I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Even our pro-Putin trolls don't defend the missile attack on a children's cancer hospital. We can take it as read that everyone is depressed and angry at Russian actions.
When it comes to Gaza though we do have people who think any IDF action is fine and dandy.
Even if it was not Israel who attacked that hospital?
And I'm sorry: if you're vociferously angry about the hospital in Gaza, then you should be equally vociferously angry about the Russian attack: especially as the blame is not really in doubt.
But there is silence from them. Because, I fear, to use your words, there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy...
"there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy"
for example? I mean on PB, because it sounds like that is what you are talking about. (Of course there are people in the whole world who think that).
Not so much on PB, but there are people on here who try to blame anyone but Russia for Russia's actions. See those who say things like Zelenskyy is a dictator, or Ukrainian Nazis, when barely, if at all, criticising Russia.
If you look wider, then there are lots of people. Russian disinformation (aided and abetted by others) is working, especially in other countries. We should be doing more to combat this, but the campaigners seems to care more about Palestinians than Ukrainians. Despite the Ukrainian cause being much less messy.
As I predicted on election day or the day after, it looks like the Lichfield to Crewe bit of HS2 is going to be back on in short order.
"Rail minister appointment fuels hopes of HS2 revival Network Rail chief Lord Hendy is likely to be an advocate for extending the network"
"His appointment as rail minister may represent the best chance of saving elements of the scheme, including a link from the Midlands to Crewe that would allow full formations of HS2 trains to travel at top speed through to Manchester, leading figures in the sector said."
It will come down to whether Lord Hendy can gets things through the Department of Transport
But he's clueful enough to know how to get HS2 back on track and to kick off a number of quick win projects. For instance there are 60 miles of track that were they electrified opens up 2million track mile of freight a year shifting to electric...
In a highly competitive list cancelling HS2 was right up there for the Sunak government in terms of worst decisions.
You should be blaming the greed and incompetence that surrounded HS2 for a decade before Sunak became PM. Or even CoE.
I lot of the blame for the costs rests on the head of the former MP for Chesham and Amersham and look at the gratitude that waste of £10bn gold plating a set of tunnels did for the tory party (they lost the byelection).
The funny bit is that the air vents look worse and are way more visible than the original cutting would have looked like...
The bigger the project the greater the scope for excess spending when issues arise.
When a project is declared to be 'the biggest in Europe' the scope for excess spending becomes the biggest in Europe.
When a project is declared to be 'world beating' the scope for excess spending becomes world beating.
After a while the excess spending is deemed to be a good thing - the more that is spent means that the project becomes ever more 'biggest in Europe' or 'world beating'. Bigger is always deemed to be better.
As I predicted on election day or the day after, it looks like the Lichfield to Crewe bit of HS2 is going to be back on in short order.
"Rail minister appointment fuels hopes of HS2 revival Network Rail chief Lord Hendy is likely to be an advocate for extending the network"
"His appointment as rail minister may represent the best chance of saving elements of the scheme, including a link from the Midlands to Crewe that would allow full formations of HS2 trains to travel at top speed through to Manchester, leading figures in the sector said."
It will come down to whether Lord Hendy can gets things through the Department of Transport
But he's clueful enough to know how to get HS2 back on track and to kick off a number of quick win projects. For instance there are 60 miles of track that were they electrified opens up 2million track mile of freight a year shifting to electric...
In a highly competitive list cancelling HS2 was right up there for the Sunak government in terms of worst decisions.
You should be blaming the greed and incompetence that surrounded HS2 for a decade before Sunak became PM. Or even CoE.
So you're saying the Tories fucked it up, and the Tories cancelled it. I'm not seeing that as a great comeback.
I'm saying that every 'world beating' or 'biggest in Europe' project inevitably ends in going multiple times over budget and multiple years beyond predicted.
Consultants and lawyers do get rich though which seems to be the prime purpose of such projects.
Any government which proceeds with such projects deserves the blame which inevitably results.
So yes the Conservatives do deserve blame for the HS2 disaster - not for cancelling it but for starting it in the first place.
And any HS2 cheerleader who wonders why other infrastructure hasn't been invested in might remember that the money was instead spent on HS2.
Infrastructure investment that boosts GDP is a not a pie where giving out one slice means you can’t give that slice to someone else.
So long as the capacity is available to do the actual work without driving up inflation, bond markets will happily fund any infrastructure that they believe will boost GDP, in the sure knowledge that the future payment stream that backs the bond will be produced by the more productive future economy.
The limit is current economic capacity, not cash on hand.
I'll be watching for claims as to how many "disabled MPs" there are claimed to be in this Parliament.
Back in 2018 there were fabricated stories spread about "just 6 disabled MPs". which was generated by misinformation from campaigners (not fact-checked even by the Daily Politics; I challenged them and they said "no time to do it.") who wanted attention, then pretending *they* represented all the ~20% of disabled people in the population.
A constant issue - sometimes the only "disabled" people are seen as wheelchair users, sometimes it is only the faction who dominate a local lobby group, or where the experience of different disabled people goes against the measure that is desired by the first group.
The figure of "6" has become a still-referred-to standard number by media self-referencing since 2018 - eg a "fact" link in the G or the T refers back to an old G or T article where they ballsed it up last time; mistakes or lies self-perpetuate.
Here's one from June, where the G where Lucy Webster was slightly less inaccurate than usual, and draws a distinction:
The actual number was at least 40-50, from public sources, when I checked. The "5" did not even include the PM Theresa May, who had Type I diabetes and a sensor on her arm.
Isn't that about how low you make the threshold? They'll be many amonst the new intake who will consider they themselves have mental health problems and self identify as disabled.
The biggest MRP misses (As at the 26th June model) for Yougov were as follows.
47.34% Leicester South 45.35% Birmingham Perry Barr 40.39% Edinburgh West 34.87% Ilford North 33.34% Blackburn 33.21% Dewsbury and Batley 31.57% Slough 30.12% Rochdale 30.09% Bradford West 29.65% Birmingham Ladywood
OK So they didn't see the muslim Labour vote collapse, but how on God's green earth did they ever ever have Edinburgh West going SNP by 9%. Checking the final MRP it was a Lib Dem hold by 6%, still absolutely miles out and a bigger miss than Leicester East was in the last but one MRP (25.4% out vs 23.5%)
These polls are hopeless in identifying stuff when you have local stuff in play as can be seen by the exit poll for the LDs. On the night it started at 61 seats. As the night went on it kept dropping eventually getting to 50 seats and yet this was before Godalming and Ash so the LDs hadn't missed a single target and got several way way above the 61 point so it should have been going up not down. As the end result showed.
So this made no sense at all. It was clearly nonsense. The only thing I could deduce was there were quite a few Labour seats in that target 61 which the system was now deducing the LDs would not win, yet anyone with half a brain knew that was the case weeks ago. Nobody expected us to win Labour seats. The only possible LD win off Labour was Sheffield Hallam and that was a stretch.
I can think of no other reason why the projection dropped 11 seats when we were wining seats way above the 61 in the target list and at that point missing none at all.
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Which people are you talking about? Attacking hospitals is appalling behaviour, whoever does it.
The many posters on here who immediately blamed Israel for the attack on the hospital in Gaza, when the cause was uncertain (and it does now look as though it was a Hamas weapon, not an Israeli one). Also those (essentially the same people), who believed the figures Hamas released about the number of deaths.
Attacking hospitals is appalling behaviour; but it appears only Israel gets opprobrium for it. Even if it's unclear it was their fault.
I think you'll find that Russia gets pretty much universal opprobrium for attacking hospitals. As far as I can see, nobody is making any excuses for this. This is in stark contrast to the devastation wreaked on Gaza by Israel where time and time again, Israel is given given a free pass by some people. Yes, Hamas is also to blame, but you'd have to be a complete moron not to see that the vast majority of the destruction in Gaza is due to Israel's actions.
As for the number of deaths in Gaza, that seems like ridiculous nit-picking on your part. No, we don't know the exact number of deaths - nobody can, especially since Israel refuses to let any journalists in and has a habit of killing them if they do get in. But it's pretty obvious that you don't cause that much damage to a heavily populated area without killing a lot of people.
"I think you'll find that Russia gets pretty much universal opprobrium for attacking hospitals."
Bullshit. I think I've been the only person to mention yesterday's heinous attack on here. The people who were complaining about the Gaza hospital strike are silent. If it is opprobrium, then it is silent.
As for the numbers of dead - I am referring to the '500 dead' claim that came out from Hamas immediately after the explosion. Which looks extremely sussy.
Levelling up is dead - the department is once again called Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
That's actually going to be interesting - how they address the things in Red Wall etc seats that the Conservatives largely failed to deliver on.
Back in Blair's time there were various things done with the Housing Revenue Account iirc, which Cameron proudly reversed to tip things (back?) to the wealthier / more southern.
How they make that balance, which I think will see around the nationally collected and redistributed elements of Council Taxes / Business Rates, will be interesting and revealing.
One element in this arena was the large sums £20bn (? iirc) spent on upgrading social sector hosuing between approxomately 2001 and 2018.
Andy Burnham is back pretending he knows anything about how to win elections.
Or 'quality' in the NHS...
I do wish he'd go away. He's missed his chance to lead the Labour Party and never will. He's been consistently wrong on everything since 2010 and on top of that has no actual views, he is like a weather-vane.
I always think he's a bit like a party political ad for a politician, with no actual politician underneath.
He deserved plaudits for his work on the Hillsborough Inquiry, which started with him being roundly booed by 40,000 people at Anfield when turning up at a memorial as the sports minister, but he does seem rather an empty suit apart from that.
What can he point to as achievements in Manchester while he’s been mayor?
He did a good job of looking like a counter to London during covid. That meeting where he gets a text during an interview to say that they either were or werent going into lockdoown was staggering. He looked like an honest broker, going to be much harder when you arent able to stab your own side when they start screwing you over.
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Which people are you talking about? Attacking hospitals is appalling behaviour, whoever does it.
The many posters on here who immediately blamed Israel for the attack on the hospital in Gaza, when the cause was uncertain (and it does now look as though it was a Hamas weapon, not an Israeli one). Also those (essentially the same people), who believed the figures Hamas released about the number of deaths.
Attacking hospitals is appalling behaviour; but it appears only Israel gets opprobrium for it. Even if it's unclear it was their fault.
I think you'll find that Russia gets pretty much universal opprobrium for attacking hospitals. As far as I can see, nobody is making any excuses for this. This is in stark contrast to the devastation wreaked on Gaza by Israel where time and time again, Israel is given given a free pass by some people. Yes, Hamas is also to blame, but you'd have to be a complete moron not to see that the vast majority of the destruction in Gaza is due to Israel's actions.
As for the number of deaths in Gaza, that seems like ridiculous nit-picking on your part. No, we don't know the exact number of deaths - nobody can, especially since Israel refuses to let any journalists in and has a habit of killing them if they do get in. But it's pretty obvious that you don't cause that much damage to a heavily populated area without killing a lot of people.
"I think you'll find that Russia gets pretty much universal opprobrium for attacking hospitals."
Bullshit. I think I've been the only person to mention yesterday's heinous attack on here. The people who were complaining about the Gaza hospital strike are silent. If it is opprobrium, then it is silent.
As for the numbers of dead - I am referring to the '500 dead' claim that came out from Hamas immediately after the explosion. Which looks extremely sussy.
You're wrong about that. I posted the story yesterday an hour or two before you did, and a number of folk commented.
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Even our pro-Putin trolls don't defend the missile attack on a children's cancer hospital. We can take it as read that everyone is depressed and angry at Russian actions.
When it comes to Gaza though we do have people who think any IDF action is fine and dandy.
Even if it was not Israel who attacked that hospital?
And I'm sorry: if you're vociferously angry about the hospital in Gaza, then you should be equally vociferously angry about the Russian attack: especially as the blame is not really in doubt.
But there is silence from them. Because, I fear, to use your words, there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy...
"there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy"
for example? I mean on PB, because it sounds like that is what you are talking about. (Of course there are people in the whole world who think that).
Not so much on PB, but there are people on here who try to blame anyone but Russia for Russia's actions. See those who say things like Zelenskyy is a dictator, or Ukrainian Nazis, when barely, if at all, criticising Russia.
If you look wider, then there are lots of people. Russian disinformation (aided and abetted by others) is working, especially in other countries. We should be doing more to combat this, but the campaigners seems to care more about Palestinians than Ukrainians. Despite the Ukrainian cause being much less messy.
"Not so much on PB, but there are people on here who try to blame anyone but Russia for Russia's actions. See those who say things like Zelenskyy is a dictator, or Ukrainian Nazis, when barely, if at all, criticising Russia."
Haven't noticed much of this. You are obviously unwilling to name names.
But, in general, I just find your logic really annoying. It's like me saying 'Aha you've condemned something the Russians did, but your silence on Burkina Faso proves that you think everything the army does in Burkina Faso is fine and dandy.'
That would actually be better than what you do, because it least it would name who I am attempting to criticise.
The biggest MRP misses (As at the 26th June model) for Yougov were as follows.
47.34% Leicester South 45.35% Birmingham Perry Barr 40.39% Edinburgh West 34.87% Ilford North 33.34% Blackburn 33.21% Dewsbury and Batley 31.57% Slough 30.12% Rochdale 30.09% Bradford West 29.65% Birmingham Ladywood
OK So they didn't see the muslim Labour vote collapse, but how on God's green earth did they ever ever have Edinburgh West going SNP by 9%. Checking the final MRP it was a Lib Dem hold by 6%, still absolutely miles out and a bigger miss than Leicester East was in the last but one MRP (25.4% out vs 23.5%)
Anyone with a brain knew that Edinburgh West was going to be a LD hold.
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Even our pro-Putin trolls don't defend the missile attack on a children's cancer hospital. We can take it as read that everyone is depressed and angry at Russian actions.
When it comes to Gaza though we do have people who think any IDF action is fine and dandy.
Even if it was not Israel who attacked that hospital?
And I'm sorry: if you're vociferously angry about the hospital in Gaza, then you should be equally vociferously angry about the Russian attack: especially as the blame is not really in doubt.
But there is silence from them. Because, I fear, to use your words, there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy...
Presumably you condemn the closure and forced evacuation of the Anglican hospital in Gaza, as highlighted by the archbishop of Canterbury yesterday?
Every hospital in Gaza has now been attacked, and most are no longer functioning.
Yes, I do condemn that. I've repeatedly said on here that what Israel is doing is morally wrong, self-defeating and unsustainable. But that is countered by what Hamas is doing, which is morally wrong, self-defeating and unsustainable.
It's just that I expect much better from Israel.
The morality of the war in Ukraine is much more clear-cut than in Palestine. Russia is the aggressor; Ukraine the innocent party. In the Middle East, the only innocents are the civilians.
And that's to Israel (especially Bibi's... shame).
Opinium - in the end one of the worst performing pollsters, despite spending the past couple of years currently predicting the contest would be narrower - was producing a single GB poll every fortnight for the Observer. If they switched to producing a regular rotation of regional polls (Scotland, Wales, N/M/S England at a minimum), then they would do five polls for each region each year.
It's worth considering, though I suspect such polls would struggle to get noticed, because the ahead/behind narrative from a GB poll is simpler. I suppose you could produce a GB poll from 5+ regional polls, but then you've increased the cost of your GB polls by a factor of at least five.
The other difficulty is in determining which regions to split England into. There's an argument for as many as nine, depending how you do it (NW, NE, Yorks, E&W Mids, Eastern, London, SW, SE).
And then, the YouGov polling for the Mayoral election wasn't a great advert for the accuracy of English regional polling.
Has anyone looked at how well the red/blue wall polling performed?
And a decision needs to be made soon on Thames Water.
I think given the recent displays by management, there's only one good option, and that's not a private sector solution. Government should step in before (as I predict) the regulator folds and bails out shareholders at the expense of bill payers.
Thames Water to tap investors for funds as it will run out of cash by next June https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jul/09/thames-water-funds-debt ..The slow-burn crisis at Thames Water stepped up in March, when it said shareholders – which include the pension funds USS and Omers – had U-turned on £500m of promised funding, claiming Ofwat had made the company “uninvestable”.
The Guardian has since revealed that Thames’s board approved a £150m dividend just hours before the announcement...
A reminder that the privatised water companies have delivered on clean drinking water and dramatically improved rivers and bathing areas. The fact that they seem to be in some cases run by the most devious tax dodging cretins doesnt seem to have interfered with that. The River Thames itself is considered one of the cleanest rivers to run through a major city in the world.
Thames Water's debts are up nearly 10% on last year, and they're still paying themselves dividends when they're approaching insolvency.
As I predicted on election day or the day after, it looks like the Lichfield to Crewe bit of HS2 is going to be back on in short order.
"Rail minister appointment fuels hopes of HS2 revival Network Rail chief Lord Hendy is likely to be an advocate for extending the network"
"His appointment as rail minister may represent the best chance of saving elements of the scheme, including a link from the Midlands to Crewe that would allow full formations of HS2 trains to travel at top speed through to Manchester, leading figures in the sector said."
It will come down to whether Lord Hendy can gets things through the Department of Transport
But he's clueful enough to know how to get HS2 back on track and to kick off a number of quick win projects. For instance there are 60 miles of track that were they electrified opens up 2million track mile of freight a year shifting to electric...
In a highly competitive list cancelling HS2 was right up there for the Sunak government in terms of worst decisions.
You should be blaming the greed and incompetence that surrounded HS2 for a decade before Sunak became PM. Or even CoE.
I lot of the blame for the costs rests on the head of the former MP for Chesham and Amersham and look at the gratitude that waste of £10bn gold plating a set of tunnels did for the tory party (they lost the byelection).
The funny bit is that the air vents look worse and are way more visible than the original cutting would have looked like...
The bigger the project the greater the scope for excess spending when issues arise.
When a project is declared to be 'the biggest in Europe' the scope for excess spending becomes the biggest in Europe.
When a project is declared to be 'world beating' the scope for excess spending becomes world beating.
After a while the excess spending is deemed to be a good thing - the more that is spent means that the project becomes ever more 'biggest in Europe' or 'world beating'. Bigger is always deemed to be better.
The problem with these projects is that the moment you've signed the contract then the contractors hold you to ransom. The issue with a cutting is that it's a physical barrier, my uncle and aunt sold up in deepest Buckinghamshire because my uncle said that, rather than a 15 minute meander along country lanes to get to his friends on the other side of the route, it would become a 30 minute drive just to get to a crossing point.
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Which people are you talking about? Attacking hospitals is appalling behaviour, whoever does it.
The many posters on here who immediately blamed Israel for the attack on the hospital in Gaza, when the cause was uncertain (and it does now look as though it was a Hamas weapon, not an Israeli one). Also those (essentially the same people), who believed the figures Hamas released about the number of deaths.
Attacking hospitals is appalling behaviour; but it appears only Israel gets opprobrium for it. Even if it's unclear it was their fault.
I think you'll find that Russia gets pretty much universal opprobrium for attacking hospitals. As far as I can see, nobody is making any excuses for this. This is in stark contrast to the devastation wreaked on Gaza by Israel where time and time again, Israel is given given a free pass by some people. Yes, Hamas is also to blame, but you'd have to be a complete moron not to see that the vast majority of the destruction in Gaza is due to Israel's actions.
As for the number of deaths in Gaza, that seems like ridiculous nit-picking on your part. No, we don't know the exact number of deaths - nobody can, especially since Israel refuses to let any journalists in and has a habit of killing them if they do get in. But it's pretty obvious that you don't cause that much damage to a heavily populated area without killing a lot of people.
"I think you'll find that Russia gets pretty much universal opprobrium for attacking hospitals."
Bullshit. I think I've been the only person to mention yesterday's heinous attack on here. The people who were complaining about the Gaza hospital strike are silent. If it is opprobrium, then it is silent.
As for the numbers of dead - I am referring to the '500 dead' claim that came out from Hamas immediately after the explosion. Which looks extremely sussy.
You're wrong about that. I posted the story yesterday an hour or two before you did, and a number of folk commented.
I'll be watching for claims as to how many "disabled MPs" there are claimed to be in this Parliament.
Back in 2018 there were fabricated stories spread about "just 6 disabled MPs". which was generated by misinformation from campaigners (not fact-checked even by the Daily Politics; I challenged them and they said "no time to do it.") who wanted attention, then pretending *they* represented all the ~20% of disabled people in the population.
A constant issue - sometimes the only "disabled" people are seen as wheelchair users, sometimes it is only the faction who dominate a local lobby group, or where the experience of different disabled people goes against the measure that is desired by the first group.
The figure of "6" has become a still-referred-to standard number by media self-referencing since 2018 - eg a "fact" link in the G or the T refers back to an old G or T article where they ballsed it up last time; mistakes or lies self-perpetuate.
Here's one from June, where the G where Lucy Webster was slightly less inaccurate than usual, and draws a distinction:
The actual number was at least 40-50, from public sources, when I checked. The "5" did not even include the PM Theresa May, who had Type I diabetes and a sensor on her arm.
Isn't that about how low you make the threshold? They'll be many amonst the new intake who will consider they themselves have mental health problems and self identify as disabled.
Yes - it's probably more about how you define the threshold to reflect the definition, and how you assess for benefits and concessions etc. In this country we try to use functional tests, which is very unusual - I think we are the only one that does. I'd say "broad" and "boundary" is better language - "low" implies a single scale, which it is not.
But it's also very much about the politics of it, and lobbies that want to use "help the disabled" as a trump card to win a debate. The London Cabbies are a bit notorious on this - they have tried to use "avoid charging disabled people higher fares" as a stalking horse to get a concessions allowing them to go willy-nilly through LTNs whether they have a disabled person on board or not.
The Govt Definition of disabled is around "long-term impact", which means that a progressive disease (eg my diabetes) that has little functional impact for typically the first 5-25 years, even though requiring a constant attention, monitoring and treatment, but may eventually mean 4x the risk of heart attacks, blindness, loss of feeling or amputation if eg a foot-ulcer is missed through inattention, falls within the definition.
The definitions for benefits and concessions and support being functional allows a different boundary to be drawn.
As I predicted on election day or the day after, it looks like the Lichfield to Crewe bit of HS2 is going to be back on in short order.
"Rail minister appointment fuels hopes of HS2 revival Network Rail chief Lord Hendy is likely to be an advocate for extending the network"
"His appointment as rail minister may represent the best chance of saving elements of the scheme, including a link from the Midlands to Crewe that would allow full formations of HS2 trains to travel at top speed through to Manchester, leading figures in the sector said."
It will come down to whether Lord Hendy can gets things through the Department of Transport
But he's clueful enough to know how to get HS2 back on track and to kick off a number of quick win projects. For instance there are 60 miles of track that were they electrified opens up 2million track mile of freight a year shifting to electric...
In a highly competitive list cancelling HS2 was right up there for the Sunak government in terms of worst decisions.
You should be blaming the greed and incompetence that surrounded HS2 for a decade before Sunak became PM. Or even CoE.
So you're saying the Tories fucked it up, and the Tories cancelled it. I'm not seeing that as a great comeback.
I'm saying that every 'world beating' or 'biggest in Europe' project inevitably ends in going multiple times over budget and multiple years beyond predicted.
Consultants and lawyers do get rich though which seems to be the prime purpose of such projects.
Any government which proceeds with such projects deserves the blame which inevitably results.
So yes the Conservatives do deserve blame for the HS2 disaster - not for cancelling it but for starting it in the first place.
And any HS2 cheerleader who wonders why other infrastructure hasn't been invested in might remember that the money was instead spent on HS2.
Infrastructure investment that boosts GDP is a not a pie where giving out one slice means you can’t give that slice to someone else.
So long as the capacity is available to do the actual work without driving up inflation, bond markets will happily fund any infrastructure that they believe will boost GDP, in the sure knowledge that the future payment stream that backs the bond will be produced by the more productive future economy.
The limit is current economic capacity, not cash on hand.
All spending boots GDP.
What is required in investments is a positive rate of return.
I hope you're not suggesting that all government investments show a positive rate of return ?
I've seen business investments which were made within budget and on time show a negative rate of return because the expected income from them did not materialise.
HS2 by contrast is multiple times over budget, many years behind schedule and in a rather different world of home working and AI. As an example, IIRC, HS2 was planned on the basis that passenger journeys were 'dead time' and that passengers never worked on trains.
Mr. B, aye, and circumvent the tariff. China wants to get a dominant position in electric vehicles. I'm surprised Turkey's gone for this given their own aspirations in the area, but their economy is less than stellar of late so it may be as simple as that.
Also, the tariff is of the EU, but the jobs are in Turkey, so on that score this doesn't benefit the EU in any way.
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Even our pro-Putin trolls don't defend the missile attack on a children's cancer hospital. We can take it as read that everyone is depressed and angry at Russian actions.
When it comes to Gaza though we do have people who think any IDF action is fine and dandy.
Even if it was not Israel who attacked that hospital?
And I'm sorry: if you're vociferously angry about the hospital in Gaza, then you should be equally vociferously angry about the Russian attack: especially as the blame is not really in doubt.
But there is silence from them. Because, I fear, to use your words, there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy...
"there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy"
for example? I mean on PB, because it sounds like that is what you are talking about. (Of course there are people in the whole world who think that).
Not so much on PB, but there are people on here who try to blame anyone but Russia for Russia's actions. See those who say things like Zelenskyy is a dictator, or Ukrainian Nazis, when barely, if at all, criticising Russia.
If you look wider, then there are lots of people. Russian disinformation (aided and abetted by others) is working, especially in other countries. We should be doing more to combat this, but the campaigners seems to care more about Palestinians than Ukrainians. Despite the Ukrainian cause being much less messy.
"Not so much on PB, but there are people on here who try to blame anyone but Russia for Russia's actions. See those who say things like Zelenskyy is a dictator, or Ukrainian Nazis, when barely, if at all, criticising Russia."
Haven't noticed much of this. You are obviously unwilling to name names.
But, in general, I just find your logic really annoying. It's like me saying 'Aha you've condemned something the Russians did, but your silence on Burkina Faso proves that you think everything the army does in Burkina Faso is fine and dandy.'
That would actually be better than what you do, because it least it would name who I am attempting to criticise.
Quite. "Will he condemn..." is a boring political gotcha. We are not politicians and condemning stuff is not in our job description.
For the avoidance of doubt, I implicitly condemn all bad stuff unless I specifically say otherwise Hospital bombing is right out.
As I predicted on election day or the day after, it looks like the Lichfield to Crewe bit of HS2 is going to be back on in short order.
"Rail minister appointment fuels hopes of HS2 revival Network Rail chief Lord Hendy is likely to be an advocate for extending the network"
"His appointment as rail minister may represent the best chance of saving elements of the scheme, including a link from the Midlands to Crewe that would allow full formations of HS2 trains to travel at top speed through to Manchester, leading figures in the sector said."
It will come down to whether Lord Hendy can gets things through the Department of Transport
But he's clueful enough to know how to get HS2 back on track and to kick off a number of quick win projects. For instance there are 60 miles of track that were they electrified opens up 2million track mile of freight a year shifting to electric...
In a highly competitive list cancelling HS2 was right up there for the Sunak government in terms of worst decisions.
You should be blaming the greed and incompetence that surrounded HS2 for a decade before Sunak became PM. Or even CoE.
I lot of the blame for the costs rests on the head of the former MP for Chesham and Amersham and look at the gratitude that waste of £10bn gold plating a set of tunnels did for the tory party (they lost the byelection).
The funny bit is that the air vents look worse and are way more visible than the original cutting would have looked like...
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Even our pro-Putin trolls don't defend the missile attack on a children's cancer hospital. We can take it as read that everyone is depressed and angry at Russian actions.
When it comes to Gaza though we do have people who think any IDF action is fine and dandy.
Even if it was not Israel who attacked that hospital?
And I'm sorry: if you're vociferously angry about the hospital in Gaza, then you should be equally vociferously angry about the Russian attack: especially as the blame is not really in doubt.
But there is silence from them. Because, I fear, to use your words, there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy...
"there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy"
for example? I mean on PB, because it sounds like that is what you are talking about. (Of course there are people in the whole world who think that).
Not so much on PB, but there are people on here who try to blame anyone but Russia for Russia's actions. See those who say things like Zelenskyy is a dictator, or Ukrainian Nazis, when barely, if at all, criticising Russia.
If you look wider, then there are lots of people. Russian disinformation (aided and abetted by others) is working, especially in other countries. We should be doing more to combat this, but the campaigners seems to care more about Palestinians than Ukrainians. Despite the Ukrainian cause being much less messy.
Western countries are supporting Ukraine with arms, you can argue whether it's enough but the support is there, in Gaza, Western countries are supporting Israel with arms. So when the news is showing a bombed Ukrainian or Palestinian hospital with multiple child casualties can you see that there might be a different reaction? "My government is trying to prevent this" vs "My government might have supplied the bombs for this" ?
Mr. B, aye, and circumvent the tariff. China wants to get a dominant position in electric vehicles. I'm surprised Turkey's gone for this given their own aspirations in the area, but their economy is less than stellar of late so it may be as simple as that.
Also, the tariff is of the EU, but the jobs are in Turkey, so on that score this doesn't benefit the EU in any way.
It's a recognition that China's EV manufacturing technology is ahead of Europe's, and this is one way to catch up. We ought to be thinking along the same lines since we're not building all that many EVs ourselves, and importing far more expensive ones than China would make. It would likely be a significant net benefit to the economy.
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Even our pro-Putin trolls don't defend the missile attack on a children's cancer hospital. We can take it as read that everyone is depressed and angry at Russian actions.
When it comes to Gaza though we do have people who think any IDF action is fine and dandy.
Even if it was not Israel who attacked that hospital?
And I'm sorry: if you're vociferously angry about the hospital in Gaza, then you should be equally vociferously angry about the Russian attack: especially as the blame is not really in doubt.
But there is silence from them. Because, I fear, to use your words, there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy...
Presumably you condemn the closure and forced evacuation of the Anglican hospital in Gaza, as highlighted by the archbishop of Canterbury yesterday?
Every hospital in Gaza has now been attacked, and most are no longer functioning.
Yes, I do condemn that. I've repeatedly said on here that what Israel is doing is morally wrong, self-defeating and unsustainable. But that is countered by what Hamas is doing, which is morally wrong, self-defeating and unsustainable.
It's just that I expect much better from Israel.
The morality of the war in Ukraine is much more clear-cut than in Palestine. Russia is the aggressor; Ukraine the innocent party. In the Middle East, the only innocents are the civilians.
And that's to Israel (especially Bibi's... shame).
That's the key. I think most people are equally appalled by what Israel and Russia are doing pounding hospitals.
But we expect much better from Israel so we call it out in the (forlorn) hope of influencing Netanyahu. No point with Putin. He needs to be defeated one way or another.
As I predicted on election day or the day after, it looks like the Lichfield to Crewe bit of HS2 is going to be back on in short order.
"Rail minister appointment fuels hopes of HS2 revival Network Rail chief Lord Hendy is likely to be an advocate for extending the network"
"His appointment as rail minister may represent the best chance of saving elements of the scheme, including a link from the Midlands to Crewe that would allow full formations of HS2 trains to travel at top speed through to Manchester, leading figures in the sector said."
It will come down to whether Lord Hendy can gets things through the Department of Transport
But he's clueful enough to know how to get HS2 back on track and to kick off a number of quick win projects. For instance there are 60 miles of track that were they electrified opens up 2million track mile of freight a year shifting to electric...
In a highly competitive list cancelling HS2 was right up there for the Sunak government in terms of worst decisions.
You should be blaming the greed and incompetence that surrounded HS2 for a decade before Sunak became PM. Or even CoE.
So you're saying the Tories fucked it up, and the Tories cancelled it. I'm not seeing that as a great comeback.
I'm saying that every 'world beating' or 'biggest in Europe' project inevitably ends in going multiple times over budget and multiple years beyond predicted.
Consultants and lawyers do get rich though which seems to be the prime purpose of such projects.
Any government which proceeds with such projects deserves the blame which inevitably results.
So yes the Conservatives do deserve blame for the HS2 disaster - not for cancelling it but for starting it in the first place.
And any HS2 cheerleader who wonders why other infrastructure hasn't been invested in might remember that the money was instead spent on HS2.
Infrastructure investment that boosts GDP is a not a pie where giving out one slice means you can’t give that slice to someone else.
So long as the capacity is available to do the actual work without driving up inflation, bond markets will happily fund any infrastructure that they believe will boost GDP, in the sure knowledge that the future payment stream that backs the bond will be produced by the more productive future economy.
The limit is current economic capacity, not cash on hand.
All spending boots GDP.
What is required in investments is a positive rate of return.
I hope you're not suggesting that all government investments show a positive rate of return ?
I've seen business investments which were made within budget and on time show a negative rate of return because the expected income from them did not materialise.
HS2 by contrast is multiple times over budget, many years behind schedule and in a rather different world of home working and AI. As an example, IIRC, HS2 was planned on the basis that passenger journeys were 'dead time' and that passengers never worked on trains.
Not quite but it would be a valid assumption as it's not going to be practical to use the internet on the approach into London now it's all a tunnel...
On topic: the lesson in Scotland might be "use UNS here", re-alignment to general marginality having already occurred, but using UNS in England would have been a disaster.
I'm not convinced UNS will work any better in England in 2028/29.
I'll be watching for claims as to how many "disabled MPs" there are claimed to be in this Parliament.
Back in 2018 there were fabricated stories spread about "just 6 disabled MPs". which was generated by misinformation from campaigners (not fact-checked even by the Daily Politics; I challenged them and they said "no time to do it.") who wanted attention, then pretending *they* represented all the ~20% of disabled people in the population.
A constant issue - sometimes the only "disabled" people are seen as wheelchair users, sometimes it is only the faction who dominate a local lobby group, or where the experience of different disabled people goes against the measure that is desired by the first group.
The figure of "6" has become a still-referred-to standard number by media self-referencing since 2018 - eg a "fact" link in the G or the T refers back to an old G or T article where they ballsed it up last time; mistakes or lies self-perpetuate.
Here's one from June, where the G where Lucy Webster was slightly less inaccurate than usual, and draws a distinction:
The actual number was at least 40-50, from public sources, when I checked. The "5" did not even include the PM Theresa May, who had Type I diabetes and a sensor on her arm.
Isn't that about how low you make the threshold? They'll be many amonst the new intake who will consider they themselves have mental health problems and self identify as disabled.
Yes - it's probably more about how you define the threshold to reflect the definition, and how you assess for benefits and concessions etc. In this country we try to use functional tests, which is very unusual - I think we are the only one that does. I'd say "broad" and "boundary" is better language - "low" implies a single scale, which it is not.
But it's also very much about the politics of it, and lobbies that want to use "help the disabled" as a trump card to win a debate. The London Cabbies are a bit notorious on this - they have tried to use "avoid charging disabled people higher fares" as a stalking horse to get a concessions allowing them to go willy-nilly through LTNs whether they have a disabled person on board or not.
The Govt Definition of disabled is around "long-term impact", which means that a progressive disease (eg my diabetes) that has little functional impact for typically the first 5-25 years, even though requiring a constant attention, monitoring and treatment, but may eventually mean 4x the risk of heart attacks, blindness, loss of feeling or amputation if eg a foot-ulcer is missed through inattention, falls within the definition.
The definitions for benefits and concessions and support being functional allows a different boundary to be drawn.
Missed a bit, and recognising that I went beyond the scope of @WildernessPt2 's question:
In Parliament it will be treated by campaign groups that "disabled MPs" = "disabled MPs who think like us, identify like us and agree with us". Some treat it almost as an dieology called 'disablism'. One word sometimes as a slur used is "ableist", which obfuscates because the word has real uses.
The conversation needs to be more diverse and considered.
IMO that's a process of rubbing out most of the disabled MPs, and letting it get into the general discussion as an 'attested fact' referenced by umpteen future articles, has been a real problem as it ignores diversity and only addresses one minor part of wider questions.
And it panders to politicians wanting conveniently simple answers.
As I predicted on election day or the day after, it looks like the Lichfield to Crewe bit of HS2 is going to be back on in short order.
"Rail minister appointment fuels hopes of HS2 revival Network Rail chief Lord Hendy is likely to be an advocate for extending the network"
"His appointment as rail minister may represent the best chance of saving elements of the scheme, including a link from the Midlands to Crewe that would allow full formations of HS2 trains to travel at top speed through to Manchester, leading figures in the sector said."
It will come down to whether Lord Hendy can gets things through the Department of Transport
But he's clueful enough to know how to get HS2 back on track and to kick off a number of quick win projects. For instance there are 60 miles of track that were they electrified opens up 2million track mile of freight a year shifting to electric...
In a highly competitive list cancelling HS2 was right up there for the Sunak government in terms of worst decisions.
You should be blaming the greed and incompetence that surrounded HS2 for a decade before Sunak became PM. Or even CoE.
So you're saying the Tories fucked it up, and the Tories cancelled it. I'm not seeing that as a great comeback.
I'm saying that every 'world beating' or 'biggest in Europe' project inevitably ends in going multiple times over budget and multiple years beyond predicted.
Consultants and lawyers do get rich though which seems to be the prime purpose of such projects.
Any government which proceeds with such projects deserves the blame which inevitably results.
So yes the Conservatives do deserve blame for the HS2 disaster - not for cancelling it but for starting it in the first place.
And any HS2 cheerleader who wonders why other infrastructure hasn't been invested in might remember that the money was instead spent on HS2.
Infrastructure investment that boosts GDP is a not a pie where giving out one slice means you can’t give that slice to someone else.
So long as the capacity is available to do the actual work without driving up inflation, bond markets will happily fund any infrastructure that they believe will boost GDP, in the sure knowledge that the future payment stream that backs the bond will be produced by the more productive future economy.
The limit is current economic capacity, not cash on hand.
All spending boots GDP.
What is required in investments is a positive rate of return.
I hope you're not suggesting that all government investments show a positive rate of return ?
I've seen business investments which were made within budget and on time show a negative rate of return because the expected income from them did not materialise.
HS2 by contrast is multiple times over budget, many years behind schedule and in a rather different world of home working and AI. As an example, IIRC, HS2 was planned on the basis that passenger journeys were 'dead time' and that passengers never worked on trains.
Not quite but it would be a valid assumption as it's not going to be practical to use the internet on the approach into London now it's all a tunnel...
Can they not stick a bit of patch cable and some wi-fi repeaters in the tunnel ?
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Even our pro-Putin trolls don't defend the missile attack on a children's cancer hospital. We can take it as read that everyone is depressed and angry at Russian actions.
When it comes to Gaza though we do have people who think any IDF action is fine and dandy.
Even if it was not Israel who attacked that hospital?
And I'm sorry: if you're vociferously angry about the hospital in Gaza, then you should be equally vociferously angry about the Russian attack: especially as the blame is not really in doubt.
But there is silence from them. Because, I fear, to use your words, there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy...
"there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy"
for example? I mean on PB, because it sounds like that is what you are talking about. (Of course there are people in the whole world who think that).
Not so much on PB, but there are people on here who try to blame anyone but Russia for Russia's actions. See those who say things like Zelenskyy is a dictator, or Ukrainian Nazis, when barely, if at all, criticising Russia.
If you look wider, then there are lots of people. Russian disinformation (aided and abetted by others) is working, especially in other countries. We should be doing more to combat this, but the campaigners seems to care more about Palestinians than Ukrainians. Despite the Ukrainian cause being much less messy.
"Not so much on PB, but there are people on here who try to blame anyone but Russia for Russia's actions. See those who say things like Zelenskyy is a dictator, or Ukrainian Nazis, when barely, if at all, criticising Russia."
Haven't noticed much of this. You are obviously unwilling to name names.
But, in general, I just find your logic really annoying. It's like me saying 'Aha you've condemned something the Russians did, but your silence on Burkina Faso proves that you think everything the army does in Burkina Faso is fine and dandy.'
That would actually be better than what you do, because it least it would name who I am attempting to criticise.
Okay. @Dura_Ace. I won't name another obvious one for obvious reasons - PM me if you want.
But then you get fuckwits asking for exact quotes; and I'm sorry, but I don't keep extensive notes on when people say sh*t on this forum.
You drive cautiously and defensively on shared paths. I slow right down and ring a bell and say On your l or r. Also at the moment my brakes are squealing enough to wake the dead.
As I predicted on election day or the day after, it looks like the Lichfield to Crewe bit of HS2 is going to be back on in short order.
"Rail minister appointment fuels hopes of HS2 revival Network Rail chief Lord Hendy is likely to be an advocate for extending the network"
"His appointment as rail minister may represent the best chance of saving elements of the scheme, including a link from the Midlands to Crewe that would allow full formations of HS2 trains to travel at top speed through to Manchester, leading figures in the sector said."
It will come down to whether Lord Hendy can gets things through the Department of Transport
But he's clueful enough to know how to get HS2 back on track and to kick off a number of quick win projects. For instance there are 60 miles of track that were they electrified opens up 2million track mile of freight a year shifting to electric...
In a highly competitive list cancelling HS2 was right up there for the Sunak government in terms of worst decisions.
You should be blaming the greed and incompetence that surrounded HS2 for a decade before Sunak became PM. Or even CoE.
I lot of the blame for the costs rests on the head of the former MP for Chesham and Amersham and look at the gratitude that waste of £10bn gold plating a set of tunnels did for the tory party (they lost the byelection).
The funny bit is that the air vents look worse and are way more visible than the original cutting would have looked like...
There'll be so many tunnels and deep cuttings that the user experience will be comparable to the London Underground. Every once in a while the train will emerge into daylight on a viaduct over a river valley but before your eyes can adjust you'll be plunged back into darkness.
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Even our pro-Putin trolls don't defend the missile attack on a children's cancer hospital. We can take it as read that everyone is depressed and angry at Russian actions.
When it comes to Gaza though we do have people who think any IDF action is fine and dandy.
Even if it was not Israel who attacked that hospital?
And I'm sorry: if you're vociferously angry about the hospital in Gaza, then you should be equally vociferously angry about the Russian attack: especially as the blame is not really in doubt.
But there is silence from them. Because, I fear, to use your words, there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy...
"there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy"
for example? I mean on PB, because it sounds like that is what you are talking about. (Of course there are people in the whole world who think that).
Not so much on PB, but there are people on here who try to blame anyone but Russia for Russia's actions. See those who say things like Zelenskyy is a dictator, or Ukrainian Nazis, when barely, if at all, criticising Russia.
If you look wider, then there are lots of people. Russian disinformation (aided and abetted by others) is working, especially in other countries. We should be doing more to combat this, but the campaigners seems to care more about Palestinians than Ukrainians. Despite the Ukrainian cause being much less messy.
Western countries are supporting Ukraine with arms, you can argue whether it's enough but the support is there, in Gaza, Western countries are supporting Israel with arms. So when the news is showing a bombed Ukrainian or Palestinian hospital with multiple child casualties can you see that there might be a different reaction? "My government is trying to prevent this" vs "My government might have supplied the bombs for this" ?
Part of my point is that people were on here blaming Israel for an attack on a hospital, early on in that conflict, that was probably not an Israeli attack, and whose deaths were almost certainly not as numerous as Hamas claimed.
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Which people are you talking about? Attacking hospitals is appalling behaviour, whoever does it.
The many posters on here who immediately blamed Israel for the attack on the hospital in Gaza, when the cause was uncertain (and it does now look as though it was a Hamas weapon, not an Israeli one). Also those (essentially the same people), who believed the figures Hamas released about the number of deaths.
Attacking hospitals is appalling behaviour; but it appears only Israel gets opprobrium for it. Even if it's unclear it was their fault.
I think you'll find that Russia gets pretty much universal opprobrium for attacking hospitals. As far as I can see, nobody is making any excuses for this. This is in stark contrast to the devastation wreaked on Gaza by Israel where time and time again, Israel is given given a free pass by some people. Yes, Hamas is also to blame, but you'd have to be a complete moron not to see that the vast majority of the destruction in Gaza is due to Israel's actions.
As for the number of deaths in Gaza, that seems like ridiculous nit-picking on your part. No, we don't know the exact number of deaths - nobody can, especially since Israel refuses to let any journalists in and has a habit of killing them if they do get in. But it's pretty obvious that you don't cause that much damage to a heavily populated area without killing a lot of people.
"I think you'll find that Russia gets pretty much universal opprobrium for attacking hospitals."
Bullshit. I think I've been the only person to mention yesterday's heinous attack on here. The people who were complaining about the Gaza hospital strike are silent. If it is opprobrium, then it is silent.
As for the numbers of dead - I am referring to the '500 dead' claim that came out from Hamas immediately after the explosion. Which looks extremely sussy.
You're wrong about that. I posted the story yesterday an hour or two before you did, and a number of folk commented.
Okay, I missed that. I did do a quick search. Apols.
If people hate masts, they should support my reforms to have much taller ones. Then we would need far fewer. Right now rural areas are left behind because masts cannot be built because the locals keep rejecting them, I would overrule these in every case, if they need to be hidden fine but they should be allowed, not rejected.
Current mast regulations do almost the exact opposite of what you would want from the perspective of building an efficient radio access network. It's all about making sure they masts aren't too high generally, or near anything nice, or too high above a roofline if they are on a building, or obtruding too far from a building, which impacts coverage by shadowing and clipping. The rules have too much weight on how masts look and where they are sited rather than how the network performs.
As I predicted on election day or the day after, it looks like the Lichfield to Crewe bit of HS2 is going to be back on in short order.
"Rail minister appointment fuels hopes of HS2 revival Network Rail chief Lord Hendy is likely to be an advocate for extending the network"
"His appointment as rail minister may represent the best chance of saving elements of the scheme, including a link from the Midlands to Crewe that would allow full formations of HS2 trains to travel at top speed through to Manchester, leading figures in the sector said."
It will come down to whether Lord Hendy can gets things through the Department of Transport
But he's clueful enough to know how to get HS2 back on track and to kick off a number of quick win projects. For instance there are 60 miles of track that were they electrified opens up 2million track mile of freight a year shifting to electric...
In a highly competitive list cancelling HS2 was right up there for the Sunak government in terms of worst decisions.
You should be blaming the greed and incompetence that surrounded HS2 for a decade before Sunak became PM. Or even CoE.
I lot of the blame for the costs rests on the head of the former MP for Chesham and Amersham and look at the gratitude that waste of £10bn gold plating a set of tunnels did for the tory party (they lost the byelection).
The funny bit is that the air vents look worse and are way more visible than the original cutting would have looked like...
The bigger the project the greater the scope for excess spending when issues arise.
When a project is declared to be 'the biggest in Europe' the scope for excess spending becomes the biggest in Europe.
When a project is declared to be 'world beating' the scope for excess spending becomes world beating.
After a while the excess spending is deemed to be a good thing - the more that is spent means that the project becomes ever more 'biggest in Europe' or 'world beating'. Bigger is always deemed to be better.
The problem with these projects is that the moment you've signed the contract then the contractors hold you to ransom. The issue with a cutting is that it's a physical barrier, my uncle and aunt sold up in deepest Buckinghamshire because my uncle said that, rather than a 15 minute meander along country lanes to get to his friends on the other side of the route, it would become a 30 minute drive just to get to a crossing point.
This is especially so when government is involved and always so when its a government 'prestige project'.
The extra money is always paid and then used as a justification for supporting the project on a 'the bigger, the better' basis.
If people hate masts, they should support my reforms to have much taller ones. Then we would need far fewer. Right now rural areas are left behind because masts cannot be built because the locals keep rejecting them, I would overrule these in every case, if they need to be hidden fine but they should be allowed, not rejected.
Current mast regulations do almost the exact opposite of what you would want from the perspective of building an efficient radio access network. It's all about making sure they masts aren't too high generally, or near anything nice, or too high above a roofline if they are on a building, or obtruding too far from a building, which impacts coverage by shadowing and clipping. The rules have too much weight on how masts look and where they are sited rather than how the network performs.
I agree with this 100% but in reality there has to be a bit of give and take.
I would defer to what the MNOs want to do, that means taller masts in better locations (much taller, up to 50m or more) but if rejected they could be disguised in some cases if that would make local people happier. But the problem is that the authorities defer to blocking.
It is absolutely loopy there are so many restrictions in urban areas, for example in London a site was recently rejected for spoiling the view of Tooting Common, even though there's a structure on it that's taller than the mast!
You drive cautiously and defensively on shared paths. I slow right down and ring a bell and say On your l or r. Also at the moment my brakes are squealing enough to wake the dead.
Towpaths are notoriously too narrow to be shared. They used to be wide enough for two horses to pass but in many places they're so overgrown it's hard to walk in single file. Restoring all the paths to their original width would be an interesting make-work project for the next Depression.
That's an unusually hysteria-free report from the Mail, apart from the headline, where "cyclist killed" as an action cannot be judged until we have a verdict.
This interesting article - we shall see plenty more - gives no account of why, in two trials, the defence called no expert evidence either medical or statistical. Until this is addressed all the other speculation falls away.
The assumption must be that the obvious explanation is, sadly, the correct one.
As I predicted on election day or the day after, it looks like the Lichfield to Crewe bit of HS2 is going to be back on in short order.
"Rail minister appointment fuels hopes of HS2 revival Network Rail chief Lord Hendy is likely to be an advocate for extending the network"
"His appointment as rail minister may represent the best chance of saving elements of the scheme, including a link from the Midlands to Crewe that would allow full formations of HS2 trains to travel at top speed through to Manchester, leading figures in the sector said."
It will come down to whether Lord Hendy can gets things through the Department of Transport
But he's clueful enough to know how to get HS2 back on track and to kick off a number of quick win projects. For instance there are 60 miles of track that were they electrified opens up 2million track mile of freight a year shifting to electric...
In a highly competitive list cancelling HS2 was right up there for the Sunak government in terms of worst decisions.
You should be blaming the greed and incompetence that surrounded HS2 for a decade before Sunak became PM. Or even CoE.
I lot of the blame for the costs rests on the head of the former MP for Chesham and Amersham and look at the gratitude that waste of £10bn gold plating a set of tunnels did for the tory party (they lost the byelection).
The funny bit is that the air vents look worse and are way more visible than the original cutting would have looked like...
The bigger the project the greater the scope for excess spending when issues arise.
When a project is declared to be 'the biggest in Europe' the scope for excess spending becomes the biggest in Europe.
When a project is declared to be 'world beating' the scope for excess spending becomes world beating.
After a while the excess spending is deemed to be a good thing - the more that is spent means that the project becomes ever more 'biggest in Europe' or 'world beating'. Bigger is always deemed to be better.
The problem with these projects is that the moment you've signed the contract then the contractors hold you to ransom. The issue with a cutting is that it's a physical barrier, my uncle and aunt sold up in deepest Buckinghamshire because my uncle said that, rather than a 15 minute meander along country lanes to get to his friends on the other side of the route, it would become a 30 minute drive just to get to a crossing point.
This is especially so when government is involved and always so when its a government 'prestige project'.
The extra money is always paid and then used as a justification for supporting the project on a 'the bigger, the better' basis.
Yet that isn't the case elsewhere in Europe where High speed routes are being built for a fraction of the cost in the UK..
Now they are multiple reasons for that 1 of which is that companies in Europe know that work is continual so there is little risk of the project being cancelled once they start work on it.
That hasn't been the case in the UK for the past 12 years - hence additional risk costs are added into every project bid.
You drive cautiously and defensively on shared paths. I slow right down and ring a bell and say On your l or r. Also at the moment my brakes are squealing enough to wake the dead.
Towpaths are notoriously too narrow to be shared. They used to be wide enough for two horses to pass but in many places they're so overgrown it's hard to walk in single file. Restoring all the paths to their original width would be an interesting make-work project for the next Depression.
Rural towpaths are barely wide enough for one person to walk along in places during summer! (Overgrowth and brambles on one side; erosion on the other). Although I do think the recently-restored canals are better in this regard than the ones that never fell out of use.
You drive cautiously and defensively on shared paths. I slow right down and ring a bell and say On your l or r. Also at the moment my brakes are squealing enough to wake the dead.
Towpaths are notoriously too narrow to be shared. They used to be wide enough for two horses to pass but in many places they're so overgrown it's hard to walk in single file. Restoring all the paths to their original width would be an interesting make-work project for the next Depression.
Or we could keep the green paths and the cyclists could push their bikes.
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Even our pro-Putin trolls don't defend the missile attack on a children's cancer hospital. We can take it as read that everyone is depressed and angry at Russian actions.
When it comes to Gaza though we do have people who think any IDF action is fine and dandy.
Even if it was not Israel who attacked that hospital?
And I'm sorry: if you're vociferously angry about the hospital in Gaza, then you should be equally vociferously angry about the Russian attack: especially as the blame is not really in doubt.
But there is silence from them. Because, I fear, to use your words, there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy...
Presumably you condemn the closure and forced evacuation of the Anglican hospital in Gaza, as highlighted by the archbishop of Canterbury yesterday?
Every hospital in Gaza has now been attacked, and most are no longer functioning.
Yes, I do condemn that. I've repeatedly said on here that what Israel is doing is morally wrong, self-defeating and unsustainable. But that is countered by what Hamas is doing, which is morally wrong, self-defeating and unsustainable.
It's just that I expect much better from Israel.
The morality of the war in Ukraine is much more clear-cut than in Palestine. Russia is the aggressor; Ukraine the innocent party. In the Middle East, the only innocents are the civilians.
And that's to Israel (especially Bibi's... shame).
That's the key. I think most people are equally appalled by what Israel and Russia are doing pounding hospitals.
But we expect much better from Israel so we call it out in the (forlorn) hope of influencing Netanyahu. No point with Putin. He needs to be defeated one way or another.
Yes, we are pretty much all agree that Putin is a monster and are united in condemning his actions. We have no argument there, which is why it doesn't feature so much here. Putin's a monster. Yes, I agree. End of discussion.
But in the case of Israel/Gaza, there is much more disagreement because we are not all united in condemning Israel's actions. There are those who support Israel's actions and those who condemn them. Hence the more extensive discussion.
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Even our pro-Putin trolls don't defend the missile attack on a children's cancer hospital. We can take it as read that everyone is depressed and angry at Russian actions.
When it comes to Gaza though we do have people who think any IDF action is fine and dandy.
Even if it was not Israel who attacked that hospital?
And I'm sorry: if you're vociferously angry about the hospital in Gaza, then you should be equally vociferously angry about the Russian attack: especially as the blame is not really in doubt.
But there is silence from them. Because, I fear, to use your words, there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy...
Presumably you condemn the closure and forced evacuation of the Anglican hospital in Gaza, as highlighted by the archbishop of Canterbury yesterday?
Every hospital in Gaza has now been attacked, and most are no longer functioning.
Yes, I do condemn that. I've repeatedly said on here that what Israel is doing is morally wrong, self-defeating and unsustainable. But that is countered by what Hamas is doing, which is morally wrong, self-defeating and unsustainable.
It's just that I expect much better from Israel.
The morality of the war in Ukraine is much more clear-cut than in Palestine. Russia is the aggressor; Ukraine the innocent party. In the Middle East, the only innocents are the civilians.
And that's to Israel (especially Bibi's... shame).
That's the key. I think most people are equally appalled by what Israel and Russia are doing pounding hospitals.
But we expect much better from Israel so we call it out in the (forlorn) hope of influencing Netanyahu. No point with Putin. He needs to be defeated one way or another.
Yes, we are pretty much all agree that Putin is a monster and are united in condemning his actions. We have no argument there, which is why it doesn't feature so much here. Putin's a monster. Yes, I agree. End of discussion.
But in the case of Israel/Gaza, there is much more disagreement because we are not all united in condemning Israel's actions. There are those who support Israel's actions and those who condemn them. Hence the more extensive discussion.
No, but that's not what happened at the start of this conflict. When that hospital was bombed many people were convinced it was Israel, and that Hamas' numbers were valid. Hence the vast discussions on here at the time.
Do people also condemn Hamas's actions since October 7th?
Michelle Obama is what Dems though Harris would be like.
She isn't.
That's not the fault of Harris - if Michelle Obama had followed the career path of Harris instead of being First Lady and then writing some books she'd likely be very different to what she is now.
Terrible, at least IDS was re elected and can now reintroduce his death by dangerous cycling bill into Parliament as a private member's bill
I’ve cycled along many tow paths. I just can’t imagine doing the speed that would catapult someone you hit into the air. They are all mixed use.
Indeed but a driver or motorcyclist can be charged with death by dangerous driving or death by careless driving, a cyclist can be charged with neither either where they may apply. Only careless cycling or wanton and furious cycling by a law from the 19th century
Terrible, at least IDS was re elected and can now reintroduce his death by dangerous cycling bill into Parliament as a private member's bill
What everyone I know is looking for is in the first 12 months of this Govt the comprehensive review of all aspects of law addressing Road (technically Public Highway) Safety promised by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling in May 2014:
Picking at bits and pieces is not the way - I'll be interested to see if IDS tries given everything going on on Planet Tory; there's 15 years of inaction to catch up on.
Michelle Obama is what Dems though Harris would be like.
She isn't.
That's not the fault of Harris - if Michelle Obama had followed the career path of Harris instead of being First Lady and then writing some books she'd likely be very different to what she is now.
Yep she would look very much like Kamala Harris - a very successful person but with the same 2 negatives (black, female) working against her.
Michella Obama's advantages are her husband and the fact like Brexit everyone has their own image of what she would be like ...
Terrible, at least IDS was re elected and can now reintroduce his death by dangerous cycling bill into Parliament as a private member's bill
Why? Why do we need new laws when existing laws will do. People get killed by reckless skiing but we don't have a specific law for that. In the case of motor cars it is a frequent event needing specific consideration, but in the case of cycling it is very rare indeed and current laws cope with it as they would do for skiing, football, rugby or even tiddly-winks.
This interesting article - we shall see plenty more - gives no account of why, in two trials, the defence called no expert evidence either medical or statistical. Until this is addressed all the other speculation falls away.
The assumption must be that the obvious explanation is, sadly, the correct one.
Maths upset her lawyers, because numbers are silly/weird?
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Even our pro-Putin trolls don't defend the missile attack on a children's cancer hospital. We can take it as read that everyone is depressed and angry at Russian actions.
When it comes to Gaza though we do have people who think any IDF action is fine and dandy.
Even if it was not Israel who attacked that hospital?
And I'm sorry: if you're vociferously angry about the hospital in Gaza, then you should be equally vociferously angry about the Russian attack: especially as the blame is not really in doubt.
But there is silence from them. Because, I fear, to use your words, there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy...
Presumably you condemn the closure and forced evacuation of the Anglican hospital in Gaza, as highlighted by the archbishop of Canterbury yesterday?
Every hospital in Gaza has now been attacked, and most are no longer functioning.
Yes, I do condemn that. I've repeatedly said on here that what Israel is doing is morally wrong, self-defeating and unsustainable. But that is countered by what Hamas is doing, which is morally wrong, self-defeating and unsustainable.
It's just that I expect much better from Israel.
The morality of the war in Ukraine is much more clear-cut than in Palestine. Russia is the aggressor; Ukraine the innocent party. In the Middle East, the only innocents are the civilians.
And that's to Israel (especially Bibi's... shame).
That's the key. I think most people are equally appalled by what Israel and Russia are doing pounding hospitals.
But we expect much better from Israel so we call it out in the (forlorn) hope of influencing Netanyahu. No point with Putin. He needs to be defeated one way or another.
True - I am sure that some of the focus on Israel is from anti-semites. But, I also think a lot of the focus and the greater expectations we place on the actions of the Israeli state is because we somehow consider more Western / European than their neighbourhood. That brings with it elevated expectation.
If you just ranked the way Israel has prosecuted its attacks on Gaza (and how it has historically treats Palestinians) against the behaviour of its near neighbours - Syria and its own people, Saudi Arabia and Yemeni Houthi, etc. - you’d probably think it was pretty ordinary. Not great. Not as bad as most in the region. But does the Israeli state really want to be judged against those lower standards?
Terrible, at least IDS was re elected and can now reintroduce his death by dangerous cycling bill into Parliament as a private member's bill
I’ve cycled along many tow paths. I just can’t imagine doing the speed that would catapult someone you hit into the air. They are all mixed use.
I hope the prosecution are savvy enough to look at Strava segments
They need a court order to get the data from Strava if the rides are set to private. Also, Strava is only accurate to about 15m so lacks sufficient precision to support a prosecution. It can and has been used to establish a pattern of behaviour for a defendant though.
Terrible, at least IDS was re elected and can now reintroduce his death by dangerous cycling bill into Parliament as a private member's bill
I’ve cycled along many tow paths. I just can’t imagine doing the speed that would catapult someone you hit into the air. They are all mixed use.
It depends - towpaths are very variable. Some are 3m wide with a decent surface, others are more the width of one labradoodle, and have many blind bends and intruding undergrowth and hedges. Someone going along at say 15mph or 20 mph, which is possible in many places, could easily knock a 7 stone elderly lady into the air. And, allow for Daily Mail exaggeration, which may be the case here.
The defendant is 55 years old, so should have known better than to pass at any speed. Passing a pedestrian, who may not have heard, on a tow path, should be at walking or at most jogging pace.
Equally one recognises that witness reports wrt cycling often include an element of fairy-tale.
We also don't actually know whether he is a cyclist - the Mail spend half their time calling people riding motorcycles such as Sur-Rons, "cyclists". There are several possible reasons why they do this.
As I predicted on election day or the day after, it looks like the Lichfield to Crewe bit of HS2 is going to be back on in short order.
"Rail minister appointment fuels hopes of HS2 revival Network Rail chief Lord Hendy is likely to be an advocate for extending the network"
"His appointment as rail minister may represent the best chance of saving elements of the scheme, including a link from the Midlands to Crewe that would allow full formations of HS2 trains to travel at top speed through to Manchester, leading figures in the sector said."
It will come down to whether Lord Hendy can gets things through the Department of Transport
But he's clueful enough to know how to get HS2 back on track and to kick off a number of quick win projects. For instance there are 60 miles of track that were they electrified opens up 2million track mile of freight a year shifting to electric...
In a highly competitive list cancelling HS2 was right up there for the Sunak government in terms of worst decisions.
You should be blaming the greed and incompetence that surrounded HS2 for a decade before Sunak became PM. Or even CoE.
I lot of the blame for the costs rests on the head of the former MP for Chesham and Amersham and look at the gratitude that waste of £10bn gold plating a set of tunnels did for the tory party (they lost the byelection).
The funny bit is that the air vents look worse and are way more visible than the original cutting would have looked like...
The bigger the project the greater the scope for excess spending when issues arise.
When a project is declared to be 'the biggest in Europe' the scope for excess spending becomes the biggest in Europe.
When a project is declared to be 'world beating' the scope for excess spending becomes world beating.
After a while the excess spending is deemed to be a good thing - the more that is spent means that the project becomes ever more 'biggest in Europe' or 'world beating'. Bigger is always deemed to be better.
The problem with these projects is that the moment you've signed the contract then the contractors hold you to ransom. The issue with a cutting is that it's a physical barrier, my uncle and aunt sold up in deepest Buckinghamshire because my uncle said that, rather than a 15 minute meander along country lanes to get to his friends on the other side of the route, it would become a 30 minute drive just to get to a crossing point.
This is especially so when government is involved and always so when its a government 'prestige project'.
The extra money is always paid and then used as a justification for supporting the project on a 'the bigger, the better' basis.
Yet that isn't the case elsewhere in Europe where High speed routes are being built for a fraction of the cost in the UK..
Now they are multiple reasons for that 1 of which is that companies in Europe know that work is continual so there is little risk of the project being cancelled once they start work on it.
That hasn't been the case in the UK for the past 12 years - hence additional risk costs are added into every project bid.
Comparing 'prestige' infrastructure spending between different countries is worthy of in depth research and discussion.
I expect we would discover that some countries are good at X and bad at Y with other countries the opposite. Perhaps for reasons which are intrinsic and impossible to change.
Which would suggest that countries should stick to what they are capable of doing well instead of incompetently and expensively trying to imitate what other countries do better.
For example its likely to be a lot easier and cheaper to build rail lines through the emptiness of Castille and Leon than through the Chiltern nimbys.
Terrible, at least IDS was re elected and can now reintroduce his death by dangerous cycling bill into Parliament as a private member's bill
I’ve cycled along many tow paths. I just can’t imagine doing the speed that would catapult someone you hit into the air. They are all mixed use.
I hope the prosecution are savvy enough to look at Strava segments
They need a court order to get the data from Strava if the rides are set to private. Also, Strava is only accurate to about 15m so lacks sufficient precision to support a prosecution. It can and has been used to establish a pattern of behaviour for a defendant though.
The Daily Telegraph did their notorious front page article based entirely on fabricated Strava data. Apparently without even bothering to check.
Strava data can cut either way in a legal case, perhaps badly if one lawyer is spinning it and the Court do not notice. There was a bizarre Scottish case recently about a civil claim years after a cyclist-cyclist collision, that imo was a perverse verdict.
You drive cautiously and defensively on shared paths. I slow right down and ring a bell and say On your l or r. Also at the moment my brakes are squealing enough to wake the dead.
Towpaths are notoriously too narrow to be shared. They used to be wide enough for two horses to pass but in many places they're so overgrown it's hard to walk in single file. Restoring all the paths to their original width would be an interesting make-work project for the next Depression.
Or we could keep the green paths and the cyclists could push their bikes.
Not encountered that many that are down to single file and get used a lot.
The issue is speed. If you can’t see round a corner and you are on a narrow path…
I’ve never found any problem - you ride at a speed that if something turns up round the next corner, you can stop in time. Passing pedestrians at fractions of warp is for tossers.
Off topic, has Euro 24 done away with the runners-up match? It's not listed on the BBC website and used to take place on the day before the final, as I recall?
You drive cautiously and defensively on shared paths. I slow right down and ring a bell and say On your l or r. Also at the moment my brakes are squealing enough to wake the dead.
Towpaths are notoriously too narrow to be shared. They used to be wide enough for two horses to pass but in many places they're so overgrown it's hard to walk in single file. Restoring all the paths to their original width would be an interesting make-work project for the next Depression.
Or we could keep the green paths and the cyclists could push their bikes.
Why do you want cyclists to push their bikes? We should be encouraging both off road and on road cycling. Cycling is a good thing to do. Cyclists should cycle responsibly where places are narrow and there are walkers. However if there are paths that are overgrown which could be made safer by widening them to their original width that would also be a good thing.
While cycling I have never had a problem with walkers or horse riders, although walkers/runners with headsets on can be annoying as they can't hear you. But courtesy always seems to work.
Terrible, at least IDS was re elected and can now reintroduce his death by dangerous cycling bill into Parliament as a private member's bill
Why? Why do we need new laws when existing laws will do. People get killed by reckless skiing but we don't have a specific law for that. In the case of motor cars it is a frequent event needing specific consideration, but in the case of cycling it is very rare indeed and current laws cope with it as they would do for skiing, football, rugby or even tiddly-winks.
Except they won't do which is precisely the point. Drivers and motorcyclists can be charged with death by dangerous driving or death by careless driving. Cyclists who kill pedestrians can be charged with neither despite increasing cases of it happening, only careless cycling or 'wanton or furious driving' which carries a much lower sentence than drivers can face if they kill. While jurors are reluctant to convict either of manslaughter.
There may also be a case for death by dangerous or reckless skiing too
On satellite, no it will not be replacing 4G/5G masts ever. Number one it cannot sustain the same speeds for many people at once, number two, the latency makes it unusable for voice calls and other uses. So no, it won't.
As for, "we don't need more coverage", in 2024 you cannot take a train in the UK and hold a call. This is totally unacceptable, this should be common-place on every line as a start. So yes, we need more coverage and more masts to support it.
As for "we don't need masts in places with five people", again this is wrong. They are required anyway for the ESN and so they should also be used to provide coverage for the MNOs. To their credit the Tories did make this a priority under the SRN.
There is no reason we cannot have close to 100% geographic coverage. Our neighbours in the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway compete on a much higher level.
If people hate masts, they should support my reforms to have much taller ones. Then we would need far fewer. Right now rural areas are left behind because masts cannot be built because the locals keep rejecting them, I would overrule these in every case, if they need to be hidden fine but they should be allowed, not rejected.
I agree with you about masts but some of your claims are a little off the mark. Norway has high coverage for 4G mobile access because the vast majority of the people live in higher density population centres. The coverage is basically these centres and the roads connecting them. If you look at a map of coverage then 80-90% of the land area (your geographic coverage) has no mobile access at all except by satellite and the smaller communities still have no coverage, let alone 4G.
"Senior White House advisers for more than a year have aggressively stage-managed President Biden’s schedule, movements and personal interactions, as they sought to minimize signs of how age has taken a toll on the oldest president in U.S. history.”
As I predicted on election day or the day after, it looks like the Lichfield to Crewe bit of HS2 is going to be back on in short order.
"Rail minister appointment fuels hopes of HS2 revival Network Rail chief Lord Hendy is likely to be an advocate for extending the network"
"His appointment as rail minister may represent the best chance of saving elements of the scheme, including a link from the Midlands to Crewe that would allow full formations of HS2 trains to travel at top speed through to Manchester, leading figures in the sector said."
It will come down to whether Lord Hendy can gets things through the Department of Transport
But he's clueful enough to know how to get HS2 back on track and to kick off a number of quick win projects. For instance there are 60 miles of track that were they electrified opens up 2million track mile of freight a year shifting to electric...
In a highly competitive list cancelling HS2 was right up there for the Sunak government in terms of worst decisions.
You should be blaming the greed and incompetence that surrounded HS2 for a decade before Sunak became PM. Or even CoE.
I lot of the blame for the costs rests on the head of the former MP for Chesham and Amersham and look at the gratitude that waste of £10bn gold plating a set of tunnels did for the tory party (they lost the byelection).
The funny bit is that the air vents look worse and are way more visible than the original cutting would have looked like...
The bigger the project the greater the scope for excess spending when issues arise.
When a project is declared to be 'the biggest in Europe' the scope for excess spending becomes the biggest in Europe.
When a project is declared to be 'world beating' the scope for excess spending becomes world beating.
After a while the excess spending is deemed to be a good thing - the more that is spent means that the project becomes ever more 'biggest in Europe' or 'world beating'. Bigger is always deemed to be better.
The problem with these projects is that the moment you've signed the contract then the contractors hold you to ransom. The issue with a cutting is that it's a physical barrier, my uncle and aunt sold up in deepest Buckinghamshire because my uncle said that, rather than a 15 minute meander along country lanes to get to his friends on the other side of the route, it would become a 30 minute drive just to get to a crossing point.
This is especially so when government is involved and always so when its a government 'prestige project'.
The extra money is always paid and then used as a justification for supporting the project on a 'the bigger, the better' basis.
Yet that isn't the case elsewhere in Europe where High speed routes are being built for a fraction of the cost in the UK..
Now they are multiple reasons for that 1 of which is that companies in Europe know that work is continual so there is little risk of the project being cancelled once they start work on it.
That hasn't been the case in the UK for the past 12 years - hence additional risk costs are added into every project bid.
Comparing 'prestige' infrastructure spending between different countries is worthy of in depth research and discussion.
I expect we would discover that some countries are good at X and bad at Y with other countries the opposite. Perhaps for reasons which are intrinsic and impossible to change.
Which would suggest that countries should stick to what they are capable of doing well instead of incompetently and expensively trying to imitate what other countries do better.
For example its likely to be a lot easier and cheaper to build rail lines through the emptiness of Castille and Leon than through the Chiltern nimbys.
Some of it has to do with nimbys a lot of it comes from sane planning and separation of projects. See as a prime example the fact there has been HS2 trains into both Firenze / Marseille for years but it's only now that through routes are being built, the original route was HS to the edge of the city and existing tracks / platforms for the last couple of miles.
Now that was possible because both cities had some spare capacity at the stations that could be used (alongside some cut backs to local services) to support the faster services. Sadly all our stations are at capacity which is why HS2 has a rebuild Euston project in London, a new Station in Birmingham and a whole set of extra issues in both Manchester / Leeds.
Separate out those station capacity projects and HS2's price isn't that insane..
Terrible, at least IDS was re elected and can now reintroduce his death by dangerous cycling bill into Parliament as a private member's bill
What everyone I know is looking for is in the first 12 months of this Govt the comprehensive review of all aspects of law addressing Road (technically Public Highway) Safety promised by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling in May 2014:
Picking at bits and pieces is not the way - I'll be interested to see if IDS tries given everything going on on Planet Tory; there's 15 years of inaction to catch up on.
Of course he will, his party is not in government, he has got plenty of time on his hands on the opposition backbenches, it is a cause he cares about and even many Labour Ministers and MPs would back his proposal
I'm slightly (un)surprised that the people who talked about the explosion at a Gaza hospital are not voicing their anger at Russia's heinous attack on a children's hospital in Kyiv. It's not as if there's any genuine doubt about who performed this atrocity.
Even our pro-Putin trolls don't defend the missile attack on a children's cancer hospital. We can take it as read that everyone is depressed and angry at Russian actions.
When it comes to Gaza though we do have people who think any IDF action is fine and dandy.
Even if it was not Israel who attacked that hospital?
And I'm sorry: if you're vociferously angry about the hospital in Gaza, then you should be equally vociferously angry about the Russian attack: especially as the blame is not really in doubt.
But there is silence from them. Because, I fear, to use your words, there are people who think any Russian action is fine and dandy...
Presumably you condemn the closure and forced evacuation of the Anglican hospital in Gaza, as highlighted by the archbishop of Canterbury yesterday?
Every hospital in Gaza has now been attacked, and most are no longer functioning.
Yes, I do condemn that. I've repeatedly said on here that what Israel is doing is morally wrong, self-defeating and unsustainable. But that is countered by what Hamas is doing, which is morally wrong, self-defeating and unsustainable.
It's just that I expect much better from Israel.
The morality of the war in Ukraine is much more clear-cut than in Palestine. Russia is the aggressor; Ukraine the innocent party. In the Middle East, the only innocents are the civilians.
And that's to Israel (especially Bibi's... shame).
That's the key. I think most people are equally appalled by what Israel and Russia are doing pounding hospitals.
But we expect much better from Israel so we call it out in the (forlorn) hope of influencing Netanyahu. No point with Putin. He needs to be defeated one way or another.
True - I am sure that some of the focus on Israel is from anti-semites. But, I also think a lot of the focus and the greater expectations we place on the actions of the Israeli state is because we somehow consider more Western / European than their neighbourhood. That brings with it elevated expectation.
If you just ranked the way Israel has prosecuted its attacks on Gaza (and how it has historically treats Palestinians) against the behaviour of its near neighbours - Syria and its own people, Saudi Arabia and Yemeni Houthi, etc. - you’d probably think it was pretty ordinary. Not great. Not as bad as most in the region. But does the Israeli state really want to be judged against those lower standards?
A good example of how it is essential to separate out facts, values, priorities and opinion.
Even the reasonably respectable media give very scant account of why they give saturation coverage to one place of immense humanly caused suffering in the world (Gaza) and studiously ignore another (Sudan). Other examples are available in abundance.
BTW we arm Saudi as well as Israel but the reportage and the protests don't seem to reflect this reality.
Terrible, at least IDS was re elected and can now reintroduce his death by dangerous cycling bill into Parliament as a private member's bill
Why? Why do we need new laws when existing laws will do. People get killed by reckless skiing but we don't have a specific law for that. In the case of motor cars it is a frequent event needing specific consideration, but in the case of cycling it is very rare indeed and current laws cope with it as they would do for skiing, football, rugby or even tiddly-winks.
They could tack a new law onto something, just to give less ammunition to the many arseholes who get angry at the mere sight of a cyclist. If it makes them calm down a bit for a short while, it would definitely make cycling safer.
And a decision needs to be made soon on Thames Water.
I think given the recent displays by management, there's only one good option, and that's not a private sector solution. Government should step in before (as I predict) the regulator folds and bails out shareholders at the expense of bill payers.
Thames Water to tap investors for funds as it will run out of cash by next June https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jul/09/thames-water-funds-debt ..The slow-burn crisis at Thames Water stepped up in March, when it said shareholders – which include the pension funds USS and Omers – had U-turned on £500m of promised funding, claiming Ofwat had made the company “uninvestable”.
The Guardian has since revealed that Thames’s board approved a £150m dividend just hours before the announcement...
A reminder that the privatised water companies have delivered on clean drinking water and dramatically improved rivers and bathing areas. The fact that they seem to be in some cases run by the most devious tax dodging cretins doesnt seem to have interfered with that. The River Thames itself is considered one of the cleanest rivers to run through a major city in the world.
In any case, the complaint against Thames Water and other privatised utilities is not that cholera is once more running unchecked but that they have been cynically stripped of cash to pay dividends rather than investment, and will likely cost a fortune to bail out.
You drive cautiously and defensively on shared paths. I slow right down and ring a bell and say On your l or r. Also at the moment my brakes are squealing enough to wake the dead.
Towpaths are notoriously too narrow to be shared. They used to be wide enough for two horses to pass but in many places they're so overgrown it's hard to walk in single file. Restoring all the paths to their original width would be an interesting make-work project for the next Depression.
Or we could keep the green paths and the cyclists could push their bikes.
Why do you want cyclists to push their bikes? We should be encouraging both off road and on road cycling. Cycling is a good thing to do. Cyclists should cycle responsibly where places are narrow and there are walkers. However if there are paths that are overgrown which could be made safer by widening them to their original width that would also be a good thing.
While cycling I have never had a problem with walkers or horse riders, although walkers/runners with headsets on can be annoying as they can't hear you. But courtesy always seems to work.
I think that's the key: mutual respect. If you're walking and a cyclist is coming towards you on a narrow towpath, try to find a place you can nip in and let the cyclist past. If you're a cyclist on a narrow path, be prepared to slow down and stop to allow a walker past.
But if you're a cyclist, always remember you cannot know the physical abilities of the pedestrian you are approaching. If you're cycling, you have a base level fitness. The pedestrian may not be able to quickly step out of the way, especially onto uneven ground. And they may be carrying bags or a rucksack you cannot immediately see.
When walking towpaths, I'm amused by fishermen. If there's a competition on, their roads rise up like a series of drawbridges to let you past, lowering again afterwards. I can't recall ever having an issue with anglers = they always seem utterly polite.
Off topic, has Euro 24 done away with the runners-up match? It's not listed on the BBC website and used to take place on the day before the final, as I recall?
Hasn't been around for the Euros for several tournaments, I think.
Off topic, has Euro 24 done away with the runners-up match? It's not listed on the BBC website and used to take place on the day before the final, as I recall?
Euros never had a 3rd place playoff only the World Cup.
You drive cautiously and defensively on shared paths. I slow right down and ring a bell and say On your l or r. Also at the moment my brakes are squealing enough to wake the dead.
Towpaths are notoriously too narrow to be shared. They used to be wide enough for two horses to pass but in many places they're so overgrown it's hard to walk in single file. Restoring all the paths to their original width would be an interesting make-work project for the next Depression.
That's a result of decisions made about what towpaths should be, one of which is to make them less accessible than they used to be for various reasons usually around "heritage" and "nature". We've debated that one before.
I have a number of pairs of 201x vs 191x photos of the same locations, showing better condition and more accessible towpaths 100 years ago than now.
I think it would be a reasonable measure to pass statute law declaring all canal and most riverside paths to be Bridleways, or other categories of PROW.
The bodies responsible for towpaths have had billions of public money over 2 or 3 decades, so I'm baffled why it wasn't done in eg the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.
Off topic, has Euro 24 done away with the runners-up match? It's not listed on the BBC website and used to take place on the day before the final, as I recall?
Euros never had a 3rd place playoff only the World Cup.
You drive cautiously and defensively on shared paths. I slow right down and ring a bell and say On your l or r. Also at the moment my brakes are squealing enough to wake the dead.
Towpaths are notoriously too narrow to be shared. They used to be wide enough for two horses to pass but in many places they're so overgrown it's hard to walk in single file. Restoring all the paths to their original width would be an interesting make-work project for the next Depression.
Or we could keep the green paths and the cyclists could push their bikes.
Why do you want cyclists to push their bikes? We should be encouraging both off road and on road cycling. Cycling is a good thing to do. Cyclists should cycle responsibly where places are narrow and there are walkers. However if there are paths that are overgrown which could be made safer by widening them to their original width that would also be a good thing.
While cycling I have never had a problem with walkers or horse riders, although walkers/runners with headsets on can be annoying as they can't hear you. But courtesy always seems to work.
I'm not going there beyond this comment, but most wheelers and cyclists known to me think the greatest ASB challenges on greenways and towpaths to be 1 - Muggers where it is a problem, and 2 - Dog walkers with dogs off lead, or on extendy-leads that prevent appropriate control.
Tory unity latest: Anunziata Rees-Mogg tells attendees at a Popular Conservatism event in Westminster: “Don’t gloat about the colleagues we wanted to lose and lost.”
Note: Every single 'popular Conservative' candidate last week lost their seat, including Liz Truss.
Terrible, at least IDS was re elected and can now reintroduce his death by dangerous cycling bill into Parliament as a private member's bill
Why? Why do we need new laws when existing laws will do. People get killed by reckless skiing but we don't have a specific law for that. In the case of motor cars it is a frequent event needing specific consideration, but in the case of cycling it is very rare indeed and current laws cope with it as they would do for skiing, football, rugby or even tiddly-winks.
They could tack a new law onto something, just to give less ammunition to the many arseholes who get angry at the mere sight of a cyclist. If it makes them calm down a bit for a short while, it would definitely make cycling safer.
Nah, once you give in to bullies they just come back for more.
The people who piss & moan endlessly about cyclists will just find a new thing to demand once they get their unnecessary law written into the books.
The reason we need special laws for drivers written into the books (which almost precisely mirror the existing crimes of murder, assault etc etc down the hierarchy of intent & injury) is because the system was so reluctant to convict drivers of these crimes that special “no it’s still a crime when a driver does it, look it says so in the name of the crime” laws had to be drawn up. Why else do you think think we have “Causing death by careless driving”? - that’s just manslaughter.
Cyclists don’t get this kind of privileged treatment, so there’s no need to pass new laws that say “no, it’s still a crime when a cyclist does it, look it says so in the name” crimes. They get prosecuted under existing legislation just fine.
That drivers /still/ complain because now they have laws that call them out specifically when nobody else gets called out in this way is just another example of car brain in action.
"Senior White House advisers for more than a year have aggressively stage-managed President Biden’s schedule, movements and personal interactions, as they sought to minimize signs of how age has taken a toll on the oldest president in U.S. history.”
Wall Street Journal.
The idea that this is all going to go away and it will be business as usual if Biden makes a few speeches without freezing up or trailing off is absolutely ridiculous.
The Democrats are starting to really damage their own brand.
This interesting article - we shall see plenty more - gives no account of why, in two trials, the defence called no expert evidence either medical or statistical. Until this is addressed all the other speculation falls away.
The assumption must be that the obvious explanation is, sadly, the correct one.
Maths upset her lawyers, because numbers are silly/weird?
The lawyers had two goes. By the second trial the 'free the Letby one' campaign was well under way. If (big if) in the second trial the defence - as it was completely free to do - had called a decent range of the experts now emerging to give expert evidence, and an acquittal had followed following the serious undermining of the prosecution case there is no serious doubt that the CCRC would have started taking an interest, as of course would the media.
None of this occurred. BTW, the defence will of course have made every effort along these lines in both trials. They could have 20 reports saying 'sorry, I can't give expert evidence that would assist - the facts are against you' and that data is confidential for ever. If only one report would have helped, they would have called that expert. They didn't.
And a decision needs to be made soon on Thames Water.
I think given the recent displays by management, there's only one good option, and that's not a private sector solution. Government should step in before (as I predict) the regulator folds and bails out shareholders at the expense of bill payers.
Thames Water to tap investors for funds as it will run out of cash by next June https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jul/09/thames-water-funds-debt ..The slow-burn crisis at Thames Water stepped up in March, when it said shareholders – which include the pension funds USS and Omers – had U-turned on £500m of promised funding, claiming Ofwat had made the company “uninvestable”.
The Guardian has since revealed that Thames’s board approved a £150m dividend just hours before the announcement...
The Government (read: taxpayers) absolutely should not step in.
There's a perfectly viable private sector solution: bankruptcy.
The firm goes bankrupt. Shareholders and bondholders get wiped out. Assets get sold, to either the state or another firm for £1 to be ran as a going concern.
No reason to bailout those who've made bad investments.
I have not been posting much but I do want to say that not only does Starmer look like a PM but he and his team have made an excellent start and is demonstrating to my fellow conservatives how to do grown up politics
Listening to Tony Blair this morning he reminds me why I voted for him twice and I do expect Labour to enjoy quite a long honeymoon
As far as the conservatives are concerned if they want any chance of regaining office they need a long period of reflection, and certainly the idea Braverman or Jenrick are the answer is utter nonsense and anyway they have their ideal party in Reform
We all know that Labour will encounter choppy waters, but that is some way off and I really hope they succeed but they must resist moving to the left and bowing to the unions
Tory unity latest: Anunziata Rees-Mogg tells attendees at a Popular Conservatism event in Westminster: “Don’t gloat about the colleagues we wanted to lose and lost.”
Note: Every single 'popular Conservative' candidate last week lost their seat, including Liz Truss.
Terrible, at least IDS was re elected and can now reintroduce his death by dangerous cycling bill into Parliament as a private member's bill
Why? Why do we need new laws when existing laws will do. People get killed by reckless skiing but we don't have a specific law for that. In the case of motor cars it is a frequent event needing specific consideration, but in the case of cycling it is very rare indeed and current laws cope with it as they would do for skiing, football, rugby or even tiddly-winks.
Except they won't do which is precisely the point. Drivers and motorcyclists can be charged with death by dangerous driving or death by careless driving. Cyclists who kill pedestrians can be charged with neither despite increasing cases of it happening, only careless cycling or 'wanton or furious driving' which carries a much lower sentence than drivers can face if they kill. While jurors are reluctant to convict either of manslaughter.
There may also be a case for death by dangerous or reckless skiing too
Hmm, take your point having looked up the max penalty, although manslaughter should be an option. I don't know why juries won't convict if that is the case.
However on average 2 pedestrians are killed per year in the UK by bikes and we have no idea if they are at fault in those instances so it does seem over the top. I imagine there are similar numbers for reckless actions in football, rugby, hockey, roller skating, etc, etc. Where do you stop in passing new laws.
I would be interested to know if there is a law in the skiing countries re reckless skiing because I assume the numbers are huge in comparison. On average 100 people die skiing in Europe each year and I have seen some spectacularly reckless skiing in my time.
On satellite, no it will not be replacing 4G/5G masts ever. Number one it cannot sustain the same speeds for many people at once, number two, the latency makes it unusable for voice calls and other uses. So no, it won't.
As for, "we don't need more coverage", in 2024 you cannot take a train in the UK and hold a call. This is totally unacceptable, this should be common-place on every line as a start. So yes, we need more coverage and more masts to support it.
As for "we don't need masts in places with five people", again this is wrong. They are required anyway for the ESN and so they should also be used to provide coverage for the MNOs. To their credit the Tories did make this a priority under the SRN.
There is no reason we cannot have close to 100% geographic coverage. Our neighbours in the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway compete on a much higher level.
If people hate masts, they should support my reforms to have much taller ones. Then we would need far fewer. Right now rural areas are left behind because masts cannot be built because the locals keep rejecting them, I would overrule these in every case, if they need to be hidden fine but they should be allowed, not rejected.
I'm not a huge fan of people on the phone on trains, tbh. But yes infrastructure IS important, and in the modern world high data speeds are part of the equation.
Comments
If you look wider, then there are lots of people. Russian disinformation (aided and abetted by others) is working, especially in other countries. We should be doing more to combat this, but the campaigners seems to care more about Palestinians than Ukrainians. Despite the Ukrainian cause being much less messy.
When a project is declared to be 'the biggest in Europe' the scope for excess spending becomes the biggest in Europe.
When a project is declared to be 'world beating' the scope for excess spending becomes world beating.
After a while the excess spending is deemed to be a good thing - the more that is spent means that the project becomes ever more 'biggest in Europe' or 'world beating'. Bigger is always deemed to be better.
So long as the capacity is available to do the actual work without driving up inflation, bond markets will happily fund any infrastructure that they believe will boost GDP, in the sure knowledge that the future payment stream that backs the bond will be produced by the more productive future economy.
The limit is current economic capacity, not cash on hand.
So this made no sense at all. It was clearly nonsense. The only thing I could deduce was there were quite a few Labour seats in that target 61 which the system was now deducing the LDs would not win, yet anyone with half a brain knew that was the case weeks ago. Nobody expected us to win Labour seats. The only possible LD win off Labour was Sheffield Hallam and that was a stretch.
I can think of no other reason why the projection dropped 11 seats when we were wining seats way above the 61 in the target list and at that point missing none at all.
Bullshit. I think I've been the only person to mention yesterday's heinous attack on here. The people who were complaining about the Gaza hospital strike are silent. If it is opprobrium, then it is silent.
As for the numbers of dead - I am referring to the '500 dead' claim that came out from Hamas immediately after the explosion. Which looks extremely sussy.
Back in Blair's time there were various things done with the Housing Revenue Account iirc, which Cameron proudly reversed to tip things (back?) to the wealthier / more southern.
How they make that balance, which I think will see around the nationally collected and redistributed elements of Council Taxes / Business Rates, will be interesting and revealing.
One element in this arena was the large sums £20bn (? iirc) spent on upgrading social sector hosuing between approxomately 2001 and 2018.
I posted the story yesterday an hour or two before you did, and a number of folk commented.
Haven't noticed much of this. You are obviously unwilling to name names.
But, in general, I just find your logic really annoying. It's like me saying 'Aha you've condemned something the Russians did, but your silence on Burkina Faso proves that you think everything the army does in Burkina Faso is fine and dandy.'
That would actually be better than what you do, because it least it would name who I am attempting to criticise.
It's just that I expect much better from Israel.
The morality of the war in Ukraine is much more clear-cut than in Palestine. Russia is the aggressor; Ukraine the innocent party. In the Middle East, the only innocents are the civilians.
And that's to Israel (especially Bibi's... shame).
It's worth considering, though I suspect such polls would struggle to get noticed, because the ahead/behind narrative from a GB poll is simpler. I suppose you could produce a GB poll from 5+ regional polls, but then you've increased the cost of your GB polls by a factor of at least five.
The other difficulty is in determining which regions to split England into. There's an argument for as many as nine, depending how you do it (NW, NE, Yorks, E&W Mids, Eastern, London, SW, SE).
And then, the YouGov polling for the Mayoral election wasn't a great advert for the accuracy of English regional polling.
Has anyone looked at how well the red/blue wall polling performed?
And no, they're not doing a great job.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jul/08/starmer-reeves-briefed-critical-risk-thames-water-whitehall-debt-infrastructure
...The condition of Coppermills, a vast water treatment works in north-east London that serves as many as 3 million people, is particularly alarming, ministers and aides have been told. The site is classed among the UK’s most important pieces of national infrastructure..
The issue with a cutting is that it's a physical barrier, my uncle and aunt sold up in deepest Buckinghamshire because my uncle said that, rather than a 15 minute meander along country lanes to get to his friends on the other side of the route, it would become a 30 minute drive just to get to a crossing point.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp08d1nq1y3o
and a couple more.
Home Office flying of Pride flag was ‘monstrous thing’, says Braverman
In speech condemned by LGBTQ Tories, ex-home secretary says party failed to ‘stop the lunatic woke virus’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/09/home-office-flying-of-pride-flag-was-monstrous-thing-says-suella-braverman
But it's also very much about the politics of it, and lobbies that want to use "help the disabled" as a trump card to win a debate. The London Cabbies are a bit notorious on this - they have tried to use "avoid charging disabled people higher fares" as a stalking horse to get a concessions allowing them to go willy-nilly through LTNs whether they have a disabled person on board or not.
The Govt Definition of disabled is around "long-term impact", which means that a progressive disease (eg my diabetes) that has little functional impact for typically the first 5-25 years, even though requiring a constant attention, monitoring and treatment, but may eventually mean 4x the risk of heart attacks, blindness, loss of feeling or amputation if eg a foot-ulcer is missed through inattention, falls within the definition.
The definitions for benefits and concessions and support being functional allows a different boundary to be drawn.
It's incentivised China to build car plants in Europe far faster than otherwise it would have done.
What is required in investments is a positive rate of return.
I hope you're not suggesting that all government investments show a positive rate of return ?
I've seen business investments which were made within budget and on time show a negative rate of return because the expected income from them did not materialise.
HS2 by contrast is multiple times over budget, many years behind schedule and in a rather different world of home working and AI. As an example, IIRC, HS2 was planned on the basis that passenger journeys were 'dead time' and that passengers never worked on trains.
Also, the tariff is of the EU, but the jobs are in Turkey, so on that score this doesn't benefit the EU in any way.
For the avoidance of doubt, I implicitly condemn all bad stuff unless I specifically say otherwise
Hospital bombing is right out.
https://variety.com/2024/film/news/the-devil-wears-prada-sequel-disney-1236062923/
Leave the original alone, you vultures!. It was perfect as is!
https://www.hs2.org.uk/building-hs2/headhouses-and-ventilation-shafts/amersham-vent-shaft-headhouse/
Ah well.
"My government is trying to prevent this" vs "My government might have supplied the bombs for this" ?
United Airlines flight loses wheel during take-off in Los Angeles
https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/jul/09/united-airlines-flight-la-loses-wheel-take-off
The last Labour government actually did levelling up. They just didn't need a silly slogan to show it.
We ought to be thinking along the same lines since we're not building all that many EVs ourselves, and importing far more expensive ones than China would make. It would likely be a significant net benefit to the economy.
What people need are opportunities:
The opportunity to learn a skillset
The opportunity to get a job
The opportunity to develop a career
The opportunity to own a home
On a forced choice with Harris to be nominee 47% prefer Biden to just 26% for his VP.
Only Michelle Obama is seen by a majority of Democratic voters as doing better v Trump than Biden does
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Alternative_Democratic_Nominees_poll_results.pdf
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13613217/Cyclist-killed-elderly-woman-crashing-River-Thames-towpath-court-hears.html
But we expect much better from Israel so we call it out in the (forlorn) hope of influencing Netanyahu. No point with Putin. He needs to be defeated one way or another.
I'm not convinced UNS will work any better in England in 2028/29.
In Parliament it will be treated by campaign groups that "disabled MPs" = "disabled MPs who think like us, identify like us and agree with us". Some treat it almost as an dieology called 'disablism'. One word sometimes as a slur used is "ableist", which obfuscates because the word has real uses.
The conversation needs to be more diverse and considered.
IMO that's a process of rubbing out most of the disabled MPs, and letting it get into the general discussion as an 'attested fact' referenced by umpteen future articles, has been a real problem as it ignores diversity and only addresses one minor part of wider questions.
And it panders to politicians wanting conveniently simple answers.
It's certainly one of the considerations for industry wondering whether or not to locate or invest in the UK.
Want to be a Science Superpower? Fix the National Grid.
https://helloparisi.substack.com/p/want-to-be-a-science-superpower-fix
But then you get fuckwits asking for exact quotes; and I'm sorry, but I don't keep extensive notes on when people say sh*t on this forum.
The new Labour government starts with full employment and affordable housing in northern England.
The extra money is always paid and then used as a justification for supporting the project on a 'the bigger, the better' basis.
I would defer to what the MNOs want to do, that means taller masts in better locations (much taller, up to 50m or more) but if rejected they could be disguised in some cases if that would make local people happier. But the problem is that the authorities defer to blocking.
It is absolutely loopy there are so many restrictions in urban areas, for example in London a site was recently rejected for spoiling the view of Tooting Common, even though there's a structure on it that's taller than the mast!
The original report of this incident from 2023 when he was charged, over on Road.cc, is here:
https://road.cc/content/news/cyclist-charged-over-pedestrians-death-302733
This interesting article - we shall see plenty more - gives no account of why, in two trials, the defence called no expert evidence either medical or statistical. Until this is addressed all the other speculation falls away.
The assumption must be that the obvious explanation is, sadly, the correct one.
Now they are multiple reasons for that 1 of which is that companies in Europe know that work is continual so there is little risk of the project being cancelled once they start work on it.
That hasn't been the case in the UK for the past 12 years - hence additional risk costs are added into every project bid.
But in the case of Israel/Gaza, there is much more disagreement because we are not all united in condemning Israel's actions. There are those who support Israel's actions and those who condemn them. Hence the more extensive discussion.
Do people also condemn Hamas's actions since October 7th?
She isn't.
That's not the fault of Harris - if Michelle Obama had followed the career path of Harris instead of being First Lady and then writing some books she'd likely be very different to what she is now.
The Justice Secretary also announced his intention to launch a full review of all driving offences and penalties, to ensure people who endanger lives and public safety are properly punished.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/justice-for-victims-of-banned-drivers
Picking at bits and pieces is not the way - I'll be interested to see if IDS tries given everything going on on Planet Tory; there's 15 years of inaction to catch up on.
Michella Obama's advantages are her husband and the fact like Brexit everyone has their own image of what she would be like ...
If you just ranked the way Israel has prosecuted its attacks on Gaza (and how it has historically treats Palestinians) against the behaviour of its near neighbours - Syria and its own people, Saudi Arabia and Yemeni Houthi, etc. - you’d probably think it was pretty ordinary. Not great. Not as bad as most in the region. But does the Israeli state really want to be judged against those lower standards?
The defendant is 55 years old, so should have known better than to pass at any speed. Passing a pedestrian, who may not have heard, on a tow path, should be at walking or at most jogging pace.
Equally one recognises that witness reports wrt cycling often include an element of fairy-tale.
We also don't actually know whether he is a cyclist - the Mail spend half their time calling people riding motorcycles such as Sur-Rons, "cyclists". There are several possible reasons why they do this.
I expect we would discover that some countries are good at X and bad at Y with other countries the opposite. Perhaps for reasons which are intrinsic and impossible to change.
Which would suggest that countries should stick to what they are capable of doing well instead of incompetently and expensively trying to imitate what other countries do better.
For example its likely to be a lot easier and cheaper to build rail lines through the emptiness of Castille and Leon than through the Chiltern nimbys.
Strava data can cut either way in a legal case, perhaps badly if one lawyer is spinning it and the Court do not notice. There was a bizarre Scottish case recently about a civil claim years after a cyclist-cyclist collision, that imo was a perverse verdict.
The issue is speed. If you can’t see round a corner and you are on a narrow path…
I’ve never found any problem - you ride at a speed that if something turns up round the next corner, you can stop in time. Passing pedestrians at fractions of warp is for tossers.
While cycling I have never had a problem with walkers or horse riders, although walkers/runners with headsets on can be annoying as they can't hear you. But courtesy always seems to work.
There may also be a case for death by dangerous or reckless skiing too
https://www.nperf.com/en/map/NO/-/164116.Telenor-Mobile/signal?ll=60.031929699115615&lg=8.684692382812502&zoom=7
And the trains I travel on have excellent coverage, certainly good enough to make calls. The only exception being tunnels for obvious reasons.
Wall Street Journal.
Now that was possible because both cities had some spare capacity at the stations that could be used (alongside some cut backs to local services) to support the faster services. Sadly all our stations are at capacity which is why HS2 has a rebuild Euston project in London, a new Station in Birmingham and a whole set of extra issues in both Manchester / Leeds.
Separate out those station capacity projects and HS2's price isn't that insane..
Even the reasonably respectable media give very scant account of why they give saturation coverage to one place of immense humanly caused suffering in the world (Gaza) and studiously ignore another (Sudan). Other examples are available in abundance.
BTW we arm Saudi as well as Israel but the reportage and the protests don't seem to reflect this reality.
https://theconversation.com/from-biologically-dead-to-chart-toppingly-clean-how-the-thames-made-an-extraordinary-recovery-over-60-years-180895
In any case, the complaint against Thames Water and other privatised utilities is not that cholera is once more running unchecked but that they have been cynically stripped of cash to pay dividends rather than investment, and will likely cost a fortune to bail out.
But if you're a cyclist, always remember you cannot know the physical abilities of the pedestrian you are approaching. If you're cycling, you have a base level fitness. The pedestrian may not be able to quickly step out of the way, especially onto uneven ground. And they may be carrying bags or a rucksack you cannot immediately see.
When walking towpaths, I'm amused by fishermen. If there's a competition on, their roads rise up like a series of drawbridges to let you past, lowering again afterwards. I can't recall ever having an issue with anglers = they always seem utterly polite.
I have a number of pairs of 201x vs 191x photos of the same locations, showing better condition and more accessible towpaths 100 years ago than now.
I think it would be a reasonable measure to pass statute law declaring all canal and most riverside paths to be Bridleways, or other categories of PROW.
The bodies responsible for towpaths have had billions of public money over 2 or 3 decades, so I'm baffled why it wasn't done in eg the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.
Tory unity latest: Anunziata Rees-Mogg tells attendees at a Popular Conservatism event in Westminster: “Don’t gloat about the colleagues we wanted to lose and lost.”
Note: Every single 'popular Conservative' candidate last week lost their seat, including Liz Truss.
The people who piss & moan endlessly about cyclists will just find a new thing to demand once they get their unnecessary law written into the books.
The reason we need special laws for drivers written into the books (which almost precisely mirror the existing crimes of murder, assault etc etc down the hierarchy of intent & injury) is because the system was so reluctant to convict drivers of these crimes that special “no it’s still a crime when a driver does it, look it says so in the name of the crime” laws had to be drawn up. Why else do you think think we have “Causing death by careless driving”? - that’s just manslaughter.
Cyclists don’t get this kind of privileged treatment, so there’s no need to pass new laws that say “no, it’s still a crime when a cyclist does it, look it says so in the name” crimes. They get prosecuted under existing legislation just fine.
That drivers /still/ complain because now they have laws that call them out specifically when nobody else gets called out in this way is just another example of car brain in action.
The Democrats are starting to really damage their own brand.
None of this occurred. BTW, the defence will of course have made every effort along these lines in both trials. They could have 20 reports saying 'sorry, I can't give expert evidence that would assist - the facts are against you' and that data is confidential for ever. If only one report would have helped, they would have called that expert. They didn't.
There's a perfectly viable private sector solution: bankruptcy.
The firm goes bankrupt. Shareholders and bondholders get wiped out. Assets get sold, to either the state or another firm for £1 to be ran as a going concern.
No reason to bailout those who've made bad investments.
I have not been posting much but I do want to say that not only does Starmer look like a PM but he and his team have made an excellent start and is demonstrating to my fellow conservatives how to do grown up politics
Listening to Tony Blair this morning he reminds me why I voted for him twice and I do expect Labour to enjoy quite a long honeymoon
As far as the conservatives are concerned if they want any chance of regaining office they need a long period of reflection, and certainly the idea Braverman or Jenrick are the answer is utter nonsense and anyway they have their ideal party in Reform
We all know that Labour will encounter choppy waters, but that is some way off and I really hope they succeed but they must resist moving to the left and bowing to the unions
However on average 2 pedestrians are killed per year in the UK by bikes and we have no idea if they are at fault in those instances so it does seem over the top. I imagine there are similar numbers for reckless actions in football, rugby, hockey, roller skating, etc, etc. Where do you stop in passing new laws.
I would be interested to know if there is a law in the skiing countries re reckless skiing because I assume the numbers are huge in comparison. On average 100 people die skiing in Europe each year and I have seen some spectacularly reckless skiing in my time.