Making An Offer They Cannot Refuse? – politicalbetting.com

System

Making An Offer They Cannot Refuse? – politicalbetting.com

On Monday the government finally came up with a “take it or leave it” compensation offer to the subpostmasters. £600,000. It was described by Kevin Hollinrake, Minister for Postal Affairs, as “providing a generous uplift” on compensation payments already made. Let’s see how generous it really is.

Read the full story here

Benpointer

First!

bigjohnowls

A perfect example of how uncontrolled Capitalism works.

Bevan Boy
@mac123_m
·

An even better example of how uncontrolled capitalism works is price control of oil. Oil producers simply reduce production when prices lower to enable an increase in price. Ordinary people are capitalists' cash cows. There is no attempt across the planet to control global profiteering

Benpointer

Damning header. Too little, too late from the PO. Try again.

DecrepiterJohnL

Re Rishi and Green Crap.

This and other announcements were made as the House of Commons started its recess for conference season. The Tories are flying kites. Popular kites will make it as far as Rishi's conference speech in October and the rest will be quietly dropped.

RochdalePioneers

£600k won't go very far once it starts to get divided amongst all the postmasters affected...

Pulpstar

RochdalePioneers said:

£600k won't go very far once it starts to get divided amongst all the postmasters affected...

It's per postmaster. The figure sounds reasonable to me for those caught up later in the process but not earlier.

TheScreamingEagles

Further proof that Badenoch is shit.

So nailed on next Tory leader.

glw

One thing that make no sense to me is why do people treat the 2050 target date for net zero as though it's a long way away? It's a massive undertaking which will require almost every aspect of society and the economy to change. The idea that we can dawdle towards that target and kick aspects of the plan into the long grass is ridiculous. We should be looking for opportunities to go quicker, not slower.

I really do think that Boris would get this more than Sunak appears to. I thought Sunak was quite sensible, but this in its own way is as mad as Truss blowing up the budget last year.

Peter_the_Punter

On a practical level, Ms Cyclefree, what should we do?

This is a political forum, so our natural inclination would be to use the ballot box to express our views, but this scandal goes way beyond politics. It was perpetrated by ordinary people, doing ordinary jobs, and doing it badly and with a shameless disregard for the consequences. So what do we do?

Take the bonus for the CEO, for example. This is an abuse. Yet it must have been approved. Are we powerless to act against those who approved it? Is there nothing that can be done to bring to task the worthless individual who accepted it?

The Post Office Scandal is the worst UK scandal I have ever witnessed in my lifetime, and I have witnessed many. How might the ordinary citizen indicate that this is simply beyond the pale?

Malmesbury

Excellent as ever @Cyclefree

I can't help wondering if the one of the other mentalities associated with Aberfan is still rolling in some circles.

The mentality I speak of was that the victims (Head Count) didn't deserve large payouts, because it might change their class. They might become Ordo Equestor on the back of their compensation and start raising their pinkies when they drank tea. Or something.

Big money payouts are for Proper People. Alison Rose *deserved* her £2.4 million, because she was from Ordo Equestor. And she was on track to join the Ordo Senatus House of Lords.

As to the Postmasters - give them each 0.25% of the Post Office.

NerysHughes

bigjohnowls said:

A perfect example of how uncontrolled Capitalism works.

Bevan Boy
@mac123_m
·

An even better example of how uncontrolled capitalism works is price control of oil. Oil producers simply reduce production when prices lower to enable an increase in price. Ordinary people are capitalists' cash cows. There is no attempt across the planet to control global profiteering

Saudi need the money to pay Jordan Henderson's wages

Big_G_NorthWales

RochdalePioneers said:

£600k won't go very far once it starts to get divided amongst all the postmasters affected...

Not sure if you are joking or think 600k is to be divided

DecrepiterJohnL

It's a low offer but many cannot afford to fight for a better offer, or even to wait for one.

bigjohnowls

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Re Rishi and Green Crap.

This and other announcements were made as the House of Commons started its recess for conference season. The Tories are flying kites. Popular kites will make it as far as Rishi's conference speech in October and the rest will be quietly dropped.

IMO they are making a huge mistake. Will be interesting to see if Lab commit to reversing anything. If not both Parties move further to the right.

A real present to my Party unless SKS makes a stand on this

Taz

IT's all kicking off in Nagorno-Karabakh

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/azerbaijan-armenia-latest-us-told-invasion-will-only-end-when-armenians-lay-down-arms/ar-AA1gZ2Py?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=37908911a22047aea841d11d678af1f8&ei=11

Malmesbury

Peter_the_Punter said:

On a practical level, Ms Cyclefree, what should we do?

This is a political forum, so our natural inclination would be to use the ballot box to express our views, but this scandal goes way beyond politics. It was perpetrated by ordinary people, doing an ordinary job, and doing it badly and with a shameless disregard for the consequences. So what do we do?

Take the bonus for the CEO, for example. This is an abuse. Yet it must have been approved. Are we powerless to act against those who approved it? Is there nothing that can be done to bring to task the worthless individual who accepted it?

The Post Office Scandal is the worst UK scandal I have ever witnessed in my lifetime, and I have witnessed many. How might the ordinary citizen indicate that this is simply beyond the pale?

#NU10K

1. Enthusiasm,
   
2. Disillusionment,
   
3. Panic,
   
4. Search for the guilty,
   
5. Punishment of the innocent, and
   
6. Praise and honor for the nonparticipants.
   

TheScreamingEagles

Peter_the_Punter said:

On a practical level, Ms Cyclefree, what should we do?

This is a political forum, so our natural inclination would be to use the ballot box to express our views, but this scandal goes way beyond politics. It was perpetrated by ordinary people, doing ordinary jobs, and doing it badly and with a shameless disregard for the consequences. So what do we do?

Take the bonus for the CEO, for example. This is an abuse. Yet it must have been approved. Are we powerless to act against those who approved it? Is there nothing that can be done to bring to task the worthless individual who accepted it?

The Post Office Scandal is the worst UK scandal I have ever witnessed in my lifetime, and I have witnessed many. How might the ordinary citizen indicate that this is simply beyond the pale?

For starters we can ban Fujitsu from ever having a government contract for the next century.

Pulpstar

glw said:

One thing that make no sense to me is why do people treat the 2050 target date for net zero as though it's a long way away? It's a massive undertaking which will require almost every aspect of society and the economy to change. The idea that we can dawdle towards that target and kick aspects of the plan into the long grass is ridiculous. We should be looking for opportunities to go quicker, not slower.

I really do think that Boris would get this more than Sunak appears to. I thought Sunak was quite sensible, but this in its own way is as mad as Truss blowing up the budget last year.

Lord Justice Coulson certainly did his bit to ensure it's not going to be hit yesterday.

RochdalePioneers

Peter_the_Punter said:

On a practical level, Ms Cyclefree, what should we do?

This is a political forum, so our natural inclination would be to use the ballot box to express our views, but this scandal goes way beyond politics. It was perpetrated by ordinary people, doing an ordinary job, and doing it badly and with a shameless disregard for the consequences. So what do we do?

Take the bonus for the CEO, for example. This is an abuse. Yet it must have been approved. Are we powerless to act against those who approved it? Is there nothing that can be done to bring to task the worthless individual who accepted it?

The Post Office Scandal is the worst UK scandal I have ever witnessed in my lifetime, and I have witnessed many. How might the ordinary citizen indicate that this is simply beyond the pale?

Do ordinary people care? Most normals don't pay much attention to politics, don't understand a lot of the issues, and besides this is something which has happened to Other People.

The issue isn't this scandal. Or the management of the post office. It is the British system where the establishment covers its own arse and lets the little people swing in the wind.

We need a complete overhaul of how government thinks - Cummings was right in his diagnosis. How we achieve that is harder. I don't think it can be done within the current structures of this failing United Kingdom. But as a Federalist I hope for a new structure which hopefully could bring in some new ideas.

RochdalePioneers

Big_G_NorthWales said:

RochdalePioneers said:

£600k won't go very far once it starts to get divided amongst all the postmasters affected...

Not sure if you are joking or think 600k is to be divided

I was joking. With the Tories having such little regard for people I wouldn't have been surprised. Plenty of towns have applied for levelling up money only to find it is the same 5p coin being proffered to many of them and awarded to none.

Peter_the_Punter

Malmesbury said:

Excellent as ever @Cyclefree

I can't help wondering if the one of the other mentalities associated with Aberfan is still rolling in some circles.

The mentality I speak of was that the victims (Head Count) didn't deserve large payouts, because it might change their class. They might become Ordo Equestor on the back of their compensation and start raising their pinkies when they drank tea. Or something.

Big money payouts are for Proper People. Alison Rose *deserved* her £2.4 million, because she was from Ordo Equestor. And she was on track to join the Ordo Senatus House of Lords.

As to the Postmasters - give them each 0.25% of the Post Office.

One characteristic that was plainly evident in both Aberfan and the Post Office scandal was a 'couldn't careless attitude'. There were many at the pit who saw what was going on was lax, and dangerous. Doing something about it was not part of the culture.

The same attitude appears to have been widespread amongst the PO management.

148grss

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Foxy

DecrepiterJohnL said:

It's a low offer but many cannot afford to fight for a better offer, or even to wait for one.

"Take it or leave it" summarises this government all over. No attempt at being reasonable or open. Same goes for the governments refusal to negotiate with the BMA and other health unions.

I expect that Tory backbenchers will have similar expressions to this bunch of NHS staff when he next appears.

Peter_the_Punter

RochdalePioneers said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

On a practical level, Ms Cyclefree, what should we do?

This is a political forum, so our natural inclination would be to use the ballot box to express our views, but this scandal goes way beyond politics. It was perpetrated by ordinary people, doing an ordinary job, and doing it badly and with a shameless disregard for the consequences. So what do we do?

Take the bonus for the CEO, for example. This is an abuse. Yet it must have been approved. Are we powerless to act against those who approved it? Is there nothing that can be done to bring to task the worthless individual who accepted it?

The Post Office Scandal is the worst UK scandal I have ever witnessed in my lifetime, and I have witnessed many. How might the ordinary citizen indicate that this is simply beyond the pale?

Do ordinary people care? Most normals don't pay much attention to politics, don't understand a lot of the issues, and besides this is something which has happened to Other People.

The issue isn't this scandal. Or the management of the post office. It is the British system where the establishment covers its own arse and lets the little people swing in the wind.

We need a complete overhaul of how government thinks - Cummings was right in his diagnosis. How we achieve that is harder. I don't think it can be done within the current structures of this failing United Kingdom. But as a Federalist I hope for a new structure which hopefully could bring in some new ideas.

This scandal has, I believe, cut through.

We all use the PO. We all have direct experience of the people who work behind its counters. They are People Like Us.

At Aberfan, it was not until the inquiries began that the decadent incompetence of The Coal Board began to emerge. I think with the Post Office the stench of scandal arose much quicker,and was easier to relate to.

RochdalePioneers

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

Sunil_Prasannan

Foxy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

It's a low offer but many cannot afford to fight for a better offer, or even to wait for one.

"Take it or leave it" summarises this government all over. No attempt at being reasonable or open. Same goes for the governments refusal to negotiate with the BMA and other health unions.

I expect that Tory backbenchers will have similar expressions to this bunch of NHS staff when he next appears.

Rishi "son-in-law of an Indian oligarch" Sunak.

Pulpstar

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Do you believe rural living should be banned ?

148grss

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Do you believe rural living should be banned ?

No, I believe they should have good access to public transport.

another_richard

To put £600k into political context:

George Osborne has declared a salary of £650,000 a year for working just four days a month at BlackRock, the world’s biggest fund management firm, as well as almost £800,000 for speeches to financiers.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/08/george-osborne-to-be-paid-650000-for-working-one-day-a-week-blackrock-salary

or

Former Prime Minister David Cameron made about £3.3m from shares in the collapsed finance company Greensill Capital, documents obtained by BBC Panorama suggest.

Last month an MPs' report accused Mr Cameron of "a significant lack of judgement" in lobbying the government on behalf of the company, although it said he did not break any rules.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56578838

Or this from 2012:

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/celebritymoney/article-2167655/Former-PM-Tony-Blair-alleged-earned-80million-2007.html

Sandpit

A truly excellent piece @Cyclefree

The offer is derisory to many of the participants, given the timeframe and serious actions taken against many of them, appears to be too narrow in scope, and likely contains clauses preventing further action or speaking in public about their ordeal.

Meanwhile, Post Office “auditor” (she’s not a qualified auditor) Helen Rose, said to the enquiry “I have no recollection, I’m sorry”, when pressed as to why she signed a statement to the inquiry containing information she knew to be incorrect.

I’m not a lawyer, but that must be close to either perjury or perverting the course of justice, no?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/helen-rose-post-office-horizon-inquiry-high-court-b2414772.html

felix

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Oh dear - do many words and do much bollix. At least you make clear the true end goal of ilex/20 mph limits, etc, etc. All hail the People's Bus - back to the 50's in Moscow/Prague/E. Berlín, etc

Sandpit

148grss said:

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Let’s hope that’s written on the front page of Labour’s manifesto. It’s the only hope the Tories have left of keeping their majority at the election.

148grss

RochdalePioneers said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

I live semi rurally - in a village orbiting a small city that has good links into London. The public transport is substandard - if it was made better then more people could live without a car. I think people prefer cars to public transport because they associate them with being crap in comparison - change that and we're halfway there.

I think we can make some exceptions - new parents should be allowed a car for a few years, those with specific disabilities or health requirements that need specialist space or constant trips to the hospital. But generally speaking I think the car based society we have built is bad.

148grss

Sandpit said:

148grss said:

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Let’s hope that’s written on the front page of Labour’s manifesto. It’s the only hope the Tories have left of keeping their majority at the election.

Labour don't believe this, and I'm not a Labour voter.

148grss

felix said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Oh dear - do many words and do much bollix. At least you make clear the true end goal of ilex/20 mph limits, etc, etc. All hail the People's Bus - back to the 50's in Moscow/Prague/E. Berlín, etc

I mean, I have had no ability to create the ULEZ or 20mph policies; so I don't think my utopianism is their end goal.

LostPassword

Peter_the_Punter said:

On a practical level, Ms Cyclefree, what should we do?

This is a political forum, so our natural inclination would be to use the ballot box to express our views, but this scandal goes way beyond politics. It was perpetrated by ordinary people, doing ordinary jobs, and doing it badly and with a shameless disregard for the consequences. So what do we do?

Take the bonus for the CEO, for example. This is an abuse. Yet it must have been approved. Are we powerless to act against those who approved it? Is there nothing that can be done to bring to task the worthless individual who accepted it?

The Post Office Scandal is the worst UK scandal I have ever witnessed in my lifetime, and I have witnessed many. How might the ordinary citizen indicate that this is simply beyond the pale?

That's part of the problem. What recourse do people have? The system isn't working in terms of providing redress, even when it should be clear to everyone that redress is urgently required.

This is the sort of situation that makes people pine for a strongman leader to force right to triumph over wrong, or leads a republican to wonder whether a Buckingham Palace garden party for subpostmasters might concentrate minds.

bondegezou

For those who complain we're highly taxed:



From this Dan Neidle thread for context: https://x.com/DanNeidle/status/1704416214598951070?s=20

Sandpit

bigjohnowls said:

A perfect example of how uncontrolled Capitalism works.

Bevan Boy
@mac123_m
·

An even better example of how uncontrolled capitalism works is price control of oil. Oil producers simply reduce production when prices lower to enable an increase in price. Ordinary people are capitalists' cash cows. There is no attempt across the planet to control global profiteering

FPT:

The oil price is being driven by some very high-level realpolitik, as always, but right now the East is beating the West in this regard. We’re seeing China buying oil priced in Yuan, and China and India washing dodgy Russian oil back into the global markets to keep funding the war in Ukraine.

The crux of it, is that the key relationship between the Biden administration and the Saudis has deteriorated, and the President is in hock to the environmental lobby over the fracking lobby locally. At some point, his advisors are going to point out that the ‘gas’ price in the States is perhaps the single most correlated issue with his prospects of re-election next year. Sunak needs to get on that train too. They need to assertively point out that Putin is no friend, and has every intention of starving the MENA region of food this winter.

Luckyguy1983

Malmesbury said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

On a practical level, Ms Cyclefree, what should we do?

This is a political forum, so our natural inclination would be to use the ballot box to express our views, but this scandal goes way beyond politics. It was perpetrated by ordinary people, doing an ordinary job, and doing it badly and with a shameless disregard for the consequences. So what do we do?

Take the bonus for the CEO, for example. This is an abuse. Yet it must have been approved. Are we powerless to act against those who approved it? Is there nothing that can be done to bring to task the worthless individual who accepted it?

The Post Office Scandal is the worst UK scandal I have ever witnessed in my lifetime, and I have witnessed many. How might the ordinary citizen indicate that this is simply beyond the pale?

#NU10K

1. Enthusiasm,
   
2. Disillusionment,
   
3. Panic,
   
4. Search for the guilty,
   
5. Punishment of the innocent, and
   
6. Praise and honor for the nonparticipants.
   

I especially like the deliberate misspelling of 'honour' to reflect the idiotic nature of such processes.

148grss

Peter_the_Punter said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

On a practical level, Ms Cyclefree, what should we do?

This is a political forum, so our natural inclination would be to use the ballot box to express our views, but this scandal goes way beyond politics. It was perpetrated by ordinary people, doing an ordinary job, and doing it badly and with a shameless disregard for the consequences. So what do we do?

Take the bonus for the CEO, for example. This is an abuse. Yet it must have been approved. Are we powerless to act against those who approved it? Is there nothing that can be done to bring to task the worthless individual who accepted it?

The Post Office Scandal is the worst UK scandal I have ever witnessed in my lifetime, and I have witnessed many. How might the ordinary citizen indicate that this is simply beyond the pale?

Do ordinary people care? Most normals don't pay much attention to politics, don't understand a lot of the issues, and besides this is something which has happened to Other People.

The issue isn't this scandal. Or the management of the post office. It is the British system where the establishment covers its own arse and lets the little people swing in the wind.

We need a complete overhaul of how government thinks - Cummings was right in his diagnosis. How we achieve that is harder. I don't think it can be done within the current structures of this failing United Kingdom. But as a Federalist I hope for a new structure which hopefully could bring in some new ideas.

This scandal has, I believe, cut through.

We all use the PO. We all have direct experience of the people who work behind its counters. They are People Like Us.

At Aberfan, it was not until the inquiries began that the decadent incompetence of The Coal Board began to emerge. I think with the Post Office the stench of scandal arose much quicker,and was easier to relate to.

I'm ngl - I'm in my early 30s and can't remember the last time I used a post office. I don't know the last time I received post that wasn't a bill, an advert or a letter from the NHS or something. I don't know anything about this post office scandal, and I'm a political nerd who spends my days on forums like this.

OnlyLivingBoy

Sandpit said:

bigjohnowls said:

A perfect example of how uncontrolled Capitalism works.

Bevan Boy
@mac123_m
·

An even better example of how uncontrolled capitalism works is price control of oil. Oil producers simply reduce production when prices lower to enable an increase in price. Ordinary people are capitalists' cash cows. There is no attempt across the planet to control global profiteering

FPT:

The oil price is being driven by some very high-level realpolitik, as always, but right now the East is beating the West in this regard. We’re seeing China buying oil priced in Yuan, and China and India washing dodgy Russian oil back into the global markets to keep funding the war in Ukraine.

The crux of it, is that the key relationship between the Biden administration and the Saudis has deteriorated, and the President is in hock to the environmental lobby over the fracking lobby locally. At some point, his advisors are going to point out that the ‘gas’ price in the States is perhaps the single most correlated issue with his prospects of re-election next year. Sunak needs to get on that train too. They need to assertively point out that Putin is no friend, and has every intention of starving the MENA region of food this winter.

Russia and the Saudis want Trump to beat Biden, hence high oil prices.

Luckyguy1983

148grss said:

RochdalePioneers said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

I live semi rurally - in a village orbiting a small city that has good links into London. The public transport is substandard - if it was made better then more people could live without a car. I think people prefer cars to public transport because they associate them with being crap in comparison - change that and we're halfway there.

I think we can make some exceptions - new parents should be allowed a car for a few years, those with specific disabilities or health requirements that need specialist space or constant trips to the hospital. But generally speaking I think the car based society we have built is bad.

Your sentiments are deeply authoritarian and faintly sinister.

another_richard

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Do you believe rural living should be banned ?

I suspect there's a mentality that rural living should be banned for everyone apart from holiday homes for the rich and a servile class of agricultural labourers on modern latifundia.

TimS

That's more like it, Labour. Finally the message has come down from HQ.

https://x.com/gabrielmilland/status/1704418536922271759?s=20

Nice framing: Weak Sunak (chimes with voters), linking the policy to Truss (reminds people of last year).

Malmesbury

a

another_richard said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Do you believe rural living should be banned ?

I suspect there's a mentality that rural living should be banned for everyone apart from holiday homes for the rich and a servile class of agricultural labourers on modern latifundia.

Second homes banned for everyone apart from themselves.

The countryside frozen in time.

Pulpstar

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Do you believe rural living should be banned ?

No, I believe they should have good access to public transport.

We make a tonne of various rural -> rural location journeys. For instance yesterday we had to make a journey through Sheepwash lane on the outskirts of Tickhill yesterday with our toddler. Don't worry I wasn't doing any more than 5 MPH . It's somewhere public transport is never ever going to go.

isam

TimS said:

That's more like it, Labour. Finally the message has come down from HQ.

https://x.com/gabrielmilland/status/1704418536922271759?s=20

Nice framing: Weak Sunak (chimes with voters), linking the policy to Truss (reminds people of last year).

He does appear weak, it’s a decent dig. When he first did PMQs, someone posted on Twitter that if you closed your eyes it could be Will from the Inbetweeners, and that’s all I can hear when he talks now

Taz

TimS said:

That's more like it, Labour. Finally the message has come down from HQ.

https://x.com/gabrielmilland/status/1704418536922271759?s=20

Nice framing: Weak Sunak (chimes with voters), linking the policy to Truss (reminds people of last year).

Is it, that is just posturing. What would they actually do about it.

LostPassword

bondegezou said:

For those who complain we're highly taxed:



From this Dan Neidle thread for context: https://x.com/DanNeidle/status/1704416214598951070?s=20

How is employer's national insurance treated in that calculation? Council Tax? VAT? Fuel Duty?

Lots of Chancellors have played the game of cutting direct taxes on income while increasing indirect taxes at the same time. All that chart shows is how dishonest taxation in the UK is, and how distorted the political debate is as a consequence.

another_richard

bondegezou said:

For those who complain we're highly taxed:



From this Dan Neidle thread for context: https://x.com/DanNeidle/status/1704416214598951070?s=20

There are other forms of taxation than taxing work.

And does that graph include employers NI as a tax on wages ?

Malmesbury

Sandpit said:

bigjohnowls said:

A perfect example of how uncontrolled Capitalism works.

Bevan Boy
@mac123_m
·

An even better example of how uncontrolled capitalism works is price control of oil. Oil producers simply reduce production when prices lower to enable an increase in price. Ordinary people are capitalists' cash cows. There is no attempt across the planet to control global profiteering

FPT:

The oil price is being driven by some very high-level realpolitik, as always, but right now the East is beating the West in this regard. We’re seeing China buying oil priced in Yuan, and China and India washing dodgy Russian oil back into the global markets to keep funding the war in Ukraine.

The crux of it, is that the key relationship between the Biden administration and the Saudis has deteriorated, and the President is in hock to the environmental lobby over the fracking lobby locally. At some point, his advisors are going to point out that the ‘gas’ price in the States is perhaps the single most correlated issue with his prospects of re-election next year. Sunak needs to get on that train too. They need to assertively point out that Putin is no friend, and has every intention of starving the MENA region of food this winter.

The switch to electric power for transport - not just cars, but goods vehicles etc - will break the monopoly that oil producers collectively have.

I have long advocated that even if Global Warming wasn't happening, disconnecting the economies of the world from the temper tantrums of some really nasty regimes would be worth it. The Saudis can farm sand, or something.

An no, before anyone starts on it, Lithium or Rare Earths won't create an equal choke point. Because recycling is a thing, they are not consumed as the electric vehicle is used and sources are spread round the world. And the key things to remember about Rare Earths are

1) They are not Rare
2) They are not Earths
3) Lithium isn't a Rare Earth
4) Lithium is definitely not Rare.

Sandpit

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Sandpit said:

bigjohnowls said:

A perfect example of how uncontrolled Capitalism works.

Bevan Boy
@mac123_m
·

An even better example of how uncontrolled capitalism works is price control of oil. Oil producers simply reduce production when prices lower to enable an increase in price. Ordinary people are capitalists' cash cows. There is no attempt across the planet to control global profiteering

FPT:

The oil price is being driven by some very high-level realpolitik, as always, but right now the East is beating the West in this regard. We’re seeing China buying oil priced in Yuan, and China and India washing dodgy Russian oil back into the global markets to keep funding the war in Ukraine.

The crux of it, is that the key relationship between the Biden administration and the Saudis has deteriorated, and the President is in hock to the environmental lobby over the fracking lobby locally. At some point, his advisors are going to point out that the ‘gas’ price in the States is perhaps the single most correlated issue with his prospects of re-election next year. Sunak needs to get on that train too. They need to assertively point out that Putin is no friend, and has every intention of starving the MENA region of food this winter.

Russia and the Saudis want Trump to beat Biden, hence high oil prices.

Of course. The breakdown in the relationship between the Biden admin and OPEC, has been one of the key policy and statecraft failures of the past three years. No matter how distasteful that relationship might appear to many of the President’s supporters.

Three years ago, MBS and Putin were engaged in a willy-waving contest to see how low the oil price could go. Now they might as well be best buddies, united against the West.

Anyone who doesn’t want to see Trump re-elected, needs to prioritise the realpolitik of persuading the Saudis to pump like crazy.

LostPassword

Luckyguy1983 said:

148grss said:

RochdalePioneers said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

I live semi rurally - in a village orbiting a small city that has good links into London. The public transport is substandard - if it was made better then more people could live without a car. I think people prefer cars to public transport because they associate them with being crap in comparison - change that and we're halfway there.

I think we can make some exceptions - new parents should be allowed a car for a few years, those with specific disabilities or health requirements that need specialist space or constant trips to the hospital. But generally speaking I think the car based society we have built is bad.

Your sentiments are deeply authoritarian and faintly sinister.

Surely something that is deeply authoritarian is more than faintly sinister?

Those things aren't really orthogonal characteristics.

EPG

I think it's distasteful to threaten violence unless you get your way.

TimS

Looking like Armenia may be close to capitulation over Karabakh.

https://x.com/onewmphoto/status/1704420429182488816?s=20

One of the nastiest little conflicts of the last couple of decades takes another turn.

Sunil_Prasannan

Luckyguy1983 said:

148grss said:

RochdalePioneers said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

I live semi rurally - in a village orbiting a small city that has good links into London. The public transport is substandard - if it was made better then more people could live without a car. I think people prefer cars to public transport because they associate them with being crap in comparison - change that and we're halfway there.

I think we can make some exceptions - new parents should be allowed a car for a few years, those with specific disabilities or health requirements that need specialist space or constant trips to the hospital. But generally speaking I think the car based society we have built is bad.

Your sentiments are deeply authoritarian and faintly sinister.

Poppy Sinister?

TimS

another_richard said:

bondegezou said:

For those who complain we're highly taxed:



From this Dan Neidle thread for context: https://x.com/DanNeidle/status/1704416214598951070?s=20

There are other forms of taxation than taxing work.

And does that graph include employers NI as a tax on wages ?

Wage taxation is the biggest source of revenue available to governments, with VAT close behind. Other taxes - property, corporate, excise etc raise much less.

Most of Europe is maxed out on employment taxes, but there is still scope in the UK to raise more so long as the quid pro quo is European standards of public services.

SandyRentool

TimS said:

That's more like it, Labour. Finally the message has come down from HQ.

https://x.com/gabrielmilland/status/1704418536922271759?s=20

Nice framing: Weak Sunak (chimes with voters), linking the policy to Truss (reminds people of last year).

Sunak doesn't stand for anything. Just vacuous. Stick up a series of images of him in various pockets - Bozo, The Truss, other assorted loons.

Dura_Ace

Big_G_NorthWales said:

I would just ask this gently but do you ever think you may be wrong?

None of us would be here if we thought that.

another_richard

TimS said:

Looking like Armenia may be close to capitulation over Karabakh.

https://x.com/onewmphoto/status/1704420429182488816?s=20

One of the nastiest little conflicts of the last couple of decades takes another turn.

In hindsight, and with the proviso of not having much knowledge, it seems that Armenia should have looked to get a permanent settlement during the 20 years where it had dominance and land to trade.

Now its going to lose everything it had gained and still be helplessly weak between two far more powerful enemies.

TimS

Malmesbury said:

Sandpit said:

bigjohnowls said:

A perfect example of how uncontrolled Capitalism works.

Bevan Boy
@mac123_m
·

An even better example of how uncontrolled capitalism works is price control of oil. Oil producers simply reduce production when prices lower to enable an increase in price. Ordinary people are capitalists' cash cows. There is no attempt across the planet to control global profiteering

FPT:

The oil price is being driven by some very high-level realpolitik, as always, but right now the East is beating the West in this regard. We’re seeing China buying oil priced in Yuan, and China and India washing dodgy Russian oil back into the global markets to keep funding the war in Ukraine.

The crux of it, is that the key relationship between the Biden administration and the Saudis has deteriorated, and the President is in hock to the environmental lobby over the fracking lobby locally. At some point, his advisors are going to point out that the ‘gas’ price in the States is perhaps the single most correlated issue with his prospects of re-election next year. Sunak needs to get on that train too. They need to assertively point out that Putin is no friend, and has every intention of starving the MENA region of food this winter.

The switch to electric power for transport - not just cars, but goods vehicles etc - will break the monopoly that oil producers collectively have.

I have long advocated that even if Global Warming wasn't happening, disconnecting the economies of the world from the temper tantrums of some really nasty regimes would be worth it. The Saudis can farm sand, or something.

An no, before anyone starts on it, Lithium or Rare Earths won't create an equal choke point. Because recycling is a thing, they are not consumed as the electric vehicle is used and sources are spread round the world. And the key things to remember about Rare Earths are

1) They are not Rare
2) They are not Earths
3) Lithium isn't a Rare Earth
4) Lithium is definitely not Rare.

Weaning ourselves as quickly as possible off stuff sold to us by dictators which causes periodic inflationary surges while killing the planet and is one of the no brainiest of no brainers available.

Saying the answer is to pump a bit more of our own (in a global market where our contribution is miniscule) is like China deciding the best solution to the opium wars would be to grow its own poppies.

TOPPING

RochdalePioneers said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

Blimmin' ratfucking Tories in charge of Scotland sucking the lifeblood out of working families.

Leon

Why is France so boring

Chris

SandyRentool said:

TimS said:

That's more like it, Labour. Finally the message has come down from HQ.

https://x.com/gabrielmilland/status/1704418536922271759?s=20

Nice framing: Weak Sunak (chimes with voters), linking the policy to Truss (reminds people of last year).

Sunak doesn't stand for anything. Just vacuous. Stick up a series of images of him in various pockets - Bozo, The Truss, other assorted loons.

I think that's a bit unfair. Like other recent Tory leaders, he stands firmly for his own political survival, regardless of the cost to others.

another_richard

TimS said:

another_richard said:

bondegezou said:

For those who complain we're highly taxed:



From this Dan Neidle thread for context: https://x.com/DanNeidle/status/1704416214598951070?s=20

There are other forms of taxation than taxing work.

And does that graph include employers NI as a tax on wages ?

Wage taxation is the biggest source of revenue available to governments, with VAT close behind. Other taxes - property, corporate, excise etc raise much less.

Most of Europe is maxed out on employment taxes, but there is still scope in the UK to raise more so long as the quid pro quo is European standards of public services.

Which equates to another wealth transfer from those who work to those who do not work.

Which isn't good for a country which already lives beyond its means.

And the likelihood of getting those better public services is between low and minimal.

Malmesbury

a

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Do you believe rural living should be banned ?

No, I believe they should have good access to public transport.

We make a tonne of various rural -> rural location journeys. For instance yesterday we had to make a journey through Sheepwash lane on the outskirts of Tickhill yesterday with our toddler. Don't worry I wasn't doing any more than 5 MPH . It's somewhere public transport is never ever going to go.

What is interesting is the inability to understand that due to the low frequency of journeys between various locations, public transport doesn't make sense for those locations.

A bus every tens minutes from every village to every possible destination would simply fill the countryside with empty buses.

In the age of the EV, the pollution argument collapses.

Luckyguy1983

LostPassword said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

148grss said:

RochdalePioneers said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

I live semi rurally - in a village orbiting a small city that has good links into London. The public transport is substandard - if it was made better then more people could live without a car. I think people prefer cars to public transport because they associate them with being crap in comparison - change that and we're halfway there.

I think we can make some exceptions - new parents should be allowed a car for a few years, those with specific disabilities or health requirements that need specialist space or constant trips to the hospital. But generally speaking I think the car based society we have built is bad.

Your sentiments are deeply authoritarian and faintly sinister.

Surely something that is deeply authoritarian is more than faintly sinister?

Those things aren't really orthogonal characteristics.

They're only faintly sinister because thankfully they don't come from anyone with a hope of implementing them.

RochdalePioneers

TOPPING said:

RochdalePioneers said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

Blimmin' ratfucking Tories in charge of Scotland sucking the lifeblood out of working families.

lol - as a nation we have run down public transport for decades. It costs loads to run a bus company, there aren't enough passengers to cover the cost, so the bus routes get withdrawn.

I think that more buses would be a Good Thing, but it isn't remotely a "lets scrap car society" thing as was being suggested. Cars are critical when you live rurally, buses or not.

Andy_JS

Today's proceedings at the PO inquiry have just started. The first witness is Davlyn Cumberland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrRdZSM5CoM

Carnyx

FPT

NerysHughes said:

Carnyx said:

NerysHughes said:

Taz said:

Dura_Ace said:

Eabhal said:

Sandpit said:

Eabhal said:

Sandpit said:

Anabobazina said:

Eabhal said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

MarqueeMark said:

Stuartinromford said:

rottenborough said:

Sam Coates Sky
@SamCoatesSky
·
1h
Lots of Whitehall blindsided tonight on the car element of the net zero package, and the timing.

Not least the UK delegation in New York for the climate events at UNGA

https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1704224035821715651

Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.

As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.

The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?

2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier

Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.

This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.

williamglenn said:

rottenborough said:

Jim Pickard 🐋
@PickardJE
·
19m
is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?

This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.

Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.

The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.

Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.

What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.

Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).

A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍

That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.

Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.

It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.

Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.

This is a weird issue for the tories to go culture wars on as the future of cars is largely shaped by global commercial pressures that are outside their control. People who get an EV generally like them. Lots more people don't give a fuck one way or the other so the target audience for this nonsense is a small group people with an ideological attachment to ICE cars.

Our hybrid is great. Really like it. It is a big improvement on the ICE car we had before.

But I do think this is sensible from the govt as the infrastructure is just not there to support the rollout of EV's and unless they really got their skates on with regards to charging points and energy generation it won't be there in time for 2030.

I already get limited, at times, at the rate at which I can charge my EV. That will only get worse.

The infrastructure thing is I imagine the reason that the timescales have been moved from 2030 to 2035. People keep talking about EVs being 20% of all cars sold but the installation of new communal charging points continues at a snails pace. A company like I work for should be installing thousands of EV charging points each year, so far in 2023 we have installed 4. We work for Councils who publish documentation that they will be carbon zero by 2040, yet the projects such as rewires that we are quoting on for them do not include EV charging at public buildings such as schools, museums etc. or even their own works depots.So much talk, so little action.

Easily answered, given how local government funding has been run down. It's not social care or some other *immediate* legal obligation? Forget it.

In any case, schools and museums don't currently provide petrol for the public. (There is a good case for them providing EV charging for their own vehicles, of course. Edit: but that assumes they have any.)

Schools,museums and other public building are the ideal location for an EV charging point as you will need something to do for the hour it takes to charge the vehicle.

LAs are certainly spending fortunees advertising their green credentials and then not doing anything about it.

Thanks - interesting thought. It would fit into the commercial activities of the average museum. Bookshop, cafe, room hire, so the budgetary setup and sales desk will be there. But schools, perhaps not so much.

Malmesbury

a

another_richard said:

TimS said:

another_richard said:

bondegezou said:

For those who complain we're highly taxed:



From this Dan Neidle thread for context: https://x.com/DanNeidle/status/1704416214598951070?s=20

There are other forms of taxation than taxing work.

And does that graph include employers NI as a tax on wages ?

Wage taxation is the biggest source of revenue available to governments, with VAT close behind. Other taxes - property, corporate, excise etc raise much less.

Most of Europe is maxed out on employment taxes, but there is still scope in the UK to raise more so long as the quid pro quo is European standards of public services.

Which equates to another wealth transfer from those who work to those who do not work.

Which isn't good for a country which already lives beyond its means.

And the likelihood of getting those better public services is between low and minimal.

High housing costs are a burden that massively reduces the ability of many ordinary people to pay for more of anything. I wonder how many people are paying more for accommodation than their net income tax.

OnlyLivingBoy

Sandpit said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Sandpit said:

bigjohnowls said:

A perfect example of how uncontrolled Capitalism works.

Bevan Boy
@mac123_m
·

An even better example of how uncontrolled capitalism works is price control of oil. Oil producers simply reduce production when prices lower to enable an increase in price. Ordinary people are capitalists' cash cows. There is no attempt across the planet to control global profiteering

FPT:

The oil price is being driven by some very high-level realpolitik, as always, but right now the East is beating the West in this regard. We’re seeing China buying oil priced in Yuan, and China and India washing dodgy Russian oil back into the global markets to keep funding the war in Ukraine.

The crux of it, is that the key relationship between the Biden administration and the Saudis has deteriorated, and the President is in hock to the environmental lobby over the fracking lobby locally. At some point, his advisors are going to point out that the ‘gas’ price in the States is perhaps the single most correlated issue with his prospects of re-election next year. Sunak needs to get on that train too. They need to assertively point out that Putin is no friend, and has every intention of starving the MENA region of food this winter.

Russia and the Saudis want Trump to beat Biden, hence high oil prices.

Of course. The breakdown in the relationship between the Biden admin and OPEC, has been one of the key policy and statecraft failures of the past three years. No matter how distasteful that relationship might appear to many of the President’s supporters.

Three years ago, MBS and Putin were engaged in a willy-waving contest to see how low the oil price could go. Now they might as well be best buddies, united against the West.

Anyone who doesn’t want to see Trump re-elected, needs to prioritise the realpolitik of persuading the Saudis to pump like crazy.

I read an article about how much Rupert Murdoch hates Trump that made me wonder whether I've got Trump all wrong.
The US should have told the Saudis to do one years ago.

Leon

Boring boring boring. Stupid Citroens

“Le taxicab”

Baguettes

Wankers

TheScreamingEagles

A police officer has been charged with the murder of Chris Kaba, who was shot dead in south London in 2022.

Mr Kaba was shot and killed in Streatham Hill on 5 September last year.

The CPS had the file of evidence since March.

The Met Police officer, who has not been named for legal reasons, will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday, the police watchdog said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-66865099

Andy_JS

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Peter Hitchens agrees with you about cars.

https://thelampmagazine.com/blog/the-great-god-zil

"Life would be a lot easier if I did not hate motor cars. But I just do hate them. I have tried not to. I even learned to drive at the age of thirty-one, a terrible surrender made as I sought to fit in with what felt increasingly like a compulsory faith. But I never really submitted, and have since drifted away from it. These days I drive perhaps twice a year. This is usually to attend the slowly increasing number of funerals of old friends in remote English village churches, which I must go to but could never otherwise reach. The sigh of relief as I heave myself out of the machine at the end of the sad day lasts for half a minute."

TimS

another_richard said:

TimS said:

Looking like Armenia may be close to capitulation over Karabakh.

https://x.com/onewmphoto/status/1704420429182488816?s=20

One of the nastiest little conflicts of the last couple of decades takes another turn.

In hindsight, and with the proviso of not having much knowledge, it seems that Armenia should have looked to get a permanent settlement during the 20 years where it had dominance and land to trade.

Now its going to lose everything it had gained and still be helplessly weak between two far more powerful enemies.

I spent a short period there back in around 2003 and even then the situation just seemed irreconcilable. The Armenians absolutely hated the Azeris and Turks and it seemed the feeling was mutual. These are tiny countries but huge and deep hatreds.

I can see from an Armenian perspective how being there can seem like a prison. The Turkish and Azerbaijan borders are barbed wire-fenced with no ways in or out. The national symbol Mount Ararat over there visible behind the fence in the territory of the country that tried to eliminate the Armenian nation in WW1 and never accepted its guilt. It's a bit like Israel and the Arabs if you imagine Nazi Germany still existed and provided military and diplomatic support to Syria and Palestine.

But then from Azerbaijan's perspective Armenia is occupying part of their land, historically supported by Russia, in the same way Russia occupies Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Crimea and Donbas.

viewcode

New video dropped, this time from William Spaniel. He has a theory about Ukraine tactics: basically that given the failure of an all-out offensive earlier in the year, Ukraine has switched to attritional warfare.

In this theory Ukraine is not really counterattacking. Instead it is making many pinprick assaults with the sole aim of drawing the defenders out and killing them.

Problem is, that approach only works if we assume Russia cannot provide reinforcements, and that assumption is facially ridiculous. But (and here's the gamble) Spaniel reckons that given the electoral calendar - Putin is standing again in March 2024 and inaugurated in May 2024 - there won't be another Russian mobilisation until Summer 2024.

So there y'go. Ukraine has a plan, at least in Spaniel's head. I'm dubious it'll work, but what do I know? The video is below and DYOR

"Ukraine's Alternate Win Condition: Inside the Gamble on the War of Attrition", 19 Sep 2023, William Spaniel, YouTube, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lebWSl49R0c

Carnyx

another_richard said:

Pulpstar said:

148grss said:

FPT

The Wales and Net Zero issue seem to stem from one problem - cars. I think cars break peoples' brains. The individually owned car is a creation of neoliberalism and is emblematic of it - the hyper individualised space that you own and can give you hyper mobility and is forever tied to oil production. When cars are sold to you they are not selling you an item, they are selling you the concept that you can be free; free to travel where and when you like, free to take things with you, free from home.

But cars are, in my view, a driver of atomisation. Driving and interacting with other drivers has the weird sensation of making everyone else a threat (because if they aren't driving safely then you could crash) and an annoyance (if they drive too safely they prevent you being free and driving how you want). You don't see the other driver as much as you see the other car - so immediately you separate the will of the driver from a human and assign it to an object, the car, dehumanising them. The internal environment of the car is fake and highly regulated - increasingly you don't have to experience the wind or noise or bumps or anything from the outside environment. You are cozened from the world, kept comfy from anyone else, you can control that space and not be influenced by anyone else whilst in it.

The process to get to mass driving also atomised society. London and most urban centres had miles of tramways, the country had significantly more local train and bus stops, and "15 minute cities" were just considered the norm because you would have a local grocer, butcher, post office etc. Transport infrastructure was purposely dismantled in a manner to increase car sales, and when everyone has a can that distorted peoples' idea of time and distance to lead to the creation of huge shopping centres and supermarkets, which led to the first wave of high street death (pre mass internet shopping). Whether it is apocryphal or not, the idea attributed to Thatcher that if you're "25 and using public transport, you're a failure" is a below surface feeling in the UK - the car is a symbol of success and freedom that is necessary to feel good.

That mass car production is unsustainable (even if we went fully electric) is neither here nor there for people - cars stay the solution. With every year that goes by traffic gets worse, the proposed solution of widening roads or building more lanes occurs, and yet whenever more roads appear the traffic is still bad. Because when you have hundreds of thousands of people, all making basically the same journeys with small variations on leaving point and destination, the movement of traffic cannot be efficient the smaller you make the travelling unit. If the same resource was put into trains or buses, I think we could have an amazing system of transport that allows most people to get where they want, when they want just more efficiently than individual car ownership currently allows.

The car is the enemy of humanity.

Do you believe rural living should be banned ?

I suspect there's a mentality that rural living should be banned for everyone apart from holiday homes for the rich and a servile class of agricultural labourers on modern latifundia.

That's pretty close to what one of our Tories expressed as the ideal rural society at the time of the Salopian by-election, as I seem to recall. He wanted squires and brow-knuckling turmut-tenders. Given that C18 squires used to spend the Season in Town, that's pretty much the same thing.

DecrepiterJohnL

TimS said:

That's more like it, Labour. Finally the message has come down from HQ.

https://x.com/gabrielmilland/status/1704418536922271759?s=20

Nice framing: Weak Sunak (chimes with voters), linking the policy to Truss (reminds people of last year).

Looks bloody awful to me, not to mention that Sunak only got the job because he *did* stand up to Liz Truss. It's a mindless pastiche of Tony Blair's swipe at John Major. But can any PBers comment on that rather odd necklace Liz Truss is wearing?

Leon

TimS said:

another_richard said:

TimS said:

Looking like Armenia may be close to capitulation over Karabakh.

https://x.com/onewmphoto/status/1704420429182488816?s=20

One of the nastiest little conflicts of the last couple of decades takes another turn.

In hindsight, and with the proviso of not having much knowledge, it seems that Armenia should have looked to get a permanent settlement during the 20 years where it had dominance and land to trade.

Now its going to lose everything it had gained and still be helplessly weak between two far more powerful enemies.

I spent a short period there back in around 2003 and even then the situation just seemed irreconcilable. The Armenians absolutely hated the Azeris and Turks and it seemed the feeling was mutual. These are tiny countries but huge and deep hatreds.

I can see from an Armenian perspective how being there can seem like a prison. The Turkish and Azerbaijan borders are barbed wire-fenced with no ways in or out. The national symbol Mount Ararat over there visible behind the fence in the territory of the country that tried to eliminate the Armenian nation in WW1 and never accepted its guilt. It's a bit like Israel and the Arabs if you imagine Nazi Germany still existed and provided military and diplomatic support to Syria and Palestine.

But then from Azerbaijan's perspective Armenia is occupying part of their land, historically supported by Russia, in the same way Russia occupies Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Crimea and Donbas.

I was in Armenia last year and, in Yerevan, I saw a massive demonstration, alongside a tented occupation of the central boulevards

I asked a local what it was all about. “The war with Azerbaijan” he said. So I presumed they were all protesting against it. The man set me right: “no, the protestors are demanding ANOTHER war with Azerbaijan”

AlistairM

Leon said:

Boring boring boring. Stupid Citroens

“Le taxicab”

Baguettes

Wankers

One person's boring is another person's relaxing.

Malmesbury

Carnyx said:

FPT

NerysHughes said:

Carnyx said:

NerysHughes said:

Taz said:

Dura_Ace said:

Eabhal said:

Sandpit said:

Eabhal said:

Sandpit said:

Anabobazina said:

Eabhal said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

MarqueeMark said:

Stuartinromford said:

rottenborough said:

Sam Coates Sky
@SamCoatesSky
·
1h
Lots of Whitehall blindsided tonight on the car element of the net zero package, and the timing.

Not least the UK delegation in New York for the climate events at UNGA

https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1704224035821715651

Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.

As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.

The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?

2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier

Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.

This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.

williamglenn said:

rottenborough said:

Jim Pickard 🐋
@PickardJE
·
19m
is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?

This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.

Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.

The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.

Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.

What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.

Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).

A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍

That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.

Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.

It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.

Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.

This is a weird issue for the tories to go culture wars on as the future of cars is largely shaped by global commercial pressures that are outside their control. People who get an EV generally like them. Lots more people don't give a fuck one way or the other so the target audience for this nonsense is a small group people with an ideological attachment to ICE cars.

Our hybrid is great. Really like it. It is a big improvement on the ICE car we had before.

But I do think this is sensible from the govt as the infrastructure is just not there to support the rollout of EV's and unless they really got their skates on with regards to charging points and energy generation it won't be there in time for 2030.

I already get limited, at times, at the rate at which I can charge my EV. That will only get worse.

The infrastructure thing is I imagine the reason that the timescales have been moved from 2030 to 2035. People keep talking about EVs being 20% of all cars sold but the installation of new communal charging points continues at a snails pace. A company like I work for should be installing thousands of EV charging points each year, so far in 2023 we have installed 4. We work for Councils who publish documentation that they will be carbon zero by 2040, yet the projects such as rewires that we are quoting on for them do not include EV charging at public buildings such as schools, museums etc. or even their own works depots.So much talk, so little action.

Easily answered, given how local government funding has been run down. It's not social care or some other *immediate* legal obligation? Forget it.

In any case, schools and museums don't currently provide petrol for the public. (There is a good case for them providing EV charging for their own vehicles, of course. Edit: but that assumes they have any.)

Schools,museums and other public building are the ideal location for an EV charging point as you will need something to do for the hour it takes to charge the vehicle.

LAs are certainly spending fortunees advertising their green credentials and then not doing anything about it.

Thanks - interesting thought. It would fit into the commercial activities of the average museum. Bookshop, cafe, room hire, so the budgetary setup and sales desk will be there. But schools, perhaps not so much.

In the US, we can see where this is heading.

Most of the charging infrastruture consortia are loath to actually build lots of reliable chargers.

Tesla came up with a standard system that worked. And rolled it out via a division of the company that has a remit to grow by X percent a year (compound) and retains the profit it makes within that division.

The result - despite a desperate effort to prevent it via standards etc. Tesla has won the charging war there. The other EV manufacturers are falling over themselves to join the Tesla system.

It's quite simple - the winner of the race to build EV chargers is the organisation that builds lots of EV chargers.

DecrepiterJohnL

A police officer has been charged with the murder of Chris Kaba, who was shot dead in south London in 2022.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-66865099

SandyRentool

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Foxy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

It's a low offer but many cannot afford to fight for a better offer, or even to wait for one.

"Take it or leave it" summarises this government all over. No attempt at being reasonable or open. Same goes for the governments refusal to negotiate with the BMA and other health unions.

I expect that Tory backbenchers will have similar expressions to this bunch of NHS staff when he next appears.

Rishi "son-in-law of an Indian oligarch" Sunak.

No conflict of interest in Sunak's dealings with Modi. None whatsoever.

Taz

Not all heroes wear capes etc etc.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/music/why-this-barrister-is-defying-activist-lawyers-to-take-on-just-stop-oil/ar-AA1gXG23?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=a75e560cadc54465a7a0b99a6c01830d&ei=7

nico679

DecrepiterJohnL said:

TimS said:

That's more like it, Labour. Finally the message has come down from HQ.

https://x.com/gabrielmilland/status/1704418536922271759?s=20

Nice framing: Weak Sunak (chimes with voters), linking the policy to Truss (reminds people of last year).

Looks bloody awful to me, not to mention that Sunak only got the job because he *did* stand up to Liz Truss. It's a mindless pastiche of Tony Blair's swipe at John Major. But can any PBers comment on that rather odd necklace Liz Truss is wearing?

Connecting Sunak to Truss is good politics regardless of the truth .

Malmesbury

viewcode said:

New video dropped, this time from William Spaniel. He has a theory about Ukraine tactics: basically that given the failure of an all-out offensive earlier in the year, Ukraine has switched to attritional warfare.

In this theory Ukraine is not really counterattacking. Instead it is making many pinprick assaults with the sole aim of drawing the defenders out and killing them.

Problem is, that approach only works if we assume Russia cannot provide reinforcements, and that assumption is facially ridiculous. But (and here's the gamble) Spaniel reckons that given the electoral calendar - Putin is standing again in March 2024 and inaugurated in May 2024 - there won't be another Russian mobilisation until Summer 2024.

So there y'go. Ukraine has a plan, at least in Spaniel's head. I'm dubious it'll work, but what do I know? The video is below and DYOR

"Ukraine's Alternate Win Condition: Inside the Gamble on the War of Attrition", 19 Sep 2023, William Spaniel, YouTube, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lebWSl49R0c

The emphasis from Ukraine seems to be on destroying artillery systems and other equipment. If they destroy those faster than Russia can resupply, then they can demechanise and demodernise the Russian army.

In exactly the way that the Russians reduced the Germans on the Eastern Front in WWII to a vast army of foot soldiers, with a dwindling supply of tanks and artillery.

Leon

AlistairM said:

Leon said:

Boring boring boring. Stupid Citroens

“Le taxicab”

Baguettes

Wankers

One person's boring is another person's relaxing.

But it is quite dull. After four decades of constant travel I’ve finally realised. France is boring

This may partly be me. I am reminded of the Italian saying: “show me a beautiful woman and I’ll show you a man that is tired of fucking her”

France is undeniably beautiful. But I’ve been here so often I’ve seen everything and now I’m “tired of fucking her”. Especially as the food has gone to shit: it really is remarkably bad now. In ten days I’ve had three memorable meals - memorable for being disgusting. The rest were all deeply mediocre. I had one pleasant dinner

But it isn’t just that, either. There’s something else. Is it because the French are quite humourless? Could be. I shall ponder on the train to Toulouse

TheScreamingEagles

Taz said:

Not all heroes wear capes etc etc.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/music/why-this-barrister-is-defying-activist-lawyers-to-take-on-just-stop-oil/ar-AA1gXG23?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=a75e560cadc54465a7a0b99a6c01830d&ei=7

Lawyers are the best of humanity.

NerysHughes

Carnyx said:

FPT

NerysHughes said:

Carnyx said:

NerysHughes said:

Taz said:

Dura_Ace said:

Eabhal said:

Sandpit said:

Eabhal said:

Sandpit said:

Anabobazina said:

Eabhal said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

MarqueeMark said:

Stuartinromford said:

rottenborough said:

Sam Coates Sky
@SamCoatesSky
·
1h
Lots of Whitehall blindsided tonight on the car element of the net zero package, and the timing.

Not least the UK delegation in New York for the climate events at UNGA

https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1704224035821715651

Presumably car firms that have been investing on the basis of 2030 will be pretty pissed off as well.

As a provincial science master, I take comfort in not really understanding business, but I can't help wondering if Rishi understands even less than I do.

The interesting question is why did Boris advance this target from 2035 to 2030?

2035 is the Europe wide target so I have no idea why the UK is 5 years earlier

Because car manufacturers are going to beat the 2030 deadline, some by several years.

This is anti-green posturing, with no basis in what is going on in the real world. You must be delighted.

williamglenn said:

rottenborough said:

Jim Pickard 🐋
@PickardJE
·
19m
is he really suggesting that delaying green reforms will make Britain a better place “for our children”?

This type of commentary is completely divorced from the economic concerns of the average voter. For some people's children it might mean the difference between being able to afford a car and not being able to afford one.

Yes, the banning of new ICE cars would have pushed down the price of used ICE cars. So you are right - but in the opposite way to that you are intimating.

The banning of new ICE cars, is way likely to lead to them going up in value used, as a consequence of the constraint in supply. We saw this in 2021 and 2022 thanks to the pandemic.

Which is why the policymakers are determined to implement ULEZ everywhere, to stop people holding on to their last car and keep it running, leaving petrol as a weird enthusiast thing that people do on Sundays, as they do with horses at the moment.

What is really worrying the Germans is a potential EU ban on manufacturing petrol-powered cars, for export to countries that buy lots of cars and aren’t interested in banning petrol.

Except ULEZ is about air pollution in cities, and the transition away from ICE cars is about reducing carbon emissions (though helps a bit with the former).

A sensible policy would be to allow low emission but air polluting cars to keep driving outside of cities. Which is basically what the policy is at the moment 👍

That’s a polite way of telling people to either buy an EV or get the bus. As people start to realise that this is what’s happening, expect public opinion to swing considerably.

Of course everyone is in favour of ambiguous “net zero” pledges, provided they’re not personally affected.

It's happening naturally though. 20% of all new cars being sold are already EVs. By 2030, most large manufacturers will have been selling EVs only for several years.

Second hand petrol cars will be around for another 15 - 20 years. It's a pretty chill revolution, as they go. 66 years between flight and the moon.

This is a weird issue for the tories to go culture wars on as the future of cars is largely shaped by global commercial pressures that are outside their control. People who get an EV generally like them. Lots more people don't give a fuck one way or the other so the target audience for this nonsense is a small group people with an ideological attachment to ICE cars.

Our hybrid is great. Really like it. It is a big improvement on the ICE car we had before.

But I do think this is sensible from the govt as the infrastructure is just not there to support the rollout of EV's and unless they really got their skates on with regards to charging points and energy generation it won't be there in time for 2030.

I already get limited, at times, at the rate at which I can charge my EV. That will only get worse.

The infrastructure thing is I imagine the reason that the timescales have been moved from 2030 to 2035. People keep talking about EVs being 20% of all cars sold but the installation of new communal charging points continues at a snails pace. A company like I work for should be installing thousands of EV charging points each year, so far in 2023 we have installed 4. We work for Councils who publish documentation that they will be carbon zero by 2040, yet the projects such as rewires that we are quoting on for them do not include EV charging at public buildings such as schools, museums etc. or even their own works depots.So much talk, so little action.

Easily answered, given how local government funding has been run down. It's not social care or some other *immediate* legal obligation? Forget it.

In any case, schools and museums don't currently provide petrol for the public. (There is a good case for them providing EV charging for their own vehicles, of course. Edit: but that assumes they have any.)

Schools,museums and other public building are the ideal location for an EV charging point as you will need something to do for the hour it takes to charge the vehicle.

LAs are certainly spending fortunees advertising their green credentials and then not doing anything about it.

Thanks - interesting thought. It would fit into the commercial activities of the average museum. Bookshop, cafe, room hire, so the budgetary setup and sales desk will be there. But schools, perhaps not so much.

I was thinking for the teachers to charge their cars whilst at work. Most schools have a car park so an ideal place to put in a couple of EV chargers.

In reality EV chargers are going to need to be everywhere.

Malmesbury

TheScreamingEagles said:

A police officer has been charged with the murder of Chris Kaba, who was shot dead in south London in 2022.

Mr Kaba was shot and killed in Streatham Hill on 5 September last year.

The CPS had the file of evidence since March.

The Met Police officer, who has not been named for legal reasons, will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday, the police watchdog said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-66865099

Remember when police officers publicly said that every firearms officer would hand in their ticket, if a firearms officer was ever charged for a shooting?

MattW

Morning all.

Report Published from the enquiry into the Edinburgh Tramway debacle. The Lord Hardie enquiry was commissioned by the Scottish Government in *2014*.

It is critical of both Edinburgh Council & the Scottish Govt.

Article (via DM+, but not too bad as a piece of reporting)
https://archive.ph/hyuAr

Actual report available here:
https://www.edinburghtraminquiry.org/final_report/the-inquiry-report/

Penddu2

Leon said:

Why is France so boring

Yes...but have you ever been to St Albans??

NickPalmer

RochdalePioneers said:

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

Anecdotally - I'm OK with driving, and dislike buses for practical reasons - because I have long legs they are uncomfortable, and you can't rely on them turning up. But when I lived in London the public transport was so good that even I could see it was just silly to have a car, so I didn't. I think that's a widespread subconscious view - people love cars because the alternative is rubbish. Make it un-rubbish and they will gradually change.

Big_G_NorthWales

Just a reminder - we have another year of this

Leon

Penddu2 said:

Leon said:

Why is France so boring

Yes...but have you ever been to St Albans??

Yes, but only briefly. Seemed ok. More interesting than France

TheScreamingEagles

From a member of the Chancellor’s economic advisory council




https://x.com/benchu_/status/1704425366297682082?s=46

Foxy

SandyRentool said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Foxy said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

It's a low offer but many cannot afford to fight for a better offer, or even to wait for one.

"Take it or leave it" summarises this government all over. No attempt at being reasonable or open. Same goes for the governments refusal to negotiate with the BMA and other health unions.

I expect that Tory backbenchers will have similar expressions to this bunch of NHS staff when he next appears.

Rishi "son-in-law of an Indian oligarch" Sunak.

No conflict of interest in Sunak's dealings with Modi. None whatsoever.

And with India in the frame for bumping off that Canadian Sikh, there may be some Sikh reaction here to Sunak chumming up with Modi.

Leon

NickPalmer said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Steady on. There is a world of difference between town and country. My village has had its public transport cut harshly - 4 buses a day to the nearest town, 1 bus a day to a different town. No buses at all at the weekend, none that even head towards the big city.

There are some things that could be done to reconnect us - a few small diversions of longer bus routes into our village has been requested and refused. We have been told that to demonstrate demand we need to use dial-a-bus.

And what is dial-a-bus? A taxi! You pay a bus fare, the council subsidises the taxi fare, it is pitiful but its all we have. And many rural places have less than we do. So the car is it. Far from being the enemy of humanity, it is the only thing that makes rural living actually possible.

Anecdotally - I'm OK with driving, and dislike buses for practical reasons - because I have long legs they are uncomfortable, and you can't rely on them turning up. But when I lived in London the public transport was so good that even I could see it was just silly to have a car, so I didn't. I think that's a widespread subconscious view - people love cars because the alternative is rubbish. Make it un-rubbish and they will gradually change.

Yes. I sold my car a few months ago. With the kids grown up - virtually - I realised a car was absurdly useless. Kids are the only reason to have a car in central/inner London, otherwise a car is mere grief, hassle and expense

I’m not sure I’ve missed the car once. Meanwhile I’m saving £1000s a year

MattW

Malmesbury said:

viewcode said:

New video dropped, this time from William Spaniel. He has a theory about Ukraine tactics: basically that given the failure of an all-out offensive earlier in the year, Ukraine has switched to attritional warfare.

In this theory Ukraine is not really counterattacking. Instead it is making many pinprick assaults with the sole aim of drawing the defenders out and killing them.

Problem is, that approach only works if we assume Russia cannot provide reinforcements, and that assumption is facially ridiculous. But (and here's the gamble) Spaniel reckons that given the electoral calendar - Putin is standing again in March 2024 and inaugurated in May 2024 - there won't be another Russian mobilisation until Summer 2024.

So there y'go. Ukraine has a plan, at least in Spaniel's head. I'm dubious it'll work, but what do I know? The video is below and DYOR

"Ukraine's Alternate Win Condition: Inside the Gamble on the War of Attrition", 19 Sep 2023, William Spaniel, YouTube, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lebWSl49R0c

The emphasis from Ukraine seems to be on destroying artillery systems and other equipment. If they destroy those faster than Russia can resupply, then they can demechanise and demodernise the Russian army.

In exactly the way that the Russians reduced the Germans on the Eastern Front in WWII to a vast army of foot soldiers, with a dwindling supply of tanks and artillery.

This was covered very thoroughly by Perun last Sunday on the Russian side.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctrtAwT2sgs&t

"Russian Defence Production 2023 - Can Russia keep up with equipment attrition in Ukraine?"

He's doing Ukraine next week.