A suggested betting market for Mid-Bedfordshire – politicalbetting.com

System

A suggested betting market for Mid-Bedfordshire – politicalbetting.com

LDs gearing up for a Mid Bedfordshire by-election. But is Dorries really going to quit? pic.twitter.com/jJaRK8srFx

Read the full story here

Heathener

Good morning all.

I usually love @MikeSmithson's LD tips. I did well out of Chesham & Amersham.

As he points out here and previously though, this one is not straightforward because we're trying to second guess Nadine Dorries who appears to be a law unto herself, like her BJ mentor.

For this reason it's a market that I'm avoiding for now.

Heathener

In other news I wonder if Sadiq is in trouble for May? This could provide a fertile betting opportunity were it not for the dreadful Susan Hall. I know little about the LD candidate Rob Blackie?

Nigelb

Prosecutors: Trump Mar-a-Lago security aide flipped after changing lawyers
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/22/trump-witness-reversal-testimony-jack-smith-00112355

IanB2

I wake to find that overnight I was apparently banned, and then unbanned, and I have two emails from RCS confirming that I am unbanned. I have no idea what all this is about, and don’t recall posting anything particularly untoward.

Do I need to attend to my password?

Morris_Dancer

Good morning, everyone.

F1: probably no bets this weekend for time reasons.

ydoethur

IanB2 said:

I wake to find that overnight I was apparently banned, and then unbanned, and I have two emails from RCS confirming that I am unbanned. I have no idea what all this is about, and don’t recall posting anything particularly untoward.

Do I need to attend to my password?

Judging by what I’ve just read on the last thread, yes.

DecrepiterJohnL

‘Everyone has the right to order a pizza without being asked for sex’

Takeaway drivers are pestering customers to have sex with them using contact details they provide for deliveries, the data watchdog has warned.

Close to a third (29pc) of 18-34-year-olds have been targeted by so-called “text pests”, individuals who use personal information such as a phone number or email address given to them in a business context for “romantic” or sexual proposition, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/delivery-drivers-text-customers-data-protection/ (£££)

Great headlines of our time but a concerning story that shows the importance of data protection and privacy. That 29 per cent figure looks very high.

IanB2

ydoethur said:

IanB2 said:

I wake to find that overnight I was apparently banned, and then unbanned, and I have two emails from RCS confirming that I am unbanned. I have no idea what all this is about, and don’t recall posting anything particularly untoward.

Do I need to attend to my password?

Judging by what I’ve just read on the last thread, yes.

I looked at the last thread, but it didn’t shed any light on why I was banned except that a couple of posters say they saw a comment from me that was out of character?

Since I was unbanned I assume the matter was resolved, but I have no warning to change my password, which would be difficult to guess and is unique to PP; indeed so difficult to guess that only my computers can remember it; I am not sure I can.

DecrepiterJohnL

Exposed: the Chinese spy using LinkedIn to hunt UK secrets

A Times investigation reveals that ‘Robin Zhang’ has been offering cash and contracts on an industrial scale for at least five years

... [big snip] ...

Western security services believe the operative, whose main alias is Robin Zhang, is the most prolific spy for a hostile state working against British interests in a generation. He is understood to have operated almost entirely from behind a desk, probably from the Chinese Ministry of State Security’s headquarters in Beijing.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-spy-linkedin-investigation-dxtq8mz7w (£££)

Another data security problem.

IanB2

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Exposed: the Chinese spy using LinkedIn to hunt UK secrets

A Times investigation reveals that ‘Robin Zhang’ has been offering cash and contracts on an industrial scale for at least five years

... [big snip] ...

Western security services believe the operative, whose main alias is Robin Zhang, is the most prolific spy for a hostile state working against British interests in a generation. He is understood to have operated almost entirely from behind a desk, probably from the Chinese Ministry of State Security’s headquarters in Beijing.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-spy-linkedin-investigation-dxtq8mz7w (£££)

Another data security problem.

I know, that and my being hacked and banned, what a day!

viewcode

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Exposed: the Chinese spy using LinkedIn to hunt UK secrets

A Times investigation reveals that ‘Robin Zhang’ has been offering cash and contracts on an industrial scale for at least five years

... [big snip] ...

Western security services believe the operative, whose main alias is Robin Zhang, is the most prolific spy for a hostile state working against British interests in a generation. He is understood to have operated almost entirely from behind a desk, probably from the Chinese Ministry of State Security’s headquarters in Beijing.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-spy-linkedin-investigation-dxtq8mz7w (£££)

Another data security problem.

I know, that and my being hacked and banned, what a day!

[Deleted]

DecrepiterJohnL

DecrepiterJohnL said:

‘Everyone has the right to order a pizza without being asked for sex’

Takeaway drivers are pestering customers to have sex with them using contact details they provide for deliveries, the data watchdog has warned.

Close to a third (29pc) of 18-34-year-olds have been targeted by so-called “text pests”, individuals who use personal information such as a phone number or email address given to them in a business context for “romantic” or sexual proposition, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/delivery-drivers-text-customers-data-protection/ (£££)

Great headlines of our time but a concerning story that shows the importance of data protection and privacy. That 29 per cent figure looks very high.

Here is the ICO's take, and call for evidence from those who have been targeted in this way.

“People have the right to order a pizza, or give their email for a receipt, or have shopping delivered, without then being asked for sex or a date a little while later. They have a right to know that when they hand over their personal information, that it will not then be used in ways that they would not be comfortable with. But our research today shows a disturbingly high number of people, particularly young people, are falling prey to these text pests.

“There may be, amongst some, an outdated notion that to use someone’s personal details given to you in a business context to ask them out is romantic or charming. Put quite simply, it is not – it is against the law.

“If you are running a customer facing business, you have a responsibility to protect the data of your customers, including from your employees misusing it. We are writing to major businesses, including food and parcel delivery, to remind them that there are no excuses, and there can be no looking the other way.

“We’ve launched this call for evidence today because we want to hear directly from the public how this misuse of personal information has affected them. As the data regulator, we can then use this to inform our work protecting the public.”

The ICO call for evidence on unwanted employee contact and customer experience will be open from 22 August to 15 September. People can share their experiences through the ICO’s online form. The ICO encourages everyone who has been impacted by this to share their experiences.
https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2023/08/one-in-three-young-people-falling-prey-to-text-pests-as-ico-calls-for-victims-to-come-forward/

TheScreamingEagles

LOL - Called it, I might be cruel and post some of the comments when this idea was originally floated.

Sunak blocked from overruling ‘nightmare’ Ulez expansion

Ministers had considered use of little-known law to thwart Greater London charge, but lawyers said move would fail in the courts

No 10 has been blocked from overruling London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) expansion after government lawyers warned its bid would be rejected by the courts.

Cabinet ministers were considering using a little-known legal power that allows them to reject a London mayor’s transport strategy if it is “inconsistent with national policies”.

However, The Telegraph understands the formal legal advice commissioned concluded that the move would fail if challenged....

....The little-known part of the 1999 law – the Greater London Authority Act – says that a transport secretary can in effect block a London mayor’s policy if the “transport strategy (or any part of it) is inconsistent with national policies relating to transport” and if the “inconsistency is detrimental to any area outside Greater London”.

The Government then privately commissioned formal legal advice, as first reported by GB News, in a sign of how seriously it was considering the move.

But government lawyers concluded that such a move would likely be quashed in the courts if challenged, given the UK Government itself is promoting air pollution improvement moves – meaning the Ulez would not be “inconsistent” with the Government’s stance.

The Telegraph understands that No 10 chose to drop the move and look for other options.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/22/rishi-sunak-blocked-overruling-ulez-expansion-london/

Heathener

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

RochdalePioneers

The astonishing bit is that the Tories still maintain the whip with Dorries.

DecrepiterJohnL

TheScreamingEagles said:

LOL - Called it, I might be cruel and post some of the comments when this idea was originally floated.

Sunak blocked from overruling ‘nightmare’ Ulez expansion

Ministers had considered use of little-known law to thwart Greater London charge, but lawyers said move would fail in the courts

No 10 has been blocked from overruling London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) expansion after government lawyers warned its bid would be rejected by the courts.

Cabinet ministers were considering using a little-known legal power that allows them to reject a London mayor’s transport strategy if it is “inconsistent with national policies”.

However, The Telegraph understands the formal legal advice commissioned concluded that the move would fail if challenged....

....The little-known part of the 1999 law – the Greater London Authority Act – says that a transport secretary can in effect block a London mayor’s policy if the “transport strategy (or any part of it) is inconsistent with national policies relating to transport” and if the “inconsistency is detrimental to any area outside Greater London”.

The Government then privately commissioned formal legal advice, as first reported by GB News, in a sign of how seriously it was considering the move.

But government lawyers concluded that such a move would likely be quashed in the courts if challenged, given the UK Government itself is promoting air pollution improvement moves – meaning the Ulez would not be “inconsistent” with the Government’s stance.

The Telegraph understands that No 10 chose to drop the move and look for other options.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/22/rishi-sunak-blocked-overruling-ulez-expansion-london/

Lefty lawyers keep Ulez alive as a political issue for the next election. That's convenient.

TheScreamingEagles

Further proof that the country is going to the dogs.

Waitrose launches first ever meal deal for £5

High-end supermarket under pressure to win back cash-strapped customers

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/08/22/waitrose-launches-first-ever-meal-deal-for-5/

Next Fortnum & Mason to launch BOGOF offers.

Gardenwalker

It’s not possible for the Tories to win London.
The brand is too toxic.
So it doesn’t matter who they field.

So we are stuck with the useless apparatchik, Sadiq Khan.

Heathener

TheScreamingEagles said:

LOL - Called it, I might be cruel and post some of the comments when this idea was originally floated.

Sunak blocked from overruling ‘nightmare’ Ulez expansion

Although my brother is still frothing about it, this is all a bit late. It's six days away and half of those are bank holiday weekend.

It will come and pass and people will forget it.

IanB2

TheScreamingEagles said:

LOL - Called it, I might be cruel and post some of the comments when this idea was originally floated.

Sunak blocked from overruling ‘nightmare’ Ulez expansion

Ministers had considered use of little-known law to thwart Greater London charge, but lawyers said move would fail in the courts

No 10 has been blocked from overruling London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) expansion after government lawyers warned its bid would be rejected by the courts.

Cabinet ministers were considering using a little-known legal power that allows them to reject a London mayor’s transport strategy if it is “inconsistent with national policies”.

However, The Telegraph understands the formal legal advice commissioned concluded that the move would fail if challenged....

....The little-known part of the 1999 law – the Greater London Authority Act – says that a transport secretary can in effect block a London mayor’s policy if the “transport strategy (or any part of it) is inconsistent with national policies relating to transport” and if the “inconsistency is detrimental to any area outside Greater London”.

The Government then privately commissioned formal legal advice, as first reported by GB News, in a sign of how seriously it was considering the move.

But government lawyers concluded that such a move would likely be quashed in the courts if challenged, given the UK Government itself is promoting air pollution improvement moves – meaning the Ulez would not be “inconsistent” with the Government’s stance.

The Telegraph understands that No 10 chose to drop the move and look for other options.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/22/rishi-sunak-blocked-overruling-ulez-expansion-london/

That Shapps effectively forced him to do it in the first place would have been a bit of a proble, you’d have thought?

RochdalePioneers

TheScreamingEagles said:

LOL - Called it, I might be cruel and post some of the comments when this idea was originally floated.

Sunak blocked from overruling ‘nightmare’ Ulez expansion

Ministers had considered use of little-known law to thwart Greater London charge, but lawyers said move would fail in the courts

No 10 has been blocked from overruling London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) expansion after government lawyers warned its bid would be rejected by the courts.

Cabinet ministers were considering using a little-known legal power that allows them to reject a London mayor’s transport strategy if it is “inconsistent with national policies”.

However, The Telegraph understands the formal legal advice commissioned concluded that the move would fail if challenged....

....The little-known part of the 1999 law – the Greater London Authority Act – says that a transport secretary can in effect block a London mayor’s policy if the “transport strategy (or any part of it) is inconsistent with national policies relating to transport” and if the “inconsistency is detrimental to any area outside Greater London”.

The Government then privately commissioned formal legal advice, as first reported by GB News, in a sign of how seriously it was considering the move.

But government lawyers concluded that such a move would likely be quashed in the courts if challenged, given the UK Government itself is promoting air pollution improvement moves – meaning the Ulez would not be “inconsistent” with the Government’s stance.

The Telegraph understands that No 10 chose to drop the move and look for other options.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/22/rishi-sunak-blocked-overruling-ulez-expansion-london/

Blocking ULEZ would be "inconsistent" with the government's stance? Yes! Several formal letters from Grant Shapps to Sadiq Khan requiring him to extend ULEZ would suggest that...

Gardenwalker

One of the things that shocks me is that Dorries apparently no longer does constituency work and hasn’t turned up to parliament for at least a year.

When historians write about the absolute moral collapse of the Tory Party under Johnson they will not be short of material.

TheScreamingEagles

I missed this story but this is a going to hurt those people without bank accounts or those people who cannot get online.

https://nfsp.org.uk/news/view?name=dvla-seeks-to-end-contract-with-post-office

DecrepiterJohnL

Gardenwalker said:

It’s not possible for the Tories to win London.
The brand is too toxic.
So it doesn’t matter who they field.

So we are stuck with the useless apparatchik, Sadiq Khan.

The Conservatives did win London twice with Boris, and did better than expected last time. CCHQ's lazy thinking about London being a Labour stronghold will likely lead to abolition if changing the electoral system to FPTP does not fix it, which it won't. Remember that Labour has won just three of the six London Mayor elections.

RochdalePioneers

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Whom do you have in mind? Surely the problem is that the party *doesn't* have anyone with those attributes. In London or elsewhere...

TheScreamingEagles

IanB2 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

LOL - Called it, I might be cruel and post some of the comments when this idea was originally floated.

Sunak blocked from overruling ‘nightmare’ Ulez expansion

Ministers had considered use of little-known law to thwart Greater London charge, but lawyers said move would fail in the courts

No 10 has been blocked from overruling London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) expansion after government lawyers warned its bid would be rejected by the courts.

Cabinet ministers were considering using a little-known legal power that allows them to reject a London mayor’s transport strategy if it is “inconsistent with national policies”.

However, The Telegraph understands the formal legal advice commissioned concluded that the move would fail if challenged....

....The little-known part of the 1999 law – the Greater London Authority Act – says that a transport secretary can in effect block a London mayor’s policy if the “transport strategy (or any part of it) is inconsistent with national policies relating to transport” and if the “inconsistency is detrimental to any area outside Greater London”.

The Government then privately commissioned formal legal advice, as first reported by GB News, in a sign of how seriously it was considering the move.

But government lawyers concluded that such a move would likely be quashed in the courts if challenged, given the UK Government itself is promoting air pollution improvement moves – meaning the Ulez would not be “inconsistent” with the Government’s stance.

The Telegraph understands that No 10 chose to drop the move and look for other options.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/22/rishi-sunak-blocked-overruling-ulez-expansion-london/

That Shapps effectively forced him to do it in the first place would have been a bit of a proble, you’d have thought?

Indeed but it didn't stop the usual suspects praising the legal route.

TheScreamingEagles

RochdalePioneers said:

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Whom do you have in mind? Surely the problem is that the party *doesn't* have anyone with those attributes. In London or elsewhere...

George Osborne.

Gardenwalker

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Gardenwalker said:

It’s not possible for the Tories to win London.
The brand is too toxic.
So it doesn’t matter who they field.

So we are stuck with the useless apparatchik, Sadiq Khan.

The Conservatives did win London twice with Boris, and did better than expected last time. CCHQ's lazy thinking about London being a Labour stronghold will likely lead to abolition if changing the electoral system to FPTP does not fix it, which it won't. Remember that Labour has won just three of the six London Mayor elections.

That was before. The Tory brand is Ratnered.
I’m not sure why they are bothering to stand at all. Tories would be better off throwing their support behind an independent candidate.

Mexicanpete

...

TheScreamingEagles said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Whom do you have in mind? Surely the problem is that the party *doesn't* have anyone with those attributes. In London or elsewhere...

George Osborne.

ROFL!

Jeremy Clarkson?

JosiasJessop

A question about ULEZ I haven't seen before. When I was driving down to Heathrow last week, early in the morning, the M25 was shut, and we were diverted along local roads. I think it was junctions 18 to 17, and the diversion was into London.

I'm unsure about the exact diversion route (it was *into* London, perhaps Rickmansworth), and whether it went into where the new ULEZ would be. But if such official diversions are in place, is the ULEZ charge in place? If so, it's rather sh*t.

If the M25 is closed, and the official diversion route is into the ULEZ< charges should not be applied. I hope that's the case.

IanB2

RochdalePioneers said:

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Whom do you have in mind? Surely the problem is that the party *doesn't* have anyone with those attributes. In London or elsewhere...

Yes, it’s like saying that Starmer needs to step aside for someone like Blair; not Blair himself, obvs, but someone with the same skills.

Great advice, with only one weakness….

TheScreamingEagles

Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

Ukraine blows up five jets ‘deep within Russian territory’

MoD says drone attacks included destruction of supersonic bomber at air base near St Petersburg 400 miles from border

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/08/22/five-jets-blown-up-three-days-inside-russia-ukraine-mod/

Heathener

RochdalePioneers said:

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Whom do you have in mind? Surely the problem is that the party *doesn't* have anyone with those attributes. In London or elsewhere...

I don't know. Alan Sugar? Karren Brady? Craig David? Penny Mordaunt? Rory Stewart?

Surely there would have been someone with star appeal who might, necessarily and playfully, distance themselves from the mainstream party in that way that Londoners love.

But Susan Hall? Of all the odious people to choose, I mean really ...

RochdalePioneers

The ULEZ thing neatly summarises this pointless government. The policy is ULEZ. Directed by the DfT. The policy is phasing out petrol and diseasal car sales. Directed by the DfT. The policy is lets protect the motorist from lefty policies like ULEZ and banning diseasals.

Can we take the other side to court for implementing our policy? What do you mean no? Bloody leftie lawyers.

What does this government stand for? Want to achieve?

Verulamius

Will ULEZ apply to the whole of greater London?

If so there is a short section of the M25 in the East which is in London (Upminster ward in Havering). Will vehicles be charged on this section of the M25?

Foxy

Gardenwalker said:

One of the things that shocks me is that Dorries apparently no longer does constituency work and hasn’t turned up to parliament for at least a year.

When historians write about the absolute moral collapse of the Tory Party under Johnson they will not be short of material.

Not so long ago she was considered suitable for a cabinet role.

IanB2

TheScreamingEagles said:

IanB2 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

LOL - Called it, I might be cruel and post some of the comments when this idea was originally floated.

Sunak blocked from overruling ‘nightmare’ Ulez expansion

Ministers had considered use of little-known law to thwart Greater London charge, but lawyers said move would fail in the courts

No 10 has been blocked from overruling London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) expansion after government lawyers warned its bid would be rejected by the courts.

Cabinet ministers were considering using a little-known legal power that allows them to reject a London mayor’s transport strategy if it is “inconsistent with national policies”.

However, The Telegraph understands the formal legal advice commissioned concluded that the move would fail if challenged....

....The little-known part of the 1999 law – the Greater London Authority Act – says that a transport secretary can in effect block a London mayor’s policy if the “transport strategy (or any part of it) is inconsistent with national policies relating to transport” and if the “inconsistency is detrimental to any area outside Greater London”.

The Government then privately commissioned formal legal advice, as first reported by GB News, in a sign of how seriously it was considering the move.

But government lawyers concluded that such a move would likely be quashed in the courts if challenged, given the UK Government itself is promoting air pollution improvement moves – meaning the Ulez would not be “inconsistent” with the Government’s stance.

The Telegraph understands that No 10 chose to drop the move and look for other options.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/22/rishi-sunak-blocked-overruling-ulez-expansion-london/

That Shapps effectively forced him to do it in the first place would have been a bit of a proble, you’d have thought?

Indeed but it didn't stop the usual suspects praising the legal route.

It’s probably just a ploy to keep the story in the news

Heathener

Mexicanpete said:

...

TheScreamingEagles said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Whom do you have in mind? Surely the problem is that the party *doesn't* have anyone with those attributes. In London or elsewhere...

George Osborne.

ROFL!

Jeremy Clarkson?

Far too divisive, reactionary, and anti-woke. He's exactly what the party needs to move away from, not towards.

squareroot2

Heathener said:

In other news I wonder if Sadiq is in trouble for May? This could provide a fertile betting opportunity were it not for the dreadful Susan Hall. I know little about the LD candidate Rob Blackie?

Another unsubstantiated personal snagging off.

IanB2

Verulamius said:

Will ULEZ apply to the whole of greater London?

If so there is a short section of the M25 in the East which is in London (Upminster ward in Havering). Will vehicles be charged on this section of the M25?

Motorways are managed nationally by the Highways Agency

Heathener

And he hates cyclists.

Foxy

Gardenwalker said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Gardenwalker said:

It’s not possible for the Tories to win London.
The brand is too toxic.
So it doesn’t matter who they field.

So we are stuck with the useless apparatchik, Sadiq Khan.

The Conservatives did win London twice with Boris, and did better than expected last time. CCHQ's lazy thinking about London being a Labour stronghold will likely lead to abolition if changing the electoral system to FPTP does not fix it, which it won't. Remember that Labour has won just three of the six London Mayor elections.

That was before. The Tory brand is Ratnered.
I’m not sure why they are bothering to stand at all. Tories would be better off throwing their support behind an independent candidate.

Tories for Corbyn?

OnlyLivingBoy

RochdalePioneers said:

The ULEZ thing neatly summarises this pointless government. The policy is ULEZ. Directed by the DfT. The policy is phasing out petrol and diseasal car sales. Directed by the DfT. The policy is lets protect the motorist from lefty policies like ULEZ and banning diseasals.

Can we take the other side to court for implementing our policy? What do you mean no? Bloody leftie lawyers.

What does this government stand for? Want to achieve?

It stands for power and the protection of vested interests, with occasional acts of sadism.

RochdalePioneers

This is fun: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/22/home-office-considered-using-foreign-workers-in-case-of-disease-on-bibby-stockholm

I don't know what is wrong with work-shy British layabouts. Who wouldn't want to work on a pox-ridden firetrap prison scow?

TheScreamingEagles

Somebody far too modest to claim glory did predict this a while back.

Banks in Britain may be free to award even bigger bonuses from January but new pay perks are unlikely to help the country's financial industry outshine its rivals because top bankers are wary of swapping handsome fixed salaries for uncertain rewards.

Scrapping the near decade-old cap on bonuses is a core plank of Britain's post-Brexit easing of rules the European Union adopted to stop excessive risk-taking after taxpayers had to bail out banks in the global financial crisis.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/bonus-freedom-pay-paltry-brexit-dividend-britains-banks-2023-08-23/

Giving bankers bigger bonuses will help the Tories in the polls.

bondegezou

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Isn’t the issue that few people were interested in being the Tory candidate in what looked like (and still looks like, to be honest) a doomed campaign? They appear to have approached lots of potential candidates who all said no.

The idea that there is a “moment of golden opportunity” for the Conservatives is dubious. ULEZ may have allowed the party to hold on to a by-election, but there was still a swing against them. They start from behind in the London mayoralty. They don’t stand a chance until the national polling changes, and that’s not going to happen until Labour are in no. 10 and a Tory mayoral candidate can benefit from a midterm effect.

DecrepiterJohnL

Zimbabwe election

Zimbabweans are going to the polls in presidential and parliamentary elections after a campaign dominated by the country's soaring inflation.

The day has been declared a public holiday to allow the 6.62 million registered voters a chance to vote.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa faces 10 challengers, including Nelson Chamisa of the main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC).

A presidential candidate needs more than 50% of the vote to win.

If there is no outright victor, a presidential run-off will be held in six weeks on 2 October.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-66582584

TheScreamingEagles

Foxy said:

Gardenwalker said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Gardenwalker said:

It’s not possible for the Tories to win London.
The brand is too toxic.
So it doesn’t matter who they field.

So we are stuck with the useless apparatchik, Sadiq Khan.

The Conservatives did win London twice with Boris, and did better than expected last time. CCHQ's lazy thinking about London being a Labour stronghold will likely lead to abolition if changing the electoral system to FPTP does not fix it, which it won't. Remember that Labour has won just three of the six London Mayor elections.

That was before. The Tory brand is Ratnered.
I’m not sure why they are bothering to stand at all. Tories would be better off throwing their support behind an independent candidate.

Tories for Corbyn?

Indeed

https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/07/23/could-jeremy-corbyn-hand-the-tories-the-london-mayoralty-next-year/

Chris

The Institute for the Study of War seems to be treating the Ukrainian advance into Robotyne, on the road to Melitopol, as a potential turning point in the counteroffensive:
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-22-2023

Heathener

squareroot2 said:

Heathener said:

In other news I wonder if Sadiq is in trouble for May? This could provide a fertile betting opportunity were it not for the dreadful Susan Hall. I know little about the LD candidate Rob Blackie?

Another unsubstantiated personal snagging off.

I don't know what a snagging off is but clearly Squareroot you are on a personally vicious vendetta against anything I post. Take a step back and ask yourself how good a person you are being and whether your retorts are on point or pointless.

On the specifics, which I'm guessing is questioning Susan Hall rather than Rob Blackie, the former is awful. She has made so many dreadful comments that she gets routinely criticised, including from within the Conservative Party. I'm sure you know that she is a big supporter of Donald Trump and also Liz Truss and she's pro-Brexit. None of those traits even remotely square with the London demographic.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/londoners-diary/susan-hall-donald-trump-brixton-london-mayor-b1088034.html

https://www.desmog.com/2023/07/24/tory-london-mayor-candidate-susan-hall-fracking-net-zero-climate-science-denial/

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-tories-unveil-candidate-face-30500748

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/22/tory-london-mayor-candidate-criticised-notting-hill-carnival

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/tory-mayoral-candidate-hateful-messages-twitter-susan-hall-gemma-collins-b1093859.html

And I'm sure you also know that the rumpus over her being selected is so bad that the Conservative Party are in uproar about it, with calls from within the party for her candidacy to be reversed

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/conservative-party-london-mayoral-selection-susan-hall-uxbridge-b1099551.html

https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/tory-mayoral-selection-process-humiliation-comment-iain-dale-susan-hall-b1095369.html

Malmesbury

IanB2 said:

I wake to find that overnight I was apparently banned, and then unbanned, and I have two emails from RCS confirming that I am unbanned. I have no idea what all this is about, and don’t recall posting anything particularly untoward.

Do I need to attend to my password?

Change your password. The random password generator built into the Apple ecosystem is pretty good. Store it in the key store…

Or make a short sentence of nonsense words. Add a number somewhere in it.

https://xkcd.com/936/

Heathener

p.s. very good points below @bondegezou

Right I'm orrff. Have a nice day everyone. Gorgeous weather down here in the SW.

xx

DecrepiterJohnL

bondegezou said:

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Isn’t the issue that few people were interested in being the Tory candidate in what looked like (and still looks like, to be honest) a doomed campaign? They appear to have approached lots of potential candidates who all said no.

The idea that there is a “moment of golden opportunity” for the Conservatives is dubious. ULEZ may have allowed the party to hold on to a by-election, but there was still a swing against them. They start from behind in the London mayoralty. They don’t stand a chance until the national polling changes, and that’s not going to happen until Labour are in no. 10 and a Tory mayoral candidate can benefit from a midterm effect.

CCHQ rigged the candidate selection in favour of one of David Cameron's old SpAds, but he dropped out at the last minute which left only the no-hopers.

RochdalePioneers

TheScreamingEagles said:

Somebody far too modest to claim glory did predict this a while back.

Banks in Britain may be free to award even bigger bonuses from January but new pay perks are unlikely to help the country's financial industry outshine its rivals because top bankers are wary of swapping handsome fixed salaries for uncertain rewards.

Scrapping the near decade-old cap on bonuses is a core plank of Britain's post-Brexit easing of rules the European Union adopted to stop excessive risk-taking after taxpayers had to bail out banks in the global financial crisis.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/bonus-freedom-pay-paltry-brexit-dividend-britains-banks-2023-08-23/

Giving bankers bigger bonuses will help the Tories in the polls.

I'm having fun* with banks at the moment. Trying to get my recently widowed mum set up with a local bank and having fun with petty bureaucracy around account opening and transfer processes. Same bank taking its sweet time to open a new business account for our shop venture as the paperwork for one part of the group disagrees with the paperwork of another part of the group (despite both being issued by them).

Finally one of the banks my consulting business banks with is getting a barrage of questions about transactions. Who is this other company that money is being sent and received from? As apparently it having the same name - being the same company - is confusing. I expect that next I need to explain capital reserves and working capital and who HMRC are.

JosiasJessop

No, it's not April Fool's day:

"An airport in France will be renamed in honour of Queen Elizabeth II after receiving permission from the King, officials in the town have said.

Le Touquet, in northern France, received the blessing from the King on Monday, its town hall said."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66577824

Malmesbury

Heathener said:

Mexicanpete said:

...

TheScreamingEagles said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Whom do you have in mind? Surely the problem is that the party *doesn't* have anyone with those attributes. In London or elsewhere...

George Osborne.

ROFL!

Jeremy Clarkson?

Far too divisive, reactionary, and anti-woke. He's exactly what the party needs to move away from, not towards.

You aren’t aware that the real life Clarkson is very different to the character he plays on TV? A Remainer for a start.

PJH

Verulamius said:

Will ULEZ apply to the whole of greater London?

If so there is a short section of the M25 in the East which is in London (Upminster ward in Havering). Will vehicles be charged on this section of the M25?

Note quite, there a some major routes around the edges or projecting slightly into the area that stay outside, including this stretch of the M25, the M4 to Heathrow and part of the A3, for example.

Interestingly I notice that the boundary now seems to be much closer to the GLA boundary in general than a version I saw some months ago.

JosiasJessop

Chris said:

The Institute for the Study of War seems to be treating the Ukrainian advance into Robotyne, on the road to Melitopol, as a potential turning point in the counteroffensive:
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-22-2023

My mood about this war frequently varies from positive for Ukraine, to negative, to downright depressed. At the moment I'm a bit in the latter category.

Stuartinromford

OnlyLivingBoy said:

RochdalePioneers said:

The ULEZ thing neatly summarises this pointless government. The policy is ULEZ. Directed by the DfT. The policy is phasing out petrol and diseasal car sales. Directed by the DfT. The policy is lets protect the motorist from lefty policies like ULEZ and banning diseasals.

Can we take the other side to court for implementing our policy? What do you mean no? Bloody leftie lawyers.

What does this government stand for? Want to achieve?

It stands for power and the protection of vested interests, with occasional acts of sadism.

What the Conservatives have always stood for is Keeping The Socialists Out. Which is why the party have been able to flip and flop from Heath to Thatcher to Major to (you get the idea) to Cameron to May to Johnson to Truss to Sunak without a care. But trying five shades of blue since 2010 and rejecting four of them has left the paintbox particularly empty right now.

JosiasJessop said:

A question about ULEZ I haven't seen before. When I was driving down to Heathrow last week, early in the morning, the M25 was shut, and we were diverted along local roads. I think it was junctions 18 to 17, and the diversion was into London.

I'm unsure about the exact diversion route (it was *into* London, perhaps Rickmansworth), and whether it went into where the new ULEZ would be. But if such official diversions are in place, is the ULEZ charge in place? If so, it's rather sh*t.

If the M25 is closed, and the official diversion route is into the ULEZ< charges should not be applied. I hope that's the case.

According to a phone in with a TfL bod on Radio London yesterday, charges should be waived in that situation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0g3ws64?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

carnforth

IanB2 said:

I wake to find that overnight I was apparently banned, and then unbanned, and I have two emails from RCS confirming that I am unbanned. I have no idea what all this is about, and don’t recall posting anything particularly untoward.

Do I need to attend to my password?

DM'd you some illumination.

RochdalePioneers

TheScreamingEagles said:

Foxy said:

Gardenwalker said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Gardenwalker said:

It’s not possible for the Tories to win London.
The brand is too toxic.
So it doesn’t matter who they field.

So we are stuck with the useless apparatchik, Sadiq Khan.

The Conservatives did win London twice with Boris, and did better than expected last time. CCHQ's lazy thinking about London being a Labour stronghold will likely lead to abolition if changing the electoral system to FPTP does not fix it, which it won't. Remember that Labour has won just three of the six London Mayor elections.

That was before. The Tory brand is Ratnered.
I’m not sure why they are bothering to stand at all. Tories would be better off throwing their support behind an independent candidate.

Tories for Corbyn?

Indeed

https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/07/23/could-jeremy-corbyn-hand-the-tories-the-london-mayoralty-next-year/

I think I would enjoy that. We get two waves of entertainment:

1a. Jezbollah runs for mayor. The crank left resurrect themselves and spend most of the campaign screaming about that Tory Keir Starmer. Labour's vote share increases to a new high.
1b. Jezza proposes sensible things like abolishing the posher boroughs so that Kensington toffs get to pay to fix Tower Hamlets
2. Tories win the mayoralty. We then enjoy the rapid decline and global dishonour of London being declared a "woke-free zone" and fines for commuters who refuse to drive into the centre.

JosiasJessop

Stuartinromford said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

RochdalePioneers said:

The ULEZ thing neatly summarises this pointless government. The policy is ULEZ. Directed by the DfT. The policy is phasing out petrol and diseasal car sales. Directed by the DfT. The policy is lets protect the motorist from lefty policies like ULEZ and banning diseasals.

Can we take the other side to court for implementing our policy? What do you mean no? Bloody leftie lawyers.

What does this government stand for? Want to achieve?

It stands for power and the protection of vested interests, with occasional acts of sadism.

What the Conservatives have always stood for is Keeping The Socialists Out. Which is why the party have been able to flip and flop from Heath to Thatcher to Major to (you get the idea) to Cameron to May to Johnson to Truss to Sunak without a care. But trying five shades of blue since 2010 and rejecting four of them has left the paintbox particularly empty right now.

JosiasJessop said:

A question about ULEZ I haven't seen before. When I was driving down to Heathrow last week, early in the morning, the M25 was shut, and we were diverted along local roads. I think it was junctions 18 to 17, and the diversion was into London.

I'm unsure about the exact diversion route (it was *into* London, perhaps Rickmansworth), and whether it went into where the new ULEZ would be. But if such official diversions are in place, is the ULEZ charge in place? If so, it's rather sh*t.

If the M25 is closed, and the official diversion route is into the ULEZ< charges should not be applied. I hope that's the case.

According to a phone in with a TfL bod on Radio London yesterday, charges should be waived in that situation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0g3ws64?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Thanks. I was hoping that was the case. Hopefully it'll be an automatic waiver, and not one you have to apply for after you get charged.

PJH

Heathener said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Whom do you have in mind? Surely the problem is that the party *doesn't* have anyone with those attributes. In London or elsewhere...

I don't know. Alan Sugar? Karren Brady? Craig David? Penny Mordaunt? Rory Stewart?

Surely there would have been someone with star appeal who might, necessarily and playfully, distance themselves from the mainstream party in that way that Londoners love.

But Susan Hall? Of all the odious people to choose, I mean really ...

I was just thinking the other day how poor Khan is, and that a decent Tory candidate could beat him (even I would vote for a credible Tory this time round).

I then wondered how to rank him compared to his predecessors, and poor as he is, he is still better from my POV than either Johnson or Livingstone. Bur perhaps Livingstone was the most effective, in his first term rather than his second maybe.

Three duds in a row.

IanB2

Malmesbury said:

IanB2 said:

I wake to find that overnight I was apparently banned, and then unbanned, and I have two emails from RCS confirming that I am unbanned. I have no idea what all this is about, and don’t recall posting anything particularly untoward.

Do I need to attend to my password?

Change your password. The random password generator built into the Apple ecosystem is pretty good. Store it in the key store…

Or make a short sentence of nonsense words. Add a number somewhere in it.

https://xkcd.com/936/

It doesn't look as if my password was the issue.

squareroot2

Heathener said:

squareroot2 said:

Heathener said:

In other news I wonder if Sadiq is in trouble for May? This could provide a fertile betting opportunity were it not for the dreadful Susan Hall. I know little about the LD candidate Rob Blackie?

Another unsubstantiated personal snagging off.

I don't know what a snagging off is but clearly Squareroot you are on a personally vicious vendetta against anything I post. Take a step back and ask yourself how good a person you are being and whether your retorts are on point or pointless.

On the specifics, which I'm guessing is questioning Susan Hall rather than Rob Blackie, the former is awful. She has made so many dreadful comments that she gets routinely criticised, including from within the Conservative Party. I'm sure you know that she is a big supporter of Donald Trump and also Liz Truss and she's pro-Brexit. None of those traits even remotely square with the London demographic.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/londoners-diary/susan-hall-donald-trump-brixton-london-mayor-b1088034.html

https://www.desmog.com/2023/07/24/tory-london-mayor-candidate-susan-hall-fracking-net-zero-climate-science-denial/

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-tories-unveil-candidate-face-30500748

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/22/tory-london-mayor-candidate-criticised-notting-hill-carnival

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/tory-mayoral-candidate-hateful-messages-twitter-susan-hall-gemma-collins-b1093859.html

And I'm sure you also know that the rumpus over her being selected is so bad that the Conservative Party are in uproar about it, with calls from within the party for her candidacy to be reversed

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/conservative-party-london-mayoral-selection-susan-hall-uxbridge-b1099551.html

https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/tory-mayoral-selection-process-humiliation-comment-iain-dale-susan-hall-b1095369.html

No I didn't but thank you for substantiating your comment! I have a 95 Yr old mother to look after and London politics passes me by save for ULEZ.
I comment on your posts a fair bit as most are just anti Tory comments. Its a ritual for you.
Fwiw, I think the Tories are awful and need time in opposition. I am waiting for Labour to F things up like they usually when in office.

IanB2

JosiasJessop said:

No, it's not April Fool's day:

"An airport in France will be renamed in honour of Queen Elizabeth II after receiving permission from the King, officials in the town have said.

Le Touquet, in northern France, received the blessing from the King on Monday, its town hall said."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66577824

Fair enough, it's mostly British planes that use it, apart from the few French ones based there.

Heathener

Malmesbury said:

Heathener said:

Mexicanpete said:

...

TheScreamingEagles said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Whom do you have in mind? Surely the problem is that the party *doesn't* have anyone with those attributes. In London or elsewhere...

George Osborne.

ROFL!

Jeremy Clarkson?

Far too divisive, reactionary, and anti-woke. He's exactly what the party needs to move away from, not towards.

You aren’t aware that the real life Clarkson is very different to the character he plays on TV? A Remainer for a start.

Sort-of. I actually really liked the first series of Clarkson's Farm. The second, less so when some of his less attractive qualities surfaced.

But he finally blew it with the Megan article. Even his daughter Emily condemned him. He might win a certain narrow demographic of older, white, male suburban car drivers. But all London? Forget it.

The problem is that for a job as high-profile as the London mayorality you can't be a court jester. (Although Boris tried).

Carnyx

TheScreamingEagles said:

LOL - Called it, I might be cruel and post some of the comments when this idea was originally floated.

Sunak blocked from overruling ‘nightmare’ Ulez expansion

Ministers had considered use of little-known law to thwart Greater London charge, but lawyers said move would fail in the courts

No 10 has been blocked from overruling London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) expansion after government lawyers warned its bid would be rejected by the courts.

Cabinet ministers were considering using a little-known legal power that allows them to reject a London mayor’s transport strategy if it is “inconsistent with national policies”.

However, The Telegraph understands the formal legal advice commissioned concluded that the move would fail if challenged....

....The little-known part of the 1999 law – the Greater London Authority Act – says that a transport secretary can in effect block a London mayor’s policy if the “transport strategy (or any part of it) is inconsistent with national policies relating to transport” and if the “inconsistency is detrimental to any area outside Greater London”.

The Government then privately commissioned formal legal advice, as first reported by GB News, in a sign of how seriously it was considering the move.

But government lawyers concluded that such a move would likely be quashed in the courts if challenged, given the UK Government itself is promoting air pollution improvement moves – meaning the Ulez would not be “inconsistent” with the Government’s stance.

The Telegraph understands that No 10 chose to drop the move and look for other options.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/08/22/rishi-sunak-blocked-overruling-ulez-expansion-london/

Very interesting - not least because the same principle applies elsewhere, no doubt. In different areas, geographical and in terms of what is being covered.

IanB2

Malmesbury said:

Heathener said:

Mexicanpete said:

...

TheScreamingEagles said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Whom do you have in mind? Surely the problem is that the party *doesn't* have anyone with those attributes. In London or elsewhere...

George Osborne.

ROFL!

Jeremy Clarkson?

Far too divisive, reactionary, and anti-woke. He's exactly what the party needs to move away from, not towards.

You aren’t aware that the real life Clarkson is very different to the character he plays on TV? A Remainer for a start.

Like Boris

squareroot2

Snagging was predictive text altering slagging... and I failed to notice it.

Malmesbury

IanB2 said:

Malmesbury said:

IanB2 said:

I wake to find that overnight I was apparently banned, and then unbanned, and I have two emails from RCS confirming that I am unbanned. I have no idea what all this is about, and don’t recall posting anything particularly untoward.

Do I need to attend to my password?

Change your password. The random password generator built into the Apple ecosystem is pretty good. Store it in the key store…

Or make a short sentence of nonsense words. Add a number somewhere in it.

https://xkcd.com/936/

It doesn't look as if my password was the issue.

Ah - ok

Carnyx

RochdalePioneers said:

This is fun: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/22/home-office-considered-using-foreign-workers-in-case-of-disease-on-bibby-stockholm

I don't know what is wrong with work-shy British layabouts. Who wouldn't want to work on a pox-ridden firetrap prison scow?

Forget the workers for a moment, the bloody gashbarge itself is foreign-registered. In Barbados.

Which AIUI means it is primarily under Barbadian law, as well as the law of the sea. I presume there has been some sort of sign-over in the contract, but it does add a potential further complication just waiting for a lawyer to have fun with if the gash were to hit the fan.

bondegezou

DecrepiterJohnL said:

bondegezou said:

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Isn’t the issue that few people were interested in being the Tory candidate in what looked like (and still looks like, to be honest) a doomed campaign? They appear to have approached lots of potential candidates who all said no.

The idea that there is a “moment of golden opportunity” for the Conservatives is dubious. ULEZ may have allowed the party to hold on to a by-election, but there was still a swing against them. They start from behind in the London mayoralty. They don’t stand a chance until the national polling changes, and that’s not going to happen until Labour are in no. 10 and a Tory mayoral candidate can benefit from a midterm effect.

CCHQ rigged the candidate selection in favour of one of David Cameron's old SpAds, but he dropped out at the last minute which left only the no-hopers.

Dropped out after being accused of groping a woman’s breasts at No. 10. He denied the allegations. Another 3 women came forward with similar allegations after he’d dropped out.

RochdalePioneers

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

This is fun: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/22/home-office-considered-using-foreign-workers-in-case-of-disease-on-bibby-stockholm

I don't know what is wrong with work-shy British layabouts. Who wouldn't want to work on a pox-ridden firetrap prison scow?

Forget the workers for a moment, the bloody gashbarge itself is foreign-registered. In Barbados.

Which AIUI means it is primarily under Barbadian law, as well as the law of the sea. I presume there has been some sort of sign-over in the contract, but it does add a potential further complication just waiting for a lawyer to have fun with if the gash were to hit the fan.

Lets assume that they manage to de-pox the thing. Lets further assume they manage to find staff, and make the thing fire safe. Lets imagine it actually filling to capacity with migrants.

What happens then? Months of cost and faff. For a single barge. Which houses one week's worth of migrants. What about all the rest?

The barge is no different to Rwanda - a policy chimera written in crayon to placate morons. It isn't a solution, or even part of a solution. The Tories very literally have no plan for the migration "crisis".

bondegezou

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

This is fun: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/22/home-office-considered-using-foreign-workers-in-case-of-disease-on-bibby-stockholm

I don't know what is wrong with work-shy British layabouts. Who wouldn't want to work on a pox-ridden firetrap prison scow?

Forget the workers for a moment, the bloody gashbarge itself is foreign-registered. In Barbados.

Which AIUI means it is primarily under Barbadian law, as well as the law of the sea. I presume there has been some sort of sign-over in the contract, but it does add a potential further complication just waiting for a lawyer to have fun with if the gash were to hit the fan.

Doesn’t that only apply when it’s in international waters and not when it’s moored, or something?

bondegezou

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

This is fun: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/22/home-office-considered-using-foreign-workers-in-case-of-disease-on-bibby-stockholm

I don't know what is wrong with work-shy British layabouts. Who wouldn't want to work on a pox-ridden firetrap prison scow?

Forget the workers for a moment, the bloody gashbarge itself is foreign-registered. In Barbados.

Which AIUI means it is primarily under Barbadian law, as well as the law of the sea. I presume there has been some sort of sign-over in the contract, but it does add a potential further complication just waiting for a lawyer to have fun with if the gash were to hit the fan.

Lets assume that they manage to de-pox the thing. Lets further assume they manage to find staff, and make the thing fire safe. Lets imagine it actually filling to capacity with migrants.

What happens then? Months of cost and faff. For a single barge. Which houses one week's worth of migrants. What about all the rest?

The barge is no different to Rwanda - a policy chimera written in crayon to placate morons. It isn't a solution, or even part of a solution. The Tories very literally have no plan for the migration "crisis".

Unless this IS the plan. The plan is to have a constant visible crisis.

Malmesbury

ULEZ seems an example of how a policy becomes a political football.

We have

1) ULEZ itself - policy of all serious parties
2) ULEZ enforcement - by flat, large charges per day.

It seems that the moderate voices, calling for a better, less regressive taxation method are being left out of the debate.

Some people, including some here, are defending the enforcement in a totemic “if they hate it, we must love it” way.

Other countries have come up with better schemes. Based on vehicle type and mikes driven for instance. Systems that will smoothly adapt to congestion charging in a world where more and more cars are EVs. Systems that reward drivers of small cars.

BlancheLivermore

Just back from walking my folks’ dog

I love days off and getting to walk without houses in the way

carnforth

Waitrose has launched a meal deal. Truly the cost of living crisis has touched us all.

RochdalePioneers

Malmesbury said:

ULEZ seems an example of how a policy becomes a political football.

We have

1) ULEZ itself - policy of all serious parties
2) ULEZ enforcement - by flat, large charges per day.

It seems that the moderate voices, calling for a better, less regressive taxation method are being left out of the debate.

Some people, including some here, are defending the enforcement in a totemic “if they hate it, we must love it” way.

Other countries have come up with better schemes. Based on vehicle type and mikes driven for instance. Systems that will smoothly adapt to congestion charging in a world where more and more cars are EVs. Systems that reward drivers of small cars.

ULEZ is by no means perfect. My point is that the Tories propose and implement ULEZ, then require the expansion of ULEZ. Then ask if they can take another authority to court because it expanded ULEZ as required by them.

Malmesbury

IanB2 said:

JosiasJessop said:

No, it's not April Fool's day:

"An airport in France will be renamed in honour of Queen Elizabeth II after receiving permission from the King, officials in the town have said.

Le Touquet, in northern France, received the blessing from the King on Monday, its town hall said."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66577824

Fair enough, it's mostly British planes that use it, apart from the few French ones based there.

Isn’t Le Touquet trying to get back to its roots as an upmarket British holiday destination? Makes sense as part of that, I think.

Carnyx

bondegezou said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

This is fun: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/22/home-office-considered-using-foreign-workers-in-case-of-disease-on-bibby-stockholm

I don't know what is wrong with work-shy British layabouts. Who wouldn't want to work on a pox-ridden firetrap prison scow?

Forget the workers for a moment, the bloody gashbarge itself is foreign-registered. In Barbados.

Which AIUI means it is primarily under Barbadian law, as well as the law of the sea. I presume there has been some sort of sign-over in the contract, but it does add a potential further complication just waiting for a lawyer to have fun with if the gash were to hit the fan.

Doesn’t that only apply when it’s in international waters and not when it’s moored, or something?

But cargo ships don't lose their registry when tied up in their port of destination.

Certainly one example of UK law not being triggered is that workers on ships don't instantly gain UK workers' rights when their ship ties up. As at least one major UK corporation exploits to the workers' detriment.

On the other hand, there are certain powers to intervene in the case of unseaworthy vessels even of foreign registry.

So I'm not sure how it works. But, for things like insurance, I do wonder.

Carnyx

RochdalePioneers said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

This is fun: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/22/home-office-considered-using-foreign-workers-in-case-of-disease-on-bibby-stockholm

I don't know what is wrong with work-shy British layabouts. Who wouldn't want to work on a pox-ridden firetrap prison scow?

Forget the workers for a moment, the bloody gashbarge itself is foreign-registered. In Barbados.

Which AIUI means it is primarily under Barbadian law, as well as the law of the sea. I presume there has been some sort of sign-over in the contract, but it does add a potential further complication just waiting for a lawyer to have fun with if the gash were to hit the fan.

Lets assume that they manage to de-pox the thing. Lets further assume they manage to find staff, and make the thing fire safe. Lets imagine it actually filling to capacity with migrants.

What happens then? Months of cost and faff. For a single barge. Which houses one week's worth of migrants. What about all the rest?

The barge is no different to Rwanda - a policy chimera written in crayon to placate morons. It isn't a solution, or even part of a solution. The Tories very literally have no plan for the migration "crisis".

It would make much more sense to get prefab huts spread out over old airfields. Brunel would have sorted it in about three months (and did, when it came to the Crimean War).

BTW I don't suppose the Tories are worried about the local constituency. Portland is literally waaaaay out on the edge ofd South Dorset, where the MP is a local chap, Richard Drax, with a vote you could shovel with one of the dozer tanks from Bovington Camp - about 58% in 2019, Labour being 25% and the LDs 11%. So although the locals are bitching like hell the Tories must be hoping it doesn't affect Weymouth too much.

LostPassword

Chris said:

The Institute for the Study of War seems to be treating the Ukrainian advance into Robotyne, on the road to Melitopol, as a potential turning point in the counteroffensive:
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-22-2023

No-one knows for sure how close Russia are to exhausting their reserves. Having three defensive lines might not help Russia much if they've thrown everything into defending the first line.

BartholomewRoberts

RochdalePioneers said:

Malmesbury said:

ULEZ seems an example of how a policy becomes a political football.

We have

1) ULEZ itself - policy of all serious parties
2) ULEZ enforcement - by flat, large charges per day.

It seems that the moderate voices, calling for a better, less regressive taxation method are being left out of the debate.

Some people, including some here, are defending the enforcement in a totemic “if they hate it, we must love it” way.

Other countries have come up with better schemes. Based on vehicle type and mikes driven for instance. Systems that will smoothly adapt to congestion charging in a world where more and more cars are EVs. Systems that reward drivers of small cars.

ULEZ is by no means perfect. My point is that the Tories propose and implement ULEZ, then require the expansion of ULEZ. Then ask if they can take another authority to court because it expanded ULEZ as required by them.

Did they actually require an expansion of ULEZ? Or did they require emissions get cut? Because the two are completely different things.

See eg Manchester where the proposed charged-for zone was scrapped as it was (a) unfair and (b) wouldn't work anyway, and replaced with a better alternative.

Carnyx

Malmesbury said:

IanB2 said:

JosiasJessop said:

No, it's not April Fool's day:

"An airport in France will be renamed in honour of Queen Elizabeth II after receiving permission from the King, officials in the town have said.

Le Touquet, in northern France, received the blessing from the King on Monday, its town hall said."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66577824

Fair enough, it's mostly British planes that use it, apart from the few French ones based there.

Isn’t Le Touquet trying to get back to its roots as an upmarket British holiday destination? Makes sense as part of that, I think.

I wondered perhaps unkindly what the alternatives on offer were. Could have been a compromise candidate LD style ... but another reason to agree with you is that LT is known for the horsy stuff, very much in the line of HMtQ.

Pulpstar

Heathener said:

Mexicanpete said:

...

TheScreamingEagles said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Whom do you have in mind? Surely the problem is that the party *doesn't* have anyone with those attributes. In London or elsewhere...

George Osborne.

ROFL!

Jeremy Clarkson?

Far too divisive, reactionary, and anti-woke. He's exactly what the party needs to move away from, not towards.

You haven't watched any of his farming show have you.

Sandpit

DecrepiterJohnL said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

‘Everyone has the right to order a pizza without being asked for sex’

Takeaway drivers are pestering customers to have sex with them using contact details they provide for deliveries, the data watchdog has warned.

Close to a third (29pc) of 18-34-year-olds have been targeted by so-called “text pests”, individuals who use personal information such as a phone number or email address given to them in a business context for “romantic” or sexual proposition, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/delivery-drivers-text-customers-data-protection/ (£££)

Great headlines of our time but a concerning story that shows the importance of data protection and privacy. That 29 per cent figure looks very high.

Here is the ICO's take, and call for evidence from those who have been targeted in this way.

“People have the right to order a pizza, or give their email for a receipt, or have shopping delivered, without then being asked for sex or a date a little while later. They have a right to know that when they hand over their personal information, that it will not then be used in ways that they would not be comfortable with. But our research today shows a disturbingly high number of people, particularly young people, are falling prey to these text pests.

“There may be, amongst some, an outdated notion that to use someone’s personal details given to you in a business context to ask them out is romantic or charming. Put quite simply, it is not – it is against the law.

“If you are running a customer facing business, you have a responsibility to protect the data of your customers, including from your employees misusing it. We are writing to major businesses, including food and parcel delivery, to remind them that there are no excuses, and there can be no looking the other way.

“We’ve launched this call for evidence today because we want to hear directly from the public how this misuse of personal information has affected them. As the data regulator, we can then use this to inform our work protecting the public.”

The ICO call for evidence on unwanted employee contact and customer experience will be open from 22 August to 15 September. People can share their experiences through the ICO’s online form. The ICO encourages everyone who has been impacted by this to share their experiences.
https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2023/08/one-in-three-young-people-falling-prey-to-text-pests-as-ico-calls-for-victims-to-come-forward/

Who the hell has a CRM system that shows customer phone numbers and email addresses to those who don’t need to know them? You have a button that says ‘call customer’, and the computer calls the customer and connects you. I was doing this more than a decade ago, it’s really not difficult.

JosiasJessop

Carnyx said:

bondegezou said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

This is fun: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/22/home-office-considered-using-foreign-workers-in-case-of-disease-on-bibby-stockholm

I don't know what is wrong with work-shy British layabouts. Who wouldn't want to work on a pox-ridden firetrap prison scow?

Forget the workers for a moment, the bloody gashbarge itself is foreign-registered. In Barbados.

Which AIUI means it is primarily under Barbadian law, as well as the law of the sea. I presume there has been some sort of sign-over in the contract, but it does add a potential further complication just waiting for a lawyer to have fun with if the gash were to hit the fan.

Doesn’t that only apply when it’s in international waters and not when it’s moored, or something?

But cargo ships don't lose their registry when tied up in their port of destination.

Certainly one example of UK law not being triggered is that workers on ships don't instantly gain UK workers' rights when their ship ties up. As at least one major UK corporation exploits to the workers' detriment.

On the other hand, there are certain powers to intervene in the case of unseaworthy vessels even of foreign registry.

So I'm not sure how it works. But, for things like insurance, I do wonder.

The excellent International Transport Workers' Federation does a lot of work on the rights of crew on ships. It's a scandal that the law is as it is: but it is next to impossible to fix because of the international aspects. In that way it's a bit like illegal immigration.

https://www.itfglobal.org/en

LostPassword

Heathener said:

Malmesbury said:

Heathener said:

Mexicanpete said:

...

TheScreamingEagles said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Whom do you have in mind? Surely the problem is that the party *doesn't* have anyone with those attributes. In London or elsewhere...

George Osborne.

ROFL!

Jeremy Clarkson?

Far too divisive, reactionary, and anti-woke. He's exactly what the party needs to move away from, not towards.

You aren’t aware that the real life Clarkson is very different to the character he plays on TV? A Remainer for a start.

Sort-of. I actually really liked the first series of Clarkson's Farm. The second, less so when some of his less attractive qualities surfaced.

But he finally blew it with the Megan article. Even his daughter Emily condemned him. He might win a certain narrow demographic of older, white, male suburban car drivers. But all London? Forget it.

The problem is that for a job as high-profile as the London mayorality you can't be a court jester. (Although Boris tried).

Johnson showed precisely that you could be a court jester as Mayor of London and get away with it for at least two terms. At that point some of the more ridiculous things were closing in on him, like the garden bridge, so it may all have come crashing down in a third term.

Carnyx

BartholomewRoberts said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Malmesbury said:

ULEZ seems an example of how a policy becomes a political football.

We have

1) ULEZ itself - policy of all serious parties
2) ULEZ enforcement - by flat, large charges per day.

It seems that the moderate voices, calling for a better, less regressive taxation method are being left out of the debate.

Some people, including some here, are defending the enforcement in a totemic “if they hate it, we must love it” way.

Other countries have come up with better schemes. Based on vehicle type and mikes driven for instance. Systems that will smoothly adapt to congestion charging in a world where more and more cars are EVs. Systems that reward drivers of small cars.

ULEZ is by no means perfect. My point is that the Tories propose and implement ULEZ, then require the expansion of ULEZ. Then ask if they can take another authority to court because it expanded ULEZ as required by them.

Did they actually require an expansion of ULEZ? Or did they require emissions get cut? Because the two are completely different things.

See eg Manchester where the proposed charged-for zone was scrapped as it was (a) unfair and (b) wouldn't work anyway, and replaced with a better alternative.

Expansion of ULEZ = less pollution in the areas affected.

Which means that ANY HMG argument based on HMG reversing its policy of less pollution was sunk ab initio.

If HMG had argued on the efficiency or the social equity, that might have been different, I suppse. But that would have meant admitting that they weren't really friends of the reactionary backless glove merchants, and losing the latter's votes. .

Carnyx

JosiasJessop said:

Carnyx said:

bondegezou said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

This is fun: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/22/home-office-considered-using-foreign-workers-in-case-of-disease-on-bibby-stockholm

I don't know what is wrong with work-shy British layabouts. Who wouldn't want to work on a pox-ridden firetrap prison scow?

Forget the workers for a moment, the bloody gashbarge itself is foreign-registered. In Barbados.

Which AIUI means it is primarily under Barbadian law, as well as the law of the sea. I presume there has been some sort of sign-over in the contract, but it does add a potential further complication just waiting for a lawyer to have fun with if the gash were to hit the fan.

Doesn’t that only apply when it’s in international waters and not when it’s moored, or something?

But cargo ships don't lose their registry when tied up in their port of destination.

Certainly one example of UK law not being triggered is that workers on ships don't instantly gain UK workers' rights when their ship ties up. As at least one major UK corporation exploits to the workers' detriment.

On the other hand, there are certain powers to intervene in the case of unseaworthy vessels even of foreign registry.

So I'm not sure how it works. But, for things like insurance, I do wonder.

The excellent International Transport Workers' Federation does a lot of work on the rights of crew on ships. It's a scandal that the law is as it is: but it is next to impossible to fix because of the international aspects. In that way it's a bit like illegal immigration.

https://www.itfglobal.org/en

Thank you. So I really do wonder what the rights of UK subjects working on the ship would be - and, still more, the foreign workers which it is proposed to import.

JosiasJessop

LostPassword said:

Chris said:

The Institute for the Study of War seems to be treating the Ukrainian advance into Robotyne, on the road to Melitopol, as a potential turning point in the counteroffensive:
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-22-2023

No-one knows for sure how close Russia are to exhausting their reserves. Having three defensive lines might not help Russia much if they've thrown everything into defending the first line.

I hope that's the case, but hope doesn't mean much when it meets reality. I have no doubt Russia is hurting: but so is Ukraine, and the question is how long either side can withstand the attritional war.

I am very fearful that the western consensus to help Ukraine will dissipate over the next year, especially as the US gets further into its electoral fever. Russia knows it has to buy time, and sadly too many people on 'our' side are keen to give them the impression that time is all they need.

TheScreamingEagles

Pulpstar said:

Heathener said:

Mexicanpete said:

...

TheScreamingEagles said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Heathener said:

How is it that the Conservatives have managed to miss the wide open London mayoral goal? In fact, they haven't just missed it, they have shot the ball into the stands on the far right.

They had one opportunity to pick someone sensible, attractive to the electorate, dynamic, interesting. I'm not suggesting Rory Stewart, but obviously someone of that kind of ilk who had a presence and who might galvanise moderate left voters in the way that Boris once did. They could have won this election in May, possibly with ease.

It's a measure of how disconnected the Conservative Party is becoming from power that at its moment of golden opportunity it managed to select someone so repulsively unelectable as Susan Hall.

Whom do you have in mind? Surely the problem is that the party *doesn't* have anyone with those attributes. In London or elsewhere...

George Osborne.

ROFL!

Jeremy Clarkson?

Far too divisive, reactionary, and anti-woke. He's exactly what the party needs to move away from, not towards.

You haven't watched any of his farming show have you.

Caleb for London Mayor.

BartholomewRoberts

Carnyx said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Malmesbury said:

ULEZ seems an example of how a policy becomes a political football.

We have

1) ULEZ itself - policy of all serious parties
2) ULEZ enforcement - by flat, large charges per day.

It seems that the moderate voices, calling for a better, less regressive taxation method are being left out of the debate.

Some people, including some here, are defending the enforcement in a totemic “if they hate it, we must love it” way.

Other countries have come up with better schemes. Based on vehicle type and mikes driven for instance. Systems that will smoothly adapt to congestion charging in a world where more and more cars are EVs. Systems that reward drivers of small cars.

ULEZ is by no means perfect. My point is that the Tories propose and implement ULEZ, then require the expansion of ULEZ. Then ask if they can take another authority to court because it expanded ULEZ as required by them.

Did they actually require an expansion of ULEZ? Or did they require emissions get cut? Because the two are completely different things.

See eg Manchester where the proposed charged-for zone was scrapped as it was (a) unfair and (b) wouldn't work anyway, and replaced with a better alternative.

Expansion of ULEZ = less pollution in the areas affected.

Which means that ANY HMG argument based on HMG reversing its policy of less pollution was sunk ab initio.

If HMG had argued on the efficiency or the social equity, that might have been different, I suppse. But that would have meant admitting that they weren't really friends of the reactionary backless glove merchants, and losing the latter's votes. .

Killing the first born in every household = less pollution.

Doesn't mean its government policy. Or a good idea.

If there's better ways to reach the objective, without a regressive tax, then that is a better alternative is it not?

IanB2

Carnyx said:

Malmesbury said:

IanB2 said:

JosiasJessop said:

No, it's not April Fool's day:

"An airport in France will be renamed in honour of Queen Elizabeth II after receiving permission from the King, officials in the town have said.

Le Touquet, in northern France, received the blessing from the King on Monday, its town hall said."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66577824

Fair enough, it's mostly British planes that use it, apart from the few French ones based there.

Isn’t Le Touquet trying to get back to its roots as an upmarket British holiday destination? Makes sense as part of that, I think.

I wondered perhaps unkindly what the alternatives on offer were. Could have been a compromise candidate LD style ... but another reason to agree with you is that LT is known for the horsy stuff, very much in the line of HMtQ.

The Americans like naming airfields but in Europe they normally just carry a place name, usually the nearest village, sometimes a little more cryptic. Le Touquet airfield/airport at least tells you where it is. So they didn't have to do anything.

I still think the Norwegians missed a trick in not calling the airport that serves Trondheim, Hell International Airport, since the airport is actually in Hell.

LostPassword

Sandpit said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

‘Everyone has the right to order a pizza without being asked for sex’

Takeaway drivers are pestering customers to have sex with them using contact details they provide for deliveries, the data watchdog has warned.

Close to a third (29pc) of 18-34-year-olds have been targeted by so-called “text pests”, individuals who use personal information such as a phone number or email address given to them in a business context for “romantic” or sexual proposition, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/delivery-drivers-text-customers-data-protection/ (£££)

Great headlines of our time but a concerning story that shows the importance of data protection and privacy. That 29 per cent figure looks very high.

Here is the ICO's take, and call for evidence from those who have been targeted in this way.

“People have the right to order a pizza, or give their email for a receipt, or have shopping delivered, without then being asked for sex or a date a little while later. They have a right to know that when they hand over their personal information, that it will not then be used in ways that they would not be comfortable with. But our research today shows a disturbingly high number of people, particularly young people, are falling prey to these text pests.

“There may be, amongst some, an outdated notion that to use someone’s personal details given to you in a business context to ask them out is romantic or charming. Put quite simply, it is not – it is against the law.

“If you are running a customer facing business, you have a responsibility to protect the data of your customers, including from your employees misusing it. We are writing to major businesses, including food and parcel delivery, to remind them that there are no excuses, and there can be no looking the other way.

“We’ve launched this call for evidence today because we want to hear directly from the public how this misuse of personal information has affected them. As the data regulator, we can then use this to inform our work protecting the public.”

The ICO call for evidence on unwanted employee contact and customer experience will be open from 22 August to 15 September. People can share their experiences through the ICO’s online form. The ICO encourages everyone who has been impacted by this to share their experiences.
https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2023/08/one-in-three-young-people-falling-prey-to-text-pests-as-ico-calls-for-victims-to-come-forward/

Who the hell has a CRM system that shows customer phone numbers and email addresses to those who don’t need to know them? You have a button that says ‘call customer’, and the computer calls the customer and connects you. I was doing this more than a decade ago, it’s really not difficult.

A lot of people are printing out phone numbers on delivery slips - I've seen mine on the address label on parcels - so that the delivery person can phone if the satnav sends them the wrong way.

Like you say the delivery person should be plugged directly into the CRM, so that they can update it to say they delivery had been completed, and then there's no need for a hardcopy of the phone number. But not everyone can afford consultant IT day rates, and they're apparently not able to do it themselves.

Casino_Royale

Heathener said:

squareroot2 said:

Heathener said:

In other news I wonder if Sadiq is in trouble for May? This could provide a fertile betting opportunity were it not for the dreadful Susan Hall. I know little about the LD candidate Rob Blackie?

Another unsubstantiated personal snagging off.

I don't know what a snagging off is but clearly Squareroot you are on a personally vicious vendetta against anything I post. Take a step back and ask yourself how good a person you are being and whether your retorts are on point or pointless.

On the specifics, which I'm guessing is questioning Susan Hall rather than Rob Blackie, the former is awful. She has made so many dreadful comments that she gets routinely criticised, including from within the Conservative Party. I'm sure you know that she is a big supporter of Donald Trump and also Liz Truss and she's pro-Brexit. None of those traits even remotely square with the London demographic.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/londoners-diary/susan-hall-donald-trump-brixton-london-mayor-b1088034.html

https://www.desmog.com/2023/07/24/tory-london-mayor-candidate-susan-hall-fracking-net-zero-climate-science-denial/

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-tories-unveil-candidate-face-30500748

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/22/tory-london-mayor-candidate-criticised-notting-hill-carnival

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/tory-mayoral-candidate-hateful-messages-twitter-susan-hall-gemma-collins-b1093859.html

And I'm sure you also know that the rumpus over her being selected is so bad that the Conservative Party are in uproar about it, with calls from within the party for her candidacy to be reversed

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/conservative-party-london-mayoral-selection-susan-hall-uxbridge-b1099551.html

https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/tory-mayoral-selection-process-humiliation-comment-iain-dale-susan-hall-b1095369.html

@Heathener you are happy to dish out personal insults but cry blue murder if anyone calls you out on it, and then you intimate they're not a good person.

You need to separate the personal and political please.

JosiasJessop

Carnyx said:

JosiasJessop said:

Carnyx said:

bondegezou said:

Carnyx said:

RochdalePioneers said:

This is fun: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/22/home-office-considered-using-foreign-workers-in-case-of-disease-on-bibby-stockholm

I don't know what is wrong with work-shy British layabouts. Who wouldn't want to work on a pox-ridden firetrap prison scow?

Forget the workers for a moment, the bloody gashbarge itself is foreign-registered. In Barbados.

Which AIUI means it is primarily under Barbadian law, as well as the law of the sea. I presume there has been some sort of sign-over in the contract, but it does add a potential further complication just waiting for a lawyer to have fun with if the gash were to hit the fan.

Doesn’t that only apply when it’s in international waters and not when it’s moored, or something?

But cargo ships don't lose their registry when tied up in their port of destination.

Certainly one example of UK law not being triggered is that workers on ships don't instantly gain UK workers' rights when their ship ties up. As at least one major UK corporation exploits to the workers' detriment.

On the other hand, there are certain powers to intervene in the case of unseaworthy vessels even of foreign registry.

So I'm not sure how it works. But, for things like insurance, I do wonder.

The excellent International Transport Workers' Federation does a lot of work on the rights of crew on ships. It's a scandal that the law is as it is: but it is next to impossible to fix because of the international aspects. In that way it's a bit like illegal immigration.

https://www.itfglobal.org/en

Thank you. So I really do wonder what the rights of UK subjects working on the ship would be - and, still more, the foreign workers which it is proposed to import.

My *guess* would be the fact it is a ship is irrelevant. It will be classed as a prison, albeit a floating one, and the legislation will be applied as such. How was HMP Weare classed/treated?

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

Carnyx

BartholomewRoberts said:

Carnyx said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Malmesbury said:

ULEZ seems an example of how a policy becomes a political football.

We have

1) ULEZ itself - policy of all serious parties
2) ULEZ enforcement - by flat, large charges per day.

It seems that the moderate voices, calling for a better, less regressive taxation method are being left out of the debate.

Some people, including some here, are defending the enforcement in a totemic “if they hate it, we must love it” way.

Other countries have come up with better schemes. Based on vehicle type and mikes driven for instance. Systems that will smoothly adapt to congestion charging in a world where more and more cars are EVs. Systems that reward drivers of small cars.

ULEZ is by no means perfect. My point is that the Tories propose and implement ULEZ, then require the expansion of ULEZ. Then ask if they can take another authority to court because it expanded ULEZ as required by them.

Did they actually require an expansion of ULEZ? Or did they require emissions get cut? Because the two are completely different things.

See eg Manchester where the proposed charged-for zone was scrapped as it was (a) unfair and (b) wouldn't work anyway, and replaced with a better alternative.

Expansion of ULEZ = less pollution in the areas affected.

Which means that ANY HMG argument based on HMG reversing its policy of less pollution was sunk ab initio.

If HMG had argued on the efficiency or the social equity, that might have been different, I suppse. But that would have meant admitting that they weren't really friends of the reactionary backless glove merchants, and losing the latter's votes. .

Killing the first born in every household = less pollution.

Doesn't mean its government policy. Or a good idea.

If there's better ways to reach the objective, without a regressive tax, then that is a better alternative is it not?

In London, the vehicle pollution *is* killing the first born in every household right now, or not far off.