I was very woke last night. My broken ribs which had been healing nicely seem to be having a change of mind and spent all last night delivering shooting neuralgia pains up into my neck. 30 minutes sleep all night - the very definition of woke.
If anyone knows of a miracle cure to this godawful condition please let me know. Otherwise my anti-woke fight back will consist of codeine and attempting to sleep sitting up.
I would suggest that a red led light/near infrared light device could give you a lot of relief - and there's a fair amount of evidence that it promotes long term healing too. They are widely available, but something on these lines could work for ribs: https://amzn.eu/d/bolx4MF
@HYUFD I have given you more likes today than I think I have ever done before.
Whatever it is you are doing stop it. It is unnerving me.
My post should have got about 3 million likes, because it's utterly bang-on and describes the intellectual bankruptcy at the heart of the West today, but it's obviously too taxingly thought-provoking for most to decide what to do with it.
Maybe I should play to the gallery and try cat memes instead.
If I may comment, I didn't understand your argument. Are the young people with the woke thoughts you object to the same as those supporting Andrew Tate? It seems unlikely given Tate's public comments but maybe Tate is woke on your definition. It's a slippery concept.
But if those "woke" young people are opposed to Tate, can't we at least say they are not bad in the same way as Tate is, even if they are not actually good in your view?
The point is that Tate is a trend (80%+ of young men have seen his content) and if you don't have critical thinking the risk is you simply get swept along and echo the latest trend, whatever it is.
My argument is that we need to teach young people to critically think for themselves; not simply parrot whatever we think they should.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work. You can see that from the consultation response postcodes - make sure your council collects both home address and workplace.
My child has just happily run out into the street here (not speaking a word of Bulgarian) to play with the Bulgarian children, who call her "The English Girl". All they are doing is playing with stones and mud and giggling with each other, whilst I smile and look on
My child has just happily run out into the street here (not speaking a word of Bulgarian) to play with the Bulgarian children, who call her "The English Girl". All they are doing is playing with stones and mud and giggling with each other, whilst I smile and look on
This Ukrainian hotel continues to fascinate. There is now an influx of wealthy-looking, English-speaking Italians. All male
🧐
I suspect they are not “on holiday”. So: what are they here for?
They’ve come to admire the cathedral.
Hah!
Honestly. This place has the best people watching EVER
On one side you’ve got wealthy local families just here for tea. Than the overdressed beautiful Ukrainian girls. Too many of them to make sense. Then the mysteriously, stupidly rich Ukrainians who drive Rolls Royce SUVs. Now tough looking but affluent Italian men
Than the silent obviously military types who give nothing away at all. Then the odd poor Bukovinan peasant couple who have wandered in by mistake and look completely bewildered. Then waitresses who start crying over nothing - it’s happened twice now. Boyfriends just killed or injured in the war?
And your correspondent, sitting in the corner
Was at a lunch with some Ukrainian refugees yesterday in attendance, all spoke near perfect English, very well turned out and most already have paid jobs here too
What was Brexit for if it wasn't to get rid of highly educated, high attaining Eastern Europeans? Send 'em back to the EU!
The highly educated, high attaining, Eastern Europeans, can still easily get UK work visas.
Of course they can: but they can also travel to Frankfurt and interview for jobs, without worrying about the need to apply for a visa.
And yet a German company, I work for, has given up trying to hire new IT staff in Germany. They are expanding in London instead.
I'm glad to hear that.
My point was a very simple one: applying for a visa is friction. Even if it is very minor friction, it is still friction, and it will therefore deter at least some number of skilled people.
Now, maybe that's not a big deal in the general scheme of things. Or maybe it is.
And, of course, the rise of remote working also has an impact here. (We have a UK operation, and it contains a number of remote Poles.)
I’m not sure about “glad” - just that the additional visa hurdles don’t seem to make very much difference.
From talking to people, it is still a combination of a flexible labour market and opportunities that bring them here.
Something that gets mentioned after a few beers, is how cosmopolitan London is. A Spanish friend, for example, wants to work here. Because his wife is from Africa, and they experience noticeable problems in Spain.
A lot of U.K. IT workers come from outside the EU, as well.
@HYUFD I have given you more likes today than I think I have ever done before.
Whatever it is you are doing stop it. It is unnerving me.
My post should have got about 3 million likes, because it's utterly bang-on and describes the intellectual bankruptcy at the heart of the West today, but it's obviously too taxingly thought-provoking for most to decide what to do with it.
Maybe I should play to the gallery and try cat memes instead.
If I may comment, I didn't understand your argument. Are the young people with the woke thoughts you object to the same as those supporting Andrew Tate? It seems unlikely given Tate's public comments but maybe Tate is woke on your definition. It's a slippery concept.
But if those "woke" young people are opposed to Tate, can't we at least say they are not bad in the same way as Tate is, even if they are not actually good in your view?
The point is that Tate is a trend (80%+ of young men have seen his content) and if you don't have critical thinking the risk is you simply get swept along and echo the latest trend, whatever it is.
My argument is that we need to teach young people to critically think for themselves; not simply parrot whatever we think they should.
I'm definitely in favour of people thinking for themselves, and also being respectful, tolerant and kind to each other.
I guess my issue is I don't know what the woke trend is, which is none of those things. It's very undefined.
Getting the drivers drugged up to try to create a quantum of interest in the race does seem to be quite a radical approach by the sport's* governing body.
@HYUFD I have given you more likes today than I think I have ever done before.
Whatever it is you are doing stop it. It is unnerving me.
My post should have got about 3 million likes, because it's utterly bang-on and describes the intellectual bankruptcy at the heart of the West today, but it's obviously too taxingly thought-provoking for most to decide what to do with it.
Maybe I should play to the gallery and try cat memes instead.
If I may comment, I didn't understand your argument. Are the young people with the woke thoughts you object to the same as those supporting Andrew Tate? It seems unlikely given Tate's public comments but maybe Tate is woke on your definition. It's a slippery concept.
But if those "woke" young people are opposed to Tate, can't we at least say they are not bad in the same way as Tate is, even if they are not actually good in your view?
The point is that Tate is a trend (80%+ of young men have seen his content) and if you don't have critical thinking the risk is you simply get swept along and echo the latest trend, whatever it is.
My argument is that we need to teach young people to critically think for themselves; not simply parrot whatever we think they should.
I think you need to go one step further:
People are inclined to believe things that are convenient to them.
Not getting sex? It's not because of your video gaming addiction, poor conversation skills and lack of personal hygiene. It's because women have gotten all uppity and need to be put in their place.
Not got a high paying job? It's because of structuralism racism/sexism, and not because someone else worked that bit harder of you at school.
It's why people who work in oil production are sceptical of climate change. And it's why people who come from countries not endowed with natural resources tend to be big believers in it.
Basically: the siren words that appeal to almost everyone are "it's not *your* fault, it's all the fault of [x]".
And that's the message of BLM and Andrew Tate and Donald Trump.
When the words people actually need to hear are: it's fucking tough out there; nobody owes you a living; you're going to need to work really hard; and even that might not be enough; but so long as you have family and food and health and a roof over your head, then you're better off than 99.9% of humans in the history of the world.
This Ukrainian hotel continues to fascinate. There is now an influx of wealthy-looking, English-speaking Italians. All male
🧐
I suspect they are not “on holiday”. So: what are they here for?
They’ve come to admire the cathedral.
Hah!
Honestly. This place has the best people watching EVER
On one side you’ve got wealthy local families just here for tea. Than the overdressed beautiful Ukrainian girls. Too many of them to make sense. Then the mysteriously, stupidly rich Ukrainians who drive Rolls Royce SUVs. Now tough looking but affluent Italian men
Than the silent obviously military types who give nothing away at all. Then the odd poor Bukovinan peasant couple who have wandered in by mistake and look completely bewildered. Then waitresses who start crying over nothing - it’s happened twice now. Boyfriends just killed or injured in the war?
And your correspondent, sitting in the corner
Was at a lunch with some Ukrainian refugees yesterday in attendance, all spoke near perfect English, very well turned out and most already have paid jobs here too
What was Brexit for if it wasn't to get rid of highly educated, high attaining Eastern Europeans? Send 'em back to the EU!
The highly educated, high attaining, Eastern Europeans, can still easily get UK work visas.
Of course they can: but they can also travel to Frankfurt and interview for jobs, without worrying about the need to apply for a visa.
And yet a German company, I work for, has given up trying to hire new IT staff in Germany. They are expanding in London instead.
I'm glad to hear that.
My point was a very simple one: applying for a visa is friction. Even if it is very minor friction, it is still friction, and it will therefore deter at least some number of skilled people.
Now, maybe that's not a big deal in the general scheme of things. Or maybe it is.
And, of course, the rise of remote working also has an impact here. (We have a UK operation, and it contains a number of remote Poles.)
For EU nationals used to FoM it looks like it is a material barrier. The UK has net emigration to the EU now, more than compensated for by higher immigration from non EU countries.
"Rishi Sunak is planning to restrict councils from imposing 20mph speed limits as part of his new shift against green policies and traffic schemes, a stance condemned by safety and travel groups as shortsighted and divisive.
The Guardian has been told the push against what Sunak has termed “anti-motorist” policies could be extended to find ways to stop local authorities taking measures that have been used routinely for decades. [...]
Any additional move to push councils into rescinding 20mph speed limits on local roads or removing bus gates could prove even more contentious. The Guardian was told the shift in stance has come almost entirely from Downing Street."
@HYUFD I have given you more likes today than I think I have ever done before.
Whatever it is you are doing stop it. It is unnerving me.
My post should have got about 3 million likes, because it's utterly bang-on and describes the intellectual bankruptcy at the heart of the West today, but it's obviously too taxingly thought-provoking for most to decide what to do with it.
Maybe I should play to the gallery and try cat memes instead.
If I may comment, I didn't understand your argument. Are the young people with the woke thoughts you object to the same as those supporting Andrew Tate? It seems unlikely given Tate's public comments but maybe Tate is woke on your definition. It's a slippery concept.
But if those "woke" young people are opposed to Tate, can't we at least say they are not bad in the same way as Tate is, even if they are not actually good in your view?
The point is that Tate is a trend (80%+ of young men have seen his content) and if you don't have critical thinking the risk is you simply get swept along and echo the latest trend, whatever it is.
My argument is that we need to teach young people to critically think for themselves; not simply parrot whatever we think they should.
I think you need to go one step further:
People are inclined to believe things that are convenient to them.
Not getting sex? It's not because of your video gaming addiction, poor conversation skills and lack of personal hygiene. It's because women have gotten all uppity and need to be put in their place.
Not got a high paying job? It's because of structuralism racism/sexism, and not because someone else worked that bit harder of you at school.
It's why people who work in oil production are sceptical of climate change. And it's why people who come from countries not endowed with natural resources tend to be big believers in it.
Basically: the siren words that appeal to almost everyone are "it's not *your* fault, it's all the fault of [x]".
And that's the message of BLM and Andrew Tate and Donald Trump.
When the words people actually need to hear are: it's fucking tough out there; nobody owes you a living; you're going to need to work really hard; and even that might not be enough; but so long as you have family and food and health and a roof over your head, then you're better off than 99.9% of humans in the history of the world.
My child has just happily run out into the street here (not speaking a word of Bulgarian) to play with the Bulgarian children, who call her "The English Girl". All they are doing is playing with stones and mud and giggling with each other, whilst I smile and look on
Children really are a delight at times.
LTN, I presume?
Talking about that ... just posted the latest. Not just banning LTN but allowing motorists to drive at 30mph not 20mph in such areas. Not sure what he relative fatality rates for cyclists and children are, but it's no longer 'Vote Tory - choke a baby' but, it seems, 'Vote Tory - kill a cyclist'. All part of the antiwoke crusade.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
That's hilarious.
Here's a piccie of Clinton Pugh's personal LTN, down the side of his cafe ("The Sunny Side").
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Absolutely no harm whatsoever in building new LTNs if the new roads associated with the construction to take traffic are designed that way, so that a new through road goes elsewhere rather than the LTN to bypass traffic.
Absolutely no harm whatsoever in converting existing through roads to LTNs if a new bypass is built elsewhere to divert traffic.
Objection is when you convert an existing through road to an LTN without bothering to build a new road for the detour. In which case you're either saying "why are you driving you stupid plebs" or "just make traffic elsewhere worse, you stupid plebs". Neither is attractive.
If you want LTNs then great, go for it! Build more roads elsewhere to replace the through roads and problem solved. 👍
I was very woke last night. My broken ribs which had been healing nicely seem to be having a change of mind and spent all last night delivering shooting neuralgia pains up into my neck. 30 minutes sleep all night - the very definition of woke.
If anyone knows of a miracle cure to this godawful condition please let me know. Otherwise my anti-woke fight back will consist of codeine and attempting to sleep sitting up.
A TENS machine (readily available on Amazon etc) is quite good for back pain, sciatica, neuralgia etc.
This Ukrainian hotel continues to fascinate. There is now an influx of wealthy-looking, English-speaking Italians. All male
🧐
I suspect they are not “on holiday”. So: what are they here for?
They’ve come to admire the cathedral.
Hah!
Honestly. This place has the best people watching EVER
On one side you’ve got wealthy local families just here for tea. Than the overdressed beautiful Ukrainian girls. Too many of them to make sense. Then the mysteriously, stupidly rich Ukrainians who drive Rolls Royce SUVs. Now tough looking but affluent Italian men
Than the silent obviously military types who give nothing away at all. Then the odd poor Bukovinan peasant couple who have wandered in by mistake and look completely bewildered. Then waitresses who start crying over nothing - it’s happened twice now. Boyfriends just killed or injured in the war?
And your correspondent, sitting in the corner
Was at a lunch with some Ukrainian refugees yesterday in attendance, all spoke near perfect English, very well turned out and most already have paid jobs here too
What was Brexit for if it wasn't to get rid of highly educated, high attaining Eastern Europeans? Send 'em back to the EU!
The highly educated, high attaining, Eastern Europeans, can still easily get UK work visas.
Of course they can: but they can also travel to Frankfurt and interview for jobs, without worrying about the need to apply for a visa.
And yet a German company, I work for, has given up trying to hire new IT staff in Germany. They are expanding in London instead.
I'm glad to hear that.
My point was a very simple one: applying for a visa is friction. Even if it is very minor friction, it is still friction, and it will therefore deter at least some number of skilled people.
Now, maybe that's not a big deal in the general scheme of things. Or maybe it is.
And, of course, the rise of remote working also has an impact here. (We have a UK operation, and it contains a number of remote Poles.)
Frictions have a greater impact for stopping low value, low skill migration than high value, high skill migration though.
If you're applying for a job for minimum wage & benefits then the friction of going through a visa process (if you can even manage it) is a lot more significant than if you're applying for a job with a six figure salary.
By treating EU migrants the same as non-EU migrants we can also now apply less friction against skilled non-EU migrants overall which is much less discriminatory and much fairer too - and means higher skills overall.
My child has just happily run out into the street here (not speaking a word of Bulgarian) to play with the Bulgarian children, who call her "The English Girl". All they are doing is playing with stones and mud and giggling with each other, whilst I smile and look on
Children really are a delight at times.
LTN, I presume?
Talking about that ... just posted the latest. Not just banning LTN but allowing motorists to drive at 30mph not 20mph in such areas. Not sure what he relative fatality rates for cyclists and children are, but it's no longer 'Vote Tory - choke a baby' but, it seems, 'Vote Tory - kill a cyclist'. All part of the antiwoke crusade.
Is there a source for the 30mph claim?
I don't believe that will stick - we already have years of studies from official data showing major (50-70%) injury reductions in LTNs created at the start of the pandemic, and in the mini-Hollands programme from 2015-19.
So before long we'll get data about how many extra injuries Rishi's changes cause.
Is Rishi Sunak really that stupid?
We assessed the impacts of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) implemented in 2020 on road traffic injuries. We used police data from October-December 2018/2019 (pre) compared with the same period in 2020 (post). We found absolute numbers of injuries inside LTNs halved relative to the rest of London (ratio 0.51, p<0.001). Considering changes in background travel patterns, our results indicate substantial reductions in pedestrian injury risk. Risks to other road users may also have fallen, but by a more modest amount. We found no evidence of changes in injury numbers or risk on LTN boundary roads.</i>
I was very woke last night. My broken ribs which had been healing nicely seem to be having a change of mind and spent all last night delivering shooting neuralgia pains up into my neck. 30 minutes sleep all night - the very definition of woke.
If anyone knows of a miracle cure to this godawful condition please let me know. Otherwise my anti-woke fight back will consist of codeine and attempting to sleep sitting up.
A TENS machine (readily available on Amazon etc) is quite good for back pain, sciatica, neuralgia etc.
Was wondering about that. Can you keep them going overnight?
I was very woke last night. My broken ribs which had been healing nicely seem to be having a change of mind and spent all last night delivering shooting neuralgia pains up into my neck. 30 minutes sleep all night - the very definition of woke.
If anyone knows of a miracle cure to this godawful condition please let me know. Otherwise my anti-woke fight back will consist of codeine and attempting to sleep sitting up.
A TENS machine (readily available on Amazon etc) is quite good for back pain, sciatica, neuralgia etc.
Was wondering about that. Can you keep them going overnight?
It depends on the model. My sister in law is a physio and swears by them.
Should add the much derided Cones Hotline had at least some benefit for mankind.
Being able to drive at a decent speed has a benefit for mankind too.
20mph should be for school zones and heavily residential zones only, not a default everywhere.
What about High Streets? If they are as busy as you want them to be, there will be large numbers of pedestrians crossing the road and junctions to get to the pubs/shops.
I'm not actually a big fan of 20mph limits. I'd much prefer traffic calming measures like trees, tighter/narrower junctions, speed bumps, segregated cycle lanes lanes etc.
20mph (or even 10mph) then comes naturally, not just for the law-abiding among us.
I was very woke last night. My broken ribs which had been healing nicely seem to be having a change of mind and spent all last night delivering shooting neuralgia pains up into my neck. 30 minutes sleep all night - the very definition of woke.
If anyone knows of a miracle cure to this godawful condition please let me know. Otherwise my anti-woke fight back will consist of codeine and attempting to sleep sitting up.
A TENS machine (readily available on Amazon etc) is quite good for back pain, sciatica, neuralgia etc.
Was wondering about that. Can you keep them going overnight?
Mum used those in relation to back pain.
You can do what you want, I think - but her use pattern was a shortish time (half an hour perhaps) in the morning and evening, with the benefit lasting for a time after it was switched off.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Should add the much derided Cones Hotline had at least some benefit for mankind.
Being able to drive at a decent speed has a benefit for mankind too.
20mph should be for school zones and heavily residential zones only, not a default everywhere.
What about High Streets? If they are as busy as you want them to be, there will be large numbers of pedestrians crossing the road and junctions to get to the pubs/shops.
I'm not actually a big fan of 20mph limits. I'd much prefer traffic calming measures like trees, tighter/narrower junctions, speed bumps, segregated cycle lanes lanes etc.
20mph (or even 10mph) then comes naturally, not just for the law-abiding among us.
High Streets it depends for me. Are they used as the only available through road? If so, 30mph with fences to segregate pedestrians from vehicles.
Is there an alternative (by-pass) through road available so the High Street is purely for people wanting to go to the High Street and not through it? Then 20mph and relatively pedestrianised is entirely reasonable.
Again, if you want to turn an existing through road into a lower traffic area then build a by-pass (which can potentially go at a faster speed limit like 50mph instead) and there's no harm in turning the current through road to an LTN.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Though a big difference between commuters on through roads and those rat-running through residential areas.
This Ukrainian hotel continues to fascinate. There is now an influx of wealthy-looking, English-speaking Italians. All male
🧐
I suspect they are not “on holiday”. So: what are they here for?
They’ve come to admire the cathedral.
Hah!
Honestly. This place has the best people watching EVER
On one side you’ve got wealthy local families just here for tea. Than the overdressed beautiful Ukrainian girls. Too many of them to make sense. Then the mysteriously, stupidly rich Ukrainians who drive Rolls Royce SUVs. Now tough looking but affluent Italian men
Than the silent obviously military types who give nothing away at all. Then the odd poor Bukovinan peasant couple who have wandered in by mistake and look completely bewildered. Then waitresses who start crying over nothing - it’s happened twice now. Boyfriends just killed or injured in the war?
And your correspondent, sitting in the corner
Was at a lunch with some Ukrainian refugees yesterday in attendance, all spoke near perfect English, very well turned out and most already have paid jobs here too
What was Brexit for if it wasn't to get rid of highly educated, high attaining Eastern Europeans? Send 'em back to the EU!
The highly educated, high attaining, Eastern Europeans, can still easily get UK work visas.
Of course they can: but they can also travel to Frankfurt and interview for jobs, without worrying about the need to apply for a visa.
And yet a German company, I work for, has given up trying to hire new IT staff in Germany. They are expanding in London instead.
I'm glad to hear that.
My point was a very simple one: applying for a visa is friction. Even if it is very minor friction, it is still friction, and it will therefore deter at least some number of skilled people.
Now, maybe that's not a big deal in the general scheme of things. Or maybe it is.
And, of course, the rise of remote working also has an impact here. (We have a UK operation, and it contains a number of remote Poles.)
For EU nationals used to FoM it looks like it is a material barrier. The UK has net emigration to the EU now, more than compensated for by higher immigration from non EU countries.
How can the uk have net emigration to the eu when people like you are always telling leave voters we took away your ability to work and live in the EU?
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Oh no, how dare people try and go to ‘work’.
On the wider issue, if you want LTNs and 15MCs then build them, rather than imposing them on existing communities with little consultation.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
1/3 of commutes in Edinburgh are under 3 miles. 2/3 are under 6 miles. That's a 30 minute cycle.
We have the finest public transport system anywhere outwith London. In Leith, only 1/4 of people drive to work. Less than half have access to a car at all.
This is the street that our anti-LTN opponents are losing their minds about not being able to drive down.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Though a big difference between commuters on through roads and those rat-running through residential areas.
Though that's the issue, is when existing through roads are converted without an alternative arranged.
Build new through roads to replace existing ones, potentially at high speed so that its purely a through road with nothing residential attached, and drop limits on existing through roads as you like.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
1/3 of commutes in Edinburgh are under 3 miles. 2/3 are under 6 miles. That's a 30 minute cycle.
We have the finest public transport system anywhere outwith London. In Leith, only 1/4 of people drive to work. Less than half have access to a car at all.
This is the street that our anti-LTN opponents are losing their minds about not being able to drive down.
That’s definitely not the owners of the most expensive property in town, trying their best to turn their public road into a private road by denying the plebs access?
@HYUFD I have given you more likes today than I think I have ever done before.
Whatever it is you are doing stop it. It is unnerving me.
My post should have got about 3 million likes, because it's utterly bang-on and describes the intellectual bankruptcy at the heart of the West today, but it's obviously too taxingly thought-provoking for most to decide what to do with it.
Maybe I should play to the gallery and try cat memes instead.
If I may comment, I didn't understand your argument. Are the young people with the woke thoughts you object to the same as those supporting Andrew Tate? It seems unlikely given Tate's public comments but maybe Tate is woke on your definition. It's a slippery concept.
But if those "woke" young people are opposed to Tate, can't we at least say they are not bad in the same way as Tate is, even if they are not actually good in your view?
The point is that Tate is a trend (80%+ of young men have seen his content) and if you don't have critical thinking the risk is you simply get swept along and echo the latest trend, whatever it is.
My argument is that we need to teach young people to critically think for themselves; not simply parrot whatever we think they should.
I think you need to go one step further:
People are inclined to believe things that are convenient to them.
Not getting sex? It's not because of your video gaming addiction, poor conversation skills and lack of personal hygiene. It's because women have gotten all uppity and need to be put in their place.
Not got a high paying job? It's because of structuralism racism/sexism, and not because someone else worked that bit harder of you at school.
It's why people who work in oil production are sceptical of climate change. And it's why people who come from countries not endowed with natural resources tend to be big believers in it.
Basically: the siren words that appeal to almost everyone are "it's not *your* fault, it's all the fault of [x]".
And that's the message of BLM and Andrew Tate and Donald Trump.
When the words people actually need to hear are: it's fucking tough out there; nobody owes you a living; you're going to need to work really hard; and even that might not be enough; but so long as you have family and food and health and a roof over your head, then you're better off than 99.9% of humans in the history of the world.
A tad hyperbolic?
By your maths 99.9% of humans have never had shelter, or enough food, or good health, or a family
This Ukrainian hotel continues to fascinate. There is now an influx of wealthy-looking, English-speaking Italians. All male
🧐
I suspect they are not “on holiday”. So: what are they here for?
They’ve come to admire the cathedral.
Hah!
Honestly. This place has the best people watching EVER
On one side you’ve got wealthy local families just here for tea. Than the overdressed beautiful Ukrainian girls. Too many of them to make sense. Then the mysteriously, stupidly rich Ukrainians who drive Rolls Royce SUVs. Now tough looking but affluent Italian men
Than the silent obviously military types who give nothing away at all. Then the odd poor Bukovinan peasant couple who have wandered in by mistake and look completely bewildered. Then waitresses who start crying over nothing - it’s happened twice now. Boyfriends just killed or injured in the war?
And your correspondent, sitting in the corner
Was at a lunch with some Ukrainian refugees yesterday in attendance, all spoke near perfect English, very well turned out and most already have paid jobs here too
What was Brexit for if it wasn't to get rid of highly educated, high attaining Eastern Europeans? Send 'em back to the EU!
The highly educated, high attaining, Eastern Europeans, can still easily get UK work visas.
Of course they can: but they can also travel to Frankfurt and interview for jobs, without worrying about the need to apply for a visa.
And yet a German company, I work for, has given up trying to hire new IT staff in Germany. They are expanding in London instead.
I'm glad to hear that.
My point was a very simple one: applying for a visa is friction. Even if it is very minor friction, it is still friction, and it will therefore deter at least some number of skilled people.
Now, maybe that's not a big deal in the general scheme of things. Or maybe it is.
And, of course, the rise of remote working also has an impact here. (We have a UK operation, and it contains a number of remote Poles.)
For EU nationals used to FoM it looks like it is a material barrier. The UK has net emigration to the EU now, more than compensated for by higher immigration from non EU countries.
How can the uk have net emigration to the eu when people like you are always telling leave voters we took away your ability to work and live in the EU?
Perhaps you need to get your story straight
Errr.
Because people who came to the Uk from the EU to work are returning back home.
Should add the much derided Cones Hotline had at least some benefit for mankind.
Being able to drive at a decent speed has a benefit for mankind too.
20mph should be for school zones and heavily residential zones only, not a default everywhere.
What about High Streets? If they are as busy as you want them to be, there will be large numbers of pedestrians crossing the road and junctions to get to the pubs/shops.
I'm not actually a big fan of 20mph limits. I'd much prefer traffic calming measures like trees, tighter/narrower junctions, speed bumps, segregated cycle lanes lanes etc.
20mph (or even 10mph) then comes naturally, not just for the law-abiding among us.
High Streets it depends for me. Are they used as the only available through road? If so, 30mph with fences to segregate pedestrians from vehicles.
Is there an alternative (by-pass) through road available so the High Street is purely for people wanting to go to the High Street and not through it? Then 20mph and relatively pedestrianised is entirely reasonable.
Again, if you want to turn an existing through road into a lower traffic area then build a by-pass (which can potentially go at a faster speed limit like 50mph instead) and there's no harm in turning the current through road to an LTN.
You want to fence in pedestrians? Is this the 1970's speaking?
I think a 20mph limit is more important if there is no alternative. Nairn, in the Highlands, has had to do this because of the number of HGVs running through areas with lots of pedestrians.
Perhaps the speed limit can revert to 30mph once a bypass is built
This Ukrainian hotel continues to fascinate. There is now an influx of wealthy-looking, English-speaking Italians. All male
🧐
I suspect they are not “on holiday”. So: what are they here for?
They’ve come to admire the cathedral.
Hah!
Honestly. This place has the best people watching EVER
On one side you’ve got wealthy local families just here for tea. Than the overdressed beautiful Ukrainian girls. Too many of them to make sense. Then the mysteriously, stupidly rich Ukrainians who drive Rolls Royce SUVs. Now tough looking but affluent Italian men
Than the silent obviously military types who give nothing away at all. Then the odd poor Bukovinan peasant couple who have wandered in by mistake and look completely bewildered. Then waitresses who start crying over nothing - it’s happened twice now. Boyfriends just killed or injured in the war?
And your correspondent, sitting in the corner
Was at a lunch with some Ukrainian refugees yesterday in attendance, all spoke near perfect English, very well turned out and most already have paid jobs here too
What was Brexit for if it wasn't to get rid of highly educated, high attaining Eastern Europeans? Send 'em back to the EU!
The highly educated, high attaining, Eastern Europeans, can still easily get UK work visas.
Of course they can: but they can also travel to Frankfurt and interview for jobs, without worrying about the need to apply for a visa.
And yet a German company, I work for, has given up trying to hire new IT staff in Germany. They are expanding in London instead.
I'm glad to hear that.
My point was a very simple one: applying for a visa is friction. Even if it is very minor friction, it is still friction, and it will therefore deter at least some number of skilled people.
Now, maybe that's not a big deal in the general scheme of things. Or maybe it is.
And, of course, the rise of remote working also has an impact here. (We have a UK operation, and it contains a number of remote Poles.)
For EU nationals used to FoM it looks like it is a material barrier. The UK has net emigration to the EU now, more than compensated for by higher immigration from non EU countries.
How can the uk have net emigration to the eu when people like you are always telling leave voters we took away your ability to work and live in the EU?
Perhaps you need to get your story straight
Actually I don't need to "get my story straight"
A possible reason is that people within a freedom of movement zone stay within that zone to avoid visa friction etc elsewhere including now the UK, while those outside the zone now including the UK, will put up with the hassle because they have no choice.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
1/3 of commutes in Edinburgh are under 3 miles. 2/3 are under 6 miles. That's a 30 minute cycle.
We have the finest public transport system anywhere outwith London. In Leith, only 1/4 of people drive to work. Less than half have access to a car at all.
This is the street that our anti-LTN opponents are losing their minds about not being able to drive down.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
1/3 of commutes in Edinburgh are under 3 miles. 2/3 are under 6 miles. That's a 30 minute cycle.
We have the finest public transport system anywhere outwith London. In Leith, only 1/4 of people drive to work. Less than half have access to a car at all.
This is the street that our anti-LTN opponents are losing their minds about not being able to drive down.
That’s definitely not the owners of the most expensive property in town, trying their best to turn their public road into a private road by denying the plebs access?
It's the local businesses, actually. They want to pop tables out all the way down the Shore (gets the evening sun).
They want it to be like Copenhagen or Bergen, the silly anti-car loonies.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
I doubt they'd be very keen on Balby (where Open All Hours was filmed) if they had a look round!
My father-in-law originally lived very near to the house that was taken over for the show (which was just an ordinary house, never a shop). It was pretty poverty stricken area at the time (30s & 40s) and he has the usual tales of barely being able to afford shoes. He somehow escaped to a more middle class existence via the grammar school.
You can still buy a terraced house there for - checks Rightmove - £55k
This Ukrainian hotel continues to fascinate. There is now an influx of wealthy-looking, English-speaking Italians. All male
🧐
I suspect they are not “on holiday”. So: what are they here for?
They’ve come to admire the cathedral.
Hah!
Honestly. This place has the best people watching EVER
On one side you’ve got wealthy local families just here for tea. Than the overdressed beautiful Ukrainian girls. Too many of them to make sense. Then the mysteriously, stupidly rich Ukrainians who drive Rolls Royce SUVs. Now tough looking but affluent Italian men
Than the silent obviously military types who give nothing away at all. Then the odd poor Bukovinan peasant couple who have wandered in by mistake and look completely bewildered. Then waitresses who start crying over nothing - it’s happened twice now. Boyfriends just killed or injured in the war?
And your correspondent, sitting in the corner
Was at a lunch with some Ukrainian refugees yesterday in attendance, all spoke near perfect English, very well turned out and most already have paid jobs here too
What was Brexit for if it wasn't to get rid of highly educated, high attaining Eastern Europeans? Send 'em back to the EU!
The highly educated, high attaining, Eastern Europeans, can still easily get UK work visas.
Of course they can: but they can also travel to Frankfurt and interview for jobs, without worrying about the need to apply for a visa.
And yet a German company, I work for, has given up trying to hire new IT staff in Germany. They are expanding in London instead.
I'm glad to hear that.
My point was a very simple one: applying for a visa is friction. Even if it is very minor friction, it is still friction, and it will therefore deter at least some number of skilled people.
Now, maybe that's not a big deal in the general scheme of things. Or maybe it is.
And, of course, the rise of remote working also has an impact here. (We have a UK operation, and it contains a number of remote Poles.)
Frictions have a greater impact for stopping low value, low skill migration than high value, high skill migration though.
If you're applying for a job for minimum wage & benefits then the friction of going through a visa process (if you can even manage it) is a lot more significant than if you're applying for a job with a six figure salary.
By treating EU migrants the same as non-EU migrants we can also now apply less friction against skilled non-EU migrants overall which is much less discriminatory and much fairer too - and means higher skills overall.
I would broadly agree with that.
But at the same time, if I were starting a company right now, I would be sorely tempted to do it Portugal. Very low cost of living compared to the UK; great tax rates for Brits; easy access to skilled European tech graduates. (And, of course, the low cost of living is a big draw for said tech graduates.)
Right next door is an indescribably lavish delicatessen. Like something from Marylebone High Street or a posh bit of Zurich
Photos don’t really capture it. This place sells caviar and high-end single malts and has a wine selection to die for. And this is in Ukraine
Right next to my weird hotel
A hotel which is not on Google or Apple Maps. But does have an Instagram account. Which shows me the hotel OPENED in July 2022. Last week they had a “gastro evening” with specially imported blue fin tuna
😶
Who opens an incredibly luxurious boutique hotel and an incredibly luxurious delicatessen during a major land war?
Your man on the spot with the magnifying glass and major suspicions
@HYUFD I have given you more likes today than I think I have ever done before.
Whatever it is you are doing stop it. It is unnerving me.
My post should have got about 3 million likes, because it's utterly bang-on and describes the intellectual bankruptcy at the heart of the West today, but it's obviously too taxingly thought-provoking for most to decide what to do with it.
Maybe I should play to the gallery and try cat memes instead.
If I may comment, I didn't understand your argument. Are the young people with the woke thoughts you object to the same as those supporting Andrew Tate? It seems unlikely given Tate's public comments but maybe Tate is woke on your definition. It's a slippery concept.
But if those "woke" young people are opposed to Tate, can't we at least say they are not bad in the same way as Tate is, even if they are not actually good in your view?
The point is that Tate is a trend (80%+ of young men have seen his content) and if you don't have critical thinking the risk is you simply get swept along and echo the latest trend, whatever it is.
My argument is that we need to teach young people to critically think for themselves; not simply parrot whatever we think they should.
I think you need to go one step further:
People are inclined to believe things that are convenient to them.
Not getting sex? It's not because of your video gaming addiction, poor conversation skills and lack of personal hygiene. It's because women have gotten all uppity and need to be put in their place.
Not got a high paying job? It's because of structuralism racism/sexism, and not because someone else worked that bit harder of you at school.
It's why people who work in oil production are sceptical of climate change. And it's why people who come from countries not endowed with natural resources tend to be big believers in it.
Basically: the siren words that appeal to almost everyone are "it's not *your* fault, it's all the fault of [x]".
And that's the message of BLM and Andrew Tate and Donald Trump.
When the words people actually need to hear are: it's fucking tough out there; nobody owes you a living; you're going to need to work really hard; and even that might not be enough; but so long as you have family and food and health and a roof over your head, then you're better off than 99.9% of humans in the history of the world.
A tad hyperbolic?
By your maths 99.9% of humans have never had shelter, or enough food, or good health, or a family
If that was the case we’d have died out aeons ago
As a Brit, you are better off than 99.9% of humans in the history of humanity.
I don't think that's a particularly arguable statement. Indeed, it is that freedom from concern about disease, famine, and the like that allows people to obsess about gender identity and how well the Joneses are doing.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
1/3 of commutes in Edinburgh are under 3 miles. 2/3 are under 6 miles. That's a 30 minute cycle.
We have the finest public transport system anywhere outwith London. In Leith, only 1/4 of people drive to work. Less than half have access to a car at all.
This is the street that our anti-LTN opponents are losing their minds about not being able to drive down.
...that's a river, surely? 😁
If you ever come round to my side of this debate, innocently asking "I wonder how the pubs in Venice get their deliveries without any roads" can illicit extreme levels of abuse on XXXer. Good fun.
I think most people would rather live in the UK than Mississippi, despite Andrew Neil's comments about people apparently earning more money in the latter.
Should add the much derided Cones Hotline had at least some benefit for mankind.
Being able to drive at a decent speed has a benefit for mankind too.
20mph should be for school zones and heavily residential zones only, not a default everywhere.
What about High Streets? If they are as busy as you want them to be, there will be large numbers of pedestrians crossing the road and junctions to get to the pubs/shops.
I'm not actually a big fan of 20mph limits. I'd much prefer traffic calming measures like trees, tighter/narrower junctions, speed bumps, segregated cycle lanes lanes etc.
20mph (or even 10mph) then comes naturally, not just for the law-abiding among us.
High Streets it depends for me. Are they used as the only available through road? If so, 30mph with fences to segregate pedestrians from vehicles.
Is there an alternative (by-pass) through road available so the High Street is purely for people wanting to go to the High Street and not through it? Then 20mph and relatively pedestrianised is entirely reasonable.
Again, if you want to turn an existing through road into a lower traffic area then build a by-pass (which can potentially go at a faster speed limit like 50mph instead) and there's no harm in turning the current through road to an LTN.
You want to fence in pedestrians? Is this the 1970's speaking?
I think a 20mph limit is more important if there is no alternative. Nairn, in the Highlands, has had to do this because of the number of HGVs running through areas with lots of pedestrians.
Perhaps the speed limit can revert to 30mph once a bypass is built
No, not fenced in, just fences to segregate cars and pedestrians so children don't accidentally run onto the road by mistake. That's a positive for pedestrians, not a negative.
Obviously no fences at zebra crossings, or traffic lights.
Why didn't Nairn bother to build a by-pass? Probably because of attitudes like yours that commuters should just not bother driving to work.
I do have a thread coming up at 7pm showing just how thick some Brits are.
Don't get like that, I am sure it will be fine.
This is the new hill I am going to die on.
It is actually quite worrying reflection on Brits.
Is this a uniquely British thing or effecting the whole of the West?
I have only seen polling for Brits.
Woke is, I believe, one symptom of declining western IQ. A return to naive, quasi-religious credulity. People want to be told what to think, and they find contrary opinions uncomfortable instead of stimulating. And they simply dismiss troubling data as wrongthink, otherwise it would overwhelm them
Is it bollocks.
Belief in UFOs, unscientific anti-vaxxery, and the rest of it are far more symptomatic of quasi-religious belief.
As for dismissing facts that conflict with their worldview, you couldn't more perfectly describe the new nutty Republican mainstream.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Though a big difference between commuters on through roads and those rat-running through residential areas.
Though that's the issue, is when existing through roads are converted without an alternative arranged.
That is entirely the point, though not I suspect in the way you think.
Residential streets became through roads about ten years ago for two reasons. One, Google Maps/Waze/Apple Maps started directing people down them to save seconds off their journey time. Two, the increase in courier vehicles (using those self-same apps).
If you look at historic AADT* figures on residential streets - you can get them from TomTom or Inrix or a couple of other third-party suppliers - then they are vastly up on what they used to be. So, yes: "existing roads were converted". Residential streets were converted to through roads.
That's the main driver behind LTN policy. If residential streets still had the traffic levels of 20 years ago I don't think you'd see such a clamour for LTNs.
(I consult on this sort of route optimisation for a living, inter alia.)
I think most people would rather live in the UK than Mississippi, despite Andrew Neil's comments about people apparently earning more money in the latter.
Mississippi is by some margin the poorest State in the US. Its statistics on infant death or reading are all pretty awful.
Jackson, the capital, does not feel well off in the way that Birmingham, Alabama can.
I suspect that average living standards are better in the UK than in Mississippi, albeit housing costs in MS will be a fraction of those in the UK.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
1/3 of commutes in Edinburgh are under 3 miles. 2/3 are under 6 miles. That's a 30 minute cycle.
We have the finest public transport system anywhere outwith London. In Leith, only 1/4 of people drive to work. Less than half have access to a car at all.
This is the street that our anti-LTN opponents are losing their minds about not being arable to drive down.
That’s definitely not the owners of the most expensive property in town, trying their best to turn their public road into a private road by denying the plebs access?
Leith is definitely not the most expensive property in town if you assume that town is Edinburgh. Leithers of course notoriously think that they’re definitely not part of Edinburgh proper.
Right next door is an indescribably lavish delicatessen. Like something from Marylebone High Street or a posh bit of Zurich
Photos don’t really capture it. This place sells caviar and high-end single malts and has a wine selection to die for. And this is in Ukraine
Right next to my weird hotel
A hotel which is not on Google or Apple Maps. But does have an Instagram account. Which shows me the hotel OPENED in July 2022. Last week they had a “gastro evening” with specially imported blue fin tuna
😶
Who opens an incredibly luxurious boutique hotel and an incredibly luxurious delicatessen during a major land war?
Your man on the spot with the magnifying glass and suspicions
I do have a thread coming up at 7pm showing just how thick some Brits are.
Don't get like that, I am sure it will be fine.
This is the new hill I am going to die on.
It is actually quite worrying reflection on Brits.
Is this a uniquely British thing or effecting the whole of the West?
I have only seen polling for Brits.
Woke is, I believe, one symptom of declining western IQ. A return to naive, quasi-religious credulity. People want to be told what to think, and they find contrary opinions uncomfortable instead of stimulating. And they simply dismiss troubling data as wrongthink, otherwise it would overwhelm them
It wasn't that long ago that lefty teachers at schools and universities were telling people to think for themselves, never accept what authority was telling you just because they were experts. Now they say the opposite: don't think for yourself, accept what you're told, authority knows best. A complete U-turn. Another example: lefty pop star Howard Jones had a big hit in the 80s called "Always Asking Questions".
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
1/3 of commutes in Edinburgh are under 3 miles. 2/3 are under 6 miles. That's a 30 minute cycle.
We have the finest public transport system anywhere outwith London. In Leith, only 1/4 of people drive to work. Less than half have access to a car at all.
This is the street that our anti-LTN opponents are losing their minds about not being able to drive down.
And if that's an existing through road, where is the alternative new road meant to replace that one for commuters who do drive down there?
@HYUFD I have given you more likes today than I think I have ever done before.
Whatever it is you are doing stop it. It is unnerving me.
My post should have got about 3 million likes, because it's utterly bang-on and describes the intellectual bankruptcy at the heart of the West today, but it's obviously too taxingly thought-provoking for most to decide what to do with it.
Maybe I should play to the gallery and try cat memes instead.
If I may comment, I didn't understand your argument. Are the young people with the woke thoughts you object to the same as those supporting Andrew Tate? It seems unlikely given Tate's public comments but maybe Tate is woke on your definition. It's a slippery concept.
But if those "woke" young people are opposed to Tate, can't we at least say they are not bad in the same way as Tate is, even if they are not actually good in your view?
The point is that Tate is a trend (80%+ of young men have seen his content) and if you don't have critical thinking the risk is you simply get swept along and echo the latest trend, whatever it is.
My argument is that we need to teach young people to critically think for themselves; not simply parrot whatever we think they should.
I think you need to go one step further:
People are inclined to believe things that are convenient to them.
Not getting sex? It's not because of your video gaming addiction, poor conversation skills and lack of personal hygiene. It's because women have gotten all uppity and need to be put in their place.
Not got a high paying job? It's because of structuralism racism/sexism, and not because someone else worked that bit harder of you at school.
It's why people who work in oil production are sceptical of climate change. And it's why people who come from countries not endowed with natural resources tend to be big believers in it.
Basically: the siren words that appeal to almost everyone are "it's not *your* fault, it's all the fault of [x]".
And that's the message of BLM and Andrew Tate and Donald Trump.
When the words people actually need to hear are: it's fucking tough out there; nobody owes you a living; you're going to need to work really hard; and even that might not be enough; but so long as you have family and food and health and a roof over your head, then you're better off than 99.9% of humans in the history of the world.
Sorry, I just want to add to that rant:
The other evil thing about "it's not your fault" is that it robs people of agency.
Should add the much derided Cones Hotline had at least some benefit for mankind.
Being able to drive at a decent speed has a benefit for mankind too.
20mph should be for school zones and heavily residential zones only, not a default everywhere.
What about High Streets? If they are as busy as you want them to be, there will be large numbers of pedestrians crossing the road and junctions to get to the pubs/shops.
I'm not actually a big fan of 20mph limits. I'd much prefer traffic calming measures like trees, tighter/narrower junctions, speed bumps, segregated cycle lanes lanes etc.
20mph (or even 10mph) then comes naturally, not just for the law-abiding among us.
High Streets it depends for me. Are they used as the only available through road? If so, 30mph with fences to segregate pedestrians from vehicles.
Is there an alternative (by-pass) through road available so the High Street is purely for people wanting to go to the High Street and not through it? Then 20mph and relatively pedestrianised is entirely reasonable.
Again, if you want to turn an existing through road into a lower traffic area then build a by-pass (which can potentially go at a faster speed limit like 50mph instead) and there's no harm in turning the current through road to an LTN.
You want to fence in pedestrians? Is this the 1970's speaking?
I think a 20mph limit is more important if there is no alternative. Nairn, in the Highlands, has had to do this because of the number of HGVs running through areas with lots of pedestrians.
Perhaps the speed limit can revert to 30mph once a bypass is built
At 20mph if you hit a child they probably live. At 30mph they probably die. Children should be able to walk around their neighbourhood without being just one mistake away from not seeing their next birthday. Their rights trump those of impatient people passing through their neighbourhood on their way to somewhere else. All roads in built up areas with pavements directly abutting the roadway should be 20mph if you ask me. As a driver I am totally fine with that.
I do have a thread coming up at 7pm showing just how thick some Brits are.
Don't get like that, I am sure it will be fine.
This is the new hill I am going to die on.
It is actually quite worrying reflection on Brits.
Is this a uniquely British thing or effecting the whole of the West?
I have only seen polling for Brits.
Woke is, I believe, one symptom of declining western IQ. A return to naive, quasi-religious credulity. People want to be told what to think, and they find contrary opinions uncomfortable instead of stimulating. And they simply dismiss troubling data as wrongthink, otherwise it would overwhelm them
It wasn't that long ago that lefty teachers at schools and universities were telling people to think for themselves, never accept what authority was telling you just because they were experts. Now they say the opposite: don't think for yourself, accept what you're told, authority knows best. A complete U-turn. Another example: lefty pop star Howard Jones had a big hit in the 80s called "Always Asking Questions".
Yes it’s all such nonsense. It occasionally infests PB, but luckily we’ve largely stayed immune
The same volte face can be seen with skin colour. For decades we were (rightly) told: don’t see colour, don’t see race, judge people by their character and actions
Now we are told ALL THAT MATTERS is skin colour. If you are black that is the most important thing about you and you are a victim whether you believe that or not, if you are white you are a guilty racist with white privilege and if you deny that - well, it’s more proof that you’re racist
It’s vile and corrosive lunacy. I despise it and I despise them
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Though a big difference between commuters on through roads and those rat-running through residential areas.
Though that's the issue, is when existing through roads are converted without an alternative arranged.
That is entirely the point, though not I suspect in the way you think.
Residential streets became through roads about ten years ago for two reasons. One, Google Maps/Waze/Apple Maps started directing people down them to save seconds off their journey time. Two, the increase in courier vehicles (using those self-same apps).
If you look at historic AADT* figures on residential streets - you can get them from TomTom or Inrix or a couple of other third-party suppliers - then they are vastly up on what they used to be. So, yes: "existing roads were converted". Residential streets were converted to through roads.
That's the main driver behind LTN policy. If residential streets still had the traffic levels of 20 years ago I don't think you'd see such a clamour for LTNs.
(I consult on this sort of route optimisation for a living, inter alia.)
* Annual Average Daily Traffic
You can also get data on actual Highways Authority count points from a zoomable map interface back to 1999 at https://roadtraffic.dft.gov.uk/
And casualty information from https://www.cyclestreets.net/collisions/, including the full STATS19 data; plus you can draw a polygon on the map and download the data from all collision therein. Far better than crashmap.co.uk.
I'll defer to @El_Capitano on his interpretation expertise, though.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Though a big difference between commuters on through roads and those rat-running through residential areas.
Though that's the issue, is when existing through roads are converted without an alternative arranged.
That is entirely the point, though not I suspect in the way you think.
Residential streets became through roads about ten years ago for two reasons. One, Google Maps/Waze/Apple Maps started directing people down them to save seconds off their journey time. Two, the increase in courier vehicles (using those self-same apps).
If you look at historic AADT* figures on residential streets - you can get them from TomTom or Inrix or a couple of other third-party suppliers - then they are vastly up on what they used to be. So, yes: "existing roads were converted". Residential streets were converted to through roads.
That's the main driver behind LTN policy. If residential streets still had the traffic levels of 20 years ago I don't think you'd see such a clamour for LTNs.
(I consult on this sort of route optimisation for a living, inter alia.)
* Annual Average Daily Traffic
Google Maps seems to me to deliberately avoid residential roads, even if it saves a minute or two not seconds off your commute nowadays.
Courier vehicles are vehicles that are delivering to those residential addresses though!
If you don't want Amazon vehicles driving down your road, then don't order off Amazon and convince your neighbours not to either. But if Bob at Number 79 is ordering off Amazon every day, and Wendy at number 68 is ordering off Amazon and Etsy regularly, then you're going to see couriers using your road regularly and not just Bob and Wendy's vehicles using the road.
Should add the much derided Cones Hotline had at least some benefit for mankind.
Being able to drive at a decent speed has a benefit for mankind too.
20mph should be for school zones and heavily residential zones only, not a default everywhere.
What about High Streets? If they are as busy as you want them to be, there will be large numbers of pedestrians crossing the road and junctions to get to the pubs/shops.
I'm not actually a big fan of 20mph limits. I'd much prefer traffic calming measures like trees, tighter/narrower junctions, speed bumps, segregated cycle lanes lanes etc.
20mph (or even 10mph) then comes naturally, not just for the law-abiding among us.
High Streets it depends for me. Are they used as the only available through road? If so, 30mph with fences to segregate pedestrians from vehicles.
Is there an alternative (by-pass) through road available so the High Street is purely for people wanting to go to the High Street and not through it? Then 20mph and relatively pedestrianised is entirely reasonable.
Again, if you want to turn an existing through road into a lower traffic area then build a by-pass (which can potentially go at a faster speed limit like 50mph instead) and there's no harm in turning the current through road to an LTN.
You want to fence in pedestrians? Is this the 1970's speaking?
I think a 20mph limit is more important if there is no alternative. Nairn, in the Highlands, has had to do this because of the number of HGVs running through areas with lots of pedestrians.
Perhaps the speed limit can revert to 30mph once a bypass is built
No, not fenced in, just fences to segregate cars and pedestrians so children don't accidentally run onto the road by mistake. That's a positive for pedestrians, not a negative.
Obviously no fences at zebra crossings, or traffic lights.
Why didn't Nairn bother to build a by-pass? Probably because of attitudes like yours that commuters should just not bother driving to work.
Everyone in the Highlands, Moray, and Aberdeenshire is 100% behind a bypass for Nairn, Elgin and Keith.
As I've said before, it's because I grew up in an area dependent on cars that I find city-dwellers who use them so strange. You have buses! You can walk everywhere! Tesco is 10 mins on a bike, rather than a 30 minute drive!
This is the great balance on the cost of housing in cities - it's so much cheaper and easier to get around.
I think most people would rather live in the UK than Mississippi, despite Andrew Neil's comments about people apparently earning more money in the latter.
Mississippi is by some margin the poorest State in the US. Its statistics on infant death or reading are all pretty awful.
Jackson, the capital, does not feel well off in the way that Birmingham, Alabama can.
I suspect that average living standards are better in the UK than in Mississippi, albeit housing costs in MS will be a fraction of those in the UK.
Re Jackson, MS, that's cos all the rich white people moved out to live in Madison or Pearl.
This Ukrainian hotel continues to fascinate. There is now an influx of wealthy-looking, English-speaking Italians. All male
🧐
I suspect they are not “on holiday”. So: what are they here for?
They’ve come to admire the cathedral.
Hah!
Honestly. This place has the best people watching EVER
On one side you’ve got wealthy local families just here for tea. Than the overdressed beautiful Ukrainian girls. Too many of them to make sense. Then the mysteriously, stupidly rich Ukrainians who drive Rolls Royce SUVs. Now tough looking but affluent Italian men
Than the silent obviously military types who give nothing away at all. Then the odd poor Bukovinan peasant couple who have wandered in by mistake and look completely bewildered. Then waitresses who start crying over nothing - it’s happened twice now. Boyfriends just killed or injured in the war?
And your correspondent, sitting in the corner
Was at a lunch with some Ukrainian refugees yesterday in attendance, all spoke near perfect English, very well turned out and most already have paid jobs here too
What was Brexit for if it wasn't to get rid of highly educated, high attaining Eastern Europeans? Send 'em back to the EU!
The highly educated, high attaining, Eastern Europeans, can still easily get UK work visas.
Of course they can: but they can also travel to Frankfurt and interview for jobs, without worrying about the need to apply for a visa.
And yet a German company, I work for, has given up trying to hire new IT staff in Germany. They are expanding in London instead.
I'm glad to hear that.
My point was a very simple one: applying for a visa is friction. Even if it is very minor friction, it is still friction, and it will therefore deter at least some number of skilled people.
Now, maybe that's not a big deal in the general scheme of things. Or maybe it is.
And, of course, the rise of remote working also has an impact here. (We have a UK operation, and it contains a number of remote Poles.)
For EU nationals used to FoM it looks like it is a material barrier. The UK has net emigration to the EU now, more than compensated for by higher immigration from non EU countries.
How can the uk have net emigration to the eu when people like you are always telling leave voters we took away your ability to work and live in the EU?
Perhaps you need to get your story straight
Errr.
Because people who came to the Uk from the EU to work are returning back home.
You have a source saying we have less eu citizens now than before that accounts for it? Not saying you are wrong but we seem to still have eu citizens coming over
I think most people would rather live in the UK than Mississippi, despite Andrew Neil's comments about people apparently earning more money in the latter.
I'm sure Mississippi is a fine place to live if you're rich. As it always was.
I do have a thread coming up at 7pm showing just how thick some Brits are.
Don't get like that, I am sure it will be fine.
This is the new hill I am going to die on.
It is actually quite worrying reflection on Brits.
Is this a uniquely British thing or effecting the whole of the West?
I have only seen polling for Brits.
Woke is, I believe, one symptom of declining western IQ. A return to naive, quasi-religious credulity. People want to be told what to think, and they find contrary opinions uncomfortable instead of stimulating. And they simply dismiss troubling data as wrongthink, otherwise it would overwhelm them
It wasn't that long ago that lefty teachers at schools and universities were telling people to think for themselves, never accept what authority was telling you just because they were experts. Now they say the opposite: don't think for yourself, accept what you're told, authority knows best. A complete U-turn. Another example: lefty pop star Howard Jones had a big hit in the 80s called "Always Asking Questions".
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Though a big difference between commuters on through roads and those rat-running through residential areas.
Though that's the issue, is when existing through roads are converted without an alternative arranged.
That is entirely the point, though not I suspect in the way you think.
Residential streets became through roads about ten years ago for two reasons. One, Google Maps/Waze/Apple Maps started directing people down them to save seconds off their journey time. Two, the increase in courier vehicles (using those self-same apps).
If you look at historic AADT* figures on residential streets - you can get them from TomTom or Inrix or a couple of other third-party suppliers - then they are vastly up on what they used to be. So, yes: "existing roads were converted". Residential streets were converted to through roads.
That's the main driver behind LTN policy. If residential streets still had the traffic levels of 20 years ago I don't think you'd see such a clamour for LTNs.
(I consult on this sort of route optimisation for a living, inter alia.)
* Annual Average Daily Traffic
Google Maps seems to me to deliberately avoid residential roads, even if it saves a minute or two not seconds off your commute nowadays.
Courier vehicles are vehicles that are delivering to those residential addresses though!
If you don't want Amazon vehicles driving down your road, then don't order off Amazon and convince your neighbours not to either. But if Bob at Number 79 is ordering off Amazon every day, and Wendy at number 68 is ordering off Amazon and Etsy regularly, then you're going to see couriers using your road regularly and not just Bob and Wendy's vehicles using the road.
This is a good point - a big reason for the increase in mileage is delivery vans. Another reason for bringing our High Streets back to life.
@HYUFD I have given you more likes today than I think I have ever done before.
Whatever it is you are doing stop it. It is unnerving me.
My post should have got about 3 million likes, because it's utterly bang-on and describes the intellectual bankruptcy at the heart of the West today, but it's obviously too taxingly thought-provoking for most to decide what to do with it.
Maybe I should play to the gallery and try cat memes instead.
If I may comment, I didn't understand your argument. Are the young people with the woke thoughts you object to the same as those supporting Andrew Tate? It seems unlikely given Tate's public comments but maybe Tate is woke on your definition. It's a slippery concept.
But if those "woke" young people are opposed to Tate, can't we at least say they are not bad in the same way as Tate is, even if they are not actually good in your view?
The point is that Tate is a trend (80%+ of young men have seen his content) and if you don't have critical thinking the risk is you simply get swept along and echo the latest trend, whatever it is.
My argument is that we need to teach young people to critically think for themselves; not simply parrot whatever we think they should.
I think you need to go one step further:
People are inclined to believe things that are convenient to them.
Not getting sex? It's not because of your video gaming addiction, poor conversation skills and lack of personal hygiene. It's because women have gotten all uppity and need to be put in their place.
Not got a high paying job? It's because of structuralism racism/sexism, and not because someone else worked that bit harder of you at school.
It's why people who work in oil production are sceptical of climate change. And it's why people who come from countries not endowed with natural resources tend to be big believers in it.
Basically: the siren words that appeal to almost everyone are "it's not *your* fault, it's all the fault of [x]".
And that's the message of BLM and Andrew Tate and Donald Trump.
When the words people actually need to hear are: it's fucking tough out there; nobody owes you a living; you're going to need to work really hard; and even that might not be enough; but so long as you have family and food and health and a roof over your head, then you're better off than 99.9% of humans in the history of the world.
A tad hyperbolic?
By your maths 99.9% of humans have never had shelter, or enough food, or good health, or a family
If that was the case we’d have died out aeons ago
'A tad hyperbolic' says the hyperbolmeister.
Meanwhile, that 'billionaire delicatessen' appears to stock Bailey's Light and Lily O'Brien's chocs - also available at our local billionaire Tesco, just saying.
Right next door is an indescribably lavish delicatessen. Like something from Marylebone High Street or a posh bit of Zurich
Photos don’t really capture it. This place sells caviar and high-end single malts and has a wine selection to die for. And this is in Ukraine
Right next to my weird hotel
A hotel which is not on Google or Apple Maps. But does have an Instagram account. Which shows me the hotel OPENED in July 2022. Last week they had a “gastro evening” with specially imported blue fin tuna
😶
Who opens an incredibly luxurious boutique hotel and an incredibly luxurious delicatessen during a major land war?
Your man on the spot with the magnifying glass and suspicions
I get my caviar from Amazon.
So are you drinking Absinthe or Becherovka?
A really rather nice looking Rioja Reserva
Weirdly we were talking about “good wine selection” - and this shop here in Chernivtsi has possibly the best I’ve ever seen. In terms of international choice, and outside massive posh supermarkets in central London
Everything from Argentine to Spain to Italy to Moldova to France to Georgia to Oz
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Though a big difference between commuters on through roads and those rat-running through residential areas.
Though that's the issue, is when existing through roads are converted without an alternative arranged.
That is entirely the point, though not I suspect in the way you think.
Residential streets became through roads about ten years ago for two reasons. One, Google Maps/Waze/Apple Maps started directing people down them to save seconds off their journey time. Two, the increase in courier vehicles (using those self-same apps).
If you look at historic AADT* figures on residential streets - you can get them from TomTom or Inrix or a couple of other third-party suppliers - then they are vastly up on what they used to be. So, yes: "existing roads were converted". Residential streets were converted to through roads.
That's the main driver behind LTN policy. If residential streets still had the traffic levels of 20 years ago I don't think you'd see such a clamour for LTNs.
(I consult on this sort of route optimisation for a living, inter alia.)
* Annual Average Daily Traffic
Google Maps seems to me to deliberately avoid residential roads, even if it saves a minute or two not seconds off your commute nowadays.
Courier vehicles are vehicles that are delivering to those residential addresses though!
If you don't want Amazon vehicles driving down your road, then don't order off Amazon and convince your neighbours not to either. But if Bob at Number 79 is ordering off Amazon every day, and Wendy at number 68 is ordering off Amazon and Etsy regularly, then you're going to see couriers using your road regularly and not just Bob and Wendy's vehicles using the road.
This is a good point - a big reason for the increase in mileage is delivery vans. Another reason for bringing our High Streets back to life.
High streets are pointless, turn them into social centres with housing,hairdressers, bars and restaurants not chain stores.
I do have a thread coming up at 7pm showing just how thick some Brits are.
Don't get like that, I am sure it will be fine.
This is the new hill I am going to die on.
It is actually quite worrying reflection on Brits.
Is this a uniquely British thing or effecting the whole of the West?
I have only seen polling for Brits.
Woke is, I believe, one symptom of declining western IQ. A return to naive, quasi-religious credulity. People want to be told what to think, and they find contrary opinions uncomfortable instead of stimulating. And they simply dismiss troubling data as wrongthink, otherwise it would overwhelm them
It wasn't that long ago that lefty teachers at schools and universities were telling people to think for themselves, never accept what authority was telling you just because they were experts. Now they say the opposite: don't think for yourself, accept what you're told, authority knows best. A complete U-turn. Another example: lefty pop star Howard Jones had a big hit in the 80s called "Always Asking Questions".
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
Though a big difference between commuters on through roads and those rat-running through residential areas.
Though that's the issue, is when existing through roads are converted without an alternative arranged.
That is entirely the point, though not I suspect in the way you think.
Residential streets became through roads about ten years ago for two reasons. One, Google Maps/Waze/Apple Maps started directing people down them to save seconds off their journey time. Two, the increase in courier vehicles (using those self-same apps).
If you look at historic AADT* figures on residential streets - you can get them from TomTom or Inrix or a couple of other third-party suppliers - then they are vastly up on what they used to be. So, yes: "existing roads were converted". Residential streets were converted to through roads.
That's the main driver behind LTN policy. If residential streets still had the traffic levels of 20 years ago I don't think you'd see such a clamour for LTNs.
(I consult on this sort of route optimisation for a living, inter alia.)
* Annual Average Daily Traffic
I think there is also a prioritisation question. The kind of thinking embraced by Sunak and some on this board either believes cars have a neutral effect on pedestrians and other road users in a place, and they can coexist happily without any controls on those cars. Or possibly that the interests of pedestrians simply don't matter compared with the free passage of cars from other places.
If you say, actually these cars may have negative effects on pedestrian and other uses of road space and should be controlled in some way, you are switching the prioritisation round.
How you feel about that probably depends on whether you are from that place or from somewhere else passing through in your car.
Separate from any hard fatality and pollution statistics that also suggest controls on car use.
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work. You can see that from the consultation response postcodes - make sure your council collects both home address and workplace.
It boils down to an inverse NIMBYism, I suppose.
If you cannot drive an SUV through one of these new LTNs, what about an ambulance or fire engine, or do the bollards and planters magically disappear on seeing a blue light? What about delivery vans for your online shopping?
@HYUFD I have given you more likes today than I think I have ever done before.
Whatever it is you are doing stop it. It is unnerving me.
My post should have got about 3 million likes, because it's utterly bang-on and describes the intellectual bankruptcy at the heart of the West today, but it's obviously too taxingly thought-provoking for most to decide what to do with it.
Maybe I should play to the gallery and try cat memes instead.
If I may comment, I didn't understand your argument. Are the young people with the woke thoughts you object to the same as those supporting Andrew Tate? It seems unlikely given Tate's public comments but maybe Tate is woke on your definition. It's a slippery concept.
But if those "woke" young people are opposed to Tate, can't we at least say they are not bad in the same way as Tate is, even if they are not actually good in your view?
The point is that Tate is a trend (80%+ of young men have seen his content) and if you don't have critical thinking the risk is you simply get swept along and echo the latest trend, whatever it is.
My argument is that we need to teach young people to critically think for themselves; not simply parrot whatever we think they should.
I think you need to go one step further:
People are inclined to believe things that are convenient to them.
Not getting sex? It's not because of your video gaming addiction, poor conversation skills and lack of personal hygiene. It's because women have gotten all uppity and need to be put in their place.
Not got a high paying job? It's because of structuralism racism/sexism, and not because someone else worked that bit harder of you at school.
It's why people who work in oil production are sceptical of climate change. And it's why people who come from countries not endowed with natural resources tend to be big believers in it.
Basically: the siren words that appeal to almost everyone are "it's not *your* fault, it's all the fault of [x]".
And that's the message of BLM and Andrew Tate and Donald Trump.
When the words people actually need to hear are: it's fucking tough out there; nobody owes you a living; you're going to need to work really hard; and even that might not be enough; but so long as you have family and food and health and a roof over your head, then you're better off than 99.9% of humans in the history of the world.
A tad hyperbolic?
By your maths 99.9% of humans have never had shelter, or enough food, or good health, or a family
If that was the case we’d have died out aeons ago
'A tad hyperbolic' says the hyperbolmeister.
Meanwhile, that 'billionaire delicatessen' appears to stock Bailey's Light and Lily O'Brien's chocs - also available at our local billionaire Tesco, just saying.
Does your local Tesco stock excellent Saperavi wines from Georgia and a dozen different Barolos? I doubt it
As I said it is hard to capture the place in a photo. The most remarkable corner was the actual deli with the caviar and oysters but there was a guy there eyeing me in a certain way and I thought OK I’ll stop taking photos now
My child has just happily run out into the street here (not speaking a word of Bulgarian) to play with the Bulgarian children, who call her "The English Girl". All they are doing is playing with stones and mud and giggling with each other, whilst I smile and look on
Children really are a delight at times.
LTN, I presume?
Talking about that ... just posted the latest. Not just banning LTN but allowing motorists to drive at 30mph not 20mph in such areas. Not sure what he relative fatality rates for cyclists and children are, but it's no longer 'Vote Tory - choke a baby' but, it seems, 'Vote Tory - kill a cyclist'. All part of the antiwoke crusade.
Is there a source for the 30mph claim?
I don't believe that will stick - we already have years of studies from official data showing major (50-70%) injury reductions in LTNs created at the start of the pandemic, and in the mini-Hollands programme from 2015-19.
So before long we'll get data about how many extra injuries Rishi's changes cause.
Is Rishi Sunak really that stupid?
We assessed the impacts of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) implemented in 2020 on road traffic injuries. We used police data from October-December 2018/2019 (pre) compared with the same period in 2020 (post). We found absolute numbers of injuries inside LTNs halved relative to the rest of London (ratio 0.51, p<0.001). Considering changes in background travel patterns, our results indicate substantial reductions in pedestrian injury risk. Risks to other road users may also have fallen, but by a more modest amount. We found no evidence of changes in injury numbers or risk on LTN boundary roads.</i>
Bush Snr also left Clinton with a falling deficit by raising taxes, even if it partly cost him the election as some of his base went to Buchanan in the GOP primaries and Perot in the main 1992 Presidential election
The question isn't about the facts - it's about perceptions.
Like ULEZ - everyone thinks it's going to cost them financially until they find out their car is compliant and then it becomes a non-issue.
Even if inflation does fall (which it no doubt will), many voters will still see their costs rising especially as annual insurance renewals are put up 20% or more by gouging insurance companies and energy bills remain high while utility companies make enormous profits.
Yes - I've been pointing out to a few people on X today that we have been building LTNs everywhere since the 1960s, and arguably since the 1930/40s. Plus that we have been applying them to existing housing areas since the 1970s to my personal knowledge.
They don't like it very much !
They seem to want to live in Open All Hours with nurse Gladice Emmanuel cycling along to soothe their knitted brows.
Indeed. The anti-LTN campaigners in Oxford generally live or work in historic LTNs of the type you describe. The guy from "Reconnecting Oxford" lives in a cul-de-sac estate. The most egregious, Clinton Pugh (father of Florence Pugh, as the Oxford Mail never ceases to remind us), actually got Oxfordshire County Council to convert the street outside his cafe into an LTN back in the 1990s so there was more space for outdoor tables. But anyone else's street becoming an LTN so Clinton can't drive his SUV up it? Fetch the pitchforks.
LTN opponents in Edinburgh tend to be people who like to drive through other people's neighbourhoods to get to work...
I believe they're known as "commuters". Hang them, the perfidious [checks notes] people who drive to work. Bastards.
1/3 of commutes in Edinburgh are under 3 miles. 2/3 are under 6 miles. That's a 30 minute cycle.
We have the finest public transport system anywhere outwith London. In Leith, only 1/4 of people drive to work. Less than half have access to a car at all.
This is the street that our anti-LTN opponents are losing their minds about not being able to drive down.
That’s definitely not the owners of the most expensive property in town, trying their best to turn their public road into a private road by denying the plebs access?
It's the local businesses, actually. They want to pop tables out all the way down the Shore (gets the evening sun).
They want it to be like Copenhagen or Bergen, the silly anti-car loonies.
But what about the rights of the huge SUV owners to park on the pavement, blocking pedestrian access, right outside the shop that they are visiting? That's what the bastards round where I live do. (Personally, I'd impound and then crush their cars. That'd soon put a stop to it.)
Should add the much derided Cones Hotline had at least some benefit for mankind.
Being able to drive at a decent speed has a benefit for mankind too.
20mph should be for school zones and heavily residential zones only, not a default everywhere.
What about High Streets? If they are as busy as you want them to be, there will be large numbers of pedestrians crossing the road and junctions to get to the pubs/shops.
I'm not actually a big fan of 20mph limits. I'd much prefer traffic calming measures like trees, tighter/narrower junctions, speed bumps, segregated cycle lanes lanes etc.
20mph (or even 10mph) then comes naturally, not just for the law-abiding among us.
High Streets it depends for me. Are they used as the only available through road? If so, 30mph with fences to segregate pedestrians from vehicles.
Is there an alternative (by-pass) through road available so the High Street is purely for people wanting to go to the High Street and not through it? Then 20mph and relatively pedestrianised is entirely reasonable.
Again, if you want to turn an existing through road into a lower traffic area then build a by-pass (which can potentially go at a faster speed limit like 50mph instead) and there's no harm in turning the current through road to an LTN.
You want to fence in pedestrians? Is this the 1970's speaking?
I think a 20mph limit is more important if there is no alternative. Nairn, in the Highlands, has had to do this because of the number of HGVs running through areas with lots of pedestrians.
Perhaps the speed limit can revert to 30mph once a bypass is built
At 20mph if you hit a child they probably live. At 30mph they probably die. Children should be able to walk around their neighbourhood without being just one mistake away from not seeing their next birthday. Their rights trump those of impatient people passing through their neighbourhood on their way to somewhere else. All roads in built up areas with pavements directly abutting the roadway should be 20mph if you ask me. As a driver I am totally fine with that.
As a non-driver, my fear is 20mph limits can make things worse for pedestrians (or at least the ones who know how to cross the road). Slowing traffic eliminates the gaps in which pedestrians can safely cross. You can see this during heavy rain, which also slows traffic.
Should add the much derided Cones Hotline had at least some benefit for mankind.
Being able to drive at a decent speed has a benefit for mankind too.
20mph should be for school zones and heavily residential zones only, not a default everywhere.
What about High Streets? If they are as busy as you want them to be, there will be large numbers of pedestrians crossing the road and junctions to get to the pubs/shops.
I'm not actually a big fan of 20mph limits. I'd much prefer traffic calming measures like trees, tighter/narrower junctions, speed bumps, segregated cycle lanes lanes etc.
20mph (or even 10mph) then comes naturally, not just for the law-abiding among us.
High Streets it depends for me. Are they used as the only available through road? If so, 30mph with fences to segregate pedestrians from vehicles.
Is there an alternative (by-pass) through road available so the High Street is purely for people wanting to go to the High Street and not through it? Then 20mph and relatively pedestrianised is entirely reasonable.
Again, if you want to turn an existing through road into a lower traffic area then build a by-pass (which can potentially go at a faster speed limit like 50mph instead) and there's no harm in turning the current through road to an LTN.
You want to fence in pedestrians? Is this the 1970's speaking?
I think a 20mph limit is more important if there is no alternative. Nairn, in the Highlands, has had to do this because of the number of HGVs running through areas with lots of pedestrians.
Perhaps the speed limit can revert to 30mph once a bypass is built
No, not fenced in, just fences to segregate cars and pedestrians so children don't accidentally run onto the road by mistake. That's a positive for pedestrians, not a negative.
Obviously no fences at zebra crossings, or traffic lights.
Why didn't Nairn bother to build a by-pass? Probably because of attitudes like yours that commuters should just not bother driving to work.
Interesting stuff about different philosophies.
(Without getting into LTNs and consequent traffic transfer vs traffic evaporation vs modal shift).
I take the approach that for pedestrians and motor vehicles to mix in the same environment, the principle is to restrict motors to an extent where everyone else is comfortable with them.
Which is from the other end to 'put in railings to keep the pedestrians out of the way of the motor vehicles'.
The only place I can find which justifies such railings are where pedestrian entrances emerge into a footway - eg by a narrow gate in a wall out of a school, and the children may rush out without seeing due to the poor sightlines.
But that is lipstick on a pig of a design - the better way is for the exit to be designed to have clear sightlines so that kids can see vehicles and vice versa, so risk is designed out.
Further, back in 2008 TFL did some research into pedestrian railings at pedestrian crossings on road junctions (90 crossings, 70 junctions), and found that simply removing them all resulted in a major reduction in casualties from collisions. Really interesting work:
The results showed that following the removal of railings at the 70 sites there was a statistically significant fall of 56% (43 to 19) in the number of collisions involving pedestrians who were killed or seriously injured. There was also a fall of 48% (109 to 57) in the number of KSI collisions for all users. Further analysis was undertaken in order to put these figures into a wider context. In the 6 to 3 year period before removal at these sites (when railings were retained), KSI collisions fell by 7% and 3% respectively. On the whole TLRN during the 3 year period after the removal of the railings, KSI collisions fell by 14% and 19% respectively. https://content.tfl.gov.uk/pedestrian-railings-removal-report.pdf
I think most people would rather live in the UK than Mississippi, despite Andrew Neil's comments about people apparently earning more money in the latter.
Mississippi is by some margin the poorest State in the US. Its statistics on infant death or reading are all pretty awful.
Jackson, the capital, does not feel well off in the way that Birmingham, Alabama can.
I suspect that average living standards are better in the UK than in Mississippi, albeit housing costs in MS will be a fraction of those in the UK.
You also don’t get your head blown off going to buy a carton of milk . UK quality of life is much better IMO .
To me the government appears to be going round in ever decreasing circles. Why oh why do politicians thing/believe that they have to say something each day about something, why does the PM spend more time travelling to another project each day, making statements that cannot be achieved and will all be forgotten in a few weeks time. Flying to Scotland today. Why does he just not stay in Downing Street and conduct the business from there in a quiet manner, in other words give us all a break. Does he actually realise how foolish he looks. Watch what I do not what I say might be advisable perhaps, mind you what is he actually, really doing. Somebody please tell me.
Comments
My argument is that we need to teach young people to critically think for themselves; not simply parrot whatever we think they should.
It boils down to an inverse NIMBYism, I suppose.
Children really are a delight at times.
From talking to people, it is still a combination of a flexible labour market and opportunities that bring them here.
Something that gets mentioned after a few beers, is how cosmopolitan London is. A Spanish friend, for example, wants to work here. Because his wife is from Africa, and they experience noticeable problems in Spain.
A lot of U.K. IT workers come from outside the EU, as well.
I guess my issue is I don't know what the woke trend is, which is none of those things. It's very undefined.
Cycling: Formula EPO
Getting the drivers drugged up to try to create a quantum of interest in the race does seem to be quite a radical approach by the sport's* governing body.
*Not a proper sport.
People are inclined to believe things that are convenient to them.
Not getting sex? It's not because of your video gaming addiction, poor conversation skills and lack of personal hygiene. It's because women have gotten all uppity and need to be put in their place.
Not got a high paying job? It's because of structuralism racism/sexism, and not because someone else worked that bit harder of you at school.
It's why people who work in oil production are sceptical of climate change. And it's why people who come from countries not endowed with natural resources tend to be big believers in it.
Basically: the siren words that appeal to almost everyone are "it's not *your* fault, it's all the fault of [x]".
And that's the message of BLM and Andrew Tate and Donald Trump.
When the words people actually need to hear are: it's fucking tough out there; nobody owes you a living; you're going to need to work really hard; and even that might not be enough; but so long as you have family and food and health and a roof over your head, then you're better off than 99.9% of humans in the history of the world.
"Rishi Sunak is planning to restrict councils from imposing 20mph speed limits as part of his new shift against green policies and traffic schemes, a stance condemned by safety and travel groups as shortsighted and divisive.
The Guardian has been told the push against what Sunak has termed “anti-motorist” policies could be extended to find ways to stop local authorities taking measures that have been used routinely for decades.
[...]
Any additional move to push councils into rescinding 20mph speed limits on local roads or removing bus gates could prove even more contentious. The Guardian was told the shift in stance has come almost entirely from Downing Street."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-66336500
Veganism as bigotry?
Here's a piccie of Clinton Pugh's personal LTN, down the side of his cafe ("The Sunny Side").
Absolutely no harm whatsoever in converting existing through roads to LTNs if a new bypass is built elsewhere to divert traffic.
Objection is when you convert an existing through road to an LTN without bothering to build a new road for the detour. In which case you're either saying "why are you driving you stupid plebs" or "just make traffic elsewhere worse, you stupid plebs". Neither is attractive.
If you want LTNs then great, go for it! Build more roads elsewhere to replace the through roads and problem solved. 👍
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/30/rishi-sunak-councils-20mph-speed-limit-low-traffic-neighbourhoods-ltns
Should add the much derided Cones Hotline had at least some benefit for mankind.
If you're applying for a job for minimum wage & benefits then the friction of going through a visa process (if you can even manage it) is a lot more significant than if you're applying for a job with a six figure salary.
By treating EU migrants the same as non-EU migrants we can also now apply less friction against skilled non-EU migrants overall which is much less discriminatory and much fairer too - and means higher skills overall.
I don't believe that will stick - we already have years of studies from official data showing major (50-70%) injury reductions in LTNs created at the start of the pandemic, and in the mini-Hollands programme from 2015-19.
So before long we'll get data about how many extra injuries Rishi's changes cause.
Is Rishi Sunak really that stupid?
We assessed the impacts of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) implemented in 2020 on road traffic injuries. We used police data from October-December 2018/2019 (pre) compared with the same period in 2020 (post). We found absolute numbers of injuries inside LTNs halved relative to the rest of London (ratio 0.51, p<0.001). Considering changes in background travel patterns, our results indicate substantial reductions in pedestrian injury risk. Risks to other road users may also have fallen, but by a more modest amount. We found no evidence of changes in injury numbers or risk on LTN boundary roads.</i>
https://findingspress.org/article/25633-impacts-of-2020-low-traffic-neighbourhoods-in-london-on-road-traffic-injuries
20mph should be for school zones and heavily residential zones only, not a default everywhere.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/diversity-and-inclusion-risks-pushing-us-apart-we-just-need-to-learn-to-work-together-zfwxkdq6q
I'm not actually a big fan of 20mph limits. I'd much prefer traffic calming measures like trees, tighter/narrower junctions, speed bumps, segregated cycle lanes lanes etc.
20mph (or even 10mph) then comes naturally, not just for the law-abiding among us.
You can do what you want, I think - but her use pattern was a shortish time (half an hour perhaps) in the morning and evening, with the benefit lasting for a time after it was switched off.
They come with a belt to hold them in place.
Is there an alternative (by-pass) through road available so the High Street is purely for people wanting to go to the High Street and not through it? Then 20mph and relatively pedestrianised is entirely reasonable.
Again, if you want to turn an existing through road into a lower traffic area then build a by-pass (which can potentially go at a faster speed limit like 50mph instead) and there's no harm in turning the current through road to an LTN.
Perhaps you need to get your story straight
She will not win but hopefully takes cotes off LAB
On the wider issue, if you want LTNs and 15MCs then build them, rather than imposing them on existing communities with little consultation.
We have the finest public transport system anywhere outwith London. In Leith, only 1/4 of people drive to work. Less than half have access to a car at all.
This is the street that our anti-LTN opponents are losing their minds about not being able to drive down.
Build new through roads to replace existing ones, potentially at high speed so that its purely a through road with nothing residential attached, and drop limits on existing through roads as you like.
By your maths 99.9% of humans have never had shelter, or enough food, or good health, or a family
If that was the case we’d have died out aeons ago
Because people who came to the Uk from the EU to work are returning back home.
I think a 20mph limit is more important if there is no alternative. Nairn, in the Highlands, has had to do this because of the number of HGVs running through areas with lots of pedestrians.
Perhaps the speed limit can revert to 30mph once a bypass is built
Richard Feynman Lecture -- "Los Alamos From Below"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY-u1qyRM5w
A possible reason is that people within a freedom of movement zone stay within that zone to avoid visa friction etc elsewhere including now the UK, while those outside the zone now including the UK, will put up with the hassle because they have no choice.
Save our cotes!
They want it to be like Copenhagen or Bergen, the silly anti-car loonies.
My father-in-law originally lived very near to the house that was taken over for the show (which was just an ordinary house, never a shop). It was pretty poverty stricken area at the time (30s & 40s) and he has the usual tales of barely being able to afford shoes. He somehow escaped to a more middle class existence via the grammar school.
You can still buy a terraced house there for - checks Rightmove - £55k
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/137167409#/?channel=RES_BUY
But at the same time, if I were starting a company right now, I would be sorely tempted to do it Portugal. Very low cost of living compared to the UK; great tax rates for Brits; easy access to skilled European tech graduates. (And, of course, the low cost of living is a big draw for said tech graduates.)
Right next door is an indescribably lavish delicatessen. Like something from Marylebone High Street or a posh bit of Zurich
Photos don’t really capture it. This place sells caviar and high-end single malts and has a wine selection to die for. And this is in Ukraine
Right next to my weird hotel
A hotel which is not on Google or Apple Maps. But does have an Instagram account. Which shows me the hotel OPENED in July 2022. Last week they had a “gastro evening” with specially imported blue fin tuna
😶
Who opens an incredibly luxurious boutique hotel and an incredibly luxurious delicatessen during a major land war?
Your man on the spot with the magnifying glass and major suspicions
I don't think that's a particularly arguable statement. Indeed, it is that freedom from concern about disease, famine, and the like that allows people to obsess about gender identity and how well the Joneses are doing.
Obviously no fences at zebra crossings, or traffic lights.
Why didn't Nairn bother to build a by-pass? Probably because of attitudes like yours that commuters should just not bother driving to work.
Belief in UFOs, unscientific anti-vaxxery, and the rest of it are far more symptomatic of quasi-religious belief.
As for dismissing facts that conflict with their worldview, you couldn't more perfectly describe the new nutty Republican mainstream.
Residential streets became through roads about ten years ago for two reasons. One, Google Maps/Waze/Apple Maps started directing people down them to save seconds off their journey time. Two, the increase in courier vehicles (using those self-same apps).
If you look at historic AADT* figures on residential streets - you can get them from TomTom or Inrix or a couple of other third-party suppliers - then they are vastly up on what they used to be. So, yes: "existing roads were converted". Residential streets were converted to through roads.
That's the main driver behind LTN policy. If residential streets still had the traffic levels of 20 years ago I don't think you'd see such a clamour for LTNs.
(I consult on this sort of route optimisation for a living, inter alia.)
* Annual Average Daily Traffic
Jackson, the capital, does not feel well off in the way that Birmingham, Alabama can.
I suspect that average living standards are better in the UK than in Mississippi, albeit housing costs in MS will be a fraction of those in the UK.
So are you drinking Absinthe or Becherovka?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkvD1MSU-Mc
Presumably not in the water.
The other evil thing about "it's not your fault" is that it robs people of agency.
The same volte face can be seen with skin colour. For decades we were (rightly) told: don’t see colour, don’t see race, judge people by their character and actions
Now we are told ALL THAT MATTERS is skin colour. If you are black that is the most important thing about you and you are a victim whether you believe that or not, if you are white you are a guilty racist with white privilege and if you deny that - well, it’s more proof that you’re racist
It’s vile and corrosive lunacy. I despise it and I despise them
And casualty information from https://www.cyclestreets.net/collisions/, including the full STATS19 data; plus you can draw a polygon on the map and download the data from all collision therein. Far better than crashmap.co.uk.
I'll defer to @El_Capitano on his interpretation expertise, though.
Courier vehicles are vehicles that are delivering to those residential addresses though!
If you don't want Amazon vehicles driving down your road, then don't order off Amazon and convince your neighbours not to either. But if Bob at Number 79 is ordering off Amazon every day, and Wendy at number 68 is ordering off Amazon and Etsy regularly, then you're going to see couriers using your road regularly and not just Bob and Wendy's vehicles using the road.
As I've said before, it's because I grew up in an area dependent on cars that I find city-dwellers who use them so strange. You have buses! You can walk everywhere! Tesco is 10 mins on a bike, rather than a 30 minute drive!
This is the great balance on the cost of housing in cities - it's so much cheaper and easier to get around.
The strange hotel for billionaires, lost in the corner of warring Ukraine
NEW THREAD
Meanwhile, that 'billionaire delicatessen' appears to stock Bailey's Light and Lily O'Brien's chocs - also available at our local billionaire Tesco, just saying.
Weirdly we were talking about “good wine selection” - and this shop here in Chernivtsi has possibly the best I’ve ever seen. In terms of international choice, and outside massive posh supermarkets in central London
Everything from Argentine to Spain to Italy to Moldova to France to Georgia to Oz
On what evidence do you base your assertion?
If you say, actually these cars may have negative effects on pedestrian and other uses of road space and should be controlled in some way, you are switching the prioritisation round.
How you feel about that probably depends on whether you are from that place or from somewhere else passing through in your car.
Separate from any hard fatality and pollution statistics that also suggest controls on car use.
New Thread!
As I said it is hard to capture the place in a photo. The most remarkable corner was the actual deli with the caviar and oysters but there was a guy there eyeing me in a certain way and I thought OK I’ll stop taking photos now
(Personally, I'd impound and then crush their cars. That'd soon put a stop to it.)
(Without getting into LTNs and consequent traffic transfer vs traffic evaporation vs modal shift).
I take the approach that for pedestrians and motor vehicles to mix in the same environment, the principle is to restrict motors to an extent where everyone else is comfortable with them.
Which is from the other end to 'put in railings to keep the pedestrians out of the way of the motor vehicles'.
The only place I can find which justifies such railings are where pedestrian entrances emerge into a footway - eg by a narrow gate in a wall out of a school, and the children may rush out without seeing due to the poor sightlines.
But that is lipstick on a pig of a design - the better way is for the exit to be designed to have clear sightlines so that kids can see vehicles and vice versa, so risk is designed out.
Further, back in 2008 TFL did some research into pedestrian railings at pedestrian crossings on road junctions (90 crossings, 70 junctions), and found that simply removing them all resulted in a major reduction in casualties from collisions. Really interesting work:
The results showed that following the removal of railings at the 70 sites there was a statistically
significant fall of 56% (43 to 19) in the number of collisions involving pedestrians who were killed
or seriously injured. There was also a fall of 48% (109 to 57) in the number of KSI collisions for all
users. Further analysis was undertaken in order to put these figures into a wider context. In the 6
to 3 year period before removal at these sites (when railings were retained), KSI collisions fell by
7% and 3% respectively. On the whole TLRN during the 3 year period after the removal of the
railings, KSI collisions fell by 14% and 19% respectively.
https://content.tfl.gov.uk/pedestrian-railings-removal-report.pdf
Why oh why do politicians thing/believe that they have to say something each day about something, why does the PM spend more time travelling to another project each day, making statements that cannot be achieved and will all be forgotten in a few weeks time. Flying to Scotland today. Why does he just not stay in Downing Street and conduct the business from there in a quiet manner, in other words give us all a break. Does he actually realise how foolish he looks.
Watch what I do not what I say might be advisable perhaps, mind you what is he actually, really doing. Somebody please tell me.