UK taxpayers have paid out more than £34,000 to cover the cost of science secretary Michelle Donelan’s libel case, the Guardian can reveal, more than double the sum the government had previously admitted.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Quite. They wouldn't even need to attack the turbines, they could sever the interconnectors extremely easily and with virtually no risk of attack or even detection.
At Aintree today in the cheap seats near the last fence. Already placed a couple of bets and had a pint (£7.80). Might have a couple more bets but think I will give alcohol at those prices a miss. Can of diet coke is £3.20 ffs
£7.80?! That's more than I was paying at Lord's last summer. And of course being Lord's it was good quality stuff, not Carling. I accept there's a premium at these events, but that's taking the piss.
I'd say it's possible for parts of Glasgow to be a crumbling disgrace while G12 remains very desirable.
But yes, I'd certainly rather live in G12 than whatever I could afford for the same money in London, or even for that plus whatever more you get for London wages. London may be an amazing city, but I'd far rather live in a really good city in a nice house and a nice suburb than live in amazing city but a grotty house in a remote suburb.
And the nice bits of Glasgow are indeed very very nice, and Glasgow City Centre is certainly a really good city centre.
I’d say one of the 3 or 4 nicest city centres in the country. The trouble with it as a living option for me is simply the climate. I find London grey and damp enough already. It’s a shame there are no sizeable, historic cities that can be proper alternatives to London in the warmer sunnier parts of Britain. Bristol has some decent suburbs but the centre isn’t great. Brighton is really just a large town. Southampton, Portsmouth and Plymouth are unattractive.
At Aintree today in the cheap seats near the last fence. Already placed a couple of bets and had a pint (£7.80). Might have a couple more bets but think I will give alcohol at those prices a miss. Can of diet coke is £3.20 ffs
£7.80?! That's more than I was paying at Lord's last summer. And of course being Lord's it was good quality stuff, not Carling. I accept there's a premium at these events, but that's taking the piss.
I could get two pints for that locally. Almost, anyway!
Incidentally, whilst you can tap your freedom (bus) pass in London you cannot do that with a non-London bus pass. You have to wave it at the driver. It won’t work if tapped, even though tapping it is how it works outside London … until you reach the border with Wales and Scotland.
Presumably if you catch a bus that crosses the border of this non-union, union, you can use it but not if you use it for the return leg.
Just to add to the bizarre confusion.
I now have an image of a pensioner catching a bus from Lydney to Chepstow and having to get out at the Wye Bridge and walk the rest of the way!
My bus pass also allows reduced price train travel outwith the old Strathclyde PTE area, i.e. Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Dunbartonshire. I can use it for cheap travel halfway to Edinburgh, for example. However, the tickets can’t be bought from a ticket machine, or from Trainline, etc, only from a ticket office or on the train. My bus pass can be used throughout Scotland, though. Some coach operators take advantage of this to operate “service buses” such as from Dundee and Angus to the Ayrshire coast. When are you 60, @DavidL?
2 years ago, sadly. As I say I don't have a bus pass but do have an old fogies' card for the trains.
I have never applied for one either, I only use public transport infrequently
Worth having even so, Malc. It's amazing how often a trip coincides with a chance to use public transport. It's wet and windy and I need to get home - oh, look, there's a bus due in five minutes! Without the bus pass you'd have got home, certainly, but the journey would have been either more expensive or more tiresome. You've paid taxes your whole life to earn that bus pass!
As a CAMRA member, my bus pass is invaluable for getting to socials, even evening socials as we have evening buses as well!
Has anyone seen any documentation relating to the set-up of the Horizon programme (or parent programme, if it was part of some broader change initiative)? In particular, the weight given to the reduction of Sub-postmaster fraud in any cost-benefit-risk analysis and whether the realisation of those benefits, specifically fraud reduction, was embedded in senior management bonus schemes.
Looking for what incentives motivated those who behaved appallingly, it may have simply been the threat of having to lose and even pay back the bonuses that were paying for school fees and a second holiday every year.
You don’t need to look at benefits if you listened to the last set of witness the investigators were only on temporary contracts - getting renewed was incentive enough
As for the plan - it was always believed their was fraud within branches - the whole point of horizon was that it would capture it and the reduction in losses would then cover the cost of it
So, fuelling the whole disaster was a cynical belief that they’re all wrong ‘uns… which ultimately has led, judging by comments today, to a cynical belief about management that they’re all wrong ‘uns. Maybe we should all be a bit more cautious about generalising?
Um, no. All I was saying is that I suspect a lot of people may not be 100% truthfully when answering questions to the inquiry for fear of their answers being used against them later
I wasn't singling you out for criticism, just using your post as a springboard to make a broader comment. Apologies for any confusion.
I'd say it's possible for parts of Glasgow to be a crumbling disgrace while G12 remains very desirable.
But yes, I'd certainly rather live in G12 than whatever I could afford for the same money in London, or even for that plus whatever more you get for London wages. London may be an amazing city, but I'd far rather live in a really good city in a nice house and a nice suburb than live in amazing city but a grotty house in a remote suburb.
And the nice bits of Glasgow are indeed very very nice, and Glasgow City Centre is certainly a really good city centre.
I’d say one of the 3 or 4 nicest city centres in the country. The trouble with it as a living option for me is simply the climate. I find London grey and damp enough already. It’s a shame there are no sizeable, historic cities that can be proper alternatives to London in the warmer sunnier parts of Britain. Bristol has some decent suburbs but the centre isn’t great. Brighton is really just a large town. Southampton, Portsmouth and Plymouth are unattractive.
I'm not sure you could describe Bristol or Plymouth as 'sunny'! Plymouth certainly is wetter than Manchester and almost as wet as Glasgow. Bristol can get a bit damp too.
IIRC London is the driest city in the country - certainly not typical of Britain!
You could go for Newcastle upon Tyne. That's dry and sunny by British standards, but certainly not warm. An attractive city though.
If I were living anywhere for climate, it would be somewhere like Skipton or Ilkley. Over the watershed so a bit drier, gets a bit more snow in winter. Neither really could be described as big cities though! How about Leeds?
At Aintree today in the cheap seats near the last fence. Already placed a couple of bets and had a pint (£7.80). Might have a couple more bets but think I will give alcohol at those prices a miss. Can of diet coke is £3.20 ffs
£7.80?! That's more than I was paying at Lord's last summer. And of course being Lord's it was good quality stuff, not Carling. I accept there's a premium at these events, but that's taking the piss.
It is cheap compared to an aiport departure lounge too.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
"I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!"
Which has already been happening - see the resurrection of SPAAG such as Gepard from scrapyards/warehouses.
Most of what has gone to Ukraine was either totally obsolete (Nick at TanksALot https://tanks-alot.co.uk/military-vehicles-for-sale/ is a a major source of light armoured vehicles...) or about to be replaced.
There’s a lot of fun-looking vehicles on that site! Most advertised as having one careful owner - the British army.
Although not the one with 25 kilos of gold hidden in a fuel tank!
I wonder what the outcome of that story was?
c.65lb of gold is c.950 Troy ounces, which is worth around $2.2m in today’s money.
(The sensible conclusion would have been for the owner of the tank to have paid whatever taxes should have been paid on the import of the gold, and allowed to keep it, following a police investigation that confirmed there was no intent to defraud etc.)
I don’t think anyone has ever satisfactorily answered Tam Dalyell’s West Lothian Question
The West Lothian question is really only relevant if we have a government which is depending upon Scottish seats to have a majority in the House of Commons. That means they need to have more than half the Scottish seats. We obviously have not had that for the last 14 years (although May was presumably grateful for the increase in Scottish Tories in 2015) and it wasn't particularly relevant during the Blair majorities either.
It looks somewhat unlikely to me that the Scottish Labour MPs are going to be the extent of Starmer's majority although I suppose that is still possible. If that occurs the question will return.
But there have been occasions, I think, when votes affecting only England (and Wales?) have been defeated despite a majority of English (and Welsh?) MPs being in favour, because of the votes of Scottish MPs (something to do with Sunday trading, possibly?).
I do vaguely recall that and think it resulted in EVEL provisions being brought in but I think that they are now gone again?
Yes, though Redwood wasn't happy. In 2005 Howard's Tories won most votes in England so it was nearly relevant then but Blair's Labour still won most seats in England as it had in the UK. I expect it would start to be an issue 2 or 3 elections into a Labour government if England votes Tory but they are re elected via Scottish or Welsh Labour MPs
Isn't that what happens to Scotland all the time? They don't vote Tory but they get a Tory government.
That isn't relevant to the West Lothian question and EVEL, though.
The point of the West Lothian question is that, in a system where powers are devolved to Scotland but not to England/English regions, Scottish MPs vote on some matters that affect English voters but do NOT affect Scottish ones. The same is not true in reverse. It isn't simply that the Government isn't of the political stripe you'd like.
Is there a Dumfries and Galloway question whereby the Secretary of State for Scotland can overrule democratically agreed decisions of the Scottish Parliament, sometimes for sensible reasons, which is fair enough, but in the case of the current SoS, sometimes for purely partisan reasons?
I'd say it's possible for parts of Glasgow to be a crumbling disgrace while G12 remains very desirable.
But yes, I'd certainly rather live in G12 than whatever I could afford for the same money in London, or even for that plus whatever more you get for London wages. London may be an amazing city, but I'd far rather live in a really good city in a nice house and a nice suburb than live in amazing city but a grotty house in a remote suburb.
And the nice bits of Glasgow are indeed very very nice, and Glasgow City Centre is certainly a really good city centre.
A lot of the current moaning about Glasgow is about the city centre, specifically Sauchiehall St. Glasgow School of Art burning down twice has left its mark. However Glaswegians with longer memories and no rose tinted specs think it was ever thus.
I've just had a leaflet for Sadiq Khan. On the back is a bar chart saying LibDems and Greens can't win... except it's an entirely impressionistic bar chart. It's not the result last time; it puts LDs above Green whereas the Greens did better previously. It doesn't give any citation.
I'd say it's possible for parts of Glasgow to be a crumbling disgrace while G12 remains very desirable.
But yes, I'd certainly rather live in G12 than whatever I could afford for the same money in London, or even for that plus whatever more you get for London wages. London may be an amazing city, but I'd far rather live in a really good city in a nice house and a nice suburb than live in amazing city but a grotty house in a remote suburb.
And the nice bits of Glasgow are indeed very very nice, and Glasgow City Centre is certainly a really good city centre.
I’d say one of the 3 or 4 nicest city centres in the country. The trouble with it as a living option for me is simply the climate. I find London grey and damp enough already. It’s a shame there are no sizeable, historic cities that can be proper alternatives to London in the warmer sunnier parts of Britain. Bristol has some decent suburbs but the centre isn’t great. Brighton is really just a large town. Southampton, Portsmouth and Plymouth are unattractive.
I'm not sure you could describe Bristol or Plymouth as 'sunny'! Plymouth certainly is wetter than Manchester and almost as wet as Glasgow. Bristol can get a bit damp too.
IIRC London is the driest city in the country - certainly not typical of Britain!
You could go for Newcastle upon Tyne. That's dry and sunny by British standards, but certainly not warm. An attractive city though.
If I were living anywhere for climate, it would be somewhere like Skipton or Ilkley. Over the watershed so a bit drier, gets a bit more snow in winter.
I would think that any of the three Essex cities are drier than London. Newcastle on Tyne’s a good place though.
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
The Dems have to make the election about The Economy, Abortion, Donald Trump. I can't see Biden not winning if they largely manage that.
My concerns are: Biden wilting or collapsing during the campaign too late to mitigate the damage. GOP malfeasance if it's close. "The Border" dominating debate. The impact of RFK.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Quite. They wouldn't even need to attack the turbines, they could sever the interconnectors extremely easily and with virtually no risk of attack or even detection.
I think your ideological hatred of wind turbines is possibly just slightly clouding your judgment here.
Hitting thousands of small wind turbines and solar panels with drones might be possible but is evidently harder than hitting a single large station with thousands of drones (or even dozens, as Ukraine has shown in Russia).
Cutting interconnectors for wind is no easier than cutting transmission lines from a power station. Or cutting gas pipelines (as we’ve seen). Or blowing up gas storage (as we’ve seen).
I’m not just making this up. Just Google dispersed power generation and national security (or any similar phrase) and there’s days of reading material.
Not that I expect to convince you, of course. But it’s not enough to say a technology is vulnerable: all technologies are vulnerable. The question is whether it’s more or less vulnerable than the alternatives. I’d rather present the enemy with a target of several thousand dispersed wind turbines or 50 small gas plants than 5 huge nuclear or coal power stations.
I mean I could go to Aldi, buy some of their own brand beer (Carnsberg?), go home, sit in the broom cupboard to drink it and it would cost me around 60p.
@bjo is at Liverpool ffs outdoors about to see some cracking racing and he is at the sharp end as they come over the last with all the drama that entails. The only thing that could possibly be improved is if he nipped over to get a hog roast to go with his beer.
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
The Dems have to make the election about The Economy, Abortion, Donald Trump. I can't see Biden not winning if they largely manage that.
My concerns are: Biden wilting or collapsing during the campaign too late to mitigate the damage. GOP malfeasance if it's close. "The Border" dominating debate. The impact of RFK.
You should add performance in swing states. Biden could heap up votes in CA and NY and still lose.
Yes. We can't earn loads of money from clients who are engaged in money laundering if we tell them we can't take them on as clients.
The problem of "officiously making people aware"* is redoubled by the law. If you tell a superior about a dodgy client, they are then legally liable if they do nothing, and the client turns out to be Osama Bin Binliner. And the Americans will be trying to cart you off to Club Fed.
*One of the most serious crimes in corporate fukery
I'd say it's possible for parts of Glasgow to be a crumbling disgrace while G12 remains very desirable.
But yes, I'd certainly rather live in G12 than whatever I could afford for the same money in London, or even for that plus whatever more you get for London wages. London may be an amazing city, but I'd far rather live in a really good city in a nice house and a nice suburb than live in amazing city but a grotty house in a remote suburb.
And the nice bits of Glasgow are indeed very very nice, and Glasgow City Centre is certainly a really good city centre.
I’d say one of the 3 or 4 nicest city centres in the country. The trouble with it as a living option for me is simply the climate. I find London grey and damp enough already. It’s a shame there are no sizeable, historic cities that can be proper alternatives to London in the warmer sunnier parts of Britain. Bristol has some decent suburbs but the centre isn’t great. Brighton is really just a large town. Southampton, Portsmouth and Plymouth are unattractive.
I'm not sure you could describe Bristol or Plymouth as 'sunny'! Plymouth certainly is wetter than Manchester and almost as wet as Glasgow. Bristol can get a bit damp too.
IIRC London is the driest city in the country - certainly not typical of Britain!
You could go for Newcastle upon Tyne. That's dry and sunny by British standards, but certainly not warm. An attractive city though.
If I were living anywhere for climate, it would be somewhere like Skipton or Ilkley. Over the watershed so a bit drier, gets a bit more snow in winter.
I would think that any of the three Essex cities are drier than London. Newcastle on Tyne’s a good place though.
At Aintree today in the cheap seats near the last fence. Already placed a couple of bets and had a pint (£7.80). Might have a couple more bets but think I will give alcohol at those prices a miss. Can of diet coke is £3.20 ffs
£7.80?! That's more than I was paying at Lord's last summer. And of course being Lord's it was good quality stuff, not Carling. I accept there's a premium at these events, but that's taking the piss.
If it’s Carling, is that taking the piss or drinking the piss?
At Aintree today in the cheap seats near the last fence. Already placed a couple of bets and had a pint (£7.80). Might have a couple more bets but think I will give alcohol at those prices a miss. Can of diet coke is £3.20 ffs
£7.80?! That's more than I was paying at Lord's last summer. And of course being Lord's it was good quality stuff, not Carling. I accept there's a premium at these events, but that's taking the piss.
I could get two pints for that locally. Almost, anyway!
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
The Dems have to make the election about The Economy, Abortion, Donald Trump. I can't see Biden not winning if they largely manage that.
My concerns are: Biden wilting or collapsing during the campaign too late to mitigate the damage. GOP malfeasance if it's close. "The Border" dominating debate. The impact of RFK.
You should add performance in swing states. Biden could heap up votes in CA and NY and still lose.
Yes, but I think it's likely going the other way in terms of vote efficiency. This time the Dems might not need to win the PV by 3 or 4 pts to win in the EC.
I'd say it's possible for parts of Glasgow to be a crumbling disgrace while G12 remains very desirable.
But yes, I'd certainly rather live in G12 than whatever I could afford for the same money in London, or even for that plus whatever more you get for London wages. London may be an amazing city, but I'd far rather live in a really good city in a nice house and a nice suburb than live in amazing city but a grotty house in a remote suburb.
And the nice bits of Glasgow are indeed very very nice, and Glasgow City Centre is certainly a really good city centre.
I’d say one of the 3 or 4 nicest city centres in the country. The trouble with it as a living option for me is simply the climate. I find London grey and damp enough already. It’s a shame there are no sizeable, historic cities that can be proper alternatives to London in the warmer sunnier parts of Britain. Bristol has some decent suburbs but the centre isn’t great. Brighton is really just a large town. Southampton, Portsmouth and Plymouth are unattractive.
I'm not sure you could describe Bristol or Plymouth as 'sunny'! Plymouth certainly is wetter than Manchester and almost as wet as Glasgow. Bristol can get a bit damp too.
IIRC London is the driest city in the country - certainly not typical of Britain!
You could go for Newcastle upon Tyne. That's dry and sunny by British standards, but certainly not warm. An attractive city though.
If I were living anywhere for climate, it would be somewhere like Skipton or Ilkley. Over the watershed so a bit drier, gets a bit more snow in winter.
I would think that any of the three Essex cities are drier than London. Newcastle on Tyne’s a good place though.
I would choose Norwich.
Norwich impressed me when I visited it for the first time a couple of years ago, and having been a student there I’m really fond of Newcastle.
However, I regard myself as privileged to live in London. It’s simply the greatest city in the world, and it’d kill me to move. I never will.
I'd say it's possible for parts of Glasgow to be a crumbling disgrace while G12 remains very desirable.
But yes, I'd certainly rather live in G12 than whatever I could afford for the same money in London, or even for that plus whatever more you get for London wages. London may be an amazing city, but I'd far rather live in a really good city in a nice house and a nice suburb than live in amazing city but a grotty house in a remote suburb.
And the nice bits of Glasgow are indeed very very nice, and Glasgow City Centre is certainly a really good city centre.
I’d say one of the 3 or 4 nicest city centres in the country. The trouble with it as a living option for me is simply the climate. I find London grey and damp enough already. It’s a shame there are no sizeable, historic cities that can be proper alternatives to London in the warmer sunnier parts of Britain. Bristol has some decent suburbs but the centre isn’t great. Brighton is really just a large town. Southampton, Portsmouth and Plymouth are unattractive.
I'm not sure you could describe Bristol or Plymouth as 'sunny'! Plymouth certainly is wetter than Manchester and almost as wet as Glasgow. Bristol can get a bit damp too.
IIRC London is the driest city in the country - certainly not typical of Britain!
You could go for Newcastle upon Tyne. That's dry and sunny by British standards, but certainly not warm. An attractive city though.
If I were living anywhere for climate, it would be somewhere like Skipton or Ilkley. Over the watershed so a bit drier, gets a bit more snow in winter.
I would think that any of the three Essex cities are drier than London. Newcastle on Tyne’s a good place though.
I would choose Norwich.
The South Western cities are wetter than London but they have good sunshine hours and decent temperatures. Sunshine is much more important than rainfall - and sunshine levels in the whole country are abject, but better along the South coast and SW than inland. Our dullness is our worst weather feature. I’m looking outside now and it’s typical: grey and overcast, but dry.
Norwich is not a metropolis. Nor Chelmsford, or Oxford or Bath or Bournemouth. Glasgow is a proper city with all that entails, including grand architecture and a proper hinterland. We lack those in the South of the country. Only really Bristol outside London. The others are just outsized towns.
Has anyone seen any documentation relating to the set-up of the Horizon programme (or parent programme, if it was part of some broader change initiative)? In particular, the weight given to the reduction of Sub-postmaster fraud in any cost-benefit-risk analysis and whether the realisation of those benefits, specifically fraud reduction, was embedded in senior management bonus schemes.
Looking for what incentives motivated those who behaved appallingly, it may have simply been the threat of having to lose and even pay back the bonuses that were paying for school fees and a second holiday every year.
You don’t need to look at benefits if you listened to the last set of witness the investigators were only on temporary contracts - getting renewed was incentive enough
As for the plan - it was always believed their was fraud within branches - the whole point of horizon was that it would capture it and the reduction in losses would then cover the cost of it
So, fuelling the whole disaster was a cynical belief that they’re all wrong ‘uns… which ultimately has led, judging by comments today, to a cynical belief about management that they’re all wrong ‘uns. Maybe we should all be a bit more cautious about generalising?
Um, no. All I was saying is that I suspect a lot of people may not be 100% truthfully when answering questions to the inquiry for fear of their answers being used against them later
Everyone is in favour of no blame inquiries like in the air industry except when there are concrete examples when we want lots of people to blame and even prosecute.
At Aintree today in the cheap seats near the last fence. Already placed a couple of bets and had a pint (£7.80). Might have a couple more bets but think I will give alcohol at those prices a miss. Can of diet coke is £3.20 ffs
£7.80?! That's more than I was paying at Lord's last summer. And of course being Lord's it was good quality stuff, not Carling. I accept there's a premium at these events, but that's taking the piss.
My local is only £6.50 a pint, and I live in a place where the stuff is considered forbidden and taxed like hell!
Talking of which, they say it’s always 5pm somewhere, well for me it’s about to be beer o’clock! 🍻
(£11or £12 is more normal at a sports or arts venue though).
I'd say it's possible for parts of Glasgow to be a crumbling disgrace while G12 remains very desirable.
But yes, I'd certainly rather live in G12 than whatever I could afford for the same money in London, or even for that plus whatever more you get for London wages. London may be an amazing city, but I'd far rather live in a really good city in a nice house and a nice suburb than live in amazing city but a grotty house in a remote suburb.
And the nice bits of Glasgow are indeed very very nice, and Glasgow City Centre is certainly a really good city centre.
I’d say one of the 3 or 4 nicest city centres in the country. The trouble with it as a living option for me is simply the climate. I find London grey and damp enough already. It’s a shame there are no sizeable, historic cities that can be proper alternatives to London in the warmer sunnier parts of Britain. Bristol has some decent suburbs but the centre isn’t great. Brighton is really just a large town. Southampton, Portsmouth and Plymouth are unattractive.
I'm not sure you could describe Bristol or Plymouth as 'sunny'! Plymouth certainly is wetter than Manchester and almost as wet as Glasgow. Bristol can get a bit damp too.
IIRC London is the driest city in the country - certainly not typical of Britain!
You could go for Newcastle upon Tyne. That's dry and sunny by British standards, but certainly not warm. An attractive city though.
If I were living anywhere for climate, it would be somewhere like Skipton or Ilkley. Over the watershed so a bit drier, gets a bit more snow in winter.
I would think that any of the three Essex cities are drier than London. Newcastle on Tyne’s a good place though.
I would choose Norwich.
The South Western cities are wetter than London but they have good sunshine hours and decent temperatures. Sunshine is much more important than rainfall - and sunshine levels in the whole country are abject, but better along the South coast and SW than inland. Our dullness is our worst weather feature. I’m looking outside now and it’s typical: grey and overcast, but dry.
Norwich is not a metropolis. Nor Chelmsford, or Oxford or Bath or Bournemouth. Glasgow is a proper city with all that entails, including grand architecture and a proper hinterland. We lack those in the South of the country. Only really Bristol outside London. The others are just outsized towns.
The advantage of living outside London, is this - In every major city (around much of the world too) there is the posh bit, where prices are often similar to London.
Go to Miraflores, in Lima. Cocktails at Park Lane prices.
The difference to London, is how fast that falls off. How far to you have to go (time of travel, not just miles) in Glasgow before the London priced stuff at the centre is a distant memory? With London, you have to go 2 hours on the train (plus travel at either end) before the housing costs really start to fall.
At Aintree today in the cheap seats near the last fence. Already placed a couple of bets and had a pint (£7.80). Might have a couple more bets but think I will give alcohol at those prices a miss. Can of diet coke is £3.20 ffs
£7.80?! That's more than I was paying at Lord's last summer. And of course being Lord's it was good quality stuff, not Carling. I accept there's a premium at these events, but that's taking the piss.
If it’s Carling, is that taking the piss or drinking the piss?
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
"I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!"
Which has already been happening - see the resurrection of SPAAG such as Gepard from scrapyards/warehouses.
Most of what has gone to Ukraine was either totally obsolete (Nick at TanksALot https://tanks-alot.co.uk/military-vehicles-for-sale/ is a a major source of light armoured vehicles...) or about to be replaced.
There’s a lot of fun-looking vehicles on that site! Most advertised as having one careful owner - the British army.
Although not the one with 25 kilos of gold hidden in a fuel tank!
I wonder what the outcome of that story was?
c.65lb of gold is c.950 Troy ounces, which is worth around $2.2m in today’s money.
(The sensible conclusion would have been for the owner of the tank to have paid whatever taxes should have been paid on the import of the gold, and allowed to keep it, following a police investigation that confirmed there was no intent to defraud etc.)
Edit to add: apparently the story is still ongoing, with the Coroner (who handles treasure found in the UK) trying to work out to whom the gold rightfully belongs. It’s been traced to Kuwait in 1990.
At Aintree today in the cheap seats near the last fence. Already placed a couple of bets and had a pint (£7.80). Might have a couple more bets but think I will give alcohol at those prices a miss. Can of diet coke is £3.20 ffs
£7.80?! That's more than I was paying at Lord's last summer. And of course being Lord's it was good quality stuff, not Carling. I accept there's a premium at these events, but that's taking the piss.
If it’s Carling, is that taking the piss or drinking the piss?
Has anyone seen any documentation relating to the set-up of the Horizon programme (or parent programme, if it was part of some broader change initiative)? In particular, the weight given to the reduction of Sub-postmaster fraud in any cost-benefit-risk analysis and whether the realisation of those benefits, specifically fraud reduction, was embedded in senior management bonus schemes.
Looking for what incentives motivated those who behaved appallingly, it may have simply been the threat of having to lose and even pay back the bonuses that were paying for school fees and a second holiday every year.
You don’t need to look at benefits if you listened to the last set of witness the investigators were only on temporary contracts - getting renewed was incentive enough
As for the plan - it was always believed their was fraud within branches - the whole point of horizon was that it would capture it and the reduction in losses would then cover the cost of it
So, fuelling the whole disaster was a cynical belief that they’re all wrong ‘uns… which ultimately has led, judging by comments today, to a cynical belief about management that they’re all wrong ‘uns. Maybe we should all be a bit more cautious about generalising?
Um, no. All I was saying is that I suspect a lot of people may not be 100% truthfully when answering questions to the inquiry for fear of their answers being used against them later
Everyone is in favour of no blame inquiries like in the air industry except when there are concrete examples when we want lots of people to blame and even prosecute.
The difference, in the air industry is that the no blame (Just Culture) is actually for the peons. Companies have been fined and generally kicked about by the FAA. See what is happening at Boeing at the moment - the line workers are being offered full amnesties, if they testify about what actually happened with the door bolts.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Quite. They wouldn't even need to attack the turbines, they could sever the interconnectors extremely easily and with virtually no risk of attack or even detection.
I think your ideological hatred of wind turbines is possibly just slightly clouding your judgment here.
Hitting thousands of small wind turbines and solar panels with drones might be possible but is evidently harder than hitting a single large station with thousands of drones (or even dozens, as Ukraine has shown in Russia).
Cutting interconnectors for wind is no easier than cutting transmission lines from a power station. Or cutting gas pipelines (as we’ve seen). Or blowing up gas storage (as we’ve seen).
I’m not just making this up. Just Google dispersed power generation and national security (or any similar phrase) and there’s days of reading material.
Not that I expect to convince you, of course. But it’s not enough to say a technology is vulnerable: all technologies are vulnerable. The question is whether it’s more or less vulnerable than the alternatives. I’d rather present the enemy with a target of several thousand dispersed wind turbines or 50 small gas plants than 5 huge nuclear or coal power stations.
I remember going with a group to the Centre of Alternative Technology at Machynlleth in the years when even vegetarian food was almost unheard of, outside Edinburgh's Hendersons Salad Bar, and being distinctly put off the salad when I saw what they were doing with recycled urine in the garden. We had a lecture about renewable power which was fine as it went but it was also the era of Greenham Common (at least two of the women campers were in the student party, in fact) and I rather upset almsot everyone by congratulating the lecturer only half ironically on devising a national infrastructure that wasn't worth nuking. It was a relief to head up Cadair Idris later ...
The difference to London, is how fast that falls off. How far to you have to go (time of travel, not just miles) in Glasgow before the London priced stuff at the centre is a distant memory? With London, you have to go 2 hours on the train (plus travel at either end) before the housing costs really start to fall.
You can get a decent semi-detached house with a garden within walking distance of Luton Station for around £300k.
"“We set a simple principle: Anyone who hits us, we hit them,” Netanyahu says".
Disconnection much? Who bombed whose embassy? (And they're not even apologising, as the USA did to Nicaragua in Panama and to China in Yugoslavia. They're proud of it.)
Tomorrow could be a flashpoint in Jerusalem, the world's biggest provocation magnet. Friday prayers specifically.
The difference to London, is how fast that falls off. How far to you have to go (time of travel, not just miles) in Glasgow before the London priced stuff at the centre is a distant memory? With London, you have to go 2 hours on the train (plus travel at either end) before the housing costs really start to fall.
You can get a decent semi-detached house with a garden within walking distance of Luton Station for around £300k.
I don’t think anyone has ever satisfactorily answered Tam Dalyell’s West Lothian Question
The West Lothian question is really only relevant if we have a government which is depending upon Scottish seats to have a majority in the House of Commons. That means they need to have more than half the Scottish seats. We obviously have not had that for the last 14 years (although May was presumably grateful for the increase in Scottish Tories in 2015) and it wasn't particularly relevant during the Blair majorities either.
It looks somewhat unlikely to me that the Scottish Labour MPs are going to be the extent of Starmer's majority although I suppose that is still possible. If that occurs the question will return.
But there have been occasions, I think, when votes affecting only England (and Wales?) have been defeated despite a majority of English (and Welsh?) MPs being in favour, because of the votes of Scottish MPs (something to do with Sunday trading, possibly?).
I do vaguely recall that and think it resulted in EVEL provisions being brought in but I think that they are now gone again?
Yes, though Redwood wasn't happy. In 2005 Howard's Tories won most votes in England so it was nearly relevant then but Blair's Labour still won most seats in England as it had in the UK. I expect it would start to be an issue 2 or 3 elections into a Labour government if England votes Tory but they are re elected via Scottish or Welsh Labour MPs
Isn't that what happens to Scotland all the time? They don't vote Tory but they get a Tory government.
That isn't relevant to the West Lothian question and EVEL, though.
The point of the West Lothian question is that, in a system where powers are devolved to Scotland but not to England/English regions, Scottish MPs vote on some matters that affect English voters but do NOT affect Scottish ones. The same is not true in reverse. It isn't simply that the Government isn't of the political stripe you'd like.
Is there a Dumfries and Galloway question whereby the Secretary of State for Scotland can overrule democratically agreed decisions of the Scottish Parliament, sometimes for sensible reasons, which is fair enough, but in the case of the current SoS, sometimes for purely partisan reasons?
No, because the extent of devolution - to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and some English regions - is governed by UK legislation on which all MPs get a vote. If you want the powers of the Scottish Parliament and Executive to be less constrained (potentially up to full independence) then that's fine, and there's a clear route to achieving that that via the UK Parliament in which all parts of the UK are represented. Likewise if Wales, or the West Midlands, or wherever want a different constitutional settlement.
I think the practical problems raised by the West Lothian question are a little overstated. But it does raise a fundamental point that, if you have a system of devolution where not all powers are equally devolved in all areas, you unavoidably get a situation where decisions are made about a person living in an area where there is less devolution by MPs whose own constituents have no skin in the game at all because the matter is devolved in their country or region the route to change it is via the UK Parliament. EVEL has been proposed as a "solution" but is highly problematic in that there is no English Executive in that model.
What you're raising is a feature of the constitutional settlement that you personally disagree with - we can all do that in a range of policy areas. But there's a clear mechanism to change it. What the West Lothian question does is point out a problem which is pretty much inherent in the system.
I don't say that to diminish the issue you raise. I disagree with pretty much everything the Government does and I want them out. But my position on that doesn't raise a fundamental constitutional question - the mechanism for not having a Tory Government is clear and well established - you have a General Election where they (and potential allies like the DUP) lose enough seats across the UK to ensure that they can no longer form a Government.
Just seen the first butterfly of the year in our garden Things are looking up!
There have been a few Red Admirals, Peacocks, Small Tortoiseshell and Comma out on the few sunny calm days here in south Devon. Still no Brimstone yet.
However, the weather for months here seems to have mostly been lifted from The Others.
A straw in the wind - anecdotally my local MP (Andrew Murrison) is rather worried about his seat (as told to my colleague who socialises with him occasionally).
His majority is 21,630.
Apparently most Tory MP's have accepted the inevitable. They know what's coming!
Personally I'd be amazed if Murrison lost in leafy, rural, south west wilts, but who knows?
ditto
my MP Nadhim Zahawi has communicated with the voters for the first time in ages. He has a majority of 19972.
Squeaky bums all round at Tory Towers.
I'd take that chance to eject him if I were you. Jealous.
Fairly sure you're envious rather than jealous.
But jealous sounds better.
I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't mean to make you cry. I didn't want to hurt you ... I'm just an Envious Guy.
That would never have been a hit.
But "jealous" is entirely correct in the context of the song, as it's about a bloke who's worried about losing his lover. So the lyrics say, "I was feeling insecure, you might not love me anymore" - that's textbook jealousy.
If it had been called "Envious Guy", it wouldn't just have been a flop but would also have made the same linguistic error you did.
I'd say it's possible for parts of Glasgow to be a crumbling disgrace while G12 remains very desirable.
But yes, I'd certainly rather live in G12 than whatever I could afford for the same money in London, or even for that plus whatever more you get for London wages. London may be an amazing city, but I'd far rather live in a really good city in a nice house and a nice suburb than live in amazing city but a grotty house in a remote suburb.
And the nice bits of Glasgow are indeed very very nice, and Glasgow City Centre is certainly a really good city centre.
I’d say one of the 3 or 4 nicest city centres in the country. The trouble with it as a living option for me is simply the climate. I find London grey and damp enough already. It’s a shame there are no sizeable, historic cities that can be proper alternatives to London in the warmer sunnier parts of Britain. Bristol has some decent suburbs but the centre isn’t great. Brighton is really just a large town. Southampton, Portsmouth and Plymouth are unattractive.
I'm not sure you could describe Bristol or Plymouth as 'sunny'! Plymouth certainly is wetter than Manchester and almost as wet as Glasgow. Bristol can get a bit damp too.
IIRC London is the driest city in the country - certainly not typical of Britain!
You could go for Newcastle upon Tyne. That's dry and sunny by British standards, but certainly not warm. An attractive city though.
If I were living anywhere for climate, it would be somewhere like Skipton or Ilkley. Over the watershed so a bit drier, gets a bit more snow in winter.
I would think that any of the three Essex cities are drier than London. Newcastle on Tyne’s a good place though.
I would choose Norwich.
Norwich impressed me when I visited it for the first time a couple of years ago, and having been a student there I’m really fond of Newcastle.
However, I regard myself as privileged to live in London. It’s simply the greatest city in the world, and it’d kill me to move. I never will.
It's a really good thing for a person to find their home and it sounds like you have. I've never felt that way about a place.
The difference to London, is how fast that falls off. How far to you have to go (time of travel, not just miles) in Glasgow before the London priced stuff at the centre is a distant memory? With London, you have to go 2 hours on the train (plus travel at either end) before the housing costs really start to fall.
You can get a decent semi-detached house with a garden within walking distance of Luton Station for around £300k.
I don’t think anyone has ever satisfactorily answered Tam Dalyell’s West Lothian Question
The West Lothian question is really only relevant if we have a government which is depending upon Scottish seats to have a majority in the House of Commons. That means they need to have more than half the Scottish seats. We obviously have not had that for the last 14 years (although May was presumably grateful for the increase in Scottish Tories in 2015) and it wasn't particularly relevant during the Blair majorities either.
It looks somewhat unlikely to me that the Scottish Labour MPs are going to be the extent of Starmer's majority although I suppose that is still possible. If that occurs the question will return.
But there have been occasions, I think, when votes affecting only England (and Wales?) have been defeated despite a majority of English (and Welsh?) MPs being in favour, because of the votes of Scottish MPs (something to do with Sunday trading, possibly?).
I do vaguely recall that and think it resulted in EVEL provisions being brought in but I think that they are now gone again?
Yes, though Redwood wasn't happy. In 2005 Howard's Tories won most votes in England so it was nearly relevant then but Blair's Labour still won most seats in England as it had in the UK. I expect it would start to be an issue 2 or 3 elections into a Labour government if England votes Tory but they are re elected via Scottish or Welsh Labour MPs
Isn't that what happens to Scotland all the time? They don't vote Tory but they get a Tory government.
That isn't relevant to the West Lothian question and EVEL, though.
The point of the West Lothian question is that, in a system where powers are devolved to Scotland but not to England/English regions, Scottish MPs vote on some matters that affect English voters but do NOT affect Scottish ones. The same is not true in reverse. It isn't simply that the Government isn't of the political stripe you'd like.
Is there a Dumfries and Galloway question whereby the Secretary of State for Scotland can overrule democratically agreed decisions of the Scottish Parliament, sometimes for sensible reasons, which is fair enough, but in the case of the current SoS, sometimes for purely partisan reasons?
No, because the extent of devolution - to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and some English regions - is governed by UK legislation on which all MPs get a vote. If you want the powers of the Scottish Parliament and Executive to be less constrained (potentially up to full independence) then that's fine, and there's a clear route to achieving that that via the UK Parliament in which all parts of the UK are represented. Likewise if Wales, or the West Midlands, or wherever want a different constitutional settlement.
I think the practical problems raised by the West Lothian question are a little overstated. But it does raise a fundamental point that, if you have a system of devolution where not all powers are equally devolved in all areas, you unavoidably get a situation where decisions are made about a person living in an area where there is less devolution by MPs whose own constituents have no skin in the game at all because the matter is devolved in their country or region the route to change it is via the UK Parliament. EVEL has been proposed as a "solution" but is highly problematic in that there is no English Executive in that model.
What you're raising is a feature of the constitutional settlement that you personally disagree with - we can all do that in a range of policy areas. But there's a clear mechanism to change it. What the West Lothian question does is point out a problem which is pretty much inherent in the system.
I don't say that to diminish the issue you raise. I disagree with pretty much everything the Government does and I want them out. But my position on that doesn't raise a fundamental constitutional question - the mechanism for not having a Tory Government is clear and well established - you have a General Election where they (and potential allies like the DUP) lose enough seats across the UK to ensure that they can no longer form a Government.
Isn't th epoint about EVEL that the Westminster Parliament then did act as an English Parliament?
Edit: it was loudly proclaimed also that only MPs for English constituencies would be allowed to be PM, I seem to recall. Not very logically, but never mind.
(BTW 'Executive' has been out of date since 2007, formally 2012. I was wondering what this English presidential system was all about ...)
You’ll Never Guess Which State Court Just Approved Religious Exemptions From Abortion Bans
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/04/indiana-abortion-ban-religious-exemption-judaism-faith.html ..A three-judge panel on the Indiana Court of Appeals agreed to enjoin Indiana’s near-total abortion ban, as applied against a class of religious plaintiffs who had argued that the ban violates a state law protecting religious freedom. In its unanimous 76-page opinion, authored by Judge Leanna K. Weissmann, the panel determined that a preliminary injunction granted to a group of plaintiffs who had alleged that Indiana’s abortion law violated their rights under the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act could remain in place. The case now proceeds to trial, or more likely to a direct appeal to the state Supreme Court...
The fundamentalist Christian right seems to have forgotten the existence of other religious in rewriting the state's laws.
If you read the details of the ruling, its logic is unassailable.
Following the overturning of Roe v Wade the responsibility for the matter has been returned not to pressure groups like the fundamentalist 'Christian' right (or those who would confer no rights on the unborn at all) but to voters and those they elect, just as in the UK.
That's a great slogan for the election, but t's a serious distortion of the legal reality to claim that.
It's a great deal more complicated than you suggest - even setting aside the deeply unsatisfactory position of different states having wild different laws on the matter, which necessarily impact on their fellow states, and create a geographic lottery for women's reproductive rights.
A straw in the wind - anecdotally my local MP (Andrew Murrison) is rather worried about his seat (as told to my colleague who socialises with him occasionally).
His majority is 21,630.
Apparently most Tory MP's have accepted the inevitable. They know what's coming!
Personally I'd be amazed if Murrison lost in leafy, rural, south west wilts, but who knows?
ditto
my MP Nadhim Zahawi has communicated with the voters for the first time in ages. He has a majority of 19972.
Squeaky bums all round at Tory Towers.
I'd take that chance to eject him if I were you. Jealous.
Fairly sure you're envious rather than jealous.
But jealous sounds better.
I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't mean to make you cry. I didn't want to hurt you ... I'm just an Envious Guy.
That would never have been a hit.
But "jealous" is entirely correct in the context of the song, as it's about a bloke who's worried about losing his lover. So the lyrics say, "I was feeling insecure, you might not love me anymore" - that's textbook jealousy.
If it had been called "Envious Guy", it wouldn't just have been a flop but would also have made the same linguistic error you did.
On thread, re the Royal Mail inquiry. What was patently obvious and running through all the evidence emerging during the testimony of David Smith (CEO in 2010) this morning was the near explicit and certainly strongly implicit theme coming from the top down within the Post Office as follows: that the aim of the organisation was to defend Horizon against those from outside who were questioning it, not to genuinely inquire whether there were any merits in those criticisms. That was the direction being given to staff, so they knew very much which side their bread was buttered and were being encouraged to act accordingly, or else....
That is all consistent with facilitation from the top of a cover up.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Quite. They wouldn't even need to attack the turbines, they could sever the interconnectors extremely easily and with virtually no risk of attack or even detection.
I think your ideological hatred of wind turbines is possibly just slightly clouding your judgment here.
Hitting thousands of small wind turbines and solar panels with drones might be possible but is evidently harder than hitting a single large station with thousands of drones (or even dozens, as Ukraine has shown in Russia).
Cutting interconnectors for wind is no easier than cutting transmission lines from a power station. Or cutting gas pipelines (as we’ve seen). Or blowing up gas storage (as we’ve seen).
I’m not just making this up. Just Google dispersed power generation and national security (or any similar phrase) and there’s days of reading material.
Not that I expect to convince you, of course. But it’s not enough to say a technology is vulnerable: all technologies are vulnerable. The question is whether it’s more or less vulnerable than the alternatives. I’d rather present the enemy with a target of several thousand dispersed wind turbines or 50 small gas plants than 5 huge nuclear or coal power stations.
TBF, it's possible to argue that large high value targets are much fewer, and that therefore expensive layered defences are more affordable.
The counter argument to that is that systems for countering cheap drones are getting smaller and cheaper, and could, probably will, be co-located with offshore wind.
To be fair death usually is a significant cause of long term inactivity but it’s probably wise to be aware of whether your candidates are still alive or not before you cause offence to their bereft family.
If a farmhand on the West Bank is reading this who's helping to look after a red heifer, please can you rest your jacket on its back for a short while, thereby flattening a hair or two and removing its "pure" status?
The world will be grateful to you for stopping Armageddon.
I think this answer the question of "can we charge witnesses before the end of the enquiry":
...There was a question from a lawyer representing five former Post Office branch managers, including Lee Castleton and Seema Misra.
She told the inquiry she intended to ask if the Ismay report was a "cover-up".
That led to quite a long legal discussion. It was explained to Smith that he was not required to answer questions if it could be self-incriminating and that he could discuss it with his solicitor if he wished to.
Smith said he would take on the question of whether Ismay was a cover-up, and says: "No, absolutely not."..
The only real arguments against is that it might put witnesses on their guard - but that's already happened - or that more evidence might emerge during the enquiry. That happens in normal investigations after a charge, so I don't see the problem.
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
There's a trope that it takes a second stake to the heart sometimes to defeat evil.
Buffy dealt with this in Buffy vs Dracula, while any other staked vampire in the series would turn to dust and that would be the end of it, Dracula turned to dust then Buffy waited and he reformed so she staked him again saying "I've seen enough of your movies to know you'd be back".
We had that trope come to political life in the UK with Corbyn, he lost the 2017 election but acted like he won it (not as badly as Trump acted of course) and it took a second defeat in 2019 to see him lose his until-then tight grip on Labour.
Hopefully a second stake through Trump this November, a second defeat, would release the GOP from the thrall like state it is in to Count Trumpula.
To be fair death usually is a significant cause of long term inactivity but it’s probably wise to be aware of whether your candidates are still alive or not before you cause offence to their bereft family.
This is the reason I'm highly dubious about REF polling 15% in the 2024 general election. Not this scenario, per se, but just the general amateurishness of the REF operation.
This is a party still very much in it's infancy and I think that will tell in a general election. REF 10% lower than their current polling position and CON 8% higher than their current polling position, IMO.
Of course if Farage replaces Tice in the next few weeks, then all bets are off, but I don't think he will. He seems to have his eyes set on the US at the moment.
I don’t think anyone has ever satisfactorily answered Tam Dalyell’s West Lothian Question
The West Lothian question is really only relevant if we have a government which is depending upon Scottish seats to have a majority in the House of Commons. That means they need to have more than half the Scottish seats. We obviously have not had that for the last 14 years (although May was presumably grateful for the increase in Scottish Tories in 2015) and it wasn't particularly relevant during the Blair majorities either.
It looks somewhat unlikely to me that the Scottish Labour MPs are going to be the extent of Starmer's majority although I suppose that is still possible. If that occurs the question will return.
But there have been occasions, I think, when votes affecting only England (and Wales?) have been defeated despite a majority of English (and Welsh?) MPs being in favour, because of the votes of Scottish MPs (something to do with Sunday trading, possibly?).
I do vaguely recall that and think it resulted in EVEL provisions being brought in but I think that they are now gone again?
Yes, though Redwood wasn't happy. In 2005 Howard's Tories won most votes in England so it was nearly relevant then but Blair's Labour still won most seats in England as it had in the UK. I expect it would start to be an issue 2 or 3 elections into a Labour government if England votes Tory but they are re elected via Scottish or Welsh Labour MPs
Isn't that what happens to Scotland all the time? They don't vote Tory but they get a Tory government.
That isn't relevant to the West Lothian question and EVEL, though.
The point of the West Lothian question is that, in a system where powers are devolved to Scotland but not to England/English regions, Scottish MPs vote on some matters that affect English voters but do NOT affect Scottish ones. The same is not true in reverse. It isn't simply that the Government isn't of the political stripe you'd like.
Is there a Dumfries and Galloway question whereby the Secretary of State for Scotland can overrule democratically agreed decisions of the Scottish Parliament, sometimes for sensible reasons, which is fair enough, but in the case of the current SoS, sometimes for purely partisan reasons?
No, because the extent of devolution - to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and some English regions - is governed by UK legislation on which all MPs get a vote. If you want the powers of the Scottish Parliament and Executive to be less constrained (potentially up to full independence) then that's fine, and there's a clear route to achieving that that via the UK Parliament in which all parts of the UK are represented. Likewise if Wales, or the West Midlands, or wherever want a different constitutional settlement.
I think the practical problems raised by the West Lothian question are a little overstated. But it does raise a fundamental point that, if you have a system of devolution where not all powers are equally devolved in all areas, you unavoidably get a situation where decisions are made about a person living in an area where there is less devolution by MPs whose own constituents have no skin in the game at all because the matter is devolved in their country or region the route to change it is via the UK Parliament. EVEL has been proposed as a "solution" but is highly problematic in that there is no English Executive in that model.
What you're raising is a feature of the constitutional settlement that you personally disagree with - we can all do that in a range of policy areas. But there's a clear mechanism to change it. What the West Lothian question does is point out a problem which is pretty much inherent in the system.
I don't say that to diminish the issue you raise. I disagree with pretty much everything the Government does and I want them out. But my position on that doesn't raise a fundamental constitutional question - the mechanism for not having a Tory Government is clear and well established - you have a General Election where they (and potential allies like the DUP) lose enough seats across the UK to ensure that they can no longer form a Government.
Isn't th epoint about EVEL that the Westminster Parliament then did act as an English Parliament?
Edit: it was loudly proclaimed also that only MPs for English constituencies would be allowed to be PM, I seem to recall. Not very logically, but never mind.
(BTW 'Executive' has been out of date since 2007, formally 2012. I was wondering what this English presidential system was all about ...)
QTWAIN.
The Westminster Parliament would only be an English Parliament if Scottish MPs were forbidden to vote on English matters, and an English executive existed for whichever party had the majority of English MPs. EVEL didn't do either.
The executive is still based on total Westminster MPs, which until now has by coincidence been the same as total English MPs (as it was in Scotland 1997-2007) but might not be in the future.
And non-English MPs could still block English-only legislation, as they did twice in having Scottish MPs blocking laws that would have made English law the same as what Scottish law already was.
This is pretty remarkable growth - which in due course will do its bit, along with similar deals, to transform the Indian economy. For those arguing it's "just assembly" work, that's not unlike what was being said about China not so long ago.
Apple’s shift of iPhone manufacturing to India is happening faster than many had expected.
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
Kari Lake ? MTG ? etc
I don't think so.
I think any pimple nosed Magic The Gathering fan would have more chance than the Orange One, yes. Might not be constitutionally eligible though based on age requirements, unless its a middle aged person still interested in Magic The Gathering.
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
There's a trope that it takes a second stake to the heart sometimes to defeat evil.
Buffy dealt with this in Buffy vs Dracula, while any other staked vampire in the series would turn to dust and that would be the end of it, Dracula turned to dust then Buffy waited and he reformed so she staked him again saying "I've seen enough of your movies to know you'd be back".
We had that trope come to political life in the UK with Corbyn, he lost the 2017 election but acted like he won it (not as badly as Trump acted of course) and it took a second defeat in 2019 to see him lose his until-then tight grip on Labour.
Hopefully a second stake through Trump this November, a second defeat, would release the GOP from the thrall like state it is in to Count Trumpula.
It was a shame Labour under Corbyn didn't win. Even some Tories now are saying how about stopping selling weapons to Israel. Probably quite a few survivors of WW3 will say the same thing once it's too late.
See page 98 of the 2019 Labour manifesto:
"Immediately suspend the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen and to Israel for arms used in violation of the human rights of Palestinian civilians".
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
There's a trope that it takes a second stake to the heart sometimes to defeat evil.
Buffy dealt with this in Buffy vs Dracula, while any other staked vampire in the series would turn to dust and that would be the end of it, Dracula turned to dust then Buffy waited and he reformed so she staked him again saying "I've seen enough of your movies to know you'd be back".
We had that trope come to political life in the UK with Corbyn, he lost the 2017 election but acted like he won it (not as badly as Trump acted of course) and it took a second defeat in 2019 to see him lose his until-then tight grip on Labour.
Hopefully a second stake through Trump this November, a second defeat, would release the GOP from the thrall like state it is in to Count Trumpula.
It was a shame Labour under Corbyn didn't win. Even some Tories now are saying how about stopping selling weapons to Israel. Probably quite a few survivors of WW3 will say the same thing once it's too late.
See page 98 of the 2019 Labour manifesto:
"Immediately suspend the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen and to Israel for arms used in violation of the human rights of Palestinian civilians".
Yawn.
We get it, you like murderers and rapists and dislike democracy.
We should increase arms supply to those free democracies fighting for their survival like Ukraine and Israel.
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
There's a trope that it takes a second stake to the heart sometimes to defeat evil.
Buffy dealt with this in Buffy vs Dracula, while any other staked vampire in the series would turn to dust and that would be the end of it, Dracula turned to dust then Buffy waited and he reformed so she staked him again saying "I've seen enough of your movies to know you'd be back".
We had that trope come to political life in the UK with Corbyn, he lost the 2017 election but acted like he won it (not as badly as Trump acted of course) and it took a second defeat in 2019 to see him lose his until-then tight grip on Labour.
Hopefully a second stake through Trump this November, a second defeat, would release the GOP from the thrall like state it is in to Count Trumpula.
Lets hope Biden's victory is actually very comfortable or a landslide (I think it probably will be) to see off the Orange One and all his heirs and descendants once for all.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Quite. They wouldn't even need to attack the turbines, they could sever the interconnectors extremely easily and with virtually no risk of attack or even detection.
I think your ideological hatred of wind turbines is possibly just slightly clouding your judgment here.
Hitting thousands of small wind turbines and solar panels with drones might be possible but is evidently harder than hitting a single large station with thousands of drones (or even dozens, as Ukraine has shown in Russia).
Cutting interconnectors for wind is no easier than cutting transmission lines from a power station. Or cutting gas pipelines (as we’ve seen). Or blowing up gas storage (as we’ve seen).
I’m not just making this up. Just Google dispersed power generation and national security (or any similar phrase) and there’s days of reading material.
Not that I expect to convince you, of course. But it’s not enough to say a technology is vulnerable: all technologies are vulnerable. The question is whether it’s more or less vulnerable than the alternatives. I’d rather present the enemy with a target of several thousand dispersed wind turbines or 50 small gas plants than 5 huge nuclear or coal power stations.
TBF, it's possible to argue that large high value targets are much fewer, and that therefore expensive layered defences are more affordable.
The counter argument to that is that systems for countering cheap drones are getting smaller and cheaper, and could, probably will, be co-located with offshore wind.
I guess the difficult bit, is working out which defence systems to send towards which incoming threats.
It wouldn’t be difficult to waste a lot of money and scarce ammunition on cheap or insignificant incoming threats, and requires a judgement against damage caused by what’s incoming vs the cost of defending against it. So your Patriot battery need to be targeting enemy fighter planes and hypersonic missiles, not small drones and ballistic bombs - even if the latter will cause damage and injury to civilians.
To be fair death usually is a significant cause of long term inactivity but it’s probably wise to be aware of whether your candidates are still alive or not before you cause offence to their bereft family.
This is the reason I'm highly dubious about REF polling 15% in the 2024 general election. Not this scenario, per se, but just the general amateurishness of the REF operation.
This is a party still very much in it's infancy and I think that will tell in a general election. REF 10% lower than their current polling position and CON 8% higher than their current polling position, IMO.
Of course if Farage replaces Tice in the next few weeks, then all bets are off, but I don't think he will. He seems to have his eyes set on the US at the moment.
Yeah I’m not convinced by the REF hype. It reminds me of the James Goldsmith Referendum Party in 1997 that was going to cause the Tories all sorts and in the end got about 2% and may have made made a difference in the tiniest handful of contests but probably not.
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
Kari Lake ? MTG ? etc
I don't think so.
I think any pimple nosed Magic The Gathering fan would have more chance than the Orange One, yes. Might not be constitutionally eligible though based on age requirements, unless its a middle aged person still interested in Magic The Gathering.
I'm unconvinced.
It's entirely fair to argue that had the GOP not spent the last four years sinking further in thrall to Trump then any other candidate they might have selected would now have a far better chance against Biden in November, of course.
But in those circumstances, Biden himself might not now be running.
If the GOP were to ditch Trump before November (which seems exceedingly unlikely) they are still going to be riven between the two thirds MAGA and one third politically sane set fo Republicans - and the chaos around the selection of a replacement would likely impact the chances of whomever they picked. MAGA or sane.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Quite. They wouldn't even need to attack the turbines, they could sever the interconnectors extremely easily and with virtually no risk of attack or even detection.
I think your ideological hatred of wind turbines is possibly just slightly clouding your judgment here.
Hitting thousands of small wind turbines and solar panels with drones might be possible but is evidently harder than hitting a single large station with thousands of drones (or even dozens, as Ukraine has shown in Russia).
Cutting interconnectors for wind is no easier than cutting transmission lines from a power station. Or cutting gas pipelines (as we’ve seen). Or blowing up gas storage (as we’ve seen).
I’m not just making this up. Just Google dispersed power generation and national security (or any similar phrase) and there’s days of reading material.
Not that I expect to convince you, of course. But it’s not enough to say a technology is vulnerable: all technologies are vulnerable. The question is whether it’s more or less vulnerable than the alternatives. I’d rather present the enemy with a target of several thousand dispersed wind turbines or 50 small gas plants than 5 huge nuclear or coal power stations.
TBF, it's possible to argue that large high value targets are much fewer, and that therefore expensive layered defences are more affordable.
The counter argument to that is that systems for countering cheap drones are getting smaller and cheaper, and could, probably will, be co-located with offshore wind.
I guess the difficult bit, is working out which defence systems to send towards which incoming threats.
It wouldn’t be difficult to waste a lot of money and scarce ammunition on cheap or insignificant incoming threats, and requires a judgement against damage caused by what’s incoming vs the cost of defending against it. So your Patriot battery need to be targeting enemy fighter planes and hypersonic missiles, not small drones and ballistic bombs - even if the latter will cause damage and injury to civilians.
But that's pretty well what Ukraine are doing now. Though with very sketchy resources.
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
There's a trope that it takes a second stake to the heart sometimes to defeat evil.
Buffy dealt with this in Buffy vs Dracula, while any other staked vampire in the series would turn to dust and that would be the end of it, Dracula turned to dust then Buffy waited and he reformed so she staked him again saying "I've seen enough of your movies to know you'd be back".
We had that trope come to political life in the UK with Corbyn, he lost the 2017 election but acted like he won it (not as badly as Trump acted of course) and it took a second defeat in 2019 to see him lose his until-then tight grip on Labour.
Hopefully a second stake through Trump this November, a second defeat, would release the GOP from the thrall like state it is in to Count Trumpula.
Lets hope Biden's victory is actually very comfortable or a landslide (I think it probably will be) to see off the Orange One and all his heirs and descendants once for all.
On abortion Trump is actually relatively moderate in GOP terms now, leaving it to the states rather than a nationwide ban as evangelicals want. He is also not as small state as some of the fiscally conservative right in Congress want.
It is perfectly possible that the GOP post a Trump defeat would move even further right, much as the Tories likely will in opposition.
It took Labour ten years to get to a centrist candidate again after Brown lost in 2010
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
Kari Lake ? MTG ? etc
I don't think so.
I think any pimple nosed Magic The Gathering fan would have more chance than the Orange One, yes. Might not be constitutionally eligible though based on age requirements, unless its a middle aged person still interested in Magic The Gathering.
I'm unconvinced.
It's entirely fair to argue that had the GOP not spent the last four years sinking further in thrall to Trump then any other candidate they might have selected would now have a far better chance against Biden in November, of course.
But in those circumstances, Biden himself might not now be running.
If the GOP were to ditch Trump before November (which seems exceedingly unlikely) they are still going to be riven between the two thirds MAGA and one third politically sane set fo Republicans - and the chaos around the selection of a replacement would likely impact the chances of whomever they picked. MAGA or sane.
It was a bad MTG joke I guess, I wasn't being entirely serious in that comment you quoted.
I agree on the thrall thing and made the same remark myself a few comments earlier.
To be fair death usually is a significant cause of long term inactivity but it’s probably wise to be aware of whether your candidates are still alive or not before you cause offence to their bereft family.
This is the reason I'm highly dubious about REF polling 15% in the 2024 general election. Not this scenario, per se, but just the general amateurishness of the REF operation.
This is a party still very much in it's infancy and I think that will tell in a general election. REF 10% lower than their current polling position and CON 8% higher than their current polling position, IMO.
Of course if Farage replaces Tice in the next few weeks, then all bets are off, but I don't think he will. He seems to have his eyes set on the US at the moment.
Yeah I’m not convinced by the REF hype. It reminds me of the James Goldsmith Referendum Party in 1997 that was going to cause the Tories all sorts and in the end got about 2% and may have made made a difference in the tiniest handful of contests but probably not.
Reform's ground game and candidate control is clearly poor, even if they matched UKIP's 12% that only got UKIP one seat in 2015
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
There's a trope that it takes a second stake to the heart sometimes to defeat evil.
Buffy dealt with this in Buffy vs Dracula, while any other staked vampire in the series would turn to dust and that would be the end of it, Dracula turned to dust then Buffy waited and he reformed so she staked him again saying "I've seen enough of your movies to know you'd be back".
We had that trope come to political life in the UK with Corbyn, he lost the 2017 election but acted like he won it (not as badly as Trump acted of course) and it took a second defeat in 2019 to see him lose his until-then tight grip on Labour.
Hopefully a second stake through Trump this November, a second defeat, would release the GOP from the thrall like state it is in to Count Trumpula.
Lets hope Biden's victory is actually very comfortable or a landslide (I think it probably will be) to see off the Orange One and all his heirs and descendants once for all.
On abortion Trump is actually relatively moderate in GOP terms now, leaving it to the states rather than a nationwide ban as evangelicals want. He is also not as small state as some of the fiscally conservative right in Congress want.
It is perfectly possible that the GOP post a Trump defeat would move even further right, much as the Tories likely will in opposition.
It took Labour ten years to get to a centrist candidate again after Brown lost in 2010
I’d describe Ed Milliband as centrist….. maybe centre-left. One certainly can’t describe him as Left, any more than one could Kinnock or Brown.
To be fair death usually is a significant cause of long term inactivity but it’s probably wise to be aware of whether your candidates are still alive or not before you cause offence to their bereft family.
This is the reason I'm highly dubious about REF polling 15% in the 2024 general election. Not this scenario, per se, but just the general amateurishness of the REF operation.
This is a party still very much in it's infancy and I think that will tell in a general election. REF 10% lower than their current polling position and CON 8% higher than their current polling position, IMO.
Of course if Farage replaces Tice in the next few weeks, then all bets are off, but I don't think he will. He seems to have his eyes set on the US at the moment.
Yeah I’m not convinced by the REF hype. It reminds me of the James Goldsmith Referendum Party in 1997 that was going to cause the Tories all sorts and in the end got about 2% and may have made made a difference in the tiniest handful of contests but probably not.
Reform's ground game and candidate control is clearly poor, even if they matched UKIP's 12% that only got UKIP one seat in 2015
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
There's a trope that it takes a second stake to the heart sometimes to defeat evil.
Buffy dealt with this in Buffy vs Dracula, while any other staked vampire in the series would turn to dust and that would be the end of it, Dracula turned to dust then Buffy waited and he reformed so she staked him again saying "I've seen enough of your movies to know you'd be back".
We had that trope come to political life in the UK with Corbyn, he lost the 2017 election but acted like he won it (not as badly as Trump acted of course) and it took a second defeat in 2019 to see him lose his until-then tight grip on Labour.
Hopefully a second stake through Trump this November, a second defeat, would release the GOP from the thrall like state it is in to Count Trumpula.
Lets hope Biden's victory is actually very comfortable or a landslide (I think it probably will be) to see off the Orange One and all his heirs and descendants once for all.
I've been part of every pb.com groupthink bubble going (except for the Brexit referendum, when I want spending much time on the site at the time), so I'm finding the current experience of looking into a pb.com groupthink from the outside refreshing and unique.
Just a reminder, Biden's approval ratings are awful and so not presage re-election for an incumbent. Biden is polling so much further behind than in 2020 that it's plausible Trump will win the popular vote.
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
There's a trope that it takes a second stake to the heart sometimes to defeat evil.
Buffy dealt with this in Buffy vs Dracula, while any other staked vampire in the series would turn to dust and that would be the end of it, Dracula turned to dust then Buffy waited and he reformed so she staked him again saying "I've seen enough of your movies to know you'd be back".
We had that trope come to political life in the UK with Corbyn, he lost the 2017 election but acted like he won it (not as badly as Trump acted of course) and it took a second defeat in 2019 to see him lose his until-then tight grip on Labour.
Hopefully a second stake through Trump this November, a second defeat, would release the GOP from the thrall like state it is in to Count Trumpula.
Lets hope Biden's victory is actually very comfortable or a landslide (I think it probably will be) to see off the Orange One and all his heirs and descendants once for all.
On abortion Trump is actually relatively moderate in GOP terms now, leaving it to the states rather than a nationwide ban as evangelicals want. He is also not as small state as some of the fiscally conservative right in Congress want.
It is perfectly possible that the GOP post a Trump defeat would move even further right, much as the Tories likely will in opposition.
It took Labour ten years to get to a centrist candidate again after Brown lost in 2010
I’d describe Ed Milliband as centrist….. maybe centre-left. One certainly can’t describe him as Left, any more than one could Kinnock or Brown.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Quite. They wouldn't even need to attack the turbines, they could sever the interconnectors extremely easily and with virtually no risk of attack or even detection.
I think your ideological hatred of wind turbines is possibly just slightly clouding your judgment here.
Hitting thousands of small wind turbines and solar panels with drones might be possible but is evidently harder than hitting a single large station with thousands of drones (or even dozens, as Ukraine has shown in Russia).
Cutting interconnectors for wind is no easier than cutting transmission lines from a power station. Or cutting gas pipelines (as we’ve seen). Or blowing up gas storage (as we’ve seen).
I’m not just making this up. Just Google dispersed power generation and national security (or any similar phrase) and there’s days of reading material.
Not that I expect to convince you, of course. But it’s not enough to say a technology is vulnerable: all technologies are vulnerable. The question is whether it’s more or less vulnerable than the alternatives. I’d rather present the enemy with a target of several thousand dispersed wind turbines or 50 small gas plants than 5 huge nuclear or coal power stations.
TBF, it's possible to argue that large high value targets are much fewer, and that therefore expensive layered defences are more affordable.
The counter argument to that is that systems for countering cheap drones are getting smaller and cheaper, and could, probably will, be co-located with offshore wind.
I guess the difficult bit, is working out which defence systems to send towards which incoming threats.
It wouldn’t be difficult to waste a lot of money and scarce ammunition on cheap or insignificant incoming threats, and requires a judgement against damage caused by what’s incoming vs the cost of defending against it. So your Patriot battery need to be targeting enemy fighter planes and hypersonic missiles, not small drones and ballistic bombs - even if the latter will cause damage and injury to civilians.
It's also a question of positioning the systems. Patriot has a fair amount of range, but that gets reduced quite a bit for high speed targets.
Impressive that Leon managed visit, apparently without noticing this story. (Apols. if he did and I missed it.)
Massively disproportionate sentence. Usually the way with these types of regimes where it’s not the truly guilty that face justice but a useful proxy whose punishment makes the regime look better.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Quite. They wouldn't even need to attack the turbines, they could sever the interconnectors extremely easily and with virtually no risk of attack or even detection.
I think your ideological hatred of wind turbines is possibly just slightly clouding your judgment here.
Hitting thousands of small wind turbines and solar panels with drones might be possible but is evidently harder than hitting a single large station with thousands of drones (or even dozens, as Ukraine has shown in Russia).
Cutting interconnectors for wind is no easier than cutting transmission lines from a power station. Or cutting gas pipelines (as we’ve seen). Or blowing up gas storage (as we’ve seen).
I’m not just making this up. Just Google dispersed power generation and national security (or any similar phrase) and there’s days of reading material.
Not that I expect to convince you, of course. But it’s not enough to say a technology is vulnerable: all technologies are vulnerable. The question is whether it’s more or less vulnerable than the alternatives. I’d rather present the enemy with a target of several thousand dispersed wind turbines or 50 small gas plants than 5 huge nuclear or coal power stations.
I am sure that your comments on the vulnerability of coal and gas power stations (and particularly nuclear stations) is true, and I've criticised new nuclear for the UK on these grounds before (to precisely no agreement from PB I seem to remember).
However, it is you who seems still not to accept that nobody would need to attack individual windmills, given the fact that offshore wind is connected to the grid via large submerged power lines that can be taken out very easily. Yes this is the same risk as gas pipelines, but we've seen how effective a supposedly amateur attack on a gas pipeline was recently, so I don't think that helps your argument.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is a Republican; in fact he's the second ranking Republican right now (after the Speaker). 'Here's what he just said about Ukraine: "Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) is stepping up his pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to put the Senate-passed foreign aid bill up for a vote in the House, warning Wednesday that “starving” Ukraine of military support is “strategic and moral malpractice.”
McConnell told a radio host in Louisville recently that despite plans to retire from Senate leadership, he intends to stay in the Senate through the end of his term in 2027 in order to fight back “against the isolationist movement in my own party.”' source: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4585352-mitch-mcconnell-ukraine-aid/
There is good reason to beleive that a majority of Senate Republicans agree with his argument. (He probably said it in Louisville, rather than DC, to undermine the junior senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul.)
Russian strikes completely destroy key Ukrainian power plant https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68788110 A major power plant near Kyiv was completely destroyed by Russian strikes early on Thursday, energy company Centrenergo said. Trypillya power plant was the largest provider of electricity for three regions, including Kyiv. "The scale of destruction is terrifying," Centrenergo chairman Andriy Hota said. Russia has long been deliberately and systematically targeting Ukraine's energy system. Mr Hota told the BBC that Thursday morning's strikes destroyed "the transformer, the turbines, the generators. They destroyed 100%". A fire broke out in the turbine workshop of the Trypillya plant - located 50km (31 miles) to the south of Kyiv - following Thursday's large-scale airborne attack. The Centrenergo boss said the plant was targeted by multiple missiles. Staff on shift were able to escape, he said, because they ran for cover as soon as the first drone hit. Residents were urged to shut their windows, charge all their devices and stock up on water. More than 80 missiles and drones targeted sites across Ukraine in the early hours of Thursday. Many targeted energy infrastructure and almost a third made it through Ukraine's air defences. Hours later, Centrenergo confirmed its Trypillya plant had been put out of use. Mr Hota said his company's entire generative capacity in Ukraine was now destroyed...
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
Kari Lake ? MTG ? etc
I don't think so.
I think any pimple nosed Magic The Gathering fan would have more chance than the Orange One, yes. Might not be constitutionally eligible though based on age requirements, unless its a middle aged person still interested in Magic The Gathering.
I'm unconvinced.
It's entirely fair to argue that had the GOP not spent the last four years sinking further in thrall to Trump then any other candidate they might have selected would now have a far better chance against Biden in November, of course.
But in those circumstances, Biden himself might not now be running.
If the GOP were to ditch Trump before November (which seems exceedingly unlikely) they are still going to be riven between the two thirds MAGA and one third politically sane set fo Republicans - and the chaos around the selection of a replacement would likely impact the chances of whomever they picked. MAGA or sane.
There is of course a joker in the pack on this:
The person Trump picks as his coxsucker, er, Vice President.
Who will presumably be the person preferred if he is either locked up or spontaneously combusts while shouting bullshit about Obama at a rally
Still no word, of course, although I've heard mutterings about Vance, Ramaswamy and even Lake.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Quite. They wouldn't even need to attack the turbines, they could sever the interconnectors extremely easily and with virtually no risk of attack or even detection.
I think your ideological hatred of wind turbines is possibly just slightly clouding your judgment here.
Hitting thousands of small wind turbines and solar panels with drones might be possible but is evidently harder than hitting a single large station with thousands of drones (or even dozens, as Ukraine has shown in Russia).
Cutting interconnectors for wind is no easier than cutting transmission lines from a power station. Or cutting gas pipelines (as we’ve seen). Or blowing up gas storage (as we’ve seen).
I’m not just making this up. Just Google dispersed power generation and national security (or any similar phrase) and there’s days of reading material.
Not that I expect to convince you, of course. But it’s not enough to say a technology is vulnerable: all technologies are vulnerable. The question is whether it’s more or less vulnerable than the alternatives. I’d rather present the enemy with a target of several thousand dispersed wind turbines or 50 small gas plants than 5 huge nuclear or coal power stations.
I am sure that your comments on the vulnerability of coal and gas power stations (and particularly nuclear stations) is true, and I've criticised new nuclear for the UK on these grounds before (to precisely no agreement from PB I seem to remember).
However, it is you who seems still not to accept that nobody would need to attack individual windmills, given the fact that offshore wind is connected to the grid via large submerged power lines that can be taken out very easily. Yes this is the same risk as gas pipelines, but we've seen how effective a supposedly amateur attack on a gas pipeline was recently, so I don't think that helps your argument.
Except that gas was concentrated into just one offshore pipeline there.
Our offshore wind is dispersed in many, many different connections.
The unlikely event of cutting one doesn't cut the others, which is a positive for dispersal.
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
There's a trope that it takes a second stake to the heart sometimes to defeat evil.
Buffy dealt with this in Buffy vs Dracula, while any other staked vampire in the series would turn to dust and that would be the end of it, Dracula turned to dust then Buffy waited and he reformed so she staked him again saying "I've seen enough of your movies to know you'd be back".
We had that trope come to political life in the UK with Corbyn, he lost the 2017 election but acted like he won it (not as badly as Trump acted of course) and it took a second defeat in 2019 to see him lose his until-then tight grip on Labour.
Hopefully a second stake through Trump this November, a second defeat, would release the GOP from the thrall like state it is in to Count Trumpula.
Lets hope Biden's victory is actually very comfortable or a landslide (I think it probably will be) to see off the Orange One and all his heirs and descendants once for all.
I've been part of every pb.com groupthink bubble going (except for the Brexit referendum, when I want spending much time on the site at the time), so I'm finding the current experience of looking into a pb.com groupthink from the outside refreshing and unique.
Just a reminder, Biden's approval ratings are awful and so not presage re-election for an incumbent. Biden is polling so much further behind than in 2020 that it's plausible Trump will win the popular vote.
All together now...
"...Polls before the election is called are simply measuring the popularity of the incumbent. Only when the election becomes due do people concentrate on the actual choice...", Curtice, RSS Conference, wording approximate
To be fair death usually is a significant cause of long term inactivity but it’s probably wise to be aware of whether your candidates are still alive or not before you cause offence to their bereft family.
This is the reason I'm highly dubious about REF polling 15% in the 2024 general election. Not this scenario, per se, but just the general amateurishness of the REF operation.
This is a party still very much in it's infancy and I think that will tell in a general election. REF 10% lower than their current polling position and CON 8% higher than their current polling position, IMO.
Of course if Farage replaces Tice in the next few weeks, then all bets are off, but I don't think he will. He seems to have his eyes set on the US at the moment.
Yeah I’m not convinced by the REF hype. It reminds me of the James Goldsmith Referendum Party in 1997 that was going to cause the Tories all sorts and in the end got about 2% and may have made made a difference in the tiniest handful of contests but probably not.
I agree. Although I daresay the Conservative Party assume that a big slug of those Reform voters come “home” to the Conservatives. I suspect that a lot will simply sit on their hands and stay at home.
Also I am not sure that Farage would change that equation much. UKIPs high-watermark in general elections was 2015 where they got 12% of votes. 2015 feels a generation away. Brexit party for all the noise and suggestion of a level of tactical behaviour with the Conservatives only got 2% in 2019.
Related to the topic: Years ago I read about early efforts to computerize large banks in the US. Four large computer companies started trying to build banking software at the same time. Two of the four failed to provide a finished product, in spite of the profit opportunities.
Creating large software systems is hard. Worse yet, it looks easy to almost everyone with little software experience.
Expecting such systems to be bug-free, when delivered, is foolish.
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
There's a trope that it takes a second stake to the heart sometimes to defeat evil.
Buffy dealt with this in Buffy vs Dracula, while any other staked vampire in the series would turn to dust and that would be the end of it, Dracula turned to dust then Buffy waited and he reformed so she staked him again saying "I've seen enough of your movies to know you'd be back".
We had that trope come to political life in the UK with Corbyn, he lost the 2017 election but acted like he won it (not as badly as Trump acted of course) and it took a second defeat in 2019 to see him lose his until-then tight grip on Labour.
Hopefully a second stake through Trump this November, a second defeat, would release the GOP from the thrall like state it is in to Count Trumpula.
Lets hope Biden's victory is actually very comfortable or a landslide (I think it probably will be) to see off the Orange One and all his heirs and descendants once for all.
On abortion Trump is actually relatively moderate in GOP terms now, leaving it to the states rather than a nationwide ban as evangelicals want. He is also not as small state as some of the fiscally conservative right in Congress want.
It is perfectly possible that the GOP post a Trump defeat would move even further right, much as the Tories likely will in opposition.
It took Labour ten years to get to a centrist candidate again after Brown lost in 2010
I’d describe Ed Milliband as centrist….. maybe centre-left. One certainly can’t describe him as Left, any more than one could Kinnock or Brown.
Ed Miliband was left of David Miliband who he beat for the leadership. Brown was left of Blair, Kinnock left of Hattersley who he beat for the Labour leadership in 1983
I suppose, given their history, this is a hard argument for leaders to make, but Germany could give a useful stimulus to their economy by manufacturing more amunition for Ukraine, right now.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Quite. They wouldn't even need to attack the turbines, they could sever the interconnectors extremely easily and with virtually no risk of attack or even detection.
I think your ideological hatred of wind turbines is possibly just slightly clouding your judgment here.
Hitting thousands of small wind turbines and solar panels with drones might be possible but is evidently harder than hitting a single large station with thousands of drones (or even dozens, as Ukraine has shown in Russia).
Cutting interconnectors for wind is no easier than cutting transmission lines from a power station. Or cutting gas pipelines (as we’ve seen). Or blowing up gas storage (as we’ve seen).
I’m not just making this up. Just Google dispersed power generation and national security (or any similar phrase) and there’s days of reading material.
Not that I expect to convince you, of course. But it’s not enough to say a technology is vulnerable: all technologies are vulnerable. The question is whether it’s more or less vulnerable than the alternatives. I’d rather present the enemy with a target of several thousand dispersed wind turbines or 50 small gas plants than 5 huge nuclear or coal power stations.
I am sure that your comments on the vulnerability of coal and gas power stations (and particularly nuclear stations) is true, and I've criticised new nuclear for the UK on these grounds before (to precisely no agreement from PB I seem to remember).
However, it is you who seems still not to accept that nobody would need to attack individual windmills, given the fact that offshore wind is connected to the grid via large submerged power lines that can be taken out very easily. Yes this is the same risk as gas pipelines, but we've seen how effective a supposedly amateur attack on a gas pipeline was recently, so I don't think that helps your argument.
Except that gas was concentrated into just one offshore pipeline there.
Our offshore wind is dispersed in many, many different connections.
The unlikely event of cutting one doesn't cut the others, which is a positive for dispersal.
*Any* infrastructure is vulnerable. You would not need to go for the turbines themselves, but the cables that transmit the power to the land (generally one biggie per farm), or the offshore substation that takes the power from individual turbines, steps it up and sends it to shore through that cable.
Likewise, to stop gas, just hit (say) Bacton or Eastington where the pipelines come ashore.
What distributed power does give you is better disaster recovery. If you lose a big power station, just getting the turbines to repair it can take years in lead time. The kit is big, heavy, rare and expensive. But with smaller, lower-voltage kit built at a much greater scale, you can recover much more quickly, because you have many smaller projects instead of one or two massive ones (think building pillboxes versus La Coupole or the U-Boat pens, and the whole system can become more flexible and independent.
Load balancing may become a significant issue, however...
To be fair death usually is a significant cause of long term inactivity but it’s probably wise to be aware of whether your candidates are still alive or not before you cause offence to their bereft family.
This is the reason I'm highly dubious about REF polling 15% in the 2024 general election. Not this scenario, per se, but just the general amateurishness of the REF operation.
This is a party still very much in it's infancy and I think that will tell in a general election. REF 10% lower than their current polling position and CON 8% higher than their current polling position, IMO.
Of course if Farage replaces Tice in the next few weeks, then all bets are off, but I don't think he will. He seems to have his eyes set on the US at the moment.
Yeah I’m not convinced by the REF hype. It reminds me of the James Goldsmith Referendum Party in 1997 that was going to cause the Tories all sorts and in the end got about 2% and may have made made a difference in the tiniest handful of contests but probably not.
UKIPs high-watermark in general elections was 2015 where they got 12% of votes. 2015 feels a generation away. Brexit party for all the noise and suggestion of a level of tactical behaviour with the Conservatives only got 2% in 2019.
That was the election where we voted for a majority Conservative government for the first time in 23 years so we could avoid all the chaos of a Labour-led government, right?
Related to the topic: Years ago I read about early efforts to computerize large banks in the US. Four large computer companies started trying to build banking software at the same time. Two of the four failed to provide a finished product, in spite of the profit opportunities.
Creating large software systems is hard. Worse yet, it looks easy to almost everyone with little software experience.
Expecting such systems to be bug-free, when delivered, is foolish.
I used to work for an organisation which had its code quality reviewed by a former NASA software engineer. Our code - the main component of which came to just shy of one million lines - was deemed to be of high quality because our bug rate - number of bugs per hundred thousand lines of code - was low. But it always seemed to me that was a terrible way to measure code quality. What about all the bugs you hadn't found yet?
The problem with a system is never that it has bugs, but that it's difficult to fix bugs, or to correct any errors those bugs introduce into the data. It's not mistakes that are the problem, but what you do about them.
This is a major problem with politics at the moment. We'd expect that even a competent government would make lots of mistakes. It's responsible for so many different moving parts that it would be impossible for it to be otherwise. But our systems and culture for detecting, recognising and fixing these mistakes are really, really poor. They ultimately come down to whether a politician can be forced to resign or not, and the issue itself doesn't get addressed except in that context.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Unfortunately, air defences are complex and expensive assemblies of kit, and even NATO countries don’t keep huge supplies of spare systems lying around, but yes we need to get more of them into theatre as a matter of urgency.
Patriot is a super-heavyweight system; it's designed around a six launcher battalion of 1,000 people most of whom are highly trained (expensive) technical specialists and it costs an astonishing $4m every time you fire it. There's a full platoon just to look after the power generation set. The US could send shitloads of Patriot but Ukraine just hasn't got the people to operate them effectively.
If anyone gave a shit (and certainly looks like Big Rish and Abu Hunter don't particularly) they would be better off scouring the Middle East and Africa for SA-8/SA-10/SA-12 gear and buying that for whatever it costs.
This war has been interesting for the effectiveness of much old military technology, as well as a lot of low-level improvised technology at the front lines. That, and the silly Soviet tank design that sees them spontaneously explode when hit because they keep all the ammo under the gunner’s seat.
As you say, perhaps a very complex $1b+ system that costs $4m a missile and uses a lot of well-trained manpower, isn’t an effective use of resources when they’re mostly shooting down $1m drones or old Soviet missiles with them.
I agree that we should start looking for old-but-serviceable kit wherever we can find it in the world, although it will probably require somewhat unconventional procurement processes for much of it!
Many of the missiles they're shooting down are as expensive, if not more so. They're not using Patriots on cheap drones.
That's what the Gepards and similar are for.
There's also this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Precision_Kill_Weapon_System Ukraine is being supplied with APKWS rockets following the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine.[54][55] As part of an aid package announced by the U.S. in August 2022, the L3Harris Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment (VAMPIRE [uk]) system was ordered to be sent to Ukraine. The system consists of a sensor ball and a four-barreled APKWS rocket launcher that can be mounted on trucks. While it can direct laser-guided rockets on ground targets, the Pentagon specified it as a counter-UAS system...
A couple of the serious problems Ukraine has are defending high value, widely distributed targets (eg power stations) against long range high speed missiles, and the long range glide bombs being used in large numbers at the front. Those need the more expensive solutions.
On a tangential topic, the Ukraine war has demonstrated another benefit of a distributed energy grid. Solar and Wind power is much harder to target than centralised gas/coal or nuclear. And multiple smaller-scale, flexible gas plants are better than huge but fewer large coal stations.
Possibly the riskiest of all is hydro given the twin risks of a highly concentrated energy source - take out one hydro plant and in some countries you could be destroying 50% of national capacity - and the collateral damage of a destroyed dam.
Well, maybe, but how would Britain protect tens of thousands of North Sea wind turbines from large numbers of small cheap drones?
A couple of dozen larger power plants would be easier to protect with air defence equipment.
In both situations the best defence is offence - use your own long-range weaponry to take out the launch sites and warehouse where the enemy missiles and drones are stored and launched from.
Quite. They wouldn't even need to attack the turbines, they could sever the interconnectors extremely easily and with virtually no risk of attack or even detection.
I think your ideological hatred of wind turbines is possibly just slightly clouding your judgment here.
Hitting thousands of small wind turbines and solar panels with drones might be possible but is evidently harder than hitting a single large station with thousands of drones (or even dozens, as Ukraine has shown in Russia).
Cutting interconnectors for wind is no easier than cutting transmission lines from a power station. Or cutting gas pipelines (as we’ve seen). Or blowing up gas storage (as we’ve seen).
I’m not just making this up. Just Google dispersed power generation and national security (or any similar phrase) and there’s days of reading material.
Not that I expect to convince you, of course. But it’s not enough to say a technology is vulnerable: all technologies are vulnerable. The question is whether it’s more or less vulnerable than the alternatives. I’d rather present the enemy with a target of several thousand dispersed wind turbines or 50 small gas plants than 5 huge nuclear or coal power stations.
I am sure that your comments on the vulnerability of coal and gas power stations (and particularly nuclear stations) is true, and I've criticised new nuclear for the UK on these grounds before (to precisely no agreement from PB I seem to remember).
However, it is you who seems still not to accept that nobody would need to attack individual windmills, given the fact that offshore wind is connected to the grid via large submerged power lines that can be taken out very easily. Yes this is the same risk as gas pipelines, but we've seen how effective a supposedly amateur attack on a gas pipeline was recently, so I don't think that helps your argument.
There are more underwater cables than the number of pipelines. You’d need to take out multiple cables to take out significant portion of the UK offshore wind.
All steam based power stations are very vulnerable - attacks on the turbine/generator sets. They are often quite long, quite massive and rotating at high speed. Slightly off balance and it tears itself to pieces in a fraction of a second.
Shorting out the open air high voltage systems was easier, but after Gulf War I, a lot of these facilities grew protective nets around the exposed cabling and equipment.
latest IPSOS/Reuters polling for the US election, polling 4-8 April 2024, (number in brackets is for January):
Biden: 41% (38%)
Trump: 37% (43%)
GOP are mad. Literally anyone (ANYONE) could beat Biden, other than the Orange One!
There's a trope that it takes a second stake to the heart sometimes to defeat evil.
Buffy dealt with this in Buffy vs Dracula, while any other staked vampire in the series would turn to dust and that would be the end of it, Dracula turned to dust then Buffy waited and he reformed so she staked him again saying "I've seen enough of your movies to know you'd be back".
We had that trope come to political life in the UK with Corbyn, he lost the 2017 election but acted like he won it (not as badly as Trump acted of course) and it took a second defeat in 2019 to see him lose his until-then tight grip on Labour.
Hopefully a second stake through Trump this November, a second defeat, would release the GOP from the thrall like state it is in to Count Trumpula.
Lets hope Biden's victory is actually very comfortable or a landslide (I think it probably will be) to see off the Orange One and all his heirs and descendants once for all.
On abortion Trump is actually relatively moderate in GOP terms now, leaving it to the states rather than a nationwide ban as evangelicals want. He is also not as small state as some of the fiscally conservative right in Congress want.
It is perfectly possible that the GOP post a Trump defeat would move even further right, much as the Tories likely will in opposition.
It took Labour ten years to get to a centrist candidate again after Brown lost in 2010
I’d describe Ed Milliband as centrist….. maybe centre-left. One certainly can’t describe him as Left, any more than one could Kinnock or Brown.
I regret Ed Milliband. He was a useless retail politician, unable to articulate a simple idea. But he had a much better idea of what needed fixing and how than any recent leader. Better than Cameron.
Comments
IIRC London is the driest city in the country - certainly not typical of Britain!
You could go for Newcastle upon Tyne. That's dry and sunny by British standards, but certainly not warm. An attractive city though.
If I were living anywhere for climate, it would be somewhere like Skipton or Ilkley. Over the watershed so a bit drier, gets a bit more snow in winter. Neither really could be described as big cities though! How about Leeds?
c.65lb of gold is c.950 Troy ounces, which is worth around $2.2m in today’s money.
(The sensible conclusion would have been for the owner of the tank to have paid whatever taxes should have been paid on the import of the gold, and allowed to keep it, following a police investigation that confirmed there was no intent to defraud etc.)
https://x.com/lostglasgow/status/1777961342466453745?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Bad work, Labour!
Newcastle on Tyne’s a good place though.
My concerns are: Biden wilting or collapsing during the campaign too late to mitigate the damage. GOP malfeasance if it's close. "The Border" dominating debate. The impact of RFK.
Hitting thousands of small wind turbines and solar panels with drones might be possible but is evidently harder than hitting a single large station with thousands of drones (or even dozens, as Ukraine has shown in Russia).
Cutting interconnectors for wind is no easier than cutting transmission lines from a power station. Or cutting gas pipelines (as we’ve seen). Or blowing up gas storage (as we’ve seen).
I’m not just making this up. Just Google dispersed power generation and national security (or any similar phrase) and there’s days of reading material.
Not that I expect to convince you, of course. But it’s not enough to say a technology is vulnerable: all technologies are vulnerable. The question is whether it’s more or less vulnerable than the alternatives. I’d rather present the enemy with a target of several thousand dispersed wind turbines or 50 small gas plants than 5 huge nuclear or coal power stations.
@bjo is at Liverpool ffs outdoors about to see some cracking racing and he is at the sharp end as they come over the last with all the drama that entails. The only thing that could possibly be improved is if he nipped over to get a hog roast to go with his beer.
Come on people, think!
*One of the most serious crimes in corporate fukery
However, I regard myself as privileged to live in London. It’s simply the greatest city in the world, and it’d kill me to move. I never will.
Norwich is not a metropolis. Nor Chelmsford, or Oxford or Bath or Bournemouth. Glasgow is a proper city with all that entails, including grand architecture and a proper hinterland. We lack those in the South of the country. Only really Bristol outside London. The others are just outsized towns.
Talking of which, they say it’s always 5pm somewhere, well for me it’s about to be beer o’clock! 🍻
(£11or £12 is more normal at a sports or arts venue though).
Go to Miraflores, in Lima. Cocktails at Park Lane prices.
The difference to London, is how fast that falls off. How far to you have to go (time of travel, not just miles) in Glasgow before the London priced stuff at the centre is a distant memory? With London, you have to go 2 hours on the train (plus travel at either end) before the housing costs really start to fall.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/25222649/found-gold-iraqi-tank-lost-fortune/
Things are looking up!
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/134701031#
"“We set a simple principle: Anyone who hits us, we hit them,” Netanyahu says".
Disconnection much? Who bombed whose embassy? (And they're not even apologising, as the USA did to Nicaragua in Panama and to China in Yugoslavia. They're proud of it.)
Tomorrow could be a flashpoint in Jerusalem, the world's biggest provocation magnet. Friday prayers specifically.
I think the practical problems raised by the West Lothian question are a little overstated. But it does raise a fundamental point that, if you have a system of devolution where not all powers are equally devolved in all areas, you unavoidably get a situation where decisions are made about a person living in an area where there is less devolution by MPs whose own constituents have no skin in the game at all because the matter is devolved in their country or region the route to change it is via the UK Parliament. EVEL has been proposed as a "solution" but is highly problematic in that there is no English Executive in that model.
What you're raising is a feature of the constitutional settlement that you personally disagree with - we can all do that in a range of policy areas. But there's a clear mechanism to change it. What the West Lothian question does is point out a problem which is pretty much inherent in the system.
I don't say that to diminish the issue you raise. I disagree with pretty much everything the Government does and I want them out. But my position on that doesn't raise a fundamental constitutional question - the mechanism for not having a Tory Government is clear and well established - you have a General Election where they (and potential allies like the DUP) lose enough seats across the UK to ensure that they can no longer form a Government.
Hypocrisy is the common currency of all politics.
sunnydreary Wiltshire.However, the weather for months here seems to have mostly been lifted from The Others.
If it had been called "Envious Guy", it wouldn't just have been a flop but would also have made the same linguistic error you did.
Edit: it was loudly proclaimed also that only MPs for English constituencies would be allowed to be PM, I seem to recall. Not very logically, but never mind.
(BTW 'Executive' has been out of date since 2007, formally 2012. I was wondering what this English presidential system was all about ...)
It's a great deal more complicated than you suggest - even setting aside the deeply unsatisfactory position of different states having wild different laws on the matter, which necessarily impact on their fellow states, and create a geographic lottery for women's reproductive rights.
That is all consistent with facilitation from the top of a cover up.
The counter argument to that is that systems for countering cheap drones are getting smaller and cheaper, and could, probably will, be co-located with offshore wind.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-68788850
To be fair death usually is a significant cause of long term inactivity but it’s probably wise to be aware of whether your candidates are still alive or not before you cause offence to their bereft family.
The world will be grateful to you for stopping Armageddon.
Remember this guy on the Soviet submarine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov
“The cows can’t even have someone lean on them (...) You can make them impure by just placing your jacket on their back.”
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-west-bank-settlers-red-cows-third-temple
...There was a question from a lawyer representing five former Post Office branch managers, including Lee Castleton and Seema Misra.
She told the inquiry she intended to ask if the Ismay report was a "cover-up".
That led to quite a long legal discussion. It was explained to Smith that he was not required to answer questions if it could be self-incriminating and that he could discuss it with his solicitor if he wished to.
Smith said he would take on the question of whether Ismay was a cover-up, and says: "No, absolutely not."..
The only real arguments against is that it might put witnesses on their guard - but that's already happened - or that more evidence might emerge during the enquiry.
That happens in normal investigations after a charge, so I don't see the problem.
I don't think so.
Buffy dealt with this in Buffy vs Dracula, while any other staked vampire in the series would turn to dust and that would be the end of it, Dracula turned to dust then Buffy waited and he reformed so she staked him again saying "I've seen enough of your movies to know you'd be back".
We had that trope come to political life in the UK with Corbyn, he lost the 2017 election but acted like he won it (not as badly as Trump acted of course) and it took a second defeat in 2019 to see him lose his until-then tight grip on Labour.
Hopefully a second stake through Trump this November, a second defeat, would release the GOP from the thrall like state it is in to Count Trumpula.
This is a party still very much in it's infancy and I think that will tell in a general election. REF 10% lower than their current polling position and CON 8% higher than their current polling position, IMO.
Of course if Farage replaces Tice in the next few weeks, then all bets are off, but I don't think he will. He seems to have his eyes set on the US at the moment.
The Westminster Parliament would only be an English Parliament if Scottish MPs were forbidden to vote on English matters, and an English executive existed for whichever party had the majority of English MPs. EVEL didn't do either.
The executive is still based on total Westminster MPs, which until now has by coincidence been the same as total English MPs (as it was in Scotland 1997-2007) but might not be in the future.
And non-English MPs could still block English-only legislation, as they did twice in having Scottish MPs blocking laws that would have made English law the same as what Scottish law already was.
For those arguing it's "just assembly" work, that's not unlike what was being said about China not so long ago.
Apple’s shift of iPhone manufacturing to India is happening faster than many had expected.
2021: 1% made in India
2023: 7%
2024: 14%
2025 goal: 25%
https://twitter.com/kyleichan/status/1778244875298718042
See page 98 of the 2019 Labour manifesto:
"Immediately suspend the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen and to Israel for arms used in violation of the human rights of Palestinian civilians".
We get it, you like murderers and rapists and dislike democracy.
We should increase arms supply to those free democracies fighting for their survival like Ukraine and Israel.
It wouldn’t be difficult to waste a lot of money and scarce ammunition on cheap or insignificant incoming threats, and requires a judgement against damage caused by what’s incoming vs the cost of defending against it. So your Patriot battery need to be targeting enemy fighter planes and hypersonic missiles, not small drones and ballistic bombs - even if the latter will cause damage and injury to civilians.
It's entirely fair to argue that had the GOP not spent the last four years sinking further in thrall to Trump then any other candidate they might have selected would now have a far better chance against Biden in November, of course.
But in those circumstances, Biden himself might not now be running.
If the GOP were to ditch Trump before November (which seems exceedingly unlikely) they are still going to be riven between the two thirds MAGA and one third politically sane set fo Republicans - and the chaos around the selection of a replacement would likely impact the chances of whomever they picked. MAGA or sane.
Though with very sketchy resources.
It is perfectly possible that the GOP post a Trump defeat would move even further right, much as the Tories likely will in opposition.
It took Labour ten years to get to a centrist candidate again after Brown lost in 2010
I agree on the thrall thing and made the same remark myself a few comments earlier.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/11/vietnamese-property-tycoon-sentenced-to-death-in-27bn-case
Impressive that Leon managed visit, apparently without noticing this story.
(Apols. if he did and I missed it.)
Just a reminder, Biden's approval ratings are awful and so not presage re-election for an incumbent. Biden is polling so much further behind than in 2020 that it's plausible Trump will win the popular vote.
Just not Corbynite extreme Left.
However, it is you who seems still not to accept that nobody would need to attack individual windmills, given the fact that offshore wind is connected to the grid via large submerged power lines that can be taken out very easily. Yes this is the same risk as gas pipelines, but we've seen how effective a supposedly amateur attack on a gas pipeline was recently, so I don't think that helps your argument.
"Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) is stepping up his pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to put the Senate-passed foreign aid bill up for a vote in the House, warning Wednesday that “starving” Ukraine of military support is “strategic and moral malpractice.”
McConnell told a radio host in Louisville recently that despite plans to retire from Senate leadership, he intends to stay in the Senate through the end of his term in 2027 in order to fight back “against the isolationist movement in my own party.”'
source: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4585352-mitch-mcconnell-ukraine-aid/
There is good reason to beleive that a majority of Senate Republicans agree with his argument. (He probably said it in Louisville, rather than DC, to undermine the junior senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul.)
Russian strikes completely destroy key Ukrainian power plant
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68788110
A major power plant near Kyiv was completely destroyed by Russian strikes early on Thursday, energy company Centrenergo said.
Trypillya power plant was the largest provider of electricity for three regions, including Kyiv.
"The scale of destruction is terrifying," Centrenergo chairman Andriy Hota said.
Russia has long been deliberately and systematically targeting Ukraine's energy system.
Mr Hota told the BBC that Thursday morning's strikes destroyed "the transformer, the turbines, the generators. They destroyed 100%".
A fire broke out in the turbine workshop of the Trypillya plant - located 50km (31 miles) to the south of Kyiv - following Thursday's large-scale airborne attack.
The Centrenergo boss said the plant was targeted by multiple missiles. Staff on shift were able to escape, he said, because they ran for cover as soon as the first drone hit.
Residents were urged to shut their windows, charge all their devices and stock up on water.
More than 80 missiles and drones targeted sites across Ukraine in the early hours of Thursday. Many targeted energy infrastructure and almost a third made it through Ukraine's air defences.
Hours later, Centrenergo confirmed its Trypillya plant had been put out of use. Mr Hota said his company's entire generative capacity in Ukraine was now destroyed...
The person Trump picks as his coxsucker, er, Vice President.
Who will presumably be the person preferred if he is either locked up or spontaneously combusts while shouting bullshit about Obama at a rally
Still no word, of course, although I've heard mutterings about Vance, Ramaswamy and even Lake.
Our offshore wind is dispersed in many, many different connections.
The unlikely event of cutting one doesn't cut the others, which is a positive for dispersal.
"...Polls before the election is called are simply measuring the popularity of the incumbent. Only when the election becomes due do people concentrate on the actual choice...", Curtice, RSS Conference, wording approximate
Also I am not sure that Farage would change that equation much. UKIPs high-watermark in general elections was 2015 where they got 12% of votes. 2015 feels a generation away. Brexit party for all the noise and suggestion of a level of tactical behaviour with the Conservatives only got 2% in 2019.
Creating large software systems is hard. Worse yet, it looks easy to almost everyone with little software experience.
Expecting such systems to be bug-free, when delivered, is foolish.
https://guidetofloatingoffshorewind.com/guide/b-balance-of-plant/b-4-offshore-substation/
Likewise, to stop gas, just hit (say) Bacton or Eastington where the pipelines come ashore.
What distributed power does give you is better disaster recovery. If you lose a big power station, just getting the turbines to repair it can take years in lead time. The kit is big, heavy, rare and expensive. But with smaller, lower-voltage kit built at a much greater scale, you can recover much more quickly, because you have many smaller projects instead of one or two massive ones (think building pillboxes versus La Coupole or the U-Boat pens, and the whole system can become more flexible and independent.
Load balancing may become a significant issue, however...
The problem with a system is never that it has bugs, but that it's difficult to fix bugs, or to correct any errors those bugs introduce into the data. It's not mistakes that are the problem, but what you do about them.
This is a major problem with politics at the moment. We'd expect that even a competent government would make lots of mistakes. It's responsible for so many different moving parts that it would be impossible for it to be otherwise. But our systems and culture for detecting, recognising and fixing these mistakes are really, really poor. They ultimately come down to whether a politician can be forced to resign or not, and the issue itself doesn't get addressed except in that context.
All steam based power stations are very vulnerable - attacks on the turbine/generator sets. They are often quite long, quite massive and rotating at high speed. Slightly off balance and it tears itself to pieces in a fraction of a second.
Shorting out the open air high voltage systems was easier, but after Gulf War I, a lot of these facilities grew protective nets around the exposed cabling and equipment.
https://news.sky.com/story/royal-navy-recruits-no-longer-need-to-be-swimmers-13112849
To be fair, I don't think RAF recruits have to be able to fly by themselves...