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There is a logic in Sunak’s green gamble – politicalbetting.com
There is a logic in Sunak’s green gamble – politicalbetting.com
Given how far behind in the polls that the Tories are there is a fair bit of sense in Sunak’s recent announcement that he intends to scrap some of the key environmental targets that have been settled policy for several years.
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Lets see what happens to those 2019 Con voters who say they are "Don't Know" > I think they'll start firming up in the CON column from now onwards... but we'll see...
One thing is for sure. The 2024 General Election starts NOW!
#ThisIsIt #HereWeGoAgain #LordSaveMe
One way around this is to have two tier qualification - have top 12 qualifying teams joining at first round proper consisting of 16 teams in 4 groups of 4. So first round taking 3 weekends instead of 5. Meanwhile second group of 8 (or 12/16) qualifying teams meet up one (or two) weeks earlier to play in preliminary round for final 4 places. This would present some logistical problems but nothing imsurmountable.
This would have the additional benefit of presenting opportunities for nameless jobbing travel writers eg @Leon to report on suburban fast food joints.
Brendan Clarke-Smith: "Ford's problem is their car sales have been dwindling for years. Perhaps they saw this as an artificial way to boost them in the short term."
Jackie Doyle Price: "Incidentally Ford..."
https://twitter.com/Gabriel_Pogrund/status/1704447790774997350
DT online front page:
With the Leading Article describing the decision as “Commendable”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2023/09/20/rishi-sunak-net-zero-shift-commendable/
On Monday afternoon, Mark Harper, the transport secretary, appeared to suggest that the government was sticking to its plan to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-rishi-sunak-s-net-zero-delay-blindsided-ministers-jh3d2hjbv (£££)
Apart from that it is abysmal policy making.
What vestiges of credibility he had as the 'sensible' replacement for Truss et al are gone.
The Tories are going to lose anyway. Sunak has just cemented his legacy as another useless PM.
I’m not sure what to think of this one, apparently genuine letter written to Rumble’s CEO in the US, from the head of the Culture, Media, and Sport Committee, coming very close to suggesting that Rumble should be demonetising Russell Brand - not for anything he’s posted on their site, but just because he’s a bad person.
The Rumble CEO published the letter, and a quite forthright reply about freedom of speech.
https://x.com/rumblevideo/status/1704584929026216118?s=61
Comments underneath very supportive of Rumble.
Poland will no longer send weapons to Ukraine, says PM, as grain dispute escalates
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/21/poland-stop-ukraine-weapons-supply-grain-exports-dispute
“There is now clear green water between the parties, making life trickier for Sir Keir Starmer. But I hope Sunak realises just how vicious the backlash will be: the Blob, the cultural aristocracy and myriad pseudo-Tories will unleash every dirty trick in the book to force him to back down. Broadcasters will continue to be hysterically negative, as will the clerisy; he will be accused of hating the “youth”; the Church, the Left-wing think-tanks, big business and charities will continue to condemn him; there will be leaks, resignations, and attempts at ousting him. It will be nasty and frenzied, but he must hold firm.
“Yet by any rational standard, Sunak is merely being pragmatic and realistic: banning pure petrol cars in six and a bit years’ time is a dangerously utopian policy that would guarantee chaos, mass impoverishment, power cuts and a popular revolution. The same holds true for the other policies Sunak is delaying, including the ban on new oil and gas boilers. They are all examples of what the philosopher Rob Henderson calls “luxury beliefs”, ideas performatively adopted by hypocritical jet-setting elites to highlight their high social status, even though they inflict immense costs on those who can’t afford expensive electric cars or spare thousands to replace a boiler with technology that is not yet ready.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/20/net-zero-rishi-sunak-blob-heresy/
Research finds breakdown in parents’ social contract with schools since Covid lockdowns and cost of living crisis
...
... some parents no longer believe it is their responsibility to ensure that their child is in school every day, triggering “a full-blown national crisis” in school attendance that will require “a monumental, multi-service effort” if it is to be reversed, the report states.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/sep/21/parents-in-england-no-longer-see-daily-school-attendance-as-vital-report-finds
Unless he's suggesting the ban is on all cars, as opposed to new ones. Which is obviously untrue.
The article is as risible as Sunak's new policy.
To be fair to Allister Heath, he's a numpty.
Electric vehicle targets will stay to hit 2030 deadline
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-rejects-reprieve-for-petrol-and-diesel-cars-kcnxxl7kd (£££)
The Times last weekend. A week is a long time in politics.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/20/revealed-how-russia-deliberately-targeted-kherson-hospitals
...“Russia’s activities in Kherson are strikingly reminiscent of Russian tactics in Syria, where apparently punitive strikes were delivered day after day for years in rebel-held areas of Idlib and Aleppo,” CIR said. These were “unconnected to any ground operations”, and typically directed at “medical infrastructure” and water treatment plants...
...According to Kyiv, Russia has launched more than 2,000 drone attacks on Ukraine over the past year. Most sent to the Ukrainian capital have been shot down. In Kherson, however, the Russians are using barrelled artillery, which is impossible to intercept. They occupied the city for nine months and are familiar with its locations...
One survivor told a survey they are "more afraid of the police than being raped again" as 56% of respondents said they are unlikely to report another rape to officers.
https://news.sky.com/story/three-quarters-of-rape-and-sexual-assault-survivors-say-mental-health-worsened-by-police-report-12965587
But one thing that Mike has written does stand out as incongrous. He says, 'being attacked by the former Tory Prime Minister might be no bad thing.'
Yet, that former Tory Prime Minister is the one whose 2019 voters are left out on the margins - Mike's great undecideds and don't knows. They are the people Boris reached in the anomalous 2019 Get Brexit Done election. They don't like Sunak because he shafted their man.
Lose Boris, you definitely lose the election.
Funnily enough I was chatting with a centrist tory the other evening - she came to dinner, showing was a magnanimous and open-hearted girl I am (;) and she said that she thinks the tories ditching Boris was a mistake, that he didn't really do anything "that" bad, and that the electorate would have got over it.
I'm not saying I agree. It's just that Boris is still much loved by some tory voters.
There’s a running theme on this subject through a lot of American discussion, mainly but not exclusively on the right and among libertarians, that social media platforms are trying to censor certain viewpoints ahead of the election next year.
Youtube especially is in the firing line, with their seemingly arbitrary demonetisation, shadow banning, and banning of accounts with little recourse. It was said to be one of the reasons behind Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, and documents released by that company showed conversations with governments - including the US government - around certain specific accounts, as Rumble have released today.
Rumble was deliberately set up to be resistant to censorship, hosting their own servers and payment processing, and designed as web-first rather than app-first. Freedom of speech is their philosophy.
Obviously, it goes without saying that the likes of Russell Brand and Andrew Tate are horrible human beings, but that doesn’t mean they can’t earn a living while they still have their liberty.
The Reactionary Right's last railings against the dying of the light.
The difference between the truth and Alister Heath's mistake is vast.
Does anybody want to hazard a guess at what it will be in 7 years?
This measure makes Sunak look like a fucking idiot to everbody except those who didn't understand the policy in the first place. Which I suppose is the point.
People genuinely think the government will come round and scrap their cars and rip out their boilers.
The thing to remember is that. Lot of people will be thinking that because all they will see is the words “ban petrol cars 2030”..
All these ideas, rule of law, innocent before proven guilty etc, are disappearing. What is most alarming is that there seems to be no interest in restoring them.
The only question is whether the Conservative Blob is stupid and ignorant themselves, or whether they are knowingly lying to con the stupid and ignorant.
Neither is a good look in a government.
Sunak didn't bother to think or ask about the approach of businesses in the sector, or the impact on investment. Then Tory MPs have a hissy fit when it turns out that serious business leaders weirdly aren't pathetically grateful about the rug being pulled out from under them for the sake of a couple of days of drooling cobblers from cretins like Allister Heath in the Telegraph.
Makes me feel ill. I'm going for a run.
Here’s libertarian commentator Tim Pool’s podcast from last night, the title is:
“Timcast IRL - Russell Brand Conspiracy PROVEN TRUE, UK GOV CAUGHT Targeting Him”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=vX1bpykg_vY
Now, there’s understandable confusion between UK government and UK Parliament, and between UK and US law on freedom of speech, but letters like this definitely add to Brand’s own narrative.
What Dineage and her Committee have now managed to achieve, is a lot of fence-sitters - at least in the US - coming down on Brand’s side, that he’s being targeted by “them” because of his outspoken views on subjects xy&z.
That means there’s 16m ICE-only cars, and 24m hybrid and electric cars?
Or do you mean the share of *NEW* ICE-only cars is only 40%?
…
I do think however that people don't necessarily respond to this in the same way as they did for cases like Jimmy Savile. I was talking to some women a couple of days ago at the swimming pool, they just seemed to feel sorry for Brand. There was no sense of disgust or outrage.
If she does nothing the media goes “Caroline Dineage refuses to intervene in Russell Brand case” / “Senior MP believes Brand should be able to make money from videos attacking his victims” etc etc
It’s much harder to defend an abstract principle like innocent until proven guilty.
We have shit politicians because all the incentives we have established point them in that direction
This letter only feeds into the Brand narrative that ‘they’ are out to get him. It’s a ridiculous intervention.
FFS. Sunak's scaremongering is actually working.
“Saville cops to probe Brand”
Strictly speaking I’m sure it’s accurate - they say the unit set up to look at sexual offences is involved in the investigation
But talk about guilt by association!
The best recent UK example, is when Nick Griffin was invited onto Question Time. It was the start of his party’s downfall, as everyone could suddenly see him for what he was, in his own words.
Trying to censor people is a dangerous path to tread.
Before yesterday's announcement, the UK was going for a soft ban on ICE (hybrids were still allowed in new cars) starting 2030, and the EU for a hard ban (no fossil fuels at all in new cars) in 2035.
Is the Sunak scheme to copy the EU (probably a mistake business-wise, but also probably a similar trajectory overall), or to shift the UK's soft ban back to 2035 (probably a mistake business-wise and a bad thing for the planet)?
So conventionally fueled vehicles are already less than half the market, and shrinking.
Though as I understood it is only EV and PHEV vehicles that were exempt from the 2030 ban, not all hybrids, so 27.8% of August sales meet the old 2030 target.
I live in a flat in a single glazed unlisted period building, no cavity walls etc. I've looked in to it in detail and no energy saving measures are remotely economic. Many would destroy the appearance and character of the building. For what purpose? The total energy (gas/electric) bill each year is £1200, over 50% of which are standing charges.
This change of direction may actually mean that I can eventually sell the flat to someone else without them being put off by the EPC grading system which is wholly inappropriate for a building like this.
This is fairly important to those of us who have looked at the prices and volumes of cars now being built, and realised that the future of motoring looks like to involve becoming Cuba on Thames as we have to make our current cars last a very long time indeed.
Leaving aside the fuel question, on principle I'll never own a car that's connected to the Internet so the manufacturer can push updates out to it. I want to own my car, not have the potential for the manufacturer to go all Apple and irreversibly cripple it so I have to buy a new one (Merc would definitely do this if they thought they could get away with it, given they are as immoral as charging subscriptions to use the heated seats with which their cars are already fitted).
The most connected cars of all, are the EVs. If your insurance company writes off an old Tesla for relatively minor damage, that car can never again be charged on the Supercharger network.
ULEZ is entirely separate, affected hardly any cars, and ultimately if our democratically elected local politicians wish to extend those areas that's up to them and their constituents. I appreciate people want to deliberately conflate the two policies for political advantage though.
The second para - I entirely agree, and it's an issue across pretty much everything now. A bigger issue for me is those touch screens over switches - hugely distracting if I'm trying to turn the air con on or something. And impossible to fix.
1. Sunak is clearly aware the Tories are in deep trouble.
2. His gamble is that strong signals Net Zero is no big deal will chime.
3. But the hard policy dividing line is a deadline for the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.
4. He has traded a lot for very little.
"While social attitudes have moved seemingly inexorably towards a more liberal perspective, the BSA notes that attitudes towards the role and size of the state have fluctuated, with support for increased tax and spending, for example, swinging from 32% in 1983 to 63% in 1998 before falling to 31% in 2010.
It is now 55%. “So far as the public are concerned at least, the era of smaller government that Margaret Thatcher aimed to promulgate – and which Liz Truss briefly tried to restore in the autumn of 2022 with her ill-fated ‘dash for growth’ – now seems a world away,” the study concludes."
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/21/britain-is-much-more-liberal-minded-than-is-was-40-years-ago-study-finds
This will be one of the weirdest elections ever; essentially two main parties campaigning from opposition. At some point the ‘logic’ will start to unravel, surely.
Britain is a liberal country.
Truss and Sunak both believe fundamentally that Britain should go against the tide. They are techno-optimists, with little interest in what they think of as backwards, retrograde activities such as manufacturing, and a Thatcher-derived allergy to phrases like “industrial policy” and “subsidy”.
If Treasury officials believe markets would bear it, after all, they would always rather cut taxes than, say, fund a multibillion-pound nuclear-power building programme. They would always buy cheap over British. They would always favour banks over factories, which is why there is a Treasury director-general for financial services but none for manufacturing. In this, the mandarins, Sunak and Truss think as one.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sunak-is-closer-to-truss-than-hed-like-to-think-g3hv9gdf3
I do not think a generalisation like this is helpful. I am sure this is the case for some but it is certainly not my experience.
Being less tolerant of others views is one thing, taking it to the workplace is another.
"Generation Z can't work alongside people with different views and don't have the skills to debate"
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/technology/generation-z-can-t-work-alongside-people-with-different-views-and-don-t-have-the-skills-to-debate-says-channel-4-boss-as-she-cites-the-pandemic-as-the-main-cause-of-the-workplace-challenge/ar-AA1h1DpG?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=4e455a7e391a4b319f30906205c89cac&ei=7
The alternative is that Rishi is doing this because he really is very right wing indeed.
None of which explains why he is doing it now.
Logically those who care a lot about the environment should go Labour... the line that two parties are all the same on environment clearly doesn't wash now.
But the increased focus on green issues could mean a boost for green party possibly?
Though Boris was a much more effective liar than Rishi.
The idea that you can broad-brush generalise in this way about *any* ‘generation’ is just bollocks. But tbh Alex Mahon comes across a bit Grampa Simpson ‘old man yells at cloud’ here. Young people today, eh. Twas ever thus.
Repeated appearances on QT never did any harm to Farage and his rancid politics, quite the reverse. In fact the rise of NF and UKIP were the main reason for the downfall of the gotch eyed fascist.
Traditional conservativism (the clue is in the name) has a streak of environmentalism, and they should be strident and proud about this. But no, the opposite. F*ck business, now f*ck the planet. As I’ve said ad nauseam on here, what are Sunak’s Conservatives actually *for*?
Lying is a very effective electoral strategy. But I think people forgive the Tories for it because they expect it. Whereas they are disappointed when Labour lie, never more so than over WMD in Iraq.
Scoop by @Petercampbell1 & me
- companies selling cars in UK still face an EV mandate
- next year they must sell 22% electric vehicles
- 80% by 2030
- so beyond 2030 only a fifth of cars they sell (and falling) can be hybrid, petrol or diesel
As to the substance of the matter, I'm ambivalent. I can see why the lower tier nations need these matches, and I don't mind if it results in 100-0 drubbings, though as Leon correctly points out the weak side doesn't always read the script properly. The Urus are particularly illiterate in this respect.
Rugby isn't like football though. If Man City take on the local pub team you get and absurd result but nobody gets hurt. Not so in Rugby. Despite the game's valiant attempts to make it safer, All Blacks v Mountain Ash Working Mens Club is likely to result in some serious injuries.
What say you?
Sunak doesn’t have this.
In fact 20:1 is probably pessimistic. We’ve seen several upsets or near misses in recent RWCs. They are part of what make world cups unique, as opposed to test series.
Hopefully we'll be spared the spamming about the petition updates.
The man was useless in his role and quite a few of the issues we have today are down to his policies of money printing and low interest rates.
Promising new technology, overhyped, turns out they were being grown on land that was being lost to food crops, big backlash.
But as a result the baby goes out with the bath water. Biofuels from waste or from otherwise unproductive areas are one of very few options to decarbonise aviation.
A solicitor who worked on cases free of charge for struggling clients killed himself after his low fees contributed to spiralling financial problems.
Marcus Malin, 48, took his own life after fines, including parking tickets, amounted to thousands of pounds of debt and bailiffs came knocking.
An inquest was told that the solicitor was loved by his clients and often conducted cases free, particularly if they involved children, to help those without the means to pay.
Winchester coroner’s court was told that Malin had ended up in financial difficulties and had been due to be investigated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. He was found dead in his car on December 9 near West Tytherley in Hampshire, about ten miles from his home in Salisbury. A post-mortem examination found that he had died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
The hearing was told that the solicitor had left a note on his phone reading: “I have got myself into a mess being that I charged so very little. I would charge a few hundred pounds, if anything. I did so to help people.”
Michael Malin, his father, told the court that his son had been popular. He said: “He was an individual who was always bright and happy on the outside, but his mother and myself used to say we didn’t know him.
“I think Marcus was particularly soft and he would go for cases where children were involved and he didn’t have much money because he was doing things for people that couldn’t afford a lot.
“He had financial problems because he did things for free and he got to the stage of failing to pay parking fines.”
Malin said that his son’s debt amounted to thousands of pounds. The solicitor was self-employed but worked under the umbrella of a law firm, which meant he could choose cases himself.
Before his death, Malin was contacted on an unknown matter by the SRA — the regulatory body for solicitors in England and Wales — which meant he might have been investigated.
His father told the inquest: “Our thought is that the SRA probably contacted Marcus before his death and he knew it would end with him in a lot of trouble because solicitors aren’t allowed to have county court convictions. We always talked openly about things but there was this side to him where he didn’t tell us everything.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/suicide-of-solicitor-who-would-not-charge-the-poor-6sq0wgfv5
Kind of undermines the underdog glamour for me.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a37872650/formula-1-auto-racing-sustainable-fuel/
Now you're condemning someone who is objectively well qualified to express a view on economic policy for doing so, more than three years after he ceased to be Governor of the Bank of England.