"The 1978 animated film Watership Down has been re-classified to a PG due to its "mild violence, threat, brief bloody images and bad language".
The movie is among the classic titles to have had their age ratings raised, along with the original Star Trek, according to the British Board of Film Classification's (BBFC) annual report.
After being resubmitted, the ratings were raised by the organisation, it said, in order to ensure they "remain in step with societal standards"."
We're in for an unpleasant 11 or 15 months until the General Election, regardless of your political persuasion. Unless you relish dirty dog fighting, which some people do.
That Labour will win I am pretty certain of. But the Ulez fiasco should serve as a warning to them on all sorts of levels. It's probably a useful lesson but what is it with people in power generally, and socialists in power in particular, that they always forget about taking the electorate for granted and, worse, their propensity to tell 'the little people' what is in their best interests?
I expect it will be a very unpleasant campaign but your last paragraph is right on the ball
Donald Trump's team are presently drawing up plans to massively increase the powers of the presidency in the unlikely event he be elected next year. This would transform the US from its present democratic state into an autocracy at best, and potentially something far worse. It's all perfectly open, no secret, being reported on widely, though obviously not in this newspaper. The outfit tasked with drawing up these plans is called the Heritage Foundation, a hard right US "think tank".
Who knows, but he has expressed the opinion before that being President allows (or should allow) him to do pretty much anything. And that if he is running for the post that it is outrageous he should face legal sanction for things (he does not restrict to saying he is innocent, but complains about an ex-President having to face it_. And seems to find the power of dictators very interesting.
US Constitution has held up, mostly, so far, but he would surely seek to test its limits.
It's deeply rational to worry about Donald Trump imo. I can't understand how anybody wouldn't be unless they're a far right extremist or Vladimir Putin.
Putin has more to worry about than most. Trump is more likely than Biden to give Ukraine the means to escalate the war.
Is he?
I understood Trump's position to be 'I will stop arms supply and force Ukraine to negotiate within days".
Has it changed, or did I miss something?
Trump likes The Strong Horse.
These days, Putin’s Mighty Weapons are looking a bit droopy.
Only the terminally stupid would think Trump will do what is the best for Ukraine.
Ukraine won't get shit from DJT unless they can come up with something he can use to impeach Biden. They would be well advised to get working on that.
Rishi Sunak aims to divide and rule after poll setback
New focus on migrants, trans rights and crime
Rishi Sunak is preparing to launch a more aggressive political campaign in an attempt to shift Labour’s lead in the polls with divisive policies on crime, migrant boats and transgender rights.
The prime minister insisted that the next general election was “not a done deal” after losing two by-elections. Labour’s victory in Selby & Ainsty represented the second biggest by-election swing from the Tories since 1945.
Sunak, however, took succour from holding on to Uxbridge & South Ruislip, Boris Johnson’s former seat in west London, after the Tories succeeded in turning the campaign into an effective referendum on plans by Sadiq Khan, the capital’s Labour mayor, to charge people with more polluting cars.
The prime minister privately acknowledges that after eight months of trying to restore order within Tory ranks he needs a “change in pace, emphasis and approach”. He believes that the victory in Uxbridge demonstrates that when a “substantive issue” is at stake the Tories can win.
It might work though. Likewise a war on climate change policy and road safety makes sense too. So if retention of power for retention of power's sake is the aim, more power to his scrawny elbow.
Few on here realised the impact of focusing on Ulez. It negatively affected very few but it was beautifully sold by Steve Tuck-shop as an intrusion by the nanny state. Ulezx has also been executed poorly by Khan.
Going in with their xenophobic boots on is the only way forward for this Conservatives Government and just like in Uxbridge they might drag themselves over the line.
The UK will be an intolerant, unpleasant place in which to live but if the gravy train can keep rolling it's a means to an end. If we don't like it we can bugger off and live in another EU country. Oh wait ...
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
So after the cricket, last night I did the Barbenheimer double bill last night, Oppenheimer didn't start until 11 which means I didn't get back to the flat until 3am.
Utterly recommend both film, Barbie is fun and deep, contains a brilliant homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
As for Oppenheimer, awesome, it is going to clean up at the awards.
It does have one major flaw in it, I mean the scene only lasted a couple of minutes but they managed to portray Harry S. Truman as a snivelling little shit.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
The desired outcome is laudable, but execution has been pathetic. Likewise 20mph in Wales. Dreadfully poorly implemented and pitch rolling. It's like Rishi suggested yesterday, Labour-Starmer arrogance and hubris will deliver Rishi the GE. Sheffield Rally anyone?
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
Maybe they wanted to reduce the serious illness and death associated with air pollution caused by dirty older vehicles. I know, mad right.
My daughter and granddaughter have been on a 2 day visit to London and yesterday visited the British Museum
My daughter posted a couple of dozen photos on her facebook page and my granddaughter (20) commented
'The British Museum - the place to see all our stolen goods'
I am so proud of her
Doesn't take much to.make you proud obviously. She has been watching far too much BBC content
What about her comment is untrue ?
People were arguing about the stuff long before the BBC went on air. Byron's poem on Elgin remains apposite:
Cold is the heart, fair Greece, that looks on thee, Nor feels as lovers oer the dust they loved; Dull is the eye that will not weep to see Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed By British hands, which it had best behovd To guard those relics neer to be restored. Curst be the hour when their isle they roved, And once again thy hapless bosom gored, And snatchd thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorrd!
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
To an extent, but it's also a "make your flesh creep" issue. There's been a fair bit of exaggeration and fear mongering about the plans ("have to buy an expensive new car") and denial of their value. Romford is pretty much the eastern counterpart of Uxbridge and we get the same bobbins here.
There is never a good time to do something like this, so Khan's best bet is to get in with it, take the short term hit and hope to move on once the scheme has bedded in. I'd like to have seen more generosity about scrappage, but that is in Westminster's hands because they are funding TfL right now.
I hope "Khan should reflect" is code for "Starmer has to say something but Khan shouldn't change direction." If we can't do anything that doesn't have losers, nothing is ever going to happen.
This new Sunak plan: "Divisive policies on crime, migrant boats and transgender rights". What could they be? I have to assume culture war.
CRIME: Braverman worked very hard to secure the pro-golliwog vote. Perhaps they abolish most of the protections against racism sexism homophobia etc. "Say what you think with the Tories". And assuming we have enough police officers to catch criminals (and thanks to the Tories we don't), perhaps bring in "community punishment" where local scrotes are allowed to kick the shit out of other local scrotes.
MIGRANT BOATS: So far this policy has been a disaster. Record numbers on small boats which we can only just catch on arrival, nowhere to store migrants without vast cost, no way to deport to foreign as Rwanda won't take them and its screamingly illegal. The navy refuses to do tow backs as they will sink boats and drown migrants. Perhaps create RSBI - the Royal Stop the Boats Institutes. Where tattooed gentlemen volunteer to man the anti-lifeboat which drags the migrant boat to the bottom. Live on the Nigel Farage show on GBeebies.
TRANSGENDER RIGHTS: As with the proposal to simply abolish namby pamby "rights" for people who don't like to be sexually assaulted, simply abolish trans rights. Make it a legal definition that someone with a penis is a man, make use of the wrong toilet punishable by jail time. And perhaps a nice series of "documentaries" on GBeebies where they describe trannies in derogatory terms and highlight cases where they have been deviant.
Mmmmm. That will do it. Conservatism at its finest.
Rishi Sunak aims to divide and rule after poll setback
New focus on migrants, trans rights and crime
Rishi Sunak is preparing to launch a more aggressive political campaign in an attempt to shift Labour’s lead in the polls with divisive policies on crime, migrant boats and transgender rights.
The prime minister insisted that the next general election was “not a done deal” after losing two by-elections. Labour’s victory in Selby & Ainsty represented the second biggest by-election swing from the Tories since 1945.
Sunak, however, took succour from holding on to Uxbridge & South Ruislip, Boris Johnson’s former seat in west London, after the Tories succeeded in turning the campaign into an effective referendum on plans by Sadiq Khan, the capital’s Labour mayor, to charge people with more polluting cars.
The prime minister privately acknowledges that after eight months of trying to restore order within Tory ranks he needs a “change in pace, emphasis and approach”. He believes that the victory in Uxbridge demonstrates that when a “substantive issue” is at stake the Tories can win.
It might work though. Likewise a war on climate change policy and road safety makes sense too. So if retention of power for retention of power's sake is the aim, more power to his scrawny elbow.
Few on here realised the impact of focusing on Ulez. It negatively affected very few but it was beautifully sold by Steve Tuck-shop as an intrusion by the nanny state. Ulezx has also been executed poorly by Khan.
Going in with their xenophobic boots on is the only way forward for this Conservatives Government and just like in Uxbridge they might drag themselves over the line.
The UK will be an intolerant, unpleasant place in which to live but if the gravy train can keep rolling it's a means to an end. If we don't like it we can bugger off and live in another EU country. Oh wait ...
There is a trap for the Conservatives here. Ulez expansion was something Labour is doing to Uxbridge that the government was not. Crime, trans rights and migrants do not fit this pattern.
High crime is a feature of life under the Tories. Labour will not propose arming gangs with free knives to create more mayhem on our streets. This government has delivered the small boats crisis and record immigration. Trans issues too, with children declaring themselves cats under Rishi's rule.
Will Starmer's Labour have the guts to attack the Conservatives on "their" issues? Shades of Karl Rove's advice to George W Bush: attack your opponent's perceived strengths. Labour should attack Tory failure on what is seen as its home ground: 14 years of Conservative rule has delivered record crime, record immigration, record taxation. And of course, it is weak on defence, with the smallest army since the 18th Century.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
It’s something that can make sense in the centre of London, where congestion and pollution are a problem, but much less so in outer London, a lot of which is quite rural and lacking in public transport infrastructure.
"The 1978 animated film Watership Down has been re-classified to a PG due to its "mild violence, threat, brief bloody images and bad language".
The movie is among the classic titles to have had their age ratings raised, along with the original Star Trek, according to the British Board of Film Classification's (BBFC) annual report.
After being resubmitted, the ratings were raised by the organisation, it said, in order to ensure they "remain in step with societal standards"."
The mention of George W Bush on the previous thread reminded me of the scene below. "W" is not a good film: the acting is mannered, and it's nowhere near as good as Stone's "Nixon", but the I always enjoyed the scene where Richard Dreyfuss/Dick Cheney describes the geopolitics. Enjoy.
"The 1978 animated film Watership Down has been re-classified to a PG due to its "mild violence, threat, brief bloody images and bad language".
The movie is among the classic titles to have had their age ratings raised, along with the original Star Trek, according to the British Board of Film Classification's (BBFC) annual report.
After being resubmitted, the ratings were raised by the organisation, it said, in order to ensure they "remain in step with societal standards"."
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
It's been a good idea inside the North/South circular. It was a good idea when Boris introduced it in the very centre of London.
There is a cost to society of super polluting vehicles, and it seems fair that the users of those vehicles pay it. By all means question the exact price, or the exact location- though it's not obvious where else you can draw the line.
But "polluter pays" is exactly what should be happening.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
I'm unrepentent on my stance on this - it's the "polluter pays" principle, which has been a thing for decades, applied to the individual, and has been coming down the track for a long time. The idea is spot on.
The numbers affected will be tiny - well under 10% of 2.6 million vehicles, which equates to a tiny proportion of voters. And I can't see any alternative to doing it now, given the timescales for significant air quality improvement set *by the Government*.
The next thing to address needs to be wood burning stoves in cities.
It quite reminds me of complaints we hear about the need to improve energy efficiency of our own homes - lots of complaining, but *that* policy was first announced around 2012 by the coalition government.
The ULEZ expansion charge kicks in at the end of next month. At that point it starts to become far less of a political hot potato because the vast majority of people in London will realise they are not affected. It was the perfect gift to the Tories for Uxbridge, but it’s a one time hit. It will never be as salient again.
The London vs regions thing is both ridiculously overstated, and also real but in a universal way that large cities and rural areas are culturally different around the world.
I would simplify it as follows:
In the city, good behaviour = live and let live, tolerance and don’t stick your nose in other peoples business where it’s not wanted. In the wrong hands that can mean indifference, introversion and lack of community spirit.
In the country, good behaviour = look out for your neighbour, don’t pass by the other side of the street, be a Good Samaritan. In the wrong hands that becomes judgmentalism, curtain twitching and intolerance.
There are long standing economic and cultural reasons for this difference. It’s not a British thing or a 21st century thing. It’s just a thing,
The UK is probably unusual compared to most other countries in that quite often the countryside is more liberal (with a small l) than urban areas.
Because urban areas tend to be more working-class and/or have higher percentages of EMs than the countryside, and both those groups tend to be less culturally liberal than white middle-class people, (despite the fact they're more likely to vote Labour at elections).
For example, take a random town/city like Hereford. A village just outside the city is probably more liberal than a working-class council estate in the town.
Would said village be more or less liberal regarding the smell of weed permeating? Or loud techno? I imagine not at all. As ever it is about what you are being "culturally liberal" about.
The people I know on council estates are far less tolerant of anti social behaviour like that than the people not on council estates - reason being, the peopleon council estates have to actually live with it.
The parents from the estates who send their children to the local Free School clash with the middle class types over discipline. The middle class types are horrified by detentions for being late and out of uniform. And by the parents from the estates agreeing with the detentions.
I have sympathy for both groups - from their own perspectives and knowledge of their children and their constraints and experiences they might well both be right. I mean, my kids are good at regulating their own behaviour, I know that if they are late it has been a genuine mistake and I don't want them having their time wasted by a detention. SimiIlarly, as long as they are following uniform rules broadly I would be fuming if they were put in detention for some ridiculous minor infraction. If I am working three jobs and I'm worried about my kids falling under the influence of the local drugs dealers on the other hand I might be a lot keener to see my kids' behaviour get monitored closely by someone. So neither group is necessarily acting ridiculously. Schools need to find the right balance - good luck to them.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
The desired outcome is laudable, but execution has been pathetic. Likewise 20mph in Wales. Dreadfully poorly implemented and pitch rolling. It's like Rishi suggested yesterday, Labour-Starmer arrogance and hubris will deliver Rishi the GE. Sheffield Rally anyone?
The problem is that labour cannot stop being authoritarian when common sense should be the word
The question on everyone’s lips is really: what are we going to call the big smoke when it isn’t?
The great wen
Only Northerners call London The Big Smoke; only West Country folk call it The Great Wen. Since we established on the last thread that hardly anyone lives outside the South-East (so why do they have test matches?) it hardly matters.
Well I live in the west country now. However I was trying to polite, I would have said the suppurating gangrenous pustule on britains arse.
Hey! That's no way to describe the West Country - some parts of it are very nice.
Well only described that way by people addicted to their fumes and who love living in close proximity with 8 million arseholes
A true misanthrope as ever Pagan.
8 million people, all arseholes? Really?
They probably weren't till they moved to london then they learned to be. London seems to breed ill tempered nasty people.
Really need to get you and Malc at each other in a hip hop battle at some stage.
If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.
I dont run into them now I moved away from that place strangely and even the nice people I knew turned to the cockroaches of society when they moved to the Wen
Cost of living and house prices in london likely big reason for this.
Nods don't disagree, just like living in a prison for years changes your attitudes so does london because while the bars and locks aren't physically there they are still there in terms of cost of housing and living
You are wildly overstating the position. If you just said London's an unfriendly place compared to most other places in Britain, that would unfortunately be accurate.
Edit: @OnlyLivingBoy - where do you count as the Southeast? I'd agree if you said London and the wider area around it, maybe 50 miles radius or something like that, is a relatively unfriendly place. London is friendlier than a few ultra-arsehole stockbroker-type places outside the official GL area I suppose.
Sorry lived in the south east near london since 1987, just moved back to the south west. People in the south east are totally unfriendly in comparison and I put it mostly down to every day is a struggle fighting with the hordes of commuters and exorbitant housing costs. I am so more relaxed now I have moved away
Oh defnitely. Even at university i found people from say Southampton or Exeter more friendly than those from near London.
Try being a Londoner outside London! You are generally hated wherever you go. People feel free to take every kind of potshot at where you come from and about the people who live there. Friendly, it ain’t!!!
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
The desired outcome is laudable, but execution has been pathetic. Likewise 20mph in Wales. Dreadfully poorly implemented and pitch rolling. It's like Rishi suggested yesterday, Labour-Starmer arrogance and hubris will deliver Rishi the GE. Sheffield Rally anyone?
The problem is that labour cannot stop being authoritarian when common sense should be the word
It’s going to blow your mind when you find out who introduced ULEZ.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
Maybe they wanted to reduce the serious illness and death associated with air pollution caused by dirty older vehicles. I know, mad right.
That is not the argument, more implementation in a common sense way
What it has done is open the door ajar for the conservatives to take on the anti car lobby
The ULEZ expansion charge kicks in at the end of next month. At that point it starts to become far less of a political hot potato because the vast majority of people in London will realise they are not affected. It was the perfect gift to the Tories for Uxbridge, but it’s a one time hit. It will never be as salient again.
Spot on. I couldn’t grasp why so many people were confused about whether they were affected. It takes 20 seconds to put your reg into the website to find out.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
The desired outcome is laudable, but execution has been pathetic. Likewise 20mph in Wales. Dreadfully poorly implemented and pitch rolling. It's like Rishi suggested yesterday, Labour-Starmer arrogance and hubris will deliver Rishi the GE. Sheffield Rally anyone?
The problem is that labour cannot stop being authoritarian when common sense should be the word
Define "common sense" though. Most of the extreme political opinions get described as such. "Why can't we just sink these migrant boats? That'll stop them coming. Its just Common Sense" etc.
The ULEZ expansion charge kicks in at the end of next month. At that point it starts to become far less of a political hot potato because the vast majority of people in London will realise they are not affected. It was the perfect gift to the Tories for Uxbridge, but it’s a one time hit. It will never be as salient again.
Good point. You'd think it had been binned off the way people are carrying on.
This new Sunak plan: "Divisive policies on crime, migrant boats and transgender rights". What could they be? I have to assume culture war.
CRIME: Braverman worked very hard to secure the pro-golliwog vote. Perhaps they abolish most of the protections against racism sexism homophobia etc. "Say what you think with the Tories". And assuming we have enough police officers to catch criminals (and thanks to the Tories we don't), perhaps bring in "community punishment" where local scrotes are allowed to kick the shit out of other local scrotes.
MIGRANT BOATS: So far this policy has been a disaster. Record numbers on small boats which we can only just catch on arrival, nowhere to store migrants without vast cost, no way to deport to foreign as Rwanda won't take them and its screamingly illegal. The navy refuses to do tow backs as they will sink boats and drown migrants. Perhaps create RSBI - the Royal Stop the Boats Institutes. Where tattooed gentlemen volunteer to man the anti-lifeboat which drags the migrant boat to the bottom. Live on the Nigel Farage show on GBeebies.
TRANSGENDER RIGHTS: As with the proposal to simply abolish namby pamby "rights" for people who don't like to be sexually assaulted, simply abolish trans rights. Make it a legal definition that someone with a penis is a man, make use of the wrong toilet punishable by jail time. And perhaps a nice series of "documentaries" on GBeebies where they describe trannies in derogatory terms and highlight cases where they have been deviant.
Mmmmm. That will do it. Conservatism at its finest.
"The 1978 animated film Watership Down has been re-classified to a PG due to its "mild violence, threat, brief bloody images and bad language".
The movie is among the classic titles to have had their age ratings raised, along with the original Star Trek, according to the British Board of Film Classification's (BBFC) annual report.
After being resubmitted, the ratings were raised by the organisation, it said, in order to ensure they "remain in step with societal standards"."
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
Maybe they wanted to reduce the serious illness and death associated with air pollution caused by dirty older vehicles. I know, mad right.
That is not the argument, more implementation in a common sense way
What it has done is open the door ajar for the conservatives to take on the anti car lobby
Re: the Manc weather, looking at the live radar, you could almost convince yourself that it’s clear behind the section of rain currently over town. It’s dry over the Irish Sea and still two hours until we are due to start.
This new Sunak plan: "Divisive policies on crime, migrant boats and transgender rights". What could they be? I have to assume culture war.
CRIME: Braverman worked very hard to secure the pro-golliwog vote. Perhaps they abolish most of the protections against racism sexism homophobia etc. "Say what you think with the Tories". And assuming we have enough police officers to catch criminals (and thanks to the Tories we don't), perhaps bring in "community punishment" where local scrotes are allowed to kick the shit out of other local scrotes.
MIGRANT BOATS: So far this policy has been a disaster. Record numbers on small boats which we can only just catch on arrival, nowhere to store migrants without vast cost, no way to deport to foreign as Rwanda won't take them and its screamingly illegal. The navy refuses to do tow backs as they will sink boats and drown migrants. Perhaps create RSBI - the Royal Stop the Boats Institutes. Where tattooed gentlemen volunteer to man the anti-lifeboat which drags the migrant boat to the bottom. Live on the Nigel Farage show on GBeebies.
TRANSGENDER RIGHTS: As with the proposal to simply abolish namby pamby "rights" for people who don't like to be sexually assaulted, simply abolish trans rights. Make it a legal definition that someone with a penis is a man, make use of the wrong toilet punishable by jail time. And perhaps a nice series of "documentaries" on GBeebies where they describe trannies in derogatory terms and highlight cases where they have been deviant.
Mmmmm. That will do it. Conservatism at its finest.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
It's been a good idea inside the North/South circular. It was a good idea when Boris introduced it in the very centre of London.
There is a cost to society of super polluting vehicles, and it seems fair that the users of those vehicles pay it. By all means question the exact price, or the exact location- though it's not obvious where else you can draw the line.
But "polluter pays" is exactly what should be happening.
I think most of the pollution now comes from delivery vehicles, though.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
The desired outcome is laudable, but execution has been pathetic. Likewise 20mph in Wales. Dreadfully poorly implemented and pitch rolling. It's like Rishi suggested yesterday, Labour-Starmer arrogance and hubris will deliver Rishi the GE. Sheffield Rally anyone?
The problem is that labour cannot stop being authoritarian when common sense should be the word
Define "common sense" though. Most of the extreme political opinions get described as such. "Why can't we just sink these migrant boats? That'll stop them coming. Its just Common Sense" etc.
Common sense = things I agree with Woke = things I do not like
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
I'm unrepentent on my stance on this - it's the "polluter pays" principle, which has been a thing for decades, applied to the individual, and has been coming down the track for a long time. The numbers affected will be a tiny proportion - well under 10% of 2.6 million vehicles, which equates to a tiny proportion of voters.
It quite reminds me of complaints we hear about the need to improve energy efficiency of our own homes - lots of complaining, but *that* policy was first announced around 2012 by the coalition government.
The problems with this are
1) the taxation and cost of replacing vehicles falls on the poorer section of society.
2) Meanwhile the owner of a £90k EV pays nothing - even parking in Central London for very little, by using a charging bay. A game that is played is to park up, connect the charger, then not actually register/pay. Free parking!
3) the polluters pays principe would mean that payment should be connected to the pollution. It is a flat rate charge, rather than targeting the vehicles that actually produces the embody pollution.
4) the owners of compliant ICE vehicles are convinced, by experience, that they will be next
Once again, we have the Politicians Syllogism
1) We must do something 2) This is something 3) Therefore, we must do This
Sitting here in Spain reading about the final manoeuvrings for tomorrow's GE, I've just realised that Vox are the Tories. Culture wars, anti-immigration, doing away with green crap, putting trannies back in their box - all that is Vox, but its also Rishi's Conservatives in the UK.
The ULEZ expansion charge kicks in at the end of next month. At that point it starts to become far less of a political hot potato because the vast majority of people in London will realise they are not affected. It was the perfect gift to the Tories for Uxbridge, but it’s a one time hit. It will never be as salient again.
Spot on. I couldn’t grasp why so many people were confused about whether they were affected. It takes 20 seconds to put your reg into the website to find out.
Remember the same people can’t figure out how to pay with a debit card
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
Maybe they wanted to reduce the serious illness and death associated with air pollution caused by dirty older vehicles. I know, mad right.
That is not the argument, more implementation in a common sense way
What it has done is open the door ajar for the conservatives to take on the anti car lobby
I'm not sure what the common sense route is that still achieves the necessary reduction in air pollution. Only implement it in selected parts of outer London? That would make it harder to know if you were liable or not and create confusion. Delay its implementation? How do you persuade an asthmatic to be the last person to die so you don't inconvenience motorists? The best thing is to just get on with it. Maybe boost the scrappage scheme a bit. It is the right thing to do even if it is unpopular with some people. Polluter pays.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
The desired outcome is laudable, but execution has been pathetic. Likewise 20mph in Wales. Dreadfully poorly implemented and pitch rolling. It's like Rishi suggested yesterday, Labour-Starmer arrogance and hubris will deliver Rishi the GE. Sheffield Rally anyone?
The problem is that labour cannot stop being authoritarian when common sense should be the word
It’s going to blow your mind when you find out who introduced ULEZ.
I know Johnson did and for central London it is the right policy
There is a right and wrong way of introducing policy and Khan has shown all the zeal and authoritarian attitude of labour, as has Drakeford here in Wales with a mandated 20mph speed limit, down from 30mph
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
It's been a good idea inside the North/South circular. It was a good idea when Boris introduced it in the very centre of London.
There is a cost to society of super polluting vehicles, and it seems fair that the users of those vehicles pay it. By all means question the exact price, or the exact location- though it's not obvious where else you can draw the line.
But "polluter pays" is exactly what should be happening.
I think most of the pollution now comes from delivery vehicles, though.
"The 1978 animated film Watership Down has been re-classified to a PG due to its "mild violence, threat, brief bloody images and bad language".
The movie is among the classic titles to have had their age ratings raised, along with the original Star Trek, according to the British Board of Film Classification's (BBFC) annual report.
After being resubmitted, the ratings were raised by the organisation, it said, in order to ensure they "remain in step with societal standards"."
The ULEZ expansion charge kicks in at the end of next month. At that point it starts to become far less of a political hot potato because the vast majority of people in London will realise they are not affected. It was the perfect gift to the Tories for Uxbridge, but it’s a one time hit. It will never be as salient again.
Spot on. I couldn’t grasp why so many people were confused about whether they were affected. It takes 20 seconds to put your reg into the website to find out.
Re: the Manc weather, looking at the live radar, you could almost convince yourself that it’s clear behind the section of rain currently over town. It’s dry over the Irish Sea and still two hours until we are due to start.
Wishful thinking?
Hope your right. There's still a fair bit of batting to come and Labuschagne is capable of batting all day. England deserve the win but it might be tight.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
It’s something that can make sense in the centre of London, where congestion and pollution are a problem, but much less so in outer London, a lot of which is quite rural and lacking in public transport infrastructure.
Have to question your "a lot" there. There are bits of outer London that are as you describe - villages like Havering atte Bower. Bits of Bromley and southern Croydon.
However, they are fabulously expensive places to live, so the cost doesn't hit them much. And by definition, very few people live there.
Most of outer London is built up suburbia. Places like Streatham, Wimbledon, urban Croydon, Ilford (hi Sunil!), Barking and Ealing. The kinds of places that do have air quality problems which will be helped by this scheme.
Had something like Ringway 3 ever happened, that might have made a better boundary than this. But it didn't, so we have to trade off winners and losers. It's never nice, but it's the heart of politics.
Re: the Manc weather, looking at the live radar, you could almost convince yourself that it’s clear behind the section of rain currently over town. It’s dry over the Irish Sea and still two hours until we are due to start.
Wishful thinking?
BBC weather this morning said that play should be possible tomorrow after a delayed start
This new Sunak plan: "Divisive policies on crime, migrant boats and transgender rights". What could they be? I have to assume culture war.
CRIME: Braverman worked very hard to secure the pro-golliwog vote. Perhaps they abolish most of the protections against racism sexism homophobia etc. "Say what you think with the Tories". And assuming we have enough police officers to catch criminals (and thanks to the Tories we don't), perhaps bring in "community punishment" where local scrotes are allowed to kick the shit out of other local scrotes.
MIGRANT BOATS: So far this policy has been a disaster. Record numbers on small boats which we can only just catch on arrival, nowhere to store migrants without vast cost, no way to deport to foreign as Rwanda won't take them and its screamingly illegal. The navy refuses to do tow backs as they will sink boats and drown migrants. Perhaps create RSBI - the Royal Stop the Boats Institutes. Where tattooed gentlemen volunteer to man the anti-lifeboat which drags the migrant boat to the bottom. Live on the Nigel Farage show on GBeebies.
TRANSGENDER RIGHTS: As with the proposal to simply abolish namby pamby "rights" for people who don't like to be sexually assaulted, simply abolish trans rights. Make it a legal definition that someone with a penis is a man, make use of the wrong toilet punishable by jail time. And perhaps a nice series of "documentaries" on GBeebies where they describe trannies in derogatory terms and highlight cases where they have been deviant.
Mmmmm. That will do it. Conservatism at its finest.
There is a weird and sudden shortage of straw.
Naah, I don't think burning a Wicker Man will Stop The Boats.
What I write was satire. But I go back to what is being reported. Culture Wars-based "divisive" policies on crime, migrants and trans right.
I expect they will be trying to create wedge issues to get underneath this Labour lead. So being deliberately divisive will be to dog-whistle "common sense" (as Big_G puts it) proposals to their remaining voter base.
Going off how often the hard right complain that they have been silenced, I can see some kind of "its not racist [to be racist]" say what you think message. Especially when it comes to refugees.
We had a wave of racism following the Brexit vote, if there are votes in it they will do it. Hence Braverman putting it out that she had censured Essicksinnit police for going after Golliwogs.
I know you don't like it. Doesn't mean they aren't doing it though. And they're doing it in your name...
Re: the Manc weather, looking at the live radar, you could almost convince yourself that it’s clear behind the section of rain currently over town. It’s dry over the Irish Sea and still two hours until we are due to start.
Wishful thinking?
Next helping closing in on County Mayo I think. Probably waterlogged too.
Donald Trump's team are presently drawing up plans to massively increase the powers of the presidency in the unlikely event he be elected next year. This would transform the US from its present democratic state into an autocracy at best, and potentially something far worse. It's all perfectly open, no secret, being reported on widely, though obviously not in this newspaper. The outfit tasked with drawing up these plans is called the Heritage Foundation, a hard right US "think tank".
Who knows, but he has expressed the opinion before that being President allows (or should allow) him to do pretty much anything. And that if he is running for the post that it is outrageous he should face legal sanction for things (he does not restrict to saying he is innocent, but complains about an ex-President having to face it_. And seems to find the power of dictators very interesting.
US Constitution has held up, mostly, so far, but he would surely seek to test its limits.
It's deeply rational to worry about Donald Trump imo. I can't understand how anybody wouldn't be unless they're a far right extremist or Vladimir Putin.
Putin has more to worry about than most. Trump is more likely than Biden to give Ukraine the means to escalate the war.
No he isn't. Seriously. Where does this insane hallucination come from? Here's Trump himself conspicuously not committing to a side about three months ago.
We know exactly what Trump is going to do. He'll find the most powerful person in the room and try to dominate them, then if that doesn't work he'll suck up to them. What can he realistically threaten Putin with that Biden isn't doing? USArmy boots on the ground in Ukraine? He's not going to do that. Threaten Putin with a nuke? Putin will tell him to fuck off in Russian and the Russian people will join in. Nuke Russia? Putin will nuke the US.
Trump turned his back on Zelensky when Trump got elected (Trump wanted kompromat on Hunter Biden, Zelensky told him to do one). It took about three years to get him to publicly support Ukraine, and in the meantime the Army did as best they could (they were already there). His support for Ukraine has been at best lukewarm, and his public pronouncements now are sheerest fantasies.
Biden has been slow-walking military support for Ukraine throughout out of fear of escalation and fear of splitting the EU. He's said this explitly himself.
Trump is more unpredictable and doesn't care about offending France or Germany, so there is a higher chance (not certainty) that he will do what it takes.
Yes, NATO will survive. However the US won’t be contributing as much as it starts to look East to the new enemy, and European nations will need to increase their own military spending to fill the gap.
Re: the Manc weather, looking at the live radar, you could almost convince yourself that it’s clear behind the section of rain currently over town. It’s dry over the Irish Sea and still two hours until we are due to start.
Wishful thinking?
BBC weather this morning said that play should be possible tomorrow after a delayed start
First rule of weather - never trust the forecast when it tells you what you want to hear.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
The desired outcome is laudable, but execution has been pathetic. Likewise 20mph in Wales. Dreadfully poorly implemented and pitch rolling. It's like Rishi suggested yesterday, Labour-Starmer arrogance and hubris will deliver Rishi the GE. Sheffield Rally anyone?
The problem is that labour cannot stop being authoritarian when common sense should be the word
Like authoritarian Labour Home Secretary, Suella Braverman?
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
It’s something that can make sense in the centre of London, where congestion and pollution are a problem, but much less so in outer London, a lot of which is quite rural and lacking in public transport infrastructure.
Have to question your "a lot" there. There are bits of outer London that are as you describe - villages like Havering atte Bower. Bits of Bromley and southern Croydon.
However, they are fabulously expensive places to live, so the cost doesn't hit them much. And by definition, very few people live there.
Most of outer London is built up suburbia. Places like Streatham, Wimbledon, urban Croydon, Ilford (hi Sunil!), Barking and Ealing. The kinds of places that do have air quality problems which will be helped by this scheme.
Had something like Ringway 3 ever happened, that might have made a better boundary than this. But it didn't, so we have to trade off winners and losers. It's never nice, but it's the heart of politics.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
The desired outcome is laudable, but execution has been pathetic. Likewise 20mph in Wales. Dreadfully poorly implemented and pitch rolling. It's like Rishi suggested yesterday, Labour-Starmer arrogance and hubris will deliver Rishi the GE. Sheffield Rally anyone?
The problem is that labour cannot stop being authoritarian when common sense should be the word
It’s going to blow your mind when you find out who introduced ULEZ.
I know Johnson did and for central London it is the right policy
There is a right and wrong way of introducing policy and Khan has shown all the zeal and authoritarian attitude of labour, as has Drakeford here in Wales with a mandated 20mph speed limit, down from 30mph
Yep - when the Tories tell people what to do it's OK, when Labour does it's authoritarian.
The ULEZ expansion charge kicks in at the end of next month. At that point it starts to become far less of a political hot potato because the vast majority of people in London will realise they are not affected. It was the perfect gift to the Tories for Uxbridge, but it’s a one time hit. It will never be as salient again.
Spot on. I couldn’t grasp why so many people were confused about whether they were affected. It takes 20 seconds to put your reg into the website to find out.
Remember the same people can’t figure out how to pay with a debit card
Re: the Manc weather, looking at the live radar, you could almost convince yourself that it’s clear behind the section of rain currently over town. It’s dry over the Irish Sea and still two hours until we are due to start.
Wishful thinking?
BBC weather this morning said that play should be possible tomorrow after a delayed start
First rule of weather - never trust the forecast when it tells you what you want to hear.
The chart showed a change in the weather pattern for tomorrow and certainly from the radar it does seem possible
Sitting here in Spain reading about the final manoeuvrings for tomorrow's GE, I've just realised that Vox are the Tories. Culture wars, anti-immigration, doing away with green crap, putting trannies back in their box - all that is Vox, but its also Rishi's Conservatives in the UK.
Come back to me when Rishi's Tories want to repeal gay marriage, repeal gender based violence laws, oppose abortion, close mosques and scrap regional parliaments like Vox.
Even ReformUK aren't as rightwing as Vox let alone the Tories, whose sister party is the PP not Vox
Re: the Manc weather, looking at the live radar, you could almost convince yourself that it’s clear behind the section of rain currently over town. It’s dry over the Irish Sea and still two hours until we are due to start.
Wishful thinking?
BBC weather this morning said that play should be possible tomorrow after a delayed start
The ULEZ expansion charge kicks in at the end of next month. At that point it starts to become far less of a political hot potato because the vast majority of people in London will realise they are not affected. It was the perfect gift to the Tories for Uxbridge, but it’s a one time hit. It will never be as salient again.
And from Khan's point of view, what matters is how the scheme is viewed next May. Announce a pause/review (to what end?) and the issue will still be live and fearmongers gonna monger. Getting on with it doesn't kill the issue, but it fatally wounds it.
This new Sunak plan: "Divisive policies on crime, migrant boats and transgender rights". What could they be? I have to assume culture war.
CRIME: Braverman worked very hard to secure the pro-golliwog vote. Perhaps they abolish most of the protections against racism sexism homophobia etc. "Say what you think with the Tories". And assuming we have enough police officers to catch criminals (and thanks to the Tories we don't), perhaps bring in "community punishment" where local scrotes are allowed to kick the shit out of other local scrotes.
MIGRANT BOATS: So far this policy has been a disaster. Record numbers on small boats which we can only just catch on arrival, nowhere to store migrants without vast cost, no way to deport to foreign as Rwanda won't take them and its screamingly illegal. The navy refuses to do tow backs as they will sink boats and drown migrants. Perhaps create RSBI - the Royal Stop the Boats Institutes. Where tattooed gentlemen volunteer to man the anti-lifeboat which drags the migrant boat to the bottom. Live on the Nigel Farage show on GBeebies.
TRANSGENDER RIGHTS: As with the proposal to simply abolish namby pamby "rights" for people who don't like to be sexually assaulted, simply abolish trans rights. Make it a legal definition that someone with a penis is a man, make use of the wrong toilet punishable by jail time. And perhaps a nice series of "documentaries" on GBeebies where they describe trannies in derogatory terms and highlight cases where they have been deviant.
Mmmmm. That will do it. Conservatism at its finest.
Sitting here in Spain reading about the final manoeuvrings for tomorrow's GE, I've just realised that Vox are the Tories. Culture wars, anti-immigration, doing away with green crap, putting trannies back in their box - all that is Vox, but its also Rishi's Conservatives in the UK.
Vox is a PP breakaway. All its leaders used to be PP politicians. Now Vox and PP are getting back together again. It's basically what has already happened with the Tories and UKIP.
Donald Trump's team are presently drawing up plans to massively increase the powers of the presidency in the unlikely event he be elected next year. This would transform the US from its present democratic state into an autocracy at best, and potentially something far worse. It's all perfectly open, no secret, being reported on widely, though obviously not in this newspaper. The outfit tasked with drawing up these plans is called the Heritage Foundation, a hard right US "think tank".
Who knows, but he has expressed the opinion before that being President allows (or should allow) him to do pretty much anything. And that if he is running for the post that it is outrageous he should face legal sanction for things (he does not restrict to saying he is innocent, but complains about an ex-President having to face it_. And seems to find the power of dictators very interesting.
US Constitution has held up, mostly, so far, but he would surely seek to test its limits.
It's deeply rational to worry about Donald Trump imo. I can't understand how anybody wouldn't be unless they're a far right extremist or Vladimir Putin.
Putin has more to worry about than most. Trump is more likely than Biden to give Ukraine the means to escalate the war.
No he isn't. Seriously. Where does this insane hallucination come from? Here's Trump himself conspicuously not committing to a side about three months ago.
We know exactly what Trump is going to do. He'll find the most powerful person in the room and try to dominate them, then if that doesn't work he'll suck up to them. What can he realistically threaten Putin with that Biden isn't doing? USArmy boots on the ground in Ukraine? He's not going to do that. Threaten Putin with a nuke? Putin will tell him to fuck off in Russian and the Russian people will join in. Nuke Russia? Putin will nuke the US.
Trump turned his back on Zelensky when Trump got elected (Trump wanted kompromat on Hunter Biden, Zelensky told him to do one). It took about three years to get him to publicly support Ukraine, and in the meantime the Army did as best they could (they were already there). His support for Ukraine has been at best lukewarm, and his public pronouncements now are sheerest fantasies.
Biden has been slow-walking military support for Ukraine throughout out of fear of escalation and fear of splitting the EU. He's said this explitly himself.
Trump is more unpredictable and doesn't care about offending France or Germany, so there is a higher chance (not certainty) that he will do what it takes.
Yes, NATO will survive. However the US won’t be contributing as much as it starts to look East to the new enemy, and European nations will need to increase their own military spending to fill the gap.
Will it be NATO minus USA as Trump has suggested?
The almost complete destruction of the Russian military in Ukraine, where they have lost more than half of all their tanks for example, actually makes this less frightening. Europe looks much more capable of protecting itself against any obvious threat than it did 18 months ago, if only because that threat is so diminished.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
Maybe they wanted to reduce the serious illness and death associated with air pollution caused by dirty older vehicles. I know, mad right.
That is not the argument, more implementation in a common sense way
What it has done is open the door ajar for the conservatives to take on the anti car lobby
I'm not sure what the common sense route is that still achieves the necessary reduction in air pollution. Only implement it in selected parts of outer London? That would make it harder to know if you were liable or not and create confusion. Delay its implementation? How do you persuade an asthmatic to be the last person to die so you don't inconvenience motorists? The best thing is to just get on with it. Maybe boost the scrappage scheme a bit. It is the right thing to do even if it is unpopular with some people. Polluter pays.
And it is usually the one's least able to, it was ever thus
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
The desired outcome is laudable, but execution has been pathetic. Likewise 20mph in Wales. Dreadfully poorly implemented and pitch rolling. It's like Rishi suggested yesterday, Labour-Starmer arrogance and hubris will deliver Rishi the GE. Sheffield Rally anyone?
The problem is that labour cannot stop being authoritarian when common sense should be the word
It’s going to blow your mind when you find out who introduced ULEZ.
Boris never proposed extending ULEZ to the London suburbs, it was only for inner London, it is Khan who has extended it to outer London
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
I'm unrepentent on my stance on this - it's the "polluter pays" principle, which has been a thing for decades, applied to the individual, and has been coming down the track for a long time. The numbers affected will be a tiny proportion - well under 10% of 2.6 million vehicles, which equates to a tiny proportion of voters.
It quite reminds me of complaints we hear about the need to improve energy efficiency of our own homes - lots of complaining, but *that* policy was first announced around 2012 by the coalition government.
The problems with this are
1) the taxation and cost of replacing vehicles falls on the poorer section of society.
2) Meanwhile the owner of a £90k EV pays nothing - even parking in Central London for very little, by using a charging bay. A game that is played is to park up, connect the charger, then not actually register/pay. Free parking!
3) the polluters pays principe would mean that payment should be connected to the pollution. It is a flat rate charge, rather than targeting the vehicles that actually produces the embody pollution.
4) the owners of compliant ICE vehicles are convinced, by experience, that they will be next
Once again, we have the Politicians Syllogism
1) We must do something 2) This is something 3) Therefore, we must do This
Point 1 was definitely the driver. They *had* to do something as pollution was literally killing Londoners. ULEZ has been lovingly described on here as being typically socialist - perhaps Boris is less understood than we thought.
As we've already done to death though, this isn't affecting "the poorest" as almost every vehicle that is used as a daily driver by "the poorest" is compliant. The only ones that may not be are old diesels - which aren't designed to be driven short distances anyway and will break soon, needing trade-in for something else.
Why is ULEZ so upsetting for people like Ferrari and far outer fringe residents? It isn't their daily driver that's hit, its their weekend cars. So again, not "the poorest" - a few edge cases who need more money throwing at them.
The real step change with ULEZ needs to be going after delivery vehicles. The "I want it now" revolution which has stuck flotillas of Amazon vans into every urban environment is Very Bad for pollution. Offer tax breaks for electric vans combined with big stick tax penalties for sticking with diseasal.
My daughter and granddaughter have been on a 2 day visit to London and yesterday visited the British Museum
My daughter posted a couple of dozen photos on her facebook page and my granddaughter (20) commented
'The British Museum - the place to see all our stolen goods'
I am so proud of her
Doesn't take much to.make you proud obviously. She has been watching far too much BBC content
What about her comment is untrue ?
It's not *all* our stolen goods.
Still makes me laugh.
Naaah we paid for some of the mummies and had the Rosetta stone off the Frenchies. In any case, I like to think of our Great Nation as merely the trustee of these treasures.
Re: the Manc weather, looking at the live radar, you could almost convince yourself that it’s clear behind the section of rain currently over town. It’s dry over the Irish Sea and still two hours until we are due to start.
Wishful thinking?
BBC weather this morning said that play should be possible tomorrow after a delayed start
I’m looking at the radar and wondering about today. It’s possible to convince yourself that the clear slot over the Isle of Man will push over Manchester in a few hours. The system seems to have been more progressive than originally forecast (it chucked it down all night…)
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
The desired outcome is laudable, but execution has been pathetic. Likewise 20mph in Wales. Dreadfully poorly implemented and pitch rolling. It's like Rishi suggested yesterday, Labour-Starmer arrogance and hubris will deliver Rishi the GE. Sheffield Rally anyone?
The problem is that labour cannot stop being authoritarian when common sense should be the word
It’s going to blow your mind when you find out who introduced ULEZ.
Boris never proposed extending ULEZ to the London suburbs, it was only for inner London, it is Khan who has extended it to outer London
Of course he didn't. His voters lived in outer London.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
The desired outcome is laudable, but execution has been pathetic. Likewise 20mph in Wales. Dreadfully poorly implemented and pitch rolling. It's like Rishi suggested yesterday, Labour-Starmer arrogance and hubris will deliver Rishi the GE. Sheffield Rally anyone?
The problem is that labour cannot stop being authoritarian when common sense should be the word
It’s going to blow your mind when you find out who introduced ULEZ.
Boris never proposed extending ULEZ to the London suburbs, it was only for inner London, it is Khan who has extended it to outer London
Why is introducing ULEZ in inner London less authoritarian than doing it in outer London?
The ULEZ expansion charge kicks in at the end of next month. At that point it starts to become far less of a political hot potato because the vast majority of people in London will realise they are not affected. It was the perfect gift to the Tories for Uxbridge, but it’s a one time hit. It will never be as salient again.
Spot on. I couldn’t grasp why so many people were confused about whether they were affected. It takes 20 seconds to put your reg into the website to find out.
I disagree.
It will be salient in both London elections next year.
The fact that people could find out whether they'll be personally affected is an absolute classic of the problem with Labour's campaigning. Rather than go out and pro-actively explain and advocate the policy, they went all defensive and timid on it, with their candidate in a no-man's-land opinion of 'yes, maybe later, maybe somewhere else', which convinces no-one of either his own backbone or the policy's merits.
Labour's failure in Uxbridge wasn't one of expectations management; it was one of bad campaigning. They allowed the Tories to define the central issue of the campaign - which itself was grossly inept given how the by-election came about and the general decay of the govt - and then failed to provide and adequate answer to the Tory charge. Asking people to find out for themselves, as per Anabobazina above, is really how not to do politics.
The important point though is this: while the ULEZ issue is both time- and area-limited, the way that Labour reacted to Tory campaigning is not. Those instincts are characteristic of Starmer's leadership (see also Labour's Brexit policy from 2019). If the Tories can find the right wedge issue, Labour could well blow it, simply because they're reactive, unwilling to go out and set the agenda and have an inclination to fence-sit when faced with a difficult decision, so upsetting both sides.
FWIW, I don't think there is a wedge issue that will work, and trying the wrong one/s could backfire by placing the Tories on the wrong side of the wedge. Still, it doesn't auger well for Labour in government.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
Maybe they wanted to reduce the serious illness and death associated with air pollution caused by dirty older vehicles. I know, mad right.
That is not the argument, more implementation in a common sense way
What it has done is open the door ajar for the conservatives to take on the anti car lobby
I'm not sure what the common sense route is that still achieves the necessary reduction in air pollution. Only implement it in selected parts of outer London? That would make it harder to know if you were liable or not and create confusion. Delay its implementation? How do you persuade an asthmatic to be the last person to die so you don't inconvenience motorists? The best thing is to just get on with it. Maybe boost the scrappage scheme a bit. It is the right thing to do even if it is unpopular with some people. Polluter pays.
Surely the Common Sense approach is to tax the poor off the road. That way there is more space for people who have made something of themselves.
"The 1978 animated film Watership Down has been re-classified to a PG due to its "mild violence, threat, brief bloody images and bad language".
The movie is among the classic titles to have had their age ratings raised, along with the original Star Trek, according to the British Board of Film Classification's (BBFC) annual report.
After being resubmitted, the ratings were raised by the organisation, it said, in order to ensure they "remain in step with societal standards"."
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
Maybe they wanted to reduce the serious illness and death associated with air pollution caused by dirty older vehicles. I know, mad right.
That is not the argument, more implementation in a common sense way
What it has done is open the door ajar for the conservatives to take on the anti car lobby
I'm not sure what the common sense route is that still achieves the necessary reduction in air pollution. Only implement it in selected parts of outer London? That would make it harder to know if you were liable or not and create confusion. Delay its implementation? How do you persuade an asthmatic to be the last person to die so you don't inconvenience motorists? The best thing is to just get on with it. Maybe boost the scrappage scheme a bit. It is the right thing to do even if it is unpopular with some people. Polluter pays.
And it is usually the one's least able to, it was ever thus
Don’t worry - @HYUFD has assured us that everyone who lives in London and the Home Counties is richer than most Americans, so your concern is misplaced. M
My daughter and granddaughter have been on a 2 day visit to London and yesterday visited the British Museum
My daughter posted a couple of dozen photos on her facebook page and my granddaughter (20) commented
'The British Museum - the place to see all our stolen goods'
I am so proud of her
Doesn't take much to.make you proud obviously. She has been watching far too much BBC content
What about her comment is untrue ?
Lots. There's a lot in the British Museum that was acquired or purchased by the museum in good faith, or honestly donated, or recovered and restored when the alternative would have been almost certain destruction by war or insurrection.
Your granddaughter is simply parroting the fashionable shibboleths of the times and injecting none of her own original thought into it.
Sure, she's expressing a vaguely political opinion in public, and that might show she's come of age to some degree, but it's nothing to be proud of, I'm afraid.
Re: the Manc weather, looking at the live radar, you could almost convince yourself that it’s clear behind the section of rain currently over town. It’s dry over the Irish Sea and still two hours until we are due to start.
Wishful thinking?
BBC weather this morning said that play should be possible tomorrow after a delayed start
I’m looking at the radar and wondering about today. It’s possible to convince yourself that the clear slot over the Isle of Man will push over Manchester in a few hours. The system seems to have been more progressive than originally forecast (it chucked it down all night…)
Met Office is forecasting persistent rain for today and tomorrow with one brief break at 3pm this afternoon.
Two draws on display - one for the cricket, and one set for whoever goes swimming on the outfield.
The ULEZ expansion charge kicks in at the end of next month. At that point it starts to become far less of a political hot potato because the vast majority of people in London will realise they are not affected. It was the perfect gift to the Tories for Uxbridge, but it’s a one time hit. It will never be as salient again.
And from Khan's point of view, what matters is how the scheme is viewed next May. Announce a pause/review (to what end?) and the issue will still be live and fearmongers gonna monger. Getting on with it doesn't kill the issue, but it fatally wounds it.
It is more than the people directly effected by this phase of ULEZ.
Everyone driving any ICE (even hybrids) is certain that they will be effected by a future expansion/tightening of ULEZ. In this they are correct. There are already discussions of when ZEV will be brought in.
Donald Trump's team are presently drawing up plans to massively increase the powers of the presidency in the unlikely event he be elected next year. This would transform the US from its present democratic state into an autocracy at best, and potentially something far worse. It's all perfectly open, no secret, being reported on widely, though obviously not in this newspaper. The outfit tasked with drawing up these plans is called the Heritage Foundation, a hard right US "think tank".
Who knows, but he has expressed the opinion before that being President allows (or should allow) him to do pretty much anything. And that if he is running for the post that it is outrageous he should face legal sanction for things (he does not restrict to saying he is innocent, but complains about an ex-President having to face it_. And seems to find the power of dictators very interesting.
US Constitution has held up, mostly, so far, but he would surely seek to test its limits.
It's deeply rational to worry about Donald Trump imo. I can't understand how anybody wouldn't be unless they're a far right extremist or Vladimir Putin.
Putin has more to worry about than most. Trump is more likely than Biden to give Ukraine the means to escalate the war.
No he isn't. Seriously. Where does this insane hallucination come from? Here's Trump himself conspicuously not committing to a side about three months ago.
We know exactly what Trump is going to do. He'll find the most powerful person in the room and try to dominate them, then if that doesn't work he'll suck up to them. What can he realistically threaten Putin with that Biden isn't doing? USArmy boots on the ground in Ukraine? He's not going to do that. Threaten Putin with a nuke? Putin will tell him to fuck off in Russian and the Russian people will join in. Nuke Russia? Putin will nuke the US.
Trump turned his back on Zelensky when Trump got elected (Trump wanted kompromat on Hunter Biden, Zelensky told him to do one). It took about three years to get him to publicly support Ukraine, and in the meantime the Army did as best they could (they were already there). His support for Ukraine has been at best lukewarm, and his public pronouncements now are sheerest fantasies.
Biden has been slow-walking military support for Ukraine throughout out of fear of escalation and fear of splitting the EU. He's said this explitly himself.
Trump is more unpredictable and doesn't care about offending France or Germany, so there is a higher chance (not certainty) that he will do what it takes.
Yes, NATO will survive. However the US won’t be contributing as much as it starts to look East to the new enemy, and European nations will need to increase their own military spending to fill the gap.
Will it be NATO minus USA as Trump has suggested?
I don’t think the Americans will actually leave NATO, but they’ll quite possibly threaten to leave as leverage to get European defence spending up. Bonus points if that increased spending goes on American kit.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
Maybe they wanted to reduce the serious illness and death associated with air pollution caused by dirty older vehicles. I know, mad right.
That is not the argument, more implementation in a common sense way
What it has done is open the door ajar for the conservatives to take on the anti car lobby
I'm not sure what the common sense route is that still achieves the necessary reduction in air pollution. Only implement it in selected parts of outer London? That would make it harder to know if you were liable or not and create confusion. Delay its implementation? How do you persuade an asthmatic to be the last person to die so you don't inconvenience motorists? The best thing is to just get on with it. Maybe boost the scrappage scheme a bit. It is the right thing to do even if it is unpopular with some people. Polluter pays.
And it is usually the one's least able to, it was ever thus
The least able are having to pay because the UK government has refused to adequately fund scrappage schemes. Put another way, the ones that can most afford it will not help the ones who can least afford it.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
The desired outcome is laudable, but execution has been pathetic. Likewise 20mph in Wales. Dreadfully poorly implemented and pitch rolling. It's like Rishi suggested yesterday, Labour-Starmer arrogance and hubris will deliver Rishi the GE. Sheffield Rally anyone?
The problem is that labour cannot stop being authoritarian when common sense should be the word
It’s going to blow your mind when you find out who introduced ULEZ.
I know Johnson did and for central London it is the right policy
There is a right and wrong way of introducing policy and Khan has shown all the zeal and authoritarian attitude of labour, as has Drakeford here in Wales with a mandated 20mph speed limit, down from 30mph
Of course the reality about 20mph limits is that they are unenforceable. There won't be speed cameras, there won't be police officers with speed guns, there won't be speed humps everywhere.
Councillors often get asked if the speed limit can be lowered to protect children. And in my experience the answer back is "we can but we can't enforce it."
The ULEZ expansion charge kicks in at the end of next month. At that point it starts to become far less of a political hot potato because the vast majority of people in London will realise they are not affected. It was the perfect gift to the Tories for Uxbridge, but it’s a one time hit. It will never be as salient again.
And from Khan's point of view, what matters is how the scheme is viewed next May. Announce a pause/review (to what end?) and the issue will still be live and fearmongers gonna monger. Getting on with it doesn't kill the issue, but it fatally wounds it.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
I'm unrepentent on my stance on this - it's the "polluter pays" principle, which has been a thing for decades, applied to the individual, and has been coming down the track for a long time. The numbers affected will be a tiny proportion - well under 10% of 2.6 million vehicles, which equates to a tiny proportion of voters.
It quite reminds me of complaints we hear about the need to improve energy efficiency of our own homes - lots of complaining, but *that* policy was first announced around 2012 by the coalition government.
The problems with this are
1) the taxation and cost of replacing vehicles falls on the poorer section of society.
2) Meanwhile the owner of a £90k EV pays nothing - even parking in Central London for very little, by using a charging bay. A game that is played is to park up, connect the charger, then not actually register/pay. Free parking!
3) the polluters pays principe would mean that payment should be connected to the pollution. It is a flat rate charge, rather than targeting the vehicles that actually produces the embody pollution.
4) the owners of compliant ICE vehicles are convinced, by experience, that they will be next
Once again, we have the Politicians Syllogism
1) We must do something 2) This is something 3) Therefore, we must do This
Point 1 was definitely the driver. They *had* to do something as pollution was literally killing Londoners. ULEZ has been lovingly described on here as being typically socialist - perhaps Boris is less understood than we thought.
As we've already done to death though, this isn't affecting "the poorest" as almost every vehicle that is used as a daily driver by "the poorest" is compliant. The only ones that may not be are old diesels - which aren't designed to be driven short distances anyway and will break soon, needing trade-in for something else.
Why is ULEZ so upsetting for people like Ferrari and far outer fringe residents? It isn't their daily driver that's hit, its their weekend cars. So again, not "the poorest" - a few edge cases who need more money throwing at them.
The real step change with ULEZ needs to be going after delivery vehicles. The "I want it now" revolution which has stuck flotillas of Amazon vans into every urban environment is Very Bad for pollution. Offer tax breaks for electric vans combined with big stick tax penalties for sticking with diseasal.
People don't have to be affected by ishoos, to think they are, look at all the indigents moaning about how their estate will be hammered by IHT after the first million, and the progressive gammons defending their purely theoretical right to use the laydeez loo after the penectomy.
The question on everyone’s lips is really: what are we going to call the big smoke when it isn’t?
The great wen
Only Northerners call London The Big Smoke; only West Country folk call it The Great Wen. Since we established on the last thread that hardly anyone lives outside the South-East (so why do they have test matches?) it hardly matters.
Well I live in the west country now. However I was trying to polite, I would have said the suppurating gangrenous pustule on britains arse.
Hey! That's no way to describe the West Country - some parts of it are very nice.
Well only described that way by people addicted to their fumes and who love living in close proximity with 8 million arseholes
A true misanthrope as ever Pagan.
8 million people, all arseholes? Really?
They probably weren't till they moved to london then they learned to be. London seems to breed ill tempered nasty people.
Really need to get you and Malc at each other in a hip hop battle at some stage.
If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.
I dont run into them now I moved away from that place strangely and even the nice people I knew turned to the cockroaches of society when they moved to the Wen
Cost of living and house prices in london likely big reason for this.
Nods don't disagree, just like living in a prison for years changes your attitudes so does london because while the bars and locks aren't physically there they are still there in terms of cost of housing and living
You are wildly overstating the position. If you just said London's an unfriendly place compared to most other places in Britain, that would unfortunately be accurate.
Edit: @OnlyLivingBoy - where do you count as the Southeast? I'd agree if you said London and the wider area around it, maybe 50 miles radius or something like that, is a relatively unfriendly place. London is friendlier than a few ultra-arsehole stockbroker-type places outside the official GL area I suppose.
Sorry lived in the south east near london since 1987, just moved back to the south west. People in the south east are totally unfriendly in comparison and I put it mostly down to every day is a struggle fighting with the hordes of commuters and exorbitant housing costs. I am so more relaxed now I have moved away
Oh defnitely. Even at university i found people from say Southampton or Exeter more friendly than those from near London.
Try being a Londoner outside London! You are generally hated wherever you go. People feel free to take every kind of potshot at where you come from and about the people who live there. Friendly, it ain’t!!!
Go to London you’ll either be mugged or not appreciated !
Re: the Manc weather, looking at the live radar, you could almost convince yourself that it’s clear behind the section of rain currently over town. It’s dry over the Irish Sea and still two hours until we are due to start.
Wishful thinking?
Next helping closing in on County Mayo I think. Probably waterlogged too.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
Maybe they wanted to reduce the serious illness and death associated with air pollution caused by dirty older vehicles. I know, mad right.
That is not the argument, more implementation in a common sense way
What it has done is open the door ajar for the conservatives to take on the anti car lobby
I'm not sure what the common sense route is that still achieves the necessary reduction in air pollution. Only implement it in selected parts of outer London? That would make it harder to know if you were liable or not and create confusion. Delay its implementation? How do you persuade an asthmatic to be the last person to die so you don't inconvenience motorists? The best thing is to just get on with it. Maybe boost the scrappage scheme a bit. It is the right thing to do even if it is unpopular with some people. Polluter pays.
Surely the Common Sense approach is to tax the poor off the road. That way there is more space for people who have made something of themselves.
When the congestion charge was introduced, someone suggested to me that it should be £100 for just that reason.
Donald Trump's team are presently drawing up plans to massively increase the powers of the presidency in the unlikely event he be elected next year. This would transform the US from its present democratic state into an autocracy at best, and potentially something far worse. It's all perfectly open, no secret, being reported on widely, though obviously not in this newspaper. The outfit tasked with drawing up these plans is called the Heritage Foundation, a hard right US "think tank".
Who knows, but he has expressed the opinion before that being President allows (or should allow) him to do pretty much anything. And that if he is running for the post that it is outrageous he should face legal sanction for things (he does not restrict to saying he is innocent, but complains about an ex-President having to face it_. And seems to find the power of dictators very interesting.
US Constitution has held up, mostly, so far, but he would surely seek to test its limits.
"in the unlikely event he be elected next year." ????
Erm...
It is unlikely. Just not quite as unlikely as one would wish.
Still dont see how Biden makes it through another term given his health.
That's a 50/50 but hopefully he'll be up to beating Trump if the GOP really are crazy enough to nominate him.
Mr. Pete, worth remembering the UK has generally very positive views of migrants, including compared to other European nations.
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
How anyone in labour thought a £12.50 a day tax on using your car or van to go about your legal business was a good idea amazes me
Maybe they wanted to reduce the serious illness and death associated with air pollution caused by dirty older vehicles. I know, mad right.
That is not the argument, more implementation in a common sense way
What it has done is open the door ajar for the conservatives to take on the anti car lobby
I'm not sure what the common sense route is that still achieves the necessary reduction in air pollution. Only implement it in selected parts of outer London? That would make it harder to know if you were liable or not and create confusion. Delay its implementation? How do you persuade an asthmatic to be the last person to die so you don't inconvenience motorists? The best thing is to just get on with it. Maybe boost the scrappage scheme a bit. It is the right thing to do even if it is unpopular with some people. Polluter pays.
Surely the Common Sense approach is to tax the poor off the road. That way there is more space for people who have made something of themselves.
That’s what Labour have been saying loud and clear, to the residents of outer London.
The question on everyone’s lips is really: what are we going to call the big smoke when it isn’t?
The great wen
Only Northerners call London The Big Smoke; only West Country folk call it The Great Wen. Since we established on the last thread that hardly anyone lives outside the South-East (so why do they have test matches?) it hardly matters.
Well I live in the west country now. However I was trying to polite, I would have said the suppurating gangrenous pustule on britains arse.
Hey! That's no way to describe the West Country - some parts of it are very nice.
Well only described that way by people addicted to their fumes and who love living in close proximity with 8 million arseholes
A true misanthrope as ever Pagan.
8 million people, all arseholes? Really?
They probably weren't till they moved to london then they learned to be. London seems to breed ill tempered nasty people.
Really need to get you and Malc at each other in a hip hop battle at some stage.
If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.
I dont run into them now I moved away from that place strangely and even the nice people I knew turned to the cockroaches of society when they moved to the Wen
Cost of living and house prices in london likely big reason for this.
Nods don't disagree, just like living in a prison for years changes your attitudes so does london because while the bars and locks aren't physically there they are still there in terms of cost of housing and living
You are wildly overstating the position. If you just said London's an unfriendly place compared to most other places in Britain, that would unfortunately be accurate.
I actually don't think even that is true anymore.
Even northern cities vary in friendliness. I would say Newcastle is friendlier than leeds for example.
Leeds I’ve always found to be quite an aggressive place. I’ve always been expert at avoiding physical confrontation but Leeds is the place where I’ve been started on more than anywhere (by a fair margin).
Only been to Newcastle a couple of times but have found it welcoming and pleasant (the most welcoming city I’ve been in the UK was Belfast).
London is somewhere in the middle, I think. The irrational hostility folk have towards the place is a bit irrational.
Comments
Few on here realised the impact of focusing on Ulez. It negatively affected very few but it was beautifully sold by Steve Tuck-shop as an intrusion by the nanny state. Ulezx has also been executed poorly by Khan.
Going in with their xenophobic boots on is the only way forward for this Conservatives Government and just like in Uxbridge they might drag themselves over the line.
The UK will be an intolerant, unpleasant place in which to live but if the gravy train can keep rolling it's a means to an end. If we don't like it we can bugger off and live in another EU country. Oh wait ...
Also, I think you're misreading this, though understandably.
For what it's worth, my view is this is a cost of living matter, and one that (unusually) can be laid squarely on Labour's door. It's highly specific to areas involed in ULEZ expansion. For most people, cost of living is food inflation, energy prices, and mortgage rates getting hiked.
My daughter posted a couple of dozen photos on her facebook page and my granddaughter (20) commented
'The British Museum - the place to see all our stolen goods'
I am so proud of her
Wootton's bizarre piece to camera, well worth 6 minutes of your time
People were arguing about the stuff long before the BBC went on air. Byron's poem on Elgin remains apposite:
Cold is the heart, fair Greece, that looks on thee,
Nor feels as lovers oer the dust they loved;
Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British hands, which it had best behovd
To guard those relics neer to be restored.
Curst be the hour when their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatchd thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorrd!
There is never a good time to do something like this, so Khan's best bet is to get in with it, take the short term hit and hope to move on once the scheme has bedded in. I'd like to have seen more generosity about scrappage, but that is in Westminster's hands because they are funding TfL right now.
I hope "Khan should reflect" is code for "Starmer has to say something but Khan shouldn't change direction." If we can't do anything that doesn't have losers, nothing is ever going to happen.
CRIME: Braverman worked very hard to secure the pro-golliwog vote. Perhaps they abolish most of the protections against racism sexism homophobia etc. "Say what you think with the Tories". And assuming we have enough police officers to catch criminals (and thanks to the Tories we don't), perhaps bring in "community punishment" where local scrotes are allowed to kick the shit out of other local scrotes.
MIGRANT BOATS: So far this policy has been a disaster. Record numbers on small boats which we can only just catch on arrival, nowhere to store migrants without vast cost, no way to deport to foreign as Rwanda won't take them and its screamingly illegal. The navy refuses to do tow backs as they will sink boats and drown migrants.
Perhaps create RSBI - the Royal Stop the Boats Institutes. Where tattooed gentlemen volunteer to man the anti-lifeboat which drags the migrant boat to the bottom. Live on the Nigel Farage show on GBeebies.
TRANSGENDER RIGHTS: As with the proposal to simply abolish namby pamby "rights" for people who don't like to be sexually assaulted, simply abolish trans rights. Make it a legal definition that someone with a penis is a man, make use of the wrong toilet punishable by jail time. And perhaps a nice series of "documentaries" on GBeebies where they describe trannies in derogatory terms and highlight cases where they have been deviant.
Mmmmm. That will do it. Conservatism at its finest.
High crime is a feature of life under the Tories. Labour will not propose arming gangs with free knives to create more mayhem on our streets. This government has delivered the small boats crisis and record immigration. Trans issues too, with children declaring themselves cats under Rishi's rule.
Will Starmer's Labour have the guts to attack the Conservatives on "their" issues? Shades of Karl Rove's advice to George W Bush: attack your opponent's perceived strengths. Labour should attack Tory failure on what is seen as its home ground: 14 years of Conservative rule has delivered record crime, record immigration, record taxation. And of course, it is weak on defence, with the smallest army since the 18th Century.
Was writ by a rotter.
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-atlantic-wolffish-atlantic-catfish-seawolf-ocean-catfish-devil-fish-53483131.html
There is a cost to society of super polluting vehicles, and it seems fair that the users of those vehicles pay it. By all means question the exact price, or the exact location- though it's not obvious where else you can draw the line.
But "polluter pays" is exactly what should be happening.
The numbers affected will be tiny - well under 10% of 2.6 million vehicles, which equates to a tiny proportion of voters. And I can't see any alternative to doing it now, given the timescales for significant air quality improvement set *by the Government*.
The next thing to address needs to be wood burning stoves in cities.
It quite reminds me of complaints we hear about the need to improve energy efficiency of our own homes - lots of complaining, but *that* policy was first announced around 2012 by the coalition government.
What it has done is open the door ajar for the conservatives to take on the anti car lobby
Watership Down
You've read the book
You've seen the movie
Now eat the rabbits
Wishful thinking?
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/23672235.brighton-man-uses-ai-give-prince-william-barbie-makeover/
Woke = things I do not like
1) the taxation and cost of replacing vehicles falls on the poorer section of society.
2) Meanwhile the owner of a £90k EV pays nothing - even parking in Central London for very little, by using a charging bay. A game that is played is to park up, connect the charger, then not actually register/pay. Free parking!
3) the polluters pays principe would mean that payment should be connected to the pollution. It is a flat rate charge, rather than targeting the vehicles that actually produces the embody pollution.
4) the owners of compliant ICE vehicles are convinced, by experience, that they will be next
Once again, we have the Politicians Syllogism
1) We must do something
2) This is something
3) Therefore, we must do This
There is a right and wrong way of introducing policy and Khan has shown all the zeal and authoritarian attitude of labour, as has Drakeford here in Wales with a mandated 20mph speed limit, down from 30mph
There are bits of outer London that are as you describe - villages like Havering atte Bower. Bits of Bromley and southern Croydon.
However, they are fabulously expensive places to live, so the cost doesn't hit them much. And by definition, very few people live there.
Most of outer London is built up suburbia. Places like Streatham, Wimbledon, urban Croydon, Ilford (hi Sunil!), Barking and Ealing. The kinds of places that do have air quality problems which will be helped by this scheme.
Had something like Ringway 3 ever happened, that might have made a better boundary than this. But it didn't, so we have to trade off winners and losers. It's never nice, but it's the heart of politics.
What I write was satire. But I go back to what is being reported. Culture Wars-based "divisive" policies on crime, migrants and trans right.
I expect they will be trying to create wedge issues to get underneath this Labour lead. So being deliberately divisive will be to dog-whistle "common sense" (as Big_G puts it) proposals to their remaining voter base.
Going off how often the hard right complain that they have been silenced, I can see some kind of "its not racist [to be racist]" say what you think message. Especially when it comes to refugees.
We had a wave of racism following the Brexit vote, if there are votes in it they will do it. Hence Braverman putting it out that she had censured Essicksinnit police for going after Golliwogs.
I know you don't like it. Doesn't mean they aren't doing it though. And they're doing it in your name...
Even ReformUK aren't as rightwing as Vox let alone the Tories, whose sister party is the PP not Vox
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/forecast/gcw2hzs1u#?date=2023-07-23
have tomorrow the worse day, and I trust them over the BBC
As we've already done to death though, this isn't affecting "the poorest" as almost every vehicle that is used as a daily driver by "the poorest" is compliant. The only ones that may not be are old diesels - which aren't designed to be driven short distances anyway and will break soon, needing trade-in for something else.
Why is ULEZ so upsetting for people like Ferrari and far outer fringe residents? It isn't their daily driver that's hit, its their weekend cars. So again, not "the poorest" - a few edge cases who need more money throwing at them.
The real step change with ULEZ needs to be going after delivery vehicles. The "I want it now" revolution which has stuck flotillas of Amazon vans into every urban environment is Very Bad for pollution. Offer tax breaks for electric vans combined with big stick tax penalties for sticking with diseasal.
It will be salient in both London elections next year.
The fact that people could find out whether they'll be personally affected is an absolute classic of the problem with Labour's campaigning. Rather than go out and pro-actively explain and advocate the policy, they went all defensive and timid on it, with their candidate in a no-man's-land opinion of 'yes, maybe later, maybe somewhere else', which convinces no-one of either his own backbone or the policy's merits.
Labour's failure in Uxbridge wasn't one of expectations management; it was one of bad campaigning. They allowed the Tories to define the central issue of the campaign - which itself was grossly inept given how the by-election came about and the general decay of the govt - and then failed to provide and adequate answer to the Tory charge. Asking people to find out for themselves, as per Anabobazina above, is really how not to do politics.
The important point though is this: while the ULEZ issue is both time- and area-limited, the way that Labour reacted to Tory campaigning is not. Those instincts are characteristic of Starmer's leadership (see also Labour's Brexit policy from 2019). If the Tories can find the right wedge issue, Labour could well blow it, simply because they're reactive, unwilling to go out and set the agenda and have an inclination to fence-sit when faced with a difficult decision, so upsetting both sides.
FWIW, I don't think there is a wedge issue that will work, and trying the wrong one/s could backfire by placing the Tories on the wrong side of the wedge. Still, it doesn't auger well for Labour in government.
It is terrifying and it is the case it should have been PG from the start.
But I loved it as a kid. It's just not appropriate for all kids hence the PG being correct!
Your granddaughter is simply parroting the fashionable shibboleths of the times and injecting none of her own original thought into it.
Sure, she's expressing a vaguely political opinion in public, and that might show she's come of age to some degree, but it's nothing to be proud of, I'm afraid.
Two draws on display - one for the cricket, and one set for whoever goes swimming on the outfield.
Everyone driving any ICE (even hybrids) is certain that they will be effected by a future expansion/tightening of ULEZ. In this they are correct. There are already discussions of when ZEV will be brought in.
To be fair she is not political but certainly speaks to the truth re the British Museum
Councillors often get asked if the speed limit can be lowered to protect children. And in my experience the answer back is "we can but we can't enforce it."
The Koh-i-Noor is in the Crown Jewels of England so not *all* Britain's stolen goods are in the British Museum.
Only been to Newcastle a couple of times but have found it welcoming and pleasant (the most welcoming city I’ve been in the UK was Belfast).
London is somewhere in the middle, I think. The irrational hostility folk have towards the place is a bit irrational.