Channel 4 News poll: 40.7% of voters say they are less likely to vote Conservative if they don't stick to commitments on climate change. Field work done today.
Figures for (I think) 2019 Conservative voters; 51.8% no difference 26.8% more likely 21.4% less likely
I've said before- part of Sunak's problem is that he can't make a move in either direction (centre rightist Dad or red meater) without losing about as much on the other side.
And if he's the one who wrote the words "Immigration destroyed the Roman Empire" then he doesn't know what he's talking about. Reductive reason-seeking like this for hugely complex historical processes like this are only made either in ignorance or mischief. As a disconnected statement, it's utter ahistorical garbage.
There are quite a lot of idiots teaching history in many unis. Heck, even Tristram Hunt was a history lecturer, albeit only at QMUL which is a notorious shitheap.
But in this particular case, he's a specialist in late medieval Spanish history. There is no reason why his understanding of the Roman Empire would be better than that of any ordinary person in the street.
I suppose you make a case that the Visigoths, Vandals, Huns etc were immigrants but they were shall we say, not really analogous to modern immigrants in their actions.
And, er, he's referring to events in the late 300s - so more than a thousand years before the end of the empire.
"Beware! Immigration's going to cause real problems for the EU in the mid 3050s!"
And if he's the one who wrote the words "Immigration destroyed the Roman Empire" then he doesn't know what he's talking about. Reductive reason-seeking like this for hugely complex historical processes like this are only made either in ignorance or mischief. As a disconnected statement, it's utter ahistorical garbage.
There are quite a lot of idiots teaching history in many unis. Heck, even Tristram Hunt was a history lecturer, albeit only at QMUL which is a notorious shitheap.
But in this particular case, he's a specialist in late medieval Spanish history. There is no reason why his understanding of the Roman Empire would be better than that of any ordinary person in the street.
I suppose you make a case that the Visigoths, Vandals, Huns etc were immigrants but they were shall we say, not really analogous to modern immigrants in their actions.
And, er, he's referring to events in the late 300s - so more than a thousand years before the end of the empire.
"Beware! Immigration's going to cause real problems for the EU in the mid 3050s!"
Labour are clearly very cross. But are they actually saying that they'll bring back 2030 as the ICE ban date, and make people replace their boilers with heat pumps? It makes the GE into a simple bread and butter choice - you will be poorer under Labour. That would be 'brave', and SKS has not been noted for his bravery so far.
I haven't seen Sunak's speech - his delivery is never particularly good, but it reads well and he's right.
Labour have said they will commit to 2030. And will have the combined chiefs of the car industry in their corner explaining why there won't be any pure ICE cars on sale in 2030 whether Sunak likes it or not.
You think this is gift week for the Tories? Its the opposite. Labour can campaign on saving all of those jobs that people think is coming in electric cars, batteries, turbines, CCS etc etc etc.
Sunak just through inward investment in the bin - its a catastrophe for UK PLC. You don't lie to BMW and then tell people that Nothing Has Changed. The Lizaster trashed the economy with a short sharp shock. Sunak is following up by shutting down industrial investment.
They should not have said anything so stupid; this was a massive bear trap, with 'bear trap' written on a big sign. Has any party ever gone into an election telling people they're going to arbitrarily make them pay more for everything? Ban them from getting a new gas boiler when theirs breaks down and insist they get a shitty heat pump?
You'll be telling me they're going to ban proper fuels and make people buy cars that can use shitty unleaded next.
You see that "oh fuck we're about to run out of gas because we're reliant on Russia" crisis we just had? That is why we're moving away from gas boilers. Over the next decade. The market will set the price - heat pumps and alternate fuels will crash in price, with legacy crap like inefficient gas boilers getting more expensive.
Lizaster thought she could tell the markets what to do. She was wrong. What makes you think Sunak can tell the markets what to do. Are Ford going to reverse their plans to phase out pure petrol engines because Sunak says so?
Have a word with yourself. He has delayed a ban. That is the opposite of telling people what to do.
No, he hasn't. The arbiter of whether legacy manufacturers continue to develop and manufacture vehicles is the market. They are all rapidly heading towards the removal of pure petrol vehicles, just as the market has already largely removed diesel.
The claim is that Sunak needed to ask or else consumers be forced to spend £40k cash to buy an EV. But the 2030 was only to ban pure ICE - hybrid systems would have continued. I expect there to be an awful lot of plug-in hybrid vehicles as we get to the back end of the decade. But without the hybrid system? A few remaining "mild hybrid" vehicles and thats it.
You think BMW are going to make small / cheap RHD vehicles for us is small quantities when the market has already killed them off? Its legal to buy a diesel, but look how many do. So diesel has gone in the bin and diesel engines are being removed at the next refresh / relaunch. As will petrol.
There is a big assumption here; that the price of EV vehicles worldwide continues to decrease in price - and that EV demand follows. That may happen, but it's far from certain. I can easily imagine other countries in the EU and elsewhere delaying their pure-EV plans over the next few years.
The improvements in battery performance and reduced cost that back these assumptions are already baked in. That is are leaving the lab and are heading to the production lines.
What is not often understood is that even small changes take years to productionise. There is a conveyer belt of such upgrades and improvements - and we can make quite accurate precautions about max costs and capabilities years from now, because of it.
A compound progression of a bit more power density, a bit cheaper etc, year on year.
This leaves out radical changes, such as completely new cell chemistries, which could be even better.
"The improvements in battery performance and reduced cost that back these assumptions are already baked in."
You should try a slot at a comedy club...
I mean, seriously. I *really* hope you are correct, but we're talking about six years. Six years. And as you (I think!) keep on saying, battery chemistry is a compromise of five or six different characteristics. Unless I've missed something, I haven't seen any breakthrough that matches what is required. And the idea they're 'baked in' is rather optimistic.
(Again, I hope I'm wrong...)
These are not breakthroughs. Not flashy 120!%!!! BETTER! improvements.
A series of small changes that make each years batteries a few percent better in their various characteristics.
Some of it is optimising the construction of the battery pack itself.
It’s classic product development - keep on making each piece better. Better form factors for the batteries. Tweaked chemistry. Tweaked manufacturing of the cell components.
This is how we’ve got to where we are with Lithium batteries so far.
This is what is fucking the Tories, the perceptions around this, following the PPE stuff.
One of the Conservatives’ biggest ever donors has profited from £135m of contracts with the Department of Health and Social Care in under four years.
Frank Hester, a healthcare tech entrepreneur whose company supplies computer systems to the NHS, gave Rishi Sunak’s party £5m this summer, the joint biggest donation to the Tories in decades.
His company, the Phoenix Partnership (TPP), paid out more than £20m in dividends between 2019 and 2022, with Hester the only shareholder.
The group supplies software to about 2,700 GP surgeries in England as well as support services to allow them to hold medical records for patients electronically.
On today's announcement, I don't really see the point of it. Delaying to 2035 was inevitable ever since the EU did it but doing it now doesn't make sense, it just shows lack of ambition and it will push back investment by auto companies by 3-5 years. Better to delay by 2 years in 2029 and then by another 3 years in 2031.
Yep, totally agree. From a strategic and policy perspective it makes absolutely no sense and will only disincentivise investment. But Sunak is looking for dividing lines which he hopes will either win - or mitigate the loss of - a general election. He's not thinking beyond that.
Mitigate the loss, I think. Or rather derisk the worst case catastrophic result. The centre has gone so he has to shore up to the right. Similar rationale to Labour embracing Ref2 for GE19. Lock in a bad defeat but take catastrophe off the table. In that case (for Labour) being challenged by the LDs for main opposition party status. It all makes sense in a grim reductive way.
It’s really baffling. He’s revivified Trussian chaos, when the one thing Sunak had going for him was an aura of competence and stability.
Some of us were saying before the leadership election last year that it was no more than an aura.
On today's announcement, I don't really see the point of it. Delaying to 2035 was inevitable ever since the EU did it but doing it now doesn't make sense, it just shows lack of ambition and it will push back investment by auto companies by 3-5 years. Better to delay by 2 years in 2029 and then by another 3 years in 2031.
Yep, totally agree. From a strategic and policy perspective it makes absolutely no sense and will only disincentivise investment. But Sunak is looking for dividing lines which he hopes will either win - or mitigate the loss of - a general election. He's not thinking beyond that.
Mitigate the loss, I think. Or rather derisk the worst case catastrophic result. The centre has gone so he has to shore up to the right. Similar rationale to Labour embracing Ref2 for GE19. Lock in a bad defeat but take catastrophe off the table. In that case (for Labour) being challenged by the LDs for main opposition party status. It all makes sense in a grim reductive way.
It’s really baffling. He’s revivified Trussian chaos, when the one thing Sunak had going for him was an aura of competence and stability.
Some of us were saying before the leadership election last year that it was no more than an aura.
Labour are clearly very cross. But are they actually saying that they'll bring back 2030 as the ICE ban date, and make people replace their boilers with heat pumps? It makes the GE into a simple bread and butter choice - you will be poorer under Labour. That would be 'brave', and SKS has not been noted for his bravery so far.
I haven't seen Sunak's speech - his delivery is never particularly good, but it reads well and he's right.
Labour have said they will commit to 2030. And will have the combined chiefs of the car industry in their corner explaining why there won't be any pure ICE cars on sale in 2030 whether Sunak likes it or not.
You think this is gift week for the Tories? Its the opposite. Labour can campaign on saving all of those jobs that people think is coming in electric cars, batteries, turbines, CCS etc etc etc.
Sunak just through inward investment in the bin - its a catastrophe for UK PLC. You don't lie to BMW and then tell people that Nothing Has Changed. The Lizaster trashed the economy with a short sharp shock. Sunak is following up by shutting down industrial investment.
They should not have said anything so stupid; this was a massive bear trap, with 'bear trap' written on a big sign. Has any party ever gone into an election telling people they're going to arbitrarily make them pay more for everything? Ban them from getting a new gas boiler when theirs breaks down and insist they get a shitty heat pump?
You'll be telling me they're going to ban proper fuels and make people buy cars that can use shitty unleaded next.
You see that "oh fuck we're about to run out of gas because we're reliant on Russia" crisis we just had? That is why we're moving away from gas boilers. Over the next decade. The market will set the price - heat pumps and alternate fuels will crash in price, with legacy crap like inefficient gas boilers getting more expensive.
Lizaster thought she could tell the markets what to do. She was wrong. What makes you think Sunak can tell the markets what to do. Are Ford going to reverse their plans to phase out pure petrol engines because Sunak says so?
Have a word with yourself. He has delayed a ban. That is the opposite of telling people what to do.
No, he hasn't. The arbiter of whether legacy manufacturers continue to develop and manufacture vehicles is the market. They are all rapidly heading towards the removal of pure petrol vehicles, just as the market has already largely removed diesel.
The claim is that Sunak needed to ask or else consumers be forced to spend £40k cash to buy an EV. But the 2030 was only to ban pure ICE - hybrid systems would have continued. I expect there to be an awful lot of plug-in hybrid vehicles as we get to the back end of the decade. But without the hybrid system? A few remaining "mild hybrid" vehicles and thats it.
You think BMW are going to make small / cheap RHD vehicles for us is small quantities when the market has already killed them off? Its legal to buy a diesel, but look how many do. So diesel has gone in the bin and diesel engines are being removed at the next refresh / relaunch. As will petrol.
There is a big assumption here; that the price of EV vehicles worldwide continues to decrease in price - and that EV demand follows. That may happen, but it's far from certain. I can easily imagine other countries in the EU and elsewhere delaying their pure-EV plans over the next few years.
The improvements in battery performance and reduced cost that back these assumptions are already baked in. That is are leaving the lab and are heading to the production lines.
What is not often understood is that even small changes take years to productionise. There is a conveyer belt of such upgrades and improvements - and we can make quite accurate precautions about max costs and capabilities years from now, because of it.
A compound progression of a bit more power density, a bit cheaper etc, year on year.
This leaves out radical changes, such as completely new cell chemistries, which could be even better.
"The improvements in battery performance and reduced cost that back these assumptions are already baked in."
You should try a slot at a comedy club...
I mean, seriously. I *really* hope you are correct, but we're talking about six years. Six years. And as you (I think!) keep on saying, battery chemistry is a compromise of five or six different characteristics. Unless I've missed something, I haven't seen any breakthrough that matches what is required. And the idea they're 'baked in' is rather optimistic.
(Again, I hope I'm wrong...)
Lithium ion battery cell costs are long-term plummeting.
There's been major developments in recent years such as massive lithium investments which is bringing the cost down even without chemical changes.
"Long-term plummeting"
Past performance is no guarantee of future results, etc, etc. Besides, there is more to this than just the cost: charging infrastructure being a big one: both locally for the consumer, and nationally.
In the case of the price of raw lithium, the demand can be estimated with various scenarios. The new mines coming on line can have their costs quite closely estimated.
This means that you can predict the probability of the price falling. It’s my understanding that the mines already being worked on, will, as they open, increase supply faster than predicted demand.
Channel 4 News poll: 40.7% of voters say they are less likely to vote Conservative if they don't stick to commitments on climate change. Field work done today.
If the 40% are existing Lib Dem / Labour voters then… hmmh
If the 12% who are more likely to vote Tory are ex-2019 Tory now DK or whatever Farage’s leftovers are called today then maybe more interesting?
The way I would ask this question is as follows:
Using a scale of 1-10, where 1=Not at all likely and 10=Extremely likely, how likely were you to vote Conservative prior to todays announcements on climate policy? And how likely are you to vote Conservative now?
I don't think that's good practice. Anybody who has strong feelings may be tempted to misreport their "before" answer in order to show greater magnitude in their reported direction of travel.
But in the question above people can say it makes them "less likely" to vote Con even, if their current likelihood is 0%
On today's announcement, I don't really see the point of it. Delaying to 2035 was inevitable ever since the EU did it but doing it now doesn't make sense, it just shows lack of ambition and it will push back investment by auto companies by 3-5 years. Better to delay by 2 years in 2029 and then by another 3 years in 2031.
Yep, totally agree. From a strategic and policy perspective it makes absolutely no sense and will only disincentivise investment. But Sunak is looking for dividing lines which he hopes will either win - or mitigate the loss of - a general election. He's not thinking beyond that.
Mitigate the loss, I think. Or rather derisk the worst case catastrophic result. The centre has gone so he has to shore up to the right. Similar rationale to Labour embracing Ref2 for GE19. Lock in a bad defeat but take catastrophe off the table. In that case (for Labour) being challenged by the LDs for main opposition party status. It all makes sense in a grim reductive way.
It’s really baffling. He’s revivified Trussian chaos, when the one thing Sunak had going for him was an aura of competence and stability.
Some of us were saying before the leadership election last year that it was no more than an aura.
'Aura' in advance of a migraine?
Something sadly I am very familiar with
5 in the last 2 weeks
Poor you. I get them very, very rarely - indeed, I only realised they were migraines when I was 35 or so, one day, in the middle of a very difficult major project, I got a fortification figure as a visual disturbance standing over the photocopier.
On today's announcement, I don't really see the point of it. Delaying to 2035 was inevitable ever since the EU did it but doing it now doesn't make sense, it just shows lack of ambition and it will push back investment by auto companies by 3-5 years. Better to delay by 2 years in 2029 and then by another 3 years in 2031.
Yep, totally agree. From a strategic and policy perspective it makes absolutely no sense and will only disincentivise investment. But Sunak is looking for dividing lines which he hopes will either win - or mitigate the loss of - a general election. He's not thinking beyond that.
Mitigate the loss, I think. Or rather derisk the worst case catastrophic result. The centre has gone so he has to shore up to the right. Similar rationale to Labour embracing Ref2 for GE19. Lock in a bad defeat but take catastrophe off the table. In that case (for Labour) being challenged by the LDs for main opposition party status. It all makes sense in a grim reductive way.
It’s really baffling. He’s revivified Trussian chaos, when the one thing Sunak had going for him was an aura of competence and stability.
Some of us were saying before the leadership election last year that it was no more than an aura.
'Aura' in advance of a migraine?
Something sadly I am very familiar with
5 in the last 2 weeks
Cold damp weather there? Keep yourself warm, that can sometimes help.
On today's announcement, I don't really see the point of it. Delaying to 2035 was inevitable ever since the EU did it but doing it now doesn't make sense, it just shows lack of ambition and it will push back investment by auto companies by 3-5 years. Better to delay by 2 years in 2029 and then by another 3 years in 2031.
Yep, totally agree. From a strategic and policy perspective it makes absolutely no sense and will only disincentivise investment. But Sunak is looking for dividing lines which he hopes will either win - or mitigate the loss of - a general election. He's not thinking beyond that.
Mitigate the loss, I think. Or rather derisk the worst case catastrophic result. The centre has gone so he has to shore up to the right. Similar rationale to Labour embracing Ref2 for GE19. Lock in a bad defeat but take catastrophe off the table. In that case (for Labour) being challenged by the LDs for main opposition party status. It all makes sense in a grim reductive way.
It’s really baffling. He’s revivified Trussian chaos, when the one thing Sunak had going for him was an aura of competence and stability.
Some of us were saying before the leadership election last year that it was no more than an aura.
'Aura' in advance of a migraine?
Something sadly I am very familiar with
5 in the last 2 weeks
Poor you. I get them very, very rarely - indeed, I only realised they were migraines when I was 35 or so, one day, in the middle of a very difficult major project, I got a fortification figure as a visual disturbance standing over the photocopier.
Same here. Get them about once a year on average, usually when over-stressed and tired. Major sympathies for those who suffer frequently.
A shot in the arm for Brand awareness Russell Brand's gleeful tale of drugs and debauchery in My Booky Wook puts most other celebrity memoirs to shame, writes Andrew Anthony
"On one occasion he takes a stripper back to his flat and, having satisfied his own needs but not hers, he goes to the bathroom to smoke heroin. The dissatisfied woman responds by hitting him in the mouth. Brand in turn spits in her face and rushes her out of the door, which closes behind him, leaving him naked on the street at three in the morning. He tries to charm his spat-upon date to help him, with only limited success, and ends up in the basement of a gay bar, being goosed by Muscle Marys as he phones a locksmith. What is perversely impressive is that throughout all these reckless escapades he retains a galvanising ambition to become famous. And yet each time success appears with a contract and large cheque on his doorstep, he sends them packing with an act of juvenile self-destruction."
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
I'm calling it. There's gonna be a landslide.
I've heard similar things from those I'd consider to be core Tories, and even those who aren't are saying they don't deserve another term.
It's that which has convinced me.
Yes, I'm either staying home or voting Labour and I live in a marginal seat now.
I just don't think the Tories deserve another 5 years. The last 3 years have been a disaster and they could have been an opportunity to reset the agenda but instead we've had Boris being a total arse, Liz Truss being a mentalist for a few weeks and now Rishi just plodding along hollowing out the country to continually give old people more money and the right more red meat.
My problem is there isn't enough red meat.
A bigger one is a simply don't know what Rishi Sunak's prospectus is for the next parliament or what his vision is.
I'm certainly not voting Labour. It will definitely cost me thousands more in taxes and prices, and it's easy to forget just how much they like nannying and regulating us.
At the moment I don't see myself as voting at all. Writing rude limericks on the ballot paper may be the only option.
The Tories: no - tired, incompetent, no clue what they are about. On the side of the spivocracy. They need to go away and grow up. Labour: some promising ideas - housebuilding, for instance. But I don't trust them over women's rights. And they have an authoritarian, illiberal streak which I despise - see Starmer's latest statement that those objecting to people smugglers being called terrorists are anti-British. I'll see what they do in government first. The Lib Dems: invisible, Nimbyish, no idea what they stand for & unsound on women's rights. Greens: unhinged - see Scotland Refuk / Reform: fuck no.
TBH am becoming pretty disillusioned with politics. I'll concentrate on doing the best for my family. No-one else is going to.
And if he's the one who wrote the words "Immigration destroyed the Roman Empire" then he doesn't know what he's talking about. Reductive reason-seeking like this for hugely complex historical processes like this are only made either in ignorance or mischief. As a disconnected statement, it's utter ahistorical garbage.
There are quite a lot of idiots teaching history in many unis. Heck, even Tristram Hunt was a history lecturer, albeit only at QMUL which is a notorious shitheap.
But in this particular case, he's a specialist in late medieval Spanish history. There is no reason why his understanding of the Roman Empire would be better than that of any ordinary person in the street.
I suppose you make a case that the Visigoths, Vandals, Huns etc were immigrants but they were shall we say, not really analogous to modern immigrants in their actions.
There’s an immense amount of rubbish written about the Roman Empire, but then there always has been. Most of Gibbon is (beautifully written) rubbish.
Perhaps the silliest is the attempt to rewrite Imperial Rome as religiously tolerant, free of racial prejudice, and accepting of homosexuality. A liberal empire.
The NYT is the second largest polluter in the world? Seems unlikely, whether you are talking about air pollution, water pollution, or CO2 emissions. (The writer wasn't clear which.)
And if he's the one who wrote the words "Immigration destroyed the Roman Empire" then he doesn't know what he's talking about. Reductive reason-seeking like this for hugely complex historical processes like this are only made either in ignorance or mischief. As a disconnected statement, it's utter ahistorical garbage.
There are quite a lot of idiots teaching history in many unis. Heck, even Tristram Hunt was a history lecturer, albeit only at QMUL which is a notorious shitheap.
But in this particular case, he's a specialist in late medieval Spanish history. There is no reason why his understanding of the Roman Empire would be better than that of any ordinary person in the street.
I suppose you make a case that the Visigoths, Vandals, Huns etc were immigrants but they were shall we say, not really analogous to modern immigrants in their actions.
There’s an immense amount of rubbish written about the Roman Empire, but then there always has been. Most of Gibbon is (beautifully written) rubbish.
Perhaps the silliest is the attempt to rewrite Imperial Rome as religiously tolerant, free of racial prejudice, and accepting of homosexuality. A liberal empire.
I actually thought of Gibbon when I read that headline.
Or Catherine Nixey, in our own time. That said, the extracts I have read from her book are not beautifully written.
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
I'm calling it. There's gonna be a landslide.
I've heard similar things from those I'd consider to be core Tories, and even those who aren't are saying they don't deserve another term.
It's that which has convinced me.
Yes, I'm either staying home or voting Labour and I live in a marginal seat now.
I just don't think the Tories deserve another 5 years. The last 3 years have been a disaster and they could have been an opportunity to reset the agenda but instead we've had Boris being a total arse, Liz Truss being a mentalist for a few weeks and now Rishi just plodding along hollowing out the country to continually give old people more money and the right more red meat.
My problem is there isn't enough red meat.
A bigger one is a simply don't know what Rishi Sunak's prospectus is for the next parliament or what his vision is.
I'm certainly not voting Labour. It will definitely cost me thousands more in taxes and prices, and it's easy to forget just how much they like nannying and regulating us.
At the moment I don't see myself as voting at all. Writing rude limericks on the ballot paper may be the only option.
The Tories: no - tired, incompetent, no clue what they are about. On the side of the spivocracy. They need to go away and grow up. Labour: some promising ideas - housebuilding, for instance. But I don't trust them over women's rights. And they have an authoritarian, illiberal streak which I despise - see Starmer's latest statement that those objecting to people smugglers being called terrorists are anti-British. I'll see what they do in government first. The Lib Dems: invisible, Nimbyish, no idea what they stand for & unsound on women's rights. Greens: unhinged - see Scotland Refuk / Reform: fuck no.
TBH am becoming pretty disillusioned with politics. I'll concentrate on doing the best for my family. No-one else is going to.
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
I'm calling it. There's gonna be a landslide.
I've heard similar things from those I'd consider to be core Tories, and even those who aren't are saying they don't deserve another term.
It's that which has convinced me.
Yes, I'm either staying home or voting Labour and I live in a marginal seat now.
I just don't think the Tories deserve another 5 years. The last 3 years have been a disaster and they could have been an opportunity to reset the agenda but instead we've had Boris being a total arse, Liz Truss being a mentalist for a few weeks and now Rishi just plodding along hollowing out the country to continually give old people more money and the right more red meat.
My problem is there isn't enough red meat.
A bigger one is a simply don't know what Rishi Sunak's prospectus is for the next parliament or what his vision is.
I'm certainly not voting Labour. It will definitely cost me thousands more in taxes and prices, and it's easy to forget just how much they like nannying and regulating us.
At the moment I don't see myself as voting at all. Writing rude limericks on the ballot paper may be the only option.
The Tories: no - tired, incompetent, no clue what they are about. On the side of the spivocracy. They need to go away and grow up. Labour: some promising ideas - housebuilding, for instance. But I don't trust them over women's rights. And they have an authoritarian, illiberal streak which I despise - see Starmer's latest statement that those objecting to people smugglers being called terrorists are anti-British. I'll see what they do in government first. The Lib Dems: invisible, Nimbyish, no idea what they stand for & unsound on women's rights. Greens: unhinged - see Scotland Refuk / Reform: fuck no.
TBH am becoming pretty disillusioned with politics. I'll concentrate on doing the best for my family. No-one else is going to.
The conclusion I came to in 2019.
Although they weren't rude limericks. Just factual statements as to why I wouldn't vote for the candidates/parties.
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
I'm calling it. There's gonna be a landslide.
I've heard similar things from those I'd consider to be core Tories, and even those who aren't are saying they don't deserve another term.
It's that which has convinced me.
Yes, I'm either staying home or voting Labour and I live in a marginal seat now.
I just don't think the Tories deserve another 5 years. The last 3 years have been a disaster and they could have been an opportunity to reset the agenda but instead we've had Boris being a total arse, Liz Truss being a mentalist for a few weeks and now Rishi just plodding along hollowing out the country to continually give old people more money and the right more red meat.
My problem is there isn't enough red meat.
A bigger one is a simply don't know what Rishi Sunak's prospectus is for the next parliament or what his vision is.
I'm certainly not voting Labour. It will definitely cost me thousands more in taxes and prices, and it's easy to forget just how much they like nannying and regulating us.
At the moment I don't see myself as voting at all. Writing rude limericks on the ballot paper may be the only option.
The Tories: no - tired, incompetent, no clue what they are about. On the side of the spivocracy. They need to go away and grow up. Labour: some promising ideas - housebuilding, for instance. But I don't trust them over women's rights. And they have an authoritarian, illiberal streak which I despise - see Starmer's latest statement that those objecting to people smugglers being called terrorists are anti-British. I'll see what they do in government first. The Lib Dems: invisible, Nimbyish, no idea what they stand for & unsound on women's rights. Greens: unhinged - see Scotland Refuk / Reform: fuck no.
TBH am becoming pretty disillusioned with politics. I'll concentrate on doing the best for my family. No-one else is going to.
80% of pb appears to have taken leave of its senses. And unlike Trump and possibly Johnson, it doesn't seem that Sunak is a gaslighter.
“I’ve blocked the meat tax, cancelled 7 bins, and scrapped compulsory car sharing.”
#gaslighter
Well, I say hats off to old Six Bins Sunak. If drawing the line there doesn't mark him out as a man of the people, I don't know what does.
Honestly, why didn't someone say, "you know, this just invites ridicule, let's not bother"? He's in danger of becoming a punchline - clueless.
Is 7 bins the new cones hotline? Or is it the meat tax?
Possibly.
As with the Cones Hotline, it's not the idea in itself but the ridiculousness and sense of total exhaustion of having the PM - the PM! - coming out with it as if he's slaying the five giants.
Being disliked isn't ideal. But being a joke is worse. He's a mean-spirited version of Mr Bean at this point.
Sunak Weakens U.K. Climate Targets as Election Approaches
"After years of claiming leadership in the international fight against climate change, Britain’s government on Wednesday gambled on an abrupt change of course, weakening key environmental pledges and promising lower costs for Britons who will soon be asked to vote in a general election."
NY Times
LOL
the world's second largest polluter speaks.
You're not that bad, Alan, surely.
I actually cheered up when Sunak unleashed his bombshell. A shitload of pointless diktat binned and money goes back in to peoples pockets. The whole concept of "green" needs stripped back and made relevant to this country.
Nobody will be surprised to see you desperately clinging to the past
On asylum: The US got into the asylum business after WWII -- and during the Cold War. Even now, we take in many, many refugees fleeing from some of Jeremy Corbyn's favorite nations. For example, something like 1/5 of Venezuela's population has fled that nation, many of them coming here.
Away from all of this I was interested to read that the Germans are now in the same camp as the UK, Italy and seeming France wrt to illegal immigration. Surely there's a window to push through reforms of the ECHR to allow for easy deportation of failed asylum seekers and instant deportation for people arriving on banned routes as well as off shore processing centres.
With the four major countries in Europe all singing from the same hymn sheet it's surely time to start those discussions because all four countries have the same goal of stopping illegal immigration and deporting failed asylum seekers and many European countries have indicated they would also pursue the Rwanda policy.
Rishi and Giorgia need to get Macron on board and then push the Germans into it by using the spectre of AfD getting >30% at the next election.
Asylum as a 'right' is the root cause of so many of the problems. Until that's revised then it's difficult to see anything changing.
Asylum as a right was created after WW2 in response to the holocaust and the failure of the world to protect the Jews against genocide. By all means advocate for that right to be taken away if you want to, but don't pretend it's not there for a reason.
And yet the Rohingas and the Uyghurs don’t seem to be ones benefiting from the policy
And if he's the one who wrote the words "Immigration destroyed the Roman Empire" then he doesn't know what he's talking about. Reductive reason-seeking like this for hugely complex historical processes like this are only made either in ignorance or mischief. As a disconnected statement, it's utter ahistorical garbage.
There are quite a lot of idiots teaching history in many unis. Heck, even Tristram Hunt was a history lecturer, albeit only at QMUL which is a notorious shitheap.
But in this particular case, he's a specialist in late medieval Spanish history. There is no reason why his understanding of the Roman Empire would be better than that of any ordinary person in the street.
I suppose you make a case that the Visigoths, Vandals, Huns etc were immigrants but they were shall we say, not really analogous to modern immigrants in their actions.
There’s an immense amount of rubbish written about the Roman Empire, but then there always has been. Most of Gibbon is (beautifully written) rubbish.
Perhaps the silliest is the attempt to rewrite Imperial Rome as religiously tolerant, free of racial prejudice, and accepting of homosexuality. A liberal empire.
I actually thought of Gibbon when I read that headline.
Or Catherine Nixey, in our own time. That said, the extracts I have read from her book are not beautifully written.
Gibbon is ok, but it's not as readable as some would have you believe. There are moments of beauty in the way he phrases things, but he has trouble with pace. As in he needs to cut out about 80%.
Gibbon’s influence on popular opinion is immense. But no modern scholar of Rome bothers now, to seriously defend him, or attack him.
And if he's the one who wrote the words "Immigration destroyed the Roman Empire" then he doesn't know what he's talking about. Reductive reason-seeking like this for hugely complex historical processes like this are only made either in ignorance or mischief. As a disconnected statement, it's utter ahistorical garbage.
There are quite a lot of idiots teaching history in many unis. Heck, even Tristram Hunt was a history lecturer, albeit only at QMUL which is a notorious shitheap.
But in this particular case, he's a specialist in late medieval Spanish history. There is no reason why his understanding of the Roman Empire would be better than that of any ordinary person in the street.
I suppose you make a case that the Visigoths, Vandals, Huns etc were immigrants but they were shall we say, not really analogous to modern immigrants in their actions.
There’s an immense amount of rubbish written about the Roman Empire, but then there always has been. Most of Gibbon is (beautifully written) rubbish.
Perhaps the silliest is the attempt to rewrite Imperial Rome as religiously tolerant, free of racial prejudice, and accepting of homosexuality. A liberal empire.
I actually thought of Gibbon when I read that headline.
Or Catherine Nixey, in our own time. That said, the extracts I have read from her book are not beautifully written.
Gibbon is ok, but it's not as readable as some would have you believe. There are moments of beauty in the way he phrases things, but he has trouble with pace. As in he needs to cut out about 80%.
Gibbon’s influence on popular opinion is immense. But no modern scholar of Rome bothers now, to seriously defend him, or attack him.
Wikipedia still does defend him. But then, Wikipedia being edited by mad hobbyists is obsessed with trying to prove many things that are manifestly false.
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
I'm calling it. There's gonna be a landslide.
I've heard similar things from those I'd consider to be core Tories, and even those who aren't are saying they don't deserve another term.
It's that which has convinced me.
Yes, I'm either staying home or voting Labour and I live in a marginal seat now.
I just don't think the Tories deserve another 5 years. The last 3 years have been a disaster and they could have been an opportunity to reset the agenda but instead we've had Boris being a total arse, Liz Truss being a mentalist for a few weeks and now Rishi just plodding along hollowing out the country to continually give old people more money and the right more red meat.
My problem is there isn't enough red meat.
A bigger one is a simply don't know what Rishi Sunak's prospectus is for the next parliament or what his vision is.
I'm certainly not voting Labour. It will definitely cost me thousands more in taxes and prices, and it's easy to forget just how much they like nannying and regulating us.
At the moment I don't see myself as voting at all. Writing rude limericks on the ballot paper may be the only option.
The Tories: no - tired, incompetent, no clue what they are about. On the side of the spivocracy. They need to go away and grow up. Labour: some promising ideas - housebuilding, for instance. But I don't trust them over women's rights. And they have an authoritarian, illiberal streak which I despise - see Starmer's latest statement that those objecting to people smugglers being called terrorists are anti-British. I'll see what they do in government first. The Lib Dems: invisible, Nimbyish, no idea what they stand for & unsound on women's rights. Greens: unhinged - see Scotland Refuk / Reform: fuck no.
TBH am becoming pretty disillusioned with politics. I'll concentrate on doing the best for my family. No-one else is going to.
Much as I sympathise, that's a bit too bleak.
I think if I ever got to that point (and I'm not a million miles from it) I would have a good long look at the candidates and pick the one who appealed to me most, regardless of Party.
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
I'm calling it. There's gonna be a landslide.
I've heard similar things from those I'd consider to be core Tories, and even those who aren't are saying they don't deserve another term.
It's that which has convinced me.
Yes, I'm either staying home or voting Labour and I live in a marginal seat now.
I just don't think the Tories deserve another 5 years. The last 3 years have been a disaster and they could have been an opportunity to reset the agenda but instead we've had Boris being a total arse, Liz Truss being a mentalist for a few weeks and now Rishi just plodding along hollowing out the country to continually give old people more money and the right more red meat.
My problem is there isn't enough red meat.
A bigger one is a simply don't know what Rishi Sunak's prospectus is for the next parliament or what his vision is.
I'm certainly not voting Labour. It will definitely cost me thousands more in taxes and prices, and it's easy to forget just how much they like nannying and regulating us.
At the moment I don't see myself as voting at all. Writing rude limericks on the ballot paper may be the only option.
The Tories: no - tired, incompetent, no clue what they are about. On the side of the spivocracy. They need to go away and grow up. Labour: some promising ideas - housebuilding, for instance. But I don't trust them over women's rights. And they have an authoritarian, illiberal streak which I despise - see Starmer's latest statement that those objecting to people smugglers being called terrorists are anti-British. I'll see what they do in government first. The Lib Dems: invisible, Nimbyish, no idea what they stand for & unsound on women's rights. Greens: unhinged - see Scotland Refuk / Reform: fuck no.
TBH am becoming pretty disillusioned with politics. I'll concentrate on doing the best for my family. No-one else is going to.
And the garden. Don't forget the garden.
I don't. I am a happy little soul. The US carpenter has taken to getting in touch a little too frequently so I have ditched the idea of running off into the wilds with him. Instead I sat down the other day and designed and drew out my own ideal garden cabin, all drawn to scale, together with front and side elevations and cross-sections. Tomorrow I am meeting my local builder to discuss what it will cost etc and then we'll see.
I have already drawn out what I want for the back garden and this autumn is the time to do this when all the bracken etc dies back
Away from all of this I was interested to read that the Germans are now in the same camp as the UK, Italy and seeming France wrt to illegal immigration. Surely there's a window to push through reforms of the ECHR to allow for easy deportation of failed asylum seekers and instant deportation for people arriving on banned routes as well as off shore processing centres.
With the four major countries in Europe all singing from the same hymn sheet it's surely time to start those discussions because all four countries have the same goal of stopping illegal immigration and deporting failed asylum seekers and many European countries have indicated they would also pursue the Rwanda policy.
Rishi and Giorgia need to get Macron on board and then push the Germans into it by using the spectre of AfD getting >30% at the next election.
The Dutch do a very good job of (a) processing asylum claims quickly, and (b) deporting failed asylum seekers. The Norwegians are also ECHR signatories, and have also managed to avoid any of these issues.
So, it is solvable without cooperation from others. Indeed, I think politicians like to pretend cooperation from others is needed, to avoid doing the hard work of actually solving the problem themselves.
I would also note that Rwanda would be a 10x better policy if Rwanda was where claims were processed, rather than where people who had been granted asylum were sent. The goal is to avoid having people who are waiting for asylum decisions disappearing into the informal economy; the current Rwanda plan does not do that.
Sent to apply in Rwanda, for Rwandan asylum, not allowed to claim here.
(For illegal entries to the UK only)
Ah, OK, I misunderstood.
What I would prefer is that the UK set up proper (well funded) off-shore processing centres. And I would funnel the vast majority of asylum seekers through them, because the fundamental issue with the Rwanda policy is that it fails to appreciate that a great many asylum seekers (whatever their mode of entry) primary desire is to enter the informal UK economy.
I agree, and I have outlined a similar proposal often.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I've been keeping an eye on those models for a while, seen really good reviews across the board, I think my next car may be the base model of that. I like Kia, but their EVs are quite expensive. Hope the price can come down a bit further though before I buy one.
£17k of a used MG is the cheapest I've seen for newish electric vehicles. Still a fair way to go before its affordable for mass market, but hopefully it'll get there soon.
Away from all of this I was interested to read that the Germans are now in the same camp as the UK, Italy and seeming France wrt to illegal immigration. Surely there's a window to push through reforms of the ECHR to allow for easy deportation of failed asylum seekers and instant deportation for people arriving on banned routes as well as off shore processing centres.
With the four major countries in Europe all singing from the same hymn sheet it's surely time to start those discussions because all four countries have the same goal of stopping illegal immigration and deporting failed asylum seekers and many European countries have indicated they would also pursue the Rwanda policy.
Rishi and Giorgia need to get Macron on board and then push the Germans into it by using the spectre of AfD getting >30% at the next election.
Asylum as a 'right' is the root cause of so many of the problems. Until that's revised then it's difficult to see anything changing.
Asylum as a right was created after WW2 in response to the holocaust and the failure of the world to protect the Jews against genocide. By all means advocate for that right to be taken away if you want to, but don't pretend it's not there for a reason.
And yet the Rohingas and the Uyghurs don’t seem to be ones benefiting from the policy
The problem is that the definition of asylum has gradually been widened. So we started off with people threatened by genocide and this has now become anyone whose government is a bit rubbish.
And so the number of people who are eligible to claim asylum, has expanded beyond the capacity of countries to take them and so we have a situation where it is granted to those who can afford to pay the people smugglers rather than those in need.
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
I'm calling it. There's gonna be a landslide.
I've heard similar things from those I'd consider to be core Tories, and even those who aren't are saying they don't deserve another term.
It's that which has convinced me.
Yes, I'm either staying home or voting Labour and I live in a marginal seat now.
I just don't think the Tories deserve another 5 years. The last 3 years have been a disaster and they could have been an opportunity to reset the agenda but instead we've had Boris being a total arse, Liz Truss being a mentalist for a few weeks and now Rishi just plodding along hollowing out the country to continually give old people more money and the right more red meat.
My problem is there isn't enough red meat.
A bigger one is a simply don't know what Rishi Sunak's prospectus is for the next parliament or what his vision is.
I'm certainly not voting Labour. It will definitely cost me thousands more in taxes and prices, and it's easy to forget just how much they like nannying and regulating us.
At the moment I don't see myself as voting at all. Writing rude limericks on the ballot paper may be the only option.
The Tories: no - tired, incompetent, no clue what they are about. On the side of the spivocracy. They need to go away and grow up. Labour: some promising ideas - housebuilding, for instance. But I don't trust them over women's rights. And they have an authoritarian, illiberal streak which I despise - see Starmer's latest statement that those objecting to people smugglers being called terrorists are anti-British. I'll see what they do in government first. The Lib Dems: invisible, Nimbyish, no idea what they stand for & unsound on women's rights. Greens: unhinged - see Scotland Refuk / Reform: fuck no.
TBH am becoming pretty disillusioned with politics. I'll concentrate on doing the best for my family. No-one else is going to.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I think the way you make your point indicates just how out of touch you are with ordinary people
Those quotes are way beyond many in this cost of living crisis, but then you do have a company Tesla as far as I am aware
This is getting silly. The claim is that EVs are absurdly expensive, a cost being imposed on people which plucky Rishi has now put a stop to. But we can already buy an EV which is very competitive on price with the similarly sized Volkswagen Golf.
I may be out of touch with my company Tesla. But I can add. And these two numbers are close enough to be the same for one not to be described as vastly more expensive: VW Golf: £26,565 / MG4: £26,995. The MG will be cheaper when you spec the Golf up to match.
So the only way your rather haughty "EVs are too expensive" argument works is if ALL CARS are too expensive. Is that what you are saying?
“Now above all else I know that businesses want certainty and a level playing field, which is what our zero emissions vehicle mandate is for. It will require a minimum number of zero emission car sales by 2030.”
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
I'm calling it. There's gonna be a landslide.
I've heard similar things from those I'd consider to be core Tories, and even those who aren't are saying they don't deserve another term.
It's that which has convinced me.
Yes, I'm either staying home or voting Labour and I live in a marginal seat now.
I just don't think the Tories deserve another 5 years. The last 3 years have been a disaster and they could have been an opportunity to reset the agenda but instead we've had Boris being a total arse, Liz Truss being a mentalist for a few weeks and now Rishi just plodding along hollowing out the country to continually give old people more money and the right more red meat.
My problem is there isn't enough red meat.
A bigger one is a simply don't know what Rishi Sunak's prospectus is for the next parliament or what his vision is.
I'm certainly not voting Labour. It will definitely cost me thousands more in taxes and prices, and it's easy to forget just how much they like nannying and regulating us.
At the moment I don't see myself as voting at all. Writing rude limericks on the ballot paper may be the only option.
The Tories: no - tired, incompetent, no clue what they are about. On the side of the spivocracy. They need to go away and grow up. Labour: some promising ideas - housebuilding, for instance. But I don't trust them over women's rights. And they have an authoritarian, illiberal streak which I despise - see Starmer's latest statement that those objecting to people smugglers being called terrorists are anti-British. I'll see what they do in government first. The Lib Dems: invisible, Nimbyish, no idea what they stand for & unsound on women's rights. Greens: unhinged - see Scotland Refuk / Reform: fuck no.
TBH am becoming pretty disillusioned with politics. I'll concentrate on doing the best for my family. No-one else is going to.
Sadly I can't disagree with a word of that.
Except I'll vote, I see it as a civic duty so I always will, but at this rate it will be like a chore like putting the bins out, it won't be with much joy.
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
I'm calling it. There's gonna be a landslide.
I've heard similar things from those I'd consider to be core Tories, and even those who aren't are saying they don't deserve another term.
It's that which has convinced me.
Yes, I'm either staying home or voting Labour and I live in a marginal seat now.
I just don't think the Tories deserve another 5 years. The last 3 years have been a disaster and they could have been an opportunity to reset the agenda but instead we've had Boris being a total arse, Liz Truss being a mentalist for a few weeks and now Rishi just plodding along hollowing out the country to continually give old people more money and the right more red meat.
My problem is there isn't enough red meat.
A bigger one is a simply don't know what Rishi Sunak's prospectus is for the next parliament or what his vision is.
I'm certainly not voting Labour. It will definitely cost me thousands more in taxes and prices, and it's easy to forget just how much they like nannying and regulating us.
At the moment I don't see myself as voting at all. Writing rude limericks on the ballot paper may be the only option.
The Tories: no - tired, incompetent, no clue what they are about. On the side of the spivocracy. They need to go away and grow up. Labour: some promising ideas - housebuilding, for instance. But I don't trust them over women's rights. And they have an authoritarian, illiberal streak which I despise - see Starmer's latest statement that those objecting to people smugglers being called terrorists are anti-British. I'll see what they do in government first. The Lib Dems: invisible, Nimbyish, no idea what they stand for & unsound on women's rights. Greens: unhinged - see Scotland Refuk / Reform: fuck no.
TBH am becoming pretty disillusioned with politics. I'll concentrate on doing the best for my family. No-one else is going to.
Why not wait and see what is in the manifesto?
Or even read your local candidates views?
I recently met and had a long meeting with the local Tory candidate - Simon Fell MP - currently the MP for Barrow. A nice chap - and a pretty effective MP - but he will have a fight on his hands and is being let down by the leadership. However nice and effective he is, the Tory party as a whole needs to go into opposition. 13 years is long enough.
Labour would get my vote if I could trust them on women's rights. They have made a start but trust - once gone - needs a lot of work to come back. These are the questions that need answering from my perspective - https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/. This was picked up by Labour Womens Declaration and some of the points used in their response internally within Labour. Quite chuffed at that. They've invited me to work with local activists and I may do that. There is a lot of work being done internally to try and get to a sensible position and if Labour do get there then they may well get my vote. But I will never vote for a party which seeks to undermine women's rights.
The only Lib Dem MP I rate is Tim Farron who works incredibly hard for his constituency. I wish he were my MP.
The Greens are batshit, though I actually value sensible green policies highly. The Greens are invisible round here so not an option.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I've been keeping an eye on those models for a while, seen really good reviews across the board, I think my next car may be the base model of that. I like Kia, but their EVs are quite expensive. Hope the price can come down a bit further though before I buy one.
£17k of a used MG is the cheapest I've seen for newish electric vehicles. Still a fair way to go before its affordable for mass market, but hopefully it'll get there soon.
Big_G seems to be clinging to the "EVs are an expensive woke imposition that nobody can afford" Tory spin line. But that MG is cheaper than a Golf when specced like for like.
A lot of people are working very hard and can't pay their bills. But an awful lot more people are still buying cars, new doors, windows, a replacement boiler etc etc when the need to do so arises. And we are already at the point where EVs are directly competitive on price with ICE cars. As long as you buy chinese and not the crap being made by companies like VW...
And if he's the one who wrote the words "Immigration destroyed the Roman Empire" then he doesn't know what he's talking about. Reductive reason-seeking like this for hugely complex historical processes like this are only made either in ignorance or mischief. As a disconnected statement, it's utter ahistorical garbage.
There are quite a lot of idiots teaching history in many unis. Heck, even Tristram Hunt was a history lecturer, albeit only at QMUL which is a notorious shitheap.
But in this particular case, he's a specialist in late medieval Spanish history. There is no reason why his understanding of the Roman Empire would be better than that of any ordinary person in the street.
I suppose you make a case that the Visigoths, Vandals, Huns etc were immigrants but they were shall we say, not really analogous to modern immigrants in their actions.
There’s an immense amount of rubbish written about the Roman Empire, but then there always has been. Most of Gibbon is (beautifully written) rubbish.
Perhaps the silliest is the attempt to rewrite Imperial Rome as religiously tolerant, free of racial prejudice, and accepting of homosexuality. A liberal empire.
I actually thought of Gibbon when I read that headline.
Or Catherine Nixey, in our own time. That said, the extracts I have read from her book are not beautifully written.
Gibbon is ok, but it's not as readable as some would have you believe. There are moments of beauty in the way he phrases things, but he has trouble with pace. As in he needs to cut out about 80%.
Gibbon’s influence on popular opinion is immense. But no modern scholar of Rome bothers now, to seriously defend him, or attack him.
Wikipedia still does defend him. But then, Wikipedia being edited by mad hobbyists is obsessed with trying to prove many things that are manifestly false.
I’ve spent about a decade and a half, working out how everything I “knew” about the Roman Empire (civilised, tolerant aristocrats, defending civilisation from Barbarism) was hogwash.
The persecution of Jews, Christians, followers of druidism, and anyone suspected of witchcraft, was savage. The punishments meted out in the arenas to criminals and dissidents were grotesque. The Roman army could be quite stunningly cruel. The upper classes were filled with bigotry towards filthy orientals, smelly barbarians, the lower classes. Meeting an “Ethiopian” (ie black African) was bad luck. And tolerance of homosexuality meant acceptance of men buggering slaves. Being the “bottom” was social death.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I've been keeping an eye on those models for a while, seen really good reviews across the board, I think my next car may be the base model of that. I like Kia, but their EVs are quite expensive. Hope the price can come down a bit further though before I buy one.
£17k of a used MG is the cheapest I've seen for newish electric vehicles. Still a fair way to go before its affordable for mass market, but hopefully it'll get there soon.
Big_G seems to be clinging to the "EVs are an expensive woke imposition that nobody can afford" Tory spin line. But that MG is cheaper than a Golf when specced like for like.
A lot of people are working very hard and can't pay their bills. But an awful lot more people are still buying cars, new doors, windows, a replacement boiler etc etc when the need to do so arises. And we are already at the point where EVs are directly competitive on price with ICE cars. As long as you buy chinese and not the crap being made by companies like VW...
EVs are expensive but absolutely not woke nor have I ever suggested they are
The point being made is that even the cheapest is beyond many suffering from the cost of living crisis
The day will dawn when all vehicles are evs but that is a long-term project
Away from all of this I was interested to read that the Germans are now in the same camp as the UK, Italy and seeming France wrt to illegal immigration. Surely there's a window to push through reforms of the ECHR to allow for easy deportation of failed asylum seekers and instant deportation for people arriving on banned routes as well as off shore processing centres.
With the four major countries in Europe all singing from the same hymn sheet it's surely time to start those discussions because all four countries have the same goal of stopping illegal immigration and deporting failed asylum seekers and many European countries have indicated they would also pursue the Rwanda policy.
Rishi and Giorgia need to get Macron on board and then push the Germans into it by using the spectre of AfD getting >30% at the next election.
Asylum as a 'right' is the root cause of so many of the problems. Until that's revised then it's difficult to see anything changing.
Asylum as a right was created after WW2 in response to the holocaust and the failure of the world to protect the Jews against genocide. By all means advocate for that right to be taken away if you want to, but don't pretend it's not there for a reason.
And yet the Rohingas and the Uyghurs don’t seem to be ones benefiting from the policy
The problem is that the definition of asylum has gradually been widened. So we started off with people threatened by genocide and this has now become anyone whose government is a bit rubbish.
And so the number of people who are eligible to claim asylum, has expanded beyond the capacity of countries to take them and so we have a situation where it is granted to those who can afford to pay the people smugglers rather than those in need.
What is, say, the UK's capacity?
Interesting question. The reality is that after consistent levels of high immigration since 2005, the number is probably not that high, due to a shortage of housing. Maybe 20k per year. Scotland, Wales and NI have a higher capacity due to lower population density but migrants don't seem to want to go there.
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
I'm calling it. There's gonna be a landslide.
I've heard similar things from those I'd consider to be core Tories, and even those who aren't are saying they don't deserve another term.
It's that which has convinced me.
Yes, I'm either staying home or voting Labour and I live in a marginal seat now.
I just don't think the Tories deserve another 5 years. The last 3 years have been a disaster and they could have been an opportunity to reset the agenda but instead we've had Boris being a total arse, Liz Truss being a mentalist for a few weeks and now Rishi just plodding along hollowing out the country to continually give old people more money and the right more red meat.
My problem is there isn't enough red meat.
A bigger one is a simply don't know what Rishi Sunak's prospectus is for the next parliament or what his vision is.
I'm certainly not voting Labour. It will definitely cost me thousands more in taxes and prices, and it's easy to forget just how much they like nannying and regulating us.
At the moment I don't see myself as voting at all. Writing rude limericks on the ballot paper may be the only option.
The Tories: no - tired, incompetent, no clue what they are about. On the side of the spivocracy. They need to go away and grow up. Labour: some promising ideas - housebuilding, for instance. But I don't trust them over women's rights. And they have an authoritarian, illiberal streak which I despise - see Starmer's latest statement that those objecting to people smugglers being called terrorists are anti-British. I'll see what they do in government first. The Lib Dems: invisible, Nimbyish, no idea what they stand for & unsound on women's rights. Greens: unhinged - see Scotland Refuk / Reform: fuck no.
TBH am becoming pretty disillusioned with politics. I'll concentrate on doing the best for my family. No-one else is going to.
And the garden. Don't forget the garden.
Candidly?
I actually read and studied that for my French O-level. Along with Camus' La Peste and Francois Mauriac's Le Noeud de Viperes, which is a marvellous book.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I think the way you make your point indicates just how out of touch you are with ordinary people
Those quotes are way beyond many in this cost of living crisis, but then you do have a company Tesla as far as I am aware
It is £350 a month to lease a basic EV, compared to about £60 a month to keep an old petrol car running.
When I looked on the school run there are no EV's, everyone has old petrol cars. Also in the teachers car park.
Sure. But you can keep an old petrol car running long past 2030. It simply isn't what the discussion is about - people can have an old petrol car for decades yet.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I think the way you make your point indicates just how out of touch you are with ordinary people
Those quotes are way beyond many in this cost of living crisis, but then you do have a company Tesla as far as I am aware
This is getting silly. The claim is that EVs are absurdly expensive, a cost being imposed on people which plucky Rishi has now put a stop to. But we can already buy an EV which is very competitive on price with the similarly sized Volkswagen Golf.
I may be out of touch with my company Tesla. But I can add. And these two numbers are close enough to be the same for one not to be described as vastly more expensive: VW Golf: £26,565 / MG4: £26,995. The MG will be cheaper when you spec the Golf up to match.
So the only way your rather haughty "EVs are too expensive" argument works is if ALL CARS are too expensive. Is that what you are saying?
That's the cheapest mainstream car you can get for an EV.
From the Carwow website you can get a new Picanto or MG3 petrol for £13k, literally half the price. Vauxhall Corsa, Toyota Aygo, Dacia Sandero, Hyundai i10 for £15k. MG ZS Excite, Citroen C3 or Renault Clio for £16k - all over £10k cheaper.
And so on and so forth.
That's without looking at used vehicles were the difference is even more staggering. A used MG4 is the cheapest mainstream electric vehicle you can get at about £17k but you can get a used petrol Vauxhall Corsa with the same mileage for £10k.
Hopefully soon prices will crossover, but lets not pretend we're there already.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I've been keeping an eye on those models for a while, seen really good reviews across the board, I think my next car may be the base model of that. I like Kia, but their EVs are quite expensive. Hope the price can come down a bit further though before I buy one.
£17k of a used MG is the cheapest I've seen for newish electric vehicles. Still a fair way to go before its affordable for mass market, but hopefully it'll get there soon.
Big_G seems to be clinging to the "EVs are an expensive woke imposition that nobody can afford" Tory spin line. But that MG is cheaper than a Golf when specced like for like.
A lot of people are working very hard and can't pay their bills. But an awful lot more people are still buying cars, new doors, windows, a replacement boiler etc etc when the need to do so arises. And we are already at the point where EVs are directly competitive on price with ICE cars. As long as you buy chinese and not the crap being made by companies like VW...
EVs are expensive but absolutely not woke nor have I ever suggested they are
The point being made is that even the cheapest is beyond many suffering from the cost of living crisis
The day will dawn when all vehicles are evs but that is a long-term project
No. Your point now is that we can't have EVs because they are expensive because they cost the same as a mass market VW which nobody can afford so its right to postpone banning sales of ICE cars so that people who can't afford a £26k MG EV can buy a £26k VW Golf.
EVs are dropping rapidly in price. I have just given an example where it is the same starting price than the equivalent mass market ICE equivalent and better equipped.
You asked earlier if I ever think I am wrong. I said yes, often, and pointed out that I have mea culpa'd on here repeatedly.
On this topic you are wrong. Demonstrably. Factually. With an example. But keep chanting the Tory spin line. Your point that some people cannot afford a car - whilst valid in general - is irrelevant to the EV vs ICE date debate.
The lie to BMW and with it the destruction of future investment is not to protect poor consumers as you spin. It is to give succour to the "climate change is a lie" tendency in their party. That's it.
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
I'm calling it. There's gonna be a landslide.
I've heard similar things from those I'd consider to be core Tories, and even those who aren't are saying they don't deserve another term.
It's that which has convinced me.
Yes, I'm either staying home or voting Labour and I live in a marginal seat now.
I just don't think the Tories deserve another 5 years. The last 3 years have been a disaster and they could have been an opportunity to reset the agenda but instead we've had Boris being a total arse, Liz Truss being a mentalist for a few weeks and now Rishi just plodding along hollowing out the country to continually give old people more money and the right more red meat.
My problem is there isn't enough red meat.
A bigger one is a simply don't know what Rishi Sunak's prospectus is for the next parliament or what his vision is.
I'm certainly not voting Labour. It will definitely cost me thousands more in taxes and prices, and it's easy to forget just how much they like nannying and regulating us.
At the moment I don't see myself as voting at all. Writing rude limericks on the ballot paper may be the only option.
The Tories: no - tired, incompetent, no clue what they are about. On the side of the spivocracy. They need to go away and grow up. Labour: some promising ideas - housebuilding, for instance. But I don't trust them over women's rights. And they have an authoritarian, illiberal streak which I despise - see Starmer's latest statement that those objecting to people smugglers being called terrorists are anti-British. I'll see what they do in government first. The Lib Dems: invisible, Nimbyish, no idea what they stand for & unsound on women's rights. Greens: unhinged - see Scotland Refuk / Reform: fuck no.
TBH am becoming pretty disillusioned with politics. I'll concentrate on doing the best for my family. No-one else is going to.
And the garden. Don't forget the garden.
Candidly?
I actually read and studied that for my French O-level. Along with Camus' La Peste and Francois Mauriac's Le Noeud de Viperes, which is a marvellous book.
For me it went along with La Guerre de Troie n'aura pas Lieu (Giraudoux) in an optional French class for science students.
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
You haven't explained why you don't like the Tories at the moment, unless it's simply because of the new green policy.
Because they have no plan - for anything. Zero ideology. Zero ideas. Zero. ZERO. It’s all hand-to-mouth modest populism, and not even that well done
Labour aren’t exactly a philosophical fountain of ideas but it’s a fair bet they will have SOME new thinking - after 13 years in opposition
Whereas Cameron, Osborne, May and Johnson were all so sophisticated? Has the penny just dropped?
Cameron did have ideas. Form an electoral bloc with Con and LD voters. Reduce the size of the state. Use referendums to resolve longstanding open sores. And for a while they worked. But the coalition could only deliver a small majority, austerity hurt more than it helped, and not all the referendums went to plan. Good ideas that failed in the field, but I understood it
May had ideas. Arrange a painless Brexit, cope with the demographic problem by imposing a wealth tax. But her man management and presentation skills were not up to it and she failed. But I understood her.
Boris had ideas. A spoilt and feckless man, his idea was to purchase votes by levelling up in the Red Wall, and his Greenery reflected the thoughtless interests of the metropolitan elite he personified. I genuinely disliked him but I understood him, better than himself. The Labour-Conservative bloc he built would have worked.
Truss we shall pass a kindly veil over
But Sunak. What does he believe? In his core? What is the Britain he wants to build? What are the problems, and what are the solutions? Does he even know himself?
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I've been keeping an eye on those models for a while, seen really good reviews across the board, I think my next car may be the base model of that. I like Kia, but their EVs are quite expensive. Hope the price can come down a bit further though before I buy one.
£17k of a used MG is the cheapest I've seen for newish electric vehicles. Still a fair way to go before its affordable for mass market, but hopefully it'll get there soon.
Big_G seems to be clinging to the "EVs are an expensive woke imposition that nobody can afford" Tory spin line. But that MG is cheaper than a Golf when specced like for like.
A lot of people are working very hard and can't pay their bills. But an awful lot more people are still buying cars, new doors, windows, a replacement boiler etc etc when the need to do so arises. And we are already at the point where EVs are directly competitive on price with ICE cars. As long as you buy chinese and not the crap being made by companies like VW...
EVs are expensive but absolutely not woke nor have I ever suggested they are
The point being made is that even the cheapest is beyond many suffering from the cost of living crisis
The day will dawn when all vehicles are evs but that is a long-term project
No. Your point now is that we can't have EVs because they are expensive because they cost the same as a mass market VW which nobody can afford so its right to postpone banning sales of ICE cars so that people who can't afford a £26k MG EV can buy a £26k VW Golf.
EVs are dropping rapidly in price. I have just given an example where it is the same starting price than the equivalent mass market ICE equivalent and better equipped.
You asked earlier if I ever think I am wrong. I said yes, often, and pointed out that I have mea culpa'd on here repeatedly.
On this topic you are wrong. Demonstrably. Factually. With an example. But keep chanting the Tory spin line. Your point that some people cannot afford a car - whilst valid in general - is irrelevant to the EV vs ICE date debate.
The lie to BMW and with it the destruction of future investment is not to protect poor consumers as you spin. It is to give succour to the "climate change is a lie" tendency in their party. That's it.
For new VWs on Carwow: Polo is £18.7k, T-Cross is £22.2k, Taigo is £22.8k
The idea that £26k is the cheapest VW, let alone the cheapest petrol is just fallacious. And there's plenty of brands cheaper than VW, but there's none cheaper than MG, so you're not comparing like for like.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I think the way you make your point indicates just how out of touch you are with ordinary people
Those quotes are way beyond many in this cost of living crisis, but then you do have a company Tesla as far as I am aware
This is getting silly. The claim is that EVs are absurdly expensive, a cost being imposed on people which plucky Rishi has now put a stop to. But we can already buy an EV which is very competitive on price with the similarly sized Volkswagen Golf.
I may be out of touch with my company Tesla. But I can add. And these two numbers are close enough to be the same for one not to be described as vastly more expensive: VW Golf: £26,565 / MG4: £26,995. The MG will be cheaper when you spec the Golf up to match.
So the only way your rather haughty "EVs are too expensive" argument works is if ALL CARS are too expensive. Is that what you are saying?
That's the cheapest mainstream car you can get for an EV.
From the Carwow website you can get a new Picanto or MG3 petrol for £13k, literally half the price. Vauxhall Corsa, Toyota Aygo, Dacia Sandero, Hyundai i10 for £15k. MG ZS Excite, Citroen C3 or Renault Clio for £16k - all over £10k cheaper.
And so on and so forth.
That's without looking at used vehicles were the difference is even more staggering. A used MG4 is the cheapest mainstream electric vehicle you can get at about £17k but you can get a used petrol Vauxhall Corsa with the same mileage for £10k.
Hopefully soon prices will crossover, but lets not pretend we're there already.
This is the point I was making earlier. I gave up when a posted claimed that EVs were no more expensive than a petrol because you could just buy a much older EV for the same money. So that's OK then.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I've been keeping an eye on those models for a while, seen really good reviews across the board, I think my next car may be the base model of that. I like Kia, but their EVs are quite expensive. Hope the price can come down a bit further though before I buy one.
£17k of a used MG is the cheapest I've seen for newish electric vehicles. Still a fair way to go before its affordable for mass market, but hopefully it'll get there soon.
Big_G seems to be clinging to the "EVs are an expensive woke imposition that nobody can afford" Tory spin line. But that MG is cheaper than a Golf when specced like for like.
A lot of people are working very hard and can't pay their bills. But an awful lot more people are still buying cars, new doors, windows, a replacement boiler etc etc when the need to do so arises. And we are already at the point where EVs are directly competitive on price with ICE cars. As long as you buy chinese and not the crap being made by companies like VW...
EVs are expensive but absolutely not woke nor have I ever suggested they are
The point being made is that even the cheapest is beyond many suffering from the cost of living crisis
The day will dawn when all vehicles are evs but that is a long-term project
No. Your point now is that we can't have EVs because they are expensive because they cost the same as a mass market VW which nobody can afford so its right to postpone banning sales of ICE cars so that people who can't afford a £26k MG EV can buy a £26k VW Golf.
EVs are dropping rapidly in price. I have just given an example where it is the same starting price than the equivalent mass market ICE equivalent and better equipped.
You asked earlier if I ever think I am wrong. I said yes, often, and pointed out that I have mea culpa'd on here repeatedly.
On this topic you are wrong. Demonstrably. Factually. With an example. But keep chanting the Tory spin line. Your point that some people cannot afford a car - whilst valid in general - is irrelevant to the EV vs ICE date debate.
The lie to BMW and with it the destruction of future investment is not to protect poor consumers as you spin. It is to give succour to the "climate change is a lie" tendency in their party. That's it.
For new VWs on Carwow: Polo is £18.7k, T-Cross is £22.2k, Taigo is £22.8k
The idea that £26k is the cheapest VW, let alone the cheapest petrol is just fallacious. And there's plenty of brands cheaper than VW, but there's none cheaper than MG, so you're not comparing like for like.
And we are still more than 6 years away from 2030, and already it is pretty close.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I think the way you make your point indicates just how out of touch you are with ordinary people
Those quotes are way beyond many in this cost of living crisis, but then you do have a company Tesla as far as I am aware
This is getting silly. The claim is that EVs are absurdly expensive, a cost being imposed on people which plucky Rishi has now put a stop to. But we can already buy an EV which is very competitive on price with the similarly sized Volkswagen Golf.
I may be out of touch with my company Tesla. But I can add. And these two numbers are close enough to be the same for one not to be described as vastly more expensive: VW Golf: £26,565 / MG4: £26,995. The MG will be cheaper when you spec the Golf up to match.
So the only way your rather haughty "EVs are too expensive" argument works is if ALL CARS are too expensive. Is that what you are saying?
That's the cheapest mainstream car you can get for an EV.
From the Carwow website you can get a new Picanto or MG3 petrol for £13k, literally half the price. Vauxhall Corsa, Toyota Aygo, Dacia Sandero, Hyundai i10 for £15k. MG ZS Excite, Citroen C3 or Renault Clio for £16k - all over £10k cheaper.
And so on and so forth.
That's without looking at used vehicles were the difference is even more staggering. A used MG4 is the cheapest mainstream electric vehicle you can get at about £17k but you can get a used petrol Vauxhall Corsa with the same mileage for £10k.
Hopefully soon prices will crossover, but lets not pretend we're there already.
You take my point though. The cars you mention are all much smaller than a Golf or your Ceed. But the price is collapsing. No longer a huge price premium for EV over ICE in the same category. With manufacturers offering every smaller options.
Allegedly they had to delay this change because EVs are so expensive. Except that increasingly they are not. Now play forward announcements already made by so many of the legacy manufacturers - an end to diesel, an end to non-hybrid petrol. And play forward the new smaller cheaper EV models. By 2026 or so this debate will be very different, with several years still to go before the 2030 deadline.
The challenge isn't can anyone make EVs in line with ICE pricing. Its what happens to the legacy manufacturers reluctant to do so? In the 1970s there was an absolute denial in Europe than Japanese manufacturers were a threat. In the 80s and 90s the same for the Koreans. Now the same for the Chinese.
There is always someone else willing to invest more and innovate faster to get ahead of you on the consumer trend curve. The reason for the anguished howls from the likes of Ford and Stellantis today is simple - despite supposedly being the beneficiary of a delay in banning ICE, the opposite is true.
They need to transition as rapidly as possible, to outcompete with state-backed Chinese firms. So they also need state backing, and this announcement just makes them more vulnerable.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I've been keeping an eye on those models for a while, seen really good reviews across the board, I think my next car may be the base model of that. I like Kia, but their EVs are quite expensive. Hope the price can come down a bit further though before I buy one.
£17k of a used MG is the cheapest I've seen for newish electric vehicles. Still a fair way to go before its affordable for mass market, but hopefully it'll get there soon.
Big_G seems to be clinging to the "EVs are an expensive woke imposition that nobody can afford" Tory spin line. But that MG is cheaper than a Golf when specced like for like.
A lot of people are working very hard and can't pay their bills. But an awful lot more people are still buying cars, new doors, windows, a replacement boiler etc etc when the need to do so arises. And we are already at the point where EVs are directly competitive on price with ICE cars. As long as you buy chinese and not the crap being made by companies like VW...
EVs are expensive but absolutely not woke nor have I ever suggested they are
The point being made is that even the cheapest is beyond many suffering from the cost of living crisis
The day will dawn when all vehicles are evs but that is a long-term project
No. Your point now is that we can't have EVs because they are expensive because they cost the same as a mass market VW which nobody can afford so its right to postpone banning sales of ICE cars so that people who can't afford a £26k MG EV can buy a £26k VW Golf.
EVs are dropping rapidly in price. I have just given an example where it is the same starting price than the equivalent mass market ICE equivalent and better equipped.
You asked earlier if I ever think I am wrong. I said yes, often, and pointed out that I have mea culpa'd on here repeatedly.
On this topic you are wrong. Demonstrably. Factually. With an example. But keep chanting the Tory spin line. Your point that some people cannot afford a car - whilst valid in general - is irrelevant to the EV vs ICE date debate.
The lie to BMW and with it the destruction of future investment is not to protect poor consumers as you spin. It is to give succour to the "climate change is a lie" tendency in their party. That's it.
For new VWs on Carwow: Polo is £18.7k, T-Cross is £22.2k, Taigo is £22.8k
The idea that £26k is the cheapest VW, let alone the cheapest petrol is just fallacious. And there's plenty of brands cheaper than VW, but there's none cheaper than MG, so you're not comparing like for like.
And we are still more than 6 years away from 2030, and already it is pretty close.
Literally twice the price between the cheapest new mainstream EV and the cheapest new mainstream petrol isn't what I'd call close.
Its definitely certainly getting closer and hopefully will get there within 6 years.
But if you're buying a car from your own limited money and not as a company car as a BiK we're not remotely there yet.
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
You haven't explained why you don't like the Tories at the moment, unless it's simply because of the new green policy.
Because they have no plan - for anything. Zero ideology. Zero ideas. Zero. ZERO. It’s all hand-to-mouth modest populism, and not even that well done
Labour aren’t exactly a philosophical fountain of ideas but it’s a fair bet they will have SOME new thinking - after 13 years in opposition
Whereas Cameron, Osborne, May and Johnson were all so sophisticated? Has the penny just dropped?
Cameron did have ideas. Form an electoral bloc with Con and LD voters. Reduce the size of the state. Use referendums to resolve longstanding open sores. And for a while they worked. But the coalition could only deliver a small majority, austerity hurt more than it helped, and not all the referendums went to plan. Good ideas that failed in the field, but I understood it
May had ideas. Arrange a painless Brexit, cope with the demographic problem by imposing a wealth tax. But her man management and presentation skills were not up to it and she failed. But I understood her.
Boris had ideas. A spoilt and feckless man, his idea was to purchase votes by levelling up in the Red Wall, and his Greenery reflected the thoughtless interests of the metropolitan elite he personified. I genuinely disliked him but I understood him, better than himself. The Labour-Conservative bloc he built would have worked.
Truss we shall pass a kindly veil over
But Sunak. What does he believe? In his core? What is the Britain he wants to build? What are the problems, and what are the solutions? Does he even know himself?
That’s what I thought about Boris - he wasn’t governing in a particularly right wing way was he? Economically he was kind of centre left, culturally centre right. Pretty much reflecting the country
I don’t think people on here hated him for his policies, but because they had underestimated, then been beaten by him consistently
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
You haven't explained why you don't like the Tories at the moment, unless it's simply because of the new green policy.
Because they have no plan - for anything. Zero ideology. Zero ideas. Zero. ZERO. It’s all hand-to-mouth modest populism, and not even that well done
Labour aren’t exactly a philosophical fountain of ideas but it’s a fair bet they will have SOME new thinking - after 13 years in opposition
Whereas Cameron, Osborne, May and Johnson were all so sophisticated? Has the penny just dropped?
Cameron did have ideas. Form an electoral bloc with Con and LD voters. Reduce the size of the state. Use referendums to resolve longstanding open sores. And for a while they worked. But the coalition could only deliver a small majority, austerity hurt more than it helped, and not all the referendums went to plan. Good ideas that failed in the field, but I understood it
May had ideas. Arrange a painless Brexit, cope with the demographic problem by imposing a wealth tax. But her man management and presentation skills were not up to it and she failed. But I understood her.
Boris had ideas. A spoilt and feckless man, his idea was to purchase votes by levelling up in the Red Wall, and his Greenery reflected the thoughtless interests of the metropolitan elite he personified. I genuinely disliked him but I understood him, better than himself. The Labour-Conservative bloc he built would have worked.
Truss we shall pass a kindly veil over
But Sunak. What does he believe? In his core? What is the Britain he wants to build? What are the problems, and what are the solutions? Does he even know himself?
One would have hoped for more from Sunak, what with his helicopter view.
Looks like you'll be able to see Father Ted creator Graham Linehan at the Tory party conference after all. Graham was invited, dis-invited (on the advice of Greater Manchester Police) and now re-invited!
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I've been keeping an eye on those models for a while, seen really good reviews across the board, I think my next car may be the base model of that. I like Kia, but their EVs are quite expensive. Hope the price can come down a bit further though before I buy one.
£17k of a used MG is the cheapest I've seen for newish electric vehicles. Still a fair way to go before its affordable for mass market, but hopefully it'll get there soon.
Big_G seems to be clinging to the "EVs are an expensive woke imposition that nobody can afford" Tory spin line. But that MG is cheaper than a Golf when specced like for like.
A lot of people are working very hard and can't pay their bills. But an awful lot more people are still buying cars, new doors, windows, a replacement boiler etc etc when the need to do so arises. And we are already at the point where EVs are directly competitive on price with ICE cars. As long as you buy chinese and not the crap being made by companies like VW...
EVs are expensive but absolutely not woke nor have I ever suggested they are
The point being made is that even the cheapest is beyond many suffering from the cost of living crisis
The day will dawn when all vehicles are evs but that is a long-term project
No. Your point now is that we can't have EVs because they are expensive because they cost the same as a mass market VW which nobody can afford so its right to postpone banning sales of ICE cars so that people who can't afford a £26k MG EV can buy a £26k VW Golf.
EVs are dropping rapidly in price. I have just given an example where it is the same starting price than the equivalent mass market ICE equivalent and better equipped.
You asked earlier if I ever think I am wrong. I said yes, often, and pointed out that I have mea culpa'd on here repeatedly.
On this topic you are wrong. Demonstrably. Factually. With an example. But keep chanting the Tory spin line. Your point that some people cannot afford a car - whilst valid in general - is irrelevant to the EV vs ICE date debate.
The lie to BMW and with it the destruction of future investment is not to protect poor consumers as you spin. It is to give succour to the "climate change is a lie" tendency in their party. That's it.
For new VWs on Carwow: Polo is £18.7k, T-Cross is £22.2k, Taigo is £22.8k
The idea that £26k is the cheapest VW, let alone the cheapest petrol is just fallacious. And there's plenty of brands cheaper than VW, but there's none cheaper than MG, so you're not comparing like for like.
When did I say it was the cheapest VW? The allegation is that EVs are more expensive like for like vs ICE. I am demonstrating that is no longer always the case.
The challenge isn't can anyone make EVs in line with ICE pricing. Its what happens to the legacy manufacturers reluctant to do so? In the 1970s there was an absolute denial in Europe than Japanese manufacturers were a threat. In the 80s and 90s the same for the Koreans. Now the same for the Chinese.
There is always someone else willing to invest more and innovate faster to get ahead of you on the consumer trend curve. The reason for the anguished howls from the likes of Ford and Stellantis today is simple - despite supposedly being the beneficiary of a delay in banning ICE, the opposite is true.
They need to transition as rapidly as possible, to outcompete with state-backed Chinese firms. So they also need state backing, and this announcement just makes them more vulnerable.
Exactly. This delay, even if it is more in terms of spirit rather than anything practical, plays into the hands of the very country we ought to be worried about becoming ever more dependent upon. Slowing the transition in the UK helps the like of BYD and SAIC Motor, and it can only harm UK manufacturers.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I think the way you make your point indicates just how out of touch you are with ordinary people
Those quotes are way beyond many in this cost of living crisis, but then you do have a company Tesla as far as I am aware
It is £350 a month to lease a basic EV, compared to about £60 a month to keep an old petrol car running.
When I looked on the school run there are no EV's, everyone has old petrol cars. Also in the teachers car park.
You're not comparing like with like though are you? You're comparing a new EV with an old ICE car.
My point is that most people keep old cars running rather than buying new cars, particularly now with high interest rates and inflation.. I'd also point out that basic ICE cars are still considerably cheaper than EV's (ie the Dacias), so this claim - that the prices are the same, is not correct. Also it isn't correct to compare an established premium brand like a VW with MG, a cheap upstart.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I've been keeping an eye on those models for a while, seen really good reviews across the board, I think my next car may be the base model of that. I like Kia, but their EVs are quite expensive. Hope the price can come down a bit further though before I buy one.
£17k of a used MG is the cheapest I've seen for newish electric vehicles. Still a fair way to go before its affordable for mass market, but hopefully it'll get there soon.
Big_G seems to be clinging to the "EVs are an expensive woke imposition that nobody can afford" Tory spin line. But that MG is cheaper than a Golf when specced like for like.
A lot of people are working very hard and can't pay their bills. But an awful lot more people are still buying cars, new doors, windows, a replacement boiler etc etc when the need to do so arises. And we are already at the point where EVs are directly competitive on price with ICE cars. As long as you buy chinese and not the crap being made by companies like VW...
EVs are expensive but absolutely not woke nor have I ever suggested they are
The point being made is that even the cheapest is beyond many suffering from the cost of living crisis
The day will dawn when all vehicles are evs but that is a long-term project
No. Your point now is that we can't have EVs because they are expensive because they cost the same as a mass market VW which nobody can afford so its right to postpone banning sales of ICE cars so that people who can't afford a £26k MG EV can buy a £26k VW Golf.
EVs are dropping rapidly in price. I have just given an example where it is the same starting price than the equivalent mass market ICE equivalent and better equipped.
You asked earlier if I ever think I am wrong. I said yes, often, and pointed out that I have mea culpa'd on here repeatedly.
On this topic you are wrong. Demonstrably. Factually. With an example. But keep chanting the Tory spin line. Your point that some people cannot afford a car - whilst valid in general - is irrelevant to the EV vs ICE date debate.
The lie to BMW and with it the destruction of future investment is not to protect poor consumers as you spin. It is to give succour to the "climate change is a lie" tendency in their party. That's it.
For new VWs on Carwow: Polo is £18.7k, T-Cross is £22.2k, Taigo is £22.8k
The idea that £26k is the cheapest VW, let alone the cheapest petrol is just fallacious. And there's plenty of brands cheaper than VW, but there's none cheaper than MG, so you're not comparing like for like.
And we are still more than 6 years away from 2030, and already it is pretty close.
Literally twice the price between the cheapest new mainstream EV and the cheapest new mainstream petrol isn't what I'd call close.
Its definitely certainly getting closer and hopefully will get there within 6 years.
But if you're buying a car from your own limited money and not as a company car as a BiK we're not remotely there yet.
Are you now just shopping for an car with a fixed budget and have zero interest what kind of an car you get? Petrol is cheaper because you can buy a very small car and they are usually cheaper than a bigger car.
That wasn't the argument being made. Supposedly an EV is always more expensive than an equivalent ICE. And with legacy manufacturers that is true: base Peugeot 208 £20,760, base e208 £31,745. Just the 50% more for the EV. And that was the expectation.
My point all day is that China is coming with much cheaper options in line with the market. And that is the example I gave - a £26k MG4 directly competing with a £26k Golf. Same size of car, same price, different power train.
Once EVs stop being 50% more expensive - and they will have to if the likes of Stallantis want to survive, then the argument changes. And that will happen rapidly over the next few years.
For about a decade, I have been saying that if you are worried about global warming -- and can do arithmetic -- you will favor the expansion of nuclear energy. But then I'm a "power to the people" kind of guy. (Incidentally, both of Barack Obama's permanent energy secretaries, Steven Chu and Ernest Moniz, agree with me on that. I doubt whether Obama ever listened to either of them on the subject.)
(Since Chancellor Merkel can do arithmetic, and claims to worry about global warming, I have wondered why she reversed her policies on nuclear power. I have -- tentatively -- concluded that all those Green votes were just too tempting. The air pollution caused by her switch has, probably, contributed to the deaths of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of deaths in Germany and neighboring nations.)
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
You haven't explained why you don't like the Tories at the moment, unless it's simply because of the new green policy.
Because they have no plan - for anything. Zero ideology. Zero ideas. Zero. ZERO. It’s all hand-to-mouth modest populism, and not even that well done
Labour aren’t exactly a philosophical fountain of ideas but it’s a fair bet they will have SOME new thinking - after 13 years in opposition
Whereas Cameron, Osborne, May and Johnson were all so sophisticated? Has the penny just dropped?
Cameron did have ideas. Form an electoral bloc with Con and LD voters. Reduce the size of the state. Use referendums to resolve longstanding open sores. And for a while they worked. But the coalition could only deliver a small majority, austerity hurt more than it helped, and not all the referendums went to plan. Good ideas that failed in the field, but I understood it
May had ideas. Arrange a painless Brexit, cope with the demographic problem by imposing a wealth tax. But her man management and presentation skills were not up to it and she failed. But I understood her.
Boris had ideas. A spoilt and feckless man, his idea was to purchase votes by levelling up in the Red Wall, and his Greenery reflected the thoughtless interests of the metropolitan elite he personified. I genuinely disliked him but I understood him, better than himself. The Labour-Conservative bloc he built would have worked.
Truss we shall pass a kindly veil over
But Sunak. What does he believe? In his core? What is the Britain he wants to build? What are the problems, and what are the solutions? Does he even know himself?
One would have hoped for more from Sunak, what with his helicopter view.
The lack of vision thing also applies to Starmer of course. The campaign will be interesting as I think there is a real opportunity for someone outside the big 2 to capture the public's attention (and the media will also be desperate for something to shake up the campaign)
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I think the way you make your point indicates just how out of touch you are with ordinary people
Those quotes are way beyond many in this cost of living crisis, but then you do have a company Tesla as far as I am aware
This is getting silly. The claim is that EVs are absurdly expensive, a cost being imposed on people which plucky Rishi has now put a stop to. But we can already buy an EV which is very competitive on price with the similarly sized Volkswagen Golf.
I may be out of touch with my company Tesla. But I can add. And these two numbers are close enough to be the same for one not to be described as vastly more expensive: VW Golf: £26,565 / MG4: £26,995. The MG will be cheaper when you spec the Golf up to match.
So the only way your rather haughty "EVs are too expensive" argument works is if ALL CARS are too expensive. Is that what you are saying?
That's the cheapest mainstream car you can get for an EV.
From the Carwow website you can get a new Picanto or MG3 petrol for £13k, literally half the price. Vauxhall Corsa, Toyota Aygo, Dacia Sandero, Hyundai i10 for £15k. MG ZS Excite, Citroen C3 or Renault Clio for £16k - all over £10k cheaper.
And so on and so forth.
That's without looking at used vehicles were the difference is even more staggering. A used MG4 is the cheapest mainstream electric vehicle you can get at about £17k but you can get a used petrol Vauxhall Corsa with the same mileage for £10k.
Hopefully soon prices will crossover, but lets not pretend we're there already.
You take my point though. The cars you mention are all much smaller than a Golf or your Ceed. But the price is collapsing. No longer a huge price premium for EV over ICE in the same category. With manufacturers offering every smaller options.
Allegedly they had to delay this change because EVs are so expensive. Except that increasingly they are not. Now play forward announcements already made by so many of the legacy manufacturers - an end to diesel, an end to non-hybrid petrol. And play forward the new smaller cheaper EV models. By 2026 or so this debate will be very different, with several years still to go before the 2030 deadline.
The challenge isn't can anyone make EVs in line with ICE pricing. Its what happens to the legacy manufacturers reluctant to do so? In the 1970s there was an absolute denial in Europe than Japanese manufacturers were a threat. In the 80s and 90s the same for the Koreans. Now the same for the Chinese.
There is always someone else willing to invest more and innovate faster to get ahead of you on the consumer trend curve. The reason for the anguished howls from the likes of Ford and Stellantis today is simple - despite supposedly being the beneficiary of a delay in banning ICE, the opposite is true.
They need to transition as rapidly as possible, to outcompete with state-backed Chinese firms. So they also need state backing, and this announcement just makes them more vulnerable.
If your point is we're there already, then no I don't take the point. Cheaper cars exist for a reason, I used to drive a Picanto myself and many more do, or any of the others named. There's no EV entry level there. For EVs to be able to replace petrol at the same affordability we'll need a mainstream 5-door EV that's ~£13k like your Picanto or MG3 etc car.
Within a like-for-like category, I'd say that a Kia Ceed is a better car than an MG4, at least the same category, and those start at £22k so about £5k cheaper than a base MG4.
Simply saying "go up to a more expensive category and then its semi-affordable, therefore its affordable" isn't a solution.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I've been keeping an eye on those models for a while, seen really good reviews across the board, I think my next car may be the base model of that. I like Kia, but their EVs are quite expensive. Hope the price can come down a bit further though before I buy one.
£17k of a used MG is the cheapest I've seen for newish electric vehicles. Still a fair way to go before its affordable for mass market, but hopefully it'll get there soon.
Renault Zoes from 2022 are 15-17k on Autotrader. I bought mine in 2021 at about 18 months old which by my standards is nearly new, and it was £12k.
Servicing is costing about £200 a year and dead simple. The main west and tear has been worn out tyres.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I think the way you make your point indicates just how out of touch you are with ordinary people
Those quotes are way beyond many in this cost of living crisis, but then you do have a company Tesla as far as I am aware
It is £350 a month to lease a basic EV, compared to about £60 a month to keep an old petrol car running.
When I looked on the school run there are no EV's, everyone has old petrol cars. Also in the teachers car park.
You're not comparing like with like though are you? You're comparing a new EV with an old ICE car.
My point is that most people keep old cars running rather than buying new cars, particularly now with high interest rates and inflation.. I'd also point out that basic ICE cars are still considerably cheaper than EV's (ie the Dacias), so this claim - that the prices are the same, is not correct. Also it isn't correct to compare an established premium brand like a VW with MG, a cheap upstart.
And he's right. The UN should be reconstituted to remove the absolute veto power. And yes I know there are huge practical difficulties in achieving that. But it's overdue.
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
You haven't explained why you don't like the Tories at the moment, unless it's simply because of the new green policy.
Because they have no plan - for anything. Zero ideology. Zero ideas. Zero. ZERO. It’s all hand-to-mouth modest populism, and not even that well done
Labour aren’t exactly a philosophical fountain of ideas but it’s a fair bet they will have SOME new thinking - after 13 years in opposition
Whereas Cameron, Osborne, May and Johnson were all so sophisticated? Has the penny just dropped?
Cameron did have ideas. Form an electoral bloc with Con and LD voters. Reduce the size of the state. Use referendums to resolve longstanding open sores. And for a while they worked. But the coalition could only deliver a small majority, austerity hurt more than it helped, and not all the referendums went to plan. Good ideas that failed in the field, but I understood it
May had ideas. Arrange a painless Brexit, cope with the demographic problem by imposing a wealth tax. But her man management and presentation skills were not up to it and she failed. But I understood her.
Boris had ideas. A spoilt and feckless man, his idea was to purchase votes by levelling up in the Red Wall, and his Greenery reflected the thoughtless interests of the metropolitan elite he personified. I genuinely disliked him but I understood him, better than himself. The Labour-Conservative bloc he built would have worked.
Truss we shall pass a kindly veil over
But Sunak. What does he believe? In his core? What is the Britain he wants to build? What are the problems, and what are the solutions? Does he even know himself?
I think the Mail referred to "Sunakism" the other day in a headline and the absurdity was quite striking.
You say you'll cast a kindly veil over Truss. But there was actually Trussism, however bonkers and fleeting. If anything, she had too clear a view of what she wanted to do, but coupled with too little sense of how to get it done.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I've been keeping an eye on those models for a while, seen really good reviews across the board, I think my next car may be the base model of that. I like Kia, but their EVs are quite expensive. Hope the price can come down a bit further though before I buy one.
£17k of a used MG is the cheapest I've seen for newish electric vehicles. Still a fair way to go before its affordable for mass market, but hopefully it'll get there soon.
Big_G seems to be clinging to the "EVs are an expensive woke imposition that nobody can afford" Tory spin line. But that MG is cheaper than a Golf when specced like for like.
A lot of people are working very hard and can't pay their bills. But an awful lot more people are still buying cars, new doors, windows, a replacement boiler etc etc when the need to do so arises. And we are already at the point where EVs are directly competitive on price with ICE cars. As long as you buy chinese and not the crap being made by companies like VW...
EVs are expensive but absolutely not woke nor have I ever suggested they are
The point being made is that even the cheapest is beyond many suffering from the cost of living crisis
The day will dawn when all vehicles are evs but that is a long-term project
No. Your point now is that we can't have EVs because they are expensive because they cost the same as a mass market VW which nobody can afford so its right to postpone banning sales of ICE cars so that people who can't afford a £26k MG EV can buy a £26k VW Golf.
EVs are dropping rapidly in price. I have just given an example where it is the same starting price than the equivalent mass market ICE equivalent and better equipped.
You asked earlier if I ever think I am wrong. I said yes, often, and pointed out that I have mea culpa'd on here repeatedly.
On this topic you are wrong. Demonstrably. Factually. With an example. But keep chanting the Tory spin line. Your point that some people cannot afford a car - whilst valid in general - is irrelevant to the EV vs ICE date debate.
The lie to BMW and with it the destruction of future investment is not to protect poor consumers as you spin. It is to give succour to the "climate change is a lie" tendency in their party. That's it.
For new VWs on Carwow: Polo is £18.7k, T-Cross is £22.2k, Taigo is £22.8k
The idea that £26k is the cheapest VW, let alone the cheapest petrol is just fallacious. And there's plenty of brands cheaper than VW, but there's none cheaper than MG, so you're not comparing like for like.
When did I say it was the cheapest VW? The allegation is that EVs are more expensive like for like vs ICE. I am demonstrating that is no longer always the case.
It is the case. You picked the cheapest EV then found a petrol vehicle more expensive, that isn't like for like.
Cheapest in-category petrol versus cheapest same-category EV is still considerably cheaper.
If you're denying that, you're just denying reality. Hopefully it'll change, but its not changed yet.
This whole green u-turn kerfuffle from the Tories is convincing me, once again, that I probably need to vote Labour
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Labour. I mistrust Starmer. I loathe, with revolutionary zeal, everywhere about Wokeness. And Labour will do lots of Woke things
But I believe Starmer’s Labour are basically patriotic, unionist, and capitalist and they won’t destroy the country (unlike Corbyn). They won’t disarm us of our nukes, they won’t impose an insane wealth tax which will demolish London
So they are just about tolerable. In which case they will probably get my vote because if they are to govern well they need a big majority so they have confidence to enact real reforms over 5 or 10 years. And see them through. And finish things like HS2 and NPR. The Tories are just desperately politicking with an eye to the polls next month
I know PB doesn’t believe me, but as things stand I am voting for my constituency MP. Sir Kir “Royale” Starmer
You haven't explained why you don't like the Tories at the moment, unless it's simply because of the new green policy.
Because they have no plan - for anything. Zero ideology. Zero ideas. Zero. ZERO. It’s all hand-to-mouth modest populism, and not even that well done
Labour aren’t exactly a philosophical fountain of ideas but it’s a fair bet they will have SOME new thinking - after 13 years in opposition
Whereas Cameron, Osborne, May and Johnson were all so sophisticated? Has the penny just dropped?
Cameron did have ideas. Form an electoral bloc with Con and LD voters. Reduce the size of the state. Use referendums to resolve longstanding open sores. And for a while they worked. But the coalition could only deliver a small majority, austerity hurt more than it helped, and not all the referendums went to plan. Good ideas that failed in the field, but I understood it
May had ideas. Arrange a painless Brexit, cope with the demographic problem by imposing a wealth tax. But her man management and presentation skills were not up to it and she failed. But I understood her.
Boris had ideas. A spoilt and feckless man, his idea was to purchase votes by levelling up in the Red Wall, and his Greenery reflected the thoughtless interests of the metropolitan elite he personified. I genuinely disliked him but I understood him, better than himself. The Labour-Conservative bloc he built would have worked.
Truss we shall pass a kindly veil over
But Sunak. What does he believe? In his core? What is the Britain he wants to build? What are the problems, and what are the solutions? Does he even know himself?
That’s what I thought about Boris - he wasn’t governing in a particularly right wing way was he? Economically he was kind of centre left, culturally centre right. Pretty much reflecting the country
I don’t think people on here hated him for his policies, but because they had underestimated, then been beaten by him consistently
Economically Boris spent and taxed more than Blair, he was socially liberal, other than on Brexit he wasn't that rightwing at all really.
Sunak is much more Thatcherite economically than Boris was, as was Truss. Indeed Sunak was the most fiscally conservative deficit hawk of the 3
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I think the way you make your point indicates just how out of touch you are with ordinary people
Those quotes are way beyond many in this cost of living crisis, but then you do have a company Tesla as far as I am aware
This is getting silly. The claim is that EVs are absurdly expensive, a cost being imposed on people which plucky Rishi has now put a stop to. But we can already buy an EV which is very competitive on price with the similarly sized Volkswagen Golf.
I may be out of touch with my company Tesla. But I can add. And these two numbers are close enough to be the same for one not to be described as vastly more expensive: VW Golf: £26,565 / MG4: £26,995. The MG will be cheaper when you spec the Golf up to match.
So the only way your rather haughty "EVs are too expensive" argument works is if ALL CARS are too expensive. Is that what you are saying?
That's the cheapest mainstream car you can get for an EV.
From the Carwow website you can get a new Picanto or MG3 petrol for £13k, literally half the price. Vauxhall Corsa, Toyota Aygo, Dacia Sandero, Hyundai i10 for £15k. MG ZS Excite, Citroen C3 or Renault Clio for £16k - all over £10k cheaper.
And so on and so forth.
That's without looking at used vehicles were the difference is even more staggering. A used MG4 is the cheapest mainstream electric vehicle you can get at about £17k but you can get a used petrol Vauxhall Corsa with the same mileage for £10k.
Hopefully soon prices will crossover, but lets not pretend we're there already.
You take my point though. The cars you mention are all much smaller than a Golf or your Ceed. But the price is collapsing. No longer a huge price premium for EV over ICE in the same category. With manufacturers offering every smaller options.
Allegedly they had to delay this change because EVs are so expensive. Except that increasingly they are not. Now play forward announcements already made by so many of the legacy manufacturers - an end to diesel, an end to non-hybrid petrol. And play forward the new smaller cheaper EV models. By 2026 or so this debate will be very different, with several years still to go before the 2030 deadline.
The challenge isn't can anyone make EVs in line with ICE pricing. Its what happens to the legacy manufacturers reluctant to do so? In the 1970s there was an absolute denial in Europe than Japanese manufacturers were a threat. In the 80s and 90s the same for the Koreans. Now the same for the Chinese.
There is always someone else willing to invest more and innovate faster to get ahead of you on the consumer trend curve. The reason for the anguished howls from the likes of Ford and Stellantis today is simple - despite supposedly being the beneficiary of a delay in banning ICE, the opposite is true.
They need to transition as rapidly as possible, to outcompete with state-backed Chinese firms. So they also need state backing, and this announcement just makes them more vulnerable.
If your point is we're there already, then no I don't take the point. Cheaper cars exist for a reason, I used to drive a Picanto myself and many more do, or any of the others named. There's no EV entry level there. For EVs to be able to replace petrol at the same affordability we'll need a mainstream 5-door EV that's ~£13k like your Picanto or MG3 etc car.
Within a like-for-like category, I'd say that a Kia Ceed is a better car than an MG4, at least the same category, and those start at £22k so about £5k cheaper than a base MG4.
Simply saying "go up to a more expensive category and then its semi-affordable, therefore its affordable" isn't a solution.
Many families have 2 cars now - a main car and a run around. I see EVs fitting in that runaround slot. If we had a 2nd car then maybe I would consider getting an EV or hybrid. I wouldn't consider replacing my main (currently only) car with an EV though as I would be concerned about it's ability to do long trips without having to stop for hours, and how the battery life would hold up after several years.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I think the way you make your point indicates just how out of touch you are with ordinary people
Those quotes are way beyond many in this cost of living crisis, but then you do have a company Tesla as far as I am aware
This is getting silly. The claim is that EVs are absurdly expensive, a cost being imposed on people which plucky Rishi has now put a stop to. But we can already buy an EV which is very competitive on price with the similarly sized Volkswagen Golf.
I may be out of touch with my company Tesla. But I can add. And these two numbers are close enough to be the same for one not to be described as vastly more expensive: VW Golf: £26,565 / MG4: £26,995. The MG will be cheaper when you spec the Golf up to match.
So the only way your rather haughty "EVs are too expensive" argument works is if ALL CARS are too expensive. Is that what you are saying?
That's the cheapest mainstream car you can get for an EV.
From the Carwow website you can get a new Picanto or MG3 petrol for £13k, literally half the price. Vauxhall Corsa, Toyota Aygo, Dacia Sandero, Hyundai i10 for £15k. MG ZS Excite, Citroen C3 or Renault Clio for £16k - all over £10k cheaper.
And so on and so forth.
That's without looking at used vehicles were the difference is even more staggering. A used MG4 is the cheapest mainstream electric vehicle you can get at about £17k but you can get a used petrol Vauxhall Corsa with the same mileage for £10k.
Hopefully soon prices will crossover, but lets not pretend we're there already.
You take my point though. The cars you mention are all much smaller than a Golf or your Ceed. But the price is collapsing. No longer a huge price premium for EV over ICE in the same category. With manufacturers offering every smaller options.
Allegedly they had to delay this change because EVs are so expensive. Except that increasingly they are not. Now play forward announcements already made by so many of the legacy manufacturers - an end to diesel, an end to non-hybrid petrol. And play forward the new smaller cheaper EV models. By 2026 or so this debate will be very different, with several years still to go before the 2030 deadline.
The challenge isn't can anyone make EVs in line with ICE pricing. Its what happens to the legacy manufacturers reluctant to do so? In the 1970s there was an absolute denial in Europe than Japanese manufacturers were a threat. In the 80s and 90s the same for the Koreans. Now the same for the Chinese.
There is always someone else willing to invest more and innovate faster to get ahead of you on the consumer trend curve. The reason for the anguished howls from the likes of Ford and Stellantis today is simple - despite supposedly being the beneficiary of a delay in banning ICE, the opposite is true.
They need to transition as rapidly as possible, to outcompete with state-backed Chinese firms. So they also need state backing, and this announcement just makes them more vulnerable.
If your point is we're there already, then no I don't take the point. Cheaper cars exist for a reason, I used to drive a Picanto myself and many more do, or any of the others named. There's no EV entry level there. For EVs to be able to replace petrol at the same affordability we'll need a mainstream 5-door EV that's ~£13k like your Picanto or MG3 etc car.
Within a like-for-like category, I'd say that a Kia Ceed is a better car than an MG4, at least the same category, and those start at £22k so about £5k cheaper than a base MG4.
Simply saying "go up to a more expensive category and then its semi-affordable, therefore its affordable" isn't a solution.
I wouldn't touch a VW with a pole, so I wouldn't get a Golf anyway. And I like Korean cars so I'd probably stay with Hyundai. But for so many punters VW was mass market affordable reliability. I picked a Golf as a benchmark. They have sold a gazillion of them over 8 generations - its hardly an unfair or selective car to benchmark against.
Your point on pricing though - what is that base price? £13k? It was £8k a few years ago - Dacia Sandero. A few years before that and someone (Perodua maybe) was at £6k. All long gone because they can't sell them for that and make money.
So the base price is not a fixed mark - its increasing rapidly. The challenge for any new manufacturer in a market is to compete against the market price - whatever that is.
You can complain that "There's no EV entry level there" - but "there" is almost double where it was a few years ago for the equivalent car
The EV vs petrol price thing is also partly a capital v running cost one. Diesels have always been a bit more expensive than petrol cars but sold because they had lower running costs per mile and slower depreciation.
I would assume that for similar reasons EVs will never reach complete price parity with ICE because they are cheaper to charge. People do intuitive NPVs in their heads when buying.
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
I've been keeping an eye on those models for a while, seen really good reviews across the board, I think my next car may be the base model of that. I like Kia, but their EVs are quite expensive. Hope the price can come down a bit further though before I buy one.
£17k of a used MG is the cheapest I've seen for newish electric vehicles. Still a fair way to go before its affordable for mass market, but hopefully it'll get there soon.
Big_G seems to be clinging to the "EVs are an expensive woke imposition that nobody can afford" Tory spin line. But that MG is cheaper than a Golf when specced like for like.
A lot of people are working very hard and can't pay their bills. But an awful lot more people are still buying cars, new doors, windows, a replacement boiler etc etc when the need to do so arises. And we are already at the point where EVs are directly competitive on price with ICE cars. As long as you buy chinese and not the crap being made by companies like VW...
EVs are expensive but absolutely not woke nor have I ever suggested they are
The point being made is that even the cheapest is beyond many suffering from the cost of living crisis
The day will dawn when all vehicles are evs but that is a long-term project
From memory (and my viewing of High Peak Autos) the average price of a second hand car on the lot is about £5k. The fact that people on PB think £25k is cheap is... depressing.
Comments
https://x.com/Channel4News/status/1704556135842197924
Figures for (I think) 2019 Conservative voters;
51.8% no difference
26.8% more likely
21.4% less likely
I've said before- part of Sunak's problem is that he can't make a move in either direction (centre rightist Dad or red meater) without losing about as much on the other side.
"Beware! Immigration's going to cause real problems for the EU in the mid 3050s!"
A series of small changes that make each years batteries a few percent better in their various characteristics.
Some of it is optimising the construction of the battery pack itself.
It’s classic product development - keep on making each piece better. Better form factors for the batteries. Tweaked chemistry. Tweaked manufacturing of the cell components.
This is how we’ve got to where we are with Lithium batteries so far.
No more awful French food. And I REALLY mean that: what a desperate culinary experience
Even the sandwich at Toulouse airport was banal, stale and dreary
5 in the last 2 weeks
This means that you can predict the probability of the price falling. It’s my understanding that the mines already being worked on, will, as they open, increase supply faster than predicted demand.
He's right there, people are tired of this
EDIT: Also, is Richi really that tiny, or is the lectern actually 5 feet wide?
Honestly, why didn't someone say, "you know, this just invites ridicule, let's not bother"? He's in danger of becoming a punchline - clueless.
Azerbaijan halts Karabakh offensive after ceasefire deal with Armenian separatists
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66863702
Biography books
Review
A shot in the arm for Brand awareness
Russell Brand's gleeful tale of drugs and debauchery in My Booky Wook puts most other celebrity memoirs to shame, writes Andrew Anthony
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/nov/25/biography.features
"On one occasion he takes a stripper back to his flat and, having satisfied his own needs but not hers, he goes to the bathroom to smoke heroin. The dissatisfied woman responds by hitting him in the mouth. Brand in turn spits in her face and rushes her out of the door, which closes behind him, leaving him naked on the street at three in the morning. He tries to charm his spat-upon date to help him, with only limited success, and ends up in the basement of a gay bar, being goosed by Muscle Marys as he phones a locksmith.
What is perversely impressive is that throughout all these reckless escapades he retains a galvanising ambition to become famous. And yet each time success appears with a contract and large cheque on his doorstep, he sends them packing with an act of juvenile self-destruction."
The Tories: no - tired, incompetent, no clue what they are about. On the side of the spivocracy. They need to go away and grow up.
Labour: some promising ideas - housebuilding, for instance. But I don't trust them over women's rights. And they have an authoritarian, illiberal streak which I despise - see Starmer's latest statement that those objecting to people smugglers being called terrorists are anti-British. I'll see what they do in government first.
The Lib Dems: invisible, Nimbyish, no idea what they stand for & unsound on women's rights.
Greens: unhinged - see Scotland
Refuk / Reform: fuck no.
TBH am becoming pretty disillusioned with politics. I'll concentrate on doing the best for my family. No-one else is going to.
435bhp. Torque Vectoring. Limited Slip Differential. 0-60 in 3.8 seconds.
£35k! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQzjrxT33DQ
Or if you don't need to slay £80k Audis, the base model is £26k
Perhaps the silliest is the attempt to rewrite Imperial Rome as religiously tolerant, free of racial prejudice, and accepting of homosexuality. A liberal empire.
Or Catherine Nixey, in our own time. That said, the extracts I have read from her book are not beautifully written.
Those quotes are way beyond many in this cost of living crisis, but then you do have a company Tesla as far as I am aware
Although they weren't rude limericks. Just factual statements as to why I wouldn't vote for the candidates/parties.
Admittedly rather forcefully expressed.
Or even read your local candidates views?
As with the Cones Hotline, it's not the idea in itself but the ridiculousness and sense of total exhaustion of having the PM - the PM! - coming out with it as if he's slaying the five giants.
Being disliked isn't ideal. But being a joke is worse. He's a mean-spirited version of Mr Bean at this point.
Many of us on here are reasonably well-off, mostly I would guess through our own hard work and effort, our views shouldn't be invalidated by that.
I think if I ever got to that point (and I'm not a million miles from it) I would have a good long look at the candidates and pick the one who appealed to me most, regardless of Party.
I have already drawn out what I want for the back garden and this autumn is the time to do this when all the bracken etc dies back
says Polish Prime Minister @MorawieckiM in an interview with @PolsatNewsPL.
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1704582495050559851
£17k of a used MG is the cheapest I've seen for newish electric vehicles. Still a fair way to go before its affordable for mass market, but hopefully it'll get there soon.
And so the number of people who are eligible to claim asylum, has expanded beyond the capacity of countries to take them and so we have a situation where it is granted to those who can afford to pay the people smugglers rather than those in need.
I may be out of touch with my company Tesla. But I can add. And these two numbers are close enough to be the same for one not to be described as vastly more expensive:
VW Golf: £26,565 / MG4: £26,995. The MG will be cheaper when you spec the Golf up to match.
So the only way your rather haughty "EVs are too expensive" argument works is if ALL CARS are too expensive. Is that what you are saying?
Yesterday the Transport Secretary said:
“Now above all else I know that businesses want certainty and a level playing field, which is what our zero emissions vehicle mandate is for. It will require a minimum number of zero emission car sales by 2030.”
So much for yesterday.
Except I'll vote, I see it as a civic duty so I always will, but at this rate it will be like a chore like putting the bins out, it won't be with much joy.
Labour would get my vote if I could trust them on women's rights. They have made a start but trust - once gone - needs a lot of work to come back. These are the questions that need answering from my perspective - https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/questions-questions/. This was picked up by Labour Womens Declaration and some of the points used in their response internally within Labour. Quite chuffed at that. They've invited me to work with local activists and I may do that. There is a lot of work being done internally to try and get to a sensible position and if Labour do get there then they may well get my vote. But I will never vote for a party which seeks to undermine women's rights.
The only Lib Dem MP I rate is Tim Farron who works incredibly hard for his constituency. I wish he were my MP.
The Greens are batshit, though I actually value sensible green policies highly. The Greens are invisible round here so not an option.
A lot of people are working very hard and can't pay their bills. But an awful lot more people are still buying cars, new doors, windows, a replacement boiler etc etc when the need to do so arises. And we are already at the point where EVs are directly competitive on price with ICE cars. As long as you buy chinese and not the crap being made by companies like VW...
The persecution of Jews, Christians, followers of druidism, and anyone suspected of witchcraft, was savage. The punishments meted out in the arenas to criminals and dissidents were grotesque. The Roman army could be quite stunningly cruel. The upper classes were filled with bigotry towards filthy orientals, smelly barbarians, the lower classes. Meeting an “Ethiopian” (ie black African) was bad luck. And tolerance of homosexuality meant acceptance of men buggering slaves. Being the “bottom” was social death.
When I looked on the school run there are no EV's, everyone has old petrol cars. Also in the teachers car park.
The point being made is that even the cheapest is beyond many suffering from the cost of living crisis
The day will dawn when all vehicles are evs but that is a long-term project
From the Carwow website you can get a new Picanto or MG3 petrol for £13k, literally half the price.
Vauxhall Corsa, Toyota Aygo, Dacia Sandero, Hyundai i10 for £15k.
MG ZS Excite, Citroen C3 or Renault Clio for £16k - all over £10k cheaper.
And so on and so forth.
That's without looking at used vehicles were the difference is even more staggering. A used MG4 is the cheapest mainstream electric vehicle you can get at about £17k but you can get a used petrol Vauxhall Corsa with the same mileage for £10k.
Hopefully soon prices will crossover, but lets not pretend we're there already.
EVs are dropping rapidly in price. I have just given an example where it is the same starting price than the equivalent mass market ICE equivalent and better equipped.
You asked earlier if I ever think I am wrong. I said yes, often, and pointed out that I have mea culpa'd on here repeatedly.
On this topic you are wrong. Demonstrably. Factually. With an example. But keep chanting the Tory spin line. Your point that some people cannot afford a car - whilst valid in general - is irrelevant to the EV vs ICE date debate.
The lie to BMW and with it the destruction of future investment is not to protect poor consumers as you spin. It is to give succour to the "climate change is a lie" tendency in their party. That's it.
May had ideas. Arrange a painless Brexit, cope with the demographic problem by imposing a wealth tax. But her man management and presentation skills were not up to it and she failed. But I understood her.
Boris had ideas. A spoilt and feckless man, his idea was to purchase votes by levelling up in the Red Wall, and his Greenery reflected the thoughtless interests of the metropolitan elite he personified. I genuinely disliked him but I understood him, better than himself. The Labour-Conservative bloc he built would have worked.
Truss we shall pass a kindly veil over
But Sunak. What does he believe? In his core? What is the Britain he wants to build? What are the problems, and what are the solutions? Does he even know himself?
The idea that £26k is the cheapest VW, let alone the cheapest petrol is just fallacious. And there's plenty of brands cheaper than VW, but there's none cheaper than MG, so you're not comparing like for like.
Allegedly they had to delay this change because EVs are so expensive. Except that increasingly they are not. Now play forward announcements already made by so many of the legacy manufacturers - an end to diesel, an end to non-hybrid petrol. And play forward the new smaller cheaper EV models. By 2026 or so this debate will be very different, with several years still to go before the 2030 deadline.
The challenge isn't can anyone make EVs in line with ICE pricing. Its what happens to the legacy manufacturers reluctant to do so? In the 1970s there was an absolute denial in Europe than Japanese manufacturers were a threat. In the 80s and 90s the same for the Koreans. Now the same for the Chinese.
There is always someone else willing to invest more and innovate faster to get ahead of you on the consumer trend curve. The reason for the anguished howls from the likes of Ford and Stellantis today is simple - despite supposedly being the beneficiary of a delay in banning ICE, the opposite is true.
They need to transition as rapidly as possible, to outcompete with state-backed Chinese firms. So they also need state backing, and this announcement just makes them more vulnerable.
Its definitely certainly getting closer and hopefully will get there within 6 years.
But if you're buying a car from your own limited money and not as a company car as a BiK we're not remotely there yet.
I don’t think people on here hated him for his policies, but because they had underestimated, then been beaten by him consistently
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VmBYR3a3ko
That wasn't the argument being made. Supposedly an EV is always more expensive than an equivalent ICE. And with legacy manufacturers that is true: base Peugeot 208 £20,760, base e208 £31,745. Just the 50% more for the EV. And that was the expectation.
My point all day is that China is coming with much cheaper options in line with the market. And that is the example I gave - a £26k MG4 directly competing with a £26k Golf. Same size of car, same price, different power train.
Once EVs stop being 50% more expensive - and they will have to if the likes of Stallantis want to survive, then the argument changes. And that will happen rapidly over the next few years.
(Since Chancellor Merkel can do arithmetic, and claims to worry about global warming, I have wondered why she reversed her policies on nuclear power. I have -- tentatively -- concluded that all those Green votes were just too tempting. The air pollution caused by her switch has, probably, contributed to the deaths of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of deaths in Germany and neighboring nations.)
Within a like-for-like category, I'd say that a Kia Ceed is a better car than an MG4, at least the same category, and those start at £22k so about £5k cheaper than a base MG4.
Simply saying "go up to a more expensive category and then its semi-affordable, therefore its affordable" isn't a solution.
Servicing is costing about £200 a year and dead simple. The main west and tear has been worn out tyres.
Zoes from 2020 are going for around 10k.
You say you'll cast a kindly veil over Truss. But there was actually Trussism, however bonkers and fleeting. If anything, she had too clear a view of what she wanted to do, but coupled with too little sense of how to get it done.
Cheapest in-category petrol versus cheapest same-category EV is still considerably cheaper.
If you're denying that, you're just denying reality. Hopefully it'll change, but its not changed yet.
Sunak is much more Thatcherite economically than Boris was, as was Truss. Indeed Sunak was the most fiscally conservative deficit hawk of the 3
Your point on pricing though - what is that base price? £13k? It was £8k a few years ago - Dacia Sandero. A few years before that and someone (Perodua maybe) was at £6k. All long gone because they can't sell them for that and make money.
So the base price is not a fixed mark - its increasing rapidly. The challenge for any new manufacturer in a market is to compete against the market price - whatever that is.
You can complain that "There's no EV entry level there" - but "there" is almost double where it was a few years ago for the equivalent car
I would assume that for similar reasons EVs will never reach complete price parity with ICE because they are cheaper to charge. People do intuitive NPVs in their heads when buying.