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Has Sunak been too influenced by Uxbridge? – politicalbetting.com

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  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 40,054
    Peck said:

    Carnyx said:

    Peck said:

    malcolmg said:

    MattW said:

    malcolmg said:

    A by-election has been triggered after MP Margaret Ferrier, who was suspended from the Commons for breaking Covid lockdown rules, lost her seat in a recall petition.

    If only she would stand as an independent and win it. SNP will get humped. Bad thing is Labour are crap and tehir candidate is a bellend extrodinaire and a slimeball to boot.
    Hmmm.

    15% vote for recall petition.

    Is that a lot in that type of vote?
    Grubby unionists desperate to ghet on the gravy train
    Be proud, though, Malc - the police in London, hated capital of the colonial power, didn't book her, or they "chose to take no further action" in their poncy Limey talk, whereas the heroic true men of the Scottish police, who always insist on the difference between right and wrong, arrested and charged her.

    Oh wait - she went to a Catholic school.
    Out of date on the last part of your analysis, badly so. Much more fragmented now (Slab being notoriously furious and frightened at losing that demographic, it has on occasion tried to cosy up to the Orange side of life, though usually the odd councillor who does that gets restrained).
    The insinuation was aimed at elements in the police, not anyone in Slab. Certainly there was a huge difference in attitude in this case between police forces south and north of the border.
    Slab was just to illustrate the sea change from the old days. I did get it you were thinking of the police. But my interpretation was that it was at the other end - the Met frightened of having to go heavy on her because it would mean ditto for the more local politicians. Similar contrast for Durham area police and Met, IIRC.
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,177
    Carnyx said:

    kle4 said:

    Carnyx said:

    malcolmg said:

    A by-election has been triggered after MP Margaret Ferrier, who was suspended from the Commons for breaking Covid lockdown rules, lost her seat in a recall petition.

    If only she would stand as an independent and win it. SNP will get humped. Bad thing is Labour are crap and tehir candidate is a bellend extrodinaire and a slimeball to boot.
    Has she said she’s not standing? 11986 of constituents who voted for a recall doesn’t seem overwhelming, eg it wouldn’t even have got you second place in the last 3 GEs.
    It's lower than the other two recalls so far, in that link I just posted, apart from the Paisley one which might or might not have special factors. But that's just anecdata.
    I believe Salmond has said Ferrier was treated badly by the SNP. Her coming out as an Alba candidate would put the feline amongst the Columbidae.
    Would definitely up the entertainment value, though why wait till now?
    Waiting on (a) the petition result and (b) events in the SNP?
    What Useless does now will decide fate of SNP and timescales for Independence. He does not have teh brains to stand a Scotland United candidate so SNP will get hammered and WM election will be a bloodbath with SNP done for and Independence put back 10 years at least. Going to be a lot of infighting in the coming years, be interesting to see how many of the gravy trainers slink back to Labour to try and stay at the trough.
  • Options
    BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,469

    By election klaxon. The SNP are going to get horsed.

    Expectations for SNP are very low. The real test is for Labour. They don't want another Uxbridge on their hands.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,899
    Phil said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of genocidal atrocities involving destruction of entire towns and villages, wonder how THIS incident from Florida history, is dealt with under the "educational" guidelines imposed by Gov. "Who Needs Mickey Mouse When You've Got" Ron DeSantis:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre

    "The Rosewood massacre was a racially motivated massacre of black people and the destruction of a black town that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural Levy County, Florida, United States. At least six black people and two white people were killed (in self-defense by one of the victims), but eyewitness accounts suggested a higher death toll of 27 to 150. The town of Rosewood was destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot.

    Florida had an especially high number of lynchings of black men in the years before the massacre, including a well-publicized incident in December 1922."

    Bleak and horrifying, but not “genocidal”
    You sound like the EU fanatics during the referendum bleating "it's not £350m! it's only £250m!"
    I genuinely think it’s quite important to apply profound words like “genocide” in the right way. Do not dilute their impact and meaning

    Because when a real Genocide comes along people will shrug at an overused term

    Same with “racist” and “fascist” etc
    Yes, agreed. It's creeping into use for attempts to suppress minority cultures too. It's horrible, but different from extermination.
    The UN's Genocide definition:
    "The definition contained in Article II of the Convention describes genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part. It does not include political groups or so called “cultural genocide”."

    https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf

    Which leads to interesting (and worrying) questions about the Chinese acts towards the Uyghur minority, or Turkey towards the Armenians or Kurds.

    The thing is: when you have a country behaving as China is reportedly acting towards the Uyghurs, saying: "It isn't genocide!" does not make everything sunny and okay.

    For the record, my view is the following:
    *) Chinese behaviour towards the Uyghur minority is unclear and hazy. It may or may not be a genocide.
    *) Turkey's behaviour towards the Armenians 100 years ago was a genocide.
    *) Turkey (and other countries) behaviour towards the Kurds is not a genocide.

    But whether genocide or not, all three of the above are atrocious and in no way good, and should be deplored by everyone.
    I agree with this. Turkey attempted an actual genocide on the Armenians

    China Uighurs? Not quite. Turkey Kurds definitely not

    The Armenian genocide perplexes me deeply because I am not able to understand why it happened. The Shoah was centuries in the making - anti semitism is at least 2000 years old - but the Armenian Holocaust seemed to arise over a few decades then wham - 2m dead. Why??
    IMV it's too early to tell with the Uyghurs, and the information coming out of China is restricted and often biased. But it doesn't look good. The Chinese might say it is not a genocide because they are not trying to destroy the group; just their (Muslim) culture.

    But anyone screeching "It's not a genocide!" is ignoring the fact that China is doing a lot of shady sh*t to the Uyghur and other groups. Even if it is not a genocide, it is bad, perhaps evil, in a modern context.

    And that's a problem with people who have a Pavlovian reaction of "It's not a genocide!". That may or may not be correct, but it does not make the acts good and holy.
    Only a lunatic would think there are two choices - “genocide” or “good and holy”

    I’ve no doubt the Chinese regime is behaving barbarically to the Uiighurs, just as it is behaving disgracefully in other areas, but for me it doesn’t seem to fit the term “genocide” - but as you say we surely don’t have the full picture. Maybe it IS that bad. Who knows

    China has certainly tried to wipe out Tibetan culture in the past
    China seems to follow the Russian model of wiping out a culture without the unpleasant process of actually killing everyone that genocide would employ. Everybody gets to be a productive subordinate under Han supremacy / the Russkiy Mir & woe betide you if you show any attachment to your parental culture.
    To be fair, that is pretty much what happened with the Romanisation of Britain, then again with the Anglo-Saxons. While some death was involved, mostly it was a culture change.
  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 40,054
    malcolmg said:

    Carnyx said:

    kle4 said:

    Carnyx said:

    malcolmg said:

    A by-election has been triggered after MP Margaret Ferrier, who was suspended from the Commons for breaking Covid lockdown rules, lost her seat in a recall petition.

    If only she would stand as an independent and win it. SNP will get humped. Bad thing is Labour are crap and tehir candidate is a bellend extrodinaire and a slimeball to boot.
    Has she said she’s not standing? 11986 of constituents who voted for a recall doesn’t seem overwhelming, eg it wouldn’t even have got you second place in the last 3 GEs.
    It's lower than the other two recalls so far, in that link I just posted, apart from the Paisley one which might or might not have special factors. But that's just anecdata.
    I believe Salmond has said Ferrier was treated badly by the SNP. Her coming out as an Alba candidate would put the feline amongst the Columbidae.
    Would definitely up the entertainment value, though why wait till now?
    Waiting on (a) the petition result and (b) events in the SNP?
    What Useless does now will decide fate of SNP and timescales for Independence. He does not have teh brains to stand a Scotland United candidate so SNP will get hammered and WM election will be a bloodbath with SNP done for and Independence put back 10 years at least. Going to be a lot of infighting in the coming years, be interesting to see how many of the gravy trainers slink back to Labour to try and stay at the trough.
    There probably is, however, a gap between the Ru'glen by election and the GE. Wonder if the infighting will begin after the by-election.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,677

    Carnyx said:

    malcolmg said:

    A by-election has been triggered after MP Margaret Ferrier, who was suspended from the Commons for breaking Covid lockdown rules, lost her seat in a recall petition.

    If only she would stand as an independent and win it. SNP will get humped. Bad thing is Labour are crap and tehir candidate is a bellend extrodinaire and a slimeball to boot.
    Has she said she’s not standing? 11986 of constituents who voted for a recall doesn’t seem overwhelming, eg it wouldn’t even have got you second place in the last 3 GEs.
    It's lower than the other two recalls so far, in that link I just posted, apart from the Paisley one which might or might not have special factors. But that's just anecdata.
    I believe Salmond has said Ferrier was treated badly by the SNP. Her coming out as an Alba candidate would put the feline amongst the Columbidae.
    Could Alba win it? Or at least put the SNP into third place?
  • Options
    FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,942
    IanB2 said:

    Wow, one minute I am enjoying a calm end to a calm day, cloudy but bright all day with little wind and only a few spots of drizzle over the lake. In an instant I’m in a gale with stuff blowing everywhere and now the heavens have opened. No warning at all.

    Radar suggests a squall line of some kind.
    https://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/precipitation-in-finland

    Are you in Salla National Park, then?
  • Options
    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 54,173
    Foxy said:

    Interesting poll today on past PMs:



    Sunak running at 24% better place/38% worse place but not yet done.

    5% think Truss made Britain a better place!

    (Not sure how valid anyone under 50's opinion is on Mrs Thatcher BTW, but interestingly not well thought of by the under 55s)

    https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/most-britons-think-boris-johnson-and-liz-truss-changed-britain-worse-during-their-time-office

    If you ranked that based on "net", you'd get very different results!
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,559

    IanB2 said:

    Wow, one minute I am enjoying a calm end to a calm day, cloudy but bright all day with little wind and only a few spots of drizzle over the lake. In an instant I’m in a gale with stuff blowing everywhere and now the heavens have opened. No warning at all.

    Radar suggests a squall line of some kind.
    https://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/precipitation-in-finland

    Are you in Salla National Park, then?
    That’s the rainfall, already starting to ease off.

    No, I’m down by the Leningrad sector.
  • Options
    Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,865
    edited August 2023
    Foxy said:

    Interesting poll today on past PMs:



    Sunak running at 24% better place/38% worse place but not yet done.

    5% think Truss made Britain a better place!

    (Not sure how valid anyone under 50's opinion is on Mrs Thatcher BTW, but interestingly not well thought of by the under 55s)

    https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/most-britons-think-boris-johnson-and-liz-truss-changed-britain-worse-during-their-time-office

    I think if you reached 13 under a leader, you probably have some awareness of the era, even if some of the appreciation of that awareness is slightly after the fact.

    So 1977 = around 46 yo for Thatcher perhaps.

    That said my son, who was 12 when Cameron resigned, certainly has something of an opinion there, but a lot of Cameron's legacy was in his very last day before resigning.
  • Options
    Foxy said:

    Interesting poll today on past PMs:



    Sunak running at 24% better place/38% worse place but not yet done.

    5% think Truss made Britain a better place!

    (Not sure how valid anyone under 50's opinion is on Mrs Thatcher BTW, but interestingly not well thought of by the under 55s)

    https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/most-britons-think-boris-johnson-and-liz-truss-changed-britain-worse-during-their-time-office

    Truss got rid of the hateful NI surcharge for Healthcare. Which would have ratchetted far beyond the initial combined 2.5% charge.

    For that alone, she made the country a better place.
  • Options
    TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 40,359
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    malcolmg said:

    A by-election has been triggered after MP Margaret Ferrier, who was suspended from the Commons for breaking Covid lockdown rules, lost her seat in a recall petition.

    If only she would stand as an independent and win it. SNP will get humped. Bad thing is Labour are crap and tehir candidate is a bellend extrodinaire and a slimeball to boot.
    Has she said she’s not standing? 11986 of constituents who voted for a recall doesn’t seem overwhelming, eg it wouldn’t even have got you second place in the last 3 GEs.
    It's lower than the other two recalls so far, in that link I just posted, apart from the Paisley one which might or might not have special factors. But that's just anecdata.
    I believe Salmond has said Ferrier was treated badly by the SNP. Her coming out as an Alba candidate would put the feline amongst the Columbidae.
    Could Alba win it? Or at least put the SNP into third place?
    No on the first, extremely unlikely on second. Alba are a populist party without popularity.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,677
    Phil said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of genocidal atrocities involving destruction of entire towns and villages, wonder how THIS incident from Florida history, is dealt with under the "educational" guidelines imposed by Gov. "Who Needs Mickey Mouse When You've Got" Ron DeSantis:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre

    "The Rosewood massacre was a racially motivated massacre of black people and the destruction of a black town that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural Levy County, Florida, United States. At least six black people and two white people were killed (in self-defense by one of the victims), but eyewitness accounts suggested a higher death toll of 27 to 150. The town of Rosewood was destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot.

    Florida had an especially high number of lynchings of black men in the years before the massacre, including a well-publicized incident in December 1922."

    Bleak and horrifying, but not “genocidal”
    You sound like the EU fanatics during the referendum bleating "it's not £350m! it's only £250m!"
    I genuinely think it’s quite important to apply profound words like “genocide” in the right way. Do not dilute their impact and meaning

    Because when a real Genocide comes along people will shrug at an overused term

    Same with “racist” and “fascist” etc
    Yes, agreed. It's creeping into use for attempts to suppress minority cultures too. It's horrible, but different from extermination.
    The UN's Genocide definition:
    "The definition contained in Article II of the Convention describes genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part. It does not include political groups or so called “cultural genocide”."

    https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf

    Which leads to interesting (and worrying) questions about the Chinese acts towards the Uyghur minority, or Turkey towards the Armenians or Kurds.

    The thing is: when you have a country behaving as China is reportedly acting towards the Uyghurs, saying: "It isn't genocide!" does not make everything sunny and okay.

    For the record, my view is the following:
    *) Chinese behaviour towards the Uyghur minority is unclear and hazy. It may or may not be a genocide.
    *) Turkey's behaviour towards the Armenians 100 years ago was a genocide.
    *) Turkey (and other countries) behaviour towards the Kurds is not a genocide.

    But whether genocide or not, all three of the above are atrocious and in no way good, and should be deplored by everyone.
    I agree with this. Turkey attempted an actual genocide on the Armenians

    China Uighurs? Not quite. Turkey Kurds definitely not

    The Armenian genocide perplexes me deeply because I am not able to understand why it happened. The Shoah was centuries in the making - anti semitism is at least 2000 years old - but the Armenian Holocaust seemed to arise over a few decades then wham - 2m dead. Why??
    IMV it's too early to tell with the Uyghurs, and the information coming out of China is restricted and often biased. But it doesn't look good. The Chinese might say it is not a genocide because they are not trying to destroy the group; just their (Muslim) culture.

    But anyone screeching "It's not a genocide!" is ignoring the fact that China is doing a lot of shady sh*t to the Uyghur and other groups. Even if it is not a genocide, it is bad, perhaps evil, in a modern context.

    And that's a problem with people who have a Pavlovian reaction of "It's not a genocide!". That may or may not be correct, but it does not make the acts good and holy.
    Only a lunatic would think there are two choices - “genocide” or “good and holy”

    I’ve no doubt the Chinese regime is behaving barbarically to the Uiighurs, just as it is behaving disgracefully in other areas, but for me it doesn’t seem to fit the term “genocide” - but as you say we surely don’t have the full picture. Maybe it IS that bad. Who knows

    China has certainly tried to wipe out Tibetan culture in the past
    China seems to follow the Russian model of wiping out a culture without the unpleasant process of actually killing everyone that genocide would employ. Everybody gets to be a productive subordinate under Han supremacy / the Russkiy Mir & woe betide you if you show any attachment to your parental culture.
    Hmm. i would generally agree with this but after reading Bloodlands I’d say that in the 1930s Stalin was attempting something quite genocide-y against the Poles. By the end of the Terror he was having Poles slaughtered en masse SOLELY because they were Polish. Hundreds of thousands died. Then add in Katyn…

    Perhaps not a genocide in the true sense but he was quite deliberately exterminating a minority nationality within his own borders

    The Ukrainians have a case as well. The Holodomor was a conscious attempt to massacre millions of Ukrainians
  • Options
    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,990
    Woo, by-election klaxon alert!!!

    I actually know Rutherglen quite well, my late gran lived there.

    IIRC the constituency is a rather funny shape, and extends further out into the green stuff than one might expect.

  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 40,054
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    malcolmg said:

    A by-election has been triggered after MP Margaret Ferrier, who was suspended from the Commons for breaking Covid lockdown rules, lost her seat in a recall petition.

    If only she would stand as an independent and win it. SNP will get humped. Bad thing is Labour are crap and tehir candidate is a bellend extrodinaire and a slimeball to boot.
    Has she said she’s not standing? 11986 of constituents who voted for a recall doesn’t seem overwhelming, eg it wouldn’t even have got you second place in the last 3 GEs.
    It's lower than the other two recalls so far, in that link I just posted, apart from the Paisley one which might or might not have special factors. But that's just anecdata.
    I believe Salmond has said Ferrier was treated badly by the SNP. Her coming out as an Alba candidate would put the feline amongst the Columbidae.
    Could Alba win it? Or at least put the SNP into third place?

    Would be very surprised at either, given Alba results in elections. And the incumbency issue is somewhat neutralised. Ms Ferrier hasn't been a SNP MP for three years, and they turfed her out pdq..

    One would assume Labout would win - but the niggle is that SKS has diverged quite badly from Slab core values, and the possibility of pissed off Labour voters and Greens reacting adversely to Brexiter, anti-referendum, alleged child-starver and future oil-driller SKS and helicopter enthusiast Mr Sunak. There aren't that many Tories to make up for any such defections. Even the LDs would find it hard to make a good (for them) bar chart for their leaflet, from past voting, and there's no other party to cover that side of life but the SNP.

    2019 results -

    SNP Margaret Ferrier 23,775
    Labour Co-op Ged Killen 18,545
    Conservative Lynne Nailon 8,054
    Liberal Democrats Mark McGeever 2791
    UKIP Janice MacKay 629
  • Options
    Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,718
    Pulpstar said:

    Labour 1-25 already

    That's too short.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,971
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Leon said:

    TEN BEST DEATH CAMPS/SITES OF MASS EXTERMINATION (that I’ve visited)

    In reverse order


    10. Srebrenica
    9. That village in France
    8. Solovetsky islands
    7. Kamanets Podolskiy
    6. St Petersburg in toto
    5. Teotihuacan
    4. Tuol sleng
    3. Japanese occupied China
    2. Cheoung Ek

    And yet again. For the 78th year running. Still way out in front. The death camp that “has it all”. The nation’s favourite

    1. Auschwitz

    Probably won’t ever be beaten?

    9. is Oradour-sur-Glane, never just 'that village in France' please.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane

    And, the most disturbing thing about Oradour? The fact that it stands out as an atrocity in France.

    In Eastern Europe, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of Oradour's, and in most cases, only the locals remember them.
    That's fair. It's a moving and instructive place to visit though.
    The level of cruelty in the East defies belief. Count Tolstoy gave Harold Macmillan and Lord Aldington lot of stick over the repatriations at Klagenfurt and Bleiburg.

    After reading about the activities of SS Cossacks, and the Ustasha, I think the British Army showed immense restraint not to shoot them on the spot.
    Where I’ve just been. Kamanets Podilskyi. How many people have heard of it?

    Yet it was the first big Aktion of the Final Solution. In just two days the einsatzgruppen marched 23,000 Jews to bomb craters at the edge of town, and forced them to strip and then shot them dead. Piling the corpses like layer cakes. Line after line after line

    23,000. In 2 days. How do you even do that? I wonder if auschwitz at full blast could kill that many in 48 hours
    You almost sound excited...
    No. But it is fascinating in a satanically macabre way

    I just checked. Auschwitz could NOT kill 23,000 in 2 days. At the very height of the Holocaust it is thought maybe 15,000 were dying every day - but that’s all the death camps working together. Auschwitz plus Belzec and Sobibor etc
    The Americans managed to kill 70,000 people in Hiroshima in a few seconds. I know it is not a death camp but the killing rate is equivalent to more than 600 million people per day. Since your list is titled "Mass extermination" Hiroshima should be No.1
    I once had a chance to go to Hiroshima - exes paid. I turned it down coz I was pursuing girls in kyoto bars

    I deeply regret it now. It reinforced my lifetime motto: always say Yes
    And the girls' motto: always say no.
  • Options
    EabhalEabhal Posts: 6,006
    edited August 2023

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


  • Options
    Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,718

    In the last six months I've walked further than Land's End to John O' Groats and back

    And I was feeling happy that I've done 12,000 steps today.

    How are your feet though?
    Well I haven't had any blisters since I got back from Brittany. They're probably the strongest they've ever been: I can squat down, shift my weight forward onto my toes, and then jump with just my toe muscles. I only get about a quarter of an inch off the ground, but it is just my toes
    Well done. Very impressive.
  • Options
    RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Posts: 1,169
    edited August 2023

    By election klaxon. The SNP are going to get horsed.

    Expectations for SNP are very low. The real test is for Labour. They don't want another Uxbridge on their hands.
    Any wedge issues the SNP could identify to use against Labour? They can't use anything local I imagine (South Lanarkshire Council is run by Labour and the Lib Dems though mind), but going after Starmer on Brexit might have a chance of working given it's even more unpopular in Scotland than it is in the rest of the UK.
  • Options
    Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,718

    By election klaxon. The SNP are going to get horsed.

    Expectations for SNP are very low. The real test is for Labour. They don't want another Uxbridge on their hands.
    Any wedge issues the SNP could identify to use against Labour?
    Independence?

  • Options
    Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,718
    Leon said:

    Phil said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of genocidal atrocities involving destruction of entire towns and villages, wonder how THIS incident from Florida history, is dealt with under the "educational" guidelines imposed by Gov. "Who Needs Mickey Mouse When You've Got" Ron DeSantis:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre

    "The Rosewood massacre was a racially motivated massacre of black people and the destruction of a black town that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural Levy County, Florida, United States. At least six black people and two white people were killed (in self-defense by one of the victims), but eyewitness accounts suggested a higher death toll of 27 to 150. The town of Rosewood was destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot.

    Florida had an especially high number of lynchings of black men in the years before the massacre, including a well-publicized incident in December 1922."

    Bleak and horrifying, but not “genocidal”
    You sound like the EU fanatics during the referendum bleating "it's not £350m! it's only £250m!"
    I genuinely think it’s quite important to apply profound words like “genocide” in the right way. Do not dilute their impact and meaning

    Because when a real Genocide comes along people will shrug at an overused term

    Same with “racist” and “fascist” etc
    Yes, agreed. It's creeping into use for attempts to suppress minority cultures too. It's horrible, but different from extermination.
    The UN's Genocide definition:
    "The definition contained in Article II of the Convention describes genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part. It does not include political groups or so called “cultural genocide”."

    https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf

    Which leads to interesting (and worrying) questions about the Chinese acts towards the Uyghur minority, or Turkey towards the Armenians or Kurds.

    The thing is: when you have a country behaving as China is reportedly acting towards the Uyghurs, saying: "It isn't genocide!" does not make everything sunny and okay.

    For the record, my view is the following:
    *) Chinese behaviour towards the Uyghur minority is unclear and hazy. It may or may not be a genocide.
    *) Turkey's behaviour towards the Armenians 100 years ago was a genocide.
    *) Turkey (and other countries) behaviour towards the Kurds is not a genocide.

    But whether genocide or not, all three of the above are atrocious and in no way good, and should be deplored by everyone.
    I agree with this. Turkey attempted an actual genocide on the Armenians

    China Uighurs? Not quite. Turkey Kurds definitely not

    The Armenian genocide perplexes me deeply because I am not able to understand why it happened. The Shoah was centuries in the making - anti semitism is at least 2000 years old - but the Armenian Holocaust seemed to arise over a few decades then wham - 2m dead. Why??
    IMV it's too early to tell with the Uyghurs, and the information coming out of China is restricted and often biased. But it doesn't look good. The Chinese might say it is not a genocide because they are not trying to destroy the group; just their (Muslim) culture.

    But anyone screeching "It's not a genocide!" is ignoring the fact that China is doing a lot of shady sh*t to the Uyghur and other groups. Even if it is not a genocide, it is bad, perhaps evil, in a modern context.

    And that's a problem with people who have a Pavlovian reaction of "It's not a genocide!". That may or may not be correct, but it does not make the acts good and holy.
    Only a lunatic would think there are two choices - “genocide” or “good and holy”

    I’ve no doubt the Chinese regime is behaving barbarically to the Uiighurs, just as it is behaving disgracefully in other areas, but for me it doesn’t seem to fit the term “genocide” - but as you say we surely don’t have the full picture. Maybe it IS that bad. Who knows

    China has certainly tried to wipe out Tibetan culture in the past
    China seems to follow the Russian model of wiping out a culture without the unpleasant process of actually killing everyone that genocide would employ. Everybody gets to be a productive subordinate under Han supremacy / the Russkiy Mir & woe betide you if you show any attachment to your parental culture.
    Hmm. i would generally agree with this but after reading Bloodlands I’d say that in the 1930s Stalin was attempting something quite genocide-y against the Poles. By the end of the Terror he was having Poles slaughtered en masse SOLELY because they were Polish. Hundreds of thousands died. Then add in Katyn…

    Perhaps not a genocide in the true sense but he was quite deliberately exterminating a minority nationality within his own borders

    The Ukrainians have a case as well. The Holodomor was a conscious attempt to massacre millions of Ukrainians
    At some level I think Stalin admired Hitler's chutzpah.
  • Options
    Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,718
    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:

    Interesting poll today on past PMs:



    Sunak running at 24% better place/38% worse place but not yet done.

    5% think Truss made Britain a better place!

    (Not sure how valid anyone under 50's opinion is on Mrs Thatcher BTW, but interestingly not well thought of by the under 55s)

    https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/most-britons-think-boris-johnson-and-liz-truss-changed-britain-worse-during-their-time-office

    If you ranked that based on "net", you'd get very different results!
    I think John Major would be most happy with that.
  • Options
    LeonLeon Posts: 47,677

    Leon said:

    Phil said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of genocidal atrocities involving destruction of entire towns and villages, wonder how THIS incident from Florida history, is dealt with under the "educational" guidelines imposed by Gov. "Who Needs Mickey Mouse When You've Got" Ron DeSantis:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre

    "The Rosewood massacre was a racially motivated massacre of black people and the destruction of a black town that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural Levy County, Florida, United States. At least six black people and two white people were killed (in self-defense by one of the victims), but eyewitness accounts suggested a higher death toll of 27 to 150. The town of Rosewood was destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot.

    Florida had an especially high number of lynchings of black men in the years before the massacre, including a well-publicized incident in December 1922."

    Bleak and horrifying, but not “genocidal”
    You sound like the EU fanatics during the referendum bleating "it's not £350m! it's only £250m!"
    I genuinely think it’s quite important to apply profound words like “genocide” in the right way. Do not dilute their impact and meaning

    Because when a real Genocide comes along people will shrug at an overused term

    Same with “racist” and “fascist” etc
    Yes, agreed. It's creeping into use for attempts to suppress minority cultures too. It's horrible, but different from extermination.
    The UN's Genocide definition:
    "The definition contained in Article II of the Convention describes genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part. It does not include political groups or so called “cultural genocide”."

    https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf

    Which leads to interesting (and worrying) questions about the Chinese acts towards the Uyghur minority, or Turkey towards the Armenians or Kurds.

    The thing is: when you have a country behaving as China is reportedly acting towards the Uyghurs, saying: "It isn't genocide!" does not make everything sunny and okay.

    For the record, my view is the following:
    *) Chinese behaviour towards the Uyghur minority is unclear and hazy. It may or may not be a genocide.
    *) Turkey's behaviour towards the Armenians 100 years ago was a genocide.
    *) Turkey (and other countries) behaviour towards the Kurds is not a genocide.

    But whether genocide or not, all three of the above are atrocious and in no way good, and should be deplored by everyone.
    I agree with this. Turkey attempted an actual genocide on the Armenians

    China Uighurs? Not quite. Turkey Kurds definitely not

    The Armenian genocide perplexes me deeply because I am not able to understand why it happened. The Shoah was centuries in the making - anti semitism is at least 2000 years old - but the Armenian Holocaust seemed to arise over a few decades then wham - 2m dead. Why??
    IMV it's too early to tell with the Uyghurs, and the information coming out of China is restricted and often biased. But it doesn't look good. The Chinese might say it is not a genocide because they are not trying to destroy the group; just their (Muslim) culture.

    But anyone screeching "It's not a genocide!" is ignoring the fact that China is doing a lot of shady sh*t to the Uyghur and other groups. Even if it is not a genocide, it is bad, perhaps evil, in a modern context.

    And that's a problem with people who have a Pavlovian reaction of "It's not a genocide!". That may or may not be correct, but it does not make the acts good and holy.
    Only a lunatic would think there are two choices - “genocide” or “good and holy”

    I’ve no doubt the Chinese regime is behaving barbarically to the Uiighurs, just as it is behaving disgracefully in other areas, but for me it doesn’t seem to fit the term “genocide” - but as you say we surely don’t have the full picture. Maybe it IS that bad. Who knows

    China has certainly tried to wipe out Tibetan culture in the past
    China seems to follow the Russian model of wiping out a culture without the unpleasant process of actually killing everyone that genocide would employ. Everybody gets to be a productive subordinate under Han supremacy / the Russkiy Mir & woe betide you if you show any attachment to your parental culture.
    Hmm. i would generally agree with this but after reading Bloodlands I’d say that in the 1930s Stalin was attempting something quite genocide-y against the Poles. By the end of the Terror he was having Poles slaughtered en masse SOLELY because they were Polish. Hundreds of thousands died. Then add in Katyn…

    Perhaps not a genocide in the true sense but he was quite deliberately exterminating a minority nationality within his own borders

    The Ukrainians have a case as well. The Holodomor was a conscious attempt to massacre millions of Ukrainians
    At some level I think Stalin admired Hitler's chutzpah.
    Actually the evidence is the other way round, certainly in the 1930s. Stalin was far more brutal, and brutally efficient, than Hitler dared to be

    The Nazis did catch up tho
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,164
    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    "1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles."

    That depends on the definition of 'efficiency', the journey being made, and the situation of the person wanting to move.

    Don't believe the cycling lobby b/s. Cycling *can* be the most efficient form of transport, in some situations, depending on the definitions. For many other journeys, for other people, cycling is a loony idea.
  • Options
    RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Posts: 1,169

    By election klaxon. The SNP are going to get horsed.

    Expectations for SNP are very low. The real test is for Labour. They don't want another Uxbridge on their hands.
    Any wedge issues the SNP could identify to use against Labour?
    Independence?

    The SNP would need to have a coherent policy on how to achieve it for that to work. I'm not really sure anyone understands what exactly Humsa's policy is.
  • Options
    EabhalEabhal Posts: 6,006

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    "1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles."

    That depends on the definition of 'efficiency', the journey being made, and the situation of the person wanting to move.

    Don't believe the cycling lobby b/s. Cycling *can* be the most efficient form of transport, in some situations, depending on the definitions. For many other journeys, for other people, cycling is a loony idea.
    Sure, but in terms of MJ/km, cycling is about 30x as energy efficient as driving.
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,624

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of genocidal atrocities involving destruction of entire towns and villages, wonder how THIS incident from Florida history, is dealt with under the "educational" guidelines imposed by Gov. "Who Needs Mickey Mouse When You've Got" Ron DeSantis:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre

    "The Rosewood massacre was a racially motivated massacre of black people and the destruction of a black town that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural Levy County, Florida, United States. At least six black people and two white people were killed (in self-defense by one of the victims), but eyewitness accounts suggested a higher death toll of 27 to 150. The town of Rosewood was destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot.

    Florida had an especially high number of lynchings of black men in the years before the massacre, including a well-publicized incident in December 1922."

    Bleak and horrifying, but not “genocidal”
    You sound like the EU fanatics during the referendum bleating "it's not £350m! it's only £250m!"
    It always seems to be Florida. No wonder they call it Horrida.
    Strange, did NOT know that Tulsa is really in Florida, not Oklahoma:

    \https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre

    60 Minutes - Uncovering the Greenwood Massacre, nearly a century later
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA8t8PW-OkA
    Sorry, I read it as Florida for some reason.
  • Options
    londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,234
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    malcolmg said:

    A by-election has been triggered after MP Margaret Ferrier, who was suspended from the Commons for breaking Covid lockdown rules, lost her seat in a recall petition.

    If only she would stand as an independent and win it. SNP will get humped. Bad thing is Labour are crap and tehir candidate is a bellend extrodinaire and a slimeball to boot.
    Has she said she’s not standing? 11986 of constituents who voted for a recall doesn’t seem overwhelming, eg it wouldn’t even have got you second place in the last 3 GEs.
    It's lower than the other two recalls so far, in that link I just posted, apart from the Paisley one which might or might not have special factors. But that's just anecdata.
    I believe Salmond has said Ferrier was treated badly by the SNP. Her coming out as an Alba candidate would put the feline amongst the Columbidae.
    Could Alba win it? Or at least put the SNP into third place?

    Would be very surprised at either, given Alba results in elections. And the incumbency issue is somewhat neutralised. Ms Ferrier hasn't been a SNP MP for three years, and they turfed her out pdq..

    One would assume Labout would win - but the niggle is that SKS has diverged quite badly from Slab core values, and the possibility of pissed off Labour voters and Greens reacting adversely to Brexiter, anti-referendum, alleged child-starver and future oil-driller SKS and helicopter enthusiast Mr Sunak. There aren't that many Tories to make up for any such defections. Even the LDs would find it hard to make a good (for them) bar chart for their leaflet, from past voting, and there's no other party to cover that side of life but the SNP.

    2019 results -

    SNP Margaret Ferrier 23,775
    Labour Co-op Ged Killen 18,545
    Conservative Lynne Nailon 8,054
    Liberal Democrats Mark McGeever 2791
    UKIP Janice MacKay 629
    CON and LD completely wasting their time in this one although of course they should still stand.

    Pressure on LAB to win big to back up opinion polls in Scotland.

    Not sure Alba will bother standing.
  • Options
    EabhalEabhal Posts: 6,006

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    But, that shows trains knocking it out the park at capacity.

    Railways have a remarkably low coefficient of friction.
    As I keep on saying, I'm not anti-car. They are currently essential for a large proportion of the population.

    I'm just pro everything else. If I were to choose in more investment in public transport or cycling, I'd go with public transport in most cases for the UK. In places like London and Edinburgh, more cycling and pedestrian provision.
  • Options
    MiklosvarMiklosvar Posts: 1,855
    I have just bought a Patagonia goretex coat for one half of the price of a cotton shirt. Bargain.
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,164
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of genocidal atrocities involving destruction of entire towns and villages, wonder how THIS incident from Florida history, is dealt with under the "educational" guidelines imposed by Gov. "Who Needs Mickey Mouse When You've Got" Ron DeSantis:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre

    "The Rosewood massacre was a racially motivated massacre of black people and the destruction of a black town that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural Levy County, Florida, United States. At least six black people and two white people were killed (in self-defense by one of the victims), but eyewitness accounts suggested a higher death toll of 27 to 150. The town of Rosewood was destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot.

    Florida had an especially high number of lynchings of black men in the years before the massacre, including a well-publicized incident in December 1922."

    Bleak and horrifying, but not “genocidal”
    You sound like the EU fanatics during the referendum bleating "it's not £350m! it's only £250m!"
    I genuinely think it’s quite important to apply profound words like “genocide” in the right way. Do not dilute their impact and meaning

    Because when a real Genocide comes along people will shrug at an overused term

    Same with “racist” and “fascist” etc
    Yes, agreed. It's creeping into use for attempts to suppress minority cultures too. It's horrible, but different from extermination.
    The UN's Genocide definition:
    "The definition contained in Article II of the Convention describes genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part. It does not include political groups or so called “cultural genocide”."

    https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf

    Which leads to interesting (and worrying) questions about the Chinese acts towards the Uyghur minority, or Turkey towards the Armenians or Kurds.

    The thing is: when you have a country behaving as China is reportedly acting towards the Uyghurs, saying: "It isn't genocide!" does not make everything sunny and okay.

    For the record, my view is the following:
    *) Chinese behaviour towards the Uyghur minority is unclear and hazy. It may or may not be a genocide.
    *) Turkey's behaviour towards the Armenians 100 years ago was a genocide.
    *) Turkey (and other countries) behaviour towards the Kurds is not a genocide.

    But whether genocide or not, all three of the above are atrocious and in no way good, and should be deplored by everyone.
    I agree with this. Turkey attempted an actual genocide on the Armenians

    China Uighurs? Not quite. Turkey Kurds definitely not

    The Armenian genocide perplexes me deeply because I am not able to understand why it happened. The Shoah was centuries in the making - anti semitism is at least 2000 years old - but the Armenian Holocaust seemed to arise over a few decades then wham - 2m dead. Why??
    IMV it's too early to tell with the Uyghurs, and the information coming out of China is restricted and often biased. But it doesn't look good. The Chinese might say it is not a genocide because they are not trying to destroy the group; just their (Muslim) culture.

    But anyone screeching "It's not a genocide!" is ignoring the fact that China is doing a lot of shady sh*t to the Uyghur and other groups. Even if it is not a genocide, it is bad, perhaps evil, in a modern context.

    And that's a problem with people who have a Pavlovian reaction of "It's not a genocide!". That may or may not be correct, but it does not make the acts good and holy.
    Only a lunatic would think there are two choices - “genocide” or “good and holy”

    I’ve no doubt the Chinese regime is behaving barbarically to the Uiighurs, just as it is behaving disgracefully in other areas, but for me it doesn’t seem to fit the term “genocide” - but as you say we surely don’t have the full picture. Maybe it IS that bad. Who knows

    China has certainly tried to wipe out Tibetan culture in the past
    But that's the way the arguments tend to go.

    If I was to say: "The way Turkey treated the Armenians around1915 was a genocide," I'd get replies of "BUT IT WAS NOT A GENOCIDE YOU TURK-HATING FIEND!!!!"

    Not "I don't think it was a genocide, but it was hideous," but the idea that, as someone saying what happened to the Armenians was awful, *I* am the person in the wrong, and the Ottaman state blameless.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,899

    Pulpstar said:

    Labour 1-25 already

    That's too short.
    Way too short. Nats are Nats even after the recent fiasco. SNP may well hold the seat, despite the recall.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,971
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of genocidal atrocities involving destruction of entire towns and villages, wonder how THIS incident from Florida history, is dealt with under the "educational" guidelines imposed by Gov. "Who Needs Mickey Mouse When You've Got" Ron DeSantis:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre

    "The Rosewood massacre was a racially motivated massacre of black people and the destruction of a black town that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural Levy County, Florida, United States. At least six black people and two white people were killed (in self-defense by one of the victims), but eyewitness accounts suggested a higher death toll of 27 to 150. The town of Rosewood was destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot.

    Florida had an especially high number of lynchings of black men in the years before the massacre, including a well-publicized incident in December 1922."

    Bleak and horrifying, but not “genocidal”
    You sound like the EU fanatics during the referendum bleating "it's not £350m! it's only £250m!"
    I genuinely think it’s quite important to apply profound words like “genocide” in the right way. Do not dilute their impact and meaning

    Because when a real Genocide comes along people will shrug at an overused term

    Same with “racist” and “fascist” etc
    Yes, agreed. It's creeping into use for attempts to suppress minority cultures too. It's horrible, but different from extermination.
    The UN's Genocide definition:
    "The definition contained in Article II of the Convention describes genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part. It does not include political groups or so called “cultural genocide”."

    https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf

    Which leads to interesting (and worrying) questions about the Chinese acts towards the Uyghur minority, or Turkey towards the Armenians or Kurds.

    The thing is: when you have a country behaving as China is reportedly acting towards the Uyghurs, saying: "It isn't genocide!" does not make everything sunny and okay.

    For the record, my view is the following:
    *) Chinese behaviour towards the Uyghur minority is unclear and hazy. It may or may not be a genocide.
    *) Turkey's behaviour towards the Armenians 100 years ago was a genocide.
    *) Turkey (and other countries) behaviour towards the Kurds is not a genocide.

    But whether genocide or not, all three of the above are atrocious and in no way good, and should be deplored by everyone.
    I agree with this. Turkey attempted an actual genocide on the Armenians

    China Uighurs? Not quite. Turkey Kurds definitely not

    The Armenian genocide perplexes me deeply because I am not able to understand why it happened. The Shoah was centuries in the making - anti semitism is at least 2000 years old - but the Armenian Holocaust seemed to arise over a few decades then wham - 2m dead. Why??
    The biography of Talaat Pasha provides a partial explanation.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talaat_Pasha
  • Options
    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
  • Options
    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,527
    edited August 2023
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Phil said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of genocidal atrocities involving destruction of entire towns and villages, wonder how THIS incident from Florida history, is dealt with under the "educational" guidelines imposed by Gov. "Who Needs Mickey Mouse When You've Got" Ron DeSantis:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre

    "The Rosewood massacre was a racially motivated massacre of black people and the destruction of a black town that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural Levy County, Florida, United States. At least six black people and two white people were killed (in self-defense by one of the victims), but eyewitness accounts suggested a higher death toll of 27 to 150. The town of Rosewood was destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot.

    Florida had an especially high number of lynchings of black men in the years before the massacre, including a well-publicized incident in December 1922."

    Bleak and horrifying, but not “genocidal”
    You sound like the EU fanatics during the referendum bleating "it's not £350m! it's only £250m!"
    I genuinely think it’s quite important to apply profound words like “genocide” in the right way. Do not dilute their impact and meaning

    Because when a real Genocide comes along people will shrug at an overused term

    Same with “racist” and “fascist” etc
    Yes, agreed. It's creeping into use for attempts to suppress minority cultures too. It's horrible, but different from extermination.
    The UN's Genocide definition:
    "The definition contained in Article II of the Convention describes genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part. It does not include political groups or so called “cultural genocide”."

    https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf

    Which leads to interesting (and worrying) questions about the Chinese acts towards the Uyghur minority, or Turkey towards the Armenians or Kurds.

    The thing is: when you have a country behaving as China is reportedly acting towards the Uyghurs, saying: "It isn't genocide!" does not make everything sunny and okay.

    For the record, my view is the following:
    *) Chinese behaviour towards the Uyghur minority is unclear and hazy. It may or may not be a genocide.
    *) Turkey's behaviour towards the Armenians 100 years ago was a genocide.
    *) Turkey (and other countries) behaviour towards the Kurds is not a genocide.

    But whether genocide or not, all three of the above are atrocious and in no way good, and should be deplored by everyone.
    I agree with this. Turkey attempted an actual genocide on the Armenians

    China Uighurs? Not quite. Turkey Kurds definitely not

    The Armenian genocide perplexes me deeply because I am not able to understand why it happened. The Shoah was centuries in the making - anti semitism is at least 2000 years old - but the Armenian Holocaust seemed to arise over a few decades then wham - 2m dead. Why??
    IMV it's too early to tell with the Uyghurs, and the information coming out of China is restricted and often biased. But it doesn't look good. The Chinese might say it is not a genocide because they are not trying to destroy the group; just their (Muslim) culture.

    But anyone screeching "It's not a genocide!" is ignoring the fact that China is doing a lot of shady sh*t to the Uyghur and other groups. Even if it is not a genocide, it is bad, perhaps evil, in a modern context.

    And that's a problem with people who have a Pavlovian reaction of "It's not a genocide!". That may or may not be correct, but it does not make the acts good and holy.
    Only a lunatic would think there are two choices - “genocide” or “good and holy”

    I’ve no doubt the Chinese regime is behaving barbarically to the Uiighurs, just as it is behaving disgracefully in other areas, but for me it doesn’t seem to fit the term “genocide” - but as you say we surely don’t have the full picture. Maybe it IS that bad. Who knows

    China has certainly tried to wipe out Tibetan culture in the past
    China seems to follow the Russian model of wiping out a culture without the unpleasant process of actually killing everyone that genocide would employ. Everybody gets to be a productive subordinate under Han supremacy / the Russkiy Mir & woe betide you if you show any attachment to your parental culture.
    Hmm. i would generally agree with this but after reading Bloodlands I’d say that in the 1930s Stalin was attempting something quite genocide-y against the Poles. By the end of the Terror he was having Poles slaughtered en masse SOLELY because they were Polish. Hundreds of thousands died. Then add in Katyn…

    Perhaps not a genocide in the true sense but he was quite deliberately exterminating a minority nationality within his own borders

    The Ukrainians have a case as well. The Holodomor was a conscious attempt to massacre millions of Ukrainians
    At some level I think Stalin admired Hitler's chutzpah.
    Actually the evidence is the other way round, certainly in the 1930s. Stalin was far more brutal, and brutally efficient, than Hitler dared to be

    The Nazis did catch up tho
    But Stalin generally kept it within his [imperial] borders, while Hitler rolled the dice on expanding Germany. Stalin was so risk-averse that he wasn't willing to provide much support for the Spanish Republicans, for fear of provoking Europe's democracies.

    So I'm with CR in saying that Stalin might have admired Hitler's chutzpah. He didn't have the level of self-belief that led Hitler to take such risks.
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,207
    edited August 2023
    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    malcolmg said:

    A by-election has been triggered after MP Margaret Ferrier, who was suspended from the Commons for breaking Covid lockdown rules, lost her seat in a recall petition.

    If only she would stand as an independent and win it. SNP will get humped. Bad thing is Labour are crap and tehir candidate is a bellend extrodinaire and a slimeball to boot.
    Has she said she’s not standing? 11986 of constituents who voted for a recall doesn’t seem overwhelming, eg it wouldn’t even have got you second place in the last 3 GEs.
    It's lower than the other two recalls so far, in that link I just posted, apart from the Paisley one which might or might not have special factors. But that's just anecdata.
    I believe Salmond has said Ferrier was treated badly by the SNP. Her coming out as an Alba candidate would put the feline amongst the Columbidae.
    Could Alba win it? Or at least put the SNP into third place?

    Would be very surprised at either, given Alba results in elections. And the incumbency issue is somewhat neutralised. Ms Ferrier hasn't been a SNP MP for three years, and they turfed her out pdq..

    One would assume Labout would win - but the niggle is that SKS has diverged quite badly from Slab core values, and the possibility of pissed off Labour voters and Greens reacting adversely to Brexiter, anti-referendum, alleged child-starver and future oil-driller SKS and helicopter enthusiast Mr Sunak. There aren't that many Tories to make up for any such defections. Even the LDs would find it hard to make a good (for them) bar chart for their leaflet, from past voting, and there's no other party to cover that side of life but the SNP.

    2019 results -

    SNP Margaret Ferrier 23,775
    Labour Co-op Ged Killen 18,545
    Conservative Lynne Nailon 8,054
    Liberal Democrats Mark McGeever 2791
    UKIP Janice MacKay 629
    On those numbers Tory tactical voting for SLab would defeat the SNP even without a single SNP voter defecting and Scottish Tories are far more likely to vote for Starmer Labour than they were for Corbyn Labour.

    Notwithstanding most polls have at least a 10% swing from SNP to SLab since 2019 on top of that.

    Will Nadine resign by the end of the parliamentary recess so 2 by elections can be held on the likely Rutherglen by election date of October 5th, maybe 3 if a recall petition is successful in Chris Pincher's Tamworth seat?
  • Options

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of genocidal atrocities involving destruction of entire towns and villages, wonder how THIS incident from Florida history, is dealt with under the "educational" guidelines imposed by Gov. "Who Needs Mickey Mouse When You've Got" Ron DeSantis:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre

    "The Rosewood massacre was a racially motivated massacre of black people and the destruction of a black town that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural Levy County, Florida, United States. At least six black people and two white people were killed (in self-defense by one of the victims), but eyewitness accounts suggested a higher death toll of 27 to 150. The town of Rosewood was destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot.

    Florida had an especially high number of lynchings of black men in the years before the massacre, including a well-publicized incident in December 1922."

    Bleak and horrifying, but not “genocidal”
    You sound like the EU fanatics during the referendum bleating "it's not £350m! it's only £250m!"
    It always seems to be Florida. No wonder they call it Horrida.
    Strange, did NOT know that Tulsa is really in Florida, not Oklahoma:

    \https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre

    60 Minutes - Uncovering the Greenwood Massacre, nearly a century later
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA8t8PW-OkA
    Sorry, I read it as Florida for some reason.
    The first instance of rubbing out a small African African community that I posted about, that WAS in Florida.

    My point is, that kind of racist violence was NOT limited to any single state.

    BTW, have personally never heard or (previously) heard anyone refer to the great Sunshine State as "Horrida".
  • Options
    EabhalEabhal Posts: 6,006
    edited August 2023

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.

    An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.

    Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.


  • Options
    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 40,054
    edited August 2023
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    malcolmg said:

    A by-election has been triggered after MP Margaret Ferrier, who was suspended from the Commons for breaking Covid lockdown rules, lost her seat in a recall petition.

    If only she would stand as an independent and win it. SNP will get humped. Bad thing is Labour are crap and tehir candidate is a bellend extrodinaire and a slimeball to boot.
    Has she said she’s not standing? 11986 of constituents who voted for a recall doesn’t seem overwhelming, eg it wouldn’t even have got you second place in the last 3 GEs.
    It's lower than the other two recalls so far, in that link I just posted, apart from the Paisley one which might or might not have special factors. But that's just anecdata.
    I believe Salmond has said Ferrier was treated badly by the SNP. Her coming out as an Alba candidate would put the feline amongst the Columbidae.
    Could Alba win it? Or at least put the SNP into third place?

    Would be very surprised at either, given Alba results in elections. And the incumbency issue is somewhat neutralised. Ms Ferrier hasn't been a SNP MP for three years, and they turfed her out pdq..

    One would assume Labout would win - but the niggle is that SKS has diverged quite badly from Slab core values, and the possibility of pissed off Labour voters and Greens reacting adversely to Brexiter, anti-referendum, alleged child-starver and future oil-driller SKS and helicopter enthusiast Mr Sunak. There aren't that many Tories to make up for any such defections. Even the LDs would find it hard to make a good (for them) bar chart for their leaflet, from past voting, and there's no other party to cover that side of life but the SNP.

    2019 results -

    SNP Margaret Ferrier 23,775
    Labour Co-op Ged Killen 18,545
    Conservative Lynne Nailon 8,054
    Liberal Democrats Mark McGeever 2791
    UKIP Janice MacKay 629
    On those numbers Tory tactical voting for SLab would defeat the SNP even without a single SNP voter defecting and Scottish Tories are far more likely to vote for Starmer Labour than they were for Corbyn Labour.

    Notwithstanding most polls have at least a 10% swing from SNP to SLab since 2019 on top of that
    All polls *before* the latest stage in the transformation of SKS into full-out Tory.
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,086
    Foxy said:



    (Not sure how valid anyone under 50's opinion is on Mrs Thatcher BTW, but interestingly not well thought of by the under 55s)

    If under 55 people are academically inclined then the passage of time may make their opinion better, assuming they are able to maintain professional objectivity. If they are just regular people, then their view is probably just a mishmash of their personal ideologies and worth very little. What the heck would I know about Thatcher's time as PM?
  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 27,057
    Starmer is probably finished as a political force if Labour don't win this by-election.
  • Options

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    But, that shows trains knocking it out the park at capacity.

    Railways have a remarkably low coefficient of friction.
    Moral: It depends what you want to optimise. It would be lovely if there was always a single way of doing things that was best by all criteria. Sometimes that happens (white LEDs come pretty close) and the transition to that best way is easy.

    Mostly it doesn't, which is why society gets stuck. If you value personal convenience, cars are great. They let you do the journey you want at the time you want. By loads of other metrics (energy efficiency, space efficiency, health effects on users and bystanders), they're pretty terrible.

    And those tradeoffs are difficult, and the stuff of politics.
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,164
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    "1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles."

    That depends on the definition of 'efficiency', the journey being made, and the situation of the person wanting to move.

    Don't believe the cycling lobby b/s. Cycling *can* be the most efficient form of transport, in some situations, depending on the definitions. For many other journeys, for other people, cycling is a loony idea.
    Sure, but in terms of MJ/km, cycling is about 30x as energy efficient as driving.
    That multiplier surely depends on the speed one cycles at. And yes, cars are a *terribly* inefficient way to travel. But also *extremely* convenient.

    In a few days, I shall be going into Milton Keynes for something. To get to my destination, with my son, will take 43 minutes by car, 11 hours walking, and over 3 hours by bike (according to Google). It won't give me a public transport option. To MK Central station, it is over 3 hours, via London.

    And that is one-way. Tell me how I can do without a car for that trip?

    This is the very reason why some friends of my son, whose parents do not have access to cars, have had some very limited opportunities.
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,086
    rcs1000 said:

    Foxy said:

    Interesting poll today on past PMs:



    Sunak running at 24% better place/38% worse place but not yet done.

    5% think Truss made Britain a better place!

    (Not sure how valid anyone under 50's opinion is on Mrs Thatcher BTW, but interestingly not well thought of by the under 55s)

    https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/most-britons-think-boris-johnson-and-liz-truss-changed-britain-worse-during-their-time-office

    If you ranked that based on "net", you'd get very different results!
    Yes, Major seems to be the forgotten but not hated PM based on that.
  • Options
    FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,942
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    "1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles."

    That depends on the definition of 'efficiency', the journey being made, and the situation of the person wanting to move.

    Don't believe the cycling lobby b/s. Cycling *can* be the most efficient form of transport, in some situations, depending on the definitions. For many other journeys, for other people, cycling is a loony idea.
    Sure, but in terms of MJ/km, cycling is about 30x as energy efficient as driving.
    Depending on the food miles :)

    I make it about 800g of potatoes per 20km (at 20km / hr).
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,086
    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer is probably finished as a political force if Labour don't win this by-election.

    I may need you to connect the dots for me on that one.
  • Options
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.

    An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.

    Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.


    The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.

    Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
  • Options
    EabhalEabhal Posts: 6,006

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    "1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles."

    That depends on the definition of 'efficiency', the journey being made, and the situation of the person wanting to move.

    Don't believe the cycling lobby b/s. Cycling *can* be the most efficient form of transport, in some situations, depending on the definitions. For many other journeys, for other people, cycling is a loony idea.
    Sure, but in terms of MJ/km, cycling is about 30x as energy efficient as driving.
    Depending on the food miles :)

    I make it about 800g of potatoes per 20km (at 20km / hr).
    Steak bake and a coffee per 25km.
  • Options
    TimSTimS Posts: 9,896
    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer is probably finished as a political force if Labour don't win this by-election.

    It's less than a fortnight since they won Selby and Ainsty with one of the largest swings in byelection history.
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,086

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    "1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles."

    That depends on the definition of 'efficiency', the journey being made, and the situation of the person wanting to move.

    Don't believe the cycling lobby b/s. Cycling *can* be the most efficient form of transport, in some situations, depending on the definitions. For many other journeys, for other people, cycling is a loony idea.
    I don't own a car and so get about by cycle and train, and that chart just feels wrong when looking at it. Obviously I cannot dispute it without looking into the detail, but I am skeptical.
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,086
    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    malcolmg said:

    A by-election has been triggered after MP Margaret Ferrier, who was suspended from the Commons for breaking Covid lockdown rules, lost her seat in a recall petition.

    If only she would stand as an independent and win it. SNP will get humped. Bad thing is Labour are crap and tehir candidate is a bellend extrodinaire and a slimeball to boot.
    Has she said she’s not standing? 11986 of constituents who voted for a recall doesn’t seem overwhelming, eg it wouldn’t even have got you second place in the last 3 GEs.
    It's lower than the other two recalls so far, in that link I just posted, apart from the Paisley one which might or might not have special factors. But that's just anecdata.
    I believe Salmond has said Ferrier was treated badly by the SNP. Her coming out as an Alba candidate would put the feline amongst the Columbidae.
    Could Alba win it? Or at least put the SNP into third place?
    They've surely got to at least attempt it? Even if they get humiliated what does not even bothering to stand give as a message?
  • Options
    kle4 said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    "1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles."

    That depends on the definition of 'efficiency', the journey being made, and the situation of the person wanting to move.

    Don't believe the cycling lobby b/s. Cycling *can* be the most efficient form of transport, in some situations, depending on the definitions. For many other journeys, for other people, cycling is a loony idea.
    I don't own a car and so get about by cycle and train, and that chart just feels wrong when looking at it. Obviously I cannot dispute it without looking into the detail, but I am skeptical.
    It is patently false data that is clearly not taken from real life UK experiences in towns across the country.
  • Options
    Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,536
    Since you are dsicussing massacres, here's one I learned about only recently:
    "The Manila massacre (Filipino: Pagpatay sa Maynila or Masaker sa Maynila), also called the Rape of Manila (Filipino: Paggahasa ng Maynila), involved atrocities committed against Filipino civilians in the City of Manila, the capital of the Philippines, by Japanese troops during the Battle of Manila (3 February 1945 – 3 March 1945) which occurred during World War II. The total number of civilians who were killed by the Japanese as well as American artillery and firing is estimated to be at least 100,000."
    source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_massacre

    (For those fascinated with such subjects, I'll add that the conventional fire bomb attack on Tokyo, earlier in 1945, probably killed more people at the time than either the Hiroshima or Nagasaki atomic bombs.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo )
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,207
    edited August 2023
    Foxy said:

    Interesting poll today on past PMs:



    Sunak running at 24% better place/38% worse place but not yet done.

    5% think Truss made Britain a better place!

    (Not sure how valid anyone under 50's opinion is on Mrs Thatcher BTW, but interestingly not well thought of by the under 55s)

    https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/most-britons-think-boris-johnson-and-liz-truss-changed-britain-worse-during-their-time-office

    I expect Sir John Major would have been delighted if you had told him on Friday, 2nd May 1997 that by a +7% margin 26 years later more UK voters would say he changed Britain for the better than the worse. That that would beat the +6% who thought Blair did a net good job and that every other PM since 1997 (including 4 later Tory PMs) would have a net negative rating would no doubt have delighted and astonished him even more
  • Options
    Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,718
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    But, that shows trains knocking it out the park at capacity.

    Railways have a remarkably low coefficient of friction.
    As I keep on saying, I'm not anti-car. They are currently essential for a large proportion of the population.

    I'm just pro everything else. If I were to choose in more investment in public transport or cycling, I'd go with public transport in most cases for the UK. In places like London and Edinburgh, more cycling and pedestrian provision.
    But, logically, you'd also have to accept that the vast majority of the UK population don't live in either of those two places and so the car needs to form part of the overall transport solution as well.

    It's simple economics.
  • Options
    EabhalEabhal Posts: 6,006

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    But, that shows trains knocking it out the park at capacity.

    Railways have a remarkably low coefficient of friction.
    As I keep on saying, I'm not anti-car. They are currently essential for a large proportion of the population.

    I'm just pro everything else. If I were to choose in more investment in public transport or cycling, I'd go with public transport in most cases for the UK. In places like London and Edinburgh, more cycling and pedestrian provision.
    But, logically, you'd also have to accept that the vast majority of the UK population don't live in either of those two places and so the car needs to form part of the overall transport solution as well.

    It's simple economics.
    Agree. For the 80% of us who live in urban areas, public transport and cycling and walking should be the most attractive option.

    That leaves loads of road and infrastructure for the remaining 20% :)
  • Options
    Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,718
    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer is probably finished as a political force if Labour don't win this by-election.

    Bit strong. He'd carry on fine I think.

    As it happens I think he'll win.
  • Options
    EabhalEabhal Posts: 6,006
    edited August 2023

    kle4 said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    "1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles."

    That depends on the definition of 'efficiency', the journey being made, and the situation of the person wanting to move.

    Don't believe the cycling lobby b/s. Cycling *can* be the most efficient form of transport, in some situations, depending on the definitions. For many other journeys, for other people, cycling is a loony idea.
    I don't own a car and so get about by cycle and train, and that chart just feels wrong when looking at it. Obviously I cannot dispute it without looking into the detail, but I am skeptical.
    It is patently false data that is clearly not taken from real life UK experiences in towns across the country.
    And what a shame that is. Let's work together to fix it :)
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,086
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Speaking of genocidal atrocities involving destruction of entire towns and villages, wonder how THIS incident from Florida history, is dealt with under the "educational" guidelines imposed by Gov. "Who Needs Mickey Mouse When You've Got" Ron DeSantis:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre

    "The Rosewood massacre was a racially motivated massacre of black people and the destruction of a black town that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural Levy County, Florida, United States. At least six black people and two white people were killed (in self-defense by one of the victims), but eyewitness accounts suggested a higher death toll of 27 to 150. The town of Rosewood was destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot.

    Florida had an especially high number of lynchings of black men in the years before the massacre, including a well-publicized incident in December 1922."

    Bleak and horrifying, but not “genocidal”
    You sound like the EU fanatics during the referendum bleating "it's not £350m! it's only £250m!"
    I genuinely think it’s quite important to apply profound words like “genocide” in the right way. Do not dilute their impact and meaning

    Because when a real Genocide comes along people will shrug at an overused term

    Same with “racist” and “fascist” etc
    Yes, agreed. It's creeping into use for attempts to suppress minority cultures too. It's horrible, but different from extermination.
    The UN's Genocide definition:
    "The definition contained in Article II of the Convention describes genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part. It does not include political groups or so called “cultural genocide”."

    https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf

    Which leads to interesting (and worrying) questions about the Chinese acts towards the Uyghur minority, or Turkey towards the Armenians or Kurds.

    The thing is: when you have a country behaving as China is reportedly acting towards the Uyghurs, saying: "It isn't genocide!" does not make everything sunny and okay.

    For the record, my view is the following:
    *) Chinese behaviour towards the Uyghur minority is unclear and hazy. It may or may not be a genocide.
    *) Turkey's behaviour towards the Armenians 100 years ago was a genocide.
    *) Turkey (and other countries) behaviour towards the Kurds is not a genocide.

    But whether genocide or not, all three of the above are atrocious and in no way good, and should be deplored by everyone.
    I agree with this. Turkey attempted an actual genocide on the Armenians

    China Uighurs? Not quite. Turkey Kurds definitely not

    The Armenian genocide perplexes me deeply because I am not able to understand why it happened. The Shoah was centuries in the making - anti semitism is at least 2000 years old - but the Armenian Holocaust seemed to arise over a few decades then wham - 2m dead. Why??
    IMV it's too early to tell with the Uyghurs, and the information coming out of China is restricted and often biased. But it doesn't look good. The Chinese might say it is not a genocide because they are not trying to destroy the group; just their (Muslim) culture.

    But anyone screeching "It's not a genocide!" is ignoring the fact that China is doing a lot of shady sh*t to the Uyghur and other groups. Even if it is not a genocide, it is bad, perhaps evil, in a modern context.

    And that's a problem with people who have a Pavlovian reaction of "It's not a genocide!". That may or may not be correct, but it does not make the acts good and holy.
    Only a lunatic would think there are two choices - “genocide” or “good and holy”
    Such people are thick on the ground (in addition to just being thick). We see it with plenty of other awful events, christ even just asking for context gets some people furious.
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,207
    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer is probably finished as a political force if Labour don't win this by-election.

    And would be bad news for Yousaf too if the SNP lose their first by election since he became FM
  • Options
    BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,822
    edited August 2023

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    But, that shows trains knocking it out the park at capacity.

    Railways have a remarkably low coefficient of friction.
    As I keep on saying, I'm not anti-car. They are currently essential for a large proportion of the population.

    I'm just pro everything else. If I were to choose in more investment in public transport or cycling, I'd go with public transport in most cases for the UK. In places like London and Edinburgh, more cycling and pedestrian provision.
    But, logically, you'd also have to accept that the vast majority of the UK population don't live in either of those two places and so the car needs to form part of the overall transport solution as well.

    It's simple economics.
    Indeed if you want 'public transport' in most of the country then that means ... buses ... and that means ... roads.

    Build more roads, cars can use them and busses can too. Win/win.

    Buses just aren't exotic or pretty enough for our London based fanatics though. So the fact they work and are the public transport of choice in almost all of the country just isn't taken into account.
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,086

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer is probably finished as a political force if Labour don't win this by-election.

    Bit strong. He'd carry on fine I think.

    As it happens I think he'll win.
    Whilst a win is not a guarantee, he has a good chance and so if the expectations generally were as Andy puts it, he would once again be very lucky, in making a win look even better than it was.
  • Options
    MiklosvarMiklosvar Posts: 1,855

    Since you are dsicussing massacres, here's one I learned about only recently:
    "The Manila massacre (Filipino: Pagpatay sa Maynila or Masaker sa Maynila), also called the Rape of Manila (Filipino: Paggahasa ng Maynila), involved atrocities committed against Filipino civilians in the City of Manila, the capital of the Philippines, by Japanese troops during the Battle of Manila (3 February 1945 – 3 March 1945) which occurred during World War II. The total number of civilians who were killed by the Japanese as well as American artillery and firing is estimated to be at least 100,000."
    source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_massacre

    (For those fascinated with such subjects, I'll add that the conventional fire bomb attack on Tokyo, earlier in 1945, probably killed more people at the time than either the Hiroshima or Nagasaki atomic bombs.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo )

    Also of note, talking of explosions

    In January 1917, General Plumer gave orders for over 20 mines to be placed under German lines at Messines. Over the next five months more than 8,000 m (26,000 ft) of tunnel were dug and 450–600 tons of explosive were placed in position. Simultaneous explosion of the mines took place at 3:10 a.m. on 7 June 1917. The blast killed an estimated 10,000 soldiers and was so loud it was heard in London.[8] The near simultaneous explosions created 19 large craters and ranks among the largest non-nuclear explosions of all time.
  • Options
    One for Leon.


  • Options
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    But, that shows trains knocking it out the park at capacity.

    Railways have a remarkably low coefficient of friction.
    As I keep on saying, I'm not anti-car. They are currently essential for a large proportion of the population.

    I'm just pro everything else. If I were to choose in more investment in public transport or cycling, I'd go with public transport in most cases for the UK. In places like London and Edinburgh, more cycling and pedestrian provision.
    But, logically, you'd also have to accept that the vast majority of the UK population don't live in either of those two places and so the car needs to form part of the overall transport solution as well.

    It's simple economics.
    Agree. For the 80% of us who live in urban areas, public transport and cycling and walking should be the most attractive option.

    That leaves loads of road and infrastructure for the remaining 20% :)
    Once again demonstrating that urban does not mean what you think it means.

    Urban means towns, and public transport in towns means buses, and how are you going to get your bus without a road?
  • Options
    EabhalEabhal Posts: 6,006

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.

    An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.

    Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.


    The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.

    Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
    Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?

    Check this cycle lane out: https://twitter.com/HeroesforZero/status/1679020569822371842?s=20

    In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,086

    One for Leon.


    If your safety was guaranteed why would someone say no?

    We could introduce them to cricket as an icebreaker.
  • Options
    EabhalEabhal Posts: 6,006

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    "1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles."

    That depends on the definition of 'efficiency', the journey being made, and the situation of the person wanting to move.

    Don't believe the cycling lobby b/s. Cycling *can* be the most efficient form of transport, in some situations, depending on the definitions. For many other journeys, for other people, cycling is a loony idea.
    Sure, but in terms of MJ/km, cycling is about 30x as energy efficient as driving.
    That multiplier surely depends on the speed one cycles at. And yes, cars are a *terribly* inefficient way to travel. But also *extremely* convenient.

    In a few days, I shall be going into Milton Keynes for something. To get to my destination, with my son, will take 43 minutes by car, 11 hours walking, and over 3 hours by bike (according to Google). It won't give me a public transport option. To MK Central station, it is over 3 hours, via London.

    And that is one-way. Tell me how I can do without a car for that trip?

    This is the very reason why some friends of my son, whose parents do not have access to cars, have had some very limited opportunities.
    Let's fix that!
  • Options
    EabhalEabhal Posts: 6,006
    edited August 2023

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    But, that shows trains knocking it out the park at capacity.

    Railways have a remarkably low coefficient of friction.
    As I keep on saying, I'm not anti-car. They are currently essential for a large proportion of the population.

    I'm just pro everything else. If I were to choose in more investment in public transport or cycling, I'd go with public transport in most cases for the UK. In places like London and Edinburgh, more cycling and pedestrian provision.
    But, logically, you'd also have to accept that the vast majority of the UK population don't live in either of those two places and so the car needs to form part of the overall transport solution as well.

    It's simple economics.
    Agree. For the 80% of us who live in urban areas, public transport and cycling and walking should be the most attractive option.

    That leaves loads of road and infrastructure for the remaining 20% :)
    Once again demonstrating that urban does not mean what you think it means.

    Urban means towns, and public transport in towns means buses, and how are you going to get your bus without a road?
    *public transport*

    If most people are in a bus, or a tram, or cycling, leaves loads of space for you!

    I'll be delighted for you.
  • Options
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.

    An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.

    Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.


    The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.

    Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
    Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?

    Check this cycle lane out: https://twitter.com/HeroesforZero/status/1679020569822371842?s=20

    In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
    Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.

    I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦‍♂️

    Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
  • Options
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    malcolmg said:

    A by-election has been triggered after MP Margaret Ferrier, who was suspended from the Commons for breaking Covid lockdown rules, lost her seat in a recall petition.

    If only she would stand as an independent and win it. SNP will get humped. Bad thing is Labour are crap and tehir candidate is a bellend extrodinaire and a slimeball to boot.
    Has she said she’s not standing? 11986 of constituents who voted for a recall doesn’t seem overwhelming, eg it wouldn’t even have got you second place in the last 3 GEs.
    It's lower than the other two recalls so far, in that link I just posted, apart from the Paisley one which might or might not have special factors. But that's just anecdata.
    I believe Salmond has said Ferrier was treated badly by the SNP. Her coming out as an Alba candidate would put the feline amongst the Columbidae.
    Could Alba win it? Or at least put the SNP into third place?

    Would be very surprised at either, given Alba results in elections. And the incumbency issue is somewhat neutralised. Ms Ferrier hasn't been a SNP MP for three years, and they turfed her out pdq..

    One would assume Labout would win - but the niggle is that SKS has diverged quite badly from Slab core values, and the possibility of pissed off Labour voters and Greens reacting adversely to Brexiter, anti-referendum, alleged child-starver and future oil-driller SKS and helicopter enthusiast Mr Sunak. There aren't that many Tories to make up for any such defections. Even the LDs would find it hard to make a good (for them) bar chart for their leaflet, from past voting, and there's no other party to cover that side of life but the SNP.

    2019 results -

    SNP Margaret Ferrier 23,775
    Labour Co-op Ged Killen 18,545
    Conservative Lynne Nailon 8,054
    Liberal Democrats Mark McGeever 2791
    UKIP Janice MacKay 629
    On those numbers Tory tactical voting for SLab would defeat the SNP even without a single SNP voter defecting and Scottish Tories are far more likely to vote for Starmer Labour than they were for Corbyn Labour.

    Notwithstanding most polls have at least a 10% swing from SNP to SLab since 2019 on top of that
    All polls *before* the latest stage in the transformation of SKS into full-out Tory.
    Good evening

    I expect a very poor result for the SNP but I do agree that their only hope to mitigate some of the damage is to paint Starmer as the same as the conservatives and that the SNP are the best choice for Scots

    Though much like the rest of the UK with the conservatives, the SNP are in a very poor place and goodness knows what will happen if Sturgeon is charged
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,164
    BTW, don't underestimate the effect lack of car travel has for people outside major conurbations.

    My son has two friends with no access to cars. Coincidentally (or perhaps not) both get very travel sick. I think nothing of chucking the little 'un in the car and driving him for an hour to a play centre or place of interest. This, I hope, broadens his experiences and mind.

    For one of those friends, they are going to Lowestoft by train for a holiday this summer. This is a big deal for him. Whilst we often go to (say) Southwold or Hunstanton with little thought.

    Cars make so many things more convenient, especially with kids.
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,207
    edited August 2023
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Leon said:

    Carnyx said:

    malcolmg said:

    A by-election has been triggered after MP Margaret Ferrier, who was suspended from the Commons for breaking Covid lockdown rules, lost her seat in a recall petition.

    If only she would stand as an independent and win it. SNP will get humped. Bad thing is Labour are crap and tehir candidate is a bellend extrodinaire and a slimeball to boot.
    Has she said she’s not standing? 11986 of constituents who voted for a recall doesn’t seem overwhelming, eg it wouldn’t even have got you second place in the last 3 GEs.
    It's lower than the other two recalls so far, in that link I just posted, apart from the Paisley one which might or might not have special factors. But that's just anecdata.
    I believe Salmond has said Ferrier was treated badly by the SNP. Her coming out as an Alba candidate would put the feline amongst the Columbidae.
    Could Alba win it? Or at least put the SNP into third place?

    Would be very surprised at either, given Alba results in elections. And the incumbency issue is somewhat neutralised. Ms Ferrier hasn't been a SNP MP for three years, and they turfed her out pdq..

    One would assume Labout would win - but the niggle is that SKS has diverged quite badly from Slab core values, and the possibility of pissed off Labour voters and Greens reacting adversely to Brexiter, anti-referendum, alleged child-starver and future oil-driller SKS and helicopter enthusiast Mr Sunak. There aren't that many Tories to make up for any such defections. Even the LDs would find it hard to make a good (for them) bar chart for their leaflet, from past voting, and there's no other party to cover that side of life but the SNP.

    2019 results -

    SNP Margaret Ferrier 23,775
    Labour Co-op Ged Killen 18,545
    Conservative Lynne Nailon 8,054
    Liberal Democrats Mark McGeever 2791
    UKIP Janice MacKay 629
    On those numbers Tory tactical voting for SLab would defeat the SNP even without a single SNP voter defecting and Scottish Tories are far more likely to vote for Starmer Labour than they were for Corbyn Labour.

    Notwithstanding most polls have at least a 10% swing from SNP to SLab since 2019 on top of that
    All polls *before* the latest stage in the transformation of SKS into full-out Tory.
    Latest Scotland only poll this month has SNP 35% Labour 32% Conservative 21% LD 7% Green 2% RefUK 2%.

    https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/scottish-independence-referendum-westminster-voting-intention-1-2-july-2023/

    That compares to SNP 45% Labour 18% in 2019 ie a swing of 12% from SNP to Labour since the last UK general election in Scotland which would see Labour easily gain Rutherglen in the by election with a majority of 14% over the SNP
    https://electionresults.parliament.uk/election/2019-12-12/results/Location/Constituency/Rutherglen and Hamilton West
  • Options
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    But, that shows trains knocking it out the park at capacity.

    Railways have a remarkably low coefficient of friction.
    As I keep on saying, I'm not anti-car. They are currently essential for a large proportion of the population.

    I'm just pro everything else. If I were to choose in more investment in public transport or cycling, I'd go with public transport in most cases for the UK. In places like London and Edinburgh, more cycling and pedestrian provision.
    But, logically, you'd also have to accept that the vast majority of the UK population don't live in either of those two places and so the car needs to form part of the overall transport solution as well.

    It's simple economics.
    Agree. For the 80% of us who live in urban areas, public transport and cycling and walking should be the most attractive option.

    That leaves loads of road and infrastructure for the remaining 20% :)
    Once again demonstrating that urban does not mean what you think it means.

    Urban means towns, and public transport in towns means buses, and how are you going to get your bus without a road?
    *public transport*
    Yes, buses are a form of public transport, indeed the primary form for most of the country.

    And they use roads.

    Yet you want roads for 20% of the country?

    So what are your buses going to drive on? 🤔
  • Options
    EabhalEabhal Posts: 6,006

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.

    An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.

    Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.


    The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.

    Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
    Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?

    Check this cycle lane out: https://twitter.com/HeroesforZero/status/1679020569822371842?s=20

    In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
    Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.

    I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦‍♂️

    Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
    80% of us live in built up areas :)
  • Options
    BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,822
    edited August 2023
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.

    An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.

    Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.


    The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.

    Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
    Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?

    Check this cycle lane out: https://twitter.com/HeroesforZero/status/1679020569822371842?s=20

    In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
    Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.

    I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦‍♂️

    Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
    80% of us live in built up areas :)
    Where built up overwhelmingly means towns not cities.

    And where cars drive far, far faster than bikes, not slower than them.

    Idiot.
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,164

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.

    An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.

    Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.


    The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.

    Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
    Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?

    Check this cycle lane out: https://twitter.com/HeroesforZero/status/1679020569822371842?s=20

    In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
    Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.

    I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦‍♂️

    Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
    Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.

    It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,086
    Sandpit said:

    Woo, by-election klaxon alert!!!

    I actually know Rutherglen quite well, my late gran lived there.

    IIRC the constituency is a rather funny shape, and extends further out into the green stuff than one might expect.

    Too soon to see if the new boundaries will make any difference in 2024?


  • Options
    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 27,057
    A pity a by-election isn't taking place in the neighbouring seat of Lanark & Hamilton East which would be an interesting 3-way marginal with the Tories possibly in contention.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,465

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    I can't quite remember but up to a certain distance, for freight, road is more efficient than rail. Above that, rail is most efficient. A few hundred miles I think, from memory in the UK road is the better option.

    I think putting a TEU on the back of a Raleigh Chopper isn't a particularly efficient transport mode.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,899

    Andy_JS said:

    Starmer is probably finished as a political force if Labour don't win this by-election.

    Bit strong. He'd carry on fine I think.

    As it happens I think he'll win.
    I would say probable SLAB win in the circumstances, but have a tenner on SNP at 16.5, as it is value at that price.

    Starmer should make an appearance but make sure it is seen as a SLAB campaign, so as to not overwind the Nats.

  • Options
    FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,942

    One for Leon.


    "My Safety"?

    What about the rest of the planet?
  • Options
    londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,234
    edited August 2023
    Andy_JS said:

    A pity a by-election isn't taking place in the neighbouring seat of Lanark & Hamilton East which would be an interesting 3-way marginal with the Tories possibly in contention.

    CON just missed this in 2017 and in the forthcoming GE, have got - just got - an outside chance of a gain!
  • Options
    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,164
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Non-drivers massively subsidise drivers, with VED and fuel duty coming no where near the total costs of road infrastucture, maintenence, collisions, air pollution and so on.

    3) Check this out:


    "1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles."

    That depends on the definition of 'efficiency', the journey being made, and the situation of the person wanting to move.

    Don't believe the cycling lobby b/s. Cycling *can* be the most efficient form of transport, in some situations, depending on the definitions. For many other journeys, for other people, cycling is a loony idea.
    Sure, but in terms of MJ/km, cycling is about 30x as energy efficient as driving.
    That multiplier surely depends on the speed one cycles at. And yes, cars are a *terribly* inefficient way to travel. But also *extremely* convenient.

    In a few days, I shall be going into Milton Keynes for something. To get to my destination, with my son, will take 43 minutes by car, 11 hours walking, and over 3 hours by bike (according to Google). It won't give me a public transport option. To MK Central station, it is over 3 hours, via London.

    And that is one-way. Tell me how I can do without a car for that trip?

    This is the very reason why some friends of my son, whose parents do not have access to cars, have had some very limited opportunities.
    Let's fix that!
    How? How on Earth do you want to fix a single parent being able to take a small child to a point of interest an hour away conveniently, if they do not live in a conurbation? Private taxi is the only reasonable way.
  • Options
    kle4kle4 Posts: 92,086
    I really hope this isn't true, but it is believable

  • Options
    TazTaz Posts: 11,373
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.

    An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.

    Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.


    any firm evidence to back up that rather wild assertion.

    The other day you bemoaned the reaction from some here to some of the cycling posts in a thread. Usually from active travel fanatics. When you make such claims it is no wonder.
  • Options
    Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,440
    edited August 2023
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.

    An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.

    Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.


    The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.

    Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
    Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?

    Check this cycle lane out: https://twitter.com/HeroesforZero/status/1679020569822371842?s=20

    In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
    Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.

    I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦‍♂️

    Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
    80% of us live in built up areas :)
    With the greatest of respect you are wholly committed to cycling which is fair enough, but you are very much a minority, both cyclists and car drivers need to be tolerant to each other as nothing is gained by setting each one up against the other

    In my drive over the Little Orme into Llandudno Town centre and my journey back (circa 10 miles) I passed just 2 cyclists, one of which was taking a break on the pavement
  • Options
    EabhalEabhal Posts: 6,006
    edited August 2023

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.

    An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.

    Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.


    The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.

    Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
    Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?

    Check this cycle lane out: https://twitter.com/HeroesforZero/status/1679020569822371842?s=20

    In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
    Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.

    I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦‍♂️

    Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
    Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.

    It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
    I agree. I also think pavements should be widened.
  • Options
    EabhalEabhal Posts: 6,006

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.

    An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.

    Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.


    The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.

    Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
    Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?

    Check this cycle lane out: https://twitter.com/HeroesforZero/status/1679020569822371842?s=20

    In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
    Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.

    I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦‍♂️

    Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
    80% of us live in built up areas :)
    Where built up overwhelmingly means towns not cities.

    And where cars drive far, far faster than bikes, not slower than them.

    Idiot.
    I'm a big fan of public transport. It's a shame it's got more expensive, while driving has got cheaper.
  • Options

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.

    An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.

    Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.


    The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.

    Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
    Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?

    Check this cycle lane out: https://twitter.com/HeroesforZero/status/1679020569822371842?s=20

    In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
    Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.

    I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦‍♂️

    Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
    Also very unrepresentative as the pavement is wide and suitable for walkers, runners, people in wheelchairs or pushing prams.

    It's not just about cyclists, whatever the cycle-lobby tend to think.
    Indeed people like @Eabhal seem to have this naïve view of the world that bikes are scooting past cars as they move fast, while cars are stuck in congestion, and pedestrians basically don't exist.

    The truth could not be further from that.

    The truth is that cars move at 30-70mph depending on the speed limit not 0mph. When bikes and cars are near each other, the question drivers have is "how can I safely overtake this bike" not "why is that bike overtaking me".

    But Eabhal found a statistic for urban and as he's so incapable of comprehending that urban means towns and in towns cars drive without congestion almost all the time, he's not able to wrap his head around why his proposals fail in the real world.

    So we're constantly back to his spherical chicken in a vacuum nonsense. Rinse and repeat until he's back in a corner and then claims 80% urban as a get out of jail free to show that he doesn't understand what urban actually means.
  • Options
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.

    An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.

    Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.


    The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.

    Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
    Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?

    Check this cycle lane out: https://twitter.com/HeroesforZero/status/1679020569822371842?s=20

    In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
    Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.

    I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦‍♂️

    Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
    80% of us live in built up areas :)
    Where built up overwhelmingly means towns not cities.

    And where cars drive far, far faster than bikes, not slower than them.

    Idiot.
    I'm a big fan of public transport. It's a shame it's got more expensive, while driving has got cheaper.
    Public transport is subsidised by taxes on my driving.

    Which just goes to show once again how efficient driving is and how inefficient public transport is.

    If both were left to their own devices, there'd be far more driving, and far less public transport.
  • Options
    SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,990
    kle4 said:

    One for Leon.


    If your safety was guaranteed why would someone say no?

    We could introduce them to cricket as an icebreaker.
    Make the aliens sit there for five days, drinking beer and reading the newspaper, wondering what exactly is happening in front of them, and why all of the people sometimes make noise all at the same random time.
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    JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 39,164
    Talking of people who need *less* ravel availability, have Belarussian helicopters just flown into Polish airspace?

    https://twitter.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/1686436298469363717
    https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1686435870449029129

    (I would say be careful about the source, but this is looking fairly solid...)
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,207
    edited August 2023
    Labour leads by 4% in Blue Wall seats.

    Blue Wall VI (30 July):

    Labour 35% (-1)
    Conservative 31% (-1)
    Liberal Democrat 24% (+1)
    Reform UK 6% (+1)
    Green 3% (-2)
    Other 1% (+1)

    Sunak and Starmer tied as preferred PM in Bluewall seats on 36% each

    https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-blue-wall-voting-intention-30-july-2023/
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    Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,718
    HYUFD said:

    Foxy said:

    Interesting poll today on past PMs:



    Sunak running at 24% better place/38% worse place but not yet done.

    5% think Truss made Britain a better place!

    (Not sure how valid anyone under 50's opinion is on Mrs Thatcher BTW, but interestingly not well thought of by the under 55s)

    https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/most-britons-think-boris-johnson-and-liz-truss-changed-britain-worse-during-their-time-office

    I expect Sir John Major would have been delighted if you had told him on Friday, 2nd May 1997 that by a +7% margin 26 years later more UK voters would say he changed Britain for the better than the worse. That that would beat the +6% who thought Blair did a net good job and that every other PM since 1997 (including 4 later Tory PMs) would have a net negative rating would no doubt have delighted and astonished him even more
    Not only that but that very few people seem to dislike him, unlike all the rest.

    Certainly wasn't like that at the time.
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    kle4 said:

    Sandpit said:

    Woo, by-election klaxon alert!!!

    I actually know Rutherglen quite well, my late gran lived there.

    IIRC the constituency is a rather funny shape, and extends further out into the green stuff than one might expect.

    Too soon to see if the new boundaries will make any difference in 2024?


    So does the new constituency have less "green stuff" than the old?

    Assuming that gs = trees, shrubbery and other foliage NOT voters of Green and/or Fenian inclination!
  • Options
    PhilPhil Posts: 1,945

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    148grss said:

    TOPPING said:

    Carnyx said:

    TOPPING said:

    I think the Cons are absolutely right to pick a fight over this, and car ownership, and the JSO-type entreaties because most of us have a car and for very good reasons, and many of us realise the impracticalities of acting too quickly to dispossess us of them, or of penalising ownership because no one thinks it will stop at 10-yr old diesels when there are regulations and fines to impose for zealous councils. All of which the furore over ULEZ has shown so clearly.

    This is the coincidence of green politics and the pound in your pocket (not you @Anabobazina), and the latter usually and especially now will win.

    Going far beyond that now, and the car issue, though, as the news this mornign shows.
    People are wary of money making on the one hand and money costing schemes on the other.

    ULEZ, LTNs, etc are money making schemes and people are very cautious about them. Extra taxes, meanwhile, for green initiatives, or higher prices for green energy are money costing schemes and people loathe them.
    I view the issue around ULEZ and LTNs as less about money and more about the undealt with post-covid trauma. People who disliked lockdown are now hyper sensitive to anything that smells like top down loss of freedoms. The conspiratorial wing have jumped off the deep end, but even the average person I think is now just risk averse to such things and want "normality". The problem is that "normality" is gone - covid was an example of what a climate catastrophic world could look like. Cars are a big issue - both from an emissions POV but also from the POV of how much infrastructure we dedicate to this highly inefficient (but profitable) mode of transportation.
    We keep having this bullshit about cars being highly inefficient quoted on this website by the anti-car fanatics.

    Cars are supremely efficient.

    There is no other mode of transport so efficient as to quickly, affordably and reliably get you from A to B.

    Cars are extremely efficient at transporting lots of people, very quickly. A road travelling at 30mph, let alone 70mph, can have an extremely high throughput of both people and goods/services.

    No other mode of transport matches the efficiency of cars, which is why they are so extremely popular despite the fact that car drivers pay massively more in taxes than they get back in investment, while the polar opposite is true for other less efficient in almost all the country modes of transport like rail.
    Nonsense, like usual.

    1) Cycling is the most energy efficient form of transport, by miles.

    2) Check this out:


    Nonsense on stilts by someone with an agenda to push as normal.

    I have absolutely no qualm with cycling routes being added, but the cold reality is that they're frequently then left empty 99% of the time whereas the cars roads are not.

    As I've said a bike route has recently been added towards my kids school on what used to be an A road. I completely support this and its great to see kids feeling safer to ride to school. But efficient it is not. If you stand outside Tesco's on the road and count the number of bikes that go past, and count the number of cars/vans/buses on the one remaining road for them that go past then you'll end up counting about 50 to 100+ cars for every bike - and outside of school times, its not even that close.

    Its great to support cycling as an option but lets not overegg the pudding with fallacious claims that its efficient. And lone bikes on the same road as a car reduce efficiency by slowing down the cars too until they can overtake the bike. Again, no harm in people having the option - but its not efficient.

    If a cycling route is totally maximised in usage then it might be theoretically efficient but that is a result that only works like spherical chickens in a vacuum.
    And I want to fix that! Once you have a coherent cycle network, like in the Netherlands, along come the masses.

    An equivalent road to your cycle lane would be one that starts and ends in the middle of a field.

    Cycling is not an option for most people - it's just too scary mixing with drivers.


    The cycle lane runs the entire length of the town now. Its still not used much apart from kids going to school.

    Cars travelling at 30mph or 40mph are more efficient at carrying more people than cyclists going at 15mph.
    Perhaps all the cyclists have already got to work/school?

    Check this cycle lane out: https://twitter.com/HeroesforZero/status/1679020569822371842?s=20

    In 40 seconds, 12 pedestrians, 30 cyclists, 3 scooters and 0 cars pass one point.
    Clearly not representative of British roads, the cars are stationery.

    I drive faster than a cyclist, not slower than it. 🤦‍♂️

    Perhaps you need to leave your city bubble and join the real world?
    80% of us live in built up areas :)
    Where built up overwhelmingly means towns not cities.

    And where cars drive far, far faster than bikes, not slower than them.

    Idiot.
    I'm a big fan of public transport. It's a shame it's got more expensive, while driving has got cheaper.
    Public transport is subsidised by taxes on my driving.

    Which just goes to show once again how efficient driving is and how inefficient public transport is.

    If both were left to their own devices, there'd be far more driving, and far less public transport.
    Be interesting to see how this balanced out if drivers had to pay to rent the land the roads used. I suspect driving would be cheaper in much of the countryside, but trains / trams would be much cheaper in the cities. Land used for roads can’t be put to productive use after all & cities make very productive use of land.
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