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The betting money goes on 4 CON by-election losses – politicalbetting.com

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  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    But they come even when I'm not browsing?

  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,153
    Stocky said:

    Cookie said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    When I go on walks, runs, cycles, h*rs*b*ck r*d*ng, etc I am often tempted to listen to podcasts (The Anti-Trans Hate Machine on the one hand; and Gender: A Wider Lens on the other, for example).

    However, I invariably don't. In London because I once, rightly, got a bollocking from a black cab driver about wearing headphones and cycling; and otherwise because I like to take in my surroundings. That said, if I had to use a public pool doing length after length, than which I can think of nothing more boring, I might be tempted to listen to something.

    Swimming is great physical and mental exercise. I love it. However I also hate it, as it is so numbingly dull. I've ALWAYS wanted to find a genuine waterproof MP3 player. I wonder if @rcs1000 is talking about something like this:


    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Swim-Mp3-Players/b?ie=UTF8&node=3589868031

    Suddenly you've got music, podcasts, audible books. Superb
    The interesting thing about swimming is either you can or you can't. Throughout the years I have prided myself on being, ahem, quite - let's say very fit. All kinds of exercise/activities without breaking too much of a sweat or at least seeing it through while still in control.

    But one length of swimming front crawl breathing every three or even two arm raises, or whatever they're called, and I'm fucked. I'm the idiot standing or treading water at the end of the pool after each and every length clawing for air while these 5'2" 15 stone folk happily swim length after length after length like sleek amphibians.
    Yes it's unusual. I've seen guys like you - no offense - apparently very athletic, yet absolutely useless at swimming (and also rich and educated so it's not like they never learned). I've no doubt that they'd - like you - would beat me at every single other physical exercise, yet I can power past them in the pool

    The particular advantage for me in swimming is that it is kind on the knees. As I advance in years, my knees are the dodgiest bits. They creak, and sometimes cause me pain. Not in a pool
    Yes it is super great technique, no doubt about it. I mean before I go into the pool I 2x check my banking app to confirm my net worth but nope, still founder around like a drunk turtle.
    Can I also hold my hand up here? I have always been pretty strong, I have stamina, in my heyday I could run 100m in under 12s. But put me in water and I have the grace and athleticism of a cow and the buoyancy of a rock.
    Ah you too. It can't be anything to do with buoyancy. Stick a snorkel and mask on me and I'm set for the day but without I'm crap. So it must be something to do with an inability to keep mouth above the waterline I guess.
    Swimming lessons on technique are brilliant.

    I was taught to swim, in quite basic terms.I am pretty inefficient in the water.

    Got my daughters lessons in technique as they were growing up. They seem to be about twice as fast as me - so efficient in the water.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,730
    edited July 2023
    Sandpit said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Brexit Benefit?

    The new attempted replacement for Twitter, Meta's Threads, will NOT be launched in the EU, only the US and UK, due to wariness of EU data laws

    https://twitter.com/BloombergUK/status/1676583042041671685?s=20

    That's the third significant concrete example I've seen of the tech sector favouring the UK over the EU as a result of Brexit.
    Benefit? They just want to be allowed to mine your data and sell it with as little interference from regulators as possible.

    It is a benefit - but not for the end users.
    That they can do that in the UK but not the EU absolutely is a Brexit benefit.

    Bring on deregulation. Well done Brexit Britain.
    If HMG insisted that everyone eat live tapeworm larvae as a result of liberalisation from the EU, you'd claim was a benefit. Shame it's a benefit to the tapeworms.
    That multinationals want to be based in the UK, hiring staff here and paying taxes here, absolutely is in the UKs interests.

    As far as the data is concerned there's a very simple way to keep your data private too. If you don't want Meta to have your data, don't use their services.
    I see someone at the Register screenshotted the app requirements from a pre-launch copy:

    https://regmedia.co.uk/2023/07/05/data_used_by_threads_as_per_app_store.jpg


    Er ... no thanks.
    What did you expect from Meta Facebook?
    I thought they'd at least go for first born as well. Surprised to see that missing.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035
    Selebian said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    ONS and OSR are different bodies, although both under UKSA, I believe. The ONS would have no business commenting on statistics not produced by themselves. That is, explicitly, the OSR's role.

    On the substantive point, these schemes should aim to be revenue neutral, with e.g. all funds raised ploughed back into transport infrastructure (including supporting transition to compliant vehicles).
    Yes, I was confused on ONS and OSR. Thanks for pointing it out.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416
    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    It's behavioral. Others will give (and in the past have given) you wise counsel on how to stop this happening, but I suspect the underlying problem may be you. Do what you have done in the past to stop it happening and also do the steps that others have advised. When you go back on the Daily Mail (and you will, you will), go in in incognito mode, do not sign in to a Daily Mail account, and do not say "yes" or "allow" to anything.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,778
    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    But they come even when I'm not browsing?

    Just lean into it and embrace the Daily Mail lifestyle by being overweight with bad knees and lots of unpleasant right wing opinions.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395
    edited July 2023

    One person who admittedly did reintroduce quite a lot of Merrie after the rigours of the more Cromwellianite "dissent" was Charles II and the Restoration.

    I'm always surprised how few people know he was also actually a descendant of the Medicis, and also actually looked quite obviously Italian.

    His lot were a bunch of thugs who did serious harm to people in Scotland at that time. Not very Merrie there. Indeed, it's known as the Killing Time.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,987
    edited July 2023
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    148grss said:

    The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

    You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

    I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?
    I can answer that!

    Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

    English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

    The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.
    What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now
    What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

    In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

    When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

    For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

    Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

    And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

    This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..
    Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

    Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

    The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.
    No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

    England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.
    Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?
    Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.
    Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day
    He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.
    Yes he was, he so hated high church Anglicanism he abolished the BCP and replaced it with a Directorate of Worship and abolished Bishops too.

    The Church of England effectively became Presbyterian under his rule, the fact he didn't like Levellers anarchy doesn't change the fact he was very low church
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035
    edited July 2023
    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    But they come even when I'm not browsing?

    Where do they come? Are they on the bottom right of the screen? In which case they’re either Windows Notifications (see above link) or they’re coming from your browser. When you say your’re not browsing, do you mean that your browser is actually closed down, or merely not the application at the front of the screen?

    FWIW, my iPad (Safari, with Adblock Plus), copes with the Daily Mail just fine. My Mac (also Safari, with Adblock Plus) is a total sh!t-show of popups and ads. Daily Mail are genuinely trying to break the Internet.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,260
    edited July 2023
    Carnyx said:

    One person who admittedly did reintroduce quite a lot of Merrie after the rigours of the more Cromwellianite "dissent" was Charles II and the Restoration.

    I'm always surprised how few people know he was also actually a descendant of the Medicis, and also actually looked quite obviously Italian.

    His lot were a bunch of thugs who did serious harm to people in Scotland at that time. Not very Merrie there. Indeed, it's known as the Killing Time.
    Indeed. But raucous and orgiastic good times for people in England, compared to Cromwell.

    Cromwell, meanwhile, and just for himself, had visited all sorts of horrors upon the Irish, as is well known, too.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,806
    Dura_Ace said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    But they come even when I'm not browsing?

    Just lean into it and embrace the Daily Mail lifestyle by being overweight with bad knees and lots of unpleasant right wing opinions.
    You go too far! There's nothing wrong with Leon's knees.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,690

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Political opinions, according to a number of stories this week that follow up from the Farage case.

    IIRC the post office and a number of HS banks will give you a basic account, so long as you pass their ‘person’ check (for terrorist lists, sanctions etc). Farage was specifically refused a number of these.

    Most of the rapid-sign-up alt-banks are very much aimed at the moderately wealthy, rather than the poor.
    Says something about the perception of Farage!
    No, it says something about the bias of the institutions.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,263
    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @Cookie

    You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

    And it's true! They are.

    The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

    By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

    With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

    * Trees also work.

    You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

    What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
    Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

    And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
    Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

    Some of the maths here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
    Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
    They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

    Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    148grss said:

    The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

    You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

    I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?
    I can answer that!

    Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

    English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

    The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.
    What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now
    What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

    In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

    When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

    For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

    Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

    And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

    This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..
    Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

    Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

    The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.
    No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

    England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.
    Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?
    Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.
    Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day
    He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.
    He was an odd fish for his time - doctrine wasn’t his shibboleth. As long as you were very much a not-Catholic, he was ok with you. Note that he didn’t religiously persecute anyone to the… er… “Low Church” of him?

    His argument with the Levellers was more economic/political than religious - they wanted universal suffrage. He very much didn’t. See the Putney Debates.
    Liberal with the Jews IIRC. And still OK with the C of E. Though as I seem to recall the Levellers and Diggers argued in part from the Bible, so at least in *their* perception ...
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    edited July 2023

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Technology and money.

    Take Monzo (and some others) are App only, you cannot access your account on a browser;

    Some of these people do not have a smartphone to open/access their accounts.

    Reality is some of these people cannot even afford a £50 very basic smartphone.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    148grss said:

    The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

    You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

    I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?
    I can answer that!

    Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

    English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

    The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.
    What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now
    What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

    In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

    When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

    For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

    Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

    And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

    This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..
    Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

    Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

    The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.
    No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

    England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.
    Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?
    Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.
    Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day
    He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.
    Yes he was, he so hated high church Anglicanism he abolished the BCP and replaced it with a Directorate of Worship and abolished Bishops too.

    The Church of England effectively became Presbyterian under his rule, the fact he didn't like Levellers anarchy doesn't change the fact he was very low church
    You've proved it - he was between the crypto-RCs and the Diggers. Middle of the road.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,806
    viewcode said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    It's behavioral. Others will give (and in the past have given) you wise counsel on how to stop this happening, but I suspect the underlying problem may be you. Do what you have done in the past to stop it happening and also do the steps that others have advised. When you go back on the Daily Mail (and you will, you will), go in in incognito mode, do not sign in to a Daily Mail account, and do not say "yes" or "allow" to anything.
    Alternatively, just buy a Macbook. Problem solved.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,690

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Depends on whether they are available from the HS or only online. For the 14 million people with very limited or no online access the latter could be a problem.

    Obviously if there is a HS option that does not apply.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,778
    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    But they come even when I'm not browsing?

    Where do they come? Are they on the bottom right of the screen? In which case they’re either Windows Notifications (see above link) or they’re coming from your browser. When you say your’re not browsing, do you mean that your browser is actually closed down, or merely not the application at the front of the screen?

    FWIW, my iPad (Safari, with Adblock Plus), copes with the Daily Mail just fine. My Mac (also Safari, with Adblock Plus) is a total sh!t-show of popups and ads. Daily Mail are genuinely trying to break the Internet.
    https://youtu.be/He3C8dYelMY?t=9
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    I see Caitlin Moran's new book is getting a savaging almost everywhere

    This take down in the New Statesman is especially sharp

    https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2023/07/has-caitlin-moran-met-man

    She is bearable. The one I simply don't get is Robert Crampton (actually had to google him so unmemorable are his columns). His are the equivalent of bad stand up: "woke up today and, as an older bloke, thought I'd try to take the bins out two at a time. Well I can tell you taking the bins out two at a time isn't so easy...."

    etc
    Adrian Chiles is also up there. With his superbly meaningless, trite, and vacantly annoying articles. In the Guardian. Edited by his wife.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

    Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

    (I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,806

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Depends on whether they are available from the HS or only online. For the 14 million people with very limited or no online access the latter could be a problem.

    Obviously if there is a HS option that does not apply.
    Anyone on Universal Credit pretty much has to be online, or have a helper who can get online for them.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,153

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Political opinions, according to a number of stories this week that follow up from the Farage case.

    IIRC the post office and a number of HS banks will give you a basic account, so long as you pass their ‘person’ check (for terrorist lists, sanctions etc). Farage was specifically refused a number of these.

    Most of the rapid-sign-up alt-banks are very much aimed at the moderately wealthy, rather than the poor.
    Says something about the perception of Farage!
    No, it says something about the bias of the institutions.
    The other day, I was told, as lunch chatter in the bank, that someone nearly put the entire Sinn Fein senior leadership on the blocked list for a company providing this service to a number of banks.

    On one level makes good sense - a political party with proudly announced connections to violence, including multiple murders. And extensive criminality - including bank robbery!

    On the other, collapsing the peace process, because a junior employee at a company no one has heard of…
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @Cookie

    You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

    And it's true! They are.

    The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

    By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

    With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

    * Trees also work.

    You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

    What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
    Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

    And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
    Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

    Some of the maths here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
    Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
    They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

    Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.
    Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,806
    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

    Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

    (I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)
    Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,721
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    148grss said:

    The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

    You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

    I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?
    I can answer that!

    Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

    English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

    The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.
    What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now
    What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

    In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

    When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

    For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

    Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

    And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

    This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..
    Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

    Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

    The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.
    No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

    England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.
    Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?
    Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.
    Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day
    He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.
    Yes he was, he so hated high church Anglicanism he abolished the BCP and replaced it with a Directorate of Worship and abolished Bishops too.

    The Church of England effectively became Presbyterian under his rule, the fact he didn't like Levellers anarchy doesn't change the fact he was very low church
    The small town where I live was a centre of Low Church attitudes. One of the vicars went on to be a celebrated writer on religious affairs in the 17th C.
    Fast forward a few centuries and we had a vicar who was very High Church indeed. Friend of mine who was a retired History academic offered the vicar a talk on his 17th C predecessor.

    It was refused not entirely gracefully!
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,690

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Depends on whether they are available from the HS or only online. For the 14 million people with very limited or no online access the latter could be a problem.

    Obviously if there is a HS option that does not apply.
    Anyone on Universal Credit pretty much has to be online, or have a helper who can get online for them.
    I think the latter is more likely to be the case given that the Digital Poverty charity are the ones I am quoting to get the 14 million figure (which I must admit very mch surprised me when I first heard it a couple of months ago).

    Having someone do the online UC stuff for you once every few months is not the same as having daily or even weekly access to banking
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

    Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

    (I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)
    Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?
    We all want to see this electronic equivalent of a botfly larval infestation of the scalp, and shudder in vicarious horror.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,646
    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one


    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12266937/Love-Island-hit-372-Ofcom-complaints-dumped-Molly-Marshs-Casa-Amor-arrival.html
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,987
    edited July 2023
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    148grss said:

    The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

    You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

    I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?
    I can answer that!

    Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

    English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

    The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.
    What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now
    What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

    In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

    When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

    For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

    Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

    And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

    This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..
    Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

    Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

    The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.
    No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

    England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.
    Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?
    Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.
    Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day
    He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.
    He was an odd fish for his time - doctrine wasn’t his shibboleth. As long as you were very much a not-Catholic, he was ok with you. Note that he didn’t religiously persecute anyone to the… er… “Low Church” of him?

    His argument with the Levellers was more economic/political than religious - they wanted universal suffrage. He very much didn’t. See the Putney Debates.
    Liberal with the Jews IIRC. And still OK with the C of E. Though as I seem to recall the Levellers and Diggers argued in part from the Bible, so at least in *their* perception ...
    How can he have been OK with the C of E when he abolished the Book of Common Prayer and Bishops? Without those the Anglican C of E effectively ceased to exist under his rule.

    Cromwell was closer to a Baptist or Presbyterian than Anglican
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Technology and money.

    Take Monzo (and some others) are App only, you cannot access your account on a browser;

    Some of these people do not have a smartphone to open/access their accounts.

    Reality is some of these people cannot even afford a £50 very basic smartphone.
    The £50 basic smartphone, will be so many Andriod versions behind, as to be unsupported anyway.

    You can still get a basic bank account at the Post Office, right? Is the problem people having insufficient documentation of an address?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,806
    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @Cookie

    You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

    And it's true! They are.

    The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

    By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

    With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

    * Trees also work.

    You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

    What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
    Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

    And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
    Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

    Some of the maths here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
    Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
    They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

    Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.
    Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.
    What do you think are the most promising technologies? I cannot see development of Li batteries achieving the type of storage capacity needed.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,153

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

    Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

    (I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)
    Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?
    I’m reminded of the April Fools joke about the NSA Cloud. As in the NSA backing up your data - they’ve stolen it already, so why not let you have a copy?

    Sign up steps were - unplug your computer from the internet. Open a terminal and type “signup NSA cloud”.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,153
    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @Cookie

    You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

    And it's true! They are.

    The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

    By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

    With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

    * Trees also work.

    You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

    What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
    Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

    And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
    Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

    Some of the maths here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
    Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
    They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

    Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.
    Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.
    {Daniel Shipstone enters the chat}
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,730
    edited July 2023
    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    But they come even when I'm not browsing?

    Where do they come? Are they on the bottom right of the screen? In which case they’re either Windows Notifications (see above link) or they’re coming from your browser. When you say your’re not browsing, do you mean that your browser is actually closed down, or merely not the application at the front of the screen?

    FWIW, my iPad (Safari, with Adblock Plus), copes with the Daily Mail just fine. My Mac (also Safari, with Adblock Plus) is a total sh!t-show of popups and ads. Daily Mail are genuinely trying to break the Internet.
    Is uBlock Origin any better? That's what I use.

    I thought Adblock allowed some ads through deliberately. You may want this of course if you are trying to avoid leeching.

    https://helpcenter.getadblock.com/hc/en-us/articles/9738480686483-About-the-Acceptable-Ads-program-and-non-intrusive-ads


    Edit: Ah, no longer available for Safari, I see. For others, make sure it is uBlock Origin and not just uBlock, which I believe is malware.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    148grss said:

    The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

    You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

    I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?
    I can answer that!

    Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

    English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

    The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.
    What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now
    What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

    In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

    When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

    For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

    Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

    And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

    This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..
    Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

    Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

    The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.
    No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

    England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.
    Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?
    Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.
    Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day
    He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.
    Yes he was, he so hated high church Anglicanism he abolished the BCP and replaced it with a Directorate of Worship and abolished Bishops too.

    The Church of England effectively became Presbyterian under his rule, the fact he didn't like Levellers anarchy doesn't change the fact he was very low church
    The small town where I live was a centre of Low Church attitudes. One of the vicars went on to be a celebrated writer on religious affairs in the 17th C.
    Fast forward a few centuries and we had a vicar who was very High Church indeed. Friend of mine who was a retired History academic offered the vicar a talk on his 17th C predecessor.

    It was refused not entirely gracefully!
    I remember visiting Berwick upon Tweed parish kirk one day and beign fascinated by this Cromwellian build - as I recall, a decent Presbyterian design mucked up by a bad attempt to tart it up with High Church bling. We happened to run into the cassock-wearing incumbent, who very decently gave us a quick tour, but disagreed with my assessment!
  • RobDRobD Posts: 60,045
    edited July 2023
    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

    Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

    (I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)
    Do they look like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/b3p2by/i_keep_getting_daily_mail_pop_ups_how_do_i_stop/

    If so, follow the instructions.

    Otherwise, you probably have some application installed that is giving you the notifications. Start menu > search "uninstall" > click "Add or remove programs", and find the one that looks suspicious.

    Otherwise v2, buy a new laptop and never go to the Daily Mail website again. ;)
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395
    edited July 2023
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    148grss said:

    The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

    You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

    I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?
    I can answer that!

    Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

    English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

    The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.
    What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now
    What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

    In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

    When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

    For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

    Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

    And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

    This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..
    Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

    Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

    The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.
    No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

    England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.
    Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?
    Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.
    Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day
    He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.
    He was an odd fish for his time - doctrine wasn’t his shibboleth. As long as you were very much a not-Catholic, he was ok with you. Note that he didn’t religiously persecute anyone to the… er… “Low Church” of him?

    His argument with the Levellers was more economic/political than religious - they wanted universal suffrage. He very much didn’t. See the Putney Debates.
    Liberal with the Jews IIRC. And still OK with the C of E. Though as I seem to recall the Levellers and Diggers argued in part from the Bible, so at least in *their* perception ...
    How can he have been OK with the C of E when he abolished the Book of Common Prayer and Bishops? Without those the Anglican C of E effectively ceased to exist under his rule
    That was political - because of the Divine Right nonsense which the Bishops and the BCP upheld. Just as with the Levellers, it wasn't a religious issue.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,477
    edited July 2023

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Depends on whether they are available from the HS or only online. For the 14 million people with very limited or no online access the latter could be a problem.

    Obviously if there is a HS option that does not apply.
    Anyone on Universal Credit pretty much has to be online, or have a helper who can get online for them.
    I think the latter is more likely to be the case given that the Digital Poverty charity are the ones I am quoting to get the 14 million figure (which I must admit very mch surprised me when I first heard it a couple of months ago).

    Having someone do the online UC stuff for you once every few months is not the same as having daily or even weekly access to banking
    It isn't once every few months.
    You get regular to-do lists and all queries, complaints, questions are Online.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

    Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

    (I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)
    Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?
    If and when I get another, sure

    Thing is, I just went looking to uninstall Chrome (thought I'd try that) and I found, lurking in my Apps file, a Daily Mail Online app

    How the F did that get in there? No way I ever consciously downloaded that. I know that a few days ago I accidentally clicked "Allow" on a Daily Mail Notifications box - so I have been blaming that

    But all the time, this App has been lurking. Like the fungus in The Last of Us, maybe, waiting to be triggered, and burrow its way to the Surface
  • RobDRobD Posts: 60,045
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

    Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

    (I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)
    Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?
    If and when I get another, sure

    Thing is, I just went looking to uninstall Chrome (thought I'd try that) and I found, lurking in my Apps file, a Daily Mail Online app

    How the F did that get in there? No way I ever consciously downloaded that. I know that a few days ago I accidentally clicked "Allow" on a Daily Mail Notifications box - so I have been blaming that

    But all the time, this App has been lurking. Like the fungus in The Last of Us, maybe, waiting to be triggered, and burrow its way to the Surface
    You should be able to right click on it and select uninstall.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    RobD said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

    Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

    (I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)
    Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?
    If and when I get another, sure

    Thing is, I just went looking to uninstall Chrome (thought I'd try that) and I found, lurking in my Apps file, a Daily Mail Online app

    How the F did that get in there? No way I ever consciously downloaded that. I know that a few days ago I accidentally clicked "Allow" on a Daily Mail Notifications box - so I have been blaming that

    But all the time, this App has been lurking. Like the fungus in The Last of Us, maybe, waiting to be triggered, and burrow its way to the Surface
    You should be able to right click on it and select uninstall.
    Yes, don't worry, I did that, with great speed
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    What I don't get about latest Farage fandango, is this - what about his politics is so "dodgy" (allegedly) that (alleged) hordes of Brit banksters have (allegedly) denied him their services?

    While he's never been my cup of tea - or even a grande latte - am NOT seeing what exactly it is, politically, that makes NF so beyond the pale (allegedly) that finanzkaptitalists, hardly famed for their (allegedly) high ethical standards - won't touch him OR his lucre (filthy or otherwise) with (allegedly) an extra-long barge pole?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Technology and money.

    Take Monzo (and some others) are App only, you cannot access your account on a browser;

    Some of these people do not have a smartphone to open/access their accounts.

    Reality is some of these people cannot even afford a £50 very basic smartphone.
    The £50 basic smartphone, will be so many Andriod versions behind, as to be unsupported anyway.

    You can still get a basic bank account at the Post Office, right? Is the problem people having insufficient documentation of an address?
    The Post Office Basic Account was closed a while back.

    https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/benefits/problems-with-benefits/what-to-do-now-your-post-office-card-account-is-closing
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,987
    Just Stop Oil protestors arrested after throwing orange paint and jigsaw pieces on Wimbledon court 18

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/66041547
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,806
    edited July 2023
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

    Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

    (I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)
    Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?
    If and when I get another, sure

    Thing is, I just went looking to uninstall Chrome (thought I'd try that) and I found, lurking in my Apps file, a Daily Mail Online app

    How the F did that get in there? No way I ever consciously downloaded that. I know that a few days ago I accidentally clicked "Allow" on a Daily Mail Notifications box - so I have been blaming that

    But all the time, this App has been lurking. Like the fungus in The Last of Us, maybe, waiting to be triggered, and burrow its way to the Surface
    Apols for sounding like a stuck record but I have never had a unwanted app install itself since switching to Apple 12 years ago.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,690
    dixiedean said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Depends on whether they are available from the HS or only online. For the 14 million people with very limited or no online access the latter could be a problem.

    Obviously if there is a HS option that does not apply.
    Anyone on Universal Credit pretty much has to be online, or have a helper who can get online for them.
    I think the latter is more likely to be the case given that the Digital Poverty charity are the ones I am quoting to get the 14 million figure (which I must admit very mch surprised me when I first heard it a couple of months ago).

    Having someone do the online UC stuff for you once every few months is not the same as having daily or even weekly access to banking
    It isn't once every few months.
    You get regular to-do lists and all queries, complaints, questions are Online.
    Still something that can be dealt with by getting someone else to access for you.

    So the question remains, how do 14 million people with limited or no internet access manage to handle online banking?
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,005
    dixiedean said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Depends on whether they are available from the HS or only online. For the 14 million people with very limited or no online access the latter could be a problem.

    Obviously if there is a HS option that does not apply.
    Anyone on Universal Credit pretty much has to be online, or have a helper who can get online for them.
    I think the latter is more likely to be the case given that the Digital Poverty charity are the ones I am quoting to get the 14 million figure (which I must admit very mch surprised me when I first heard it a couple of months ago).

    Having someone do the online UC stuff for you once every few months is not the same as having daily or even weekly access to banking
    It isn't once every few months.
    You get regular to-do lists and all queries, complaints, questions are Online.
    And jobcentres provide computers to access them....but they are pretty locked down so not going to help with online banking
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,721
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    148grss said:

    The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

    You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

    I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?
    I can answer that!

    Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

    English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

    The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.
    What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now
    What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

    In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

    When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

    For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

    Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

    And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

    This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..
    Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

    Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

    The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.
    No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

    England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.
    Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?
    Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.
    Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day
    He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.
    He was an odd fish for his time - doctrine wasn’t his shibboleth. As long as you were very much a not-Catholic, he was ok with you. Note that he didn’t religiously persecute anyone to the… er… “Low Church” of him?

    His argument with the Levellers was more economic/political than religious - they wanted universal suffrage. He very much didn’t. See the Putney Debates.
    Liberal with the Jews IIRC. And still OK with the C of E. Though as I seem to recall the Levellers and Diggers argued in part from the Bible, so at least in *their* perception ...
    How can he have been OK with the C of E when he abolished the Book of Common Prayer and Bishops? Without those the Anglican C of E effectively ceased to exist under his rule
    That was political - because of the Divine Right nonsense which the Bishops and the BCP upheld. Just as with the Levellers, it wasn't a religious issue.
    Does the BCP still talk about the Divine Right of Sovereigns ?
    I thought 1688 and the Glorious Revolution had done for all that!
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,260
    edited July 2023
    HYUFD said:

    Just Stop Oil protestors arrested after throwing orange paint and jigsaw pieces on Wimbledon court 18

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/66041547

    Strawberries and cream stopped, mid-mouthful.

    The blazer-jacketed quaffing of Pimms stopped and prevented too.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

    Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

    (I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)
    Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?
    If and when I get another, sure

    Thing is, I just went looking to uninstall Chrome (thought I'd try that) and I found, lurking in my Apps file, a Daily Mail Online app

    How the F did that get in there? No way I ever consciously downloaded that. I know that a few days ago I accidentally clicked "Allow" on a Daily Mail Notifications box - so I have been blaming that

    But all the time, this App has been lurking. Like the fungus in The Last of Us, maybe, waiting to be triggered, and burrow its way to the Surface
    Apols for sounding like a stuck record but I have never had a unwanted app install itself since switching to Apple 12 years ago.
    I just hate Apple Macs. I tried and tried, they're not for me

    Anyway let's hope this has removed the parasite. So far so good

    Tho I've said that before....
  • FeersumEnjineeyaFeersumEnjineeya Posts: 4,499
    edited July 2023
    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @Cookie

    You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

    And it's true! They are.

    The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

    By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

    With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

    * Trees also work.

    You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

    What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
    Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

    And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
    Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

    Some of the maths here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
    Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
    They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

    Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.
    Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.
    Another somewhat less holy grail is, of course, demand management. In some areas it may well be the case that it makes more commercial sense to pay consumers not to use power at certain times rather than going to the expense of building energy storage just for those times.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,806

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Depends on whether they are available from the HS or only online. For the 14 million people with very limited or no online access the latter could be a problem.

    Obviously if there is a HS option that does not apply.
    Anyone on Universal Credit pretty much has to be online, or have a helper who can get online for them.
    I think the latter is more likely to be the case given that the Digital Poverty charity are the ones I am quoting to get the 14 million figure (which I must admit very mch surprised me when I first heard it a couple of months ago).

    Having someone do the online UC stuff for you once every few months is not the same as having daily or even weekly access to banking
    We help a few people with online UC issues at my Citizens Advice office but most of the non-online people we see are over State Pension age - State Retirement Pension, Pension Credit and Attendance Allowance are all accessible without a need to go online.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    Well.

    SNP MP Angus MacNeil suspended after he accuses chief whip of 'bullying'

    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-mp-angus-macneil-suspended-30396964
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035
    edited July 2023

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @Cookie

    You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

    And it's true! They are.

    The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

    By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

    With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

    * Trees also work.

    You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

    What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
    Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

    And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
    Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

    Some of the maths here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
    Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
    They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

    Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.
    Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.
    What do you think are the most promising technologies? I cannot see development of Li batteries achieving the type of storage capacity needed.
    The most obvious ones are not new, they’re reservoirs of water, using tidal for predictable generation, and pumped storage as ‘batteries’. The problems there are political rather than technological.

    Li batteries are getting better, and can work as emergency power (as Tesla demonstrated in Australia) for an overloaded grid. At a small scale, they can work for houses charging batteries during the day, that then charge the car overnight - but only in warm climates.

    Perhaps as solar cells get cheap enough, the attached batteries are good enough to be cheaper than other technologies, at large scale. It will be interesting to see how well the industry can repurpose dead EV batteries over the next few years.

    Battery technology will improve (as all technology improves over time) but I don’t thing that will be the biggest driver.

    That Mercedes prototype EV can do 1,200km with a 100kW battery. No-one is getting range anxiety in one of those - except it’s a £3m car with a battery from the F1 car, a 3D-printed titanium chassis to save weight, and a lot of time in the wind tunnel to look at the drag coefficient. https://youtube.com/watch?v=hFrKzH2UZ1c That tech will bleed into the regular road cars over time.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,987
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    148grss said:

    The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

    You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

    I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?
    I can answer that!

    Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

    English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

    The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.
    What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now
    What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

    In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

    When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

    For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

    Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

    And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

    This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..
    Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

    Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

    The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.
    No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

    England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.
    Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?
    Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.
    Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day
    He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.
    He was an odd fish for his time - doctrine wasn’t his shibboleth. As long as you were very much a not-Catholic, he was ok with you. Note that he didn’t religiously persecute anyone to the… er… “Low Church” of him?

    His argument with the Levellers was more economic/political than religious - they wanted universal suffrage. He very much didn’t. See the Putney Debates.
    Liberal with the Jews IIRC. And still OK with the C of E. Though as I seem to recall the Levellers and Diggers argued in part from the Bible, so at least in *their* perception ...
    How can he have been OK with the C of E when he abolished the Book of Common Prayer and Bishops? Without those the Anglican C of E effectively ceased to exist under his rule
    That was political - because of the Divine Right nonsense which the Bishops and the BCP upheld. Just as with the Levellers, it wasn't a religious issue.
    Even today we have Bishops and the BCP, the Church of England was created with the King as Supreme Governor and Bishops and with the BCP ultimately becoming its prayer book. Without those, as they ceased to exist under Cromwell's republic, there was no C of E in reality. So yes it was a religious issue
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,005

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @Cookie

    You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

    And it's true! They are.

    The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

    By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

    With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

    * Trees also work.

    You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

    What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
    Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

    And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
    Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

    Some of the maths here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
    Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
    They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

    Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.
    Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.
    Another somewhat less holy grail is, of course, demand management. In some areas it may well be the case that it makes more commercial sense to pay consumers not to use power at certain times rather than going to the expense of building energy storage just for those times.
    Yeah like that is ever going to happen for domestic customers when they realise they can't watch eastenders/reality shows/ use their computers/ access the internet. You might think asking people to step back into the 18th century but most of the country will be telling you to go stick your head where the sun don't shine.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,656

    I don't know if it's been discussed already today sorry but what do people think of reports Toyota are claiming they can make an affordable solid state battery that has a range of 750 miles and can be charged in ten minutes? https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/04/toyota-claims-battery-breakthrough-electric-cars

    Seems to me to be a case of "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is". Except Toyota are a legitimate company so are they really just trying to blow smoke?

    If it's genuine then it seems a real game changer. But if it is, is a big if.

    You’ll probably find, if you dig, that they have lab results that indicate they have a battery tech, that if scaled up, would indicate an increase in batter density and charging rate that would support the above figures.

    Which would put it about a decade from being in a car.

    Toyota are way, way behind in the EV race and badly need something like this.
    Iteration usually beats revolution.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    148grss said:

    The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

    You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

    I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?
    I can answer that!

    Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

    English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

    The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.
    What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now
    What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

    In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

    When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

    For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

    Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

    And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

    This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..
    Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

    Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

    The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.
    No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

    England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.
    Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?
    Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.
    Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day
    He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.
    He was an odd fish for his time - doctrine wasn’t his shibboleth. As long as you were very much a not-Catholic, he was ok with you. Note that he didn’t religiously persecute anyone to the… er… “Low Church” of him?

    His argument with the Levellers was more economic/political than religious - they wanted universal suffrage. He very much didn’t. See the Putney Debates.
    Liberal with the Jews IIRC. And still OK with the C of E. Though as I seem to recall the Levellers and Diggers argued in part from the Bible, so at least in *their* perception ...
    How can he have been OK with the C of E when he abolished the Book of Common Prayer and Bishops? Without those the Anglican C of E effectively ceased to exist under his rule
    That was political - because of the Divine Right nonsense which the Bishops and the BCP upheld. Just as with the Levellers, it wasn't a religious issue.
    Even today we have Bishops and the BCP, the Church of England was created with the King as Supreme Governor and Bishops and with the BCP ultimately becoming its prayer book. Without those, as they ceased to exist under Cromwell's republic, there was no C of E in reality. So yes it was a religious issue
    On your argument, if some vicar was found to be molesting the choirboys/girls and done for it, you'd claim it was a religious issue. The facts are that Charles I claimed the right to rule on his own without Parliamentary involvement and he claimed that right through the episcopal hierarchy. That's political.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

    Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

    (I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)
    Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?
    If and when I get another, sure

    Thing is, I just went looking to uninstall Chrome (thought I'd try that) and I found, lurking in my Apps file, a Daily Mail Online app

    How the F did that get in there? No way I ever consciously downloaded that. I know that a few days ago I accidentally clicked "Allow" on a Daily Mail Notifications box - so I have been blaming that

    But all the time, this App has been lurking. Like the fungus in The Last of Us, maybe, waiting to be triggered, and burrow its way to the Surface
    Apols for sounding like a stuck record but I have never had a unwanted app install itself since switching to Apple 12 years ago.
    There's a guy on Twitter who alleges that the Mails' Allow/Block Notifications box is a fake, and merely by clicking on it - even Block - it then installs a widget on your PC

    "Not that I should really expect any better, but the fact that the Daily Mail website displays a fake notification consent box so it can spam you after you click "Block" is particularly deceitful."

    https://twitter.com/cpuonfire/status/1637560495489142785?s=20

    No idea if that is true
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035
    edited July 2023

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Technology and money.

    Take Monzo (and some others) are App only, you cannot access your account on a browser;

    Some of these people do not have a smartphone to open/access their accounts.

    Reality is some of these people cannot even afford a £50 very basic smartphone.
    The £50 basic smartphone, will be so many Andriod versions behind, as to be unsupported anyway.

    You can still get a basic bank account at the Post Office, right? Is the problem people having insufficient documentation of an address?
    The Post Office Basic Account was closed a while back.

    https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/benefits/problems-with-benefits/what-to-do-now-your-post-office-card-account-is-closing
    Dare I ask why? I hate government services as much as most conservatives, but as a fallback for those who have bank accounts shut on them…?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,987

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    148grss said:

    The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

    You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

    I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?
    I can answer that!

    Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

    English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

    The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.
    What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now
    What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

    In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

    When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

    For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

    Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

    And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

    This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..
    Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

    Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

    The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.
    No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

    England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.
    Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?
    Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.
    Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day
    He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.
    He was an odd fish for his time - doctrine wasn’t his shibboleth. As long as you were very much a not-Catholic, he was ok with you. Note that he didn’t religiously persecute anyone to the… er… “Low Church” of him?

    His argument with the Levellers was more economic/political than religious - they wanted universal suffrage. He very much didn’t. See the Putney Debates.
    Liberal with the Jews IIRC. And still OK with the C of E. Though as I seem to recall the Levellers and Diggers argued in part from the Bible, so at least in *their* perception ...
    How can he have been OK with the C of E when he abolished the Book of Common Prayer and Bishops? Without those the Anglican C of E effectively ceased to exist under his rule
    That was political - because of the Divine Right nonsense which the Bishops and the BCP upheld. Just as with the Levellers, it wasn't a religious issue.
    Does the BCP still talk about the Divine Right of Sovereigns ?
    I thought 1688 and the Glorious Revolution had done for all that!
    Not really, though it prays for him.

    'O Lord our heavenly Father,
    high and mighty, King of kings, Lord of lords, the only Ruler of princes,
    who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth;
    most heartily we beseech thee with thy favour
    to behold our most gracious Sovereign Lord, King Charles;
    and so replenish him with the grace of thy Holy Spirit'


    'Almighty and everlasting God,
    we are taught by thy holy Word,
    that the hearts of kings are in thy rule and governance,
    and that thou dost dispose and turn them
    as it seemeth best to thy godly wisdom:
    we humbly beseech thee so to dispose and govern the heart of
    Charles thy Servant, our King and Governor,
    that, in all his thoughts, words, and works,
    he may ever seek thy honour and glory,
    and study to preserve thy people committed to his charge,
    in wealth, peace, and godliness:
    grant this, O merciful Father, for thy dear Son's sake,
    Jesus Christ our Lord.'
    https://daily.commonworship.com/prayers.html
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,656
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    Hang on: you don't mean *no* credit rating. Because the only people with *no* credit rating will be people who have never had a single bill - no electricity, no gas, no council tax, no mobile phone contract.

    And most importantly... no car insurance.

    Now, sure, these people will exist, but there won't be many of them. (And mostly they will be fresh off the MegaBus.)

    What I think you mean is people with poor credit.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,302
    HYUFD said:

    Just Stop Oil protestors arrested after throwing orange paint and jigsaw pieces on Wimbledon court 18

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/66041547

    Did they actually throw paint? I was going to give them some credit for using jigsaw pieces instead because it doesn't damage the court and is inconvenient but not impossible to clear up.
  • Pagan2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @Cookie

    You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

    And it's true! They are.

    The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

    By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

    With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

    * Trees also work.

    You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

    What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
    Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

    And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
    Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

    Some of the maths here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
    Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
    They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

    Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.
    Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.
    Another somewhat less holy grail is, of course, demand management. In some areas it may well be the case that it makes more commercial sense to pay consumers not to use power at certain times rather than going to the expense of building energy storage just for those times.
    Yeah like that is ever going to happen for domestic customers when they realise they can't watch eastenders/reality shows/ use their computers/ access the internet. You might think asking people to step back into the 18th century but most of the country will be telling you to go stick your head where the sun don't shine.
    You don't have to go back to the 18th century, just as far as last winter when many of us were paid not to use power at certain times. There's no compulsion involved, just a reward for helping out. Those who don't want to take advantage can carry on using power as they do now.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,806
    edited July 2023

    dixiedean said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Depends on whether they are available from the HS or only online. For the 14 million people with very limited or no online access the latter could be a problem.

    Obviously if there is a HS option that does not apply.
    Anyone on Universal Credit pretty much has to be online, or have a helper who can get online for them.
    I think the latter is more likely to be the case given that the Digital Poverty charity are the ones I am quoting to get the 14 million figure (which I must admit very mch surprised me when I first heard it a couple of months ago).

    Having someone do the online UC stuff for you once every few months is not the same as having daily or even weekly access to banking
    It isn't once every few months.
    You get regular to-do lists and all queries, complaints, questions are Online.
    Still something that can be dealt with by getting someone else to access for you.

    So the question remains, how do 14 million people with limited or no internet access manage to handle online banking?
    Well, in the case of my late Mum, she got me to do it - at a cost to her independence.

    Mrs P's Dad is 91 and has never touched a computer in his life. He still manages ok without on-line banking. He's had to ditch his cheque book for one of those new-fangled plastic cards and has got the hang of remembering his PIN without reciting out loud every time he uses it, but it's becoming marginal whether he can keep his finances independently or will need the support of one of his daughters.

    Mrs P. surprisingly unsympathetic: "Well you could always learn to use a computer Dad."
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,806
    Pagan2 said:

    dixiedean said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Depends on whether they are available from the HS or only online. For the 14 million people with very limited or no online access the latter could be a problem.

    Obviously if there is a HS option that does not apply.
    Anyone on Universal Credit pretty much has to be online, or have a helper who can get online for them.
    I think the latter is more likely to be the case given that the Digital Poverty charity are the ones I am quoting to get the 14 million figure (which I must admit very mch surprised me when I first heard it a couple of months ago).

    Having someone do the online UC stuff for you once every few months is not the same as having daily or even weekly access to banking
    It isn't once every few months.
    You get regular to-do lists and all queries, complaints, questions are Online.
    And jobcentres provide computers to access them....but they are pretty locked down so not going to help with online banking
    Libraries provide that service but you still have to be PC-literate.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,656

    New Thread

  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,005

    Pagan2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @Cookie

    You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

    And it's true! They are.

    The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

    By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

    With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

    * Trees also work.

    You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

    What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
    Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

    And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
    Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

    Some of the maths here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
    Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
    They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

    Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.
    Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.
    Another somewhat less holy grail is, of course, demand management. In some areas it may well be the case that it makes more commercial sense to pay consumers not to use power at certain times rather than going to the expense of building energy storage just for those times.
    Yeah like that is ever going to happen for domestic customers when they realise they can't watch eastenders/reality shows/ use their computers/ access the internet. You might think asking people to step back into the 18th century but most of the country will be telling you to go stick your head where the sun don't shine.
    You don't have to go back to the 18th century, just as far as last winter when many of us were paid not to use power at certain times. There's no compulsion involved, just a reward for helping out. Those who don't want to take advantage can carry on using power as they do now.
    Link to people being paid to not use power, I certainly don't remember being asked. In any case for most people the answer will still be fuck off if I wanted to live like it's 1830 I would. The fact this policy would even see the light of day in our modern age is lunatic
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Technology and money.

    Take Monzo (and some others) are App only, you cannot access your account on a browser;

    Some of these people do not have a smartphone to open/access their accounts.

    Reality is some of these people cannot even afford a £50 very basic smartphone.
    The £50 basic smartphone, will be so many Andriod versions behind, as to be unsupported anyway.

    You can still get a basic bank account at the Post Office, right? Is the problem people having insufficient documentation of an address?
    The Post Office Basic Account was closed a while back.

    https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/benefits/problems-with-benefits/what-to-do-now-your-post-office-card-account-is-closing
    Dare I ask why? I hate government services as much as most conservatives, but as a fallback for those who have bank accounts shut on them…?
    The Post Office doesn't have the infrastructure to operate a bank and the feeling is that it is very easy to open a basic account with the High Street (sic) banks.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,167
    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    But they come even when I'm not browsing?

    You’ve actually died and are in one of the circles of hell.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,657
    edited July 2023
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    148grss said:

    The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

    You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

    I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?
    I can answer that!

    Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

    English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

    The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.
    What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now
    What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

    In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

    When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

    For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

    Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

    And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

    This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..
    Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

    Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

    The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.
    No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

    England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.
    Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?
    Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.
    Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day
    He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.
    Yes he was, he so hated high church Anglicanism he abolished the BCP and replaced it with a Directorate of Worship and abolished Bishops too.

    The Church of England effectively became Presbyterian under his rule, the fact he didn't like Levellers anarchy doesn't change the fact he was very low church
    The small town where I live was a centre of Low Church attitudes. One of the vicars went on to be a celebrated writer on religious affairs in the 17th C.
    Fast forward a few centuries and we had a vicar who was very High Church indeed. Friend of mine who was a retired History academic offered the vicar a talk on his 17th C predecessor.

    It was refused not entirely gracefully!
    I remember visiting Berwick upon Tweed parish kirk one day and beign fascinated by this Cromwellian build - as I recall, a decent Presbyterian design mucked up by a bad attempt to tart it up with High Church bling. We happened to run into the cassock-wearing incumbent, who very decently gave us a quick tour, but disagreed with my assessment!
    It was my Parish Church as a boy (1954 - 1960) and I was confirmed by the Bishop of Durham in the Church and became an altar boy

    I have many happy memories of the Church and at one time could have taken the whole communion service without any reference to the order of service

    To be fair it was not relatively high Church though did lean that way
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 23,156

    dixiedean said:

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    ONS, or OSR as they now style themselves, rebukes Sadiq Khan for his figures that suggest only 10% of vehicles currently driving in the expanded zone, are not exempt from paying the charge.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/30/sadiq-khan-london-mayor-rebuked-transparency-ulez/

    Meanwhile, figures for last year, with the smaller zone around the A406 and A205 (north circular and south circular roads) show revenues of £230m (including £75m in fines), and outstanding fines of £250m.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/great-ulez-revolt-drivers-snub-fines-250m-unpaid/

    Definitely not a money grab, not at all.

    Oh, and the expansion zone is many times bigger than the existing zone.

    £12.50 a day. All day, every day.
    You can get a compliant car for less than that.
    Can you? Link please, to car that’s £12.50 a day. Presumably one of these American-style “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships now has one available?
    £12.50/day is £375/month. That's going to buy something reasonable, if not DuraAce-compliant.
    The important point is that no deposit and no credit rating needs to be required - a product available for someone on a zero-hours contract, let’s say delivering parcels.
    While we are taking about people who are in such positions…

    A while back we were discussing bank account access for the poor. Given the profusion of accounts with rapid sign up, offering no credit, but with all the other facilities of a bank account, from both the banks and the alt-banks, what is the significant blocker for poor people getting a simple account like that?

    Credit worthiness shouldn’t be the block there - what is?
    Depends on whether they are available from the HS or only online. For the 14 million people with very limited or no online access the latter could be a problem.

    Obviously if there is a HS option that does not apply.
    Anyone on Universal Credit pretty much has to be online, or have a helper who can get online for them.
    I think the latter is more likely to be the case given that the Digital Poverty charity are the ones I am quoting to get the 14 million figure (which I must admit very mch surprised me when I first heard it a couple of months ago).

    Having someone do the online UC stuff for you once every few months is not the same as having daily or even weekly access to banking
    It isn't once every few months.
    You get regular to-do lists and all queries, complaints, questions are Online.
    Still something that can be dealt with by getting someone else to access for you.

    So the question remains, how do 14 million people with limited or no internet access manage to handle online banking?
    https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0022/234364/digital-exclusion-review-2022.pdf

    Lots of different numbers around even in this one report but "According to Ofcom’s Communications Affordability
    Tracker, the latest estimate regarding the number of households which do not have internet access,
    at least partially due to cost, stands at 100,000". Admittedly other numbers in the report are higher but not anywhere near 14 million.

    The 14 million number likely includes lots of people who have internet access but consider it expensive and/or people who actively choose mobile internet access ahead of landline internet access.

    And of those without internet access the most common reason by far (74%) was no need to go online. Price was at around 11%.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035
    edited July 2023
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

    Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

    (I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)
    Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?
    If and when I get another, sure

    Thing is, I just went looking to uninstall Chrome (thought I'd try that) and I found, lurking in my Apps file, a Daily Mail Online app

    How the F did that get in there? No way I ever consciously downloaded that. I know that a few days ago I accidentally clicked "Allow" on a Daily Mail Notifications box - so I have been blaming that

    But all the time, this App has been lurking. Like the fungus in The Last of Us, maybe, waiting to be triggered, and burrow its way to the Surface
    Apols for sounding like a stuck record but I have never had a unwanted app install itself since switching to Apple 12 years ago.
    There's a guy on Twitter who alleges that the Mails' Allow/Block Notifications box is a fake, and merely by clicking on it - even Block - it then installs a widget on your PC

    "Not that I should really expect any better, but the fact that the Daily Mail website displays a fake notification consent box so it can spam you after you click "Block" is particularly deceitful."

    https://twitter.com/cpuonfire/status/1637560495489142785?s=20

    No idea if that is true
    Set up a second user account on your computer. Make sure it’s type “administrator” and give it a password. This is the “admin password”

    Log in as that user, and go into the user admin screen. Select your usual account, and make the type “User”, rather than “administrator”.

    Now go back to your normal user, and carry on.

    If the computer EVER pops up a prompt for the admin user password, it’s trying to install software.

    If you actually clicked on a piece of software to install than great, type in the password and away you go.

    If you didn’t specifically want to install software right now, then click “Cancel” and it won’t install.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,987
    Tied-second lowest SNP vote share in any UK GE poll by any pollster since Oct 2014.

    Scotland Westminster VI (1-2 July):

    SNP 35% (-2)
    Labour 32% (+4)
    Conservative 21% (+1)
    Lib Dem 7% (-2)
    Green 2% (-1)
    Reform 2% (-1)
    Other 1% (+1)
    '
    https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1676623270534152198?s=20
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    rcs1000 said:

    I don't know if it's been discussed already today sorry but what do people think of reports Toyota are claiming they can make an affordable solid state battery that has a range of 750 miles and can be charged in ten minutes? https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/04/toyota-claims-battery-breakthrough-electric-cars

    Seems to me to be a case of "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is". Except Toyota are a legitimate company so are they really just trying to blow smoke?

    If it's genuine then it seems a real game changer. But if it is, is a big if.

    You’ll probably find, if you dig, that they have lab results that indicate they have a battery tech, that if scaled up, would indicate an increase in batter density and charging rate that would support the above figures.

    Which would put it about a decade from being in a car.

    Toyota are way, way behind in the EV race and badly need something like this.
    Iteration usually beats revolution.
    We are getting 67 mpg on our Corolla hybrid estate which is pretty impressive and the work of 2 decades of refinement.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 10,005
    Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @Cookie

    You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

    And it's true! They are.

    The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

    By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

    With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

    * Trees also work.

    You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

    What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
    Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

    And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
    Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

    Some of the maths here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
    Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
    They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

    Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.
    Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.
    Another somewhat less holy grail is, of course, demand management. In some areas it may well be the case that it makes more commercial sense to pay consumers not to use power at certain times rather than going to the expense of building energy storage just for those times.
    Yeah like that is ever going to happen for domestic customers when they realise they can't watch eastenders/reality shows/ use their computers/ access the internet. You might think asking people to step back into the 18th century but most of the country will be telling you to go stick your head where the sun don't shine.
    You don't have to go back to the 18th century, just as far as last winter when many of us were paid not to use power at certain times. There's no compulsion involved, just a reward for helping out. Those who don't want to take advantage can carry on using power as they do now.
    Link to people being paid to not use power, I certainly don't remember being asked. In any case for most people the answer will still be fuck off if I wanted to live like it's 1830 I would. The fact this policy would even see the light of day in our modern age is lunatic
    Ah I see you misrepresented the scheme it was not to use no power but to use less power in certain periods. It was not cut off power all together and didn't stop anyone using power at all just meant if they didn't they got a rebate
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559

    Well.

    SNP MP Angus MacNeil suspended after he accuses chief whip of 'bullying'

    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-mp-angus-macneil-suspended-30396964

    While NOT a SNP supporter, and maybe old-fashioned, but my take on this story is that Angus MacNeil MP richly deserves to be bullied by SOMEBODY, for being AWOL from Westminster for a paid freebie.

    And would appear, at least to me, that SNP chief whip is doing his duty.

    As Teddy Roosevelt would say - "Bully!"
  • Pagan2 said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @Cookie

    You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

    And it's true! They are.

    The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

    By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

    With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

    * Trees also work.

    You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

    What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
    Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

    And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
    Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

    Some of the maths here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
    Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
    They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

    Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.
    Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.
    Another somewhat less holy grail is, of course, demand management. In some areas it may well be the case that it makes more commercial sense to pay consumers not to use power at certain times rather than going to the expense of building energy storage just for those times.
    Yeah like that is ever going to happen for domestic customers when they realise they can't watch eastenders/reality shows/ use their computers/ access the internet. You might think asking people to step back into the 18th century but most of the country will be telling you to go stick your head where the sun don't shine.
    You don't have to go back to the 18th century, just as far as last winter when many of us were paid not to use power at certain times. There's no compulsion involved, just a reward for helping out. Those who don't want to take advantage can carry on using power as they do now.
    Link to people being paid to not use power, I certainly don't remember being asked. In any case for most people the answer will still be fuck off if I wanted to live like it's 1830 I would. The fact this policy would even see the light of day in our modern age is lunatic
    https://www.nationalgrideso.com/industry-information/balancing-services/demand-flexibility-service-dfs
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,153
    Sandpit said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    rcs1000 said:

    @Cookie

    You made an excellent point about how plants are - effectively - little solar power stations, converting the sun's radiation into biomass.

    And it's true! They are.

    The efficiency of photosynthesis ranges, depending on the vegetation, from 0.1% to about 2%. Modern factory farmed crops that have been engineered for efficiency are closer to 2%. Nature's own inventions tend to be at the bottom end of the range.

    By contrast, the latest solar panels achieve efficiencies are close to 20%, with some super efficient models managing as high as 23-24%.

    With a lot of vegetation, though, as it decomposes it gives off that solar energy as heat and releases the CO2 it captured during the growth process. So, unless you can bury the organic material, put it under enormous pressure and starve of it of oxygen*, then you end up releasing all that energy back into the atmosphere and undoing all the good work of photosynthesis.

    * Trees also work.

    You’re not comparing like with like, though, as I’m sure you’re aware.

    What’s the efficiency of fixing CO2 from the air into (for example) carbohydrates, using electricity generated by solar power ?
    Not even close to 2%, I’ll bet.

    And you’d need rather more substantial kit than a blade of grass.
    Kit which doesn’t grow itself.

    Some of the maths here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency
    Note, though, that industrial techniques for bulk production of hydrogen by electrolytic cracking of water have pretty high thermodynamic efficiency - 70% plus.
    They’re just rather expensive at the moment.

    Mass commercial production for energy storage at competitive prices isn’t all that for off.
    Commercially-viable energy storage is the holy grail, and will lead to a massive shift to renewables in short order once it happens.
    {Daniel Shipstone

    HYUFD said:

    Just Stop Oil protestors arrested after throwing orange paint and jigsaw pieces on Wimbledon court 18

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/66041547

    Strawberries and cream stopped, mid-mouthful.

    The blazer-jacketed quaffing of Pimms stopped and prevented too.
    Court 18 would be more likely to be hosting a match between a couple of outsiders who have fought their way up the rankings without much, if any, money to show for it.

    The crowd will probably be actual tennis fans who’ve saved up and queued to get their tickets.

    But got to keep your prejudices burning bright. Especially since the list of people you can hate, respectably, keeps shrinking.
    rcs1000 said:

    I don't know if it's been discussed already today sorry but what do people think of reports Toyota are claiming they can make an affordable solid state battery that has a range of 750 miles and can be charged in ten minutes? https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/04/toyota-claims-battery-breakthrough-electric-cars

    Seems to me to be a case of "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is". Except Toyota are a legitimate company so are they really just trying to blow smoke?

    If it's genuine then it seems a real game changer. But if it is, is a big if.

    You’ll probably find, if you dig, that they have lab results that indicate they have a battery tech, that if scaled up, would indicate an increase in batter density and charging rate that would support the above figures.

    Which would put it about a decade from being in a car.

    Toyota are way, way behind in the EV race and badly need something like this.
    Iteration usually beats revolution.
    Yup. Though I would say often, rather than usually.

    There are a decade or so of incremental improvements in lithium batteries baked in - on the way from the lab to testing to production. And more are entering the pipeline from the lab end.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,153
    A
    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Oh sweet bleeding Jesus, the Daily Mail Notifications are back

    I've not known anything like it. I have installed every possible ad blocker, cleared all data, ticked every No Notifications thingy, yet still they come. The Alien of the internet, the perfect assailant

    It's getting to the stage where I might have to do an entire factory reset of the laptop, or buy a new one

    (Yes, I am aware of the irony)

    Idiot.

    Use a different browser

    Disable notifications in the operating system. https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-disable-notifications/

    Create a new user on your computer. Make sure it’s a local user not a Microsoft account.

    (Alternatively, buy yourself a new laptop and I’ll fix your old one and keep it for my own nefarious browsing habits).
    I just did every single thing you recommended...... and as soon as I finished, I got a Daily Mail Notification

    Would a factory reset do it, d'ya reckon?

    (I am v grateful for the advice, even if it's not working so good)
    Seriously, can you post a screen shot of the notification (appropriately anonymised)?
    If and when I get another, sure

    Thing is, I just went looking to uninstall Chrome (thought I'd try that) and I found, lurking in my Apps file, a Daily Mail Online app

    How the F did that get in there? No way I ever consciously downloaded that. I know that a few days ago I accidentally clicked "Allow" on a Daily Mail Notifications box - so I have been blaming that

    But all the time, this App has been lurking. Like the fungus in The Last of Us, maybe, waiting to be triggered, and burrow its way to the Surface
    Apols for sounding like a stuck record but I have never had a unwanted app install itself since switching to Apple 12 years ago.
    There's a guy on Twitter who alleges that the Mails' Allow/Block Notifications box is a fake, and merely by clicking on it - even Block - it then installs a widget on your PC

    "Not that I should really expect any better, but the fact that the Daily Mail website displays a fake notification consent box so it can spam you after you click "Block" is particularly deceitful."

    https://twitter.com/cpuonfire/status/1637560495489142785?s=20

    No idea if that is true
    Set up a second user account on your computer. Make sure it’s type “administrator” and give it a password. This is the “admin password”

    Log in as that user, and go into the user admin screen. Select your usual account, and make the type “User”, rather than “administrator”.

    Now go back to your normal user, and carry on.

    If the computer EVER pops up a prompt for the admin user password, it’s trying to install software.

    If you actually clicked on a piece of software to install than great, type in the password and away you go.

    If you didn’t specifically want to install software right now, then click “Cancel” and it won’t install.
    Very good advice - it has long been a major security thing on *all* computer systems to not login as Admin.

    Where I work, they setup Admin in an interesting way. You can’t login as Admin. But if you need to install software etc, you can use the Admin account.

    It has its pros and cons - but it certainly enforces not logging in to Admin all the time!
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,468
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    DougSeal said:

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    148grss said:

    The "London isn't an English city" stuff shows how unsustainable a lot of modern English nationalism is.

    You can't build a new separate nation, England, on the basis of an exclusively ethnic identity, when so many millions in the big cities are very commonly partly, or at other times indeed entirely, from all Continental Europe, Africa and Asia. There are much more transcendent English traditions of Dissent and freedom, and an idyll of collaborative pastoral harmony, even, predating even the Normans, but sadly this escapes the average modern English nationalist.

    I am not an advocate of any type of nationalism , but how is that any different to, say, Scottish nationalism?
    I can answer that!

    Nationalism during the colonialist period was seen as a model that could be used by the colonised to assert their right to self determination - they could point to the idea of the nation state and organise based on that. Whilst it is dubious to call Scotland a colony of England, it is more reasonable to argue they are a nation state that doesn't really have self determination - and what they have based their political campaign on is that desire for self governance. The major Nationalist party, the SNP, has for a long time not based their view of Scottishness on race or being born in Scotland but rather shared ideals and politics. They do not say Scotland for the Scottish and therefore the non Scottish must leave.

    English nationalism, however, is not based on a desire for increased self determination from a colonising force (as much as the EU has had that idea projected on them as a rationalisation) but typically based on a form of racial purity - that the "browning" of England is a bad thing, that increased immigration (even from people who were born in the British Empire and therefore were British and had every legal right to come back to the Mother Country) destroys something fundamental about Englishness, that the best of England lays in it's past (ie when it was an Empire that subjugated other races for it's material benefit) and not it's present or future. Even amongst the "intellectuals" of the movement it relies heavily on an uncritical view of English past and present, and refuses to accept any criticism, instead retreating to a form of English exceptionalism or whataboutery.

    The claims of "London not being a real English city" clearly falls in the latter, not the former. If the criticism was "why does the City of London have it's own secret form of government, including a representative in the HoC, that doesn't actually represent the people of London but the interests of capital - we should make London a real English city by incorporating it fully into the British state and give the people who live in it a real democratic system" I would put that more in the former.
    What a load of rubbish, the UK even has an English Asian Tory PM now
    What is interesting is the savage hatred of “English” people, often evinced in “intellectual” thinking, despite the actual evidence.

    In measurable terms - low levels of ghettoisation, inter-marriage, low levels of racist attacks, minority group success etc.. England is one of leaders in Europe in the integration of non native people into their society.

    When Rotherham was breaking, frantic messages were sent in various agencies, demanding plans for the army to be sent in, detention camps, powers of arbitrary arrest.

    For use against the locals. Because a pogrom was about to break out.

    Yet, the response of the locals was (nearly entirely) through legal and social channels. No one from, even the families of the victims, led the pitchfork wielding genocidal mob that was supposed to happen. In the face of an issue that was tailor made (practically) for racial tension and violence… crickets.

    And yet this integration mainly happens in urban areas, like London, which also have large ancestral English populations, and yet rural English nationalists then insist on seeing both this process and these places as then entirely "not English".

    This integration has tended to be processed officially through a narrative of Britain. not England..
    Which is the old game of defining X by taking the subset of X that I define as the True X.

    Essentially, you defining English nationalism as the bits of England you really don’t like.

    The CiRA are the real representatives of Irish Nationalism - discuss.
    No, I wouldn't agree there. "London isn't an English city" is the majority of modern, rightwing English nationalists defining the parts of England they don't like, not me.

    England to me is rural 18th century religious conformists and pre-Norman "Merrie Englande", and tolerance in modern London. The majority of people who call themselves modern english nationalists often have a much more one-dimensional view.
    Wasn't Merrie England an invention of Professor Welch?
    Controversial I know, but as someone writing a dissertation about iconoclasm in the English Reformation and Renaissance, England was a lot more merry when it was Catholic and had a multitude of actual “holy-days” where communities got together. I’m not at all religious, much less Catholic, but Gross National Happiness went down when the prods took over and started to worry about Gross National Product.
    Of course we were at our least merry when we were a republic under the ultra Protestant Cromwell as Lord Protector, who even outlawed the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, as well as banning Christmas and the Theatre and May Day
    He wasn't an ultra Protestant. Far from it. Middle of the roader. Between the Levellers and the Royalist bishops.
    He was an odd fish for his time - doctrine wasn’t his shibboleth. As long as you were very much a not-Catholic, he was ok with you. Note that he didn’t religiously persecute anyone to the… er… “Low Church” of him?

    His argument with the Levellers was more economic/political than religious - they wanted universal suffrage. He very much didn’t. See the Putney Debates.
    Liberal with the Jews IIRC. And still OK with the C of E. Though as I seem to recall the Levellers and Diggers argued in part from the Bible, so at least in *their* perception ...
    How can he have been OK with the C of E when he abolished the Book of Common Prayer and Bishops? Without those the Anglican C of E effectively ceased to exist under his rule.

    Cromwell was closer to a Baptist or Presbyterian than Anglican
    He was overseer at St Ives Parish Church for a while. Goodness knows what he makes of its current high church leanings.

    But that's the point; people and institutions changeover time. Sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly. Sometimes sincerely, sometimes pragmatically.

    And sometimes because they start by protesting reasonably against clear abuses in the status quo but can't stop. They get driven mad by their own logic and the lack of an endpoint for the path they take.

    I'm sure we can all think of other examples of that.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,302
    edited July 2023
    ...
This discussion has been closed.