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.
In the future I remain convinced there will be only EVs, but there's a difference between the future and the present. EVs are still predominantly for the well off today, but hopefully that'll change.
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.
In the future I remain convinced there will be only EVs, but there's a difference between the future and the present. EVs are still predominantly for the well off today, but hopefully that'll change.
I'm sure I'll end up with an EV at some point but the key is better battery life.
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
Same when he was Mayor of London too? I don’t recall him being some kind of right wing maniac, lefties just hated him despite agreeing with a lot of his policy.
Class war/wanting your team to win I suppose. If the loud, posh bloke you hate keeps besting your man, it takes a lot to say “fair enough” & move on
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.
Yes, I think that's where the reforms of the ECHR need to be focussed. Declaration of countries that aren't eligible for asylum (India, Pakistan etc...) and will result in instant deportation with no right to an asylum process.
That doesn't seem very different from the current situation.
There's no point fiddling with the rules when the Government won't tackle the huge backlog of those seeking asylum. We have rules to deport people coming from a safe country, but the number of deportations has collapsed under the Conservatives.
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.
I assume I am one of the people you think is out of touch on these things. I have just pointed out to BR that his cheap car at £13k base is significantly more expensive than similar would have cost a few years back at around £8k. And the last car I bought a few months back was £2k.
Cars are expensive. And yet they keep selling. On finance. Besides which we're talking about what the market will be in 2030, not today. We can see that the price of equivalent ICEs is rising rapidly and EVs falling rapidly. So play that forward 7 years and ...
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.
In the future I remain convinced there will be only EVs, but there's a difference between the future and the present. EVs are still predominantly for the well off today, but hopefully that'll change.
Like cars in the first place.
I've been trying to work out when I'd get my first one. Perhaps 2035, based on current market share (20%), the age of my current car and how long I intend to run it.
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
Like for like a new Picanto was about £10k quite a few years ago and is £13k now, which is close in real terms, certainly not double.
Currently EVs aren't competing at that market price, not even close. More than twice that price.
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
Same when he was Mayor of London too? I don’t recall him being some kind of right wing maniac, lefties just hated him despite agreeing with a lot of his policy.
Class war/wanting your team to win I suppose. If the loud, posh bloke you hate keeps besting your man, it takes a lot to say “fair enough” & move on
Yeah, but the lying, blathering balderdash and bullshit was intolerable.
Johnson was brought down by his own faults, nothing else.
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.
You haven't been in a modern MG have you...
I would be deterred to be honest because they don't have a track record about reliability. They are establishing themselves in the market with low prices and long manufacturers warranties in the same way as brands like Kia and Hyundai did over the last couple of decades, if this goes well then they start putting the prices up. I don't see how you can be that confident over their technology, it is completely new, the cars are priced accordingly. If I was going to buy an EV I would probably buy a Nissan Leaf because it isn't much more expensive and the technology/reliability is a lot more proven.
The ultimate YIMBY - green jobs in MY area, but screw Net Zero. No traffic in my cul de sac, but 30mph through everyone else's.
Good to know that you occupy a minority of 12% though. I hadn't realised things were quite that bad for the Tories if that is their core vote strategy.
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
Same when he was Mayor of London too? I don’t recall him being some kind of right wing maniac, lefties just hated him despite agreeing with a lot of his policy.
Class war/wanting your team to win I suppose. If the loud, posh bloke you hate keeps besting your man, it takes a lot to say “fair enough” & move on
During (and before) his city hall days he was generally moderate and unideological in office, but very right wing and a provocateur in print. I remember an Evening Standard article he wrote in 2015 essentially rubbishing the idea of climate change - must have been pre-Carrie.
In fact I’d say that’s characterised 90% of Johnson’s career. The one radical right wing policy he actually implemented was Brexit.
The ultimate YIMBY - green jobs in MY area, but screw Net Zero. No traffic in my cul de sac, but 30mph through everyone else's.
Good to know that you occupy a minority of 12% though. I hadn't realised things were quite that bad for the Tories if that is their core vote strategy.
Exaggeration and misinformation in spades
30 mph through a cul de sac is just so bizarre a statement
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.
I assume I am one of the people you think is out of touch on these things. I have just pointed out to BR that his cheap car at £13k base is significantly more expensive than similar would have cost a few years back at around £8k. And the last car I bought a few months back was £2k.
Cars are expensive. And yet they keep selling. On finance. Besides which we're talking about what the market will be in 2030, not today. We can see that the price of equivalent ICEs is rising rapidly and EVs falling rapidly. So play that forward 7 years and ...
Why do you think Toyota's scepticism about EV cars as a mass-market solution is wrong?
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.
Zoes from 2020 are going for around 10k.
@TimS Out of interest - do you own or lease the battery? I understood a lot of these ZOE's have leased batteries.
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.
You haven't been in a modern MG have you...
I would be deterred to be honest because they don't have a track record about reliability. They are establishing themselves in the market with low prices and long manufacturers warranties in the same way as brands like Kia and Hyundai did over the last couple of decades, if this goes well then they start putting the prices up. I don't see how you can be that confident over their technology, it is completely new, the cars are priced accordingly. If I was going to buy an EV I would probably buy a Nissan Leaf because it isn't much more expensive and the technology/reliability is a lot more proven.
There is a reason manufacturers offer long warranties - they are reliable. If 5 years was going to cost a bomb they wouldn't. And so it proves.
I'm not saying an MG is remotely premium. But my brother's MG5 is a solidly built car and great value for money Vs the competition.
As for confidence over technology, I'm afraid the Leaf is about as far from confidence in an EV as I would get. Too many rapidgate issues with their ancient battery packs. At least MG have the latest battery packs that China are churning out in vast numbers.
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.
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.
I think 3 years of 'Boris' removed any chance of competence. The place has been trashed.
Three years of Boris brought an end to theBrexit stalemate, turned a perilous deal with the DUP into a huge majority, then got hit by an unprecedented world pandemic before he could do anything. Any fair analysis of his Premiership would have to conclude he was ludicrously unfortunate
This haters really hated him though, and so all the things they kept getting wrong about him at the referendum, and in the Tory leadership of 2019 are taken as the reasons for his demise
To be fair to Boris Johnson, you're entirely correct. History may well argue he was dealt the harshest of hands after winning the 2019 election. Within less than three months, he was facing an unprecedented public health emergency and was forced to take action which, you could tell, went against every fibre of his being.
The truth is he spent nearly 20 years manoeuvring his way to the top of the Conservative Party and ultimately to No.10. He might have seen that as his destiny and he rode his luck, was mericless with anyone, friend or foe, who stood in the way.
Perhaps if you ever need an example of Hubris and Nemesis, the political career of Boris Johnson might be a good place to start.
The biggest challenges are the biggest opportunities to perform. Boris's Covid performance must be judged as average at best.
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.
TBF, a lot of Tories seem very relaxed about house prices today. Which cost a lot more in the way of jam jars (both kinds) than they used 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
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
Same when he was Mayor of London too? I don’t recall him being some kind of right wing maniac, lefties just hated him despite agreeing with a lot of his policy.
Class war/wanting your team to win I suppose. If the loud, posh bloke you hate keeps besting your man, it takes a lot to say “fair enough” & move on
Yeah, but the lying, blathering balderdash and bullshit was intolerable.
Johnson was brought down by his own faults, nothing else.
Actually, the blathering balderdash was fine, because it was amusing. And if his repuatation was a bit dog-eared, so what? This is London, where everyone can hide their past and reinvent themselves. I voted for him in 2008 and 2012.
The lying is a different matter. But being affronted by a lie is quite a personal thing; it's all about the moment that you realise that he said something to you, directly or indirectly, because he thought it was what you wanted to hear but he had zero intention of doing. Before, you can trust and give benefit of the doubt. After, there's nothing left.
It's not a new observation, but the world is split into "people Boris Johnson has betrayed" and "people Boris Johnson hasn't betrayed yet". And once he was PM, Boris was able to move people from the second category to the first by the million.
What did for him with the Conservative party was lying about putting a sex pest in the whips' office. Would you want a boss who put someone like that in place as your line manager? What did for him as an MP was not the Downing Street parties, but the lies he kept telling about them.
And yes, there are people, quite a lot of people who haven't been betrayed by Boris yet. Don't worry- I'm sure he has an absolute doozy lined up for you.
The problem in Wales is getting out of hand with violence threatened to various AMS, signs vandalised, and the police issuing a serious warning to anyone caught
Let me be the first to condemn this
There is no place for this, and the petition now at over 323,000 signatures is the way to protest and it will be discussed properly in the Senedd
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.
I assume I am one of the people you think is out of touch on these things....
Yes. If it helps, you were not the only one, and there were several others. PB has its little quirks and wealth is one of them.
With respect to your salient point and stripping the cost out of it you may be pleased to know that old Nissan Leafs and Toyota Priuses have started to appear on the lots for four figure prices. Whilst not luxurious they appear adequate.
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.
Zoes from 2020 are going for around 10k.
@TimS Out of interest - do you own or lease the battery? I understood a lot of these ZOE's have leased batteries.
Lease. Mine was one of the last ones they did that as a matter of course - these days they are owned. I could buy it for about 5k but the nice thing with leasing is there’s no warranty so if it breaks they replace it.
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.
You haven't been in a modern MG have you...
I would be deterred to be honest because they don't have a track record about reliability. They are establishing themselves in the market with low prices and long manufacturers warranties in the same way as brands like Kia and Hyundai did over the last couple of decades, if this goes well then they start putting the prices up. I don't see how you can be that confident over their technology, it is completely new, the cars are priced accordingly. If I was going to buy an EV I would probably buy a Nissan Leaf because it isn't much more expensive and the technology/reliability is a lot more proven.
There is a reason manufacturers offer long warranties - they are reliable. If 5 years was going to cost a bomb they wouldn't. And so it proves.
I'm not saying an MG is remotely premium. But my brother's MG5 is a solidly built car and great value for money Vs the competition.
As for confidence over technology, I'm afraid the Leaf is about as far from confidence in an EV as I would get. Too many rapidgate issues with their ancient battery packs. At least MG have the latest battery packs that China are churning out in vast numbers.
You're assuming the MG warranty pays out though.
My first Kia was a Picanto I bought in 2005, just a few months earlier my dad had bought an MG Rover 75.
By a remarkable coincidence, less than 3 years in both our cars engines developed problems. Kia replaced mine no questions asked and provided a courtesy car while they were fixing mine. MG Rover did not replace his, having gone bust, their warranties were no longer worth anything.
There's not much stopping these Chinese firms from doing a runner if things turn south with their warranties.
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.
I assume I am one of the people you think is out of touch on these things. I have just pointed out to BR that his cheap car at £13k base is significantly more expensive than similar would have cost a few years back at around £8k. And the last car I bought a few months back was £2k.
Cars are expensive. And yet they keep selling. On finance. Besides which we're talking about what the market will be in 2030, not today. We can see that the price of equivalent ICEs is rising rapidly and EVs falling rapidly. So play that forward 7 years and ...
Why do you think Toyota's scepticism about EV cars as a mass-market solution is wrong?
Why ask what I think? I'm irrelevant. Ask the industry what they think. And they will tell you what it is. Toyota invented the planetary drivetrain. They have milked it for 30 years and hoped to continue doing so.
Who can blame them - it's a fabulous drivetrain. They also invested heavily in Hydrogen, betting that governments would push that forward. That bet has failed, EVs have swamped "self-charging" hybrids, they are a Japanese corporation and don't do "we were wrong".
So instead, quietly, they have decided that EVs as a mass market solution is right. And have piled on with EV versions of Lexus and Toyota models with many more on their way.
Your basic argument point was valid 5 years back. But how can you ask why Toyota are against EVs when they reversed that position a few years back? Keep up!
The problem in Wales is getting out of hand with violence threatened to various AMS, signs vandalised, and the police issuing a serious warning to anyone caught
Let me be the first to condemn this
There is no place for this, and the petition now at over 323,000 signatures is the way to protest and it will be discussed properly in the Senedd
The Welsh Government must not be seen to cower in the face of this criminal activity by drivers.
The Rule of Law is on the line. Any backtracking on 20mph now would be a betrayal of Welsh democracy.
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.
I assume I am one of the people you think is out of touch on these things. I have just pointed out to BR that his cheap car at £13k base is significantly more expensive than similar would have cost a few years back at around £8k. And the last car I bought a few months back was £2k.
Cars are expensive. And yet they keep selling. On finance. Besides which we're talking about what the market will be in 2030, not today. We can see that the price of equivalent ICEs is rising rapidly and EVs falling rapidly. So play that forward 7 years and ...
Why do you think Toyota's scepticism about EV cars as a mass-market solution is wrong?
They started early but have long since lost their lead on full EV.
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.
I assume I am one of the people you think is out of touch on these things....
Yes. If it helps, you were not the only one, and there were several others. PB has its little quirks and wealth is one of them.
With respect to your salient point and stripping the cost out of it you may be pleased to know that old Nissan Leafs and Toyota Priuses have started to appear on the lots for four figure prices. Whilst not luxurious they appear adequate.
Prius isn't an EV though. Fun to see that old Leafs have gone through a few up and down value cycles. When we handed ours back in 2017 it had a trade in value of about a fiver.
Anyway, I will continue to enjoy the riches of my £2k runabout, if that's ok with you.
Ken Livingstone diagnosed with Alzheimer's - BBC London
Sad. Yes yes I know he was a quasi-Marxist anti-Semite with a weird Hitler obsession, but I always got the sense he enjoyed life, and REALLY enjoyed being a Londoner. A drinker and a hedonist and a big personality, exactly what London needs. He was a good mayor, even from my rightwing perspective
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?
All fine as long as you're aware that these summaries are only impressions that you have formed, rather than the truth.
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.
I assume I am one of the people you think is out of touch on these things. I have just pointed out to BR that his cheap car at £13k base is significantly more expensive than similar would have cost a few years back at around £8k. And the last car I bought a few months back was £2k.
Cars are expensive. And yet they keep selling. On finance. Besides which we're talking about what the market will be in 2030, not today. We can see that the price of equivalent ICEs is rising rapidly and EVs falling rapidly. So play that forward 7 years and ...
Why do you think Toyota's scepticism about EV cars as a mass-market solution is wrong?
How about asking Toyota what they think of the market?
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.
Zoes from 2020 are going for around 10k.
@TimS Out of interest - do you own or lease the battery? I understood a lot of these ZOE's have leased batteries.
Lease. Mine was one of the last ones they did that as a matter of course - these days they are owned. I could buy it for about 5k but the nice thing with leasing is there’s no warranty so if it breaks they replace it.
I guess though that is a factor in the relatively low asking price, you need to pay a monthly fee for the battery lease.
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.
I assume I am one of the people you think is out of touch on these things....
Yes. If it helps, you were not the only one, and there were several others. PB has its little quirks and wealth is one of them.
With respect to your salient point and stripping the cost out of it you may be pleased to know that old Nissan Leafs and Toyota Priuses have started to appear on the lots for four figure prices. Whilst not luxurious they appear adequate.
Anyway, I will continue to enjoy the riches of my £2k runabout, if that's ok with you.
I hereby permit you to continue to enjoy the riches of your £2k runabout.
The problem in Wales is getting out of hand with violence threatened to various AMS, signs vandalised, and the police issuing a serious warning to anyone caught
Let me be the first to condemn this
There is no place for this, and the petition now at over 323,000 signatures is the way to protest and it will be discussed properly in the Senedd
The Welsh Government must not be seen to cower in the face of this criminal activity by drivers.
The Rule of Law is on the line. Any backtracking on 20mph now would be a betrayal of Welsh democracy.
They won't cancel it but they will review it in the Senedd as the petition requires and they and LA will make changes
The problem in Wales is getting out of hand with violence threatened to various AMS, signs vandalised, and the police issuing a serious warning to anyone caught
Let me be the first to condemn this
There is no place for this, and the petition now at over 323,000 signatures is the way to protest and it will be discussed properly in the Senedd
The Welsh Government must not be seen to cower in the face of this criminal activity by drivers.
The Rule of Law is on the line. Any backtracking on 20mph now would be a betrayal of Welsh democracy.
Agreed. Full speed ahead on going slower!
I have faith in the Drake.
If he faces this rebellion down, perhaps the most important Welsh figure since Owain Glyndŵr?
A point that I don't think has been covered here is so-called 'synthetic fuels', effectively 'biomass petrol'. If the fuel you're putting in your petrol car has already sucked carbon out of the air, it's Net Zero. This is similar to what's being proposed for aeroplanes. It's a big topic of discussion within the EU and was raised in the recent parliamentary debate here too. You keep all your current pumps/infrastructure, you don't have the increased carbon output of manufacturing evs, you don't have the vast strain on the national grid, etc. etc. etc. Seems good to me.
The problem in Wales is getting out of hand with violence threatened to various AMS, signs vandalised, and the police issuing a serious warning to anyone caught
Let me be the first to condemn this
There is no place for this, and the petition now at over 323,000 signatures is the way to protest and it will be discussed properly in the Senedd
The Welsh Government must not be seen to cower in the face of this criminal activity by drivers.
The Rule of Law is on the line. Any backtracking on 20mph now would be a betrayal of Welsh democracy.
They won't cancel it but they will review it in the Senedd as the petition requires and they and LA will make changes
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
Same when he was Mayor of London too? I don’t recall him being some kind of right wing maniac, lefties just hated him despite agreeing with a lot of his policy.
Class war/wanting your team to win I suppose. If the loud, posh bloke you hate keeps besting your man, it takes a lot to say “fair enough” & move on
During (and before) his city hall days he was generally moderate and unideological in office, but very right wing and a provocateur in print. I remember an Evening Standard article he wrote in 2015 essentially rubbishing the idea of climate change - must have been pre-Carrie.
In fact I’d say that’s characterised 90% of Johnson’s career. The one radical right wing policy he actually implemented was Brexit.
When I was a young man, protectionism for low paid jobs was a left wing/trade Union thing. Somewhere along the road, turning that protectionism into a massive international free market for bosses to exploit became a non negotiable for the left. I still can’t understand it
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.
I assume I am one of the people you think is out of touch on these things. I have just pointed out to BR that his cheap car at £13k base is significantly more expensive than similar would have cost a few years back at around £8k. And the last car I bought a few months back was £2k.
Cars are expensive. And yet they keep selling. On finance. Besides which we're talking about what the market will be in 2030, not today. We can see that the price of equivalent ICEs is rising rapidly and EVs falling rapidly. So play that forward 7 years and ...
Why do you think Toyota's scepticism about EV cars as a mass-market solution is wrong?
How about asking Toyota what they think of the market?
Ken Livingstone diagnosed with Alzheimer's - BBC London
Sad. Yes yes I know he was a quasi-Marxist anti-Semite with a weird Hitler obsession, but I always got the sense he enjoyed life, and REALLY enjoyed being a Londoner. A drinker and a hedonist and a big personality, exactly what London needs. He was a good mayor, even from my rightwing perspective
So much better than the dismal Khan
Safe travels, Red Ken
Alzheimers sufferers can do very well on MCT oil (medium chain triglycerides).
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?
All fine as long as you're aware that these summaries are only impressions that you have formed, rather than the truth.
You do what you can with what you have. Always happy to be corrected when wrong.
A point that I don't think has been covered here is so-called 'synthetic fuels', effectively 'biomass petrol'. If the fuel you're putting in your petrol car has already sucked carbon out of the air, it's Net Zero. This is similar to what's being proposed for aeroplanes. It's a big topic of discussion within the EU and was raised in the recent parliamentary debate here too. You keep all your current pumps/infrastructure, you don't have the increased carbon output of manufacturing evs, you don't have the vast strain on the national grid, etc. etc. etc. Seems good to me.
I think that was tried with biofuels. The problem is that land devoted to biofuels is land denied to food crops and you run out of food. Or were you thinking of something else?
For all the talk of “this World Cup is crap” - naming no names but looking at you @Farooq - it turns out this crap World Cup is generating exceptional TV viewing figures
3.5m in GERMANY watched the opening game: France v NZ. I also read that 20 MILLION+ Japanese watched the England Japan game
These are phenomenal figures for a global minority sport. But also understandable, with all its blood and thunder, high quality international rugby is compelling viewing
Rugby Union can become a massive sport if it plays this cleverly. Possibly even 3rd in the world after cricket - they are all behind football
Pleased the Germams are getting into it. I'd love to see a few more Europeans taking the game seriously.
But what talk of crapness? It's been brilliant! I have loved every game I've seen. My only small complaint is that it's not on every night - though I think the decision not to force the small countrues to play twice in four days like they used to is the right one.
A couple of PBers - I won’t name them, out of basic common courtesy, but they were @Farooq and @Penddu2 - were saying the cup was crap coz of too many one sided games. I think that’s bollocks
What these nameless PBers (@farooq and @Penddu2) don’t understand is that for every France v Namibia there is an Uruguay v Tonga where the smaller teams are really close and it’s exciting and these players get to strut their stuff on a massive world stage, in big full stadiums, with a huge TV audience. It will be the highlight of their careers and good for them! So the “nameless PB two” (@farooq and @penddu) have got it totally wrong
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.
I think it was in that infamous NT report that I read that the Roman Empire had slavery but it was sort of ok slavery because it wasn't racially bound.
Comments
Class war/wanting your team to win I suppose. If the loud, posh bloke you hate keeps besting your man, it takes a lot to say “fair enough” & move on
Giant wind farm off Llandudno given go-ahead by UK Government
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/giant-wind-farm-llandudno-given-27753795#ICID=Android_DailyPostNewsApp_AppShare
There's no point fiddling with the rules when the Government won't tackle the huge backlog of those seeking asylum. We have rules to deport people coming from a safe country, but the number of deportations has collapsed under the Conservatives.
Cars are expensive. And yet they keep selling. On finance. Besides which we're talking about what the market will be in 2030, not today. We can see that the price of equivalent ICEs is rising rapidly and EVs falling rapidly. So play that forward 7 years and ...
(Edit - beaten to it).
I've been trying to work out when I'd get my first one. Perhaps 2035, based on current market share (20%), the age of my current car and how long I intend to run it.
Currently EVs aren't competing at that market price, not even close. More than twice that price.
Johnson was brought down by his own faults, nothing else.
Good to know that you occupy a minority of 12% though. I hadn't realised things were quite that bad for the Tories if that is their core vote strategy.
In fact I’d say that’s characterised 90% of Johnson’s career. The one radical right wing policy he actually implemented was Brexit.
https://newsthump.com/2023/09/19/woman-who-said-wanker-three-times-in-front-of-a-mirror-accidentally-conjures-up-russell-brand/
30 mph through a cul de sac is just so bizarre a statement
I'm not saying an MG is remotely premium. But my brother's MG5 is a solidly built car and great value for money Vs the competition.
As for confidence over technology, I'm afraid the Leaf is about as far from confidence in an EV as I would get. Too many rapidgate issues with their ancient battery packs. At least MG have the latest battery packs that China are churning out in vast numbers.
The lying is a different matter. But being affronted by a lie is quite a personal thing; it's all about the moment that you realise that he said something to you, directly or indirectly, because he thought it was what you wanted to hear but he had zero intention of doing. Before, you can trust and give benefit of the doubt. After, there's nothing left.
It's not a new observation, but the world is split into "people Boris Johnson has betrayed" and "people Boris Johnson hasn't betrayed yet". And once he was PM, Boris was able to move people from the second category to the first by the million.
What did for him with the Conservative party was lying about putting a sex pest in the whips' office. Would you want a boss who put someone like that in place as your line manager? What did for him as an MP was not the Downing Street parties, but the lies he kept telling about them.
And yes, there are people, quite a lot of people who haven't been betrayed by Boris yet. Don't worry- I'm sure he has an absolute doozy lined up for you.
Let me be the first to condemn this
There is no place for this, and the petition now at over 323,000 signatures is the way to protest and it will be discussed properly in the Senedd
With respect to your salient point and stripping the cost out of it you may be pleased to know that old Nissan Leafs and Toyota Priuses have started to appear on the lots for four figure prices. Whilst not luxurious they appear adequate.
My first Kia was a Picanto I bought in 2005, just a few months earlier my dad had bought an MG Rover 75.
By a remarkable coincidence, less than 3 years in both our cars engines developed problems. Kia replaced mine no questions asked and provided a courtesy car while they were fixing mine. MG Rover did not replace his, having gone bust, their warranties were no longer worth anything.
There's not much stopping these Chinese firms from doing a runner if things turn south with their warranties.
Who can blame them - it's a fabulous drivetrain. They also invested heavily in Hydrogen, betting that governments would push that forward. That bet has failed, EVs have swamped "self-charging" hybrids, they are a Japanese corporation and don't do "we were wrong".
So instead, quietly, they have decided that EVs as a mass market solution is right. And have piled on with EV versions of Lexus and Toyota models with many more on their way.
Your basic argument point was valid 5 years back. But how can you ask why Toyota are against EVs when they reversed that position a few years back? Keep up!
The Rule of Law is on the line. Any backtracking on 20mph now would be a betrayal of Welsh democracy.
Anyway, I will continue to enjoy the riches of my £2k runabout, if that's ok with you.
Sad. Yes yes I know he was a quasi-Marxist anti-Semite with a weird Hitler obsession, but I always got the sense he enjoyed life, and REALLY enjoyed being a Londoner. A drinker and a hedonist and a big personality, exactly what London needs. He was a good mayor, even from my rightwing perspective
So much better than the dismal Khan
Safe travels, Red Ken
https://www.toyota.co.uk/discover-toyota/stories-news-events/electric-fleet-2030
If he faces this rebellion down, perhaps the most important Welsh figure since Owain Glyndŵr?
This thread will be scrapped by 2035.
Diesel is a major cost to many African countries. Malawi once ran out of it, as no forex for more while I was there.
Hogwash from start to finish.