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Trigger points for Sunak – politicalbetting.com
Trigger points for Sunak – politicalbetting.com
Blackpool South inFocus.A Parliamentary by-election will be held here on May 2nd.What do voters here think of Sunak and Starmer?What do they think the major parties stand for?What do politicians in Westminster not understand about Blackpool?https://t.co/FWKVe1u3b0 pic.twitter.com/e9Lm5H8suH
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Unprecedented flooding and wettest 18 months on record mean crop yields will be significantly down, with risk of food shortages
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/09/farmers-warn-food-shortages-no-harvest-world-war-two-rain/ (£££)
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/infocus/blackpool-south/
https://vimeo.com/932479720
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_(rocket_family)
Quite a history.
But yes, it’s clearly going to be a terrible year for agriculture and it’s about the fifth in a row as well.
https://cass.independent-review.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CassReview_Final.pdf
(Let’s see how many commentators and campaigners actually read it before wading in, it’s only 388 pages).
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2024/04/09/peter-higgs-boson-nobel-prize-god-particle-died-obituary/
--> US reaction: oh well.
Ukrainians strike Russian oil refineries.
--> US reaction: stop immediately, it's WRONG!!!!!
Oh, wait a minute..
But agriculture has to work better with nature too. Some of the failed crops will be on fields that really shouldn’t be in arable. Too heavy, too low lying. The climate is changing and we need to adapt to it.
Some agricultural land may need to be surrendered to extended flood plain, the EA will need to improve defences and drainage, and the government will need to give more support to farmers.
Has any of this been thought through?
Why, you'll be asking the DfE to grasp the basic principles of pedagogy next.
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/04/09/1637217/internet-traffic-dipped-as-viewers-took-in-the-eclipse
I’ve been wondering when we were going to get some indication of what was happening in Blackpool; all this suggests is that there’ll be a low turnout.
And good morning one and all; looks quite promising here, after a miserable day yesterday!
His big flaw was scepticism about climate change, but understanding the countryside wasn't one of them.
I’m not convinced they would change leader now. They seem intent to head over the cliff like the Gadarene swine.
Meanwhile the threads seem quite peaceful: has “Leon” been banned again?
Unfortunately the current Conservatives have a tendency to equate environment with farming. There are overlaps, of course, but the two are not synonymous.
As someone close to me works right at the top of Government on this I could have expressed it a lot more rudely.
You teach, you travel, you pen books, you write music, you have friends at the top of Government, you have Tory friends who agree with you, you have time to go out on the streets and hear what people are saying..
It's a wonder you have any time to yourself at all.
NB I didn’t say the person was a friend. I said ‘close to me’. And it’s a long time since I did any lecturing / teaching. I’ve never written a single note of music. Did you misread when I mentioned going to the opera?
I don’t think it’s all that unusual for relatively younger people to have multiple portfolios these days. It’s quite a common phenomenon.
I think the most interesting of these remarks, stripping out the snarkiness, is the one about the tory friend(s). The fact that you dismiss it with such sarcasm is a neat illustration of why the Conservatives are heading for such a crushing defeat: failure to take the pulse of the nation. You will have a long, long, time in the political wilderness to reflect on these words.
Looks like Thames Water have taken control of Seine Water
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/triathlon/2024/04/09/olympics-paris-2024-river-seine-ecoli-pollution-duathlon/
When I listen to people like in this video, it hammers home to me that there are several kinds of poverty: lack of money, lack of network, lack of information and knowledge, lack of opportunities, lack of power and voice. They seem decoupled from any participation in the collective project that is our country.
And behind that are locations that have no overall economic function or connection with the broader national and global economy - they don't participate in the structural circulation of money, goods, people, ideas that is necessary for them to be viable. These locations are literal dead ends.
The citizens talk about being a holiday town. They were killed off by easy jet and Ryan Air and being a holiday town won't ever properly recover. Those times are gone. Why would you go to blackpool or clacton if you can be in Malaga for £80 return?
They talk about fixing the buildings.... to what end? The buildings need a role to play in the town, which itself needs a role in a broader economy. There needs to be a total rethink about the purpose of these towns... because it isn't tourism. Not till these seaside towns are integrated into the broader economic circulation of the nation will we begin to address these issues. Saying it is an issue of individual tax cuts or individual moral fortitude totally misses the point of what is going on in my mind.
No, @Leon has a new job editing the Financial Times. Look at today's front page lead.
"Transgender adolescents show poorer psychological well-being before treatment but show similar or better psychological functioning compared with cisgender peers from the general population after the start of specialized transgender care involving puberty suppression."
https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(20)30027-6/abstract
Cummings understood the importance of levelling up, which meant the Prime Minister did until Boris sacked #ClassicDom over one too many Princess Nut Nut jibes. Rishi sees levelling up as a malign plot to steal money from hard-working, rich Tories.
Creating a special economic area for places like this, slashing corporate taxes (and possibly personal taxes) and removing all planning restrictions beyond the protection of a handful of existing buildings and the usual building regs might get it somewhere.
It’s a good place this. Let’s keep it as civil as possible in the run up to the General Election.
People can claim all sorts of things on an anonymous blog. There aren't many road sweepers or refuse collectors living in trailers in Weston-Super-Mare from what I can see on PB. We are all millionaires from the right side of the tracks, captains of industry posting 24/7. Maybe if any of us could be arsed, so to do, we might even question your back story, but as we aren't really interested we won't.
Or, you're completely full of shit and just an early morning internet troll.
Just a thought.
Well, I drove a minidigger for half a day on a coal mine near Stoke...
(Silverdale, I think.)
Why does it matter?
Because if people are going to make a claim to authority in support of one of their arguments that can only credibly be done if it's true.
No-one asks the same of Dura on Defence, Ydoethur on Education or Foxy on Health, MarqueeMark on Media, JohnO on being a lead councillor, MaxPB or TSE on financial services, Roger on the Oscars, and Leon on flintknapping, even when all of us may not always fully agree with them.
I reckon I did two full years binning and sweeping as it paid my bills through education.
Started on my 16th birthday. I await Yorkshires reply.
I'd never have my hair that long.
We get lot. Your lot are not just going down in flames, they are repeatedly blowing themselves up. When you generously consider your side to the right and everyone else to be wrong, I get how frustrating that would be.
We need more Tory voices on here. On the inside. Explaining what the plan is and how the party drags itself out of the gutter and rebuilds. So don't get the arse when people point out that you've got the arse. Nobody likes losing. Get that. Not her fault.
I rarely find people with a strong view either way on such matters. More concerned about their soccer team, what they are doing at the weekend and the weather. Perhaps I should look harder.
Don't forget she is also a renowned authority on the trans issue and regularly appears as a talking head to discuss it due to her undoubted knowledge although she did duck a debate on it with Ishmael when he was around these parts. Didn't want to trounce him with her knowledge.
Incidentally, I am regularly irritated by advertisements for Anglian Water. AFAIK I have no other choice as a supplier of clean water and a disposer of sewage. if they didn’t pat vast sums for television advertising, they could reduce my bill!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/09/russia-kazakhstan-evacuate-tens-thousands-worst-floods-decades
Climate change is real, and we need to adapt. It seems that warmer wetter winters are our future. In Leics we have had hardly any frosts. The clay soil here is waterlogged. Better for planting rice than barley!
It's about the fact @Heathener is a hypocritical troll who can't stand being called out on it and who shouldn't be taken seriously by a single person on here.
Of course, even "her" supporters know this - but they feel they need to defend it through gritted teeth, which explains the wonderful contortions some are going through this morning as they attempt to do it.
1. Her observations are in line with the very long established and accepted by practically everyone trend of the Tories crashing and burning
2. Loads of people have strong views. The header has 9 minutes of people stopped on the street who have strong views. Perhaps people dislike expressing them in front of you for some reason?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/08/quit-royal-mail-falling-apart
Of course if we greatly reduced civil aviation to help stop climate change, it might be the saving of Blackpool and Clacton. Still Bembridge for me though.
It sometimes feels like there are two distinct nations living inside the same borders and they have very little contact with each other. One group has eight types of vinegar in their kitchen and the other picks up fag ends in the streets for their kids' birthday present.
#classicdom was definitely on to something with leveling up but his solution of Brexit was like trying treat dysentery by giving the patient a rotten kebab.
Maybe she does both: perhaps she squeezes in a round before assembly, or steps up to do it during the school holidays on a flexible contract to supplement her income.
It's bloody impressive. I certainly couldn't do it. Not around going to the opera, connecting with my friends in government, travelling abroad and going out onto the streets.
He risks making India almost inhabitable for humans in the process, but it's the effect on the rest of us that's unacceptable. And the colonial reachback arguments just won't wash.
Try it.
Where would we be without our heroic men in blue?
His model for the development of the country seems based on his mysterious years in 1990s Russia. Oligarchs looting the state, while peasants drink themselves to death, kept loyal by culture wars, and real ones.
What's noticeable here is the total lack of Reform candidates on the published candidate nominations. And Conservative councillors will mostly have built up a local reputation will mean that many are judged on their own merits and not against the car crash of this government. None of that applies in a general election of course.
So I can see the Conservatives significantly outperforming against expectations in the locals. Overall I think the May elections will overall throw Sunak a lifeline by virtue of the results being misinterpreted as if they were a general election, rather than being the catalyst for a leadership challenge.
Blackpool is unique in some ways and not in others. It has a real problem with former B&Bs that modern tourists don't want to stay in - what to do with them? Which is how so many have ended up filled with migrants and the very poorest, or left to rot.
The solution? Buy large numbers of empty buildings, bulldoze them, and build homes. Blackpool has a microclimate - you can drive down the M55 where there is drizzle in Preston and find Blackpool free of cloud. It has rail and motorway links, a small airport which could be reopened and a tourist industry. Its the kind of place that people could be drawn to, but it needs politicians with vision. And it has lacked them for a long long time.
I have little doubt that Labour will win the byelection, and then little will change. Unless we decide that we are going to modernise these places and reinvest in their next phase of development - rather than bemoaning that the old times have gone - then all of these decaying towns will just keep decaying.
Yes I’d run it as a free zone until it’s back on its feet, then setup another similar free zone in Clacton or Margate and repeat the exercise.
It's almost as convincing as Ange's story about her living arrangements
In so many respects it should be a flourishing and prosperous resort, the beach, setting and pier is fantastic - it has fun rides and attractions for kids, and it even has a couple of great places for cocktails and food - but every third or forth property on the seafront is totally derelict, falling down, or has trees growing out of it. It looks shit and, like you intimate, probably puts off a lot of investment, even though a new Premier Inn has recently opened and blocks of new flats are going up here and there.
Talking to a guy there, all are "owned" and a small group got sent down a few weeks back who had one of them, so the thesis is that a lot of the restoration and refurb is cockblocked by organised crime and fraudulent companies for tax dodges, which just take a bloody long time to work through the system.
What it does have a big problem with is a big oversupply of benefit tourists - those subsisting on benefits who have moved there to stay in excess B&B stock. So there is a lot of extreme poverty, but it is imported extreme poverty.
Mr. L, maybe they'll arrest him for hate speech for condemning 'rebel scum'.
Just off to the clinic to be stabbed in the back. Advise drysuits, which can be folded and filled with a jug.
Good luck with the divorce.
So rain water inflates the volume of sewage.
This is because they are old, old systems.
Th ere are some newer stuff being built which separates the two, but rebuilding to separate fully is impossible.
So more capacity is pretty much the only option.
Apart from reducing the population.
Send us a pic, youre among friends we wont do anything that might embarass you.
Honest.
What is happening with a warmer climate though is more extremes, and rutty weather.