£15bn of public assets sold by English councils since 2010 amid budget shortfalls An estimated 75,000 assets including community centres, libraries and swimming pools have been sold, thinktank says ... A change in the law in 2016 meant councils no longer had to buy new public assets with money made from selling them and instead could use the money to make up for shortfalls in funding. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/21/15bn-of-public-assets-sold-by-english-councils-since-2010-amid-budget-shortfalls
Selling off the family silver, as Macmillan warned.
That might be worrying, but rather annoyingly the article omits to mention how much of that £15bn was in fact used to plug holes in revenue budgets, and how much was just replacement (if you sell a community centre to move to a better site, that isn't a problem, whereas selling it because you're funding a deficit is).
It does irritate me a bit when an article misses the crucial point. I suspect there is a genuine issue there, but the Guardian simply haven't provided the key bit of information needed to judge that, instead opting for a large but fundamentally pretty meaningless number.
Surely that is the significance of the 2016 law change?
There is also, from the linked story:- An average of 6,000 council assets – such as playing fields, community centres, libraries, youth clubs and swimming pools – worth £1.2bn have been sold each year in the past 13 years, the thinktank estimated, through analysis of government data and statistics from a freedom of information request.
By contrast, the research estimated just 2,500 assets came newly into community ownership during the same time.
I'm still of the opinion that Lab will garner a smallish majority of no more than 35-40, though there is a distinct possibility of them requiring minority party support to form a govt; this most likely coming from the Libs who will do moderately well also. I can see them on 30 seats (possibly more if the "blue wall" really begins to collapse). Whatever happens, it'll be one of the more interesting elections to watch of recent years, given the rollercoaster we've all been on in recent years.
It may well be Labour win most seats in England but fall short of a majority but win a UK majority thanks to gains from the SNP
Should we care?
The Tories have governed for quite a while with a majority in England, but not in Scotland or Wales. Perhaps Labour will govern with a majority in Scotland and Wales but not in England (and of course the major parties aren't involved in NI). That's how the United Kingdom works - only the overall UK numbers matter.
It looks to me as if she's acting alone. If I'm right, she should formally withdraw the letters and apologise. Most Select Committees, rightly, have a good reputation for scrutiny. This is damaging to that reputation.
The XL Bully story is a classic example of Tory over-promising
Suella and then Sunak waded in with big emotional promises. These dogs will be banned. We've had enough. This ends NOW
And then it dribbles away and it's "around the end of the year" and "all rather complicated"
Meanwhile people (and animals) are still suffering
"Woman suffers facial injuries saving two dogs from XL bully attack Two friends tried to fight off the huge dogs, and thought their pets were going to die"
Shoot every dog in the country or if you want to be really humane round up every dog in the country and sell them to the Koreans.
I'd institute a strict lead rule for any dog over 20 kilos. It'd be unfortunate for some harmless fat old retrievers and labs but thems the breaks.
All dogs to be muzzled in public as well.
I think it was David Herdson on the previous thread who raised the point about government needing to win hearts and minds for new measures. A blanket requirement for leads and muzzling would be ignored on a grand scale.
For a start it's disproportionate: it would be like banning all cars because some minute percentage of cars are involved in hit and run deaths.
For the record, I support the ban on dangerous dogs, I support extending that to all dogs bred for fighting or from fighting breeds, and I support compulsory dog licensing and insurance.
(PS Trying to remember who the awful PM who did away with dog licences was.)
Dog licences at 7/6 (37.5p) were left outside to starve by Wilson, Heath, Wilson (again), Callaghan and finally, in an uncharacteristic act of kindness, put out of their misery by Thatcher.
£15bn of public assets sold by English councils since 2010 amid budget shortfalls An estimated 75,000 assets including community centres, libraries and swimming pools have been sold, thinktank says ... A change in the law in 2016 meant councils no longer had to buy new public assets with money made from selling them and instead could use the money to make up for shortfalls in funding. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/21/15bn-of-public-assets-sold-by-english-councils-since-2010-amid-budget-shortfalls
Selling off the family silver, as Macmillan warned.
That might be worrying, but rather annoyingly the article omits to mention how much of that £15bn was in fact used to plug holes in revenue budgets, and how much was just replacement (if you sell a community centre to move to a better site, that isn't a problem, whereas selling it because you're funding a deficit is).
It does irritate me a bit when an article misses the crucial point. I suspect there is a genuine issue there, but the Guardian simply haven't provided the key bit of information needed to judge that, instead opting for a large but fundamentally pretty meaningless number.
Surely that is the significance of the 2016 law change?
There is also, from the linked story:- An average of 6,000 council assets – such as playing fields, community centres, libraries, youth clubs and swimming pools – worth £1.2bn have been sold each year in the past 13 years, the thinktank estimated, through analysis of government data and statistics from a freedom of information request.
By contrast, the research estimated just 2,500 assets came newly into community ownership during the same time.
So 6000 assets sold a year, 200 replacements every year...
The principal scrutiny of government is called the House of Commons and its select committees. Government is not remotely accountable to the media. If the media reported properly on parliament and its committees it would help.
BTW the PM was interviewed on R4 Today this morning (I think). I didn't listen to it as generally they are not good enough at framing the questions or ensuring there is an answer. This is a worse state of affairs than government not appearing at all. The BBC would do well to stop bothering to interview people who characteristically evade questioning.
I did listen to the interview, sadly it was by Nick Robinson so instead of asking a question and letting the interviewee answer in full and then ask follow ups as usual Robinson interrupted non-stop trying to get prepared questions rather than having the agility to probe properly.
There is something with a lot of interviewers now that they cannot seem to let a reply play out and want quick answers for subjects where a longer answer is more important. If it’s down to time pressures than maybe drop pointless fluff about orchestras being accompanied by dogs, or how some musical in the west end is bringing something to the attention of musical goers and give a proper half hour on important interviews.
I have to say if I was a politician being interviewed by Robinson I would lose my shit with him so fair play to all MPs of all stripes who manage not to.
I'm still of the opinion that Lab will garner a smallish majority of no more than 35-40, though there is a distinct possibility of them requiring minority party support to form a govt; this most likely coming from the Libs who will do moderately well also. I can see them on 30 seats (possibly more if the "blue wall" really begins to collapse). Whatever happens, it'll be one of the more interesting elections to watch of recent years, given the rollercoaster we've all been on in recent years.
It may well be Labour win most seats in England but fall short of a majority but win a UK majority thanks to gains from the SNP
Starmer’s worst nightmare.
No, I think that would be Tories win most seats in England but Labour plus the SNP only have a UK wide majority
The XL Bully story is a classic example of Tory over-promising
Suella and then Sunak waded in with big emotional promises. These dogs will be banned. We've had enough. This ends NOW
And then it dribbles away and it's "around the end of the year" and "all rather complicated"
Meanwhile people (and animals) are still suffering
"Woman suffers facial injuries saving two dogs from XL bully attack Two friends tried to fight off the huge dogs, and thought their pets were going to die"
Shoot every dog in the country or if you want to be really humane round up every dog in the country and sell them to the Koreans.
Rather brilliantly, the XL Bully-loving people have organised a special Bully XL Walk in Birmingham, which is really "freindly" (sic), and they've told everyone to bring as many kids as possible and as many dogs as possible!
.... except that now they've realised this is really dangerous and the dogs might attack the kids (as pointed out online) so the special Bully XL dogwalk is now saying "Bully dogs are not allowed" on the special Bully dog walk designed to show how gentle Bully dogs are
Dr Lawrence Newport deserves far more than his 2,536 followers. He did an excellent Youtube vid a while back on the effective banning of onshore wind in the UK.
> 50% of XL bullies in the UK are (And it'll increase with future breeding) are or are offspring of fighting dog 4* Great grandsire "Genghis Kon Ton Ly". They're as genetically disposed to killing as the equine offspring of Northern Dancer are to horse-racing.
The XL Bully story is a classic example of Tory over-promising
Suella and then Sunak waded in with big emotional promises. These dogs will be banned. We've had enough. This ends NOW
And then it dribbles away and it's "around the end of the year" and "all rather complicated"
Meanwhile people (and animals) are still suffering
"Woman suffers facial injuries saving two dogs from XL bully attack Two friends tried to fight off the huge dogs, and thought their pets were going to die"
Shoot every dog in the country or if you want to be really humane round up every dog in the country and sell them to the Koreans.
Rather brilliantly, the XL Bully-loving people have organised a special Bully XL Walk in Birmingham, which is really "freindly" (sic), and they've told everyone to bring as many kids as possible and as many dogs as possible!
.... except that now they've realised this is really dangerous and the dogs might attack the kids (as pointed out online) so the special Bully XL dogwalk is now saying "Bully dogs are not allowed" on the special Bully dog walk designed to show how gentle Bully dogs are
Off topic, but about politics in general, this comic strip: https://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/zits/s-2878237 American teenagers are woefully ignorant about our history and, recently, often getting misinformed, by both the left and right.
Is the same true in Britain? Could you, for example, do a similar cartoon, substituting, for example, "Waterloo" for "Gettsyburg"?
Seen Sunak's new video released today. Where he announces he's abolishing seven bins and meat tax.
He's going full Johnson. Blatant lies, gambling that the voting public is thick.
Will it work? I think much depends on how journalists, and opposition, deal with it. As Johnson and Trump showed it can be very difficult dealing with a liar if they really double down on it.
As I said earlier we have 7 bins from the local authority
Paper waste - weekly Plastic - weekly Cardboard and glass - weekly Food - weekly Main Bin - once a month Garden waste (2) - fortnightly - (pay extra £52 pa)
And Sunak's announcement means what? You will no longer have 7 bins? Of course not: the council have decided that's what they want to do so that's what they'll keep doing.
Don't fall for this shit. The law as crafted proposes that waste be separated into 7 streams unless councils decide they are able to manage it in mixed streams, which of course most can.
So I have 4 bins - mixed recycling, waste, food caddy, and optional garden waste - and that's what I will keep having.
Or do you think the government should force councils to mix it up all together and dump it off the Lleyn Peninsula?
I find it amusing at how rattled many are over Sunak's announcement yesterday, and the irony of some now saying Johnson was to be congratulated on his green policies when the same people were demanding his resignation (correctly)
I do not expect much change in the polls but certainty the starting gun has been fired on the next GE and who knows where this goes
And by the way it is the Llyn Peninsular
Isn't it Llyn if you have one of those fancy ys with a circumflex on it, and Lleyn if you don't (like Muller with an umlaut vs Mueller if not)?
Commonly known as Llyn with or without the circumflex
I spent all my young childhood holidays there in the 1950s as my Aunt and Uncle ran the Warren (as tenants) and long before it became a millionaires paradise
£15bn of public assets sold by English councils since 2010 amid budget shortfalls An estimated 75,000 assets including community centres, libraries and swimming pools have been sold, thinktank says ... A change in the law in 2016 meant councils no longer had to buy new public assets with money made from selling them and instead could use the money to make up for shortfalls in funding. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/21/15bn-of-public-assets-sold-by-english-councils-since-2010-amid-budget-shortfalls
Selling off the family silver, as Macmillan warned.
That might be worrying, but rather annoyingly the article omits to mention how much of that £15bn was in fact used to plug holes in revenue budgets, and how much was just replacement (if you sell a community centre to move to a better site, that isn't a problem, whereas selling it because you're funding a deficit is).
It does irritate me a bit when an article misses the crucial point. I suspect there is a genuine issue there, but the Guardian simply haven't provided the key bit of information needed to judge that, instead opting for a large but fundamentally pretty meaningless number.
Surely that is the significance of the 2016 law change?
There is also, from the linked story:- An average of 6,000 council assets – such as playing fields, community centres, libraries, youth clubs and swimming pools – worth £1.2bn have been sold each year in the past 13 years, the thinktank estimated, through analysis of government data and statistics from a freedom of information request.
By contrast, the research estimated just 2,500 assets came newly into community ownership during the same time.
The problem is we don't know from the article the scale of the issue.
The £1.2bn over 13 years is the £15bn in the headline (I think). Annoyingly, that includes several years before the change in law they are worried about in 2016, which is a bit crazy.
Then the next paragraph doesn't tell us the value of the 2,500 new assets. That might well be less than the 6,000 sold - but we don't know how much less, or how much was after 2016. And it might not be that much less in that the trend has been to consolidate services in larger hubs - you might think it's a good or bad idea to move from three little community centres to one big new one, but it doesn't necessarily entail a loss of value.
For example, if the article had ended, "By contrast, the research estimated just 2,500 assets came newly into community ownership during the same time, worth £18bn." that rather changes the entire article. Not saying it's likely... but they've literally missed out the key bit of information we need!
This correspondence is quite astonishing. It should be seen as a moment of national humiliation. A role reversal where an obscure upstart social media channel becomes the guardian of liberal democratic values, under assault from the 'mother of all parliaments' that has debased itself to such a degree that it has become a participant in a lynch mob.
It is creating political space for a Trump style protest, observing all this unfold, I would consider supporting it.
Rumble is a Canadian company with an American base in Florida. YouTube is an American company quartered in California. Twitter is currently based in San Francisco but by the time Musk is finished with it it'll be based in Texas or China. We are having this conversation on Vanilla Forums: Vanilla is a Canadian company in Quebec.
You want to join a Trump-style protest to fight for a Canadian company against an American company about what the American company wants to say.
We are all getting aereated by social media companies who are vastly outside our control but we still think we have some influence over the process
@viewcode This isn't my point. It is about Parliament. It is no longer the defender of the rule of law and due process. The judgement of establishment politicians on this issue is so bad they have allowed themselves to get whipped up in to a lynch mob and just abuse whatever status their position affords them to try and get brownie points with the mob. This seems to me to be symptomatic of a very rapid decline in politics which people are either ignorant of or in denial over. It leads me to the position where - if there is some alternative - it is worth trying. I think some variation of this chain of thought is how people in the US end up supporting Trump... 50% according to some recent polls.
50% of Trump's supporters are driven by reverence for the rule of law and due process?
At least some are just fed up with the various permutations of 'woke', of which this episode is a good example - and astonishingly from a Conservative MP. It goes down to how you perceive the threats associated with continuing with this status quo. I'm not sure it can correct itself, no one in parliament stands up to this type of idiocy even though they know that is what it is, because they are all scared of the mob. And there lies disaster.
I'm still of the opinion that Lab will garner a smallish majority of no more than 35-40, though there is a distinct possibility of them requiring minority party support to form a govt; this most likely coming from the Libs who will do moderately well also. I can see them on 30 seats (possibly more if the "blue wall" really begins to collapse). Whatever happens, it'll be one of the more interesting elections to watch of recent years, given the rollercoaster we've all been on in recent years.
It may well be Labour win most seats in England but fall short of a majority but win a UK majority thanks to gains from the SNP
Starmer’s worst nightmare.
The way things are moving (and if that is how it continues of course), Lab could win most English seats, most Welsh seats and pick up 15 to 20 in Scotland. With that and a decent Lib resurgence any hope of a Tory comeback in any form is sunk. It'll certainly be worth an all nighter whatever the outcome is. Proplus, espresso and a decent light white will be needed...
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
I read that as Andrew Tate and was initially somewhat surprised.
If only Andrew Tate had chosen to fund his (now impounded) fleet of pen1s extension vehicles by writing a series of gently entertaining guides to the areas involved in the week's principal local authority by-elections. The world would be a better place.
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
Well, as it's clearly right that slow is best with scrambled eggs it may actually be of great benefit.
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
The principal scrutiny of government is called the House of Commons and its select committees. Government is not remotely accountable to the media. If the media reported properly on parliament and its committees it would help.
BTW the PM was interviewed on R4 Today this morning (I think). I didn't listen to it as generally they are not good enough at framing the questions or ensuring there is an answer. This is a worse state of affairs than government not appearing at all. The BBC would do well to stop bothering to interview people who characteristically evade questioning.
I did listen to the interview, sadly it was by Nick Robinson so instead of asking a question and letting the interviewee answer in full and then ask follow ups as usual Robinson interrupted non-stop trying to get prepared questions rather than having the agility to probe properly.
There is something with a lot of interviewers now that they cannot seem to let a reply play out and want quick answers for subjects where a longer answer is more important. If it’s down to time pressures than maybe drop pointless fluff about orchestras being accompanied by dogs, or how some musical in the west end is bringing something to the attention of musical goers and give a proper half hour on important interviews.
I have to say if I was a politician being interviewed by Robinson I would lose my shit with him so fair play to all MPs of all stripes who manage not to.
I agree with all of this, but would qualify then last bit. The one thing R4 Today has is time. It controls 17 hours a week of prime broadcasting time. It has loads of time for proper coverage, not of dogs that can play the trombone or of the latest boring group wanting to raise awareness while fleecing the taxpayer, but of the detail of government and parliament, and the detail of the progress of wars and crises and politics which have begin to bore the popular press. (Sudan, Mali, Rohinga, Syria even Ukraine keeps dropping out).
And it is not a magazine prog. Not Woman's Hour or You and Yours.
Finally, about Robinson (who has excellent points); he gives all mainstream politicians an easy ride by in the end accepting non-answers. His interruptions make it easier for them. (And especially Robinson and Hussein have no idea that short perfectly framed questions are good; and long rambly subordinate clause ones are always bad.)
I'm still of the opinion that Lab will garner a smallish majority of no more than 35-40, though there is a distinct possibility of them requiring minority party support to form a govt; this most likely coming from the Libs who will do moderately well also. I can see them on 30 seats (possibly more if the "blue wall" really begins to collapse). Whatever happens, it'll be one of the more interesting elections to watch of recent years, given the rollercoaster we've all been on in recent years.
It may well be Labour win most seats in England but fall short of a majority but win a UK majority thanks to gains from the SNP
Should we care?
The Tories have governed for quite a while with a majority in England, but not in Scotland or Wales. Perhaps Labour will govern with a majority in Scotland and Wales but not in England (and of course the major parties aren't involved in NI). That's how the United Kingdom works - only the overall UK numbers matter.
Yes but post devolution Scotland and Wales now have their own Parliaments for most of their domestic policy even if they get a UK government they didn’t vote for.
England however has no Parliament of its own if it gets a UK government it didn’t vote by majority for.
That has happened before eg in October 1974 or 1964 when Labour under Wilson won a UK majority but not English majority. However then there was only one UK Parliament at Westminster and no Scottish or Welsh Parliaments so it was less of an issue
UK regions were offered devolution. Pound shop Rasputin convinced the North East region to vote against, making it his destination of choice decades later when he needed to drive around because he was worried his eyesight made it unsafe to drive (I wish this was a joke).
The XL Bully story is a classic example of Tory over-promising
Suella and then Sunak waded in with big emotional promises. These dogs will be banned. We've had enough. This ends NOW
And then it dribbles away and it's "around the end of the year" and "all rather complicated"
Meanwhile people (and animals) are still suffering
"Woman suffers facial injuries saving two dogs from XL bully attack Two friends tried to fight off the huge dogs, and thought their pets were going to die"
They are just really, really bad at politics, rarely a week goes by without unnecessary own goals. Those who expect the polls to narrow significantly need to bear this in mind.
Indeed, how does Amazon thrive with its product search being so shit?
The search being shit acts as an incentive for sellers to pay for placement in your search results. Amazon now takes 45% of the amount sellers charge, on average & search result Ad fees are a sizable chunk of that.
Amazon has you by the proverbials - want to sell? Well, you pay the toll. Amazon insists on most-favoured nation clauses in its contracts so you can’t charge less elsewhere either.
The principal scrutiny of government is called the House of Commons and its select committees. Government is not remotely accountable to the media. If the media reported properly on parliament and its committees it would help.
BTW the PM was interviewed on R4 Today this morning (I think). I didn't listen to it as generally they are not good enough at framing the questions or ensuring there is an answer. This is a worse state of affairs than government not appearing at all. The BBC would do well to stop bothering to interview people who characteristically evade questioning.
I did listen to the interview, sadly it was by Nick Robinson so instead of asking a question and letting the interviewee answer in full and then ask follow ups as usual Robinson interrupted non-stop trying to get prepared questions rather than having the agility to probe properly.
There is something with a lot of interviewers now that they cannot seem to let a reply play out and want quick answers for subjects where a longer answer is more important. If it’s down to time pressures than maybe drop pointless fluff about orchestras being accompanied by dogs, or how some musical in the west end is bringing something to the attention of musical goers and give a proper half hour on important interviews.
I have to say if I was a politician being interviewed by Robinson I would lose my shit with him so fair play to all MPs of all stripes who manage not to.
I agree with all of this, but would qualify then last bit. The one thing R4 Today has is time. It controls 17 hours a week of prime broadcasting time. It has loads of time for proper coverage, not of dogs that can play the trombone or of the latest boring group wanting to raise awareness while fleecing the taxpayer, but of the detail of government and parliament, and the detail of the progress of wars and crises and politics which have begin to bore the popular press. (Sudan, Mali, Rohinga, Syria even Ukraine keeps dropping out).
And it is not a magazine prog. Not Woman's Hour or You and Yours.
Finally, about Robinson (who has excellent points); he gives all mainstream politicians an easy ride by in the end accepting non-answers. His interruptions make it easier for them. (And especially Robinson and Hussein have no idea that short perfectly framed questions are good; and long rambly subordinate clause ones are always bad.)
Unfortunately it has morphed into a magazine show. It used to be three hours of serious news and interviews in good detail but it seems there has to be a music item every day, a daily item on “my favourite tree”, something about birds that wasn’t already covered by Tweet of the day before the programme started, twenty minutes of Robinson and Webb joshing about Manchester United and Rugby like two twats in a pub trying to sound interesting.
The only good item they have introduced recently is on a Friday when they spend five minutes talking to two BBC local radio journalists about what is making the news in their region - would be happy to see that expanded.
Did not have Israel working and supporting Saudi Arabia getting a nuclear weapon on my 2023 bingo card.
Israel is discreetly working with the United States on plans to help Saudi Arabia enrich its own uranium, as part of a broader deal in which Riyadh would normalise relations with the Jewish state.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has told the country’s top nuclear and security specialists to work with US negotiators on securing the deal, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The proposal would lead to Saudi Arabia becoming the second Middle Eastern country to openly enrich uranium after arch-rival Iran. Israel is also widely suspected of having its own nuclear weapons programme, though it remains shrouded in secrecy under a policy of deliberate ambiguity.
Secretive talks on a potential Israeli-Saudi normalisation treaty have been underway for years, but they significantly gained pace in recent months after Saudi Arabia sought a US-run nuclear programme as part of the agreement.
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
You can make great scrambled egg in a microwave.
Don't own one, so that'd be an issue.
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
Did not have Israel working and supporting Saudi Arabia getting a nuclear weapon on my 2023 bingo card.
Israel is discreetly working with the United States on plans to help Saudi Arabia enrich its own uranium, as part of a broader deal in which Riyadh would normalise relations with the Jewish state.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has told the country’s top nuclear and security specialists to work with US negotiators on securing the deal, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The proposal would lead to Saudi Arabia becoming the second Middle Eastern country to openly enrich uranium after arch-rival Iran. Israel is also widely suspected of having its own nuclear weapons programme, though it remains shrouded in secrecy under a policy of deliberate ambiguity.
Secretive talks on a potential Israeli-Saudi normalisation treaty have been underway for years, but they significantly gained pace in recent months after Saudi Arabia sought a US-run nuclear programme as part of the agreement.
The XL Bully story is a classic example of Tory over-promising
Suella and then Sunak waded in with big emotional promises. These dogs will be banned. We've had enough. This ends NOW
And then it dribbles away and it's "around the end of the year" and "all rather complicated"
Meanwhile people (and animals) are still suffering
"Woman suffers facial injuries saving two dogs from XL bully attack Two friends tried to fight off the huge dogs, and thought their pets were going to die"
They are just really, really bad at politics, rarely a week goes by without unnecessary own goals. Those who expect the polls to narrow significantly need to bear this in mind.
I think we (well you) need to distinguish between certain sorts of politics. The current Tory hopefuls are brilliant at playing the next Tory leader card. Nobody in the Tory part seems to have any clue as to the 'we are in office to represent the people. card though.
The XL Bully story is a classic example of Tory over-promising
Suella and then Sunak waded in with big emotional promises. These dogs will be banned. We've had enough. This ends NOW
And then it dribbles away and it's "around the end of the year" and "all rather complicated"
Meanwhile people (and animals) are still suffering
"Woman suffers facial injuries saving two dogs from XL bully attack Two friends tried to fight off the huge dogs, and thought their pets were going to die"
They are just really, really bad at politics, rarely a week goes by without unnecessary own goals. Those who expect the polls to narrow significantly need to bear this in mind.
I think we (well you) need to distinguish between certain sorts of politics. The current Tory hopefuls are brilliant at playing the next Tory leader card. Nobody in the Tory part seems to have any clue as to the 'we are in office to represent the people. card though.
Ah, so the leader of the Tory party is trying to set it up so that someone else has to suffer as next Tory leader and in double quick time? All makes sense now......Truss is a legend.
Seen Sunak's new video released today. Where he announces he's abolishing seven bins and meat tax.
He's going full Johnson. Blatant lies, gambling that the voting public is thick.
Will it work? I think much depends on how journalists, and opposition, deal with it. As Johnson and Trump showed it can be very difficult dealing with a liar if they really double down on it.
Those policies haven't been plucked from thin air but are actively promoted by some in global think tank circles as essential measures to reach net zero.
He wants to make the relationship between Starmer and the likes of the Tony Blair Institute a political issue.
They are very much lies, every bit as much as if Starmer got into office and announced he was cancelling the reintroduction of the death penalty, and ditching plans to privatise the NHS. I mean that's the level here.
Other things promoted by right wing think tanks with cosy relationships with the Tories include cutting benefits almost to zero, removing almost all environmental regulations from industry, ceasing all aid to Ukraine, bringing back military service, bringing back corporal punishment and so on.
A bit like Labour cancelling the privatisation of the NHS, was was a staple of their campaigns long before the supposed era of populism.
Off topic, but about politics in general, this comic strip: https://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/zits/s-2878237 American teenagers are woefully ignorant about our history and, recently, often getting misinformed, by both the left and right.
Is the same true in Britain? Could you, for example, do a similar cartoon, substituting, for example, "Waterloo" for "Gettsyburg"?
Watch any TV quiz show. Except, possibly, Mastermind or University Challenge.
I'm still of the opinion that Lab will garner a smallish majority of no more than 35-40, though there is a distinct possibility of them requiring minority party support to form a govt; this most likely coming from the Libs who will do moderately well also. I can see them on 30 seats (possibly more if the "blue wall" really begins to collapse). Whatever happens, it'll be one of the more interesting elections to watch of recent years, given the rollercoaster we've all been on in recent years.
It may well be Labour win most seats in England but fall short of a majority but win a UK majority thanks to gains from the SNP
Should we care?
The Tories have governed for quite a while with a majority in England, but not in Scotland or Wales. Perhaps Labour will govern with a majority in Scotland and Wales but not in England (and of course the major parties aren't involved in NI). That's how the United Kingdom works - only the overall UK numbers matter.
Yes but post devolution Scotland and Wales now have their own Parliaments for most of their domestic policy even if they get a UK government they didn’t vote for.
England however has no Parliament of its own if it gets a UK government it didn’t vote by majority for.
That has happened before eg in October 1974 or 1964 when Labour under Wilson won a UK majority but not English majority. However then there was only one UK Parliament at Westminster and no Scottish or Welsh Parliaments so it was less of an issue
The UK government very rarely represents a majority of voters. I can only think of 2010-2015 in my lifetime.
It normally represents a majority of seats however
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
You can make great scrambled egg in a microwave.
Don't own one, so that'd be an issue.
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
It has its uses but if you're not using it don't replace, I'm all for that.
Not accusing you of this but there is a whiff of snobbery about some of those who pull a face at the thought of using a microwave. Aside from anything else it's easily the most energy efficient method of cooking.
If you key Savanta's numbers into Electoral Calculus you get 118 Tory MPs left after the GE.
Now of course EC is a very blunt instrument and there are good reasons to think they will do vastly better on the day. There are however some reasons why they might actually do worse - tactical voting being one of the more obvious. I'll be very interested to see what kind totals the Spread firms put up when they get around to chalking up their boards. I suspect they will be operating huge overrounds.
Btw, EC puts the LDs just ahead of the SNP at 30 seats versus 28. That's an important and interesting little contest in itself.
The only GB News presenter I have time for is Mark Dolan, if only for his previous incarnation as host of C4 prank show "Balls of Steel". Bev Turner looks OK Michelle Dewberry can't pronounce her "o's" properly Rees-Mogg too plummy Farage entertaining at times Wootton looks creepy!
It's all rather tawdry. Although like many tawdry things it can be hard to stop looking at it once you start. If you find yourself in that position what you have to do is imagine explaining yourself to someone you admire. That makes you change channels and watch something else.
I can honestly say I do not watch GB news and have no intention to do so
Well that's a very solid call. Eg Lozza Fox has his own show which he always starts with a 'monologue'. That's him talking direct to camera for about 5 minutes on something or other, giving his take on it basically. It's a long 5 minutes.
It must be hell that you put yourself through it each time. I suppose someone has to.
I'm still of the opinion that Lab will garner a smallish majority of no more than 35-40, though there is a distinct possibility of them requiring minority party support to form a govt; this most likely coming from the Libs who will do moderately well also. I can see them on 30 seats (possibly more if the "blue wall" really begins to collapse). Whatever happens, it'll be one of the more interesting elections to watch of recent years, given the rollercoaster we've all been on in recent years.
It may well be Labour win most seats in England but fall short of a majority but win a UK majority thanks to gains from the SNP
Starmer’s worst nightmare.
No, I think that would be Tories win most seats in England but Labour plus the SNP only have a UK wide majority
Yes. Although the Tories as a party of the Union would never claim their English majority carried any special weight.
Seen Sunak's new video released today. Where he announces he's abolishing seven bins and meat tax.
He's going full Johnson. Blatant lies, gambling that the voting public is thick.
Will it work? I think much depends on how journalists, and opposition, deal with it. As Johnson and Trump showed it can be very difficult dealing with a liar if they really double down on it.
Those policies haven't been plucked from thin air but are actively promoted by some in global think tank circles as essential measures to reach net zero.
He wants to make the relationship between Starmer and the likes of the Tony Blair Institute a political issue.
They are very much lies, every bit as much as if Starmer got into office and announced he was cancelling the reintroduction of the death penalty, and ditching plans to privatise the NHS. I mean that's the level here.
Other things promoted by right wing think tanks with cosy relationships with the Tories include cutting benefits almost to zero, removing almost all environmental regulations from industry, ceasing all aid to Ukraine, bringing back military service, bringing back corporal punishment and so on.
A bit like Labour cancelling the privatisation of the NHS, was was a staple of their campaigns long before the supposed era of populism.
That isn't populism
They are posing as champions of the people against a supposed conspiracy of the elite.
The XL Bully story is a classic example of Tory over-promising
Suella and then Sunak waded in with big emotional promises. These dogs will be banned. We've had enough. This ends NOW
And then it dribbles away and it's "around the end of the year" and "all rather complicated"
Meanwhile people (and animals) are still suffering
"Woman suffers facial injuries saving two dogs from XL bully attack Two friends tried to fight off the huge dogs, and thought their pets were going to die"
They are just really, really bad at politics, rarely a week goes by without unnecessary own goals. Those who expect the polls to narrow significantly need to bear this in mind.
I think we (well you) need to distinguish between certain sorts of politics. The current Tory hopefuls are brilliant at playing the next Tory leader card. Nobody in the Tory part seems to have any clue as to the 'we are in office to represent the people. card though.
Ah, so the leader of the Tory party is trying to set it up so that someone else has to suffer as next Tory leader and in double quick time? All makes sense now......Truss is a legend.
Truss - fuck off. She is an albatross hanging around the necks of the Tory party. A spiteful and painful ongoing albatross too.
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
You can make great scrambled egg in a microwave.
Don't own one, so that'd be an issue.
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
It has its uses but if you're not using it don't replace, I'm all for that.
Not accusing you of this but there is a whiff of snobbery about some of those who pull a face at the thought of using a microwave. Aside from anything else it's easily the most energy efficient method of cooking.
We use our Air Fryer for the vast majority of our cooking. That's a huge energy efficiency bonus over ovens etc - and a very large variety of things can be cooked in it, almost anything that can be cooked in an oven can be cooked in our Air Fryer at a fraction of the electricity and much quicker.
The XL Bully story is a classic example of Tory over-promising
Suella and then Sunak waded in with big emotional promises. These dogs will be banned. We've had enough. This ends NOW
And then it dribbles away and it's "around the end of the year" and "all rather complicated"
Meanwhile people (and animals) are still suffering
"Woman suffers facial injuries saving two dogs from XL bully attack Two friends tried to fight off the huge dogs, and thought their pets were going to die"
Shoot every dog in the country or if you want to be really humane round up every dog in the country and sell them to the Koreans.
I'd institute a strict lead rule for any dog over 20 kilos. It'd be unfortunate for some harmless fat old retrievers and labs but thems the breaks.
All dogs to be muzzled in public as well.
I think it was David Herdson on the previous thread who raised the point about government needing to win hearts and minds for new measures. A blanket requirement for leads and muzzling would be ignored on a grand scale.
For a start it's disproportionate: it would be like banning all cars because some minute percentage of cars are involved in hit and run deaths.
For the record, I support the ban on dangerous dogs, I support extending that to all dogs bred for fighting or from fighting breeds, and I support compulsory dog licensing and insurance.
(PS Trying to remember who the awful PM who did away with dog licences was.)
Dog licences at 7/6 (37.5p) were left outside to starve by Wilson, Heath, Wilson (again), Callaghan and finally, in an uncharacteristic act of kindness, put out of their misery by Thatcher.
Did not have Israel working and supporting Saudi Arabia getting a nuclear weapon on my 2023 bingo card.
Israel is discreetly working with the United States on plans to help Saudi Arabia enrich its own uranium, as part of a broader deal in which Riyadh would normalise relations with the Jewish state.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has told the country’s top nuclear and security specialists to work with US negotiators on securing the deal, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The proposal would lead to Saudi Arabia becoming the second Middle Eastern country to openly enrich uranium after arch-rival Iran. Israel is also widely suspected of having its own nuclear weapons programme, though it remains shrouded in secrecy under a policy of deliberate ambiguity.
Secretive talks on a potential Israeli-Saudi normalisation treaty have been underway for years, but they significantly gained pace in recent months after Saudi Arabia sought a US-run nuclear programme as part of the agreement.
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
You can make great scrambled egg in a microwave.
Don't own one, so that'd be an issue.
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
It has its uses but if you're not using it don't replace, I'm all for that.
Not accusing you of this but there is a whiff of snobbery about some of those who pull a face at the thought of using a microwave. Aside from anything else it's easily the most energy efficient method of cooking.
We use our Air Fryer for the vast majority of our cooking. That's a huge energy efficiency bonus over ovens etc - and a very large variety of things can be cooked in it, almost anything that can be cooked in an oven can be cooked in our Air Fryer at a fraction of the electricity and much quicker.
The only GB News presenter I have time for is Mark Dolan, if only for his previous incarnation as host of C4 prank show "Balls of Steel". Bev Turner looks OK Michelle Dewberry can't pronounce her "o's" properly Rees-Mogg too plummy Farage entertaining at times Wootton looks creepy!
It's all rather tawdry. Although like many tawdry things it can be hard to stop looking at it once you start. If you find yourself in that position what you have to do is imagine explaining yourself to someone you admire. That makes you change channels and watch something else.
I can honestly say I do not watch GB news and have no intention to do so
Well that's a very solid call. Eg Lozza Fox has his own show which he always starts with a 'monologue'. That's him talking direct to camera for about 5 minutes on something or other, giving his take on it basically. It's a long 5 minutes.
It must be hell that you put yourself through it each time. I suppose someone has to.
I've broken the habit. Why seek out things to sneer at? Life's too short. Spend it on good and worthwhile things.
Seen Sunak's new video released today. Where he announces he's abolishing seven bins and meat tax.
He's going full Johnson. Blatant lies, gambling that the voting public is thick.
Will it work? I think much depends on how journalists, and opposition, deal with it. As Johnson and Trump showed it can be very difficult dealing with a liar if they really double down on it.
Those policies haven't been plucked from thin air but are actively promoted by some in global think tank circles as essential measures to reach net zero.
He wants to make the relationship between Starmer and the likes of the Tony Blair Institute a political issue.
They are very much lies, every bit as much as if Starmer got into office and announced he was cancelling the reintroduction of the death penalty, and ditching plans to privatise the NHS. I mean that's the level here.
Other things promoted by right wing think tanks with cosy relationships with the Tories include cutting benefits almost to zero, removing almost all environmental regulations from industry, ceasing all aid to Ukraine, bringing back military service, bringing back corporal punishment and so on.
A bit like Labour cancelling the privatisation of the NHS, was was a staple of their campaigns long before the supposed era of populism.
That isn't populism
They are posing as champions of the people against a supposed conspiracy of the elite.
They are posing as champions of the people against a supposed policy of the other party.
Off topic, but about politics in general, this comic strip: https://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/zits/s-2878237 American teenagers are woefully ignorant about our history and, recently, often getting misinformed, by both the left and right.
Is the same true in Britain? Could you, for example, do a similar cartoon, substituting, for example, "Waterloo" for "Gettsyburg"?
The Simpsons did the same joke with the Second World War. The teacher turned to the back of the book to announce "we won" as the school broke up.
The priorities that older and Conservative voters prioritise (NHS waiting lists and boat stopping) are the ones that are nowhere being met.
Maybe that's why Rishi is so keen to change the subject.
The question is ambiguous and not well drafted. 'The most important to you' invites a response which centres on the immediate effect on the person being questioned, and not the objective, long term or national importance.
At the moment whether I can buy a loaf of bread before the shop closes is more important to me than whether North Korea has nuclear weapons. Questions need to be put with care.
Did not have Israel working and supporting Saudi Arabia getting a nuclear weapon on my 2023 bingo card.
Israel is discreetly working with the United States on plans to help Saudi Arabia enrich its own uranium, as part of a broader deal in which Riyadh would normalise relations with the Jewish state.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has told the country’s top nuclear and security specialists to work with US negotiators on securing the deal, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The proposal would lead to Saudi Arabia becoming the second Middle Eastern country to openly enrich uranium after arch-rival Iran. Israel is also widely suspected of having its own nuclear weapons programme, though it remains shrouded in secrecy under a policy of deliberate ambiguity.
Secretive talks on a potential Israeli-Saudi normalisation treaty have been underway for years, but they significantly gained pace in recent months after Saudi Arabia sought a US-run nuclear programme as part of the agreement.
It’s all to do with football. Saudi wants to join UEFA which Israel is in and so if there is animosity between the two countries then Israel will block them joining. I expect Alexander Ceferin is making space on his shelf for the Nobel peace prize and under his bed for a billion dollars in large suitcases. Is there nothing football cannot solve?
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
You can make great scrambled egg in a microwave.
Don't own one, so that'd be an issue.
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
It has its uses but if you're not using it don't replace, I'm all for that.
Not accusing you of this but there is a whiff of snobbery about some of those who pull a face at the thought of using a microwave. Aside from anything else it's easily the most energy efficient method of cooking.
We use our Air Fryer for the vast majority of our cooking. That's a huge energy efficiency bonus over ovens etc - and a very large variety of things can be cooked in it, almost anything that can be cooked in an oven can be cooked in our Air Fryer at a fraction of the electricity and much quicker.
How so? An air fryer is just an oven.
Not sure what you mean? Almost anything that would require cooking in an oven, we cook in the air fryer. Ours also acts as a rotisserie etc too for roasting chickens. Oven is only used for major meals like Christmas, or something physically too big to fit which isn't much.
Between hobs and air fryer that probably deals with about 95% of our cooking.
Sunak's problem is that his approach is tactical and managerial, and not strategic and political.
To be fair, in recent years, we've had far too much of the latter and nowhere near enough of the former. But you kind of need both to succeed in politics.
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
You can make great scrambled egg in a microwave.
Don't own one, so that'd be an issue.
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
It has its uses but if you're not using it don't replace, I'm all for that.
Not accusing you of this but there is a whiff of snobbery about some of those who pull a face at the thought of using a microwave. Aside from anything else it's easily the most energy efficient method of cooking.
We use our Air Fryer for the vast majority of our cooking. That's a huge energy efficiency bonus over ovens etc - and a very large variety of things can be cooked in it, almost anything that can be cooked in an oven can be cooked in our Air Fryer at a fraction of the electricity and much quicker.
How so? An air fryer is just an oven.
Mostly because it's small- there's less air and oven wall to heat up alongside the food.
The fan oven/hairdryer effect (good air circulation means you can get the same cooking at a lower oven temperature) is better as well with a smaller box.
Was it last week or the week before that Liz Truss was saying how important it is that the Republicans take the US presidency? At some point the right in the UK is going to have to accept that the GOP’s interests run entirely counter to the UK’s.
£15bn of public assets sold by English councils since 2010 amid budget shortfalls An estimated 75,000 assets including community centres, libraries and swimming pools have been sold, thinktank says ... A change in the law in 2016 meant councils no longer had to buy new public assets with money made from selling them and instead could use the money to make up for shortfalls in funding. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/21/15bn-of-public-assets-sold-by-english-councils-since-2010-amid-budget-shortfalls
Selling off the family silver, as Macmillan warned.
That might be worrying, but rather annoyingly the article omits to mention how much of that £15bn was in fact used to plug holes in revenue budgets, and how much was just replacement (if you sell a community centre to move to a better site, that isn't a problem, whereas selling it because you're funding a deficit is).
It does irritate me a bit when an article misses the crucial point. I suspect there is a genuine issue there, but the Guardian simply haven't provided the key bit of information needed to judge that, instead opting for a large but fundamentally pretty meaningless number.
Surely that is the significance of the 2016 law change?
There is also, from the linked story:- An average of 6,000 council assets – such as playing fields, community centres, libraries, youth clubs and swimming pools – worth £1.2bn have been sold each year in the past 13 years, the thinktank estimated, through analysis of government data and statistics from a freedom of information request.
By contrast, the research estimated just 2,500 assets came newly into community ownership during the same time.
The problem is we don't know from the article the scale of the issue.
The £1.2bn over 13 years is the £15bn in the headline (I think). Annoyingly, that includes several years before the change in law they are worried about in 2016, which is a bit crazy.
Then the next paragraph doesn't tell us the value of the 2,500 new assets. That might well be less than the 6,000 sold - but we don't know how much less, or how much was after 2016. And it might not be that much less in that the trend has been to consolidate services in larger hubs - you might think it's a good or bad idea to move from three little community centres to one big new one, but it doesn't necessarily entail a loss of value.
For example, if the article had ended, "By contrast, the research estimated just 2,500 assets came newly into community ownership during the same time, worth £18bn." that rather changes the entire article. Not saying it's likely... but they've literally missed out the key bit of information we need!
Seen Sunak's new video released today. Where he announces he's abolishing seven bins and meat tax.
He's going full Johnson. Blatant lies, gambling that the voting public is thick.
Will it work? I think much depends on how journalists, and opposition, deal with it. As Johnson and Trump showed it can be very difficult dealing with a liar if they really double down on it.
Those policies haven't been plucked from thin air but are actively promoted by some in global think tank circles as essential measures to reach net zero.
He wants to make the relationship between Starmer and the likes of the Tony Blair Institute a political issue.
They are very much lies, every bit as much as if Starmer got into office and announced he was cancelling the reintroduction of the death penalty, and ditching plans to privatise the NHS. I mean that's the level here.
Other things promoted by right wing think tanks with cosy relationships with the Tories include cutting benefits almost to zero, removing almost all environmental regulations from industry, ceasing all aid to Ukraine, bringing back military service, bringing back corporal punishment and so on.
A bit like Labour cancelling the privatisation of the NHS, was was a staple of their campaigns long before the supposed era of populism.
That isn't populism
They are posing as champions of the people against a supposed conspiracy of the elite.
They are posing as champions of the people against a supposed policy of the other party.
"Our NHS" as opposed to "their NHS"?
Yes, as in the one that belongs to the public rather than it being sold off
I don't know why 'our' NHS provokes supercilious reactionary chuckle. There's something going on there. But (to repeat) I'm not sure what it is. All I know is it's not nice.
Did not have Israel working and supporting Saudi Arabia getting a nuclear weapon on my 2023 bingo card.
Israel is discreetly working with the United States on plans to help Saudi Arabia enrich its own uranium, as part of a broader deal in which Riyadh would normalise relations with the Jewish state.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has told the country’s top nuclear and security specialists to work with US negotiators on securing the deal, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The proposal would lead to Saudi Arabia becoming the second Middle Eastern country to openly enrich uranium after arch-rival Iran. Israel is also widely suspected of having its own nuclear weapons programme, though it remains shrouded in secrecy under a policy of deliberate ambiguity.
Secretive talks on a potential Israeli-Saudi normalisation treaty have been underway for years, but they significantly gained pace in recent months after Saudi Arabia sought a US-run nuclear programme as part of the agreement.
It’s all to do with football. Saudi wants to join UEFA which Israel is in and so if there is animosity between the two countries then Israel will block them joining. I expect Alexander Ceferin is making space on his shelf for the Nobel peace prize and under his bed for a billion dollars in large suitcases. Is there nothing football cannot solve?
I was going to say must be a while ago, given the price.
Wouldn’t be so bad, either, if there was any sort of service. One delivery per week, two if we’re lucky.
It's becoming a real headache for us sending out appointments. A lot seem to never arrive, and those that do go unnoticed in the junk mail. We text people, but older folk are not phone addicts it seems.
Let us see where we are with the Government: The boats, they keep coming The Portland Barge still empty Rwanda still in Court Stafford Asylum Accommodation passed for action by the Planners weeks ago, still empty, Inflation in the lap of the Gods not the Chancellor, going up next month Environment Green policies, not really speaking for the great majority, already back tracking Consultants/Doctors strikes, looks as if the Health Secretary ha spent the last sunning himself Government seems afraid to face Parliament half the time, Speaker having a go Loads of statements that seem to drift into the desert within a few days Triple Lock Yes we stand by it, no we don't, well lets wait and see!!! As Lincoln said you can fool some of the people some of the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time. Well he said that but obviously unaware of this rabble, they are indeed fooling all the people all the time.
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
You can make great scrambled egg in a microwave.
Don't own one, so that'd be an issue.
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
It has its uses but if you're not using it don't replace, I'm all for that.
Not accusing you of this but there is a whiff of snobbery about some of those who pull a face at the thought of using a microwave. Aside from anything else it's easily the most energy efficient method of cooking.
We use our Air Fryer for the vast majority of our cooking. That's a huge energy efficiency bonus over ovens etc - and a very large variety of things can be cooked in it, almost anything that can be cooked in an oven can be cooked in our Air Fryer at a fraction of the electricity and much quicker.
We have two air fryers, one a double and the other an air fryer oven and do not use our conventional oven at all
It is very cost effective and I noticed M & S had put air fryer instructions on one of their products.
I expect this will become widespread practice much as microwave instructions have.
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
You can make great scrambled egg in a microwave.
Don't own one, so that'd be an issue.
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
It has its uses but if you're not using it don't replace, I'm all for that.
Not accusing you of this but there is a whiff of snobbery about some of those who pull a face at the thought of using a microwave. Aside from anything else it's easily the most energy efficient method of cooking.
We use our Air Fryer for the vast majority of our cooking. That's a huge energy efficiency bonus over ovens etc - and a very large variety of things can be cooked in it, almost anything that can be cooked in an oven can be cooked in our Air Fryer at a fraction of the electricity and much quicker.
How so? An air fryer is just an oven.
Not sure what you mean? Almost anything that would require cooking in an oven, we cook in the air fryer. Ours also acts as a rotisserie etc too for roasting chickens. Oven is only used for major meals like Christmas, or something physically too big to fit which isn't much.
Between hobs and air fryer that probably deals with about 95% of our cooking.
Well sure, you have a hob and two ovens; one oven sits on the worktop where that microwave used to be. That's fine but the air fryer is only a fan oven by another name.
If we didn't already have two fan ovens we might think about an air fryer but why bother? Plus, we like to keep the worktops clear of clutter.
My point was that a microwave is a very efficient way of cooking, certainly more efficient than an air fryer or any fan oven for that matter. It's not going to cook chips or roast a chicken but then an air fryer is not going to cook scrambled eggs.
I'm still of the opinion that Lab will garner a smallish majority of no more than 35-40, though there is a distinct possibility of them requiring minority party support to form a govt; this most likely coming from the Libs who will do moderately well also. I can see them on 30 seats (possibly more if the "blue wall" really begins to collapse). Whatever happens, it'll be one of the more interesting elections to watch of recent years, given the rollercoaster we've all been on in recent years.
It may well be Labour win most seats in England but fall short of a majority but win a UK majority thanks to gains from the SNP
Isn't that quite unlikely? I can't recall the exact number of seats in each country after boundary changes, but for that to be true Labour would need to win a majority of seats in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined. Considering it doesn't even stand in Northern Ireland, and it's hard to imagine them winning more than half of the seats in Scotland, I think it's more likely that they win a majority in England and fail to win a UK majority than the inverse. If they did win a majority of Scottish seats I'd think that more likely to be occurring against a backdrop of a UK-wide good night for Labour. To put it another way, I think SNP support in Scotland is firmer than Tory support in England right now.
Let us see where we are with the Government: The boats, they keep coming The Portland Barge still empty Rwanda still in Court Stafford Asylum Accommodation passed for action by the Planners weeks ago, still empty, Inflation in the lap of the Gods not the Chancellor, going up next month Environment Green policies, not really speaking for the great majority, already back tracking Consultants/Doctors strikes, looks as if the Health Secretary ha spent the last sunning himself Government seems afraid to face Parliament half the time, Speaker having a go Loads of statements that seem to drift into the desert within a few days Triple Lock Yes we stand by it, no we don't, well lets wait and see!!! As Lincoln said you can fool some of the people some of the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time. Well he said that but obviously unaware of this rabble, they are indeed fooling all the people all the time.
Good summary, though from the polls this government only appears to be fooling about 25% of the people, most of the time.
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
You can make great scrambled egg in a microwave.
Don't own one, so that'd be an issue.
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
It has its uses but if you're not using it don't replace, I'm all for that.
Not accusing you of this but there is a whiff of snobbery about some of those who pull a face at the thought of using a microwave. Aside from anything else it's easily the most energy efficient method of cooking.
We use our Air Fryer for the vast majority of our cooking. That's a huge energy efficiency bonus over ovens etc - and a very large variety of things can be cooked in it, almost anything that can be cooked in an oven can be cooked in our Air Fryer at a fraction of the electricity and much quicker.
How so? An air fryer is just an oven.
Not sure what you mean? Almost anything that would require cooking in an oven, we cook in the air fryer. Ours also acts as a rotisserie etc too for roasting chickens. Oven is only used for major meals like Christmas, or something physically too big to fit which isn't much.
Between hobs and air fryer that probably deals with about 95% of our cooking.
Well sure, you have a hob and two ovens; one oven sits on the worktop where that microwave used to be. That's fine but the air fryer is only a fan oven by another name.
If we didn't already have two fan ovens we might think about an air fryer but why bother? Plus, we like to keep the worktops clear of clutter.
My point was that a microwave is a very efficient way of cooking, certainly more efficient than an air fryer or any fan oven for that matter. It's not going to cook chips or roast a chicken but then an air fryer is not going to cook scrambled eggs.
Seen Sunak's new video released today. Where he announces he's abolishing seven bins and meat tax.
He's going full Johnson. Blatant lies, gambling that the voting public is thick.
Will it work? I think much depends on how journalists, and opposition, deal with it. As Johnson and Trump showed it can be very difficult dealing with a liar if they really double down on it.
Those policies haven't been plucked from thin air but are actively promoted by some in global think tank circles as essential measures to reach net zero.
He wants to make the relationship between Starmer and the likes of the Tony Blair Institute a political issue.
They are very much lies, every bit as much as if Starmer got into office and announced he was cancelling the reintroduction of the death penalty, and ditching plans to privatise the NHS. I mean that's the level here.
Other things promoted by right wing think tanks with cosy relationships with the Tories include cutting benefits almost to zero, removing almost all environmental regulations from industry, ceasing all aid to Ukraine, bringing back military service, bringing back corporal punishment and so on.
A bit like Labour cancelling the privatisation of the NHS, was was a staple of their campaigns long before the supposed era of populism.
That isn't populism
They are posing as champions of the people against a supposed conspiracy of the elite.
They are posing as champions of the people against a supposed policy of the other party.
"Our NHS" as opposed to "their NHS"?
Yes, as in the one that belongs to the public rather than it being sold off
To whom was it sold off? It must have happened given that Labour lost the election, and they wouldn't have lied about it, would they?
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
You can make great scrambled egg in a microwave.
Don't own one, so that'd be an issue.
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
It has its uses but if you're not using it don't replace, I'm all for that.
Not accusing you of this but there is a whiff of snobbery about some of those who pull a face at the thought of using a microwave. Aside from anything else it's easily the most energy efficient method of cooking.
We use our Air Fryer for the vast majority of our cooking. That's a huge energy efficiency bonus over ovens etc - and a very large variety of things can be cooked in it, almost anything that can be cooked in an oven can be cooked in our Air Fryer at a fraction of the electricity and much quicker.
How so? An air fryer is just an oven.
Mostly because it's small- there's less air and oven wall to heat up alongside the food.
The fan oven/hairdryer effect (good air circulation means you can get the same cooking at a lower oven temperature) is better as well with a smaller box.
You also reduce the the time as well as the cooking temperature, hence why they are so ecomical
I expect built in ovens will become a thing of the past in time
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
You can make great scrambled egg in a microwave.
Don't own one, so that'd be an issue.
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
It has its uses but if you're not using it don't replace, I'm all for that.
Not accusing you of this but there is a whiff of snobbery about some of those who pull a face at the thought of using a microwave. Aside from anything else it's easily the most energy efficient method of cooking.
We use our Air Fryer for the vast majority of our cooking. That's a huge energy efficiency bonus over ovens etc - and a very large variety of things can be cooked in it, almost anything that can be cooked in an oven can be cooked in our Air Fryer at a fraction of the electricity and much quicker.
How so? An air fryer is just an oven.
Not sure what you mean? Almost anything that would require cooking in an oven, we cook in the air fryer. Ours also acts as a rotisserie etc too for roasting chickens. Oven is only used for major meals like Christmas, or something physically too big to fit which isn't much.
Between hobs and air fryer that probably deals with about 95% of our cooking.
Well sure, you have a hob and two ovens; one oven sits on the worktop where that microwave used to be. That's fine but the air fryer is only a fan oven by another name.
If we didn't already have two fan ovens we might think about an air fryer but why bother? Plus, we like to keep the worktops clear of clutter.
My point was that a microwave is a very efficient way of cooking, certainly more efficient than an air fryer or any fan oven for that matter. It's not going to cook chips or roast a chicken but then an air fryer is not going to cook scrambled eggs.
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
You can make great scrambled egg in a microwave.
Don't own one, so that'd be an issue.
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
It has its uses but if you're not using it don't replace, I'm all for that.
Not accusing you of this but there is a whiff of snobbery about some of those who pull a face at the thought of using a microwave. Aside from anything else it's easily the most energy efficient method of cooking.
We use our Air Fryer for the vast majority of our cooking. That's a huge energy efficiency bonus over ovens etc - and a very large variety of things can be cooked in it, almost anything that can be cooked in an oven can be cooked in our Air Fryer at a fraction of the electricity and much quicker.
How so? An air fryer is just an oven.
Mostly because it's small- there's less air and oven wall to heat up alongside the food.
The fan oven/hairdryer effect (good air circulation means you can get the same cooking at a lower oven temperature) is better as well with a smaller box.
You also reduce the the time as well as the cooking temperature, hence why they are so ecomical
I expect built in ovens will become a thing of the past in time
To be replaced by built in air fryers?
I like 'built in', what's not to like about the clean lines it gives you?
Seen Sunak's new video released today. Where he announces he's abolishing seven bins and meat tax.
He's going full Johnson. Blatant lies, gambling that the voting public is thick.
Will it work? I think much depends on how journalists, and opposition, deal with it. As Johnson and Trump showed it can be very difficult dealing with a liar if they really double down on it.
Those policies haven't been plucked from thin air but are actively promoted by some in global think tank circles as essential measures to reach net zero.
He wants to make the relationship between Starmer and the likes of the Tony Blair Institute a political issue.
They are very much lies, every bit as much as if Starmer got into office and announced he was cancelling the reintroduction of the death penalty, and ditching plans to privatise the NHS. I mean that's the level here.
Other things promoted by right wing think tanks with cosy relationships with the Tories include cutting benefits almost to zero, removing almost all environmental regulations from industry, ceasing all aid to Ukraine, bringing back military service, bringing back corporal punishment and so on.
A bit like Labour cancelling the privatisation of the NHS, was was a staple of their campaigns long before the supposed era of populism.
That isn't populism
They are posing as champions of the people against a supposed conspiracy of the elite.
They are posing as champions of the people against a supposed policy of the other party.
"Our NHS" as opposed to "their NHS"?
Yes, as in the one that belongs to the public rather than it being sold off
I don't know why 'our' NHS provokes supercilious reactionary chuckle. There's something going on there. But (to repeat) I'm not sure what it is. All I know is it's not nice.
While the public think the NHS belongs to them the Tories can't sell it to their donors.
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
You can make great scrambled egg in a microwave.
Don't own one, so that'd be an issue.
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
It has its uses but if you're not using it don't replace, I'm all for that.
Not accusing you of this but there is a whiff of snobbery about some of those who pull a face at the thought of using a microwave. Aside from anything else it's easily the most energy efficient method of cooking.
We use our Air Fryer for the vast majority of our cooking. That's a huge energy efficiency bonus over ovens etc - and a very large variety of things can be cooked in it, almost anything that can be cooked in an oven can be cooked in our Air Fryer at a fraction of the electricity and much quicker.
How so? An air fryer is just an oven.
Mostly because it's small- there's less air and oven wall to heat up alongside the food.
The fan oven/hairdryer effect (good air circulation means you can get the same cooking at a lower oven temperature) is better as well with a smaller box.
You also reduce the the time as well as the cooking temperature, hence why they are so ecomical
I expect built in ovens will become a thing of the past in time
To be replaced by built in air fryers?
I like 'built in', what's not to like about the clean lines it gives you?
It is the huge cost savings and no doubt the future air fryer will be built in
Seen Sunak's new video released today. Where he announces he's abolishing seven bins and meat tax.
He's going full Johnson. Blatant lies, gambling that the voting public is thick.
Will it work? I think much depends on how journalists, and opposition, deal with it. As Johnson and Trump showed it can be very difficult dealing with a liar if they really double down on it.
Those policies haven't been plucked from thin air but are actively promoted by some in global think tank circles as essential measures to reach net zero.
He wants to make the relationship between Starmer and the likes of the Tony Blair Institute a political issue.
They are very much lies, every bit as much as if Starmer got into office and announced he was cancelling the reintroduction of the death penalty, and ditching plans to privatise the NHS. I mean that's the level here.
Other things promoted by right wing think tanks with cosy relationships with the Tories include cutting benefits almost to zero, removing almost all environmental regulations from industry, ceasing all aid to Ukraine, bringing back military service, bringing back corporal punishment and so on.
A bit like Labour cancelling the privatisation of the NHS, was was a staple of their campaigns long before the supposed era of populism.
That isn't populism
They are posing as champions of the people against a supposed conspiracy of the elite.
They are posing as champions of the people against a supposed policy of the other party.
"Our NHS" as opposed to "their NHS"?
Yes, as in the one that belongs to the public rather than it being sold off
I don't know why 'our' NHS provokes supercilious reactionary chuckle. There's something going on there. But (to repeat) I'm not sure what it is. All I know is it's not nice.
It looks like just a paternity claim, nothing more sinister than that.
Was it last week or the week before that Liz Truss was saying how important it is that the Republicans take the US presidency? At some point the right in the UK is going to have to accept that the GOP’s interests run entirely counter to the UK’s.
They seem to be in denial . And for Truss to support the GOP when that means a likely Trump presidency and the disastrous impact on Ukraine. She’s deranged .
I'm still of the opinion that Lab will garner a smallish majority of no more than 35-40, though there is a distinct possibility of them requiring minority party support to form a govt; this most likely coming from the Libs who will do moderately well also. I can see them on 30 seats (possibly more if the "blue wall" really begins to collapse). Whatever happens, it'll be one of the more interesting elections to watch of recent years, given the rollercoaster we've all been on in recent years.
It may well be Labour win most seats in England but fall short of a majority but win a UK majority thanks to gains from the SNP
Isn't that quite unlikely? I can't recall the exact number of seats in each country after boundary changes, but for that to be true Labour would need to win a majority of seats in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined. Considering it doesn't even stand in Northern Ireland, and it's hard to imagine them winning more than half of the seats in Scotland, I think it's more likely that they win a majority in England and fail to win a UK majority than the inverse. If they did win a majority of Scottish seats I'd think that more likely to be occurring against a backdrop of a UK-wide good night for Labour. To put it another way, I think SNP support in Scotland is firmer than Tory support in England right now.
Agreed. SNP could easily finish ten points higher in Scotland than the Tories get in the UK overall. But it's not impossible given Labour's strength in Wales and given that the SNP vote might be quite inefficient at the next election. Labour could still pick up a bunch of seats in Scotland.
It's not impossible but must be one of the least likely outcomes, especially given the chunk of non-Labour seats in Northern Ireland.
How long ago did we celebrate natural gas on a stamp?
We should celebrate natural gas! It's clean, efficient, abundant, (usually) cheap and very good at providing intermittent power.
Until renewables are so abundant, and our energy storage incredibly bountiful, it is the perfect way to generate electricity. (And, for that matter, good scrambled eggs.)
Making good scrambled eggs in a holiday rental on the first morning with a bad electric stove, bad frying pan and bad implements is a key life skill.
You can make great scrambled egg in a microwave.
Don't own one, so that'd be an issue.
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
It has its uses but if you're not using it don't replace, I'm all for that.
Not accusing you of this but there is a whiff of snobbery about some of those who pull a face at the thought of using a microwave. Aside from anything else it's easily the most energy efficient method of cooking.
We use our Air Fryer for the vast majority of our cooking. That's a huge energy efficiency bonus over ovens etc - and a very large variety of things can be cooked in it, almost anything that can be cooked in an oven can be cooked in our Air Fryer at a fraction of the electricity and much quicker.
How so? An air fryer is just an oven.
Not sure what you mean? Almost anything that would require cooking in an oven, we cook in the air fryer. Ours also acts as a rotisserie etc too for roasting chickens. Oven is only used for major meals like Christmas, or something physically too big to fit which isn't much.
Between hobs and air fryer that probably deals with about 95% of our cooking.
Well sure, you have a hob and two ovens; one oven sits on the worktop where that microwave used to be. That's fine but the air fryer is only a fan oven by another name.
If we didn't already have two fan ovens we might think about an air fryer but why bother? Plus, we like to keep the worktops clear of clutter.
My point was that a microwave is a very efficient way of cooking, certainly more efficient than an air fryer or any fan oven for that matter. It's not going to cook chips or roast a chicken but then an air fryer is not going to cook scrambled eggs.
Oh you mean what's the difference between a fan oven and the air fryer? The air fryer is massively more energy efficient. Have our smart meter display in the kitchen and can see a huge difference between having the oven on and the air fryer on.
Three reasons why.
1: The air fryer cooks quicker than a conventional fan oven does. Food that may take 25 minutes to cook in a fan oven can cook in 15 minutes in the air fryer. 2: The oven takes much more power to operate per minute than the air fryer does. 3: The oven needs to pre-heat on top of the cooking time, the air fryer doesn't need to.
Putting on an air fryer for 15 minutes versus a conventional fan oven for 25 minutes + 5 minutes to pre-heat uses probably around a quarter to a third of the electricity to cook the food in my experience.
If you key Savanta's numbers into Electoral Calculus you get 118 Tory MPs left after the GE.
Now of course EC is a very blunt instrument and there are good reasons to think they will do vastly better on the day. There are however some reasons why they might actually do worse - tactical voting being one of the more obvious. I'll be very interested to see what kind totals the Spread firms put up when they get around to chalking up their boards. I suspect they will be operating huge overrounds.
Btw, EC puts the LDs just ahead of the SNP at 30 seats versus 28. That's an important and interesting little contest in itself.
In will preface this by noting that many people have lost a lot of money betting with their gut.
However.
It just doesn’t “feel” like 1997 or worse to me. It’s a tired Government and feels like 09/10, but I just don’t see the pure hatred there was in 1997.
Similarly I think the Tories will seem to revive a bit quicker in opposition. That’s assuming they don’t stay in power, which I reckon is a 20% chance based on a Brown-esque recovery and Starmer not being Cameron.
Seen Sunak's new video released today. Where he announces he's abolishing seven bins and meat tax.
He's going full Johnson. Blatant lies, gambling that the voting public is thick.
Will it work? I think much depends on how journalists, and opposition, deal with it. As Johnson and Trump showed it can be very difficult dealing with a liar if they really double down on it.
Those policies haven't been plucked from thin air but are actively promoted by some in global think tank circles as essential measures to reach net zero.
He wants to make the relationship between Starmer and the likes of the Tony Blair Institute a political issue.
They are very much lies, every bit as much as if Starmer got into office and announced he was cancelling the reintroduction of the death penalty, and ditching plans to privatise the NHS. I mean that's the level here.
Other things promoted by right wing think tanks with cosy relationships with the Tories include cutting benefits almost to zero, removing almost all environmental regulations from industry, ceasing all aid to Ukraine, bringing back military service, bringing back corporal punishment and so on.
A bit like Labour cancelling the privatisation of the NHS, was was a staple of their campaigns long before the supposed era of populism.
That isn't populism
They are posing as champions of the people against a supposed conspiracy of the elite.
They are posing as champions of the people against a supposed policy of the other party.
"Our NHS" as opposed to "their NHS"?
Yes, as in the one that belongs to the public rather than it being sold off
To whom was it sold off? It must have happened given that Labour lost the election, and they wouldn't have lied about it, would they?
I didn't say it was. I said "supposed policy".
Exaggerating or even outright lying about an opponent's policy isn't populism. All parties do that.
What makes it populism then in your view? Is it just that some policy areas are off limits for this approach?
I was going to say must be a while ago, given the price.
Wouldn’t be so bad, either, if there was any sort of service. One delivery per week, two if we’re lucky.
It's becoming a real headache for us sending out appointments. A lot seem to never arrive, and those that do go unnoticed in the junk mail. We text people, but older folk are not phone addicts it seems.
I got a text last week about a urology scan appointment. I wasn't expecting it and can't make it because I'm going to be on holiday. I phoned to re-schedule and after a short conversation the lovely lady at the hospital explained that the scan was originally meant to be in 2020 but was postponed due to covid.
Apparently Salisbury Hospital is still working through the backlog of postponed appointments from 2020. Since I have had two regular scans since then, including one earlier this year, we decided between us that the appointment could be cancelled.
I got a text confirming cancellation and the next day a letter in the post confirming the original appointment. (Presumably I'll get a letter next week telling me it's cancelled.)
Comments
There is also, from the linked story:-
An average of 6,000 council assets – such as playing fields, community centres, libraries, youth clubs and swimming pools – worth £1.2bn have been sold each year in the past 13 years, the thinktank estimated, through analysis of government data and statistics from a freedom of information request.
By contrast, the research estimated just 2,500 assets came newly into community ownership during the same time.
https://www.collectgbstamps.co.uk/explore/issues/?issue=153
The Tories have governed for quite a while with a majority in England, but not in Scotland or Wales. Perhaps Labour will govern with a majority in Scotland and Wales but not in England (and of course the major parties aren't involved in NI). That's how the United Kingdom works - only the overall UK numbers matter.
https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/378/culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/197530/culture-media-and-sport-committee-chair-writes-to-broadcasters-and-tiktok-over-russell-brand-allegations-and-investigations/
It looks to me as if she's acting alone. If I'm right, she should formally withdraw the letters and apologise. Most Select Committees, rightly, have a good reputation for scrutiny. This is damaging to that reputation.
Wouldn’t be so bad, either, if there was any sort of service. One delivery per week, two if we’re lucky.
Indeed, how does Amazon thrive with its product search being so shit?
There is something with a lot of interviewers now that they cannot seem to let a reply play out and want quick answers for subjects where a longer answer is more important. If it’s down to time pressures than maybe drop pointless fluff about orchestras being accompanied by dogs, or how some musical in the west end is bringing something to the attention of musical goers and give a proper half hour on important interviews.
I have to say if I was a politician being interviewed by Robinson I would lose my shit with him so fair play to all MPs of all stripes who manage not to.
> 50% of XL bullies in the UK are (And it'll increase with future breeding) are or are offspring of fighting dog 4* Great grandsire "Genghis Kon Ton Ly".
They're as genetically disposed to killing as the equine offspring of Northern Dancer are to horse-racing.
American teenagers are woefully ignorant about our history and, recently, often getting misinformed, by both the left and right.
Is the same true in Britain? Could you, for example, do a similar cartoon, substituting, for example, "Waterloo" for "Gettsyburg"?
The name Llŷn is also sometimes spelled Lleyn
So it seems the OP was perfectly correct.
The £1.2bn over 13 years is the £15bn in the headline (I think). Annoyingly, that includes several years before the change in law they are worried about in 2016, which is a bit crazy.
Then the next paragraph doesn't tell us the value of the 2,500 new assets. That might well be less than the 6,000 sold - but we don't know how much less, or how much was after 2016. And it might not be that much less in that the trend has been to consolidate services in larger hubs - you might think it's a good or bad idea to move from three little community centres to one big new one, but it doesn't necessarily entail a loss of value.
For example, if the article had ended, "By contrast, the research estimated just 2,500 assets came newly into community ownership during the same time, worth £18bn." that rather changes the entire article. Not saying it's likely... but they've literally missed out the key bit of information we need!
And it is not a magazine prog. Not Woman's Hour or You and Yours.
Finally, about Robinson (who has excellent points); he gives all mainstream politicians an easy ride by in the end accepting non-answers. His interruptions make it easier for them. (And especially Robinson and Hussein have no idea that short perfectly framed questions are good; and long rambly subordinate clause ones are always bad.)
England however has no Parliament of its own if it gets a UK government it didn’t vote by majority for.
That has happened before eg in October 1974 or 1964 when Labour under Wilson won a UK majority but not English majority. However then there was only one UK Parliament at Westminster and no Scottish or Welsh Parliaments so it was less of an issue
Amazon has you by the proverbials - want to sell? Well, you pay the toll. Amazon insists on most-favoured nation clauses in its contracts so you can’t charge less elsewhere either.
The only good item they have introduced recently is on a Friday when they spend five minutes talking to two BBC local radio journalists about what is making the news in their region - would be happy to see that expanded.
Israel is discreetly working with the United States on plans to help Saudi Arabia enrich its own uranium, as part of a broader deal in which Riyadh would normalise relations with the Jewish state.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has told the country’s top nuclear and security specialists to work with US negotiators on securing the deal, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The proposal would lead to Saudi Arabia becoming the second Middle Eastern country to openly enrich uranium after arch-rival Iran. Israel is also widely suspected of having its own nuclear weapons programme, though it remains shrouded in secrecy under a policy of deliberate ambiguity.
Secretive talks on a potential Israeli-Saudi normalisation treaty have been underway for years, but they significantly gained pace in recent months after Saudi Arabia sought a US-run nuclear programme as part of the agreement.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/09/21/america-israel-saudi-arabia-uranium-enrichment-deal/
Never use it anyway, so when our last one died (which we detected because it was not displaying the time anymore, not because of trying to use it), decided not to replace it. Frees up counter space anyway not replacing it.
https://twitter.com/gabegutierrez/status/1704851523061096458
It has practically limitless oil currently, and solar power for the future, no reason to need nuclear so its clearly for weapons.
Sadly that flame is dying. Pence could have been lynched, Romney is getting driven out of politics, Haley is laughed at.
Reagan would be turning in his grave.
'With us? ReX'?
Of the prime minister's five key priorities, which is the most important to you?
Reducing inflation: 30%
Cutting NHS waiting lists: 30%
Stopping small boats: 16%
Encouraging economic growth: 14%
Reducing the national debt: 4%
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1704874589816229934
The priorities that older and Conservative voters prioritise (NHS waiting lists and boat stopping) are the ones that are nowhere being met.
Maybe that's why Rishi is so keen to change the subject.
Not accusing you of this but there is a whiff of snobbery about some of those who pull a face at the thought of using a microwave. Aside from anything else it's easily the most energy efficient method of cooking.
If you key Savanta's numbers into Electoral Calculus you get 118 Tory MPs left after the GE.
Now of course EC is a very blunt instrument and there are good reasons to think they will do vastly better on the day. There are however some reasons why they might actually do worse - tactical voting being one of the more obvious. I'll be very interested to see what kind totals the Spread firms put up when they get around to chalking up their boards. I suspect they will be operating huge overrounds.
Btw, EC puts the LDs just ahead of the SNP at 30 seats versus 28. That's an important and interesting little contest in itself.
https://twitter.com/AndrewDesiderio/status/1704894175609577934
We’re just over a year away from a truly catastrophic scenario if Trump wins.
At the moment whether I can buy a loaf of bread before the shop closes is more important to me than whether North Korea has nuclear weapons. Questions need to be put with care.
It'd get more votes if Sunak could articulate a LTEP.
{picks up map of France, starts marking the better wine regions}
Between hobs and air fryer that probably deals with about 95% of our cooking.
To be fair, in recent years, we've had far too much of the latter and nowhere near enough of the former. But you kind of need both to succeed in politics.
Easy.
Lets start alphabetically: Argentina, Australia ...
The fan oven/hairdryer effect (good air circulation means you can get the same cooking at a lower oven temperature) is better as well with a smaller box.
The boats, they keep coming
The Portland Barge still empty
Rwanda still in Court
Stafford Asylum Accommodation passed for action by the Planners weeks ago, still empty,
Inflation in the lap of the Gods not the Chancellor, going up next month
Environment Green policies, not really speaking for the great majority, already back tracking
Consultants/Doctors strikes, looks as if the Health Secretary ha spent the last sunning himself
Government seems afraid to face Parliament half the time, Speaker having a go
Loads of statements that seem to drift into the desert within a few days
Triple Lock Yes we stand by it, no we don't, well lets wait and see!!!
As Lincoln said you can fool some of the people some of the time but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
Well he said that but obviously unaware of this rabble, they are indeed fooling all the people all the time.
It is very cost effective and I noticed M & S had put air fryer instructions on one of their products.
I expect this will become widespread practice much as microwave instructions have.
If we didn't already have two fan ovens we might think about an air fryer but why bother? Plus, we like to keep the worktops clear of clutter.
My point was that a microwave is a very efficient way of cooking, certainly more efficient than an air fryer or any fan oven for that matter. It's not going to cook chips or roast a chicken but then an air fryer is not going to cook scrambled eggs.
I expect built in ovens will become a thing of the past in time
I like 'built in', what's not to like about the clean lines it gives you?
Three reasons why.
1: The air fryer cooks quicker than a conventional fan oven does. Food that may take 25 minutes to cook in a fan oven can cook in 15 minutes in the air fryer.
2: The oven takes much more power to operate per minute than the air fryer does.
3: The oven needs to pre-heat on top of the cooking time, the air fryer doesn't need to.
Putting on an air fryer for 15 minutes versus a conventional fan oven for 25 minutes + 5 minutes to pre-heat uses probably around a quarter to a third of the electricity to cook the food in my experience.
Don't give them ideas...
However.
It just doesn’t “feel” like 1997 or worse to me. It’s a tired Government and feels like 09/10, but I just don’t see the pure hatred there was in 1997.
Similarly I think the Tories will seem to revive a bit quicker in opposition. That’s assuming they don’t stay in power, which I reckon is a 20% chance based on a Brown-esque recovery and Starmer not being Cameron.
Apparently Salisbury Hospital is still working through the backlog of postponed appointments from 2020. Since I have had two regular scans since then, including one earlier this year, we decided between us that the appointment could be cancelled.
I got a text confirming cancellation and the next day a letter in the post confirming the original appointment. (Presumably I'll get a letter next week telling me it's cancelled.)