Big G used the internet to buy his season tickets in the 1990s?
OK.
You have misread my post
I did not have a season ticket but I took 18 journeys to London in 2 years and never went near a ticket office
But you said you bought them online, earlier in your reply to me. Thinking back, that wasn't possible in 1993 - I changed jobs and email was barely a thing. 1999?
Edit: it hardly matters when. The basic point was you knew what ticket to buy and where to go. But the ticketing and fares system is still horrendous. It's a ripoff charter to abolish ticket offices.
As I recall I ordered and paid my tickets direct to Virgin Trains
Biut I repeat: you knew which tickets to order, and where to get them. And had the kit to get them.
Indeed but then we are 30 years on and in the age of the internet
Many in my age group worry about parking apps but it is getting impossible not to have to use them
It is not as convenient for some but it is the way the world is going
That's rather too convenient for some. Look at this, and look at the DM reports and the comments there. They are absolutely ballistic.
They are barbarians who dreamt up this policy and should not be let off so lightly.
I have little doubt they will be closed in due course but if I were to travel by rail I would use Trainline or similar anyway
In other words - you are happy to justify the further deterioration of public services, presumably by way oif support for a non-Labour government, and rely on a website known not to give good value remiably or be propery coordinated with the operators. For instance:
I would just say I have travelled extensively by train in the UK and also abroad including the Ghan and the Blue Train in South Africa and have not experienced problems you mention in either web sites or any other agency
It is not a political issue for me but as in parking apps so rail will inevitably follow though the unions will resist no doubt
Parking apps is an obvious area where the state should just sanction one app - have competitive a 5 year franchise by all means but one app nationwide.
What advantage would having 1 app nationwide bring?
Not having to have 38 different apps on one's phone
See, you don't have 38 parking apps on your phone
I've just checked - I've got 5 parking apps, 4 of which are out of date and will need a download next time I happen to park at a carpark that needs that app. It's painful. And pointless.
I don't bother with parking apps, just leave a couple of pound coins on the dashboard and a note saying 'here's what you could have won'.
I’m posting again on the bizarre idea - signed off by the government - to close railway ticket offices.
Apparently all ticket offices at Euston, for example, are to go.
This is the “enshittification” of the railways.
I used to commute regularly to London when in business in the 1990s and never used a ticket office even then
When I lived in London in 1991-5, I used monthly tickets. But I purchased them at the ticket office.
Times and tech have changed since then, though.
One thing I will say though, as an occasional visitor to London: Oyster and tap-in, tap-out are non-intuitive and non-obvious compared to tickets. Great for the frequent user, opaque to someone who rarely frequents the metropolis.
I agree they could do with better signage and instructions around tap-in and out, especially since there are so many tourists in London.
I’m posting again on the bizarre idea - signed off by the government - to close railway ticket offices.
Apparently all ticket offices at Euston, for example, are to go.
This is the “enshittification” of the railways.
I used to commute regularly to London when in business in the 1990s and never used a ticket office even then
When I lived in London in 1991-5, I used monthly tickets. But I purchased them at the ticket office.
Times and tech have changed since then, though.
One thing I will say though, as an occasional visitor to London: Oyster and tap-in, tap-out are non-intuitive and non-obvious compared to tickets. Great for the frequent user, opaque to someone who rarely frequents the metropolis.
I agree they could do with better signage and instructions around tap-in and out, especially since there are so many tourists in London.
It is utterly confusing. I don't know what journeys I can use it on, and cannot (given some of my journeys are slightly uncommon). And the extension of tap-in outside of London will make it much worse.
This is one of the reasons I'm against the closure of ticket offices.
You literally just tap it to open the gate at one end and then again at the other end. It is by far the simplest system in the UK. Hard/impossible to see how it could be any more logical.
There are stations where there aren't gates, and if you don't tap at those stations and have to tap to get out of a different station, you get charged a maximum fare because the system doesn't know where you started. Or, sometimes, you have to tap at a station that you don't enter our leave, where you've changed trains to prove that you didn't change trains at the main terminus stations, otherwise you get charged the higher fare on the basis that you probably did travel pointlessly all the way into London Bridge for the hell of it, and loads of other things that are second nature to people who use the system routinely, but are confusing to people who visit once or twice a year.
I’m posting again on the bizarre idea - signed off by the government - to close railway ticket offices.
Apparently all ticket offices at Euston, for example, are to go.
This is the “enshittification” of the railways.
I used to commute regularly to London when in business in the 1990s and never used a ticket office even then
Presumably that was by having a season ticket. I can't think of any other way in which you could not use the ticket office at that time.
Ticket machines date back to the late 80s.
I forgot about those. In fact I thought basic ticket machines came in a lot earlier, like the 60s or 70s.
Certainly in 1974. If you wanted to travel from Piccadilly Circus to Dollis Hill (and who wouldn't?) you found a 20p ticket machine, inserted enough coins and out popped a ticket to open the barrier. At Dollis Hill there were no barriers so you just gave your ticket to the guy at the exit. An alternative methodology was to jump the barrier at Piccadilly and give 10p to the guy at Dollis Hill instead, muttering 'Finchley Road'.
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
It's probably bollocks but bigger picture-wise, the industrial revolution was probably largely inspired by slavery. People woke up to what unlimited cheap or free power could get you.
I'm not sure about "inspired". Every empire had slavery. Esp the Muslims
If slaves is all you need, then the Romans, Greeks, Ottomans, Arabs, Chinese, Mughals, and so on, would have devised the Industrial Revolution. They did not
Did slaves power the industrial revolution? Certainly: cotton picking slaves in Deep South USA fed English mills, and on we went. Shameful
But let's not alter the truth to fit our political convictions
The Atlantic slave trade combined slavery with colonialism and capitalism, that was what was new. Slavery produced huge profits because it brought together abundant land in the new world, cheap labour and new agricultural products for which there was huge demand. These profits - capital - were then funnelled by the capitalist system into driving the investment required by the industrial revolution. It also provided raw materials and products for the industrial workers to consume. Our whole economy was built on slavery and its profits.
I think this is broadly right.
But some caveats:
Britain banned the slave trade in 1807, whereas economic historians seem to keep pushing back the Industrial Revolution “lift off” later and later, perhaps to the post-Napoleonic era.
If the “whole economy” was built on slavery, how did Britain ever find itself able to ban it? Contrast with the American South who - as cotton exports became ever more lucrative - increasingly wanted to double down on slavery.
Someone needs to invent a “faffometer”. How much faff, or conversely, how little faff, is involved in everyday tasks?
Faff is a pain. It degrades quality of life.
Faff seems to multiply in more densely-populated places because there is more resource contestation and systems designed to manage that are usually faffy.
America often surprises on the faffy (litigious) and the non-faffy (car parking).
Britain is quite faffy. Japan and Germany and Swiss seem less faffy. Italy can be very faffy.
It should be government’s mission to remove faff. Faff is generally a kind of tax on the poor.
This sort of thing could be cost-free policies for a new government that would improve quality of life without having to fund the tax revenue to pay for it.
Things like the faff of having to phone insurance companies to get the non-piss-take renewal quote, or the companies that force you to phone to cancel a service and endure endless, "Are you sure? Really?" questioning, etc.
There are so many ways in which companies have found that it's more profitable to organise things in a way that pisses people off, because people generally don't have the time or energy to make the company suffer for it.
The danger is that it becomes a bit "cones hotline" but if it's something a government works on somewhat unobtrusively they will make people's lives better and not look ridiculous for it.
The system of being able to demand a PAC code from your mobile provider, and get it in a timely manner is a great example of good regulation.
It made transferring you number between mobile phone providers much, much easier.
Exactly this.
Conversely, it is almost impossible to cancel a Times subscription.
A national gym chain I belong to has the following cancellation policy: cancel your direct debit - and your entry code will stop working. That's it.
This should be mandatory for direct debits, which are heavily regulated anyway. And perhaps too for credit card subscriptions - credit cards are already highly regulated too.
My gym managed to both screw it users during Covid and then act illegally with regards to contracts. To extract myself from a contract they had mostly been in breech of and had mostly been paid by the government, I had to quote contract law at them and offer to be a test case if they wanted to take me to court before they backed down.
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
It's probably bollocks but bigger picture-wise, the industrial revolution was probably largely inspired by slavery. People woke up to what unlimited cheap or free power could get you.
I'm not sure about "inspired". Every empire had slavery. Esp the Muslims
If slaves is all you need, then the Romans, Greeks, Ottomans, Arabs, Chinese, Mughals, and so on, would have devised the Industrial Revolution. They did not
Did slaves power the industrial revolution? Certainly: cotton picking slaves in Deep South USA fed English mills, and on we went. Shameful
But let's not alter the truth to fit our political convictions
The Atlantic slave trade combined slavery with colonialism and capitalism, that was what was new. Slavery produced huge profits because it brought together abundant land in the new world, cheap labour and new agricultural products for which there was huge demand. These profits - capital - were then funnelled by the capitalist system into driving the investment required by the industrial revolution. It also provided raw materials and products for the industrial workers to consume. Our whole economy was built on slavery and its profits.
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
Why quack?
It seems to be based on historical research and documents.
West Africans didn't even have the fucking wheel til it was given to them in the mid 19th century. Yet they mastered one of the crucial processes of the Industrial Revolution? Which was then "stolen" by the Evil White Imperialist Slaving Britons?
We are entering the era of post-Scientific Truth, let alone post-Truth
You don't need a wheel to smelt iron, and the article explained it via the adaption of sugar cane rollers.
There was extensive metal working in West Africa, indeed it was access to West African gold that the Europeans originally wanted from their trade, only later moving to the sugar and slave industrial model.
On the face of it, it looks like total bollocks.
The tell us that both academics provide some accompanying spin that “the story here is Britain closing down, through military force, competition,” and that the findings are relevant to the reparations movement.
Though we did deliberately destroy the Indian shipbuilding and cotton cloth economy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by tariff enforced by military force.
In the Eighteenth century we imported Indian chintz, but by the Twentieth we exported Manchester cotton to them.
I want to read more about that.
What you describe has suddenly become the received view, but the counter argument is that an industrialising Lancashire simply outcompeted the Bengal.
I don’t want to minimise the culpability of the East India Company, which committed many evils.
That's not really a counter argument.
A sovereign Bengal could have protected its textile industries until they too developed. (As happened in bits of Europe.) Imperial Britain enforced free trade for its own benefit - and the severe disbenefit of Bengal.
I’m posting again on the bizarre idea - signed off by the government - to close railway ticket offices.
Apparently all ticket offices at Euston, for example, are to go.
This is the “enshittification” of the railways.
I used to commute regularly to London when in business in the 1990s and never used a ticket office even then
Presumably that was by having a season ticket. I can't think of any other way in which you could not use the ticket office at that time.
Ticket machines date back to the late 80s.
I forgot about those. In fact I thought basic ticket machines came in a lot earlier, like the 60s or 70s.
It's a fascinating question, and I'm sure @Sunil_Prasannan knows more than I do...
BUT: tube ticket machines date way, way back with the first (entirely mechanical) ones coming pre-WW2.
Train tickets, with their variety of options (destination, fare type, etc.), are much more recent. Charing Cross station, I think, got them first in the early 80s, but widespread adoption took the Ascom machine at the end of the decade.
Big G used the internet to buy his season tickets in the 1990s?
OK.
You have misread my post
I did not have a season ticket but I took 18 journeys to London in 2 years and never went near a ticket office
But you said you bought them online, earlier in your reply to me. Thinking back, that wasn't possible in 1993 - I changed jobs and email was barely a thing. 1999?
Edit: it hardly matters when. The basic point was you knew what ticket to buy and where to go. But the ticketing and fares system is still horrendous. It's a ripoff charter to abolish ticket offices.
As I recall I ordered and paid my tickets direct to Virgin Trains
Biut I repeat: you knew which tickets to order, and where to get them. And had the kit to get them.
Indeed but then we are 30 years on and in the age of the internet
Many in my age group worry about parking apps but it is getting impossible not to have to use them
It is not as convenient for some but it is the way the world is going
That's rather too convenient for some. Look at this, and look at the DM reports and the comments there. They are absolutely ballistic.
They are barbarians who dreamt up this policy and should not be let off so lightly.
I have little doubt they will be closed in due course but if I were to travel by rail I would use Trainline or similar anyway
In other words - you are happy to justify the further deterioration of public services, presumably by way oif support for a non-Labour government, and rely on a website known not to give good value remiably or be propery coordinated with the operators. For instance:
I would just say I have travelled extensively by train in the UK and also abroad including the Ghan and the Blue Train in South Africa and have not experienced problems you mention in either web sites or any other agency
It is not a political issue for me but as in parking apps so rail will inevitably follow though the unions will resist no doubt
Parking apps is an obvious area where the state should just sanction one app - have competitive a 5 year franchise by all means but one app nationwide.
What advantage would having 1 app nationwide bring?
Not having to have 38 different apps on one's phone
See, you don't have 38 parking apps on your phone
I've just checked - I've got 5 parking apps, 4 of which are out of date and will need a download next time I happen to park at a carpark that needs that app. It's painful. And pointless.
I don't bother with parking apps, just leave a couple of pound coins on the dashboard and a note saying 'here's what you could have won'.
Doesn't that risk a hefty bill winging your way, as I'd have thought the carparks are backed up by ANPR... ?
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
Why quack?
It seems to be based on historical research and documents.
West Africans didn't even have the fucking wheel til it was given to them in the mid 19th century. Yet they mastered one of the crucial processes of the Industrial Revolution? Which was then "stolen" by the Evil White Imperialist Slaving Britons?
We are entering the era of post-Scientific Truth, let alone post-Truth
You don't need a wheel to smelt iron, and the article explained it via the adaption of sugar cane rollers.
There was extensive metal working in West Africa, indeed it was access to West African gold that the Europeans originally wanted from their trade, only later moving to the sugar and slave industrial model.
On the face of it, it looks like total bollocks.
The tell us that both academics provide some accompanying spin that “the story here is Britain closing down, through military force, competition,” and that the findings are relevant to the reparations movement.
Though we did deliberately destroy the Indian shipbuilding and cotton cloth economy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by tariff enforced by military force.
In the Eighteenth century we imported Indian chintz, but by the Twentieth we exported Manchester cotton to them.
I want to read more about that.
What you describe has suddenly become the received view, but the counter argument is that an industrialising Lancashire simply outcompeted the Bengal.
I don’t want to minimise the culpability of the East India Company, which committed many evils.
That's not really a counter argument.
A sovereign Bengal could have protected its textile industries until they too developed. (As happened in bits of Europe.) Imperial Britain enforced free trade for its own benefit - and the severe disbenefit of Bengal.
A sovereign Bengal here is ahistorical, since the East India Company merely supplanted Mughal suzerainty.
I agree with your last sentence but again, it is not the hard claim of “deliberate destruction”.
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
Why quack?
It seems to be based on historical research and documents.
West Africans didn't even have the fucking wheel til it was given to them in the mid 19th century. Yet they mastered one of the crucial processes of the Industrial Revolution? Which was then "stolen" by the Evil White Imperialist Slaving Britons?
We are entering the era of post-Scientific Truth, let alone post-Truth
You don't need a wheel to smelt iron, and the article explained it via the adaption of sugar cane rollers.
There was extensive metal working in West Africa, indeed it was access to West African gold that the Europeans originally wanted from their trade, only later moving to the sugar and slave industrial model.
On the face of it, it looks like total bollocks.
The tell us that both academics provide some accompanying spin that “the story here is Britain closing down, through military force, competition,” and that the findings are relevant to the reparations movement.
Though we did deliberately destroy the Indian shipbuilding and cotton cloth economy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by tariff enforced by military force.
In the Eighteenth century we imported Indian chintz, but by the Twentieth we exported Manchester cotton to them.
I want to read more about that.
What you describe has suddenly become the received view, but the counter argument is that an industrialising Lancashire simply outcompeted the Bengal.
I don’t want to minimise the culpability of the East India Company, which committed many evils.
That's not really a counter argument.
A sovereign Bengal could have protected its textile industries until they too developed. (As happened in bits of Europe.) Imperial Britain enforced free trade for its own benefit - and the severe disbenefit of Bengal.
Do you think that a sovereign Britain in the 21st century ought to protect strategic industries?
Mrs RP not a teacher - but a highly qualified teaching assistant who had her final day in teaching today. And what a day, where her school called out the Polis because an 11-year old was so violent that having utterly trashed several classrooms needed to be removed from the school so that the rest could get whatever education you get on the final Wednesday of term.
Whilst I was massively supportive of her getting into education and layering qualifications and experience, I am glad she is out and working alongside me on our new retail project. Where hopefully we call the polis less.
Big G used the internet to buy his season tickets in the 1990s?
OK.
You have misread my post
I did not have a season ticket but I took 18 journeys to London in 2 years and never went near a ticket office
But you said you bought them online, earlier in your reply to me. Thinking back, that wasn't possible in 1993 - I changed jobs and email was barely a thing. 1999?
Edit: it hardly matters when. The basic point was you knew what ticket to buy and where to go. But the ticketing and fares system is still horrendous. It's a ripoff charter to abolish ticket offices.
As I recall I ordered and paid my tickets direct to Virgin Trains
Biut I repeat: you knew which tickets to order, and where to get them. And had the kit to get them.
Indeed but then we are 30 years on and in the age of the internet
Many in my age group worry about parking apps but it is getting impossible not to have to use them
It is not as convenient for some but it is the way the world is going
That's rather too convenient for some. Look at this, and look at the DM reports and the comments there. They are absolutely ballistic.
They are barbarians who dreamt up this policy and should not be let off so lightly.
I have little doubt they will be closed in due course but if I were to travel by rail I would use Trainline or similar anyway
In other words - you are happy to justify the further deterioration of public services, presumably by way oif support for a non-Labour government, and rely on a website known not to give good value remiably or be propery coordinated with the operators. For instance:
I would just say I have travelled extensively by train in the UK and also abroad including the Ghan and the Blue Train in South Africa and have not experienced problems you mention in either web sites or any other agency
It is not a political issue for me but as in parking apps so rail will inevitably follow though the unions will resist no doubt
Parking apps is an obvious area where the state should just sanction one app - have competitive a 5 year franchise by all means but one app nationwide.
What advantage would having 1 app nationwide bring?
Not having to have 38 different apps on one's phone
See, you don't have 38 parking apps on your phone
I've just checked - I've got 5 parking apps, 4 of which are out of date and will need a download next time I happen to park at a carpark that needs that app. It's painful. And pointless.
I don't bother with parking apps, just leave a couple of pound coins on the dashboard and a note saying 'here's what you could have won'.
Doesn't that risk a hefty bill winging your way, as I'd have thought the carparks are backed up by ANPR... ?
Car parks usually have machines that accept coins or credit cards. It's the parking on the public highway where the council insists on an app that I ignore
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
Why quack?
It seems to be based on historical research and documents.
West Africans didn't even have the fucking wheel til it was given to them in the mid 19th century. Yet they mastered one of the crucial processes of the Industrial Revolution? Which was then "stolen" by the Evil White Imperialist Slaving Britons?
We are entering the era of post-Scientific Truth, let alone post-Truth
You don't need a wheel to smelt iron, and the article explained it via the adaption of sugar cane rollers.
There was extensive metal working in West Africa, indeed it was access to West African gold that the Europeans originally wanted from their trade, only later moving to the sugar and slave industrial model.
On the face of it, it looks like total bollocks.
The tell us that both academics provide some accompanying spin that “the story here is Britain closing down, through military force, competition,” and that the findings are relevant to the reparations movement.
Though we did deliberately destroy the Indian shipbuilding and cotton cloth economy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by tariff enforced by military force.
In the Eighteenth century we imported Indian chintz, but by the Twentieth we exported Manchester cotton to them.
I want to read more about that.
What you describe has suddenly become the received view, but the counter argument is that an industrialising Lancashire simply outcompeted the Bengal.
I don’t want to minimise the culpability of the East India Company, which committed many evils.
That's not really a counter argument.
A sovereign Bengal could have protected its textile industries until they too developed. (As happened in bits of Europe.) Imperial Britain enforced free trade for its own benefit - and the severe disbenefit of Bengal.
Do you think that a sovereign Britain in the 21st century ought to protect strategic industries?
Mrs RP not a teacher - but a highly qualified teaching assistant who had her final day in teaching today. And what a day, where her school called out the Polis because an 11-year old was so violent that having utterly trashed several classrooms needed to be removed from the school so that the rest could get whatever education you get on the final Wednesday of term.
Whilst I was massively supportive of her getting into education and layering qualifications and experience, I am glad she is out and working alongside me on our new retail project. Where hopefully we call the polis less.
Was she in mainstream, may I enquire? Primary or Secondary?
Memo to Britain. Spend some fucking money on capital investment.
It seems baked into the DNA that it is better to employ a bunch of serfs cheaply.
But, but cheap employees is a Human Right!
No really, I’ve had employers claim, over drinks, that an infinite supply of minimum wage workers is the only way things can be done. Wasting money on mechanisation would sinful…
Memo to Britain. Spend some fucking money on capital investment.
It seems baked into the DNA that it is better to employ a bunch of serfs cheaply.
But, but cheap employees is a Human Right!
No really, I’ve had employers claim, over drinks, that an infinite supply of minimum wage workers is the only way things can be done. Wasting money on mechanisation would sinful…
and they advocate open borders to get there infinite supply of min wage serfs....most of them on the left who are meant to care for the poor
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and I maintain improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
European migration yes had higher qualifications, did not mean they took high skilled jobs which is why you get people going on about those lovely european hospitality staff disappearing since brexit cf Roger for an example.
You come with a phd but work as a barista....doesnt make you as far as employment is concerned high skilled
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
It's probably bollocks but bigger picture-wise, the industrial revolution was probably largely inspired by slavery. People woke up to what unlimited cheap or free power could get you.
I'm not sure about "inspired". Every empire had slavery. Esp the Muslims
If slaves is all you need, then the Romans, Greeks, Ottomans, Arabs, Chinese, Mughals, and so on, would have devised the Industrial Revolution. They did not
Did slaves power the industrial revolution? Certainly: cotton picking slaves in Deep South USA fed English mills, and on we went. Shameful
But let's not alter the truth to fit our political convictions
The Atlantic slave trade combined slavery with colonialism and capitalism, that was what was new. Slavery produced huge profits because it brought together abundant land in the new world, cheap labour and new agricultural products for which there was huge demand. These profits - capital - were then funnelled by the capitalist system into driving the investment required by the industrial revolution. It also provided raw materials and products for the industrial workers to consume. Our whole economy was built on slavery and its profits.
I think this is broadly right.
But some caveats:
Britain banned the slave trade in 1807, whereas economic historians seem to keep pushing back the Industrial Revolution “lift off” later and later, perhaps to the post-Napoleonic era.
If the “whole economy” was built on slavery, how did Britain ever find itself able to ban it? Contrast with the American South who - as cotton exports became ever more lucrative - increasingly wanted to double down on slavery.
It’s remarkable that so many people talk about the Industrial Age without appreciating the real difference - the organisation and specialisation of work
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and I maintain improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
European migration yes had higher qualifications, did not mean they took high skilled jobs which is why you get people going on about those lovely european hospitality staff disappearing since brexit cf Roger for an example.
You come with a phd but work as a barista....doesnt make you as far as employment is concerned high skilled
My own belief and observation is that while some Phds may have started as baristas, they moved on up the career ladder in time (just as British graduates do).
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and I maintain improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
European migration yes had higher qualifications, did not mean they took high skilled jobs which is why you get people going on about those lovely european hospitality staff disappearing since brexit cf Roger for an example.
You come with a phd but work as a barista....doesnt make you as far as employment is concerned high skilled
My own belief and observation is that while some Phds may have started as baristas, they moved on up the career ladder in time (just as British graduates do).
anecdote mine is quite different. They only moved up the ladder if they were planning on staying and that is not the immigrants we want as down the line they become part of the pension demographic
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
Except that if you read on the history of the Industrial Revolution, there’s nothing so common as stuff like - “He invested all his money in a new iron making process - which failed, and he died in relative poverty.”
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and I maintain improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
European migration yes had higher qualifications, did not mean they took high skilled jobs which is why you get people going on about those lovely european hospitality staff disappearing since brexit cf Roger for an example.
You come with a phd but work as a barista....doesnt make you as far as employment is concerned high skilled
My own belief and observation is that while some Phds may have started as baristas, they moved on up the career ladder in time (just as British graduates do).
anecdote mine is quite different. They only moved up the ladder if they were planning on staying and that is not the immigrants we want as down the line they become part of the pension demographic
Well that makes no sense, unless you believe that a growing population is in itself undesirable.
Britain, like all countries in the West, and increasing numbers of countries in the “Global South”, faces demographic challenges. Our population, sans immigration, is shrinking…
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.
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.
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?
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%.
As I said the 14 million comes from the Digital Poverty Alliance and to be honest I would trust them a hell of a lot more than Ofcom.
From their own website
"6% of the UK population have no access to the internet – with 20% of young people aged 8-24 lacking the ability to get online."
That is around 4 million people with no access at all. There are an additional 10 million with only very limited access.
That said, the Digital Poverty Alliance is a pressure group with a mission to pursue. It's a laudable mission imo but they are clearly not unbiased.
You might as well trust the Taxpayers' Alliance.
Yes, I don't trust any group whose very purpose means you can write their response to anything without them even bothering. It's not as though evidence would change a pressure group's mind, even the one's with positive goals.
I welcome any input, but I dispute that such groups produce any sort of genuine analysis.
So you only trust the official Government figures? That is.... quaint.
I didn't say that. I'm wary of any figures or policies. I just think groups which exist primarily to lobby for a particular solution or option try to present as being objective and analytical when they are ideologically driven and so any 'analysis' is just a figleaf to push the thing they already want to do. Is anyone ever surprised by something the Taxpayer alliance says in response to anything?
Such groups might as well just save time and effort and not bother with research and analysis. What, they're going to change their minds about the correct option if it shows something different? Beyond trivial, minor details?
But none of what you have written there makes their figures any less trustworthy or correct than those produced by agencies such as Ofcom. They are simply measuring different things and chosing what to promote.
Put bluntly, if the DPA figures were wrong or grossly misleading then someone would have said so.
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
Except that if you read on the history of the Industrial Revolution, there’s nothing so common as stuff like - “He invested all his money in a new iron making process - which failed, and he died in relative poverty.”
People invested their *all* quite regularly
OK but maybe it was an anomalous period, and Britain reverted quickly to type as what looked like monopolistic profits emerged (ie before the rest of the world caught up).
As I say, Britain is a global laggard for both private and public capital investment, and it has long been so.
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
Except that if you read on the history of the Industrial Revolution, there’s nothing so common as stuff like - “He invested all his money in a new iron making process - which failed, and he died in relative poverty.”
People invested their *all* quite regularly
OK but maybe it was an anomalous period, and Britain reverted quickly to type as what looked like monopolistic profits emerged (ie before the rest of the world caught up).
As I say, Britain is a global laggard for both private and public capital investment, and it has long been so.
It would make an interesting PhD, but my sense is that something changed something changed around the.turn of the 20th Cent.
One that sticks in my mind is Jellicoe being told by the gun makers that they *wouldn’t* change from wire wound guns pre WWI.
Edit; one theory is that the money men had taken over the boards of the innovative companies, kicking out the mad inventor types.
There is an additional benefit to buying a Mac: From time to time you will get notices like this one: "Help! I am being held prisoner in a Chinese factory."
OK, I made that up. But it should happen.
And a few months ago, I sent Tim Cook a letter offering him a colorful "Free Tibet!" bumper sticker, if he would promise to display it prominently. I can't imagine why he hasn't replied. (I haven't decided who will get the next offer, perhaps Lebron James.)
(I didn't read all the preceding comments on slavery, so no doubt others have had much say about the Laogai. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai Which exists, now.)
Wow! We’ve already had a Primeminister slain by a lettuce, now Mickey Mouse thinks he’s hard enough to take on “Whitewash” Jenrick. Who’s going to win this one?
The subject matter is disappointing to say the least. Are they welcoming people to Florida? Paint it over and replace it with Dennis the Menace, and the Bash Street Kids.
On topic, if you all don't mind: Here's my immediate reaction to OGH's conclusion: [Expletives deleted.]
I haven't done my own analysis, but I fear he may be right, partly because our press is giving so little attention to challengers to Trump, several of whom could make competent presidents.
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
Except that if you read on the history of the Industrial Revolution, there’s nothing so common as stuff like - “He invested all his money in a new iron making process - which failed, and he died in relative poverty.”
People invested their *all* quite regularly
OK but maybe it was an anomalous period, and Britain reverted quickly to type as what looked like monopolistic profits emerged (ie before the rest of the world caught up).
As I say, Britain is a global laggard for both private and public capital investment, and it has long been so.
It would make an interesting PhD, but my sense is that something changed something changed around the.turn of the 20th Cent.
One that sticks in my mind is Jellicoe being told by the gun makers that they *wouldn’t* change from wire wound guns pre WWI.
Edit; one theory is that the money men had taken over the boards of the innovative companies, kicking out the mad inventor types.
Another hypothesis.
As the British empire reached its peak, the British economy over-indexed on extractive, low skill industry instead of competing with European and U.S. peers higher up the value chain.
Kind of the same issue the US South had, except replace cotton and slavery with coal and low skill imperial subjects.
On obesity in the US: When I was growing up in the 1950s, in a farming area, I often saw farm couples where the husband was thin, and the wife less so. He did outside, big-muscle work, she did inside, small-muscle work. Both worked hard, but he burned way more calories than she did.
Much of the factory work then was big-muscle work, too. And food was a much bigger part of a family's budget then, which cut down on the extras they bought.
Government policy may have increased obesity, too. As you may know, the US subsidizes food for the poor through a numer of programs, of which the largest is SNAP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program "In the United States, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),[1] formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, is a federal government program that provides food-purchasing assistance for low- and no-income people to help them maintain adequate nutrition and health. It is a federal aid program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) under the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), though benefits are distributed by specific departments of U.S. states (e.g., the Division of Social Services, the Department of Health and Human Services, etc.).
SNAP benefits supplied roughly 40 million Americans in 2018, at an expenditure of $57.1 billion.[2][3] Approximately 9.2% of American households obtained SNAP benefits at some point during 2017, with approximately 16.7% of all children living in households with SNAP benefits."
There is an additional benefit to buying a Mac: From time to time you will get notices like this one: "Help! I am being held prisoner in a Chinese factory."
OK, I made that up. But it should happen.
And a few months ago, I sent Tim Cook a letter offering him a colorful "Free Tibet!" bumper sticker, if he would promise to display it prominently. I can't imagine why he hasn't replied. (I haven't decided who will get the next offer, perhaps Lebron James.)
(I didn't read all the preceding comments on slavery, so no doubt others have had much say about the Laogai. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai Which exists, now.)
I spent most of the 1990s trying to persuade my school friends that Macs were better than Window computers. Most of them weren't interested. They were convinced Windows was far better.
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
When I was working in employment training a few years back, a disturbing number of young people's answer to the question "Where do you see yourself at 40?" Was. Retired. Owning 3 or 4 houses and living off the rent. This was from apprentices. That doesn't happen now. For which, much thanks.
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
When I was working in employment training a few years back, a disturbing number of young people's answer to the question "Where do you see yourself at 40?" Was. Retired. Owning 3 or 4 houses and living off the rent. This was from apprentices. That doesn't happen now. For which, much thanks.
In the London area I've met several people doing working class jobs or jobs on the boundary between working class and petty bourgeois whose "aspirations" in the field of landlordism and "doing a rental" have caused me to recall the story of a Rockefeller who sold all his shares after a shoeshine boy advised him that investing in cryptocurrency this or that share was guaranteed to make a big profit. According to legend, that's what triggered the crash of 1929.
House prices have got to crash some time. I mean totally crash. Not minus 20%. But break the f*cking floor. The fundamentals say so. The questions are when and how. About that, I haven't a clue.
Another day, another three right-wing virtue-signalling shock-jocks, who don’t care about poor Londoners but love to pander to the prejudices of their bigoted audience, criticising Khan over ULEZ expansion.
Oh, hang on, it’s three Labour MPs from outer London.
Siobhan McDonagh, the MP for Mitcham and Morden, said: “Whilst I absolutely share the environmental concerns that underpin the proposals and I am very concerned about the need to help improve air quality across London, I personally do not believe that making driving unaffordable for some of the most vulnerable people in our capital is the best or fairest way to address these issues.”
Clive Efford, the Eltham MP, said: “I absolutely agree with the principle behind what Sadiq is seeking to achieve. I would rather it was postponed because of the cost of living crisis, because I understand the hardships that many people will be facing.”
Jon Cruddas, MP for Dagenham and Rainham, said: “For the last couple of years I’ve been concerned about this in terms of being introduced at a time of a cost of living crisis and argued that it should be delayed.”
The one thing I have heard about batteries is there is concern about the weight of modern hybrid vehicles especially those parked in multi-storey car parks where there is concern the structures built in thr 60s and 70s can't take the weight of hundreds of hybrid vehicles.
Anyone heard this?
EVs are 200-300kg heavier than their ICE equivalents. Out of tons.
A car park should have multiple 100s of percentage structural margins.
I would suggest there is more a problem with shoddy construction, shoddy maintenance and people driving giant SUVs (especially on the US)
"A car park should have multiple 100s of percentage structural margins."
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Particularly as many are fifty years old, and materials age. Most importantly, cars have increased in weight massively over the decades.
A 1970 Austin Mini 1000 weighed 620 Kg. A modern Mimi weights double or triple that.
Another example: a Land Rover series 1 weighed, 1184kg (less than a modern Mini). A Land Rover Defender weighs 2348kg.
The new electric BMW iX SUV monstrosity is 2,700kg empty!
The one thing I have heard about batteries is there is concern about the weight of modern hybrid vehicles especially those parked in multi-storey car parks where there is concern the structures built in thr 60s and 70s can't take the weight of hundreds of hybrid vehicles.
Anyone heard this?
EVs are 200-300kg heavier than their ICE equivalents. Out of tons.
A car park should have multiple 100s of percentage structural margins.
I would suggest there is more a problem with shoddy construction, shoddy maintenance and people driving giant SUVs (especially on the US)
"A car park should have multiple 100s of percentage structural margins."
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Particularly as many are fifty years old, and materials age. Most importantly, cars have increased in weight massively over the decades.
A 1970 Austin Mini 1000 weighed 620 Kg. A modern Mimi weights double or triple that.
Another example: a Land Rover series 1 weighed, 1184kg (less than a modern Mini). A Land Rover Defender weighs 2348kg.
The new electric BMW iX SUV monstrosity is 2,700kg empty!
Doesn’t take many of those, in a car park designed for 600kg Minis and 900kg Cavaliers, before engineers start to suggest there might be an issue.
Perhaps the rate of car tax should be some function of both weight and emissions so as to better reflect the corresponding negative effects on both infrastructure and environment.
New CIS poll in Spain gives a tiny lead for the PP but suggests that they will fail to reach the overall majority even with Box support. However, it's fair to say that the CIS polls are always way out of line with all the rest - by around 10 points - so treat with some caution.
Another day, another three right-wing virtue-signalling shock-jocks, who don’t care about poor Londoners but love to pander to the prejudices of their bigoted audience, criticising Khan over ULEZ expansion.
Oh, hang on, it’s three Labour MPs from outer London.
Siobhan McDonagh, the MP for Mitcham and Morden, said: “Whilst I absolutely share the environmental concerns that underpin the proposals and I am very concerned about the need to help improve air quality across London, I personally do not believe that making driving unaffordable for some of the most vulnerable people in our capital is the best or fairest way to address these issues.”
Clive Efford, the Eltham MP, said: “I absolutely agree with the principle behind what Sadiq is seeking to achieve. I would rather it was postponed because of the cost of living crisis, because I understand the hardships that many people will be facing.”
Jon Cruddas, MP for Dagenham and Rainham, said: “For the last couple of years I’ve been concerned about this in terms of being introduced at a time of a cost of living crisis and argued that it should be delayed.”
The one thing I have heard about batteries is there is concern about the weight of modern hybrid vehicles especially those parked in multi-storey car parks where there is concern the structures built in thr 60s and 70s can't take the weight of hundreds of hybrid vehicles.
Anyone heard this?
EVs are 200-300kg heavier than their ICE equivalents. Out of tons.
A car park should have multiple 100s of percentage structural margins.
I would suggest there is more a problem with shoddy construction, shoddy maintenance and people driving giant SUVs (especially on the US)
"A car park should have multiple 100s of percentage structural margins."
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Particularly as many are fifty years old, and materials age. Most importantly, cars have increased in weight massively over the decades.
A 1970 Austin Mini 1000 weighed 620 Kg. A modern Mimi weights double or triple that.
Another example: a Land Rover series 1 weighed, 1184kg (less than a modern Mini). A Land Rover Defender weighs 2348kg.
The new electric BMW iX SUV monstrosity is 2,700kg empty!
Doesn’t take many of those, in a car park designed for 600kg Minis and 900kg Cavaliers, before engineers start to suggest there might be an issue.
Perhaps the rate of car tax should be some function of both weight and emissions so as to better reflect the corresponding negative effects on both infrastructure and environment.
Yes, taxation based on some function of weight makes sense, when emissions can no longer be used to differentiate. Electric cars designed for both petrol and electric powertrains, tend to be the worst offenders at the moment. Eventually that should change.
The one thing I have heard about batteries is there is concern about the weight of modern hybrid vehicles especially those parked in multi-storey car parks where there is concern the structures built in thr 60s and 70s can't take the weight of hundreds of hybrid vehicles.
Anyone heard this?
EVs are 200-300kg heavier than their ICE equivalents. Out of tons.
A car park should have multiple 100s of percentage structural margins.
I would suggest there is more a problem with shoddy construction, shoddy maintenance and people driving giant SUVs (especially on the US)
"A car park should have multiple 100s of percentage structural margins."
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Particularly as many are fifty years old, and materials age. Most importantly, cars have increased in weight massively over the decades.
A 1970 Austin Mini 1000 weighed 620 Kg. A modern Mimi weights double or triple that.
Another example: a Land Rover series 1 weighed, 1184kg (less than a modern Mini). A Land Rover Defender weighs 2348kg.
The new electric BMW iX SUV monstrosity is 2,700kg empty!
Doesn’t take many of those, in a car park designed for 600kg Minis and 900kg Cavaliers, before engineers start to suggest there might be an issue.
Perhaps the rate of car tax should be some function of both weight and emissions so as to better reflect the corresponding negative effects on both infrastructure and environment.
Yes, taxation based on some function of weight makes sense, when emissions can no longer be used to differentiate. Electric cars designed for both petrol and electric powertrains, tend to be the worst offenders at the moment. Eventually that should change.
For two axle vehicles, I'd go for the 4th Power of the Axle Weight (or overall weight, which is the same). That is the formula for damage to the roads.
So a new Nissan Leaf weighs around 1650kg, whilst as pointed out a BMW Tankette weighs 2700kg.
That gives the BMW paying (4th power of the ratio) paying 900% as much VED as the more normally sized Nissan, which seems about right.
There's probably a role for emissions as well, but I don't have an easy answer for that one.
I'd also apply full construction safety regs to personal imports to keep Usonian "Light Trucks" out, which are built to lower safety standards - but that's another story.
What Russia is doing is hideous, and utterly their own doing and choice. We should be doing more to help Ukraine end this madness, and deter any other madman from doing the same in the future.
The depressing thing about those odds is how little impact the indictments have had on Trump to date. I keep wanting to believe that the Republican party must still contain a significant number of people with respect for the rule of law ,(and not the distorted, disgraceful politics they have imposed on the country through their majority in the SC either) but the evidence otherwise is becoming overwhelming. Can democracy even survive when one of the 2 major parties is simply not willing to comply with or be bound by the rules of the game?
The depressing thing about those odds is how little impact the indictments have had on Trump to date. I keep wanting to believe that the Republican party must still contain a significant number of people with respect for the rule of law ,(and not the distorted, disgraceful politics they have imposed on the country through their majority in the SC either) but the evidence otherwise is becoming overwhelming. Can democracy even survive when one of the 2 major parties is simply not willing to comply with or be bound by the rules of the game?
The media, on all sides, know that wall-to-wall Trump is box office gold, so we’re getting wall-to-wall Trump with everyone else crowded out. DeSantis is having a shocker of a campaign so far, which doesn’t help. His comms team appear to only open their mouths to insert their feet.
Yet more Ulez-x whining this morning from the PB Bumpkins (Non London Division).
Again. AGAIN. It’s been in force inside the North Circ for 18 MONTHS. It’s working well.
Get. It. Done.
And south circular! I bought a new (second hand) car and got on with it. We are already reaping the benefits in terms of cleaner air.
Yes, sorry realise it’s both sides of the water. These arguments would be slightly less bizarre were it not already in force and working well for literally millions of Londoners!
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
I have always thought this - I even have a name for it - Lord of the Manor syndrome - it infects many areas of British life.
Everyone with the means to do so left Russia a year ago, for anywhere they could get a visa, and with whatever money they could get their hands on. It’s surprising just how many people literally keep hard currency under the mattress in these parts of the world, while many more managed to trade their roubles for Bitcoin.
In my experience, knowing quite a few of them, I don’t think many of them plan to head back any time soon, many have settled down and set up businesses or found jobs where they landed. They’ve bought property, got their kids in school, and are not fans of Mr Putin for turning their country into the next North Korea.
People here often say that those that live in rural area's have to accept the cost in worse public transport
People in cities need to accept the cost of air pollution living in cities is a choice.
Or people in cities can choose to vote for someone to do something about it. I've seen my daughter hospitalised with asthma twice, it was utterly teriffying, so I am exercising a lot of restraint in not saying what I really feel about your post.
Yet more Ulez-x whining this morning from the PB Bumpkins (Non London Division).
Again. AGAIN. It’s been in force inside the North Circ for 18 MONTHS. It’s working well.
Get. It. Done.
And south circular! I bought a new (second hand) car and got on with it. We are already reaping the benefits in terms of cleaner air.
It's another manifestation of the lack of investment mindset.
No question that there are upfront costs. But some would rather go for the cheaper option of continuing to make life worse for other people.
And yes, the pollution problem is less bad by the time you get to the edge of London. But the only two boundaries that work traffic wise are the N/S Circular and the M25. And the circle of the circulars is too small- especially on the south side.
One other thought; aren't people who quibble and chase a decision they don't like through the courts the bad guys? Enemies of the people?
The depressing thing about those odds is how little impact the indictments have had on Trump to date. I keep wanting to believe that the Republican party must still contain a significant number of people with respect for the rule of law ,(and not the distorted, disgraceful politics they have imposed on the country through their majority in the SC either) but the evidence otherwise is becoming overwhelming. Can democracy even survive when one of the 2 major parties is simply not willing to comply with or be bound by the rules of the game?
The endless propaganda pumped out on social media about how Biden is super-corrupt and the Dems are forcibly sterilising children will do that. How do you stop the gushing pipeline of misinformation? We even have multiple people on PB repeating this nonsense.
Funny story of the morning. A friend in the UK has got tickets for himself and his son to go to the cricket at the weekend, and has also got tickets for himself and his son to go to the Grand Prix at the weekend - and only realised the problem last week!
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
I have always thought this - I even have a name for it - Lord of the Manor syndrome - it infects many areas of British life.
The strange thing being that, for many, genteel poverty is seen as preferable to effortful success. Audrey Fforbes-Hamilton rather than Richard de Vere.
Yet more Ulez-x whining this morning from the PB Bumpkins (Non London Division).
Again. AGAIN. It’s been in force inside the North Circ for 18 MONTHS. It’s working well.
Get. It. Done.
And south circular! I bought a new (second hand) car and got on with it. We are already reaping the benefits in terms of cleaner air.
It's another manifestation of the lack of investment mindset.
No question that there are upfront costs. But some would rather go for the cheaper option of continuing to make life worse for other people.
And yes, the pollution problem is less bad by the time you get to the edge of London. But the only two boundaries that work traffic wise are the N/S Circular and the M25. And the circle of the circulars is too small- especially on the south side.
One other thought; aren't people who quibble and chase a decision they don't like through the courts the bad guys? Enemies of the people?
The new zone isnt particularly aligned to the m25, especially in Herts and Surrey.
Are you against my modifications of:
7am-7pm £5 in expanded zone, phasing the price increase to full fare over 5 years but keeping the hours £3000 scrappage available for all who live in the zone First 2 visits free to avoid fines for once a year drivers
These would see more of the bad cars scrapped, shift traffic away from congestion times, support the evening and nighttime economies, be fairer and focus on growing support for the policy instead of winning but dividing into the enlightened and numpties.
The depressing thing about those odds is how little impact the indictments have had on Trump to date. I keep wanting to believe that the Republican party must still contain a significant number of people with respect for the rule of law ,(and not the distorted, disgraceful politics they have imposed on the country through their majority in the SC either) but the evidence otherwise is becoming overwhelming. Can democracy even survive when one of the 2 major parties is simply not willing to comply with or be bound by the rules of the game?
The endless propaganda pumped out on social media about how Biden is super-corrupt and the Dems are forcibly sterilising children will do that. How do you stop the gushing pipeline of misinformation? We even have multiple people on PB repeating this nonsense.
The only effective response to the lies that MAGA Republicans are pushing seems to be the law and that is incredibly slow. It also will only work on the most important players like Guiliani, Sidney Powell, Kari Lake, Mark Meadows various Proud Boys and of course Trump himself.
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
I have always thought this - I even have a name for it - Lord of the Manor syndrome - it infects many areas of British life.
Was surprised and impressed to learn this about Canada the other day: like other countries they will give you citizenship if you are seriously loaded, can$ 10m in their case, but it has to be earned money. Inherited is no good.
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
I have always thought this - I even have a name for it - Lord of the Manor syndrome - it infects many areas of British life.
The strange thing being that, for many, genteel poverty is seen as preferable to effortful success. Audrey Fforbes-Hamilton rather than Richard de Vere.
The numbers of overseas cash buyers in London suggests that the Richard de Vere sector is booming (he was a Czech entrepreneur as I recall).
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
When I was working in employment training a few years back, a disturbing number of young people's answer to the question "Where do you see yourself at 40?" Was. Retired. Owning 3 or 4 houses and living off the rent. This was from apprentices. That doesn't happen now. For which, much thanks.
Have they simply moved on to wanting to be millionaire retired crypto kings?
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
It's probably bollocks but bigger picture-wise, the industrial revolution was probably largely inspired by slavery. People woke up to what unlimited cheap or free power could get you.
I'm not sure about "inspired". Every empire had slavery. Esp the Muslims
If slaves is all you need, then the Romans, Greeks, Ottomans, Arabs, Chinese, Mughals, and so on, would have devised the Industrial Revolution. They did not
Did slaves power the industrial revolution? Certainly: cotton picking slaves in Deep South USA fed English mills, and on we went. Shameful
But let's not alter the truth to fit our political convictions
Surely it's more likely to be the opposite: the lack of cheap labour meant people were forced to innovate.
(While swimming today, I listened to a Malcolm Gladwell podcast that touched in this very issue, making the case that the industrial revolution happened in the UK for - among other reasons - the fact that the UK was more of a bottom minimisation than a top maximisation society.)
The USA provides a controlled experiment. By 1860, the North, without slavery, was industrialising rapidly. The South, with slavery, had barely got started in the process of industralisation. The profits of slavery could, in principle, have been invested in new technologies, but that's not the mentality of a slave owner. Slave owners tended to spend heavily, on new Neo-classical houses, race horses, art works, hunting dogs, and other objects of conspicuous consumption.
I'd say that the balance of evidence is that - rather like suddenly discovering some lucrative natural resource - slavery and slave-trading tend to retard, rather than boost, economic development. That's pretty much the standard answer as to why the Roman empire (which potentially had the know how to industrialise) never did so.
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
I have always thought this - I even have a name for it - Lord of the Manor syndrome - it infects many areas of British life.
The strange thing being that, for many, genteel poverty is seen as preferable to effortful success. Audrey Fforbes-Hamilton rather than Richard de Vere.
The numbers of overseas cash buyers in London suggests that the Richard de Vere sector is booming (he was a Czech entrepreneur as I recall).
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
I have always thought this - I even have a name for it - Lord of the Manor syndrome - it infects many areas of British life.
Was surprised and impressed to learn this about Canada the other day: like other countries they will give you citizenship if you are seriously loaded, can$ 10m in their case, but it has to be earned money. Inherited is no good.
I suppose they just have to hope that money doesn't turn out to have been earned from drug dealing.
Of course even the Canadian PM lives largely off inherited wealth, his own father being a previous PM, so they are a hardly a land made up solely of people going from poverty to riches either!
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
I have always thought this - I even have a name for it - Lord of the Manor syndrome - it infects many areas of British life.
Was surprised and impressed to learn this about Canada the other day: like other countries they will give you citizenship if you are seriously loaded, can$ 10m in their case, but it has to be earned money. Inherited is no good.
That’s an interesting one. Canada is also very generous with citizenship for anyone who can qualify for a skilled working visa (usually requires a degree or similar professional qualification). You can get your passport in three or four years, which many do. There’s a big industry for non-Gulf Arabs, Africans and Indians to get work in Canada for long enough to get their passport, I know several that have done it and it’s life-changing.
If the Ulez-X is such a vote loser for Labour as the PB Tories assure us, presumably I should put next month’s mortgage on those odds?
I have bet a reasonable sum on the Tories winning Uxbridge, with its high Hindu community too and the Tory candidate more local than the Labour candidate and the Tories still holding the council and Labour rather complacently increasingly shifting to Selby and assuming Uxbridge is in the bag
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
I have always thought this - I even have a name for it - Lord of the Manor syndrome - it infects many areas of British life.
Was surprised and impressed to learn this about Canada the other day: like other countries they will give you citizenship if you are seriously loaded, can$ 10m in their case, but it has to be earned money. Inherited is no good.
I suppose they just have to hope that money doesn't turn out to have been earned from drug dealing.
Of course even the Canadian PM lives largely off inherited wealth, his own father being a previous PM, so they are a hardly a land made up solely of people going from poverty to riches either!
Drug dealing? Plenty posh folk in the UK inherited that money [edit]. Like anyoine whose forebears had East India Company stock or shares in many merchants to China in the C19.,
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
I have always thought this - I even have a name for it - Lord of the Manor syndrome - it infects many areas of British life.
The strange thing being that, for many, genteel poverty is seen as preferable to effortful success. Audrey Fforbes-Hamilton rather than Richard de Vere.
The numbers of overseas cash buyers in London suggests that the Richard de Vere sector is booming (he was a Czech entrepreneur as I recall).
Incidentally, high interest rates won't deter cash buyers, just get them better prices.
I remind you of my Modest Proposal: ban foreign individuals and corporations from owning residential property in the UK. If you can't do that, tax them.
The depressing thing about those odds is how little impact the indictments have had on Trump to date. I keep wanting to believe that the Republican party must still contain a significant number of people with respect for the rule of law ,(and not the distorted, disgraceful politics they have imposed on the country through their majority in the SC either) but the evidence otherwise is becoming overwhelming. Can democracy even survive when one of the 2 major parties is simply not willing to comply with or be bound by the rules of the game?
Surely it is democracy if most voters still want to vote for a candidate even if they are potentially convicted of a crime?
Those voters may be acting immorally arguably but they are still acting democratically
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
I have always thought this - I even have a name for it - Lord of the Manor syndrome - it infects many areas of British life.
Was surprised and impressed to learn this about Canada the other day: like other countries they will give you citizenship if you are seriously loaded, can$ 10m in their case, but it has to be earned money. Inherited is no good.
I suppose they just have to hope that money doesn't turn out to have been earned from drug dealing.
Of course even the Canadian PM lives largely off inherited wealth, his own father being a previous PM, so they are a hardly a land made up solely of people going from poverty to riches either!
Drug dealing? Plenty posh folk in the UK inherited that money [edit]. Like anyoine whose forebears had East India Company stock or shares in many merchants to China in the C19.,
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
I have always thought this - I even have a name for it - Lord of the Manor syndrome - it infects many areas of British life.
Was surprised and impressed to learn this about Canada the other day: like other countries they will give you citizenship if you are seriously loaded, can$ 10m in their case, but it has to be earned money. Inherited is no good.
I suppose they just have to hope that money doesn't turn out to have been earned from drug dealing.
Of course even the Canadian PM lives largely off inherited wealth, his own father being a previous PM, so they are a hardly a land made up solely of people going from poverty to riches either!
Drug dealing? Plenty posh folk in the UK inherited that money [edit]. Like anyoine whose forebears had East India Company stock or shares in many merchants to China in the C19.,
US slavery was based on soft drugs - coffee, tobacco, rum.
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
It's probably bollocks but bigger picture-wise, the industrial revolution was probably largely inspired by slavery. People woke up to what unlimited cheap or free power could get you.
I'm not sure about "inspired". Every empire had slavery. Esp the Muslims
If slaves is all you need, then the Romans, Greeks, Ottomans, Arabs, Chinese, Mughals, and so on, would have devised the Industrial Revolution. They did not
Did slaves power the industrial revolution? Certainly: cotton picking slaves in Deep South USA fed English mills, and on we went. Shameful
But let's not alter the truth to fit our political convictions
The Atlantic slave trade combined slavery with colonialism and capitalism, that was what was new. Slavery produced huge profits because it brought together abundant land in the new world, cheap labour and new agricultural products for which there was huge demand. These profits - capital - were then funnelled by the capitalist system into driving the investment required by the industrial revolution. It also provided raw materials and products for the industrial workers to consume. Our whole economy was built on slavery and its profits.
I think this is broadly right.
But some caveats:
Britain banned the slave trade in 1807, whereas economic historians seem to keep pushing back the Industrial Revolution “lift off” later and later, perhaps to the post-Napoleonic era.
If the “whole economy” was built on slavery, how did Britain ever find itself able to ban it? Contrast with the American South who - as cotton exports became ever more lucrative - increasingly wanted to double down on slavery.
It also begs the question, why the UK kick-started the Industrial Revolution, rather than France, Spain, or Portugal. A big part of Eric Williams' argument was that slavery was simply becoming a lot less profitable, from the 1780's, and it was that, and fear of slave revolts, rather than humanitarian concern, that drove abolitionist sentiment. But, there's quite the gap between the decline in the profitability of slavery, and the real growth in industrialisation. IMHO, the war against Napoleon drove a huge amount of industrialisation. War is so often a key to innovation.
The depressing thing about those odds is how little impact the indictments have had on Trump to date. I keep wanting to believe that the Republican party must still contain a significant number of people with respect for the rule of law ,(and not the distorted, disgraceful politics they have imposed on the country through their majority in the SC either) but the evidence otherwise is becoming overwhelming. Can democracy even survive when one of the 2 major parties is simply not willing to comply with or be bound by the rules of the game?
Surely it is democracy if most voters still want to vote for a candidate even if they are potentially convicted of a crime?
Those voters may be acting immorally arguably but they are still acting democratically
What happens, though, if a democratically elected government decides to go about abolishing democracy?
The depressing thing about those odds is how little impact the indictments have had on Trump to date. I keep wanting to believe that the Republican party must still contain a significant number of people with respect for the rule of law ,(and not the distorted, disgraceful politics they have imposed on the country through their majority in the SC either) but the evidence otherwise is becoming overwhelming. Can democracy even survive when one of the 2 major parties is simply not willing to comply with or be bound by the rules of the game?
Surely it is democracy if most voters still want to vote for a candidate even if they are potentially convicted of a crime?
Those voters may be acting immorally arguably but they are still acting democratically
What happens, though, if a democratically elected government decides that it wishes to abolish democracy?
Then at that point it turns from democracy to dictatorship
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
It's probably bollocks but bigger picture-wise, the industrial revolution was probably largely inspired by slavery. People woke up to what unlimited cheap or free power could get you.
I'm not sure about "inspired". Every empire had slavery. Esp the Muslims
If slaves is all you need, then the Romans, Greeks, Ottomans, Arabs, Chinese, Mughals, and so on, would have devised the Industrial Revolution. They did not
Did slaves power the industrial revolution? Certainly: cotton picking slaves in Deep South USA fed English mills, and on we went. Shameful
But let's not alter the truth to fit our political convictions
The Atlantic slave trade combined slavery with colonialism and capitalism, that was what was new. Slavery produced huge profits because it brought together abundant land in the new world, cheap labour and new agricultural products for which there was huge demand. These profits - capital - were then funnelled by the capitalist system into driving the investment required by the industrial revolution. It also provided raw materials and products for the industrial workers to consume. Our whole economy was built on slavery and its profits.
I think this is broadly right.
But some caveats:
Britain banned the slave trade in 1807, whereas economic historians seem to keep pushing back the Industrial Revolution “lift off” later and later, perhaps to the post-Napoleonic era.
If the “whole economy” was built on slavery, how did Britain ever find itself able to ban it? Contrast with the American South who - as cotton exports became ever more lucrative - increasingly wanted to double down on slavery.
It also begs the question, why the UK kick-started the Industrial Revolution, rather than France, Spain, or Portugal. A big part of Eric Williams' argument was that slavery was simply becoming a lot less profitable, from the 1780's, and it was that, and fear of slave revolts, rather than humanitarian concern, that drove abolitionist sentiment. But, there's quite the gap between the decline in the profitability of slavery, and the real growth in industrialisation. IMHO, the war against Napoleon drove a huge amount of industrialisation. War is so often a key to innovation.
I would guess that the focus by Britain on the Navy rather than huge land armies played a major role in Britain forging ahead of France.
With large land armies each man needs a musket, bayonet or sword. You need some artillery and horses to move them but with a navy there are countless individual parts of each ship that can be improved to increase speed, safety, strength, manoeuvrability, weapons systems, feeding crew which probably needs a more technological mindset and production techniques.
Not saying that the French Navy was a minor concern but the Royal Navy had the edge for many tech reasons as much as numbers.
Yet more Ulez-x whining this morning from the PB Bumpkins (Non London Division).
Again. AGAIN. It’s been in force inside the North Circ for 18 MONTHS. It’s working well.
Get. It. Done.
And south circular! I bought a new (second hand) car and got on with it. We are already reaping the benefits in terms of cleaner air.
It's another manifestation of the lack of investment mindset.
No question that there are upfront costs. But some would rather go for the cheaper option of continuing to make life worse for other people.
And yes, the pollution problem is less bad by the time you get to the edge of London. But the only two boundaries that work traffic wise are the N/S Circular and the M25. And the circle of the circulars is too small- especially on the south side.
One other thought; aren't people who quibble and chase a decision they don't like through the courts the bad guys? Enemies of the people?
The new zone isnt particularly aligned to the m25, especially in Herts and Surrey.
Are you against my modifications of:
7am-7pm £5 in expanded zone, phasing the price increase to full fare over 5 years but keeping the hours £3000 scrappage available for all who live in the zone First 2 visits free to avoid fines for once a year drivers
These would see more of the bad cars scrapped, shift traffic away from congestion times, support the evening and nighttime economies, be fairer and focus on growing support for the policy instead of winning but dividing into the enlightened and numpties.
I think a 7-7 rule would be a mistake. I don't know how quickly these things disperse, but I'd worry that bad stuff given off at 6.30am would still be around during the school run. Maybe 7pm to 2am? But then- what's the point?
Making scrappage more available would be good. That's probably limited by the overall budget, which ultimately comes down to what Westminster allows TfL to spend. We really have to let local government raise more of its own money, even though that is Higher Local Taxes.
Fining once a year types would be bad (how common is that in the current ULEZ, I wonder?) But I'd rather that were dealt with by gentle enforcement, as happens with the Dartford crossing. (First offenders get a "I'm sure it was a mistake... letter, with heavyweight stuff saved for repeat offenders.) Keep the upfront scheme simple.
So, yes, bits of the scheme are crude, there are some edge effects that aren't perfectly smoothed right now. But we are talking about a scheme that's coming in at the end of next month. And an imperfect scheme is better than no scheme, which is what some want.
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
It's probably bollocks but bigger picture-wise, the industrial revolution was probably largely inspired by slavery. People woke up to what unlimited cheap or free power could get you.
I'm not sure about "inspired". Every empire had slavery. Esp the Muslims
If slaves is all you need, then the Romans, Greeks, Ottomans, Arabs, Chinese, Mughals, and so on, would have devised the Industrial Revolution. They did not
Did slaves power the industrial revolution? Certainly: cotton picking slaves in Deep South USA fed English mills, and on we went. Shameful
But let's not alter the truth to fit our political convictions
Surely it's more likely to be the opposite: the lack of cheap labour meant people were forced to innovate.
(While swimming today, I listened to a Malcolm Gladwell podcast that touched in this very issue, making the case that the industrial revolution happened in the UK for - among other reasons - the fact that the UK was more of a bottom minimisation than a top maximisation society.)
The USA provides a controlled experiment. By 1860, the North, without slavery, was industrialising rapidly. The South, with slavery, had barely got started in the process of industralisation. The profits of slavery could, in principle, have been invested in new technologies, but that's not the mentality of a slave owner. Slave owners tended to spend heavily, on new Neo-classical houses, race horses, art works, hunting dogs, and other objects of conspicuous consumption.
I'd say that the balance of evidence is that - rather like suddenly discovering some lucrative natural resource - slavery and slave-trading tend to retard, rather than boost, economic development. That's pretty much the standard answer as to why the Roman empire (which potentially had the know how to industrialise) never did so.
That's not quite true, since those resource curses - in both the cases you cite - provided the fuel for rapid economic expansion in the industrialising economies.
Which is why the plantation system which developed in the US south was so brutal. Whitney believed his cotton gin would alleviate the burdens of slavery - but by making the processing of raw cotton efficient, it increased the geographical spread of cotton plantations in the south.
Southern slavery became considerably more brutal post industrialisation.
Yet more Ulez-x whining this morning from the PB Bumpkins (Non London Division).
Again. AGAIN. It’s been in force inside the North Circ for 18 MONTHS. It’s working well.
Get. It. Done.
The nature of London within the North Circular is somewhat different from outside the North Circular. Do you agree?
If you drive down the north or south circular it looks pretty similar on each side, to be honest.
You don't have to go far outside it for the nature to significantly change.
I wonder what working farm is nearest to the centre of London (say Charing Cross) ?
For sure there must be patches of outer London where localised air particulates aren't a problem. Equally there are many areas where they are a huge problem. Are you suggesting that the ULEZ should be made up of a series of mini zones each with their own enforcement notices and signs? Do you think that would be better for motorists? Or do you think that people currently having their health and lives curtailed by dirty air in those areas should just continue to suffer because there are some areas inside the extended ULEZ where the measures may not be necessary?
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
It's probably bollocks but bigger picture-wise, the industrial revolution was probably largely inspired by slavery. People woke up to what unlimited cheap or free power could get you.
I'm not sure about "inspired". Every empire had slavery. Esp the Muslims
If slaves is all you need, then the Romans, Greeks, Ottomans, Arabs, Chinese, Mughals, and so on, would have devised the Industrial Revolution. They did not
Did slaves power the industrial revolution? Certainly: cotton picking slaves in Deep South USA fed English mills, and on we went. Shameful
But let's not alter the truth to fit our political convictions
Surely it's more likely to be the opposite: the lack of cheap labour meant people were forced to innovate.
(While swimming today, I listened to a Malcolm Gladwell podcast that touched in this very issue, making the case that the industrial revolution happened in the UK for - among other reasons - the fact that the UK was more of a bottom minimisation than a top maximisation society.)
The USA provides a controlled experiment. By 1860, the North, without slavery, was industrialising rapidly. The South, with slavery, had barely got started in the process of industralisation. The profits of slavery could, in principle, have been invested in new technologies, but that's not the mentality of a slave owner. Slave owners tended to spend heavily, on new Neo-classical houses, race horses, art works, hunting dogs, and other objects of conspicuous consumption.
I'd say that the balance of evidence is that - rather like suddenly discovering some lucrative natural resource - slavery and slave-trading tend to retard, rather than boost, economic development. That's pretty much the standard answer as to why the Roman empire (which potentially had the know how to industrialise) never did so.
Though you do need to allow that a lot of NE USA economic development was like the North of England and boomed on manufactures for the sugar/slave trade. The Cotton boom came later in the 1820s with the invention of the cotton gin.
The Caribbean slaves were fed on imported food from the 13 colonies, particularly dried cod and cornmeal, barrels were imported from New England, ships built there etc. New York and Boston financed and insured etc
The slave trade involved much more than simply picking cotton or tobacco. It was was a major international business with different economic specialisations in different places united by maritime shipping. Indeed the trade was a major driver of economic globalisation in the modern era.
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
It's probably bollocks but bigger picture-wise, the industrial revolution was probably largely inspired by slavery. People woke up to what unlimited cheap or free power could get you.
In reality the connection between slavery and the industrial revolution is probably nil.
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
Except that if you read on the history of the Industrial Revolution, there’s nothing so common as stuff like - “He invested all his money in a new iron making process - which failed, and he died in relative poverty.”
People invested their *all* quite regularly
OK but maybe it was an anomalous period, and Britain reverted quickly to type as what looked like monopolistic profits emerged (ie before the rest of the world caught up).
As I say, Britain is a global laggard for both private and public capital investment, and it has long been so.
It would make an interesting PhD, but my sense is that something changed something changed around the.turn of the 20th Cent.
One that sticks in my mind is Jellicoe being told by the gun makers that they *wouldn’t* change from wire wound guns pre WWI.
Edit; one theory is that the money men had taken over the boards of the innovative companies, kicking out the mad inventor types.
Another hypothesis.
As the British empire reached its peak, the British economy over-indexed on extractive, low skill industry instead of competing with European and U.S. peers higher up the value chain.
Kind of the same issue the US South had, except replace cotton and slavery with coal and low skill imperial subjects.
The patterns you see in records from the period, suggest that change was beginning to be seen as an enemy.
Another example - Denny (Admiralty constructor) proper and had trialed longitudinal framing for destroyers before WWI. The result was a deputation from the shipyard owners *and* the unions with the aim of getting him fired.
Remember that at this period, the U.K. industrial economy was at the top of the value chain.
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
It's probably bollocks but bigger picture-wise, the industrial revolution was probably largely inspired by slavery. People woke up to what unlimited cheap or free power could get you.
I'm not sure about "inspired". Every empire had slavery. Esp the Muslims
If slaves is all you need, then the Romans, Greeks, Ottomans, Arabs, Chinese, Mughals, and so on, would have devised the Industrial Revolution. They did not
Did slaves power the industrial revolution? Certainly: cotton picking slaves in Deep South USA fed English mills, and on we went. Shameful
But let's not alter the truth to fit our political convictions
The Atlantic slave trade combined slavery with colonialism and capitalism, that was what was new. Slavery produced huge profits because it brought together abundant land in the new world, cheap labour and new agricultural products for which there was huge demand. These profits - capital - were then funnelled by the capitalist system into driving the investment required by the industrial revolution. It also provided raw materials and products for the industrial workers to consume. Our whole economy was built on slavery and its profits.
I think this is broadly right.
But some caveats:
Britain banned the slave trade in 1807, whereas economic historians seem to keep pushing back the Industrial Revolution “lift off” later and later, perhaps to the post-Napoleonic era.
If the “whole economy” was built on slavery, how did Britain ever find itself able to ban it? Contrast with the American South who - as cotton exports became ever more lucrative - increasingly wanted to double down on slavery.
It also begs the question, why the UK kick-started the Industrial Revolution, rather than France, Spain, or Portugal. A big part of Eric Williams' argument was that slavery was simply becoming a lot less profitable, from the 1780's, and it was that, and fear of slave revolts, rather than humanitarian concern, that drove abolitionist sentiment. But, there's quite the gap between the decline in the profitability of slavery, and the real growth in industrialisation. IMHO, the war against Napoleon drove a huge amount of industrialisation. War is so often a key to innovation.
I would guess that the focus by Britain on the Navy rather than huge land armies played a major role in Britain forging ahead of France.
With large land armies each man needs a musket, bayonet or sword. You need some artillery and horses to move them but with a navy there are countless individual parts of each ship that can be improved to increase speed, safety, strength, manoeuvrability, weapons systems, feeding crew which probably needs a more technological mindset and production techniques.
Not saying that the French Navy was a minor concern but the Royal Navy had the edge for many tech reasons as much as numbers.
Yes, of course, the Industrial Revolution actually started in West Africa, went to Jamaica, via slaves, then evil Britons stole it away, and started their foundries in Coalbrookdale
It's probably bollocks but bigger picture-wise, the industrial revolution was probably largely inspired by slavery. People woke up to what unlimited cheap or free power could get you.
I'm not sure about "inspired". Every empire had slavery. Esp the Muslims
If slaves is all you need, then the Romans, Greeks, Ottomans, Arabs, Chinese, Mughals, and so on, would have devised the Industrial Revolution. They did not
Did slaves power the industrial revolution? Certainly: cotton picking slaves in Deep South USA fed English mills, and on we went. Shameful
But let's not alter the truth to fit our political convictions
The Atlantic slave trade combined slavery with colonialism and capitalism, that was what was new. Slavery produced huge profits because it brought together abundant land in the new world, cheap labour and new agricultural products for which there was huge demand. These profits - capital - were then funnelled by the capitalist system into driving the investment required by the industrial revolution. It also provided raw materials and products for the industrial workers to consume. Our whole economy was built on slavery and its profits.
I think this is broadly right.
But some caveats:
Britain banned the slave trade in 1807, whereas economic historians seem to keep pushing back the Industrial Revolution “lift off” later and later, perhaps to the post-Napoleonic era.
If the “whole economy” was built on slavery, how did Britain ever find itself able to ban it? Contrast with the American South who - as cotton exports became ever more lucrative - increasingly wanted to double down on slavery.
It also begs the question, why the UK kick-started the Industrial Revolution, rather than France, Spain, or Portugal. A big part of Eric Williams' argument was that slavery was simply becoming a lot less profitable, from the 1780's, and it was that, and fear of slave revolts, rather than humanitarian concern, that drove abolitionist sentiment. But, there's quite the gap between the decline in the profitability of slavery, and the real growth in industrialisation. IMHO, the war against Napoleon drove a huge amount of industrialisation. War is so often a key to innovation.
Slavery had had its moment. We didn't need it any more and the resistance of enslaved people was raising its cost. But the profits it generated had created a huge pool of savings in Britain that helped to fuel our industrial revolution, while the latter allowed for many new ways of creating even more surplus value from "free" labour (in the absence of democracy nobody is really free).
Yet more Ulez-x whining this morning from the PB Bumpkins (Non London Division).
Again. AGAIN. It’s been in force inside the North Circ for 18 MONTHS. It’s working well.
Get. It. Done.
I think you mean 3 Labour MP s from north and south of the river. Try. Reading. Posts
Good morning
I actually support the policy for central London but it is clear even in central London there are many millions of unpaid fines
I would just comment that extending to outer London, including Heathrow, has been the spark that has lite the touch paper, as many more workers are affected and it is simply wrong to suggest this is a conservative led fight, but as you have mentioned labour mps are opposing it, and also labour led councils and others
As far as Uxbridge is concerned labour are still hot favourites, but it is clearly worrying their candidate for him to come out in opposition to Khan publicly at a hustings
I know it is popular to blame immigration for British reluctance to invest capital, but I still make a distinction.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
I think you're right. The fantasy of many British people is to be "Lord/Lady of the Manor", living in a ridiculously large house or mansion, with lots of servants doing all your jobs for you so you never have to lift a finger.
I have always thought this - I even have a name for it - Lord of the Manor syndrome - it infects many areas of British life.
Was surprised and impressed to learn this about Canada the other day: like other countries they will give you citizenship if you are seriously loaded, can$ 10m in their case, but it has to be earned money. Inherited is no good.
I suppose they just have to hope that money doesn't turn out to have been earned from drug dealing.
Of course even the Canadian PM lives largely off inherited wealth, his own father being a previous PM, so they are a hardly a land made up solely of people going from poverty to riches either!
Drug dealing? Plenty posh folk in the UK inherited that money [edit]. Like anyoine whose forebears had East India Company stock or shares in many merchants to China in the C19.,
Yes but Opium was legal in those days
In China it wasn't. Hence the Opium War so we could force them to allow us to suck their people into addiction.
Comments
But some caveats:
Britain banned the slave trade in 1807, whereas economic historians seem to keep pushing back the Industrial Revolution “lift off” later and later, perhaps to the post-Napoleonic era.
If the “whole economy” was built on slavery, how did Britain ever find itself able to ban it? Contrast with the American South who - as cotton exports became ever more lucrative - increasingly wanted to double down on slavery.
I agree with your last sentence but again, it is not the hard claim of “deliberate destruction”.
Mrs RP not a teacher - but a highly qualified teaching assistant who had her final day in teaching today. And what a day, where her school called out the Polis because an 11-year old was so violent that having utterly trashed several classrooms needed to be removed from the school so that the rest could get whatever education you get on the final Wednesday of term.
Whilst I was massively supportive of her getting into education and layering qualifications and experience, I am glad she is out and working alongside me on our new retail project. Where hopefully we call the polis less.
Primary or Secondary?
People in cities need to accept the cost of air pollution living in cities is a choice.
No really, I’ve had employers claim, over drinks, that an infinite supply of minimum wage workers is the only way things can be done. Wasting money on mechanisation would sinful…
When some items are deflating, core inflation can end up higher than headline inflation.
I suppose this is mathematically obvious, but I hadn't grasped it until now.
British wariness of capital investment seems to go back generations, and ultimately I want to blame a cultural nostalgia for feudalism. The British “dream” is to have other people run a business for you while you relax in your Georgian rectory…or even better, to just sell the business, invest the proceeds in property, and live off the rental income…
European migration, on the other hand, tended to be higher skilled, and - I maintain - improved overall firm productivity across very much most sectors.
You come with a phd but work as a barista....doesnt make you as far as employment is concerned high skilled
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portsmouth_Block_Mills
That is where things changed. The change from the one-product artisan which had been the many source of production of goods up to that time.
People invested their *all* quite regularly
Britain, like all countries in the West, and increasing numbers of countries in the “Global South”, faces demographic challenges. Our population, sans immigration, is shrinking…
Put bluntly, if the DPA figures were wrong or grossly misleading then someone would have said so.
As I say, Britain is a global laggard for both private and public capital investment, and it has long been so.
One that sticks in my mind is Jellicoe being told by the gun makers that they *wouldn’t* change from wire wound guns pre WWI.
Edit; one theory is that the money men had taken over the boards of the innovative companies, kicking out the mad inventor types.
OK, I made that up. But it should happen.
And a few months ago, I sent Tim Cook a letter offering him a colorful "Free Tibet!" bumper sticker, if he would promise to display it prominently. I can't imagine why he hasn't replied. (I haven't decided who will get the next offer, perhaps Lebron James.)
(I didn't read all the preceding comments on slavery, so no doubt others have had much say about the Laogai. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai Which exists, now.)
I haven't done my own analysis, but I fear he may be right, partly because our press is giving so little attention to challengers to Trump, several of whom could make competent presidents.
As the British empire reached its peak, the British economy over-indexed on extractive, low skill industry instead of competing with European and U.S. peers higher up the value chain.
Kind of the same issue the US South had, except replace cotton and slavery with coal and low skill imperial subjects.
Much of the factory work then was big-muscle work, too. And food was a much bigger part of a family's budget then, which cut down on the extras they bought.
Government policy may have increased obesity, too. As you may know, the US subsidizes food for the poor through a numer of programs, of which the largest is SNAP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program
"In the United States, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),[1] formerly known as the Food Stamp Program, is a federal government program that provides food-purchasing assistance for low- and no-income people to help them maintain adequate nutrition and health. It is a federal aid program administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) under the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), though benefits are distributed by specific departments of U.S. states (e.g., the Division of Social Services, the Department of Health and Human Services, etc.).
SNAP benefits supplied roughly 40 million Americans in 2018, at an expenditure of $57.1 billion.[2][3] Approximately 9.2% of American households obtained SNAP benefits at some point during 2017, with approximately 16.7% of all children living in households with SNAP benefits."
Was. Retired. Owning 3 or 4 houses and living off the rent. This was from apprentices.
That doesn't happen now. For which, much thanks.
House prices have got to crash some time. I mean totally crash. Not minus 20%. But break the f*cking floor. The fundamentals say so. The questions are when and how. About that, I haven't a clue.
Oh, hang on, it’s three Labour MPs from outer London.
Siobhan McDonagh, the MP for Mitcham and Morden, said: “Whilst I absolutely share the environmental concerns that underpin the proposals and I am very concerned about the need to help improve air quality across London, I personally do not believe that making driving unaffordable for some of the most vulnerable people in our capital is the best or fairest way to address these issues.”
Clive Efford, the Eltham MP, said: “I absolutely agree with the principle behind what Sadiq is seeking to achieve. I would rather it was postponed because of the cost of living crisis, because I understand the hardships that many people will be facing.”
Jon Cruddas, MP for Dagenham and Rainham, said: “For the last couple of years I’ve been concerned about this in terms of being introduced at a time of a cost of living crisis and argued that it should be delayed.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/05/starmer-facing-ulez-revolt-from-london-labour-mps/
https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-driven/2022-bmw-ix-m60--ph-review/46418
Doesn’t take many of those, in a car park designed for 600kg Minis and 900kg Cavaliers, before engineers start to suggest there might be an issue.
Russia is preparing to fully provide its armed forces with significant mobilization resources to wage a long war of attrition.
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1676788558907179009
So a new Nissan Leaf weighs around 1650kg, whilst as pointed out a BMW Tankette weighs 2700kg.
That gives the BMW paying (4th power of the ratio) paying 900% as much VED as the more normally sized Nissan, which seems about right.
There's probably a role for emissions as well, but I don't have an easy answer for that one.
I'd also apply full construction safety regs to personal imports to keep Usonian "Light Trucks" out, which are built to lower safety standards - but that's another story.
It's also significantly fewer than left Russia in a fortnight last year when they did it before.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/11/04/russians-who-fled-military-draft-return-home-as-panic-fades-a79275
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66117111
What Russia is doing is hideous, and utterly their own doing and choice. We should be doing more to help Ukraine end this madness, and deter any other madman from doing the same in the future.
Again. AGAIN. It’s been in force inside the North Circ for 18 MONTHS. It’s working well.
Get. It. Done.
If the Ulez-X is such a vote loser for Labour as the PB Tories assure us, presumably I should put next month’s mortgage on those odds?
In my experience, knowing quite a few of them, I don’t think many of them plan to head back any time soon, many have settled down and set up businesses or found jobs where they landed. They’ve bought property, got their kids in school, and are not fans of Mr Putin for turning their country into the next North Korea.
I've seen my daughter hospitalised with asthma twice, it was utterly teriffying, so I am exercising a lot of restraint in not saying what I really feel about your post.
No question that there are upfront costs. But some would rather go for the cheaper option of continuing to make life worse for other people.
And yes, the pollution problem is less bad by the time you get to the edge of London. But the only two boundaries that work traffic wise are the N/S Circular and the M25. And the circle of the circulars is too small- especially on the south side.
One other thought; aren't people who quibble and chase a decision they don't like through the courts the bad guys? Enemies of the people?
Some people will be pissed off by the ULEZ, but those affected are only a few percent of electors. It isn't enough
Are you against my modifications of:
7am-7pm £5 in expanded zone, phasing the price increase to full fare over 5 years but keeping the hours
£3000 scrappage available for all who live in the zone
First 2 visits free to avoid fines for once a year drivers
These would see more of the bad cars scrapped, shift traffic away from congestion times, support the evening and nighttime economies, be fairer and focus on growing support for the policy instead of winning but dividing into the enlightened and numpties.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/05/70-of-central-london-properties-sold-this-year-bought-with-cash-savills
Incidentally, high interest rates won't deter cash buyers, just get them better prices.
I wonder what working farm is nearest to the centre of London (say Charing Cross) ?
I'd say that the balance of evidence is that - rather like suddenly discovering some lucrative natural resource - slavery and slave-trading tend to retard, rather than boost, economic development. That's pretty much the standard answer as to why the Roman empire (which potentially had the know how to industrialise) never did so.
Of course even the Canadian PM lives largely off inherited wealth, his own father being a previous PM, so they are a hardly a land made up solely of people going from poverty to riches either!
Those voters may be acting immorally arguably but they are still acting democratically
With large land armies each man needs a musket, bayonet or sword. You need some artillery and horses to move them but with a navy there are countless individual parts of each ship that can be improved to increase speed, safety, strength, manoeuvrability, weapons systems, feeding crew which probably needs a more technological mindset and production techniques.
Not saying that the French Navy was a minor concern but the Royal Navy had the edge for many tech reasons as much as numbers.
Making scrappage more available would be good. That's probably limited by the overall budget, which ultimately comes down to what Westminster allows TfL to spend. We really have to let local government raise more of its own money, even though that is Higher Local Taxes.
Fining once a year types would be bad (how
common is that in the current ULEZ, I wonder?) But I'd rather that were dealt with by gentle enforcement, as happens with the Dartford crossing. (First offenders get a "I'm sure it was a mistake... letter, with heavyweight stuff saved for repeat offenders.) Keep the upfront scheme simple.
So, yes, bits of the scheme are crude, there are some edge effects that aren't perfectly smoothed right now. But we are talking about a scheme that's coming in at the end of next month. And an imperfect scheme is better than no scheme, which is what some want.
Which is why the plantation system which developed in the US south was so brutal.
Whitney believed his cotton gin would alleviate the burdens of slavery - but by making the processing of raw cotton efficient, it increased the geographical spread of cotton plantations in the south.
Southern slavery became considerably more brutal post industrialisation.
The Caribbean slaves were fed on imported food from the 13 colonies, particularly dried cod and cornmeal, barrels were imported from New England, ships built there etc. New York and Boston financed and insured etc
The slave trade involved much more than simply picking cotton or tobacco. It was was a major international business with different economic specialisations in different places united by maritime shipping. Indeed the trade was a major driver of economic globalisation in the modern era.
Another example - Denny (Admiralty constructor) proper and had trialed longitudinal framing for destroyers before WWI. The result was a deputation from the shipyard owners *and* the unions with the aim of getting him fired.
Remember that at this period, the U.K. industrial economy was at the top of the value chain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portsmouth_Block_Mills
Arguably the first real production line.
The change in organisation, mentality and working was considered staggering in its day. It was a revolution to those who saw it.
I actually support the policy for central London but it is clear even in central London there are many millions of unpaid fines
I would just comment that extending to outer London, including Heathrow, has been the spark that has lite the touch paper, as many more workers are affected and it is simply wrong to suggest this is a conservative led fight, but as you have mentioned labour mps are opposing it, and also labour led councils and others
As far as Uxbridge is concerned labour are still hot favourites, but it is clearly worrying their candidate for him to come out in opposition to Khan publicly at a hustings
https://news.sky.com/story/labour-split-as-partys-candidate-in-uxbridge-by-election-speaks-out-against-london-mayors-ulez-expansion-12915004