That’s incredible. That’s from literal touchdown to keying the door of my home. So it includes taxiing, parking, waiting to disembark an economy cabin, walk to passport, passport, luggage collection, walk to Heathrow express, train to Paddington, cab from Paddington to Camden
84 minutes!
A NEW INTER-GALACTIC RECORD
How many minutes though until you are on the internet looking for the next travel adventure?
He has certainly confirmed for me that the Maldives doesn't need to be on my to do list. It seems to encapsulate everything I dislike.
Hmm
If someone ever offers you a free holiday in the Maldives: TAKE IT
They are sublime if you want sheer luxury (and world class scuba and snorkelling). Unquestionably the best and biggest cluster of super luxurious resorts in the world
However if you want life and couture and authenticity - or you are averse to dropping £10k of your own cash on a mere week abroad - avoid like the plague
To me the Maldives symbolises everything wrong with long haul tourism.
1) the capital is one of the most crowded islands in the world with a quarter of a million people in a little over 3 Square miles. Raw sewage goes straight into the ocean, and water is in short supply. The Tourist resorts are incredibly spacious on the out lying islands.
2) the government is an Islamic fundamentalist one, under Sharia law with alcohol only allowed to tourists staying in resorts on the outlying islands. Local culture is anathema with food and drink imported.
3) the country may well sink below the waves due to global warming, yet the economy is completely dependent on international air travel that is a major contribution to the islands destruction.
The tourists live in an artificial bubble, deliberately kept away from the grim consequences of their holiday in paradise.
Not my cup of tea, but I don't expect any of this to appear in your paid puffery in The Spectator. Freebies only go to"Travel Journalists" willing to write advertising copy and pretend it is journalism.
And they have a huge heroin problem.
What, all of the Speccie's writers ?
He’s actually right. They do have a heroin problem in the Maldives. It’s because they don’t allow booze. See Iran for something very similar on vastly greater scale
However most of the locals - in my experience - absolutely love the hotels. Before tourism arrived the Maldives was a fly blown malarial archipelago ignored by the British (we owned it)
Now the men have a route out of poverty and a gateway to global jobs. And the women have a way out of that veiled sharia law
And of course it all brings lots of money which DOES go to the locals. I’ve been to the main island of Mahe - and stayed there. And talked to the Maldivians. I doubt if 5% of them want to return to the old impoverished life. All they can offer is tourism
"most of the locals - in my experience - absolutely love the hotels"
Would these be the same locals you've just met at the hotel where you are staying, and they are working?
Have you been to the Maldives? The people are not bashful. They are vivid and outgoing and full of opinions
On my last trip - unlike almost any other tourist - I went to stay on the capital-island of Mahe, so I could actually talk to real Maldivians. And they will happily talk to you, and be open and candid (feel my pain, Mahe is DRY)
They made it pretty plain. Yes, the hotels bring weird social stress and environmental issues, but without the hotels they'd be as impoverished as the people on the Nicobar or Andaman islands. The hotels bring huge income amd opportunity. I didn't meet one person who wants to get rid of them and go back to some imaginary pre-lapsarian paradise
You could probably dig up a mad mullah who would say this. The people do not. And the women REALLY like the freedom from the niqab
Also, Maldivians are now developing their own domestic tourist market. The "guest house"
I’m genuinely curious. How many PBers would turn down a free £10k holiday in the Maldives for all the reasons @Foxy says? Sharia law, hypocrisy, climate change, etc?
I am happy to accept that @foxy might actually do that - consumed with pompous Puritan moral self congratulation as he is, he also seems sincere
Wouid anyone else say No? Please be honest!
Probably,. For now I only have so much free time to holiday - and I know it would bore my wife witless.
Good evening
My wife and I would as our travel insurance would probably exceed the free holiday!!!!
Someone would pay just to see you snorkelling, surely ?
The more interesting question is which tourist destination would you not spend your own money to visit.
Having been with work to Dubai and Qatar I am very confident I would never trouble my own wallet to spend time there. Fine on expenses, but not for me.
Sadly some of my most fun work trips of the last couple of decades were to Moscow. That’s not happening again in a hurry.
Dubai and Qatar are hideous. Quite agree
Abu Dhabi. Doha, all of it. YUK
I would never spend my own money to go to Denmark, too fucking boring, ditto Sweden. Morocco is an edge case
Apart from that I find everywhere in the world fascinating in some way
Monte Carlo. Ghastly. Also did not much like Provence when I went there. Overpriced. Too many twee lavender goodies everywhere and the food a disappointment.
Also avoid Tuscany in summer. Full of the sort of ghastly English middle classes any sensible person tries to stay away from.
Monaco is fun if you accept it for what it is. A sunny place for shady people. Revel in it, enjoy the local culture - which is mad tax exiles and Formula 1 Drivers getting drunk and eating £100 fish and chips with Russian hookers. Why is that any less interesting or authentic than the mosques of Samarkand or the gnus of the Serengeti? Monaco has been like this for 150 years minimum and the coast is spectacular
Provence can be disappointing (completely agree on the food) but then you happen upon an old abbey in a lavender field and its breathtakingly beautiful. Likewise Tuscany. Florence is stunning, one of THE great destinations, even if it is overrun with tourists. IT IS THE RENAISSANCE
I quite like Florence. I have family there. But not in high summer or the depths of winter.
One day I will tell you what other Italians think of Tuscans. It is not flattering. Italians snarking about other Italians is even more fun than legal snark. Though hard to explain to non-Italian speakers.
Disliked Nice town. But the coast road from Nice down to Livorno and beyond is one of the great drives.
And the Golden Goat is one of the best restaurants I have ever been to…
I prefer the train from Nice to Genoa and then down to Naples though. Noisy and grubby.
That’s incredible. That’s from literal touchdown to keying the door of my home. So it includes taxiing, parking, waiting to disembark an economy cabin, walk to passport, passport, luggage collection, walk to Heathrow express, train to Paddington, cab from Paddington to Camden
84 minutes!
A NEW INTER-GALACTIC RECORD
How many minutes though until you are on the internet looking for the next travel adventure?
He has certainly confirmed for me that the Maldives doesn't need to be on my to do list. It seems to encapsulate everything I dislike.
Hmm
If someone ever offers you a free holiday in the Maldives: TAKE IT
They are sublime if you want sheer luxury (and world class scuba and snorkelling). Unquestionably the best and biggest cluster of super luxurious resorts in the world
However if you want life and couture and authenticity - or you are averse to dropping £10k of your own cash on a mere week abroad - avoid like the plague
To me the Maldives symbolises everything wrong with long haul tourism.
1) the capital is one of the most crowded islands in the world with a quarter of a million people in a little over 3 Square miles. Raw sewage goes straight into the ocean, and water is in short supply. The Tourist resorts are incredibly spacious on the out lying islands.
2) the government is an Islamic fundamentalist one, under Sharia law with alcohol only allowed to tourists staying in resorts on the outlying islands. Local culture is anathema with food and drink imported.
3) the country may well sink below the waves due to global warming, yet the economy is completely dependent on international air travel that is a major contribution to the islands destruction.
The tourists live in an artificial bubble, deliberately kept away from the grim consequences of their holiday in paradise.
Not my cup of tea, but I don't expect any of this to appear in your paid puffery in The Spectator. Freebies only go to"Travel Journalists" willing to write advertising copy and pretend it is journalism.
And they have a huge heroin problem.
What, all of the Speccie's writers ?
He’s actually right. They do have a heroin problem in the Maldives. It’s because they don’t allow booze. See Iran for something very similar on vastly greater scale
However most of the locals - in my experience - absolutely love the hotels. Before tourism arrived the Maldives was a fly blown malarial archipelago ignored by the British (we owned it)
Now the men have a route out of poverty and a gateway to global jobs. And the women have a way out of that veiled sharia law
And of course it all brings lots of money which DOES go to the locals. I’ve been to the main island of Mahe - and stayed there. And talked to the Maldivians. I doubt if 5% of them want to return to the old impoverished life. All they can offer is tourism
"most of the locals - in my experience - absolutely love the hotels"
Would these be the same locals you've just met at the hotel where you are staying, and they are working?
Have you been to the Maldives? The people are not bashful. They are vivid and outgoing and full of opinions
On my last trip - unlike almost any other tourist - I went to stay on the capital-island of Mahe, so I could actually talk to real Maldivians. And they will happily talk to you, and be open and candid (feel my pain, Mahe is DRY)
They made it pretty plain. Yes, the hotels bring weird social stress and environmental issues, but without the hotels they'd be as impoverished as the people on the Nicobar or Andaman islands. The hotels bring huge income amd opportunity. I didn't meet one person who wants to get rid of them and go back to some imaginary pre-lapsarian paradise
You could probably dig up a mad mullah who would say this. The people do not. And the women REALLY like the freedom from the niqab
Also, Maldivians are now developing their own domestic tourist market. The "guest house"
I’m genuinely curious. How many PBers would turn down a free £10k holiday in the Maldives for all the reasons @Foxy says? Sharia law, hypocrisy, climate change, etc?
I am happy to accept that @foxy might actually do that - consumed with pompous Puritan moral self congratulation as he is, he also seems sincere
Wouid anyone else say No? Please be honest!
I have already had a free luxury holiday in the Maldives with my family. It was absolutely beautiful and absurdly luxurious and I was very grateful that we had the opportunity, but it was also quite boring and left me feeling a bit weird because I don't really like being waited on hand and foot.
Anyway while I wait ..... and wait..... and wait ..... and wait ..... for my free holiday with @Leon, on a more serious note the criminal justice system - and the Post Office's investigators and lawyers are now in the crosshairs, rightly so, of the Post Office Inquiry.
The guide given to the Post Office prosecutors completely failed to include their legal obligations to uncover and disclose material which might help the defence...
I wish I could say that is unbelievable, but we're long since past that.
Who was it that 'gave' the guide to the prosecutors ?
The Post Office themselves. They wrote it. They based it on the CPS codes and Attorney-General's guidelines and various other guides which prosecutors must follow. But left out a rather important bit. .......
So it did not happen by accident.
But then how did their prosecutors overlook the omission ? It's not as though it's a technicality.
The Post Office took the view from the start that these people must be guilty and nothing was going to stand in their way. Not the law. Not evidence. Not judges. Nothing. They probably still believe that.
For my sins I am halfway through reading the first substantive Frazer judgment which first blew open the scandal. It is 300 pages long. The judge is very careful and polite but he is utterly scathing about the Post Office and the honesty or, more correctly, lack of honesty of the Post Office witnesses. I have never seen so many different ways a judge has described so many people as liars without actually using the word. It is a masterpiece of legal snark.
The PO was so furious they tried to get the judge removed. Not because of bias or some other failing but because they realised that if they lost this would cost them money and credibility so how fucking dare he. That application was described as utterly hopeless, misconceived and without merit.
And here we are years later and we are learning that it is all so very much worse.
I think if I were one of the subpostmasters affected by this I wouldn't be waiting for judicial reports. I'd be going to the houses of those responsible with some baseball bats and dangerous dogs. These people ruined lives. They took lives. They should be living in fear of going to prison and paying for what they have done.
It seems almost inconceivable that there aren't grounds to charge a number of people with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
I agree.
2 Fujitsu employees are under investigation for perjury. Referred by the judge to the Met in 2020. Nothing has happened of course.
So far everyone on PB would turn down a free £10k holiday in the Maldives
Excuse me but
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
I might do - but mainly because I find beach holidays dull. So I’m going to claim superior taste rather than moral virtue
The Maldives isn't a beach holiday, as most people understand it. It is way beyond that
The concept of the over-water villa means you step from your bedroom straight into the Indian Ocean, swimming amongst reef sharks, sting rays, and turtles, before breakfast
It is pretty fucking sensational. Very few people spend time lounging on the beach (even tho the beaches are sublime - made of crushed coral rather than rock, so they don't get hot)
And the snorkelling and the scuba? OMFG
On my previous trip I was so addicted to the snorkelling on one house reef I went round and round and round the island for about two days without cease, and got a terrible ear infection. It was worth it
This time I did the dives. Wow
A post I can understand. An unusual place. You walk out of your bedroom onto your private jetty and into he closest thing to an aquarium that I've ever seen. I was shooting a rafaello commercial and our end of shoot party was on a desert island about an hour away by boat. Just a sandbank in the middle of the the Indian Ocean prepared with lights and food and nothing to see on any horizon. Banyan Tree is the Island I liked best. It is unvulgar luxury and something to startle every minute
How strange. On my flight back there was an advertising crew who had just obviously shot a TV ad there, they were all talking about it
I thought of you!
The Maldives are weird and unique, in multiple good and bad ways, but you do really have to go here to appreciate how exquisitely lovely they are. It is not the Canaries or even the Caribbean. It is special, there is nowhere else like it on earth
The more interesting question is which tourist destination would you not spend your own money to visit.
Having been with work to Dubai and Qatar I am very confident I would never trouble my own wallet to spend time there. Fine on expenses, but not for me.
Sadly some of my most fun work trips of the last couple of decades were to Moscow. That’s not happening again in a hurry.
Dubai and Qatar are hideous. Quite agree
Abu Dhabi. Doha, all of it. YUK
I would never spend my own money to go to Denmark, too fucking boring, ditto Sweden. Morocco is an edge case
Apart from that I find everywhere in the world fascinating in some way
Monte Carlo. Ghastly. Also did not much like Provence when I went there. Overpriced. Too many twee lavender goodies everywhere and the food a disappointment.
Also avoid Tuscany in summer. Full of the sort of ghastly English middle classes any sensible person tries to stay away from.
Monaco is fun if you accept it for what it is. A sunny place for shady people. Revel in it, enjoy the local culture - which is mad tax exiles and Formula 1 Drivers getting drunk and eating £100 fish and chips with Russian hookers. Why is that any less interesting or authentic than the mosques of Samarkand or the gnus of the Serengeti? Monaco has been like this for 150 years minimum and the coast is spectacular
Provence can be disappointing (completely agree on the food) but then you happen upon an old abbey in a lavender field and its breathtakingly beautiful. Likewise Tuscany. Florence is stunning, one of THE great destinations, even if it is overrun with tourists. IT IS THE RENAISSANCE
I quite like Florence. I have family there. But not in high summer or the depths of winter.
One day I will tell you what other Italians think of Tuscans. It is not flattering. Italians snarking about other Italians is even more fun than legal snark. Though hard to explain to non-Italian speakers.
Disliked Nice town. But the coast road from Nice down to Livorno and beyond is one of the great drives.
And the Golden Goat is one of the best restaurants I have ever been to…
I prefer the train from Nice to Genoa and then down to Naples though. Noisy and grubby.
I got married at the Chevre d'Or
(Technically, on the grass outside, but hey, who's counting.)
Our car? You use a helicopter and a government car to do everything.
Did you not see the picture?
They genuinely thought Richi on a private plane was the message they want to send???
That is mind blowing, It has to be sabotage, or parody
HE'S ON A PRIVATE JET
OMG. If Trump did this we'd all think he was somehow joking, no one could be so clumsy in their messaging
I wonder if he's stopped caring. He's got a year, then he loses and buggers off the following weekend.
So why bother pretending to be nice? It takes a certain kind of experience to be impassive in the face of everyone hating you. Major had it, so did May. I'm not sure Sunak does.
The more interesting question is which tourist destination would you not spend your own money to visit.
Having been with work to Dubai and Qatar I am very confident I would never trouble my own wallet to spend time there. Fine on expenses, but not for me.
Sadly some of my most fun work trips of the last couple of decades were to Moscow. That’s not happening again in a hurry.
Dubai and Qatar are hideous. Quite agree
Abu Dhabi. Doha, all of it. YUK
I would never spend my own money to go to Denmark, too fucking boring, ditto Sweden. Morocco is an edge case
Apart from that I find everywhere in the world fascinating in some way
Monte Carlo. Ghastly. Also did not much like Provence when I went there. Overpriced. Too many twee lavender goodies everywhere and the food a disappointment.
Also avoid Tuscany in summer. Full of the sort of ghastly English middle classes any sensible person tries to stay away from.
Monaco is fun if you accept it for what it is. A sunny place for shady people. Revel in it, enjoy the local culture - which is mad tax exiles and Formula 1 Drivers getting drunk and eating £100 fish and chips with Russian hookers. Why is that any less interesting or authentic than the mosques of Samarkand or the gnus of the Serengeti? Monaco has been like this for 150 years minimum and the coast is spectacular
Provence can be disappointing (completely agree on the food) but then you happen upon an old abbey in a lavender field and its breathtakingly beautiful. Likewise Tuscany. Florence is stunning, one of THE great destinations, even if it is overrun with tourists. IT IS THE RENAISSANCE
I quite like Florence. I have family there. But not in high summer or the depths of winter.
One day I will tell you what other Italians think of Tuscans. It is not flattering. Italians snarking about other Italians is even more fun than legal snark. Though hard to explain to non-Italian speakers.
Disliked Nice town. But the coast road from Nice down to Livorno and beyond is one of the great drives.
And the Golden Goat is one of the best restaurants I have ever been to…
I prefer the train from Nice to Genoa and then down to Naples though. Noisy and grubby.
I've done that drive from Nice to Naples and beyond lots of times - with the children and as adults. It is fantastic.
Done the train journeys too - every year as a child. Most of my childhood seemed to be spent on trains. Travelled everywhere round Europe and Russia and in India by train as a young adult.
The more interesting question is which tourist destination would you not spend your own money to visit.
Having been with work to Dubai and Qatar I am very confident I would never trouble my own wallet to spend time there. Fine on expenses, but not for me.
Sadly some of my most fun work trips of the last couple of decades were to Moscow. That’s not happening again in a hurry.
Dubai and Qatar are hideous. Quite agree
Abu Dhabi. Doha, all of it. YUK
I would never spend my own money to go to Denmark, too fucking boring, ditto Sweden. Morocco is an edge case
Apart from that I find everywhere in the world fascinating in some way
Monte Carlo. Ghastly. Also did not much like Provence when I went there. Overpriced. Too many twee lavender goodies everywhere and the food a disappointment.
Also avoid Tuscany in summer. Full of the sort of ghastly English middle classes any sensible person tries to stay away from.
Monaco is fun if you accept it for what it is. A sunny place for shady people. Revel in it, enjoy the local culture - which is mad tax exiles and Formula 1 Drivers getting drunk and eating £100 fish and chips with Russian hookers. Why is that any less interesting or authentic than the mosques of Samarkand or the gnus of the Serengeti? Monaco has been like this for 150 years minimum and the coast is spectacular
Provence can be disappointing (completely agree on the food) but then you happen upon an old abbey in a lavender field and its breathtakingly beautiful. Likewise Tuscany. Florence is stunning, one of THE great destinations, even if it is overrun with tourists. IT IS THE RENAISSANCE
I quite like Florence. I have family there. But not in high summer or the depths of winter.
One day I will tell you what other Italians think of Tuscans. It is not flattering. Italians snarking about other Italians is even more fun than legal snark. Though hard to explain to non-Italian speakers.
Disliked Nice town. But the coast road from Nice down to Livorno and beyond is one of the great drives.
And the Golden Goat is one of the best restaurants I have ever been to…
I prefer the train from Nice to Genoa and then down to Naples though. Noisy and grubby.
I got married at the Chevre d'Or
(Technically, on the grass outside, but hey, who's counting.)
Cool. I went there on my honeymoon - just a short drive from Hotel du Cap.
That’s incredible. That’s from literal touchdown to keying the door of my home. So it includes taxiing, parking, waiting to disembark an economy cabin, walk to passport, passport, luggage collection, walk to Heathrow express, train to Paddington, cab from Paddington to Camden
84 minutes!
A NEW INTER-GALACTIC RECORD
How many minutes though until you are on the internet looking for the next travel adventure?
He has certainly confirmed for me that the Maldives doesn't need to be on my to do list. It seems to encapsulate everything I dislike.
Hmm
If someone ever offers you a free holiday in the Maldives: TAKE IT
They are sublime if you want sheer luxury (and world class scuba and snorkelling). Unquestionably the best and biggest cluster of super luxurious resorts in the world
However if you want life and couture and authenticity - or you are averse to dropping £10k of your own cash on a mere week abroad - avoid like the plague
To me the Maldives symbolises everything wrong with long haul tourism.
1) the capital is one of the most crowded islands in the world with a quarter of a million people in a little over 3 Square miles. Raw sewage goes straight into the ocean, and water is in short supply. The Tourist resorts are incredibly spacious on the out lying islands.
2) the government is an Islamic fundamentalist one, under Sharia law with alcohol only allowed to tourists staying in resorts on the outlying islands. Local culture is anathema with food and drink imported.
3) the country may well sink below the waves due to global warming, yet the economy is completely dependent on international air travel that is a major contribution to the islands destruction.
The tourists live in an artificial bubble, deliberately kept away from the grim consequences of their holiday in paradise.
Not my cup of tea, but I don't expect any of this to appear in your paid puffery in The Spectator. Freebies only go to"Travel Journalists" willing to write advertising copy and pretend it is journalism.
That’s all well and good but I write for the Knappers Gazette and we’re trying to diversify their economy into granitic vibrators. You should be applauding me not seething with envy
No not envious at all.
When I travel, I am interested in local culture, food, customs, and even politics. I like to spread the money to local people, so that they too can benefit, rather than just be house elves or in a human zoo.
You do realise I have been to all seven continents and maybe 120 countries? And just occasionally I write about things other than exceptional wine cellars? Like, say, customs, culture, food, and even politics?
You should get out more in the city you live in. Then Tooting and most of the rest of London wouldn't be such a foreign country to you.
I wonder how many of the 32 boroughs you've ever spent more than three consecutive hours in.
You praise London for being a "world city", and then you say you want to control immigration because otherwise you fear Britain will be dominated by Africans. You can't have it both ways. Immigration is what makes a world city.
You're Alf Garnett, basically. You can't handle too many black people on an airline video. I bet you're still seething about Coca-Cola's "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" film. Every decade has its Alfs.
What does the man know about "culture" who refers to wine he gets served at a Rothschild do as "£500 wine"?
The Sex Pistols had a good line when they sang about "a cheap holiday in other people's misery" - or in your case, a paid holiday.
I live in Camden Town. It probably doesn’t get more multiracial - anywhere in the world
Oh it does, in a lot of the rest of London, for starters:
Surprising fact (to me at any rate) both Camden & Islington are less multiracial than Westminster.
Evening from Newham, London's most diverse Borough.
Evening from Redbridge, 3rd place (65.2% non-white).
Evening from the (new) parliamentary constitutency with the highest % concentration of Sikhs in Britain. Guess where?
Wolverhampton? I was there last Sunday riding the new tram extension from the Royal to the Railway Station
Got a little drenched though
Yup. Wolverhampton West. (Wulfrun was a giveaway mind.)
I suppose you've done the wonderful cable monorail from Birmingham International to the airport too?
Yes, I did that some nine years ago. Like the one at Gatwick, and the new Luton DART, it's "ground side" so open to non-airline passengers. I have done the "air side" one at Stansted in 2010 when I flew to Lyons, but I haven't done the "air side" one at Heathrow T5.
The more interesting question is which tourist destination would you not spend your own money to visit.
Having been with work to Dubai and Qatar I am very confident I would never trouble my own wallet to spend time there. Fine on expenses, but not for me.
Sadly some of my most fun work trips of the last couple of decades were to Moscow. That’s not happening again in a hurry.
Dubai and Qatar are hideous. Quite agree
Abu Dhabi. Doha, all of it. YUK
I would never spend my own money to go to Denmark, too fucking boring, ditto Sweden. Morocco is an edge case
Apart from that I find everywhere in the world fascinating in some way
My visits to Dubai and Qatar have been restricted to the airports. Despite being huge, Dubai airport was horrendously overcrowded. Big queues for the toilets.
Our car? You use a helicopter and a government car to do everything.
Did you not see the picture?
They genuinely thought Richi on a private plane was the message they want to send???
That is mind blowing, It has to be sabotage, or parody
HE'S ON A PRIVATE JET
OMG. If Trump did this we'd all think he was somehow joking, no one could be so clumsy in their messaging
He is the reverse midas touch on PR. Hopeless.
Surprised he didn't announce the ending of ciggies for 14 years olds from a Bensons and Hedges factory with a roll up in his mouth.
It is honestly stupefying that no one said, "Hey, maybe we shouldn't do this with a photo of you in a private jet"
What's the equivalent??!! Humza Yousaf claiming to be a civic nationalist as he angrily and accurately defecates, from a 200m distance, at a suspended portrait of Winston Churchill?
So far everyone on PB would turn down a free £10k holiday in the Maldives
Excuse me but
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
I might do - but mainly because I find beach holidays dull. So I’m going to claim superior taste rather than moral virtue
The Maldives isn't a beach holiday, as most people understand it. It is way beyond that
The concept of the over-water villa means you step from your bedroom straight into the Indian Ocean, swimming amongst reef sharks, sting rays, and turtles, before breakfast
It is pretty fucking sensational. Very few people spend time lounging on the beach (even tho the beaches are sublime - made of crushed coral rather than rock, so they don't get hot)
And the snorkelling and the scuba? OMFG
On my previous trip I was so addicted to the snorkelling on one house reef I went round and round and round the island for about two days without cease, and got a terrible ear infection. It was worth it
This time I did the dives. Wow
A post I can understand. An unusual place. You walk out of your bedroom onto your private jetty and into he closest thing to an aquarium that I've ever seen. I was shooting a rafaello commercial and our end of shoot party was on a desert island about an hour away by boat. Just a sandbank in the middle of the the Indian Ocean prepared with lights and food and nothing to see on any horizon. Banyan Tree is the Island I liked best. It is unvulgar luxury and something to startle every minute
How strange. On my flight back there was an advertising crew who had just obviously shot a TV ad there, they were all talking about it
I thought of you!
The Maldives are weird and unique, in multiple good and bad ways, but you do really have to go here to appreciate how exquisitely lovely they are. It is not the Canaries or even the Caribbean. It is special, there is nowhere else like it on earth
Have you been to Kiribati? I think that's the most beautiful place I've ever been. The lagoons have just miles of turquoise seas about a metre deep, with white sand underneath. It felt a lot more real than the Maldives. The food is awful though.
...However, statistics issued by London Councils, the grouping of London local authorities, show that there were in fact 45,709 appeals against PCs during the period, of which 18,130, or 0.24 per cent of all tickets issued, succeeded - a figure 176 times smaller than the government document claimed. After the Financial Times pointed out the error, the transport department on Friday changed thedocument to make clear that 42.8 per cent of drivers who appealed weee successful..
Mr Math's transport department still can't do sums. 18,130 is 39.66% of 45,709.
The more interesting question is which tourist destination would you not spend your own money to visit.
Having been with work to Dubai and Qatar I am very confident I would never trouble my own wallet to spend time there. Fine on expenses, but not for me.
Sadly some of my most fun work trips of the last couple of decades were to Moscow. That’s not happening again in a hurry.
Dubai and Qatar are hideous. Quite agree
Abu Dhabi. Doha, all of it. YUK
I would never spend my own money to go to Denmark, too fucking boring, ditto Sweden. Morocco is an edge case
Apart from that I find everywhere in the world fascinating in some way
My visits to Dubai and Qatar have been restricted to the airports. Despite being huge, Dubai airport was horrendously overcrowded. Big queues for the toilets.
They don't get better over time. They are sterile. It is quite hard to find a drink. They are joyless
I know most airports are grim in ways, but the big Arabian airports take it to a new level of grey affluent tedium. European airports often have a cultural jollity and Asian airports - Changi, Hong Kong, etc - can somehow gleam with hedonism and luxe, so you want to linger. Not so in the UAE
No. 25% will always vote Tory, and with a majority of the media supporting them, they will get at least another 5%, which under FPTP might get 200 seats or so. They won't go under 100 unless there is some sort of humongous event.
I’m genuinely curious. How many PBers would turn down a free £10k holiday in the Maldives for all the reasons @Foxy says? Sharia law, hypocrisy, climate change, etc?
I am happy to accept that @foxy might actually do that - consumed with pompous Puritan moral self congratulation as he is, he also seems sincere
Wouid anyone else say No? Please be honest!
Probably,. For now I only have so much free time to holiday - and I know it would bore my wife witless.
Good evening
My wife and I would as our travel insurance would probably exceed the free holiday!!!!
Someone would pay just to see you snorkelling, surely ?
Our snorkeling days are behind us, though I did have a great time snorkeling the barrier reef some years ago
No. 25% will always vote Tory, and with a majority of the media supporting them, they will get at least another 5%, which under FPTP might get 200 seats or so. They won't go under 100 unless there is some sort of humongous event.
The question is - do the Tories delete or brave it out?
They have a few hours to decide before it hits twitter in the morning.
It is already being monumentally ratio'd
I can only think that someone on Sunak's team actively hates him, or wants him to lose, and advised him to do this, or failed to dissuade him, and Sunak is sufficiently naive he didn't spy the error beforehand
OR they are all drunk and resigned to defeat and having a laugh
The question is - do the Tories delete or brave it out?
They have a few hours to decide before it hits twitter in the morning.
It is already being monumentally ratio'd
I can only think that someone on Sunak's team actively hates him, or wants him to lose, and advised him to do this, or failed to dissuade him, and Sunak is sufficiently naive he didn't spy the error beforehand
OR they are all drunk and resigned to defeat and having a laugh
Or they are so out of touch and divorced from reality they can't spot the obvious problem.
I wanted to like Sunak. He seems genuinely nice and he is obviously bright, and it's not his fault he is two foot seven. It's kinda sad he is such a fuck-up as PM
The question is - do the Tories delete or brave it out?
They have a few hours to decide before it hits twitter in the morning.
It is already being monumentally ratio'd
I can only think that someone on Sunak's team actively hates him, or wants him to lose, and advised him to do this, or failed to dissuade him, and Sunak is sufficiently naive he didn't spy the error beforehand
OR they are all drunk and resigned to defeat and having a laugh
Or they are so out of touch and divorced from reality they can't spot the obvious problem.
They think it shows the PM working hard as he whizzes around the country and world. Any normal person, not SPADs, thinks "well of course you don't think we need good railways, you berk."
All this pro-driver stuff would work much better if it was Lee Anderson doing it. This is where Starmer is clever - knows when to use Rayner.
It would also be better if he was doing anything to support drivers.
Like actually investing in new roads. Or cutting fuel duty. Or dealing with excessive insurance costs.
To be pro-driving takes more than just saying "pro driver" as you fly across the country avoiding the motorways which you refuse to build new ones of, no different to any other PM in the past few decades.
No. 25% will always vote Tory, and with a majority of the media supporting them, they will get at least another 5%, which under FPTP might get 200 seats or so. They won't go under 100 unless there is some sort of humongous event.
Our car? You use a helicopter and a government car to do everything.
Did you not see the picture?
They genuinely thought Richi on a private plane was the message they want to send???
The country is such a small country there's no reason you can't get across it by either car or train.
Except my government won't invest in either roads or railways, so here I am in a jet.
Vote for me, so I can continue to fly over the rest of you plebs.
There is a reason you can't get across it by train. He's just binned the project to build the capacity to do just that.
That was the point I was making.
And its not like he's come up with a new M6 or any other new motorways to replace it, he's no different to any other PM when it comes to failure to invest in roads, and he's failing to invest in rails too.
I see it's bash Sunak time again on pb. I'm afraid it doesn't reflect well on many of you. Let's try for a bit of balance.
He's done well on Ukraine. He hasn't panicked in the face of falling house prices and demanded various silly measures to prop them up He hasn't tried to offer a massive pre-election giveaway He appears to work hard He appears to think hard about the decisions he makes He respects the civil service - contrast with Blair/Brown/Johnson The Windsor Framework
So many of you deride the hysteria of populism and yet your shallow attacks on Sunak seem no better theorised. So far I'd judge him the best Tory PM since 2010. A low bar nonetheless.
There is a reason you can't get across it by train. He's just binned the project to build the capacity to do just that.
Starmer should avoid planes and helicopters during the general election campaign, might even be a good idea to turn up late to some events due to the shocking state of public transport.
No. 25% will always vote Tory, and with a majority of the media supporting them, they will get at least another 5%, which under FPTP might get 200 seats or so. They won't go under 100 unless there is some sort of humongous event.
What if there is some sort of homunculus event?
I am desperately looking for a way to shoehorn the "little breather" gag from Airplane! in here... ☹️
All this pro-driver stuff would work much better if it was Lee Anderson doing it. This is where Starmer is clever - knows when to use Rayner.
It would also be better if he was doing anything to support drivers.
Like actually investing in new roads. Or cutting fuel duty. Or dealing with excessive insurance costs.
To be pro-driving takes more than just saying "pro driver" as you fly across the country avoiding the motorways which you refuse to build new ones of, no different to any other PM in the past few decades.
You could also support drivers by really ramping up the electric car charging network. Not all drivers want to remain petrolheads. But Sunak's not doing much on that front either.
Poor form, questions on this site are supposed to be written as QTWAINs.
It would have been better phrased then as "will the Tories hold 100 or more seats next year?"
Raising taxes on workers, cutting infrastructure investment and now screwing with my kids education?
Are there any more lows he won't stoop to? Worst Prime Minister Ever.
OK, mistakes happen, and it looks like the screwup was down to civil servants, not politicians.
But, if it was known about earlier and only released now, that's bad in an "it's always the cover-up that gets you" way.
And the core point is that a 2.7 percent increase in funding per pupil was already not good, and 1.9 percent is worse.
Only upside is that compulsory redundancies won't be necessary at most schools because another very low pay increase of 1.9% max will result in more than enough staff leaving.
That’s incredible. That’s from literal touchdown to keying the door of my home. So it includes taxiing, parking, waiting to disembark an economy cabin, walk to passport, passport, luggage collection, walk to Heathrow express, train to Paddington, cab from Paddington to Camden
84 minutes!
A NEW INTER-GALACTIC RECORD
How many minutes though until you are on the internet looking for the next travel adventure?
He has certainly confirmed for me that the Maldives doesn't need to be on my to do list. It seems to encapsulate everything I dislike.
Hmm
If someone ever offers you a free holiday in the Maldives: TAKE IT
They are sublime if you want sheer luxury (and world class scuba and snorkelling). Unquestionably the best and biggest cluster of super luxurious resorts in the world
However if you want life and couture and authenticity - or you are averse to dropping £10k of your own cash on a mere week abroad - avoid like the plague
To me the Maldives symbolises everything wrong with long haul tourism.
1) the capital is one of the most crowded islands in the world with a quarter of a million people in a little over 3 Square miles. Raw sewage goes straight into the ocean, and water is in short supply. The Tourist resorts are incredibly spacious on the out lying islands.
2) the government is an Islamic fundamentalist one, under Sharia law with alcohol only allowed to tourists staying in resorts on the outlying islands. Local culture is anathema with food and drink imported.
3) the country may well sink below the waves due to global warming, yet the economy is completely dependent on international air travel that is a major contribution to the islands destruction.
The tourists live in an artificial bubble, deliberately kept away from the grim consequences of their holiday in paradise.
Not my cup of tea, but I don't expect any of this to appear in your paid puffery in The Spectator. Freebies only go to"Travel Journalists" willing to write advertising copy and pretend it is journalism.
And they have a huge heroin problem.
What, all of the Speccie's writers ?
He’s actually right. They do have a heroin problem in the Maldives. It’s because they don’t allow booze. See Iran for something very similar on vastly greater scale
However most of the locals absolutely love the hotels. Before tourism arrived the Maldives was a fly blown malarial archipelago ignored by the British (we owned it)
Now the men have a route out of poverty and a gateway to global jobs. And the women have a way out of that veiled sharia
I’m genuinely curious. How many PBers would turn down a free £10k holiday in the Maldives for all the reasons @Foxy says? Sharia law, hypocrisy, climate change, etc?
I am happy to accept that @foxy might actually do that - consumed with pompous Puritan moral self congratulation as he is, he also seems sincere
Wouid anyone else say No? Please be honest!
I would turn it down. As reviews go "Sharia law, hypocrisy, climate change" isn't really selling to me.
Honestly? If someone said “here have a free ten grand holiday in Soneva Fushi” - you’d turn it down on moral grounds?
I am surrounded by living saints
Yup. In my previous life as a photographer you have no idea what I turned down. From money to... other things.
I see it's bash Sunak time again on pb. I'm afraid it doesn't reflect well on many of you. Let's try for a bit of balance.
He's done well on Ukraine. He hasn't panicked in the face of falling house prices and demanded various silly measures to prop them up He hasn't tried to offer a massive pre-election giveaway He appears to work hard He appears to think hard about the decisions he makes He respects the civil service - contrast with Blair/Brown/Johnson The Windsor Framework
So many of you deride the hysteria of populism and yet your shallow attacks on Sunak seem no better theorised. So far I'd judge him the best Tory PM since 2010. A low bar nonetheless.
I liked May, ill-fated though she was, and much as I didn't like her brand of brexit fudge.
All this pro-driver stuff would work much better if it was Lee Anderson doing it. This is where Starmer is clever - knows when to use Rayner.
It would also be better if he was doing anything to support drivers.
Like actually investing in new roads. Or cutting fuel duty. Or dealing with excessive insurance costs.
To be pro-driving takes more than just saying "pro driver" as you fly across the country avoiding the motorways which you refuse to build new ones of, no different to any other PM in the past few decades.
Fuel duty has been cut massively in real terms. Even more so when compared with bus fares.
It's the inverse of your favourite topic: fiscal drive
I see it's bash Sunak time again on pb. I'm afraid it doesn't reflect well on many of you. Let's try for a bit of balance.
He's done well on Ukraine. He hasn't panicked in the face of falling house prices and demanded various silly measures to prop them up He hasn't tried to offer a massive pre-election giveaway He appears to work hard He appears to think hard about the decisions he makes He respects the civil service - contrast with Blair/Brown/Johnson The Windsor Framework
So many of you deride the hysteria of populism and yet your shallow attacks on Sunak seem no better theorised. So far I'd judge him the best Tory PM since 2010. A low bar nonetheless.
Most of us are just fed up to the back teeth with the Tories. He happens to hold the torch currently. And most of us were also inclined to think him better than his party. But the last few Cummings-infused weeks have put paid to that. He’s down there with the rest of them.
Our car? You use a helicopter and a government car to do everything.
Did you not see the picture?
They genuinely thought Richi on a private plane was the message they want to send???
The country is such a small country there's no reason you can't get across it by either car or train.
Except my government won't invest in either roads or railways, so here I am in a jet.
Vote for me, so I can continue to fly over the rest of you plebs.
There is a reason you can't get across it by train. He's just binned the project to build the capacity to do just that.
That was the point I was making.
And its not like he's come up with a new M6 or any other new motorways to replace it, he's no different to any other PM when it comes to failure to invest in roads, and he's failing to invest in rails too.
Rishi Antoinette says let them fly jets
Did you listen to his speech? He said that the priority should not be better trnasport connection TO the north but better connections WITHIN the north. Policymakers had spent too much time focusing on the things THEY wanted not on what the country most needed. It's certainly believable.
All this pro-driver stuff would work much better if it was Lee Anderson doing it. This is where Starmer is clever - knows when to use Rayner.
It would also be better if he was doing anything to support drivers.
Like actually investing in new roads. Or cutting fuel duty. Or dealing with excessive insurance costs.
To be pro-driving takes more than just saying "pro driver" as you fly across the country avoiding the motorways which you refuse to build new ones of, no different to any other PM in the past few decades.
You could also support drivers by really ramping up the electric car charging network. Not all drivers want to remain petrolheads. But Sunak's not doing much on that front either.
Agreed 100%
Or encourage new construction to have off road parking and electric charging points.
Or getting battery plants built in this country to support the health of the car manufacturing industry in this country (more industrial than for drivers, but a bit of both).
Our car? You use a helicopter and a government car to do everything.
Did you not see the picture?
They genuinely thought Richi on a private plane was the message they want to send???
The country is such a small country there's no reason you can't get across it by either car or train.
Except my government won't invest in either roads or railways, so here I am in a jet.
Vote for me, so I can continue to fly over the rest of you plebs.
There is a reason you can't get across it by train. He's just binned the project to build the capacity to do just that.
That was the point I was making.
And its not like he's come up with a new M6 or any other new motorways to replace it, he's no different to any other PM when it comes to failure to invest in roads, and he's failing to invest in rails too.
Rishi Antoinette says let them fly jets
Did you listen to his speech? He said that the priority should not be better trnasport connection TO the north but better connections WITHIN the north. Policymakers had spent too much time focusing on the things THEY wanted not on what the country most needed. It's certainly believable.
He just reannounced a bunch of stuff about which he has no knowledge or interest. It was simply a convenient rhetorical device.
Our car? You use a helicopter and a government car to do everything.
Did you not see the picture?
They genuinely thought Richi on a private plane was the message they want to send???
The country is such a small country there's no reason you can't get across it by either car or train.
Except my government won't invest in either roads or railways, so here I am in a jet.
Vote for me, so I can continue to fly over the rest of you plebs.
There is a reason you can't get across it by train. He's just binned the project to build the capacity to do just that.
That was the point I was making.
And its not like he's come up with a new M6 or any other new motorways to replace it, he's no different to any other PM when it comes to failure to invest in roads, and he's failing to invest in rails too.
Rishi Antoinette says let them fly jets
Did you listen to his speech? He said that the priority should not be better trnasport connection TO the north but better connections WITHIN the north. Policymakers had spent too much time focusing on the things THEY wanted not on what the country most needed. It's certainly believable.
His transport "wish list" was akin to a child writing to Santa at Christmas!
Or encourage new construction to have off road parking and electric charging points.
Or getting battery plants built in this country to support the health of the car manufacturing industry in this country (more industrial than for drivers, but a bit of both).
There's plenty that could be done, but isn't.
For all the talk about tough decisions for the long term there is little evidence of it. There is a laundry list of things that need doing, and a government that is all aspiration rather than action, delaying projects, playing shell games with funding, and generally dodging not facing the problems.
Our car? You use a helicopter and a government car to do everything.
Did you not see the picture?
They genuinely thought Richi on a private plane was the message they want to send???
The country is such a small country there's no reason you can't get across it by either car or train.
Except my government won't invest in either roads or railways, so here I am in a jet.
Vote for me, so I can continue to fly over the rest of you plebs.
There is a reason you can't get across it by train. He's just binned the project to build the capacity to do just that.
That was the point I was making.
And its not like he's come up with a new M6 or any other new motorways to replace it, he's no different to any other PM when it comes to failure to invest in roads, and he's failing to invest in rails too.
Rishi Antoinette says let them fly jets
In the same way that people getting around by bus/train/bike/foot/pogo stick means fewer cars on the road and more space for those who need to drive, every Prime Ministerial trip by private jet is one less car on the crowded M6.
Our car? You use a helicopter and a government car to do everything.
Did you not see the picture?
They genuinely thought Richi on a private plane was the message they want to send???
The country is such a small country there's no reason you can't get across it by either car or train.
Except my government won't invest in either roads or railways, so here I am in a jet.
Vote for me, so I can continue to fly over the rest of you plebs.
There is a reason you can't get across it by train. He's just binned the project to build the capacity to do just that.
That was the point I was making.
And its not like he's come up with a new M6 or any other new motorways to replace it, he's no different to any other PM when it comes to failure to invest in roads, and he's failing to invest in rails too.
Rishi Antoinette says let them fly jets
Did you listen to his speech? He said that the priority should not be better trnasport connection TO the north but better connections WITHIN the north. Policymakers had spent too much time focusing on the things THEY wanted not on what the country most needed. It's certainly believable.
He just reannounced a bunch of stuff about which he has no knowledge or interest. It was simply a convenient rhetorical device.
Our car? You use a helicopter and a government car to do everything.
Did you not see the picture?
They genuinely thought Richi on a private plane was the message they want to send???
The country is such a small country there's no reason you can't get across it by either car or train.
Except my government won't invest in either roads or railways, so here I am in a jet.
Vote for me, so I can continue to fly over the rest of you plebs.
There is a reason you can't get across it by train. He's just binned the project to build the capacity to do just that.
That was the point I was making.
And its not like he's come up with a new M6 or any other new motorways to replace it, he's no different to any other PM when it comes to failure to invest in roads, and he's failing to invest in rails too.
Rishi Antoinette says let them fly jets
Did you listen to his speech? He said that the priority should not be better trnasport connection TO the north but better connections WITHIN the north. Policymakers had spent too much time focusing on the things THEY wanted not on what the country most needed. It's certainly believable.
No I didn't listen to his speech, I had better stuff to do.
I agree completely that better connections within the North are much more important, but he's not doing that either. Please name the top few of these better connections he's actually building and when we can expect them to be built by?
To take just one random example (there's other examples in almost every town or city) in Warrington there was a promise in 2019 that there'd be a new bridge linking two main roads either side of the Mersey in the west of the town, meaning that traffic would no longer have to drive through the town centre in order to cross the Mersey. Construction was due to begin in 2021, the bridge should be done about now. Sunak became Chancellor in 2020 and . . . construction still hasn't begun.
Are we supposed to just take on faith that this time its going to happen? Actually no new commitment has even been made, even with HS2 being cancelled.
There's plenty of connections across the North that have been promised again and again and reiterating the same reheated and stale promises today but once more not building them is no solution.
Cost of fuel duty freeze (so far): £80 billion Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Cost of fuel duty freeze (so far): £80 billion Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Fuel duty freeze hasn't "cost" a penny.
Fuel duty has generated about £300bn for the Exchequer in that time period.
Our car? You use a helicopter and a government car to do everything.
Did you not see the picture?
They genuinely thought Richi on a private plane was the message they want to send???
The country is such a small country there's no reason you can't get across it by either car or train.
Except my government won't invest in either roads or railways, so here I am in a jet.
Vote for me, so I can continue to fly over the rest of you plebs.
There is a reason you can't get across it by train. He's just binned the project to build the capacity to do just that.
That was the point I was making.
And its not like he's come up with a new M6 or any other new motorways to replace it, he's no different to any other PM when it comes to failure to invest in roads, and he's failing to invest in rails too.
Rishi Antoinette says let them fly jets
Did you listen to his speech? He said that the priority should not be better trnasport connection TO the north but better connections WITHIN the north. Policymakers had spent too much time focusing on the things THEY wanted not on what the country most needed. It's certainly believable.
He just reannounced a bunch of stuff about which he has no knowledge or interest. It was simply a convenient rhetorical device.
How do you know he has no interest in it?
I think most of us can hazard a guess based on the last year of his premiership and his previous period as chancellor.
I see it's bash Sunak time again on pb. I'm afraid it doesn't reflect well on many of you. Let's try for a bit of balance.
He's done well on Ukraine. He hasn't panicked in the face of falling house prices and demanded various silly measures to prop them up He hasn't tried to offer a massive pre-election giveaway He appears to work hard He appears to think hard about the decisions he makes He respects the civil service - contrast with Blair/Brown/Johnson The Windsor Framework
So many of you deride the hysteria of populism and yet your shallow attacks on Sunak seem no better theorised. So far I'd judge him the best Tory PM since 2010. A low bar nonetheless.
You are right about the house prices thing. His support for Ukraine, whilst welcome, was not as effusive as Boris's (who genuinely was outstanding). His decision on HS2 tbh did not come across as well thought out, nor convincing, nor coherent. Working hard, whilst meritorious, is only as good as the actions that follow. So although I do get your point, his silliness about HS2 has rather salted the earth for me.
it's remarkable that polling in the year since Rishi Sunak became Tory leader and PM has shown a small REDUCTION in the Labour poll lead over the Tories, whereas Sunak's personal rating has fallen and fallen.
Why might that be?
It suggests the Tory recovery from the Truss embarrassment could continue, even as far as retaining their Commons majority, if the party bins Sunak and always assuming his replacement isn't a nutter, a clown, or a twerp.
The new leader could also keep most of Sunak's policies and approach: anti-greenwash, no to the white elephant called HS2, no to ULEZ, there are only two sexes, and so on - votewinning stuff that the Labour juggernaut can't pivot fast enough to copy in their own way or to triangulate. (Insisting no no, there are 53 genders actually, and it's anti-social to be against ULEZ - we've seen how well voters like this kind of thing in Scotland and London already.)
Cost of fuel duty freeze (so far): £80 billion Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Fuel duty freeze hasn't "cost" a penny.
Fuel duty has generated about £300bn for the Exchequer in that time period.
And where is that income to come from when everyone has an ev
All this pro-driver stuff would work much better if it was Lee Anderson doing it. This is where Starmer is clever - knows when to use Rayner.
It would also be better if he was doing anything to support drivers.
Like actually investing in new roads. Or cutting fuel duty. Or dealing with excessive insurance costs.
To be pro-driving takes more than just saying "pro driver" as you fly across the country avoiding the motorways which you refuse to build new ones of, no different to any other PM in the past few decades.
You could also support drivers by really ramping up the electric car charging network. Not all drivers want to remain petrolheads. But Sunak's not doing much on that front either.
This ought to be a much higher priority. Any such effort takes quite a bit of time to show significant results.
Cost of fuel duty freeze (so far): £80 billion Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Fuel duty freeze hasn't "cost" a penny.
Fuel duty has generated about £300bn for the Exchequer in that time period.
Sorry pal, but you claimed that fuel duty hadn't been cut. It has been. £80 billion.
Meanwhile the costs of public transport have got higher and higher, while the overall costs of driving, including insurance etc, have actually fallen!
The marginal cost of driving versus public transport explains why our roads out so clogged up.
And it's deeply unfair on the millions of people who cannot afford the entry costs of driving. An attack on the young, in particular.
Cost of fuel duty freeze (so far): £80 billion Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Fuel duty freeze hasn't "cost" a penny.
Fuel duty has generated about £300bn for the Exchequer in that time period.
And where is that income to come from when everyone has an ev
Mind you I won't have an ev in my lifetime
Axle load tax, probably. Help with the negative externalities associated with weight and size.
Cost of fuel duty freeze (so far): £80 billion Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Fuel duty freeze hasn't "cost" a penny.
Fuel duty has generated about £300bn for the Exchequer in that time period.
Sorry pal, but you claimed that fuel duty hadn't been cut. It has been. £80 billion.
Meanwhile the costs of public transport have got higher and higher, while the overall costs of driving, including insurance etc, have actually fallen!
The marginal cost of driving versus public transport explains why our roads out so clogged up.
And it's deeply unfair on the millions of people who cannot afford the entry costs of driving. Ab attack on the young, in particular.
A freeze is not a cut, its a freeze.
Great the costs of driving have fallen marginally from the obscenely expensive heights they were at in 2010. That doesn't mean much, costs falling is a good thing not a bad one unless you're a zealot who wants to see life get more expensive for some twisted reason.
And of course the marginal cost of driving is almost entirely taxation, whereas public transportation is so chronically inefficient that it is vastly subsidised and still uncompetitive.
Our car? You use a helicopter and a government car to do everything.
Did you not see the picture?
They genuinely thought Richi on a private plane was the message they want to send???
The country is such a small country there's no reason you can't get across it by either car or train.
Except my government won't invest in either roads or railways, so here I am in a jet.
Vote for me, so I can continue to fly over the rest of you plebs.
There is a reason you can't get across it by train. He's just binned the project to build the capacity to do just that.
That was the point I was making.
And its not like he's come up with a new M6 or any other new motorways to replace it, he's no different to any other PM when it comes to failure to invest in roads, and he's failing to invest in rails too.
Rishi Antoinette says let them fly jets
Did you listen to his speech? He said that the priority should not be better trnasport connection TO the north but better connections WITHIN the north. Policymakers had spent too much time focusing on the things THEY wanted not on what the country most needed. It's certainly believable.
You know we did, as we've spent a great deal of time discussing it.
OT. Not sure if this has been covered earlier but this Government is once again proving what a bunch of utter shits they are.
So we all know that they are selling off the land that they bought for the Northern section of HS2. What I wasn't aware of until now was that they have to offer it back to the former owners first.
So far so good. That seems a reasonable and fair thing to do.
But if you want to buy back the property you were forced to sell to the Government you have to now pay more than you got for selling it to them. Many of the homes were subject to compulsory purchase as far back as 2015 and the former owners must now pay the current market value if they want them back. Many of course cannot afford that.
Ignoring all the other stuff about them salting the earth, this is a fucking atrocious thing to do. I was and still am in favour of cancelling HS2 (the whole lot) but this sort of behaviour just makes you realise what utter scumbags this lot are.
But if they get to buy back at the original price (which I think included a premium for disruption) then you are just handing an immediate windfall to well off people
Bollocks. All they are getting back is what they were forced to give up in the first place. If they had never been forced to sell they would be in exactly that position now. Why should the Government be the ones who benefit from forcing people out of their homes for what was, ultimately, a complete waste of time and money?
Cost of fuel duty freeze (so far): £80 billion Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Fuel duty freeze hasn't "cost" a penny.
Fuel duty has generated about £300bn for the Exchequer in that time period.
Sorry pal, but you claimed that fuel duty hadn't been cut. It has been. £80 billion.
Meanwhile the costs of public transport have got higher and higher, while the overall costs of driving, including insurance etc, have actually fallen!
The marginal cost of driving versus public transport explains why our roads out so clogged up.
And it's deeply unfair on the millions of people who cannot afford the entry costs of driving. Ab attack on the young, in particular.
A freeze is not a cut, its a freeze.
Great the costs of driving have fallen marginally from the obscenely expensive heights they were at in 2010. That doesn't mean much, costs falling is a good thing not a bad one unless you're a zealot who wants to see life get more expensive for some twisted reason.
And of course the marginal cost of driving is almost entirely taxation, whereas public transportation is so chronically inefficient that it is vastly subsidised and still uncompetitive.
Haha, you've changed your tune. You witter on about fiscal drag and yet...
Our car? You use a helicopter and a government car to do everything.
Did you not see the picture?
They genuinely thought Richi on a private plane was the message they want to send???
The country is such a small country there's no reason you can't get across it by either car or train.
Except my government won't invest in either roads or railways, so here I am in a jet.
Vote for me, so I can continue to fly over the rest of you plebs.
There is a reason you can't get across it by train. He's just binned the project to build the capacity to do just that.
That was the point I was making.
And its not like he's come up with a new M6 or any other new motorways to replace it, he's no different to any other PM when it comes to failure to invest in roads, and he's failing to invest in rails too.
Rishi Antoinette says let them fly jets
Did you listen to his speech? He said that the priority should not be better trnasport connection TO the north but better connections WITHIN the north. Policymakers had spent too much time focusing on the things THEY wanted not on what the country most needed. It's certainly believable.
You know we did, as we've spent a great deal of time discussing it.
Cost of fuel duty freeze (so far): £80 billion Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Fuel duty freeze hasn't "cost" a penny.
Fuel duty has generated about £300bn for the Exchequer in that time period.
And where is that income to come from when everyone has an ev
Mind you I won't have an ev in my lifetime
Axle load tax, probably. Help with the negative externalities associated with weight and size.
I'd be quite fine with that if we create an independent, arms-length chartered non-profit body to operate and invest in our roads with 100% of the funds generated by the tax being reinvested in maintaining and upgrading the roads, like the BBC Charter for the Licence Fee.
Only difference is that with the BBC that currently people have to pay the Fee even if they don't want to watch any BBC Content, even if they only want to watch Sky Sports live.
Whereas today drivers pay net tens of billions of taxes extra that don't get reinvested in roads and do subsidise public transport instead, and all we get back from you instead of gratitude is scorn.
it's remarkable that polling in the year since Rishi Sunak became Tory leader and PM has shown a small REDUCTION in the Labour poll lead over the Tories, whereas Sunak's personal rating has fallen and fallen.
Why might that be?
It suggests the Tory recovery from the Truss embarrassment could continue, even as far as retaining their Commons majority, if the party bins Sunak and always assuming his replacement isn't a nutter, a clown, or a twerp.
The new leader could also keep most of Sunak's policies and approach: anti-greenwash, no to the white elephant called HS2, no to ULEZ, there are only two sexes, and so on - votewinning stuff that the Labour juggernaut can't pivot fast enough to copy in their own way or to triangulate. (Insisting no no, there are 53 genders actually, and it's anti-social to be against ULEZ - we've seen how well voters like this kind of thing in Scotland and London already.)
it's remarkable that polling in the year since Rishi Sunak became Tory leader and PM has shown a small REDUCTION in the Labour poll lead over the Tories, whereas Sunak's personal rating has fallen and fallen.
Why might that be?
It suggests the Tory recovery from the Truss embarrassment could continue, even as far as retaining their Commons majority, if the party bins Sunak and always assuming his replacement isn't a nutter, a clown, or a twerp.
The new leader could also keep most of Sunak's policies and approach: anti-greenwash, no to the white elephant called HS2, no to ULEZ, there are only two sexes, and so on - votewinning stuff that the Labour juggernaut can't pivot fast enough to copy in their own way or to triangulate. (Insisting no no, there are 53 genders actually, and it's anti-social to be against ULEZ - we've seen how well voters like this kind of thing in Scotland and London already.)
So there is not one PB-er willing to admit that Yeah, they would accept a free £10,000 holiday in the Maldives, you would all refuse because of the whole sharia law/heroin/sewage/house-elves issue, and demand a short yurting weekend in Staffordshire instead?
I mean, guys, this is pitiful. Not a single spine amongst you
The replies are being obscured by lots of people who aren't into scenery and think it sounds dull. This is PB. For a proper challenge for us, you need to ask if we'd turn down a trip to Las Vegas to sit next to Donald Trump as he tries to fiddle the next election, with £10K free chips to bet on the outcome. Deplorable, but... Politics! Betting! Thrills! Would we refuse?
Cost of fuel duty freeze (so far): £80 billion Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Fuel duty freeze hasn't "cost" a penny.
Fuel duty has generated about £300bn for the Exchequer in that time period.
Sorry pal, but you claimed that fuel duty hadn't been cut. It has been. £80 billion.
Meanwhile the costs of public transport have got higher and higher, while the overall costs of driving, including insurance etc, have actually fallen!
The marginal cost of driving versus public transport explains why our roads out so clogged up.
And it's deeply unfair on the millions of people who cannot afford the entry costs of driving. Ab attack on the young, in particular.
A freeze is not a cut, its a freeze.
Great the costs of driving have fallen marginally from the obscenely expensive heights they were at in 2010. That doesn't mean much, costs falling is a good thing not a bad one unless you're a zealot who wants to see life get more expensive for some twisted reason.
And of course the marginal cost of driving is almost entirely taxation, whereas public transportation is so chronically inefficient that it is vastly subsidised and still uncompetitive.
Haha, you've changed your tune. You witter on about fiscal drag and yet...
And yet fiscal drag means living standards are going down as take home pay is less than inflation.
Drivers are still facing taxation being the primary cost of driving and have contributed net hundreds of billions to the Exchequer over the time the Tories have been in office.
I think the words you're looking for is "thank you".
The deadweight cost of taxes on driving needs to be eliminated but it hasn't been. Hopefully fuel duty is never replaced and instead road tax funds the roads and that's it.
it's remarkable that polling in the year since Rishi Sunak became Tory leader and PM has shown a small REDUCTION in the Labour poll lead over the Tories, whereas Sunak's personal rating has fallen and fallen.
Why might that be?
It suggests the Tory recovery from the Truss embarrassment could continue, even as far as retaining their Commons majority, if the party bins Sunak and always assuming his replacement isn't a nutter, a clown, or a twerp.
The new leader could also keep most of Sunak's policies and approach: anti-greenwash, no to the white elephant called HS2, no to ULEZ, there are only two sexes, and so on - votewinning stuff that the Labour juggernaut can't pivot fast enough to copy in their own way or to triangulate. (Insisting no no, there are 53 genders actually, and it's anti-social to be against ULEZ - we've seen how well voters like this kind of thing in Scotland and London already.)
It’s Sunak until the election. And if they try to pull off another leadership stunt without calling a GE it’ll just make everyone hate then even more.
If you strip out the week or so when Truss rendered it socially embarrassing even for right wingers to admit voting Tory, the polls have been stable but with Labour losing a couple of percentage points to the Lib Dems.
Cost of fuel duty freeze (so far): £80 billion Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Fuel duty freeze hasn't "cost" a penny.
Fuel duty has generated about £300bn for the Exchequer in that time period.
And where is that income to come from when everyone has an ev
Mind you I won't have an ev in my lifetime
Axle load tax, probably. Help with the negative externalities associated with weight and size.
I'd be quite fine with that if we create an independent, arms-length chartered non-profit body to operate and invest in our roads with 100% of the funds generated by the tax being reinvested in maintaining and upgrading the roads, like the BBC Charter for the Licence Fee.
Only difference is that with the BBC that currently people have to pay the Fee even if they don't want to watch any BBC Content, even if they only want to watch Sky Sports live.
Whereas today drivers pay net tens of billions of taxes extra that don't get reinvested in roads and do subsidise public transport instead, and all we get back from you instead of gratitude is scorn.
£80 billion tax cut. Imagine what kind of infrastructure we could've built with that.
Shipley bypass etc. A new motorway between Warrington and Manchester.
(Public transport does not need to be subsidised - Lothian Buses is actually profitable in Edinburgh because it's everywhere and everyone uses it, freeing up loads of space for commercial drivers)
So there is not one PB-er willing to admit that Yeah, they would accept a free £10,000 holiday in the Maldives, you would all refuse because of the whole sharia law/heroin/sewage/house-elves issue, and demand a short yurting weekend in Staffordshire instead?
I mean, guys, this is pitiful. Not a single spine amongst you
The replies are being obscured by lots of people who aren't into scenery and think it sounds dull. This is PB. For a proper challenge for us, you need to ask if we'd turn down a trip to Las Vegas to sit next to Donald Trump as he tries to fiddle the next election, with £10K free chips to bet on the outcome. Deplorable, but... Politics! Betting! Thrills! Would we refuse?
Cost of fuel duty freeze (so far): £80 billion Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Fuel duty freeze hasn't "cost" a penny.
Fuel duty has generated about £300bn for the Exchequer in that time period.
And where is that income to come from when everyone has an ev
Mind you I won't have an ev in my lifetime
Axle load tax, probably. Help with the negative externalities associated with weight and size.
I'd be quite fine with that if we create an independent, arms-length chartered non-profit body to operate and invest in our roads with 100% of the funds generated by the tax being reinvested in maintaining and upgrading the roads, like the BBC Charter for the Licence Fee.
Only difference is that with the BBC that currently people have to pay the Fee even if they don't want to watch any BBC Content, even if they only want to watch Sky Sports live.
Whereas today drivers pay net tens of billions of taxes extra that don't get reinvested in roads and do subsidise public transport instead, and all we get back from you instead of gratitude is scorn.
£80 billion tax cut. Imagine what kind of infrastructure we could've built with that.
Shipley bypass etc. A new motorway between Warrington and Manchester.
(Public transport does not need to be subsidised - Lothian Buses is actually profitable in Edinburgh because it's everywhere and everyone uses it, freeing up loads of space for commercial drivers)
No tax cut.
£300 billion in taxes we've paid in fuel duty alone. Imagine what kind of infrastructure we could have built with that, but instead it was pissed away on other stuff, like subsidising public transport fares.
Stop subsidising fares, let people pay the true cost of their transportation, and use funds from taxes to fund infrastructure instead.
Cost of fuel duty freeze (so far): £80 billion Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Fuel duty freeze hasn't "cost" a penny.
Fuel duty has generated about £300bn for the Exchequer in that time period.
Sorry pal, but you claimed that fuel duty hadn't been cut. It has been. £80 billion.
Meanwhile the costs of public transport have got higher and higher, while the overall costs of driving, including insurance etc, have actually fallen!
The marginal cost of driving versus public transport explains why our roads out so clogged up.
And it's deeply unfair on the millions of people who cannot afford the entry costs of driving. Ab attack on the young, in particular.
A freeze is not a cut, its a freeze.
Great the costs of driving have fallen marginally from the obscenely expensive heights they were at in 2010. That doesn't mean much, costs falling is a good thing not a bad one unless you're a zealot who wants to see life get more expensive for some twisted reason.
And of course the marginal cost of driving is almost entirely taxation, whereas public transportation is so chronically inefficient that it is vastly subsidised and still uncompetitive.
Haha, you've changed your tune. You witter on about fiscal drag and yet...
And yet fiscal drag means living standards are going down as take home pay is less than inflation.
Drivers are still facing taxation being the primary cost of driving and have contributed net hundreds of billions to the Exchequer over the time the Tories have been in office.
I think the words you're looking for is "thank you".
The deadweight cost of taxes on driving needs to be eliminated but it hasn't been. Hopefully fuel duty is never replaced and instead road tax funds the roads and that's it.
Every time I overtake a car on my bike in Edinburgh I say "you're welcome". I know they really appreciate me using up less space on the road.
Same with a bus. I always let them out in when I'm driving because I think "thank God the 50 people on that didn't drive to work today".
Paul Mason has noticed that in THAT photo from Sunak he hasn't even taken the cap off the pen where he is seen supposedly scribbling notes on a policy document.
OT. Not sure if this has been covered earlier but this Government is once again proving what a bunch of utter shits they are.
So we all know that they are selling off the land that they bought for the Northern section of HS2. What I wasn't aware of until now was that they have to offer it back to the former owners first.
So far so good. That seems a reasonable and fair thing to do.
But if you want to buy back the property you were forced to sell to the Government you have to now pay more than you got for selling it to them. Many of the homes were subject to compulsory purchase as far back as 2015 and the former owners must now pay the current market value if they want them back. Many of course cannot afford that.
Ignoring all the other stuff about them salting the earth, this is a fucking atrocious thing to do. I was and still am in favour of cancelling HS2 (the whole lot) but this sort of behaviour just makes you realise what utter scumbags this lot are.
But if they get to buy back at the original price (which I think included a premium for disruption) then you are just handing an immediate windfall to well off people
Bollocks. All they are getting back is what they were forced to give up in the first place. If they had never been forced to sell they would be in exactly that position now. Why should the Government be the ones who benefit from forcing people out of their homes for what was, ultimately, a complete waste of time and money?
Agreed. The residents should get compensation on top of restoration. Maybe not a huge amount, but presumably they didn't want to be kicked out of their homes even if the government made sure they could buy new ones.
It is so sad that what passes for the opposition can't make the obvious open-goal white elephant point against the government. Why didn't they get proper advice? Why did it take so long to admit the error? How can they be trusted not to do the same again? HS2 - squillions of public money lost over 10 years. Truss loonanomics - squillions of public money lost in a month. Bunch of Arthur Daleys. What else will they screw up and then realise was the wrong thing to do 10 years later? Etc.
Cost of fuel duty freeze (so far): £80 billion Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Fuel duty freeze hasn't "cost" a penny.
Fuel duty has generated about £300bn for the Exchequer in that time period.
And where is that income to come from when everyone has an ev
Mind you I won't have an ev in my lifetime
Axle load tax, probably. Help with the negative externalities associated with weight and size.
I'd be quite fine with that if we create an independent, arms-length chartered non-profit body to operate and invest in our roads with 100% of the funds generated by the tax being reinvested in maintaining and upgrading the roads, like the BBC Charter for the Licence Fee.
Only difference is that with the BBC that currently people have to pay the Fee even if they don't want to watch any BBC Content, even if they only want to watch Sky Sports live.
Whereas today drivers pay net tens of billions of taxes extra that don't get reinvested in roads and do subsidise public transport instead, and all we get back from you instead of gratitude is scorn.
£80 billion tax cut. Imagine what kind of infrastructure we could've built with that.
Shipley bypass etc. A new motorway between Warrington and Manchester.
(Public transport does not need to be subsidised - Lothian Buses is actually profitable in Edinburgh because it's everywhere and everyone uses it, freeing up loads of space for commercial drivers)
No tax cut.
£300 billion in taxes we've paid in fuel duty alone. Imagine what kind of infrastructure we could have built with that, but instead it was pissed away on other stuff, like subsidising public transport fares.
Stop subsidising fares, let people pay the true cost of their transportation, and use funds from taxes to fund infrastructure instead.
£80 billion tax cut.
You actually reminded me of it with your correct assessment that high inflation is exacerbateing the effects of fiscal drag. Ditto the fuel duty freeze.
it's remarkable that polling in the year since Rishi Sunak became Tory leader and PM has shown a small REDUCTION in the Labour poll lead over the Tories, whereas Sunak's personal rating has fallen and fallen.
Why might that be?
It suggests the Tory recovery from the Truss embarrassment could continue, even as far as retaining their Commons majority, if the party bins Sunak and always assuming his replacement isn't a nutter, a clown, or a twerp.
The new leader could also keep most of Sunak's policies and approach: anti-greenwash, no to the white elephant called HS2, no to ULEZ, there are only two sexes, and so on - votewinning stuff that the Labour juggernaut can't pivot fast enough to copy in their own way or to triangulate. (Insisting no no, there are 53 genders actually, and it's anti-social to be against ULEZ - we've seen how well voters like this kind of thing in Scotland and London already.)
Cost of fuel duty freeze (so far): £80 billion Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Fuel duty freeze hasn't "cost" a penny.
Fuel duty has generated about £300bn for the Exchequer in that time period.
Sorry pal, but you claimed that fuel duty hadn't been cut. It has been. £80 billion.
Meanwhile the costs of public transport have got higher and higher, while the overall costs of driving, including insurance etc, have actually fallen!
The marginal cost of driving versus public transport explains why our roads out so clogged up.
And it's deeply unfair on the millions of people who cannot afford the entry costs of driving. Ab attack on the young, in particular.
A freeze is not a cut, its a freeze.
Great the costs of driving have fallen marginally from the obscenely expensive heights they were at in 2010. That doesn't mean much, costs falling is a good thing not a bad one unless you're a zealot who wants to see life get more expensive for some twisted reason.
And of course the marginal cost of driving is almost entirely taxation, whereas public transportation is so chronically inefficient that it is vastly subsidised and still uncompetitive.
Haha, you've changed your tune. You witter on about fiscal drag and yet...
And yet fiscal drag means living standards are going down as take home pay is less than inflation.
Drivers are still facing taxation being the primary cost of driving and have contributed net hundreds of billions to the Exchequer over the time the Tories have been in office.
I think the words you're looking for is "thank you".
The deadweight cost of taxes on driving needs to be eliminated but it hasn't been. Hopefully fuel duty is never replaced and instead road tax funds the roads and that's it.
If you want take home pay to be more than inflation, you need pay rises, not tax cuts.
Comments
HE'S ON A PRIVATE JET
OMG. If Trump did this we'd all think he was somehow joking, no one could be so clumsy in their messaging
I'm just doubting any hotel employee would dare tell you that they weren't that keen on the tourists.
I prefer the train from Nice to Genoa and then down to Naples though. Noisy and grubby.
Surprised he didn't announce the ending of ciggies for 14 years olds from a Bensons and Hedges factory with a roll up in his mouth.
Anyway let's focus on the fact Rishi Sunak has just tweeted an image of himself on a private jet to show how he is on the side of Mondeo Man
Is he actually TRYING to blow the election in the most spectacular way???
Jim Pickard 🐋
@PickardJE
·
2m
Sunak’s “Plan For Drivers” claimed that 42% of all parking fines are successfully appealed
the actual figure? 0.24%
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1710407997732634940
I agree.
2 Fujitsu employees are under investigation for perjury. Referred by the judge to the Met in 2020. Nothing has happened of course.
Rutherford didn’t attract enough patients
Overspent on shiny executive offices
And ran out of cash.
But Woodford was a really talented investor. Honest guv. Not just a one trick pony who wooed Paul Dacre.
I thought of you!
The Maldives are weird and unique, in multiple good and bad ways, but you do really have to go here to appreciate how exquisitely lovely they are. It is not the Canaries or even the Caribbean. It is special, there is nowhere else like it on earth
(Technically, on the grass outside, but hey, who's counting.)
So why bother pretending to be nice? It takes a certain kind of experience to be impassive in the face of everyone hating you. Major had it, so did May. I'm not sure Sunak does.
Done the train journeys too - every year as a child. Most of my childhood seemed to be spent on trains. Travelled everywhere round Europe and Russia and in India by train as a young adult.
DfE prediction for minimum per-pupil funding for secondary schools has been revised down by £55. At primary level it’s down £45
Based on these figures, average secondary would be £57,970 worse-off than predicted in July, primary £12,420
https://x.com/fcdwhittaker/status/1710401383759749257?s=46
Could we see Tories sub-100 seats next year?
What's the equivalent??!! Humza Yousaf claiming to be a civic nationalist as he angrily and accurately defecates, from a 200m distance, at a suspended portrait of Winston Churchill?
Except my government won't invest in either roads or railways, so here I am in a jet.
Vote for me, so I can continue to fly over the rest of you plebs.
smaller than the government document claimed.
After the Financial Times pointed out the error, the transport department on Friday changed thedocument to make clear that 42.8 per cent of drivers who appealed weee successful..
Mr Math's transport department still can't do sums.
18,130 is 39.66% of 45,709.
A positive article about Sunak setting the agenda in europe over migration? Fron the Guardian?
Odd enough to flag up. Perhaps they were having an off day.
Sunak’s “Plan For Drivers” claimed that 42% of all parking fines are successfully appealed
the actual figure? 0.24%
https://x.com/pickardje/status/1710407997732634940?s=46
It would have been better phrased then as "will the Tories hold 100 or more seats next year?"
Raising taxes on workers, cutting infrastructure investment and now screwing with my kids education?
Are there any more lows he won't stoop to? Worst Prime Minister Ever.
I know most airports are grim in ways, but the big Arabian airports take it to a new level of grey affluent tedium. European airports often have a cultural jollity and Asian airports - Changi, Hong Kong, etc - can somehow gleam with hedonism and luxe, so you want to linger. Not so in the UAE
They have a few hours to decide before it hits twitter in the morning.
Here, and Rishi? No.
Btw, not disparaging your lifestyle - I'm quite envious of your ability to travel anywhere, anytime.
Just not interested in visiting the Maldives.
I can only think that someone on Sunak's team actively hates him, or wants him to lose, and advised him to do this, or failed to dissuade him, and Sunak is sufficiently naive he didn't spy the error beforehand
OR they are all drunk and resigned to defeat and having a laugh
The average primary school 12k worse off because of a maths error at DfE, after they’ve done their annual budgets? No problem.
Like actually investing in new roads.
Or cutting fuel duty.
Or dealing with excessive insurance costs.
To be pro-driving takes more than just saying "pro driver" as you fly across the country avoiding the motorways which you refuse to build new ones of, no different to any other PM in the past few decades.
Thinking of starting a rap career.
But, if it was known about earlier and only released now, that's bad in an "it's always the cover-up that gets you" way.
And the core point is that a 2.7 percent increase in funding per pupil was already not good, and 1.9 percent is worse.
And its not like he's come up with a new M6 or any other new motorways to replace it, he's no different to any other PM when it comes to failure to invest in roads, and he's failing to invest in rails too.
Rishi Antoinette says let them fly jets
He's done well on Ukraine.
He hasn't panicked in the face of falling house prices and demanded various silly measures to prop them up
He hasn't tried to offer a massive pre-election giveaway
He appears to work hard
He appears to think hard about the decisions he makes
He respects the civil service - contrast with Blair/Brown/Johnson
The Windsor Framework
So many of you deride the hysteria of populism and yet your shallow attacks on Sunak seem no better theorised. So far I'd judge him the best Tory PM since 2010. A low bar nonetheless.
Another Sunak win? https://www.financialexpress.com/policy/economy-india-uk-free-trade-agreement-to-be-signed-by-month-end-3263154/
It's the inverse of your favourite topic: fiscal drive
Or encourage new construction to have off road parking and electric charging points.
Or getting battery plants built in this country to support the health of the car manufacturing industry in this country (more industrial than for drivers, but a bit of both).
There's plenty that could be done, but isn't.
He's doing his bit to reduce congestion.
I agree completely that better connections within the North are much more important, but he's not doing that either. Please name the top few of these better connections he's actually building and when we can expect them to be built by?
To take just one random example (there's other examples in almost every town or city) in Warrington there was a promise in 2019 that there'd be a new bridge linking two main roads either side of the Mersey in the west of the town, meaning that traffic would no longer have to drive through the town centre in order to cross the Mersey. Construction was due to begin in 2021, the bridge should be done about now. Sunak became Chancellor in 2020 and . . . construction still hasn't begun.
Are we supposed to just take on faith that this time its going to happen? Actually no new commitment has even been made, even with HS2 being cancelled.
There's plenty of connections across the North that have been promised again and again and reiterating the same reheated and stale promises today but once more not building them is no solution.
Cost of HS2 to Manchester: £36 billion
Regressive, costly for the environment (7% increase in total annual carbon emissions), short-term thinking. And people wonder why our economy will not grow.
Fuel duty has generated about £300bn for the Exchequer in that time period.
it's remarkable that polling in the year since Rishi Sunak became Tory leader and PM has shown a small REDUCTION in the Labour poll lead over the Tories, whereas Sunak's personal rating has fallen and fallen.
Why might that be?
It suggests the Tory recovery from the Truss embarrassment could continue, even as far as retaining their Commons majority, if the party bins Sunak and always assuming his replacement isn't a nutter, a clown, or a twerp.
The new leader could also keep most of Sunak's policies and approach: anti-greenwash, no to the white elephant called HS2, no to ULEZ, there are only two sexes, and so on - votewinning stuff that the Labour juggernaut can't pivot fast enough to copy in their own way or to triangulate. (Insisting no no, there are 53 genders actually, and it's anti-social to be against ULEZ - we've seen how well voters like this kind of thing in Scotland and London already.)
Penny it is, then.
Edit: it seems her support for homoeopathy isn't reducible to a keen young new MP signing an Early Day Motion, and she's built up some form: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/15/penny-mordaunt-repeatedly-advocated-use-of-homeopathy-on-nhs . But that's unlikely to be the kind of nutcasery that Labour can capitalise on.
Mind you I won't have an ev in my lifetime
Any such effort takes quite a bit of time to show significant results.
Meanwhile the costs of public transport have got higher and higher, while the overall costs of driving, including insurance etc, have actually fallen!
The marginal cost of driving versus public transport explains why our roads out so clogged up.
And it's deeply unfair on the millions of people who cannot afford the entry costs of driving. An attack on the young, in particular.
Great the costs of driving have fallen marginally from the obscenely expensive heights they were at in 2010. That doesn't mean much, costs falling is a good thing not a bad one unless you're a zealot who wants to see life get more expensive for some twisted reason.
And of course the marginal cost of driving is almost entirely taxation, whereas public transportation is so chronically inefficient that it is vastly subsidised and still uncompetitive.
And no, it wasn't believable in the slightest.
Only difference is that with the BBC that currently people have to pay the Fee even if they don't want to watch any BBC Content, even if they only want to watch Sky Sports live.
Whereas today drivers pay net tens of billions of taxes extra that don't get reinvested in roads and do subsidise public transport instead, and all we get back from you instead of gratitude is scorn.
She is a reasonably good media performer but not up to the PM job and also too woke for party members.
Sunak will lead the party into the next election and a likely new leader selected after
Drivers are still facing taxation being the primary cost of driving and have contributed net hundreds of billions to the Exchequer over the time the Tories have been in office.
I think the words you're looking for is "thank you".
The deadweight cost of taxes on driving needs to be eliminated but it hasn't been. Hopefully fuel duty is never replaced and instead road tax funds the roads and that's it.
Even HYUFD is now taking the piss out of Sunak.
It’s over.
If you strip out the week or so when Truss rendered it socially embarrassing even for right wingers to admit voting Tory, the polls have been stable but with Labour losing a couple of percentage points to the Lib Dems.
Shipley bypass etc. A new motorway between Warrington and Manchester.
(Public transport does not need to be subsidised - Lothian Buses is actually profitable in Edinburgh because it's everywhere and everyone uses it, freeing up loads of space for commercial drivers)
£300 billion in taxes we've paid in fuel duty alone. Imagine what kind of infrastructure we could have built with that, but instead it was pissed away on other stuff, like subsidising public transport fares.
Stop subsidising fares, let people pay the true cost of their transportation, and use funds from taxes to fund infrastructure instead.
Same with a bus. I always let them out in when I'm driving because I think "thank God the 50 people on that didn't drive to work today".
It is so sad that what passes for the opposition can't make the obvious open-goal white elephant point against the government. Why didn't they get proper advice? Why did it take so long to admit the error? How can they be trusted not to do the same again? HS2 - squillions of public money lost over 10 years. Truss loonanomics - squillions of public money lost in a month. Bunch of Arthur Daleys. What else will they screw up and then realise was the wrong thing to do 10 years later? Etc.
You actually reminded me of it with your correct assessment that high inflation is exacerbateing the effects of fiscal drag. Ditto the fuel duty freeze.