@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
Rishi Sunak has failed to hand over his WhatsApp messages from his time as chancellor to the Covid inquiry despite the high court ruling that ministers should disclose their communications for scrutiny.
In his witness statement to the public inquiry, seen by the Guardian, the prime minister claimed that he does “not have access” to the messages during the period running the Treasury because he had changed his phone several times and failed to back them up.
The inquiry, which begins hearing evidence on Tuesday for its second stage examining the government’s handling of the pandemic, had requested key communications sent during the pandemic, from the end of January 2020 to the end of February 2022.
Sunak became chancellor in February 2020 and his messages could include details of crucial pandemic decisions made by the Treasury including ‘eat out to help Out’, bounce back loans and the furlough scheme.
Boris Johnson faced fierce criticism when he said that he would hand over his pandemic WhatsApp messages only once government officials assessed the safety of the device he was forced to discard in April 2021 for security reasons. In July, his spokesperson said that the messages had now been retrieved and given to the inquiry.
However, the Guardian understands that Johnson has told the inquiry that he has been unable to access messages between 31 January and 7 June 2020, key dates in the first wave of the pandemic during which thousands of people died, despite the phone being in action until the following spring.
In the former prime minister’s witness statement, he suggests that other key players in the government at the time – which could include Sunak, Michael Gove and Matt Hancock – could hand over their phones with WhatsApp or Signal messages on them instead. It is unclear whether Johnson has yet handed over his diaries.
Matt Fowler, co-founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said: “If Johnson and Sunak don’t provide the inquiry with the messages it has asked for, they need to face the full force of the law.
Is the Tory dislike for 15 minute cities that they are too convenient or too inconvenient? Would they prefer 20 minute cities or 10 minute cities? Help!
Yes.
No problem with 15 minute towns or cities so long as its done without restricting people.
Places like Oxford have been putting in inconvenient restrictions in roads against driving to facilitate the 'convenience' of walking/cycling to a location.
Its the same discussion I've had before with Eabhal. If its done right, without restrictions, absolutely no qualms with that. If you start converting roads, blocking paths, trying to restrict people - then we have a problem.
Being able to walk to one shop in 15 minutes is no alternative to being able to drive to dozens of different shops of your choice within 15 minutes.
I’m still unclear: are 15 minute cities too convenient or too inconvenient?
I think they’re losing the plot . Ordinarily the media would be giving just one of these lots of airtime but there’s so much craziness where do you start .
Rishi Sunak has failed to hand over his WhatsApp messages from his time as chancellor to the Covid inquiry despite the high court ruling that ministers should disclose their communications for scrutiny.
In his witness statement to the public inquiry, seen by the Guardian, the prime minister claimed that he does “not have access” to the messages during the period running the Treasury because he had changed his phone several times and failed to back them up.
The inquiry, which begins hearing evidence on Tuesday for its second stage examining the government’s handling of the pandemic, had requested key communications sent during the pandemic, from the end of January 2020 to the end of February 2022.
Sunak became chancellor in February 2020 and his messages could include details of crucial pandemic decisions made by the Treasury including ‘eat out to help Out’, bounce back loans and the furlough scheme.
Boris Johnson faced fierce criticism when he said that he would hand over his pandemic WhatsApp messages only once government officials assessed the safety of the device he was forced to discard in April 2021 for security reasons. In July, his spokesperson said that the messages had now been retrieved and given to the inquiry.
However, the Guardian understands that Johnson has told the inquiry that he has been unable to access messages between 31 January and 7 June 2020, key dates in the first wave of the pandemic during which thousands of people died, despite the phone being in action until the following spring.
In the former prime minister’s witness statement, he suggests that other key players in the government at the time – which could include Sunak, Michael Gove and Matt Hancock – could hand over their phones with WhatsApp or Signal messages on them instead. It is unclear whether Johnson has yet handed over his diaries.
Matt Fowler, co-founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said: “If Johnson and Sunak don’t provide the inquiry with the messages it has asked for, they need to face the full force of the law.
Is the Tory dislike for 15 minute cities that they are too convenient or too inconvenient? Would they prefer 20 minute cities or 10 minute cities? Help!
Yes.
No problem with 15 minute towns or cities so long as its done without restricting people.
Places like Oxford have been putting in inconvenient restrictions in roads against driving to facilitate the 'convenience' of walking/cycling to a location.
Its the same discussion I've had before with Eabhal. If its done right, without restrictions, absolutely no qualms with that. If you start converting roads, blocking paths, trying to restrict people - then we have a problem.
Being able to walk to one shop in 15 minutes is no alternative to being able to drive to dozens of different shops of your choice within 15 minutes.
Have you been to Oxford? Where on earth are you going to put additional roads? The place is gridlocked already - the only sensible solution is to make it more convenient for people to do what they need to do without having to use a car.
Exactly my reaction to BR's comment. The place is amazingly divided up by the various river valleys, with only a few crossings.
Is the Tory dislike for 15 minute cities that they are too convenient or too inconvenient? Would they prefer 20 minute cities or 10 minute cities? Help!
Yes.
No problem with 15 minute towns or cities so long as its done without restricting people.
Places like Oxford have been putting in inconvenient restrictions in roads against driving to facilitate the 'convenience' of walking/cycling to a location.
Its the same discussion I've had before with Eabhal. If its done right, without restrictions, absolutely no qualms with that. If you start converting roads, blocking paths, trying to restrict people - then we have a problem.
Being able to walk to one shop in 15 minutes is no alternative to being able to drive to dozens of different shops of your choice within 15 minutes.
Have you been to Oxford? Where on earth are you going to put additional roads? The place is gridlocked already - the only sensible solution is to make it more convenient for people to do what they need to do without having to use a car.
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
Tories are heading into UK version of Trump whacko world of Q Anon unless saner heads, like William Hague, get a grip.
It's not even the "good" QAnon properly bonkers drivel, it's the low-rent tosh.
Anyway not that it matters, the Tories deserves to be removed from office, and I believe the British people are gearing up to give them a hell of a kicking.
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
I would hope that the Tory leadership existed to promote the interests of the people of the United Kingdom.
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
Yes, but have you seen what the current iteration of the Conservatives is like? Many honourable exceptions, but I just couldn't. (and I have been a paying member in the last decade.)
Seriously- the rehab for the Conservatives seems likely to be much harder than it was for Labour when they got over Corbyn.
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
I would hope that the Tory leadership existed to promote the interests of the people of the United Kingdom.
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
Yes, but have you seen what the current iteration of the Conservatives is like? Many honourable exceptions, but I just couldn't. (and I have been a paying member in the last decade.)
Seriously- the rehab for the Conservatives seems likely to be much harder than it was for Labour when they got over Corbyn.
That's a really interesting observation.
Labour was captured by a small number of Trots at the top, and a larger number of (mostly inactive) new members at the base, but the core of the party - MPs, councillors, activists - was little changed from the Blair years. As a result, recovering from Corbyn was a quick and mostly bloodless revolution.
The Conservatives, as far as I can tell, have been almost fully captured by the extremists. They're in the Cabinet. They're in the half-dozen MP campaign groups all plotting in Manchester conference rooms. They're on the backbenches, in the constituency associations, in the membership. They're in the Telegraph, Spectator and Mail.
It is going to be much harder for the Conservatives to excise their militant wing than it was for Labour.
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
Corbynites said the same about the Labour MPs. The reality is political parties are much smaller than they used to be and it's very easy for people on the political fringes to take them over.
I've been on t'Internet since 1988. Even back then, people who wrote in ALL CAPS were seen as a *certain* type of person...
Programmers?
Nah that was pre-1983, on coding sheets. At least, for me it was.
Is a coding sheet something like a punch card only bigger?
It's what you wrote the program on before it was keyed on to punched cards by the data prep ladies:
Respect. I retired from the fray after a brief exposure to Fortran.
We still have simulations running at work using Fortran'77.
The system that runs your bank account is very probably written and maintained in Cobol.
A post lost on many PBers, who prefer to stuff postal orders in their mattresses.
Don't be silly, all those who want to continue using cash (and I'm not one of them) will also be using bank accounts.; it's nigh on impossible to live independently in today's society without one.
But it is also true to say that a lot of those accounts will be running on software originally written in the 60s or 70s and continually amended since.
At least they're dominating the media this week...
https://twitter.com/SkyPoliticsHub/status/1708911889072152921 Sky's Sophy Ridge reads out part of the Energy Secretary's speech where she says, 'there's no wonder Labour seem so relaxed about taxing meat...' - and asks: "You didn't write that, did you? They're not proposing a meat tax?"
Reverting to the discussion about the meaning of 'motorist', the DM seems in no doubt. It's a term of opprobrium, like 'paedophile' and 'football yob'.
Despite the hallucinogenic qualities of this Conference, a little over a a quarter of the electorate are planning to vote for them.
It is astonishing really.
I think at least a quarter of any population will vote for their kind of programme, in any democracy. In some countries, faced with weak fractured oppositions, they can attract up to half: Trump, Le Pen, Orban, Law and Justice, Erdogan. Even in PR systems with more parties we’ve had close to a quarter voting for the likes of AfD, Wilders and Sweden Democrats.
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
Corbynites said the same about the Labour MPs. The reality is political parties are much smaller than they used to be and it's very easy for people on the political fringes to take them over.
The membership under Corbyn got quite big. Largest for 40 years.
I've been on t'Internet since 1988. Even back then, people who wrote in ALL CAPS were seen as a *certain* type of person...
Programmers?
Nah that was pre-1983, on coding sheets. At least, for me it was.
Is a coding sheet something like a punch card only bigger?
It's what you wrote the program on before it was keyed on to punched cards by the data prep ladies:
Respect. I retired from the fray after a brief exposure to Fortran.
We still have simulations running at work using Fortran'77.
The system that runs your bank account is very probably written and maintained in Cobol.
A post lost on many PBers, who prefer to stuff postal orders in their mattresses.
Don't be silly, all those who want to continue using cash (and I'm not one of them) will also be using bank accounts.; it's nigh on impossible to live independently in today's society without one.
But it is also true to say that a lot of those accounts will be running on software originally written in the 60s or 70s and continually amended since.
FPT: I forgot to mention this attempt by a governor to appoint a replacement senator: "A 2006 re-election and his second term led to the passage of a variety of healthcare, gun control, and anti-discrimination bills. Starting in December 2008, a federal investigation and trial found Blagojevich guilty of public corruption after he attempted to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama upon his election to the presidency. [Democrat Rod] Blagojevich was impeached, convicted, and removed from office in 2009 by the Illinois General Assembly. He was also subsequently barred by the Illinois Senate from holding public office within the state ever again. For his role in the corruption scandal, Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison. After an appeal for his release, U.S. President Donald Trump formally commuted his sentence in 2020, after Blagojevich had been imprisoned for nearly eight years." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Blagojevich
As I recall, he was recorded saying the senatorship was very valuable, and he should get something for it. (Half right, I suppose.)
And that commutation adds a nice touch to the story.
Rishi Sunak has failed to hand over his WhatsApp messages from his time as chancellor to the Covid inquiry despite the high court ruling that ministers should disclose their communications for scrutiny.
In his witness statement to the public inquiry, seen by the Guardian, the prime minister claimed that he does “not have access” to the messages during the period running the Treasury because he had changed his phone several times and failed to back them up.
The inquiry, which begins hearing evidence on Tuesday for its second stage examining the government’s handling of the pandemic, had requested key communications sent during the pandemic, from the end of January 2020 to the end of February 2022.
Sunak became chancellor in February 2020 and his messages could include details of crucial pandemic decisions made by the Treasury including ‘eat out to help Out’, bounce back loans and the furlough scheme.
Boris Johnson faced fierce criticism when he said that he would hand over his pandemic WhatsApp messages only once government officials assessed the safety of the device he was forced to discard in April 2021 for security reasons. In July, his spokesperson said that the messages had now been retrieved and given to the inquiry.
However, the Guardian understands that Johnson has told the inquiry that he has been unable to access messages between 31 January and 7 June 2020, key dates in the first wave of the pandemic during which thousands of people died, despite the phone being in action until the following spring.
In the former prime minister’s witness statement, he suggests that other key players in the government at the time – which could include Sunak, Michael Gove and Matt Hancock – could hand over their phones with WhatsApp or Signal messages on them instead. It is unclear whether Johnson has yet handed over his diaries.
Matt Fowler, co-founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said: “If Johnson and Sunak don’t provide the inquiry with the messages it has asked for, they need to face the full force of the law.
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
I would hope that the Tory leadership existed to promote the interests of the people of the United Kingdom.
Is the Tory dislike for 15 minute cities that they are too convenient or too inconvenient? Would they prefer 20 minute cities or 10 minute cities? Help!
Yes.
No problem with 15 minute towns or cities so long as its done without restricting people.
Places like Oxford have been putting in inconvenient restrictions in roads against driving to facilitate the 'convenience' of walking/cycling to a location.
Its the same discussion I've had before with Eabhal. If its done right, without restrictions, absolutely no qualms with that. If you start converting roads, blocking paths, trying to restrict people - then we have a problem.
Being able to walk to one shop in 15 minutes is no alternative to being able to drive to dozens of different shops of your choice within 15 minutes.
But even you've fallen for the conspiracy theories . An LTN is distinct from a 15-minute city.
An LTN attempts to reduce ratrunning through residential neighbourhoods, something that has recently become much more problematic by apps like Google Maps and Waze, along with an increase in car mileage in our cities and towns. A positive side effect of LTNs is they reduce the number of junctions on arterial roads, leading to better flow.
A 15-minute, which means important facilities are within walking distance for most people, just helps to increase accessibility of services for people who can't drive, which is a significant proportion of the population and correlates with poverty, old age and disability. They are exceptionally popular when explained properly.
Any new housing development is an LTN, but generally not a 15- minute city, for example. A pre-motorcar tenement area is likely the inverse.
Just read the thread header, and having been here from more or less the beginning, I just wanted to say what a fabulous site PB is and therefore give a big thanks to @MikeSmithson.
Also to congratulate @TheScreamingEagles on his first, but very important step, in his ambition of becoming our benign dictator. Well done.
Presumably (from precedent when Mike goes away just for a weekend and TSE takes over) does this not mean the world will implode.
Well Panorama big splash...spoiler...the Hollywood twist at the end, they were all sex workers (pron actors / male prozzies), had done this before and did it after...had voluntary paid sex before they went with a fixer, now trying to claim I never knew it was a sex party, it was a total shock to me, it was awful....but I went 5 or 6 more of them and paid for each one.
Shock horror fashion and entertainment industry is full of "talent" that have got away with being filthy perverts.
Mark Harper transport secretary has just said Tories will stop the “ misuse of 15 minute cities “ … “what is sinister is the idea of local councils deciding how often you can go to the shops “. It is sinister. It’s also not remotely true… #cpc23"
Mark Harper transport secretary has just said Tories will stop the “ misuse of 15 minute cities “ … “what is sinister is the idea of local councils deciding how often you can go to the shops “. It is sinister. It’s also not remotely true… #cpc23"
Suppose Cameron isn't foolish enough to promise he can get migration down to the tens of thousands.... Something tells me the last decade might have turned out somewhat differently.
I've been on t'Internet since 1988. Even back then, people who wrote in ALL CAPS were seen as a *certain* type of person...
Programmers?
Nah that was pre-1983, on coding sheets. At least, for me it was.
Is a coding sheet something like a punch card only bigger?
It's what you wrote the program on before it was keyed on to punched cards by the data prep ladies:
Respect. I retired from the fray after a brief exposure to Fortran.
We still have simulations running at work using Fortran'77.
The system that runs your bank account is very probably written and maintained in Cobol.
Not any more, unfortunately. Although legacy systems did hang around way beyond their anticipated life, it is 2023 now and I don't know if there are any more of the big white boxes running Cobol on VAX, MVS, or any of the oldschool mainframes in banks now. I wouldn't be surprised if there were still some in councils or possibly insurance societies (didn't Boston offer six-figure Covid contracts during Covid?) but I think even they are on their way out now.
End of an era.
No more big wardrobes in special rooms, and even the black blades in racks are going. In my previous previous profession (long story), I pulled off a trick in extracting deleted data from the header buffer in a disk reader because I knew it was still there without a schema, and I resurrected it before it was cleared down. Helluva thing, don't think I could do it now. They still gave me a bollocking because I wasn't going to dob in a mate who had gone on holiday and whoops had forgot, so I got the blame. Six months later I was in a new job with a fifteen grand pay rise. Never looked back. Will work cheerfully for nice people, but some people you just go "fuck it" and go.
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
Corbynites said the same about the Labour MPs. The reality is political parties are much smaller than they used to be and it's very easy for people on the political fringes to take them over.
Yes, and it was equally true then. Both Labour and the Conservatives have been taken over by what might flatteringly be called social democrats, who insist that the grassroots parties must accept policies they often find deeply disturbing as the price of 'winning power'. The only problem is that these policies aren't very popular with the electorate either - we saw a 10% shift toward the Tories in the polls when Sunak professed minor hesitation over Net Zero, despite the policy being declared a disaster by PB shrewdies.
Mark Harper transport secretary has just said Tories will stop the “ misuse of 15 minute cities “ … “what is sinister is the idea of local councils deciding how often you can go to the shops “. It is sinister. It’s also not remotely true… #cpc23"
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
I would hope that the Tory leadership existed to promote the interests of the people of the United Kingdom.
Awwww, bless you.
You laugh, but I would hope that the leadership of Labour, the Conservatives, etc , all care about the country - and all its citizens.
Sunak: I promise that no Conservative voter will be more than 15 minutes from a polling station, and that no Labour voter will be less than 15 hours from a polling station.
Is the Tory dislike for 15 minute cities that they are too convenient or too inconvenient? Would they prefer 20 minute cities or 10 minute cities? Help!
Yes.
No problem with 15 minute towns or cities so long as its done without restricting people.
Places like Oxford have been putting in inconvenient restrictions in roads against driving to facilitate the 'convenience' of walking/cycling to a location.
Its the same discussion I've had before with Eabhal. If its done right, without restrictions, absolutely no qualms with that. If you start converting roads, blocking paths, trying to restrict people - then we have a problem.
Being able to walk to one shop in 15 minutes is no alternative to being able to drive to dozens of different shops of your choice within 15 minutes.
But even you've fallen for the conspiracy theories . An LTN is distinct from a 15-minute city.
An LTN attempts to reduce ratrunning through residential neighbourhoods, something that has recently become much more problematic by apps like Google Maps and Waze, along with an increase in car mileage in our cities and towns. A positive side effect of LTNs is they reduce the number of junctions on arterial roads, leading to better flow.
A 15-minute, which means important facilities are within walking distance for most people, just helps to increase accessibility of services for people who can't drive, which is a significant proportion of the population and correlates with poverty, old age and disability. They are exceptionally popular when explained properly.
Any new housing development is an LTN, but generally not a 15- minute city, for example. A pre-motorcar tenement area is likely the inverse.
It's really important that we keep an eye on this - the misinformation will now be off the scale following the Conservative conference.
In terms of "restriction", in an LTN no home is made inaccessible by car. It may take slightly longer to get there, as it does in a modern estate.
In terms of "freedom" - this is more debatable, but I think that the freedom for people to walk and cycle around is inhibited by car traffic, at least a bit. And the freedom to use public transport simply doesn't exist for many people outside London, even in built up areas.
Cars are an important way of getting around for most people, but most people are also open to alternatives, and for many driving isn't possible in the first place.
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
I would hope that the Tory leadership existed to promote the interests of the people of the United Kingdom.
Well it doesn't. Nor does the Labour leadership. Political parties have always represented sectional interests; when they get into Government they must govern for all, but the interest groups supporting the parties still benefit.
"There's a huge movement going on globally to create essentially a world government that will have power to dictate to national governments what they should do in anticipation of another pandemic," says Tory MP Danny Kruger, who says there is "no greater threat to our national democracy""
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
Corbynites said the same about the Labour MPs. The reality is political parties are much smaller than they used to be and it's very easy for people on the political fringes to take them over.
Yes, and it was equally true then. Both Labour and the Conservatives have been taken over by what might flatteringly be called social democrats, who insist that the grassroots parties must accept policies they often find deeply disturbing as the price of 'winning power'. The only problem is that these policies aren't very popular with the electorate either - we saw a 10% shift toward the Tories in the polls when Sunak professed minor hesitation over Net Zero, despite the policy being declared a disaster by PB shrewdies.
"There's a huge movement going on globally to create essentially a world government that will have power to dictate to national governments what they should do in anticipation of another pandemic," says Tory MP Danny Kruger, who says there is "no greater threat to our national democracy""
I've been on t'Internet since 1988. Even back then, people who wrote in ALL CAPS were seen as a *certain* type of person...
Programmers?
Nah that was pre-1983, on coding sheets. At least, for me it was.
IIRC 48K Basic on the ZX Spectrum was all in caps, whereas 128k was partially in lower case. May have remembered wrongly.
The mention of Basic brings a particular personal animus/resentment; as a wee lad me dad brought home a second-hand Acorn Electron and a stack of Electron User mags.
I gamely tried to teach myself Basic, in between playing Repton, Citadel and other minor tape classics, but my parents thought it was a waste of time and forced me to do far less productive things like hours of handwriting (which I’m still rubbish at).
Is the Tory dislike for 15 minute cities that they are too convenient or too inconvenient? Would they prefer 20 minute cities or 10 minute cities? Help!
Yes.
No problem with 15 minute towns or cities so long as its done without restricting people.
Places like Oxford have been putting in inconvenient restrictions in roads against driving to facilitate the 'convenience' of walking/cycling to a location.
Its the same discussion I've had before with Eabhal. If its done right, without restrictions, absolutely no qualms with that. If you start converting roads, blocking paths, trying to restrict people - then we have a problem.
Being able to walk to one shop in 15 minutes is no alternative to being able to drive to dozens of different shops of your choice within 15 minutes.
But even you've fallen for the conspiracy theories . An LTN is distinct from a 15-minute city.
An LTN attempts to reduce ratrunning through residential neighbourhoods, something that has recently become much more problematic by apps like Google Maps and Waze, along with an increase in car mileage in our cities and towns. A positive side effect of LTNs is they reduce the number of junctions on arterial roads, leading to better flow.
A 15-minute, which means important facilities are within walking distance for most people, just helps to increase accessibility of services for people who can't drive, which is a significant proportion of the population and correlates with poverty, old age and disability. They are exceptionally popular when explained properly.
Any new housing development is an LTN, but generally not a 15- minute city, for example. A pre-motorcar tenement area is likely the inverse.
It's really important that we keep an eye on this - the misinformation will now be off the scale following the Conservative conference.
In terms of "restriction", in an LTN no home is made inaccessible by car. It may take slightly longer to get there, as it does in a modern estate.
In terms of "freedom" - this is more debatable, but I think that the freedom for people to walk and cycle around is inhibited by car traffic, at least a bit. And the freedom to use public transport simply doesn't exist for many people outside London, even in built up areas.
Cars are an important way of getting around for most people, but most people are also open to alternatives, and for many driving isn't possible in the first place.
If I was Labour, I'd ignore most if this though. The weirdest thing is leniency for illegal parking.
I'd pin this tweet to the wall. Bad parking drives people insane...
"Claire Coutinho at the #CPC2023 flags the popularity of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany saying their surge in support is in part down to their climate scepticism & resistance to “net zero”"
Apparently the US Internal Revenue Service still uses IBM assembler for some of its programs, along with -- of course -- COBOL. (I just did a quick search to see if that was still true, and it appears that it is.)
Until recently (the last ten years or so), I think there was a good argument for continuing to use Fortran in some applications, given all the available libraries, and the efficiency of the code produced by good compilers.
The rolling stock for the connection from HS2 to Manchester has been revealed.
Given that is basically what the Northerners have been putting up with for decades - a BL bus body plonked on a railway truck with a motor and called a Pacer - that would not be much worse for them. Which is bloody shameful.
I've been on t'Internet since 1988. Even back then, people who wrote in ALL CAPS were seen as a *certain* type of person...
Programmers?
Nah that was pre-1983, on coding sheets. At least, for me it was.
IIRC 48K Basic on the ZX Spectrum was all in caps, whereas 128k was partially in lower case. May have remembered wrongly.
The mention of Basic brings a particular personal animus/resentment; as a wee lad me dad brought home a second-hand Acorn Electron and a stack of Electron User mags.
I gamely tried to teach myself Basic, in between playing Repton, Citadel and other minor tape classics, but my parents thought it was a waste of time and forced me to do far less productive things like hours of handwriting (which I’m still rubbish at).
I used to spend hours as a 9 year old copying programs from Electron User mag. Lines like “for A = int rnd” and “end proc”. Especially the ones by prolific creator Roland Waddilove.
"There's a huge movement going on globally to create essentially a world government that will have power to dictate to national governments what they should do in anticipation of another pandemic," says Tory MP Danny Kruger, who says there is "no greater threat to our national democracy""
The utter abdication of the idea of Britain as global player and retreat into bizarre pothole parochialism is such a long way from where the Conservative Party ought to be.
An underrated aspect of Blair’s ascension was that our country felt significant again; it absolutely wasn’t his doing, but he rode the wave expertly.
The idea that a party - a *governing* party - would centre their campaigning platform on ‘motorists’ rights’ is utterly depressing. What kind of vision for the future is this? Jesus F’n Christ. How have we ended up with such absolute garbage?
Is the Tory dislike for 15 minute cities that they are too convenient or too inconvenient? Would they prefer 20 minute cities or 10 minute cities? Help!
Yes.
No problem with 15 minute towns or cities so long as its done without restricting people.
Places like Oxford have been putting in inconvenient restrictions in roads against driving to facilitate the 'convenience' of walking/cycling to a location.
Its the same discussion I've had before with Eabhal. If its done right, without restrictions, absolutely no qualms with that. If you start converting roads, blocking paths, trying to restrict people - then we have a problem.
Being able to walk to one shop in 15 minutes is no alternative to being able to drive to dozens of different shops of your choice within 15 minutes.
But even you've fallen for the conspiracy theories . An LTN is distinct from a 15-minute city.
An LTN attempts to reduce ratrunning through residential neighbourhoods, something that has recently become much more problematic by apps like Google Maps and Waze, along with an increase in car mileage in our cities and towns. A positive side effect of LTNs is they reduce the number of junctions on arterial roads, leading to better flow.
A 15-minute, which means important facilities are within walking distance for most people, just helps to increase accessibility of services for people who can't drive, which is a significant proportion of the population and correlates with poverty, old age and disability. They are exceptionally popular when explained properly.
Any new housing development is an LTN, but generally not a 15- minute city, for example. A pre-motorcar tenement area is likely the inverse.
It's really important that we keep an eye on this - the misinformation will now be off the scale following the Conservative conference.
In terms of "restriction", in an LTN no home is made inaccessible by car. It may take slightly longer to get there, as it does in a modern estate.
In terms of "freedom" - this is more debatable, but I think that the freedom for people to walk and cycle around is inhibited by car traffic, at least a bit. And the freedom to use public transport simply doesn't exist for many people outside London, even in built up areas.
Cars are an important way of getting around for most people, but most people are also open to alternatives, and for many driving isn't possible in the first place.
If I was Labour, I'd ignore most if this though. The weirdest thing is leniency for illegal parking.
I'd pin this tweet to the wall. Bad parking drives people insane...
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
I would hope that the Tory leadership existed to promote the interests of the people of the United Kingdom.
Awwww, bless you.
You laugh, but I would hope that the leadership of Labour, the Conservatives, etc , all care about the country - and all its citizens.
You would indeed. But I'm very far from convinced that's any longer the case.
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
I would hope that the Tory leadership existed to promote the interests of the people of the United Kingdom.
Awwww, bless you.
You laugh, but I would hope that the leadership of Labour, the Conservatives, etc , all care about the country - and all its citizens.
I’m not laughing.
I genuinely can’t comprehend how anyone could look at what the Conservatives have done to this country over the last 13 years, and particularly since 2016, and think that the leadership of the Conservative Party give a damn about anyone beyond their own narrow coterie.
I’m not saying this to be snarky, to get a reaction, I’m being totally honest. How can anything they’ve done over the past few years be in any way described as being in the best interests of the country at large?
I disagreed with Corbyn and the tankies, but I could discern some twisted logic in what they were trying to achieve. But I cannot see any way you can possibly rationalise what’s happened since 2016, the parade of incompetents, the ever changing line up of PMs and no-mark ministers, the contortions the government has had to inflict on itself to try and mitigate the damage its flagship policy has done, and will do, to the country.
The only conclusion I can come to - and I am being 100% sincere - is that they don’t care about this country. They only care about their caste - the rich, the real rootless cosmopolitans who’ve privatised this country to its knees, who grow ever richer year after year after year. Nothing works. I can’t see a doctor. My missus is dentist has just gone private and she’s having to pay cos there’s a three year waiting list for another NHS one. The public realm is crumbling around me. My local council is running on vapours. The national debt has skyrocketed. Where are my taxes going?
I've been on t'Internet since 1988. Even back then, people who wrote in ALL CAPS were seen as a *certain* type of person...
Programmers?
Nah that was pre-1983, on coding sheets. At least, for me it was.
IIRC 48K Basic on the ZX Spectrum was all in caps, whereas 128k was partially in lower case. May have remembered wrongly.
The mention of Basic brings a particular personal animus/resentment; as a wee lad me dad brought home a second-hand Acorn Electron and a stack of Electron User mags.
I gamely tried to teach myself Basic, in between playing Repton, Citadel and other minor tape classics, but my parents thought it was a waste of time and forced me to do far less productive things like hours of handwriting (which I’m still rubbish at).
I used to spend hours as a 9 year old copying programs from Electron User mag. Lines like “for A = int rnd” and “end proc”. Especially the ones by prolific creator Roland Waddilove.
Luxury. I spent hours copying programs written in 6502 machine code. Machine code, not even assembly code. Lines like "CB6F44B329D3E56A4590A1". Thousands of characters. One wrong, and the program wouldn't run. And no clue which one was wrong.
I've been on t'Internet since 1988. Even back then, people who wrote in ALL CAPS were seen as a *certain* type of person...
Programmers?
Nah that was pre-1983, on coding sheets. At least, for me it was.
IIRC 48K Basic on the ZX Spectrum was all in caps, whereas 128k was partially in lower case. May have remembered wrongly.
The mention of Basic brings a particular personal animus/resentment; as a wee lad me dad brought home a second-hand Acorn Electron and a stack of Electron User mags.
I gamely tried to teach myself Basic, in between playing Repton, Citadel and other minor tape classics, but my parents thought it was a waste of time and forced me to do far less productive things like hours of handwriting (which I’m still rubbish at).
I used to spend hours as a 9 year old copying programs from Electron User mag. Lines like “for A = int rnd” and “end proc”. Especially the ones by prolific creator Roland Waddilove.
That name rings a bell! I loved it. Not kidding myself that I have an alternate life where with more enlightened parents I’d have invented Google or anything - but I do wonder what would have become of me if I’d really pursued that stuff.
Is the Tory dislike for 15 minute cities that they are too convenient or too inconvenient? Would they prefer 20 minute cities or 10 minute cities? Help!
Yes.
No problem with 15 minute towns or cities so long as its done without restricting people.
Places like Oxford have been putting in inconvenient restrictions in roads against driving to facilitate the 'convenience' of walking/cycling to a location.
Its the same discussion I've had before with Eabhal. If its done right, without restrictions, absolutely no qualms with that. If you start converting roads, blocking paths, trying to restrict people - then we have a problem.
Being able to walk to one shop in 15 minutes is no alternative to being able to drive to dozens of different shops of your choice within 15 minutes.
But even you've fallen for the conspiracy theories . An LTN is distinct from a 15-minute city.
An LTN attempts to reduce ratrunning through residential neighbourhoods, something that has recently become much more problematic by apps like Google Maps and Waze, along with an increase in car mileage in our cities and towns. A positive side effect of LTNs is they reduce the number of junctions on arterial roads, leading to better flow.
A 15-minute, which means important facilities are within walking distance for most people, just helps to increase accessibility of services for people who can't drive, which is a significant proportion of the population and correlates with poverty, old age and disability. They are exceptionally popular when explained properly.
Any new housing development is an LTN, but generally not a 15- minute city, for example. A pre-motorcar tenement area is likely the inverse.
It's really important that we keep an eye on this - the misinformation will now be off the scale following the Conservative conference.
In terms of "restriction", in an LTN no home is made inaccessible by car. It may take slightly longer to get there, as it does in a modern estate.
In terms of "freedom" - this is more debatable, but I think that the freedom for people to walk and cycle around is inhibited by car traffic, at least a bit. And the freedom to use public transport simply doesn't exist for many people outside London, even in built up areas.
Cars are an important way of getting around for most people, but most people are also open to alternatives, and for many driving isn't possible in the first place.
If I was Labour, I'd ignore most if this though. The weirdest thing is leniency for illegal parking.
I'd pin this tweet to the wall. Bad parking drives people insane...
You have to park on the pavement in my street (half on, half off). That is literally the rules!
Can you still get past with a wheelchair/pram? And what's the condition of the pavement? (Often overlooked - councils spend money repairing the damage from pavement parking, including personal injury claims).
Note that London and Scotland have banned pavement parking.
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
I would hope that the Tory leadership existed to promote the interests of the people of the United Kingdom.
Awwww, bless you.
You laugh, but I would hope that the leadership of Labour, the Conservatives, etc , all care about the country - and all its citizens.
I’m not laughing.
I genuinely can’t comprehend how anyone could look at what the Conservatives have done to this country over the last 13 years, and particularly since 2016, and think that the leadership of the Conservative Party give a damn about anyone beyond their own narrow coterie.
I’m not saying this to be snarky, to get a reaction, I’m being totally honest. How can anything they’ve done over the past few years be in any way described as being in the best interests of the country at large?
I disagreed with Corbyn and the tankies, but I could discern some twisted logic in what they were trying to achieve. But I cannot see any way you can possibly rationalise what’s happened since 2016, the parade of incompetents, the ever changing line up of PMs and no-mark ministers, the contortions the government has had to inflict on itself to try and mitigate the damage its flagship policy has done, and will do, to the country.
The only conclusion I can come to - and I am being 100% sincere - is that they don’t care about this country. They only care about their caste - the rich, the real rootless cosmopolitans who’ve privatised this country to its knees, who grow ever richer year after year after year. Nothing works. I can’t see a doctor. My missus is dentist has just gone private and she’s having to pay cos there’s a three year waiting list for another NHS one. The public realm is crumbling around me. My local council is running on vapours. The national debt has skyrocketed. Where are my taxes going?
Geniunely, how can you think they care?
Agree with all that apart from ‘since 2016’. For me the greatest damage was done from 2010-2015.
Strike drones attacked a Russian aircraft factory in Smolensk, EU foreign ministers met in Kyiv, and the mayor of Sumy was caught taking bribes of more than $54,400. Here are the main news for the day. https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1708946473948270945
Mark Harper transport secretary has just said Tories will stop the “ misuse of 15 minute cities “ … “what is sinister is the idea of local councils deciding how often you can go to the shops “. It is sinister. It’s also not remotely true… #cpc23"
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
I would hope that the Tory leadership existed to promote the interests of the people of the United Kingdom.
Awwww, bless you.
You laugh, but I would hope that the leadership of Labour, the Conservatives, etc , all care about the country - and all its citizens.
I’m not laughing.
I genuinely can’t comprehend how anyone could look at what the Conservatives have done to this country over the last 13 years, and particularly since 2016, and think that the leadership of the Conservative Party give a damn about anyone beyond their own narrow coterie.
I’m not saying this to be snarky, to get a reaction, I’m being totally honest. How can anything they’ve done over the past few years be in any way described as being in the best interests of the country at large?
I disagreed with Corbyn and the tankies, but I could discern some twisted logic in what they were trying to achieve. But I cannot see any way you can possibly rationalise what’s happened since 2016, the parade of incompetents, the ever changing line up of PMs and no-mark ministers, the contortions the government has had to inflict on itself to try and mitigate the damage its flagship policy has done, and will do, to the country.
The only conclusion I can come to - and I am being 100% sincere - is that they don’t care about this country. They only care about their caste - the rich, the real rootless cosmopolitans who’ve privatised this country to its knees, who grow ever richer year after year after year. Nothing works. I can’t see a doctor. My missus is dentist has just gone private and she’s having to pay cos there’s a three year waiting list for another NHS one. The public realm is crumbling around me. My local council is running on vapours. The national debt has skyrocketed. Where are my taxes going?
Geniunely, how can you think they care?
Agree with all that apart from ‘since 2016’. For me the greatest damage was done from 2010-2015.
Jesus, that was bad enough, but the real howler for me is Brexit, and UKIP-isation of the Tories. The creeping Trumpism. Austerity was bad but the damage was largely confined within our borders, at least. Small consolation, I admit.
When you look at the polling, very few people actually want HS2. How then has the Government not turned scrapping it into a net positive? Surround yourself with grateful NIMBYs. It’s not hard.
I've been on t'Internet since 1988. Even back then, people who wrote in ALL CAPS were seen as a *certain* type of person...
Programmers?
Nah that was pre-1983, on coding sheets. At least, for me it was.
IIRC 48K Basic on the ZX Spectrum was all in caps, whereas 128k was partially in lower case. May have remembered wrongly.
The mention of Basic brings a particular personal animus/resentment; as a wee lad me dad brought home a second-hand Acorn Electron and a stack of Electron User mags.
I gamely tried to teach myself Basic, in between playing Repton, Citadel and other minor tape classics, but my parents thought it was a waste of time and forced me to do far less productive things like hours of handwriting (which I’m still rubbish at).
I used to spend hours as a 9 year old copying programs from Electron User mag. Lines like “for A = int rnd” and “end proc”. Especially the ones by prolific creator Roland Waddilove.
Mark Harper transport secretary has just said Tories will stop the “ misuse of 15 minute cities “ … “what is sinister is the idea of local councils deciding how often you can go to the shops “. It is sinister. It’s also not remotely true… #cpc23"
Mark Harper transport secretary has just said Tories will stop the “ misuse of 15 minute cities “ … “what is sinister is the idea of local councils deciding how often you can go to the shops “. It is sinister. It’s also not remotely true… #cpc23"
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tory Leadership exists to promote the interests and the beliefs of the Tory membership, not the other way around. If the leadership deplores the membership, they are more than welcome to start their own party and see how many people vote for it.
I would hope that the Tory leadership existed to promote the interests of the people of the United Kingdom.
Awwww, bless you.
You laugh, but I would hope that the leadership of Labour, the Conservatives, etc , all care about the country - and all its citizens.
I suspect most do. Cameron, May, Hunt, Mordaunt maybe even Gove. But Johnson, Truss, Patel, Braverman and Badenoch, utterly self serving. I am not sure about Sunak. He's not doing it for the money...
When you look at the polling, very few people actually want HS2. How then has the Government not turned scrapping it into a net positive? Surround yourself with grateful NIMBYs. It’s not hard.
Very few people actively wanted it. Fewer still want it crippling after it's half built.
Mark Harper transport secretary has just said Tories will stop the “ misuse of 15 minute cities “ … “what is sinister is the idea of local councils deciding how often you can go to the shops “. It is sinister. It’s also not remotely true… #cpc23"
I've been on t'Internet since 1988. Even back then, people who wrote in ALL CAPS were seen as a *certain* type of person...
Programmers?
Nah that was pre-1983, on coding sheets. At least, for me it was.
IIRC 48K Basic on the ZX Spectrum was all in caps, whereas 128k was partially in lower case. May have remembered wrongly.
The mention of Basic brings a particular personal animus/resentment; as a wee lad me dad brought home a second-hand Acorn Electron and a stack of Electron User mags.
I gamely tried to teach myself Basic, in between playing Repton, Citadel and other minor tape classics, but my parents thought it was a waste of time and forced me to do far less productive things like hours of handwriting (which I’m still rubbish at).
I used to spend hours as a 9 year old copying programs from Electron User mag. Lines like “for A = int rnd” and “end proc”. Especially the ones by prolific creator Roland Waddilove.
When you look at the polling, very few people actually want HS2. How then has the Government not turned scrapping it into a net positive? Surround yourself with grateful NIMBYs. It’s not hard.
Very few people actively wanted it. Fewer still want it crippling after it's half built.
Yeah that’s not what the polling says. More want it stopped than not.
When you look at the polling, very few people actually want HS2. How then has the Government not turned scrapping it into a net positive? Surround yourself with grateful NIMBYs. It’s not hard.
Very few people actively wanted it. Fewer still want it crippling after it's half built.
@montie I walked into Conference earlier with @Nigel_Farage . He got quite the reception. I'm convinced party members would choose him as leader if they could.
The Tory membership is UKIP lite.
Until the Tory leadership deal with it as Starmer has, or Kinnock did, the Tories are destined for a long spell in opposition.
Ordinary decent Tories could help by joining or rejoining the party.
The Tories haven't even lost a general election yet and are still in power.
In Labour terms Sunak is Callaghan 1978 or Brown 2009, we haven't even got to the Tory Foot or Corbyn yet let alone see them lose.
Remember also Foot led in some early polls in opposition as unemployment rose in the early Thatcher years and Corbyn got a hung parliament in 2017, just because you aren't centrist doesn't mean you don't have support
I've been on t'Internet since 1988. Even back then, people who wrote in ALL CAPS were seen as a *certain* type of person...
Programmers?
Nah that was pre-1983, on coding sheets. At least, for me it was.
IIRC 48K Basic on the ZX Spectrum was all in caps, whereas 128k was partially in lower case. May have remembered wrongly.
The mention of Basic brings a particular personal animus/resentment; as a wee lad me dad brought home a second-hand Acorn Electron and a stack of Electron User mags.
I gamely tried to teach myself Basic, in between playing Repton, Citadel and other minor tape classics, but my parents thought it was a waste of time and forced me to do far less productive things like hours of handwriting (which I’m still rubbish at).
I used to spend hours as a 9 year old copying programs from Electron User mag. Lines like “for A = int rnd” and “end proc”. Especially the ones by prolific creator Roland Waddilove.
Luxury. I spent hours copying programs written in 6502 machine code. Machine code, not even assembly code. Lines like "CB6F44B329D3E56A4590A1". Thousands of characters. One wrong, and the program wouldn't run. And no clue which one was wrong.
Impressive, especially as the reward at the end was, at best, a pared back version of Frogger.
Comments
Hope you enjoy your break.
Mattie says ... Relax.
We'll be here (but the Tory Party may not) if the break is more than say a fortnight.
Anyway not that it matters, the Tories deserves to be removed from office, and I believe the British people are gearing up to give them a hell of a kicking.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/02/sunak-fails-to-hand-whatsapp-messages-from-time-as-chancellor-to-covid-inquiry
"Lightning strike near Oxford (A34). Struck something that burst in to flames."
That's 15 minute cities for you. Catch fire real easy.
Seriously- the rehab for the Conservatives seems likely to be much harder than it was for Labour when they got over Corbyn.
1 - History of the members of the SS (Galician) Division allowed to settle in UK and Canada.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB_Gs-0dhOo
2 - Memorials for Ukrainian members of the SAS in the UK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASPoFzmDteg
It is astonishing really.
Labour was captured by a small number of Trots at the top, and a larger number of (mostly inactive) new members at the base, but the core of the party - MPs, councillors, activists - was little changed from the Blair years. As a result, recovering from Corbyn was a quick and mostly bloodless revolution.
The Conservatives, as far as I can tell, have been almost fully captured by the extremists. They're in the Cabinet. They're in the half-dozen MP campaign groups all plotting in Manchester conference rooms. They're on the backbenches, in the constituency associations, in the membership. They're in the Telegraph, Spectator and Mail.
It is going to be much harder for the Conservatives to excise their militant wing than it was for Labour.
The reality is political parties are much smaller than they used to be and it's very easy for people on the political fringes to take them over.
But it is also true to say that a lot of those accounts will be running on software originally written in the 60s or 70s and continually amended since.
https://twitter.com/SkyPoliticsHub/status/1708911889072152921
Sky's Sophy Ridge reads out part of the Energy Secretary's speech where she says, 'there's no wonder Labour seem so relaxed about taxing meat...' - and asks: "You didn't write that, did you? They're not proposing a meat tax?"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12583655/Pictured-Screaming-motorist-59-banged-terrified-woman-drivers-windscreen.html
"A 2006 re-election and his second term led to the passage of a variety of healthcare, gun control, and anti-discrimination bills. Starting in December 2008, a federal investigation and trial found Blagojevich guilty of public corruption after he attempted to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama upon his election to the presidency. [Democrat Rod] Blagojevich was impeached, convicted, and removed from office in 2009 by the Illinois General Assembly. He was also subsequently barred by the Illinois Senate from holding public office within the state ever again. For his role in the corruption scandal, Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison. After an appeal for his release, U.S. President Donald Trump formally commuted his sentence in 2020, after Blagojevich had been imprisoned for nearly eight years."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Blagojevich
As I recall, he was recorded saying the senatorship was very valuable, and he should get something for it. (Half right, I suppose.)
And that commutation adds a nice touch to the story.
An LTN attempts to reduce ratrunning through residential neighbourhoods, something that has recently become much more problematic by apps like Google Maps and Waze, along with an increase in car mileage in our cities and towns. A positive side effect of LTNs is they reduce the number of junctions on arterial roads, leading to better flow.
A 15-minute, which means important facilities are within walking distance for most people, just helps to increase accessibility of services for people who can't drive, which is a significant proportion of the population and correlates with poverty, old age and disability. They are exceptionally popular when explained properly.
Any new housing development is an LTN, but generally not a 15- minute city, for example. A pre-motorcar tenement area is likely the inverse.
Also to congratulate @TheScreamingEagles on his first, but very important step, in his ambition of becoming our benign dictator. Well done.
Presumably (from precedent when Mike goes away just for a weekend and TSE takes over) does this not mean the world will implode.
Shock horror fashion and entertainment industry is full of "talent" that have got away with being filthy perverts.
"@maitlis
Mark Harper transport secretary has just said Tories will stop the “ misuse of 15 minute cities “ …
“what is sinister is the idea of local councils deciding how often you can go to the shops “. It is sinister. It’s also not remotely true… #cpc23"
https://twitter.com/maitlis/status/1708792200329372089
"@AdamBienkov
"The penny is dropping among people in Westminster that the Government doesn't run the Government," says Conservative MP Danny Kruger #CPC2023"
https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1708778412150534226
Something tells me the last decade might have turned out somewhat differently.
End of an era.
No more big wardrobes in special rooms, and even the black blades in racks are going. In my previous previous profession (long story), I pulled off a trick in extracting deleted data from the header buffer in a disk reader because I knew it was still there without a schema, and I resurrected it before it was cleared down. Helluva thing, don't think I could do it now. They still gave me a bollocking because I wasn't going to dob in a mate who had gone on holiday and whoops had forgot, so I got the blame. Six months later I was in a new job with a fifteen grand pay rise. Never looked back. Will work cheerfully for nice people, but some people you just go "fuck it" and go.
You were right the first time.
In terms of "restriction", in an LTN no home is made inaccessible by car. It may take slightly longer to get there, as it does in a modern estate.
In terms of "freedom" - this is more debatable, but I think that the freedom for people to walk and cycle around is inhibited by car traffic, at least a bit. And the freedom to use public transport simply doesn't exist for many people outside London, even in built up areas.
Cars are an important way of getting around for most people, but most people are also open to alternatives, and for many driving isn't possible in the first place.
"There's a huge movement going on globally to create essentially a world government that will have power to dictate to national governments what they should do in anticipation of another pandemic," says Tory MP Danny Kruger, who says there is "no greater threat to our national democracy""
https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1708780396853313804
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma_3yMK08Bk&ab_channel=MeidasTouch
Could be a potential leadership contender as a result.
I gamely tried to teach myself Basic, in between playing Repton, Citadel and other minor tape classics, but my parents thought it was a waste of time and forced me to do far less productive things like hours of handwriting (which I’m still rubbish at).
I'd pin this tweet to the wall. Bad parking drives people insane...
https://twitter.com/fesshole/status/1593656541898571776?t=zO30C6Cj2piSrzFRFQnkbA&s=19
"New Environment Secretary Claire Coutinho, caught red-handed by @SophyRidgeSky making stuff up, just tries to blag through it.
Ends up basically suggesting that, since "Starmer won't tell us what he really thinks", it's okay to make stuff up.😮"
https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1708913451710484494?t=ckAm-EesCSzeONz1skxJmw&s=19
"Claire Coutinho at the #CPC2023 flags the popularity of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany saying their surge in support is in part down to their climate scepticism & resistance to “net zero”"
https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1708817729174552642?t=jrYeeolXcWIdUUzAwY0L3A&s=19
Until recently (the last ten years or so), I think there was a good argument for continuing to use Fortran in some applications, given all the available libraries, and the efficiency of the code produced by good compilers.
An underrated aspect of Blair’s ascension was that our country felt significant again; it absolutely wasn’t his doing, but he rode the wave expertly.
The idea that a party - a *governing* party - would centre their campaigning platform on ‘motorists’ rights’ is utterly depressing. What kind of vision for the future is this? Jesus F’n Christ. How have we ended up with such absolute garbage?
But I'm very far from convinced that's any longer the case.
I genuinely can’t comprehend how anyone could look at what the Conservatives have done to this country over the last 13 years, and particularly since 2016, and think that the leadership of the Conservative Party give a damn about anyone beyond their own narrow coterie.
I’m not saying this to be snarky, to get a reaction, I’m being totally honest. How can anything they’ve done over the past few years be in any way described as being in the best interests of the country at large?
I disagreed with Corbyn and the tankies, but I could discern some twisted logic in what they were trying to achieve. But I cannot see any way you can possibly rationalise what’s happened since 2016, the parade of incompetents, the ever changing line up of PMs and no-mark ministers, the contortions the government has had to inflict on itself to try and mitigate the damage its flagship policy has done, and will do, to the country.
The only conclusion I can come to - and I am being 100% sincere - is that they don’t care about this country. They only care about their caste - the rich, the real rootless cosmopolitans who’ve privatised this country to its knees, who grow ever richer year after year after year. Nothing works. I can’t see a doctor. My missus is dentist has just gone private and she’s having to pay cos there’s a three year waiting list for another NHS one. The public realm is crumbling around me. My local council is running on vapours. The national debt has skyrocketed. Where are my taxes going?
Geniunely, how can you think they care?
Note that London and Scotland have banned pavement parking.
https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1708946473948270945
It's simply that this particular Government can't be bothered to run the Government.
Andy Street leads.
Sunak's HS2 Manchester feckup decision and dither has to be one of the all time political PR disasters in decades.
No political history book of Sunak's premiership will not use this quote.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66978108
Fewer still want it crippling after it's half built.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/support-for-high-speed-rail-hs2
(I’d keep it - not arguing on substance).
Edit - or depending on the question a dead heat, and an easily winnable argument if you say you’ll spend “on our NHS instead”.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2021/11/18/98559/1
https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1708838268526014944?s=46&t=2iv1prQ4P8HyMrM-UX0Dig
In Labour terms Sunak is Callaghan 1978 or Brown 2009, we haven't even got to the Tory Foot or Corbyn yet let alone see them lose.
Remember also Foot led in some early polls in opposition as unemployment rose in the early Thatcher years and Corbyn got a hung parliament in 2017, just because you aren't centrist doesn't mean you don't have support