On topic, I think the value is more in the potential alternatives to Biden as the Democratic candidate rather than with Trump.
These charges will only help Trump with the GOP base. Most of his rivals are being forced into saying the indictments are politically motivated. And I am sure his legal advisors can come up with ways to push these trials past election date. The GOP recognises they are stuck with Trump for 2024 and, whatever happens, this is his last hurrah - a loss and he fades away, a win and he cannot stand in 2028.
However, the betting is not really focusing on what happens to Biden. The accusations are coming think and fast and the US electorate have woken up to what he is being accused of. The evidence is in the grey zone to say the least and we are still 18 months away.
I think Harris will be persuaded - somehow - to step aside for someone else in which case the field is open. I do not see Newsom getting it given CA's problems and his own track record. So that leaves it to outsiders. Governors probably the best bet.
@MattW is the acknowledged expert on cycling infrastructure. I’m sure his predictions that cycling can be expected to triple in coming years is right.
I’m hopeful about Birmingham and Nottingham too.
I remember when I posted that it was a shame that cities outside London lacked cyclehire schemes and I was denounced as a cappuccino supping metro elitist.
A small, but very useful scheme - Brompton offer cycle hire
I'm seeing on the trains an increasing number of people who've obviously hired one (the colour scheme is quiet, but noticeable) for a day out - train out to somewhere in the country side, unfold and ride.
For those who don't know them, Brompton folding bikes are allowed on all trains because they are so compact. They are, in addition, very rideable, compared to other small wheel bikes.
Bromptons are very cool, as well as a British manufacturing success story.
I have a single speed titanium one with flat bars because that's just how I roll.
They are not particularly 'rideable' because of a very short mechanical trail distance of 27mm. A normal bicycle has 40-65mm and therefore much stronger castering action. I have ridden mine over 60km in one ride though.
What's the verdict on cargo ebikes? I'm tempted by something like a Tern or the cheaper Radwagon. Where we live, it'd make sense for me, rather than use the Transporter for a 10 minute drive to town. It'd be a crime to use my hardtail with panniers.
Terns are I think well-thought of and robust, if somewhat expensive at £3-4k+. ie about 12-18 months of running costs for a small 2nd car.
You can find E-Cargo bikes from about £1500, or secondhand, and they hold their value well.
What is your annual running cost, btw? *innocent face*
Okay, I’ll bite.
I’ve previously lived in places where work and home were 400m apart, and home was 100m from the station. Brilliant. No need for a car, take a taxi or rent one when required.
Right now, I live 25km from work, and the journey is pretty much impossible by anything other than car. It’s 20m in the car, or nearly 2h by public transport (walk, bus, train, train, walk, boat, walk).
The problem I have, is trying to fit one-size-fits-all solutions into a diverse population. People will change jobs, and transport methods that worked with old job no longer work with new job. Not just jobs either, people have regular appointments with schools, shops, social events, that can change over time.
Having a car is a sunk cost; not just for the car, but for insurance, VED, servicing etc. Owning a house is an even bigger sunk cost; it’s often easier to accept an hour’s commute than to commit to spending five figures on moving house, even assuming that a similar house near new job can be purchased for similar money to the one you have already.
Once you have a car the marginal cost of a single extra journey is tiny, compared to the cost of a bus or train journey for more than one person. If you’re on your own, the cost is about the same, but the difference in time and exposure to the weather is significantly different.
The impression given by those wanting to increase cycling, is that it starts with a dislike of cars. Now, there’s silly drivers and silly cyclists out there, and the cyclists are in the more vulnerable position if there’s a collision between the two. I can understand that it makes sense to separate the traffic where possible, but most of the suggestions start with reducing the space available for cars, rather than first increasing the space for other transport methods and letting the change happen organically.
Many people have no choice but to drive, they might have a complex schedule that involves getting the kids to school, going to work, running errands for their employer, picking up kids and going to activities etc, or they might just be like me, who’d rather spend 40m a day driving than 4h on public transport. I do occasionally take the public transport to work, if we went for beers afterwards and I took a taxi home.
The personal motor car is possibly the greatest invention of the 20th century, in terms of the freedom it gives people to move around, to seek work, to better themselves, to spend more time with those they love.
It comes across that there’s a concerted effort to regress on personal car ownership, for a wide range of different ideological positions. Whether it’s the cycling lobby, the bus lobby, the train lobby, the Uber lobby, the car-as-a-service lobby, or the environmental lobby, is almost irrelevant; the aim is to leave fewer people with the option to just jump in their own car and enjoy the freedom of the road.
I agree with your entire post - just swap out "car" for "bicycle".
The key reason that people don't cycle in the UK is that they are scared of getting hit by a car. The "freedom" to cycle around has been eroded by a constant threat of injury or death.
And car ownership is closely related to wealth. The poor have no choice but to cycle, walk or use public transport. What of their "freedom"?
Cars are late to this game. People were walking, and then cycling, around our towns and cities long before motorists came along. In the 1950s there was 8x as much cycling as there is now.
For the vast majority of people, having their own car was massive progress over bikes and horses. Owning a car was aspirational, people with cars are mobile and can go from any major city to another within a day, unbeholden to anyone except themselves.
I’m all in favour of better roads for those who want to cycle, but most of the cycling campaigners start from the premise that less road should be given over to cars, and work backwards from there.
Fewer drivers = more road.
No, more road = more road.
90% of transportation miles are taken by drivers and that is consistent in pretty much all countries across Europe. This includes cyclists and public transportation.
You can't induce demand much beyond 90%. And even if cycling in this country were to double and all of those extra cycling miles were removed from driving miles, you'd be removing less than 1% of cars from the road. Which would be entirely negated by population growth being over 1% per annum.
I've been meaning to ask you. Do you like cars?
Guessing this is sarcasm?
Of course I do, they're great. Convenient, practical, efficient and they work. They're the best and most efficient form of transportation that exists.
I also like bikes, they're fun recreationally too.
The thing is that bikes are not an alternative to cars, in the same way as chocolate cake is not an alternative to a balanced diet.
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
Not for 83% of us
More importantly, about 1 in 5 households in Hillingdon (and Havering) manage without any car or van at all. Even in Rishi's Richmondshire, it's 1 in 8.
So, no- cars are not required. They might be useful, but they're not required. "I want" isn't the same as "I need", as granny used to say.
Which is bollocks, I lived in slough almost 40 years....in all that time I had precisely 2 jobs in slough, I worked in wantage,epsom,reading,farnborough apart from that. Public transport was only viable for reading. None of those places was cyclable to. Just because you live in an urban area does not mean you will find a job in that urban area
Sorry what point are you trying to make here? 80% of slough needs a car?
No. What I am saying is that Bart's claim,
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
is demonstrably untrue. Plenty of functioning adults manage their lives perfectly well without driving a car, ever. On the latest stats, about 1 in 4 adults in England don't have a driving licence.
That's not the case for everyone, sure. I'm not arguing for no cars at all anywhere, and you'd have to get pretty fringe to get that view.
What I do think is that cars can be excellent servants, but appalling masters. If we try to put sufficient road and parking space in urban areas, we cut them in pieces and often kill the things that make them good places to live. By making roads less safe and public transport less viable, we (and this includes me) make life demonstrably worse for the 1 in 4 adults who don't drive and the young people who struggle to be independently mobile.
And the evidence is that, if you create safe networks for walking and cycling, properly away from motorised traffic, people do use them as a serious way of getting bits of their daily business done. Which is good for everyone.
Plenty of people get about by being passengers in cars yes, or relying upon others who drive cars in order to service their needs instead.
Very few in modern society have nothing to do with cars, whether it be via being a passenger in one (inc taxis), or getting their post delivered, or parcels delivered, or going to shops which have cars, vans and trucks delivering their supplies.
Even if you don't drive, you almost certainly have people who are driving assisting you in the way you live on an daily basis. That's how modern society exists and it is all the better for it.
The evidence is that if you have safe networks for walking and cycling then a miniscule percentage of daily miles/km travelled is done that way, which is absolutely fine, but cars remain the overwhelming majority of transportation.
Even in tiny Netherlands, the most bike-friendly country in the world, bikes account for single-digit percentage of total km travelled while cars make up over 75%.
If you want to ride a bike a short distance then good luck to you, but unless you want to go back to 18th century standards of living, we need cars in the real world.
Er. 'Car' usually means 'private car'. Not delivery van, bus, minibus ... which is sort of the entire theme of all your posts as road warrior in backless gloves in his Rover 2000.
Actually vans, buses, minibuses, etc are simply different types of cars. And if you order off Amazon or other delivery suppliers then a significant portion of those deliveries are made by someone else's private car anyway. Plus if we're talking about investment in roads, or closing roads, then absolutely all of those vehicles need roads every bit as much as private cars do.
I've never driven a Rover, nor are my posts remotely road warrior unless you're an absolutely crazy anti-car fanatic - which this site seems to have a completely disproportionate amount of.
I've been consistently pro opening new roads for improving cycling and other demands which is win/win.
What I'm against is cutting capacity for over 90% of our transportation without any alternative. Build roads and you can add better cycling and walking capacity absolutely.
On topic, I think the value is more in the potential alternatives to Biden as the Democratic candidate rather than with Trump.
These charges will only help Trump with the GOP base. Most of his rivals are being forced into saying the indictments are politically motivated. And I am sure his legal advisors can come up with ways to push these trials past election date. The GOP recognises they are stuck with Trump for 2024 and, whatever happens, this is his last hurrah - a loss and he fades away, a win and he cannot stand in 2028.
However, the betting is not really focusing on what happens to Biden. The accusations are coming think and fast and the US electorate have woken up to what he is being accused of. The evidence is in the grey zone to say the least and we are still 18 months away...
Speaking of voting pools, let me remind you that some US states have "closed" primaries for presidential nominations, and some have "open" primaries. (And some, like Iowa, have caucuses.) Simplifying more than a bit, in closed primaries, only party members can vote. In open primaries, independents can vote, too.
There are, to say the least, even more complexiites, but I can say this: Before you try to calculate odds for any given state, be sure you know what the rules are for that state. Here, for example, are the rules for New Hampshire. https://www.sos.nh.gov/elections/information/faqs/voting-party-primaries So, independents can vote in either primary.
And they have sometimes decided elections: "There is, however, little evidence of manipulation actually occurring,[citation needed] but there have been occasions when independent voters have an effect on the outcome of a partisan primary.
For example, in the 2008 presidential primaries in New Hampshire, Mitt Romney won among registered Republicans, but John McCain won overall.[5] Likewise, in South Carolina, Mike Huckabee won among self-identified Republicans, but John McCain won the state." source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_primaries_in_the_United_States
(Some voters choose to call themselves independent even if they identify with one party, in order to be free to vote in the primary of their choice.)
"First independent measurement of zero resistance in LK-99
A team of scientists from the Physics Department of Southeast University, a top university in Nanjing, China, have reported measuring 0 resistance in a sample of LK-99 they synthesized from scratch."
I'm steering my view more towards "There's something interesting going on here."
I've read and watched enough about it to certainly put it in the 'interesting' camp. Between this and the AI revolution it's going to keep leon in articles for years.
@MattW is the acknowledged expert on cycling infrastructure. I’m sure his predictions that cycling can be expected to triple in coming years is right.
I’m hopeful about Birmingham and Nottingham too.
I remember when I posted that it was a shame that cities outside London lacked cyclehire schemes and I was denounced as a cappuccino supping metro elitist.
A small, but very useful scheme - Brompton offer cycle hire
I'm seeing on the trains an increasing number of people who've obviously hired one (the colour scheme is quiet, but noticeable) for a day out - train out to somewhere in the country side, unfold and ride.
For those who don't know them, Brompton folding bikes are allowed on all trains because they are so compact. They are, in addition, very rideable, compared to other small wheel bikes.
Bromptons are very cool, as well as a British manufacturing success story.
I have a single speed titanium one with flat bars because that's just how I roll.
They are not particularly 'rideable' because of a very short mechanical trail distance of 27mm. A normal bicycle has 40-65mm and therefore much stronger castering action. I have ridden mine over 60km in one ride though.
What's the verdict on cargo ebikes? I'm tempted by something like a Tern or the cheaper Radwagon. Where we live, it'd make sense for me, rather than use the Transporter for a 10 minute drive to town. It'd be a crime to use my hardtail with panniers.
Terns are I think well-thought of and robust, if somewhat expensive at £3-4k+. ie about 12-18 months of running costs for a small 2nd car.
You can find E-Cargo bikes from about £1500, or secondhand, and they hold their value well.
What is your annual running cost, btw? *innocent face*
Okay, I’ll bite.
I’ve previously lived in places where work and home were 400m apart, and home was 100m from the station. Brilliant. No need for a car, take a taxi or rent one when required.
Right now, I live 25km from work, and the journey is pretty much impossible by anything other than car. It’s 20m in the car, or nearly 2h by public transport (walk, bus, train, train, walk, boat, walk).
The problem I have, is trying to fit one-size-fits-all solutions into a diverse population. People will change jobs, and transport methods that worked with old job no longer work with new job. Not just jobs either, people have regular appointments with schools, shops, social events, that can change over time.
Having a car is a sunk cost; not just for the car, but for insurance, VED, servicing etc. Owning a house is an even bigger sunk cost; it’s often easier to accept an hour’s commute than to commit to spending five figures on moving house, even assuming that a similar house near new job can be purchased for similar money to the one you have already.
Once you have a car the marginal cost of a single extra journey is tiny, compared to the cost of a bus or train journey for more than one person. If you’re on your own, the cost is about the same, but the difference in time and exposure to the weather is significantly different.
The impression given by those wanting to increase cycling, is that it starts with a dislike of cars. Now, there’s silly drivers and silly cyclists out there, and the cyclists are in the more vulnerable position if there’s a collision between the two. I can understand that it makes sense to separate the traffic where possible, but most of the suggestions start with reducing the space available for cars, rather than first increasing the space for other transport methods and letting the change happen organically.
Many people have no choice but to drive, they might have a complex schedule that involves getting the kids to school, going to work, running errands for their employer, picking up kids and going to activities etc, or they might just be like me, who’d rather spend 40m a day driving than 4h on public transport. I do occasionally take the public transport to work, if we went for beers afterwards and I took a taxi home.
The personal motor car is possibly the greatest invention of the 20th century, in terms of the freedom it gives people to move around, to seek work, to better themselves, to spend more time with those they love.
It comes across that there’s a concerted effort to regress on personal car ownership, for a wide range of different ideological positions. Whether it’s the cycling lobby, the bus lobby, the train lobby, the Uber lobby, the car-as-a-service lobby, or the environmental lobby, is almost irrelevant; the aim is to leave fewer people with the option to just jump in their own car and enjoy the freedom of the road.
I agree with your entire post - just swap out "car" for "bicycle".
The key reason that people don't cycle in the UK is that they are scared of getting hit by a car. The "freedom" to cycle around has been eroded by a constant threat of injury or death.
And car ownership is closely related to wealth. The poor have no choice but to cycle, walk or use public transport. What of their "freedom"?
Cars are late to this game. People were walking, and then cycling, around our towns and cities long before motorists came along. In the 1950s there was 8x as much cycling as there is now.
For the vast majority of people, having their own car was massive progress over bikes and horses. Owning a car was aspirational, people with cars are mobile and can go from any major city to another within a day, unbeholden to anyone except themselves.
I’m all in favour of better roads for those who want to cycle, but most of the cycling campaigners start from the premise that less road should be given over to cars, and work backwards from there.
Fewer drivers = more road.
No, more road = more road.
90% of transportation miles are taken by drivers and that is consistent in pretty much all countries across Europe. This includes cyclists and public transportation.
You can't induce demand much beyond 90%. And even if cycling in this country were to double and all of those extra cycling miles were removed from driving miles, you'd be removing less than 1% of cars from the road. Which would be entirely negated by population growth being over 1% per annum.
I've been meaning to ask you. Do you like cars?
Guessing this is sarcasm?
Of course I do, they're great. Convenient, practical, efficient and they work. They're the best and most efficient form of transportation that exists.
I also like bikes, they're fun recreationally too.
The thing is that bikes are not an alternative to cars, in the same way as chocolate cake is not an alternative to a balanced diet.
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
Not for 83% of us
More importantly, about 1 in 5 households in Hillingdon (and Havering) manage without any car or van at all. Even in Rishi's Richmondshire, it's 1 in 8.
So, no- cars are not required. They might be useful, but they're not required. "I want" isn't the same as "I need", as granny used to say.
Which is bollocks, I lived in slough almost 40 years....in all that time I had precisely 2 jobs in slough, I worked in wantage,epsom,reading,farnborough apart from that. Public transport was only viable for reading. None of those places was cyclable to. Just because you live in an urban area does not mean you will find a job in that urban area
Sorry what point are you trying to make here? 80% of slough needs a car?
No. What I am saying is that Bart's claim,
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
is demonstrably untrue. Plenty of functioning adults manage their lives perfectly well without driving a car, ever. On the latest stats, about 1 in 4 adults in England don't have a driving licence.
That's not the case for everyone, sure. I'm not arguing for no cars at all anywhere, and you'd have to get pretty fringe to get that view.
What I do think is that cars can be excellent servants, but appalling masters. If we try to put sufficient road and parking space in urban areas, we cut them in pieces and often kill the things that make them good places to live. By making roads less safe and public transport less viable, we (and this includes me) make life demonstrably worse for the 1 in 4 adults who don't drive and the young people who struggle to be independently mobile.
And the evidence is that, if you create safe networks for walking and cycling, properly away from motorised traffic, people do use them as a serious way of getting bits of their daily business done. Which is good for everyone.
Plenty of people get about by being passengers in cars yes, or relying upon others who drive cars in order to service their needs instead.
Very few in modern society have nothing to do with cars, whether it be via being a passenger in one (inc taxis), or getting their post delivered, or parcels delivered, or going to shops which have cars, vans and trucks delivering their supplies.
Even if you don't drive, you almost certainly have people who are driving assisting you in the way you live on an daily basis. That's how modern society exists and it is all the better for it.
The evidence is that if you have safe networks for walking and cycling then a miniscule percentage of daily miles/km travelled is done that way, which is absolutely fine, but cars remain the overwhelming majority of transportation.
Even in tiny Netherlands, the most bike-friendly country in the world, bikes account for single-digit percentage of total km travelled while cars make up over 75%.
If you want to ride a bike a short distance then good luck to you, but unless you want to go back to 18th century standards of living, we need cars in the real world.
Er. 'Car' usually means 'private car'. Not delivery van, bus, minibus ... which is sort of the entire theme of all your posts as road warrior in backless gloves in his Rover 2000.
Actually vans, buses, minibuses, etc are simply different types of cars. And if you order off Amazon or other delivery suppliers then a significant portion of those deliveries are made by someone else's private car anyway. Plus if we're talking about investment in roads, or closing roads, then absolutely all of those vehicles need roads every bit as much as private cars do.
I've never driven a Rover, nor are my posts remotely road warrior unless you're an absolutely crazy anti-car fanatic - which this site seems to have a completely disproportionate amount of.
I've been consistently pro opening new roads for improving cycling and other demands which is win/win.
What I'm against is cutting capacity for over 90% of our transportation without any alternative. Build roads and you can add better cycling and walking capacity absolutely.
Simple fact is most dont want to use a bike they prefer their car. The majority should not be effected because of a minority that likes to pedal
In other news - I've given in an turned the heating on. 10C outside and despite a cardigan I was feeling cold. Last straw was the cat climbing into a thermally-lined box that I got from the butchers.
The last time a person ran for the US presidency from a prison cell was in 1992, when Lyndon LaRouche stood as the Economic Recovery candidate. In how many states was he either on the ballot or theoretically electable as a write-in?
I found this map on Wikipedia but no key for it. No other WP page seems to link to it.
I was wondering whether it was clear in any US states at that time that a) no ballots could be cast for LLR on their patch and b) no elector could vote for him either.
And what about Eugene Debs who ran as the Socialist Party candidate from prison in the 1920 election? He won more than 900,000 votes.
While officially running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Lyndon LaRouche also decided to run as an Independent in the general election, standing as the National Economic Recovery candidate.
LaRouche was in jail at the time, having been convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud in December 1988; it was only the second time in history that the presidency was sought from a prison cell (after Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs, while imprisoned for his opposition to U.S. involvement in World War I, ran in 1920). His running-mate was James Bevel, a civil rights activist who had represented the LaRouche movement in its pursuit of the Franklin child prostitution ring allegations.
In addition to the displayed states, LaRouche had nearly made the ballot in the states of New York and Mississippi. In the case of New York, while his petition was valid and had enough signatures, none of his electors filed declarations of candidacy; in the cases of Mississippi a sore-loser law was in place, and because he ran in that state's Democratic presidential primary he was ineligible to run as an Independent in the general. Ohio also had a sore-loser law, but it was ruled in Brown vs. Taft that it did not apply to presidential candidates. LaRouche and Beval drew 22,863 votes. (< 0.1% of the popular vote).
(with map)Lyndon LaRouche was on the ballot in seventeen states (156 Electoral Votes). Those states with a lighter shade are states in which he was an official write-in candidate.
SSI - Based on the map, there were only 12 states where votes for LaRouche were NOT recorded; in addition to 17 states (actually 16 + DC0) where he was on the ballot, in another 22 he was an official write-in candidate
AND NOTE MY AVATAR!
Ah yes - hadn't noticed your avatar!
I'm ignorant of what "official write-in candidate" actually means. I'm trying to find the answer to the question whether if Donald Trump is in prison - let's say he is handed a 10 year sentence in the summer of 2024, and he's locked up rather than being bailed pending appeal - there will be any states in which it will, on a reasonable interpretation of precedent, be impossible for any elector from that state to vote for him in the EC?
Trump would be well advised to ask Vince McMahon (see the shaving show in the wrestling ring) for acting tips prior to the live hostile cross-examination, with possibility of prison if he f*cks up, that his whole life as a showoff and deluded self-believer has been preparation for. Aka payback.
@MattW is the acknowledged expert on cycling infrastructure. I’m sure his predictions that cycling can be expected to triple in coming years is right.
I’m hopeful about Birmingham and Nottingham too.
I remember when I posted that it was a shame that cities outside London lacked cyclehire schemes and I was denounced as a cappuccino supping metro elitist.
A small, but very useful scheme - Brompton offer cycle hire
I'm seeing on the trains an increasing number of people who've obviously hired one (the colour scheme is quiet, but noticeable) for a day out - train out to somewhere in the country side, unfold and ride.
For those who don't know them, Brompton folding bikes are allowed on all trains because they are so compact. They are, in addition, very rideable, compared to other small wheel bikes.
Bromptons are very cool, as well as a British manufacturing success story.
I have a single speed titanium one with flat bars because that's just how I roll.
They are not particularly 'rideable' because of a very short mechanical trail distance of 27mm. A normal bicycle has 40-65mm and therefore much stronger castering action. I have ridden mine over 60km in one ride though.
What's the verdict on cargo ebikes? I'm tempted by something like a Tern or the cheaper Radwagon. Where we live, it'd make sense for me, rather than use the Transporter for a 10 minute drive to town. It'd be a crime to use my hardtail with panniers.
Terns are I think well-thought of and robust, if somewhat expensive at £3-4k+. ie about 12-18 months of running costs for a small 2nd car.
You can find E-Cargo bikes from about £1500, or secondhand, and they hold their value well.
What is your annual running cost, btw? *innocent face*
Okay, I’ll bite.
I’ve previously lived in places where work and home were 400m apart, and home was 100m from the station. Brilliant. No need for a car, take a taxi or rent one when required.
Right now, I live 25km from work, and the journey is pretty much impossible by anything other than car. It’s 20m in the car, or nearly 2h by public transport (walk, bus, train, train, walk, boat, walk).
The problem I have, is trying to fit one-size-fits-all solutions into a diverse population. People will change jobs, and transport methods that worked with old job no longer work with new job. Not just jobs either, people have regular appointments with schools, shops, social events, that can change over time.
Having a car is a sunk cost; not just for the car, but for insurance, VED, servicing etc. Owning a house is an even bigger sunk cost; it’s often easier to accept an hour’s commute than to commit to spending five figures on moving house, even assuming that a similar house near new job can be purchased for similar money to the one you have already.
Once you have a car the marginal cost of a single extra journey is tiny, compared to the cost of a bus or train journey for more than one person. If you’re on your own, the cost is about the same, but the difference in time and exposure to the weather is significantly different.
The impression given by those wanting to increase cycling, is that it starts with a dislike of cars. Now, there’s silly drivers and silly cyclists out there, and the cyclists are in the more vulnerable position if there’s a collision between the two. I can understand that it makes sense to separate the traffic where possible, but most of the suggestions start with reducing the space available for cars, rather than first increasing the space for other transport methods and letting the change happen organically.
Many people have no choice but to drive, they might have a complex schedule that involves getting the kids to school, going to work, running errands for their employer, picking up kids and going to activities etc, or they might just be like me, who’d rather spend 40m a day driving than 4h on public transport. I do occasionally take the public transport to work, if we went for beers afterwards and I took a taxi home.
The personal motor car is possibly the greatest invention of the 20th century, in terms of the freedom it gives people to move around, to seek work, to better themselves, to spend more time with those they love.
It comes across that there’s a concerted effort to regress on personal car ownership, for a wide range of different ideological positions. Whether it’s the cycling lobby, the bus lobby, the train lobby, the Uber lobby, the car-as-a-service lobby, or the environmental lobby, is almost irrelevant; the aim is to leave fewer people with the option to just jump in their own car and enjoy the freedom of the road.
I agree with your entire post - just swap out "car" for "bicycle".
The key reason that people don't cycle in the UK is that they are scared of getting hit by a car. The "freedom" to cycle around has been eroded by a constant threat of injury or death.
And car ownership is closely related to wealth. The poor have no choice but to cycle, walk or use public transport. What of their "freedom"?
Cars are late to this game. People were walking, and then cycling, around our towns and cities long before motorists came along. In the 1950s there was 8x as much cycling as there is now.
For the vast majority of people, having their own car was massive progress over bikes and horses. Owning a car was aspirational, people with cars are mobile and can go from any major city to another within a day, unbeholden to anyone except themselves.
I’m all in favour of better roads for those who want to cycle, but most of the cycling campaigners start from the premise that less road should be given over to cars, and work backwards from there.
Fewer drivers = more road.
No, more road = more road.
90% of transportation miles are taken by drivers and that is consistent in pretty much all countries across Europe. This includes cyclists and public transportation.
You can't induce demand much beyond 90%. And even if cycling in this country were to double and all of those extra cycling miles were removed from driving miles, you'd be removing less than 1% of cars from the road. Which would be entirely negated by population growth being over 1% per annum.
I've been meaning to ask you. Do you like cars?
Guessing this is sarcasm?
Of course I do, they're great. Convenient, practical, efficient and they work. They're the best and most efficient form of transportation that exists.
I also like bikes, they're fun recreationally too.
The thing is that bikes are not an alternative to cars, in the same way as chocolate cake is not an alternative to a balanced diet.
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
Not for 83% of us
More importantly, about 1 in 5 households in Hillingdon (and Havering) manage without any car or van at all. Even in Rishi's Richmondshire, it's 1 in 8.
So, no- cars are not required. They might be useful, but they're not required. "I want" isn't the same as "I need", as granny used to say.
Which is bollocks, I lived in slough almost 40 years....in all that time I had precisely 2 jobs in slough, I worked in wantage,epsom,reading,farnborough apart from that. Public transport was only viable for reading. None of those places was cyclable to. Just because you live in an urban area does not mean you will find a job in that urban area
Sorry what point are you trying to make here? 80% of slough needs a car?
No. What I am saying is that Bart's claim,
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
is demonstrably untrue. Plenty of functioning adults manage their lives perfectly well without driving a car, ever. On the latest stats, about 1 in 4 adults in England don't have a driving licence.
That's not the case for everyone, sure. I'm not arguing for no cars at all anywhere, and you'd have to get pretty fringe to get that view.
What I do think is that cars can be excellent servants, but appalling masters. If we try to put sufficient road and parking space in urban areas, we cut them in pieces and often kill the things that make them good places to live. By making roads less safe and public transport less viable, we (and this includes me) make life demonstrably worse for the 1 in 4 adults who don't drive and the young people who struggle to be independently mobile.
And the evidence is that, if you create safe networks for walking and cycling, properly away from motorised traffic, people do use them as a serious way of getting bits of their daily business done. Which is good for everyone.
Plenty of people get about by being passengers in cars yes, or relying upon others who drive cars in order to service their needs instead.
Very few in modern society have nothing to do with cars, whether it be via being a passenger in one (inc taxis), or getting their post delivered, or parcels delivered, or going to shops which have cars, vans and trucks delivering their supplies.
Even if you don't drive, you almost certainly have people who are driving assisting you in the way you live on an daily basis. That's how modern society exists and it is all the better for it.
The evidence is that if you have safe networks for walking and cycling then a miniscule percentage of daily miles/km travelled is done that way, which is absolutely fine, but cars remain the overwhelming majority of transportation.
Even in tiny Netherlands, the most bike-friendly country in the world, bikes account for single-digit percentage of total km travelled while cars make up over 75%.
If you want to ride a bike a short distance then good luck to you, but unless you want to go back to 18th century standards of living, we need cars in the real world.
Er. 'Car' usually means 'private car'. Not delivery van, bus, minibus ... which is sort of the entire theme of all your posts as road warrior in backless gloves in his Rover 2000.
Hereby nominate Barty as quasi-official driver of the much-heralded PB BY-ELECTION BOTTLE BUS!
I’m not entirely clear on why Biden is quite so terrible as a Democratic candidate? Apart from being too old of course, but that seems to be par for current US politics - it’s an old person’s game these days apparently.
He's old and makes a few gaffes but nobody actually seems to be able to point out as a President what he's actually done badly or wrong.
For an old guy he's actually pretty spritely, I know he fell over but he got up way faster and easier than any of my relatives would at that age.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan was a chaotic mess. Inflation has been high in the US, arguably fuelled by federal spending, and growth sluggish. Illegal immigration over the Mexican border remains a problem. He's presided over pretty poor relations with China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.
You can defend him on each of these points in certain respects, and can argue he's had successes too, and that's all fine - I'd tend to agree on some of that. But I don't think you can realistically say you can't point to Biden policy failures.
The military hate him because of Afghanistan and a Woke recruitment campaign that isn't compensating for an anti-war mood, the antiWokists hate him because of Woke and trans, the gun nuts hate him because he's anti 2a, the public hate him because he's gaga and the libs hate him because they are spoilt children who think they should be balanced. In a same world he should be coming to then end of his second term whilst his aides hide the button, but we live in the Wrong Timeline.
@MattW is the acknowledged expert on cycling infrastructure. I’m sure his predictions that cycling can be expected to triple in coming years is right.
I’m hopeful about Birmingham and Nottingham too.
I remember when I posted that it was a shame that cities outside London lacked cyclehire schemes and I was denounced as a cappuccino supping metro elitist.
A small, but very useful scheme - Brompton offer cycle hire
I'm seeing on the trains an increasing number of people who've obviously hired one (the colour scheme is quiet, but noticeable) for a day out - train out to somewhere in the country side, unfold and ride.
For those who don't know them, Brompton folding bikes are allowed on all trains because they are so compact. They are, in addition, very rideable, compared to other small wheel bikes.
Bromptons are very cool, as well as a British manufacturing success story.
I have a single speed titanium one with flat bars because that's just how I roll.
They are not particularly 'rideable' because of a very short mechanical trail distance of 27mm. A normal bicycle has 40-65mm and therefore much stronger castering action. I have ridden mine over 60km in one ride though.
What's the verdict on cargo ebikes? I'm tempted by something like a Tern or the cheaper Radwagon. Where we live, it'd make sense for me, rather than use the Transporter for a 10 minute drive to town. It'd be a crime to use my hardtail with panniers.
Terns are I think well-thought of and robust, if somewhat expensive at £3-4k+. ie about 12-18 months of running costs for a small 2nd car.
You can find E-Cargo bikes from about £1500, or secondhand, and they hold their value well.
What is your annual running cost, btw? *innocent face*
Okay, I’ll bite.
I’ve previously lived in places where work and home were 400m apart, and home was 100m from the station. Brilliant. No need for a car, take a taxi or rent one when required.
Right now, I live 25km from work, and the journey is pretty much impossible by anything other than car. It’s 20m in the car, or nearly 2h by public transport (walk, bus, train, train, walk, boat, walk).
The problem I have, is trying to fit one-size-fits-all solutions into a diverse population. People will change jobs, and transport methods that worked with old job no longer work with new job. Not just jobs either, people have regular appointments with schools, shops, social events, that can change over time.
Having a car is a sunk cost; not just for the car, but for insurance, VED, servicing etc. Owning a house is an even bigger sunk cost; it’s often easier to accept an hour’s commute than to commit to spending five figures on moving house, even assuming that a similar house near new job can be purchased for similar money to the one you have already.
Once you have a car the marginal cost of a single extra journey is tiny, compared to the cost of a bus or train journey for more than one person. If you’re on your own, the cost is about the same, but the difference in time and exposure to the weather is significantly different.
The impression given by those wanting to increase cycling, is that it starts with a dislike of cars. Now, there’s silly drivers and silly cyclists out there, and the cyclists are in the more vulnerable position if there’s a collision between the two. I can understand that it makes sense to separate the traffic where possible, but most of the suggestions start with reducing the space available for cars, rather than first increasing the space for other transport methods and letting the change happen organically.
Many people have no choice but to drive, they might have a complex schedule that involves getting the kids to school, going to work, running errands for their employer, picking up kids and going to activities etc, or they might just be like me, who’d rather spend 40m a day driving than 4h on public transport. I do occasionally take the public transport to work, if we went for beers afterwards and I took a taxi home.
The personal motor car is possibly the greatest invention of the 20th century, in terms of the freedom it gives people to move around, to seek work, to better themselves, to spend more time with those they love.
It comes across that there’s a concerted effort to regress on personal car ownership, for a wide range of different ideological positions. Whether it’s the cycling lobby, the bus lobby, the train lobby, the Uber lobby, the car-as-a-service lobby, or the environmental lobby, is almost irrelevant; the aim is to leave fewer people with the option to just jump in their own car and enjoy the freedom of the road.
I agree with your entire post - just swap out "car" for "bicycle".
The key reason that people don't cycle in the UK is that they are scared of getting hit by a car. The "freedom" to cycle around has been eroded by a constant threat of injury or death.
And car ownership is closely related to wealth. The poor have no choice but to cycle, walk or use public transport. What of their "freedom"?
Cars are late to this game. People were walking, and then cycling, around our towns and cities long before motorists came along. In the 1950s there was 8x as much cycling as there is now.
For the vast majority of people, having their own car was massive progress over bikes and horses. Owning a car was aspirational, people with cars are mobile and can go from any major city to another within a day, unbeholden to anyone except themselves.
I’m all in favour of better roads for those who want to cycle, but most of the cycling campaigners start from the premise that less road should be given over to cars, and work backwards from there.
Fewer drivers = more road.
No, more road = more road.
90% of transportation miles are taken by drivers and that is consistent in pretty much all countries across Europe. This includes cyclists and public transportation.
You can't induce demand much beyond 90%. And even if cycling in this country were to double and all of those extra cycling miles were removed from driving miles, you'd be removing less than 1% of cars from the road. Which would be entirely negated by population growth being over 1% per annum.
I've been meaning to ask you. Do you like cars?
Guessing this is sarcasm?
Of course I do, they're great. Convenient, practical, efficient and they work. They're the best and most efficient form of transportation that exists.
I also like bikes, they're fun recreationally too.
The thing is that bikes are not an alternative to cars, in the same way as chocolate cake is not an alternative to a balanced diet.
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
Not for 83% of us
More importantly, about 1 in 5 households in Hillingdon (and Havering) manage without any car or van at all. Even in Rishi's Richmondshire, it's 1 in 8.
So, no- cars are not required. They might be useful, but they're not required. "I want" isn't the same as "I need", as granny used to say.
Which is bollocks, I lived in slough almost 40 years....in all that time I had precisely 2 jobs in slough, I worked in wantage,epsom,reading,farnborough apart from that. Public transport was only viable for reading. None of those places was cyclable to. Just because you live in an urban area does not mean you will find a job in that urban area
Sorry what point are you trying to make here? 80% of slough needs a car?
No. What I am saying is that Bart's claim,
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
is demonstrably untrue. Plenty of functioning adults manage their lives perfectly well without driving a car, ever. On the latest stats, about 1 in 4 adults in England don't have a driving licence.
That's not the case for everyone, sure. I'm not arguing for no cars at all anywhere, and you'd have to get pretty fringe to get that view.
What I do think is that cars can be excellent servants, but appalling masters. If we try to put sufficient road and parking space in urban areas, we cut them in pieces and often kill the things that make them good places to live. By making roads less safe and public transport less viable, we (and this includes me) make life demonstrably worse for the 1 in 4 adults who don't drive and the young people who struggle to be independently mobile.
And the evidence is that, if you create safe networks for walking and cycling, properly away from motorised traffic, people do use them as a serious way of getting bits of their daily business done. Which is good for everyone.
Plenty of people get about by being passengers in cars yes, or relying upon others who drive cars in order to service their needs instead.
Very few in modern society have nothing to do with cars, whether it be via being a passenger in one (inc taxis), or getting their post delivered, or parcels delivered, or going to shops which have cars, vans and trucks delivering their supplies.
Even if you don't drive, you almost certainly have people who are driving assisting you in the way you live on an daily basis. That's how modern society exists and it is all the better for it.
The evidence is that if you have safe networks for walking and cycling then a miniscule percentage of daily miles/km travelled is done that way, which is absolutely fine, but cars remain the overwhelming majority of transportation.
Even in tiny Netherlands, the most bike-friendly country in the world, bikes account for single-digit percentage of total km travelled while cars make up over 75%.
If you want to ride a bike a short distance then good luck to you, but unless you want to go back to 18th century standards of living, we need cars in the real world.
Er. 'Car' usually means 'private car'. Not delivery van, bus, minibus ... which is sort of the entire theme of all your posts as road warrior in backless gloves in his Rover 2000.
Actually vans, buses, minibuses, etc are simply different types of cars. And if you order off Amazon or other delivery suppliers then a significant portion of those deliveries are made by someone else's private car anyway. Plus if we're talking about investment in roads, or closing roads, then absolutely all of those vehicles need roads every bit as much as private cars do.
I've never driven a Rover, nor are my posts remotely road warrior unless you're an absolutely crazy anti-car fanatic - which this site seems to have a completely disproportionate amount of.
I've been consistently pro opening new roads for improving cycling and other demands which is win/win.
What I'm against is cutting capacity for over 90% of our transportation without any alternative. Build roads and you can add better cycling and walking capacity absolutely.
Simple fact is most dont want to use a bike they prefer their car. The majority should not be effected because of a minority that likes to pedal
A reasonable position to take but I'm more pro cycling than that. I think using more land while building roads so you can have a wide enough pedestrian path, dedicated and safe off-road and off-pavement cycle path, and road space for cars means everyone's preferred transportation is an option.
And to link this to my other pet peeve this means building new roads on newly developed land. Which can go with new housing too.
For older towns building bypasses etc and fast roads to handle traffic can liberate old land on roads to free space for cycling without harming drivers.
But to do this you need to be prepared to build, build, build including roads.
No new building? No new roads? Then no new cycle paths either.
@MattW is the acknowledged expert on cycling infrastructure. I’m sure his predictions that cycling can be expected to triple in coming years is right.
I’m hopeful about Birmingham and Nottingham too.
I remember when I posted that it was a shame that cities outside London lacked cyclehire schemes and I was denounced as a cappuccino supping metro elitist.
A small, but very useful scheme - Brompton offer cycle hire
I'm seeing on the trains an increasing number of people who've obviously hired one (the colour scheme is quiet, but noticeable) for a day out - train out to somewhere in the country side, unfold and ride.
For those who don't know them, Brompton folding bikes are allowed on all trains because they are so compact. They are, in addition, very rideable, compared to other small wheel bikes.
Bromptons are very cool, as well as a British manufacturing success story.
I have a single speed titanium one with flat bars because that's just how I roll.
They are not particularly 'rideable' because of a very short mechanical trail distance of 27mm. A normal bicycle has 40-65mm and therefore much stronger castering action. I have ridden mine over 60km in one ride though.
What's the verdict on cargo ebikes? I'm tempted by something like a Tern or the cheaper Radwagon. Where we live, it'd make sense for me, rather than use the Transporter for a 10 minute drive to town. It'd be a crime to use my hardtail with panniers.
Terns are I think well-thought of and robust, if somewhat expensive at £3-4k+. ie about 12-18 months of running costs for a small 2nd car.
You can find E-Cargo bikes from about £1500, or secondhand, and they hold their value well.
What is your annual running cost, btw? *innocent face*
Okay, I’ll bite.
I’ve previously lived in places where work and home were 400m apart, and home was 100m from the station. Brilliant. No need for a car, take a taxi or rent one when required.
Right now, I live 25km from work, and the journey is pretty much impossible by anything other than car. It’s 20m in the car, or nearly 2h by public transport (walk, bus, train, train, walk, boat, walk).
The problem I have, is trying to fit one-size-fits-all solutions into a diverse population. People will change jobs, and transport methods that worked with old job no longer work with new job. Not just jobs either, people have regular appointments with schools, shops, social events, that can change over time.
Having a car is a sunk cost; not just for the car, but for insurance, VED, servicing etc. Owning a house is an even bigger sunk cost; it’s often easier to accept an hour’s commute than to commit to spending five figures on moving house, even assuming that a similar house near new job can be purchased for similar money to the one you have already.
Once you have a car the marginal cost of a single extra journey is tiny, compared to the cost of a bus or train journey for more than one person. If you’re on your own, the cost is about the same, but the difference in time and exposure to the weather is significantly different.
The impression given by those wanting to increase cycling, is that it starts with a dislike of cars. Now, there’s silly drivers and silly cyclists out there, and the cyclists are in the more vulnerable position if there’s a collision between the two. I can understand that it makes sense to separate the traffic where possible, but most of the suggestions start with reducing the space available for cars, rather than first increasing the space for other transport methods and letting the change happen organically.
Many people have no choice but to drive, they might have a complex schedule that involves getting the kids to school, going to work, running errands for their employer, picking up kids and going to activities etc, or they might just be like me, who’d rather spend 40m a day driving than 4h on public transport. I do occasionally take the public transport to work, if we went for beers afterwards and I took a taxi home.
The personal motor car is possibly the greatest invention of the 20th century, in terms of the freedom it gives people to move around, to seek work, to better themselves, to spend more time with those they love.
It comes across that there’s a concerted effort to regress on personal car ownership, for a wide range of different ideological positions. Whether it’s the cycling lobby, the bus lobby, the train lobby, the Uber lobby, the car-as-a-service lobby, or the environmental lobby, is almost irrelevant; the aim is to leave fewer people with the option to just jump in their own car and enjoy the freedom of the road.
I agree with your entire post - just swap out "car" for "bicycle".
The key reason that people don't cycle in the UK is that they are scared of getting hit by a car. The "freedom" to cycle around has been eroded by a constant threat of injury or death.
And car ownership is closely related to wealth. The poor have no choice but to cycle, walk or use public transport. What of their "freedom"?
Cars are late to this game. People were walking, and then cycling, around our towns and cities long before motorists came along. In the 1950s there was 8x as much cycling as there is now.
For the vast majority of people, having their own car was massive progress over bikes and horses. Owning a car was aspirational, people with cars are mobile and can go from any major city to another within a day, unbeholden to anyone except themselves.
I’m all in favour of better roads for those who want to cycle, but most of the cycling campaigners start from the premise that less road should be given over to cars, and work backwards from there.
Fewer drivers = more road.
No, more road = more road.
90% of transportation miles are taken by drivers and that is consistent in pretty much all countries across Europe. This includes cyclists and public transportation.
You can't induce demand much beyond 90%. And even if cycling in this country were to double and all of those extra cycling miles were removed from driving miles, you'd be removing less than 1% of cars from the road. Which would be entirely negated by population growth being over 1% per annum.
I've been meaning to ask you. Do you like cars?
Guessing this is sarcasm?
Of course I do, they're great. Convenient, practical, efficient and they work. They're the best and most efficient form of transportation that exists.
I also like bikes, they're fun recreationally too.
The thing is that bikes are not an alternative to cars, in the same way as chocolate cake is not an alternative to a balanced diet.
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
Not for 83% of us
More importantly, about 1 in 5 households in Hillingdon (and Havering) manage without any car or van at all. Even in Rishi's Richmondshire, it's 1 in 8.
So, no- cars are not required. They might be useful, but they're not required. "I want" isn't the same as "I need", as granny used to say.
Which is bollocks, I lived in slough almost 40 years....in all that time I had precisely 2 jobs in slough, I worked in wantage,epsom,reading,farnborough apart from that. Public transport was only viable for reading. None of those places was cyclable to. Just because you live in an urban area does not mean you will find a job in that urban area
Sorry what point are you trying to make here? 80% of slough needs a car?
No. What I am saying is that Bart's claim,
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
is demonstrably untrue. Plenty of functioning adults manage their lives perfectly well without driving a car, ever. On the latest stats, about 1 in 4 adults in England don't have a driving licence.
That's not the case for everyone, sure. I'm not arguing for no cars at all anywhere, and you'd have to get pretty fringe to get that view.
What I do think is that cars can be excellent servants, but appalling masters. If we try to put sufficient road and parking space in urban areas, we cut them in pieces and often kill the things that make them good places to live. By making roads less safe and public transport less viable, we (and this includes me) make life demonstrably worse for the 1 in 4 adults who don't drive and the young people who struggle to be independently mobile.
And the evidence is that, if you create safe networks for walking and cycling, properly away from motorised traffic, people do use them as a serious way of getting bits of their daily business done. Which is good for everyone.
Plenty of people get about by being passengers in cars yes, or relying upon others who drive cars in order to service their needs instead.
Very few in modern society have nothing to do with cars, whether it be via being a passenger in one (inc taxis), or getting their post delivered, or parcels delivered, or going to shops which have cars, vans and trucks delivering their supplies.
Even if you don't drive, you almost certainly have people who are driving assisting you in the way you live on an daily basis. That's how modern society exists and it is all the better for it.
The evidence is that if you have safe networks for walking and cycling then a miniscule percentage of daily miles/km travelled is done that way, which is absolutely fine, but cars remain the overwhelming majority of transportation.
Even in tiny Netherlands, the most bike-friendly country in the world, bikes account for single-digit percentage of total km travelled while cars make up over 75%.
If you want to ride a bike a short distance then good luck to you, but unless you want to go back to 18th century standards of living, we need cars in the real world.
Er. 'Car' usually means 'private car'. Not delivery van, bus, minibus ... which is sort of the entire theme of all your posts as road warrior in backless gloves in his Rover 2000.
Actually vans, buses, minibuses, etc are simply different types of cars. And if you order off Amazon or other delivery suppliers then a significant portion of those deliveries are made by someone else's private car anyway. Plus if we're talking about investment in roads, or closing roads, then absolutely all of those vehicles need roads every bit as much as private cars do.
I've never driven a Rover, nor are my posts remotely road warrior unless you're an absolutely crazy anti-car fanatic - which this site seems to have a completely disproportionate amount of.
I've been consistently pro opening new roads for improving cycling and other demands which is win/win.
What I'm against is cutting capacity for over 90% of our transportation without any alternative. Build roads and you can add better cycling and walking capacity absolutely.
Fact remains, private cars are hopelssly selfish and consume vast amounts of resources compared to communal vehicles of various sorts. Even an Amazon delivery car is dozens of times better than driving to the local bookshop or W H Smiths.
And, as I should have added, there are states that let any registered voter choose which presidential primary to vote in. (Some authors call primaries that let independents vote, but not members of another party, "semi-open". I said it was complicated.)
@MattW is the acknowledged expert on cycling infrastructure. I’m sure his predictions that cycling can be expected to triple in coming years is right.
I’m hopeful about Birmingham and Nottingham too.
I remember when I posted that it was a shame that cities outside London lacked cyclehire schemes and I was denounced as a cappuccino supping metro elitist.
A small, but very useful scheme - Brompton offer cycle hire
I'm seeing on the trains an increasing number of people who've obviously hired one (the colour scheme is quiet, but noticeable) for a day out - train out to somewhere in the country side, unfold and ride.
For those who don't know them, Brompton folding bikes are allowed on all trains because they are so compact. They are, in addition, very rideable, compared to other small wheel bikes.
Bromptons are very cool, as well as a British manufacturing success story.
I have a single speed titanium one with flat bars because that's just how I roll.
They are not particularly 'rideable' because of a very short mechanical trail distance of 27mm. A normal bicycle has 40-65mm and therefore much stronger castering action. I have ridden mine over 60km in one ride though.
What's the verdict on cargo ebikes? I'm tempted by something like a Tern or the cheaper Radwagon. Where we live, it'd make sense for me, rather than use the Transporter for a 10 minute drive to town. It'd be a crime to use my hardtail with panniers.
Terns are I think well-thought of and robust, if somewhat expensive at £3-4k+. ie about 12-18 months of running costs for a small 2nd car.
You can find E-Cargo bikes from about £1500, or secondhand, and they hold their value well.
What is your annual running cost, btw? *innocent face*
Okay, I’ll bite.
I’ve previously lived in places where work and home were 400m apart, and home was 100m from the station. Brilliant. No need for a car, take a taxi or rent one when required.
Right now, I live 25km from work, and the journey is pretty much impossible by anything other than car. It’s 20m in the car, or nearly 2h by public transport (walk, bus, train, train, walk, boat, walk).
The problem I have, is trying to fit one-size-fits-all solutions into a diverse population. People will change jobs, and transport methods that worked with old job no longer work with new job. Not just jobs either, people have regular appointments with schools, shops, social events, that can change over time.
Having a car is a sunk cost; not just for the car, but for insurance, VED, servicing etc. Owning a house is an even bigger sunk cost; it’s often easier to accept an hour’s commute than to commit to spending five figures on moving house, even assuming that a similar house near new job can be purchased for similar money to the one you have already.
Once you have a car the marginal cost of a single extra journey is tiny, compared to the cost of a bus or train journey for more than one person. If you’re on your own, the cost is about the same, but the difference in time and exposure to the weather is significantly different.
The impression given by those wanting to increase cycling, is that it starts with a dislike of cars. Now, there’s silly drivers and silly cyclists out there, and the cyclists are in the more vulnerable position if there’s a collision between the two. I can understand that it makes sense to separate the traffic where possible, but most of the suggestions start with reducing the space available for cars, rather than first increasing the space for other transport methods and letting the change happen organically.
Many people have no choice but to drive, they might have a complex schedule that involves getting the kids to school, going to work, running errands for their employer, picking up kids and going to activities etc, or they might just be like me, who’d rather spend 40m a day driving than 4h on public transport. I do occasionally take the public transport to work, if we went for beers afterwards and I took a taxi home.
The personal motor car is possibly the greatest invention of the 20th century, in terms of the freedom it gives people to move around, to seek work, to better themselves, to spend more time with those they love.
It comes across that there’s a concerted effort to regress on personal car ownership, for a wide range of different ideological positions. Whether it’s the cycling lobby, the bus lobby, the train lobby, the Uber lobby, the car-as-a-service lobby, or the environmental lobby, is almost irrelevant; the aim is to leave fewer people with the option to just jump in their own car and enjoy the freedom of the road.
I agree with your entire post - just swap out "car" for "bicycle".
The key reason that people don't cycle in the UK is that they are scared of getting hit by a car. The "freedom" to cycle around has been eroded by a constant threat of injury or death.
And car ownership is closely related to wealth. The poor have no choice but to cycle, walk or use public transport. What of their "freedom"?
Cars are late to this game. People were walking, and then cycling, around our towns and cities long before motorists came along. In the 1950s there was 8x as much cycling as there is now.
For the vast majority of people, having their own car was massive progress over bikes and horses. Owning a car was aspirational, people with cars are mobile and can go from any major city to another within a day, unbeholden to anyone except themselves.
I’m all in favour of better roads for those who want to cycle, but most of the cycling campaigners start from the premise that less road should be given over to cars, and work backwards from there.
Fewer drivers = more road.
No, more road = more road.
90% of transportation miles are taken by drivers and that is consistent in pretty much all countries across Europe. This includes cyclists and public transportation.
You can't induce demand much beyond 90%. And even if cycling in this country were to double and all of those extra cycling miles were removed from driving miles, you'd be removing less than 1% of cars from the road. Which would be entirely negated by population growth being over 1% per annum.
I've been meaning to ask you. Do you like cars?
Guessing this is sarcasm?
Of course I do, they're great. Convenient, practical, efficient and they work. They're the best and most efficient form of transportation that exists.
I also like bikes, they're fun recreationally too.
The thing is that bikes are not an alternative to cars, in the same way as chocolate cake is not an alternative to a balanced diet.
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
Not for 83% of us
More importantly, about 1 in 5 households in Hillingdon (and Havering) manage without any car or van at all. Even in Rishi's Richmondshire, it's 1 in 8.
So, no- cars are not required. They might be useful, but they're not required. "I want" isn't the same as "I need", as granny used to say.
Which is bollocks, I lived in slough almost 40 years....in all that time I had precisely 2 jobs in slough, I worked in wantage,epsom,reading,farnborough apart from that. Public transport was only viable for reading. None of those places was cyclable to. Just because you live in an urban area does not mean you will find a job in that urban area
Sorry what point are you trying to make here? 80% of slough needs a car?
No. What I am saying is that Bart's claim,
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
is demonstrably untrue. Plenty of functioning adults manage their lives perfectly well without driving a car, ever. On the latest stats, about 1 in 4 adults in England don't have a driving licence.
That's not the case for everyone, sure. I'm not arguing for no cars at all anywhere, and you'd have to get pretty fringe to get that view.
What I do think is that cars can be excellent servants, but appalling masters. If we try to put sufficient road and parking space in urban areas, we cut them in pieces and often kill the things that make them good places to live. By making roads less safe and public transport less viable, we (and this includes me) make life demonstrably worse for the 1 in 4 adults who don't drive and the young people who struggle to be independently mobile.
And the evidence is that, if you create safe networks for walking and cycling, properly away from motorised traffic, people do use them as a serious way of getting bits of their daily business done. Which is good for everyone.
Plenty of people get about by being passengers in cars yes, or relying upon others who drive cars in order to service their needs instead.
Very few in modern society have nothing to do with cars, whether it be via being a passenger in one (inc taxis), or getting their post delivered, or parcels delivered, or going to shops which have cars, vans and trucks delivering their supplies.
Even if you don't drive, you almost certainly have people who are driving assisting you in the way you live on an daily basis. That's how modern society exists and it is all the better for it.
The evidence is that if you have safe networks for walking and cycling then a miniscule percentage of daily miles/km travelled is done that way, which is absolutely fine, but cars remain the overwhelming majority of transportation.
Even in tiny Netherlands, the most bike-friendly country in the world, bikes account for single-digit percentage of total km travelled while cars make up over 75%.
If you want to ride a bike a short distance then good luck to you, but unless you want to go back to 18th century standards of living, we need cars in the real world.
Er. 'Car' usually means 'private car'. Not delivery van, bus, minibus ... which is sort of the entire theme of all your posts as road warrior in backless gloves in his Rover 2000.
Actually vans, buses, minibuses, etc are simply different types of cars. And if you order off Amazon or other delivery suppliers then a significant portion of those deliveries are made by someone else's private car anyway. Plus if we're talking about investment in roads, or closing roads, then absolutely all of those vehicles need roads every bit as much as private cars do.
I've never driven a Rover, nor are my posts remotely road warrior unless you're an absolutely crazy anti-car fanatic - which this site seems to have a completely disproportionate amount of.
I've been consistently pro opening new roads for improving cycling and other demands which is win/win.
What I'm against is cutting capacity for over 90% of our transportation without any alternative. Build roads and you can add better cycling and walking capacity absolutely.
Fact remains, private cars are hopelssly selfish and consume vast amounts of resources compared to communal vehicles of various sorts. Even an Amazon delivery car is dozens of times better than driving to the local bookshop or W H Smiths.
Load of crap. Private cars consume minimal amounts of resources per mile travelled. They're wonderfully efficient.
Gram for gram my bike is a less efficient use of resources than my car.
I've not got a car or a driving license. It has caused me absolutely no problems whatsoever. I just live in a town near to a supermarket and everything is in walking distance. Apart from driving somewhere random for the hell of it there is nothing I am really missing out on. I have a dislike for cars but don't want to impose my views on other people, I think they have a right to choose within reason. The only people that antagonise me are those who think that economic development can be best served by 'fixing the roads' or 'building more parking': usually the same people who want to 'cut the arts'. I think the obsession with cars will just die out, more and more people don't learn to drive (not least because there is a six month waiting list for driving tests), and are just priced out of car ownership by the cost of living problems. Also you can just look around you and see that the dominance of the car and the noise, space and infrastructure they consume is disproportionate to the purpose they are serving.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
As I said not predicting crossover for next election,,,,merely saying people actively want green mps....lib dems are merely a protest vote
Your post reads as if you meant next election, but even so you definitely said the LDs will have less seats after the next election so do you want a bet?
Yes I think they will have less seats after the next election, not the same as claiming the crossover between lib dems and greens will occur next election
One key to political betting successfully, as OGH has said, is to separate one's own political opinions from an analysis of the British peoples.
The LDs clearly represent the views of a significant minority of the country, and poll in both Council and PR elections above what they get at FPTP. This suggests that more people would vote LD if there was a prospect of winning.
Not everyone is as misanthropic and paranoid as you.
@MattW is the acknowledged expert on cycling infrastructure. I’m sure his predictions that cycling can be expected to triple in coming years is right.
I’m hopeful about Birmingham and Nottingham too.
I remember when I posted that it was a shame that cities outside London lacked cyclehire schemes and I was denounced as a cappuccino supping metro elitist.
A small, but very useful scheme - Brompton offer cycle hire
I'm seeing on the trains an increasing number of people who've obviously hired one (the colour scheme is quiet, but noticeable) for a day out - train out to somewhere in the country side, unfold and ride.
For those who don't know them, Brompton folding bikes are allowed on all trains because they are so compact. They are, in addition, very rideable, compared to other small wheel bikes.
Bromptons are very cool, as well as a British manufacturing success story.
I have a single speed titanium one with flat bars because that's just how I roll.
They are not particularly 'rideable' because of a very short mechanical trail distance of 27mm. A normal bicycle has 40-65mm and therefore much stronger castering action. I have ridden mine over 60km in one ride though.
What's the verdict on cargo ebikes? I'm tempted by something like a Tern or the cheaper Radwagon. Where we live, it'd make sense for me, rather than use the Transporter for a 10 minute drive to town. It'd be a crime to use my hardtail with panniers.
Terns are I think well-thought of and robust, if somewhat expensive at £3-4k+. ie about 12-18 months of running costs for a small 2nd car.
You can find E-Cargo bikes from about £1500, or secondhand, and they hold their value well.
What is your annual running cost, btw? *innocent face*
Okay, I’ll bite.
I’ve previously lived in places where work and home were 400m apart, and home was 100m from the station. Brilliant. No need for a car, take a taxi or rent one when required.
Right now, I live 25km from work, and the journey is pretty much impossible by anything other than car. It’s 20m in the car, or nearly 2h by public transport (walk, bus, train, train, walk, boat, walk).
The problem I have, is trying to fit one-size-fits-all solutions into a diverse population. People will change jobs, and transport methods that worked with old job no longer work with new job. Not just jobs either, people have regular appointments with schools, shops, social events, that can change over time.
Having a car is a sunk cost; not just for the car, but for insurance, VED, servicing etc. Owning a house is an even bigger sunk cost; it’s often easier to accept an hour’s commute than to commit to spending five figures on moving house, even assuming that a similar house near new job can be purchased for similar money to the one you have already.
Once you have a car the marginal cost of a single extra journey is tiny, compared to the cost of a bus or train journey for more than one person. If you’re on your own, the cost is about the same, but the difference in time and exposure to the weather is significantly different.
The impression given by those wanting to increase cycling, is that it starts with a dislike of cars. Now, there’s silly drivers and silly cyclists out there, and the cyclists are in the more vulnerable position if there’s a collision between the two. I can understand that it makes sense to separate the traffic where possible, but most of the suggestions start with reducing the space available for cars, rather than first increasing the space for other transport methods and letting the change happen organically.
Many people have no choice but to drive, they might have a complex schedule that involves getting the kids to school, going to work, running errands for their employer, picking up kids and going to activities etc, or they might just be like me, who’d rather spend 40m a day driving than 4h on public transport. I do occasionally take the public transport to work, if we went for beers afterwards and I took a taxi home.
The personal motor car is possibly the greatest invention of the 20th century, in terms of the freedom it gives people to move around, to seek work, to better themselves, to spend more time with those they love.
It comes across that there’s a concerted effort to regress on personal car ownership, for a wide range of different ideological positions. Whether it’s the cycling lobby, the bus lobby, the train lobby, the Uber lobby, the car-as-a-service lobby, or the environmental lobby, is almost irrelevant; the aim is to leave fewer people with the option to just jump in their own car and enjoy the freedom of the road.
I agree with your entire post - just swap out "car" for "bicycle".
The key reason that people don't cycle in the UK is that they are scared of getting hit by a car. The "freedom" to cycle around has been eroded by a constant threat of injury or death.
And car ownership is closely related to wealth. The poor have no choice but to cycle, walk or use public transport. What of their "freedom"?
Cars are late to this game. People were walking, and then cycling, around our towns and cities long before motorists came along. In the 1950s there was 8x as much cycling as there is now.
For the vast majority of people, having their own car was massive progress over bikes and horses. Owning a car was aspirational, people with cars are mobile and can go from any major city to another within a day, unbeholden to anyone except themselves.
I’m all in favour of better roads for those who want to cycle, but most of the cycling campaigners start from the premise that less road should be given over to cars, and work backwards from there.
Fewer drivers = more road.
No, more road = more road.
90% of transportation miles are taken by drivers and that is consistent in pretty much all countries across Europe. This includes cyclists and public transportation.
You can't induce demand much beyond 90%. And even if cycling in this country were to double and all of those extra cycling miles were removed from driving miles, you'd be removing less than 1% of cars from the road. Which would be entirely negated by population growth being over 1% per annum.
I've been meaning to ask you. Do you like cars?
Guessing this is sarcasm?
Of course I do, they're great. Convenient, practical, efficient and they work. They're the best and most efficient form of transportation that exists.
I also like bikes, they're fun recreationally too.
The thing is that bikes are not an alternative to cars, in the same way as chocolate cake is not an alternative to a balanced diet.
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
Not for 83% of us
More importantly, about 1 in 5 households in Hillingdon (and Havering) manage without any car or van at all. Even in Rishi's Richmondshire, it's 1 in 8.
So, no- cars are not required. They might be useful, but they're not required. "I want" isn't the same as "I need", as granny used to say.
Which is bollocks, I lived in slough almost 40 years....in all that time I had precisely 2 jobs in slough, I worked in wantage,epsom,reading,farnborough apart from that. Public transport was only viable for reading. None of those places was cyclable to. Just because you live in an urban area does not mean you will find a job in that urban area
Sorry what point are you trying to make here? 80% of slough needs a car?
No. What I am saying is that Bart's claim,
I'll have chocolate cake because its nice, or ride a bike because its fun. But you absolutely need your balanced diet/car because they are required.
is demonstrably untrue. Plenty of functioning adults manage their lives perfectly well without driving a car, ever. On the latest stats, about 1 in 4 adults in England don't have a driving licence.
That's not the case for everyone, sure. I'm not arguing for no cars at all anywhere, and you'd have to get pretty fringe to get that view.
What I do think is that cars can be excellent servants, but appalling masters. If we try to put sufficient road and parking space in urban areas, we cut them in pieces and often kill the things that make them good places to live. By making roads less safe and public transport less viable, we (and this includes me) make life demonstrably worse for the 1 in 4 adults who don't drive and the young people who struggle to be independently mobile.
And the evidence is that, if you create safe networks for walking and cycling, properly away from motorised traffic, people do use them as a serious way of getting bits of their daily business done. Which is good for everyone.
Plenty of people get about by being passengers in cars yes, or relying upon others who drive cars in order to service their needs instead.
Very few in modern society have nothing to do with cars, whether it be via being a passenger in one (inc taxis), or getting their post delivered, or parcels delivered, or going to shops which have cars, vans and trucks delivering their supplies.
Even if you don't drive, you almost certainly have people who are driving assisting you in the way you live on an daily basis. That's how modern society exists and it is all the better for it.
The evidence is that if you have safe networks for walking and cycling then a miniscule percentage of daily miles/km travelled is done that way, which is absolutely fine, but cars remain the overwhelming majority of transportation.
Even in tiny Netherlands, the most bike-friendly country in the world, bikes account for single-digit percentage of total km travelled while cars make up over 75%.
If you want to ride a bike a short distance then good luck to you, but unless you want to go back to 18th century standards of living, we need cars in the real world.
Er. 'Car' usually means 'private car'. Not delivery van, bus, minibus ... which is sort of the entire theme of all your posts as road warrior in backless gloves in his Rover 2000.
Actually vans, buses, minibuses, etc are simply different types of cars. And if you order off Amazon or other delivery suppliers then a significant portion of those deliveries are made by someone else's private car anyway. Plus if we're talking about investment in roads, or closing roads, then absolutely all of those vehicles need roads every bit as much as private cars do.
I've never driven a Rover, nor are my posts remotely road warrior unless you're an absolutely crazy anti-car fanatic - which this site seems to have a completely disproportionate amount of.
I've been consistently pro opening new roads for improving cycling and other demands which is win/win.
What I'm against is cutting capacity for over 90% of our transportation without any alternative. Build roads and you can add better cycling and walking capacity absolutely.
Fact remains, private cars are hopelssly selfish and consume vast amounts of resources compared to communal vehicles of various sorts. Even an Amazon delivery car is dozens of times better than driving to the local bookshop or W H Smiths.
Load of crap. Private cars consume minimal amounts of resources per mile travelled. They're wonderfully efficient.
Gram for gram my bike is a less efficient use of resources than my car.
Remarkable economic and engineering analysis. If it were true ...
Bujt it's not, because you have the rest of us pay much of the cost.
My Rutherglen & Hamilton West post on whether there is anything unusual to be gleaned from the Local Elections.
So my normal approach would be to base on the LE22 round and then see if there is any forward facing data since then
Rutherglen & Hamilton West LE22 gave: SNP 39.2 (-5.0 on GE19) Lab 34.1 (-0.4) Con 11.0 (-4.0) LD 11.0 (+5.8) Others (mainly Green) 4.6 (+3.4)
To my eyes a lot of the movement here is that of an STV election vs an FPTP election, a lot of that lost SNP vote is hidden in Others and likely to return as at this point.
So, LE22 is not too far away from GE19.
In terms of actual election swings since then, there have been 5 local by-elections in Scotland this year, 3 with Labour as the challengers. Swings away from the SNP on the first vote have been steady and consistent:
In Stirling SNP to Con challenger swing was 5.5% In Edinburgh SNP to LD swing was 6% In Aberdeen SNP to Lab was 9% In the Lanarkshires (though neither in this constituency) SNP to Lab were 11 and 13.5% respectively.
I don't know if it's the somewhat evened out political environment, large multi member wards, full slates of candidates, STV or what, but Scottish local elections and by elections, outside the Independent lands at least, show little of the madness that is often on show in England. Whenever I look things seem smooth, indicative and fairly well aligned with the polls.
If a 10ish% swing to Labour does not materialize, I think that will reflect back something hitherto unknown about the Scottish attitudes to GE24 and would be far more telling than Uxbridge ever was. Labour need the boring result that every indicator suggests will happen. The chance of that is non-zero, this will be the first politician sent to London from Scotland since Airdrie and Shotts returned Anum Qaisar in sunnier SNP days.
The last time a person ran for the US presidency from a prison cell was in 1992, when Lyndon LaRouche stood as the Economic Recovery candidate. In how many states was he either on the ballot or theoretically electable as a write-in?
I found this map on Wikipedia but no key for it. No other WP page seems to link to it.
I was wondering whether it was clear in any US states at that time that a) no ballots could be cast for LLR on their patch and b) no elector could vote for him either.
And what about Eugene Debs who ran as the Socialist Party candidate from prison in the 1920 election? He won more than 900,000 votes.
While officially running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Lyndon LaRouche also decided to run as an Independent in the general election, standing as the National Economic Recovery candidate.
LaRouche was in jail at the time, having been convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud in December 1988; it was only the second time in history that the presidency was sought from a prison cell (after Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs, while imprisoned for his opposition to U.S. involvement in World War I, ran in 1920). His running-mate was James Bevel, a civil rights activist who had represented the LaRouche movement in its pursuit of the Franklin child prostitution ring allegations.
In addition to the displayed states, LaRouche had nearly made the ballot in the states of New York and Mississippi. In the case of New York, while his petition was valid and had enough signatures, none of his electors filed declarations of candidacy; in the cases of Mississippi a sore-loser law was in place, and because he ran in that state's Democratic presidential primary he was ineligible to run as an Independent in the general. Ohio also had a sore-loser law, but it was ruled in Brown vs. Taft that it did not apply to presidential candidates. LaRouche and Beval drew 22,863 votes. (< 0.1% of the popular vote).
(with map)Lyndon LaRouche was on the ballot in seventeen states (156 Electoral Votes). Those states with a lighter shade are states in which he was an official write-in candidate.
SSI - Based on the map, there were only 12 states where votes for LaRouche were NOT recorded; in addition to 17 states (actually 16 + DC0) where he was on the ballot, in another 22 he was an official write-in candidate
AND NOTE MY AVATAR!
Ah yes - hadn't noticed your avatar!
I'm ignorant of what "official write-in candidate" actually means. I'm trying to find the answer to the question whether if Donald Trump is in prison - let's say he is handed a 10 year sentence in the summer of 2024, and he's locked up rather than being bailed pending appeal - there will be any states in which it will, on a reasonable interpretation of precedent, be impossible for any elector from that state to vote for him in the EC?
Trump would be well advised to ask Vince McMahon (see the shaving show in the wrestling ring) for acting tips prior to the live hostile cross-examination, with possibility of prison if he f*cks up, that his whole life as a showoff and deluded self-believer has been preparation for. Aka payback.
Personally think that the situation you outline re: possible Trump conviction & incarceration will NOT arise in time for 2024 general election.
However, to address points you raise
> "official write-in" means that election authorities are required to record the number of write-ins received by the candidate in question; otherwise, in many jurisdictions tabulating such votes is NOT required UNLESS the would affect the outcome.
> as far as I know, there is no bar in ANY state, to a convicted felon receiving Electoral Votes, or any other kind of votes.
> with respect to Eugene V. Debs 1920 precedent, note that only 5 states (out of 48) recorded zero votes for the imprisoned Socialist: Georgia, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota and Vermont; why this was (all five recorded votes for Socialist candidate in 1916) I don't know, might have been due to EVD's felon status, HOWEVER my guess is that it was because of general "Red Scare" that was BIG deal in USA 1919-20.
Biden and Trump are both buys: they should be, respectively, 45% and 35% chances.
RFK is a straight sell. (True chance 0.1%) Newsom is also a sell, albeit not quite as obviously as RFK. DeSantis is about right.
Instead, put money on Christie and Harris. (Christie because he has a viable, if narrow path. Harris because if Biden keels over, she becomes President, and then the de facto nominee, despite being a pretty terrible candidate.)
Why does everyone denigrate Kamala Harris? I've heard her speak a couple of times and she impresses me. I can understand why she would generate plenty of negativity from opponents (and if that's why you think she'd be a terrible candidate, I get that) but sometimes you have to do that in order to win if you galvanise enough people on your side (witness one Donald Trump).
With respect stodge you are a lib dem, you no doubt are impressed by the non entity that is ed davey
I am an Ed Davey fan. Sure, he is unfashionably white, male, middle aged, and a bit portly, but he has always been an effective organiser and strategic thinker.
The LD campaign machine is now an effective force, and I suspect he is quite looking forward to the GE, where doubling the number of LD MPs is a reasonable objective, and returning to the position of 3rd party in Parliament quite possible.
Ld's will have less seats after the next election. They are the never wases of british politics I expect them to be overtaken in mp numbers by the greens
That's a terrible bet. The Greens have to be a fifty/fifty shot for losing their only MP.
As I said not predicting crossover for next election,,,,merely saying people actively want green mps....lib dems are merely a protest vote
Your post reads as if you meant next election, but even so you definitely said the LDs will have less seats after the next election so do you want a bet?
Yes I think they will have less seats after the next election, not the same as claiming the crossover between lib dems and greens will occur next election
One key to political betting successfully, as OGH has said, is to separate one's own political opinions from an analysis of the British peoples.
The LDs clearly represent the views of a significant minority of the country, and poll in both Council and PR elections above what they get at FPTP. This suggests that more people would vote LD if there was a prospect of winning.
Not everyone is as misanthropic and paranoid as you.
What is paranoid and misanthropic about saying I believe the ld's will have less seats after the next election. Care to explain?
Why is it alright to tactically vote to keep a tory out but my expression that I would absolutely tactically vote to keep a lib dem out paranoid and misanthropic? Care to explain?
Either tactical voting is good or its not, you cant claim tactical voting is only good if the side you favour wins. I would vote for corbyn to keep a lib dem out frankly.
I know we’re all running out of TV drama to watch, so I sincerely recommend Transatlantic on Netflix. It’s not Succession, but it is a charming, quirky, happy-sad mini series about Americans spiriting Jews and Brit POWs out of 1940-1 Marseilles - and into Spain
It’s quite Wes Anderson. High production values. Genuinely Diverting. Moving at times
Plus it’s got the lovely blonde actress from Community
Started Shadow Detective on Disney+ So far routine police noir, but stars Lee Sung Min, who’s one of the best actors in the world.
On topic, I think the value is more in the potential alternatives to Biden as the Democratic candidate rather than with Trump.
These charges will only help Trump with the GOP base. Most of his rivals are being forced into saying the indictments are politically motivated. And I am sure his legal advisors can come up with ways to push these trials past election date. The GOP recognises they are stuck with Trump for 2024 and, whatever happens, this is his last hurrah - a loss and he fades away, a win and he cannot stand in 2028.
However, the betting is not really focusing on what happens to Biden. The accusations are coming think and fast and the US electorate have woken up to what he is being accused of. The evidence is in the grey zone to say the least and we are still 18 months away.
I think Harris will be persuaded - somehow - to step aside for someone else in which case the field is open. I do not see Newsom getting it given CA's problems and his own track record. So that leaves it to outsiders. Governors probably the best bet.
I'm not sure what's more disturbing - that it's plausible somebody could believe this rubbish given the current deranged state of the Republicans, or that they actually do.
Comments
These charges will only help Trump with the GOP base. Most of his rivals are being forced into saying the indictments are politically motivated. And I am sure his legal advisors can come up with ways to push these trials past election date. The GOP recognises they are stuck with Trump for 2024 and, whatever happens, this is his last hurrah - a loss and he fades away, a win and he cannot stand in 2028.
However, the betting is not really focusing on what happens to Biden. The accusations are coming think and fast and the US electorate have woken up to what he is being accused of. The evidence is in the grey zone to say the least and we are still 18 months away.
I think Harris will be persuaded - somehow - to step aside for someone else in which case the field is open. I do not see Newsom getting it given CA's problems and his own track record. So that leaves it to outsiders. Governors probably the best bet.
I've never driven a Rover, nor are my posts remotely road warrior unless you're an absolutely crazy anti-car fanatic - which this site seems to have a completely disproportionate amount of.
I've been consistently pro opening new roads for improving cycling and other demands which is win/win.
What I'm against is cutting capacity for over 90% of our transportation without any alternative. Build roads and you can add better cycling and walking capacity absolutely.
I doubt the CDU/CSU would want to party with AfD but that's where the centre of gravity of their voter base is heading.
There are, to say the least, even more complexiites, but I can say this: Before you try to calculate odds for any given state, be sure you know what the rules are for that state. Here, for example, are the rules for New Hampshire. https://www.sos.nh.gov/elections/information/faqs/voting-party-primaries
So, independents can vote in either primary.
And they have sometimes decided elections: "There is, however, little evidence of manipulation actually occurring,[citation needed] but there have been occasions when independent voters have an effect on the outcome of a partisan primary.
For example, in the 2008 presidential primaries in New Hampshire, Mitt Romney won among registered Republicans, but John McCain won overall.[5] Likewise, in South Carolina, Mike Huckabee won among self-identified Republicans, but John McCain won the state."
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_primaries_in_the_United_States
(Some voters choose to call themselves independent even if they identify with one party, in order to be free to vote in the primary of their choice.)
Until we're all killed by robots, of course.
I'm ignorant of what "official write-in candidate" actually means. I'm trying to find the answer to the question whether if Donald Trump is in prison - let's say he is handed a 10 year sentence in the summer of 2024, and he's locked up rather than being bailed pending appeal - there will be any states in which it will, on a reasonable interpretation of precedent, be impossible for any elector from that state to vote for him in the EC?
Trump would be well advised to ask Vince McMahon (see the shaving show in the wrestling ring) for acting tips prior to the live hostile cross-examination, with possibility of prison if he f*cks up, that his whole life as a showoff and deluded self-believer has been preparation for. Aka payback.
Pence on Jan. 6: ‘Crackpot lawyers’ told Trump ‘what his itching ears wanted to hear’
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4133918-pence-on-jan-6-crackpot-lawyers-told-trump-what-his-itching-ears-wanted-to-hear/
And to link this to my other pet peeve this means building new roads on newly developed land. Which can go with new housing too.
For older towns building bypasses etc and fast roads to handle traffic can liberate old land on roads to free space for cycling without harming drivers.
But to do this you need to be prepared to build, build, build including roads.
No new building? No new roads? Then no new cycle paths either.
Gram for gram my bike is a less efficient use of resources than my car.
The LDs clearly represent the views of a significant minority of the country, and poll in both Council and PR elections above what they get at FPTP. This suggests that more people would vote LD if there was a prospect of winning.
Not everyone is as misanthropic and paranoid as you.
Bujt it's not, because you have the rest of us pay much of the cost.
So my normal approach would be to base on the LE22 round and then see if there is any forward facing data since then
Rutherglen & Hamilton West LE22 gave:
SNP 39.2 (-5.0 on GE19)
Lab 34.1 (-0.4)
Con 11.0 (-4.0)
LD 11.0 (+5.8)
Others (mainly Green) 4.6 (+3.4)
To my eyes a lot of the movement here is that of an STV election vs an FPTP election, a lot of that lost SNP vote is hidden in Others and likely to return as at this point.
So, LE22 is not too far away from GE19.
In terms of actual election swings since then, there have been 5 local by-elections in Scotland this year, 3 with Labour as the challengers. Swings away from the SNP on the first vote have been steady and consistent:
In Stirling SNP to Con challenger swing was 5.5%
In Edinburgh SNP to LD swing was 6%
In Aberdeen SNP to Lab was 9%
In the Lanarkshires (though neither in this constituency) SNP to Lab were 11 and 13.5% respectively.
I don't know if it's the somewhat evened out political environment, large multi member wards, full slates of candidates, STV or what, but Scottish local elections and by elections, outside the Independent lands at least, show little of the madness that is often on show in England. Whenever I look things seem smooth, indicative and fairly well aligned with the polls.
If a 10ish% swing to Labour does not materialize, I think that will reflect back something hitherto unknown about the Scottish attitudes to GE24 and would be far more telling than Uxbridge ever was. Labour need the boring result that every indicator suggests will happen. The chance of that is non-zero, this will be the first politician sent to London from Scotland since Airdrie and Shotts returned Anum Qaisar in sunnier SNP days.
However, to address points you raise
> "official write-in" means that election authorities are required to record the number of write-ins received by the candidate in question; otherwise, in many jurisdictions tabulating such votes is NOT required UNLESS the would affect the outcome.
> as far as I know, there is no bar in ANY state, to a convicted felon receiving Electoral Votes, or any other kind of votes.
> with respect to Eugene V. Debs 1920 precedent, note that only 5 states (out of 48) recorded zero votes for the imprisoned Socialist: Georgia, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota and Vermont; why this was (all five recorded votes for Socialist candidate in 1916) I don't know, might have been due to EVD's felon status, HOWEVER my guess is that it was because of general "Red Scare" that was BIG deal in USA 1919-20.
Why is it alright to tactically vote to keep a tory out but my expression that I would absolutely tactically vote to keep a lib dem out paranoid and misanthropic? Care to explain?
Either tactical voting is good or its not, you cant claim tactical voting is only good if the side you favour wins. I would vote for corbyn to keep a lib dem out frankly.
So far routine police noir, but stars Lee Sung Min, who’s one of the best actors in the world.