Radacanu continues to be overrated and peaked too soon.
Bit ungenerous. She came out of nowhere to win a Grand Slam then was beset by injuries. This marks her return/rebirth from those injuries so give her time. That said, she was played off the court by Lulu. 93mph forehand winners ffs.
Not really ungenerous, what I am saying is true. She's a good player but she's been over-hyped and allowed to be put up too high to only fall down.
She'd have been much better off not being hyped up so early. Only disappointment will follow.
I seem to recall a poster on here continuously predicting that Radacanu would become a global sporting phenomenon - a sort of female amalgamation of Pelé, Muhammad Ali and Tiger Woods for the 21st Century. (But that chap is prone to hyperbole and not all of his many prophecies bear fruit.)
No - they are commemorating the start of the Senedd. It wasn't 'born', it doesn't have a birthday.
As is often the case with the BBC it’s a pretty tedious and banal figure of speech, but hardly despicable. We live in a state where its head has two fecking birthdays after all.
Unless I’m reading the results wrong, LPF were 3m votes behind RN but because of the way that the tactical voting worked came first on seats.
I’m not sure that bodes well. It’s a bullet dodged but the RN scored by far the highest number of votes (over 10% more on my understanding?). That would be a bit like Labour falling short of a majority on Thursday 10 points ahead of the Tories. It’s the electoral system and alliances that have caused the result.
It raises an important point but I think it's democracy working, not the other way round. The left and centre alliances intended to impose a pseudo PR system on top of a two phase FPTP system. It turned out extremely successful.
The important point is RN is extremely transfer unfriendly. Almost everyone will choose anyone other than RN if their preferred candidate is not available. Le Pen has more votes than anyone else but she can't work a coalition. She can only win if she is the biggest party and gets a majority under FPTP.
The message from this election is the two thirds of the French population who don't support Le Pen have given all the other parties a mandate to sort something out between them. Whether they do or not remains to be seen.
In a way, it’s similar to Gerry Adams’ defeat in 1992, on a larger scale. Most of us cheered, but we overlooked that his vote increased.
And SF can't get a majority in NI or the Republic even now.
RN clearly are too toxic to get anywhere near a majority in France or to win the Presidential election without centre right support, at present LR voters clearly still prefer Macron's party in runoffs to RN. LR voters will only hold their nose and vote for RN to keep out Melenchon and the far left
The Good Friday Agreement states that consent for a united Ireland must be “freely and concurrently given” in both the North and the South of the island of Ireland. This is widely interpreted to mean that future border polls must be held in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland at the same time.
[...]
As part of the Good Friday Agreement, an explicit provision for holding a Northern Ireland border poll was made in UK law. The Northern Ireland Act 1998 states that “if at any time it appears likely to him that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland”, the Secretary of State shall make an Order in Council enabling a border poll.
I have to imagine that the above is true - it appears likely to me that a majority of those voting (NI and ROI) will want reunification. Do we have enough time to make Star Trek lore correct?
No, given in NI at this year's general election 40% voted for the Unionist DUP/UUP/TUV and just 38% for the Nationalist SF and SDLP
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
The brain doctors who has visited 8 times in as many months, I presume might have done some testing. I highly doubt he turned up, tapped him on the noggin and said seems fine to me.
The problem is everything has been covered up and now like Emperors new clothes story incident at the debate all those who have facilitated this cover up are now scrambling around, I presume trying to throw other people under the bus.
On the mildly hilarious "We hate FPTP now Labour has wrongly won instead of us". Are the Tories proposing a rerun of the AV referendum, but this time we will say Yes ?
I voted for AV. Pretty much just Oxford Cambridge and Hampstead as I recall.
Nobody questioned David Cameron's mandate in 2015.
People only dislike Labour because of how intelligently they used the voting system to their advantage.
If you hate this, back PR as I do.
I don't think Labour used the voting system to their advantage - they made a pitch to the electorate who responded as they did. The outcome looks like some master plan, that's an illusion.
Its totally right to say that many previous majority governments have not had a majority of votes. In this case there are several skews that look very unfair. Labour's vote does not warrant such a huge majority. Reform getting more votes but vastly fewer seats than the Lib Dems etc. But complaining NOW because its worked against your party (be you Tory, Reform, Green' etc smacks of being a poor loser. Labour and Tories have had majorities in the past and could have changed the system. They didn't because it normally works for them.
Whether or not it was a plan or not - it seems like the electorate at least acted in a way that made sense within the system we have if the desire was to kick out Tories:
The efficiency of the combined LD/LAB vote shares is a real sight to behold. The Lib Dem share in seats Labour won seems to have rarely surpassed 10%, then as soon as the Labour share drops below ~30% the LD share explodes.
There is a very pretty visual with that tweet as well.
The LD problems would start once the preponderance of voters want 'Labour out' as the priority - as 'Tories out' was the priority this time. There are few seats where the LDs can help with such a project as there is nowhere (virtually) where they can beat Labour. As in 2015 they would get squashed in the crush.
It is heavily in their political interests for the public to want to keep the Tories out.
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
Erhhh, the brain doctors who has visited 8 times in as many months, I presume might have done some testing. I highly doubt he turned up, tapped him on the noggin and said seems fine to me.
Perhaps Nate means a public test with the results actually made public?
The number of lawmakers who explicitly said Biden should not be the Democratic nominee was greater than the number who spoke up for him to stay, according to one of the sources.
It does seem like a lot of people want Biden to step down, and it's now a matter of can he be persuaded to do so.
The debate from last week starts to come across as a stitch-up against the President, there’s been such a co-ordinated response to it since before they even left the stage. There’s no way that everyone in his own party thought he was doing just fine until that moment, when it’s been clear for years that he’s been getting noticeably older and slower.
The problem now is how to deal with Kamala Harris, who’s polling is even worse than Biden’s, but she was a diversity hire so can’t be swapped out easily without upsetting people.
Meanwhile, some of us first mentioned Gretchen Whitmer a long time ago
"Diversity hire" - well done for picking up the right wing trope. Harris is a cut above about three quarter of all VP picks. And get about ten time the average criticism.
I'd say Palin, Ferraro, Eagleton / Shriver, Agnew and Miller.
Its generally a list of solid politicians used to balance the ticket on geographical and experience lines.
VPs exist to balance out the weaknesses of the top of the ticket. Harris does that as well as anyone else here - Biden was old and had senatorial and foreign affair experience as a long time member of the senate and as VP himself. Harris has experience as a prosecutor and state senator, but also her lived experience - being from a younger generation and being a woman of colour in the US. You can say that she had less political experience than most above (even on that score she still beats Pence, imho, who started his career as a conservative radio host in the vein of Rush Limbaugh).
Pence was a Governor and former House Rep so had experience in both executive and legislature.
Which together with being an evangelical and from the mid west provided the necessary balance to Trump.
Harris was able to give balance to Biden as you say but she would need someone very different to give balance to her as President. Andy Beshear would tick most boxes in that case.
If she really wanted to piss off the left and hope to try and eat into the GOP vote she should pick Joe Manchin... but I'd rather she didn't
Joe Manchin might have made a very good GOP candidate.
The number of lawmakers who explicitly said Biden should not be the Democratic nominee was greater than the number who spoke up for him to stay, according to one of the sources.
It does seem like a lot of people want Biden to step down, and it's now a matter of can he be persuaded to do so.
The debate from last week starts to come across as a stitch-up against the President, there’s been such a co-ordinated response to it since before they even left the stage. There’s no way that everyone in his own party thought he was doing just fine until that moment, when it’s been clear for years that he’s been getting noticeably older and slower.
The problem now is how to deal with Kamala Harris, who’s polling is even worse than Biden’s, but she was a diversity hire so can’t be swapped out easily without upsetting people.
Meanwhile, some of us first mentioned Gretchen Whitmer a long time ago
"Diversity hire" - well done for picking up the right wing trope. Harris is a cut above about three quarter of all VP picks. And get about ten time the average criticism.
I'm quite taken by her term "Grey Belt" for mess ^ scrub in the Green Belt.
Putting housing targets back on local authorities is a good move.
I wonder if she has a "little list" of Rishi's Hail Mary Passes to consider reversing?
It’s the right thing to do, but probably not a popular thing to do.
I think we will learn much about their judgement of how quickly benefit will be seen/felt vs assessment of short term political hit vs assessment of long term political hit.
What I think they would like is a slow-burn stealth money raiser like Gordon Brown's hit on pensions early on which was hardly noticed.
Something that comes across as looking like a minor change, but actually upends decades of orthodoxy to long-term planning, costing the government many billions more as private companies totally abandon an entire sector?
Builder shares up OTOH, admittedly some days back.
Of course they are. The builders love any loosening of planning regs as it saves them money. As I have said many times before planning regs are not about stopping building but about making sure it is done in the right way with the right safeguards for the environment etc.
The biggest influence on how many houses we build is the attitiude of he builders themselves. The Telegraph rather amusingly pointed out a few days ago that planning aplications collapsed last year. They blamed planning regs when in fact it was directly due to the plateauing in house price rises which causd the builders to stop building. They don't want house prices to fall. And if they look like doing so then they will simply stop building houses until they start to rise again.
If you want more houses built then they need to be directly financed and built by local councils. Take the profit motive out of housing supply for a while and you will be able to build what we need and where we need.
The builders love any minor loosening of planning regs as they retain their monopoly to be able to game the planning system, combined with being able to do what they want.
A proper reform/abolition of planning regs would smash the builders monopoly by allowing anyone who wants to build a house to do so without having to play the planning game first.
Not to forget that much of the planning regs currently are offshoring the state's responsibility to provide facilities for population growth by falsely calling it an "externality" of housing, when population growth happens due to longer life expectancy, births and migration not construction.
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
Erhhh, the brain doctors who has visited 8 times in as many months, I presume might have done some testing. I highly doubt he turned up, tapped him on the noggin and said seems fine to me.
Perhaps Nate means a public test with the results actually made public?
You don't need to be a medic to think that even if Biden is passable now there is no way he will be able to serve all the way to January 2029.
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
Both of my living grandparents (85 and 93) are more coherent than the Biden I've seen in interviews / the debate - and if they started talking like him I would indeed be concerned. And even with their relatively good cognitive ability for their age - that's in part because they have nothing to do except continue living, enjoying the company of family and reading / watching TV / listening to music. They barely go out of the house, because of the strain on them, and they rarely host the entire family like they used to (weekly Friday dinners with more of a dozen of us because it included 4 generations of the family). The idea they would be doing a job, let alone arguably the most stressful and significant job in the world? Absurd.
The Democrats are insane for allowing this to happen; and keep letting it happen - the same issue was apparent with Feinstein, and because the Democratic Senate leadership didn't want Newsome picking the replacement senator, they just kept her until she died; bad for democracy (as it halted the process of multiple judicial nominees under Biden) and completely ghastly for Feinstein herself, who should have been able to retire in peace. The same with RBG - if she had retired when Obama asked not only would the court be 5-4 (maybe even 4-5 towards the libs if he had forced through Merrick Garland), but she could have had a retirement where she could openly criticize the court beyond the criticism that is allowed via dissenting opinions.
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
Erhhh, the brain doctors who has visited 8 times in as many months, I presume might have done some testing. I highly doubt he turned up, tapped him on the noggin and said seems fine to me.
Perhaps Nate means a public test with the results actually made public?
But the White House know he will fail a legit one. We are in the ridiculous situation where we have all seen the Emperor walking butt naked down main street and nobody is buying the gaslighting attempt at it was a cold or a jetlag. And all those who did have a good idea about this in the media are trying to act shocked, as if they had never seen the Emperor do something similar before.
Its all phoney from every side now that the cat is out of the bag.
The number of lawmakers who explicitly said Biden should not be the Democratic nominee was greater than the number who spoke up for him to stay, according to one of the sources.
It does seem like a lot of people want Biden to step down, and it's now a matter of can he be persuaded to do so.
The debate from last week starts to come across as a stitch-up against the President, there’s been such a co-ordinated response to it since before they even left the stage. There’s no way that everyone in his own party thought he was doing just fine until that moment, when it’s been clear for years that he’s been getting noticeably older and slower.
The problem now is how to deal with Kamala Harris, who’s polling is even worse than Biden’s, but she was a diversity hire so can’t be swapped out easily without upsetting people.
Meanwhile, some of us first mentioned Gretchen Whitmer a long time ago
"Diversity hire" - well done for picking up the right wing trope. Harris is a cut above about three quarter of all VP picks. And get about ten time the average criticism.
I'd say Palin, Ferraro, Eagleton / Shriver, Agnew and Miller.
Its generally a list of solid politicians used to balance the ticket on geographical and experience lines.
VPs exist to balance out the weaknesses of the top of the ticket. Harris does that as well as anyone else here - Biden was old and had senatorial and foreign affair experience as a long time member of the senate and as VP himself. Harris has experience as a prosecutor and state senator, but also her lived experience - being from a younger generation and being a woman of colour in the US. You can say that she had less political experience than most above (even on that score she still beats Pence, imho, who started his career as a conservative radio host in the vein of Rush Limbaugh).
Pence was a Governor and former House Rep so had experience in both executive and legislature.
Which together with being an evangelical and from the mid west provided the necessary balance to Trump.
Harris was able to give balance to Biden as you say but she would need someone very different to give balance to her as President. Andy Beshear would tick most boxes in that case.
If she really wanted to piss off the left and hope to try and eat into the GOP vote she should pick Joe Manchin... but I'd rather she didn't
Manchin would be an awful pick electorally as well as politically.
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
The brain doctors who has visited 8 times in as many months, I presume might have done some testing. I highly doubt he turned up, tapped him on the noggin and said seems fine to me.
The problem is everything has been covered up and now like Emperors new clothes story incident at the debate all those who have facilitated this cover up are now scrambling around, I presume trying to throw other people under the bus.
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
The number of lawmakers who explicitly said Biden should not be the Democratic nominee was greater than the number who spoke up for him to stay, according to one of the sources.
It does seem like a lot of people want Biden to step down, and it's now a matter of can he be persuaded to do so.
The debate from last week starts to come across as a stitch-up against the President, there’s been such a co-ordinated response to it since before they even left the stage. There’s no way that everyone in his own party thought he was doing just fine until that moment, when it’s been clear for years that he’s been getting noticeably older and slower.
The problem now is how to deal with Kamala Harris, who’s polling is even worse than Biden’s, but she was a diversity hire so can’t be swapped out easily without upsetting people.
Meanwhile, some of us first mentioned Gretchen Whitmer a long time ago
This is the issue, dump Biden for sure. But replace him with Harris? Fuck that, Trump will walk it in November against her. What they need is a southern Democrat governor or senator who's not too liberal, not gay and not old.
Why do conservatives think they have a special insight into who the Democrats should pick if Biden drops out ?
I want the candidate who has the best chance of beating Trump which isn't Harris. It's a white (probably male) Democrat from the south or at a push the rust belt. In the same way the Tories are going to have to find a candidate that can win back their small c conservative heartlands in the south (so not Braverman or any other right wing loon) the Dems need to find someone who can win across the whole country so not some drug decriminalising lefty liberal who drives a solar power car and has had sex change surgery.
Keep Trump out this time and he's done for good. If that means comprising and not having an ultra liberal candidate so be it.
There's no process for getting what you want. You're effectively asking for a messy intra-party fight, a couple of months before the election, with unpredictable but quite likely damaging consequences.
Realistically, the option most likely to win the general election is Harris.
The highlighted bit shows how unserious you are about the process.
I think the process is whatever process Joe Biden chooses? They're his delegates, they'll follow whatever he recommends unless it's obviously bonkers. If he said, "I've asked Andy Beshear to take over as nominee, we need to beat Trump and I think he's our best bet" they'd vote for that. Alternatively if he said, "I've asked the DNC to organize some debates and a quickie primary in selected states and recommend a nominee" they'd vote for the nominee they recommended.
I'm not at all saying any of this is going to happen but it's not at all procedurally impossible. If Biden wants to do X and he gets senior Dems on board (which is the kind of thing he's really good at), X will happen.
A shame that it seems we will have nothing on 4G/5G and planning changes for that, today.
My photo quota for the day. They need JOINED-UP planning for 5G phone masts, as with so many other things.
This one aka "Middle Finger" was built in the middle of the new strategic Active Travel route at the Pentagon Island, Derby, in 2023. The Active Travel route is one which is part of a £100m * package covering Nottingham and Derby allocated in iirc 2022, over 3-4 years.
* For the record, £100m is a pittance for an area of 750k people for active travel. There is currently £50m being spent on improving a single traffic island on the Nottingham Ring Road, one of many highways projects on that scale locally.
Is that malicious compliance with some stupid rules by a stupid person being stupid? Stupidly?
It's taking the easiest route, because you can get away with it.
Further example, the Council have planning permission, and imposed a condition to extend the shared path on the other side which is that mini-bit extra on the left opposite the post.
But the Planning Condition did not include required dimensions, so the phone company did an extensions about 1/3 of the width of the block they had caused, and the Council cannot enforce.
Just sheer lack of professionalism in addition to stupid policy / lack of sweating the detail.
You can see the same thing everywhere across the country.
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
The brain doctors who has visited 8 times in as many months, I presume might have done some testing. I highly doubt he turned up, tapped him on the noggin and said seems fine to me.
The problem is everything has been covered up and now like Emperors new clothes story incident at the debate all those who have facilitated this cover up are now scrambling around, I presume trying to throw other people under the bus.
White House visitor logs are public.
No, I am talking about the cover up by the establishment and media that there is real problem here, not the specific story that a neurologist visited. Even now we are getting the BS about jet lag (from two weeks prior to the debate and after a week off prepping for the debate).
The fact we have got to a stage where the neurologist has been a regular visitor means there must have been concerns for a long time, but code of silence.
Hustings for Tory MPs to hear candidates to be new chairman of the 1922 committee will be held today or tomorrow. New 1922 chairman should be in place by tomorrow night. So far Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Bob Blackman expected to stand. Senior Tories want Rishi Sunak to stay on as leader til September October to avoid an interim being required.
The number of lawmakers who explicitly said Biden should not be the Democratic nominee was greater than the number who spoke up for him to stay, according to one of the sources.
It does seem like a lot of people want Biden to step down, and it's now a matter of can he be persuaded to do so.
The debate from last week starts to come across as a stitch-up against the President, there’s been such a co-ordinated response to it since before they even left the stage. There’s no way that everyone in his own party thought he was doing just fine until that moment, when it’s been clear for years that he’s been getting noticeably older and slower.
The problem now is how to deal with Kamala Harris, who’s polling is even worse than Biden’s, but she was a diversity hire so can’t be swapped out easily without upsetting people.
Meanwhile, some of us first mentioned Gretchen Whitmer a long time ago
"Diversity hire" - well done for picking up the right wing trope. Harris is a cut above about three quarter of all VP picks. And get about ten time the average criticism.
I'd say Palin, Ferraro, Eagleton / Shriver, Agnew and Miller.
Its generally a list of solid politicians used to balance the ticket on geographical and experience lines.
VPs exist to balance out the weaknesses of the top of the ticket. Harris does that as well as anyone else here - Biden was old and had senatorial and foreign affair experience as a long time member of the senate and as VP himself. Harris has experience as a prosecutor and state senator, but also her lived experience - being from a younger generation and being a woman of colour in the US. You can say that she had less political experience than most above (even on that score she still beats Pence, imho, who started his career as a conservative radio host in the vein of Rush Limbaugh).
Pence was a Governor and former House Rep so had experience in both executive and legislature.
Which together with being an evangelical and from the mid west provided the necessary balance to Trump.
Harris was able to give balance to Biden as you say but she would need someone very different to give balance to her as President. Andy Beshear would tick most boxes in that case.
If she really wanted to piss off the left and hope to try and eat into the GOP vote she should pick Joe Manchin... but I'd rather she didn't
Manchin would be an awful pick electorally as well as politically.
I mean, I hate him as a politician and don't rate him. But knowing how Dems think they will want to "reassure" the electorate that they aren't as left wing as the GOP suggest they are. Best way to do that would be to make the most right wing Democrat the VP (because the most right wing Democrat is still to the left of the most left wing GOP politician). As VP the only real power he has is if the Senate is tied or if Kamala were to die. Sure, he could mouth off against stuff if the Dems do go "too far" left - but I doubt he would, his ego would be stroked by being VP and the potential that gives him in the future to run for POTUS.
Nobody questioned David Cameron's mandate in 2015.
People only dislike Labour because of how intelligently they used the voting system to their advantage.
If you hate this, back PR as I do.
I don't think Labour used the voting system to their advantage - they made a pitch to the electorate who responded as they did. The outcome looks like some master plan, that's an illusion.
Its totally right to say that many previous majority governments have not had a majority of votes. In this case there are several skews that look very unfair. Labour's vote does not warrant such a huge majority. Reform getting more votes but vastly fewer seats than the Lib Dems etc. But complaining NOW because its worked against your party (be you Tory, Reform, Green' etc smacks of being a poor loser. Labour and Tories have had majorities in the past and could have changed the system. They didn't because it normally works for them.
With the Tory vote falling by so much, neither Labour nor LibDems could really lose. If the planning, targetting and campaigning made a difference, it will be at the margins.
All the data suggests that Reform didn't make a great deal of difference to the Tory prospects, contrary to what many of them will think. Exhibit A, the polling that shows Reform voters would, without a candidate, have split pretty equally between the government and the opposition parties, Exhibit B, West Dorset, which had no Reform candidate yet the Tory got the same massive adverse swing as in other seats. I expect the detailed research that YouGov and others are doing will provide further exhibits in due course.
What is true is that the majority of Reform voters had backed the Tories previously, and while many wanted to see the back of the government as much as the rest of us, having voted Tory before, we assume they could be in the market for doing so in the future. Ashcroft's exit poll found 16% of Tory to Reform voters saying they'd never vote Tory again, 31% saying maybe one day but not next time, and 45% saying they might give the Tories another chance next time. But of course people don't really know, in the heat of the moment.
However, the Tories do clearly have a strong incentive for Reform to implode or fade away.
A shame that it seems we will have nothing on 4G/5G and planning changes for that, today.
My photo quota for the day. They need JOINED-UP planning for 5G phone masts, as with so many other things.
This one aka "Middle Finger" was built in the middle of the new strategic Active Travel route at the Pentagon Island, Derby, in 2023. The Active Travel route is one which is part of a £100m * package covering Nottingham and Derby allocated in iirc 2022, over 3-4 years.
* For the record, £100m is a pittance for an area of 750k people for active travel. There is currently £50m being spent on improving a single traffic island on the Nottingham Ring Road, one of many highways projects on that scale locally.
Where would you like this mast to be placed? Perhaps onto the grass next to it? But the MNO will have concluded it must be there for coverage reasons.
I would certainly advocate shared, much taller sites and with no planning required in urban areas.
1) moving it a meter or two onto the grass wouldn’t effect coverage that much? 2) what about a combined phone mast/light standard for the road?
1) You'd be surprised how much a small movement can make - but I would agree with you in principle. This is something that should already be allowed for under planning regs, the MNO should have to justify not putting it on the grass say.
2) They already exist but are limited in the bands and spectrum they can support because the structure is often too small. They hamper upgrades because of needing to work with the council (go figure) and they will not support all MNOs.
The better solution would be a taller lamp-post mast as there but further back and with support for all MNOs on it. That is already possible. If they allowed these up to 50m say they'd need fewer of them.
It's an example I'll be using for some lobbying of the LHA and the new Mayor,
It's also about staff not being skilled enough, which links back to budgets and skill bases and training policies.
The local Council policy on National Guidelines for various things is "we do not have a policy because our design engineers take it all into account." I FOId Derby on this one wrt LTN 1/20. At the same time they will have a policy of little or no CPD, so their engineers will continue doing what they did when they started.
It should be a most basic of basics that obstructing the public highway is unacceptable, whether that is the carriageway or the footway.
Hustings for Tory MPs to hear candidates to be new chairman of the 1922 committee will be held today or tomorrow. New 1922 chairman should be in place by tomorrow night. So far Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Bob Blackman expected to stand. Senior Tories want Rishi Sunak to stay on as leader til September October to avoid an interim being required.
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
The number of lawmakers who explicitly said Biden should not be the Democratic nominee was greater than the number who spoke up for him to stay, according to one of the sources.
It does seem like a lot of people want Biden to step down, and it's now a matter of can he be persuaded to do so.
The debate from last week starts to come across as a stitch-up against the President, there’s been such a co-ordinated response to it since before they even left the stage. There’s no way that everyone in his own party thought he was doing just fine until that moment, when it’s been clear for years that he’s been getting noticeably older and slower.
The problem now is how to deal with Kamala Harris, who’s polling is even worse than Biden’s, but she was a diversity hire so can’t be swapped out easily without upsetting people.
Meanwhile, some of us first mentioned Gretchen Whitmer a long time ago
"Diversity hire" - well done for picking up the right wing trope. Harris is a cut above about three quarter of all VP picks. And get about ten time the average criticism.
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
Erhhh, the brain doctors who has visited 8 times in as many months, I presume might have done some testing. I highly doubt he turned up, tapped him on the noggin and said seems fine to me.
Perhaps Nate means a public test with the results actually made public?
But the White House know he will fail a legit one. We are in the ridiculous situation where we have all seen the Emperor walking butt naked down main street and nobody is buying the gaslighting attempt at it was a cold or a jetlag. And all those who did have a good idea about this in the media are trying to act shocked, as if they had never seen the Emperor do something similar before.
Its all phoney from every side now that the cat is out of the bag.
He was locked away at Camp David for a whole week before the debate, his schedule completely cleared for preparation, no travel, minimal contact with outsiders etc. as his team and friendly media kept up the pretense that the Emperor was wearing the finest silk clothes money could buy.
Here’s MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, only three months ago, saying that Biden is as good as he’s ever been, after another episode of ‘right-wing trolling’ about his health. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COQf3U1KzHw
Now he’s done a U-turn and is saying that his health needs to be discussed.
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
What happens if all the Dukes and Earls refuse to put turbines up?
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
Erhhh, the brain doctors who has visited 8 times in as many months, I presume might have done some testing. I highly doubt he turned up, tapped him on the noggin and said seems fine to me.
Perhaps Nate means a public test with the results actually made public?
You don't need to be a medic to think that even if Biden is passable now there is no way he will be able to serve all the way to January 2029.
That was very clear from the debate.
And a comparison of his subsequent interview (which the diehards spun as a recovery) with a similar one he gave in the run up to the election in 2020, underlined the extent of his mental deterioration. You don't have to diagnose any medical condition at all to be very clear about that.
A shame that it seems we will have nothing on 4G/5G and planning changes for that, today.
My photo quota for the day. They need JOINED-UP planning for 5G phone masts, as with so many other things.
This one aka "Middle Finger" was built in the middle of the new strategic Active Travel route at the Pentagon Island, Derby, in 2023. The Active Travel route is one which is part of a £100m * package covering Nottingham and Derby allocated in iirc 2022, over 3-4 years.
* For the record, £100m is a pittance for an area of 750k people for active travel. There is currently £50m being spent on improving a single traffic island on the Nottingham Ring Road, one of many highways projects on that scale locally.
Is that malicious compliance with some stupid rules by a stupid person being stupid? Stupidly?
It's this sort of stuff that makes me want to punch people.
My favourite that happened to me was when electric trains couldn't run because of the snow and I had to get off of a diesel train that normally went all the way into London but this day terminated at Oxted and (wait for it....) had to wait to get an electric train. You know the ones that couldn't run in the snow. I had this conversation with a rail person:
Me: Why is the train not going into London like it normally does and why am I transferring to an Electric train instead when the issue is with electric trains not diesel trains.
Rail person: This train terminates here. It doesn't go into London
Me: No it doesn't. I catch it everyday
Rail person: It doesn't on a Saturday
Me: It's Tuesday
Rail person: We are running a Saturday service
Me: Sigh (and walk away)
We never saw our diesel trains or any trains for 2 weeks. They got nicked to run elsewhere. That was the Uckfield line for you.
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
Erhhh, the brain doctors who has visited 8 times in as many months, I presume might have done some testing. I highly doubt he turned up, tapped him on the noggin and said seems fine to me.
Perhaps Nate means a public test with the results actually made public?
But the White House know he will fail a legit one. We are in the ridiculous situation where we have all seen the Emperor walking butt naked down main street and nobody is buying the gaslighting attempt at it was a cold or a jetlag. And all those who did have a good idea about this in the media are trying to act shocked, as if they had never seen the Emperor do something similar before.
Its all phoney from every side now that the cat is out of the bag.
He was locked away at Camp David for a whole week before the debate, his schedule completely cleared for preparation, no travel, minimal contact with outsiders etc. as his team and friendly media kept up the pretense that the Emperor was wearing the finest silk clothes money could buy.
Here’s MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, only three months ago, saying that Biden is as good as he’s ever been, after another episode of ‘right-wing trolling’ about his health. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COQf3U1KzHw
Now he’s done a U-turn and is saying that his health needs to be discussed.
He isn't the only one. It has all been driven by the fear that Trump....everything needs to be ignored, excused, gas-lit, because Trump.
No truth to power, just run defence to stop Trump. But now if they don't ditch Biden sharpish, they just made it much more likely they get Trump.
On the mildly hilarious "We hate FPTP now Labour has wrongly won instead of us". Are the Tories proposing a rerun of the AV referendum, but this time we will say Yes ?
I voted for AV. Pretty much just Oxford Cambridge and Hampstead as I recall.
We're called the Cognescenti for a reason.
And Camden and Islington and maybe Lambeth, as I remember?
Hustings for Tory MPs to hear candidates to be new chairman of the 1922 committee will be held today or tomorrow. New 1922 chairman should be in place by tomorrow night. So far Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Bob Blackman expected to stand. Senior Tories want Rishi Sunak to stay on as leader til September October to avoid an interim being required.
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
What happens if all the Dukes and Earls refuse to put turbines up?
Then other landowners will and will make the profit instead.
Onshore wind is profitable, reliable, clean and cheap. That's why planning regulations were needed to block it, not people not wanting to put it up.
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
Erhhh, the brain doctors who has visited 8 times in as many months, I presume might have done some testing. I highly doubt he turned up, tapped him on the noggin and said seems fine to me.
Perhaps Nate means a public test with the results actually made public?
You don't need to be a medic to think that even if Biden is passable now there is no way he will be able to serve all the way to January 2029.
That was very clear from the debate.
And a comparison of his subsequent interview (which the diehards spun as a recovery) with a similar one he gave in the run up to the election in 2020, underlined the extent of his mental deterioration. You don't have to diagnose any medical condition at all to be very clear about that.
He cannot possibly last a full four year term. How can there be any doubt now about that?
It is beyond ridiculous and the Dems are condemning us all to Trump 2.0.
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
Both of my living grandparents (85 and 93) are more coherent than the Biden I've seen in interviews / the debate - and if they started talking like him I would indeed be concerned. And even with their relatively good cognitive ability for their age - that's in part because they have nothing to do except continue living, enjoying the company of family and reading / watching TV / listening to music. They barely go out of the house, because of the strain on them, and they rarely host the entire family like they used to (weekly Friday dinners with more of a dozen of us because it included 4 generations of the family). The idea they would be doing a job, let alone arguably the most stressful and significant job in the world? Absurd.
The Democrats are insane for allowing this to happen; and keep letting it happen - the same issue was apparent with Feinstein, and because the Democratic Senate leadership didn't want Newsome picking the replacement senator, they just kept her until she died; bad for democracy (as it halted the process of multiple judicial nominees under Biden) and completely ghastly for Feinstein herself, who should have been able to retire in peace. The same with RBG - if she had retired when Obama asked not only would the court be 5-4 (maybe even 4-5 towards the libs if he had forced through Merrick Garland), but she could have had a retirement where she could openly criticize the court beyond the criticism that is allowed via dissenting opinions.
That wasn't a choice of the Democrats. You can't force a SC Justice to retire (and significant pressure was put on her to do so).
RBG is actually a good comparison with what's going on with Biden. I noted last year that there really isn't a good way to stop a reasonably successful first term President from running again. And we're seeing now that even when much of the party is fairly clearly determined to persuade him to step down, there's no simple mechanism to make in happen.
Hustings for Tory MPs to hear candidates to be new chairman of the 1922 committee will be held today or tomorrow. New 1922 chairman should be in place by tomorrow night. So far Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Bob Blackman expected to stand. Senior Tories want Rishi Sunak to stay on as leader til September October to avoid an interim being required.
A shame that it seems we will have nothing on 4G/5G and planning changes for that, today.
My photo quota for the day. They need JOINED-UP planning for 5G phone masts, as with so many other things.
This one aka "Middle Finger" was built in the middle of the new strategic Active Travel route at the Pentagon Island, Derby, in 2023. The Active Travel route is one which is part of a £100m * package covering Nottingham and Derby allocated in iirc 2022, over 3-4 years.
* For the record, £100m is a pittance for an area of 750k people for active travel. There is currently £50m being spent on improving a single traffic island on the Nottingham Ring Road, one of many highways projects on that scale locally.
Is that malicious compliance with some stupid rules by a stupid person being stupid? Stupidly?
It's taking the easiest route, because you can get away with it.
Further example, the Council have planning permission, and imposed a condition to extend the shared path on the other side which is that mini-bit extra on the left opposite the post.
But the Planning Condition did not include required dimensions, so the phone company did an extensions about 1/3 of the width of the block they had caused, and the Council cannot enforce.
Just sheer lack of professionalism in addition to stupid policy / lack of sweating the detail.
You can see the same thing everywhere across the country.
This is the risk with Labour's planning reform. It could allow developers to build at lower cost but not increase supply (relative to what they would build under current regulations).
Developers seek to maximise profit. They do not see to build as much as possible. The constraint in supply is in their interest.
The number of lawmakers who explicitly said Biden should not be the Democratic nominee was greater than the number who spoke up for him to stay, according to one of the sources.
It does seem like a lot of people want Biden to step down, and it's now a matter of can he be persuaded to do so.
The debate from last week starts to come across as a stitch-up against the President, there’s been such a co-ordinated response to it since before they even left the stage. There’s no way that everyone in his own party thought he was doing just fine until that moment, when it’s been clear for years that he’s been getting noticeably older and slower.
The problem now is how to deal with Kamala Harris, who’s polling is even worse than Biden’s, but she was a diversity hire so can’t be swapped out easily without upsetting people.
Meanwhile, some of us first mentioned Gretchen Whitmer a long time ago
"Diversity hire" - well done for picking up the right wing trope. Harris is a cut above about three quarter of all VP picks. And get about ten time the average criticism.
I'd say Palin, Ferraro, Eagleton / Shriver, Agnew and Miller.
Its generally a list of solid politicians used to balance the ticket on geographical and experience lines.
John "I am a sinner, but not a criminal" Edwards ? Weirdo Mike Pence ? Effing Cheney ?? Joe wrecking ball Lieberman ? Dan Quayle ???
I'd say your judgment is exceedingly poor.
I'd say you're letting your personal feelings show rather than looking at the political effect of those VP picks.
I understand your problem - you want to big up Harris. That she's unimpressive makes that hard so instead you have to belittle all her predecessors.
Dan Quayle is possibly the closest GOP equivalent to Harris - a young Senator from a safe state picked to reassure the base.
No. I'm looking at them as potential presidential candidates - which is what we're talking about now. Whatever sense they made politically as VP picks they'd be awful running for the top post.
If I remember correctly, wasn't that data centre on some landfill site right by the M25. How the hell did that get turned down in the first place? Its a nondescript building by a massive motorway on land that is a dump, what could the objection be? Noise.....sorry what did you say...noise....sorry I can't hear you, the noise from all the cars is too loud.
Hustings for Tory MPs to hear candidates to be new chairman of the 1922 committee will be held today or tomorrow. New 1922 chairman should be in place by tomorrow night. So far Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Bob Blackman expected to stand. Senior Tories want Rishi Sunak to stay on as leader til September October to avoid an interim being required.
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
What happens if all the Dukes and Earls refuse to put turbines up?
Then other landowners will and will make the profit instead.
Onshore wind is profitable, reliable, clean and cheap. That's why planning regulations were needed to block it, not people not wanting to put it up.
A shame that it seems we will have nothing on 4G/5G and planning changes for that, today.
My photo quota for the day. They need JOINED-UP planning for 5G phone masts, as with so many other things.
This one aka "Middle Finger" was built in the middle of the new strategic Active Travel route at the Pentagon Island, Derby, in 2023. The Active Travel route is one which is part of a £100m * package covering Nottingham and Derby allocated in iirc 2022, over 3-4 years.
* For the record, £100m is a pittance for an area of 750k people for active travel. There is currently £50m being spent on improving a single traffic island on the Nottingham Ring Road, one of many highways projects on that scale locally.
Is that malicious compliance with some stupid rules by a stupid person being stupid? Stupidly?
It's taking the easiest route, because you can get away with it.
Further example, the Council have planning permission, and imposed a condition to extend the shared path on the other side which is that mini-bit extra on the left opposite the post.
But the Planning Condition did not include required dimensions, so the phone company did an extensions about 1/3 of the width of the block they had caused, and the Council cannot enforce.
Just sheer lack of professionalism in addition to stupid policy / lack of sweating the detail.
You can see the same thing everywhere across the country.
This is the risk with Labour's planning reform. It could allow developers to build at lower cost but not increase supply of housing (relative to what they round build under current regulations).
Developers seek to maximise profit. They do not see to build as many homes as possible. The constraint in supply is in their interest.
Competition drives down prices.
Planning regulations give those with permission a monopoly preventing competition.
True planning reform would destroy the oligopoly/local monopolies that run housing construction and open the market up to healthy competition.
The number of lawmakers who explicitly said Biden should not be the Democratic nominee was greater than the number who spoke up for him to stay, according to one of the sources.
It does seem like a lot of people want Biden to step down, and it's now a matter of can he be persuaded to do so.
The debate from last week starts to come across as a stitch-up against the President, there’s been such a co-ordinated response to it since before they even left the stage. There’s no way that everyone in his own party thought he was doing just fine until that moment, when it’s been clear for years that he’s been getting noticeably older and slower.
The problem now is how to deal with Kamala Harris, who’s polling is even worse than Biden’s, but she was a diversity hire so can’t be swapped out easily without upsetting people.
Meanwhile, some of us first mentioned Gretchen Whitmer a long time ago
"Diversity hire" - well done for picking up the right wing trope. Harris is a cut above about three quarter of all VP picks. And get about ten time the average criticism.
I'd say Palin, Ferraro, Eagleton / Shriver, Agnew and Miller.
Its generally a list of solid politicians used to balance the ticket on geographical and experience lines.
VPs exist to balance out the weaknesses of the top of the ticket. Harris does that as well as anyone else here - Biden was old and had senatorial and foreign affair experience as a long time member of the senate and as VP himself. Harris has experience as a prosecutor and state senator, but also her lived experience - being from a younger generation and being a woman of colour in the US. You can say that she had less political experience than most above (even on that score she still beats Pence, imho, who started his career as a conservative radio host in the vein of Rush Limbaugh).
Pence was a Governor and former House Rep so had experience in both executive and legislature.
Which together with being an evangelical and from the mid west provided the necessary balance to Trump.
Harris was able to give balance to Biden as you say but she would need someone very different to give balance to her as President. Andy Beshear would tick most boxes in that case.
If she really wanted to piss off the left and hope to try and eat into the GOP vote she should pick Joe Manchin... but I'd rather she didn't
Manchin would be an awful pick electorally as well as politically.
I mean, I hate him as a politician and don't rate him. But knowing how Dems think they will want to "reassure" the electorate that they aren't as left wing as the GOP suggest they are. Best way to do that would be to make the most right wing Democrat the VP (because the most right wing Democrat is still to the left of the most left wing GOP politician). As VP the only real power he has is if the Senate is tied or if Kamala were to die. Sure, he could mouth off against stuff if the Dems do go "too far" left - but I doubt he would, his ego would be stroked by being VP and the potential that gives him in the future to run for POTUS.
There are far better options for the Democrats if they're wanting that sort of VP signalling. Beshear, for example,
Smoothly ruthless by Sir Keir - he knew that the old stuff about the flags would be a tiny straw for Reform and the Faragist Tories to clutch at, so why give them even that little morsel? Sir Keir is going to starve the British Right to death.
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
Erhhh, the brain doctors who has visited 8 times in as many months, I presume might have done some testing. I highly doubt he turned up, tapped him on the noggin and said seems fine to me.
Perhaps Nate means a public test with the results actually made public?
You don't need to be a medic to think that even if Biden is passable now there is no way he will be able to serve all the way to January 2029.
That was very clear from the debate.
And a comparison of his subsequent interview (which the diehards spun as a recovery) with a similar one he gave in the run up to the election in 2020, underlined the extent of his mental deterioration. You don't have to diagnose any medical condition at all to be very clear about that.
He cannot possibly last a full four year term. How can there be any doubt now about that?
It is beyond ridiculous and the Dems are condemning us all to Trump 2.0.
You obviously haven't seen the latest JL Partners poll which has Trump crushing Harris by 11% in what would be the biggest GOP landslide since Reagan beat Mondale in 1984. Biden is closer to Trump and just 5% behind.
Morning Consult also has Biden ahead of Trump in 2 swing states, Michigan and Wisconsin
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
What happens if all the Dukes and Earls refuse to put turbines up?
Then other landowners will and will make the profit instead.
Onshore wind is profitable, reliable, clean and cheap. That's why planning regulations were needed to block it, not people not wanting to put it up.
So you'll pander to rich NIMBYs?
No.
Nobody has a monopoly on land ownership. What people want to do with their own land is up to them, NIMBYism is trying to forbid other people from building on their (not your own) land.
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
Both of my living grandparents (85 and 93) are more coherent than the Biden I've seen in interviews / the debate - and if they started talking like him I would indeed be concerned. And even with their relatively good cognitive ability for their age - that's in part because they have nothing to do except continue living, enjoying the company of family and reading / watching TV / listening to music. They barely go out of the house, because of the strain on them, and they rarely host the entire family like they used to (weekly Friday dinners with more of a dozen of us because it included 4 generations of the family). The idea they would be doing a job, let alone arguably the most stressful and significant job in the world? Absurd.
The Democrats are insane for allowing this to happen; and keep letting it happen - the same issue was apparent with Feinstein, and because the Democratic Senate leadership didn't want Newsome picking the replacement senator, they just kept her until she died; bad for democracy (as it halted the process of multiple judicial nominees under Biden) and completely ghastly for Feinstein herself, who should have been able to retire in peace. The same with RBG - if she had retired when Obama asked not only would the court be 5-4 (maybe even 4-5 towards the libs if he had forced through Merrick Garland), but she could have had a retirement where she could openly criticize the court beyond the criticism that is allowed via dissenting opinions.
He cannot possibly last a full four year term. How can there be any doubt now about that?
It is beyond ridiculous and the Dems are condemning us all to Trump 2.0.
Exactly, and so in effect the Democrats are running Harris as the Presidential candidate now. On the other side Trump is mad, dangerous, a liar, a rapist, a fraudster, and also too old. It really shouldn't be that difficult to nominate someone who can beat him.
Smoothly ruthless by Sir Keir - he knew that the old stuff about the flags would be a tiny straw for Reform and the Faragist Tories to clutch at, so why give them even that little morsel? Sir Keir is going to starve the British Right to death.
Its nothing to do with flags, its Corbyn. She backed Corbyn for leadership and then backed him repeatedly throughout his "troubles" with the new management of the party. Association with Corbyn is far worse than flags.
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
The brain doctors who has visited 8 times in as many months, I presume might have done some testing. I highly doubt he turned up, tapped him on the noggin and said seems fine to me.
The problem is everything has been covered up and now like Emperors new clothes story incident at the debate all those who have facilitated this cover up are now scrambling around, I presume trying to throw other people under the bus.
White House visitor logs are public.
No, I am talking about the cover up by the establishment and media that there is real problem here, not the specific story that a neurologist visited. Even now we are getting the BS about jet lag (from two weeks prior to the debate and after a week off prepping for the debate).
The fact we have got to a stage where the neurologist has been a regular visitor means there must have been concerns for a long time, but code of silence.
The NYT is as establishment as it gets, and they've been running 'Biden is senile' stories for quite some time now. They could easily have read those logs.
What you're saying is that US journalists can't do basic journalism. Which I agree with.
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
What happens if all the Dukes and Earls refuse to put turbines up?
Then other landowners will and will make the profit instead.
Onshore wind is profitable, reliable, clean and cheap. That's why planning regulations were needed to block it, not people not wanting to put it up.
So you'll pander to rich NIMBYs?
No.
Nobody has a monopoly on land ownership. What people want to do with their own land is up to them, NIMBYism is trying to forbid other people from building on their (not your own) land.
You're thinking of NIOPBYS. Not in other people's back yards.
Would you be happy if someone were to buy small strips of land all over the country to prevent new roads being built?
The number of lawmakers who explicitly said Biden should not be the Democratic nominee was greater than the number who spoke up for him to stay, according to one of the sources.
It does seem like a lot of people want Biden to step down, and it's now a matter of can he be persuaded to do so.
The debate from last week starts to come across as a stitch-up against the President, there’s been such a co-ordinated response to it since before they even left the stage. There’s no way that everyone in his own party thought he was doing just fine until that moment, when it’s been clear for years that he’s been getting noticeably older and slower.
The problem now is how to deal with Kamala Harris, who’s polling is even worse than Biden’s, but she was a diversity hire so can’t be swapped out easily without upsetting people.
Meanwhile, some of us first mentioned Gretchen Whitmer a long time ago
This is the issue, dump Biden for sure. But replace him with Harris? Fuck that, Trump will walk it in November against her. What they need is a southern Democrat governor or senator who's not too liberal, not gay and not old.
Why do conservatives think they have a special insight into who the Democrats should pick if Biden drops out ?
I want the candidate who has the best chance of beating Trump which isn't Harris. It's a white (probably male) Democrat from the south or at a push the rust belt. In the same way the Tories are going to have to find a candidate that can win back their small c conservative heartlands in the south (so not Braverman or any other right wing loon) the Dems need to find someone who can win across the whole country so not some drug decriminalising lefty liberal who drives a solar power car and has had sex change surgery.
Keep Trump out this time and he's done for good. If that means comprising and not having an ultra liberal candidate so be it.
There's no process for getting what you want. You're effectively asking for a messy intra-party fight, a couple of months before the election, with unpredictable but quite likely damaging consequences.
Realistically, the option most likely to win the general election is Harris.
The highlighted bit shows how unserious you are about the process.
But that's my point. I don't care about process, especially if the process means Harris and then losing to Trump. Winning is more important than process, especially in this race where we can finally see the back of Trump.
Even odder, then, that victory rally the other day - Saltires, Welsh flags, and then only UJs. (And what about NI?) What were they signalling (so to speak)?
A shame that it seems we will have nothing on 4G/5G and planning changes for that, today.
My photo quota for the day. They need JOINED-UP planning for 5G phone masts, as with so many other things.
This one aka "Middle Finger" was built in the middle of the new strategic Active Travel route at the Pentagon Island, Derby, in 2023. The Active Travel route is one which is part of a £100m * package covering Nottingham and Derby allocated in iirc 2022, over 3-4 years.
* For the record, £100m is a pittance for an area of 750k people for active travel. There is currently £50m being spent on improving a single traffic island on the Nottingham Ring Road, one of many highways projects on that scale locally.
Is that malicious compliance with some stupid rules by a stupid person being stupid? Stupidly?
It's taking the easiest route, because you can get away with it.
Further example, the Council have planning permission, and imposed a condition to extend the shared path on the other side which is that mini-bit extra on the left opposite the post.
But the Planning Condition did not include required dimensions, so the phone company did an extensions about 1/3 of the width of the block they had caused, and the Council cannot enforce.
Just sheer lack of professionalism in addition to stupid policy / lack of sweating the detail.
You can see the same thing everywhere across the country.
This is the risk with Labour's planning reform. It could allow developers to build at lower cost but not increase supply of housing (relative to what they round build under current regulations).
Developers seek to maximise profit. They do not see to build as many homes as possible. The constraint in supply is in their interest.
Competition drives down prices.
Planning regulations give those with permission a monopoly preventing competition.
True planning reform would destroy the oligopoly/local monopolies that run housing construction and open the market up to healthy competition.
I'd be quite interested Bart, as to what Planning System / Regulation you would keep in place.
You often talk about housing. What about things like public infrastructure, supervening rights which exist along the sides of road corridors for road widening in the future, zoning and so on?
There are a mass of small cases that cause trouble - for example BT trying to repurpose no longer needed phone box sites as advertising boards blocking half of a pavement cross-wise. I'd simply say that the phone box is no longer needed, so we can recover an unobstructed pavement back. There is one outside Sheffield Railway station, for example.
If I remember correctly, wasn't that data centre on some landfill site right by the M25. How the hell did that get turned down in the first place? Its a nondescript building by a massive motorway on land that is a dump, what could the objection be? Noise.....sorry what did you say...noise....sorry I can't hear you, the noise from all the cars is too loud.
Yep should have been an easy win for anyone to approve
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
What happens if all the Dukes and Earls refuse to put turbines up?
Then other landowners will and will make the profit instead.
Onshore wind is profitable, reliable, clean and cheap. That's why planning regulations were needed to block it, not people not wanting to put it up.
So you'll pander to rich NIMBYs?
No.
Nobody has a monopoly on land ownership. What people want to do with their own land is up to them, NIMBYism is trying to forbid other people from building on their (not your own) land.
You're thinking of NIOPBYS. Not in other people's back yards.
Would you be happy if someone were to buy small strips of land all over the country to prevent new roads being built?
As a last resort I'm OK with compulsory purchase orders being used for significant infrastructure needs that go across the country, like roads and rails.
But we're not talking about that. There's no need for wind farms to traverse the country, any more than any other type of farm, they can be wherever they get sited.
Actually its pylons etc that are more relevant for needing to be sorted out than wind farms as again they do need to traverse the country.
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
What happens if all the Dukes and Earls refuse to put turbines up?
Then other landowners will and will make the profit instead.
Onshore wind is profitable, reliable, clean and cheap. That's why planning regulations were needed to block it, not people not wanting to put it up.
So you'll pander to rich NIMBYs?
No.
Nobody has a monopoly on land ownership. What people want to do with their own land is up to them, NIMBYism is trying to forbid other people from building on their (not your own) land.
You're thinking of NIOPBYS. Not in other people's back yards.
Would you be happy if someone were to buy small strips of land all over the country to prevent new roads being built?
As a last resort I'm OK with compulsory purchase orders being used for significant infrastructure needs that go across the country, like roads and rails.
But we're not talking about that. There's no need for wind farms to traverse the country, any more than any other type of farm, they can be wherever they get sited.
Actually its pylons etc that are more relevant for needing to be sorted out than wind farms as again they do need to traverse the country.
Perhaps they could put wind generators on pylons. Two birds…
This should worry the Tories. There will obviously be hiccups for the government, but Starmer and Gray are doing their best to reduce the frequency of them.
A shame that it seems we will have nothing on 4G/5G and planning changes for that, today.
My photo quota for the day. They need JOINED-UP planning for 5G phone masts, as with so many other things.
This one aka "Middle Finger" was built in the middle of the new strategic Active Travel route at the Pentagon Island, Derby, in 2023. The Active Travel route is one which is part of a £100m * package covering Nottingham and Derby allocated in iirc 2022, over 3-4 years.
* For the record, £100m is a pittance for an area of 750k people for active travel. There is currently £50m being spent on improving a single traffic island on the Nottingham Ring Road, one of many highways projects on that scale locally.
Is that malicious compliance with some stupid rules by a stupid person being stupid? Stupidly?
It's taking the easiest route, because you can get away with it.
Further example, the Council have planning permission, and imposed a condition to extend the shared path on the other side which is that mini-bit extra on the left opposite the post.
But the Planning Condition did not include required dimensions, so the phone company did an extensions about 1/3 of the width of the block they had caused, and the Council cannot enforce.
Just sheer lack of professionalism in addition to stupid policy / lack of sweating the detail.
You can see the same thing everywhere across the country.
This is the risk with Labour's planning reform. It could allow developers to build at lower cost but not increase supply of housing (relative to what they round build under current regulations).
Developers seek to maximise profit. They do not see to build as many homes as possible. The constraint in supply is in their interest.
Competition drives down prices.
Planning regulations give those with permission a monopoly preventing competition.
True planning reform would destroy the oligopoly/local monopolies that run housing construction and open the market up to healthy competition.
I'd be quite interested Bart, as to what Planning System / Regulation you would keep in place.
You often talk about housing. What about things like public infrastructure, supervening rights which exist along the sides of road corridors for road widening in the future, zoning and so on?
There are a mass of small cases that cause trouble - for example BT trying to repurpose no longer needed phone box sites as advertising boards blocking half of a pavement cross-wise. I'd simply say that the phone box is no longer needed, so we can recover an unobstructed pavement back. There is one outside Sheffield Railway station, for example.
Public infrastructure should be paid for out of taxation. Hence the public element.
Private infrastructure should be paid for privately.
I'd have zoning but then allow a free-for-all (within legal standards) with no objections by anyone possible so long as its done legally within land zoned for construction. "Whatever is not forbidden is legal".
A shame that it seems we will have nothing on 4G/5G and planning changes for that, today.
My photo quota for the day. They need JOINED-UP planning for 5G phone masts, as with so many other things.
This one aka "Middle Finger" was built in the middle of the new strategic Active Travel route at the Pentagon Island, Derby, in 2023. The Active Travel route is one which is part of a £100m * package covering Nottingham and Derby allocated in iirc 2022, over 3-4 years.
* For the record, £100m is a pittance for an area of 750k people for active travel. There is currently £50m being spent on improving a single traffic island on the Nottingham Ring Road, one of many highways projects on that scale locally.
Similar one (although in my case pole for local electricity cabling) in the middle of a multi-use cycle path that I use. An unlit path. The pole was at one point painted bright white at likely impact heights but now quite faded.
I'm not certain which came first, path or pole, but the path could easily be routed around the pole on apparently the same land - no fence at least within the area that would be required. The pole, maybe, is at the maximum distance in both directions for the cable span or whatever, so not trivia to move?
Listening to the Rachel Reeves speech, I have 3 immediate things that jump out:
1 - Regulation of pensions to encourage "investment". We need to make sure that that isn't the "compel a percentage of a pension fund to be invested where we tell them to invest it" nuttiness put forward for a number of years by Professor Murphy.
2 - The changes to the NPPF will need careful watching; this is the crucial document for planning in England.
3 - Something major will be done with the Local Plan process. That may be more heavily centralised, or decisions handled more centrally if one is not in place - as opposed to developers being able to control it by presumptions around individual planning applications going to Appeal process.
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
What happens if all the Dukes and Earls refuse to put turbines up?
Then other landowners will and will make the profit instead.
Onshore wind is profitable, reliable, clean and cheap. That's why planning regulations were needed to block it, not people not wanting to put it up.
So you'll pander to rich NIMBYs?
No.
Nobody has a monopoly on land ownership. What people want to do with their own land is up to them, NIMBYism is trying to forbid other people from building on their (not your own) land.
You're thinking of NIOPBYS. Not in other people's back yards.
Would you be happy if someone were to buy small strips of land all over the country to prevent new roads being built?
As a last resort I'm OK with compulsory purchase orders being used for significant infrastructure needs that go across the country, like roads and rails.
But we're not talking about that. There's no need for wind farms to traverse the country, any more than any other type of farm, they can be wherever they get sited.
Actually its pylons etc that are more relevant for needing to be sorted out than wind farms as again they do need to traverse the country.
Perhaps they could put wind generators on pylons. Two birds…
One zapped by the HV line, one blended by the turbine blades?
Even odder, then, that victory rally the other day - Saltires, Welsh flags, and then only UJs. (And what about NI?) What were they signalling (so to speak)?
All the flags, just not at the same time. It seems that the ‘patriot not nationalist’ lads are the biggest flag wankers of all.
A shame that it seems we will have nothing on 4G/5G and planning changes for that, today.
My photo quota for the day. They need JOINED-UP planning for 5G phone masts, as with so many other things.
This one aka "Middle Finger" was built in the middle of the new strategic Active Travel route at the Pentagon Island, Derby, in 2023. The Active Travel route is one which is part of a £100m * package covering Nottingham and Derby allocated in iirc 2022, over 3-4 years.
* For the record, £100m is a pittance for an area of 750k people for active travel. There is currently £50m being spent on improving a single traffic island on the Nottingham Ring Road, one of many highways projects on that scale locally.
Similar one (although in my case pole for local electricity cabling) in the middle of a multi-use cycle path that I use. An unlit path. The pole was at one point painted bright white at likely impact heights but now quite faded.
I'm not certain which came first, path or pole, but the path could easily be routed around the pole on apparently the same land - no fence at least within the area that would be required. The pole, maybe, is at the maximum distance in both directions for the cable span or whatever, so not trivia to move?
There's also an issue about pre-existing planning permissions being allowed to be built "As Is", despite higher standards coming along later.
That can persist for a decade, or forever, depending on whether a PP is locked in (eg a new house build has been 'started' by installing a soakaway).
I didn't think my local MP, Sir Stephen Timms, would return to Government after such a long absence but he's the Minister of State at the DWP so good on him.
Assuming the Government runs to 2028, he'll be 72 and I suspect will stand down - the contest to find a new Labour candidate will be interesting.
On an unrelated, we have the next London Mayoral election in 2028 - if Khan wanted to stand down and not serve a fourth term and instead go to Westminster, they'd need to find him a seat somewhere.
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
What happens if all the Dukes and Earls refuse to put turbines up?
Then other landowners will and will make the profit instead.
Onshore wind is profitable, reliable, clean and cheap. That's why planning regulations were needed to block it, not people not wanting to put it up.
So you'll pander to rich NIMBYs?
No.
Nobody has a monopoly on land ownership. What people want to do with their own land is up to them, NIMBYism is trying to forbid other people from building on their (not your own) land.
You're thinking of NIOPBYS. Not in other people's back yards.
Would you be happy if someone were to buy small strips of land all over the country to prevent new roads being built?
As a last resort I'm OK with compulsory purchase orders being used for significant infrastructure needs that go across the country, like roads and rails.
But we're not talking about that. There's no need for wind farms to traverse the country, any more than any other type of farm, they can be wherever they get sited.
Actually its pylons etc that are more relevant for needing to be sorted out than wind farms as again they do need to traverse the country.
Perhaps they could put wind generators on pylons. Two birds…
Commission diverse vibrant multi ethnic young sculptors and painters to design phone masts and wind farms to be works of art. Seriously. Cathedrals when they were built were essential infrastructure with the beauty a desirable side effect, as were 19th c railway stations Three birds.
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
What happens if all the Dukes and Earls refuse to put turbines up?
Then other landowners will and will make the profit instead.
Onshore wind is profitable, reliable, clean and cheap. That's why planning regulations were needed to block it, not people not wanting to put it up.
So you'll pander to rich NIMBYs?
No.
Nobody has a monopoly on land ownership. What people want to do with their own land is up to them, NIMBYism is trying to forbid other people from building on their (not your own) land.
You're thinking of NIOPBYS. Not in other people's back yards.
Would you be happy if someone were to buy small strips of land all over the country to prevent new roads being built?
As a last resort I'm OK with compulsory purchase orders being used for significant infrastructure needs that go across the country, like roads and rails.
But we're not talking about that. There's no need for wind farms to traverse the country, any more than any other type of farm, they can be wherever they get sited.
Actually its pylons etc that are more relevant for needing to be sorted out than wind farms as again they do need to traverse the country.
Perhaps they could put wind generators on pylons. Two birds…
Commission diverse vibrant multi ethnic young sculptors and painters to design phone masts and wind farms to be works of art. Seriously. Cathedrals when they were built were essential infrastructure with the beauty a desirable side effect, as were 19th c railway stations Three birds.
In Portugal, they have cell phone towers disguised as trees.
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
What happens if all the Dukes and Earls refuse to put turbines up?
Then other landowners will and will make the profit instead.
Onshore wind is profitable, reliable, clean and cheap. That's why planning regulations were needed to block it, not people not wanting to put it up.
So you'll pander to rich NIMBYs?
No.
Nobody has a monopoly on land ownership. What people want to do with their own land is up to them, NIMBYism is trying to forbid other people from building on their (not your own) land.
You're thinking of NIOPBYS. Not in other people's back yards.
Would you be happy if someone were to buy small strips of land all over the country to prevent new roads being built?
As a last resort I'm OK with compulsory purchase orders being used for significant infrastructure needs that go across the country, like roads and rails.
But we're not talking about that. There's no need for wind farms to traverse the country, any more than any other type of farm, they can be wherever they get sited.
Actually its pylons etc that are more relevant for needing to be sorted out than wind farms as again they do need to traverse the country.
Your problem is that at the end of the day, you'll tolerate NIMBYism as long as it is consistent with your personal views on how the country should work. In this case, property rights versus a very specific type of national energy infrastructure - wind turbines.
I don't see why any landowner should be allowed to stymie the progress of the country. OTOH, I also don't think you should sacrifice an area of outstanding beauty like the Lake District for turbines. We're both NIMBYs, like it or not.
A shame that it seems we will have nothing on 4G/5G and planning changes for that, today.
My photo quota for the day. They need JOINED-UP planning for 5G phone masts, as with so many other things.
This one aka "Middle Finger" was built in the middle of the new strategic Active Travel route at the Pentagon Island, Derby, in 2023. The Active Travel route is one which is part of a £100m * package covering Nottingham and Derby allocated in iirc 2022, over 3-4 years.
* For the record, £100m is a pittance for an area of 750k people for active travel. There is currently £50m being spent on improving a single traffic island on the Nottingham Ring Road, one of many highways projects on that scale locally.
Is that malicious compliance with some stupid rules by a stupid person being stupid? Stupidly?
It's taking the easiest route, because you can get away with it.
Further example, the Council have planning permission, and imposed a condition to extend the shared path on the other side which is that mini-bit extra on the left opposite the post.
But the Planning Condition did not include required dimensions, so the phone company did an extensions about 1/3 of the width of the block they had caused, and the Council cannot enforce.
Just sheer lack of professionalism in addition to stupid policy / lack of sweating the detail.
You can see the same thing everywhere across the country.
This is the risk with Labour's planning reform. It could allow developers to build at lower cost but not increase supply (relative to what they would build under current regulations).
Developers seek to maximise profit. They do not see to build as much as possible. The constraint in supply is in their interest.
Generally constraining supply would only be in their interest of a producer if they have a monopoly or something close to one. Otherwise it's in your interests for your competitors to constrain supply, but it's in your interests to meet it. Do British developers have that?
I guess there may be some places with *local* monopolies, but I think the places where the housing shortages are the worst are mostly places where people already commute so they have a lot of choices which locality to live in?
"I know there will be opposition to this... but we will not succumb to a status quo that responds to the existence of trade-offs by always saying 'no' and relegates the national interest below other priorities".
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
What happens if all the Dukes and Earls refuse to put turbines up?
Then other landowners will and will make the profit instead.
Onshore wind is profitable, reliable, clean and cheap. That's why planning regulations were needed to block it, not people not wanting to put it up.
So you'll pander to rich NIMBYs?
No.
Nobody has a monopoly on land ownership. What people want to do with their own land is up to them, NIMBYism is trying to forbid other people from building on their (not your own) land.
You're thinking of NIOPBYS. Not in other people's back yards.
Would you be happy if someone were to buy small strips of land all over the country to prevent new roads being built?
As a last resort I'm OK with compulsory purchase orders being used for significant infrastructure needs that go across the country, like roads and rails.
But we're not talking about that. There's no need for wind farms to traverse the country, any more than any other type of farm, they can be wherever they get sited.
Actually its pylons etc that are more relevant for needing to be sorted out than wind farms as again they do need to traverse the country.
Perhaps they could put wind generators on pylons. Two birds…
Commission diverse vibrant multi ethnic young sculptors and painters to design phone masts and wind farms to be works of art. Seriously. Cathedrals when they were built were essential infrastructure with the beauty a desirable side effect, as were 19th c railway stations Three birds.
On NIMBY comedy.
Near a friend, in Kent, there was a site that was going to be developed for a small commercial operation.
Locally NIMBY genius thought that buying some newts off the internet and dumping them in a puddle on the site was an act of great wisdom.
Turned out the company had cameras up on the site.
Also turned out that the newts in question were a non native species. So she is looking at some legal stuff about releasing non native species in addition to the trespass.
"Biden’s condition at the debate, and in some other recent public appearances, would be highly worrying if you encountered it in an aging grandparent. At the very least, you’d encourage them to undergo neurological testing, something Biden — like a lot of stubborn people at his age — has refused to do. It’s time to confront reality: wishing you could have the old Biden back won’t be any more effective than wishing you were 17 years old again."
Nate Silver
Both of my living grandparents (85 and 93) are more coherent than the Biden I've seen in interviews / the debate - and if they started talking like him I would indeed be concerned. And even with their relatively good cognitive ability for their age - that's in part because they have nothing to do except continue living, enjoying the company of family and reading / watching TV / listening to music. They barely go out of the house, because of the strain on them, and they rarely host the entire family like they used to (weekly Friday dinners with more of a dozen of us because it included 4 generations of the family). The idea they would be doing a job, let alone arguably the most stressful and significant job in the world? Absurd.
The Democrats are insane for allowing this to happen; and keep letting it happen - the same issue was apparent with Feinstein, and because the Democratic Senate leadership didn't want Newsome picking the replacement senator, they just kept her until she died; bad for democracy (as it halted the process of multiple judicial nominees under Biden) and completely ghastly for Feinstein herself, who should have been able to retire in peace. The same with RBG - if she had retired when Obama asked not only would the court be 5-4 (maybe even 4-5 towards the libs if he had forced through Merrick Garland), but she could have had a retirement where she could openly criticize the court beyond the criticism that is allowed via dissenting opinions.
That wasn't a choice of the Democrats. You can't force a SC Justice to retire (and significant pressure was put on her to do so).
RBG is actually a good comparison with what's going on with Biden. I noted last year that there really isn't a good way to stop a reasonably successful first term President from running again. And we're seeing now that even when much of the party is fairly clearly determined to persuade him to step down, there's no simple mechanism to make in happen.
You can't force a SC justice to retire - but you can put a hell of a lot of pressure on them to. And the GOP justices don't need that convincing - they understand that for their "project" to win, strategic retirements are necessary, so they do it. Scalia died somewhat suddenly - and even then they strong armed their way into holding that seat for a conservative.
The party could have easily allowed a real primary to happen - by making it clear that whilst they appreciated the hard work done by Biden to prevent Trump winning in 2020 and and "righting the ship of state" in his time in office, it would be best for him to prove his ability in an open primary (as there were concerns in 2020 about his age) and it would be a good opportunity to show that the Democratic party is not like the GOP - they are not a cult around a single person, like Trump, they are a democratic party that want to give the younger generation of politicians to show and hone their skills. Not holding a real primary not only robbed the party base of really choosing their candidate, it robbed the wider electorate a chance to see if Biden was up for the job, and it robbed the Democratic party of the chance to test out younger politicians and give them experience of campaigning - which they need because the Democratic party is rotting at the head with old politicians who are refusing to give up their grip on power.
If Biden was up to the job and was voted for in a real primary as the candidate, then he'd have a much stronger argument for why he should stay, and it may have prepared him better for the national campaign he needed to run. Instead he was allowed to not really try until recently, and he isn't up to the job.
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
What happens if all the Dukes and Earls refuse to put turbines up?
Then other landowners will and will make the profit instead.
Onshore wind is profitable, reliable, clean and cheap. That's why planning regulations were needed to block it, not people not wanting to put it up.
So you'll pander to rich NIMBYs?
No.
Nobody has a monopoly on land ownership. What people want to do with their own land is up to them, NIMBYism is trying to forbid other people from building on their (not your own) land.
You're thinking of NIOPBYS. Not in other people's back yards.
Would you be happy if someone were to buy small strips of land all over the country to prevent new roads being built?
As a last resort I'm OK with compulsory purchase orders being used for significant infrastructure needs that go across the country, like roads and rails.
But we're not talking about that. There's no need for wind farms to traverse the country, any more than any other type of farm, they can be wherever they get sited.
Actually its pylons etc that are more relevant for needing to be sorted out than wind farms as again they do need to traverse the country.
Perhaps they could put wind generators on pylons. Two birds…
Commission diverse vibrant multi ethnic young sculptors and painters to design phone masts and wind farms to be works of art. Seriously. Cathedrals when they were built were essential infrastructure with the beauty a desirable side effect, as were 19th c railway stations Three birds.
There was, I believe, a design competition for new HV pylons, with some really interesting entries, but the selected one(s) were pretty uninspiring, presumably as cheaper than the fancier ones
ETA: This wasn't what I was thinking of, but shows new pylon designs for UK at the end and some ideas from elsewhere. I'd guess the giant ones near the top would be quite expensive! The new ones in the UK, T design, do look better than the old. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66404487
The MNOs already use churches and similar structures for masts, there are many examples in London.
But these are not infinite. Urban areas should have no restrictions on masts, especially on buildings but also for roadside lamp-post style masts. Build where needed.
Rachel Reeves has announced an immediate end to the “absurd” ban on new onshore wind developments in England as she unveiled a series of reforms to the planning system.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
What happens if all the Dukes and Earls refuse to put turbines up?
Then other landowners will and will make the profit instead.
Onshore wind is profitable, reliable, clean and cheap. That's why planning regulations were needed to block it, not people not wanting to put it up.
So you'll pander to rich NIMBYs?
No.
Nobody has a monopoly on land ownership. What people want to do with their own land is up to them, NIMBYism is trying to forbid other people from building on their (not your own) land.
You're thinking of NIOPBYS. Not in other people's back yards.
Would you be happy if someone were to buy small strips of land all over the country to prevent new roads being built?
As a last resort I'm OK with compulsory purchase orders being used for significant infrastructure needs that go across the country, like roads and rails.
But we're not talking about that. There's no need for wind farms to traverse the country, any more than any other type of farm, they can be wherever they get sited.
Actually its pylons etc that are more relevant for needing to be sorted out than wind farms as again they do need to traverse the country.
Perhaps they could put wind generators on pylons. Two birds…
Commission diverse vibrant multi ethnic young sculptors and painters to design phone masts and wind farms to be works of art. Seriously. Cathedrals when they were built were essential infrastructure with the beauty a desirable side effect, as were 19th c railway stations Three birds.
On NIMBY comedy.
Near a friend, in Kent, there was a site that was going to be developed for a small commercial operation.
Locally NIMBY genius thought that buying some newts off the internet and dumping them in a puddle on the site was an act of great wisdom.
Turned out the company had cameras up on the site.
Also turned out that the newts in question were a non native species. So she is looking at some legal stuff about releasing non native species in addition to the trespass.
Her whining on social media sounds hilarious.
LOL
The non-native species thing is potentially very serious
Nobody questioned David Cameron's mandate in 2015.
People only dislike Labour because of how intelligently they used the voting system to their advantage.
If you hate this, back PR as I do.
I don't think Labour used the voting system to their advantage - they made a pitch to the electorate who responded as they did. The outcome looks like some master plan, that's an illusion.
Its totally right to say that many previous majority governments have not had a majority of votes. In this case there are several skews that look very unfair. Labour's vote does not warrant such a huge majority. Reform getting more votes but vastly fewer seats than the Lib Dems etc. But complaining NOW because its worked against your party (be you Tory, Reform, Green' etc smacks of being a poor loser. Labour and Tories have had majorities in the past and could have changed the system. They didn't because it normally works for them.
Morgan McSweeney assembled the most efficient Labour vote possibly in history, this is not disputed.
Reform certainly made it easier - but compared to 2019 Labour has completely changed where the votes are.
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_election_in_Northern_Ireland
The problem is everything has been covered up and now like Emperors new clothes story incident at the debate all those who have facilitated this cover up are now scrambling around, I presume trying to throw other people under the bus.
We're called the Cognescenti for a reason.
It is heavily in their political interests for the public to want to keep the Tories out.
Weirdo Mike Pence ?
Effing Cheney ??
Joe wrecking ball Lieberman ?
Dan Quayle ???
I'd say your judgment is exceedingly poor.
A proper reform/abolition of planning regs would smash the builders monopoly by allowing anyone who wants to build a house to do so without having to play the planning game first.
Not to forget that much of the planning regs currently are offshoring the state's responsibility to provide facilities for population growth by falsely calling it an "externality" of housing, when population growth happens due to longer life expectancy, births and migration not construction.
The Democrats are insane for allowing this to happen; and keep letting it happen - the same issue was apparent with Feinstein, and because the Democratic Senate leadership didn't want Newsome picking the replacement senator, they just kept her until she died; bad for democracy (as it halted the process of multiple judicial nominees under Biden) and completely ghastly for Feinstein herself, who should have been able to retire in peace. The same with RBG - if she had retired when Obama asked not only would the court be 5-4 (maybe even 4-5 towards the libs if he had forced through Merrick Garland), but she could have had a retirement where she could openly criticize the court beyond the criticism that is allowed via dissenting opinions.
Its all phoney from every side now that the cat is out of the bag.
https://x.com/Telegraph/status/1810251875381350783
Good move.
I'm not at all saying any of this is going to happen but it's not at all procedurally impossible. If Biden wants to do X and he gets senior Dems on board (which is the kind of thing he's really good at), X will happen.
Further example, the Council have planning permission, and imposed a condition to extend the shared path on the other side which is that mini-bit extra on the left opposite the post.
But the Planning Condition did not include required dimensions, so the phone company did an extensions about 1/3 of the width of the block they had caused, and the Council cannot enforce.
Just sheer lack of professionalism in addition to stupid policy / lack of sweating the detail.
You can see the same thing everywhere across the country.
The fact we have got to a stage where the neurologist has been a regular visitor means there must have been concerns for a long time, but code of silence.
NEW ** Conservative Party leadership update **
Hustings for Tory MPs to hear candidates to be new chairman of the 1922 committee will be held today or tomorrow. New 1922 chairman should be in place by tomorrow night.
So far Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Bob Blackman expected to stand.
Senior Tories want Rishi Sunak to stay on as leader til September October to avoid an interim being required.
https://x.com/christopherhope/status/1810237819115208803
All the data suggests that Reform didn't make a great deal of difference to the Tory prospects, contrary to what many of them will think. Exhibit A, the polling that shows Reform voters would, without a candidate, have split pretty equally between the government and the opposition parties, Exhibit B, West Dorset, which had no Reform candidate yet the Tory got the same massive adverse swing as in other seats. I expect the detailed research that YouGov and others are doing will provide further exhibits in due course.
What is true is that the majority of Reform voters had backed the Tories previously, and while many wanted to see the back of the government as much as the rest of us, having voted Tory before, we assume they could be in the market for doing so in the future. Ashcroft's exit poll found 16% of Tory to Reform voters saying they'd never vote Tory again, 31% saying maybe one day but not next time, and 45% saying they might give the Tories another chance next time. But of course people don't really know, in the heat of the moment.
However, the Tories do clearly have a strong incentive for Reform to implode or fade away.
It's also about staff not being skilled enough, which links back to budgets and skill bases and training policies.
The local Council policy on National Guidelines for various things is "we do not have a policy because our design engineers take it all into account." I FOId Derby on this one wrt LTN 1/20. At the same time they will have a policy of little or no CPD, so their engineers will continue doing what they did when they started.
It should be a most basic of basics that obstructing the public highway is unacceptable, whether that is the carriageway or the footway.
On shore wind is the cheapest form of energy there is, its absolutely bonkers its not been maximised. Any NIMBYs need to be told to mind their own business.
Same with housing. Looks like a disappointing lack of reform to be announced today, just a return of the pre-Sunak mandatory housing targets. That's not enough, more needs to be done.
I understand your problem - you want to big up Harris. That she's unimpressive makes that hard so instead you have to belittle all her predecessors.
Dan Quayle is possibly the closest GOP equivalent to Harris - a young Senator from a safe state picked to reassure the base.
Here’s MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, only three months ago, saying that Biden is as good as he’s ever been, after another episode of ‘right-wing trolling’ about his health. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COQf3U1KzHw
Now he’s done a U-turn and is saying that his health needs to be discussed.
And a comparison of his subsequent interview (which the diehards spun as a recovery) with a similar one he gave in the run up to the election in 2020, underlined the extent of his mental deterioration.
You don't have to diagnose any medical condition at all to be very clear about that.
My favourite that happened to me was when electric trains couldn't run because of the snow and I had to get off of a diesel train that normally went all the way into London but this day terminated at Oxted and (wait for it....) had to wait to get an electric train. You know the ones that couldn't run in the snow. I had this conversation with a rail person:
Me: Why is the train not going into London like it normally does and why am I transferring to an Electric train instead when the issue is with electric trains not diesel trains.
Rail person: This train terminates here. It doesn't go into London
Me: No it doesn't. I catch it everyday
Rail person: It doesn't on a Saturday
Me: It's Tuesday
Rail person: We are running a Saturday service
Me: Sigh (and walk away)
We never saw our diesel trains or any trains for 2 weeks. They got nicked to run elsewhere. That was the Uckfield line for you.
No truth to power, just run defence to stop Trump. But now if they don't ditch Biden sharpish, they just made it much more likely they get Trump.
https://x.com/EmilyThornberry/status/1810243213359288403
Onshore wind is profitable, reliable, clean and cheap. That's why planning regulations were needed to block it, not people not wanting to put it up.
Reeves announces that Rayner will recover and call-in the two rejected data centre investments.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu/status/1810251143198519328
Good
It is beyond ridiculous and the Dems are condemning us all to Trump 2.0.
You can't force a SC Justice to retire (and significant pressure was put on her to do so).
RBG is actually a good comparison with what's going on with Biden.
I noted last year that there really isn't a good way to stop a reasonably successful first term President from running again.
And we're seeing now that even when much of the party is fairly clearly determined to persuade him to step down, there's no simple mechanism to make in happen.
Developers seek to maximise profit. They do not see to build as much as possible. The constraint in supply is in their interest.
I'm looking at them as potential presidential candidates - which is what we're talking about now. Whatever sense they made politically as VP picks they'd be awful running for the top post.
That's not true of Harris, in my view.
Planning regulations give those with permission a monopoly preventing competition.
True planning reform would destroy the oligopoly/local monopolies that run housing construction and open the market up to healthy competition.
And he's an independent, not a Democrat.
Morning Consult also has Biden ahead of Trump in 2 swing states, Michigan and Wisconsin
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/20/labour-is-now-the-true-party-of-english-patriotism/
Nobody has a monopoly on land ownership. What people want to do with their own land is up to them, NIMBYism is trying to forbid other people from building on their (not your own) land.
What you're saying is that US journalists can't do basic journalism. Which I agree with.
They put it in the old post box.
Would you be happy if someone were to buy small strips of land all over the country to prevent new roads being built?
You often talk about housing. What about things like public infrastructure, supervening rights which exist along the sides of road corridors for road widening in the future, zoning and so on?
There are a mass of small cases that cause trouble - for example BT trying to repurpose no longer needed phone box sites as advertising boards blocking half of a pavement cross-wise. I'd simply say that the phone box is no longer needed, so we can recover an unobstructed pavement back. There is one outside Sheffield Railway station, for example.
Coaker, Eagles x2, Bryant, Timms...its very much getting the band back together from 2005 Labour.
But we're not talking about that. There's no need for wind farms to traverse the country, any more than any other type of farm, they can be wherever they get sited.
Actually its pylons etc that are more relevant for needing to be sorted out than wind farms as again they do need to traverse the country.
Private infrastructure should be paid for privately.
I'd have zoning but then allow a free-for-all (within legal standards) with no objections by anyone possible so long as its done legally within land zoned for construction. "Whatever is not forbidden is legal".
I'm not certain which came first, path or pole, but the path could easily be routed around the pole on apparently the same land - no fence at least within the area that would be required. The pole, maybe, is at the maximum distance in both directions for the cable span or whatever, so not trivia to move?
1 - Regulation of pensions to encourage "investment". We need to make sure that that isn't the "compel a percentage of a pension fund to be invested where we tell them to invest it" nuttiness put forward for a number of years by Professor Murphy.
2 - The changes to the NPPF will need careful watching; this is the crucial document for planning in England.
3 - Something major will be done with the Local Plan process. That may be more heavily centralised, or decisions handled more centrally if one is not in place - as opposed to developers being able to control it by presumptions around individual planning applications going to Appeal process.
On the whole, a cautious but prompt start.
It seems that the ‘patriot not nationalist’ lads are the biggest flag wankers of all.
That can persist for a decade, or forever, depending on whether a PP is locked in (eg a new house build has been 'started' by installing a soakaway).
I didn't think my local MP, Sir Stephen Timms, would return to Government after such a long absence but he's the Minister of State at the DWP so good on him.
Assuming the Government runs to 2028, he'll be 72 and I suspect will stand down - the contest to find a new Labour candidate will be interesting.
On an unrelated, we have the next London Mayoral election in 2028 - if Khan wanted to stand down and not serve a fourth term and instead go to Westminster, they'd need to find him a seat somewhere.
Three birds.
That first sentence is about 140 words
The Daily Mail would pay £140 for that.
I don't see why any landowner should be allowed to stymie the progress of the country. OTOH, I also don't think you should sacrifice an area of outstanding beauty like the Lake District for turbines. We're both NIMBYs, like it or not.
I guess there may be some places with *local* monopolies, but I think the places where the housing shortages are the worst are mostly places where people already commute so they have a lot of choices which locality to live in?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Health-Summary-2.28.pdf
Note a "movement disorder neuroligic specialist" was added to the team of medical consultants back in 2021.
Looking at the video of him back then, he's clearly (to my untrained eye at least) deteriorated since then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7e7eZhdOfk.
https://x.com/christiancalgie/status/1810250187450798495
Build. 5G. Masts.
Nice little earner for Nige.
Near a friend, in Kent, there was a site that was going to be developed for a small commercial operation.
Locally NIMBY genius thought that buying some newts off the internet and dumping them in a puddle on the site was an act of great wisdom.
Turned out the company had cameras up on the site.
Also turned out that the newts in question were a non native species. So she is looking at some legal stuff about releasing non native species in addition to the trespass.
Her whining on social media sounds hilarious.
The party could have easily allowed a real primary to happen - by making it clear that whilst they appreciated the hard work done by Biden to prevent Trump winning in 2020 and and "righting the ship of state" in his time in office, it would be best for him to prove his ability in an open primary (as there were concerns in 2020 about his age) and it would be a good opportunity to show that the Democratic party is not like the GOP - they are not a cult around a single person, like Trump, they are a democratic party that want to give the younger generation of politicians to show and hone their skills. Not holding a real primary not only robbed the party base of really choosing their candidate, it robbed the wider electorate a chance to see if Biden was up for the job, and it robbed the Democratic party of the chance to test out younger politicians and give them experience of campaigning - which they need because the Democratic party is rotting at the head with old politicians who are refusing to give up their grip on power.
If Biden was up to the job and was voted for in a real primary as the candidate, then he'd have a much stronger argument for why he should stay, and it may have prepared him better for the national campaign he needed to run. Instead he was allowed to not really try until recently, and he isn't up to the job.
ETA: This wasn't what I was thinking of, but shows new pylon designs for UK at the end and some ideas from elsewhere. I'd guess the giant ones near the top would be quite expensive! The new ones in the UK, T design, do look better than the old.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66404487
But these are not infinite. Urban areas should have no restrictions on masts, especially on buildings but also for roadside lamp-post style masts. Build where needed.
The non-native species thing is potentially very serious
And on the website, the twitter/Facebook/insta links just go to the homepages of the respective services.