Americans certainly do like cheese. If you go to a Walmart there will be aisles and aisles of it - but it will all be about 3 varieties - Jack, Monterey Jack, versions of cheddar. “Philadelphia” - the rest will be different forms of this with different shapes, processing and added bits
What they don’t have is a sophisticated market for cheese nor a taste for runny, pungent, blue, or goaty cheese - ie all the best stuff
But this used to be true of American beer. It used to be universally shit and gassy and pasteurised. Now they have one of the best beer cultures in the world and you can get excellent craft IPA anywhere in the country - a much better selection than most European countries (which will have 3 or 4 predictable beers)
So they may wise up to cheese in a similar way
The speed of that transition was also quite astounding. It felt like it went from only crap like Bud being available through the weird "Pabst Blue Ribbon is cool / hipster" phase, to craft IPA being everywhere from big brands like Sierra Nevada / Lagunitas (unfortunately owned by Heineken now) to regional ones in the matter of a few years...all the supermarkets are filled with massive aisles of choice on this front.
Yes it was a bit like the British food revolution. Except even quicker. What took us 30 years they did in about 10-15 for beer
People look at me like I’m mad when I say the Americans brew the best beer in the world. But it’s true, and not even close.
Yes I agree. For variety and innovation - and quality of production - American beer is now likely the best in the world. Happily Britain is following this path
If you go to somewhere like France or Spain you will get three types of lager and that’s your lot. It will be pleasant cold lager but that’s it
The UK is probably next after the US in terms of beer quality, though of course Germany, Czechia and (especially) Belgium have their own strong and well-protected traditions. The Danes and Swedes aren't too far behind either.
One of the interesting things I've witnessed in Manchester (probably as close to being the UK's craft beer capital as anywhere) is when visiting American brewers are over, one of the first things they want to do is have a pint of decent, well-kept cask (I've directed more than one to the glorious Marble Arch for this purpose).
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
It’s also fucking hideous. But clearly aesthetics and taste don’t worry you as you live in a redbrick semi Barratt home new build near Warrington
Quality of life matters far more for me, I agree yes.
Being able to afford my own new home is infinitely better than living in a fraction of an Edwardian home that has been subdivided to fit 22 people into it.
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨 Labour lead has grown to eighteen percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll. Con 26% (-2) Lab 44% (-) Lib Dem 12% (+2) Other 18% (-) Fieldwork: 29 September - 2 October 2023 Sample: 1,516 GB adults (Changes from 22nd-25th September 2023)
Parties are meant to get a polling boost during their conferences!
Conference not finished yet ...
Also the fieldwork ended the Monday before last.
Fieldwork was 29 Sep-2 Oct, so it ended yesterday.
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
That looks grim.
Why don't we get the Dutch to design stuff? Maybe some trees?
2022 North East 28% 2.7M Area: 8579 km2 2022 North West 20% 7.3M Area 14108 km2 2022 Yorkshire and the Humber 23% 5.5M 15405 km2
2022 London 41% 9M 1572 km2 2022 South East 15% 9.2M 19072 km2 2022 South West 13% 5.6M 23836 km2
North: 15.5M people, NO cars 22.4% 38092 km2 1 or more car 77.6% South: 23.8M people, NO cars 24.3% 44480 km2 1 or more car 75.7%
Northern car use a bit higher than southern. I expect the difference is probably explained by income.
Isn't the ownership rate a really poor proxy for use rates? My car does ~20k miles a year. My wife's car does about ~4k miles a year.
I suspect that the big North - South divide isn't so much in the rates of ownership as in the milages driven. I'd expect to discover that many more people actually use their cars to commute every day in the North, as opposed cars just used for the odd run out to the shops and to take the kids to see the grandparents at the weekend.
My maternal grandparents lived in Bexleyheath, had a car, and only really used it on the weekend - they caught the train to work. That's going to be much more typical in the South than the North.
As an aside - my town has a good train service to Manchester. Thanks to perverse ticket pricing structures, most Manchester bound commuters drive parallel to the railway for 5 miles and then catch the train from a station slightly nearer Manchester, as the season tickets from there are around half the price...
Which would prove that public transport is rubbish up north. Commute distances are roughly the same.
Or proves that the roads are so horrible down South that people have to use public transport.
The truth is probably a bit of a mixture. If Manchester's suburbs had the quality of public transport that London has, probably more people would use it. At the same time, if the South had the largely useable roads we have in the North, far more people would drive instead of using public transport.
FWIW, I commuted by train from Stockport to Macclesfield for a while around 2009. I had pretty much perfect circumstances - I lived 2 minutes walk from the station at one end, worked 5 mins walk at the other end. I eventually stopped and took to driving because the train cost about £7 a day, and it was actually cheaper (and no slower) to drive the journey in a 1970s diesel landrover.
I would need to dig up the report but unless public transport is very regular and consistent to the point that a timetable is irrelevant people will eventually revert to personal transport..
As I said I need the report but I think it was something like the frequency of the service needs to 12 minutes or less...
In London, you can see the difference in the routes that are less than 10 minutes between services and those that aren’t.
People comment how they “tried the Overground, but the trains are infrequent”
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨 Labour lead has grown to eighteen percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll. Con 26% (-2) Lab 44% (-) Lib Dem 12% (+2) Other 18% (-) Fieldwork: 29 September - 2 October 2023 Sample: 1,516 GB adults (Changes from 22nd-25th September 2023)
Parties are meant to get a polling boost during their conferences!
Conference not finished yet ...
Also the fieldwork ended the Monday before last.
Fieldwork was 29 Sep-2 Oct, so it ended yesterday.
Rishi Sunak does not rule out Nigel Farage joining the Tory Party, saying the party is a “broad church”
Dear god.
Farage LOTO after next election. Get your bets on.
LibDem/Tory crossover incoming...
Not convinced.
I am cautiously optimistic that I live in a country where a simple majority of people will not vote to make Farage PM. But if I live in a country where 40% of the voting electorate can vote to make Corbyn PM then anything is possible.
Indeed look at the US, where Trump looks increasingly likely to win next year.
I would be really interested in the % of the electorate who are likely to vote tactically at the next GE - and what information they plan to base their vote on (GE 2019 results, poll predictions, gut feelings, etc.). I think that understanding how much of the Labour / LD vote share is just a tactical vote to kick out the local Tory would be more useful at the moment at predicting majorities and their size than just the percentage figure.
Well, I’m a longshot tactical voter. The island here ought to be a LibDem target, now with two seats, but is no longer for reasons too detailed to recount. Labour finds itself the challenger in both seats. Getting me to vote Labour is a stretch, but I’d love to see the Tories lose here. Yet Labour has said nothing on a fairer voting system, next to nothing on re-aligning with the EU, and is jettisoning most of its more radical policies - like abolishing private school charitable status - that as a radical liberal I actually support. The candidates Labour is likely to put up locally are tribal Labour councillors who haven’t excelled in building cross-party relationships on the county council and, in the case of my expected Labour PPC, didnt even bother to turn up to the critical council meeting when the Tories were voted out of control.
I’d love to see the Tories lose here but, nationally and locally, it is hard to see how Labour could have done less to win over my vote.
Are you Wight East or West?
I would think East the better Labour prospect.
Greens may fancy a crack too
Despite my own representations to the BC, we’ve ended up in East. Which, as you say, is probably the better Labour prospect. But I moved here having spent a chunk of my life fighting Labour tribalism in London, and I can’t vote for Labour’s candidate here who is in the same mould.
Despite their deal last time, both Greens and LibDems are putting up candidates in both east and west, which is simply idiotic.
On @skynews now. Our sitdown with the PM - GE is "not what the country wants" - On HS2, PM is "not going to get forced into making premature decisions" - PM denies conf been chaotic & says people have "a spring in their step - Will you be PM after the next election? “Of course"
Right up to the moment he goes to the Palace to resign and invite Charles to get Starmer in...
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
It’s also fucking hideous. But clearly aesthetics and taste don’t worry you as you live in a redbrick semi Barratt home new build near Warrington
Beat me to it. That picture is my vision of hell on earth.
Cars themselves can be beautiful - the E type jag. They are also highly liberating. But nearly all the infrastructure devoted to cars - motorways, garages, tyre shops, petrol stations - are a disgusting, polluting blight on Mother Earth and designed to make us feel sick and depressed
America shows this
Get rid of private cars. Replace with tiny autonomous self driving e-cars which disappear at night and don’t need parking. That must be our aim
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨 Labour lead has grown to eighteen percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll. Con 26% (-2) Lab 44% (-) Lib Dem 12% (+2) Other 18% (-) Fieldwork: 29 September - 2 October 2023 Sample: 1,516 GB adults (Changes from 22nd-25th September 2023)
Parties are meant to get a polling boost during their conferences!
Conference not finished yet ...
Also the fieldwork ended the Monday before last.
Fieldwork was 29 Sep-2 Oct, so it ended yesterday.
Thanks, I'm an idiot.
Expressions one does not often hear on PB, which is considerably the worse for lack thereof IMV.
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨 Labour lead has grown to eighteen percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll. Con 26% (-2) Lab 44% (-) Lib Dem 12% (+2) Other 18% (-) Fieldwork: 29 September - 2 October 2023 Sample: 1,516 GB adults (Changes from 22nd-25th September 2023)
Other on 18%?
Deltapoll really annoy me with their refusal to show the Green, Ref and SNP numbers. You have to go into the detailed tables. Which show:
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
That looks grim.
Why don't we get the Dutch to design stuff? Maybe some trees?
There's trees all along the routes, as you can kind of see in the corners of the screen (ironically the least in the park on the bottom-left).
Extend along the roads and you'll see plenty of trees. Not sure why not much in the junction, I'm guessing because its been designed for functionality and visibility.
It works well either way. Most traffic uses the newly built flyover now away from that, so you've got 4 major roads there and yet traffic moves freely and all forms of active travel are well utilised.
Aesthetically it looks weird, caught me by surprised when I first drove through that, but functionally? 10/10 in my book.
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨 Labour lead has grown to eighteen percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll. Con 26% (-2) Lab 44% (-) Lib Dem 12% (+2) Other 18% (-) Fieldwork: 29 September - 2 October 2023 Sample: 1,516 GB adults (Changes from 22nd-25th September 2023)
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
I'm sure you could find many drab images of towns and cities in the UK and Europe, too. You could also find really nice pictures of US cities, despite them being built for the car.
There are many more ugly, car-centric cities in the States than in Europe, both as a proportion and as an absolute. That is not to say there aren't any handsome downtowns in America – there are many. But they are much rarer beasts than in the Old World.
My vote would be Portugal...I have been to Lisbon, Porto, Silver Coast, down the Atlantic coast and across the Algarve, and its seems all you can get is Super Bock, Sagres, Cristal, and they are all bloody awful.
Its like if you went into a pub here and all you could buy was Carling.
Italy and Greece are pretty bad. But then they don’t really have beer cultures. They drink wine
Norway, in terms of being able to afford one.
Otherwise tbh as long as you can cope with a cold lager you're good. A lot of Spanish bars only have one or maybe two beers on, though trendier places like Valencia and Bilbao have more variety and local stuff.
It’s an over-engineered version of a standard Dutch roundabout. They do work really well. But this one (and the same design in Manchester) do look a bit like someone gave a Dutch blueprint to a bunch of HS2 engineers and said “here, build one of these”.
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
That looks grim.
Why don't we get the Dutch to design stuff? Maybe some trees?
There's trees all along the routes, as you can kind of see in the corners of the screen (ironically the least in the park on the bottom-left).
Extend along the roads and you'll see plenty of trees. Not sure why not much in the junction, I'm guessing because its been designed for functionality and visibility.
It works well either way. Most traffic uses the newly built flyover now away from that, so you've got 4 major roads there and yet traffic moves freely and all forms of active travel are well utilised.
Aesthetically it looks weird, caught me by surprised when I first drove through that, but functionally? 10/10 in my book.
Why do the cyclists have to a random detour around some parked cars?
There are so many examples of this f-ugly infrastructure, cleary designed by a permanently divorced road engineer bitter about the request for cycle lanes.
There needs to be a UK-wide design standard and there shouldn't be a single Brit on the team that puts it together or enforces it. I want aggro Dutch cycling architects with small spectacles and no patience for motorist nonsense.
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
It’s also fucking hideous. But clearly aesthetics and taste don’t worry you as you live in a redbrick semi Barratt home new build near Warrington
Quality of life matters far more for me, I agree yes.
Being able to afford my own new home is infinitely better than living in a fraction of an Edwardian home that has been subdivided to fit 22 people into it.
Other people have this thing called “taste” and they find intense dystopian ugliness dispiriting - and it actually impinges on their quality of life. You are immune, it seems. The ideal customer for Barratt homes in Warrington
Mark Spencer, the farming minister, has defended Claire Coutinho over her much-criticised comment about Labour favouring a beef tax. [...]
Today Spencer defended Coutinho – arguing not that Labour does favour a meat tax, but that it is the sort of thing it might do. He said:
I think there’s been a lot of discussion, particularly on the left of politics, about a meat tax. Lefties love regulation, and they love to regulate, they love to put in extra rules and I just – I rub against that sort of stuff.
I believe in my constituents and their ability to make informed decisions and logical decisions. And I don’t like to over regulate, I’d rather over educate.
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨 Labour lead has grown to eighteen percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll. Con 26% (-2) Lab 44% (-) Lib Dem 12% (+2) Other 18% (-) Fieldwork: 29 September - 2 October 2023 Sample: 1,516 GB adults (Changes from 22nd-25th September 2023)
Tory conference bounce for the Liberals.
Benefiting hugely from it no longer being the Lib Dem conference, it seems. Perhaps Ed Davey should think about booking a three week holiday when the election is finally called?
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
That looks awful – is that the sort of vision you have for Britain? Utterly soulless.
It’s an over-engineered version of a standard Dutch roundabout. They do work really well. But this one (and the same design in Manchester) do look a bit like someone gave a Dutch blueprint to a bunch of HS2 engineers and said “here, build one of these”.
LOL! 😂
It probably can be done better, considering its an early adoption in the UK of what the Dutch have been doing for years no doubt it will evolve over time and future ones might be better.
But functionally? Its a good idea and works well.
The Dutch have nailed this for years. Build more roads, design well for active travel, everyone wins.
Its great to see parts of the UK adopting the Dutch approach. Hopefully more do over time. Evolving the aesthetics to look better is a secondary priority over functionality.
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨 Labour lead has grown to eighteen percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll. Con 26% (-2) Lab 44% (-) Lib Dem 12% (+2) Other 18% (-) Fieldwork: 29 September - 2 October 2023 Sample: 1,516 GB adults (Changes from 22nd-25th September 2023)
Tory conference bounce for the Liberals.
Not a coincidence that Davey arrived on a bicycle.
My vote would be Portugal...I have been to Lisbon, Porto, Silver Coast, down the Atlantic coast and across the Algarve, and its seems all you can get is Super Bock, Sagres, Cristal, and they are all bloody awful.
Its like if you went into a pub here and all you could buy was Carling.
Italy and Greece are pretty bad. But then they don’t really have beer cultures. They drink wine
They don't really drink anything in Italy, in my experience.
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
That looks awful – is that the sort of vision you have for Britain? Utterly soulless.
Train tracks are utterly soulless too.
Souls come from the people, not the ground.
Seeing it in action, free-flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians getting about their lives without being stuck in traffic or forced off the road by either congestion or fear is far better than any alternative.
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
That looks awful – is that the sort of vision you have for Britain? Utterly soulless.
To be serious for a second - when climate change starts to really kick on, a public realm like that will be a disaster for cyclists and pedestrians..
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
It’s also fucking hideous. But clearly aesthetics and taste don’t worry you as you live in a redbrick semi Barratt home new build near Warrington
Quality of life matters far more for me, I agree yes.
Being able to afford my own new home is infinitely better than living in a fraction of an Edwardian home that has been subdivided to fit 22 people into it.
Other people have this thing called “taste” and they find intense dystopian ugliness dispiriting - and it actually impinges on their quality of life. You are immune, it seems. The ideal customer for Barratt homes in Warrington
I don't know. A Lego enthusiast might be quite taken.
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
It’s also fucking hideous. But clearly aesthetics and taste don’t worry you as you live in a redbrick semi Barratt home new build near Warrington
Quality of life matters far more for me, I agree yes.
Being able to afford my own new home is infinitely better than living in a fraction of an Edwardian home that has been subdivided to fit 22 people into it.
Other people have this thing called “taste” and they find intense dystopian ugliness dispiriting - and it actually impinges on their quality of life. You are immune, it seems. The ideal customer for Barratt homes in Warrington
I don't know. A Lego enthusiast might be quite taken.
A premature victory celebration cost South Korea a gold medal at the Asian Games and means that members of the team must now complete at least 18 months of national service.
It is obligatory in South Korea for men aged between 18 and 28 to take part in full national service but there are sporting exemptions for victory in either the Olympics or Asian Games.
This dispensation had looked certain to be enacted when Jung Cheol-won led into the final straight of the 3,000m roller-skating relay before he made the fatal mistake of easing up shortly before the finish to raise his hands in celebration. Jung was evidently unaware that Taiwan’s Huang Yu-Lin was closing fast and, as they crossed the line together, it was initially unclear who had won. The computerised timing system eventually confirmed that Taiwan had clinched gold by just 0.01 seconds.
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
That looks grim.
Why don't we get the Dutch to design stuff? Maybe some trees?
There's trees all along the routes, as you can kind of see in the corners of the screen (ironically the least in the park on the bottom-left).
Extend along the roads and you'll see plenty of trees. Not sure why not much in the junction, I'm guessing because its been designed for functionality and visibility.
It works well either way. Most traffic uses the newly built flyover now away from that, so you've got 4 major roads there and yet traffic moves freely and all forms of active travel are well utilised.
Aesthetically it looks weird, caught me by surprised when I first drove through that, but functionally? 10/10 in my book.
Why do the cyclists have to a random detour around some parked cars?
There are so many examples of this f-ugly infrastructure, cleary designed by a permanently divorced road engineer bitter about the request for cycle lanes.
There needs to be a UK-wide design standard and there shouldn't be a single Brit on the team that puts it together or enforces it. I want aggro Dutch cycling architects with small spectacles and no patience for motorist nonsense.
Actually this is a Dutch concept that's come over here.
Oops.
Once again, your disinterest in and lack of understanding of the Netherlands shines through. Indeed the name of the junction, CYCLOPS stands for Cycling Optimised Protected Signals and it is a British variant of what the Dutch have done for years and is entirely to encourage cycling and active travel.
Mark Spencer, the farming minister, has defended Claire Coutinho over her much-criticised comment about Labour favouring a beef tax. [...]
Today Spencer defended Coutinho – arguing not that Labour does favour a meat tax, but that it is the sort of thing it might do. He said:
I think there’s been a lot of discussion, particularly on the left of politics, about a meat tax. Lefties love regulation, and they love to regulate, they love to put in extra rules and I just – I rub against that sort of stuff.
I believe in my constituents and their ability to make informed decisions and logical decisions. And I don’t like to over regulate, I’d rather over educate.
Given Mr Spencer's comment on preferring to "over educate", it sounds to me as if the sort of thing he might do is force everyone to attend sinister, communist-style re-education camps.
Now that isn't something he has actually proposed but, given it's the sort of thing I like to imagine he might, I feel fully justified in saying that we must stop Spencer's sinister forced re-education camp plans.
It’s an over-engineered version of a standard Dutch roundabout. They do work really well. But this one (and the same design in Manchester) do look a bit like someone gave a Dutch blueprint to a bunch of HS2 engineers and said “here, build one of these”.
LOL! 😂
It probably can be done better, considering its an early adoption in the UK of what the Dutch have been doing for years no doubt it will evolve over time and future ones might be better.
But functionally? Its a good idea and works well.
The Dutch have nailed this for years. Build more roads, design well for active travel, everyone wins.
Its great to see parts of the UK adopting the Dutch approach. Hopefully more do over time. Evolving the aesthetics to look better is a secondary priority over functionality.
Yes, let’s all prioritise “functionality”. Eventually that way the whole of Britain can become a motorway and no one need ever get stuck in traffic because NO ONE WILL EVER WANT TO LIVE IN UGLY DEPRESSING BRITAIN
This is, by the way, exactly what happened to thousands of American downtowns. They prioritised the functionality of driving and parking. By destroying millions of lovely old buildings to make way for car lots and wide roads
Now no one wants to drive to the downtowns because they are hideous dystopias full of homeless people and empty car lots. = zero traffic. Problem solved
E-Types are very strange cars and their aesthetic appeal has been somewhat neutered by their cultural ubiquity. It's like they were designed from back to front, running out of money as they got to the front of the car. The rear was half a monocoque and the front is a spaceframe that's brazed together like a bicycle. All available engine options were asthmatic behemoths. Jaguar should have licenced the Chevy small block V8 for it. That would have made more power, more reliably and somewhat fixed the disastrous weight distribution.
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨 Labour lead has grown to eighteen percentage points in the latest results from Deltapoll. Con 26% (-2) Lab 44% (-) Lib Dem 12% (+2) Other 18% (-) Fieldwork: 29 September - 2 October 2023 Sample: 1,516 GB adults (Changes from 22nd-25th September 2023)
Dispiriting to see there is no older cohort than Baby Boomers listed...
A premature victory celebration cost South Korea a gold medal at the Asian Games and means that members of the team must now complete at least 18 months of national service.
It is obligatory in South Korea for men aged between 18 and 28 to take part in full national service but there are sporting exemptions for victory in either the Olympics or Asian Games.
This dispensation had looked certain to be enacted when Jung Cheol-won led into the final straight of the 3,000m roller-skating relay before he made the fatal mistake of easing up shortly before the finish to raise his hands in celebration. Jung was evidently unaware that Taiwan’s Huang Yu-Lin was closing fast and, as they crossed the line together, it was initially unclear who had won. The computerised timing system eventually confirmed that Taiwan had clinched gold by just 0.01 seconds.
Rishi Sunak does not rule out Nigel Farage joining the Tory Party, saying the party is a “broad church”
I think too many of them have too much to lose from letting him in. It seems to me is that the strategy at this conference is that as many of them as possible give him hand relief over the course of the week, on the basis that makes him docile and less likely to stand against them at the General Election.
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
That looks grim.
Why don't we get the Dutch to design stuff? Maybe some trees?
There's trees all along the routes, as you can kind of see in the corners of the screen (ironically the least in the park on the bottom-left).
Extend along the roads and you'll see plenty of trees. Not sure why not much in the junction, I'm guessing because its been designed for functionality and visibility.
It works well either way. Most traffic uses the newly built flyover now away from that, so you've got 4 major roads there and yet traffic moves freely and all forms of active travel are well utilised.
Aesthetically it looks weird, caught me by surprised when I first drove through that, but functionally? 10/10 in my book.
Why do the cyclists have to a random detour around some parked cars?
There are so many examples of this f-ugly infrastructure, cleary designed by a permanently divorced road engineer bitter about the request for cycle lanes.
There needs to be a UK-wide design standard and there shouldn't be a single Brit on the team that puts it together or enforces it. I want aggro Dutch cycling architects with small spectacles and no patience for motorist nonsense.
Actually this is a Dutch concept that's come over here.
Oops.
Once again, your disinterest in and lack of understanding of the Netherlands shines through. Indeed the name of the junction, CYCLOPS stands for Cycling Optimised Protected Signals and it is a British variant of what the Dutch have done for years and is entirely to encourage cycling and active travel.
And it works.
It looks like a Dutch roundabout after 30 years of hard drugs.
A premature victory celebration cost South Korea a gold medal at the Asian Games and means that members of the team must now complete at least 18 months of national service.
It is obligatory in South Korea for men aged between 18 and 28 to take part in full national service but there are sporting exemptions for victory in either the Olympics or Asian Games.
This dispensation had looked certain to be enacted when Jung Cheol-won led into the final straight of the 3,000m roller-skating relay before he made the fatal mistake of easing up shortly before the finish to raise his hands in celebration. Jung was evidently unaware that Taiwan’s Huang Yu-Lin was closing fast and, as they crossed the line together, it was initially unclear who had won. The computerised timing system eventually confirmed that Taiwan had clinched gold by just 0.01 seconds.
It’s an over-engineered version of a standard Dutch roundabout. They do work really well. But this one (and the same design in Manchester) do look a bit like someone gave a Dutch blueprint to a bunch of HS2 engineers and said “here, build one of these”.
LOL! 😂
It probably can be done better, considering its an early adoption in the UK of what the Dutch have been doing for years no doubt it will evolve over time and future ones might be better.
But functionally? Its a good idea and works well.
The Dutch have nailed this for years. Build more roads, design well for active travel, everyone wins.
Its great to see parts of the UK adopting the Dutch approach. Hopefully more do over time. Evolving the aesthetics to look better is a secondary priority over functionality.
Yes, let’s all prioritise “functionality”. Eventually that way the whole of Britain can become a motorway and no one need ever get stuck in traffic because NO ONE WILL EVER WANT TO LIVE IN UGLY DEPRESSING BRITAIN
This is, by the way, exactly what happened to thousands of American downtowns. They prioritised the functionality of driving and parking. By destroying millions of lovely old buildings to make way for car lots and wide roads
Now no one wants to drive to the downtowns because they are hideous dystopias full of homeless people and empty car lots. = zero traffic. Problem solved
That's funny because towns like Warrington and cities like Preston that are facilitating both driving and active travel, along with getting new builds, are rapidly growing in population not shrinking.
Oh and home ownership rates are far higher than in miserably depressing London where most people have to work to pay rent with no hope of a home of their own.
And the roads are free flowing. As are the cycle paths. With plenty of trees also along the routes too, even if not shown at the junctions.
You have a very different idea of depressing to me. I find 21 people being forced into one two bedroom flat as they have nowhere else to live far more depressing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66941965
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
That looks grim.
Why don't we get the Dutch to design stuff? Maybe some trees?
There's trees all along the routes, as you can kind of see in the corners of the screen (ironically the least in the park on the bottom-left).
Extend along the roads and you'll see plenty of trees. Not sure why not much in the junction, I'm guessing because its been designed for functionality and visibility.
It works well either way. Most traffic uses the newly built flyover now away from that, so you've got 4 major roads there and yet traffic moves freely and all forms of active travel are well utilised.
Aesthetically it looks weird, caught me by surprised when I first drove through that, but functionally? 10/10 in my book.
Why do the cyclists have to a random detour around some parked cars?
There are so many examples of this f-ugly infrastructure, cleary designed by a permanently divorced road engineer bitter about the request for cycle lanes.
There needs to be a UK-wide design standard and there shouldn't be a single Brit on the team that puts it together or enforces it. I want aggro Dutch cycling architects with small spectacles and no patience for motorist nonsense.
Actually this is a Dutch concept that's come over here.
Oops.
Once again, your disinterest in and lack of understanding of the Netherlands shines through. Indeed the name of the junction, CYCLOPS stands for Cycling Optimised Protected Signals and it is a British variant of what the Dutch have done for years and is entirely to encourage cycling and active travel.
And it works.
It looks like a Dutch roundabout after 30 years of hard drugs.
In fact, it was probably designed by some embittered motorist to PROVE that cycling infrastructure can be just as ugly as car infrastructure.
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
That looks grim.
Why don't we get the Dutch to design stuff? Maybe some trees?
There's trees all along the routes, as you can kind of see in the corners of the screen (ironically the least in the park on the bottom-left).
Extend along the roads and you'll see plenty of trees. Not sure why not much in the junction, I'm guessing because its been designed for functionality and visibility.
It works well either way. Most traffic uses the newly built flyover now away from that, so you've got 4 major roads there and yet traffic moves freely and all forms of active travel are well utilised.
Aesthetically it looks weird, caught me by surprised when I first drove through that, but functionally? 10/10 in my book.
Why do the cyclists have to a random detour around some parked cars?
There are so many examples of this f-ugly infrastructure, cleary designed by a permanently divorced road engineer bitter about the request for cycle lanes.
There needs to be a UK-wide design standard and there shouldn't be a single Brit on the team that puts it together or enforces it. I want aggro Dutch cycling architects with small spectacles and no patience for motorist nonsense.
Actually this is a Dutch concept that's come over here.
Oops.
Once again, your disinterest in and lack of understanding of the Netherlands shines through. Indeed the name of the junction, CYCLOPS stands for Cycling Optimised Protected Signals and it is a British variant of what the Dutch have done for years and is entirely to encourage cycling and active travel.
And it works.
It looks like a Dutch roundabout after 30 years of hard drugs.
That's probably because of British civil servants getting involved and trying to 'improve' the concept.
But the Dutch system works. Roads getting built, active travel being supported, and the roads flow freely and people can freely engage in active travel.
Maybe the aesthetics can evolve to be better, but its the right path to go down, following the Dutch precedence.
It’s an over-engineered version of a standard Dutch roundabout. They do work really well. But this one (and the same design in Manchester) do look a bit like someone gave a Dutch blueprint to a bunch of HS2 engineers and said “here, build one of these”.
LOL! 😂
It probably can be done better, considering its an early adoption in the UK of what the Dutch have been doing for years no doubt it will evolve over time and future ones might be better.
But functionally? Its a good idea and works well.
The Dutch have nailed this for years. Build more roads, design well for active travel, everyone wins.
Its great to see parts of the UK adopting the Dutch approach. Hopefully more do over time. Evolving the aesthetics to look better is a secondary priority over functionality.
Yes, let’s all prioritise “functionality”. Eventually that way the whole of Britain can become a motorway and no one need ever get stuck in traffic because NO ONE WILL EVER WANT TO LIVE IN UGLY DEPRESSING BRITAIN
This is, by the way, exactly what happened to thousands of American downtowns. They prioritised the functionality of driving and parking. By destroying millions of lovely old buildings to make way for car lots and wide roads
Now no one wants to drive to the downtowns because they are hideous dystopias full of homeless people and empty car lots. = zero traffic. Problem solved
That's funny because towns like Warrington and cities like Preston that are facilitating both driving and active travel, along with getting new builds, are rapidly growing in population not shrinking.
Oh and home ownership rates are far higher than in miserably depressing London where most people have to work to pay rent with no hope of a home of their own.
And the roads are free flowing. As are the cycle paths. With plenty of trees also along the routes too, even if not shown at the junctions.
You have a very different idea of depressing to me. I find 21 people being forced into one two bedroom flat as they have nowhere else to live far more depressing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66941965
I'm sorry but no one wants to live in Warrington. That's why it's affordable, and why BTL landlords haven't come sniffing.
A premature victory celebration cost South Korea a gold medal at the Asian Games and means that members of the team must now complete at least 18 months of national service.
It is obligatory in South Korea for men aged between 18 and 28 to take part in full national service but there are sporting exemptions for victory in either the Olympics or Asian Games.
This dispensation had looked certain to be enacted when Jung Cheol-won led into the final straight of the 3,000m roller-skating relay before he made the fatal mistake of easing up shortly before the finish to raise his hands in celebration. Jung was evidently unaware that Taiwan’s Huang Yu-Lin was closing fast and, as they crossed the line together, it was initially unclear who had won. The computerised timing system eventually confirmed that Taiwan had clinched gold by just 0.01 seconds.
It’s an over-engineered version of a standard Dutch roundabout. They do work really well. But this one (and the same design in Manchester) do look a bit like someone gave a Dutch blueprint to a bunch of HS2 engineers and said “here, build one of these”.
LOL! 😂
It probably can be done better, considering its an early adoption in the UK of what the Dutch have been doing for years no doubt it will evolve over time and future ones might be better.
But functionally? Its a good idea and works well.
The Dutch have nailed this for years. Build more roads, design well for active travel, everyone wins.
Its great to see parts of the UK adopting the Dutch approach. Hopefully more do over time. Evolving the aesthetics to look better is a secondary priority over functionality.
Yes, let’s all prioritise “functionality”. Eventually that way the whole of Britain can become a motorway and no one need ever get stuck in traffic because NO ONE WILL EVER WANT TO LIVE IN UGLY DEPRESSING BRITAIN
This is, by the way, exactly what happened to thousands of American downtowns. They prioritised the functionality of driving and parking. By destroying millions of lovely old buildings to make way for car lots and wide roads
Now no one wants to drive to the downtowns because they are hideous dystopias full of homeless people and empty car lots. = zero traffic. Problem solved
That's funny because towns like Warrington and cities like Preston that are facilitating both driving and active travel, along with getting new builds, are rapidly growing in population not shrinking.
Oh and home ownership rates are far higher than in miserably depressing London where most people have to work to pay rent with no hope of a home of their own.
And the roads are free flowing. As are the cycle paths. With plenty of trees also along the routes too, even if not shown at the junctions.
You have a very different idea of depressing to me. I find 21 people being forced into one two bedroom flat as they have nowhere else to live far more depressing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66941965
I'm sorry but no one wants to live in Warrington. That's why it's affordable, and why BTL landlords haven't come sniffing.
Most of the UK lives in towns like Warrington. Only there's hundreds of Warringtons dotted around the country each with a different name.
Its only a tiny minority that lives in cities (and even in cities most still drive).
Its an even smaller minority that lives in London, the only city where most have been forced off the road due to chronic overcrowding.
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
That looks grim.
Why don't we get the Dutch to design stuff? Maybe some trees?
There's trees all along the routes, as you can kind of see in the corners of the screen (ironically the least in the park on the bottom-left).
Extend along the roads and you'll see plenty of trees. Not sure why not much in the junction, I'm guessing because its been designed for functionality and visibility.
It works well either way. Most traffic uses the newly built flyover now away from that, so you've got 4 major roads there and yet traffic moves freely and all forms of active travel are well utilised.
Aesthetically it looks weird, caught me by surprised when I first drove through that, but functionally? 10/10 in my book.
Why do the cyclists have to a random detour around some parked cars?
There are so many examples of this f-ugly infrastructure, cleary designed by a permanently divorced road engineer bitter about the request for cycle lanes.
There needs to be a UK-wide design standard and there shouldn't be a single Brit on the team that puts it together or enforces it. I want aggro Dutch cycling architects with small spectacles and no patience for motorist nonsense.
Actually this is a Dutch concept that's come over here.
Oops.
Once again, your disinterest in and lack of understanding of the Netherlands shines through. Indeed the name of the junction, CYCLOPS stands for Cycling Optimised Protected Signals and it is a British variant of what the Dutch have done for years and is entirely to encourage cycling and active travel.
And it works.
It actually looks alright to me. It's the sort of junction you might well find in Germany or the Netherlands from my experience cycling in those countries. I'm struggling to find it on Google Maps though.
It’s an over-engineered version of a standard Dutch roundabout. They do work really well. But this one (and the same design in Manchester) do look a bit like someone gave a Dutch blueprint to a bunch of HS2 engineers and said “here, build one of these”.
LOL! 😂
It probably can be done better, considering its an early adoption in the UK of what the Dutch have been doing for years no doubt it will evolve over time and future ones might be better.
But functionally? Its a good idea and works well.
The Dutch have nailed this for years. Build more roads, design well for active travel, everyone wins.
Its great to see parts of the UK adopting the Dutch approach. Hopefully more do over time. Evolving the aesthetics to look better is a secondary priority over functionality.
Yes, let’s all prioritise “functionality”. Eventually that way the whole of Britain can become a motorway and no one need ever get stuck in traffic because NO ONE WILL EVER WANT TO LIVE IN UGLY DEPRESSING BRITAIN
This is, by the way, exactly what happened to thousands of American downtowns. They prioritised the functionality of driving and parking. By destroying millions of lovely old buildings to make way for car lots and wide roads
Now no one wants to drive to the downtowns because they are hideous dystopias full of homeless people and empty car lots. = zero traffic. Problem solved
That's funny because towns like Warrington and cities like Preston that are facilitating both driving and active travel, along with getting new builds, are rapidly growing in population not shrinking.
Oh and home ownership rates are far higher than in miserably depressing London where most people have to work to pay rent with no hope of a home of their own.
And the roads are free flowing. As are the cycle paths. With plenty of trees also along the routes too, even if not shown at the junctions.
You have a very different idea of depressing to me. I find 21 people being forced into one two bedroom flat as they have nowhere else to live far more depressing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66941965
As he prepares for this weekend's RefUK conference, Richard Tice calls Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt "consocialists" who he says are no different to the "socialist Labour Party".
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
That looks grim.
Why don't we get the Dutch to design stuff? Maybe some trees?
There's trees all along the routes, as you can kind of see in the corners of the screen (ironically the least in the park on the bottom-left).
Extend along the roads and you'll see plenty of trees. Not sure why not much in the junction, I'm guessing because its been designed for functionality and visibility.
It works well either way. Most traffic uses the newly built flyover now away from that, so you've got 4 major roads there and yet traffic moves freely and all forms of active travel are well utilised.
Aesthetically it looks weird, caught me by surprised when I first drove through that, but functionally? 10/10 in my book.
Why do the cyclists have to a random detour around some parked cars?
There are so many examples of this f-ugly infrastructure, cleary designed by a permanently divorced road engineer bitter about the request for cycle lanes.
There needs to be a UK-wide design standard and there shouldn't be a single Brit on the team that puts it together or enforces it. I want aggro Dutch cycling architects with small spectacles and no patience for motorist nonsense.
Actually this is a Dutch concept that's come over here.
Oops.
Once again, your disinterest in and lack of understanding of the Netherlands shines through. Indeed the name of the junction, CYCLOPS stands for Cycling Optimised Protected Signals and it is a British variant of what the Dutch have done for years and is entirely to encourage cycling and active travel.
And it works.
It actually looks alright to me. It's the sort of junction you might well find in Germany or the Netherlands from my experience cycling in those countries. I'm struggling to find it on Google Maps though.
Thank you.
Glad someone here can be reasonable. Yes, it is absolutely a Dutch concept.
You won't find it on Google Maps, its too new. The map shows roadworks currently from when it was being redeveloped.
Its the intersection of some of the busiest roads in the city - and yet cars, bikes and pedestrians can all flow smoothly. Evolve the aesthetics, but the Dutch concept absolutely works.
As he prepares for this weekend's RefUK conference, Richard Tice calls Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt "consocialists" who he says are no different to the "socialist Labour Party".
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
To which the next question and every subsequent question is exactly what Government spending do you want to cut?
Because as I've pointed out before yes Government spending seems high but actually try and find something you can cut that people won't complain about...
UCLAN students can be trusted, as opposed to those of Cambridge. (Although I got a further degree from Anglia Ruskin, and had occasionally to go to it's Cambridge campus.)
I'm a very infrequent poster now but still lurking.
Can I wish Mike Smithson well - I know he won't take a step back lightly but this site has been a real labour of love and invaluable for me. Take care Mike. Hope to see you again soon.
I will say that the HS2 episode does show that Sunak isn’t good at media management.
“I’m not ready to make an announcement and I will tell you when I am” is all that needs to be said. In a slightly stronger tone if he is pushed again.
He is an adequate touchy-feely politician but under pressure he does not have the steel underneath. He just repeats the smiley, cheery, pound shop Blair woo.
In my travels I often hear people talk wistfully of moving to Preston
“Preston. If only. It’s just so…. Functional”
“Yes. Have you heard they’ve got another flyover?”
“Wow. It was already pretty damn perfect”
I don't know Preston but I do know sneering elitism when I see it.
What are you talking about?? Even on this Maldivian island people are talking excitedly about the functionality of Preston
Cheers
Also, to be more serious. Yes I’m mocking the ludicrous @BartholomewRoberts but you make a serious point - by mistake. Why is it elitist to ask for urban beauty? Why can’t the good people of Warrington and Preston have nice towns that emphasise people over cars and flyovers? Like the Dutch and the French?
Why do poor or average Britons get stuck with urban ugliness? THAT is the elitism
UCLAN students can be trusted, as opposed to those of Cambridge. (Although I got a further degree from Anglia Ruskin, and had occasionally to go to it's Cambridge campus.)
You can't just go about trashing the reputation of Cambridge you know. That's been reserved for Oxford graduates since time immemorial. Happily they are such an incompetent bunch that the old place seems near perfect.
ChatGPT, Give me an angry diatribe about why Rishi Sunak should not cut HS2 to Manchester.
ChatGPT: Give me an angry diatribe about why Rishi Sunak shouldn't cut HS2 to Manchester.
ChatGPT I am absolutely infuriated by the mere suggestion that Rishi Sunak might even consider cutting HS2 to Manchester! It's an outrage, a reckless and short-sighted decision that would cripple the potential for growth and development in not just Manchester but the entire North of England. We're talking about a project that promises to transform our region, providing much-needed connectivity and opportunities for countless people.
Cutting HS2 to Manchester would be nothing short of economic vandalism. We've already seen the incredible benefits that high-speed rail can bring to regions around the world. It's a proven way to boost business, create jobs, and improve the lives of ordinary citizens. By slashing this project, Sunak would be telling the people of Manchester and the North that their futures are not worth investing in, that their aspirations and dreams are worth sacrificing for short-term cost savings.
Moreover, it's not just about Manchester; it's about rebalancing the entire UK economy. We've seen the South of England thrive for far too long while the North has been left behind. HS2 to Manchester is a lifeline for those of us who call this region home. It's a once-in-a-generation opportunity to level the playing field and bring prosperity, investment, and growth to our communities. To even think about cutting it is a betrayal of the North and a slap in the face to everyone who has been waiting for this transformative project to become a reality. Rishi Sunak needs to wake up and realize that cutting HS2 to Manchester would be a colossal mistake that we, the people, will not stand for!
In my travels I often hear people talk wistfully of moving to Preston
“Preston. If only. It’s just so…. Functional”
“Yes. Have you heard they’ve got another flyover?”
“Wow. It was already pretty damn perfect”
I don't know Preston but I do know sneering elitism when I see it.
What are you talking about?? Even on this Maldivian island people are talking excitedly about the functionality of Preston
Cheers
Also, to be more serious. Yes I’m mocking the ludicrous @BartholomewRoberts but you make a serious point - by mistake. Why is it elitist to ask for urban beauty? Why can’t the good people of Warrington and Preston have nice towns that emphasise people over cars and flyovers? Like the Dutch and the French?
Why do poor or average Britons get stuck with urban ugliness? THAT is the elitism
In my travels I often hear people talk wistfully of moving to Preston
“Preston. If only. It’s just so…. Functional”
“Yes. Have you heard they’ve got another flyover?”
“Wow. It was already pretty damn perfect”
I don't know Preston but I do know sneering elitism when I see it.
What are you talking about?? Even on this Maldivian island people are talking excitedly about the functionality of Preston
Cheers
Also, to be more serious. Yes I’m mocking the ludicrous @BartholomewRoberts but you make a serious point - by mistake. Why is it elitist to ask for urban beauty? Why can’t the good people of Warrington and Preston have nice towns that emphasise people over cars and flyovers? Like the Dutch and the French?
Why do poor or average Britons get stuck with urban ugliness? THAT is the elitism
Fishergate (Preston City Centre's main drag) is pretty much a poster child for how to make a car-dominated, congested, unappealing, economically failing street into a pleasant pedestrian-dominated street where businesses want to locate. It really is a triumph of playing a not-particularly-strong hand (i.e. its architecture) very well (you don't actually notice the comparative ordinariness of the buildings; you notice the pleasantness of the spaces in between). Importantly, it's not simply pedestrianised - which can have a tendency to create urban areas which are unappealing after dark and potentially lacking in busy-ness - buses can still use it, and cars can still cross in some locations. If you are getting there by public transport, you get right to the door.
In my travels I often hear people talk wistfully of moving to Preston
“Preston. If only. It’s just so…. Functional”
“Yes. Have you heard they’ve got another flyover?”
“Wow. It was already pretty damn perfect”
I don't know Preston but I do know sneering elitism when I see it.
What are you talking about?? Even on this Maldivian island people are talking excitedly about the functionality of Preston
Cheers
Also, to be more serious. Yes I’m mocking the ludicrous @BartholomewRoberts but you make a serious point - by mistake. Why is it elitist to ask for urban beauty? Why can’t the good people of Warrington and Preston have nice towns that emphasise people over cars and flyovers? Like the Dutch and the French?
Why do poor or average Britons get stuck with urban ugliness? THAT is the elitism
E-Types are very strange cars and their aesthetic appeal has been somewhat neutered by their cultural ubiquity. It's like they were designed from back to front, running out of money as they got to the front of the car. The rear was half a monocoque and the front is a spaceframe that's brazed together like a bicycle. All available engine options were asthmatic behemoths. Jaguar should have licenced the Chevy small block V8 for it. That would have made more power, more reliably and somewhat fixed the disastrous weight distribution.
Prefer the Toyota 2000GT myself, though I agree the classic jag is lovely.
As he prepares for this weekend's RefUK conference, Richard Tice calls Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt "consocialists" who he says are no different to the "socialist Labour Party".
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
I don't necessarily think that was her mistake. I think her mistakes were, in no particular order:
1. Timing the mini-budget to coincide with the start of the BOE's quantitive tightening/bond-selling programme. The minibudget should have been delayed for the effects of that programme on the value of bonds to play out.
2. The energy support guarantee was too generous (perhaps unavoidable politically), and should have been packaged with longer term supply side reforms in an 'emergency energy bill', with no unrelated economic measures included. Those reforms to have included lifting the fracking ban, new oil and gas licenses, lifting the onshore wind ban, and special powers for Government to accelerate power stations in development through the planning process, along with a consultation on other renewables like tidal, and looking at green levies. This would have stood a far higher chance of success as a set of emergency measures in response to the energy crisis.
3. If bond yields rise quickly in response to the Bank's sell off, insist that the Bank curtails its quantitive tightening and doesn’t sell bonds till they mature - the Bank held to account for its own actions.
4. Then bring the mini-budget, with an OBR forecast, but request methodology changes if there's good reason to suppose that the affect of tax cuts on increasing taxable behaviour are not being taken into account.
As he prepares for this weekend's RefUK conference, Richard Tice calls Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt "consocialists" who he says are no different to the "socialist Labour Party".
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
I don't necessarily think that was her mistake. I think her mistakes were, in no particular order:
1. Timing the mini-budget to coincide with the start of the BOE's quantitive tightening/bond-selling programme. The minibudget should have been delayed for the effects of that programme on the value of bonds to play out.
2. The energy support guarantee was too generous (perhaps unavoidable politically), and should have been packaged with longer term supply side reforms in an 'emergency energy bill', with no unrelated economic measures included. Those reforms to have included lifting the fracking ban, new oil and gas licenses, lifting the onshore wind ban, and special powers for Government to accelerate power stations in development through the planning process, along with a consultation on other renewables like tidal, and looking at green levies. This would have stood a far higher chance of success as a set of emergency measures in response to the energy crisis.
3. If bond yields rise quickly in response to the Bank's sell off, insist that the Bank curtails its quantitive tightening and doesn’t sell bonds till they mature - the Bank held to account for its own actions.
4. Then bring the mini-budget, with an OBR forecast, but request methodology changes if there's good reason to suppose that the affect of tax cuts on increasing taxable behaviour are not being taken into account.
Of course, all very easy to say in hindsight.
The error was launching a spending only budget with no hint as to where the money was coming from. No detail matters beyond that.
As he prepares for this weekend's RefUK conference, Richard Tice calls Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt "consocialists" who he says are no different to the "socialist Labour Party".
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
I don't necessarily think that was her mistake. I think her mistakes were, in no particular order:
1. Timing the mini-budget to coincide with the start of the BOE's quantitive tightening/bond-selling programme. The minibudget should have been delayed for the effects of that programme on the value of bonds to play out.
2. The energy support guarantee was too generous (perhaps unavoidable politically), and should have been packaged with longer term supply side reforms in an 'emergency energy bill', with no unrelated economic measures included. Those reforms to have included lifting the fracking ban, new oil and gas licenses, lifting the onshore wind ban, and special powers for Government to accelerate power stations in development through the planning process, along with a consultation on other renewables like tidal, and looking at green levies. This would have stood a far higher chance of success as a set of emergency measures in response to the energy crisis.
3. If bond yields rise quickly in response to the Bank's sell off, insist that the Bank curtails its quantitive tightening and doesn’t sell bonds till they mature - the Bank held to account for its own actions.
4. Then bring the mini-budget, with an OBR forecast, but request methodology changes if there's good reason to suppose that the affect of tax cuts on increasing taxable behaviour are not being taken into account.
Of course, all very easy to say in hindsight.
The error was launching a spending only budget with no hint as to where the money was coming from. No detail matters beyond that.
In my travels I often hear people talk wistfully of moving to Preston
“Preston. If only. It’s just so…. Functional”
“Yes. Have you heard they’ve got another flyover?”
“Wow. It was already pretty damn perfect”
I don't know Preston but I do know sneering elitism when I see it.
What are you talking about?? Even on this Maldivian island people are talking excitedly about the functionality of Preston
Cheers
Also, to be more serious. Yes I’m mocking the ludicrous @BartholomewRoberts but you make a serious point - by mistake. Why is it elitist to ask for urban beauty? Why can’t the good people of Warrington and Preston have nice towns that emphasise people over cars and flyovers? Like Coventrythe Dutch and the French?
Why do poor or average Britons get stuck with urban ugliness? THAT is the elitism
UCLAN students can be trusted, as opposed to those of Cambridge. (Although I got a further degree from Anglia Ruskin, and had occasionally to go to it's Cambridge campus.)
You can't just go about trashing the reputation of Cambridge you know. That's been reserved for Oxford graduates since time immemorial. Happily they are such an incompetent bunch that the old place seems near perfect.
Eldest Granddaughter, a "girl from Essex", as opposed to being an Essex girl, liked her time at UCLAN so much that she decided to stay in the North.When she got a further degree it was from Sheffield.
As he prepares for this weekend's RefUK conference, Richard Tice calls Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt "consocialists" who he says are no different to the "socialist Labour Party".
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
I don't necessarily think that was her mistake. I think her mistakes were, in no particular order:
1. Timing the mini-budget to coincide with the start of the BOE's quantitive tightening/bond-selling programme. The minibudget should have been delayed for the effects of that programme on the value of bonds to play out.
2. The energy support guarantee was too generous (perhaps unavoidable politically), and should have been packaged with longer term supply side reforms in an 'emergency energy bill', with no unrelated economic measures included. Those reforms to have included lifting the fracking ban, new oil and gas licenses, lifting the onshore wind ban, and special powers for Government to accelerate power stations in development through the planning process, along with a consultation on other renewables like tidal, and looking at green levies. This would have stood a far higher chance of success as a set of emergency measures in response to the energy crisis.
3. If bond yields rise quickly in response to the Bank's sell off, insist that the Bank curtails its quantitive tightening and doesn’t sell bonds till they mature - the Bank held to account for its own actions.
4. Then bring the mini-budget, with an OBR forecast, but request methodology changes if there's good reason to suppose that the affect of tax cuts on increasing taxable behaviour are not being taken into account.
Of course, all very easy to say in hindsight.
The error was launching a spending only budget with no hint as to where the money was coming from. No detail matters beyond that.
That's what all Governments do.
It's definitely what governments that last beyond 5 minutes don't do. What they all do is wave their hands in an allegedly revenue-generating way. Truss couldn't be bothered to even do that.
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
That looks grim.
Why don't we get the Dutch to design stuff? Maybe some trees?
There's trees all along the routes, as you can kind of see in the corners of the screen (ironically the least in the park on the bottom-left).
Extend along the roads and you'll see plenty of trees. Not sure why not much in the junction, I'm guessing because its been designed for functionality and visibility.
It works well either way. Most traffic uses the newly built flyover now away from that, so you've got 4 major roads there and yet traffic moves freely and all forms of active travel are well utilised.
Aesthetically it looks weird, caught me by surprised when I first drove through that, but functionally? 10/10 in my book.
Why do the cyclists have to a random detour around some parked cars?
There are so many examples of this f-ugly infrastructure, cleary designed by a permanently divorced road engineer bitter about the request for cycle lanes.
There needs to be a UK-wide design standard and there shouldn't be a single Brit on the team that puts it together or enforces it. I want aggro Dutch cycling architects with small spectacles and no patience for motorist nonsense.
Actually this is a Dutch concept that's come over here.
Oops.
Once again, your disinterest in and lack of understanding of the Netherlands shines through. Indeed the name of the junction, CYCLOPS stands for Cycling Optimised Protected Signals and it is a British variant of what the Dutch have done for years and is entirely to encourage cycling and active travel.
And it works.
It actually looks alright to me. It's the sort of junction you might well find in Germany or the Netherlands from my experience cycling in those countries. I'm struggling to find it on Google Maps though.
Thank you.
Glad someone here can be reasonable. Yes, it is absolutely a Dutch concept.
You won't find it on Google Maps, its too new. The map shows roadworks currently from when it was being redeveloped.
Its the intersection of some of the busiest roads in the city - and yet cars, bikes and pedestrians can all flow smoothly. Evolve the aesthetics, but the Dutch concept absolutely works.
Also, let's not optimise for the aesthetics of the bird's eye view, since nobody except people looking at Google maps will see that... I suspect it looks a bit less sprawling and visually obtrusive from an eye level perspective.
As he prepares for this weekend's RefUK conference, Richard Tice calls Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt "consocialists" who he says are no different to the "socialist Labour Party".
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
I don't necessarily think that was her mistake. I think her mistakes were, in no particular order:
1. Timing the mini-budget to coincide with the start of the BOE's quantitive tightening/bond-selling programme. The minibudget should have been delayed for the effects of that programme on the value of bonds to play out.
2. The energy support guarantee was too generous (perhaps unavoidable politically), and should have been packaged with longer term supply side reforms in an 'emergency energy bill', with no unrelated economic measures included. Those reforms to have included lifting the fracking ban, new oil and gas licenses, lifting the onshore wind ban, and special powers for Government to accelerate power stations in development through the planning process, along with a consultation on other renewables like tidal, and looking at green levies. This would have stood a far higher chance of success as a set of emergency measures in response to the energy crisis.
3. If bond yields rise quickly in response to the Bank's sell off, insist that the Bank curtails its quantitive tightening and doesn’t sell bonds till they mature - the Bank held to account for its own actions.
4. Then bring the mini-budget, with an OBR forecast, but request methodology changes if there's good reason to suppose that the affect of tax cuts on increasing taxable behaviour are not being taken into account.
Of course, all very easy to say in hindsight.
The error was launching a spending only budget with no hint as to where the money was coming from. No detail matters beyond that.
As he prepares for this weekend's RefUK conference, Richard Tice calls Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt "consocialists" who he says are no different to the "socialist Labour Party".
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
I don't necessarily think that was her mistake. I think her mistakes were, in no particular order:
1. Timing the mini-budget to coincide with the start of the BOE's quantitive tightening/bond-selling programme. The minibudget should have been delayed for the effects of that programme on the value of bonds to play out.
2. The energy support guarantee was too generous (perhaps unavoidable politically), and should have been packaged with longer term supply side reforms in an 'emergency energy bill', with no unrelated economic measures included. Those reforms to have included lifting the fracking ban, new oil and gas licenses, lifting the onshore wind ban, and special powers for Government to accelerate power stations in development through the planning process, along with a consultation on other renewables like tidal, and looking at green levies. This would have stood a far higher chance of success as a set of emergency measures in response to the energy crisis.
3. If bond yields rise quickly in response to the Bank's sell off, insist that the Bank curtails its quantitive tightening and doesn’t sell bonds till they mature - the Bank held to account for its own actions.
4. Then bring the mini-budget, with an OBR forecast, but request methodology changes if there's good reason to suppose that the affect of tax cuts on increasing taxable behaviour are not being taken into account.
Of course, all very easy to say in hindsight.
The error was launching a spending only budget with no hint as to where the money was coming from. No detail matters beyond that.
As he prepares for this weekend's RefUK conference, Richard Tice calls Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt "consocialists" who he says are no different to the "socialist Labour Party".
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
To which the next question and every subsequent question is exactly what Government spending do you want to cut?
Because as I've pointed out before yes Government spending seems high but actually try and find something you can cut that people won't complain about...
But of course if you are the leader of Refuk who has not a snowball's chance of getting into government and actually having to make decisions, you are quite free to witter on about "so much waste". That's the prerogative of fringe candidates.
As he prepares for this weekend's RefUK conference, Richard Tice calls Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt "consocialists" who he says are no different to the "socialist Labour Party".
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
I don't necessarily think that was her mistake. I think her mistakes were, in no particular order:
1. Timing the mini-budget to coincide with the start of the BOE's quantitive tightening/bond-selling programme. The minibudget should have been delayed for the effects of that programme on the value of bonds to play out.
2. The energy support guarantee was too generous (perhaps unavoidable politically), and should have been packaged with longer term supply side reforms in an 'emergency energy bill', with no unrelated economic measures included. Those reforms to have included lifting the fracking ban, new oil and gas licenses, lifting the onshore wind ban, and special powers for Government to accelerate power stations in development through the planning process, along with a consultation on other renewables like tidal, and looking at green levies. This would have stood a far higher chance of success as a set of emergency measures in response to the energy crisis.
3. If bond yields rise quickly in response to the Bank's sell off, insist that the Bank curtails its quantitive tightening and doesn’t sell bonds till they mature - the Bank held to account for its own actions.
4. Then bring the mini-budget, with an OBR forecast, but request methodology changes if there's good reason to suppose that the affect of tax cuts on increasing taxable behaviour are not being taken into account.
Of course, all very easy to say in hindsight.
The error was launching a spending only budget with no hint as to where the money was coming from. No detail matters beyond that.
As he prepares for this weekend's RefUK conference, Richard Tice calls Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt "consocialists" who he says are no different to the "socialist Labour Party".
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
I don't necessarily think that was her mistake. I think her mistakes were, in no particular order:
1. Timing the mini-budget to coincide with the start of the BOE's quantitive tightening/bond-selling programme. The minibudget should have been delayed for the effects of that programme on the value of bonds to play out.
2. The energy support guarantee was too generous (perhaps unavoidable politically), and should have been packaged with longer term supply side reforms in an 'emergency energy bill', with no unrelated economic measures included. Those reforms to have included lifting the fracking ban, new oil and gas licenses, lifting the onshore wind ban, and special powers for Government to accelerate power stations in development through the planning process, along with a consultation on other renewables like tidal, and looking at green levies. This would have stood a far higher chance of success as a set of emergency measures in response to the energy crisis.
3. If bond yields rise quickly in response to the Bank's sell off, insist that the Bank curtails its quantitive tightening and doesn’t sell bonds till they mature - the Bank held to account for its own actions.
4. Then bring the mini-budget, with an OBR forecast, but request methodology changes if there's good reason to suppose that the affect of tax cuts on increasing taxable behaviour are not being taken into account.
Of course, all very easy to say in hindsight.
The error was launching a spending only budget with no hint as to where the money was coming from. No detail matters beyond that.
I will say that the HS2 episode does show that Sunak isn’t good at media management.
“I’m not ready to make an announcement and I will tell you when I am” is all that needs to be said. In a slightly stronger tone if he is pushed again.
He is an adequate touchy-feely politician but under pressure he does not have the steel underneath. He just repeats the smiley, cheery, pound shop Blair woo.
You do wonder why he keeps doing these interviews, given that he knows they're going to ask him about HS2 and he's not prepared to answer. Does he go off-stage after repeatedly not answering the question, and beam at his aides, "Well, that went well. Should be worth another 5% in the polls, don't you think?"
As he prepares for this weekend's RefUK conference, Richard Tice calls Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt "consocialists" who he says are no different to the "socialist Labour Party".
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
I don't necessarily think that was her mistake. I think her mistakes were, in no particular order:
1. Timing the mini-budget to coincide with the start of the BOE's quantitive tightening/bond-selling programme. The minibudget should have been delayed for the effects of that programme on the value of bonds to play out.
2. The energy support guarantee was too generous (perhaps unavoidable politically), and should have been packaged with longer term supply side reforms in an 'emergency energy bill', with no unrelated economic measures included. Those reforms to have included lifting the fracking ban, new oil and gas licenses, lifting the onshore wind ban, and special powers for Government to accelerate power stations in development through the planning process, along with a consultation on other renewables like tidal, and looking at green levies. This would have stood a far higher chance of success as a set of emergency measures in response to the energy crisis.
3. If bond yields rise quickly in response to the Bank's sell off, insist that the Bank curtails its quantitive tightening and doesn’t sell bonds till they mature - the Bank held to account for its own actions.
4. Then bring the mini-budget, with an OBR forecast, but request methodology changes if there's good reason to suppose that the affect of tax cuts on increasing taxable behaviour are not being taken into account.
Of course, all very easy to say in hindsight.
The error was launching a spending only budget with no hint as to where the money was coming from. No detail matters beyond that.
As he prepares for this weekend's RefUK conference, Richard Tice calls Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt "consocialists" who he says are no different to the "socialist Labour Party".
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
I don't necessarily think that was her mistake. I think her mistakes were, in no particular order:
1. Timing the mini-budget to coincide with the start of the BOE's quantitive tightening/bond-selling programme. The minibudget should have been delayed for the effects of that programme on the value of bonds to play out.
2. The energy support guarantee was too generous (perhaps unavoidable politically), and should have been packaged with longer term supply side reforms in an 'emergency energy bill', with no unrelated economic measures included. Those reforms to have included lifting the fracking ban, new oil and gas licenses, lifting the onshore wind ban, and special powers for Government to accelerate power stations in development through the planning process, along with a consultation on other renewables like tidal, and looking at green levies. This would have stood a far higher chance of success as a set of emergency measures in response to the energy crisis.
3. If bond yields rise quickly in response to the Bank's sell off, insist that the Bank curtails its quantitive tightening and doesn’t sell bonds till they mature - the Bank held to account for its own actions.
4. Then bring the mini-budget, with an OBR forecast, but request methodology changes if there's good reason to suppose that the affect of tax cuts on increasing taxable behaviour are not being taken into account.
Of course, all very easy to say in hindsight.
The error was launching a spending only budget with no hint as to where the money was coming from. No detail matters beyond that.
I am with @Luckyguy1983 on this one. The furlough scheme and associated spend was far more of an issue if the questions were solely about where the money to repay things were coming from. Truss got unlucky on the timing (though she is also slightly out there).
If only we had an anglosphere example of what life would be like if we built our cities for the car.
Oh, we do...
How about British cities that facilitate equally walking, cycling and driving all in harmony?
That's a new junction in Preston near the city centre with free flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians after the A59 flyover was recently built to relieve the car traffic. The green FYI is cycling paths that are physically segregated from cars (as you can see by the yellow lines if its not clear) and pedestrians too.
Of course our very own @Eabhal highlighted Preston as a city with high active travel, but quickly went quiet as a mouse when he realised why that is.
That looks awful – is that the sort of vision you have for Britain? Utterly soulless.
Train tracks are utterly soulless too.
Souls come from the people, not the ground.
Seeing it in action, free-flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians getting about their lives without being stuck in traffic or forced off the road by either congestion or fear is far better than any alternative.
Train tracks are the least soulless form of infrastructure. Usually bordered by greenery and wildlife, affording beautiful views and interesting insights into people's back gardens and fascinating Victorian trackside infrastructure. Plus of course trains, the most romantic thing every created by human hand.
As he prepares for this weekend's RefUK conference, Richard Tice calls Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt "consocialists" who he says are no different to the "socialist Labour Party".
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
I don't necessarily think that was her mistake. I think her mistakes were, in no particular order:
1. Timing the mini-budget to coincide with the start of the BOE's quantitive tightening/bond-selling programme. The minibudget should have been delayed for the effects of that programme on the value of bonds to play out.
2. The energy support guarantee was too generous (perhaps unavoidable politically), and should have been packaged with longer term supply side reforms in an 'emergency energy bill', with no unrelated economic measures included. Those reforms to have included lifting the fracking ban, new oil and gas licenses, lifting the onshore wind ban, and special powers for Government to accelerate power stations in development through the planning process, along with a consultation on other renewables like tidal, and looking at green levies. This would have stood a far higher chance of success as a set of emergency measures in response to the energy crisis.
3. If bond yields rise quickly in response to the Bank's sell off, insist that the Bank curtails its quantitive tightening and doesn’t sell bonds till they mature - the Bank held to account for its own actions.
4. Then bring the mini-budget, with an OBR forecast, but request methodology changes if there's good reason to suppose that the affect of tax cuts on increasing taxable behaviour are not being taken into account.
Of course, all very easy to say in hindsight.
The error was launching a spending only budget with no hint as to where the money was coming from. No detail matters beyond that.
I am with @Luckyguy1983 on this one. The furlough scheme and associated spend was far more of an issue if the questions were solely about where the money to repay things were coming from. Truss got unlucky on the timing (though she is also slightly out there).
My feeling at the time was that she also got some of the practical politics side of things very badly wrong (bringing people with you on ideas, party management, etc) and that it was that as much as anything else that resulted in her getting turfed out so quickly.
I will say that the HS2 episode does show that Sunak isn’t good at media management.
“I’m not ready to make an announcement and I will tell you when I am” is all that needs to be said. In a slightly stronger tone if he is pushed again.
He is an adequate touchy-feely politician but under pressure he does not have the steel underneath. He just repeats the smiley, cheery, pound shop Blair woo.
You do wonder why he keeps doing these interviews, given that he knows they're going to ask him about HS2 and he's not prepared to answer. Does he go off-stage after repeatedly not answering the question, and beam at his aides, "Well, that went well. Should be worth another 5% in the polls, don't you think?"
As I've said before, I encountered people in Sunak's mould in consulting.
They start projects, set targets, do all the admin, beam and try to charm. And then they fail to hit their own targets. And are then replaced by those who know how to get things done.
Sadly, we're still at the 'fail to hit own targets' stage.
The backbenchers are the equivalent of consulting firm partners here. In a few weeks time, after the by elections, they'll start to get jittery and look for alternatives.
Because otherwise many of them will be out of a job, instead.
E-Types are very strange cars and their aesthetic appeal has been somewhat neutered by their cultural ubiquity. It's like they were designed from back to front, running out of money as they got to the front of the car. The rear was half a monocoque and the front is a spaceframe that's brazed together like a bicycle. All available engine options were asthmatic behemoths. Jaguar should have licenced the Chevy small block V8 for it. That would have made more power, more reliably and somewhat fixed the disastrous weight distribution.
The sheen wore off the E-Type a bit for me when Top Gear (sorry) put it and a DB4? up against a Honda Accord on the track with inevitable results.
Comments
One of the interesting things I've witnessed in Manchester (probably as close to being the UK's craft beer capital as anywhere) is when visiting American brewers are over, one of the first things they want to do is have a pint of decent, well-kept cask (I've directed more than one to the glorious Marble Arch for this purpose).
Being able to afford my own new home is infinitely better than living in a fraction of an Edwardian home that has been subdivided to fit 22 people into it.
Reminder that for all his appeal to a specific section of British society, Farage is, and has always been, wildly unpopular.
Why don't we get the Dutch to design stuff? Maybe some trees?
People comment how they “tried the Overground, but the trains are infrequent”
Despite their deal last time, both Greens and LibDems are putting up candidates in both east and west, which is simply idiotic.
"We were talking about the Tory conference and HS2 but plain gave up, and are now discussing beer and roundabouts."
America shows this
Get rid of private cars. Replace with tiny autonomous self driving e-cars which disappear at night and don’t need parking. That must be our aim
He’s asked how easy it is to get to Bradford for those in the north and replies “anyone from Bradford here? Anyone want to get there quicker?”
Extend along the roads and you'll see plenty of trees. Not sure why not much in the junction, I'm guessing because its been designed for functionality and visibility.
It works well either way. Most traffic uses the newly built flyover now away from that, so you've got 4 major roads there and yet traffic moves freely and all forms of active travel are well utilised.
Aesthetically it looks weird, caught me by surprised when I first drove through that, but functionally? 10/10 in my book.
Otherwise tbh as long as you can cope with a cold lager you're good. A lot of Spanish bars only have one or maybe two beers on, though trendier places like Valencia and Bilbao have more variety and local stuff.
There are so many examples of this f-ugly infrastructure, cleary designed by a permanently divorced road engineer bitter about the request for cycle lanes.
There needs to be a UK-wide design standard and there shouldn't be a single Brit on the team that puts it together or enforces it. I want aggro Dutch cycling architects with small spectacles and no patience for motorist nonsense.
Mark Spencer, the farming minister, has defended Claire Coutinho over her much-criticised comment about Labour favouring a beef tax. [...]
Today Spencer defended Coutinho – arguing not that Labour does favour a meat tax, but that it is the sort of thing it might do. He said:
I think there’s been a lot of discussion, particularly on the left of politics, about a meat tax. Lefties love regulation, and they love to regulate, they love to put in extra rules and I just – I rub against that sort of stuff.
I believe in my constituents and their ability to make informed decisions and logical decisions. And I don’t like to over regulate, I’d rather over educate.
It probably can be done better, considering its an early adoption in the UK of what the Dutch have been doing for years no doubt it will evolve over time and future ones might be better.
But functionally? Its a good idea and works well.
The Dutch have nailed this for years. Build more roads, design well for active travel, everyone wins.
Its great to see parts of the UK adopting the Dutch approach. Hopefully more do over time. Evolving the aesthetics to look better is a secondary priority over functionality.
Souls come from the people, not the ground.
Seeing it in action, free-flowing bikes, cars and pedestrians getting about their lives without being stuck in traffic or forced off the road by either congestion or fear is far better than any alternative.
Need to plaster with trees to keep.the heat out.
https://www.barratthomes.co.uk/new-homes/dev-001043-cottam-gardens/
PLus they do have a canal near by, presumably to drown bikes in.
It is obligatory in South Korea for men aged between 18 and 28 to take part in full national service but there are sporting exemptions for victory in either the Olympics or Asian Games.
This dispensation had looked certain to be enacted when Jung Cheol-won led into the final straight of the 3,000m roller-skating relay before he made the fatal mistake of easing up shortly before the finish to raise his hands in celebration. Jung was evidently unaware that Taiwan’s Huang Yu-Lin was closing fast and, as they crossed the line together, it was initially unclear who had won. The computerised timing system eventually confirmed that Taiwan had clinched gold by just 0.01 seconds.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/2023/10/03/south-korea-roller-skater-early-celebrate-national-service/
Oops.
Once again, your disinterest in and lack of understanding of the Netherlands shines through. Indeed the name of the junction, CYCLOPS stands for Cycling Optimised Protected Signals and it is a British variant of what the Dutch have done for years and is entirely to encourage cycling and active travel.
And it works.
Frank Lampard open to Rangers job after being included among candidates to replace Michael Beale
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2023/10/03/frank-lampard-rangers-manager-search-jansen-clement-muscat/
Now that isn't something he has actually proposed but, given it's the sort of thing I like to imagine he might, I feel fully justified in saying that we must stop Spencer's sinister forced re-education camp plans.
This is, by the way, exactly what happened to thousands of American downtowns. They prioritised the functionality of driving and parking. By destroying millions of lovely old buildings to make way for car lots and wide roads
Now no one wants to drive to the downtowns because they are hideous dystopias full of homeless people and empty car lots. = zero traffic. Problem solved
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=360372
Oh and home ownership rates are far higher than in miserably depressing London where most people have to work to pay rent with no hope of a home of their own.
And the roads are free flowing. As are the cycle paths. With plenty of trees also along the routes too, even if not shown at the junctions.
You have a very different idea of depressing to me. I find 21 people being forced into one two bedroom flat as they have nowhere else to live far more depressing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66941965
This is a sabotage attempt.
A pro-HS2 protest has quietly begun inside Tory conference.
Coasters bearing the remarks of top Tories from years gone by, promising HS2 will reach Manchester, have been spotted at the Midlands bar.
They ominously warn: "The North Remembers"...
https://express.co.uk/news/politics/
But the Dutch system works. Roads getting built, active travel being supported, and the roads flow freely and people can freely engage in active travel.
Maybe the aesthetics can evolve to be better, but its the right path to go down, following the Dutch precedence.
Zero cars. Absolutely none. And there is no reason we can’t do this in the UK
😬Another excrutiating moment. Days later, Sunak is still going on about "speculation" and "spades in the ground".
PM: You're asserting lots of things. I'm not going to be forced into a premature decision.
@BethRigby: If you're announcing tomorrow, you've made the decision.
Being somewhat smarter than the pols, they politely declined to take that up.
Its only a tiny minority that lives in cities (and even in cities most still drive).
Its an even smaller minority that lives in London, the only city where most have been forced off the road due to chronic overcrowding.
He also expresses some sympathy for Liz Truss's "tax cutting, high-growth agenda", arguing that the short-lived Tory PM's mistake was not to link it to a plan to "cut wasteful government spending in order to pay for it".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66939798
“Preston. If only. It’s just so…. Functional”
“Yes. Have you heard they’ve got another flyover?”
“Wow. It was already pretty damn perfect”
Glad someone here can be reasonable. Yes, it is absolutely a Dutch concept.
You won't find it on Google Maps, its too new. The map shows roadworks currently from when it was being redeveloped.
Here's a news article about it: https://www.lep.co.uk/news/transport/controversial-new-preston-road-junction-to-officially-open-this-weekend-4209684
Its the intersection of some of the busiest roads in the city - and yet cars, bikes and pedestrians can all flow smoothly. Evolve the aesthetics, but the Dutch concept absolutely works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8bmpKY6L74
Because as I've pointed out before yes Government spending seems high but actually try and find something you can cut that people won't complain about...
"A Dutch-style roundabout has seen more collisions in the three years since it was built compared to its predecessor over the previous three years."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-65310167
(Although I got a further degree from Anglia Ruskin, and had occasionally to go to it's Cambridge campus.)
Can I wish Mike Smithson well - I know he won't take a step back lightly but this site has been a real labour of love and invaluable for me. Take care Mike. Hope to see you again soon.
“I’m not ready to make an announcement and I will tell you when I am” is all that needs to be said. In a slightly stronger tone if he is pushed again.
He is an adequate touchy-feely politician but under pressure he does not have the steel underneath. He just repeats the smiley, cheery, pound shop Blair woo.
Cheers
Also, to be more serious. Yes I’m mocking the ludicrous @BartholomewRoberts but you make a serious point - by mistake. Why is it elitist to ask for urban beauty? Why can’t the good people of Warrington and Preston have nice towns that emphasise people over cars and flyovers? Like the Dutch and the French?
Why do poor or average Britons get stuck with urban ugliness? THAT is the elitism
ChatGPT:
Give me an angry diatribe about why Rishi Sunak shouldn't cut HS2 to Manchester.
ChatGPT
I am absolutely infuriated by the mere suggestion that Rishi Sunak might even consider cutting HS2 to Manchester! It's an outrage, a reckless and short-sighted decision that would cripple the potential for growth and development in not just Manchester but the entire North of England. We're talking about a project that promises to transform our region, providing much-needed connectivity and opportunities for countless people.
Cutting HS2 to Manchester would be nothing short of economic vandalism. We've already seen the incredible benefits that high-speed rail can bring to regions around the world. It's a proven way to boost business, create jobs, and improve the lives of ordinary citizens. By slashing this project, Sunak would be telling the people of Manchester and the North that their futures are not worth investing in, that their aspirations and dreams are worth sacrificing for short-term cost savings.
Moreover, it's not just about Manchester; it's about rebalancing the entire UK economy. We've seen the South of England thrive for far too long while the North has been left behind. HS2 to Manchester is a lifeline for those of us who call this region home. It's a once-in-a-generation opportunity to level the playing field and bring prosperity, investment, and growth to our communities. To even think about cutting it is a betrayal of the North and a slap in the face to everyone who has been waiting for this transformative project to become a reality. Rishi Sunak needs to wake up and realize that cutting HS2 to Manchester would be a colossal mistake that we, the people, will not stand for!
Importantly, it's not simply pedestrianised - which can have a tendency to create urban areas which are unappealing after dark and potentially lacking in busy-ness - buses can still use it, and cars can still cross in some locations. If you are getting there by public transport, you get right to the door.
Or do you prefer this?
1. Timing the mini-budget to coincide with the start of the BOE's quantitive tightening/bond-selling programme. The minibudget should have been delayed for the effects of that programme on the value of bonds to play out.
2. The energy support guarantee was too generous (perhaps unavoidable politically), and should have been packaged with longer term supply side reforms in an 'emergency energy bill', with no unrelated economic measures included. Those reforms to have included lifting the fracking ban, new oil and gas licenses, lifting the onshore wind ban, and special powers for Government to accelerate power stations in development through the planning process, along with a consultation on other renewables like tidal, and looking at green levies. This would have stood a far higher chance of success as a set of emergency measures in response to the energy crisis.
3. If bond yields rise quickly in response to the Bank's sell off, insist that the Bank curtails its quantitive tightening and doesn’t sell bonds till they mature - the Bank held to account for its own actions.
4. Then bring the mini-budget, with an OBR forecast, but request methodology changes if there's good reason to suppose that the affect of tax cuts on increasing taxable behaviour are not being taken into account.
Of course, all very easy to say in hindsight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9YaXdhH93g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQfiqjyzjLM
They start projects, set targets, do all the admin, beam and try to charm. And then they fail to hit their own targets. And are then replaced by those who know how to get things done.
Sadly, we're still at the 'fail to hit own targets' stage.
The backbenchers are the equivalent of consulting firm partners here. In a few weeks time, after the by elections, they'll start to get jittery and look for alternatives.
Because otherwise many of them will be out of a job, instead.