I don't know if you class me as a 'rightwinger', but I'm not 'furious' about them. They're just not very good, and may well say more about our times than anything about the lines themselves.
I don't know if you class me as a 'rightwinger', but I'm not 'furious' about them. They're just not very good, and may well say more about our times than anything about the lines themselves.
Am I the only one who is not that fussed either way about the names of the new train lines ?
Nope, don't really care although I think County lines and coke line might catch the zeitgeist more. Possibly even a try line (from which French citizens would be banned of course).
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
The names are a bit rubbish and too similar to each other but rarely (i.e. never) have I heard the name of a new train line and thought wow, fantastic.
Disappointed not more discussion on here or politicians generally suggesting auctioning them off. Feels like a no brainer to me. We are not great at naming things (see Boaty McBoatFace), and are struggling to find ways to fund tfl especially post pandemic and the switch to wfh.
Are people against? Think it won't raise the revenue? Or prefer a bit of gentle banter over woke vs anti-woke names?
How about some new fucking trains on the Central Line, TfL?
All for it, but would that comply with public indecency laws?
There was a service on, IIRC, the North London Line with a particularly long gap between two stations which was, erm, convenient in the days of compartment trains, and adopted as such by the ladies of the street, or rather I should say railway, with remarkable flexibility. The Victorian equivalent of that aphorism that most of the new stuff on the Net goes straight to porn uses.
Am I the only one who is not that fussed either way about the names of the new train lines ?
No; it's very much for the locals.
We do have lines named after Walter Scott novels (Ivanhoe) or cycles of them (Waverley), so why not?
Hopefully in a hundred years time you will have lines named after the works of another great Scottish author, Irvine Welsh.
The Porno, Filth and of course, the Trainspotting, Lines will bring much joy with the fusion of culture and transport.
Well, why not? You do realise that the Trainspotting title is ironic? The local euphemism for shooting up in the disused Leith Central station, I believe (there were so many stations there it's hard to keep mental track).
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
True. I'm assessing them on pure aesthetics rather than the politics. That's why Suffragette and Lioness get a thumbs down. Also why Windrush is a great name imo. It's a really nice word and gives that sense of travel which is appropriate for TfL. Ok it was a ship but still.
I don't know if you class me as a 'rightwinger', but I'm not 'furious' about them. They're just not very good, and may well say more about our times than anything about the lines themselves.
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
The names are a bit rubbish and too similar to each other but rarely (i.e. never) have I heard the name of a new train line and thought wow, fantastic.
Disappointed not more discussion on here or politicians generally suggesting auctioning them off. Feels like a no brainer to me. We are not great at naming things (see Boaty McBoatFace), and are struggling to find ways to fund tfl especially post pandemic and the switch to wfh.
Are people against? Think it won't raise the revenue? Or prefer a bit of gentle banter over woke vs anti-woke names?
I think the world, particularly the urban world, is oversaturated with advertising already. I really don't need more in the form of selling off naming rights for train lines. Then you have the problem of having to change all the signs if the company decide not to renew the deal after x years, which would work against making the transport network easier to navigate. How many different names have they tried to give the Oval cricket ground?
I don't know if you class me as a 'rightwinger', but I'm not 'furious' about them. They're just not very good, and may well say more about our times than anything about the lines themselves.
Always was the case, though. Nothing new.
Really? Central Line says something about early the 1900s? Circle Line the Victorian? The Argyll Line the 1970s? etc, etc.
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
True. I'm assessing them on pure aesthetics rather than the politics. That's why Suffragette and Lioness get a thumbs down. Also why Windrush is a great name. It gives that sense of travel which is appropriate for TfL. Ok it was a ship but still.
Don't forget - which some people seem to do - that London Transport would have gone tits up but for bringing in people from the Windies on the Windrush, which was part of the whole reason for the scheme.
I don't know if you class me as a 'rightwinger', but I'm not 'furious' about them. They're just not very good, and may well say more about our times than anything about the lines themselves.
Always was the case, though. Nothing new.
Really? Central Line says something about early the 1900s? Circle Line the Victorian? The Argyll Line the 1970s? etc, etc.
Yes, but some do. North British Railway, for instance, was very much of its time, to give just one example. I strongly disapproved of renaming the station hotel from the North British to the Balmoral. It was a nice bit of history.
Am I the only one who is not that fussed either way about the names of the new train lines ?
No; it's very much for the locals.
We do have lines named after Walter Scott novels (Ivanhoe) or cycles of them (Waverley), so why not?
Probably the best thing I read at University, closely followed by the Crossman diaries and Keynes' General theory of Employment, interest and money (supplemented by Samuelson). Well ahead of any law books, that's for sure.
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
The names are a bit rubbish and too similar to each other but rarely (i.e. never) have I heard the name of a new train line and thought wow, fantastic.
Disappointed not more discussion on here or politicians generally suggesting auctioning them off. Feels like a no brainer to me. We are not great at naming things (see Boaty McBoatFace), and are struggling to find ways to fund tfl especially post pandemic and the switch to wfh.
Are people against? Think it won't raise the revenue? Or prefer a bit of gentle banter over woke vs anti-woke names?
I think the world, particularly the urban world, is oversaturated with advertising already. I really don't need more in the form of selling off naming rights for train lines. Then you have the problem of having to change all the signs if the company decide not to renew the deal after x years, which would work against making the transport network easier to navigate. How many different names have they tried to give the Oval cricket ground?
It's such a terrible idea.
I would go 25 year deals to counter your criticisms. Yes, we are oversaturated with advertising but we are also skint and need to be imaginative in ways to raise revenue. With 30m tourists to London each year I think the multinationals would pay very significant sums for such a deal.
We have to call the lines something. Does it really matter if its the Coke Line, Blue Line, Line No 1 or Windrush Line?
2) Should I use Wordpress' in house system or is there a better one I could go for?
Any advice gratefully received.
In the first instance whoever is hosting your Wordpress instance probably handles email too.
Otherwise with a couple of DNS entries you can have any of the commercial outfits handle email for your domain: Google, Protonmail, plus a swathe of smaller specialists. My DNS is handled by Mythic Beasts who also do email & other services.
Am I the only one who is not that fussed either way about the names of the new train lines ?
No; it's very much for the locals.
We do have lines named after Walter Scott novels (Ivanhoe) or cycles of them (Waverley), so why not?
Probably the best thing I read at University, closely followed by the Crossman diaries and Keynes' General theory of Employment, interest and money (supplemented by Samuelson). Well ahead of any law books, that's for sure.
Waverley or Ivanhoe? WSaverley is a grand early try at working out where Scotland came from and was heading. I have a very soft spot for Old Mortality and the An tiquary myself.
I don't know if you class me as a 'rightwinger', but I'm not 'furious' about them. They're just not very good, and may well say more about our times than anything about the lines themselves.
What's wrong with:
North London Line West London Line South London Line East London Line Gospel Oak to Barking Line?
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
True. I'm assessing them on pure aesthetics rather than the politics. That's why Suffragette and Lioness get a thumbs down. Also why Windrush is a great name. It gives that sense of travel which is appropriate for TfL. Ok it was a ship but still.
Don't forget - which some people seem to do - that London Transport would have gone tits up but for bringing in people from the Windies on the Windrush, which was part of the whole reason for the scheme.
Yes indeed. It works as a name and symbolically. It's my favourite of these names.
First, as I'm always behind the curve, very best wishes to OGH and family.
As a Londoner and frequent public transport user in the capital, I'm fairly indifferent about the naming of the London Overground lines. It's politically poor from Sadiq Khan who seems to have lost whatever political nous he once had and will, I suspect, long regret opting to run for a third term rather than stepping down and seeking a Westminster constituency.
Hall will flap around like a demented chicken as per usual but she has nothing to offer most of London - well, nothing she's told us about so far.
That's not to say Khan is anyone's idea of a good choice for Mayor - if you think Biden vs Trump is bad, imagine Khan vs Hall and neither of them can offer advancing years as an excuse. The problem is the Mayor of London isn't a serious political role - the post has little or no meaningful power and becomes a vanity project. It's probably indicative of what a President of England role would be like.
On to more serious matters and the YouGov poll for WSI Strategy continues with a huge Labour lead and a split of 61-32 between Lab/LD/Green and Con/Ref.
How will tonight's by elections go? The Conservative vote fell 25 points in Tamworth, 29 points in Mid Bedfordshire and 26 points in Selby & Ainsty. With the circumstances and the choice of the Conservative candidate, we can probably expect a 25-30 point fall in the Conservative share in Wellingborough and perhaps 20-25 points in Kingswood.
That would translate to a 35% vote share in Wellingborough and perhaps 33% in Kingswood.
The Labour vote rose 21 points in Selby & Ainsty and 22 points in Tamworth - in Mid Bedfordshire, Labour were up 12 and the LDs up 10 but I'm not seeing much of an LD campaign in either seat.
That would translate to 45-47% in Wellingborough and 53-55% in Kingswood.
Assuming about half a GE turnout in both seats, that's a majority of just under 3,000 for Labour in Wellingborough and just under 5,000 in Kingswood.
I imagine Starmer would be happy enough with those results.
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
The names are a bit rubbish and too similar to each other but rarely (i.e. never) have I heard the name of a new train line and thought wow, fantastic.
Disappointed not more discussion on here or politicians generally suggesting auctioning them off. Feels like a no brainer to me. We are not great at naming things (see Boaty McBoatFace), and are struggling to find ways to fund tfl especially post pandemic and the switch to wfh.
Are people against? Think it won't raise the revenue? Or prefer a bit of gentle banter over woke vs anti-woke names?
I think the world, particularly the urban world, is oversaturated with advertising already. I really don't need more in the form of selling off naming rights for train lines. Then you have the problem of having to change all the signs if the company decide not to renew the deal after x years, which would work against making the transport network easier to navigate. How many different names have they tried to give the Oval cricket ground?
It's such a terrible idea.
As has already happened with the bikes and the cable car.
As for the names, some are quite neat, some are meh, but are any of them so bad that it will be worth changing them once in place? We're not talking Plaza del Caudillo, or even stuff named after Edward Colston.
I don't know if you class me as a 'rightwinger', but I'm not 'furious' about them. They're just not very good, and may well say more about our times than anything about the lines themselves.
What's wrong with:
North London Line West London Line South London Line East London Line Gospel Oak to Barking Line?
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
The names are a bit rubbish and too similar to each other but rarely (i.e. never) have I heard the name of a new train line and thought wow, fantastic.
Disappointed not more discussion on here or politicians generally suggesting auctioning them off. Feels like a no brainer to me. We are not great at naming things (see Boaty McBoatFace), and are struggling to find ways to fund tfl especially post pandemic and the switch to wfh.
Are people against? Think it won't raise the revenue? Or prefer a bit of gentle banter over woke vs anti-woke names?
I think the world, particularly the urban world, is oversaturated with advertising already. I really don't need more in the form of selling off naming rights for train lines. Then you have the problem of having to change all the signs if the company decide not to renew the deal after x years, which would work against making the transport network easier to navigate. How many different names have they tried to give the Oval cricket ground?
It's such a terrible idea.
As has already happened with the bikes and the cable car.
As for the names, some are quite neat, some are meh, but are any of them so bad that it will be worth changing them once in place? We're not talking Plaza del Caudillo, or even stuff named after Edward Colston.
Another way of looking at it - is there an amount of money for tfl where you would prefer the line to be called the Amazon line rather than the Mildmay line? If so what is it?
For me £10m a year would be more than sufficient. I suspect Amazon would pay several multiples of that for a long term deal. It is a simple way for London to capitalise on its status as one of the worlds leading capitals.
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
The names are a bit rubbish and too similar to each other but rarely (i.e. never) have I heard the name of a new train line and thought wow, fantastic.
Disappointed not more discussion on here or politicians generally suggesting auctioning them off. Feels like a no brainer to me. We are not great at naming things (see Boaty McBoatFace), and are struggling to find ways to fund tfl especially post pandemic and the switch to wfh.
Are people against? Think it won't raise the revenue? Or prefer a bit of gentle banter over woke vs anti-woke names?
I think the world, particularly the urban world, is oversaturated with advertising already. I really don't need more in the form of selling off naming rights for train lines. Then you have the problem of having to change all the signs if the company decide not to renew the deal after x years, which would work against making the transport network easier to navigate. How many different names have they tried to give the Oval cricket ground?
It's such a terrible idea.
As has already happened with the bikes and the cable car.
As for the names, some are quite neat, some are meh, but are any of them so bad that it will be worth changing them once in place? We're not talking Plaza del Caudillo, or even stuff named after Edward Colston.
One wonders what happens when Big Company goes bust or woke or is found to be guilty of modern slavery - any of those sins.
I've just looked at it, and I have one massive objection.
Right now, the line that runs from Richmond and Kew Garden, along Hampstead Heath, through Camden, and all the way to Homerton and Stratford, is called the Overground.
It used to be called the North London Line.
Anybody over the age of 35 still thinks of it as the North London Line.
Why the fuck can't it simply be given its old name back? (And - for the record - no one ever confused it with the Northern Line. Please don't take us for idiots.)
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
True. I'm assessing them on pure aesthetics rather than the politics. That's why Suffragette and Lioness get a thumbs down. Also why Windrush is a great name. It gives that sense of travel which is appropriate for TfL. Ok it was a ship but still.
Don't forget - which some people seem to do - that London Transport would have gone tits up but for bringing in people from the Windies on the Windrush, which was part of the whole reason for the scheme.
I think there's a certain amount of revisionism going on with that. Besides, if you really want to honour the people who kept London Underground going, then there should be a 'Fluffers line'...
I've just looked at it, and I have one massive objection.
Right now, the line that runs from Richmond and Kew Garden, along Hampstead Heath, through Camden, and all the way to Homerton and Stratford, is called the Overground.
It used to be called the North London Line.
Anybody over the age of 35 still thinks of it as the North London Line.
Why the fuck can't it simply be given its old name back? (And - for the record - no one ever confused it with the Northern Line. Please don't take us for idiots.)
It also seems this morning's economic news brought out the "things aren't so bad" or "I'm all right here" tendency.
The truth is for many in work or for those with adequate savings or investments it isn't that bad - strange how most recessions (technical or otherwise) affect the poor rather than the wealthy.
We also got the old chestnut about full employment - to re-iterate my comment of a couple of nights ago, if 20 people are chasing 10 jobs you have an unemployment problem, if 10 people are chasing 10 jobs you have full employment, if you have 5 people chasing 10 jobs you still have full employment but you don't have growth.
The huge numbers of unfilled jobs across the economy are a drag on economic growth as unfilled jobs mean everyone else has to work harder and the tax receipts aren't increased by new workers. The problem is asking the obvious question about how you fill these vacancies gets you to the i-word so because we can't talk about that sensibly we end up with ideas like cajoling the retired back to work by cutting their benefits (which won't end well).
The other approach is serious capital investment in technology to improve business processes and dare I say it the AI-word (really two words) but that requires both public and private sectors to make a proper commitment to R&D (remember that?) and the returns don't always manifest as quickly as many in the decision-making environment want.
I've just looked at it, and I have one massive objection.
Right now, the line that runs from Richmond and Kew Garden, along Hampstead Heath, through Camden, and all the way to Homerton and Stratford, is called the Overground.
It used to be called the North London Line.
Anybody over the age of 35 still thinks of it as the North London Line.
Why the fuck can't it simply be given its old name back? (And - for the record - no one ever confused it with the Northern Line. Please don't take us for idiots.)
And my God those names are awful.
It's not so much that they are woke, so much that they are woeful.
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
True. I'm assessing them on pure aesthetics rather than the politics. That's why Suffragette and Lioness get a thumbs down. Also why Windrush is a great name. It gives that sense of travel which is appropriate for TfL. Ok it was a ship but still.
Don't forget - which some people seem to do - that London Transport would have gone tits up but for bringing in people from the Windies on the Windrush, which was part of the whole reason for the scheme.
I think there's a certain amount of revisionism going on with that. Besides, if you really want to honour the people who kept London Underground going, then there should be a 'Fluffers line'...
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
True. I'm assessing them on pure aesthetics rather than the politics. That's why Suffragette and Lioness get a thumbs down. Also why Windrush is a great name. It gives that sense of travel which is appropriate for TfL. Ok it was a ship but still.
Don't forget - which some people seem to do - that London Transport would have gone tits up but for bringing in people from the Windies on the Windrush, which was part of the whole reason for the scheme.
I think there's a certain amount of revisionism going on with that. Besides, if you really want to honour the people who kept London Underground going, then there should be a 'Fluffers line'...
I don't know if you class me as a 'rightwinger', but I'm not 'furious' about them. They're just not very good, and may well say more about our times than anything about the lines themselves.
Always was the case, though. Nothing new.
Really? Central Line says something about early the 1900s? Circle Line the Victorian? The Argyll Line the 1970s? etc, etc.
Yes, but some do. North British Railway, for instance, was very much of its time, to give just one example. I strongly disapproved of renaming the station hotel from the North British to the Balmoral. It was a nice bit of history.
But that's not the same thing, is it? The North British Railway was a company, not a singular line, and was probably named to both differentiate it from rivals, and to attract investors. And it was very much in the North of Britain railway-wise.
“Keir Starmer and Labour have put this country into Recession! People have looked at the polls, and fearing a socialist government is coming have stopped investing knowing they won’t get their money back.” - MoonRabbits mum
Lolz. Well done on your Greengate call by the way: a poll yesterday shows you got that right despite the flames from many on here.
Kudos.
You mean the one 3-way-Nick posted? Showed many voters thinking the u-turn pragmatic?
To be honest, Mixed signals in polling on this one, Anabob. Labour certainly down and Tory’s up in lots of the post U-turn Pre and post Aligate polling, and PB Maxim is give changes a couple of weeks to work through. Will Labours bad few days be cancelled out by bad ones for Tories to end this week?
Certainly - like how Tories got to microphones quickly to blame PO scandal on Davey - Tories quickly made a lot of how the £140B u-turn discredits Starmer. Considering it drips bloody sensible and strong decision from a Labour leadership, the Guardian and Observer didn’t hold back attacking it either. So everyone attacked it. So although in a minority, that number of voters out there liking it as sensible, against that media backdrop, is encouraging.
However, nothing can change the fundamental truth though. I was right. The message to voters was, the country will live within its means under us. They cut a spending promise, rather than add the cost to borrowing or tax. What a contrast from both lab and canon manifesto and campaigns from 2019. Contrast with Sunak & Hunts current economics, of fantasy tax cuts this year only funded by slashing from future spending commitments, and that’s one hell of a contrast between the parties going into the election.
£140Bn largely unspecified or itemised spending commitment from years ago, completely unaffordable in “current financial climate” as clearly proved by recession today, especially when considering other than just climate all the ministries, Health, Education, etc etc who also have justified claim for whatever little extra cash is available, and considering how the vague £140B commitment likely wasn’t OBR or “Markets reaction” proof, also considering all the fun the Conservatives were lining up to have with it - turning it into an interesting and affordable chapter in the manifesto was 100% the correct thing to do - if voters agree or not.
I've just looked at it, and I have one massive objection.
Right now, the line that runs from Richmond and Kew Garden, along Hampstead Heath, through Camden, and all the way to Homerton and Stratford, is called the Overground.
It used to be called the North London Line.
Anybody over the age of 35 still thinks of it as the North London Line.
Why the fuck can't it simply be given its old name back? (And - for the record - no one ever confused it with the Northern Line. Please don't take us for idiots.)
And my God those names are awful.
It's not so much that they are woke, so much that they are woeful.
Despite PB Tory insistence, most people either don't know how SKS has handled the Rochdale thing, or has done fairly well.
Perhaps they should just accept he can run rings around them any day and has been for 4 years.
CHB I PRESUME?
Andrew Feinstein,former adviser to Nelson Mandela, is authentic, straightforward and principled. This is why he is so dangerous to Keir Starmer, who has none of these qualities
I've just looked at it, and I have one massive objection.
Right now, the line that runs from Richmond and Kew Garden, along Hampstead Heath, through Camden, and all the way to Homerton and Stratford, is called the Overground.
It used to be called the North London Line.
Anybody over the age of 35 still thinks of it as the North London Line.
Why the fuck can't it simply be given its old name back? (And - for the record - no one ever confused it with the Northern Line. Please don't take us for idiots.)
And my God those names are awful.
It's not so much that they are woke, so much that they are woeful.
It's not so much that they are woke, so much that they are woeful.
I mean "lioness line"??? What the fuck?
With respect, why do you even care? I'm more concerned about the £6.3 million it's costing than the names themselves which are frankly neither here nor there.
The "official" names of lines aren't always used in common parlance - tourists look at the colour of the line on the tube map and follow that which is fine. Words like "Disty", "Met", "Dickapilly", "Drain", "Jub" are what Londoners use - as I don't regularly travel on the Northern, Bakerloo or Central I don't know what they are called but I suspect the terms I'm hearing lately for the Central would invoke the ban hammer.
The real transport issue currently is the Central Line which has been a failure by TfL - no new trains and it seems the more they look at the existing ones, the worse they are but it's symptomatic of a number of issues. The gaps between trains are increasing even on the more regularly used lines as TfL are forced to adapt the schedule to a declining number of commuter passengers.
Don;t get me started on fare evasion which is endemic on parts of the network - I'd vote for any Mayoral candidate who comes up with a sensible solution but while TfL want the money they are losing on unpaid fares, the cost of trying to establish a force or system which would reduce or eliminate that evasion wouldn't meet the lost fares so they accept up to 15% of all journeys are made without paying.
Am I the only one who is not that fussed either way about the names of the new train lines ?
No; it's very much for the locals.
We do have lines named after Walter Scott novels (Ivanhoe) or cycles of them (Waverley), so why not?
Probably the best thing I read at University, closely followed by the Crossman diaries and Keynes' General theory of Employment, interest and money (supplemented by Samuelson). Well ahead of any law books, that's for sure.
Waverley or Ivanhoe? WSaverley is a grand early try at working out where Scotland came from and was heading. I have a very soft spot for Old Mortality and the An tiquary myself.
Both actually but particularly the Waverley novels which, as you say, give a better idea of early Scottish history (and many other obscure bits) than anything else. I really liked the Antiquary as well but my favourites were probably The Covenanters and The Legend of Montrose, probably because I found that period of history and the Wars of the three Kingdoms fascinating. It was, sadly, neglected at school.
...Now when the Johnson Administration in Britain came over to talk to Donald Trump's Administration about a trade deal and they found out what the conditions would be they walked away. And then the next government came in and did the same thing and walked away (or was it Teresa May?). Anyway there were two back-to-back and so the Brits right now are in this nether world where they kind of quietly admit to themselves that, in order to find a future that has some degree of economic functionality, they have to get into bed with their kids and accept all the demands and the hit to their economy will be real and the hit to their ego will be massive...
...But the alternatives (trying to build an alternate system or maybe going back to the EU) neither of those are long-term solutions that are very functional, so really what we're doing is going through the paces until the Brits admit the obvious, and when that happens Britain will lose the thing that it values the most: its freedom to act, its agency. It will become a subsidiary of the American system for Better or For Worse and while that will be horrible for the British mindset it is the best game in town from both an economic and a security point of view and in time I have no doubt that that is where the Brits will end up, so stiff upper lip...
I'm not sure I share all this guy's analysis, but I do share his conclusion. The only real alternative to the UK being part of the EU is being much more closely aligned with the US, perhaps even as the 51st or 51st-53rd states.
And that’s why the right pushed so hard for Brexit, and told their fantastical lies to make it happen. They would rather have a small state, low tax, highly unequal UK, with a crumbling public realm and services, rather than EU-style worker protections, environmental protections, etc, etc, etc.
So they whipped up an immigration panic and promised unicorns for all to get just enough people to shoot themselves in the foot.
The idea that EU regulation resulted in higher consumer prices - a shibboleth of Euroscepticism since the early 90s - turned out to be total junk as well.
Witness food prices.
And yet we still get squealing and whining that farmers may face competition from the likes of Australia and New Zealand.
You can't have it both ways.
Why isn't affordable Aussie and Kiwi good enough for us without any tariffs?
The net impact so far is that prices are up (even net of the broader inflation issues), and choice is down. It’s possible, though I defer to Nick Palmer, that welfare standards are expected to decline too.
I'd like to see any evidence whatsoever that prices are up in the UK compared to other countries net of broader inflation issues. Or that choice is down similarly.
Food inflation has been seen across the globe, so I'm sceptical.
There's nothing wrong with animal welfare in New Zealand etc, I'd be quite delighted to see non-tariff barriers that are falsely portrayed as "welfare" issues to be abolished.
The UK has lower real food inflation than the Euro Area.
Um: stupid question: what's real inflation?
I know what prices are. Shoes used to cost £X I know what inflated prices are. Shoes now cost £2X I know what real prices are. Shoes in real terms cost £2X/(1+inflation rate) But I don't know what real inflation is. Can you give me an example?
The real inflation that X as opposed to Y else now costs more than it would have in real currency.
A prime example would be houses. House price inflation has outstripped inflation for decades, so houses now cost more in real terms than they would.
While a counter-example of real deflation is often technology goods. If you would spend £1000 in 2000 on a computer, but could get one for about £300 today, in real terms that's declined in cost by much more than 70% because £1000 in 2000 money is more than £1000 today.
Indeed. And we're all told inflation has been low for the past two decades, because the price of flatscreen tellys and fast fashion has cratered. Meanwhile, the cost of keeping a roof over your head has skyrocketed to the point where absolutely nobody feels any richer despite every home having a massive flatscreen telly. See also: energy prices, childcare prices, almost all the basics you actually need to live a half decent life, etc.
Olive oil.
Grated parmesan
How about ungrated parmesan? Has inflation been for the grater good?
Life is too short to grate your own parmesan
That's like saying life is too short to not use instant coffee.
Many of the gastroidiots on here think that.
I've recently bought some rather nice coffee mugs from Loveramics.
Sizes: flat white, cappuccino and latte.
I have an excellent espresso machine - wouldn't touch instant now.
I've acquired a taste for oat milk in coffee (50/50 with cows').
Irrational pet hate - oat milk. Milk comes from mammals. Oat milk is not a milk, its a massively processed grain.
In many countries “milk” is a protected term, and there’s been lots of arguments about it. Same with “meat”.
Talking of protected terms, the other day there was a report on the world service about Chinese Whiskey/Whisky production and how the big drinks brands were really building up production in China and it was killing some very strong Chinese Whisky/ey. They were talking to someone who ran “Maison de Whiskey” which was one of the big drinks company’s specialist whisky/ey chains - like us opening “House of Champagne” around the world but a different issue.
My point is I don’t know why Whiskey and Whisky aren’t protected produce names as Champagne is. Surely it should have been done and is it too late to make this so?
Champagne, as an example, is only protected by the EU and the countries with which they have specific trade agreements.
Whisky is a generic drink, however Scotch should be restricted to distilleries in Scotland.
Tell that to the Indians though, who have all sorts of “Scotch” brands.
These issues are always the sticking points in trade agreements, the UK in this example needs assurances that the Indian government will actually go after their own “scotch” producers, in order to protect the UK brand.
(In case anyone’s interested, the Indian whiskies are mostly crap, barely worthy of being served with a mixer in most countries.)
I've just looked at it, and I have one massive objection.
Right now, the line that runs from Richmond and Kew Garden, along Hampstead Heath, through Camden, and all the way to Homerton and Stratford, is called the Overground.
It used to be called the North London Line.
Anybody over the age of 35 still thinks of it as the North London Line.
Why the fuck can't it simply be given its old name back? (And - for the record - no one ever confused it with the Northern Line. Please don't take us for idiots.)
And my God those names are awful.
It's not so much that they are woke, so much that they are woeful.
I mean "lioness line"??? What the fuck?
It will age as badly as Men Behaving Badly.
Please don't tell me that has aged poorly.
It's very very mid 1990s now, and doesn't really work anymore.
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
True. I'm assessing them on pure aesthetics rather than the politics. That's why Suffragette and Lioness get a thumbs down. Also why Windrush is a great name. It gives that sense of travel which is appropriate for TfL. Ok it was a ship but still.
Don't forget - which some people seem to do - that London Transport would have gone tits up but for bringing in people from the Windies on the Windrush, which was part of the whole reason for the scheme.
I think there's a certain amount of revisionism going on with that. Besides, if you really want to honour the people who kept London Underground going, then there should be a 'Fluffers line'...
I've just looked at it, and I have one massive objection.
Right now, the line that runs from Richmond and Kew Garden, along Hampstead Heath, through Camden, and all the way to Homerton and Stratford, is called the Overground.
It used to be called the North London Line.
Anybody over the age of 35 still thinks of it as the North London Line.
Why the fuck can't it simply be given its old name back? (And - for the record - no one ever confused it with the Northern Line. Please don't take us for idiots.)
And my God those names are awful.
It's not so much that they are woke, so much that they are woeful.
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
True. I'm assessing them on pure aesthetics rather than the politics. That's why Suffragette and Lioness get a thumbs down. Also why Windrush is a great name. It gives that sense of travel which is appropriate for TfL. Ok it was a ship but still.
Don't forget - which some people seem to do - that London Transport would have gone tits up but for bringing in people from the Windies on the Windrush, which was part of the whole reason for the scheme.
I think there's a certain amount of revisionism going on with that. Besides, if you really want to honour the people who kept London Underground going, then there should be a 'Fluffers line'...
...Now when the Johnson Administration in Britain came over to talk to Donald Trump's Administration about a trade deal and they found out what the conditions would be they walked away. And then the next government came in and did the same thing and walked away (or was it Teresa May?). Anyway there were two back-to-back and so the Brits right now are in this nether world where they kind of quietly admit to themselves that, in order to find a future that has some degree of economic functionality, they have to get into bed with their kids and accept all the demands and the hit to their economy will be real and the hit to their ego will be massive...
...But the alternatives (trying to build an alternate system or maybe going back to the EU) neither of those are long-term solutions that are very functional, so really what we're doing is going through the paces until the Brits admit the obvious, and when that happens Britain will lose the thing that it values the most: its freedom to act, its agency. It will become a subsidiary of the American system for Better or For Worse and while that will be horrible for the British mindset it is the best game in town from both an economic and a security point of view and in time I have no doubt that that is where the Brits will end up, so stiff upper lip...
I'm not sure I share all this guy's analysis, but I do share his conclusion. The only real alternative to the UK being part of the EU is being much more closely aligned with the US, perhaps even as the 51st or 51st-53rd states.
And that’s why the right pushed so hard for Brexit, and told their fantastical lies to make it happen. They would rather have a small state, low tax, highly unequal UK, with a crumbling public realm and services, rather than EU-style worker protections, environmental protections, etc, etc, etc.
So they whipped up an immigration panic and promised unicorns for all to get just enough people to shoot themselves in the foot.
The idea that EU regulation resulted in higher consumer prices - a shibboleth of Euroscepticism since the early 90s - turned out to be total junk as well.
Witness food prices.
And yet we still get squealing and whining that farmers may face competition from the likes of Australia and New Zealand.
You can't have it both ways.
Why isn't affordable Aussie and Kiwi good enough for us without any tariffs?
The net impact so far is that prices are up (even net of the broader inflation issues), and choice is down. It’s possible, though I defer to Nick Palmer, that welfare standards are expected to decline too.
I'd like to see any evidence whatsoever that prices are up in the UK compared to other countries net of broader inflation issues. Or that choice is down similarly.
Food inflation has been seen across the globe, so I'm sceptical.
There's nothing wrong with animal welfare in New Zealand etc, I'd be quite delighted to see non-tariff barriers that are falsely portrayed as "welfare" issues to be abolished.
The UK has lower real food inflation than the Euro Area.
Um: stupid question: what's real inflation?
I know what prices are. Shoes used to cost £X I know what inflated prices are. Shoes now cost £2X I know what real prices are. Shoes in real terms cost £2X/(1+inflation rate) But I don't know what real inflation is. Can you give me an example?
The real inflation that X as opposed to Y else now costs more than it would have in real currency.
A prime example would be houses. House price inflation has outstripped inflation for decades, so houses now cost more in real terms than they would.
While a counter-example of real deflation is often technology goods. If you would spend £1000 in 2000 on a computer, but could get one for about £300 today, in real terms that's declined in cost by much more than 70% because £1000 in 2000 money is more than £1000 today.
Indeed. And we're all told inflation has been low for the past two decades, because the price of flatscreen tellys and fast fashion has cratered. Meanwhile, the cost of keeping a roof over your head has skyrocketed to the point where absolutely nobody feels any richer despite every home having a massive flatscreen telly. See also: energy prices, childcare prices, almost all the basics you actually need to live a half decent life, etc.
Olive oil.
Grated parmesan
How about ungrated parmesan? Has inflation been for the grater good?
Life is too short to grate your own parmesan
That's like saying life is too short to not use instant coffee.
Many of the gastroidiots on here think that.
I've recently bought some rather nice coffee mugs from Loveramics.
Sizes: flat white, cappuccino and latte.
I have an excellent espresso machine - wouldn't touch instant now.
I've acquired a taste for oat milk in coffee (50/50 with cows').
Irrational pet hate - oat milk. Milk comes from mammals. Oat milk is not a milk, its a massively processed grain.
In many countries “milk” is a protected term, and there’s been lots of arguments about it. Same with “meat”.
Talking of protected terms, the other day there was a report on the world service about Chinese Whiskey/Whisky production and how the big drinks brands were really building up production in China and it was killing some very strong Chinese Whisky/ey. They were talking to someone who ran “Maison de Whiskey” which was one of the big drinks company’s specialist whisky/ey chains - like us opening “House of Champagne” around the world but a different issue.
My point is I don’t know why Whiskey and Whisky aren’t protected produce names as Champagne is. Surely it should have been done and is it too late to make this so?
Champagne, as an example, is only protected by the EU and the countries with which they have specific trade agreements.
Whisky is a generic drink, however Scotch should be restricted to distilleries in Scotland.
Tell that to the Indians though, who have all sorts of “Scotch” brands.
These issues are always the sticking points in trade agreements, the UK in this example needs assurances that the Indian government will actually go after their own “scotch” producers, in order to protect the UK brand.
(In case anyone’s interested, the Indian whiskies are mostly crap, barely worthy of being served with a mixer in most countries.)
I suppose Indian distilleries could always sell "Scottish".
I've just looked at it, and I have one massive objection.
Right now, the line that runs from Richmond and Kew Garden, along Hampstead Heath, through Camden, and all the way to Homerton and Stratford, is called the Overground.
It used to be called the North London Line.
Anybody over the age of 35 still thinks of it as the North London Line.
Why the fuck can't it simply be given its old name back? (And - for the record - no one ever confused it with the Northern Line. Please don't take us for idiots.)
And my God those names are awful.
It's not so much that they are woke, so much that they are woeful.
I mean "lioness line"??? What the fuck?
It will age as badly as Men Behaving Badly.
Nothing could possibly age as bad as that one
There was a time when it was on GOLD daily. Dreadful.
...Now when the Johnson Administration in Britain came over to talk to Donald Trump's Administration about a trade deal and they found out what the conditions would be they walked away. And then the next government came in and did the same thing and walked away (or was it Teresa May?). Anyway there were two back-to-back and so the Brits right now are in this nether world where they kind of quietly admit to themselves that, in order to find a future that has some degree of economic functionality, they have to get into bed with their kids and accept all the demands and the hit to their economy will be real and the hit to their ego will be massive...
...But the alternatives (trying to build an alternate system or maybe going back to the EU) neither of those are long-term solutions that are very functional, so really what we're doing is going through the paces until the Brits admit the obvious, and when that happens Britain will lose the thing that it values the most: its freedom to act, its agency. It will become a subsidiary of the American system for Better or For Worse and while that will be horrible for the British mindset it is the best game in town from both an economic and a security point of view and in time I have no doubt that that is where the Brits will end up, so stiff upper lip...
I'm not sure I share all this guy's analysis, but I do share his conclusion. The only real alternative to the UK being part of the EU is being much more closely aligned with the US, perhaps even as the 51st or 51st-53rd states.
And that’s why the right pushed so hard for Brexit, and told their fantastical lies to make it happen. They would rather have a small state, low tax, highly unequal UK, with a crumbling public realm and services, rather than EU-style worker protections, environmental protections, etc, etc, etc.
So they whipped up an immigration panic and promised unicorns for all to get just enough people to shoot themselves in the foot.
The idea that EU regulation resulted in higher consumer prices - a shibboleth of Euroscepticism since the early 90s - turned out to be total junk as well.
Witness food prices.
And yet we still get squealing and whining that farmers may face competition from the likes of Australia and New Zealand.
You can't have it both ways.
Why isn't affordable Aussie and Kiwi good enough for us without any tariffs?
The net impact so far is that prices are up (even net of the broader inflation issues), and choice is down. It’s possible, though I defer to Nick Palmer, that welfare standards are expected to decline too.
I'd like to see any evidence whatsoever that prices are up in the UK compared to other countries net of broader inflation issues. Or that choice is down similarly.
Food inflation has been seen across the globe, so I'm sceptical.
There's nothing wrong with animal welfare in New Zealand etc, I'd be quite delighted to see non-tariff barriers that are falsely portrayed as "welfare" issues to be abolished.
The UK has lower real food inflation than the Euro Area.
Um: stupid question: what's real inflation?
I know what prices are. Shoes used to cost £X I know what inflated prices are. Shoes now cost £2X I know what real prices are. Shoes in real terms cost £2X/(1+inflation rate) But I don't know what real inflation is. Can you give me an example?
The real inflation that X as opposed to Y else now costs more than it would have in real currency.
A prime example would be houses. House price inflation has outstripped inflation for decades, so houses now cost more in real terms than they would.
While a counter-example of real deflation is often technology goods. If you would spend £1000 in 2000 on a computer, but could get one for about £300 today, in real terms that's declined in cost by much more than 70% because £1000 in 2000 money is more than £1000 today.
Indeed. And we're all told inflation has been low for the past two decades, because the price of flatscreen tellys and fast fashion has cratered. Meanwhile, the cost of keeping a roof over your head has skyrocketed to the point where absolutely nobody feels any richer despite every home having a massive flatscreen telly. See also: energy prices, childcare prices, almost all the basics you actually need to live a half decent life, etc.
Olive oil.
Grated parmesan
How about ungrated parmesan? Has inflation been for the grater good?
Life is too short to grate your own parmesan
That's like saying life is too short to not use instant coffee.
Many of the gastroidiots on here think that.
I've recently bought some rather nice coffee mugs from Loveramics.
Sizes: flat white, cappuccino and latte.
I have an excellent espresso machine - wouldn't touch instant now.
I've acquired a taste for oat milk in coffee (50/50 with cows').
Irrational pet hate - oat milk. Milk comes from mammals. Oat milk is not a milk, its a massively processed grain.
In many countries “milk” is a protected term, and there’s been lots of arguments about it. Same with “meat”.
Talking of protected terms, the other day there was a report on the world service about Chinese Whiskey/Whisky production and how the big drinks brands were really building up production in China and it was killing some very strong Chinese Whisky/ey. They were talking to someone who ran “Maison de Whiskey” which was one of the big drinks company’s specialist whisky/ey chains - like us opening “House of Champagne” around the world but a different issue.
My point is I don’t know why Whiskey and Whisky aren’t protected produce names as Champagne is. Surely it should have been done and is it too late to make this so?
Champagne, as an example, is only protected by the EU and the countries with which they have specific trade agreements.
Whisky is a generic drink, however Scotch should be restricted to distilleries in Scotland.
Tell that to the Indians though, who have all sorts of “Scotch” brands.
These issues are always the sticking points in trade agreements, the UK in this example needs assurances that the Indian government will actually go after their own “scotch” producers, in order to protect the UK brand.
(In case anyone’s interested, the Indian whiskies are mostly crap, barely worthy of being served with a mixer in most countries.)
I suppose Indian distilleries could always sell "Scottish".
They have brands like 'Johnny Worker'. It's comical really.
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
True. I'm assessing them on pure aesthetics rather than the politics. That's why Suffragette and Lioness get a thumbs down. Also why Windrush is a great name. It gives that sense of travel which is appropriate for TfL. Ok it was a ship but still.
Don't forget - which some people seem to do - that London Transport would have gone tits up but for bringing in people from the Windies on the Windrush, which was part of the whole reason for the scheme.
I think there's a certain amount of revisionism going on with that. Besides, if you really want to honour the people who kept London Underground going, then there should be a 'Fluffers line'...
Parody Rishi Sunak · 8h If you are struggling to pay your energy bills, take comfort from the fact that the profits of British Gas have increased ten fold in one year. So it's not all bad.
I'm very sorry to read Mike's news on the previous thread. This site, and Mike personally have been so significant in my own political journey, especially starting out in the noughties. This is a cruel development and my very best wishes with you and your family.
Still, on the upside he's well-qualified to run for US President now.
Absolutely unbelievable. Desantis today admits that his book ban statute has caused chaos by allowing right-wing activists with no children in public school to mass report books. He says the law now needs to be changed. https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1758210392298279384
Parody Rishi Sunak · 8h If you are struggling to pay your energy bills, take comfort from the fact that the profits of British Gas have increased ten fold in one year. So it's not all bad.
they barely broke even (for a company of their size) last year so a bit misleading . Most people own Centrica shares anyway even if indirectly in pension funds
However, nothing can change the fundamental truth though. I was right. The message to voters was, the country will live within its means under us. They cut a spending promise, rather than add the cost to borrowing or tax.
The problem with this kind of austerity driven approach to running the country is that it risks making Starmer and Reeves look like a Cameron and Osborne tribute act. Stingy Tories, fiscally dry on everything (except pensions, for which another £79 trillion can always be found down the back of the Treasury sofa, of course.)
We had austerity before. It's old hat, people are sick of it, and it demonstrably didn't work. Look what fourteen years of continuous cuts have done to the state and the people who live in it. Moreover, the demands for cash burning services are only going to keep growing as the legions of the sick and elderly continue to expand.
Sooner or later, somebody is going to question how on Earth Labour thinks it can pull this country out of the socio-economic omnicrisis in which it is mired based on Conservative budgets. Absent fantastical claims that they can instantly create rampant economic growth through totally cost free reforms, Labour have no other answers. The notion that their token revenue raising measures - which seem to consist of little more than closing non-dom tax loopholes and charging VAT on private school fees - can generate the funds needed to regenerate this increasingly decrepit nation are absolutely laughable.
This is an Opposition that's attempting to project an image of seriousness, yet which doesn't merely have no idea of how to make the lives of the people better - it doesn't care about making their lives better. They are do nothing imitation Tories who will just spend five years collecting their salaries and fiddling whilst the country continues to burn down around them.
...Now when the Johnson Administration in Britain came over to talk to Donald Trump's Administration about a trade deal and they found out what the conditions would be they walked away. And then the next government came in and did the same thing and walked away (or was it Teresa May?). Anyway there were two back-to-back and so the Brits right now are in this nether world where they kind of quietly admit to themselves that, in order to find a future that has some degree of economic functionality, they have to get into bed with their kids and accept all the demands and the hit to their economy will be real and the hit to their ego will be massive...
...But the alternatives (trying to build an alternate system or maybe going back to the EU) neither of those are long-term solutions that are very functional, so really what we're doing is going through the paces until the Brits admit the obvious, and when that happens Britain will lose the thing that it values the most: its freedom to act, its agency. It will become a subsidiary of the American system for Better or For Worse and while that will be horrible for the British mindset it is the best game in town from both an economic and a security point of view and in time I have no doubt that that is where the Brits will end up, so stiff upper lip...
I'm not sure I share all this guy's analysis, but I do share his conclusion. The only real alternative to the UK being part of the EU is being much more closely aligned with the US, perhaps even as the 51st or 51st-53rd states.
And that’s why the right pushed so hard for Brexit, and told their fantastical lies to make it happen. They would rather have a small state, low tax, highly unequal UK, with a crumbling public realm and services, rather than EU-style worker protections, environmental protections, etc, etc, etc.
So they whipped up an immigration panic and promised unicorns for all to get just enough people to shoot themselves in the foot.
The idea that EU regulation resulted in higher consumer prices - a shibboleth of Euroscepticism since the early 90s - turned out to be total junk as well.
Witness food prices.
And yet we still get squealing and whining that farmers may face competition from the likes of Australia and New Zealand.
You can't have it both ways.
Why isn't affordable Aussie and Kiwi good enough for us without any tariffs?
The net impact so far is that prices are up (even net of the broader inflation issues), and choice is down. It’s possible, though I defer to Nick Palmer, that welfare standards are expected to decline too.
I'd like to see any evidence whatsoever that prices are up in the UK compared to other countries net of broader inflation issues. Or that choice is down similarly.
Food inflation has been seen across the globe, so I'm sceptical.
There's nothing wrong with animal welfare in New Zealand etc, I'd be quite delighted to see non-tariff barriers that are falsely portrayed as "welfare" issues to be abolished.
The UK has lower real food inflation than the Euro Area.
Um: stupid question: what's real inflation?
I know what prices are. Shoes used to cost £X I know what inflated prices are. Shoes now cost £2X I know what real prices are. Shoes in real terms cost £2X/(1+inflation rate) But I don't know what real inflation is. Can you give me an example?
The real inflation that X as opposed to Y else now costs more than it would have in real currency.
A prime example would be houses. House price inflation has outstripped inflation for decades, so houses now cost more in real terms than they would.
While a counter-example of real deflation is often technology goods. If you would spend £1000 in 2000 on a computer, but could get one for about £300 today, in real terms that's declined in cost by much more than 70% because £1000 in 2000 money is more than £1000 today.
Indeed. And we're all told inflation has been low for the past two decades, because the price of flatscreen tellys and fast fashion has cratered. Meanwhile, the cost of keeping a roof over your head has skyrocketed to the point where absolutely nobody feels any richer despite every home having a massive flatscreen telly. See also: energy prices, childcare prices, almost all the basics you actually need to live a half decent life, etc.
Olive oil.
Grated parmesan
How about ungrated parmesan? Has inflation been for the grater good?
Life is too short to grate your own parmesan
That's like saying life is too short to not use instant coffee.
Many of the gastroidiots on here think that.
I've recently bought some rather nice coffee mugs from Loveramics.
Sizes: flat white, cappuccino and latte.
I have an excellent espresso machine - wouldn't touch instant now.
I've acquired a taste for oat milk in coffee (50/50 with cows').
Irrational pet hate - oat milk. Milk comes from mammals. Oat milk is not a milk, its a massively processed grain.
In many countries “milk” is a protected term, and there’s been lots of arguments about it. Same with “meat”.
Talking of protected terms, the other day there was a report on the world service about Chinese Whiskey/Whisky production and how the big drinks brands were really building up production in China and it was killing some very strong Chinese Whisky/ey. They were talking to someone who ran “Maison de Whiskey” which was one of the big drinks company’s specialist whisky/ey chains - like us opening “House of Champagne” around the world but a different issue.
My point is I don’t know why Whiskey and Whisky aren’t protected produce names as Champagne is. Surely it should have been done and is it too late to make this so?
Champagne, as an example, is only protected by the EU and the countries with which they have specific trade agreements.
Whisky is a generic drink, however Scotch should be restricted to distilleries in Scotland.
Tell that to the Indians though, who have all sorts of “Scotch” brands.
These issues are always the sticking points in trade agreements, the UK in this example needs assurances that the Indian government will actually go after their own “scotch” producers, in order to protect the UK brand.
(In case anyone’s interested, the Indian whiskies are mostly crap, barely worthy of being served with a mixer in most countries.)
I suppose Indian distilleries could always sell "Scottish".
However, nothing can change the fundamental truth though. I was right. The message to voters was, the country will live within its means under us. They cut a spending promise, rather than add the cost to borrowing or tax.
The problem with this kind of austerity driven approach to running the country is that it risks making Starmer and Reeves look like a Cameron and Osborne tribute act. Stingy Tories, fiscally dry on everything (except pensions, for which another £79 trillion can always be found down the back of the Treasury sofa, of course.)
We had austerity before. It's old hat, people are sick of it, and it demonstrably didn't work. Look what fourteen years of continuous cuts have done to the state and the people who live in it. Moreover, the demands for cash burning services are only going to keep growing as the legions of the sick and elderly continue to expand.
Sooner or later, somebody is going to question how on Earth Labour thinks it can pull this country out of the socio-economic omnicrisis in which it is mired based on Conservative budgets. Absent fantastical claims that they can instantly create rampant economic growth through totally cost free reforms, Labour have no other answers. The notion that their token revenue raising measures - which seem to consist of little more than closing non-dom tax loopholes and charging VAT on private school fees - can generate the funds needed to regenerate this increasingly decrepit nation are absolutely laughable.
This is an Opposition that's attempting to project an image of seriousness, yet which doesn't merely have no idea of how to make the lives of the people better - it doesn't care about making their lives better. They are do nothing imitation Tories who will just spend five years collecting their salaries and fiddling whilst the country continues to burn down around them.
I detect a deal of frustration but politics is about winning elections not sounding radical from the comfy sofa of opposition.
Starmer has decided, pace Blair, he has to endlessly re-assure wavering Conservative voters he is a serious politician leading a non-socialist party of the centre or centre left. The Redfield & Wilton "Blue Wall" poll earlier in the week showed how successful that has been - the southern Conservative-Labour marginals are going to fall quicker than a (you can fill in your own sporting or non-sporting analogy).
In the Midlands and North, Starmer knows the sense of frustration at the Conservatives who have promised much but, Brexit apart, delivered almost nothing is palpable and it may be the sense of frustration in those areas drives ex-Boris Johnson Conservatives to either vote Reform or stay at home.
However, nothing can change the fundamental truth though. I was right. The message to voters was, the country will live within its means under us. They cut a spending promise, rather than add the cost to borrowing or tax.
The problem with this kind of austerity driven approach to running the country is that it risks making Starmer and Reeves look like a Cameron and Osborne tribute act. Stingy Tories, fiscally dry on everything (except pensions, for which another £79 trillion can always be found down the back of the Treasury sofa, of course.)
We had austerity before. It's old hat, people are sick of it, and it demonstrably didn't work. Look what fourteen years of continuous cuts have done to the state and the people who live in it. Moreover, the demands for cash burning services are only going to keep growing as the legions of the sick and elderly continue to expand.
Sooner or later, somebody is going to question how on Earth Labour thinks it can pull this country out of the socio-economic omnicrisis in which it is mired based on Conservative budgets. Absent fantastical claims that they can instantly create rampant economic growth through totally cost free reforms, Labour have no other answers. The notion that their token revenue raising measures - which seem to consist of little more than closing non-dom tax loopholes and charging VAT on private school fees - can generate the funds needed to regenerate this increasingly decrepit nation are absolutely laughable.
This is an Opposition that's attempting to project an image of seriousness, yet which doesn't merely have no idea of how to make the lives of the people better - it doesn't care about making their lives better. They are do nothing imitation Tories who will just spend five years collecting their salaries and fiddling whilst the country continues to burn down around them.
I think when I compare the Starmer's Labour to Blair's Labour is that although both promised to follow the outgoing Conservative budget/tax/whatever - you had the feeling Blair's incoming cabinet had a plan.
And I've got zero sense of that from Starmer.
I've no idea what voting for his party might mean. For me, my neighbours, my country. Other than a different bloke stood on the other side of the telly broadcast of PMQ's.
FPT point of order it's the Lioness line not the Lionesses line.
Which is slightly (but not much) better.
Unless you're trying to pronounce it after a skinful. Come to think of it "I'm just jumping on a Suffragette" is probably going to get some traction amongst the lairy friday night out crowd.
All in all the names have a vague "if Dave Spart ran a competition for the under 8s to name the lines, then miraculously picked the worst names out of a hat" feel to them.
The London plan comes across as typical Sadiq being Sadiq, and looking for the sort of names that will offend people who don’t like him, further cementing societal division.
If you’re going to give out random names then auction them off. Loads of cities, including mine, do this, the big money is for the destination and interchange stations, or companies buying the station nearest their own business.
I don’t think Khan goes out of his way to cause division. I just think he’s a bit of a twit. His instincts are just off. Kind of a leftist Sunak.
Perhaps, but, as someone who does disgreee with him on almost everything, it comes across as needlessly antagonistic. There’s plenty of London history that can be seen as positive for the city, rather than dwelling on negative history.
What's negative about the new names? Unless yhou think votes for women are bad, and you can't possibly mean that. Liberty is nice and historical, so are some of the others.
“Windrush” recalls when Amber Rudd resigned over a scandal, “Sufragettes” recalls a load of protestors, “Lioness” is for a *women’s* football team, rather than the 1966 squad.
I stand by my original comment that it’s deliberately antagonistic. Stick with “Elizabeth Line” and similar, that have no political connotations.
Also, it will date very badly.
All of those really reflect the contemporary politics of the last few years.
Lioness reflects the contemporary politics of the last few years, but how do the others? Suffragette and Windrush are referencing events many decades ago, which have been cultural touchstones for decades. Weaver and Liberty have even longer historical roots. Mildmay goes back to the ‘80s, not quite as far as Suffragettes, but hardly “last few years”, and the name/hospital actually go back to the 19th century.
FPT point of order it's the Lioness line not the Lionesses line.
Which is slightly (but not much) better.
Unless you're trying to pronounce it after a skinful. Come to think of it "I'm just jumping on a Suffragette" is probably going to get some traction amongst the lairy friday night out crowd.
All in all the names have a vague "if Dave Spart ran a competition for the under 8s to name the lines, then miraculously picked the worst names out of a hat" feel to them.
The London plan comes across as typical Sadiq being Sadiq, and looking for the sort of names that will offend people who don’t like him, further cementing societal division.
If you’re going to give out random names then auction them off. Loads of cities, including mine, do this, the big money is for the destination and interchange stations, or companies buying the station nearest their own business.
I don’t think Khan goes out of his way to cause division. I just think he’s a bit of a twit. His instincts are just off. Kind of a leftist Sunak.
Perhaps, but, as someone who does disgreee with him on almost everything, it comes across as needlessly antagonistic. There’s plenty of London history that can be seen as positive for the city, rather than dwelling on negative history.
What's negative about the new names? Unless yhou think votes for women are bad, and you can't possibly mean that. Liberty is nice and historical, so are some of the others.
“Windrush” recalls when Amber Rudd resigned over a scandal, “Sufragettes” recalls a load of protestors, “Lioness” is for a *women’s* football team, rather than the 1966 squad.
I stand by my original comment that it’s deliberately antagonistic. Stick with “Elizabeth Line” and similar, that have no political connotations.
Also, it will date very badly.
All of those really reflect the contemporary politics of the last few years.
Lioness reflects the contemporary politics of the last few years, but how do the others? Suffragette and Windrush are referencing events many decades ago, which have been cultural touchstones for decades. Weaver and Liberty have even longer historical roots. Mildmay goes back to the ‘80s, not quite as far as Suffragettes, but hardly “last few years”, and the name/hospital actually go back to the 19th century.
Windrush, as a cultural event, has only been a really big totemic thing in the last few years and the Suffragette stuff really took off with the 100 year anniversary of women getting the vote.
This is a play on the five year period 2018-2023, which is what will age it.
Mildmay is in there because they needed someone LGBT+ and they would have picked something more contemporary (probably without realising it) if they could have.
I don't know if you class me as a 'rightwinger', but I'm not 'furious' about them. They're just not very good, and may well say more about our times than anything about the lines themselves.
Always was the case, though. Nothing new.
Indeed. Jubilee was very of its time! And it doesn’t matter. I don’t use the Jubilee line thinking, “Gosh, this name is a dated reference.” I just know that line is called that name. If I was in charge, I might not have chosen Lioness, but I don’t think it fails to work as a name.
Just to add to my earlier, the R&W Blue Wall criteria of 44 seats has a Conservative majority limit of 10,000. Kingswood's Conservative majority is 11,220 so it's right on the fringes of the Blue Wall.
The Conservative to Labour swing according to the latest Blue Wall polling is 18% (Labour up 17, Conservatives down 19 basically). That would mean Labour 50%, Conservative 37% - we can therefore argue if Labour get more than half the vote in Kingswood they are doing well.
I don't know if you class me as a 'rightwinger', but I'm not 'furious' about them. They're just not very good, and may well say more about our times than anything about the lines themselves.
Always was the case, though. Nothing new.
Indeed. Jubilee was very of its time! And it doesn’t matter. I don’t use the Jubilee line thinking, “Gosh, this name is a dated reference.” I just know that line is called that name. If I was in charge, I might not have chosen Lioness, but I don’t think it fails to work as a name.
things can be of their time (Trafalgar Square ,Waterloo Station etc but some justification should be made for using them- the Lioness line is a defeat isn't it ? They lost in the final? a bit pathetic if you ask me
However, nothing can change the fundamental truth though. I was right. The message to voters was, the country will live within its means under us. They cut a spending promise, rather than add the cost to borrowing or tax.
The problem with this kind of austerity driven approach to running the country is that it risks making Starmer and Reeves look like a Cameron and Osborne tribute act. Stingy Tories, fiscally dry on everything (except pensions, for which another £79 trillion can always be found down the back of the Treasury sofa, of course.)
We had austerity before. It's old hat, people are sick of it, and it demonstrably didn't work. Look what fourteen years of continuous cuts have done to the state and the people who live in it. Moreover, the demands for cash burning services are only going to keep growing as the legions of the sick and elderly continue to expand.
Sooner or later, somebody is going to question how on Earth Labour thinks it can pull this country out of the socio-economic omnicrisis in which it is mired based on Conservative budgets. Absent fantastical claims that they can instantly create rampant economic growth through totally cost free reforms, Labour have no other answers. The notion that their token revenue raising measures - which seem to consist of little more than closing non-dom tax loopholes and charging VAT on private school fees - can generate the funds needed to regenerate this increasingly decrepit nation are absolutely laughable.
This is an Opposition that's attempting to project an image of seriousness, yet which doesn't merely have no idea of how to make the lives of the people better - it doesn't care about making their lives better. They are do nothing imitation Tories who will just spend five years collecting their salaries and fiddling whilst the country continues to burn down around them.
I detect a deal of frustration but politics is about winning elections not sounding radical from the comfy sofa of opposition.
Starmer has decided, pace Blair, he has to endlessly re-assure wavering Conservative voters he is a serious politician leading a non-socialist party of the centre or centre left. The Redfield & Wilton "Blue Wall" poll earlier in the week showed how successful that has been - the southern Conservative-Labour marginals are going to fall quicker than a (you can fill in your own sporting or non-sporting analogy).
In the Midlands and North, Starmer knows the sense of frustration at the Conservatives who have promised much but, Brexit apart, delivered almost nothing is palpable and it may be the sense of frustration in those areas drives ex-Boris Johnson Conservatives to either vote Reform or stay at home.
I'm a little reluctant to lay too heavily into Brown - he had about five minutes before he got clobbered by the GFC - but there is a good argument that Blair was our last half-decent Prime Minister. His Government was far from perfect but there was progress.
Starmer is no Blair. He's an idea and principle free zone whose leadership and party alike have been entirely captured by the same monied interests as the Conservatives. Reassuring the Tory vote has become making policy for the Tory vote and almost entirely in their interest. They offer nothing to anybody else, which is why the Labour poll lead is illusory. We are apparently going to have a change election, but how can you run on that basis when your offer essentially boils down to reassuring the winners of the last fourteen years that they needn't be scared because you plan to change nothing except the names on ministerial office doors and headed notepaper? There is no point in bothering to traipse to a polling station to pick between two Tories. Total waste of time.
You'll see even some of our liberal and leftwing posters have questioned a few of them.
The names are a bit rubbish and too similar to each other but rarely (i.e. never) have I heard the name of a new train line and thought wow, fantastic.
Disappointed not more discussion on here or politicians generally suggesting auctioning them off. Feels like a no brainer to me. We are not great at naming things (see Boaty McBoatFace), and are struggling to find ways to fund tfl especially post pandemic and the switch to wfh.
Are people against? Think it won't raise the revenue? Or prefer a bit of gentle banter over woke vs anti-woke names?
I think the world, particularly the urban world, is oversaturated with advertising already. I really don't need more in the form of selling off naming rights for train lines. Then you have the problem of having to change all the signs if the company decide not to renew the deal after x years, which would work against making the transport network easier to navigate. How many different names have they tried to give the Oval cricket ground?
It's such a terrible idea.
As has already happened with the bikes and the cable car.
As for the names, some are quite neat, some are meh, but are any of them so bad that it will be worth changing them once in place? We're not talking Plaza del Caudillo, or even stuff named after Edward Colston.
Another way of looking at it - is there an amount of money for tfl where you would prefer the line to be called the Amazon line rather than the Mildmay line? If so what is it?
For me £10m a year would be more than sufficient. I suspect Amazon would pay several multiples of that for a long term deal. It is a simple way for London to capitalise on its status as one of the worlds leading capitals.
IFS will be paying £420k p.a. for the cable car. Emirates were paying £3.6m.
FPT point of order it's the Lioness line not the Lionesses line.
Which is slightly (but not much) better.
Unless you're trying to pronounce it after a skinful. Come to think of it "I'm just jumping on a Suffragette" is probably going to get some traction amongst the lairy friday night out crowd.
All in all the names have a vague "if Dave Spart ran a competition for the under 8s to name the lines, then miraculously picked the worst names out of a hat" feel to them.
The London plan comes across as typical Sadiq being Sadiq, and looking for the sort of names that will offend people who don’t like him, further cementing societal division.
If you’re going to give out random names then auction them off. Loads of cities, including mine, do this, the big money is for the destination and interchange stations, or companies buying the station nearest their own business.
I don’t think Khan goes out of his way to cause division. I just think he’s a bit of a twit. His instincts are just off. Kind of a leftist Sunak.
Perhaps, but, as someone who does disgreee with him on almost everything, it comes across as needlessly antagonistic. There’s plenty of London history that can be seen as positive for the city, rather than dwelling on negative history.
What's negative about the new names? Unless yhou think votes for women are bad, and you can't possibly mean that. Liberty is nice and historical, so are some of the others.
“Windrush” recalls when Amber Rudd resigned over a scandal, “Sufragettes” recalls a load of protestors, “Lioness” is for a *women’s* football team, rather than the 1966 squad.
I stand by my original comment that it’s deliberately antagonistic. Stick with “Elizabeth Line” and similar, that have no political connotations.
Also, it will date very badly.
All of those really reflect the contemporary politics of the last few years.
Lioness reflects the contemporary politics of the last few years, but how do the others? Suffragette and Windrush are referencing events many decades ago, which have been cultural touchstones for decades. Weaver and Liberty have even longer historical roots. Mildmay goes back to the ‘80s, not quite as far as Suffragettes, but hardly “last few years”, and the name/hospital actually go back to the 19th century.
Windrush, as a cultural event, has only been a really big totemic thing in the last few years and the Suffragette stuff really took off with the 100 year anniversary of women getting the vote.
This is a play on the five year period 2018-2023, which is what will age it.
Mildmay is in there because they needed someone LGBT+ and they would have picked something more contemporary (probably without realising it) if they could have.
There was a Mildmay Park station on the North London Line.
Only good thing about that was the theme tune (which was magnificent).
I've been rewatching some of my favourite 'vintage' detective/spy series lately. And I think both 'Callan' and 'Public Eye' theme tunes are amongst the best of all time.
I've just looked at it, and I have one massive objection.
Right now, the line that runs from Richmond and Kew Garden, along Hampstead Heath, through Camden, and all the way to Homerton and Stratford, is called the Overground.
It used to be called the North London Line.
Anybody over the age of 35 still thinks of it as the North London Line.
Why the fuck can't it simply be given its old name back? (And - for the record - no one ever confused it with the Northern Line. Please don't take us for idiots.)
Hello. I am (well) over 35. I don’t call it the North London Line. Those of us who use it all got used to calling it the Overground ages back!
I don't know if you class me as a 'rightwinger', but I'm not 'furious' about them. They're just not very good, and may well say more about our times than anything about the lines themselves.
Always was the case, though. Nothing new.
Indeed. Jubilee was very of its time! And it doesn’t matter. I don’t use the Jubilee line thinking, “Gosh, this name is a dated reference.” I just know that line is called that name. If I was in charge, I might not have chosen Lioness, but I don’t think it fails to work as a name.
Isn’t the Lioness line going to look a little silly if the men’s team win the Euros and/or next World Cup? Not only isn’t there a line named after the men’s team that won the World Cup, as opposed to the Euros, but it’s a hostage to fortune if the Lionesses do bugger all else for decades and the men have a golden age.
It really was just a bit of silly pandering - if you have the chance to decide the name of something in the country’s capital maybe give it a bit of thought and think if it will stand up to future scrutiny.
Why wasn’t one of the lines named after, for example, Nicholas Winton, a Londoner nicknamed “Britain’s Schindler”. Surely Sadiq could see this saviour of child refugees as more deserving than a football team?
Just to add to my earlier, the R&W Blue Wall criteria of 44 seats has a Conservative majority limit of 10,000. Kingswood's Conservative majority is 11,220 so it's right on the fringes of the Blue Wall.
The Conservative to Labour swing according to the latest Blue Wall polling is 18% (Labour up 17, Conservatives down 19 basically). That would mean Labour 50%, Conservative 37% - we can therefore argue if Labour get more than half the vote in Kingswood they are doing well.
If they get more than half they are doing better than polling would suggest. The polling suggests they are heading for a landslide win. Which is rather better than "well".
Comments
Disappointed not more discussion on here or politicians generally suggesting auctioning them off. Feels like a no brainer to me. We are not great at naming things (see Boaty McBoatFace), and are struggling to find ways to fund tfl especially post pandemic and the switch to wfh.
Are people against? Think it won't raise the revenue? Or prefer a bit of gentle banter over woke vs anti-woke names?
The Porno, Filth and of course, the Trainspotting, Lines will bring much joy with the fusion of culture and transport.
Are you Sadiq Khan?
The Fart Line
The Trolleyed Line
The Stinks-of-Piss Line
The Hipster Twat Line
The Shithole Line
There. Done it.
No-one cares about names.
It's such a terrible idea.
I reckon
Wellingborough
Lab 43%
Con 33%
Reform 11%
Kingswood
Lab 47%
Con 33%
Grn 6%
Reform 6%
What do other PBers think?
So sorry to hear that Mike and a great suggestion about a PB Charity
We have to call the lines something. Does it really matter if its the Coke Line, Blue Line, Line No 1 or Windrush Line?
Otherwise with a couple of DNS entries you can have any of the commercial outfits handle email for your domain: Google, Protonmail, plus a swathe of smaller specialists. My DNS is handled by Mythic Beasts who also do email & other services.
North London Line
West London Line
South London Line
East London Line
Gospel Oak to Barking Line?
Does exactly what it says on the tin!
All the best to Mike @rcs1000 and the rest of the family.
First, as I'm always behind the curve, very best wishes to OGH and family.
As a Londoner and frequent public transport user in the capital, I'm fairly indifferent about the naming of the London Overground lines. It's politically poor from Sadiq Khan who seems to have lost whatever political nous he once had and will, I suspect, long regret opting to run for a third term rather than stepping down and seeking a Westminster constituency.
Hall will flap around like a demented chicken as per usual but she has nothing to offer most of London - well, nothing she's told us about so far.
That's not to say Khan is anyone's idea of a good choice for Mayor - if you think Biden vs Trump is bad, imagine Khan vs Hall and neither of them can offer advancing years as an excuse. The problem is the Mayor of London isn't a serious political role - the post has little or no meaningful power and becomes a vanity project. It's probably indicative of what a President of England role would be like.
On to more serious matters and the YouGov poll for WSI Strategy continues with a huge Labour lead and a split of 61-32 between Lab/LD/Green and Con/Ref.
How will tonight's by elections go? The Conservative vote fell 25 points in Tamworth, 29 points in Mid Bedfordshire and 26 points in Selby & Ainsty. With the circumstances and the choice of the Conservative candidate, we can probably expect a 25-30 point fall in the Conservative share in Wellingborough and perhaps 20-25 points in Kingswood.
That would translate to a 35% vote share in Wellingborough and perhaps 33% in Kingswood.
The Labour vote rose 21 points in Selby & Ainsty and 22 points in Tamworth - in Mid Bedfordshire, Labour were up 12 and the LDs up 10 but I'm not seeing much of an LD campaign in either seat.
That would translate to 45-47% in Wellingborough and 53-55% in Kingswood.
Assuming about half a GE turnout in both seats, that's a majority of just under 3,000 for Labour in Wellingborough and just under 5,000 in Kingswood.
I imagine Starmer would be happy enough with those results.
As for the names, some are quite neat, some are meh, but are any of them so bad that it will be worth changing them once in place? We're not talking Plaza del Caudillo, or even stuff named after Edward Colston.
James Onedin’s sideburns were also magnificent.
For me £10m a year would be more than sufficient. I suspect Amazon would pay several multiples of that for a long term deal. It is a simple way for London to capitalise on its status as one of the worlds leading capitals.
Perhaps they should just accept he can run rings around them any day and has been for 4 years.
I've just looked at it, and I have one massive objection.
Right now, the line that runs from Richmond and Kew Garden, along Hampstead Heath, through Camden, and all the way to Homerton and Stratford, is called the Overground.
It used to be called the North London Line.
Anybody over the age of 35 still thinks of it as the North London Line.
Why the fuck can't it simply be given its old name back? (And - for the record - no one ever confused it with the Northern Line. Please don't take us for idiots.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluffer_(London_Underground)
not
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluffer
In a similar manner, if I was to create a crane-hire company, I'd call it Dogging:
https://www.wamtraining.com.au/2021/12/01/dogging-in-construction-11-things-you-must-know/
The truth is for many in work or for those with adequate savings or investments it isn't that bad - strange how most recessions (technical or otherwise) affect the poor rather than the wealthy.
We also got the old chestnut about full employment - to re-iterate my comment of a couple of nights ago, if 20 people are chasing 10 jobs you have an unemployment problem, if 10 people are chasing 10 jobs you have full employment, if you have 5 people chasing 10 jobs you still have full employment but you don't have growth.
The huge numbers of unfilled jobs across the economy are a drag on economic growth as unfilled jobs mean everyone else has to work harder and the tax receipts aren't increased by new workers. The problem is asking the obvious question about how you fill these vacancies gets you to the i-word so because we can't talk about that sensibly we end up with ideas like cajoling the retired back to work by cutting their benefits (which won't end well).
The other approach is serious capital investment in technology to improve business processes and dare I say it the AI-word (really two words) but that requires both public and private sectors to make a proper commitment to R&D (remember that?) and the returns don't always manifest as quickly as many in the decision-making environment want.
It's not so much that they are woke, so much that they are woeful.
I mean "lioness line"??? What the fuck?
But the Fluffers also deserve commemoration too!
To be honest, Mixed signals in polling on this one, Anabob. Labour certainly down and Tory’s up in lots of the post U-turn Pre and post Aligate polling, and PB Maxim is give changes a couple of weeks to work through. Will Labours bad few days be cancelled out by bad ones for Tories to end this week?
Certainly - like how Tories got to microphones quickly to blame PO scandal on Davey - Tories quickly made a lot of how the £140B u-turn discredits Starmer. Considering it drips bloody sensible and strong decision from a Labour leadership, the Guardian and Observer didn’t hold back attacking it either. So everyone attacked it. So although in a minority, that number of voters out there liking it as sensible, against that media backdrop, is encouraging.
However, nothing can change the fundamental truth though. I was right. The message to voters was, the country will live within its means under us. They cut a spending promise, rather than add the cost to borrowing or tax. What a contrast from both lab and canon manifesto and campaigns from 2019. Contrast with Sunak & Hunts current economics, of fantasy tax cuts this year only funded by slashing from future spending commitments, and that’s one hell of a contrast between the parties going into the election.
£140Bn largely unspecified or itemised spending commitment from years ago, completely unaffordable in “current financial climate” as clearly proved by recession today, especially when considering other than just climate all the ministries, Health, Education, etc etc who also have justified claim for whatever little extra cash is available, and considering how the vague £140B commitment likely wasn’t OBR or “Markets reaction” proof, also considering all the fun the Conservatives were lining up to have with it - turning it into an interesting and affordable chapter in the manifesto was 100% the correct thing to do - if voters agree or not.
Andrew Feinstein,former adviser to Nelson Mandela, is authentic, straightforward and principled. This is why he is so dangerous to Keir Starmer, who has none of these qualities
The "official" names of lines aren't always used in common parlance - tourists look at the colour of the line on the tube map and follow that which is fine. Words like "Disty", "Met", "Dickapilly", "Drain", "Jub" are what Londoners use - as I don't regularly travel on the Northern, Bakerloo or Central I don't know what they are called but I suspect the terms I'm hearing lately for the Central would invoke the ban hammer.
The real transport issue currently is the Central Line which has been a failure by TfL - no new trains and it seems the more they look at the existing ones, the worse they are but it's symptomatic of a number of issues. The gaps between trains are increasing even on the more regularly used lines as TfL are forced to adapt the schedule to a declining number of commuter passengers.
Don;t get me started on fare evasion which is endemic on parts of the network - I'd vote for any Mayoral candidate who comes up with a sensible solution but while TfL want the money they are losing on unpaid fares, the cost of trying to establish a force or system which would reduce or eliminate that evasion wouldn't meet the lost fares so they accept up to 15% of all journeys are made without paying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZLMKkEGFRo
Whisky is a generic drink, however Scotch should be restricted to distilleries in Scotland.
Tell that to the Indians though, who have all sorts of “Scotch” brands.
These issues are always the sticking points in trade agreements, the UK in this example needs assurances that the Indian government will actually go after their own “scotch” producers, in order to protect the UK brand.
(In case anyone’s interested, the Indian whiskies are mostly crap, barely worthy of being served with a mixer in most countries.)
(Yes, I know it's pronounced differently!)
PMs of Australia/New Zealand and Canada calling for #ceasfirenow
https://twitter.com/IanByrneMP/status/1758217179621650439/photo/1
·
8h
If you are struggling to pay your energy bills, take comfort from the fact that the profits of British Gas have increased ten fold in one year. So it's not all bad.
Still, on the upside he's well-qualified to run for US President now.
Absolutely unbelievable. Desantis today admits that his book ban statute has caused chaos by allowing right-wing activists with no children in public school to mass report books. He says the law now needs to be changed.
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1758210392298279384
We had austerity before. It's old hat, people are sick of it, and it demonstrably didn't work. Look what fourteen years of continuous cuts have done to the state and the people who live in it. Moreover, the demands for cash burning services are only going to keep growing as the legions of the sick and elderly continue to expand.
Sooner or later, somebody is going to question how on Earth Labour thinks it can pull this country out of the socio-economic omnicrisis in which it is mired based on Conservative budgets. Absent fantastical claims that they can instantly create rampant economic growth through totally cost free reforms, Labour have no other answers. The notion that their token revenue raising measures - which seem to consist of little more than closing non-dom tax loopholes and charging VAT on private school fees - can generate the funds needed to regenerate this increasingly decrepit nation are absolutely laughable.
This is an Opposition that's attempting to project an image of seriousness, yet which doesn't merely have no idea of how to make the lives of the people better - it doesn't care about making their lives better. They are do nothing imitation Tories who will just spend five years collecting their salaries and fiddling whilst the country continues to burn down around them.
in Wellingborough and @damienegan in Kingswood.
So the water campaigner is on the phones with the Israel has the right to cut off water bloke
Oh well a good heart these days is hard to find
Starmer has decided, pace Blair, he has to endlessly re-assure wavering Conservative voters he is a serious politician leading a non-socialist party of the centre or centre left. The Redfield & Wilton "Blue Wall" poll earlier in the week showed how successful that has been - the southern Conservative-Labour marginals are going to fall quicker than a (you can fill in your own sporting or non-sporting analogy).
In the Midlands and North, Starmer knows the sense of frustration at the Conservatives who have promised much but, Brexit apart, delivered almost nothing is palpable and it may be the sense of frustration in those areas drives ex-Boris Johnson Conservatives to either vote Reform or stay at home.
And I've got zero sense of that from Starmer.
I've no idea what voting for his party might mean. For me, my neighbours, my country. Other than a different bloke stood on the other side of the telly broadcast of PMQ's.
Maybe ... that's all there is.
This is a play on the five year period 2018-2023, which is what will age it.
Mildmay is in there because they needed someone LGBT+ and they would have picked something more contemporary (probably without realising it) if they could have.
The Conservative to Labour swing according to the latest Blue Wall polling is 18% (Labour up 17, Conservatives down 19 basically). That would mean Labour 50%, Conservative 37% - we can therefore argue if Labour get more than half the vote in Kingswood they are doing well.
Starmer is no Blair. He's an idea and principle free zone whose leadership and party alike have been entirely captured by the same monied interests as the Conservatives. Reassuring the Tory vote has become making policy for the Tory vote and almost entirely in their interest. They offer nothing to anybody else, which is why the Labour poll lead is illusory. We are apparently going to have a change election, but how can you run on that basis when your offer essentially boils down to reassuring the winners of the last fourteen years that they needn't be scared because you plan to change nothing except the names on ministerial office doors and headed notepaper? There is no point in bothering to traipse to a polling station to pick between two Tories. Total waste of time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildmay_Park_railway_station
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0b3IX05JtY&t=159s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHE18FF4eUY
It really was just a bit of silly pandering - if you have the chance to decide the name of something in the country’s capital maybe give it a bit of thought and think if it will stand up to future scrutiny.
Why wasn’t one of the lines named after, for example, Nicholas Winton, a Londoner nicknamed “Britain’s Schindler”. Surely Sadiq could see this saviour of child refugees as more deserving than a football team?
The polling suggests they are heading for a landslide win.
Which is rather better than "well".