex whereas 4 in 1 is group sex.
Big victory for the mainstream conservatives in Greece.
Of more a big worry, is the reappearance of the far-right there. One party, with about 4%, is a descendant of Golden Dawn, and another two, with about four percent each, are loopy pro-Russian parties. There's a stubborn group of about 20%, in both Italy and Greece, but for slightly different reasons, who always tend to give Russia the benefit of the doubt, even while most of the parties have abandoned that sort of thing there since Ukraine.
Re Greece, don't forget they're both Orthodox countries.
Yes, combined with the Cold War legacy, which in Italy's case is where all, rather than about half of the 20% comes from.
However, the large majority of Greeks identify themselves as part of the West, hence the overall election results, and general uncontroversial aspect of New Democracy's support for Ukraine.
On topic, perhaps Liz Truss wasn't so bad after all.
Er, no. She is as bad as it gets.
Sunak’s premiership is proving a more chronic ailment to Truss’s acute attack, though. A sort of Long-Tory syndrome.
Sunak's doing nothing terribly wrong, but little right.
Truss? 'Let's crash the car!'
Braverman, Williamson, Zahawi and Raab all terribly wrong to many of us.
Williamson and Zahawi are just back-benchers under Sunak. So now is Raab.
Yes but he appointed them, mistake number 1, and was weak in discipling them, bigger mistake number 2.
He can't dismiss people from parliament (W&Z). Raab he appointed and then dismissed. I'm struggling to see your argument here.
They were all in his cabinet, obviously appointed by him. Zahawi in particular had clearly done wrong (remember the "careless" HMRC repayment and series of omissions and obfuscations about his family trusts?) and yet Sunak dithered hiding behind waiting for an investigation. Weak and poor politics.
Ok, sorry. W&Z were ministers without portfolio it seems. (My memory was faulty)
Big victory for the mainstream conservatives in Greece.
Of more a big worry, is the reappearance of the far-right there. One party, with about 4%, is a descendant of Golden Dawn, and another two, with about four percent each, are loopy pro-Russian parties. There's a stubborn group of about 20%, in both Italy and Greece, but for slightly different reasons, who always tend to give Russia the benefit of the doubt, even while most of the parties have abandoned that sort of thing there since Ukraine.
Re Greece, don't forget they're both Orthodox countries.
Yes but no but yes ... Constantinople and Moscow schizzed in2018 over Cple giving the Kiev church its own patriarch or whatever. Greece is presumably still with Cple.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I mean I’m not generally in favour of cancelling people for what they say, but in what world could that possibly be remotely acceptable?
America.
Remember Trump fans chant 'Jews will not replace us.'
Exactly. A significant part of the Trump base subscribe to the view that Jews want to replace whites with minorities as part of a conspiracy to enrich themselves, and view everything through this prism. We have our own (typically low budget) version of this kind of paranoid worldview in the UK, of course.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Probably because taking the poll as a proxy for it being implemented in their own area too. I'd say I am opposed if asked, not because I care about London (I don't) but because I don't want any of that nonsense implemented here.
Manchester has twice tried to import that London bullshit and just had it knocked back both times. Firstly with the congestion charge they tried to implement which got rejected in the referendum, then with the 'clean air' zone that was very nearly implemented and is now 'suspended'. What's next? Don't want it to be third time lucky either.
And the 'clean air' one that Manchester was going for was utterly absurd. There is no issue at all with air quality in almost all of Greater Manchester, but the zone was to span the entirety of Greater Manchester, to deal with a couple of roads in Manchester City Centre. Insane.
So yes, I'd say I'd oppose if asked. Not because I drive in London, but because I do drive up here and do drive into Greater Manchester [not very often into Manchester itself] and don't want to be caught up in any of that crap.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I mean I’m not generally in favour of cancelling people for what they say, but in what world could that possibly be remotely acceptable?
America.
Remember Trump fans chant 'Jews will not replace us.'
Exactly. A significant part of the Trump base subscribe to the view that Jews want to replace whites with minorities as part of a conspiracy to enrich themselves, and view everything through this prism. We have our own (typically low budget) version of this kind of paranoid worldview in the UK, of course.
"The Jew is using the Black as muscle. Are you going to let him, whitey?"
I’d be interested to see a ‘what if Tories were still led by Boris’ version of this polling.
You could certainly add some that 9% RefUK total to the Tories then
...and even more of that 26% Tory total to the LDs and Labour.
Labour maybe, the lib dems will not end up on anymore seats than they currently get
You think the LDs will end up with just 12 or so seats?
Now, I'm pretty LibDemsceptic, but even I think they're going to make gains. Simply, if the LD vote is largely flat on 2019, while the Conservative vote is down (say) five percentage points, they'll win a couple.
I'd say Cheltenham, Winchester, and Guilford all look highly vulnerable to them, and all have seen the LDs surge at the local level.
Yes I do for the two simple reasons they have pissed off people with 3 policy's
1) advocating a wealth tax which hurts those with mortgages 2) they are seen as rejoiners which annoys brexiters 3) They have suggested a 300£ a month to help out people with mortgages which annoys renters while not get mortgagers to vote for them as they know the chance of the LD's being in a position to deliver this is slightly less than a snowball surviving in hell
So when you exclude brexiters, mortgagees and renters how well do you think they will do?
But you seem not to notice that Brexit now polls worse than a turd in a swimming pool. Rejoin is a vote winner for the LDs.
I reckon on 25 seats after the GE.
Because those polls never point out the reality, I will start taking them seriously when they ask do you support rejoining the eu if it means joining the euro, schengen and having no opt outs.
Well that would be better than the half-arsed membership we had prior to Brexit.
I make no judgement on whether it would be better. My point was that if it is pointed out the enthusiam for rejoin would be substantially less
Still a big driver of the LD vote. Not that the LD plan is to Rejoin immediately, just the SM.
I wouldn’t think they would win any of these Red Wall seats, but in the Blue Wall Rejoin is a definite vote winner.
The Tories are peering into the abyss. Under a hundred seats is very possible on current polls.
Well we will see wont we. I really doubt the ld's will make many more seats than they have. Time will tell us who is right
Define "many more".
The LDs had 11 seats at the last election. If they get to 18-19, it will be a more than 50% jump, and will return them to the level they had from around 1983 to 1996. (And for much of the 70s.)
I think the LDs will aim for 35, expect to get 28, and will end up in the low 20s.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Big victory for the mainstream conservatives in Greece.
Of more a big worry, is the reappearance of the far-right there. One party, with about 4%, is a descendant of Golden Dawn, and another two, with about four percent each, are loopy pro-Russian parties. There's a stubborn group of about 20%, in both Italy and Greece, but for slightly different reasons, who always tend to give Russia the benefit of the doubt, even while most of the parties have abandoned that sort of thing there since Ukraine.
Re Greece, don't forget they're both Orthodox countries.
Yes but no but yes ... Constantinople and Moscow schizzed in2018 over Cple giving the Kiev church its own patriarch or whatever. Greece is presumably still with Cple.
I’d be interested to see a ‘what if Tories were still led by Boris’ version of this polling.
You could certainly add some that 9% RefUK total to the Tories then
...and even more of that 26% Tory total to the LDs and Labour.
Labour maybe, the lib dems will not end up on anymore seats than they currently get
You think the LDs will end up with just 12 or so seats?
Now, I'm pretty LibDemsceptic, but even I think they're going to make gains. Simply, if the LD vote is largely flat on 2019, while the Conservative vote is down (say) five percentage points, they'll win a couple.
I'd say Cheltenham, Winchester, and Guilford all look highly vulnerable to them, and all have seen the LDs surge at the local level.
Yes I do for the two simple reasons they have pissed off people with 3 policy's
1) advocating a wealth tax which hurts those with mortgages 2) they are seen as rejoiners which annoys brexiters 3) They have suggested a 300£ a month to help out people with mortgages which annoys renters while not get mortgagers to vote for them as they know the chance of the LD's being in a position to deliver this is slightly less than a snowball surviving in hell
So when you exclude brexiters, mortgagees and renters how well do you think they will do?
But you seem not to notice that Brexit now polls worse than a turd in a swimming pool. Rejoin is a vote winner for the LDs.
I reckon on 25 seats after the GE.
Because those polls never point out the reality, I will start taking them seriously when they ask do you support rejoining the eu if it means joining the euro, schengen and having no opt outs.
Well that would be better than the half-arsed membership we had prior to Brexit.
I make no judgement on whether it would be better. My point was that if it is pointed out the enthusiam for rejoin would be substantially less
Still a big driver of the LD vote. Not that the LD plan is to Rejoin immediately, just the SM.
I wouldn’t think they would win any of these Red Wall seats, but in the Blue Wall Rejoin is a definite vote winner.
The Tories are peering into the abyss. Under a hundred seats is very possible on current polls.
Well we will see wont we. I really doubt the ld's will make many more seats than they have. Time will tell us who is right
Define "many more".
The LDs had 11 seats at the last election. If they get to 18-19, it will be a more than 50% jump, and will return them to the level they had from around 1983 to 1996. (And for much of the 70s.)
I think the LDs will aim for 35, expect to get 28, and will end up in the low 20s.
Rule 1 of politics 2015 onwards - the LDs will get fewer MPs than it looks like they will.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I mean I’m not generally in favour of cancelling people for what they say, but in what world could that possibly be remotely acceptable?
America.
Remember Trump fans chant 'Jews will not replace us.'
Exactly. A significant part of the Trump base subscribe to the view that Jews want to replace whites with minorities as part of a conspiracy to enrich themselves, and view everything through this prism. We have our own (typically low budget) version of this kind of paranoid worldview in the UK, of course.
"The Jew is using the Black as muscle. Are you going to let him, whitey?"
"I hate Illinois nazis."
Great film. And yes, it is the same old fucking tune, it never changes.
Blanche L, with respect to the map of ethnic Europe you posted to last thread, it's very interesting, and gives pretty good picture of situation when it was created between WWI and WW2.
HOWEVER note that it does have a few inaccuracies, which interestingly pertain to Italy, where the map was published during the rule of Il Duce, which almost certainly explains why:
> in far northwest corner of Italy, map shows Val d'Aosta as being Italian-speaking, when the local majority language was (and still is) French
> in northeastern Italy, south of Austria the South Tyrol region is shown as being of mixed language, when majority was German (and still is).
> shows division of French between south & north, without noting at all the more significant (IIRC) differences within Italy, for example Sardinian which is NOT strictly speaking Italian.
> map does show Albanian and Greek language islands in southern Italy, as well as Slavic-language speakers in far northeastern Italy, including areas now in Slovenia and Croatia, albeit while understating them compared with Italians.
I think you'll find Val d'Aosta is mainly Italian-speaking. Some use a French dialect but the majority are Italian speakers.
I’d be interested to see a ‘what if Tories were still led by Boris’ version of this polling.
You could certainly add some that 9% RefUK total to the Tories then
...and even more of that 26% Tory total to the LDs and Labour.
Labour maybe, the lib dems will not end up on anymore seats than they currently get
You think the LDs will end up with just 12 or so seats?
Now, I'm pretty LibDemsceptic, but even I think they're going to make gains. Simply, if the LD vote is largely flat on 2019, while the Conservative vote is down (say) five percentage points, they'll win a couple.
I'd say Cheltenham, Winchester, and Guilford all look highly vulnerable to them, and all have seen the LDs surge at the local level.
Yes I do for the two simple reasons they have pissed off people with 3 policy's
1) advocating a wealth tax which hurts those with mortgages 2) they are seen as rejoiners which annoys brexiters 3) They have suggested a 300£ a month to help out people with mortgages which annoys renters while not get mortgagers to vote for them as they know the chance of the LD's being in a position to deliver this is slightly less than a snowball surviving in hell
So when you exclude brexiters, mortgagees and renters how well do you think they will do?
But you seem not to notice that Brexit now polls worse than a turd in a swimming pool. Rejoin is a vote winner for the LDs.
I reckon on 25 seats after the GE.
Because those polls never point out the reality, I will start taking them seriously when they ask do you support rejoining the eu if it means joining the euro, schengen and having no opt outs.
Well that would be better than the half-arsed membership we had prior to Brexit.
I make no judgement on whether it would be better. My point was that if it is pointed out the enthusiam for rejoin would be substantially less
Still a big driver of the LD vote. Not that the LD plan is to Rejoin immediately, just the SM.
I wouldn’t think they would win any of these Red Wall seats, but in the Blue Wall Rejoin is a definite vote winner.
The Tories are peering into the abyss. Under a hundred seats is very possible on current polls.
Well we will see wont we. I really doubt the ld's will make many more seats than they have. Time will tell us who is right
Define "many more".
The LDs had 11 seats at the last election. If they get to 18-19, it will be a more than 50% jump, and will return them to the level they had from around 1983 to 1996. (And for much of the 70s.)
I think the LDs will aim for 35, expect to get 28, and will end up in the low 20s.
I’d be interested to see a ‘what if Tories were still led by Boris’ version of this polling.
You could certainly add some that 9% RefUK total to the Tories then
...and even more of that 26% Tory total to the LDs and Labour.
Labour maybe, the lib dems will not end up on anymore seats than they currently get
You think the LDs will end up with just 12 or so seats?
Now, I'm pretty LibDemsceptic, but even I think they're going to make gains. Simply, if the LD vote is largely flat on 2019, while the Conservative vote is down (say) five percentage points, they'll win a couple.
I'd say Cheltenham, Winchester, and Guilford all look highly vulnerable to them, and all have seen the LDs surge at the local level.
Yes I do for the two simple reasons they have pissed off people with 3 policy's
1) advocating a wealth tax which hurts those with mortgages 2) they are seen as rejoiners which annoys brexiters 3) They have suggested a 300£ a month to help out people with mortgages which annoys renters while not get mortgagers to vote for them as they know the chance of the LD's being in a position to deliver this is slightly less than a snowball surviving in hell
So when you exclude brexiters, mortgagees and renters how well do you think they will do?
But you seem not to notice that Brexit now polls worse than a turd in a swimming pool. Rejoin is a vote winner for the LDs.
I reckon on 25 seats after the GE.
Because those polls never point out the reality, I will start taking them seriously when they ask do you support rejoining the eu if it means joining the euro, schengen and having no opt outs.
Well that would be better than the half-arsed membership we had prior to Brexit.
I make no judgement on whether it would be better. My point was that if it is pointed out the enthusiam for rejoin would be substantially less
Still a big driver of the LD vote. Not that the LD plan is to Rejoin immediately, just the SM.
I wouldn’t think they would win any of these Red Wall seats, but in the Blue Wall Rejoin is a definite vote winner.
The Tories are peering into the abyss. Under a hundred seats is very possible on current polls.
Well we will see wont we. I really doubt the ld's will make many more seats than they have. Time will tell us who is right
Define "many more".
The LDs had 11 seats at the last election. If they get to 18-19, it will be a more than 50% jump, and will return them to the level they had from around 1983 to 1996. (And for much of the 70s.)
I think the LDs will aim for 35, expect to get 28, and will end up in the low 20s.
Rule 1 of politics 2015 onwards - the LDs will get fewer MPs than it looks like they will.
I would argue that held true in 2010 as well (as well as in 1983 and 1987). Where it did not hold true was 1997, when Sporting Index's spreads were well out, and 2001 and 2005 where they modestly outperformed.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I mean I’m not generally in favour of cancelling people for what they say, but in what world could that possibly be remotely acceptable?
America.
Remember Trump fans chant 'Jews will not replace us.'
T.S. Eliot, in 1946, said the holocaust was all very well but if the jews kept breeding we were only a couple of generations away from having exactly the same problems as it was meant to solve. I wish I could say that this exposes the essential worthlessness of The Waste Land and 4 Quartets, but it doesn't. But I have a real ethical dilemma, is it still right to read him?
Same question re: works of Ezra Pound only more so.
I’d be interested to see a ‘what if Tories were still led by Boris’ version of this polling.
You could certainly add some that 9% RefUK total to the Tories then
...and even more of that 26% Tory total to the LDs and Labour.
Labour maybe, the lib dems will not end up on anymore seats than they currently get
You think the LDs will end up with just 12 or so seats?
Now, I'm pretty LibDemsceptic, but even I think they're going to make gains. Simply, if the LD vote is largely flat on 2019, while the Conservative vote is down (say) five percentage points, they'll win a couple.
I'd say Cheltenham, Winchester, and Guilford all look highly vulnerable to them, and all have seen the LDs surge at the local level.
Yes I do for the two simple reasons they have pissed off people with 3 policy's
1) advocating a wealth tax which hurts those with mortgages 2) they are seen as rejoiners which annoys brexiters 3) They have suggested a 300£ a month to help out people with mortgages which annoys renters while not get mortgagers to vote for them as they know the chance of the LD's being in a position to deliver this is slightly less than a snowball surviving in hell
So when you exclude brexiters, mortgagees and renters how well do you think they will do?
But you seem not to notice that Brexit now polls worse than a turd in a swimming pool. Rejoin is a vote winner for the LDs.
I reckon on 25 seats after the GE.
Because those polls never point out the reality, I will start taking them seriously when they ask do you support rejoining the eu if it means joining the euro, schengen and having no opt outs.
Well that would be better than the half-arsed membership we had prior to Brexit.
I make no judgement on whether it would be better. My point was that if it is pointed out the enthusiam for rejoin would be substantially less
Still a big driver of the LD vote. Not that the LD plan is to Rejoin immediately, just the SM.
I wouldn’t think they would win any of these Red Wall seats, but in the Blue Wall Rejoin is a definite vote winner.
The Tories are peering into the abyss. Under a hundred seats is very possible on current polls.
Well we will see wont we. I really doubt the ld's will make many more seats than they have. Time will tell us who is right
Define "many more".
The LDs had 11 seats at the last election. If they get to 18-19, it will be a more than 50% jump, and will return them to the level they had from around 1983 to 1996. (And for much of the 70s.)
I think the LDs will aim for 35, expect to get 28, and will end up in the low 20s.
I forecast 25, but like 1997 tactical voting could double that. Indeed on current polling trends could beat the Tories for number of seats.
Poetic justice if it were Brexit that got the Tories done.
Yes I do for the two simple reasons they have pissed off people with 3 policy's
1) advocating a wealth tax which hurts those with mortgages 2) they are seen as rejoiners which annoys brexiters 3) They have suggested a 300£ a month to help out people with mortgages which annoys renters while not get mortgagers to vote for them as they know the chance of the LD's being in a position to deliver this is slightly less than a snowball surviving in hell
So when you exclude brexiters, mortgagees and renters how well do you think they will do?
I think you are making the mistake of thinking that people vote on the basis of policy.
The LibDems were, and are becoming again, the general protest vote repository and also the anti-Conservative repository in the leafy South. No-one expects the LibDems to end up as the Party in power, so interest in their actual policies is marginal.
Those two repositories are pretty big. And to make gains they don't actually need to increase their number of votes, they merely need to not lose as many as the Conservatives. (See 1997, when they managed to lose around a fifth of their voters, but more than doubled their number of seats.)
Indeed, there's a world of difference between politics and policy.
Starmer has been doing it in the past few weeks announcing policies, waiting for the reaction and pulling back if it seems the policy will attract too much opposition. That's good politics - the policy is on the back burner and if he wins a big majority, it can come back.
For Davey, it's about getting the party noticed - winning by elections helps, announcing popular policies helps and when the LDs aren't in a position to implement, no one will question so it's the sun, the moon and the stars to get people to notice.
Sunak's problem is he is in Government and he cannot play these games but that's the price you pay for winning (to a point). He also has a fractious party which will likely schism on the question of which way is up. He has potential leadership rivals eyeing up his political corpse and perhaps if the Party takes a real beating on the 20th July, the knives will come out sooner.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I mean I’m not generally in favour of cancelling people for what they say, but in what world could that possibly be remotely acceptable?
America.
Remember Trump fans chant 'Jews will not replace us.'
T.S. Eliot, in 1946, said the holocaust was all very well but if the jews kept breeding we were only a couple of generations away from having exactly the same problems as it was meant to solve. I wish I could say that this exposes the essential worthlessness of The Waste Land and 4 Quartets, but it doesn't. But I have a real ethical dilemma, is it still right to read him?
Here's a little tip for you to help answer your question. You aren't reading him, you're reading his work.
Reading someone's work doesn't endorse what they are saying in that work, let alone the wider life of the author. Knowing what you know might affect your enjoyment, but that's not a "should" question.
He, of course, can no longer benefit from sales of his work so your conscience ought to be free from any troubling questions along those lines too.
That is the extreme, Oscar Wilde view, of course. Could be right, but I would be much happier with it if his output were music or painting rather than the written word.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I mean I’m not generally in favour of cancelling people for what they say, but in what world could that possibly be remotely acceptable?
America.
Remember Trump fans chant 'Jews will not replace us.'
T.S. Eliot, in 1946, said the holocaust was all very well but if the jews kept breeding we were only a couple of generations away from having exactly the same problems as it was meant to solve. I wish I could say that this exposes the essential worthlessness of The Waste Land and 4 Quartets, but it doesn't. But I have a real ethical dilemma, is it still right to read him?
Here's a little tip for you to help answer your question. You aren't reading him, you're reading his work.
Reading someone's work doesn't endorse what they are saying in that work, let alone the wider life of the author. Knowing what you know might affect your enjoyment, but that's not a "should" question.
He, of course, can no longer benefit from sales of his work so your conscience ought to be free from any troubling questions along those lines too.
Does that mean it's ok to rewatch "Jim'll Fix It" now? Because I have some fond childhood memories which are terribly conflicted.
I’d be interested to see a ‘what if Tories were still led by Boris’ version of this polling.
You could certainly add some that 9% RefUK total to the Tories then
...and even more of that 26% Tory total to the LDs and Labour.
Labour maybe, the lib dems will not end up on anymore seats than they currently get
You think the LDs will end up with just 12 or so seats?
Now, I'm pretty LibDemsceptic, but even I think they're going to make gains. Simply, if the LD vote is largely flat on 2019, while the Conservative vote is down (say) five percentage points, they'll win a couple.
I'd say Cheltenham, Winchester, and Guilford all look highly vulnerable to them, and all have seen the LDs surge at the local level.
Yes I do for the two simple reasons they have pissed off people with 3 policy's
1) advocating a wealth tax which hurts those with mortgages 2) they are seen as rejoiners which annoys brexiters 3) They have suggested a 300£ a month to help out people with mortgages which annoys renters while not get mortgagers to vote for them as they know the chance of the LD's being in a position to deliver this is slightly less than a snowball surviving in hell
So when you exclude brexiters, mortgagees and renters how well do you think they will do?
But you seem not to notice that Brexit now polls worse than a turd in a swimming pool. Rejoin is a vote winner for the LDs.
I reckon on 25 seats after the GE.
Because those polls never point out the reality, I will start taking them seriously when they ask do you support rejoining the eu if it means joining the euro, schengen and having no opt outs.
Well that would be better than the half-arsed membership we had prior to Brexit.
I make no judgement on whether it would be better. My point was that if it is pointed out the enthusiam for rejoin would be substantially less
Still a big driver of the LD vote. Not that the LD plan is to Rejoin immediately, just the SM.
I wouldn’t think they would win any of these Red Wall seats, but in the Blue Wall Rejoin is a definite vote winner.
The Tories are peering into the abyss. Under a hundred seats is very possible on current polls.
Well we will see wont we. I really doubt the ld's will make many more seats than they have. Time will tell us who is right
Define "many more".
The LDs had 11 seats at the last election. If they get to 18-19, it will be a more than 50% jump, and will return them to the level they had from around 1983 to 1996. (And for much of the 70s.)
I think the LDs will aim for 35, expect to get 28, and will end up in the low 20s.
They should be aiming for about 50+
Not getting them by any means, but they fell from about 50 to under 10 in one go, no divine reason they can't reverse that in one go either.
OK the ones they lost to Labour are probably written off, but the ones they lost to the Tories should be achievable, plus potentially some others from the Tories too.
I’d be interested to see a ‘what if Tories were still led by Boris’ version of this polling.
You could certainly add some that 9% RefUK total to the Tories then
...and even more of that 26% Tory total to the LDs and Labour.
Labour maybe, the lib dems will not end up on anymore seats than they currently get
You think the LDs will end up with just 12 or so seats?
Now, I'm pretty LibDemsceptic, but even I think they're going to make gains. Simply, if the LD vote is largely flat on 2019, while the Conservative vote is down (say) five percentage points, they'll win a couple.
I'd say Cheltenham, Winchester, and Guilford all look highly vulnerable to them, and all have seen the LDs surge at the local level.
Yes I do for the two simple reasons they have pissed off people with 3 policy's
1) advocating a wealth tax which hurts those with mortgages 2) they are seen as rejoiners which annoys brexiters 3) They have suggested a 300£ a month to help out people with mortgages which annoys renters while not get mortgagers to vote for them as they know the chance of the LD's being in a position to deliver this is slightly less than a snowball surviving in hell
So when you exclude brexiters, mortgagees and renters how well do you think they will do?
But you seem not to notice that Brexit now polls worse than a turd in a swimming pool. Rejoin is a vote winner for the LDs.
I reckon on 25 seats after the GE.
Because those polls never point out the reality, I will start taking them seriously when they ask do you support rejoining the eu if it means joining the euro, schengen and having no opt outs.
Well that would be better than the half-arsed membership we had prior to Brexit.
I make no judgement on whether it would be better. My point was that if it is pointed out the enthusiam for rejoin would be substantially less
Still a big driver of the LD vote. Not that the LD plan is to Rejoin immediately, just the SM.
I wouldn’t think they would win any of these Red Wall seats, but in the Blue Wall Rejoin is a definite vote winner.
The Tories are peering into the abyss. Under a hundred seats is very possible on current polls.
Well we will see wont we. I really doubt the ld's will make many more seats than they have. Time will tell us who is right
Define "many more".
The LDs had 11 seats at the last election. If they get to 18-19, it will be a more than 50% jump, and will return them to the level they had from around 1983 to 1996. (And for much of the 70s.)
I think the LDs will aim for 35, expect to get 28, and will end up in the low 20s.
General feeling in the party is optimism tempered by fear after 2019’s massive letdown. People saying 20-25 seats as a target but probably privately hoping for a few more.
I’d be interested to see a ‘what if Tories were still led by Boris’ version of this polling.
You could certainly add some that 9% RefUK total to the Tories then
...and even more of that 26% Tory total to the LDs and Labour.
Labour maybe, the lib dems will not end up on anymore seats than they currently get
You think the LDs will end up with just 12 or so seats?
Now, I'm pretty LibDemsceptic, but even I think they're going to make gains. Simply, if the LD vote is largely flat on 2019, while the Conservative vote is down (say) five percentage points, they'll win a couple.
I'd say Cheltenham, Winchester, and Guilford all look highly vulnerable to them, and all have seen the LDs surge at the local level.
Yes I do for the two simple reasons they have pissed off people with 3 policy's
1) advocating a wealth tax which hurts those with mortgages 2) they are seen as rejoiners which annoys brexiters 3) They have suggested a 300£ a month to help out people with mortgages which annoys renters while not get mortgagers to vote for them as they know the chance of the LD's being in a position to deliver this is slightly less than a snowball surviving in hell
So when you exclude brexiters, mortgagees and renters how well do you think they will do?
But you seem not to notice that Brexit now polls worse than a turd in a swimming pool. Rejoin is a vote winner for the LDs.
I reckon on 25 seats after the GE.
Because those polls never point out the reality, I will start taking them seriously when they ask do you support rejoining the eu if it means joining the euro, schengen and having no opt outs.
Well that would be better than the half-arsed membership we had prior to Brexit.
I make no judgement on whether it would be better. My point was that if it is pointed out the enthusiam for rejoin would be substantially less
Still a big driver of the LD vote. Not that the LD plan is to Rejoin immediately, just the SM.
I wouldn’t think they would win any of these Red Wall seats, but in the Blue Wall Rejoin is a definite vote winner.
The Tories are peering into the abyss. Under a hundred seats is very possible on current polls.
Well we will see wont we. I really doubt the ld's will make many more seats than they have. Time will tell us who is right
Define "many more".
The LDs had 11 seats at the last election. If they get to 18-19, it will be a more than 50% jump, and will return them to the level they had from around 1983 to 1996. (And for much of the 70s.)
I think the LDs will aim for 35, expect to get 28, and will end up in the low 20s.
I forecast 25, but like 1997 tactical voting could double that. Indeed on current polling trends could beat the Tories for number of seats.
Poetic justice if it were Brexit that got the Tories done.
In 1997, the first sign that Sporting Index had got the LD seat number wildly wrong (they were on 23-26 IIRC) was the number of people with GROT or "Labour Tactically Voting LibDem" posters in their windows.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I mean I’m not generally in favour of cancelling people for what they say, but in what world could that possibly be remotely acceptable?
America.
Remember Trump fans chant 'Jews will not replace us.'
T.S. Eliot, in 1946, said the holocaust was all very well but if the jews kept breeding we were only a couple of generations away from having exactly the same problems as it was meant to solve. I wish I could say that this exposes the essential worthlessness of The Waste Land and 4 Quartets, but it doesn't. But I have a real ethical dilemma, is it still right to read him?
Same question re: works of Ezra Pound only more so.
Praise be to Nero's Neptune, the Titanic sails at dawn Everybody's shouting, "Which side are you on?!" And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain's tower While calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers Between the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flow And nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I mean I’m not generally in favour of cancelling people for what they say, but in what world could that possibly be remotely acceptable?
America.
Remember Trump fans chant 'Jews will not replace us.'
T.S. Eliot, in 1946, said the holocaust was all very well but if the jews kept breeding we were only a couple of generations away from having exactly the same problems as it was meant to solve. I wish I could say that this exposes the essential worthlessness of The Waste Land and 4 Quartets, but it doesn't. But I have a real ethical dilemma, is it still right to read him?
Here's a little tip for you to help answer your question. You aren't reading him, you're reading his work.
Reading someone's work doesn't endorse what they are saying in that work, let alone the wider life of the author. Knowing what you know might affect your enjoyment, but that's not a "should" question.
He, of course, can no longer benefit from sales of his work so your conscience ought to be free from any troubling questions along those lines too.
That is the extreme, Oscar Wilde view, of course. Could be right, but I would be much happier with it if his output were music or painting rather than the written word.
What about really nice people who were shit artists?
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I mean I’m not generally in favour of cancelling people for what they say, but in what world could that possibly be remotely acceptable?
America.
Remember Trump fans chant 'Jews will not replace us.'
Exactly. A significant part of the Trump base subscribe to the view that Jews want to replace whites with minorities as part of a conspiracy to enrich themselves, and view everything through this prism. We have our own (typically low budget) version of this kind of paranoid worldview in the UK, of course.
I’m currently reading (and cannot recommend highly enough, though it’s not for the faint-hearted) Perfidia, by James Ellroy.
It’s a cop/conspiracy drama set in LA around the bombing of Pearl Harbour. The resonance of ‘the Jews have been planning all this’ is heavily reflected (though one of the core themes is the internment of Japanese-Americans); it interests me that that the same conspiracy never really goes away, it just gets a fresh coat of paint every decade or so.
On another note, my lad was down on a school trip to meet lots of other Jewish primary school kids in Wembley today; presumably to start their Secret Running Of The World training.
I’d be interested to see a ‘what if Tories were still led by Boris’ version of this polling.
You could certainly add some that 9% RefUK total to the Tories then
...and even more of that 26% Tory total to the LDs and Labour.
Labour maybe, the lib dems will not end up on anymore seats than they currently get
You think the LDs will end up with just 12 or so seats?
Now, I'm pretty LibDemsceptic, but even I think they're going to make gains. Simply, if the LD vote is largely flat on 2019, while the Conservative vote is down (say) five percentage points, they'll win a couple.
I'd say Cheltenham, Winchester, and Guilford all look highly vulnerable to them, and all have seen the LDs surge at the local level.
Yes I do for the two simple reasons they have pissed off people with 3 policy's
1) advocating a wealth tax which hurts those with mortgages 2) they are seen as rejoiners which annoys brexiters 3) They have suggested a 300£ a month to help out people with mortgages which annoys renters while not get mortgagers to vote for them as they know the chance of the LD's being in a position to deliver this is slightly less than a snowball surviving in hell
So when you exclude brexiters, mortgagees and renters how well do you think they will do?
But you seem not to notice that Brexit now polls worse than a turd in a swimming pool. Rejoin is a vote winner for the LDs.
I reckon on 25 seats after the GE.
Because those polls never point out the reality, I will start taking them seriously when they ask do you support rejoining the eu if it means joining the euro, schengen and having no opt outs.
Well that would be better than the half-arsed membership we had prior to Brexit.
I make no judgement on whether it would be better. My point was that if it is pointed out the enthusiam for rejoin would be substantially less
Still a big driver of the LD vote. Not that the LD plan is to Rejoin immediately, just the SM.
I wouldn’t think they would win any of these Red Wall seats, but in the Blue Wall Rejoin is a definite vote winner.
The Tories are peering into the abyss. Under a hundred seats is very possible on current polls.
Well we will see wont we. I really doubt the ld's will make many more seats than they have. Time will tell us who is right
Define "many more".
The LDs had 11 seats at the last election. If they get to 18-19, it will be a more than 50% jump, and will return them to the level they had from around 1983 to 1996. (And for much of the 70s.)
I think the LDs will aim for 35, expect to get 28, and will end up in the low 20s.
Rule 1 of politics 2015 onwards - the LDs will get fewer MPs than it looks like they will.
I would argue that held true in 2010 as well (as well as in 1983 and 1987). Where it did not hold true was 1997, when Sporting Index's spreads were well out, and 2001 and 2005 where they modestly outperformed.
Definitely true in 2010, I remember it well.
The rule is really this: the LDs seat count is strongly negatively correlated with Tory vote share, more so than it is positively correlated with Lib Dem vote share.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
ULEZ stuff is reminding me very much of the arguments about smoking in pubs and public places, and how awful it was that the nasty Scottish Government were bringing in bans. It was much the same sort of right-winger male 50-somethings who whined about it, and yet today the consensus is settled.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I mean I’m not generally in favour of cancelling people for what they say, but in what world could that possibly be remotely acceptable?
America.
Remember Trump fans chant 'Jews will not replace us.'
T.S. Eliot, in 1946, said the holocaust was all very well but if the jews kept breeding we were only a couple of generations away from having exactly the same problems as it was meant to solve. I wish I could say that this exposes the essential worthlessness of The Waste Land and 4 Quartets, but it doesn't. But I have a real ethical dilemma, is it still right to read him?
Here's a little tip for you to help answer your question. You aren't reading him, you're reading his work.
Reading someone's work doesn't endorse what they are saying in that work, let alone the wider life of the author. Knowing what you know might affect your enjoyment, but that's not a "should" question.
He, of course, can no longer benefit from sales of his work so your conscience ought to be free from any troubling questions along those lines too.
That is the extreme, Oscar Wilde view, of course. Could be right, but I would be much happier with it if his output were music or painting rather than the written word.
What about really nice people who were shit artists?
Venn diagrams, innit? You need to home in on the buggers in the overlap.
Mind you, I love HP Lovecraft and I am not worried about his views on race because so what, but reading a cthulu story doesn't feel like a major spiritual experience like Little Gidding does.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
ULEZ stuff is reminding me very much of the arguments about smoking in pubs and public places, and how awful it was that the nasty Scottish Government were bringing in bans. It was much the same sort of right-winger male 50-somethings who whined about it, and yet today the consensus is settled.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
The pollution argument is complete bullshit anyway. Particulates are at dangerous levels on the London Underground and its stations, not on the streets. The Ulez maniacs don't give a flying fuck about anyone's lungs.
I’d be interested to see a ‘what if Tories were still led by Boris’ version of this polling.
You could certainly add some that 9% RefUK total to the Tories then
...and even more of that 26% Tory total to the LDs and Labour.
Labour maybe, the lib dems will not end up on anymore seats than they currently get
You think the LDs will end up with just 12 or so seats?
Now, I'm pretty LibDemsceptic, but even I think they're going to make gains. Simply, if the LD vote is largely flat on 2019, while the Conservative vote is down (say) five percentage points, they'll win a couple.
I'd say Cheltenham, Winchester, and Guilford all look highly vulnerable to them, and all have seen the LDs surge at the local level.
Yes I do for the two simple reasons they have pissed off people with 3 policy's
1) advocating a wealth tax which hurts those with mortgages 2) they are seen as rejoiners which annoys brexiters 3) They have suggested a 300£ a month to help out people with mortgages which annoys renters while not get mortgagers to vote for them as they know the chance of the LD's being in a position to deliver this is slightly less than a snowball surviving in hell
So when you exclude brexiters, mortgagees and renters how well do you think they will do?
But you seem not to notice that Brexit now polls worse than a turd in a swimming pool. Rejoin is a vote winner for the LDs.
I reckon on 25 seats after the GE.
Because those polls never point out the reality, I will start taking them seriously when they ask do you support rejoining the eu if it means joining the euro, schengen and having no opt outs.
Well that would be better than the half-arsed membership we had prior to Brexit.
I make no judgement on whether it would be better. My point was that if it is pointed out the enthusiam for rejoin would be substantially less
Still a big driver of the LD vote. Not that the LD plan is to Rejoin immediately, just the SM.
I wouldn’t think they would win any of these Red Wall seats, but in the Blue Wall Rejoin is a definite vote winner.
The Tories are peering into the abyss. Under a hundred seats is very possible on current polls.
Well we will see wont we. I really doubt the ld's will make many more seats than they have. Time will tell us who is right
Define "many more".
The LDs had 11 seats at the last election. If they get to 18-19, it will be a more than 50% jump, and will return them to the level they had from around 1983 to 1996. (And for much of the 70s.)
I think the LDs will aim for 35, expect to get 28, and will end up in the low 20s.
Rule 1 of politics 2015 onwards - the LDs will get fewer MPs than it looks like they will.
I would argue that held true in 2010 as well (as well as in 1983 and 1987). Where it did not hold true was 1997, when Sporting Index's spreads were well out, and 2001 and 2005 where they modestly outperformed.
Seem to recall some LD 97 winning seats overs bets coming in at 33/1 type odds.
I’m midway through Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder. Boy is it grim reading. Humans are nasty pieces of work.
I like to think of us as having boundless capacity to do good and bad.
We do appear unfortunately more prone to the latter than the former, or being herded that way, despite being more inclined personally to do good on the whole.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
The pollution argument is complete bullshit anyway. Particulates are at dangerous levels on the London Underground and its stations, not on the streets. The Ulez maniacs don't give a flying fuck about anyone's lungs.
The last time I rode on the Underground, it wasn't diesel or steam powered.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
Truthfully, I think anyone who visits London a couple of times a year by car is mad.
Much better to drive to a nice convenient station and catch a train.
Edit - and I'm not totally sure I'd limit the madness to those who only visit a couple of times a year. Horrible place to drive.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
The pollution argument is complete bullshit anyway. Particulates are at dangerous levels on the London Underground and its stations, not on the streets. The Ulez maniacs don't give a flying fuck about anyone's lungs.
London pollution definitely a problem. Overall its a good policy, just implemented in a way that will lose support for it, and also in a two party political system will cost the one implementing it votes.
American comedian Roseanne Barr has been criticised for a podcast interview in which she said that six million Jews 'should be killed.'
In a conversation with provocative comedian Theo Von, Barr, 70, said the Holocaust never happened, "but should have" as "Jews cause all the problems in the world."
I mean I’m not generally in favour of cancelling people for what they say, but in what world could that possibly be remotely acceptable?
America.
Remember Trump fans chant 'Jews will not replace us.'
T.S. Eliot, in 1946, said the holocaust was all very well but if the jews kept breeding we were only a couple of generations away from having exactly the same problems as it was meant to solve. I wish I could say that this exposes the essential worthlessness of The Waste Land and 4 Quartets, but it doesn't. But I have a real ethical dilemma, is it still right to read him?
Here's a little tip for you to help answer your question. You aren't reading him, you're reading his work.
Reading someone's work doesn't endorse what they are saying in that work, let alone the wider life of the author. Knowing what you know might affect your enjoyment, but that's not a "should" question.
He, of course, can no longer benefit from sales of his work so your conscience ought to be free from any troubling questions along those lines too.
Does that mean it's ok to rewatch "Jim'll Fix It" now? Because I have some fond childhood memories which are terribly conflicted.
I get the point, but there is a bit of a balancing act between the badness of the behaviour and the merit of the work (with perhaps an element of time passing moderating the former). Kanye straddles it; Michael Jackson *maybe* does too; phenomenal musician, but… and then you’ve got the likes of Gary Glitter or Lostprophets, who nobody misses.
There are some tricky ones - Lewis Carroll is one I struggle with. I have zero doubt he was a paedophile, even if he was chaste. But Alice stands in the pantheon of literature.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
The pollution argument is complete bullshit anyway. Particulates are at dangerous levels on the London Underground and its stations, not on the streets. The Ulez maniacs don't give a flying fuck about anyone's lungs.
The last time I rode on the Underground, it wasn't diesel or steam powered.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
The pollution argument is complete bullshit anyway. Particulates are at dangerous levels on the London Underground and its stations, not on the streets. The Ulez maniacs don't give a flying fuck about anyone's lungs.
Interestingly I got an email the other day asking if I wanted to take part in a study looking at pollution and effects on lungs on the tube.
As noted above the ULEZ requirements will soon become normal for vehicles and will then - hopefully - be ratcheted up over time. There’s a reasonable argument over speed of implementation, first 2 days free etc but exhaust pollution being a major cause of child asthma and Ill health is uncontroversial.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
Truthfully, I think anyone who visits London a couple of times a year by car is mad.
Much better to drive to a nice convenient station and catch a train.
Edit - and I'm not totally sure I'd limit the madness to those who only visit a couple of times a year. Horrible place to drive.
Exactly. Lots of Wembley visitors might park in Ruislip and get the train from there to Wembley.
The last time I rode on the Underground, it wasn't diesel or steam powered.
It's almost certainly steam powered
Silly me. Yes, definitely, bar the odd gas turbine power station kicking in. But it doesn't emit smoke as such. (Don't think any of them did other than the high level lines and the Circle and District Widened Lines?)
Blanche L, with respect to the map of ethnic Europe you posted to last thread, it's very interesting, and gives pretty good picture of situation when it was created between WWI and WW2.
HOWEVER note that it does have a few inaccuracies, which interestingly pertain to Italy, where the map was published during the rule of Il Duce, which almost certainly explains why:
> in far northwest corner of Italy, map shows Val d'Aosta as being Italian-speaking, when the local majority language was (and still is) French
> in northeastern Italy, south of Austria the South Tyrol region is shown as being of mixed language, when majority was German (and still is).
> shows division of French between south & north, without noting at all the more significant (IIRC) differences within Italy, for example Sardinian which is NOT strictly speaking Italian.
> map does show Albanian and Greek language islands in southern Italy, as well as Slavic-language speakers in far northeastern Italy, including areas now in Slovenia and Croatia, albeit while understating them compared with Italians.
I think you'll find Val d'Aosta is mainly Italian-speaking. Some use a French dialect but the majority are Italian speakers.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
But the scheme is well known and the zone is well sign posted. It's like a speed limit, of course it's sad if someone doesn't see the 30mph sign and maybe everyone should be given a break but really they only have themselves to blame. Maybe everyone should be allowed one minor traffic infraction a year - I have been the victim of all kinds of quite arbitrary traffic fines over the years but have taken them on the chin.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
The pollution argument is complete bullshit anyway. Particulates are at dangerous levels on the London Underground and its stations, not on the streets. The Ulez maniacs don't give a flying fuck about anyone's lungs.
The last time I rode on the Underground, it wasn't diesel or steam powered.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
The pollution argument is complete bullshit anyway. Particulates are at dangerous levels on the London Underground and its stations, not on the streets. The Ulez maniacs don't give a flying fuck about anyone's lungs.
Interestingly I got an email the other day asking if I wanted to take part in a study looking at pollution and effects on lungs on the tube.
As noted above the ULEZ requirements will soon become normal for vehicles and will then - hopefully - be ratcheted up over time. There’s a reasonable argument over speed of implementation, first 2 days free etc but exhaust pollution being a major cause of child asthma and Ill health is uncontroversial.
I have a kid with asthma and have absolutely zero sympathy for those bleating about the ULEZ. At last someone is doing something about those who carelessly harm others. Well done Sadiq Khan.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
Truthfully, I think anyone who visits London a couple of times a year by car is mad.
Much better to drive to a nice convenient station and catch a train.
Edit - and I'm not totally sure I'd limit the madness to those who only visit a couple of times a year. Horrible place to drive.
I’ve never had a problem with it. Different unwritten norms perhaps (ie it’s generally rude not to let someone into your lane, whereas elsewhere it’s rude to cut in front of someone), but it’s not as bad as many other even more congested and much more stressy cities. I drove through the centre of Rome a couple of months ago which made London seem like a Sunday outing in the Cotswolds.
I’m midway through Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder. Boy is it grim reading. Humans are nasty pieces of work.
I like to think of us as having boundless capacity to do good and bad.
We do appear unfortunately more prone to the latter than the former, or being herded that way, despite being more inclined personally to do good on the whole.
I disagree. Thousands of little and large selfless good acts occur every day. But the only things that get reported are the bad deeds, because they are far more newsworthy. "Man donates kidney to stranger" would be a story on page 15 of the Westmoreland Gazette; "man stabs man in drunken brawl" would be front page.
In all seriousness, there are massive numbers of small good acts going on all around us. We just tend not to notice them.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
The pollution argument is complete bullshit anyway. Particulates are at dangerous levels on the London Underground and its stations, not on the streets. The Ulez maniacs don't give a flying fuck about anyone's lungs.
The last time I rode on the Underground, it wasn't diesel or steam powered.
Iron oxide is relatively stable - unlike car exhausts. But it certainly needs to be looked at.
"I don't need to clean up my act affecting people 100% of the time because those folk over there are just as messy but don't emit NOx, CO, SOx, etc. etc. and people are only briefly exposed "
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
The pollution argument is complete bullshit anyway. Particulates are at dangerous levels on the London Underground and its stations, not on the streets. The Ulez maniacs don't give a flying fuck about anyone's lungs.
The last time I rode on the Underground, it wasn't diesel or steam powered.
Air quality on the LU is atrocious - you can often see the haze. Kids don’t live 24 hours a day on the underground though. Many live their entire childhoods next to busy roads.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
The pollution argument is complete bullshit anyway. Particulates are at dangerous levels on the London Underground and its stations, not on the streets. The Ulez maniacs don't give a flying fuck about anyone's lungs.
The last time I rode on the Underground, it wasn't diesel or steam powered.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
The pollution argument is complete bullshit anyway. Particulates are at dangerous levels on the London Underground and its stations, not on the streets. The Ulez maniacs don't give a flying fuck about anyone's lungs.
The last time I rode on the Underground, it wasn't diesel or steam powered.
The dust in the tunnels, silly!
No nitrogen, sulphur, carbon oxides or hydrocarbons, though ...
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
Close! We're in Zone 4, and we've got a diesel Volvo saloon :
So, does that mean you’re anti?
Yes, we got a letter from TfL via the DVLA explaining what's happening in August - it openly admits ULEZ is a revenue-earning exercise "to fund public transport". I mean £12.50 a DAY?
24 hours a day seven days a week as well. Should have started at £5 a day for outer London and only 7-7 when congestion is a problem.
Why? It’s been operating fine inside the North Circular for years. London needs cleaner air. You don’t get something for nothing.
I’m midway through Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder. Boy is it grim reading. Humans are nasty pieces of work.
I like to think of us as having boundless capacity to do good and bad.
We do appear unfortunately more prone to the latter than the former, or being herded that way, despite being more inclined personally to do good on the whole.
I disagree. Thousands of little and large selfless good acts occur every day. But the only things that get reported are the bad deeds, because they are far more newsworthy. "Man donates kidney to stranger" would be a story on page 15 of the Westmoreland Gazette; "man stabs man in drunken brawl" would be front page.
In all seriousness, there are massive numbers of small good acts going on all around us. We just tend not to notice them.
BBC should have mandatory good news quota. I'd think even 15% minimum positive news stories per week would have a significant impact on national psyche and cohesion over the long term.
Doesn't work for a commercial broadcaster as bad and dramatic news sells better, but absolutely something that could fit within the BBC remit.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
The pollution argument is complete bullshit anyway. Particulates are at dangerous levels on the London Underground and its stations, not on the streets. The Ulez maniacs don't give a flying fuck about anyone's lungs.
Interestingly I got an email the other day asking if I wanted to take part in a study looking at pollution and effects on lungs on the tube.
As noted above the ULEZ requirements will soon become normal for vehicles and will then - hopefully - be ratcheted up over time. There’s a reasonable argument over speed of implementation, first 2 days free etc but exhaust pollution being a major cause of child asthma and Ill health is uncontroversial.
For the political fortunes of the right, one hopes that your asinine complacency is widely shared amongst your fellow travellers.
I’m midway through Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder. Boy is it grim reading. Humans are nasty pieces of work.
I like to think of us as having boundless capacity to do good and bad.
We do appear unfortunately more prone to the latter than the former, or being herded that way, despite being more inclined personally to do good on the whole.
I disagree. Thousands of little and large selfless good acts occur every day. But the only things that get reported are the bad deeds, because they are far more newsworthy. "Man donates kidney to stranger" would be a story on page 15 of the Westmoreland Gazette; "man stabs man in drunken brawl" would be front page.
In all seriousness, there are massive numbers of small good acts going on all around us. We just tend not to notice them.
Being focused on bad things and threats may be more of an evolutionary advantage? But contrarily we do appear inordinately fascinated with dark and macabre impulses and actions.
I think the ability to switch to be truly, deeply nasty might also be an advantage which helps us be ruthless and weather difficult times. And having that capacity, some number will be like that all the time.
I’m midway through Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder. Boy is it grim reading. Humans are nasty pieces of work.
I like to think of us as having boundless capacity to do good and bad.
We do appear unfortunately more prone to the latter than the former, or being herded that way, despite being more inclined personally to do good on the whole.
I disagree. Thousands of little and large selfless good acts occur every day. But the only things that get reported are the bad deeds, because they are far more newsworthy. "Man donates kidney to stranger" would be a story on page 15 of the Westmoreland Gazette; "man stabs man in drunken brawl" would be front page.
In all seriousness, there are massive numbers of small good acts going on all around us. We just tend not to notice them.
BBC should have mandatory good news quota. I'd think even 15% minimum positive news stories per week would have a significant impact on national psyche and cohesion over the long term.
Doesn't work for a commercial broadcaster as bad and dramatic news sells better, but absolutely something that could fit within the BBC remit.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
Close! We're in Zone 4, and we've got a diesel Volvo saloon :
So, does that mean you’re anti?
Yes, we got a letter from TfL via the DVLA explaining what's happening in August - it openly admits ULEZ is a revenue-earning exercise "to fund public transport". I mean £12.50 a DAY?
24 hours a day seven days a week as well. Should have started at £5 a day for outer London and only 7-7 when congestion is a problem.
Why? It’s been operating fine inside the North Circular for years. London needs cleaner air. You don’t get something for nothing.
Exactly. We’re already inside the ULEZ. Not controversial here at all.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
Truthfully, I think anyone who visits London a couple of times a year by car is mad.
Much better to drive to a nice convenient station and catch a train.
Edit - and I'm not totally sure I'd limit the madness to those who only visit a couple of times a year. Horrible place to drive.
Exactly. Lots of Wembley visitors might park in Ruislip and get the train from there to Wembley.
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
There was some polling in the affected areas a few weeks ago.
Bizarrely more popular in London than the rest of the country.
That doesn’t strike me as bizarre at all, given that it’s those who live in London who will benefit most from the cleaner air. And let’s not beat about the bush - that means live longer and be less prone to chronic disease.
What I mean is why should the rest of the country care? Are they all planning on driving their beaten up old jalopies here and zooming around the north circular?
Yes a lot of people who live outside London might drive into the zone a couple of times a year. I'd imagine a high proportion of those are going to be hit with unexpected £80/160 fines.
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Why? Every journey in a dirty car is filling some kid's lungs with filth. There are massive signs when you enter the zone so it's not going to be a surprise to anyone who drives with their eyes open. Nobody has a God-given right to pollute other people's lungs. If they don't want to pay the charge, just stay the fuck away.
Lots of reasons.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users. Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution. London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors. It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day. It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
The pollution argument is complete bullshit anyway. Particulates are at dangerous levels on the London Underground and its stations, not on the streets. The Ulez maniacs don't give a flying fuck about anyone's lungs.
Interestingly I got an email the other day asking if I wanted to take part in a study looking at pollution and effects on lungs on the tube.
As noted above the ULEZ requirements will soon become normal for vehicles and will then - hopefully - be ratcheted up over time. There’s a reasonable argument over speed of implementation, first 2 days free etc but exhaust pollution being a major cause of child asthma and Ill health is uncontroversial.
I have a kid with asthma and have absolutely zero sympathy for those bleating about the ULEZ. At last someone is doing something about those who carelessly harm others. Well done Sadiq Khan.
Can you justify the £12.50 a DAY? Whenever my 70 year-old mum has to drive to Sainsbury's she'll have to pay £12.50!
I wouldn't have thought the Cons have given up on Grimsby or Stockton South yet. However, the likely battleground at the GE will be far far beyond most of these forty constituencies. Little in politics is certain but that is about as close to it as you can get!
Tory over performing areas probably midlands and poorer outer London/M25 fringe playing on ULEZ. Shafted elsewhere though and hard to see much recovery within 18 months.
The Ulez-X will have been in force over a year by the likely time of the GE. In all likelihood, people will have come to terms with it by then.
I’m far from sure that the Ulez play is the big vote winning the Tories think it is.
Yes, I’d like to see some polling on ULEZ.
Personally, I live in Zone 3 and am a big supporter of it. It’s the one thing Khan has done that I can get behind enthusiastically. That’s because it’s proven to reduce pollution and I’m very much in favour of cleaner air. But maybe I’m just unusual in that, and outer Londoners want to continue to live in an asthma inducing smog so long as it means they can keep their diesel Volvo Estate?
Close! We're in Zone 4, and we've got a diesel Volvo saloon :
So, does that mean you’re anti?
Yes, we got a letter from TfL via the DVLA explaining what's happening in August - it openly admits ULEZ is a revenue-earning exercise "to fund public transport". I mean £12.50 a DAY?
24 hours a day seven days a week as well. Should have started at £5 a day for outer London and only 7-7 when congestion is a problem.
Why? It’s been operating fine inside the North Circular for years. London needs cleaner air. You don’t get something for nothing.
To take more people with you rather than divide. To acknowledge this is a regressive change when the poorer workers with the older cars are particularly struggling. Far less pollution occurs when traffic is moving at normal speeds, so shifting usage outside 7-7 may actually help reduce total emissions?
Comments
The LibDems were, and are becoming again, the general protest vote repository and also the anti-Conservative repository in the leafy South. No-one expects the LibDems to end up as the Party in power, so interest in their actual policies is marginal.
Those two repositories are pretty big. And to make gains they don't actually need to increase their number of votes, they merely need to not lose as many as the Conservatives. (See 1997, when they managed to lose around a fifth of their voters, but more than doubled their number of seats.)
I believe the line that is used to reconcile the 'blame remainers' and 'blame MPs' line is to say that inexplicably a majority of Tory MPs suddenly decided, for no reason at all, to fall under the spell of the remainer opposition.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12235675/Former-councilman-claims-North-Carolina-House-Speaker-Tim-Moore-used-secret-camera-spy-him.html
Not only did the House Speaker bat way above his league here, he (allegedly) also managed to get some group sex into the action. Some people really are desperate for favours.
It didn't in 1997 - there were six contenders.
The likes of Braverman (Fareham, 331st on the Tory marginal seats list), Badenoch (Saffron Walden, 320th), Dowden (Hertsmere, 293rd), Cleverly (Braintree, 349th), and Barclay (NE Cambridgeshire, 360th) would all survive if the Conservatives went below 100 seats.
You also have Alex Burghart (Brentwood & Ongar, 356th) as your unfancied long shot outsider.
HOWEVER note that it does have a few inaccuracies, which interestingly pertain to Italy, where the map was published during the rule of Il Duce, which almost certainly explains why:
> in far northwest corner of Italy, map shows Val d'Aosta as being Italian-speaking, when the local majority language was (and still is) French
> in northeastern Italy, south of Austria the South Tyrol region is shown as being of mixed language, when majority was German (and still is).
> shows division of French between south & north, without noting at all the more significant (IIRC) differences within Italy, for example Sardinian which is NOT strictly speaking Italian.
> map does show Albanian and Greek language islands in southern Italy, as well as Slavic-language speakers in far northeastern Italy, including areas now in Slovenia and Croatia, albeit while understating them compared with Italians.
Addendum - Also note that this, and most similar maps, minimize URBAN ethnic concentrations, for example Yiddish-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe.
Sheesh.
Next you'll be questioning why a major crime in Lancashire gets no mention on the news where-as a crisp packet being dropped in St James's Park is a headline grabber.
Barr, who identifies as Jewish, has previously attracted criticism for her controversial views on Jews and Israel.
How does one reconcile that, with 'the holocaust didn't happen (but should have)'?
She used to fire writers almost every week on her show, and was famous for her meltdowns. But she was a huge hit, so people put up with it.
She famously told Howard Stern she hated the show, and would quit when she had $100m in the bank - and she did.
Since then, the nutty behaviour has been less tolerated - because she's not a hit any more.
However, the large majority of Greeks identify themselves as part of the West, hence the overall election results, and general uncontroversial aspect of New Democracy's support for Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Moscow–Constantinople_schism
Again it would have been better to say something like first five journeys per year are free.
Manchester has twice tried to import that London bullshit and just had it knocked back both times. Firstly with the congestion charge they tried to implement which got rejected in the referendum, then with the 'clean air' zone that was very nearly implemented and is now 'suspended'. What's next? Don't want it to be third time lucky either.
And the 'clean air' one that Manchester was going for was utterly absurd. There is no issue at all with air quality in almost all of Greater Manchester, but the zone was to span the entirety of Greater Manchester, to deal with a couple of roads in Manchester City Centre. Insane.
So yes, I'd say I'd oppose if asked. Not because I drive in London, but because I do drive up here and do drive into Greater Manchester [not very often into Manchester itself] and don't want to be caught up in any of that crap.
"I hate Illinois nazis."
The LDs had 11 seats at the last election. If they get to 18-19, it will be a more than 50% jump, and will return them to the level they had from around 1983 to 1996. (And for much of the 70s.)
I think the LDs will aim for 35, expect to get 28, and will end up in the low 20s.
A big division.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aosta_Valley
Personally suspect yet another sinister conspiracy similar to that which tried to deprive PBers of our Likes . . .
Poetic justice if it were Brexit that got the Tories done.
Starmer has been doing it in the past few weeks announcing policies, waiting for the reaction and pulling back if it seems the policy will attract too much opposition. That's good politics - the policy is on the back burner and if he wins a big majority, it can come back.
For Davey, it's about getting the party noticed - winning by elections helps, announcing popular policies helps and when the LDs aren't in a position to implement, no one will question so it's the sun, the moon and the stars to get people to notice.
Sunak's problem is he is in Government and he cannot play these games but that's the price you pay for winning (to a point). He also has a fractious party which will likely schism on the question of which way is up. He has potential leadership rivals eyeing up his political corpse and perhaps if the Party takes a real beating on the 20th July, the knives will come out sooner.
Not getting them by any means, but they fell from about 50 to under 10 in one go, no divine reason they can't reverse that in one go either.
OK the ones they lost to Labour are probably written off, but the ones they lost to the Tories should be achievable, plus potentially some others from the Tories too.
Everybody's shouting, "Which side are you on?!"
And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them and fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much about Desolation Row
It’s a cop/conspiracy drama set in LA around the bombing of Pearl Harbour. The resonance of ‘the Jews have been planning all this’ is heavily reflected (though one of the core themes is the internment of Japanese-Americans); it interests me that that the same conspiracy never really goes away, it just gets a fresh coat of paint every decade or so.
On another note, my lad was down on a school trip to meet lots of other Jewish primary school kids in Wembley today; presumably to start their Secret Running Of The World training.
The rule is really this: the LDs seat count is strongly negatively correlated with Tory vote share, more so than it is positively correlated with Lib Dem vote share.
Paying £80-160 is too big a fine for lack of knowledge/forgotfulness/getting lost, especially without the deterrent effect needed for regular users.
Someone visiting London a couple of times a year really isn't a big contributor to London pollution.
London is a great and welcoming city, we don't need to put off occassional visitors.
It is unreasonable to expect someone visiting a couple of times a year to change car unlike someone using the roads every day.
It would be a progressive part of a regressive scheme financially.
ULEZ stuff is reminding me very much of the arguments about smoking in pubs and public places, and how awful it was that the nasty Scottish Government were bringing in bans. It was much the same sort of right-winger male 50-somethings who whined about it, and yet today the consensus is settled.
https://www.scotsman.com/heritage-and-retro/heritage/smoking-in-scotland-15-years-after-ban-3179119
Mind you, I love HP Lovecraft and I am not worried about his views on race because so what, but reading a cthulu story doesn't feel like a major spiritual experience like Little Gidding does.
Yet some people are acting like cars driving outside is the end of the world, or bad for breathing.
We do appear unfortunately more prone to the latter than the former, or being herded that way, despite being more inclined personally to do good on the whole.
Much better to drive to a nice convenient station and catch a train.
Edit - and I'm not totally sure I'd limit the madness to those who only visit a couple of times a year. Horrible place to drive.
There are some tricky ones - Lewis Carroll is one I struggle with. I have zero doubt he was a paedophile, even if he was chaste. But Alice stands in the pantheon of literature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluffer_(London_Underground)
As noted above the ULEZ requirements will soon become normal for vehicles and will then - hopefully - be ratcheted up over time. There’s a reasonable argument over speed of implementation, first 2 days free etc but exhaust pollution being a major cause of child asthma and Ill health is uncontroversial.
Problem - Ruislip in the new ULEZ zone.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66031341
Could anyone identify the large-ish yellow fruit like things on this plate of ancient Neapolitan pizza?
Remember it well. For every one who laughed, hundreds jeered.
Less popular than a turd in a punch bowl . . . or BoJo in parliament . . . or Mad Vlad in his secret fap cave . . .
In all seriousness, there are massive numbers of small good acts going on all around us. We just tend not to notice them.
"I don't need to clean up my act affecting people 100% of the time because those folk over there are just as messy but don't emit NOx, CO, SOx, etc. etc. and people are only briefly exposed "
Doesn't work for a commercial broadcaster as bad and dramatic news sells better, but absolutely something that could fit within the BBC remit.
I think the ability to switch to be truly, deeply nasty might also be an advantage which helps us be ruthless and weather difficult times. And having that capacity, some number will be like that all the time.
To acknowledge this is a regressive change when the poorer workers with the older cars are particularly struggling.
Far less pollution occurs when traffic is moving at normal speeds, so shifting usage outside 7-7 may actually help reduce total emissions?