Adam Payne @adampayne26 Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements, @politicshome is told
My problem with this is it is so transparently a gimmick. I refuse to believe there are serious people seriously thinking that we have a major problem with a lack of imperial measurements. Day to day people use a hodgepotch of imperial and metric, and that will continue regardless, so it is utterly pointless but designed as some kind of signal to some idiot out there who feels oppressed whenver they see something refer to kilometres.
Roads I’m less concerned with, they never went metric, it’s weights and measures. What’s the f’in point?
Which is more troubling - that this cretinous idea is being floated in a desperate attempt to attain some Brexit Bonus, however stupidly, or that the party things (and may be correct), that their core demographic would adore it?
We'll have a comment in a moment about how it is unfair people who grew up with those measurements to continue to exist in a world where litres show up on things. A rather infantilising view of their ability to comprehend things.
Or, we'll get a claim it won't really change anything anyway, in which case why even bother?
“this cretinous idea”
But the UK isn’t really metric though, and never will be, is it? Do you know your own size and weight in metric? When planning your journey, are you using miles or kilometres? How far is the Grand National in metric? In the pub do you buy pints?
Yes I do know my own height and weight in metric. When planning my journey I use netionalrail.com I have no idea how long the grand national is. Drinks for myself come in half-pints, drinks for others come as they wish.
Adam Payne @adampayne26 Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements, @politicshome is told
My problem with this is it is so transparently a gimmick. I refuse to believe there are serious people seriously thinking that we have a major problem with a lack of imperial measurements. Day to day people use a hodgepotch of imperial and metric, and that will continue regardless, so it is utterly pointless but designed as some kind of signal to some idiot out there who feels oppressed whenver they see something refer to kilometres.
Roads I’m less concerned with, they never went metric, it’s weights and measures. What’s the f’in point?
Which is more troubling - that this cretinous idea is being floated in a desperate attempt to attain some Brexit Bonus, however stupidly, or that the party things (and may be correct), that their core demographic would adore it?
We'll have a comment in a moment about how it is unfair people who grew up with those measurements to continue to exist in a world where litres show up on things. A rather infantilising view of their ability to comprehend things.
Or, we'll get a claim it won't really change anything anyway, in which case why even bother?
“this cretinous idea”
But the UK isn’t really metric though, and never will be, is it? Do you know your own size and weight in metric? When planning your journey, are you using miles or kilometres? How far is the Grand National in metric? In the pub do you buy pints?
When someone tells me their height or mass in metric units I have no idea how tall or heavy they are.
Not the sort of person you want to have a pint with.
Adam Payne @adampayne26 Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements, @politicshome is told
This will revive their electoral fortunes and no mistake. As a 49 and a half year old brought up with metric I, and those younger than me, relish the idea of spending the many years we have until retirement fucking reeducating ourselves in systems of measurement used by precisely one other country for the benefit of Boomer nostalgics. Great idea. Bring back pounds, shillings and pence while you’re at it - I missed those entirely. My vote’s in the fucking bag Rishi!
The decimal system is woke. Bring back Babylonian base 60. (Not a Leon post.)
From the looks of the Code of Hammurabi the Babylonians had their own non-British measures, if you can believe it, so that's clearly a no go.
fifty ka of corn one-third of a mina of gold for each ten gan (area) ten gur of grain shall be paid
I can see they were bloody nimby's too though, so many building regs.
59. If any man, without the knowledge of the owner of a garden, fell a tree in a garden he shall pay half a mina in money. 233. If a builder build a house for some one, even though he has not yet completed it; if then the walls seem toppling, the builder must make the walls solid from his own means.
How far to the nearest post office?
About the time it takes to boil three lots of rice. But we instantly know how long it takes to boil three lots of rice, don’t we, more so than knowing how 4.3 kilometres will take?
Your hound looks like he is having a grand old time.
Hopefully, although as a road trip heading for Finland he also gets to spend a lot of time in the car.
What's your itinerary Ian? I have often fancied driving up the coast of Norway.
Ferries to Holland and Norway - gets the car to Norway with only three hours driving on the continent, then zigzagging up through the fjords, taking in Stavanger, Bergen, Alesund and Trondheim, a few days on an island out to sea, then just reaching the arctic circle before cutting down through Sweden and the ferry to Finland, doing about ten days in Finland finishing in Helsinki, long ferry back to Travemunde then driving back for the ferry from Holland, hopefully taking in the world's largest model railway en route.
Sounds brilliant! Shame the Newcastle to Norway ferry is no longer running but perhaps it will be back in 2026?
Ooh, that would be good. I used that route a couple of times before it stopped - it was very convenient, and we much preferred adventuring in Norway to the Alps, even when the weather was a bit rubbish at times. [Head East if it is]
We sailed from Newcastle to Oslo in 1964 on our honeymoon
Indeed we have been to Norway quite a few times but the best way to see the coast is on the Hurtigruten coastal express which bobs in and out of the fjords all the way up to the North Cape
Indeed it was Hurtigruten who took us on our Antarctica expedition
Jealous of Antarctica!
I think to appreciate the fjords you do need to go inland as well - I think I'd find 'which fjord is it today?' a bit dull after a while. You don't really get a good view of the glaciers and high mountains from below. Besides, some of the roads are quite amusing, even at Norwegian speed limits.
Adam Payne @adampayne26 Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements, @politicshome is told
Christ will this government just fuck off, I am so utterly sick of them.
And that’s the thing. The losing side of a conflict can still do a lot of damage. Indeed often deliberately do a lot of damage as a kind of final up yours to the other side. I think the imperial nonsense is a symptom of that. They know it won’t swing any votes but it’s a delicious little victory against the remoaners.
On the temperature thing, our barometer has two scales. One is Farenheit. The other is Reamur, where water boils at 80. It's a real obsolete18th century temperature unit just right for our friend JRM.
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
This was the predictable missing-the-point response. I use them for my height and weight, and turns out I don't need any government action to do so.
With government policies we should always ask:
i) what problem is the problem trying to be fixed? ii) is it actually a problem? iii) does the proposal actually address that problem? iv) does it have any other negative effects?
You tell me, what problem is being fixed by 'restoring' imperial measurements?
As far as I know you will not get arrested for saying you are 5ft 8 inches, and no one is harmed if they should see reference to 2.2 litres on a milk container.
Are we saying people are too confused after 40 years? What an insulting thing to say.
Are they simply going to not 'punish' people who sell sausages only by the pound with no reference to kilos? Fine, no harm done - but what benefit is there?
To announce things like this they must think it a winner. Why?
It's such a bloody winner they announce it three or four times a year.
Adam Payne @adampayne26 Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements, @politicshome is told
My problem with this is it is so transparently a gimmick. I refuse to believe there are serious people seriously thinking that we have a major problem with a lack of imperial measurements. Day to day people use a hodgepotch of imperial and metric, and that will continue regardless, so it is utterly pointless but designed as some kind of signal to some idiot out there who feels oppressed whenver they see something refer to kilometres.
Roads I’m less concerned with, they never went metric, it’s weights and measures. What’s the f’in point?
Which is more troubling - that this cretinous idea is being floated in a desperate attempt to attain some Brexit Bonus, however stupidly, or that the party things (and may be correct), that their core demographic would adore it?
We'll have a comment in a moment about how it is unfair people who grew up with those measurements to continue to exist in a world where litres show up on things. A rather infantilising view of their ability to comprehend things.
Or, we'll get a claim it won't really change anything anyway, in which case why even bother?
“this cretinous idea”
But the UK isn’t really metric though, and never will be, is it? Do you know your own size and weight in metric? When planning your journey, are you using miles or kilometres? How far is the Grand National in metric? In the pub do you buy pints?
Canada, Australia and New Zealand all use metric units for those.
We should embrace it as part of CANZUK, or "The British Empire" as it used to be known.
Incidentally, whilst talking about measures, whenever I go into the butchers and ask for six links of sausage, I always complain if each sausage is not twenty centimetres long ...
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
"only Nixon could go to China" is an old Vulcan proverb.
This is, in my opinion, a must read Twitter thread on the Ukraine offensive. It lays out why things are taking a while but how the author is convinced that a Ukraine victory is inevitable.
I cannot read it on twitter right now, but even if it is the case things have not simply collapsed on the Russian side it would seem pretty dumb to declare the Ukrainian offensive a failure at this point. It took them months to get into place to take Kherson, and that without taking on areas of massive entrenchment and mining.
Armchair war analyses tend to have a lot of wishcasting, including journalists just out for a contrarian story. Objectively, the small advances that are happening are mostly Ukrainian, but a major breakthrough before the autumn wet season seems unlikely. The question is whether everyone on both sides will want to keep pumping in money and and arms and Ukrainian and Russian lives indefinitely.
Your hound looks like he is having a grand old time.
Hopefully, although as a road trip heading for Finland he also gets to spend a lot of time in the car.
What's your itinerary Ian? I have often fancied driving up the coast of Norway.
Ferries to Holland and Norway - gets the car to Norway with only three hours driving on the continent, then zigzagging up through the fjords, taking in Stavanger, Bergen, Alesund and Trondheim, a few days on an island out to sea, then just reaching the arctic circle before cutting down through Sweden and the ferry to Finland, doing about ten days in Finland finishing in Helsinki, long ferry back to Travemunde then driving back for the ferry from Holland, hopefully taking in the world's largest model railway en route.
Sounds brilliant! Shame the Newcastle to Norway ferry is no longer running but perhaps it will be back in 2026?
Ooh, that would be good. I used that route a couple of times before it stopped - it was very convenient, and we much preferred adventuring in Norway to the Alps, even when the weather was a bit rubbish at times. [Head East if it is]
We sailed from Newcastle to Oslo in 1964 on our honeymoon
Indeed we have been to Norway quite a few times but the best way to see the coast is on the Hurtigruten coastal express which bobs in and out of the fjords all the way up to the North Cape
Indeed it was Hurtigruten who took us on our Antarctica expedition
Jealous of Antarctica!
I think to appreciate the fjords you do need to go inland as well - I think I'd find 'which fjord is it today?' a bit dull after a while. You don't really get a good view of the glaciers and high mountains from below. Besides, some of the roads are quite amusing, even at Norwegian speed limits.
Antarctica to South Georgia and the Falklands was our retirement present to each other, and it exceeded all expectations but you do need to be prepared to experience very heavy seas but the beauty, serenity, and perfection is beyond description and we would recommend anyone who is given the opportunity to to there takes it
Adam Payne @adampayne26 Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements, @politicshome is told
This will revive their electoral fortunes and no mistake. As a 49 and a half year old brought up with metric I, and those younger than me, relish the idea of spending the many years we have until retirement fucking reeducating ourselves in systems of measurement used by precisely one other country for the benefit of Boomer nostalgics. Great idea. Bring back pounds, shillings and pence while you’re at it - I missed those entirely. My vote’s in the fucking bag Rishi!
The decimal system is woke. Bring back Babylonian base 60. (Not a Leon post.)
From the looks of the Code of Hammurabi the Babylonians had their own non-British measures, if you can believe it, so that's clearly a no go.
fifty ka of corn one-third of a mina of gold for each ten gan (area) ten gur of grain shall be paid
I can see they were bloody nimby's too though, so many building regs.
59. If any man, without the knowledge of the owner of a garden, fell a tree in a garden he shall pay half a mina in money. 233. If a builder build a house for some one, even though he has not yet completed it; if then the walls seem toppling, the builder must make the walls solid from his own means.
How far to the nearest post office?
About the time it takes to boil three lots of rice. But we instantly know how long it takes to boil three lots of rice, don’t we, more so than knowing how 4.3 kilometres will take?
I cannot even figure out what point you think you are making. No once disputes people use Imperial measurements.
The complaint is some nostalgic 'restoration', which isn't even nostalgic for anyone under the age of 70.
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
This was the predictable missing-the-point response. I use them for my height and weight, and turns out I don't need any government action to do so.
With government policies we should always ask:
i) what problem is the problem trying to be fixed? ii) is it actually a problem? iii) does the proposal actually address that problem? iv) does it have any other negative effects?
You tell me, what problem is being fixed by 'restoring' imperial measurements?
As far as I know you will not get arrested for saying you are 5ft 8 inches, and no one is harmed if they should see reference to 2.2 litres on a milk container.
Are we saying people are too confused after 40 years? What an insulting thing to say.
Are they simply going to not 'punish' people who sell sausages only by the pound with no reference to kilos? Fine, no harm done - but what benefit is there?
To announce things like this they must think it a winner. Why?
It's such a bloody winner they announce it three or four times a year.
A dozen times per quadrennial please, else I shall have no idea what you are babbling on about.
SNP 37% (-1) LAB 34% (+2) CON 17% (-1) LD 9% (nc) OTH 4% (nc)
F/w 23rd - 28th June. Changes vs. 27th April - 3 May.
24 SNP seats would go Labour on that swing since 2019, giving Labour most seats in Scotland again, albeit only by 1 MP.
However it could be more if Conservatives and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP. Zero swing between SNP and Tories so the Tories would hold all their Scottish seats
Surely Labour would get many more than that, as Conservatives vote tactically to keep the SNP out?
Starmer needs LD tactical votes in England to beat the Tories and Tory tactical votes in Scotland to help beat the SNP
Sunak on the other hand need a feckin' miracle of biblical proportions.
We all Noah that.
He certainly needs faith in the Job.
I think everyone is now expecting many Lamentations from Conservative candidates on election night.
After which, with any luck, they will wander about in the wilderness for 40 years.
Labour will only have wandered for another 9 years after their leader displayed a giant stone tablet with commands on it.
As I recall, the Edstone had 5 pledges. Presumably he has another 5 on the next one.
Hopefully one pledge will be the free owls. I was very disappointed when that was dropped.
If anyone can name any of the pledges they win PB for the day. It turns out there were six.
According to wikipedia sometime PB reader John Rentoul called it the "most absurd, ugly, embarrassing, childish, silly, patronising, idiotic, insane, ridiculous gimmick I have ever seen". He left out hilarious.
Did we ever find out for sure where it ended up?
Trump's Bathroom at Mar Lago is my guess. Everything else is found there.
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
"only Nixon could go to China" is an old Vulcan proverb.
Adam Payne @adampayne26 Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements, @politicshome is told
My problem with this is it is so transparently a gimmick. I refuse to believe there are serious people seriously thinking that we have a major problem with a lack of imperial measurements. Day to day people use a hodgepotch of imperial and metric, and that will continue regardless, so it is utterly pointless but designed as some kind of signal to some idiot out there who feels oppressed whenver they see something refer to kilometres.
Roads I’m less concerned with, they never went metric, it’s weights and measures. What’s the f’in point?
Which is more troubling - that this cretinous idea is being floated in a desperate attempt to attain some Brexit Bonus, however stupidly, or that the party things (and may be correct), that their core demographic would adore it?
We'll have a comment in a moment about how it is unfair people who grew up with those measurements to continue to exist in a world where litres show up on things. A rather infantilising view of their ability to comprehend things.
Or, we'll get a claim it won't really change anything anyway, in which case why even bother?
“this cretinous idea”
But the UK isn’t really metric though, and never will be, is it? Do you know your own size and weight in metric? When planning your journey, are you using miles or kilometres? How far is the Grand National in metric? In the pub do you buy pints?
Canada, Australia and New Zealand all use metric units for those.
We should embrace it as part of CANZUK, or "The British Empire" as it used to be known.
“We should embrace it”
Should we surrender a bit of our local heritage, for no actual reason and no gain whatsoever?
Adam Payne @adampayne26 Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements, @politicshome is told
My problem with this is it is so transparently a gimmick. I refuse to believe there are serious people seriously thinking that we have a major problem with a lack of imperial measurements. Day to day people use a hodgepotch of imperial and metric, and that will continue regardless, so it is utterly pointless but designed as some kind of signal to some idiot out there who feels oppressed whenver they see something refer to kilometres.
Roads I’m less concerned with, they never went metric, it’s weights and measures. What’s the f’in point?
Which is more troubling - that this cretinous idea is being floated in a desperate attempt to attain some Brexit Bonus, however stupidly, or that the party things (and may be correct), that their core demographic would adore it?
We'll have a comment in a moment about how it is unfair people who grew up with those measurements to continue to exist in a world where litres show up on things. A rather infantilising view of their ability to comprehend things.
Or, we'll get a claim it won't really change anything anyway, in which case why even bother?
“this cretinous idea”
But the UK isn’t really metric though, and never will be, is it? Do you know your own size and weight in metric? When planning your journey, are you using miles or kilometres? How far is the Grand National in metric? In the pub do you buy pints?
In the pub I buy drinks in the amounts they're served in, which in the best of British tradition is both imperial and metric simultaneously.
If I buy a pint, I get a drink of that measure. If I buy a double, I get a drink of that measure.
If I buy a double rum then I'll get 50ml of rum, not an amount measured in fluid ounces.
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
So what problem needs fixing?
There isn't a problem. It's just a chunk of maggoty red meat thrown to the terminally stupid.
I say bring back miles, chains and links! (80 chains to a mile; 100 links to a chain)
Railways are measured in miles and chains. Cranks who meticulously record their mileage do so to the nearest chain. (Snip)
I know, why do you think I mentioned it! Any excuse to move PB onto arcane railway trivia!
(There used to be a series of books called 'miles and chains', showing the stations and structures across the railways. I note HS1 - and HS2 to come - will use km instead, and there were plans for the entire network to move over to metric.)
I know you know. I don't think others know. But now, you know, they know.
"He is the most underrated politician I have covered, and I have covered Joe Biden."
"So how, despite all this, despite a spent-looking Conservative government, mightn’t Starmer win? Why does that 22-point poll lead seem to me a chimera?"
"To be clear, voters are sick of Tory nonsense. But they haven’t even begun to consider Labour nonsense."
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
I am firmly of the opinion that, at some point during the next Labour decade, a Tory leadership contender will run on a Rejoin platform. And do surprisingly well. He/she probably isn't in government yet, and maybe not in Parliament.
To get a decade in power Labour will have to find a solution to the doctors 35% pay demand.
Don't pay it and get continuous NHS strikes, pay it and get equivalent pay demands from the rest of the public sector.
Perhaps they could pay everyone by taxing property but that will create other sets of people angry at losing out.
Juggling the different groups isn't going to be easy especially as those who gain forget quicker than those who lose out.
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
Do they? I'm an old codger (68) so I expect people younger than me to be more metric. I measure my weight in kg, I measure my height in feet and inches, but I'm guessing that is because I achieved my maximum height when that was the norm and long distances depending upon what I am doing and where I am, so I only use miles for journeys in the UK (which of course is the majority of long distance measurements). Note when I posted here all my cycling distances on my holiday they were all in km.
Imperial for me is limited to: pints of beer, mpg, distance of journeys in the uk, height of people. I think that is about it.
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
I am firmly of the opinion that, at some point during the next Labour decade, a Tory leadership contender will run on a Rejoin platform. And do surprisingly well. He/she probably isn't in government yet, and maybe not in Parliament.
IMHO, that’s just wishful thinking. It was joining the EU that was the break with Conservative orthodoxy. Heath was committed to creating a nation called Europe, but for the rest, it was about opposing Communism.
Your hound looks like he is having a grand old time.
Hopefully, although as a road trip heading for Finland he also gets to spend a lot of time in the car.
What's your itinerary Ian? I have often fancied driving up the coast of Norway.
Ferries to Holland and Norway - gets the car to Norway with only three hours driving on the continent, then zigzagging up through the fjords, taking in Stavanger, Bergen, Alesund and Trondheim, a few days on an island out to sea, then just reaching the arctic circle before cutting down through Sweden and the ferry to Finland, doing about ten days in Finland finishing in Helsinki, long ferry back to Travemunde then driving back for the ferry from Holland, hopefully taking in the world's largest model railway en route.
Sounds brilliant! Shame the Newcastle to Norway ferry is no longer running but perhaps it will be back in 2026?
Ooh, that would be good. I used that route a couple of times before it stopped - it was very convenient, and we much preferred adventuring in Norway to the Alps, even when the weather was a bit rubbish at times. [Head East if it is]
We sailed from Newcastle to Oslo in 1964 on our honeymoon
Indeed we have been to Norway quite a few times but the best way to see the coast is on the Hurtigruten coastal express which bobs in and out of the fjords all the way up to the North Cape
Indeed it was Hurtigruten who took us on our Antarctica expedition
Jealous of Antarctica!
I think to appreciate the fjords you do need to go inland as well - I think I'd find 'which fjord is it today?' a bit dull after a while. You don't really get a good view of the glaciers and high mountains from below. Besides, some of the roads are quite amusing, even at Norwegian speed limits.
Adam Payne @adampayne26 Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements, @politicshome is told
This will revive their electoral fortunes and no mistake. As a 49 and a half year old brought up with metric I, and those younger than me, relish the idea of spending the many years we have until retirement fucking reeducating ourselves in systems of measurement used by precisely one other country for the benefit of Boomer nostalgics. Great idea. Bring back pounds, shillings and pence while you’re at it - I missed those entirely. My vote’s in the fucking bag Rishi!
The decimal system is woke. Bring back Babylonian base 60. (Not a Leon post.)
From the looks of the Code of Hammurabi the Babylonians had their own non-British measures, if you can believe it, so that's clearly a no go.
fifty ka of corn one-third of a mina of gold for each ten gan (area) ten gur of grain shall be paid
I can see they were bloody nimby's too though, so many building regs.
59. If any man, without the knowledge of the owner of a garden, fell a tree in a garden he shall pay half a mina in money. 233. If a builder build a house for some one, even though he has not yet completed it; if then the walls seem toppling, the builder must make the walls solid from his own means.
How far to the nearest post office?
About the time it takes to boil three lots of rice. But we instantly know how long it takes to boil three lots of rice, don’t we, more so than knowing how 4.3 kilometres will take?
Why not just use a bigger pot and boil all of the rice at once?
A deal has been reached for Ursula von der Leyen to become the next Nato Secretary General and the first woman to head the alliance, The National understands.
The year-long extension of incumbent Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure has been arranged so Ms von der Leyen can finish her five-year term as President of the European Commission in 2024, a Nato insider has said.
This is, in my opinion, a must read Twitter thread on the Ukraine offensive. It lays out why things are taking a while but how the author is convinced that a Ukraine victory is inevitable.
I cannot read it on twitter right now, but even if it is the case things have not simply collapsed on the Russian side it would seem pretty dumb to declare the Ukrainian offensive a failure at this point. It took them months to get into place to take Kherson, and that without taking on areas of massive entrenchment and mining.
Armchair war analyses tend to have a lot of wishcasting, including journalists just out for a contrarian story. Objectively, the small advances that are happening are mostly Ukrainian, but a major breakthrough before the autumn wet season seems unlikely. The question is whether everyone on both sides will want to keep pumping in money and and arms and Ukrainian and Russian lives indefinitely.
We should, for as long as Russia keeps on doing this sort of thing:
"At least 43 people, including twelve children, have been injured after a missile struck the carpark of a residential building in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, local officials say."
We cannot let this evil win. I feel sorry for future generations of Russians, who will live with the practical and moral consequences of the current fascist Russian government. Damn the Russian regime to Hell.
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
If the Tories embraced Rejoin they would cease to be the main party of the right in the UK, RefUK under a newly returned Farage would replace them as the main right of centre party and opposition to Labour.
Even Labour wouldn't embrace Rejoin now because of the redwall, at most they would consider EEA if they win and are then re elected.
The only UK wide party whose voter coalition would allow them to consider Rejoin are the LDs you vote for
The Tories are on course for ceasing to be the main party of the right if they embrace the blood and soil nationalism of the New Tories.
No they aren't, they are still about 25-30% with another 5-10% voting Reform.
Embrace Rejoin and they would collapse to 10% or less, probably fall to even fewer seats than the SNP and LDs under FPTP, Reform would get 30-35% and become the main opposition to Starmer's Labour government
I only trust measures named after those with impressive beards - kelvin, joule etc (sorry Newton and Watt)
Being serious, I'm a huge fan of history and retaining charming rituals or nomenclature, where this is not a hindrance or something much more universal and effective exists.
Other than people implying others are too stupid to figure out metric or handle temporary disruption from a change I've not seen other serious defences.
Adam Payne @adampayne26 Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements, @politicshome is told
This will revive their electoral fortunes and no mistake. As a 49 and a half year old brought up with metric I, and those younger than me, relish the idea of spending the many years we have until retirement fucking reeducating ourselves in systems of measurement used by precisely one other country for the benefit of Boomer nostalgics. Great idea. Bring back pounds, shillings and pence while you’re at it - I missed those entirely. My vote’s in the fucking bag Rishi!
The decimal system is woke. Bring back Babylonian base 60. (Not a Leon post.)
From the looks of the Code of Hammurabi the Babylonians had their own non-British measures, if you can believe it, so that's clearly a no go.
fifty ka of corn one-third of a mina of gold for each ten gan (area) ten gur of grain shall be paid
I can see they were bloody nimby's too though, so many building regs.
59. If any man, without the knowledge of the owner of a garden, fell a tree in a garden he shall pay half a mina in money. 233. If a builder build a house for some one, even though he has not yet completed it; if then the walls seem toppling, the builder must make the walls solid from his own means.
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
I am firmly of the opinion that, at some point during the next Labour decade, a Tory leadership contender will run on a Rejoin platform. And do surprisingly well. He/she probably isn't in government yet, and maybe not in Parliament.
To get a decade in power Labour will have to find a solution to the doctors 35% pay demand.
Don't pay it and get continuous NHS strikes, pay it and get equivalent pay demands from the rest of the public sector.
Perhaps they could pay everyone by taxing property but that will create other sets of people angry at losing out.
Juggling the different groups isn't going to be easy especially as those who gain forget quicker than those who lose out.
Paying something in between instead of paying the same people agency fees of £2k+ per shift to cover themselves striking will save money, improve retention and productivity.
Adam Payne @adampayne26 Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements, @politicshome is told
My problem with this is it is so transparently a gimmick. I refuse to believe there are serious people seriously thinking that we have a major problem with a lack of imperial measurements. Day to day people use a hodgepotch of imperial and metric, and that will continue regardless, so it is utterly pointless but designed as some kind of signal to some idiot out there who feels oppressed whenver they see something refer to kilometres.
Roads I’m less concerned with, they never went metric, it’s weights and measures. What’s the f’in point?
Which is more troubling - that this cretinous idea is being floated in a desperate attempt to attain some Brexit Bonus, however stupidly, or that the party things (and may be correct), that their core demographic would adore it?
We'll have a comment in a moment about how it is unfair people who grew up with those measurements to continue to exist in a world where litres show up on things. A rather infantilising view of their ability to comprehend things.
Or, we'll get a claim it won't really change anything anyway, in which case why even bother?
“this cretinous idea”
But the UK isn’t really metric though, and never will be, is it? Do you know your own size and weight in metric? When planning your journey, are you using miles or kilometres? How far is the Grand National in metric? In the pub do you buy pints?
Canada, Australia and New Zealand all use metric units for those.
We should embrace it as part of CANZUK, or "The British Empire" as it used to be known.
Agree totally! Metric martyrdom is just sooooo pre-Brexit. And let's rename our currency the dollar and drive on the right while we're at it. People need to get with the Global Britain programme. The old national romanticism of the EU-membership years is something we can no longer afford.
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
I am firmly of the opinion that, at some point during the next Labour decade, a Tory leadership contender will run on a Rejoin platform. And do surprisingly well. He/she probably isn't in government yet, and maybe not in Parliament.
To get a decade in power Labour will have to find a solution to the doctors 35% pay demand.
Don't pay it and get continuous NHS strikes, pay it and get equivalent pay demands from the rest of the public sector.
Perhaps they could pay everyone by taxing property but that will create other sets of people angry at losing out.
Juggling the different groups isn't going to be easy especially as those who gain forget quicker than those who lose out.
And don't forget the train drivers who said yesterday they could strike for 20 years ( I kid you not)
"He is the most underrated politician I have covered, and I have covered Joe Biden."
"So how, despite all this, despite a spent-looking Conservative government, mightn’t Starmer win? Why does that 22-point poll lead seem to me a chimera?"
"To be clear, voters are sick of Tory nonsense. But they haven’t even begun to consider Labour nonsense."
Starmer's been a lucky opposition leader - that's no criticism as luck is the most important attribute.
Adam Payne @adampayne26 Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements, @politicshome is told
This will revive their electoral fortunes and no mistake. As a 49 and a half year old brought up with metric I, and those younger than me, relish the idea of spending the many years we have until retirement fucking reeducating ourselves in systems of measurement used by precisely one other country for the benefit of Boomer nostalgics. Great idea. Bring back pounds, shillings and pence while you’re at it - I missed those entirely. My vote’s in the fucking bag Rishi!
The decimal system is woke. Bring back Babylonian base 60. (Not a Leon post.)
From the looks of the Code of Hammurabi the Babylonians had their own non-British measures, if you can believe it, so that's clearly a no go.
fifty ka of corn one-third of a mina of gold for each ten gan (area) ten gur of grain shall be paid
I can see they were bloody nimby's too though, so many building regs.
59. If any man, without the knowledge of the owner of a garden, fell a tree in a garden he shall pay half a mina in money. 233. If a builder build a house for some one, even though he has not yet completed it; if then the walls seem toppling, the builder must make the walls solid from his own means.
How far to the nearest post office?
About the time it takes to boil three lots of rice. But we instantly know how long it takes to boil three lots of rice, don’t we, more so than knowing how 4.3 kilometres will take?
Working in "thou" rather than mm will be a big learning requirement for engineers below the age of retirement.
Exhuming imperial measurement is the last resort of a scoundrel Government.
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
This was the predictable missing-the-point response. I use them for my height and weight, and turns out I don't need any government action to do so.
With government policies we should always ask:
i) what problem is the problem trying to be fixed? ii) is it actually a problem? iii) does the proposal actually address that problem? iv) does it have any other negative effects?
You tell me, what problem is being fixed by 'restoring' imperial measurements?
As far as I know you will not get arrested for saying you are 5ft 8 inches, and no one is harmed if they should see reference to 2.2 litres on a milk container.
Are we saying people are too confused after 40 years? What an insulting thing to say.
Are they simply going to not 'punish' people who sell sausages only by the pound with no reference to kilos? Fine, no harm done - but what benefit is there?
To announce things like this they must think it a winner. Why?
It's such a bloody winner they announce it three or four times a year.
A dozen times per quadrennial please, else I shall have no idea what you are babbling on about.
Indeed. A hundred sesterces to the coruncainus for a responsa from the iudex on the matter: cubits or royal cubits. Freedom from Mesopotamia and their foreign muck, that's what I say... 😀
"He is the most underrated politician I have covered, and I have covered Joe Biden."
"So how, despite all this, despite a spent-looking Conservative government, mightn’t Starmer win? Why does that 22-point poll lead seem to me a chimera?"
"To be clear, voters are sick of Tory nonsense. But they haven’t even begun to consider Labour nonsense."
Starmer's been a lucky opposition leader - that's no criticism as luck is the most important attribute.
We would see his abilities as PM.
Yes, he will win but end up our Francois Hollande in my view, who presented himself as just as decent but dull and beat the more charismatic Sarkozy in 2012 but more narrowly than expected. Starmer may well only be a one term PM at most, perhaps Wes Streeting Labour's Macron?
This is, in my opinion, a must read Twitter thread on the Ukraine offensive. It lays out why things are taking a while but how the author is convinced that a Ukraine victory is inevitable.
I cannot read it on twitter right now, but even if it is the case things have not simply collapsed on the Russian side it would seem pretty dumb to declare the Ukrainian offensive a failure at this point. It took them months to get into place to take Kherson, and that without taking on areas of massive entrenchment and mining.
Armchair war analyses tend to have a lot of wishcasting, including journalists just out for a contrarian story. Objectively, the small advances that are happening are mostly Ukrainian, but a major breakthrough before the autumn wet season seems unlikely. The question is whether everyone on both sides will want to keep pumping in money and and arms and Ukrainian and Russian lives indefinitely.
We should, for as long as Russia keeps on doing this sort of thing:
"At least 43 people, including twelve children, have been injured after a missile struck the carpark of a residential building in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, local officials say."
We cannot let this evil win. I feel sorry for future generations of Russians, who will live with the practical and moral consequences of the current fascist Russian government. Damn the Russian regime to Hell.
It took 6 years to defeat the Nazis but it seems westerners are already getting bored of Ukraine after 16 months.
Your hound looks like he is having a grand old time.
Hopefully, although as a road trip heading for Finland he also gets to spend a lot of time in the car.
What's your itinerary Ian? I have often fancied driving up the coast of Norway.
Ferries to Holland and Norway - gets the car to Norway with only three hours driving on the continent, then zigzagging up through the fjords, taking in Stavanger, Bergen, Alesund and Trondheim, a few days on an island out to sea, then just reaching the arctic circle before cutting down through Sweden and the ferry to Finland, doing about ten days in Finland finishing in Helsinki, long ferry back to Travemunde then driving back for the ferry from Holland, hopefully taking in the world's largest model railway en route.
Sounds brilliant! Shame the Newcastle to Norway ferry is no longer running but perhaps it will be back in 2026?
Ooh, that would be good. I used that route a couple of times before it stopped - it was very convenient, and we much preferred adventuring in Norway to the Alps, even when the weather was a bit rubbish at times. [Head East if it is]
We sailed from Newcastle to Oslo in 1964 on our honeymoon
Indeed we have been to Norway quite a few times but the best way to see the coast is on the Hurtigruten coastal express which bobs in and out of the fjords all the way up to the North Cape
Indeed it was Hurtigruten who took us on our Antarctica expedition
Jealous of Antarctica!
I think to appreciate the fjords you do need to go inland as well - I think I'd find 'which fjord is it today?' a bit dull after a while. You don't really get a good view of the glaciers and high mountains from below. Besides, some of the roads are quite amusing, even at Norwegian speed limits.
This is, in my opinion, a must read Twitter thread on the Ukraine offensive. It lays out why things are taking a while but how the author is convinced that a Ukraine victory is inevitable.
I cannot read it on twitter right now, but even if it is the case things have not simply collapsed on the Russian side it would seem pretty dumb to declare the Ukrainian offensive a failure at this point. It took them months to get into place to take Kherson, and that without taking on areas of massive entrenchment and mining.
Armchair war analyses tend to have a lot of wishcasting, including journalists just out for a contrarian story. Objectively, the small advances that are happening are mostly Ukrainian, but a major breakthrough before the autumn wet season seems unlikely. The question is whether everyone on both sides will want to keep pumping in money and and arms and Ukrainian and Russian lives indefinitely.
Given a successful invasion would probably make further attempts, and imitators elsewhere in the world, much more likely than an unsuccessful one, money and arms now seems like a lesser cost to money and arms later, so long as the Ukrainians are still willing to fight (as they will so long as they are supported).
You will call that wishcasting and armchair analysis, and of course everyone not on the front line is soing so in armchair style of various style, but it seems like fairly basic logic that if invasions work and then things go back to normal, that they will be tried again. You would agree with that?
We know that for a fact since the world ignored the 2014 invasion, and I imagine many of us supported doing nothing as doing something seemed even worse unfortunately, but we have been proven dead wrong.
The Russians believe the West will eventually get tired of things and let them win. They might be right, and if Donald Trump wins they will definitely be right. The Ukrainians hope that is not the case. Hence, both are still wanting to fight.
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
And yet some measures have succeeded more than I expected. Petrol in litres, car speeds in kph, temperatures in Celsius.
I remember as a child cookery shows using both units. Then a long period of just Celsius. Then as international rights sales/social-media took off a return to referencing both units again.
Noticeable that US youtube'ers give zero f**ks about Celsius though, in the other direction.
Your hound looks like he is having a grand old time.
Hopefully, although as a road trip heading for Finland he also gets to spend a lot of time in the car.
What's your itinerary Ian? I have often fancied driving up the coast of Norway.
Ferries to Holland and Norway - gets the car to Norway with only three hours driving on the continent, then zigzagging up through the fjords, taking in Stavanger, Bergen, Alesund and Trondheim, a few days on an island out to sea, then just reaching the arctic circle before cutting down through Sweden and the ferry to Finland, doing about ten days in Finland finishing in Helsinki, long ferry back to Travemunde then driving back for the ferry from Holland, hopefully taking in the world's largest model railway en route.
Sounds brilliant! Shame the Newcastle to Norway ferry is no longer running but perhaps it will be back in 2026?
Ooh, that would be good. I used that route a couple of times before it stopped - it was very convenient, and we much preferred adventuring in Norway to the Alps, even when the weather was a bit rubbish at times. [Head East if it is]
We sailed from Newcastle to Oslo in 1964 on our honeymoon
Indeed we have been to Norway quite a few times but the best way to see the coast is on the Hurtigruten coastal express which bobs in and out of the fjords all the way up to the North Cape
Indeed it was Hurtigruten who took us on our Antarctica expedition
Jealous of Antarctica!
I think to appreciate the fjords you do need to go inland as well - I think I'd find 'which fjord is it today?' a bit dull after a while. You don't really get a good view of the glaciers and high mountains from below. Besides, some of the roads are quite amusing, even at Norwegian speed limits.
I partially agree, and would definitely think twice for that reason. I would never go on some massive cruise ship (which the Hurtigruten isn't, or at least wasn't).
We have contacts in the Antarctic Survey so maybe that's the way to go about it...
Washington Post (via Seattle Times) - A viral left-wing Twitter account may have been fake all along
In eight months, Erica Marsh has become one of the most consistently viral left-wing voices on Twitter, gaining more than 130,000 followers for her hyper-liberal, often melodramatic opinions on the biggest flash points in American news.
She’s been especially popular with conservatives, who promoted her as a perfect symbol of how overly theatrical and inane progressives can be — like when she attacked the Supreme Court’s affirmative-action decision last week by saying “no Black person will be able to succeed in a merit-based system.” The tweet was viewed more than 27 million times.
There’s just one problem: She’s probably a fake.
The “proud Democrat” in Washington, as she described herself on Twitter, doesn’t show up in any local phone or voting records. . . .
After The Washington Post raised questions about the account with employees of Twitter’s trust and safety department, the account was suspended on Sunday for unknown reasons. . . .
Marsh’s account tended to post messages so polarizing and incendiary that readers couldn’t help but respond, boosting her public profile in the process — a tactic known as “rage baiting.”
The strategy was most infamously deployed by trolls linked to the Russian government . . . during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. . . .
For months, Marsh’s account had raised suspicions among online misinformation experts due to her lack of a real-world footprint and her devotion to attention-grabbing viewpoints one called “cartoonishly liberal.” . . .
When it came to political commentary, she seemed to regard every polarizing news story as an opportunity to offer her opinion and to solicit her fans to promote her to their own networks. [SSI - sound familiar, PBers?] . . . .
Some of her tweets . . . read like liberal caricatures; last month, she said she still wears “2 masks whenever I go out and support Ukraine.” . . .
Her most extreme and mean-spirited tweets, including her glee over the death of a Jan. 6 rioter, were often used by conservatives to criticize the Biden administration based on her assertion she’d been involved with his campaign.
Her tweet about the affirmative-action decision, in which she said Black people would not succeed in a merit-based system, sparked a viral outcry of its own . . . .
A former Twitter trust and safety employee . . . said the company had seen a rush of accounts out of North Macedonia around October 2022 posing as pro-Trump influencers and offering up the same style of “over-the-top, clickbait tweets.” . . .
For some months, the Erica Marsh account profile included a link to a Venmo account, which would’ve allowed readers to send her money. Venmo didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment. . . .
Did they have any interest in flint knapping perchance?
So a week after Prigrozhin´s internet troll farm has an existence failure, a leading internet troll is found to be fake.
In other news, Leading friends of Putin explain why, without Putin, Russia will be a bigger threat to world peace which would be bad. As opposed to a bigger threat to Russian peace, which is the reality and would be good.
This is, in my opinion, a must read Twitter thread on the Ukraine offensive. It lays out why things are taking a while but how the author is convinced that a Ukraine victory is inevitable.
I cannot read it on twitter right now, but even if it is the case things have not simply collapsed on the Russian side it would seem pretty dumb to declare the Ukrainian offensive a failure at this point. It took them months to get into place to take Kherson, and that without taking on areas of massive entrenchment and mining.
Armchair war analyses tend to have a lot of wishcasting, including journalists just out for a contrarian story. Objectively, the small advances that are happening are mostly Ukrainian, but a major breakthrough before the autumn wet season seems unlikely. The question is whether everyone on both sides will want to keep pumping in money and and arms and Ukrainian and Russian lives indefinitely.
We should, for as long as Russia keeps on doing this sort of thing:
"At least 43 people, including twelve children, have been injured after a missile struck the carpark of a residential building in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, local officials say."
We cannot let this evil win. I feel sorry for future generations of Russians, who will live with the practical and moral consequences of the current fascist Russian government. Damn the Russian regime to Hell.
The problem I have with the subtext of the post you’re responding to is that somehow, we do the Ukrainians no favours by helping them to resist. Peter Hitchens makes this bad argument, all the time. If we did nothing, and Ukrainian resistance collapsed, lives would be saved in the short term, but certainly not in the long term.
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
I am firmly of the opinion that, at some point during the next Labour decade, a Tory leadership contender will run on a Rejoin platform. And do surprisingly well. He/she probably isn't in government yet, and maybe not in Parliament.
To get a decade in power Labour will have to find a solution to the doctors 35% pay demand.
Don't pay it and get continuous NHS strikes, pay it and get equivalent pay demands from the rest of the public sector.
Perhaps they could pay everyone by taxing property but that will create other sets of people angry at losing out.
Juggling the different groups isn't going to be easy especially as those who gain forget quicker than those who lose out.
Paying something in between instead of paying the same people agency fees of £2k+ per shift to cover themselves striking will save money, improve retention and productivity.
What's something in between ?
20% ? 25% ? 30% ?
That demand for 35% is likely to increase with a Labour government.
Whatever the doctors are given will become the minimum demand for the rest of the public sector.
And why not - if the high paid get a big pay rise the low paid deserve the same.
This is, in my opinion, a must read Twitter thread on the Ukraine offensive. It lays out why things are taking a while but how the author is convinced that a Ukraine victory is inevitable.
I cannot read it on twitter right now, but even if it is the case things have not simply collapsed on the Russian side it would seem pretty dumb to declare the Ukrainian offensive a failure at this point. It took them months to get into place to take Kherson, and that without taking on areas of massive entrenchment and mining.
Armchair war analyses tend to have a lot of wishcasting, including journalists just out for a contrarian story. Objectively, the small advances that are happening are mostly Ukrainian, but a major breakthrough before the autumn wet season seems unlikely. The question is whether everyone on both sides will want to keep pumping in money and and arms and Ukrainian and Russian lives indefinitely.
We should, for as long as Russia keeps on doing this sort of thing:
"At least 43 people, including twelve children, have been injured after a missile struck the carpark of a residential building in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, local officials say."
We cannot let this evil win. I feel sorry for future generations of Russians, who will live with the practical and moral consequences of the current fascist Russian government. Damn the Russian regime to Hell.
It took 6 years to defeat the Nazis but it seems westerners are already getting bored of Ukraine after 16 months.
Because we're not fully involved, even though we are directly. I've been pleasantly surprised support has held up as long as it has. It is not an idle fear for Ukraine that a lack of forward progress puts pressure on the government's which support it though.
A deal has been reached for Ursula von der Leyen to become the next Nato Secretary General and the first woman to head the alliance, The National understands.
The year-long extension of incumbent Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure has been arranged so Ms von der Leyen can finish her five-year term as President of the European Commission in 2024, a Nato insider has said.
I just got an email inviting me to invest in What 3 Words.
avoid.like.plague
I actually made that call last weekend: 999, "Police", "Mountain Rescue please".
Provided grid reference with OS Locate app (download it now!). Then received a text message from Police Scotland that pinged my phone and sent the same grid reference again to Mountain Rescue.
They hate W3W. Rarely get all three of the words, particularly over a radio, and have to guess. Almost always used by people who only have a vague idea of what mountain they are on, so impossible to scan a W3W map and work it out.
Anyway, top tip I learnt. If very windy, chuck your jacket over your head so you can get your message across. Simple, but I didn't think of it till the MR guy asked me too. Also, bivvy bags are great.
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
If the Tories embraced Rejoin they would cease to be the main party of the right in the UK, RefUK under a newly returned Farage would replace them as the main right of centre party and opposition to Labour.
Even Labour wouldn't embrace Rejoin now because of the redwall, at most they would consider EEA if they win and are then re elected.
The only UK wide party whose voter coalition would allow them to consider Rejoin are the LDs you vote for
The Tories are on course for ceasing to be the main party of the right if they embrace the blood and soil nationalism of the New Tories.
No they aren't, they are still about 25-30% with another 5-10% voting Reform.
Embrace Rejoin and they would collapse to 10% or less, probably fall to even fewer seats than the SNP and LDs under FPTP, Reform would get 30-35% and become the main opposition to Starmer's Labour government
Someone on here once described the Rejoiners as the 21st Century Jacobites. It is a very apt description. Just like the Jacobites of the 18th Century, they increasingly find reasons to believe their glorious restoration is round the corner. And they also can't even accurately describe their opponents. "Blood and soil nationalism" isn't espoused by anyone in UK politics since the BNP collapsed. Even UKIP don't believe that crap, let alone anyone in the Tory party.
The Rejoiners are just a bit thick and it's the only way they can argue against common sense immigration restrictions against illegal, unskilled, or unintegrating populations is by screaming 'racist!'
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
And yet some measures have succeeded more than I expected. Petrol in litres, car speeds in kph, temperatures in Celsius.
I remember as a child cookery shows using both units. Then a long period of just Celsius. Then as international rights sales/social-media took off a return to referencing both units again.
Noticeable that US youtube'ers give zero f**ks about Celsius though, in the other direction.
Cooking instructions would also state "Gas Regulo 4" or whatever. Not sure if that counts as metric or imperial.
A deal has been reached for Ursula von der Leyen to become the next Nato Secretary General and the first woman to head the alliance, The National understands.
The year-long extension of incumbent Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure has been arranged so Ms von der Leyen can finish her five-year term as President of the European Commission in 2024, a Nato insider has said.
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
This was the predictable missing-the-point response. I use them for my height and weight, and turns out I don't need any government action to do so.
With government policies we should always ask:
i) what problem is the problem trying to be fixed? ii) is it actually a problem? iii) does the proposal actually address that problem? iv) does it have any other negative effects?
You tell me, what problem is being fixed by 'restoring' imperial measurements?
As far as I know you will not get arrested for saying you are 5ft 8 inches, and no one is harmed if they should see reference to 2.2 litres on a milk container.
Are we saying people are too confused after 40 years? What an insulting thing to say.
Are they simply going to not 'punish' people who sell sausages only by the pound with no reference to kilos? Fine, no harm done - but what benefit is there?
To announce things like this they must think it a winner. Why?
It's such a bloody winner they announce it three or four times a year.
A dozen times per quadrennial please, else I shall have no idea what you are babbling on about.
Indeed. A hundred sesterces to the coruncainus for a responsa from the iudex on the matter: cubits or royal cubits. Freedom from Mesopotamia and their foreign muck, that's what I say... 😀
Sesterces are only legal tender at Marcus et Spencius.
I just got an email inviting me to invest in What 3 Words.
avoid.like.plague
Seriously though.
what3words has raised £100m+ so far.
In their last published accounts, they lost £43m on turnover of £444,000. Turnover was actually down on the previous year. Their chief commercial officer is by all accounts amazing and talks the talk (I know several people who've worked with her) but it doesn't alter the fact there's no path to profitability in sight.
To call w3w a basketcase would be unfair to Guatemalan artisan basket-weavers, who at least have a viable business model.
A deal has been reached for Ursula von der Leyen to become the next Nato Secretary General and the first woman to head the alliance, The National understands.
The year-long extension of incumbent Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure has been arranged so Ms von der Leyen can finish her five-year term as President of the European Commission in 2024, a Nato insider has said.
That would be quite the coup by the EU. I assume they lobbied very hard to have the next head be from the EU, and a woman would have been high on the list as well since they've not had a female secretary-general yet.
She seems to have a poor record when she was a minister IIRC, but she does diplomatic gladhanding well enough and looks and sounds credible to partners.
This is, in my opinion, a must read Twitter thread on the Ukraine offensive. It lays out why things are taking a while but how the author is convinced that a Ukraine victory is inevitable.
I cannot read it on twitter right now, but even if it is the case things have not simply collapsed on the Russian side it would seem pretty dumb to declare the Ukrainian offensive a failure at this point. It took them months to get into place to take Kherson, and that without taking on areas of massive entrenchment and mining.
Armchair war analyses tend to have a lot of wishcasting, including journalists just out for a contrarian story. Objectively, the small advances that are happening are mostly Ukrainian, but a major breakthrough before the autumn wet season seems unlikely. ..
Isn’t that the wishcasting of an armchair analyst ?
I only trust measures named after those with impressive beards - kelvin, joule etc (sorry Newton and Watt)
Being serious, I'm a huge fan of history and retaining charming rituals or nomenclature, where this is not a hindrance or something much more universal and effective exists.
Other than people implying others are too stupid to figure out metric or handle temporary disruption from a change I've not seen other serious defences.
I'm fifty, and measure distances in miles or km (miles when walking, km when running, oddly enough). They're easy to translate between in your head, as 8km is pretty much 5 miles. I measure my height in feet and inches (but know it in cm), and weight in kg. Volume in litres (yes, I drink pints, but never have to measure pints). I find stones, pounds and ounces fairly incomprehensible.
I've managed fifty years of my life in this happy state, and see little reason to change it. In most cases, metric rules!
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
If the Tories embraced Rejoin they would cease to be the main party of the right in the UK, RefUK under a newly returned Farage would replace them as the main right of centre party and opposition to Labour.
Even Labour wouldn't embrace Rejoin now because of the redwall, at most they would consider EEA if they win and are then re elected.
The only UK wide party whose voter coalition would allow them to consider Rejoin are the LDs you vote for
The Tories are on course for ceasing to be the main party of the right if they embrace the blood and soil nationalism of the New Tories.
No they aren't, they are still about 25-30% with another 5-10% voting Reform.
Embrace Rejoin and they would collapse to 10% or less, probably fall to even fewer seats than the SNP and LDs under FPTP, Reform would get 30-35% and become the main opposition to Starmer's Labour government
The next election will be a blood bath for many conservatives not least the 25 deluded mps who want to stop carers coming here
I doubt any of them will be in the next parliament
The ERG and yourself are quickly running out of road and indeed relevance
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
This was the predictable missing-the-point response. I use them for my height and weight, and turns out I don't need any government action to do so.
With government policies we should always ask:
i) what problem is the problem trying to be fixed? ii) is it actually a problem? iii) does the proposal actually address that problem? iv) does it have any other negative effects?
You tell me, what problem is being fixed by 'restoring' imperial measurements?
As far as I know you will not get arrested for saying you are 5ft 8 inches, and no one is harmed if they should see reference to 2.2 litres on a milk container.
Are we saying people are too confused after 40 years? What an insulting thing to say.
Are they simply going to not 'punish' people who sell sausages only by the pound with no reference to kilos? Fine, no harm done - but what benefit is there?
To announce things like this they must think it a winner. Why?
This would be bonkers. I'm in my mid-50s and basically use metric for everything except distance, and that's only because road signs persist in showing miles. I buy pints in a pub because that's the quantity they sell beer in; if it was 50cl or 60cl I really wouldn't care. I do know my height in imperial because that's what older people understood when I reached my full height. I have to stop and think to know how many ounces in a pound or pounds in a stone. I know a hundredweight isn't 100lb despite the name and I'm glad I don't have to know how much it actually is. Who, under 70, cares about any of this?
A deal has been reached for Ursula von der Leyen to become the next Nato Secretary General and the first woman to head the alliance, The National understands.
The year-long extension of incumbent Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure has been arranged so Ms von der Leyen can finish her five-year term as President of the European Commission in 2024, a Nato insider has said.
As predicted by pb's own @Dura_Ace iirc (or at least, he noted the strange coincidence of JS's extension and UvdL becoming available).
A German aristocrat being parachuted into a job despite little personal achievement or democratic mandate in her history. I suppose it isn't quite as egregious as how she got the EU job. There she was given it in a backroom deal over the rules that got Juncker the job.
This is, in my opinion, a must read Twitter thread on the Ukraine offensive. It lays out why things are taking a while but how the author is convinced that a Ukraine victory is inevitable.
I cannot read it on twitter right now, but even if it is the case things have not simply collapsed on the Russian side it would seem pretty dumb to declare the Ukrainian offensive a failure at this point. It took them months to get into place to take Kherson, and that without taking on areas of massive entrenchment and mining.
Russian defeats at Kyiv, Kharkov, Kherson and Snake Island have come 'slowly then quickly'.
If the Ukrainian daily claims of casualties they are inflicting:
A deal has been reached for Ursula von der Leyen to become the next Nato Secretary General and the first woman to head the alliance, The National understands.
The year-long extension of incumbent Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure has been arranged so Ms von der Leyen can finish her five-year term as President of the European Commission in 2024, a Nato insider has said.
"He is the most underrated politician I have covered, and I have covered Joe Biden."
"So how, despite all this, despite a spent-looking Conservative government, mightn’t Starmer win? Why does that 22-point poll lead seem to me a chimera?"
"To be clear, voters are sick of Tory nonsense. But they haven’t even begun to consider Labour nonsense."
I find that I can read FT articles for free if I type/copy the headline into Google. Maybe they and the FT have some sort of agreement.
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
I am firmly of the opinion that, at some point during the next Labour decade, a Tory leadership contender will run on a Rejoin platform. And do surprisingly well. He/she probably isn't in government yet, and maybe not in Parliament.
IMHO, that’s just wishful thinking. It was joining the EU that was the break with Conservative orthodoxy. Heath was committed to creating a nation called Europe, but for the rest, it was about opposing Communism.
A deal has been reached for Ursula von der Leyen to become the next Nato Secretary General and the first woman to head the alliance, The National understands.
The year-long extension of incumbent Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure has been arranged so Ms von der Leyen can finish her five-year term as President of the European Commission in 2024, a Nato insider has said.
As predicted by pb's own @Dura_Ace iirc (or at least, he noted the strange coincidence of JS's extension and UvdL becoming available).
I am sure Putin is quaking in his boots at von der Leyen as Nato Secretary General
She’s been a hell of a lot more effective at strategy in this war than Vlad has. The EC, much more than the individual member states, has played it pretty well.
What is it with you right wingers and this idea that wars must be won by muscly hetero Russian types with scowls on their faces rather than those woke westerners and ladies who wear suits? It’s all over American alt-right social media and evidently exists here too.
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
I've noticed the generation below me (not even a whole generation really) will respond with '185cm' or the like if you ask them their height. Distance I suspect is a side-effect of road signage. I've never been so impolite as to ask about their weight. Though I've noticed metric being somewhat more common in cooking outside of 'a teaspoon of...' kinda measures.
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
I am firmly of the opinion that, at some point during the next Labour decade, a Tory leadership contender will run on a Rejoin platform. And do surprisingly well. He/she probably isn't in government yet, and maybe not in Parliament.
To get a decade in power Labour will have to find a solution to the doctors 35% pay demand.
Don't pay it and get continuous NHS strikes, pay it and get equivalent pay demands from the rest of the public sector.
Perhaps they could pay everyone by taxing property but that will create other sets of people angry at losing out.
Juggling the different groups isn't going to be easy especially as those who gain forget quicker than those who lose out.
Paying something in between instead of paying the same people agency fees of £2k+ per shift to cover themselves striking will save money, improve retention and productivity.
What's something in between ?
20% ? 25% ? 30% ?
That demand for 35% is likely to increase with a Labour government.
Whatever the doctors are given will become the minimum demand for the rest of the public sector.
And why not - if the high paid get a big pay rise the low paid deserve the same.
Less than those numbers, at least per year. And anything over inflation should be for junior doctors (£40-60k) rather than the higher paid more experienced doctors who might be earning £100k+.
It would be better if we moved to make doctor pay significantly flatter over their careers rather than quite so back loaded, especially with long degrees and higher student debt, tax and house prices.
But regardless, paying regularly someone £2k to cover a single shift of a striking worker (possibly themself!) because we are not willing to give a £5k annual pay rise makes absolutely zero mathematical sense. I don't quite get why people think it saves us any taxpayer money.
I just got an email inviting me to invest in What 3 Words.
avoid.like.plague
Seriously though.
what3words has raised £100m+ so far.
In their last published accounts, they lost £43m on turnover of £444,000. Turnover was actually down on the previous year. Their chief commercial officer is by all accounts amazing and talks the talk (I know several people who've worked with her) but it doesn't alter the fact there's no path to profitability in sight.
To call w3w a basketcase would be unfair to Guatemalan artisan basket-weavers, who at least have a viable business model.
Judged as one of Leon’s hot tips, however, that’s pretty close to a median outcome.
This is, in my opinion, a must read Twitter thread on the Ukraine offensive. It lays out why things are taking a while but how the author is convinced that a Ukraine victory is inevitable.
I cannot read it on twitter right now, but even if it is the case things have not simply collapsed on the Russian side it would seem pretty dumb to declare the Ukrainian offensive a failure at this point. It took them months to get into place to take Kherson, and that without taking on areas of massive entrenchment and mining.
Armchair war analyses tend to have a lot of wishcasting, including journalists just out for a contrarian story. Objectively, the small advances that are happening are mostly Ukrainian, but a major breakthrough before the autumn wet season seems unlikely. The question is whether everyone on both sides will want to keep pumping in money and and arms and Ukrainian and Russian lives indefinitely.
Given a successful invasion would probably make further attempts, and imitators elsewhere in the world, much more likely than an unsuccessful one, money and arms now seems like a lesser cost to money and arms later, so long as the Ukrainians are still willing to fight (as they will so long as they are supported).
You will call that wishcasting and armchair analysis, and of course everyone not on the front line is soing so in armchair style of various style, but it seems like fairly basic logic that if invasions work and then things go back to normal, that they will be tried again. You would agree with that?
We know that for a fact since the world ignored the 2014 invasion, and I imagine many of us supported doing nothing as doing something seemed even worse unfortunately, but we have been proven dead wrong.
The Russians believe the West will eventually get tired of things and let them win. They might be right, and if Donald Trump wins they will definitely be right. The Ukrainians hope that is not the case. Hence, both are still wanting to fight.
I can't remember whether NickP is an old Trot or ex-Stalinist, but he has been wanting to appease Putin from the start. Old sympathies die hard.
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
This was the predictable missing-the-point response. I use them for my height and weight, and turns out I don't need any government action to do so.
With government policies we should always ask:
i) what problem is the problem trying to be fixed? ii) is it actually a problem? iii) does the proposal actually address that problem? iv) does it have any other negative effects?
You tell me, what problem is being fixed by 'restoring' imperial measurements?
As far as I know you will not get arrested for saying you are 5ft 8 inches, and no one is harmed if they should see reference to 2.2 litres on a milk container.
Are we saying people are too confused after 40 years? What an insulting thing to say.
Are they simply going to not 'punish' people who sell sausages only by the pound with no reference to kilos? Fine, no harm done - but what benefit is there?
To announce things like this they must think it a winner. Why?
This would be bonkers. I'm in my mid-50s and basically use metric for everything except distance, and that's only because road signs persist in showing miles. I buy pints in a pub because that's the quantity they sell beer in; if it was 50cl or 60cl I really wouldn't care. I do know my height in imperial because that's what older people understood when I reached my full height. I have to stop and think to know how many ounces in a pound or pounds in a stone. I know a hundredweight isn't 100lb despite the name and I'm glad I don't have to know how much it actually is. Who, under 70, cares about any of this?
Fresh milk Football distances Cricket distances Male clothes sizes
People are able to use different systems for different things as appropriate.
A deal has been reached for Ursula von der Leyen to become the next Nato Secretary General and the first woman to head the alliance, The National understands.
The year-long extension of incumbent Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure has been arranged so Ms von der Leyen can finish her five-year term as President of the European Commission in 2024, a Nato insider has said.
As predicted by pb's own @Dura_Ace iirc (or at least, he noted the strange coincidence of JS's extension and UvdL becoming available).
I am sure Putin is quaking in his boots at von der Leyen as Nato Secretary General
She’s been a hell of a lot more effective at strategy in this war than Vlad has. The EC, much more than the individual member states, has played it pretty well.
What is it with you right wingers and this idea that wars must be won by muscly hetero Russian types with scowls on their faces rather than those woke westerners and ladies who wear suits? It’s all over American alt-right social media and evidently exists here too.
It was Boris who gave Zelensky the weapons to hold Putin off at the initial invasion, not the EU.
The biggest military aid to the Ukranians since the war began has come from the US, not the EU.
Outer sphere EU nations like Poland have also been tougher on Putin than France and Germany
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
If the Tories embraced Rejoin they would cease to be the main party of the right in the UK, RefUK under a newly returned Farage would replace them as the main right of centre party and opposition to Labour.
Even Labour wouldn't embrace Rejoin now because of the redwall, at most they would consider EEA if they win and are then re elected.
The only UK wide party whose voter coalition would allow them to consider Rejoin are the LDs you vote for
The Tories are on course for ceasing to be the main party of the right if they embrace the blood and soil nationalism of the New Tories.
No they aren't, they are still about 25-30% with another 5-10% voting Reform.
Embrace Rejoin and they would collapse to 10% or less, probably fall to even fewer seats than the SNP and LDs under FPTP, Reform would get 30-35% and become the main opposition to Starmer's Labour government
The next election will be a blood bath for many conservatives not least the 25 deluded mps who want to stop carers coming here
I doubt any of them will be in the next parliament
The ERG and yourself are quickly running out of road and indeed relevance
The party would move increasingly right in opposition, if Sunak and Hunt lose the next general election their wing of the party will be blamed for the defeat
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
I've noticed the generation below me (not even a whole generation really) will respond with '185cm' or the like if you ask them their height. Distance I suspect is a side-effect of road signage. I've never been so impolite as to ask about their weight. Though I've noticed metric being somewhat more common in cooking outside of 'a teaspoon of...' kinda measures.
Vincent: And you know what they call a... a... a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
Jules: They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with cheese?
Vincent: No man, they got the metric system. They wouldn't know what the f*** a Quarter Pounder is.
Jules: Then what do they call it?
Vincent: They call it a Royale with cheese.
Jules: A Royale with cheese. What do they call a Big Mac?
Vincent: Well, a Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it le Big-Mac.
Jules: Le Big-Mac. Ha ha ha ha. What do they call a Whopper?
I just got an email inviting me to invest in What 3 Words.
avoid.like.plague
I actually made that call last weekend: 999, "Police", "Mountain Rescue please".
Provided grid reference with OS Locate app (download it now!). Then received a text message from Police Scotland that pinged my phone and sent the same grid reference again to Mountain Rescue.
They hate W3W. Rarely get all three of the words, particularly over a radio, and have to guess. Almost always used by people who only have a vague idea of what mountain they are on, so impossible to scan a W3W map and work it out.
Anyway, top tip I learnt. If very windy, chuck your jacket over your head so you can get your message across. Simple, but I didn't think of it till the MR guy asked me too. Also, bivvy bags are great.
I hope it wasn't too serious.
The problem with bivvy bags is you have to keep buying new ones after wearing them out them sledging. Though one does always live in my rucksack.
Have you ever tried one of these sitting shelter things? They pack quite small (though not as small as a bivvy bag) but I do wonder how effective they are in a wind. I have carried one a few times but never felt the need to get it out as there's usually somewhere to shelter when there's snow.
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
This was the predictable missing-the-point response. I use them for my height and weight, and turns out I don't need any government action to do so.
With government policies we should always ask:
i) what problem is the problem trying to be fixed? ii) is it actually a problem? iii) does the proposal actually address that problem? iv) does it have any other negative effects?
You tell me, what problem is being fixed by 'restoring' imperial measurements?
As far as I know you will not get arrested for saying you are 5ft 8 inches, and no one is harmed if they should see reference to 2.2 litres on a milk container.
Are we saying people are too confused after 40 years? What an insulting thing to say.
Are they simply going to not 'punish' people who sell sausages only by the pound with no reference to kilos? Fine, no harm done - but what benefit is there?
To announce things like this they must think it a winner. Why?
This would be bonkers. I'm in my mid-50s and basically use metric for everything except distance, and that's only because road signs persist in showing miles. I buy pints in a pub because that's the quantity they sell beer in; if it was 50cl or 60cl I really wouldn't care. I do know my height in imperial because that's what older people understood when I reached my full height. I have to stop and think to know how many ounces in a pound or pounds in a stone. I know a hundredweight isn't 100lb despite the name and I'm glad I don't have to know how much it actually is. Who, under 70, cares about any of this?
Fresh milk Football distances Cricket distances Male clothes sizes
People are able to use different systems for different things as appropriate.
Re: current caper "The Case of the Disappearing Bank Account" which side do PBers give odds on being proven correct (as opposed to right) when dust settles: Nigel Farage or Coutts & Co?
Seems to me an open question right now.
Shady bankers or shady politicians, it is not an easy one.
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
This was the predictable missing-the-point response. I use them for my height and weight, and turns out I don't need any government action to do so.
With government policies we should always ask:
i) what problem is the problem trying to be fixed? ii) is it actually a problem? iii) does the proposal actually address that problem? iv) does it have any other negative effects?
You tell me, what problem is being fixed by 'restoring' imperial measurements?
As far as I know you will not get arrested for saying you are 5ft 8 inches, and no one is harmed if they should see reference to 2.2 litres on a milk container.
Are we saying people are too confused after 40 years? What an insulting thing to say.
Are they simply going to not 'punish' people who sell sausages only by the pound with no reference to kilos? Fine, no harm done - but what benefit is there?
To announce things like this they must think it a winner. Why?
This would be bonkers. I'm in my mid-50s and basically use metric for everything except distance, and that's only because road signs persist in showing miles. I buy pints in a pub because that's the quantity they sell beer in; if it was 50cl or 60cl I really wouldn't care. I do know my height in imperial because that's what older people understood when I reached my full height. I have to stop and think to know how many ounces in a pound or pounds in a stone. I know a hundredweight isn't 100lb despite the name and I'm glad I don't have to know how much it actually is. Who, under 70, cares about any of this?
I have zero ideas how many pounds are in a stone, or how much an ounce is. Sometimes someone will mention those units and I just nod vaguely as if they a character from a deranged Chaucer story.
"Three and a half kettles of water with a quarter spludgeon of butter you say? And a furlong of salt? Sounds good!"
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
I am firmly of the opinion that, at some point during the next Labour decade, a Tory leadership contender will run on a Rejoin platform. And do surprisingly well. He/she probably isn't in government yet, and maybe not in Parliament.
To get a decade in power Labour will have to find a solution to the doctors 35% pay demand.
Don't pay it and get continuous NHS strikes, pay it and get equivalent pay demands from the rest of the public sector.
Perhaps they could pay everyone by taxing property but that will create other sets of people angry at losing out.
Juggling the different groups isn't going to be easy especially as those who gain forget quicker than those who lose out.
Paying something in between instead of paying the same people agency fees of £2k+ per shift to cover themselves striking will save money, improve retention and productivity.
What's something in between ?
20% ? 25% ? 30% ?
That demand for 35% is likely to increase with a Labour government.
Whatever the doctors are given will become the minimum demand for the rest of the public sector.
And why not - if the high paid get a big pay rise the low paid deserve the same.
Less than those numbers, at least per year. And anything over inflation should be for junior doctors (£40-60k) rather than the higher paid more experienced doctors who might be earning £100k+.
It would be better if we moved to make doctor pay significantly flatter over their careers rather than quite so back loaded, especially with long degrees and higher student debt, tax and house prices.
But regardless, paying regularly someone £2k to cover a single shift of a striking worker (possibly themself!) because we are not willing to give a £5k annual pay rise makes absolutely zero mathematical sense. I don't quite get why people think it saves us any taxpayer money.
Why would the doctors accept less than even 20% ?
It would be an admittance that their initial demands were based upon greed and lies and that all the damage they've done by striking was unnecessary.
As to the current costs well doesn't that apply to every dispute ? But the cost of giving way is in the further demands it prompts. In this case whatever the doctors get will be the immediate demand for the rest of the public sector.
Rishi Sunak is 43, there is zero chance he gives a shit about Imperial measurements. So as a sign of desperation it is pretty striking.
Most people use imperial measurements for height, weight, long distances.
This was the predictable missing-the-point response. I use them for my height and weight, and turns out I don't need any government action to do so.
With government policies we should always ask:
i) what problem is the problem trying to be fixed? ii) is it actually a problem? iii) does the proposal actually address that problem? iv) does it have any other negative effects?
You tell me, what problem is being fixed by 'restoring' imperial measurements?
As far as I know you will not get arrested for saying you are 5ft 8 inches, and no one is harmed if they should see reference to 2.2 litres on a milk container.
Are we saying people are too confused after 40 years? What an insulting thing to say.
Are they simply going to not 'punish' people who sell sausages only by the pound with no reference to kilos? Fine, no harm done - but what benefit is there?
To announce things like this they must think it a winner. Why?
It's such a bloody winner they announce it three or four times a year.
A dozen times per quadrennial please, else I shall have no idea what you are babbling on about.
Indeed. A hundred sesterces to the coruncainus for a responsa from the iudex on the matter: cubits or royal cubits. Freedom from Mesopotamia and their foreign muck, that's what I say... 😀
Sesterces are only legal tender at Marcus et Spencius.
But they do allow you to take the stola back if it doesn't fit.
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
If the Tories embraced Rejoin they would cease to be the main party of the right in the UK, RefUK under a newly returned Farage would replace them as the main right of centre party and opposition to Labour.
Even Labour wouldn't embrace Rejoin now because of the redwall, at most they would consider EEA if they win and are then re elected.
The only UK wide party whose voter coalition would allow them to consider Rejoin are the LDs you vote for
The Tories are on course for ceasing to be the main party of the right if they embrace the blood and soil nationalism of the New Tories.
No they aren't, they are still about 25-30% with another 5-10% voting Reform.
Embrace Rejoin and they would collapse to 10% or less, probably fall to even fewer seats than the SNP and LDs under FPTP, Reform would get 30-35% and become the main opposition to Starmer's Labour government
The next election will be a blood bath for many conservatives not least the 25 deluded mps who want to stop carers coming here
I doubt any of them will be in the next parliament
The ERG and yourself are quickly running out of road and indeed relevance
The party would move increasingly right in opposition, if Sunak and Hunt lose the next general election their wing of the party will be blamed for the defeat
Adam Payne @adampayne26 Government is looking at reviving post-Brexit plans to restore imperial measurements, @politicshome is told
This will revive their electoral fortunes and no mistake. As a 49 and a half year old brought up with metric I, and those younger than me, relish the idea of spending the many years we have until retirement fucking reeducating ourselves in systems of measurement used by precisely one other country for the benefit of Boomer nostalgics. Great idea. Bring back pounds, shillings and pence while you’re at it - I missed those entirely. My vote’s in the fucking bag Rishi!
The decimal system is woke. Bring back Babylonian base 60. (Not a Leon post.)
From the looks of the Code of Hammurabi the Babylonians had their own non-British measures, if you can believe it, so that's clearly a no go.
fifty ka of corn one-third of a mina of gold for each ten gan (area) ten gur of grain shall be paid
I can see they were bloody nimby's too though, so many building regs.
59. If any man, without the knowledge of the owner of a garden, fell a tree in a garden he shall pay half a mina in money. 233. If a builder build a house for some one, even though he has not yet completed it; if then the walls seem toppling, the builder must make the walls solid from his own means.
How far to the nearest post office?
About the time it takes to boil three lots of rice. But we instantly know how long it takes to boil three lots of rice, don’t we, more so than knowing how 4.3 kilometres will take?
Why not just use a bigger pot and boil all of the rice at once?
Exactly.
Not only is it good sense to remove the “but how big is your pot” from working and doing business together, but there’s been a lot of Britishness in coming up with metric down the centuries, it shouldn’t be a Brexit related thing at all, but a smart UK thing. The Gunter Chain is 20 metres and one tenth of a furlong, and British. Having difficulties in communicating with German scientists, the Scottish inventor James Watt, in 1783, called for the creation of a global decimal measurement system. A letter of invitation, in 1790, from the French National Assembly to the British Parliament, to help create such a system together using the length of a pendulum as the base unit of length received the support of the British Parliament, but the French decided to use the meridional definition of the metre as their base unit, Britain withdrew support. Despite that UK still wanted to use metric throughout the 19th century. In 1863, a bill which would have mandated the use of the metric system throughout the British Empire passed its first and second readings in the House of Commons.
A deal has been reached for Ursula von der Leyen to become the next Nato Secretary General and the first woman to head the alliance, The National understands.
The year-long extension of incumbent Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure has been arranged so Ms von der Leyen can finish her five-year term as President of the European Commission in 2024, a Nato insider has said.
A deal has been reached for Ursula von der Leyen to become the next Nato Secretary General and the first woman to head the alliance, The National understands.
The year-long extension of incumbent Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure has been arranged so Ms von der Leyen can finish her five-year term as President of the European Commission in 2024, a Nato insider has said.
As predicted by pb's own @Dura_Ace iirc (or at least, he noted the strange coincidence of JS's extension and UvdL becoming available).
I am sure Putin is quaking in his boots at von der Leyen as Nato Secretary General
She’s been a hell of a lot more effective at strategy in this war than Vlad has. The EC, much more than the individual member states, has played it pretty well.
What is it with you right wingers and this idea that wars must be won by muscly hetero Russian types with scowls on their faces rather than those woke westerners and ladies who wear suits? It’s all over American alt-right social media and evidently exists here too.
It was Boris who gave Zelensky the weapons to hold Putin off at the initial invasion, not the EU.
The biggest military aid to the Ukranians since the war began has come from the US, not the EU.
Outer sphere EU nations like Poland have also been tougher on Putin than France and Germany
Oh give me a break. Have you actually considered what powers the European Commission has and what it’s been able to achieve, including a more comprehensive sanctions regime than anyone expected and the near total elimination of Russian hydrocarbons from the EU? And then considered what the role of the NATO Secretary general actually involves (hint, like the EC president it doesn’t include supplying weapons)? Do you seriously think Boris would do a good job in that overwhelmingly diplomatic post?
Doesn't this imperial measure thingie come around every few months? Then we discuss it for a day and nowt happens. Then it comes around again. It's a less frequent version of our weekly Russian troll.
We should resuscitate the discussion on Saturday and see what this week’s troll has to contribute.
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
I am firmly of the opinion that, at some point during the next Labour decade, a Tory leadership contender will run on a Rejoin platform. And do surprisingly well. He/she probably isn't in government yet, and maybe not in Parliament.
To get a decade in power Labour will have to find a solution to the doctors 35% pay demand.
Don't pay it and get continuous NHS strikes, pay it and get equivalent pay demands from the rest of the public sector.
Perhaps they could pay everyone by taxing property but that will create other sets of people angry at losing out.
Juggling the different groups isn't going to be easy especially as those who gain forget quicker than those who lose out.
Paying something in between instead of paying the same people agency fees of £2k+ per shift to cover themselves striking will save money, improve retention and productivity.
What's something in between ?
20% ? 25% ? 30% ?
That demand for 35% is likely to increase with a Labour government.
Whatever the doctors are given will become the minimum demand for the rest of the public sector.
And why not - if the high paid get a big pay rise the low paid deserve the same.
Less than those numbers, at least per year. And anything over inflation should be for junior doctors (£40-60k) rather than the higher paid more experienced doctors who might be earning £100k+.
It would be better if we moved to make doctor pay significantly flatter over their careers rather than quite so back loaded, especially with long degrees and higher student debt, tax and house prices.
But regardless, paying regularly someone £2k to cover a single shift of a striking worker (possibly themself!) because we are not willing to give a £5k annual pay rise makes absolutely zero mathematical sense. I don't quite get why people think it saves us any taxpayer money.
Why would the doctors accept less than even 20% ?
It would be an admittance that their initial demands were based upon greed and lies and that all the damage they've done by striking was unnecessary.
As to the current costs well doesn't that apply to every dispute ? But the cost of giving way is in the further demands it prompts. In this case whatever the doctors get will be the immediate demand for the rest of the public sector.
I don't think it applies to every dispute at all. Sometimes employers have more power. But not when we need to recruit a load more people, the existing ones are leaving and we have a backlog of 7m operations.
We have just gone through a decade where a lot of public sector was heavily squeezed, initially correctly so, but it has increasingly become a doctrine done out of political belief rather than common sense and pragmatism. It is now hugely counter productive and a big part of why the government is failing.
A deal has been reached for Ursula von der Leyen to become the next Nato Secretary General and the first woman to head the alliance, The National understands.
The year-long extension of incumbent Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure has been arranged so Ms von der Leyen can finish her five-year term as President of the European Commission in 2024, a Nato insider has said.
As predicted by pb's own @Dura_Ace iirc (or at least, he noted the strange coincidence of JS's extension and UvdL becoming available).
I am sure Putin is quaking in his boots at von der Leyen as Nato Secretary General
She’s been a hell of a lot more effective at strategy in this war than Vlad has. The EC, much more than the individual member states, has played it pretty well.
What is it with you right wingers and this idea that wars must be won by muscly hetero Russian types with scowls on their faces rather than those woke westerners and ladies who wear suits? It’s all over American alt-right social media and evidently exists here too.
It was Boris who gave Zelensky the weapons to hold Putin off at the initial invasion, not the EU.
The biggest military aid to the Ukranians since the war began has come from the US, not the EU.
Outer sphere EU nations like Poland have also been tougher on Putin than France and Germany
Oh give me a break. Have you actually considered what powers the European Commission has and what it’s been able to achieve, including a more comprehensive sanctions regime than anyone expected and the near total elimination of Russian hydrocarbons from the EU? And then considered what the role of the NATO Secretary general actually involves (hint, like the EC president it doesn’t include supplying weapons)? Do you seriously think Boris would do a good job in that overwhelmingly diplomatic post?
Probably he would, yes, he did well on the international sphere consistently. But does it matter?
Its absurd the amount people want to take their own national petty politics and big it up on the international stage where is not frigging relevant.
What do David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have in common? They've all handled the situation in Ukraine well. Besides the abberation of Jeremy Corbyn, who is sui generis, this isn't a Labour or Tory issue - the UK has rallied behind Ukraine consistently now since 2014 at the very least.
And the EU and Germany and France have done well too since the 2022 invasion as well.
Some things are bigger than petty party politics. The UK has done well helping Ukraine. So has the EU. So has America. So have many international allies and partners.
Labour isn't the enemy when it comes to Ukraine, nor are the Conservatives, nor is the EU or anyone else. There's only one villain in this piece. Russia as led by Vladimir Putin, and anyone who supports them or excuses them. That is it.
SNP 37% (-1) LAB 34% (+2) CON 17% (-1) LD 9% (nc) OTH 4% (nc)
F/w 23rd - 28th June. Changes vs. 27th April - 3 May.
24 SNP seats would go Labour on that swing since 2019, giving Labour most seats in Scotland again, albeit only by 1 MP.
However it could be more if Conservatives and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP. Zero swing between SNP and Tories so the Tories would hold all their Scottish seats
Surely Labour would get many more than that, as Conservatives vote tactically to keep the SNP out?
Starmer needs LD tactical votes in England to beat the Tories and Tory tactical votes in Scotland to help beat the SNP
Sunak on the other hand need a feckin' miracle of biblical proportions.
We all Noah that.
He certainly needs faith in the Job.
I think everyone is now expecting many Lamentations from Conservative candidates on election night.
After which, with any luck, they will wander about in the wilderness for 40 years.
Labour will only have wandered for another 9 years after their leader displayed a giant stone tablet with commands on it.
As I recall, the Edstone had 5 pledges. Presumably he has another 5 on the next one.
Hopefully one pledge will be the free owls. I was very disappointed when that was dropped.
If anyone can name any of the pledges they win PB for the day. It turns out there were six.
According to wikipedia sometime PB reader John Rentoul called it the "most absurd, ugly, embarrassing, childish, silly, patronising, idiotic, insane, ridiculous gimmick I have ever seen". He left out hilarious.
'An NHS with time to care' - nobody could forget something that heinous.
I just got an email inviting me to invest in What 3 Words.
avoid.like.plague
I actually made that call last weekend: 999, "Police", "Mountain Rescue please".
Provided grid reference with OS Locate app (download it now!). Then received a text message from Police Scotland that pinged my phone and sent the same grid reference again to Mountain Rescue.
They hate W3W. Rarely get all three of the words, particularly over a radio, and have to guess. Almost always used by people who only have a vague idea of what mountain they are on, so impossible to scan a W3W map and work it out.
Anyway, top tip I learnt. If very windy, chuck your jacket over your head so you can get your message across. Simple, but I didn't think of it till the MR guy asked me too. Also, bivvy bags are great.
No, two different issues here. There's no money in it but it's still a brilliant idea because it is inherently error correcting. A word can only be confused with one or two other words, a 6 digit map ref is no more or less likely than any other 6 digit number.
If you are calling out mountain rescue in this weather, either you had really bad luck or you are not much of an oracle on safety issues anyway
SNP 37% (-1) LAB 34% (+2) CON 17% (-1) LD 9% (nc) OTH 4% (nc)
F/w 23rd - 28th June. Changes vs. 27th April - 3 May.
24 SNP seats would go Labour on that swing since 2019, giving Labour most seats in Scotland again, albeit only by 1 MP.
However it could be more if Conservatives and LDs tactically vote Labour to beat the SNP. Zero swing between SNP and Tories so the Tories would hold all their Scottish seats
Surely Labour would get many more than that, as Conservatives vote tactically to keep the SNP out?
Starmer needs LD tactical votes in England to beat the Tories and Tory tactical votes in Scotland to help beat the SNP
Sunak on the other hand need a feckin' miracle of biblical proportions.
We all Noah that.
He certainly needs faith in the Job.
I think everyone is now expecting many Lamentations from Conservative candidates on election night.
After which, with any luck, they will wander about in the wilderness for 40 years.
Labour will only have wandered for another 9 years after their leader displayed a giant stone tablet with commands on it.
As I recall, the Edstone had 5 pledges. Presumably he has another 5 on the next one.
Hopefully one pledge will be the free owls. I was very disappointed when that was dropped.
If anyone can name any of the pledges they win PB for the day. It turns out there were six.
According to wikipedia sometime PB reader John Rentoul called it the "most absurd, ugly, embarrassing, childish, silly, patronising, idiotic, insane, ridiculous gimmick I have ever seen". He left out hilarious.
Boris's rallying cry to his Telegraph readers - 'Let's turn it into the heaviest suicide note in history' - was one of his better efforts I thought.
Watching Sunak at the Liaison Committee man he's going to be absolutely destroyed during a general election campaign and that's before lawyer Starmer tears him a new one.,
The big picture is a simple one. Two (I think) uncontroversial observations:
1 Rushi Sunak is horribly overpromoted. He might have been a decent PM ten years down the line, but right now, he isn't up to the job.
2 There is nobody in the Conservative Party who could do better than he is doing.
Therefore, Rishi, the Conservatives and the country face 12-18 months of painful stasis before the government finally falls over the cliff.
Short of a Simply Enormous Event, that's it, isn't it?
I spoke to a Brexiteer the other day, he reckons the Tories are out of power until they embrace Rejoin.
A sort of Nixon goes to China moment*.
Ironically the person he thinks who could pull this off is the person he rather despises , one Boris Johnson.
*I did point out joining the EC/EU has been standard Tory orthodoxy for most of the last 70 years. Brexit was the Nixon goes to China moment.
I am firmly of the opinion that, at some point during the next Labour decade, a Tory leadership contender will run on a Rejoin platform. And do surprisingly well. He/she probably isn't in government yet, and maybe not in Parliament.
To get a decade in power Labour will have to find a solution to the doctors 35% pay demand.
Don't pay it and get continuous NHS strikes, pay it and get equivalent pay demands from the rest of the public sector.
Perhaps they could pay everyone by taxing property but that will create other sets of people angry at losing out.
Juggling the different groups isn't going to be easy especially as those who gain forget quicker than those who lose out.
Paying something in between instead of paying the same people agency fees of £2k+ per shift to cover themselves striking will save money, improve retention and productivity.
What's something in between ?
20% ? 25% ? 30% ?
That demand for 35% is likely to increase with a Labour government.
Whatever the doctors are given will become the minimum demand for the rest of the public sector.
And why not - if the high paid get a big pay rise the low paid deserve the same.
Less than those numbers, at least per year. And anything over inflation should be for junior doctors (£40-60k) rather than the higher paid more experienced doctors who might be earning £100k+.
It would be better if we moved to make doctor pay significantly flatter over their careers rather than quite so back loaded, especially with long degrees and higher student debt, tax and house prices.
But regardless, paying regularly someone £2k to cover a single shift of a striking worker (possibly themself!) because we are not willing to give a £5k annual pay rise makes absolutely zero mathematical sense. I don't quite get why people think it saves us any taxpayer money.
Why would the doctors accept less than even 20% ?
It would be an admittance that their initial demands were based upon greed and lies and that all the damage they've done by striking was unnecessary.
As to the current costs well doesn't that apply to every dispute ? But the cost of giving way is in the further demands it prompts. In this case whatever the doctors get will be the immediate demand for the rest of the public sector.
I don't think it applies to every dispute at all. Sometimes employers have more power. But not when we need to recruit a load more people, the existing ones are leaving and we have a backlog of 7m operations.
We have just gone through a decade where a lot of public sector was heavily squeezed, initially correctly so, but it has increasingly become a doctrine done out of political belief rather than common sense and pragmatism. It is now hugely counter productive and a big part of why the government is failing.
But it always comes back to my initial point.
That if the doctors got their big pay rise then the rest of the public sector will want the same.
We can discuss the details of individual cases on the internet but in the real world it will be "they got X% so we want X%".
Comments
Not the sort of person you want to have a pint with.
About the time it takes to boil three lots of rice. But we instantly know how long it takes to boil three lots of rice, don’t we, more so than knowing how 4.3 kilometres will take?
I think to appreciate the fjords you do need to go inland as well - I think I'd find 'which fjord is it today?' a bit dull after a while. You don't really get a good view of the glaciers and high mountains from below. Besides, some of the roads are quite amusing, even at Norwegian speed limits.
We should embrace it as part of CANZUK, or "The British Empire" as it used to be known.
It was a truly intergalactic moment.
The complaint is some nostalgic 'restoration', which isn't even nostalgic for anyone under the age of 70.
Blimey.
Need must, though...
Should we surrender a bit of our local heritage, for no actual reason and no gain whatsoever?
If I buy a pint, I get a drink of that measure. If I buy a double, I get a drink of that measure.
If I buy a double rum then I'll get 50ml of rum, not an amount measured in fluid ounces.
https://archive.ph/Z13mT
"He is the most underrated politician I have covered, and I have covered Joe Biden."
"So how, despite all this, despite a spent-looking Conservative government, mightn’t Starmer win? Why does that 22-point poll lead seem to me a chimera?"
"To be clear, voters are sick of Tory nonsense. But they haven’t even begun to consider Labour nonsense."
Don't pay it and get continuous NHS strikes, pay it and get equivalent pay demands from the rest of the public sector.
Perhaps they could pay everyone by taxing property but that will create other sets of people angry at losing out.
Juggling the different groups isn't going to be easy especially as those who gain forget quicker than those who lose out.
Imperial for me is limited to: pints of beer, mpg, distance of journeys in the uk, height of people. I think that is about it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/07/antarctica-tourism-overcrowding-environmental-threat/674600/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Later should appeal greatly to Today's Tories (esp. Liz Trussites). Simple, logical, anti-woke AND total crap.
The year-long extension of incumbent Jens Stoltenberg’s tenure has been arranged so Ms von der Leyen can finish her five-year term as President of the European Commission in 2024, a Nato insider has said.
https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/europe/2023/07/04/nato-treads-water-with-stoltenberg-until-ursula-von-der-leyen-can-take-over/
"At least 43 people, including twelve children, have been injured after a missile struck the carpark of a residential building in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, local officials say."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66102096
Or the 700,000 children *Moscow* say they've taken from Ukraine.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/moscow-says-700000-children-ukraine-conflict-zones-now-russia-2023-07-03/
We cannot let this evil win. I feel sorry for future generations of Russians, who will live with the practical and moral consequences of the current fascist Russian government. Damn the Russian regime to Hell.
Embrace Rejoin and they would collapse to 10% or less, probably fall to even fewer seats than the SNP and LDs under FPTP, Reform would get 30-35% and become the main opposition to Starmer's Labour government
Being serious, I'm a huge fan of history and retaining charming rituals or nomenclature, where this is not a hindrance or something much more universal and effective exists.
Other than people implying others are too stupid to figure out metric or handle temporary disruption from a change I've not seen other serious defences.
We would see his abilities as PM.
Exhuming imperial measurement is the last resort of a scoundrel Government.
We landed on several sites under strict environmental protection and safety procedures and everything was decontamination
There are large cruise ships that sail by the peninsula which frankly is not acceptable but expeditions are very different
You will call that wishcasting and armchair analysis, and of course everyone not on the front line is soing so in armchair style of various style, but it seems like fairly basic logic that if invasions work and then things go back to normal, that they will be tried again. You would agree with that?
We know that for a fact since the world ignored the 2014 invasion, and I imagine many of us supported doing nothing as doing something seemed even worse unfortunately, but we have been proven dead wrong.
The Russians believe the West will eventually get tired of things and let them win. They might be right, and if Donald Trump wins they will definitely be right. The Ukrainians hope that is not the case. Hence, both are still wanting to fight.
Noticeable that US youtube'ers give zero f**ks about Celsius though, in the other direction.
We have contacts in the Antarctic Survey so maybe that's the way to go about it...
In other news, Leading friends of Putin explain why, without Putin, Russia will be a bigger threat to world peace which would be bad. As opposed to a bigger threat to Russian peace, which is the reality and would be good.
20% ? 25% ? 30% ?
That demand for 35% is likely to increase with a Labour government.
Whatever the doctors are given will become the minimum demand for the rest of the public sector.
And why not - if the high paid get a big pay rise the low paid deserve the same.
Provided grid reference with OS Locate app (download it now!). Then received a text message from Police Scotland that pinged my phone and sent the same grid reference again to Mountain Rescue.
They hate W3W. Rarely get all three of the words, particularly over a radio, and have to guess. Almost always used by people who only have a vague idea of what mountain they are on, so impossible to scan a W3W map and work it out.
Anyway, top tip I learnt. If very windy, chuck your jacket over your head so you can get your message across. Simple, but I didn't think of it till the MR guy asked me too. Also, bivvy bags are great.
The Rejoiners are just a bit thick and it's the only way they can argue against common sense immigration restrictions against illegal, unskilled, or unintegrating populations is by screaming 'racist!'
what3words has raised £100m+ so far.
In their last published accounts, they lost £43m on turnover of £444,000. Turnover was actually down on the previous year. Their chief commercial officer is by all accounts amazing and talks the talk (I know several people who've worked with her) but it doesn't alter the fact there's no path to profitability in sight.
To call w3w a basketcase would be unfair to Guatemalan artisan basket-weavers, who at least have a viable business model.
She seems to have a poor record when she was a minister IIRC, but she does diplomatic gladhanding well enough and looks and sounds credible to partners.
Wallace probably never had a shot.
I've managed fifty years of my life in this happy state, and see little reason to change it. In most cases, metric rules!
I doubt any of them will be in the next parliament
The ERG and yourself are quickly running out of road and indeed relevance
If the Ukrainian daily claims of casualties they are inflicting:
https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/pfbid0AmsRNDw2cxQwu8dop8qSZKhvjpbXG5gXcZ62o2UswvuYCXTQBQxCDGmx98xKUEhsl
are anything near accurate then the Russian military will collapse as they did previously.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-defense-minister-von-der-leyen-denies-plagiarism/a-18745011
What is it with you right wingers and this idea that wars must be won by muscly hetero Russian types with scowls on their faces rather than those woke westerners and ladies who wear suits? It’s all over American alt-right social media and evidently exists here too.
It would be better if we moved to make doctor pay significantly flatter over their careers rather than quite so back loaded, especially with long degrees and higher student debt, tax and house prices.
But regardless, paying regularly someone £2k to cover a single shift of a striking worker (possibly themself!) because we are not willing to give a £5k annual pay rise makes absolutely zero mathematical sense. I don't quite get why people think it saves us any taxpayer money.
Football distances
Cricket distances
Male clothes sizes
People are able to use different systems for different things as appropriate.
The biggest military aid to the Ukranians since the war began has come from the US, not the EU.
Outer sphere EU nations like Poland have also been tougher on Putin than France and Germany
And you know what they call a... a... a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
Jules:
They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with cheese?
Vincent:
No man, they got the metric system. They wouldn't know what the f*** a Quarter Pounder is.
Jules:
Then what do they call it?
Vincent:
They call it a Royale with cheese.
Jules:
A Royale with cheese. What do they call a Big Mac?
Vincent:
Well, a Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it le Big-Mac.
Jules:
Le Big-Mac. Ha ha ha ha. What do they call a Whopper?
Vincent:
I dunno, I didn't go into Burger King.
The problem with bivvy bags is you have to keep buying new ones after wearing them out them sledging. Though one does always live in my rucksack.
Have you ever tried one of these sitting shelter things? They pack quite small (though not as small as a bivvy bag) but I do wonder how effective they are in a wind. I have carried one a few times but never felt the need to get it out as there's usually somewhere to shelter when there's snow.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/ruined-in-a-day/
"Three and a half kettles of water with a quarter spludgeon of butter you say? And a furlong of salt? Sounds good!"
It would be an admittance that their initial demands were based upon greed and lies and that all the damage they've done by striking was unnecessary.
As to the current costs well doesn't that apply to every dispute ? But the cost of giving way is in the further demands it prompts. In this case whatever the doctors get will be the immediate demand for the rest of the public sector.
A carbon copy of Corbyn and his disciples
Not only is it good sense to remove the “but how big is your pot” from working and doing business together, but there’s been a lot of Britishness in coming up with metric down the centuries, it shouldn’t be a Brexit related thing at all, but a smart UK thing. The Gunter Chain is 20 metres and one tenth of a furlong, and British. Having difficulties in communicating with German scientists, the Scottish inventor James Watt, in 1783, called for the creation of a global decimal measurement system. A letter of invitation, in 1790, from the French National Assembly to the British Parliament, to help create such a system together using the length of a pendulum as the base unit of length received the support of the British Parliament, but the French decided to use the meridional definition of the metre as their base unit, Britain withdrew support. Despite that UK still wanted to use metric throughout the 19th century. In 1863, a bill which would have mandated the use of the metric system throughout the British Empire passed its first and second readings in the House of Commons.
Engine capacity in cubic centimetres. Grunt in horsepower.
Fuel sold in litres. Fuel consumption stated in miles per gallon.
Buy tyres to fit the sixteen inch wheels. Measure the tread depth in millimetres.
Bit of a dog's breakfast.
We have just gone through a decade where a lot of public sector was heavily squeezed, initially correctly so, but it has increasingly become a doctrine done out of political belief rather than common sense and pragmatism. It is now hugely counter productive and a big part of why the government is failing.
Its absurd the amount people want to take their own national petty politics and big it up on the international stage where is not frigging relevant.
What do David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have in common? They've all handled the situation in Ukraine well. Besides the abberation of Jeremy Corbyn, who is sui generis, this isn't a Labour or Tory issue - the UK has rallied behind Ukraine consistently now since 2014 at the very least.
And the EU and Germany and France have done well too since the 2022 invasion as well.
Some things are bigger than petty party politics. The UK has done well helping Ukraine. So has the EU. So has America. So have many international allies and partners.
Labour isn't the enemy when it comes to Ukraine, nor are the Conservatives, nor is the EU or anyone else. There's only one villain in this piece. Russia as led by Vladimir Putin, and anyone who supports them or excuses them. That is it.
If you are calling out mountain rescue in this weather, either you had really bad luck or you are not much of an oracle on safety issues anyway
That if the doctors got their big pay rise then the rest of the public sector will want the same.
We can discuss the details of individual cases on the internet but in the real world it will be "they got X% so we want X%".
So its going to be strikes or more taxation.