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A LAB majority stays at a near 65% betting chance – politicalbetting.com

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  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,714
    Ghedebrav said:

    Poor old Andrew Boff escorted from the hall. Good on him for standing up against the hurricane of hate.

    Hurricane of hate.

    Nice phrase.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    The first global temperature data is in for the full month of September. This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist – absolutely gobsmackingly bananas. JRA-55 beat the prior monthly record by over 0.5C, and was around 1.8C warmer than preindustrial levels.
    https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1709217151452954998
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,986
    Farooq said:

    Mow the lawn
    v
    Cut the grass

    Google is your friend:
    https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=GB&q=mow the lawn,cut the grass&hl=en-GB

    Summary: "cut the grass" is more popular in all regions. "mow the lawn" is basically unknown in Northern Ireland. England is most likely to mow the lawn (31%), followed by Wales (29%).

    "Cut", "grass", "mow", and "lawn" are all Germanic words, so there's possibly not a Norman / French influence to regional differences.

    This distinction is not something I've come across before. FWIW I usually mow the lawn, but I'm sure I sometimes say I'm cutting the grass. The vineyard on the other hand is only ever mown, not cut.
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,998
    This WaPo article will encourage some, and annoy others:
    "But all is not lost. Although a stump now pokes out where the imposing sycamore once dominated the undulating English moors, arboreal experts say the tree is very much alive and will probably regrow. That process, however, will take decades, if not centuries, and the end result may look much different from the tree that charmed poets, bewitched lovers and inspired photographers."
    source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/10/03/sycamore-gap-tree-felling/

    I should have mentioned this possibility earlier, since I grew up raising trees, and once saw the stump of a giant redwood -- with five or six large shoots growing around its edges.
  • pingping Posts: 3,805
    edited October 2023
    ping said:

    I see 30yr gilts are now 5%.

    For comparison, 30yr gilts were yielding just 0.57% on 1/4/20.

    I think our politics still has one hell of an adjustment to make, judging by the HS2 blowback. This time, there really is no money left….
  • PhilPhil Posts: 2,315
    edited October 2023
    Farooq said:

    Phil said:

    NB Here are some other ways to cut the UK population pie, courtesy of the ONS:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rural-population-and-migration/rural-population-and-migration



    Note that the %ages under each subheading sum to that entry, so those under ”all rural areas” sum to 17.1%.

    Point of order, that's England not the UK
    Apologies, so it is.

    I note, in passing, that Oxford is listed as an “Urban City & Town” in this classification, yet I doubt Oxford has much in common with the kinds of places BR is thinking of. Yet this classification is another 40% of the population. I wonder how much of it is small cities like Oxford & how much towns that have more in common with the rural town category than they do larger places like Oxford. (The cut-off between the two is 10k population apparently).
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,035
    Andy_JS said:

    I blame social media and smartphones for this.

    "It’s official – Britain has lost its sense of humour
    We all now leap at the chance to smack people down for saying anything off colour, but surely intent has to count for something?
    Celia Walden"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/10/03/robbie-williams-twitter-joke-sense-of-humour/

    Pretty inevitable, sadly, once America lost its sense of humor and willingness to be offended about twenty or thirty years ago.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,759
    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.
  • VerulamiusVerulamius Posts: 1,543
    So should we be expecting an active come and join us approach to liberal conservatives from both Labour and Lib Dems?
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,986
    I thought yesterday was peak weird at the CPC and we'd be back to a bit more message discipline today but if anything it seems to be getting weirder. Multiple conspiracy theories from multiple speakers including the actual home secretary, JRM talking about his love of hormone-injected beef, the PM appearing to welcome Nigel Farage joining the party, a London Assembly member being ejected for heckling, not only from the auditorium but the entire estate. What more chaos is yet to come?
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,011
    I use a lawnmower to, er, mow the lawn.

    Well, actually, I try to keep my head down and hope that my wife does it.


    Meanwhile, it looks like Braverman has upset all of the people she intended to upset.
  • VerulamiusVerulamius Posts: 1,543
    edited October 2023
    Are any Conservative MPs likely to defect to another party?
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 4,931
    Farooq said:

    Phil said:

    NB Here are some other ways to cut the UK population pie, courtesy of the ONS:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rural-population-and-migration/rural-population-and-migration



    Note that the %ages under each subheading sum to that entry, so those under ”all rural areas” sum to 17.1%.

    Point of order, that's England not the UK
    Is “urban area in a sparse setting” another name for Milton Keynes?
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,419
    ...
    TimS said:

    I thought yesterday was peak weird at the CPC and we'd be back to a bit more message discipline today but if anything it seems to be getting weirder. Multiple conspiracy theories from multiple speakers including the actual home secretary, JRM talking about his love of hormone-injected beef, the PM appearing to welcome Nigel Farage joining the party, a London Assembly member being ejected for heckling, not only from the auditorium but the entire estate. What more chaos is yet to come?

    It's definitely not dull!
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,786
    TimS said:

    I thought yesterday was peak weird at the CPC and we'd be back to a bit more message discipline today but if anything it seems to be getting weirder. Multiple conspiracy theories from multiple speakers including the actual home secretary, JRM talking about his love of hormone-injected beef, the PM appearing to welcome Nigel Farage joining the party, a London Assembly member being ejected for heckling, not only from the auditorium but the entire estate. What more chaos is yet to come?

    Hormones can have an impact on your appearance, but I've never heard of them making you look Victorian.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,779

    Braverman is a hateful bag of shite.

    Is that a luxury belief?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,424
    Farooq said:

    Mow the lawn
    v
    Cut the grass

    Google is your friend:
    https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=GB&q=mow the lawn,cut the grass&hl=en-GB

    Summary: "cut the grass" is more popular in all regions. "mow the lawn" is basically unknown in Northern Ireland. England is most likely to mow the lawn (31%), followed by Wales (29%).

    "Cut", "grass", "mow", and "lawn" are all Germanic words, so there's possibly not a Norman / French influence to regional differences.

    The Saxon serf mowed the Norman lord's lawn.
    Or cut his grass.
  • PhilPhil Posts: 2,315
    edited October 2023

    Farooq said:

    Phil said:

    NB Here are some other ways to cut the UK population pie, courtesy of the ONS:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rural-population-and-migration/rural-population-and-migration



    Note that the %ages under each subheading sum to that entry, so those under ”all rural areas” sum to 17.1%.

    Point of order, that's England not the UK
    Is “urban area in a sparse setting” another name for Milton Keynes?
    It’s a town over 10k people in the middle of no-where. 10k is a weird place to put your urban / non-urban town boundary, but there it is. At least they break out larger conurbations & cities.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,986
    Nigelb said:

    The first global temperature data is in for the full month of September. This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist – absolutely gobsmackingly bananas. JRA-55 beat the prior monthly record by over 0.5C, and was around 1.8C warmer than preindustrial levels.
    https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1709217151452954998

    Thing is though sceptics love a big El Nino year like this, because in 10 years' time they can use it as the starting point for graphs and claim the global temperature is flatlining. Particularly if they use the satellite temperature datasets, which magnify the impact of El Nino and even more so if they use Spencer and Christy's dataset.

    They dined off it for 16 years after the 1997/8 El Nino (remember the so called "hiatus"), then managed again for a few years after the 2015/16 event. Though this time the El Nino isn't particularly intense so I doubt we'll wait as long for the next record year.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,011
    TimS said:

    I thought yesterday was peak weird at the CPC and we'd be back to a bit more message discipline today but if anything it seems to be getting weirder. Multiple conspiracy theories from multiple speakers including the actual home secretary, JRM talking about his love of hormone-injected beef, the PM appearing to welcome Nigel Farage joining the party, a London Assembly member being ejected for heckling, not only from the auditorium but the entire estate. What more chaos is yet to come?

    "What more chaos is yet to come?"

    Well Sunak hasn't given his speech yet
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,786
    Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Fairly impressively insulted the vast majority on here :smiley:

    Yours, One of the most ghastly people in the world
  • Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Depends on your seat, party best placed to defeat the Tories.

    The new iteration of Tories in power need an epochal defeat to understand their hurricane of hate, outright corruption and incompetence has no place in the UK.
  • Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Depends on your seat, party best placed to defeat the Tories.

    The new iteration of Tories in power need an epochal defeat to understand their hurricane of hate, outright corruption and incompetence has no place in the UK.
    It does feel rather like the "You still think you can control them?" moment from Cabaret. Does that make Andrew Boff the EmmCee?
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,759
    Farooq said:

    Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Whichever one hurts the Tories the most. They need big shock for there to be any hope of them getting right again.

    I wouldn't worry about Labour in power in their first term, they'll be poodles. It's the hubris after a few elections that always brings out the worst in parties. 97-2001 wasn't so bad. 2010-2015 wasn't so bad.

    Similarly the Lib Dems look like a safe repository for your vote given that there will be other disaffected blues going their way. You don't have to like them.

    But really, whichever party in your constituency got the most votes other than the Tories last time around. Don't fanny around abstaining for three elections, just give them one damn good kicking next year and see how they respond.
    Yes, but no. I don't think I could ever vote negatively. It just seems wrong.

    I think the vote I most wanted to make, but couldn't, was for a continuation of the 2010 coalition.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,419
    Omnium said:

    I'm done with the Tory party. Braverman really is the last nail.

    Are you really flouncing about Hurricane Suella? She did quite well to get through the complete wall of apathy that has greeted every other Government member tbh. Obviously not great that she got heckled by a Tory, though on the other hand, perhaps Kemi will be fuming that it didn't happen in her speech.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070

    Braverman is a hateful bag of shite.

    Is that a luxury belief?
    No.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,633
    Omnium said:

    Farooq said:

    Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Whichever one hurts the Tories the most. They need big shock for there to be any hope of them getting right again.

    I wouldn't worry about Labour in power in their first term, they'll be poodles. It's the hubris after a few elections that always brings out the worst in parties. 97-2001 wasn't so bad. 2010-2015 wasn't so bad.

    Similarly the Lib Dems look like a safe repository for your vote given that there will be other disaffected blues going their way. You don't have to like them.

    But really, whichever party in your constituency got the most votes other than the Tories last time around. Don't fanny around abstaining for three elections, just give them one damn good kicking next year and see how they respond.
    Yes, but no. I don't think I could ever vote negatively. It just seems wrong.

    I think the vote I most wanted to make, but couldn't, was for a continuation of the 2010 coalition.
    Support Ed Davey then. Him and Gove are the only ministers left from the coalition in active politics.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,759
    kjh said:

    Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Fairly impressively insulted the vast majority on here :smiley:

    Yours, One of the most ghastly people in the world
    I may have over egged that bit :)

    Apologies.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486

    Braverman is a hateful bag of shite.

    Is that a luxury belief?
    Christianity Dior
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    NEWS: Democrats will NOT vote present and will NOT vote to table.
    Sources say the caucus is unified.

    McCarthy’s actions on Jan 6, his trip to Mar a Lago, his attempt to discredit the Jan 6 Cmte, his reneging on debt limit deal and his actions this weekend are all the reasons

    https://twitter.com/LACaldwellDC/status/1709227128565195159
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,759

    Omnium said:

    I'm done with the Tory party. Braverman really is the last nail.

    Are you really flouncing about Hurricane Suella? She did quite well to get through the complete wall of apathy that has greeted every other Government member tbh. Obviously not great that she got heckled by a Tory, though on the other hand, perhaps Kemi will be fuming that it didn't happen in her speech.
    Actually 'flouncing' may be right - just annoyed, pissed off, jumping up and down and a bit lost :)
  • El_CapitanoEl_Capitano Posts: 4,239

    Ghedebrav said:

    Poor old Andrew Boff escorted from the hall. Good on him for standing up against the hurricane of hate.

    Hurricane of hate.

    Nice phrase.
    Quite kind really. "Tornado of twats" would be the one I'd have chosen tbh.
  • Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Not sure whether I should take that as a vote for my future campaign or if you associate having no idea and noneoftheabove......
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,664
    edited October 2023

    boulay said:

    Unpopular said:

    Just getting caught up on the conference drama. I saw a comment yesterday that mentioned the GOPification of the Tories and I think that's what we're seeing. Braverman talking about lefties having immigrants 'mowing their lawns' is a particularly jarring Americanism. 'Cutting their grass' is the correct phrase. Without indulging my conspiracy brain too much, it all makes me think that her speech has been cooked up by some shadowy Yankee right-wing think-tank.

    Another point of worry is the Conservative Party railing against elites and the establishment. They're the Conservative Party, what are they for if not the establishment?

    And all the guff about failed immigration policies and how shit everything is and that it's all Labour's fault - they've been in power for 13 years! My flabber is gasted at the gall of senior Tories making these kind of arguments.

    What? “Mowing the lawn” is an Americanism in which world? I mow the lawn at least once a week but never “cut the grass” unless in a wilder area with a strimmer. I don’t know any of my British friends who wouldn’t say “mow the lawn”.
    Agree. I think it's a question of scale and/or level of manicure. If you have a large, or very well tended bit of grass, you're mowing the lawn. If you have a backyard patch of grass, or an orchard or paddock, you cut the grass.
    Nah. The orchard gets strimmed. A paddock would be grazed. The back garden grass gets mown even though it it definitely not a lawn.

    The only time I would cut grass is with a scythe.
    Not necessarily in either case. You could do an orchard on a ride on if you had wide enough gaps. And not every paddock/field has enough cattle or ponies on to keep the grass down without cutting it. You wouldn't say you were 'mowing the lawn' doing these things. I wouldn't anyway.
    Farmers of my acquaintance would probably 'top' a paddock/field if it was undergrazed rather than 'cutting' it.

    Cutting grass to me implies to me that there is an end product, either hay or silage.

    Anyway, it doesn't matter. 'Mowing the lawn' is perfectly normal usage, although Braverman is wrong in that gardening doesn't seem to have been a particularly attractive job for the immigrant community, at least round here, unlike building work.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,986

    Omnium said:

    I'm done with the Tory party. Braverman really is the last nail.

    Are you really flouncing about Hurricane Suella? She did quite well to get through the complete wall of apathy that has greeted every other Government member tbh. Obviously not great that she got heckled by a Tory, though on the other hand, perhaps Kemi will be fuming that it didn't happen in her speech.
    The post election Tory party will be an interesting place if it's a big defeat, as I assume a number of possibly leadership contenders could lose their seats. Question is what faction that helps, in a kind of natural selection sense.

    Somewhere online there must be a list of most marginal constituencies and who the MPs is, but I can only find the former or the latter, not both together. Which makes it too arduous a job to bother with. However Suella is rock solid safe with a majority of 26k. So are Badenoch (maj 27k) and Truss (26k). All in East Anglian constituencies.

  • Are any Conservative MPs likely to defect to another party?

    My view is this is relatively unlikely.

    A lot of free thinking moderates were purged or simply retired in 2019.

    Anyone tempted to follow Christian Wakeford has possibly missed their chance as Labour/Lib Dems have candidates in most targets (Wakeford went before a Labour candidate was selected in his seat, and indeed now is the Labour candidate).

    Andrew Bridgen has had some kind of breakdown, and joined the party for middle aged men with significant personal demons, so I don't see anyone following him.

    I think at this stage, if you're really p1ssed off as a Tory MP, you just call it a day at the election.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,926
    TimS said:

    Omnium said:

    I'm done with the Tory party. Braverman really is the last nail.

    Are you really flouncing about Hurricane Suella? She did quite well to get through the complete wall of apathy that has greeted every other Government member tbh. Obviously not great that she got heckled by a Tory, though on the other hand, perhaps Kemi will be fuming that it didn't happen in her speech.
    The post election Tory party will be an interesting place if it's a big defeat, as I assume a number of possibly leadership contenders could lose their seats. Question is what faction that helps, in a kind of natural selection sense.

    Somewhere online there must be a list of most marginal constituencies and who the MPs is, but I can only find the former or the latter, not both together. Which makes it too arduous a job to bother with. However Suella is rock solid safe with a majority of 26k. So are Badenoch (maj 27k) and Truss (26k). All in East Anglian constituencies.

    Here you go:

    https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/orderedseats.html
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,986
    edited October 2023
    kjh said:

    Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Fairly impressively insulted the vast majority on here :smiley:

    Yours, One of the most ghastly people in the world
    My response to "Ed Davey?" would be: Ed Davey has an impressive record in coalition, probably achieving more than any other Lib Dem minister in that parliament, he's led the Lib Dems calmly through the difficult period after Swinson's blunders at the last election, and is by all accounts a pretty decent individual who's had an unenviably tough life.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,424

    Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Not sure whether I should take that as a vote for my future campaign or if you associate having no idea and noneoftheabove......
    As one of our regular correspondents will tell you, there's always Plaid Cymru.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,759

    Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Not sure whether I should take that as a vote for my future campaign or if you associate having no idea and noneoftheabove......
    Even if I knew nothing of your views, and clearly I know very little beyond that which I've happened to read here, a short, sharp agenda might see you in Downing St by next Xmas!
  • eekeek Posts: 28,368

    Ghedebrav said:

    Poor old Andrew Boff escorted from the hall. Good on him for standing up against the hurricane of hate.

    Hurricane of hate.

    Nice phrase.
    https://twitter.com/coldwarsteve/status/1709237644939362409


  • MikeLMikeL Posts: 7,706
    Very interesting poll just out.

    California - Data Viewpoint

    Biden 67, Trump 33
    Biden 58, Haley 42

    (2020: Biden 63, Trump 34)

    So Haley does miles, miles better than Trump.

    Implication being that Haley would win landslide if she gets nomination (obviously only one poll, one state etc).

    Could this get traction amongst Republican primary voters?

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,786
    Omnium said:

    kjh said:

    Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Fairly impressively insulted the vast majority on here :smiley:

    Yours, One of the most ghastly people in the world
    I may have over egged that bit :)

    Apologies.
    No need to apologise. I rather liked the post. It made me smile.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Omnium, between three parties, divisa est.
  • Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Depends on your seat, party best placed to defeat the Tories.

    The new iteration of Tories in power need an epochal defeat to understand their hurricane of hate, outright corruption and incompetence has no place in the UK.
    It does feel rather like the "You still think you can control them?" moment from Cabaret. Does that make Andrew Boff the EmmCee?
    In other "No, they can't be controlled" news,

    Security minister Tom Tugendhat tells me he would welcome Nigel Farage into the Conservative Party if he applied to join.


    https://twitter.com/MichaelLCrick/status/1709232656511111538?t=yF7LmjVRSdmTILPECG9q0Q
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,759
    kjh said:

    Omnium said:

    kjh said:

    Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Fairly impressively insulted the vast majority on here :smiley:

    Yours, One of the most ghastly people in the world
    I may have over egged that bit :)

    Apologies.
    No need to apologise. I rather liked the post. It made me smile.
    Well then I have achieved my role in life, which is bugger all, but with smiles along the way.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,625
    The section of Braverman's speech where she listed Thatcher, Cameron and Churchill as people who were accused of racism by the left but "it didn't work" was a bit clunky. She would have been better just to say, "It won't work with me."
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,859
    Phil said:

    NB Here are some other ways to cut the UK population pie, courtesy of the ONS:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rural-population-and-migration/rural-population-and-migration



    Note that the %ages under each subheading sum to that entry, so those under ”all rural areas” sum to 17.1%.

    Bagsy be Urban in a sparse setting?
  • Are any Conservative MPs likely to defect to another party?

    None would have them, except possibly Alba.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,664

    This WaPo article will encourage some, and annoy others:
    "But all is not lost. Although a stump now pokes out where the imposing sycamore once dominated the undulating English moors, arboreal experts say the tree is very much alive and will probably regrow. That process, however, will take decades, if not centuries, and the end result may look much different from the tree that charmed poets, bewitched lovers and inspired photographers."
    source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/10/03/sycamore-gap-tree-felling/

    I should have mentioned this possibility earlier, since I grew up raising trees, and once saw the stump of a giant redwood -- with five or six large shoots growing around its edges.

    A giant Coast Redwood or a Giant Redwood?

    I know the former sprouts like mad from stumps - hence the Latin name Sequoia sempervirens - but I wasn't sure that the latter is quite so keen.

    In this case, Sycamore definitely does - it is a pain if you are actively trying to get rid of it, because you have to keep treating the stump.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,986
    RobD said:

    TimS said:

    Omnium said:

    I'm done with the Tory party. Braverman really is the last nail.

    Are you really flouncing about Hurricane Suella? She did quite well to get through the complete wall of apathy that has greeted every other Government member tbh. Obviously not great that she got heckled by a Tory, though on the other hand, perhaps Kemi will be fuming that it didn't happen in her speech.
    The post election Tory party will be an interesting place if it's a big defeat, as I assume a number of possibly leadership contenders could lose their seats. Question is what faction that helps, in a kind of natural selection sense.

    Somewhere online there must be a list of most marginal constituencies and who the MPs is, but I can only find the former or the latter, not both together. Which makes it too arduous a job to bother with. However Suella is rock solid safe with a majority of 26k. So are Badenoch (maj 27k) and Truss (26k). All in East Anglian constituencies.

    Here you go:

    https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/orderedseats.html
    Thanks. The funny thing is the way their model works, the four "safest Tory seats" are Chesham and Amersham, Tiverton and Honiton, Somerton and Frome and North Norfolk! (Because it looks at the gap between Tory and Labour vote share)

    There's quite a juicy list of potential Portillos there. Only a bit of swingback makes a lot of them safe. But not Lee Anderson. He's gone.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,553
    O/T

    "Helen Mirren has change of heart over ‘sexist’ Parkinson interview
    Actress takes the late presenter’s side over his questions about whether her body stopped her from being taken seriously" (£)

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/helen-mirren-has-change-of-heart-over-sexist-parkinson-interview-72mpxqv0k
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    MikeL said:

    Very interesting poll just out.

    California - Data Viewpoint

    Biden 67, Trump 33
    Biden 58, Haley 42

    (2020: Biden 63, Trump 34)

    So Haley does miles, miles better than Trump.

    Implication being that Haley would win landslide if she gets nomination (obviously only one poll, one state etc).

    Could this get traction amongst Republican primary voters?

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/

    Why would Haley polling well in a Democratic state which she'd still lose imply a landslide; what are her national figures ?

    I'm interested in the answer, as I have money on her.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,419

    The section of Braverman's speech where she listed Thatcher, Cameron and Churchill as people who were accused of racism by the left but "it didn't work" was a bit clunky. She would have been better just to say, "It won't work with me."

    Agree.

    The bit that got Andrew Boff going though didn’t seem massively from left field. It was about woke ideology of institutions and workplaces, and it's the phrase 'gender ideology' that seems to set him off, as he says 'there's no such thing as gender ideology' - is the pro-lgbtq position that there no such thing as it?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,829

    Are any Conservative MPs likely to defect to another party?

    None would have them, except possibly Alba.
    DUP.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,243

    Why, then, do MAGA politicians want to cut Ukraine off?

    The answer is, unfortunately, obvious. Whatever Republican hard-liners may say, they want Putin to win. They view the Putin regime’s cruelty and repression as admirable features that America should emulate. They support a wannabe dictator at home and are sympathetic to actual dictators abroad.

    So pay no attention to all those complaints about how much we’re spending in Ukraine. They aren’t justified by the actual cost of aid, and the people claiming to be worried about the cost don’t really care about the money. What they are, basically, is enemies of democracy, both abroad and at home.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/opinion/columnists/maga-republicans-ukraine.html

    It might not help that the actual cost of military aid is inflated by using as-new prices for old stock that would have been
    scrapped anyway, or at least, that is what is said.
    It’s not so much cost - the money has already been spent so the cash cost to the US is minimal - as the reported value of the package is calculated as you say. This was intended to scare Russia but it has made the internal political argument more challenging too

  • TimS said:

    RobD said:

    TimS said:

    Omnium said:

    I'm done with the Tory party. Braverman really is the last nail.

    Are you really flouncing about Hurricane Suella? She did quite well to get through the complete wall of apathy that has greeted every other Government member tbh. Obviously not great that she got heckled by a Tory, though on the other hand, perhaps Kemi will be fuming that it didn't happen in her speech.
    The post election Tory party will be an interesting place if it's a big defeat, as I assume a number of possibly leadership contenders could lose their seats. Question is what faction that helps, in a kind of natural selection sense.

    Somewhere online there must be a list of most marginal constituencies and who the MPs is, but I can only find the former or the latter, not both together. Which makes it too arduous a job to bother with. However Suella is rock solid safe with a majority of 26k. So are Badenoch (maj 27k) and Truss (26k). All in East Anglian constituencies.

    Here you go:

    https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/orderedseats.html
    Thanks. The funny thing is the way their model works, the four "safest Tory seats" are Chesham and Amersham, Tiverton and Honiton, Somerton and Frome and North Norfolk! (Because it looks at the gap between Tory and Labour vote share)

    There's quite a juicy list of potential Portillos there. Only a bit of swingback makes a lot of them safe. But not Lee Anderson. He's gone.
    That is devastating news about Anderson. It really is. How will lazy layabout, benefit scroungers be able to feed themselves without his sage culinary advice?
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,243
    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt

    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

    I think when it comes to food, it is like a lot of US, the two extremes with the "middle" not being great. You have your rich that shop at Whole Foods or regional chains like Publix, which are often a better form of Waitrose...then the other extreme of Walmart / Dollar Tree where they might not even carry any fresh food. The middle like Albertsons are quite shitty in comparison to what we have here.
    Our midmarket has traditionally been pretty decent. The US doesn't seem to have the equivalent of Sainsburys, or M&S, or even Tesco.

    Likewise on the continent, certainly in France and Spain (Germany a bit more of a fractured market plus Aldi and Lidl). And in France it's really difficult to discern which are the u or non-u chains. Much less of a class system in French supermarkets: Auchan, Leclerc, Carrefour, Intermarche: more variation between stores than
    between chains.
    The US has Ralph’s, Vons and Trader Joe’s



  • .
    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
  • .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,664

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    That certainly used to be the case in the South Yorkshire conurbation vs Sheffield until some fool made Doncaster a city.
  • MikeLMikeL Posts: 7,706
    Nigelb said:

    MikeL said:

    Very interesting poll just out.

    California - Data Viewpoint

    Biden 67, Trump 33
    Biden 58, Haley 42

    (2020: Biden 63, Trump 34)

    So Haley does miles, miles better than Trump.

    Implication being that Haley would win landslide if she gets nomination (obviously only one poll, one state etc).

    Could this get traction amongst Republican primary voters?

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/

    Why would Haley polling well in a Democratic state which she'd still lose imply a landslide; what are her national figures ?

    I'm interested in the answer, as I have money on her.
    Sorry, I don't know other states or national.

    But don't swings generally tend to be at least roughly similar in different places? In the UK, we wouldn't expect the Con to Lab swing to be fully 9% greater in one area than in another.
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 1,130

    The section of Braverman's speech where she listed Thatcher, Cameron and Churchill as people who were accused of racism by the left but "it didn't work" was a bit clunky. She would have been better just to say, "It won't work with me."

    Agree.

    The bit that got Andrew Boff going though didn’t seem massively from left field. It was about woke ideology of institutions and workplaces, and it's the phrase 'gender ideology' that seems to set him off, as he says 'there's no such thing as gender ideology' - is the pro-lgbtq position that there no such thing as it?
    Maybe it's one of those things where it's the other side that has ideologies, whereas one's own viewpoint is based on principles?
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275

    Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Depends on your seat, party best placed to defeat the Tories.

    The new iteration of Tories in power need an epochal defeat to understand their hurricane of hate, outright corruption and incompetence has no place in the UK.
    It does feel rather like the "You still think you can control them?" moment from Cabaret. Does that make Andrew Boff the EmmCee?
    In other "No, they can't be controlled" news,

    Security minister Tom Tugendhat tells me he would welcome Nigel Farage into the Conservative Party if he applied to join.


    https://twitter.com/MichaelLCrick/status/1709232656511111538?t=yF7LmjVRSdmTILPECG9q0Q
    Jeez . There really is no hope for the Tories . He was seen as a moderate but looks like he’s also now completely sold his soul.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,991
    edited October 2023

    TimS said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt

    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

    I think when it comes to food, it is like a lot of US, the two extremes with the "middle" not being great. You have your rich that shop at Whole Foods or regional chains like Publix, which are often a better form of Waitrose...then the other extreme of Walmart / Dollar Tree where they might not even carry any fresh food. The middle like Albertsons are quite shitty in comparison to what we have here.
    Our midmarket has traditionally been pretty decent. The US doesn't seem to have the equivalent of Sainsburys, or M&S, or even Tesco.

    Likewise on the continent, certainly in France and Spain (Germany a bit more of a fractured market plus Aldi and Lidl). And in France it's really difficult to discern which are the u or non-u chains. Much less of a class system in French supermarkets: Auchan, Leclerc, Carrefour, Intermarche: more variation between stores than
    between chains.
    The US has Ralph’s, Vons and Trader Joe’s

    Trader Joe's is literally Aldi. Its a limited selection of every changing goods made under licensing agreements to white label goods. All supermarkets do this to some extent now, but that isn't comparable to say a Sainsbury's supermarket.

    If I remember correctly Vons is just Safeway, but in California.
  • .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Look at the maps on this page just to see how much Stockport and Alty actually are part of the urban area around Manchester, without a rural gap.

    Yep, places like Wigan which are in Greater Manchester are not in the urban lump, but you are massively under estimating the size of the urban lump.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Manchester_Built-up_Area
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 21,971
    edited October 2023

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Because Altrincham simply isn't in the city of Manchester.

    Its very much a town. Yes the Metrolink goes there, but Metrolink does not a city make, people going from Altrincham into Manchester are commuting into the city, not from one.

    Altrincham very much has a town feeling and town statistics same as the other towns I named. 76% of Altrincham own their own home, versus barely over 50% in Manchester. Altrincham is predominantly houses not flats. Etc, etc

    Most of the people who live in Manchester's urban area live in a town, not the City. That's kind of the point!
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 3,860

    Are any Conservative MPs likely to defect to another party?

    My view is this is relatively unlikely.

    A lot of free thinking moderates were purged or simply retired in 2019.

    Anyone tempted to follow Christian Wakeford has possibly missed their chance as Labour/Lib Dems have candidates in most targets (Wakeford went before a Labour candidate was selected in his seat, and indeed now is the Labour candidate).

    Andrew Bridgen has had some kind of breakdown, and joined the party for middle aged men with significant personal demons, so I don't see anyone following him.

    I think at this stage, if you're really p1ssed off as a Tory MP, you just call it a day at the election.
    More likely than defection is a Faragiste entryism and subsequent civil war - potentially splitting the party in half.
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 3,860

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    That certainly used to be the case in the South Yorkshire conurbation vs Sheffield until some fool made Doncaster a city.
    My home town (sort of; I’m from a village outside). Donny is not a city in anything other than a technical vanity sense. In some ways it’s the ur-English Town.
  • .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Because Altrincham simply isn't in the city of Manchester.

    Its very much a town. Yes the Metrolink goes there, but Metrolink does not a city make, people going from Altrincham into Manchester are commuting into the city, not from one.

    Altrincham very much has a town feeling and town statistics same as the other towns I named. 76% of Altrincham own their own home, versus barely over 50% in Manchester. Altrincham is predominantly houses not flats. Etc, etc

    Most of the people who live in Manchester's urban area live in a town, not the City. That's kind of the point!
    Eh ???

    The vast majority of people who live in the local authority called Manchester live in houses, not flats, they are just poorer so fewer own them.

    The ONS have gone to the effort of telling you 2.5m people live in the Greater Manchester urban area, that urban area includes Alty, Stockport, Sale etc. But not Wigan.

    You can walk from Alty (Trafford) to Middleton (Rochdale) without leaving urban areas, that is what makes it all feel like a city.

    You seem a little to focused on local authorities, come to Manchester, you will see that they are meaningless.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 21,971
    edited October 2023

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Look at the maps on this page just to see how much Stockport and Alty actually are part of the urban area around Manchester, without a rural gap.

    Yep, places like Wigan which are in Greater Manchester are not in the urban lump, but you are massively under estimating the size of the urban lump.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Manchester_Built-up_Area
    What's a rural gap got to do with anything?

    Yes its an urban lump, I said that. Warrington is in that urban lump, sandwiched between Liverpool and Manchester. You can drive contiguously from Liverpool to Widnes to Warrington to Leigh to Manchester (or other routes) without ever getting into rural areas.

    But that doesn't make Warrington, or Widnes, or Leigh, or Altrincham cities. They're suburban towns in the suburbs of cities.
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 3,028
    nico679 said:

    Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Depends on your seat, party best placed to defeat the Tories.

    The new iteration of Tories in power need an epochal defeat to understand their hurricane of hate, outright corruption and incompetence has no place in the UK.
    It does feel rather like the "You still think you can control them?" moment from Cabaret. Does that make Andrew Boff the EmmCee?
    In other "No, they can't be controlled" news,

    Security minister Tom Tugendhat tells me he would welcome Nigel Farage into the Conservative Party if he applied to join.


    https://twitter.com/MichaelLCrick/status/1709232656511111538?t=yF7LmjVRSdmTILPECG9q0Q
    Jeez . There really is no hope for the Tories . He was seen as a moderate but looks like he’s also now completely sold his soul.
    Im *guessing* Levido and co have looked at the numbers and concluded things are so dire this tactic is the only way of avoiding utter extinction.
  • .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Look at the maps on this page just to see how much Stockport and Alty actually are part of the urban area around Manchester, without a rural gap.

    Yep, places like Wigan which are in Greater Manchester are not in the urban lump, but you are massively under estimating the size of the urban lump.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Manchester_Built-up_Area
    What's a rural gap got to do with anything?

    Yes its an urban lump, I said that. Warrington is in that urban lump, sandwiched between Liverpool and Manchester. You can drive contiguously from Liverpool to Widnes to Warrington to Leigh to Manchester (or other routes) without ever getting into rural areas.

    But that doesn't make Warrington, or Widnes, or Leigh, or Altrincham cities. They're suburban towns in the suburbs of cities.
    So just like London is a tiny place in the middle of an urban sprawl surrounded by loads of historical towns that have merged together to form a massive urban area ?

    Yep, they may be 'towns' but they are part of a much larger urban fabric that fills Metrolink trams with commuters, fills the M60 with shoppers for the Trafford Centre.

    Call them what ever you like, but those towns are making up an urban area that has the same attributes as any other city on the planet. A dense core surrounded by lower and lower density housing the further from the middle you go, but all economically and socially intertwined.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 21,971
    edited October 2023

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Because Altrincham simply isn't in the city of Manchester.

    Its very much a town. Yes the Metrolink goes there, but Metrolink does not a city make, people going from Altrincham into Manchester are commuting into the city, not from one.

    Altrincham very much has a town feeling and town statistics same as the other towns I named. 76% of Altrincham own their own home, versus barely over 50% in Manchester. Altrincham is predominantly houses not flats. Etc, etc

    Most of the people who live in Manchester's urban area live in a town, not the City. That's kind of the point!
    Eh ???

    The vast majority of people who live in the local authority called Manchester live in houses, not flats, they are just poorer so fewer own them.

    The ONS have gone to the effort of telling you 2.5m people live in the Greater Manchester urban area, that urban area includes Alty, Stockport, Sale etc. But not Wigan.

    You can walk from Alty (Trafford) to Middleton (Rochdale) without leaving urban areas, that is what makes it all feel like a city.

    You seem a little to focused on local authorities, come to Manchester, you will see that they are meaningless.
    Yes they have and they've also gone to the effect of breaking that urban area into towns and cities. The ONS agrees with me, Altrincham is a town, in Manchester's urban area. It is not part of the City of Manchester.

    You seem a little too focused on Rural. You can walk from Liverpool to Manchester without leaving urban areas. Does that mean that Manchester is in the City of Liverpool?

    Is Wigan part of the City of Manchester in your eyes? Leigh? Warrington?
  • glwglw Posts: 9,906

    Im *guessing* Levido and co have looked at the numbers and concluded things are so dire this tactic is the only way of avoiding utter extinction.

    They are going to look bloody stupid when Starmer takes the UK back into the EU.
  • .

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Because Altrincham simply isn't in the city of Manchester.

    Its very much a town. Yes the Metrolink goes there, but Metrolink does not a city make, people going from Altrincham into Manchester are commuting into the city, not from one.

    Altrincham very much has a town feeling and town statistics same as the other towns I named. 76% of Altrincham own their own home, versus barely over 50% in Manchester. Altrincham is predominantly houses not flats. Etc, etc

    Most of the people who live in Manchester's urban area live in a town, not the City. That's kind of the point!
    Eh ???

    The vast majority of people who live in the local authority called Manchester live in houses, not flats, they are just poorer so fewer own them.

    The ONS have gone to the effort of telling you 2.5m people live in the Greater Manchester urban area, that urban area includes Alty, Stockport, Sale etc. But not Wigan.

    You can walk from Alty (Trafford) to Middleton (Rochdale) without leaving urban areas, that is what makes it all feel like a city.

    You seem a little to focused on local authorities, come to Manchester, you will see that they are meaningless.
    Yes they have and they've also gone to the effect of breaking that urban area into towns and cities. The ONS agrees with me, Altrincham is a town, in Manchester's urban area. It is not part of the City of Manchester.
    you agree the English definition of a city is based on a local authority which is utterly meaningless when talking about urban planning I assume ?
  • .

    .

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Because Altrincham simply isn't in the city of Manchester.

    Its very much a town. Yes the Metrolink goes there, but Metrolink does not a city make, people going from Altrincham into Manchester are commuting into the city, not from one.

    Altrincham very much has a town feeling and town statistics same as the other towns I named. 76% of Altrincham own their own home, versus barely over 50% in Manchester. Altrincham is predominantly houses not flats. Etc, etc

    Most of the people who live in Manchester's urban area live in a town, not the City. That's kind of the point!
    Eh ???

    The vast majority of people who live in the local authority called Manchester live in houses, not flats, they are just poorer so fewer own them.

    The ONS have gone to the effort of telling you 2.5m people live in the Greater Manchester urban area, that urban area includes Alty, Stockport, Sale etc. But not Wigan.

    You can walk from Alty (Trafford) to Middleton (Rochdale) without leaving urban areas, that is what makes it all feel like a city.

    You seem a little to focused on local authorities, come to Manchester, you will see that they are meaningless.
    Yes they have and they've also gone to the effect of breaking that urban area into towns and cities. The ONS agrees with me, Altrincham is a town, in Manchester's urban area. It is not part of the City of Manchester.
    you agree the English definition of a city is based on a local authority which is utterly meaningless when talking about urban planning I assume ?
    Yes multiple cities in England, such as Doncaster or Preston, really ought to be classed as large towns.

    I don't know of any towns in England that should be classed as cities.
  • .

    .

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Because Altrincham simply isn't in the city of Manchester.

    Its very much a town. Yes the Metrolink goes there, but Metrolink does not a city make, people going from Altrincham into Manchester are commuting into the city, not from one.

    Altrincham very much has a town feeling and town statistics same as the other towns I named. 76% of Altrincham own their own home, versus barely over 50% in Manchester. Altrincham is predominantly houses not flats. Etc, etc

    Most of the people who live in Manchester's urban area live in a town, not the City. That's kind of the point!
    Eh ???

    The vast majority of people who live in the local authority called Manchester live in houses, not flats, they are just poorer so fewer own them.

    The ONS have gone to the effort of telling you 2.5m people live in the Greater Manchester urban area, that urban area includes Alty, Stockport, Sale etc. But not Wigan.

    You can walk from Alty (Trafford) to Middleton (Rochdale) without leaving urban areas, that is what makes it all feel like a city.

    You seem a little to focused on local authorities, come to Manchester, you will see that they are meaningless.
    Yes they have and they've also gone to the effect of breaking that urban area into towns and cities. The ONS agrees with me, Altrincham is a town, in Manchester's urban area. It is not part of the City of Manchester.
    you agree the English definition of a city is based on a local authority which is utterly meaningless when talking about urban planning I assume ?
    Yes multiple cities in England, such as Doncaster or Preston, really ought to be classed as large towns.

    I don't know of any towns in England that should be classed as cities.
    You miss the point.

    No one would ever think of a local authority boundary as relevant to any sort of urban planning would they ?

    Even you can spot that I assume ?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,401
    edited October 2023

    nico679 said:

    Omnium said:

    So, given I'm now a political free agent, where on earth should my vote rest?

    I'm nearly persuaded that Labour offer the best choice - that, despite them being incompetent, disingenuous bad people.

    The LDs are clearly the most ghastly people in the world. Ed Davey?

    Greens - oh fuck off.

    I really have no idea - clearly none of the above.

    Depends on your seat, party best placed to defeat the Tories.

    The new iteration of Tories in power need an epochal defeat to understand their hurricane of hate, outright corruption and incompetence has no place in the UK.
    It does feel rather like the "You still think you can control them?" moment from Cabaret. Does that make Andrew Boff the EmmCee?
    In other "No, they can't be controlled" news,

    Security minister Tom Tugendhat tells me he would welcome Nigel Farage into the Conservative Party if he applied to join.


    https://twitter.com/MichaelLCrick/status/1709232656511111538?t=yF7LmjVRSdmTILPECG9q0Q
    Jeez . There really is no hope for the Tories . He was seen as a moderate but looks like he’s also now completely sold his soul.
    Im *guessing* Levido and co have looked at the numbers and concluded things are so dire this tactic is the only way of avoiding utter extinction.
    I'm guessing Levido and co have been making a living pretending they are election strategists, when they actually are ideologues with an agenda.
    If they were the former they wouldn't be trying to get lucky this time with a repeat of the last, dismal Australian election campaign.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,011

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Look at the maps on this page just to see how much Stockport and Alty actually are part of the urban area around Manchester, without a rural gap.

    Yep, places like Wigan which are in Greater Manchester are not in the urban lump, but you are massively under estimating the size of the urban lump.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Manchester_Built-up_Area
    What's a rural gap got to do with anything?

    Yes its an urban lump, I said that. Warrington is in that urban lump, sandwiched between Liverpool and Manchester. You can drive contiguously from Liverpool to Widnes to Warrington to Leigh to Manchester (or other routes) without ever getting into rural areas.

    But that doesn't make Warrington, or Widnes, or Leigh, or Altrincham cities. They're suburban towns in the suburbs of cities.
    So would you consider Ealing to be a separate town, and not part of London?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,424

    .

    .

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Because Altrincham simply isn't in the city of Manchester.

    Its very much a town. Yes the Metrolink goes there, but Metrolink does not a city make, people going from Altrincham into Manchester are commuting into the city, not from one.

    Altrincham very much has a town feeling and town statistics same as the other towns I named. 76% of Altrincham own their own home, versus barely over 50% in Manchester. Altrincham is predominantly houses not flats. Etc, etc

    Most of the people who live in Manchester's urban area live in a town, not the City. That's kind of the point!
    Eh ???

    The vast majority of people who live in the local authority called Manchester live in houses, not flats, they are just poorer so fewer own them.

    The ONS have gone to the effort of telling you 2.5m people live in the Greater Manchester urban area, that urban area includes Alty, Stockport, Sale etc. But not Wigan.

    You can walk from Alty (Trafford) to Middleton (Rochdale) without leaving urban areas, that is what makes it all feel like a city.

    You seem a little to focused on local authorities, come to Manchester, you will see that they are meaningless.
    Yes they have and they've also gone to the effect of breaking that urban area into towns and cities. The ONS agrees with me, Altrincham is a town, in Manchester's urban area. It is not part of the City of Manchester.
    you agree the English definition of a city is based on a local authority which is utterly meaningless when talking about urban planning I assume ?
    Yes multiple cities in England, such as Doncaster or Preston, really ought to be classed as large towns.

    I don't know of any towns in England that should be classed as cities.
    Colchester’s designation as a city is long overdue, given it’s history!
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,011

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Because Altrincham simply isn't in the city of Manchester.

    Its very much a town. Yes the Metrolink goes there, but Metrolink does not a city make, people going from Altrincham into Manchester are commuting into the city, not from one.

    Altrincham very much has a town feeling and town statistics same as the other towns I named. 76% of Altrincham own their own home, versus barely over 50% in Manchester. Altrincham is predominantly houses not flats. Etc, etc

    Most of the people who live in Manchester's urban area live in a town, not the City. That's kind of the point!
    Eh ???

    The vast majority of people who live in the local authority called Manchester live in houses, not flats, they are just poorer so fewer own them.

    The ONS have gone to the effort of telling you 2.5m people live in the Greater Manchester urban area, that urban area includes Alty, Stockport, Sale etc. But not Wigan.

    You can walk from Alty (Trafford) to Middleton (Rochdale) without leaving urban areas, that is what makes it all feel like a city.

    You seem a little to focused on local authorities, come to Manchester, you will see that they are meaningless.
    Yes they have and they've also gone to the effect of breaking that urban area into towns and cities. The ONS agrees with me, Altrincham is a town, in Manchester's urban area. It is not part of the City of Manchester.

    You seem a little too focused on Rural. You can walk from Liverpool to Manchester without leaving urban areas. Does that mean that Manchester is in the City of Liverpool?

    Is Wigan part of the City of Manchester in your eyes? Leigh? Warrington?
    Salford?
  • .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Because Altrincham simply isn't in the city of Manchester.

    Its very much a town. Yes the Metrolink goes there, but Metrolink does not a city make, people going from Altrincham into Manchester are commuting into the city, not from one.

    Altrincham very much has a town feeling and town statistics same as the other towns I named. 76% of Altrincham own their own home, versus barely over 50% in Manchester. Altrincham is predominantly houses not flats. Etc, etc

    Most of the people who live in Manchester's urban area live in a town, not the City. That's kind of the point!
    Eh ???

    The vast majority of people who live in the local authority called Manchester live in houses, not flats, they are just poorer so fewer own them.

    The ONS have gone to the effort of telling you 2.5m people live in the Greater Manchester urban area, that urban area includes Alty, Stockport, Sale etc. But not Wigan.

    You can walk from Alty (Trafford) to Middleton (Rochdale) without leaving urban areas, that is what makes it all feel like a city.

    You seem a little to focused on local authorities, come to Manchester, you will see that they are meaningless.
    Yes they have and they've also gone to the effect of breaking that urban area into towns and cities. The ONS agrees with me, Altrincham is a town, in Manchester's urban area. It is not part of the City of Manchester.

    You seem a little too focused on Rural. You can walk from Liverpool to Manchester without leaving urban areas. Does that mean that Manchester is in the City of Liverpool?

    Is Wigan part of the City of Manchester in your eyes? Leigh? Warrington?
    Salford?
    It's almost like we need an impartial, independent, data expert team to work this out for us....

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Manchester_Built-up_Area

    They do it with the exact same methodology for all parts of the country.

    Anyway, I need to go.

    I am off to the town of Old Trafford to watch Manchester United play.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,243
    MikeL said:

    Very interesting poll just out.

    California - Data Viewpoint

    Biden 67, Trump 33
    Biden 58, Haley 42

    (2020: Biden 63, Trump 34)

    So Haley does miles, miles better than Trump.

    Implication being that Haley would win landslide if she gets nomination (obviously only one poll, one state etc).

    Could this get traction amongst Republican primary voters?

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/

    Southern California… the state responsible for Richard Nixon…

    Go Nikki!
  • .

    .

    .

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Because Altrincham simply isn't in the city of Manchester.

    Its very much a town. Yes the Metrolink goes there, but Metrolink does not a city make, people going from Altrincham into Manchester are commuting into the city, not from one.

    Altrincham very much has a town feeling and town statistics same as the other towns I named. 76% of Altrincham own their own home, versus barely over 50% in Manchester. Altrincham is predominantly houses not flats. Etc, etc

    Most of the people who live in Manchester's urban area live in a town, not the City. That's kind of the point!
    Eh ???

    The vast majority of people who live in the local authority called Manchester live in houses, not flats, they are just poorer so fewer own them.

    The ONS have gone to the effort of telling you 2.5m people live in the Greater Manchester urban area, that urban area includes Alty, Stockport, Sale etc. But not Wigan.

    You can walk from Alty (Trafford) to Middleton (Rochdale) without leaving urban areas, that is what makes it all feel like a city.

    You seem a little to focused on local authorities, come to Manchester, you will see that they are meaningless.
    Yes they have and they've also gone to the effect of breaking that urban area into towns and cities. The ONS agrees with me, Altrincham is a town, in Manchester's urban area. It is not part of the City of Manchester.
    you agree the English definition of a city is based on a local authority which is utterly meaningless when talking about urban planning I assume ?
    Yes multiple cities in England, such as Doncaster or Preston, really ought to be classed as large towns.

    I don't know of any towns in England that should be classed as cities.
    You miss the point.

    No one would ever think of a local authority boundary as relevant to any sort of urban planning would they ?

    Even you can spot that I assume ?
    Yes I do. And the towns I'm naming have all the qualities of a town, not those of a city. Which is why it's all houses with cars and people drive overwhelmingly etc unless they're using the Metrolink to commute into the city.

    Stretford I would class as part of Manchester much, much more than Altrincham and not just as it's the right side of the M60.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,714
    Who cleans Braverman's house and mows the lawns?

  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    Utterly pathetic . The boy who ran over that poor lady was allowed to plead guilty to death by dangerous driving instead of being charged with murder . He ran over this poor woman and then did so again when she was trapped under her car. And then watching the news the judges and KC apparently removed their gowns and wigs to make him feel more comfortable. Pathetic .

    Jeez why didn’t they just sing him kumbaya and hand out some chocolates to make him feel even better ! I’m sure his parents are so proud , what a wonderful child they produced !
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 21,971
    edited October 2023

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Because Altrincham simply isn't in the city of Manchester.

    Its very much a town. Yes the Metrolink goes there, but Metrolink does not a city make, people going from Altrincham into Manchester are commuting into the city, not from one.

    Altrincham very much has a town feeling and town statistics same as the other towns I named. 76% of Altrincham own their own home, versus barely over 50% in Manchester. Altrincham is predominantly houses not flats. Etc, etc

    Most of the people who live in Manchester's urban area live in a town, not the City. That's kind of the point!
    Eh ???

    The vast majority of people who live in the local authority called Manchester live in houses, not flats, they are just poorer so fewer own them.

    The ONS have gone to the effort of telling you 2.5m people live in the Greater Manchester urban area, that urban area includes Alty, Stockport, Sale etc. But not Wigan.

    You can walk from Alty (Trafford) to Middleton (Rochdale) without leaving urban areas, that is what makes it all feel like a city.

    You seem a little to focused on local authorities, come to Manchester, you will see that they are meaningless.
    Yes they have and they've also gone to the effect of breaking that urban area into towns and cities. The ONS agrees with me, Altrincham is a town, in Manchester's urban area. It is not part of the City of Manchester.

    You seem a little too focused on Rural. You can walk from Liverpool to Manchester without leaving urban areas. Does that mean that Manchester is in the City of Liverpool?

    Is Wigan part of the City of Manchester in your eyes? Leigh? Warrington?
    Salford?
    Salford is definitely more of a city vibe than Altrincham.

    Oh wait! Salford is a city!
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    ...

    Are any Conservative MPs likely to defect to another party?

    Nah. The Conservatives are now so populist and popular everyone wants to defect to them. Farage, Tommy ten names, maybe at a push even Nicky Griffin. A broad church indeed.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,986
    Ghedebrav said:

    Are any Conservative MPs likely to defect to another party?

    My view is this is relatively unlikely.

    A lot of free thinking moderates were purged or simply retired in 2019.

    Anyone tempted to follow Christian Wakeford has possibly missed their chance as Labour/Lib Dems have candidates in most targets (Wakeford went before a Labour candidate was selected in his seat, and indeed now is the Labour candidate).

    Andrew Bridgen has had some kind of breakdown, and joined the party for middle aged men with significant personal demons, so I don't see anyone following him.

    I think at this stage, if you're really p1ssed off as a Tory MP, you just call it a day at the election.
    More likely than defection is a Faragiste entryism and subsequent civil war - potentially splitting the party in half.
    I’m not sure it would lead to civil war anymore. The Tory centre is much weaker vs the hard right than the Labour centre were vs the Corbynites. The latter were able to achieve a counterrevolution pretty quickly. I can’t see any way back for the centre-right in the Tory party, it seems to have achieved GOP escape velocity.
  • .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Because Altrincham simply isn't in the city of Manchester.

    Its very much a town. Yes the Metrolink goes there, but Metrolink does not a city make, people going from Altrincham into Manchester are commuting into the city, not from one.

    Altrincham very much has a town feeling and town statistics same as the other towns I named. 76% of Altrincham own their own home, versus barely over 50% in Manchester. Altrincham is predominantly houses not flats. Etc, etc

    Most of the people who live in Manchester's urban area live in a town, not the City. That's kind of the point!
    Eh ???

    The vast majority of people who live in the local authority called Manchester live in houses, not flats, they are just poorer so fewer own them.

    The ONS have gone to the effort of telling you 2.5m people live in the Greater Manchester urban area, that urban area includes Alty, Stockport, Sale etc. But not Wigan.

    You can walk from Alty (Trafford) to Middleton (Rochdale) without leaving urban areas, that is what makes it all feel like a city.

    You seem a little to focused on local authorities, come to Manchester, you will see that they are meaningless.
    Yes they have and they've also gone to the effect of breaking that urban area into towns and cities. The ONS agrees with me, Altrincham is a town, in Manchester's urban area. It is not part of the City of Manchester.

    You seem a little too focused on Rural. You can walk from Liverpool to Manchester without leaving urban areas. Does that mean that Manchester is in the City of Liverpool?

    Is Wigan part of the City of Manchester in your eyes? Leigh? Warrington?
    Salford?
    Salford is definitely more of a city vibe than Altrincham.

    Oh wait! Salford is a city!
    Old Trafford ???

    More or less city that Worsley (Salford) ???
  • sladeslade Posts: 2,040
    I have just spent 2 days in Mid-Bedfordshire, so a few thoughts. It is a strange constituency - it includes post codes from Stevenage to Milton Keynes and is a kind of nowhere place. The roads seem to go through it without stopping. If you are not eagled-eyed you would not know there is a by-election on. I drove along the A6 from Bedford to Silsoe, the A507 out to Shefford, and the B539 through Ampthill and Flitwick. I saw 3 Lib Dem posters and 3 Labour ones (and what a washed out lot they are). My conclusion is that the Lib Dems made a strong start, then fell back, but are now picking up again; Labour are very active but treading water; the Conservatives are invisible but presumably working on the sly. We could see a winner with a very low share of the vote.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 21,971
    edited October 2023

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Because Altrincham simply isn't in the city of Manchester.

    Its very much a town. Yes the Metrolink goes there, but Metrolink does not a city make, people going from Altrincham into Manchester are commuting into the city, not from one.

    Altrincham very much has a town feeling and town statistics same as the other towns I named. 76% of Altrincham own their own home, versus barely over 50% in Manchester. Altrincham is predominantly houses not flats. Etc, etc

    Most of the people who live in Manchester's urban area live in a town, not the City. That's kind of the point!
    Eh ???

    The vast majority of people who live in the local authority called Manchester live in houses, not flats, they are just poorer so fewer own them.

    The ONS have gone to the effort of telling you 2.5m people live in the Greater Manchester urban area, that urban area includes Alty, Stockport, Sale etc. But not Wigan.

    You can walk from Alty (Trafford) to Middleton (Rochdale) without leaving urban areas, that is what makes it all feel like a city.

    You seem a little to focused on local authorities, come to Manchester, you will see that they are meaningless.
    Yes they have and they've also gone to the effect of breaking that urban area into towns and cities. The ONS agrees with me, Altrincham is a town, in Manchester's urban area. It is not part of the City of Manchester.

    You seem a little too focused on Rural. You can walk from Liverpool to Manchester without leaving urban areas. Does that mean that Manchester is in the City of Liverpool?

    Is Wigan part of the City of Manchester in your eyes? Leigh? Warrington?
    Salford?
    Salford is definitely more of a city vibe than Altrincham.

    Oh wait! Salford is a city!
    Old Trafford ???

    More or less city that Worsley (Salford) ???
    Yes subjectively I think Old Trafford has sprawled into the city and developed as a city now too.

    Altrincham has not. It's sprawled into it yes, like Warrington, Widnes and Wigan etc, but it's still very much a town.
  • .

    .

    .

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    Why do you differentiate say Altrincham from Manchester ?

    It's part of the same urban lump, there is no rural gap.

    Metrolink takes you from Alty to St Peters Sq in 25mins, every 6mins.

    Historically yes Alty was very much a separate town and no doubt many still 'feel' it is in Cheshire and not an urban area.

    Yet the government measures of Primary Urban Area and Travel to Work Areas both include Alty in the Manchester urban area as they are economically and socially one urban area.
    Because Altrincham simply isn't in the city of Manchester.

    Its very much a town. Yes the Metrolink goes there, but Metrolink does not a city make, people going from Altrincham into Manchester are commuting into the city, not from one.

    Altrincham very much has a town feeling and town statistics same as the other towns I named. 76% of Altrincham own their own home, versus barely over 50% in Manchester. Altrincham is predominantly houses not flats. Etc, etc

    Most of the people who live in Manchester's urban area live in a town, not the City. That's kind of the point!
    Eh ???

    The vast majority of people who live in the local authority called Manchester live in houses, not flats, they are just poorer so fewer own them.

    The ONS have gone to the effort of telling you 2.5m people live in the Greater Manchester urban area, that urban area includes Alty, Stockport, Sale etc. But not Wigan.

    You can walk from Alty (Trafford) to Middleton (Rochdale) without leaving urban areas, that is what makes it all feel like a city.

    You seem a little to focused on local authorities, come to Manchester, you will see that they are meaningless.
    Yes they have and they've also gone to the effect of breaking that urban area into towns and cities. The ONS agrees with me, Altrincham is a town, in Manchester's urban area. It is not part of the City of Manchester.
    you agree the English definition of a city is based on a local authority which is utterly meaningless when talking about urban planning I assume ?
    Yes multiple cities in England, such as Doncaster or Preston, really ought to be classed as large towns.

    I don't know of any towns in England that should be classed as cities.
    You miss the point.

    No one would ever think of a local authority boundary as relevant to any sort of urban planning would they ?

    Even you can spot that I assume ?
    Yes I do. And the towns I'm naming have all the qualities of a town, not those of a city. Which is why it's all houses with cars and people drive overwhelmingly etc unless they're using the Metrolink to commute into the city.

    Stretford I would class as part of Manchester much, much more than Altrincham and not just as it's the right side of the M60.
    You have quite literally no idea about Manchester.

    I live in Sale, between Stretford and Alty and consider myself far more aware of the local area than someone who comes across as disconnected from any sort of understanding of how economies and urban areas actually operate.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134
    Ghedebrav said:

    .

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Phil said:

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    38% of the UK population lives in a city (defined as a populous urban area with a population over 500k people). Not a majority, but not tiny either. (Source: http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf )

    We should neither ignore cities (which are, after all, the economic engines of the UK) nor ignore the majority of people who live in towns & the wider countryside.
    That data is only that high by merging neighbouring towns into built up urban areas. Here is the real data:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/understandingtownsinenglandandwalespopulationanddemographicanalysis/2021-02-24

    Cities excluding London make up 6.9 million people in England and Wales.

    The majority of England and Wales live in towns.
    You can’t exclude the population of London from “people who live in cities in England & Wales”. Come on.
    Fair but even including London you only get to 17m people (correction exc London is 8m, I copied off wrong column).

    Whereas 32.9 million live in towns.

    Towns dramatically exceed cities in England, nearly 2:1, not that you'd know it from our city based correspondents and media.
    For planning purposes, those areas that are contiguously built up with no rural / agricultural land around a city are really part of the city though. Hence my point that, according to a measure of those areas 38% of the UK population live in them.

    You might (reasonably) argue that these hinterlands have differing needs to the city cores & I wouldn’t argue with that, but I would argue that they are not going to be the same as rural towns, so lumping them in with the rural town population & calling them “non city” residents seems wrong to me.
    I never said rural towns though, rural was not part of the equation.

    Most towns absolutely are urban/suburban and are neither rural nor city.

    In the North West Liverpool/Manchester conurbation for instance I believe far more people live in towns like Wigan, Widnes, Warrington, Runcorn, Leigh, Stockport, Northwich, Altrincham etc, etc, etc than either Liverpool or Manchester.
    That certainly used to be the case in the South Yorkshire conurbation vs Sheffield until some fool made Doncaster a city.
    My home town (sort of; I’m from a village outside). Donny is not a city in anything other than a technical vanity sense. In some ways it’s the ur-English Town.
    I'm from round there too. Maybe they were hoping making it a city would be viewed as Levelling Up.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,986
    slade said:

    I have just spent 2 days in Mid-Bedfordshire, so a few thoughts. It is a strange constituency - it includes post codes from Stevenage to Milton Keynes and is a kind of nowhere place. The roads seem to go through it without stopping. If you are not eagled-eyed you would not know there is a by-election on. I drove along the A6 from Bedford to Silsoe, the A507 out to Shefford, and the B539 through Ampthill and Flitwick. I saw 3 Lib Dem posters and 3 Labour ones (and what a washed out lot they are). My conclusion is that the Lib Dems made a strong start, then fell back, but are now picking up again; Labour are very active but treading water; the Conservatives are invisible but presumably working on the sly. We could see a winner with a very low share of the vote.

    We need to find someone in Mid Beds with a Facebook account and the right target demographic, to see what treats the Tories are serving. 15 minute towns, meat taxes, gender ideology?
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,664
    edited October 2023
    nico679 said:

    Utterly pathetic . The boy who ran over that poor lady was allowed to plead guilty to death by dangerous driving instead of being charged with murder . He ran over this poor woman and then did so again when she was trapped under her car. And then watching the news the judges and KC apparently removed their gowns and wigs to make him feel more comfortable. Pathetic .

    Jeez why didn’t they just sing him kumbaya and hand out some chocolates to make him feel even better ! I’m sure his parents are so proud , what a wonderful child they produced !

    If he is being correctly quoted as having said 'looks like I've got my first kill' at the time (one never knows with the police) then I have no idea why this wasn't tried as murder.

    Too much GTA?

    A really shocking case.
  • . . . meanwhile back in The Swamp . . .

    Watch Live: House Vote on Speaker Kevin McCarthy (WSJ via YouTube)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTTLzvxlXuc

    NYT (published about half hour ago) - Here’s the latest on the speakership fight.

    Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he planned to call a vote on Tuesday on the right-wing move to oust him from his post, after declaring that he had no intention of giving Democrats concessions in exchange for helping him survive.

    “I’m confident,” Mr. McCarthy said of his ability to defeat the effort to remove him, as he dismissed the idea of making a deal with Democrats. He said he had told Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader: “You guys do whatever you need to do” on the vote.

    Either Mr. McCarthy or one of his allies is expected to try to quash the effort to oust him, led by Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, by asking the House to “table,” or kill, Mr. Gaetz’s resolution. But the speaker’s slim majority and the number of right-wing rebels in favor of ousting him mean he has little chance of winning that vote — which requires a majority — without at least some support from Democrats.

    But Mr. Jeffries instructed members of his caucus during a closed-door meeting not to bail out Mr. McCarthy, a move that appeared to close off the California Republican’s best chance of surviving the challenge.

    “Given their unwillingness to break from MAGA extremism in an authentic and comprehensive manner,” Mr. Jeffries wrote in a letter to his caucus minutes before an expected vote, “House Democratic leadership will vote yes on the pending Republican motion to vacate the chair.”

    The vote was to come as part of a series that was scheduled to begin around 1:30 p.m.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 12,986
    edited October 2023
    It just occurred to me. Through all the CPC weirdness, one strange lacuna. Nobody is banging on about Brexit. Almost completely absent from their discourse.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,714
    @Leon

    One of the earliest and most lifelike examples of a human sculpture – depicting a man holding his phallus with both hands – has been uncovered by archaeologists in Turkey.

    The unusual 7.5ft (2.3m)-tall statue was discovered at a prehistoric site known as Karahan Tepe

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12589389/Unusual-statue-featuring-frontal-depiction-man-holding-phallus-hands-discovered-near-Mesolithic-temple-Turkey.html
This discussion has been closed.