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
Imagine deliberately targeting Great Ormond Street...
A barrage of Russian missiles hit central Kyiv on Monday, severely damaging Ukraine’s main children’s cancer hospital, amid a broader attack on cities across Ukraine. https://x.com/maxseddon/status/1810250671389643107
"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.
In American politics, the sitting president who wants another term gets it. Having a really competitive primary is just not how things are done. It would, in the US context, been starting a civil war in the party. With shades of Johnson & McCarthy
BBC Verify were so desperate for big social media scandal stories during the GE to justify their existence / their "undercover" online project, and it never happened..
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 don't think they need to have a monopoly in a general sense. Even in a competitive market, the profit maximising quantity and type of house to provide is not necessarily the best for housing as many people as possible.
Even within the Edinburgh bypass, developers are building detached houses with tiny gardens. When my flat was built 150 years ago, they transformed a field into tenements. You can house 6x as many people on the same footprint as those detached houses, and it's still only medium density.
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.
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
Yeah, if she's really giving her "unstinting support" she wouldn't say she was "sorry and surprised" not to be appointed. Vicious.
Yes. The other thing is that everyone who becomes an MP and wants to be a servant of the nation has the interests of about 85,000 people to look after, and this is the actual job for which they were elected. This a huge privilege and enough for anyone to get on with.
Just a guess but I should think her Islington constituency will provide enough case work to keep any number of people going. Housing? NHS? Social care? Child poverty? Crime? Gangs? Ethnic tensions? Policing? I don't suppose she has them all sorted yet.
"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.
In American politics, the sitting president who wants another term gets it. Having a really competitive primary is just not how things are done. It would, in the US context, been starting a civil war in the party. With shades of Johnson & McCarthy
I mean, that's not true - Bush Sr was primaried seriously, if unsuccessfully, from the right. And also - this is a special scenario; it's obvious that Biden is declining in ability and the threat of Trump is considerable. The party of democracy - in the country that so admired the willingness of Washington to give up power that it named a city after Cincinnatus - should be able to deal with a party choosing to have a real primary (if only as a way of showing how they're different to the GOP!)
When will Nigel make his first big statement, absolutely lambasting Sir Keir's wokery?
Morning all. Bit late I know.
One of my concerns is that Farage will make a speech about Electoral Reform and put all decent-minded people off the subject!
If the reality of dislikeable parties puts people off electoral reform then the sooner the better. It is a major weakness of proportional systems that they keep giving fresh opportunities to sub optimal people. In our system to have real influence you have no choice but to submit yourself to the disciplines of the grown ups - the system that in the end saw off Boris on moral grounds, and sacked Corbyn from the Labour party.
To be fair, after the campaign they have just fought, which managed to be both shameful and ineffective, I'd want to memory hole the whole thing. Presumably The Internet Never Forgets applies, though?
See also the joke about Isaac Levido's next job interview:
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 don't think they need to have a monopoly in a general sense. Even in a competitive market, the profit maximising quantity and type of house to provide is not necessarily the best for housing as many people as possible.
Even within the Edinburgh bypass, developers are building detached houses with tiny gardens. When my flat was built 150 years ago, they transformed a field into tenements. You can house 6x as many people on the same footprint as those detached houses, and it's still only medium density.
What you're talking about now is a totally different thing to developers wanting to constrain supply. In some places customers will pay more for low density. If that's what makes more money, that's what they'll build.
However there are a lot of places where it would be more profitable to build at higher density but you can't because of planning regulations, and if you abolish those regulations you'll house more people.
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.
Releasing alien species is likely to be a criminal offence under perhaps the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
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.
On the whole, a cautious but prompt start.
It absolutely will be the first. Indeed for some public sector pensions this is well on the way.
I'd expect that much of the existing planning regime will be swept away, but that will take a lot of time with some hard battles ahead for Labour.
Point (3) - your confirmation that Labour has virtually the same mandate in Scotland as the SNP had in 2017 is duly noted, albeit that in 2017 the SNP secured 15% more votes. Looking forward to the same level of influence on Westminster policy.
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.
I think Network Rail have also disguised trackside antennas as trees.
I can see one on the horizon from my kitchen, up on the downs above Fontmell Magna. It's pretty good tbf, you have to get quite close to see it's not a scots pine. We use it to mark the turning of winter as the sun rises directly behind it for just one or two days around 5th January.
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.
Releasing alien species is likely to be a criminal offence under perhaps the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
Has she been done?
She was whining about being investigated. Apparently she thinks that there is some kind of exemption to laws for people who Are Against Development
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.
On the whole, a cautious but prompt start.
It absolutely will be the first. Indeed for some public sector pensions this is well on the way.
I'd expect that much of the existing planning regime will be swept away, but that will take a lot of time with some hard battles ahead for Labour.
So much of politics devolves to this - nationally my party says 'X', locally I say 'Y'. The Lib Dems have always done this on housing - nationally say we need to build houses and then oppose everything at a local level. Labour is about to start having the same thing, all over the country.
The new Health Secretary, Wes Streeting says “the NHS is broken”, but instead of bringing in builders, he has a brought in a demolition man - Alan Milburn.
The new Health Secretary, Wes Streeting says “the NHS is broken”, but instead of bringing in builders, he has a brought in a demolition man - Alan Milburn.
The new Health Secretary, Wes Streeting says “the NHS is broken”, but instead of bringing in builders, he has a brought in a demolition man - Alan Milburn.
How many hours to save the NHS?
How many hours to hand the NHS to Streeting's private health donors more like
The new Health Secretary, Wes Streeting says “the NHS is broken”, but instead of bringing in builders, he has a brought in a demolition man - Alan Milburn.
He survived the expenses scandal but the MP for Darlington with five extra paid roles is to join the exodus of senior politicians Gaby Hinsliff, political editor Sat 27 Jun 2009 14.16 BST Share Alan Milburn, the former Cabinet minister, is to join the growing exodus of senior politicians from parliament by standing down at the next election.
The Darlington MP had emerged virtually unscathed from the expenses scandal but is likely to face criticism this week when new details of MPs' outside earnings are published: he has five paid roles in addition to his parliamentary work, including posts with PepsiCo and Lloyds Pharmacy.
And on the website, the twitter/Facebook/insta links just go to the homepages of the respective services.
Did they make the mistake of not changing the passwords, before firing the campaigns team who were on temporary contracts for the election?
It will be interesting to see what the financial fallout will be for Tory HQ.
I'd expect to see both private and particularly corporate donations to dry up (significantly the case already), as businesses seek to influence the new government and don't see much point in funding a party that could be a decade away from power.
The Tories will be getting a shedload of Short Money - although well short of what they've had during previous stints in opposition. But will lose all the governmental support for their former ministers; their top team will be entirely dependent on their HQ for support.
The LibDems found the transition into coalition financially difficult, through losing the short money for their party operation, which having an army of civil servants able to research and the like only partially made up for.
The new Health Secretary, Wes Streeting says “the NHS is broken”, but instead of bringing in builders, he has a brought in a demolition man - Alan Milburn.
How many hours to save the NHS?
How many hours to hand the NHS to Streeting's private health donors more like
The new Health Secretary, Wes Streeting says “the NHS is broken”, but instead of bringing in builders, he has a brought in a demolition man - Alan Milburn.
How many hours to save the NHS?
How many hours to hand the NHS to Streeting's private health donors more like
Missing the Tories already?
Why would you be missing them.
SKS Lab have same aim hand the NHS to private Sector health donors
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.
Releasing alien species is likely to be a criminal offence under perhaps the Wildlife and Countryside Act.
Has she been done?
She was whining about being investigated. Apparently she thinks that there is some kind of exemption to laws for people who Are Against Development
Is it not an offence to fraudulently try to influence planning decisions? If not, it should be.
"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.
Yes I watched that interview. It dispelled no fears whatsoever. Confirmed them if anything. One must hope he bows out for Harris - and I still think he will - but an unfortunate Catch 22 might be in play here atm. Cognitive decline means he should stand down as the candidate. Cognitive decline prevents him from realising that.
BBC Verify were so desperate for big social media scandal stories during the GE to justify their existence / their "undercover" online project, and it never happened..
A classic modus operandi of trying to make news rather than reporting it.
A classic case of finding any old reason to attack the BBC! Lots of people were concerned about deep fakes being used in the campaign, including here. BBC Verify responded appropriately.
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 don't think they need to have a monopoly in a general sense. Even in a competitive market, the profit maximising quantity and type of house to provide is not necessarily the best for housing as many people as possible.
Even within the Edinburgh bypass, developers are building detached houses with tiny gardens. When my flat was built 150 years ago, they transformed a field into tenements. You can house 6x as many people on the same footprint as those detached houses, and it's still only medium density.
What you're talking about now is a totally different thing to developers wanting to constrain supply. In some places customers will pay more for low density. If that's what makes more money, that's what they'll build.
However there are a lot of places where it would be more profitable to build at higher density but you can't because of planning regulations, and if you abolish those regulations you'll house more people.
Most people actually want low density housing.
One of the worst features of the planning system is that getting planning on a given bit of land is so difficult developers are then incentivised to cram twice as many houses onto it as actually fit.
Wife and I are currently rather half heartedly house hunting at the moment, and we don't even look at new builds because we don't want to live in a pokey little box with a garden about 10' long.
A crucial week for Biden as NATO visits Washington. President Biden begins what could be the most crucial week of his presidency on Monday, facing crumbling support from Democratic lawmakers and mounting fears that his defiance could lead to a historic rout by former President Donald J. Trump and his followers in November’s races for the White House and Congress.
Many Democrats are now demanding an immediate political proof of life, but Mr. Biden will be unable to deliver the ramped-up campaign they want as he plays host to the 75th NATO summit in Washington, where large swaths of downtown are already fenced off. Aides have promised an aggressive campaign schedule the week of July 15 — if it’s not too late.
NY Times
Terrible to think this, but, if we are all very lucky Biden will fall over at the NATO meet and then we can finally put the question of him being able to serve 4 years and beat Trump to bed.
"I voted SDP. They gave me something to believe in Our liberal order is failing. Farage understands this, but so too does the Social Democratic Party Tim Stanley"
How does one track down whether an alleged "Registration of a Debt" at the Northampton Bulk Centre actually exists?
This relates I think to the Dart Charge setup on the Thames Bridge, and may have been triggered by their deletion of all their continuous payment accounts some time ago without telling anyone ie me. I had a tangle with them a few years ago, which was why I created the account.
I think I am dealing with something called the Traffic Enforcement Centre, who seem to have one of these round and round in circles for hours phone systems.
I have had no comms known to me from the Court whatsoever.
Obvs at this stage the first thing is making sure that nothing reaches the credit file, even if it means paying admin fees of collectors.
Cheers for any comments.
You may want to try one of the parking forums, either pepipoo or on MSE. There will be alot of info on this there.
ISTR Northampton was where lots of Private Parking Companies used to register debts so this may be down to a PPC rather than the crossing. Some, like OPC, used to wait four or five years then register to worry people. It may be an aged debt.
How does one track down whether an alleged "Registration of a Debt" at the Northampton Bulk Centre actually exists?
This relates I think to the Dart Charge setup on the Thames Bridge, and may have been triggered by their deletion of all their continuous payment accounts some time ago without telling anyone ie me. I had a tangle with them a few years ago, which was why I created the account.
I think I am dealing with something called the Traffic Enforcement Centre, who seem to have one of these round and round in circles for hours phone systems.
I have had no comms known to me from the Court whatsoever.
Obvs at this stage the first thing is making sure that nothing reaches the credit file, even if it means paying admin fees of collectors.
Cheers for any comments.
You may want to try one of the parking forums, either pepipoo or on MSE. There will be alot of info on this there.
ISTR Northampton was where lots of Private Parking Companies used to register debts so this may be down to a PPC rather than the crossing. Some, like OPC, used to wait four or five years then register to worry people. It may be an aged debt.
Thanks
I think I mentioned something about this a couple of months ago, and it seems I made no progress, and they done things without me being informed, or are making fake claims.
When will Nigel make his first big statement, absolutely lambasting Sir Keir's wokery?
Morning all. Bit late I know.
One of my concerns is that Farage will make a speech about Electoral Reform and put all decent-minded people off the subject!
If the reality of dislikeable parties puts people off electoral reform then the sooner the better. It is a major weakness of proportional systems that they keep giving fresh opportunities to sub optimal people. In our system to have real influence you have no choice but to submit yourself to the disciplines of the grown ups - the system that in the end saw off Boris on moral grounds, and sacked Corbyn from the Labour party.
… and then elected Corbyn as an MP, along with at least 10 other nutty MPs.
"I voted SDP. They gave me something to believe in Our liberal order is failing. Farage understands this, but so too does the Social Democratic Party Tim Stanley"
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.
Let's see what Labour do. Today's announcement is purely about ministerial policy - which can be changed pretty well immediately without legislation. And in its own terms, it seems to me (FWIW) to be a step in the right direction.
On the Planning Announcement, exactly the same is needing on Building Control - who are responsible for built quality / inspection. If developers are just allowed to builder below-standard buildings more quickly, that is exactly what some will do.
Most developers will use a private building control company "Approved Inspectors" because it is technical discipline - does the construction comply with the building regs approved documents. Planning is more opinion and subject to the local politicians.
BBC Verify were so desperate for big social media scandal stories during the GE to justify their existence / their "undercover" online project, and it never happened..
A classic modus operandi of trying to make news rather than reporting it.
A classic case of finding any old reason to attack the BBC! Lots of people were concerned about deep fakes being used in the campaign, including here. BBC Verify responded appropriately.
Quite a bit of that concern came from......the BBC themselves.
Nothing wrong with them trying to create a story they can then respond to, I guess.
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 don't think they need to have a monopoly in a general sense. Even in a competitive market, the profit maximising quantity and type of house to provide is not necessarily the best for housing as many people as possible.
Even within the Edinburgh bypass, developers are building detached houses with tiny gardens. When my flat was built 150 years ago, they transformed a field into tenements. You can house 6x as many people on the same footprint as those detached houses, and it's still only medium density.
What you're talking about now is a totally different thing to developers wanting to constrain supply. In some places customers will pay more for low density. If that's what makes more money, that's what they'll build.
However there are a lot of places where it would be more profitable to build at higher density but you can't because of planning regulations, and if you abolish those regulations you'll house more people.
Most people actually want low density housing.
One of the worst features of the planning system is that getting planning on a given bit of land is so difficult developers are then incentivised to cram twice as many houses onto it as actually fit.
Wife and I are currently rather half heartedly house hunting at the moment, and we don't even look at new builds because we don't want to live in a pokey little box with a garden about 10' long.
Most people want their own house to be low-density, but to live in a high-density neighbourhood - or at least to live in a neighbourhood with the sorts of facilities that a high-density neighbourhood generates the demand for.
"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.
Yes I watched that interview. It dispelled no fears whatsoever. Confirmed them if anything. One must hope he bows out for Harris - and I still think he will - but an unfortunate Catch 22 might be in play here atm. Cognitive decline means he should stand down as the candidate. Cognitive decline prevents him from realising that.
Shouldn't prevent Dr Jill from realising it though. It's an incredibly difficult balancing act to consider the best interests of someone in mental decline in tandem with their own desires and autonomy, but how can 4 more years in arguably the most stressful & demanding job in the world be good for Biden? Perhaps she thinks Bidens abiding last memory should be of him in that job and the delusion of being in control, if so she's an idiot.
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.
I think Network Rail have also disguised trackside antennas as trees.
I can see one on the horizon from my kitchen, up on the downs above Fontmell Magna. It's pretty good tbf, you have to get quite close to see it's not a scots pine. We use it to mark the turning of winter as the sun rises directly behind it for just one or two days around 5th January.
"I voted SDP. They gave me something to believe in Our liberal order is failing. Farage understands this, but so too does the Social Democratic Party Tim Stanley"
"I voted SDP. They gave me something to believe in Our liberal order is failing. Farage understands this, but so too does the Social Democratic Party Tim Stanley"
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.
ISTM that not building on the public highway is a necessary restriction .
Does anyone know where I can get the full detailed results please? Lots of web sites claim they do, but don't. Invariably you have to enter a post code. I'm not doing that for every constituency (even if I were capable) I want a full list in full detail.
Even Wikipedia failed me as there are no vote numbers on their detailed list.
Honestly the internet sometimes takes us backwards. In the old days all the quality press would publish a full set of results.
"I voted SDP. They gave me something to believe in Our liberal order is failing. Farage understands this, but so too does the Social Democratic Party Tim Stanley"
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.
I think Network Rail have also disguised trackside antennas as trees.
I can see one on the horizon from my kitchen, up on the downs above Fontmell Magna. It's pretty good tbf, you have to get quite close to see it's not a scots pine. We use it to mark the turning of winter as the sun rises directly behind it for just one or two days around 5th January.
“The Home Secretary has also commissioned an investigation from the Home Office and the National Crime Agency into the tactics used by people smuggling gangs to inform a major law enforcement drive over the coming months”
Can’t believe the Home Office didn’t think of this before.
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
Had a friend up in Lancashire who built a new house on his side plot, which his wife had purchased 20 years before.
His children had when young moved newts around between ponds, so that he had to use newt fences to hold them back whilst developing his house.
BBC Verify were so desperate for big social media scandal stories during the GE to justify their existence / their "undercover" online project, and it never happened..
A classic modus operandi of trying to make news rather than reporting it.
A classic case of finding any old reason to attack the BBC! Lots of people were concerned about deep fakes being used in the campaign, including here. BBC Verify responded appropriately.
Bollocks. They have run several stories which basically tried to dress up we didn't find anything of note as a story of note
e.g Reform "bots", was actually real people who for all the evidence BBC Verify found are erhhh supporters of Reform. The only account they found that could be a bot had 150 followers. And this made the big headline on 10 o' clock news....
They also ran the Trump deep fakes one that was an account that was very clear a parody meme account, there was no attempt to try to disguise it was real.
The new Health Secretary, Wes Streeting says “the NHS is broken”, but instead of bringing in builders, he has a brought in a demolition man - Alan Milburn.
How many hours to save the NHS?
How many hours to hand the NHS to Streeting's private health donors more like
Missing the Tories already?
Why would you be missing them.
SKS Lab have same aim hand the NHS to private Sector health donors
An aim that the Tories have apparently never manage to achieve, despite being in power from 1979 to 1997, and then 2010 until last Friday. Hardly seems to be their number one priority.
Does anyone know where I can get the full detailed results please? Lots of web sites claim they do, but don't. Invariably you have to enter a post code. I'm not doing that for every constituency (even if I were capable) I want a full list in full detail.
Even Wikipedia failed me as there are no vote numbers on their detailed list.
Honestly the internet sometimes takes us backwards. In the old days all the quality press would publish a full set of results.
Parliament will publish a research paper in due course
Does anyone know where I can get the full detailed results please? Lots of web sites claim they do, but don't. Invariably you have to enter a post code. I'm not doing that for every constituency (even if I were capable) I want a full list in full detail.
Even Wikipedia failed me as there are no vote numbers on their detailed list.
Honestly the internet sometimes takes us backwards. In the old days all the quality press would publish a full set of results.
I can't find anything with all the votes cast data. The HoC library has the winning MPs spreadsheet with data about party, whether it was a hold etc.
"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.
Yes I watched that interview. It dispelled no fears whatsoever. Confirmed them if anything. One must hope he bows out for Harris - and I still think he will - but an unfortunate Catch 22 might be in play here atm. Cognitive decline means he should stand down as the candidate. Cognitive decline prevents him from realising that.
Shouldn't prevent Dr Jill from realising it though. It's an incredibly difficult balancing act to consider the best interests of someone in mental decline in tandem with their own desires and autonomy, but how can 4 more years in arguably the most stressful & demanding job in the world be good for Biden? Perhaps she thinks Bidens abiding last memory should be of him in that job and the delusion of being in control, if so she's an idiot.
Reagan tragically ended his days thinking people were kidding when they told him he had been potus.
Does anyone know where I can get the full detailed results please? Lots of web sites claim they do, but don't. Invariably you have to enter a post code. I'm not doing that for every constituency (even if I were capable) I want a full list in full detail.
Even Wikipedia failed me as there are no vote numbers on their detailed list.
Honestly the internet sometimes takes us backwards. In the old days all the quality press would publish a full set of results.
I can't find anything with all the votes cast data. The HoC library has the winning MPs spreadsheet with data about party, whether it was a hold etc.
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.
I think Network Rail have also disguised trackside antennas as trees.
I can see one on the horizon from my kitchen, up on the downs above Fontmell Magna. It's pretty good tbf, you have to get quite close to see it's not a scots pine. We use it to mark the turning of winter as the sun rises directly behind it for just one or two days around 5th January.
Does anyone know where I can get the full detailed results please? Lots of web sites claim they do, but don't. Invariably you have to enter a post code. I'm not doing that for every constituency (even if I were capable) I want a full list in full detail.
Even Wikipedia failed me as there are no vote numbers on their detailed list.
Honestly the internet sometimes takes us backwards. In the old days all the quality press would publish a full set of results.
"We will publish full vote counts and candidate-level data once we have verified local authority returns. We expect this to be around 12th July."
Does anyone know where I can get the full detailed results please? Lots of web sites claim they do, but don't. Invariably you have to enter a post code. I'm not doing that for every constituency (even if I were capable) I want a full list in full detail.
Even Wikipedia failed me as there are no vote numbers on their detailed list.
Honestly the internet sometimes takes us backwards. In the old days all the quality press would publish a full set of results.
"I voted SDP. They gave me something to believe in Our liberal order is failing. Farage understands this, but so too does the Social Democratic Party Tim Stanley"
To quote a film in a setting not unadjacent to the constituency he ran in, 'You're a big man, but you're in bad shape. With me it's a full time job. Now behave yourself.' Though he's not averse to using his fists in certain advantageous circumstance I believe.
Does anyone know where I can get the full detailed results please? Lots of web sites claim they do, but don't. Invariably you have to enter a post code. I'm not doing that for every constituency (even if I were capable) I want a full list in full detail.
Even Wikipedia failed me as there are no vote numbers on their detailed list.
Honestly the internet sometimes takes us backwards. In the old days all the quality press would publish a full set of results.
"We will publish full vote counts and candidate-level data once we have verified local authority returns. We expect this to be around 12th July."
“The Home Secretary has also commissioned an investigation from the Home Office and the National Crime Agency into the tactics used by people smuggling gangs to inform a major law enforcement drive over the coming months”
Can’t believe the Home Office didn’t think of this before.
They have. It would be less surprising if they have both separately investigated illegal people smugglers and their tactics, but don't tell one another.
“The Home Secretary has also commissioned an investigation from the Home Office and the National Crime Agency into the tactics used by people smuggling gangs to inform a major law enforcement drive over the coming months”
Can’t believe the Home Office didn’t think of this before.
We already have a Small Boats Operational Command which was recruiting over 700 additional staff to add to the people already working on the problem. Apparenly creating a new Border Security Command will magically solve the problem.
Does anyone know where I can get the full detailed results please? Lots of web sites claim they do, but don't. Invariably you have to enter a post code. I'm not doing that for every constituency (even if I were capable) I want a full list in full detail.
Even Wikipedia failed me as there are no vote numbers on their detailed list.
Honestly the internet sometimes takes us backwards. In the old days all the quality press would publish a full set of results.
Parliament will publish a research paper in due course
I saw that Ian, but I need it NOW. I have withdrawal symptoms. Thanks everyone else also.
Does anyone know where I can get the full detailed results please? Lots of web sites claim they do, but don't. Invariably you have to enter a post code. I'm not doing that for every constituency (even if I were capable) I want a full list in full detail.
Even Wikipedia failed me as there are no vote numbers on their detailed list.
Honestly the internet sometimes takes us backwards. In the old days all the quality press would publish a full set of results.
"We will publish full vote counts and candidate-level data once we have verified local authority returns. We expect this to be around 12th July."
BBC Verify were so desperate for big social media scandal stories during the GE to justify their existence / their "undercover" online project, and it never happened..
A classic modus operandi of trying to make news rather than reporting it.
A classic case of finding any old reason to attack the BBC! Lots of people were concerned about deep fakes being used in the campaign, including here. BBC Verify responded appropriately.
Bollocks. They have run several stories which basically tried to dress up we didn't find anything of note as a story of note e.g Reform "bots", was actually real people who for all the evidence BBC Verify found are erhhh supporters of Reform. They also ran the Trump deep fakes one that was an account that was very clear a parody meme account.
Bollocks to your bollocks. Numerous media outlets have raised this as a concern, in our recent general election and elsewhere. For example:
BBC Verify were so desperate for big social media scandal stories during the GE to justify their existence / their "undercover" online project, and it never happened..
A classic modus operandi of trying to make news rather than reporting it.
A classic case of finding any old reason to attack the BBC! Lots of people were concerned about deep fakes being used in the campaign, including here. BBC Verify responded appropriately.
Bollocks. They have run several stories which basically tried to dress up we didn't find anything of note as a story of note e.g Reform "bots", was actually real people who for all the evidence BBC Verify found are erhhh supporters of Reform. They also ran the Trump deep fakes one that was an account that was very clear a parody meme account.
Bollocks to your bollocks. Numerous media outlets have raised this as a concern, in our recent general election and elsewhere. For example:
That wasn't my point. Its was BBC Verify have desperately tried to make a story when there wasn't one. They aren't reporting the news, they are trying to make news. The Reform one being a classic example, there was no story, but it lead major part of 10pm news.
Is there concern over generative AI yes. Have BBC Verify stories found real evidence of its widespread use influencing our general election, no.
“The Home Secretary has also commissioned an investigation from the Home Office and the National Crime Agency into the tactics used by people smuggling gangs to inform a major law enforcement drive over the coming months”
Can’t believe the Home Office didn’t think of this before.
No need. There's a film they can watch, Io Capitano. From this they will learn that people smugglers appoint the most clued up looking clients as captain and have no presence on the boats and no need to be in the UK at all, it's not like they are waiting at this end with medals and goody bags for successful finishers. So how a Home Office op works is anyone's guess.
"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.
Yes I watched that interview. It dispelled no fears whatsoever. Confirmed them if anything. One must hope he bows out for Harris - and I still think he will - but an unfortunate Catch 22 might be in play here atm. Cognitive decline means he should stand down as the candidate. Cognitive decline prevents him from realising that.
Shouldn't prevent Dr Jill from realising it though. It's an incredibly difficult balancing act to consider the best interests of someone in mental decline in tandem with their own desires and autonomy, but how can 4 more years in arguably the most stressful & demanding job in the world be good for Biden? Perhaps she thinks Bidens abiding last memory should be of him in that job and the delusion of being in control, if so she's an idiot.
I really don't know what's going on there but if she is actively counselling him against standing down as the candidate that wouldn't be my idea of benign spousal influence. Hopefully she isn't doing 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 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 don't think they need to have a monopoly in a general sense. Even in a competitive market, the profit maximising quantity and type of house to provide is not necessarily the best for housing as many people as possible.
Even within the Edinburgh bypass, developers are building detached houses with tiny gardens. When my flat was built 150 years ago, they transformed a field into tenements. You can house 6x as many people on the same footprint as those detached houses, and it's still only medium density.
What you're talking about now is a totally different thing to developers wanting to constrain supply. In some places customers will pay more for low density. If that's what makes more money, that's what they'll build.
However there are a lot of places where it would be more profitable to build at higher density but you can't because of planning regulations, and if you abolish those regulations you'll house more people.
Most people actually want low density housing.
One of the worst features of the planning system is that getting planning on a given bit of land is so difficult developers are then incentivised to cram twice as many houses onto it as actually fit.
Wife and I are currently rather half heartedly house hunting at the moment, and we don't even look at new builds because we don't want to live in a pokey little box with a garden about 10' long.
Most people want their own house to be low-density, but to live in a high-density neighbourhood - or at least to live in a neighbourhood with the sorts of facilities that a high-density neighbourhood generates the demand for.
If it's good enough for His Majesty The King...
(But yes, that's the problem in a nutshell. Made worse by the problem that cars- which might be thought to solve the distance problem- end up making it worse, because they need so much space and that forces everything and everyone even further apart.)
Does anyone know where I can get the full detailed results please? Lots of web sites claim they do, but don't. Invariably you have to enter a post code. I'm not doing that for every constituency (even if I were capable) I want a full list in full detail.
Even Wikipedia failed me as there are no vote numbers on their detailed list.
Honestly the internet sometimes takes us backwards. In the old days all the quality press would publish a full set of results.
"We will publish full vote counts and candidate-level data once we have verified local authority returns. We expect this to be around 12th July."
I've published the full vote counts in a single sheet. Have any results been changed after LA verification ever ? It must be an exceedingly rare event.
The new Health Secretary, Wes Streeting says “the NHS is broken”, but instead of bringing in builders, he has a brought in a demolition man - Alan Milburn.
How many hours to save the NHS?
How many hours to hand the NHS to Streeting's private health donors more like
Missing the Tories already?
Why would you be missing them.
SKS Lab have same aim hand the NHS to private Sector health donors
An aim that the Tories have apparently never manage to achieve, despite being in power from 1979 to 1997, and then 2010 until last Friday. Hardly seems to be their number one priority.
The Tories are so incompetent, however, that their failure to do something doesn’t prove it wasn’t their number one priority. They said reducing immigration was a priority and look what happened there.
“The Home Secretary has also commissioned an investigation from the Home Office and the National Crime Agency into the tactics used by people smuggling gangs to inform a major law enforcement drive over the coming months”
Can’t believe the Home Office didn’t think of this before.
We already have a Small Boats Operational Command which was recruiting over 700 additional staff to add to the people already working on the problem. Apparenly creating a new Border Security Command will magically solve the problem.
Awaits to see an open and fair application process for the head of the Command. Does not hold breath. Will be member of the new 10K. An ex post office worker could do it...
I'm old enough to recall Luckyguy's dogged scepticism about the Russian strike on a maternity hospital, back at the beginning of the war.
I am sorry if I seem sarcastic. It is exasperating seeing people downplay this. It is an act of barbaric terrorism. Targeting hospitals, intentionally. A CHILDRENS HOSPITAL. I have seen a video of a young child covered in surgical scars being treated for shrapnel wounds. I don't know what those scars are from. Maybe a cancer? Why should a children then be shot at with missiles? Only a terrorist would target them.
Comments
ETA: as per Jonathan's suggestion, one does have a turbine integrated
A barrage of Russian missiles hit central Kyiv on Monday, severely damaging Ukraine’s main children’s cancer hospital, amid a broader attack on cities across Ukraine.
https://x.com/maxseddon/status/1810250671389643107
One of my concerns is that Farage will make a speech about Electoral Reform and put all decent-minded people off the subject!
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj50qjy9g7ro
A classic modus operandi of trying to make news rather than reporting it.
Even within the Edinburgh bypass, developers are building detached houses with tiny gardens. When my flat was built 150 years ago, they transformed a field into tenements. You can house 6x as many people on the same footprint as those detached houses, and it's still only medium density.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/09/01/phone-mast-disguised-giant-tree-likened-gigantic-toilet-brush/
This one is better:
https://blog.quintinlake.com/2010/05/25/false-tree-mobile-phone-mast-antenna-tower-next-to-the-a40/
I think Network Rail have also disguised trackside antennas as trees.
Just a guess but I should think her Islington constituency will provide enough case work to keep any number of people going. Housing? NHS? Social care? Child poverty? Crime? Gangs? Ethnic tensions? Policing? I don't suppose she has them all sorted yet.
See also the joke about Isaac Levido's next job interview:
"About this gap in your CV in 2024..."
"Prison. I was in prision."
However there are a lot of places where it would be more profitable to build at higher density but you can't because of planning regulations, and if you abolish those regulations you'll house more people.
https://x.com/travisakers/status/1810034205792805009
Poor areas vote Labour (or Sinn Fein or Reform UK). Rich areas vote LibDem or Tory.
"I mean, the guy walked away from the D-Day commemorations. What can you do with a client like that?"
Has she been done?
I'd expect that much of the existing planning regime will be swept away, but that will take a lot of time with some hard battles ahead for Labour.
Not sure if this link will work:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/HiPtL1EvDJhMGhgh9
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1987_United_Kingdom_general_election
https://x.com/conservatives
Gaby Hinsliff, political editor
Sat 27 Jun 2009 14.16 BST
Share
Alan Milburn, the former Cabinet minister, is to join the growing exodus of senior politicians from parliament by standing down at the next election.
The Darlington MP had emerged virtually unscathed from the expenses scandal but is likely to face criticism this week when new details of MPs' outside earnings are published: he has five paid roles in addition to his parliamentary work, including posts with PepsiCo and Lloyds Pharmacy.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/jun/27/mps-expenses
Looks like it might have been money well spent by Lloyds Pharmacy !
I'd expect to see both private and particularly corporate donations to dry up (significantly the case already), as businesses seek to influence the new government and don't see much point in funding a party that could be a decade away from power.
The Tories will be getting a shedload of Short Money - although well short of what they've had during previous stints in opposition. But will lose all the governmental support for their former ministers; their top team will be entirely dependent on their HQ for support.
The LibDems found the transition into coalition financially difficult, through losing the short money for their party operation, which having an army of civil servants able to research and the like only partially made up for.
SKS Lab have same aim hand the NHS to private Sector health donors
One of the worst features of the planning system is that getting planning on a given bit of land is so difficult developers are then incentivised to cram twice as many houses onto it as actually fit.
Wife and I are currently rather half heartedly house hunting at the moment, and we don't even look at new builds because we don't want to live in a pokey little box with a garden about 10' long.
President Biden begins what could be the most crucial week of his presidency on Monday, facing crumbling support from Democratic lawmakers and mounting fears that his defiance could lead to a historic rout by former President Donald J. Trump and his followers in November’s races for the White House and Congress.
Many Democrats are now demanding an immediate political proof of life, but Mr. Biden will be unable to deliver the ramped-up campaign they want as he plays host to the 75th NATO summit in Washington, where large swaths of downtown are already fenced off. Aides have promised an aggressive campaign schedule the week of July 15 — if it’s not too late.
NY Times
Terrible to think this, but, if we are all very lucky Biden will fall over at the NATO meet and then we can finally put the question of him being able to serve 4 years and beat Trump to bed.
Our liberal order is failing. Farage understands this, but so too does the Social Democratic Party
Tim Stanley"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/08/farage-save-liberal-order-france-le-pen/
ISTR Northampton was where lots of Private Parking Companies used to register debts so this may be down to a PPC rather than the crossing. Some, like OPC, used to wait four or five years then register to worry people. It may be an aged debt.
I think I mentioned something about this a couple of months ago, and it seems I made no progress, and they done things without me being informed, or are making fake claims.
Cheers
Nothing wrong with them trying to create a story they can then respond to, I guess.
Isaac Levido has a massive --------
Even Wikipedia failed me as there are no vote numbers on their detailed list.
Honestly the internet sometimes takes us backwards. In the old days all the quality press would publish a full set of results.
“The Home Secretary has also commissioned an investigation from the Home Office and the National Crime Agency into the tactics used by people smuggling gangs to inform a major law enforcement drive over the coming months”
Can’t believe the Home Office didn’t think of this before.
His children had when young moved newts around between ponds, so that he had to use newt fences to hold them back whilst developing his house.
What goes around, comes around.
e.g Reform "bots", was actually real people who for all the evidence BBC Verify found are erhhh supporters of Reform. The only account they found that could be a bot had 150 followers. And this made the big headline on 10 o' clock news....
They also ran the Trump deep fakes one that was an account that was very clear a parody meme account, there was no attempt to try to disguise it was real.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10009/
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10009/
Tab "Detailed results"
Though he's not averse to using his fists in certain advantageous circumstance I believe.
FT https://www.ft.com/video/4f473456-ca0e-4f0b-a9aa-9bac1e3220a6
Reuters https://youtu.be/2e9eFprxP1I?feature=shared
British Computer Society https://www.bcs.org/articles-opinion-and-research/deepfakes-a-major-risk-for-the-general-election-according-to-research-with-the-tech-profession/
The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-election-rigged-deepfakes-ai-b2502385.html
Sky News https://news.sky.com/story/warning-to-uk-politicians-over-risk-of-audio-deepfakes-that-could-derail-the-general-election-13146573 and https://news.sky.com/story/gravely-concerning-claims-of-russian-interference-in-general-election-to-spread-support-for-farages-reform-13161235
Metro https://metro.co.uk/2024/07/02/spot-election-bot-fake-accounts-flood-social-media-21143917/
And more broadly:
CBC (Canada) https://youtu.be/B4jNttRvbpU?feature=shared
Al Jazeera (on the US) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/19/a-lack-of-trust-how-deepfakes-and-ai-could-rattle-the-us-elections
Politico (on UK, EU elections and beyond) https://www.politico.eu/article/deepfakes-distrust-disinformation-welcome-ai-election-2024/
The Sun (on the US) https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/28973865/ai-deepfakes-us-election-artificial-intelligence-fake-videos-voice/
Scientific American (globally) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-ai-bots-could-sabotage-2024-elections-around-the-world/
Is there concern over generative AI yes. Have BBC Verify stories found real evidence of its widespread use influencing our general election, no.
(But yes, that's the problem in a nutshell. Made worse by the problem that cars- which might be thought to solve the distance problem- end up making it worse, because they need so much space and that forces everything and everyone even further apart.)
Or just me?
I am sorry if I seem sarcastic. It is exasperating seeing people downplay this. It is an act of barbaric terrorism. Targeting hospitals, intentionally. A CHILDRENS HOSPITAL. I have seen a video of a young child covered in surgical scars being treated for shrapnel wounds. I don't know what those scars are from. Maybe a cancer? Why should a children then be shot at with missiles? Only a terrorist would target them.
These are intentional strikes on hospitals.
https://x.com/AndrewPerpetua/status/1810274934356144265