I love days off and getting to walk without houses in the way
It's a wonder as the landlord Doesn't want to raise the rent Because we have such nobby distant views
Oh! it really is a very pretty garden And Chingford to the Eastward could be seen Wiv a ladder and some glasses You could see to 'Ackney Marshes If it wasn't for the 'ouses in between https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRicquC-Utg
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.
She only engages with and listens tothose who vociferously agree with her, and ignores the rest or crosses them off as being bad people.
It's why her betting posts should be taken with a massive pinch of salt.
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
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.
Clarkson is a libertarian orange book/Remainer Cameroon Tory type. Chipping Norton set.
He's probably slightly less of a dick when he's not on camera too, or he wouldn't have such loyal friends.
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.
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?
Intderestingly, that was,as your link shows, registered overseas (in St Vincent & Grenadines). But a state prison, not a privatiesed one so far as I can tell (and one shut down because of an adverse HM Prison Inspectorate report). So legally simpler.
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
That's peak Three Yorkshiremen. "It's better than the smog of the 1950s, so I only get asthma when I'm 30."
I was actually quite shaken to discover the seriousness of the pollution in London.
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.
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.
Some areas of UK employment law (eg minimum wage) apply to vessels in UK territorial waters regardless of the regulatory requirements of the flagging nation.
IANA(Maritime)L but I think any attempt to circumvent legislation by having the Hellship remain on a Barbadian flag and employing the crew through that will, like almost everything else this government does, explode in their stupid faces.
They should tow it outside the territorial limit if that is their game. It would also give it more of a deterrent effect above and beyond the possibility of catching Legionnaire's while detainees wait four years to have their applications processed.
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.
Yes. Expansion of ULEZ - to "widen the scope and the level of these charges" was a direct condition of the various TfL bailouts. Plenty of copies of Shapps letters to Khan are in circulation if you Google them.
THe issue of what we owe in terms of reparatioos will not go away so we have to confront it. Some labour MP's are alreadty actively supporting it.
The UK alone is calculated to owe $24 Trillion, although the UN Judge in this guardian article has kindly said we should be allowed to pay over 10-25 years.
If not it will be brought to the courts.
How do we address this going forward, especially in an era of climate reparations as well.
Charities are very keen on this too, as they will probably be the ones to manage the funds. However what do we do. This will not go away.
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. .
Actually there is some argument about whether Ulez does make much difference to pollution, but that is getting lost in the politics around this particular ulez expansion. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66570024
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.
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.
Some areas of UK employment law (eg minimum wage) apply to vessels in UK territorial waters regardless of the regulatory requirements of the flagging nation.
IANA(Maritime)L but I think any attempt to circumvent legislation by having the Hellship remain on a Barbadian flag and employing the crew through that will, like almost everything else this government does, explode in their stupid faces.
They should tow it outside the territorial limit if that is their game. It would also give it more of a deterrent effect above and beyond the possibility of catching Legionnaire's while detainees wait four years to have their applications processed.
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.
She only engages with and listens tothose who vociferously agree with her, and ignores the rest or crosses them off as being bad people.
It's why her betting posts should be taken with a massive pinch of salt.
In fairness to Heathener, while I can see the electoral merit in Clarkson or someone in that mold, he's possibly not to the tastes of enough Londoners to win an election. In any case, is Clarkson even a Conservative? You can't just go picking celebrities out you think might be popular; they have to at least be willing to be co-opted to the cause.
For the Conservatives, the London mayoralty is like Eurovision; the good bands are unwilling to have a pop because winning is so unlikely: the downside of reputational risk is far greater than the upside of potentially winning.
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
That's peak Three Yorkshiremen. "It's better than the smog of the 1950s, so I only get asthma when I'm 30."
I was actually quite shaken to discover the seriousness of the pollution in London.
2019 life expectancy at birth in London is 85.4 years for women, and 81.6 for men.
2019 UK wide life expectancy at birth is 83.1 years for women and 79.4 for men.
Just imagine London's life expectancy if the firstborn weren't being killed by the air? They'd be living for 200 years!
People who aren't slaves getting reparations from people who don't own or trade in slaves is an absolute dislocation of criminal responsibility and victimhood from reality.
I'm from Yorkshire. My mother's family, a few generations ago, originated in Wales (bit of a stereotype, but a coal mining great-grandfather left to find work in England). Should my Anglo-Saxon part pay my Welsh part reparations for conquering Britain? Do I get reparations from Scandinavia for the Vikings? Should Italians be paying everywhere that touches the Mediterranean, and the UK?
You have race grifters indulged by well-meaning fools in a quest for reparations, given by people who have done no wrong to people who have received no harm. It's thoroughly demented, and absolutely contemptible.
And the most obvious aspect is this: who is calling for the descendents of the black African slave traders to pay reparations? Who is calling for the descendents of Barbary slavers to pay white people?
This is a political fashion, a trending fallacy based on fetishising victimhood, even vicarious victimhood which is centuries removed from any wrongdoing.
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.
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.
Some areas of UK employment law (eg minimum wage) apply to vessels in UK territorial waters regardless of the regulatory requirements of the flagging nation.
IANA(Maritime)L but I think any attempt to circumvent legislation by having the Hellship remain on a Barbadian flag and employing the crew through that will, like almost everything else this government does, explode in their stupid faces.
They should tow it outside the territorial limit if that is their game. It would also give it more of a deterrent effect above and beyond the possibility of catching Legionnaire's while detainees wait four years to have their applications processed.
Also: you are right on the first point - IF HMG enforce the rules. Though some surprising anomalies.
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
That's peak Three Yorkshiremen. "It's better than the smog of the 1950s, so I only get asthma when I'm 30."
I was actually quite shaken to discover the seriousness of the pollution in London.
2019 life expectancy at birth in London is 85.4 years for women, and 81.6 for men.
2019 UK wide life expectancy at birth is 83.1 years for women and 79.4 for men.
Just imagine London's life expectancy if the firstborn weren't being killed by the air? They'd be living for 200 years!
THe issue of what we owe in terms of reparatioos will not go away so we have to confront it. Some labour MP's are alreadty actively supporting it.
The UK alone is calculated to owe $24 Trillion, although the UN Judge in this guardian article has kindly said we should be allowed to pay over 10-25 years.
If not it will be brought to the courts.
How do we address this going forward, especially in an era of climate reparations as well.
Charities are very keen on this too, as they will probably be the ones to manage the funds. However what do we do. This will not go away.
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.
She only engages with and listens tothose who vociferously agree with her, and ignores the rest or crosses them off as being bad people.
It's why her betting posts should be taken with a massive pinch of salt.
In fairness to Heathener, while I can see the electoral merit in Clarkson or someone in that mold, he's possibly not to the tastes of enough Londoners to win an election. In any case, is Clarkson even a Conservative? You can't just go picking celebrities out you think might be popular; they have to at least be willing to be co-opted to the cause.
For the Conservatives, the London mayoralty is like Eurovision; the good bands are unwilling to have a pop because winning is so unlikely: the downside of reputational risk is far greater than the upside of potentially winning.
Interesting. After all, Boris (ambitious but definitely shop soiled by 2008) hit the sweet spot of being big enough to be interesting but also desperate enough to take the risk. Perhaps a bit more I'm A Celebrity than Eurovision.
As the Standard put it yesterday,
Sadiq Khan has lost the suburbs – it probably doesn’t matter
THe issue of what we owe in terms of reparatioos will not go away so we have to confront it. Some labour MP's are alreadty actively supporting it.
The UK alone is calculated to owe $24 Trillion, although the UN Judge in this guardian article has kindly said we should be allowed to pay over 10-25 years.
If not it will be brought to the courts.
How do we address this going forward, especially in an era of climate reparations as well.
Charities are very keen on this too, as they will probably be the ones to manage the funds. However what do we do. This will not go away.
Getting overseas aid back up to 0.7% and stop fiddling it by using it for migrant hotels or disguised export subsidies would be a good start. Nobody expects us to send a sudden £X billion cheque to Zimbabwe, but a steady, reliable commitment would be a reasonable course of action for a country whose wealth is partly based on the slave era.
Assuming Dorries does step down and force a by election why shouldn't Labour contest it to win? After all Labour were second in Mid Bedfordshire in 2019 not the LDs and on the swing in the Selby by election would win it.
Starmer and the NEC will also not like the fact that LD leaflet is already trashing their candidate as well as the Tories and Dorries
Mr. Palmer, should the African nations from whence the black African slave traders operated make the same foreign aid spending commitment as their wealth is partly based on the slave era?
Assuming Dorries does step down and force a by election why shouldn't Labour contest it to win? After all Labour were second in Mid Bedfordshire in 2019 not the LDs and on the swing in the Selby by election would win it.
Starmer and the NEC will also not like the fact that LD leaflet is already trashing their candidate as well as the Tories and Dorries
Labour will contest it, just as they did Somerton and Frome.
Not to mention all the CFOs sucked into the capex/opex switch.
I don't think that's entirely reasonable.
The Financial Times recently reported that a basket of the top US streaming services would cost $87 this fall, compared with $73 a year ago. The average cable TV package was $83 a month, it reported.
Yes, but a cable TV package had whatever programme that linear TV channel happened to be showing in that moment of time available to watch. Or you could record/series link individual episodes.
Streaming has every episode of every season of its programming, available to watch on demand, whenever you choose.
Its not so much apples and oranges, more an apple versus an orchard of apples.
I've cancelled my Sky and only have streaming services now. I pay as much now for my streaming services as I used to pay for Sky (excluding Sky Sports), but what I have may not be cheaper but it is qualitatively far, far superior.
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
Yes, I agree. The problem with ULEZ is that the solution it presents doesn't match the problem it purports to solve. GM's solution is far better. It's baffling how Sadiq Khan goes out of his way to pick fights he doesn't need to. Andy Burnham (who I was very wary of initially) - despite, realistically, having the GM mayoralty as long as he is the Labour candidate - goes out of his way to find voter-acceptable solutions and tries to keep as much of the electorate onside as possible; Sadiq Khan appears to hold large sections of his electorate in utter contempt. Hence AB at the last mayoral election in every single ward in GM. Even Bramhall South and Woodford, even Halebarns, even Bowdon.
Assuming Dorries does step down and force a by election why shouldn't Labour contest it to win? After all Labour were second in Mid Bedfordshire in 2019 not the LDs and on the swing in the Selby by election would win it.
Starmer and the NEC will also not like the fact that LD leaflet is already trashing their candidate as well as the Tories and Dorries
I see you are on message. The Tory strategy in mid Beds will be to encourage a scrap between Labour and Lib Dems. It's the only way for the Tories to win.
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?
Corbyn could win the London Mayoralty, after all he won London even in 2019
Assuming Dorries does step down and force a by election why shouldn't Labour contest it to win? After all Labour were second in Mid Bedfordshire in 2019 not the LDs and on the swing in the Selby by election would win it.
Starmer and the NEC will also not like the fact that LD leaflet is already trashing their candidate as well as the Tories and Dorries
Labour will contest it, just as they did Somerton and Frome.
The LDs were second in Somerton and Frome in 2019 not Labour
THe issue of what we owe in terms of reparatioos will not go away so we have to confront it. Some labour MP's are alreadty actively supporting it.
The UK alone is calculated to owe $24 Trillion, although the UN Judge in this guardian article has kindly said we should be allowed to pay over 10-25 years.
If not it will be brought to the courts.
How do we address this going forward, especially in an era of climate reparations as well.
Charities are very keen on this too, as they will probably be the ones to manage the funds. However what do we do. This will not go away.
Getting overseas aid back up to 0.7% and stop fiddling it by using it for migrant hotels or disguised export subsidies would be a good start. Nobody expects us to send a sudden £X billion cheque to Zimbabwe, but a steady, reliable commitment would be a reasonable course of action for a country whose wealth is partly based on the slave era.
I'm in favour of the 0.7% foreign aid budget, but am unsure that migrant hotels or disguised export subsidies are 'fiddling' - or at least if they are seen as such, what is acceptable needs defining.
For instance, I think giving countries adjacent to hotspots money to house refugees is a brilliant way to spend money, for the migrants, for the host country, and for us. Yet I've heard some people say it's the wrong way to spend the foreign aid budget.
So it comes down to what the foreign aid budget is for - and that seems rather muddled, particularly in the messaging.
Mr. Palmer, should the African nations from whence the black African slave traders operated make the same foreign aid spending commitment as their wealth is partly based on the slave era?
Why should my son - who is, after all, the son of an immigrant - pay and get disadvantaged for what my forefathers did? And what about the bad things the recipient countries did, if we are judging things that happened then by modern standards?
It's just a crass form of redistribution. Worse, it is one that in many cases will get wasted as it is siphoned up by corruption.
Assuming Dorries does step down and force a by election why shouldn't Labour contest it to win? After all Labour were second in Mid Bedfordshire in 2019 not the LDs and on the swing in the Selby by election would win it.
Starmer and the NEC will also not like the fact that LD leaflet is already trashing their candidate as well as the Tories and Dorries
Labour have every right to fight it, but it is an unnecessary reputational risk if they fail and boost to the Tories if they hold on as a consequence. Regardless of the fact they are in 2nd place the LDs are the ones most able to win. In fact without Lab campaigning it would be a slam dunk. If Lab are going to fight it you can't then expect the LDs not to fight them.
The best opportunity for the Tories is for the LDs and Lab to both fight it so I understand why you are keen Lab fight this seat.
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.
He cultivates an air of grumpy old-fashioned obnoxiousness, which regardless of his actual views is not likely to attract centrist London voters. But in current circs I think Jesus Christ would struggle as Tory candidate for London. Maybe their candidate is as good as any.
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.
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
Yes, I agree. The problem with ULEZ is that the solution it presents doesn't match the problem it purports to solve. GM's solution is far better. It's baffling how Sadiq Khan goes out of his way to pick fights he doesn't need to. Andy Burnham (who I was very wary of initially) - despite, realistically, having the GM mayoralty as long as he is the Labour candidate - goes out of his way to find voter-acceptable solutions and tries to keep as much of the electorate onside as possible; Sadiq Khan appears to hold large sections of his electorate in utter contempt. Hence AB at the last mayoral election in every single ward in GM. Even Bramhall South and Woodford, even Halebarns, even Bowdon.
Burnham has a trump card - civic pride. Manchester was once a global-scale industrial powerhouse. The city was full of industry, but the city corporation built the pneumatic power systems which enabled them. A proud city which thrived - that is what he is trying to do today.
The Bee Network and shamelessly sticking that bee on everything - worker bees striving individually to make the collective better. There is a buzz about the place, which as a Lancastrian from Greater Manchester is invigorating when I'm back there.
As usual in politics the question is what the opposition would do differently? You can't just be against when the policy is an ethos. You need a replacement ethos, and what would the Tory one be - each bee for himself?
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.
The requirement is emissions reduction.
Flat rate charging in an expanded area, as the mechanism, is what the Mayor of London chose.
Probably on the basis of “cheapest to implement - more of the same”
The key though is protection from counter battery fire, and within the range of tubed artillery, directed by drones so still some way to go, but quite viable to make the railway inoperable.
How much difference that would make to overall strategy is a different question.
Not to mention all the CFOs sucked into the capex/opex switch.
Big tech's "disruptive" business strategy is price low to destroy the competition, burning through VC money to cover the losses, then price high to reap the resulting monopoly profits. They're just another iteration of the robber barons. Capitalism, innit.
Assuming Dorries does step down and force a by election why shouldn't Labour contest it to win? After all Labour were second in Mid Bedfordshire in 2019 not the LDs and on the swing in the Selby by election would win it.
Starmer and the NEC will also not like the fact that LD leaflet is already trashing their candidate as well as the Tories and Dorries
Labour will contest it, just as they did Somerton and Frome.
The LDs were second in Somerton and Frome in 2019 not Labour
So? Voters are well organised and motivated to remove your corrupt party from power. Lab/LD will take a stonking victory whilst the other loses its deposit in one seat, and the other way round in another seat. A lot more Labour wins than LD, but you can't deny that the ABC vote is well organised and coming to get you.
There's actually very little difference in strategy. The Biden strategy is a 'beggar thy neighbour' strategy too, aimed at shoring up the US's economy often at the expense of everyone else's.
And for those who like to defend and excuse Russia's territorial grab in Ukraine:
"Russia could annex breakaway regions of Georgia, suggests former president Dmitry Medvedev The former president, who signed a decree recognising the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008, says the idea of the regions joining Russia is "still popular"."
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.
There's actually very little difference in strategy. The Biden strategy is a 'beggar thy neighbour' strategy too, aimed at shoring up the US's economy often at the expense of everyone else's.
Biden's strategy is to make the US economy grow faster, while holding onto the gains. Trump's strategy is to make the US economy grow faster at others' expense. Also, while Biden's strategy may fail, Trump's strategy certainly will.
Not to mention all the CFOs sucked into the capex/opex switch.
Big tech's "disruptive" business strategy is price low to destroy the competition, burning through VC money to cover the losses, then price high to reap the resulting monopoly profits. They're just another iteration of the robber barons. Capitalism, innit.
Price low, or offer a better quality service.
Amazon's retail business is popular not simply because its cheap, but because the service it offers is better. I can think of anything I want/need/fancy, go online, and have it the next day. No need to travel to the shops and hope they have it in stock, no need to even have a shop that stocks it in the first place.
Streaming is popular not simply because its cheap, but because the service it offers is better. I can think of anything I want to watch, go online, and watch it instantly. No need to hope to find a channel broadcasting it, no need to wait a week for the next episode.
For shit like Uber, the service they offer is no different to the service other firms offer. Simply sticking the name Uber on a taxi doesn't make it anything other than a taxi. So if the prices is the same, there's no special reason to use them. Hence why @Leon insisting that cars are obsolete and Uber is going to take over the world is utter nonsense. If people wanted to use taxis, they already could, but most people don't want their transportation to be via taxi.
Assuming Dorries does step down and force a by election why shouldn't Labour contest it to win? After all Labour were second in Mid Bedfordshire in 2019 not the LDs and on the swing in the Selby by election would win it.
Starmer and the NEC will also not like the fact that LD leaflet is already trashing their candidate as well as the Tories and Dorries
Labour will contest it, just as they did Somerton and Frome.
The LDs were second in Somerton and Frome in 2019 not Labour
There's actually very little difference in strategy. The Biden strategy is a 'beggar thy neighbour' strategy too, aimed at shoring up the US's economy often at the expense of everyone else's.
No, its really not.
I know you have a pathological hatred of America, but Biden isn't putting a 10% tariff on all imports or anything remotely similar.
Mr. Palmer, should the African nations from whence the black African slave traders operated make the same foreign aid spending commitment as their wealth is partly based on the slave era?
Which African nations from whence the black African slave traders operated exist today as they existed then? The closest would probably be Benin, more or less the successor to Dahomey. Their wealth ‘partly based on the slave trade’ has resulted in a gdp per capita of $1390.
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.
Chris has perhaps overlooked this line in his reading of the dense texts of the ISW.
"The Russian formations and units currently occupying secondary lines of defense are largely unknown at this time, however, and ISW offers this assessment with low confidence."
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.
Make le touquet a passport-free zone for Brits - part of the common travel area. Bonanza time for the place. Better still maybe just give it to Britain, as an enclave. In return France can have South Kensington.
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
Yes, I agree. The problem with ULEZ is that the solution it presents doesn't match the problem it purports to solve. GM's solution is far better. It's baffling how Sadiq Khan goes out of his way to pick fights he doesn't need to. Andy Burnham (who I was very wary of initially) - despite, realistically, having the GM mayoralty as long as he is the Labour candidate - goes out of his way to find voter-acceptable solutions and tries to keep as much of the electorate onside as possible; Sadiq Khan appears to hold large sections of his electorate in utter contempt. Hence AB at the last mayoral election in every single ward in GM. Even Bramhall South and Woodford, even Halebarns, even Bowdon.
Burnham has a trump card - civic pride. Manchester was once a global-scale industrial powerhouse. The city was full of industry, but the city corporation built the pneumatic power systems which enabled them. A proud city which thrived - that is what he is trying to do today.
The Bee Network and shamelessly sticking that bee on everything - worker bees striving individually to make the collective better. There is a buzz about the place, which as a Lancastrian from Greater Manchester is invigorating when I'm back there.
As usual in politics the question is what the opposition would do differently? You can't just be against when the policy is an ethos. You need a replacement ethos, and what would the Tory one be - each bee for himself?
You'd have thought London could do civic pride at least as well as Greater Manchester though. In fact, while I'm not sure how much of a strategic decision this was, or who is responsible, there has been a lot of success in creating a GM civic pride out of nothing. Manchester always had civic pride, as did Bolton, Rochdale, Stockport, and so on ... but they are historically separate and independent towns, wary of one another. The idea of a GM civic pride is new. AB is in many ways quite a good fit for this, being out from the wild west of GM - Leigh is one of the least 'Mancunian' parts of the conurbation.
What would the opposition do differently? Search me. Though it should be said that the role of the GM mayor is not quite that of the London mayor, and districts hold slightly more power; and in the districts there are realistic alternatives to Labour who can make life difficult when difficult decisions have to be made (principally, at present, in planning.)
Also worth noting that the Labour party in GM is a pretty good version of the Labour Party. Granted, there are some on the far left, but to a large extent the party is consensual and driven by an ideology of making things work.
Can't see any in seats that I would think are vulnerable without an incumbency effect. Maybe Dagenham but I wouldn't expect it to turn with the current polls.
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.
He cultivates an air of grumpy old-fashioned obnoxiousness, which regardless of his actual views is not likely to attract centrist London voters. But in current circs I think Jesus Christ would struggle as Tory candidate for London. Maybe their candidate is as good as any.
Anyone who spends a minute pondering Clarkson will come to the conclusion that he is in their side. Plenty won't bother spending that minute, that said.
There's actually very little difference in strategy. The Biden strategy is a 'beggar thy neighbour' strategy too, aimed at shoring up the US's economy often at the expense of everyone else's.
The Biden strategy is focused, requires some joined-up thinking and is positive in spirit. The Trump 'strategy' is illiterate, negative and petty. In the policy is the man.
And for those who like to defend and excuse Russia's territorial grab in Ukraine:
"Russia could annex breakaway regions of Georgia, suggests former president Dmitry Medvedev The former president, who signed a decree recognising the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008, says the idea of the regions joining Russia is "still popular"."
If it happens, there will probably be a referendum. Which will, of course, be totally free and fair...
Russia is imperialist and expansionist; it will always find bogus excuses for its evil actions. And some will choose to believe those excuses.
They’re holding that card in readiness for when the current pro-Russian government loses power. The Georgian Dream govt is widely loathed by the young and pro -EU in the country but fairly secure while opposition remains weak.
If someone from the Sakashvili tendency wins an election in future the button will be pressed.
Unlike Donbas it seems a large number in South Ossetia do actually identify as Russian. Abkhazia is a bit different - loathing of Georgians but they are separatists, not Russians. Abkhazis.
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
Yes, I agree. The problem with ULEZ is that the solution it presents doesn't match the problem it purports to solve. GM's solution is far better. It's baffling how Sadiq Khan goes out of his way to pick fights he doesn't need to. Andy Burnham (who I was very wary of initially) - despite, realistically, having the GM mayoralty as long as he is the Labour candidate - goes out of his way to find voter-acceptable solutions and tries to keep as much of the electorate onside as possible; Sadiq Khan appears to hold large sections of his electorate in utter contempt. Hence AB at the last mayoral election in every single ward in GM. Even Bramhall South and Woodford, even Halebarns, even Bowdon.
Burnham has a trump card - civic pride. Manchester was once a global-scale industrial powerhouse. The city was full of industry, but the city corporation built the pneumatic power systems which enabled them. A proud city which thrived - that is what he is trying to do today.
The Bee Network and shamelessly sticking that bee on everything - worker bees striving individually to make the collective better. There is a buzz about the place, which as a Lancastrian from Greater Manchester is invigorating when I'm back there.
As usual in politics the question is what the opposition would do differently? You can't just be against when the policy is an ethos. You need a replacement ethos, and what would the Tory one be - each bee for himself?
You'd have thought London could do civic pride at least as well as Greater Manchester though. In fact, while I'm not sure how much of a strategic decision this was, or who is responsible, there has been a lot of success in creating a GM civic pride out of nothing. Manchester always had civic pride, as did Bolton, Rochdale, Stockport, and so on ... but they are historically separate and independent towns, wary of one another. The idea of a GM civic pride is new. AB is in many ways quite a good fit for this, being out from the wild west of GM - Leigh is one of the least 'Mancunian' parts of the conurbation.
What would the opposition do differently? Search me. Though it should be said that the role of the GM mayor is not quite that of the London mayor, and districts hold slightly more power; and in the districts there are realistic alternatives to Labour who can make life difficult when difficult decisions have to be made (principally, at present, in planning.)
Also worth noting that the Labour party in GM is a pretty good version of the Labour Party. Granted, there are some on the far left, but to a large extent the party is consensual and driven by an ideology of making things work.
Greater Manchester was tried before - the outlying towns basically having the life sucked out of them by Manchester. Then the Tories abolished it and we had a few decades of disorganised chaos.
Perhaps the change in approach is general relief that there is once again a regional organisation which this time is trying to work with the metropolitan boroughs rather than against them?
There's actually very little difference in strategy. The Biden strategy is a 'beggar thy neighbour' strategy too, aimed at shoring up the US's economy often at the expense of everyone else's.
Is it ?
The transformation towards renewable industries is global. Biden's policies have spurred huge investment in some of the most economically depressed regions of the US - and Europe has responded with similar investment measures.
I don't see how that is equivalent. A 10% tariff would be a far blunter tool, without the economic upside.
There's actually very little difference in strategy. The Biden strategy is a 'beggar thy neighbour' strategy too, aimed at shoring up the US's economy often at the expense of everyone else's.
No, its really not.
I know you have a pathological hatred of America, but Biden isn't putting a 10% tariff on all imports or anything remotely similar.
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
Hooray! Air quality in London is better than when it used to sometimes kill over 10,000 a month. Now it's only 4,000 a year. Mere bagatelle.
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.
Chris has perhaps overlooked this line in his reading of the dense texts of the ISW.
"The Russian formations and units currently occupying secondary lines of defense are largely unknown at this time, however, and ISW offers this assessment with low confidence."
Always important to read the small print. The uncertainty, of course, cuts both ways.
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.
Chris has perhaps overlooked this line in his reading of the dense texts of the ISW.
"The Russian formations and units currently occupying secondary lines of defense are largely unknown at this time, however, and ISW offers this assessment with low confidence."
Always important to read the small print. The uncertainty, of course, cuts both ways.
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.
He cultivates an air of grumpy old-fashioned obnoxiousness, which regardless of his actual views is not likely to attract centrist London voters. But in current circs I think Jesus Christ would struggle as Tory candidate for London. Maybe their candidate is as good as any.
Anyone who spends a minute pondering Clarkson will come to the conclusion that he is in their side. Plenty won't bother spending that minute, that said.
Many moons ago, Clarkson wrote a column - perhaps better called a meta-column - about column writing. Basically, he had to write a certain number of columns a year - say, 40 - of a certain number of words. And do so for years. They also need to be entertaining and engage the paper's audience. The problem he outlined was that after a few years of this, he has covered everything. So his first part of writing is to read the week's papers, see what has engaged people and/or was controversial, and write about that in an engaging way. Hence he sometimes write columns which were directly contradicted by earlier columns he had written, and not particularly his own views at times.
It sounded quite honest, tbf, and could explain why columnists sometimes get into trouble.
Clarkson the column-writer might be a very different entity to Clarkson the celebrity, and that might be very different to Clarkson the real person.
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.
He cultivates an air of grumpy old-fashioned obnoxiousness, which regardless of his actual views is not likely to attract centrist London voters. But in current circs I think Jesus Christ would struggle as Tory candidate for London. Maybe their candidate is as good as any.
Anyone who spends a minute pondering Clarkson will come to the conclusion that he is in their side. Plenty won't bother spending that minute, that said.
Many moons ago, Clarkson wrote a column - perhaps better called a meta-column - about column writing. Basically, he had to write a certain number of columns a year - say, 40 - of a certain number of words. And do so for years. They also need to be entertaining and engage the paper's audience. The problem he outlined was that after a few years of this, he has covered everything. So his first part of writing is to read the week's papers, see what has engaged people and/or was controversial, and write about that in an engaging way. Hence he sometimes write columns which were directly contradicted by earlier columns he had written, and not particularly his own views at times.
It sounded quite honest, tbf, and could explain why columnists sometimes get into trouble.
Clarkson the column-writer might be a very different entity to Clarkson the celebrity, and that might be very different to Clarkson the real person.
I once asked a mutual acquaintance, who shall be nameless, whether Clarkson in person was as big a bellend as Clarkson the media personality.
His memorable reply was, 'Oh no. He's far worse in person.'
People who aren't slaves getting reparations from people who don't own or trade in slaves is an absolute dislocation of criminal responsibility and victimhood from reality.
I'm from Yorkshire. My mother's family, a few generations ago, originated in Wales (bit of a stereotype, but a coal mining great-grandfather left to find work in England). Should my Anglo-Saxon part pay my Welsh part reparations for conquering Britain? Do I get reparations from Scandinavia for the Vikings? Should Italians be paying everywhere that touches the Mediterranean, and the UK?
You have race grifters indulged by well-meaning fools in a quest for reparations, given by people who have done no wrong to people who have received no harm. It's thoroughly demented, and absolutely contemptible.
And the most obvious aspect is this: who is calling for the descendents of the black African slave traders to pay reparations? Who is calling for the descendents of Barbary slavers to pay white people?
This is a political fashion, a trending fallacy based on fetishising victimhood, even vicarious victimhood which is centuries removed from any wrongdoing.
Apart from anything the UK cannot afford to pay 18.8 trillion in reparations even over 25 years. Any politician suggesting we pay 752 billion a year on top of current tax revenue will be slaughtered. The government would have to be taking 2/3 of our annual gdp to do so
And for those who like to defend and excuse Russia's territorial grab in Ukraine:
"Russia could annex breakaway regions of Georgia, suggests former president Dmitry Medvedev The former president, who signed a decree recognising the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008, says the idea of the regions joining Russia is "still popular"."
If it happens, there will probably be a referendum. Which will, of course, be totally free and fair...
Russia is imperialist and expansionist; it will always find bogus excuses for its evil actions. And some will choose to believe those excuses.
They’re holding that card in readiness for when the current pro-Russian government loses power. The Georgian Dream govt is widely loathed by the young and pro -EU in the country but fairly secure while opposition remains weak.
If someone from the Sakashvili tendency wins an election in future the button will be pressed.
Unlike Donbas it seems a large number in South Ossetia do actually identify as Russian. Abkhazia is a bit different - loathing of Georgians but they are separatists, not Russians. Abkhazis.
Of course, such views in either region have been heavily influenced and altered by the Russian invasion of 2008, as many anti-Russian people will have fled (there may also have been pro-Russian Georgians who made their way in...)
‘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.
Really there is a deeper and insoluble situation here. There are two immutable truths: Chatting up, in various ways and speeds and technologies, is eternal. (And, from my late 60s perspective helps makes the world go round for people much younger than me, and is a good thing).
Two: Unattached people of a certain age want some of these attentions and not others. The wanted attentions are not going to elicit complaints, whatever the rules say.
I might add that it is still one of the rules for men that you often have to guess whether your attentions are wanted.
Whether male X is a pest or a Romeo is entirely situational. Objectivity in this does not exist.
Rules about data etc (!) have to be objective. They can't really work in the real world, which can only be conducted by a common civilized way of acting.
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.
He cultivates an air of grumpy old-fashioned obnoxiousness, which regardless of his actual views is not likely to attract centrist London voters. But in current circs I think Jesus Christ would struggle as Tory candidate for London. Maybe their candidate is as good as any.
Anyone who spends a minute pondering Clarkson will come to the conclusion that he is in their side. Plenty won't bother spending that minute, that said.
Many moons ago, Clarkson wrote a column - perhaps better called a meta-column - about column writing. Basically, he had to write a certain number of columns a year - say, 40 - of a certain number of words. And do so for years. They also need to be entertaining and engage the paper's audience. The problem he outlined was that after a few years of this, he has covered everything. So his first part of writing is to read the week's papers, see what has engaged people and/or was controversial, and write about that in an engaging way. Hence he sometimes write columns which were directly contradicted by earlier columns he had written, and not particularly his own views at times.
It sounded quite honest, tbf, and could explain why columnists sometimes get into trouble.
Clarkson the column-writer might be a very different entity to Clarkson the celebrity, and that might be very different to Clarkson the real person.
Didn't Clarkson punch someone in the face for bringing him a cold steak? Did he do that as celebrity, a columnist or a real person, I wonder?
Price-earnings ratios have dropped from 7.3x to 6.7x in a year.
That's still far, far, far too high and we need to build millions more houses to sort out the endemic problems in the market and ensure we have enough empty houses to have slack in the system, but still positive to see it going in the right direction for a change.
Probably too much to hope for without more houses, but a few more years of declining house prices, and a few more years of wage growth, would be ideal to restore the market back to the much better position it was in during the 1990s which led to an all-time absolute high in home ownership rates.
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
Hooray! Air quality in London is better than when it used to sometimes kill over 10,000 a month. Now it's only 4,000 a year. Mere bagatelle.
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.
He cultivates an air of grumpy old-fashioned obnoxiousness, which regardless of his actual views is not likely to attract centrist London voters. But in current circs I think Jesus Christ would struggle as Tory candidate for London. Maybe their candidate is as good as any.
Anyone who spends a minute pondering Clarkson will come to the conclusion that he is in their side. Plenty won't bother spending that minute, that said.
Many moons ago, Clarkson wrote a column - perhaps better called a meta-column - about column writing. Basically, he had to write a certain number of columns a year - say, 40 - of a certain number of words. And do so for years. They also need to be entertaining and engage the paper's audience. The problem he outlined was that after a few years of this, he has covered everything. So his first part of writing is to read the week's papers, see what has engaged people and/or was controversial, and write about that in an engaging way. Hence he sometimes write columns which were directly contradicted by earlier columns he had written, and not particularly his own views at times.
It sounded quite honest, tbf, and could explain why columnists sometimes get into trouble.
Clarkson the column-writer might be a very different entity to Clarkson the celebrity, and that might be very different to Clarkson the real person.
Didn't Clarkson punch someone in the face for bringing him a cold steak? Did he do that as celebrity, a columnist or a real person, I wonder?
Worse, he wears his sickening ignorance of BMW chassis codes like a medal. Also not fast, by any standard, on a track. Fraud and poseur.
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.
He cultivates an air of grumpy old-fashioned obnoxiousness, which regardless of his actual views is not likely to attract centrist London voters. But in current circs I think Jesus Christ would struggle as Tory candidate for London. Maybe their candidate is as good as any.
Anyone who spends a minute pondering Clarkson will come to the conclusion that he is in their side. Plenty won't bother spending that minute, that said.
Many moons ago, Clarkson wrote a column - perhaps better called a meta-column - about column writing. Basically, he had to write a certain number of columns a year - say, 40 - of a certain number of words. And do so for years. They also need to be entertaining and engage the paper's audience. The problem he outlined was that after a few years of this, he has covered everything. So his first part of writing is to read the week's papers, see what has engaged people and/or was controversial, and write about that in an engaging way. Hence he sometimes write columns which were directly contradicted by earlier columns he had written, and not particularly his own views at times.
It sounded quite honest, tbf, and could explain why columnists sometimes get into trouble.
Clarkson the column-writer might be a very different entity to Clarkson the celebrity, and that might be very different to Clarkson the real person.
Didn't Clarkson punch someone in the face for bringing him a cold steak? Did he do that as celebrity, a columnist or a real person, I wonder?
Did he? I knew he hit Piers Morgan, over something that I have a little sympathy with Clarkson for.
( I am saddened that Piers Morgan still has any prominence within our society. If Clarkson's bad, then Morgan's many times worse. We'd be better off without either. I wonder if Morgan's left-wing persuasion offers him some protection?)
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
Hooray! Air quality in London is better than when it used to sometimes kill over 10,000 a month. Now it's only 4,000 a year. Mere bagatelle.
BR cannot comprehend progress that doesn't turn up in a profit and loss statement.
Reduction in child mortality = defund the NHS?
No, I am capable of comprehending that claims made by those with an agenda to push are typically bullshit.
Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. I'm an atheist for a reason, I'm sceptical unless there is evidence.
The evidence says that life expectancy in London is higher than the national average. So when someone claims that the air is like 'killing the first born of every family', yet the data says that people live longer, then alarm bells should ring for any sceptic that the claim does not match the data.
Improving air quality is a good idea, I am all in favour of that. That doesn't mean every proposal to do so is automatically a good idea though.
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.
He cultivates an air of grumpy old-fashioned obnoxiousness, which regardless of his actual views is not likely to attract centrist London voters. But in current circs I think Jesus Christ would struggle as Tory candidate for London. Maybe their candidate is as good as any.
Anyone who spends a minute pondering Clarkson will come to the conclusion that he is in their side. Plenty won't bother spending that minute, that said.
Many moons ago, Clarkson wrote a column - perhaps better called a meta-column - about column writing. Basically, he had to write a certain number of columns a year - say, 40 - of a certain number of words. And do so for years. They also need to be entertaining and engage the paper's audience. The problem he outlined was that after a few years of this, he has covered everything. So his first part of writing is to read the week's papers, see what has engaged people and/or was controversial, and write about that in an engaging way. Hence he sometimes write columns which were directly contradicted by earlier columns he had written, and not particularly his own views at times.
It sounded quite honest, tbf, and could explain why columnists sometimes get into trouble.
Clarkson the column-writer might be a very different entity to Clarkson the celebrity, and that might be very different to Clarkson the real person.
Didn't Clarkson punch someone in the face for bringing him a cold steak? Did he do that as celebrity, a columnist or a real person, I wonder?
Worse, he wears his sickening ignorance of BMW chassis codes like a medal. Also not fast, by any standard, on a track. Fraud and poseur.
This is worse than punching someone in the face for bringing you a cold meal, you are right.
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.
He cultivates an air of grumpy old-fashioned obnoxiousness, which regardless of his actual views is not likely to attract centrist London voters. But in current circs I think Jesus Christ would struggle as Tory candidate for London. Maybe their candidate is as good as any.
Anyone who spends a minute pondering Clarkson will come to the conclusion that he is in their side. Plenty won't bother spending that minute, that said.
Many moons ago, Clarkson wrote a column - perhaps better called a meta-column - about column writing. Basically, he had to write a certain number of columns a year - say, 40 - of a certain number of words. And do so for years. They also need to be entertaining and engage the paper's audience. The problem he outlined was that after a few years of this, he has covered everything. So his first part of writing is to read the week's papers, see what has engaged people and/or was controversial, and write about that in an engaging way. Hence he sometimes write columns which were directly contradicted by earlier columns he had written, and not particularly his own views at times.
It sounded quite honest, tbf, and could explain why columnists sometimes get into trouble.
Clarkson the column-writer might be a very different entity to Clarkson the celebrity, and that might be very different to Clarkson the real person.
Didn't Clarkson punch someone in the face for bringing him a cold steak? Did he do that as celebrity, a columnist or a real person, I wonder?
Worse, he wears his sickening ignorance of BMW chassis codes like a medal. Also not fast, by any standard, on a track. Fraud and poseur.
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.
He cultivates an air of grumpy old-fashioned obnoxiousness, which regardless of his actual views is not likely to attract centrist London voters. But in current circs I think Jesus Christ would struggle as Tory candidate for London. Maybe their candidate is as good as any.
Anyone who spends a minute pondering Clarkson will come to the conclusion that he is in their side. Plenty won't bother spending that minute, that said.
Many moons ago, Clarkson wrote a column - perhaps better called a meta-column - about column writing. Basically, he had to write a certain number of columns a year - say, 40 - of a certain number of words. And do so for years. They also need to be entertaining and engage the paper's audience. The problem he outlined was that after a few years of this, he has covered everything. So his first part of writing is to read the week's papers, see what has engaged people and/or was controversial, and write about that in an engaging way. Hence he sometimes write columns which were directly contradicted by earlier columns he had written, and not particularly his own views at times.
It sounded quite honest, tbf, and could explain why columnists sometimes get into trouble.
Clarkson the column-writer might be a very different entity to Clarkson the celebrity, and that might be very different to Clarkson the real person.
On the whole that is how comment journalism works, even at levels as elevated as the Guardian.
To comprehend the dire state of most journalism and journalists you need but one principle: Opinions are free and facts are expensive.
Assuming Dorries does step down and force a by election why shouldn't Labour contest it to win? After all Labour were second in Mid Bedfordshire in 2019 not the LDs and on the swing in the Selby by election would win it.
Starmer and the NEC will also not like the fact that LD leaflet is already trashing their candidate as well as the Tories and Dorries
Labour will contest it, just as they did Somerton and Frome.
The LDs were second in Somerton and Frome in 2019 not Labour
So? Voters are well organised and motivated to remove your corrupt party from power. Lab/LD will take a stonking victory whilst the other loses its deposit in one seat, and the other way round in another seat. A lot more Labour wins than LD, but you can't deny that the ABC vote is well organised and coming to get you.
Given the LDs have just produced a leaflet trashing the Labour candidate in Mid Bedfordshire the local Labour party will certainly not concede it and nor will Starmer. If he is heading for No 10 with a majority he should be winning seats like Mid Bedfordshire where Labour were second at the last general election as Blair did pre 1997
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.
He cultivates an air of grumpy old-fashioned obnoxiousness, which regardless of his actual views is not likely to attract centrist London voters. But in current circs I think Jesus Christ would struggle as Tory candidate for London. Maybe their candidate is as good as any.
Anyone who spends a minute pondering Clarkson will come to the conclusion that he is in their side. Plenty won't bother spending that minute, that said.
Many moons ago, Clarkson wrote a column - perhaps better called a meta-column - about column writing. Basically, he had to write a certain number of columns a year - say, 40 - of a certain number of words. And do so for years. They also need to be entertaining and engage the paper's audience. The problem he outlined was that after a few years of this, he has covered everything. So his first part of writing is to read the week's papers, see what has engaged people and/or was controversial, and write about that in an engaging way. Hence he sometimes write columns which were directly contradicted by earlier columns he had written, and not particularly his own views at times.
It sounded quite honest, tbf, and could explain why columnists sometimes get into trouble.
Clarkson the column-writer might be a very different entity to Clarkson the celebrity, and that might be very different to Clarkson the real person.
Didn't Clarkson punch someone in the face for bringing him a cold steak? Did he do that as celebrity, a columnist or a real person, I wonder?
Did he? I knew he hit Piers Morgan, over something that I have a little sympathy with Clarkson for.
( I am saddened that Piers Morgan still has any prominence within our society. If Clarkson's bad, then Morgan's many times worse. We'd be better off without either. I wonder if Morgan's left-wing persuasion offers him some protection?)
Piers Morgan is left wing? News to me. Clarkson punched someone working on Top Gear for bringing him cold food, IIRC, it's why he was sacked from the programme.
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
Hooray! Air quality in London is better than when it used to sometimes kill over 10,000 a month. Now it's only 4,000 a year. Mere bagatelle.
BR cannot comprehend progress that doesn't turn up in a profit and loss statement.
Reduction in child mortality = defund the NHS?
No, I am capable of comprehending that claims made by those with an agenda to push are typically bullshit.
Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. I'm an atheist for a reason, I'm sceptical unless there is evidence.
The evidence says that life expectancy in London is higher than the national average. So when someone claims that the air is like 'killing the first born of every family', yet the data says that people live longer, then alarm bells should ring for any sceptic that the claim does not match the data.
Improving air quality is a good idea, I am all in favour of that. That doesn't mean every proposal to do so is automatically a good idea though.
Nor any understanding of counterfactuals.
But let's consider your idea:
The highest life expectancy *at birth* in Scotland is the Orkney Islands, with their exceptionally clean air. The lowest is Glasgow, with a motorway running through the middle. Perhaps...
Assuming Dorries does step down and force a by election why shouldn't Labour contest it to win? After all Labour were second in Mid Bedfordshire in 2019 not the LDs and on the swing in the Selby by election would win it.
Starmer and the NEC will also not like the fact that LD leaflet is already trashing their candidate as well as the Tories and Dorries
Labour will contest it, just as they did Somerton and Frome.
The LDs were second in Somerton and Frome in 2019 not Labour
North Shropshire says hello
Labour are about 5 to 10% higher in the polls than they were at the time of the North Shropshire by election.
The only poll in Mid Bedfordshire so far also has Labour ahead and the LDs 4th behind the Tories and an Independent
Morgan's left-wing 'persuasion'? He spends every day telling us how woke and trans people are destroying the world. He was anti gay rights, he was pro the Iraq war.
There is nothing left wing about him, centrist maybe at a stretch.
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.
He cultivates an air of grumpy old-fashioned obnoxiousness, which regardless of his actual views is not likely to attract centrist London voters. But in current circs I think Jesus Christ would struggle as Tory candidate for London. Maybe their candidate is as good as any.
Anyone who spends a minute pondering Clarkson will come to the conclusion that he is in their side. Plenty won't bother spending that minute, that said.
Many moons ago, Clarkson wrote a column - perhaps better called a meta-column - about column writing. Basically, he had to write a certain number of columns a year - say, 40 - of a certain number of words. And do so for years. They also need to be entertaining and engage the paper's audience. The problem he outlined was that after a few years of this, he has covered everything. So his first part of writing is to read the week's papers, see what has engaged people and/or was controversial, and write about that in an engaging way. Hence he sometimes write columns which were directly contradicted by earlier columns he had written, and not particularly his own views at times.
It sounded quite honest, tbf, and could explain why columnists sometimes get into trouble.
Clarkson the column-writer might be a very different entity to Clarkson the celebrity, and that might be very different to Clarkson the real person.
I once asked a mutual acquaintance, who shall be nameless, whether Clarkson in person was as big a bellend as Clarkson the media personality.
His memorable reply was, 'Oh no. He's far worse in person.'
Which, after all, is why he stopped working for the BBC.
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
Hooray! Air quality in London is better than when it used to sometimes kill over 10,000 a month. Now it's only 4,000 a year. Mere bagatelle.
BR cannot comprehend progress that doesn't turn up in a profit and loss statement.
Reduction in child mortality = defund the NHS?
No, I am capable of comprehending that claims made by those with an agenda to push are typically bullshit.
Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. I'm an atheist for a reason, I'm sceptical unless there is evidence.
The evidence says that life expectancy in London is higher than the national average. So when someone claims that the air is like 'killing the first born of every family', yet the data says that people live longer, then alarm bells should ring for any sceptic that the claim does not match the data.
Improving air quality is a good idea, I am all in favour of that. That doesn't mean every proposal to do so is automatically a good idea though.
Nor any understanding of counterfactuals.
But let's consider your idea:
The highest life expectancy *at birth* in Scotland is the Orkney Islands, with their exceptionally clean air. The lowest is Glasgow, with a motorway running through the middle. Perhaps...
By that logic the primary mode of transportation in Orkney is driving, and they've put an effort into ensuring there's public EV charging points for people's cars.
While Glasgow relies more on public transport options. Perhaps ...
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
Hooray! Air quality in London is better than when it used to sometimes kill over 10,000 a month. Now it's only 4,000 a year. Mere bagatelle.
BR cannot comprehend progress that doesn't turn up in a profit and loss statement.
Reduction in child mortality = defund the NHS?
No, I am capable of comprehending that claims made by those with an agenda to push are typically bullshit.
Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. I'm an atheist for a reason, I'm sceptical unless there is evidence.
The evidence says that life expectancy in London is higher than the national average. So when someone claims that the air is like 'killing the first born of every family', yet the data says that people live longer, then alarm bells should ring for any sceptic that the claim does not match the data.
Improving air quality is a good idea, I am all in favour of that. That doesn't mean every proposal to do so is automatically a good idea though.
Nor any understanding of counterfactuals.
But let's consider your idea:
The highest life expectancy *at birth* in Scotland is the Orkney Islands, with their exceptionally clean air. The lowest is Glasgow, with a motorway running through the middle. Perhaps...
By that logic the primary mode of transportation in Orkney is driving, and they've put an effort into ensuring there's public EV charging points for people's cars.
While Glasgow relies more public transport options. Perhaps ...
You're getting the idea
Life expectancy is not a good measure of the impacts of air pollution on people.
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
Hooray! Air quality in London is better than when it used to sometimes kill over 10,000 a month. Now it's only 4,000 a year. Mere bagatelle.
BR cannot comprehend progress that doesn't turn up in a profit and loss statement.
Reduction in child mortality = defund the NHS?
No, I am capable of comprehending that claims made by those with an agenda to push are typically bullshit.
Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. I'm an atheist for a reason, I'm sceptical unless there is evidence.
The evidence says that life expectancy in London is higher than the national average. So when someone claims that the air is like 'killing the first born of every family', yet the data says that people live longer, then alarm bells should ring for any sceptic that the claim does not match the data.
Improving air quality is a good idea, I am all in favour of that. That doesn't mean every proposal to do so is automatically a good idea though.
Nor any understanding of counterfactuals.
But let's consider your idea:
The highest life expectancy *at birth* in Scotland is the Orkney Islands, with their exceptionally clean air. The lowest is Glasgow, with a motorway running through the middle. Perhaps...
By that logic the primary mode of transportation in Orkney is driving, and they've put an effort into ensuring there's public EV charging points for people's cars.
While Glasgow relies more public transport options. Perhaps ...
Assuming Dorries does step down and force a by election why shouldn't Labour contest it to win? After all Labour were second in Mid Bedfordshire in 2019 not the LDs and on the swing in the Selby by election would win it.
Starmer and the NEC will also not like the fact that LD leaflet is already trashing their candidate as well as the Tories and Dorries
Labour will contest it, just as they did Somerton and Frome.
The LDs were second in Somerton and Frome in 2019 not Labour
So? Voters are well organised and motivated to remove your corrupt party from power. Lab/LD will take a stonking victory whilst the other loses its deposit in one seat, and the other way round in another seat. A lot more Labour wins than LD, but you can't deny that the ABC vote is well organised and coming to get you.
Given the LDs have just produced a leaflet trashing the Labour candidate in Mid Bedfordshire the local Labour party will certainly not concede it and nor will Starmer. If he is heading for No 10 with a majority he should be winning seats like Mid Bedfordshire where Labour were second at the last general election as Blair did pre 1997
The result ofthe last general election is irrelevant, young HY. At that election, "everybody" voted Labour to put an end to the destructive Tory Brexit deal. That was then. It will not happen again. Normal service has been resumed. Lib Dems Winning Here!
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.
Don't exaggerate. The air quality in London is better than its been for centuries, the era of the Great Smog is long behind us.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
Hooray! Air quality in London is better than when it used to sometimes kill over 10,000 a month. Now it's only 4,000 a year. Mere bagatelle.
BR cannot comprehend progress that doesn't turn up in a profit and loss statement.
Reduction in child mortality = defund the NHS?
No, I am capable of comprehending that claims made by those with an agenda to push are typically bullshit.
Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. I'm an atheist for a reason, I'm sceptical unless there is evidence.
The evidence says that life expectancy in London is higher than the national average. So when someone claims that the air is like 'killing the first born of every family', yet the data says that people live longer, then alarm bells should ring for any sceptic that the claim does not match the data.
Improving air quality is a good idea, I am all in favour of that. That doesn't mean every proposal to do so is automatically a good idea though.
Nor any understanding of counterfactuals.
But let's consider your idea:
The highest life expectancy *at birth* in Scotland is the Orkney Islands, with their exceptionally clean air. The lowest is Glasgow, with a motorway running through the middle. Perhaps...
By that logic the primary mode of transportation in Orkney is driving, and they've put an effort into ensuring there's public EV charging points for people's cars.
While Glasgow relies more public transport options. Perhaps ...
You're getting the idea
EV good, public transport bad. Got it.
Oh come on. You've made a silly argument about life expectancy and been called out on it.
Comments
Doesn't want to raise the rent
Because we have such nobby distant views
Oh! it really is a very pretty garden
And Chingford to the Eastward could be seen
Wiv a ladder and some glasses
You could see to 'Ackney Marshes
If it wasn't for the 'ouses in between
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRicquC-Utg
It's why her betting posts should be taken with a massive pinch of salt.
That doesn't mean it can't improve even further, and we should try to improve it even further, but that doesn't mean either that regressive taxation is automatically the right way to do it.
He's probably slightly less of a dick when he's not on camera too, or he wouldn't have such loyal friends.
https://www.france24.com/en/france/20230804-seine-olympic-swimming-test-cancelled-as-heavy-rains-damage-water-quality
https://www.reuters.com/sports/triathlon-swimming-leg-cancelled-paris-2024-test-event-2023-08-20/
I was actually quite shaken to discover the seriousness of the pollution in London.
IANA(Maritime)L but I think any attempt to circumvent legislation by having the Hellship remain on a Barbadian flag and employing the crew through that will, like almost everything else this government does, explode in their stupid faces.
They should tow it outside the territorial limit if that is their game. It would also give it more of a deterrent effect above and beyond the possibility of catching Legionnaire's while detainees wait four years to have their applications processed.
The UK alone is calculated to owe $24 Trillion, although the UN Judge in this guardian article has kindly said we should be allowed to pay over 10-25 years.
If not it will be brought to the courts.
How do we address this going forward, especially in an era of climate reparations as well.
Charities are very keen on this too, as they will probably be the ones to manage the funds. However what do we do. This will not go away.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/uk-cannot-ignore-calls-for-slavery-reparations-says-leading-un-judge/ar-AA1fChZT?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=2bc27aefb0b44a4c8d661422388c2b2a&ei=12
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66570024
In any case, is Clarkson even a Conservative? You can't just go picking celebrities out you think might be popular; they have to at least be willing to be co-opted to the cause.
For the Conservatives, the London mayoralty is like Eurovision; the good bands are unwilling to have a pop because winning is so unlikely: the downside of reputational risk is far greater than the upside of potentially winning.
2019 UK wide life expectancy at birth is 83.1 years for women and 79.4 for men.
Just imagine London's life expectancy if the firstborn weren't being killed by the air? They'd be living for 200 years!
https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-broken-promises-streaming-ride-hailing-cloud-computing-2023-8
Not to mention all the CFOs sucked into the capex/opex switch.
People who aren't slaves getting reparations from people who don't own or trade in slaves is an absolute dislocation of criminal responsibility and victimhood from reality.
I'm from Yorkshire. My mother's family, a few generations ago, originated in Wales (bit of a stereotype, but a coal mining great-grandfather left to find work in England). Should my Anglo-Saxon part pay my Welsh part reparations for conquering Britain? Do I get reparations from Scandinavia for the Vikings? Should Italians be paying everywhere that touches the Mediterranean, and the UK?
You have race grifters indulged by well-meaning fools in a quest for reparations, given by people who have done no wrong to people who have received no harm. It's thoroughly demented, and absolutely contemptible.
And the most obvious aspect is this: who is calling for the descendents of the black African slave traders to pay reparations? Who is calling for the descendents of Barbary slavers to pay white people?
This is a political fashion, a trending fallacy based on fetishising victimhood, even vicarious victimhood which is centuries removed from any wrongdoing.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/30/p-and-o-ferries-not-first-uk-waters-hire-low-cost-workers
Your metric is useless - it's hopelessly confounded with the wealth of London, which has a huge effect on life expectancy in itself.
As the Standard put it yesterday,
Sadiq Khan has lost the suburbs – it probably doesn’t matter
Starmer and the NEC will also not like the fact that LD leaflet is already trashing their candidate as well as the Tories and Dorries
The Financial Times recently reported that a basket of the top US streaming services would cost $87 this fall, compared with $73 a year ago. The average cable TV package was $83 a month, it reported.
Yes, but a cable TV package had whatever programme that linear TV channel happened to be showing in that moment of time available to watch. Or you could record/series link individual episodes.
Streaming has every episode of every season of its programming, available to watch on demand, whenever you choose.
Its not so much apples and oranges, more an apple versus an orchard of apples.
I've cancelled my Sky and only have streaming services now. I pay as much now for my streaming services as I used to pay for Sky (excluding Sky Sports), but what I have may not be cheaper but it is qualitatively far, far superior.
The problem with ULEZ is that the solution it presents doesn't match the problem it purports to solve. GM's solution is far better.
It's baffling how Sadiq Khan goes out of his way to pick fights he doesn't need to. Andy Burnham (who I was very wary of initially) - despite, realistically, having the GM mayoralty as long as he is the Labour candidate - goes out of his way to find voter-acceptable solutions and tries to keep as much of the electorate onside as possible; Sadiq Khan appears to hold large sections of his electorate in utter contempt.
Hence AB at the last mayoral election in every single ward in GM. Even Bramhall South and Woodford, even Halebarns, even Bowdon.
For instance, I think giving countries adjacent to hotspots money to house refugees is a brilliant way to spend money, for the migrants, for the host country, and for us. Yet I've heard some people say it's the wrong way to spend the foreign aid budget.
So it comes down to what the foreign aid budget is for - and that seems rather muddled, particularly in the messaging.
Trump vows massive new tariffs if elected, risking global economic war
Former president floats 10 percent tax on all foreign imports and calls for ‘ring around the collar’* of U.S. economy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/22/trump-trade-tariffs/
(* "Noose around the neck" would be more apt.)
https://liveuamap.com/en
It's just a crass form of redistribution. Worse, it is one that in many cases will get wasted as it is siphoned up by corruption.
The best opportunity for the Tories is for the LDs and Lab to both fight it so I understand why you are keen Lab fight this seat.
It's 'KALEB...'
The Bee Network and shamelessly sticking that bee on everything - worker bees striving individually to make the collective better. There is a buzz about the place, which as a Lancastrian from Greater Manchester is invigorating when I'm back there.
As usual in politics the question is what the opposition would do differently? You can't just be against when the policy is an ethos. You need a replacement ethos, and what would the Tory one be - each bee for himself?
Flat rate charging in an expanded area, as the mechanism, is what the Mayor of London chose.
Probably on the basis of “cheapest to implement - more of the same”
How much difference that would make to overall strategy is a different question.
"Russia could annex breakaway regions of Georgia, suggests former president Dmitry Medvedev
The former president, who signed a decree recognising the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008, says the idea of the regions joining Russia is "still popular"."
https://news.sky.com/story/russia-could-annex-breakaway-regions-of-georgia-suggests-former-president-dmitry-medvedev-12945529
If it happens, there will probably be a referendum. Which will, of course, be totally free and fair...
Russia is imperialist and expansionist; it will always find bogus excuses for its evil actions. And some will choose to believe those excuses.
Amazon's retail business is popular not simply because its cheap, but because the service it offers is better. I can think of anything I want/need/fancy, go online, and have it the next day. No need to travel to the shops and hope they have it in stock, no need to even have a shop that stocks it in the first place.
Streaming is popular not simply because its cheap, but because the service it offers is better. I can think of anything I want to watch, go online, and watch it instantly. No need to hope to find a channel broadcasting it, no need to wait a week for the next episode.
For shit like Uber, the service they offer is no different to the service other firms offer. Simply sticking the name Uber on a taxi doesn't make it anything other than a taxi. So if the prices is the same, there's no special reason to use them. Hence why @Leon insisting that cars are obsolete and Uber is going to take over the world is utter nonsense. If people wanted to use taxis, they already could, but most people don't want their transportation to be via taxi.
I know you have a pathological hatred of America, but Biden isn't putting a 10% tariff on all imports or anything remotely similar.
Shades of the plan for the Palace Hotel in WWI
"The Russian formations and units currently occupying secondary lines of defense are largely unknown at this time, however, and ISW offers this assessment with low confidence."
In fact, while I'm not sure how much of a strategic decision this was, or who is responsible, there has been a lot of success in creating a GM civic pride out of nothing. Manchester always had civic pride, as did Bolton, Rochdale, Stockport, and so on ... but they are historically separate and independent towns, wary of one another. The idea of a GM civic pride is new. AB is in many ways quite a good fit for this, being out from the wild west of GM - Leigh is one of the least 'Mancunian' parts of the conurbation.
What would the opposition do differently? Search me. Though it should be said that the role of the GM mayor is not quite that of the London mayor, and districts hold slightly more power; and in the districts there are realistic alternatives to Labour who can make life difficult when difficult decisions have to be made (principally, at present, in planning.)
Also worth noting that the Labour party in GM is a pretty good version of the Labour Party. Granted, there are some on the far left, but to a large extent the party is consensual and driven by an ideology of making things work.
https://labourlist.org/2023/08/rolling-list-labour-mps-standing-down-ahead-of-the-next-general-election/
Can't see any in seats that I would think are vulnerable without an incumbency effect. Maybe Dagenham but I wouldn't expect it to turn with the current polls.
If true* that implies they already have drone direction and are within range.
*Who knows.
https://nitter.net/NOELreports/status/1693973358407262283
It does appear to have been geolocated just south of the railway line in Tokmak.
https://goo.gl/maps/mG6BJPrcqZaugeWW8
If someone from the Sakashvili tendency wins an election in future the button will be pressed.
Unlike Donbas it seems a large number in South Ossetia do actually identify as Russian. Abkhazia is a bit different - loathing of Georgians but they are separatists, not Russians. Abkhazis.
Perhaps the change in approach is general relief that there is once again a regional organisation which this time is trying to work with the metropolitan boroughs rather than against them?
The transformation towards renewable industries is global. Biden's policies have spurred huge investment in some of the most economically depressed regions of the US - and Europe has responded with similar investment measures.
I don't see how that is equivalent.
A 10% tariff would be a far blunter tool, without the economic upside.
https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/environment-and-climate-change/pollution-and-air-quality/ultra-low-emission-zone-ulez-london/ulez-frequently-asked-questions/what-evidence-air-pollution-leads-around-4000-premature-deaths#:~:text=Their research found that in,rarely listed on death certificates.
But let's not start talking about ourselves.
The uncertainty, of course, cuts both ways.
It sounded quite honest, tbf, and could explain why columnists sometimes get into trouble.
Clarkson the column-writer might be a very different entity to Clarkson the celebrity, and that might be very different to Clarkson the real person.
His memorable reply was, 'Oh no. He's far worse in person.'
Two: Unattached people of a certain age want some of these attentions and not others. The wanted attentions are not going to elicit complaints, whatever the rules say.
I might add that it is still one of the rules for men that you often have to guess whether your attentions are wanted.
Whether male X is a pest or a Romeo is entirely situational. Objectivity in this does not exist.
Rules about data etc (!) have to be objective. They can't really work in the real world, which can only be conducted by a common civilized way of acting.
Price-earnings ratios have dropped from 7.3x to 6.7x in a year.
That's still far, far, far too high and we need to build millions more houses to sort out the endemic problems in the market and ensure we have enough empty houses to have slack in the system, but still positive to see it going in the right direction for a change.
Probably too much to hope for without more houses, but a few more years of declining house prices, and a few more years of wage growth, would be ideal to restore the market back to the much better position it was in during the 1990s which led to an all-time absolute high in home ownership rates.
Reduction in child mortality = defund the NHS?
( I am saddened that Piers Morgan still has any prominence within our society. If Clarkson's bad, then Morgan's many times worse. We'd be better off without either. I wonder if Morgan's left-wing persuasion offers him some protection?)
Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. I'm an atheist for a reason, I'm sceptical unless there is evidence.
The evidence says that life expectancy in London is higher than the national average. So when someone claims that the air is like 'killing the first born of every family', yet the data says that people live longer, then alarm bells should ring for any sceptic that the claim does not match the data.
Improving air quality is a good idea, I am all in favour of that. That doesn't mean every proposal to do so is automatically a good idea though.
To comprehend the dire state of most journalism and journalists you need but one principle: Opinions are free and facts are expensive.
concede it and nor will
Starmer. If he is heading for No 10 with a majority he
should be winning seats like
Mid Bedfordshire where Labour were second at the last general election as Blair did pre 1997
Clarkson punched someone working on Top Gear for bringing him cold food, IIRC, it's why he was sacked from the programme.
But let's consider your idea:
The highest life expectancy *at birth* in Scotland is the Orkney Islands, with their exceptionally clean air. The lowest is Glasgow, with a motorway running through the middle. Perhaps...
The only poll in Mid
Bedfordshire so far also has Labour ahead and the LDs 4th behind the Tories and an Independent
"What to make of the Mid Bedfordshire opinion poll?" https://www.markpack.org.uk/171264/what-to-make-of-the-mid-bedfordshire-opinion-poll/
There is nothing left wing about him, centrist maybe at a stretch.
Pity.
While Glasgow relies more on public transport options. Perhaps ...
Life expectancy is not a good measure of the impacts of air pollution on people.