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.
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.
Did they not bother to model the Muslim vote or something? Did any of the pollsters?
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.
There's a good article on trade balances and domestic consumption here:
"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.
They are done if they don’t replace him now. Once the first senior party people went public they gave Trump the ammo “even his own Senators/donors etc want him”. It’s just how long it takes for Biden and his inner circle to get this and the longer they take the greater chance Trump gets in next election.
If Biden drops out there is a chance his successor won’t beat Trump but I think that if he stays in he is guaranteed to lose. Too much time for further embarrassments and opportunities for the GOP to exploit between now and the election.
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.
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
The Tories need time for reflection certainly. The rule that elections are won from the centre has been affirmed. I suspect a new rule is emerging too: elections are won from the combination of centrism and competence.
It is not only the simultaneous policy opposites and populist nonsense that have crashed the Tories, it is also the sense that they are useless at implementation, even once you have worked out what they are trying to do.
It is obvious that Labour are trying the difficult task of being realistic, managing expectations, dynamic, outcome driven and able to implement what they say in massive contrast to the shambles we have had.
The outside observer (most PBers) will be wondering where when and how this necessary but impossible task starts to unravel.
The models and MRPs for Scotland never quite passed the sniff test (as indeed the national ones did not). I wonder if less weight needs to be put on big monolithic convictions such as independence or leave/remain - they matter, but don’t trump other things people do also care a lot about, e.g. public services, tax, mortgages, corruption and incompetence in high office etc.
Inverness [etc] seat did feel like a bit of a surprise nonetheless though, given the relative size of the swing. It’s one of many mini-stories of this election I’d like to know more about.
Except that the pollster that faired second-best GB-wide was Norstat, who are the ones who weight most heavily on leave/remain!
In Scotland, the trad polls got closer to the actual vote shares than those implied by the MRPs, but the reverse was true GB-wide. I can't see any reason why that should have been the case, though!
The best predictions of all seem to have been created 'bottom up', analysing each constituency in turn (Andy_JS, take a bow!). I wonder if, in future, a hybrid approach might be viable - using MRP-style data, but with individual weights in each constituency derived from manual analysis?
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.
IIRC the defence were not allowed to call these witnesses in the second trial. (Something to do with it being a re-trial, not a trial from scratch?). They also weren’t allowed any of their evidence in their appeal claim. The prosecution was allowed to alter their prosecution evidence though. Funny how that works...
As I said last time this was discussed - if Letby is innocent, this would not be the first time someone has been convicted of heinous crimes on little more than dodgy statistical evidence. It has happened in the UK & a very similar case happened in Belgium (IIRC).
I just don’t have the confidence in our criminal justice system to be able to state that because a court found her guilty we should believe that the verdict is sound, especially a verdict based on statistics and the medical evidence of a single expert witness.
We have seen that combination go wrong too many times before.
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.
Sensible. Nobody wants to play it, nobody wants to watch it.
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
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.
A lot of it stinks
You can always always find an expert to at least generate uncertainty and doubt
Second this latest conviction was expressly down to one witness who I am pretty certain was credible by virtue of being rich and posh (and who was weak on the question why it he witnessed a murder he didn't call the cops)
And third and most troubling to me is the anonymity of the chief witness in the first trial. What possible excuse for this outweighs the requirement of absolute transparency in proceedings intended to lock someone up for life?
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
It will be interesting to see. I'm not especially concerned, as it is a very fringe measure which would based on existing KSI stats be in play less than once a year. IDS had to go back 10 years to find the list of 6 "killer cyclists" he read out to Parliament, and of those only 2 were clearly at fault.
What would you expect - 10 minute rule bill as recently used by a Kim Leadbetter MP for Graduated Driving Licences advised by iirc the Road Danger Reduction Forum, or a Private Members Bill, or Amendments?
I'd expect it to be in a Road Safety Review, which I am advocating for, and as a part of that - given that Mr Starmer has made roughly that commitment.
If he wants a separate whatever, IDS will have to sharpen up his ideas and find an evidence base not a bandwagon.
Ironically, I think the main impact may be to improve standards of prosecution of dangerous drivers for parity of chargig standard (eg prevent plea-bargaining down to Careless), as it will be much more difficult to charge people riding cycles. That's the argument made by retired Detective Superintendent Andy Cox.
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
There was also a good episode of More or Less on R4/Sounds that went in depth on this and was very balanced about the similar problems they have with huge infrastructure projects in Germany, France etc which we don’t see or hear about on the outside, we just see them finished and think they just sprung up painlessly.
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'd be interested in the physics that could send someone airborne from a cycling collision. What speed? How would you generate upwards force given your high centre if gravity?
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 suspect that right now there are people in the City saying "but we must ensure that Britain is a safe place for foreign investors".
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 suspect that right now there are people in the City saying "but we must ensure that Britain is a safe place for foreign investors".
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.
IIRC the defence were not allowed to call these witnesses in the second trial. (Something to do with it being a re-trial, not a trial from scratch?). They also weren’t allowed any of their evidence in their appeal claim. The prosecution was allowed to alter their prosecution evidence though. Funny how that works...
As I said last time this was discussed - if Letby is innocent, this would not be the first time someone has been convicted of heinous crimes on little more than dodgy statistical evidence. It has happened in the UK & a very similar case happened in Belgium (IIRC).
I just don’t have the confidence in our criminal justice system to be able to state that because a court found her guilty we should believe that the verdict is sound, especially a verdict based on statistics and the medical evidence of a single expert witness.
We have seen that combination go wrong too many times before.
A few citations are needed. On one point, there was substantial corroboration of the medical/statistical evidence in the form of Letby's own notes.
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'd be interested in the physics that could send someone airborne from a cycling collision. What speed? How would you generate upwards force given your high centre if gravity?
Eh, it's not that hard to imagine. Suppose the cyclist makes a last-minute attempt to avoid the collision, ends up toppling over and skidding into the pedestrian. The main point of impact would then be below the knee.
On a canal towpath it's even easier. A sideways push could send someone into the air above the canal.
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
I don't know his area of expertise but last night he commented on one of my areas and this is a beyond stupid take.
Sam Dumitriu @Sam_Dumitriu Digital ID (a good idea) is different to ID Cards (not a good idea).
Hint Digital ID has all the bad bits of an ID card without the physical benefit that it would confirm I am fullname here with the right to work in the UK with an ID number that matches the one in your system...
And my final point is - given that he talks crap on an area I know something about his other viewpoints are probably equally poor (being generous there by using poor when other words may be better).
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.
A lot of it stinks
You can always always find an expert to at least generate uncertainty and doubt
Second this latest conviction was expressly down to one witness who I am pretty certain was credible by virtue of being rich and posh (and who was weak on the question why it he witnessed a murder he didn't call the cops)
And third and most troubling to me is the anonymity of the chief witness in the first trial. What possible excuse for this outweighs the requirement of absolute transparency in proceedings intended to lock someone up for life?
I presume the court’s case would be that the jury knew who the witness was (and are bound to secrecy by the court) so justice was done, even if the outside world could not see all the evidence. At least I hope the jury knew who the witness was!
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
It will be interesting to see. I'm not especially concerned, as it is a very fringe measure which would based on existing KSI stats be in play less than once a year. IDS had to go back 10 years to find the list of 6 "killer cyclists" he read out to Parliament, and of those only 2 were clearly at fault.
What would you expect - 10 minute rule bill as recently used by a Kim Leadbetter MP for Graduated Driving Licences advised by iirc the Road Danger Reduction Forum, or a Private Members Bill, or Amendments?
I'd expect it to be in a Road Safety Review, which I am advocating for, and as a part of that - given that Mr Starmer has made roughly that commitment.
If he wants a separate whatever, IDS will have to sharpen up his ideas and find an evidence base not a bandwagon.
Ironically, I think the main impact may be to improve standards of prosecution of dangerous drivers for parity of chargig standard (eg prevent plea-bargaining down to Careless), as it will be much more difficult to charge people riding cycles. That's the argument made by retired Detective Superintendent Andy Cox.
IDS may not need to do anything as the Labour party already committed pre-election to introducing a dangerous cycling law if they won.
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
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'd be interested in the physics that could send someone airborne from a cycling collision. What speed? How would you generate upwards force given your high centre if gravity?
I can imagine if the cyclist swerves to avoid, they are no longer vertical, and the bottom of their wheel takes out the pedestrian's legs, catapulting them. P'haps.
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
There was also a good episode of More or Less on R4/Sounds that went in depth on this and was very balanced about the similar problems they have with huge infrastructure projects in Germany, France etc which we don’t see or hear about on the outside, we just see them finished and think they just sprung up painlessly.
Infra projects don't always go smoothly abroad (Berlin airport) but the UK is in a league of it's own when it comes to getting not much for wodges of cash.
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.
A lot of it stinks
You can always always find an expert to at least generate uncertainty and doubt
Second this latest conviction was expressly down to one witness who I am pretty certain was credible by virtue of being rich and posh (and who was weak on the question why it he witnessed a murder he didn't call the cops)
And third and most troubling to me is the anonymity of the chief witness in the first trial. What possible excuse for this outweighs the requirement of absolute transparency in proceedings intended to lock someone up for life?
My mother died in the Princess of Wales Hospital during the huge scandal of 2011. Her last day on this earth involved spending several hours on the floor of a private room latterly in her own excrement.
The management remain in post and two Filipino nurses went to jail.
I think there is an element of "Lucy is a pretty girl next door, she can't be guilty," but again guilty or otherwise, she looks like the fall guy for mismanagement at Royal Chester Hospital.
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.
A lot of it stinks
You can always always find an expert to at least generate uncertainty and doubt
Second this latest conviction was expressly down to one witness who I am pretty certain was credible by virtue of being rich and posh (and who was weak on the question why it he witnessed a murder he didn't call the cops)
And third and most troubling to me is the anonymity of the chief witness in the first trial. What possible excuse for this outweighs the requirement of absolute transparency in proceedings intended to lock someone up for life?
My mother died in the Princess of Wales Hospital during the huge scandal of 2011. Her last day on this earth involved spending several hours on the floor of a private room latterly in her own excrement.
The management remain in post and two Filipino nurses went to jail.
I think there is an element of "Lucy is a pretty girl next door, she can't be guilty," but again guilty or otherwise, she looks like the fall guy for mismanagement at Royal Chester Hospital.
I suspect she is more than just the fall guy but the scale of her prosecution has probably allowed management to ignore the other issues that should have been fixed..
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
Good post Big_G.
I was disappointed that you changed your mind late on and decided to support the Tories but you were clearly far from alone and as you said at the time you have to do what you think is right, and as you predicted it made no difference to the overall outcome anyway.
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
There was also a good episode of More or Less on R4/Sounds that went in depth on this and was very balanced about the similar problems they have with huge infrastructure projects in Germany, France etc which we don’t see or hear about on the outside, we just see them finished and think they just sprung up painlessly.
Infra projects don't always go smoothly abroad (Berlin airport) but the UK is in a league of it's own when it comes to getting not much for wodges of cash.
Berlin Airport was designed by someone who hated airports did not understand any part of them.
I love (read hate and will be avoiding leaving from it in the future) the fact that after check-in you need to book an appointment to go through Security....
Joe Bidens doctors have just said he is not suffering from Parkinsons, stroke, or multiple sclerosis but then that is not a surprise
Biden is showing fairly common signs of dementia which is a degenerative disease separate to any of the above conditions
I have considerable experience of dementia, not least my father in law dying in our home with his family holding his hands after many months of nursing by my wife who witnessed the distress of the condition as he didn't recognise any of us, but also with other relatives and friends
Joe Biden's wife should take him to one side and gentle persuade him to retire but then even this can be difficult as in some cases, the patient becomes agitated and even aggressive to their loved ones at the prospect of losing their independence
On one level we should all care for his suffering, but on a political level he needs to retire as all this is making it more likely the next POTUS will be Trump
Let us all pray that a solution is found and quickly
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.
who the heck is "popular Conservative"?
Wannabe Tea Party
How many of the popular Conservatives were popular enough to be re-elected? Liz Truss clearly wasn't...
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?
A lot depends on whether a party treats a seat as marginal. In Didcot and Wantage (which was a "safe" Tory seat which had had LibDems a poor second in 2017 and Lab a poor second in 2015/2010), the LibDems treated it as a marginal while Labour actually barred members from accessing the relevant software (Contact Creator) to contest it seriously. The result was a strong LibDem win, as the voters didn't see any particular reason to prefer either opposition party and merely wanted to kick out the Government. The converse applied in some other seats, I believe, and there were seats (e.g. in the SW) where the parties clearly miscalculated and left the Tories in control by tiny margins.
It's very difficult for a pollster to see these decisions coming (and IMO they're too drastic, as constituency boundaries change). I'm not sure that regional polling will spot the patterns. Rather, the national polling gets the overall picture roughly right most of the time (though Reform clearly need to apply some constituency focus to get a remotely fair result).
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
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.
IIRC the defence were not allowed to call these witnesses in the second trial. (Something to do with it being a re-trial, not a trial from scratch?). They also weren’t allowed any of their evidence in their appeal claim. The prosecution was allowed to alter their prosecution evidence though. Funny how that works...
As I said last time this was discussed - if Letby is innocent, this would not be the first time someone has been convicted of heinous crimes on little more than dodgy statistical evidence. It has happened in the UK & a very similar case happened in Belgium (IIRC).
I just don’t have the confidence in our criminal justice system to be able to state that because a court found her guilty we should believe that the verdict is sound, especially a verdict based on statistics and the medical evidence of a single expert witness.
We have seen that combination go wrong too many times before.
A few citations are needed. On one point, there was substantial corroboration of the medical/statistical evidence in the form of Letby's own notes.
Blaming yourself for the deaths of a succession of babies that were placed in your care doesn’t seem that psychologically unlikely.
Again, I don’t know whether Letby is guilty or innocent. I do know that very similar cases have wrongly convicted women in the past; cases driven by the testimony of very plausible expert witnesses in which the court system placed far too much faith.
This case stinks. Letby might also be guilty of killing babies. Both of these things can be true simultaneously.
"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.
They are done if they don’t replace him now. Once the first senior party people went public they gave Trump the ammo “even his own Senators/donors etc want him”. It’s just how long it takes for Biden and his inner circle to get this and the longer they take the greater chance Trump gets in next election.
If Biden drops out there is a chance his successor won’t beat Trump but I think that if he stays in he is guaranteed to lose. Too much time for further embarrassments and opportunities for the GOP to exploit between now and the election.
Your thoughts match mine.
The window to find a sensible solution is also narrowing.
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.
There have been more attacks on hospitals since then, along with forced closures, regardless of what caused that first explosion. (The same is true in both war zones.)
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
There was also a good episode of More or Less on R4/Sounds that went in depth on this and was very balanced about the similar problems they have with huge infrastructure projects in Germany, France etc which we don’t see or hear about on the outside, we just see them finished and think they just sprung up painlessly.
Infra projects don't always go smoothly abroad (Berlin airport) but the UK is in a league of it's own when it comes to getting not much for wodges of cash.
Berlin Airport was designed by someone who hated airports did not understand any part of them.
I love (read hate and will be avoiding leaving from it in the future) the fact that after check-in you need to book an appointment to go through Security....
Eh? I’ve left from Brandenburg a couple of times (& will be doing it again in September), don’t remember anything like that. Is this a new thing?
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 suspect that right now there are people in the City saying "but we must ensure that Britain is a safe place for foreign investors".
Safe, but not risk free income at the taxpayer's expense (if they want that, they can buy gilts). Which is how water privatisation worked out for the last few decades.
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.
who the heck is "popular Conservative"?
Wannabe Tea Party
How many of the popular Conservatives were popular enough to be re-elected? Liz Truss clearly wasn't...
Tory peer Lord Hannan tells the Popular Conservatism event: “We somehow managed to call an election that caught ourselves off guard but none of the other parties.”
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
I don't know his area of expertise but last night he commented on one of my areas and this is a beyond stupid take.
Sam Dumitriu @Sam_Dumitriu Digital ID (a good idea) is different to ID Cards (not a good idea).
Hint Digital ID has all the bad bits of an ID card without the physical benefit that it would confirm I am fullname here with the right to work in the UK with an ID number that matches the one in your system...
And my final point is - given that he talks crap on an area I know something about his other viewpoints are probably equally poor (being generous there by using poor when other words may be better).
Neither digital ID nor ID cards are problematic of themselves.
The problems are
1) the bizarre fixation with linking all data the government has together with no access control. Including biometric data. Changing you eyeballs after the inevitable hack will be annoying 2) the lack of interest in making the database clean - copy & pasta of the passport records is already problematic. Non trivial numbers of passports have been issued falsely. 3) the history of criminal stupidity in the management of data by the government 4) the history of abuse of data by those in authority.
It would be perfectly possible to create an id system that has none of those flaws. Indeed it would be almost too simple for those in government to deal with - imagine a database with one table*…..
Joe Bidens doctors have just said he is not suffering from Parkinsons, stroke, or multiple sclerosis but then that is not a surprise
Biden is showing fairly common signs of dementia which is a degenerative disease separate to any of the above conditions
I have considerable experience of dementia, not least my father in law dying in our home with his family holding his hands after many months of nursing by my wife who witnessed the distress of the condition as he didn't recognise any of us, but also with other relatives and friends
Joe Biden's wife should take him to one side and gentle persuade him to retire but then even this can be difficult as in some cases, the patient becomes agitated and even aggressive to their loved ones at the prospect of losing their independence
On one level we should all care for his suffering, but on a political level he needs to retire as all this is making it more likely the next POTUS will be Trump
Let us all pray that a solution is found and quickly
I don’t think Biden even needs to have active dementia - he’s just /old/. His team might well be telling the truth that he had a cold during the last debate. When you hit 80+ your reserves are just lower & anything that impinges on them, be it an infection or just the lateness of the hour (the debate was at 9pm local time IIRC), can affect your mental acuity.
We see exactly the same thing happening to Trump who is also showing clear signs of mental decline.
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.
Not people making phone calls, people using data etc. The solution is the same, more masts, nearer to the railway.
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
I don't know his area of expertise but last night he commented on one of my areas and this is a beyond stupid take.
Sam Dumitriu @Sam_Dumitriu Digital ID (a good idea) is different to ID Cards (not a good idea).
Hint Digital ID has all the bad bits of an ID card without the physical benefit that it would confirm I am fullname here with the right to work in the UK with an ID number that matches the one in your system...
And my final point is - given that he talks crap on an area I know something about his other viewpoints are probably equally poor (being generous there by using poor when other words may be better).
He's not wrong about NIMBYism, unintended consequence of parliamentary legislation and the view the courts take on such legislation creating ridiculously expensive projects. The proof is in the cost and time overruns.
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
I don't know his area of expertise but last night he commented on one of my areas and this is a beyond stupid take.
Sam Dumitriu @Sam_Dumitriu Digital ID (a good idea) is different to ID Cards (not a good idea).
Hint Digital ID has all the bad bits of an ID card without the physical benefit that it would confirm I am fullname here with the right to work in the UK with an ID number that matches the one in your system...
And my final point is - given that he talks crap on an area I know something about his other viewpoints are probably equally poor (being generous there by using poor when other words may be better).
Neither digital ID nor ID cards are problematic of themselves.
The problems are
1) the bizarre fixation with linking all data the government has together with no access control. Including biometric data. Changing you eyeballs after the inevitable hack will be annoying 2) the lack of interest in making the database clean - copy & pasta of the passport records is already problematic. Non trivial numbers of passports have been issued falsely. 3) the history of criminal stupidity in the management of data by the government 4) the history of abuse of data by those in authority.
It would be perfectly possible to create an id system that has none of those flaws. Indeed it would be almost too simple for those in government to deal with - imagine a database with one table*…..
*Yes, a bit of an exaggeration…
Yes, but as far as the Home Office is concerned such a system isn’t worth implementing. The whole point is the aggregation of government datasets, with all the potential for abuse that entails. The idea that they should implement an ID system for the benefit of the populace at large is entirely alien to them apparently.
"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.
I've long been confident there'll be no return to the WH for Donald Trump but I am now starting to worry. I'll be 100% for Biden if he (wrong-headedly imo) insists on staying in (that remains a no-brainer) but I don't have a vote, I only have a betting position which loses a packet if the (to me) unthinkable were to happen. Sadly it becomes less unthinkable if the Dem candidate is too frail to campaign properly. With that gift, plus a poll lead, plus having both the GOP and SC in his pocket, you have to say Trump has a big chance in November. Eg on the betting, if you compare WH prices and Nominee prices, it implies Biden at over 4 vs Trump if that is the match-up. With the election only 4 months away that's not great.
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.
A lot of it stinks
You can always always find an expert to at least generate uncertainty and doubt
Second this latest conviction was expressly down to one witness who I am pretty certain was credible by virtue of being rich and posh (and who was weak on the question why it he witnessed a murder he didn't call the cops)
And third and most troubling to me is the anonymity of the chief witness in the first trial. What possible excuse for this outweighs the requirement of absolute transparency in proceedings intended to lock someone up for life?
My mother died in the Princess of Wales Hospital during the huge scandal of 2011. Her last day on this earth involved spending several hours on the floor of a private room latterly in her own excrement.
The management remain in post and two Filipino nurses went to jail.
I think there is an element of "Lucy is a pretty girl next door, she can't be guilty," but again guilty or otherwise, she looks like the fall guy for mismanagement at Royal Chester Hospital.
My sympathies.
My first job (also in 2011) was working on a study for Cardiff University that looked into the causes of harm in Welsh hospitals. This involved randomly pulling the nursing notes of patients from a range of hospitals, including the one you mention. They all had horrific details of patient neglect which invariably was the result of poor management, but also at times sadly professional failings of medical staff.
I hope the situation has improved, but from my experience of the Grange in Cwmbran, I very much suspect not.
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
There was also a good episode of More or Less on R4/Sounds that went in depth on this and was very balanced about the similar problems they have with huge infrastructure projects in Germany, France etc which we don’t see or hear about on the outside, we just see them finished and think they just sprung up painlessly.
Infra projects don't always go smoothly abroad (Berlin airport) but the UK is in a league of it's own when it comes to getting not much for wodges of cash.
Berlin Airport was designed by someone who hated airports did not understand any part of them.
I love (read hate and will be avoiding leaving from it in the future) the fact that after check-in you need to book an appointment to go through Security....
Eh? I’ve left from Brandenburg a couple of times (& will be doing it again in September), don’t remember anything like that. Is this a new thing?
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
It will be interesting to see. I'm not especially concerned, as it is a very fringe measure which would based on existing KSI stats be in play less than once a year. IDS had to go back 10 years to find the list of 6 "killer cyclists" he read out to Parliament, and of those only 2 were clearly at fault.
What would you expect - 10 minute rule bill as recently used by a Kim Leadbetter MP for Graduated Driving Licences advised by iirc the Road Danger Reduction Forum, or a Private Members Bill, or Amendments?
I'd expect it to be in a Road Safety Review, which I am advocating for, and as a part of that - given that Mr Starmer has made roughly that commitment.
If he wants a separate whatever, IDS will have to sharpen up his ideas and find an evidence base not a bandwagon.
Ironically, I think the main impact may be to improve standards of prosecution of dangerous drivers for parity of chargig standard (eg prevent plea-bargaining down to Careless), as it will be much more difficult to charge people riding cycles. That's the argument made by retired Detective Superintendent Andy Cox.
IDS may not need to do anything as the Labour party already committed pre-election to introducing a dangerous cycling law if they won.
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'd be interested in the physics that could send someone airborne from a cycling collision. What speed? How would you generate upwards force given your high centre if gravity?
I can imagine if the cyclist swerves to avoid, they are no longer vertical, and the bottom of their wheel takes out the pedestrian's legs, catapulting them. P'haps.
Hmm.
FWIW, I've had very nearly the same thing happen to me on a tow path. Rang my bell, there was apparent movement to the side, slowed down anyway due to the tightness of the path, just about braked in time when they moved back to the other side. I came off, but slowly into a hedge so all fine.
I don't think you'd need to travelling at any great speed at all to knock someone over given how much higher you are in the saddle.
There's a bit of me that thinks that when masts are rejected mobile networks ought to be allowed to withdraw service in the area. "You don't want new masts? Bin your phone."
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
I don't know his area of expertise but last night he commented on one of my areas and this is a beyond stupid take.
Sam Dumitriu @Sam_Dumitriu Digital ID (a good idea) is different to ID Cards (not a good idea).
Hint Digital ID has all the bad bits of an ID card without the physical benefit that it would confirm I am fullname here with the right to work in the UK with an ID number that matches the one in your system...
And my final point is - given that he talks crap on an area I know something about his other viewpoints are probably equally poor (being generous there by using poor when other words may be better).
Neither digital ID nor ID cards are problematic of themselves.
The problems are
1) the bizarre fixation with linking all data the government has together with no access control. Including biometric data. Changing you eyeballs after the inevitable hack will be annoying 2) the lack of interest in making the database clean - copy & pasta of the passport records is already problematic. Non trivial numbers of passports have been issued falsely. 3) the history of criminal stupidity in the management of data by the government 4) the history of abuse of data by those in authority.
It would be perfectly possible to create an id system that has none of those flaws. Indeed it would be almost too simple for those in government to deal with - imagine a database with one table*…..
*Yes, a bit of an exaggeration…
Yes, but as far as the Home Office is concerned such a system isn’t worth implementing. The whole point is the aggregation of government datasets, with all the potential for abuse that entails. The idea that they should implement an ID system for the benefit of the populace at large is entirely alien to them apparently.
"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.
I've long been confident there'll be no return to the WH for Donald Trump but I am now starting to worry. I'll be 100% for Biden if he (wrong-headedly imo) insists on staying in (that remains a no-brainer) but I don't have a vote, I only have a betting position which loses a packet if the (to me) unthinkable were to happen. Sadly it becomes less unthinkable if the Dem candidate is too frail to campaign properly. With that gift, plus a poll lead, plus having both the GOP and SC in his pocket, you have to say Trump has a big chance in November. Eg on the betting, if you compare WH prices and Nominee prices, it implies Biden at over 4 vs Trump if that is the match-up. With the election only 4 months away that's not great.
I'm definitely worried. Biden made sense to me as a candidate because he beat Trump before and has imo been a good president, with an economic record to be envied.
But there's no way his age can't be a big drag now on his campaign.
So reluctantly, I think he should step down, and pass on to Harris. Democrats should unite around the person they agreed should be backup president.
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
Good post Big_G.
I was disappointed that you changed your mind late on and decided to support the Tories but you were clearly far from alone and as you said at the time you have to do what you think is right, and as you predicted it made no difference to the overall outcome anyway.
Thank you and as you say my vote hardly mattered and I did give my reasons
With my current ongoing health issues the next GE is a long way away, but I will give credit when it is deserved and I have surprised myself somewhat by being impressed with Starmer early days
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?
A lot depends on whether a party treats a seat as marginal. In Didcot and Wantage (which was a "safe" Tory seat which had had LibDems a poor second in 2017 and Lab a poor second in 2015/2010), the LibDems treated it as a marginal while Labour actually barred members from accessing the relevant software (Contact Creator) to contest it seriously. The result was a strong LibDem win, as the voters didn't see any particular reason to prefer either opposition party and merely wanted to kick out the Government. The converse applied in some other seats, I believe, and there were seats (e.g. in the SW) where the parties clearly miscalculated and left the Tories in control by tiny margins.
It's very difficult for a pollster to see these decisions coming (and IMO they're too drastic, as constituency boundaries change). I'm not sure that regional polling will spot the patterns. Rather, the national polling gets the overall picture roughly right most of the time (though Reform clearly need to apply some constituency focus to get a remotely fair result).
Do you have a feel for how official cooperation was?
Was it as "nationally organised but not public" as 1997, for example, when Lord Mandelbrot held meetings with Senior Lib Dems and they swapped lists of targets?
Tory peer Lord Hannan tells the Popular Conservatism event: “We somehow managed to call an election that caught ourselves off guard but none of the other parties.”
Yes, that same point was made here (perhaps by Lord Hannan: does anyone know his username?). Labour had always been clear about planning for an early election, so was the most ready party with most candidates in place. One can only imagine that some incident unknown to us occurred that spooked Number 10 because its timing was the first of many things in the Conservative election campaign which made no sense whatsoever.
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
It will be interesting to see. I'm not especially concerned, as it is a very fringe measure which would based on existing KSI stats be in play less than once a year. IDS had to go back 10 years to find the list of 6 "killer cyclists" he read out to Parliament, and of those only 2 were clearly at fault.
What would you expect - 10 minute rule bill as recently used by a Kim Leadbetter MP for Graduated Driving Licences advised by iirc the Road Danger Reduction Forum, or a Private Members Bill, or Amendments?
I'd expect it to be in a Road Safety Review, which I am advocating for, and as a part of that - given that Mr Starmer has made roughly that commitment.
If he wants a separate whatever, IDS will have to sharpen up his ideas and find an evidence base not a bandwagon.
Ironically, I think the main impact may be to improve standards of prosecution of dangerous drivers for parity of chargig standard (eg prevent plea-bargaining down to Careless), as it will be much more difficult to charge people riding cycles. That's the argument made by retired Detective Superintendent Andy Cox.
IDS may not need to do anything as the Labour party already committed pre-election to introducing a dangerous cycling law if they won.
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.
There are sections of the Highway Act 1835 still in force, so imo a date means little.
That alone is not sufficient imo. They don't seem to have any problem catching and prosecuting them, and more of them are imprisoned than those prosecuted under Death by Dangerous or Careless driving.
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'd be interested in the physics that could send someone airborne from a cycling collision. What speed? How would you generate upwards force given your high centre if gravity?
I can imagine if the cyclist swerves to avoid, they are no longer vertical, and the bottom of their wheel takes out the pedestrian's legs, catapulting them. P'haps.
Hmm.
FWIW, I've had very nearly the same thing happen to me on a tow path. Rang my bell, there was apparent movement to the side, slowed down anyway due to the tightness of the path, just about braked in time when they moved back to the other side. I came off, but slowly into a hedge so all fine.
I don't think you'd need to travelling at any great speed at all to knock someone over given how much higher you are in the saddle.
I think the 'flying through the air' may be Daily Mail embroidery, so the debate needs to be about newspaper ethics, not Newtonian physics.
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
There was also a good episode of More or Less on R4/Sounds that went in depth on this and was very balanced about the similar problems they have with huge infrastructure projects in Germany, France etc which we don’t see or hear about on the outside, we just see them finished and think they just sprung up painlessly.
Infra projects don't always go smoothly abroad (Berlin airport) but the UK is in a league of it's own when it comes to getting not much for wodges of cash.
Berlin Airport was designed by someone who hated airports did not understand any part of them.
I love (read hate and will be avoiding leaving from it in the future) the fact that after check-in you need to book an appointment to go through Security....
Eh? I’ve left from Brandenburg a couple of times (& will be doing it again in September), don’t remember anything like that. Is this a new thing?
Twas the case last September...
Last time I used it, it was a f***ing long walk through the car park to the non-Schengen/non-EU terminal and they didn't even have any duty free. For God's sake, it's an opportunity to make money out of us.
"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.
I've long been confident there'll be no return to the WH for Donald Trump but I am now starting to worry. I'll be 100% for Biden if he (wrong-headedly imo) insists on staying in (that remains a no-brainer) but I don't have a vote, I only have a betting position which loses a packet if the (to me) unthinkable were to happen. Sadly it becomes less unthinkable if the Dem candidate is too frail to campaign properly. With that gift, plus a poll lead, plus having both the GOP and SC in his pocket, you have to say Trump has a big chance in November. Eg on the betting, if you compare WH prices and Nominee prices, it implies Biden at over 4 vs Trump if that is the match-up. With the election only 4 months away that's not great.
I'm definitely worried. Biden made sense to me as a candidate because he beat Trump before and has imo been a good president, with an economic record to be envied.
But there's no way his age can't be a big drag now on his campaign.
So reluctantly, I think he should step down, and pass on to Harris. Democrats should unite around the person they agreed should be backup president.
I also think it would give Harris a boost if Biden stepped graciously down and gave her his backing. All the ‘come at me if you think your tough enough’ stuff is just strategising West Wing bollocks.
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
There was also a good episode of More or Less on R4/Sounds that went in depth on this and was very balanced about the similar problems they have with huge infrastructure projects in Germany, France etc which we don’t see or hear about on the outside, we just see them finished and think they just sprung up painlessly.
Infra projects don't always go smoothly abroad (Berlin airport) but the UK is in a league of it's own when it comes to getting not much for wodges of cash.
Berlin Airport was designed by someone who hated airports did not understand any part of them.
I love (read hate and will be avoiding leaving from it in the future) the fact that after check-in you need to book an appointment to go through Security....
Eh? I’ve left from Brandenburg a couple of times (& will be doing it again in September), don’t remember anything like that. Is this a new thing?
Twas the case last September...
Last time I used it, it was a f***ing long walk through the car park to the non-Schengen/non-EU terminal and they didn't even have any duty free. For God's sake, it's an opportunity to make money out of us.
They don't even have that many places to sit down and have a drink while waiting...
And the lounge was so awkward to get to I didn't bother...
Joe Bidens doctors have just said he is not suffering from Parkinsons, stroke, or multiple sclerosis but then that is not a surprise
Biden is showing fairly common signs of dementia which is a degenerative disease separate to any of the above conditions
I have considerable experience of dementia, not least my father in law dying in our home with his family holding his hands after many months of nursing by my wife who witnessed the distress of the condition as he didn't recognise any of us, but also with other relatives and friends
Joe Biden's wife should take him to one side and gentle persuade him to retire but then even this can be difficult as in some cases, the patient becomes agitated and even aggressive to their loved ones at the prospect of losing their independence
On one level we should all care for his suffering, but on a political level he needs to retire as all this is making it more likely the next POTUS will be Trump
Let us all pray that a solution is found and quickly
I don’t think Biden even needs to have active dementia - he’s just /old/. His team might well be telling the truth that he had a cold during the last debate. When you hit 80+ your reserves are just lower & anything that impinges on them, be it an infection or just the lateness of the hour (the debate was at 9pm local time IIRC), can affect your mental acuity.
We see exactly the same thing happening to Trump who is also showing clear signs of mental decline.
As I have just hit 80+ I largely agree though so far neither my wife (84) or I have anything more than a bit of forgetfulness
"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.
I've long been confident there'll be no return to the WH for Donald Trump but I am now starting to worry. I'll be 100% for Biden if he (wrong-headedly imo) insists on staying in (that remains a no-brainer) but I don't have a vote, I only have a betting position which loses a packet if the (to me) unthinkable were to happen. Sadly it becomes less unthinkable if the Dem candidate is too frail to campaign properly. With that gift, plus a poll lead, plus having both the GOP and SC in his pocket, you have to say Trump has a big chance in November. Eg on the betting, if you compare WH prices and Nominee prices, it implies Biden at over 4 vs Trump if that is the match-up. With the election only 4 months away that's not great.
I'm definitely worried. Biden made sense to me as a candidate because he beat Trump before and has imo been a good president, with an economic record to be envied.
But there's no way his age can't be a big drag now on his campaign.
So reluctantly, I think he should step down, and pass on to Harris. Democrats should unite around the person they agreed should be backup president.
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
There was also a good episode of More or Less on R4/Sounds that went in depth on this and was very balanced about the similar problems they have with huge infrastructure projects in Germany, France etc which we don’t see or hear about on the outside, we just see them finished and think they just sprung up painlessly.
Infra projects don't always go smoothly abroad (Berlin airport) but the UK is in a league of it's own when it comes to getting not much for wodges of cash.
Berlin Airport was designed by someone who hated airports did not understand any part of them.
I love (read hate and will be avoiding leaving from it in the future) the fact that after check-in you need to book an appointment to go through Security....
Eh? I’ve left from Brandenburg a couple of times (& will be doing it again in September), don’t remember anything like that. Is this a new thing?
You don't have to do it, it's an optional fast-track kind of thing. The queues were fine the last couple of times I've been through but this kind of thing is pretty sensitive to the time you travel.
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
It will be interesting to see. I'm not especially concerned, as it is a very fringe measure which would based on existing KSI stats be in play less than once a year. IDS had to go back 10 years to find the list of 6 "killer cyclists" he read out to Parliament, and of those only 2 were clearly at fault.
What would you expect - 10 minute rule bill as recently used by a Kim Leadbetter MP for Graduated Driving Licences advised by iirc the Road Danger Reduction Forum, or a Private Members Bill, or Amendments?
I'd expect it to be in a Road Safety Review, which I am advocating for, and as a part of that - given that Mr Starmer has made roughly that commitment.
If he wants a separate whatever, IDS will have to sharpen up his ideas and find an evidence base not a bandwagon.
Ironically, I think the main impact may be to improve standards of prosecution of dangerous drivers for parity of chargig standard (eg prevent plea-bargaining down to Careless), as it will be much more difficult to charge people riding cycles. That's the argument made by retired Detective Superintendent Andy Cox.
Ideally a death by careless cycling law will be introduced at the same time as there already is a death by careless driving law, avoiding the latter issue
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 would guess that the demographic modelling picked up that LibDem-type voters across Scotland were moving to Labour and applied this to each seat, and given that Edinburgh W contains a concentration of such people, the forecast decline in the LD vote was greater than that for the SNP, so handing them the seat.
Of course in reality it was that demographic that swung tactically behind the LibDems in that seat, putting the LDs over 50% of the vote.
Another example of how the MRPs don't really work - at least at micro-level - because demographics is only part of the explanation as to how and why people vote as they do.
Joe Bidens doctors have just said he is not suffering from Parkinsons, stroke, or multiple sclerosis but then that is not a surprise
Biden is showing fairly common signs of dementia which is a degenerative disease separate to any of the above conditions
I have considerable experience of dementia, not least my father in law dying in our home with his family holding his hands after many months of nursing by my wife who witnessed the distress of the condition as he didn't recognise any of us, but also with other relatives and friends
Joe Biden's wife should take him to one side and gentle persuade him to retire but then even this can be difficult as in some cases, the patient becomes agitated and even aggressive to their loved ones at the prospect of losing their independence
On one level we should all care for his suffering, but on a political level he needs to retire as all this is making it more likely the next POTUS will be Trump
Let us all pray that a solution is found and quickly
I don’t think Biden even needs to have active dementia - he’s just /old/. His team might well be telling the truth that he had a cold during the last debate. When you hit 80+ your reserves are just lower & anything that impinges on them, be it an infection or just the lateness of the hour (the debate was at 9pm local time IIRC), can affect your mental acuity.
We see exactly the same thing happening to Trump who is also showing clear signs of mental decline.
Your last point is the other win for the Dems. If they replace Biden because he isn’t up to it, whatever the underlying reasons being age or dementia, with someone sharp and articulate not only is it an improvement on Biden but it will quickly put Trump’s own decrepitude fully on display.
At the moment he probably seems more mentally agile than Biden as it’s just a comparison between the two but once he’s up to someone who talks sense then he’s the one who will look senile or old.
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.
IIRC the defence were not allowed to call these witnesses in the second trial. (Something to do with it being a re-trial, not a trial from scratch?). They also weren’t allowed any of their evidence in their appeal claim. The prosecution was allowed to alter their prosecution evidence though. Funny how that works...
As I said last time this was discussed - if Letby is innocent, this would not be the first time someone has been convicted of heinous crimes on little more than dodgy statistical evidence. It has happened in the UK & a very similar case happened in Belgium (IIRC).
I just don’t have the confidence in our criminal justice system to be able to state that because a court found her guilty we should believe that the verdict is sound, especially a verdict based on statistics and the medical evidence of a single expert witness.
We have seen that combination go wrong too many times before.
A few citations are needed. On one point, there was substantial corroboration of the medical/statistical evidence in the form of Letby's own notes.
Blaming yourself for the deaths of a succession of babies that were placed in your care doesn’t seem that psychologically unlikely.
Again, I don’t know whether Letby is guilty or innocent. I do know that very similar cases have wrongly convicted women in the past; cases driven by the testimony of very plausible expert witnesses in which the court system placed far too much faith.
This case stinks. Letby might also be guilty of killing babies. Both of these things can be true simultaneously.
Yes, her own notes seemed to be a fairly weak part of the prosecution's case.
It's not as if they said things like "I murdered another baby today", they were exactly the sort of anguished self-loathing I would expect from someone working on an under-staffed ward feeling immense pressure after a cluster of deaths had occurred.
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.
I've long been confident there'll be no return to the WH for Donald Trump but I am now starting to worry. I'll be 100% for Biden if he (wrong-headedly imo) insists on staying in (that remains a no-brainer) but I don't have a vote, I only have a betting position which loses a packet if the (to me) unthinkable were to happen. Sadly it becomes less unthinkable if the Dem candidate is too frail to campaign properly. With that gift, plus a poll lead, plus having both the GOP and SC in his pocket, you have to say Trump has a big chance in November. Eg on the betting, if you compare WH prices and Nominee prices, it implies Biden at over 4 vs Trump if that is the match-up. With the election only 4 months away that's not great.
I'm definitely worried. Biden made sense to me as a candidate because he beat Trump before and has imo been a good president, with an economic record to be envied.
But there's no way his age can't be a big drag now on his campaign.
So reluctantly, I think he should step down, and pass on to Harris. Democrats should unite around the person they agreed should be backup president.
I also think it would give Harris a boost if Biden stepped graciously down and gave her his backing. All the ‘come at me if you think your tough enough’ stuff is just strategising West Wing bollocks.
Keeping Biden at top of the ticket is now madness.
It will not only give Trump 2.0 an easy win but quite probably hammer further down the ballot.
But looks like that is what is going to happen although the ragin' cajun thinks Biden will step down.
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.
In France and Italy there is yes 'While in many countries, including the UK, skiing accidents are generally dealt with as civil matters, in some European countries, including France and Italy, this may not be the case, with accidents potentially resulting in criminal charges.
Joanne Brine, Partner at law firm JMW Solicitors, said: “While accidents on the slopes here in the UK would be dealt with as civil matters, most people are unaware that in some European countries – such as Italy, France and Austria, home to some of the world’s most popular ski resorts - skiing accidents can carry criminal penalties. Investigations are often carried out by the police, under the supervision of the public prosecutor.
“I once represented a young lady who had unfortunately had a minor accident while on holiday in France causing a collision on the slopes. While we’re not talking a custodial sentence, the incident did leave her having to navigate the French criminal courts and facing a criminal conviction, which could have cost her career since she was obliged to inform the General Medical Council. It caused a great deal of stress and was an incredibly worrying time for her. It certainly wasn’t the trip she had imagined.” https://www.jmw.co.uk/articles/accidents-abroad/bump-slopes-could-mean-criminal-charges-warns-leading-travel-lawyer
"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.
I've long been confident there'll be no return to the WH for Donald Trump but I am now starting to worry. I'll be 100% for Biden if he (wrong-headedly imo) insists on staying in (that remains a no-brainer) but I don't have a vote, I only have a betting position which loses a packet if the (to me) unthinkable were to happen. Sadly it becomes less unthinkable if the Dem candidate is too frail to campaign properly. With that gift, plus a poll lead, plus having both the GOP and SC in his pocket, you have to say Trump has a big chance in November. Eg on the betting, if you compare WH prices and Nominee prices, it implies Biden at over 4 vs Trump if that is the match-up. With the election only 4 months away that's not great.
I'm definitely worried. Biden made sense to me as a candidate because he beat Trump before and has imo been a good president, with an economic record to be envied.
But there's no way his age can't be a big drag now on his campaign.
So reluctantly, I think he should step down, and pass on to Harris. Democrats should unite around the person they agreed should be backup president.
This is part of the problem of the current state of affairs. Everyone can see that even if Biden manages to stagger as far as November he won't be doing the job much longer, so if you don't like Kamala Harris then you're not going to vote for the ticket. But because Kamala isn't currently the nominee, she doesn't get to reach the voters by doing loads of media and doing some proper crisp, professionally-delivered attacks on Trump. It's the worst of both worlds.
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.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu has done lots of deep dives on UK civil engineering. It's exactly how you think it is.
There was also a good episode of More or Less on R4/Sounds that went in depth on this and was very balanced about the similar problems they have with huge infrastructure projects in Germany, France etc which we don’t see or hear about on the outside, we just see them finished and think they just sprung up painlessly.
Infra projects don't always go smoothly abroad (Berlin airport) but the UK is in a league of it's own when it comes to getting not much for wodges of cash.
Berlin Airport was designed by someone who hated airports did not understand any part of them.
I love (read hate and will be avoiding leaving from it in the future) the fact that after check-in you need to book an appointment to go through Security....
Eh? I’ve left from Brandenburg a couple of times (& will be doing it again in September), don’t remember anything like that. Is this a new thing?
Twas the case last September...
Hmm, last September for me also. It was a bit shambolic as we checked in at Terminal One but we had to toddle over to Two for Security for ‘organisational reasons’. If they’d tried to impose appointments there would have been a riot. I shall report back. I’m moderately amused that there seems to be a burst of nostalgic love for Schönenfeld. Modern life is rubbish seems the abiding mood of the age.
"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.
I've long been confident there'll be no return to the WH for Donald Trump but I am now starting to worry. I'll be 100% for Biden if he (wrong-headedly imo) insists on staying in (that remains a no-brainer) but I don't have a vote, I only have a betting position which loses a packet if the (to me) unthinkable were to happen. Sadly it becomes less unthinkable if the Dem candidate is too frail to campaign properly. With that gift, plus a poll lead, plus having both the GOP and SC in his pocket, you have to say Trump has a big chance in November. Eg on the betting, if you compare WH prices and Nominee prices, it implies Biden at over 4 vs Trump if that is the match-up. With the election only 4 months away that's not great.
I'm definitely worried. Biden made sense to me as a candidate because he beat Trump before and has imo been a good president, with an economic record to be envied.
But there's no way his age can't be a big drag now on his campaign.
So reluctantly, I think he should step down, and pass on to Harris. Democrats should unite around the person they agreed should be backup president.
I also think it would give Harris a boost if Biden stepped graciously down and gave her his backing. All the ‘come at me if you think your tough enough’ stuff is just strategising West Wing bollocks.
Keeping Biden at top of the ticket is now madness.
It will not only give Trump 2.0 an easy win but quite probably hammer further down the ballot.
But looks like that is what is going to happen although the ragin' cajun thinks Biden will step down.
Trump wants Biden to step down, he knows Harris is very unpopular in the rustbelt and would give him a Reagan like landslide.
Whereas he knows Biden beat him there last time and the Dems would probably have to nominate Harris if Biden stepped down unless Michelle Obama could be persuaded, who is the only Dem candidate he really fears
"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.
I've long been confident there'll be no return to the WH for Donald Trump but I am now starting to worry. I'll be 100% for Biden if he (wrong-headedly imo) insists on staying in (that remains a no-brainer) but I don't have a vote, I only have a betting position which loses a packet if the (to me) unthinkable were to happen. Sadly it becomes less unthinkable if the Dem candidate is too frail to campaign properly. With that gift, plus a poll lead, plus having both the GOP and SC in his pocket, you have to say Trump has a big chance in November. Eg on the betting, if you compare WH prices and Nominee prices, it implies Biden at over 4 vs Trump if that is the match-up. With the election only 4 months away that's not great.
I'm definitely worried. Biden made sense to me as a candidate because he beat Trump before and has imo been a good president, with an economic record to be envied.
But there's no way his age can't be a big drag now on his campaign.
So reluctantly, I think he should step down, and pass on to Harris. Democrats should unite around the person they agreed should be backup president.
Those polls though are a snapshot of “now”. Of course they could stay like that for Harris v Trump but there is also a chance that if Harris is pushed forward, gets big airtime, national support, able to expand on her policies and personality those polls can shift.
I heard someone the other day say “nobody really knows more than one or two things about Harris”. She’s been quite invisible but if she comes to the fore and is sane, articulate, decent and balanced she could turn those polls about face against Trump, but because it hasn’t been tried the polls don’t reflect the possibilities.
"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.
I've long been confident there'll be no return to the WH for Donald Trump but I am now starting to worry. I'll be 100% for Biden if he (wrong-headedly imo) insists on staying in (that remains a no-brainer) but I don't have a vote, I only have a betting position which loses a packet if the (to me) unthinkable were to happen. Sadly it becomes less unthinkable if the Dem candidate is too frail to campaign properly. With that gift, plus a poll lead, plus having both the GOP and SC in his pocket, you have to say Trump has a big chance in November. Eg on the betting, if you compare WH prices and Nominee prices, it implies Biden at over 4 vs Trump if that is the match-up. With the election only 4 months away that's not great.
I'm in the same betting boat as you. If Trump wins, it will be my biggest betting loss ever - I laid Trump starting in May 2021 at 10s. Average is 7.7. Ouch. But a far bigger loss will be the impact on the US, on Ukraine, on Nato. Far bigger impact than a miserly £1K loss.
I have a net gain of £3.4K on my political betting over several years - so hardly an income. I'm betting with my winnings so I'm feeling blase about my potential financial loss, but not about the political impact of a Trump win.
"The GOP sources believe Biden's woes could leave Trump feeling free to pick a conservative firebrand such as Vance over lower-key top contenders such as North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum or Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)."
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
It will be interesting to see. I'm not especially concerned, as it is a very fringe measure which would based on existing KSI stats be in play less than once a year. IDS had to go back 10 years to find the list of 6 "killer cyclists" he read out to Parliament, and of those only 2 were clearly at fault.
What would you expect - 10 minute rule bill as recently used by a Kim Leadbetter MP for Graduated Driving Licences advised by iirc the Road Danger Reduction Forum, or a Private Members Bill, or Amendments?
I'd expect it to be in a Road Safety Review, which I am advocating for, and as a part of that - given that Mr Starmer has made roughly that commitment.
If he wants a separate whatever, IDS will have to sharpen up his ideas and find an evidence base not a bandwagon.
Ironically, I think the main impact may be to improve standards of prosecution of dangerous drivers for parity of chargig standard (eg prevent plea-bargaining down to Careless), as it will be much more difficult to charge people riding cycles. That's the argument made by retired Detective Superintendent Andy Cox.
IDS may not need to do anything as the Labour party already committed pre-election to introducing a dangerous cycling law if they won.
My point was more that Labour have committed specifically to an IDS-style dangerous cycling law, not to a wider review of road safety laws along the lines of what Grayling had committed to in 2014. Unless I've missed something, in which case I'd be interested in seeing what they've actually said on the matter.
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.
There are sections of the Highway Act 1835 still in force, so imo a date means little.
That alone is not sufficient imo. They don't seem to have any problem catching and prosecuting them, and more of them are imprisoned than those prosecuted under Death by Dangerous or Careless driving.
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'd be interested in the physics that could send someone airborne from a cycling collision. What speed? How would you generate upwards force given your high centre if gravity?
I can imagine if the cyclist swerves to avoid, they are no longer vertical, and the bottom of their wheel takes out the pedestrian's legs, catapulting them. P'haps.
Hmm.
FWIW, I've had very nearly the same thing happen to me on a tow path. Rang my bell, there was apparent movement to the side, slowed down anyway due to the tightness of the path, just about braked in time when they moved back to the other side. I came off, but slowly into a hedge so all fine.
I don't think you'd need to travelling at any great speed at all to knock someone over given how much higher you are in the saddle.
I think the 'flying through the air' may be Daily Mail embroidery, so the debate needs to be about newspaper ethics, not Newtonian physics.
Death by dangerous driving carries a maximum 12 year sentence as starting point and 18 years in exceptional cicrumstances. The 1861 law gives a maximum 2 year sentence
"The GOP sources believe Biden's woes could leave Trump feeling free to pick a conservative firebrand such as Vance over lower-key top contenders such as North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum or Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)."
Axios
Which would then also help Biden with Independents
Joe Bidens doctors have just said he is not suffering from Parkinsons, stroke, or multiple sclerosis but then that is not a surprise
Biden is showing fairly common signs of dementia which is a degenerative disease separate to any of the above conditions
I have considerable experience of dementia, not least my father in law dying in our home with his family holding his hands after many months of nursing by my wife who witnessed the distress of the condition as he didn't recognise any of us, but also with other relatives and friends
Joe Biden's wife should take him to one side and gentle persuade him to retire but then even this can be difficult as in some cases, the patient becomes agitated and even aggressive to their loved ones at the prospect of losing their independence
On one level we should all care for his suffering, but on a political level he needs to retire as all this is making it more likely the next POTUS will be Trump
Let us all pray that a solution is found and quickly
I don’t think Biden even needs to have active dementia - he’s just /old/. His team might well be telling the truth that he had a cold during the last debate. When you hit 80+ your reserves are just lower & anything that impinges on them, be it an infection or just the lateness of the hour (the debate was at 9pm local time IIRC), can affect your mental acuity.
We see exactly the same thing happening to Trump who is also showing clear signs of mental decline.
Your last point is the other win for the Dems. If they replace Biden because he isn’t up to it, whatever the underlying reasons being age or dementia, with someone sharp and articulate not only is it an improvement on Biden but it will quickly put Trump’s own decrepitude fully on display.
At the moment he probably seems more mentally agile than Biden as it’s just a comparison between the two but once he’s up to someone who talks sense then he’s the one who will look senile or old.
This is correct. And there's the hope that trump just doesn't have a strategy for dealing with a young black female opponent, and simply loses it.
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.
In France and Italy there is yes 'While in many countries, including the UK, skiing accidents are generally dealt with as civil matters, in some European countries, including France and Italy, this may not be the case, with accidents potentially resulting in criminal charges.
Joanne Brine, Partner at law firm JMW Solicitors, said: “While accidents on the slopes here in the UK would be dealt with as civil matters, most people are unaware that in some European countries – such as Italy, France and Austria, home to some of the world’s most popular ski resorts - skiing accidents can carry criminal penalties. Investigations are often carried out by the police, under the supervision of the public prosecutor.
“I once represented a young lady who had unfortunately had a minor accident while on holiday in France causing a collision on the slopes. While we’re not talking a custodial sentence, the incident did leave her having to navigate the French criminal courts and facing a criminal conviction, which could have cost her career since she was obliged to inform the General Medical Council. It caused a great deal of stress and was an incredibly worrying time for her. It certainly wasn’t the trip she had imagined.” https://www.jmw.co.uk/articles/accidents-abroad/bump-slopes-could-mean-criminal-charges-warns-leading-travel-lawyer
We'll know that the Conservatives are a political force again when they stop banging on about cyclists. The survival of IDS might be the most catastrophic result of the election.
Curiously Reform didn't make a big deal of it in their manifesto or campaign. I suspect that's because cycling rates were significantly higher in the 50s then they are now, so lots of rose tinted memories of meeting sweethearts and cycling down to the shop to fetch the groceries.
"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.
I've long been confident there'll be no return to the WH for Donald Trump but I am now starting to worry. I'll be 100% for Biden if he (wrong-headedly imo) insists on staying in (that remains a no-brainer) but I don't have a vote, I only have a betting position which loses a packet if the (to me) unthinkable were to happen. Sadly it becomes less unthinkable if the Dem candidate is too frail to campaign properly. With that gift, plus a poll lead, plus having both the GOP and SC in his pocket, you have to say Trump has a big chance in November. Eg on the betting, if you compare WH prices and Nominee prices, it implies Biden at over 4 vs Trump if that is the match-up. With the election only 4 months away that's not great.
I'm definitely worried. Biden made sense to me as a candidate because he beat Trump before and has imo been a good president, with an economic record to be envied.
But there's no way his age can't be a big drag now on his campaign.
So reluctantly, I think he should step down, and pass on to Harris. Democrats should unite around the person they agreed should be backup president.
Those polls though are a snapshot of “now”. Of course they could stay like that for Harris v Trump but there is also a chance that if Harris is pushed forward, gets big airtime, national support, able to expand on her policies and personality those polls can shift.
I heard someone the other day say “nobody really knows more than one or two things about Harris”. She’s been quite invisible but if she comes to the fore and is sane, articulate, decent and balanced she could turn those polls about face against Trump, but because it hasn’t been tried the polls don’t reflect the possibilities.
If I was American I would vote for Biden over Trump or Michelle Obama or even Whitmer over Trump.
I would vote for Trump over Harris though, she is too woke and too left liberal for me
Comments
https://www.jsmillersolicitors.co.uk/services/serious-prosecutions/wanton-furious-driving/
Trade and the Manufacturing Share
Michael Pettis
https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/trade-and-the-manufacturing-share/
If Biden drops out there is a chance his successor won’t beat Trump but I think that if he stays in he is guaranteed to lose. Too much time for further embarrassments and opportunities for the GOP to exploit between now and the election.
It is not only the simultaneous policy opposites and populist nonsense that have crashed the Tories, it is also the sense that they are useless at implementation, even once you have worked out what they are trying to do.
It is obvious that Labour are trying the difficult task of being realistic, managing expectations, dynamic, outcome driven and able to implement what they say in massive contrast to the shambles we have had.
The outside observer (most PBers) will be wondering where when and how this necessary but impossible task starts to unravel.
In Scotland, the trad polls got closer to the actual vote shares than those implied by the MRPs, but the reverse was true GB-wide. I can't see any reason why that should have been the case, though!
The best predictions of all seem to have been created 'bottom up', analysing each constituency in turn (Andy_JS, take a bow!). I wonder if, in future, a hybrid approach might be viable - using MRP-style data, but with individual weights in each constituency derived from manual analysis?
As I said last time this was discussed - if Letby is innocent, this would not be the first time someone has been convicted of heinous crimes on little more than dodgy statistical evidence. It has happened in the UK & a very similar case happened in Belgium (IIRC).
I just don’t have the confidence in our criminal justice system to be able to state that because a court found her guilty we should believe that the verdict is sound, especially a verdict based on statistics and the medical evidence of a single expert witness.
We have seen that combination go wrong too many times before.
You can always always find an expert to at least generate uncertainty and doubt
Second this latest conviction was expressly down to one witness who I am pretty certain was credible by virtue of being rich and posh (and who was weak on the question why it he witnessed a murder he didn't call the cops)
And third and most troubling to me is the anonymity of the chief witness in the first trial. What possible excuse for this outweighs the requirement of absolute transparency in proceedings intended to lock someone up for life?
What would you expect - 10 minute rule bill as recently used by a Kim Leadbetter MP for Graduated Driving Licences advised by iirc the Road Danger Reduction Forum, or a Private Members Bill, or Amendments?
I'd expect it to be in a Road Safety Review, which I am advocating for, and as a part of that - given that Mr Starmer has made roughly that commitment.
If he wants a separate whatever, IDS will have to sharpen up his ideas and find an evidence base not a bandwagon.
Ironically, I think the main impact may be to improve standards of prosecution of dangerous drivers for parity of chargig standard (eg prevent plea-bargaining down to Careless), as it will be much more difficult to charge people riding cycles. That's the argument made by retired Detective Superintendent Andy Cox.
On a canal towpath it's even easier. A sideways push could send someone into the air above the canal.
Labour seems to have reversed global warming in just four days. Impressive.
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu/status/1810409606801404331
Sam Dumitriu
@Sam_Dumitriu
Digital ID (a good idea) is different to ID Cards (not a good idea).
Hint Digital ID has all the bad bits of an ID card without the physical benefit that it would confirm I am fullname here with the right to work in the UK with an ID number that matches the one in your system...
And my final point is - given that he talks crap on an area I know something about his other viewpoints are probably equally poor (being generous there by using poor when other words may be better).
https://road.cc/content/news/labour-and-conservatives-pledge-dangerous-cycling-law-308553
https://x.com/Sam_Dumitriu/status/1694990920007983397
The management remain in post and two Filipino nurses went to jail.
I think there is an element of "Lucy is a pretty girl next door, she can't be guilty," but again guilty or otherwise, she looks like the fall guy for mismanagement at Royal Chester Hospital.
I was disappointed that you changed your mind late on and decided to support the Tories but you were clearly far from alone and as you said at the time you have to do what you think is right, and as you predicted it made no difference to the overall outcome anyway.
I love (read hate and will be avoiding leaving from it in the future) the fact that after check-in you need to book an appointment to go through Security....
Biden is showing fairly common signs of dementia which is a degenerative disease separate to any of the above conditions
I have considerable experience of dementia, not least my father in law dying in our home with his family holding his hands after many months of nursing by my wife who witnessed the distress of the condition as he didn't recognise any of us, but also with other relatives and friends
Joe Biden's wife should take him to one side and gentle persuade him to retire but then even this can be difficult as in some cases, the patient becomes agitated and even aggressive to their loved ones at the prospect of losing their independence
On one level we should all care for his suffering, but on a political level he needs to retire as all this is making it more likely the next POTUS will be Trump
Let us all pray that a solution is found and quickly
It's very difficult for a pollster to see these decisions coming (and IMO they're too drastic, as constituency boundaries change). I'm not sure that regional polling will spot the patterns. Rather, the national polling gets the overall picture roughly right most of the time (though Reform clearly need to apply some constituency focus to get a remotely fair result).
His article on Labour's housing policy is very good.
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/can-labour-build-15-million-homes
Again, I don’t know whether Letby is guilty or innocent. I do know that very similar cases have wrongly convicted women in the past; cases driven by the testimony of very plausible expert witnesses in which the court system placed far too much faith.
This case stinks. Letby might also be guilty of killing babies. Both of these things can be true simultaneously.
The window to find a sensible solution is also narrowing.
Which is how water privatisation worked out for the last few decades.
Tory peer Lord Hannan tells the Popular Conservatism event: “We somehow managed to call an election that caught ourselves off guard but none of the other parties.”
The problems are
1) the bizarre fixation with linking all data the government has together with no access control. Including biometric data. Changing you eyeballs after the inevitable hack will be annoying
2) the lack of interest in making the database clean - copy & pasta of the passport records is already problematic. Non trivial numbers of passports have been issued falsely.
3) the history of criminal stupidity in the management of data by the government
4) the history of abuse of data by those in authority.
It would be perfectly possible to create an id system that has none of those flaws. Indeed it would be almost too simple for those in government to deal with - imagine a database with one table*…..
*Yes, a bit of an exaggeration…
We see exactly the same thing happening to Trump who is also showing clear signs of mental decline.
'Very high demand' inspires 5G mast plans
No reason for this to be rejected, let's hope it isn't. Otherwise, Ange get on the phone.
Plans for 5G phone mast in resort rejected
Utterly batty this was rejected. The location looks like a prison.
Assessing Russian plans for military regeneration
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/07/assessing-russian-plans-military-regeneration
You may not like it but find another site where the objection wouldn't be valid (i.e. where the site isn't listed).
My first job (also in 2011) was working on a study for Cardiff University that looked into the causes of harm in Welsh hospitals. This involved randomly pulling the nursing notes of patients from a range of hospitals, including the one you mention. They all had horrific details of patient neglect which invariably was the result of poor management, but also at times sadly professional failings of medical staff.
I hope the situation has improved, but from my experience of the Grange in Cwmbran, I very much suspect not.
FWIW, I've had very nearly the same thing happen to me on a tow path. Rang my bell, there was apparent movement to the side, slowed down anyway due to the tightness of the path, just about braked in time when they moved back to the other side. I came off, but slowly into a hedge so all fine.
I don't think you'd need to travelling at any great speed at all to knock someone over given how much higher you are in the saddle.
Fixable
Biden made sense to me as a candidate because he beat Trump before and has imo been a good president, with an economic record to be envied.
But there's no way his age can't be a big drag now on his campaign.
So reluctantly, I think he should step down, and pass on to Harris. Democrats should unite around the person they agreed should be backup president.
With my current ongoing health issues the next GE is a long way away, but I will give credit when it is deserved and I have surprised myself somewhat by being impressed with Starmer early days
Was it as "nationally organised but not public" as 1997, for example, when Lord Mandelbrot held meetings with Senior Lib Dems and they swapped lists of targets?
That alone is not sufficient imo. They don't seem to have any problem catching and prosecuting them, and more of them are imprisoned than those prosecuted under Death by Dangerous or Careless driving. I think the 'flying through the air' may be Daily Mail embroidery, so the debate needs to be about newspaper ethics, not Newtonian physics.
And the lounge was so awkward to get to I didn't bother...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13593757/president-kamala-harris-biden-replace-poll-trump.html
Is his middle name Nigel?
Of course in reality it was that demographic that swung tactically behind the LibDems in that seat, putting the LDs over 50% of the vote.
Another example of how the MRPs don't really work - at least at micro-level - because demographics is only part of the explanation as to how and why people vote as they do.
At the moment he probably seems more mentally agile than Biden as it’s just a comparison between the two but once he’s up to someone who talks sense then he’s the one who will look senile or old.
It's not as if they said things like "I murdered another baby today", they were exactly the sort of anguished self-loathing I would expect from someone working on an under-staffed ward feeling immense pressure after a cluster of deaths had occurred.
It will not only give Trump 2.0 an easy win but quite probably hammer further down the ballot.
But looks like that is what is going to happen although the ragin' cajun thinks Biden will step down.
Joanne Brine, Partner at law firm JMW Solicitors, said: “While accidents on the slopes here in the UK would be dealt with as civil matters, most people are unaware that in some European countries – such as Italy, France and Austria, home to some of the world’s most popular ski resorts - skiing accidents can carry criminal penalties. Investigations are often carried out by the police, under the supervision of the public prosecutor.
“I once represented a young lady who had unfortunately had a minor accident while on holiday in France causing a collision on the slopes. While we’re not talking a custodial sentence, the incident did leave her having to navigate the French criminal courts and facing a criminal conviction, which could have cost her career since she was obliged to inform the General Medical Council. It caused a great deal of stress and was an incredibly worrying time for her. It certainly wasn’t the trip she had imagined.”
https://www.jmw.co.uk/articles/accidents-abroad/bump-slopes-could-mean-criminal-charges-warns-leading-travel-lawyer
I’m moderately amused that there seems to be a burst of nostalgic love for Schönenfeld. Modern life is rubbish seems the abiding mood of the age.
Whereas he knows Biden beat him there last time and the Dems would probably have to nominate Harris if Biden stepped down unless Michelle Obama could be persuaded, who is the only Dem candidate he really fears
I heard someone the other day say “nobody really knows more than one or two things about Harris”. She’s been quite invisible but if she comes to the fore and is sane, articulate, decent and balanced she could turn those polls about face against Trump, but because it hasn’t been tried the polls don’t reflect the possibilities.
I have a net gain of £3.4K on my political betting over several years - so hardly an income. I'm betting with my winnings so I'm feeling blase about my potential financial loss, but not about the political impact of a Trump win.
Axios
Curiously Reform didn't make a big deal of it in their manifesto or campaign. I suspect that's because cycling rates were significantly higher in the 50s then they are now, so lots of rose tinted memories of meeting sweethearts and cycling down to the shop to fetch the groceries.
I would vote for Trump over Harris though, she is too woke and too left liberal for me
Wee https://www.lefigaro.fr/elections/legislatives/en-direct-resultats-legislatives-2024-nouvelle-journee-de-tractations-20240709