Reposting this story from the last thread. With the caveat that the solar figures will drop sharply over the winter, this is nonetheless remarkably encouraging news from China.
Analysis: China’s clean energy pushes coal to record-low 53% share of power in May 2024
Coal lost seven percentage points compared with May 2023, when it accounted for 60% of generation in China.
Other key insights revealed by the analysis include:
Monthly National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data on generation by technology is now severely limited for wind and solar. For example, it excludes “distributed” rooftop solar and smaller centralised solar plants, capturing only about half of solar generation. This mismatch becomes clear when comparing the NBS total for monthly electricity generation of 718 terawatt hours (TWh) with reported monthly electricity demand of 775TWh, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA). In reality, electricity generation must be higher than demand due to losses at power plants and on the grid. Media reports have speculated that the record renewable capacity additions would have run into grid constraints in May, but the new data shows this is not the case. China’s electricity demand in May 2024 grew by 49TWh (7.2%) from a year earlier. At the same time, generation from clean energy sources grew by a record 78TWh, including a record rise from solar of 41TWh (78%), a recovery from earlier drought-driven lows for hydro of 34TWh (39%) and a modest rise for wind of 4TWh (5%). With clean energy expanding by more than the rise in electricity demand, fossil fuel output was forced into retreat, seeing the largest monthly drop since the Covid 19 pandemic. Gas generation fell by 4TWh (16%) and that from coal by 16TWh (4%). Falling generation from fossil fuels point to a 3.6% drop in CO2 emissions from the power sector, which accounts for around two-fifths of China’s total greenhouse gas emissions and has been the dominant source of emissions growth in recent years. The new findings show a continuation of recent trends, which helped send China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels and cement into reverse in March 2024.
If current rapid wind and solar deployment continues, then China’s CO2 output is likely to continue falling, making 2023 the peak year for the country’s emissions...
One other leg of the energy transition - the switch to battery power for transport - is currently happening faster in China than in the west.
China is a lot further south than Britain. Beijing, relatively far north in China, is at about 40N, and so the ratio of solar insulation in midsummer to midwinter is only three, much lower than for Britain. For more southern areas of China this ratio would be under two.
Totally off topic. I dreamt last night that Starmer was building me a new guitar. Despite just being elevated to PM, he was very keen to build me this guitar - acoustic, not electric - and went so far as to go to a lumber yard to choose the woods himself, inspecting them for quality before deciding which were good enough for the front, back and sides. He also gave me a business card with his personal number on it so I didn’t have to bother going through his busy office to get hold of him.
Seemed like a really nice bloke. I think his attention to detail bodes well.
The last thing the Tories need is Reform voters. Their views are extreme.
The ideal for the Conservatives is to get the votes of Reform backers without turning into Reform themselves. Partly because it would be bad government, but also because there are still more votes to lose on their left flank.
Unfortunately, that's not easy to do. The best way would have been to strangle them at birth, but it's about twenty years too later for that.
Do you mean by attempting to deceive them by putting a few right wing bones in the manifesto you have no intention of implementing (the norm)?
Which no longer works.
Or actually addressing the problem which means both building a lot more houses on nimby members prized view and stopping immigration to the extent that there is net migration to facilitate a house price collapase so that under 40s can get somewhere to live without paying an extortionate amount?
All of which is anathema to the wealthy vested interests controlling the party.
How stupid can you be, anyone facilitating a house price collapse would be out on their arses tout suite. Typical selfish arseholes wanting to bankrupt lots of people because they want everything for nothing. Get out and earn enough to buy a house you sad sick loser.
A house price collapse doesn't bankrupt anyone, it just makes costs more affordable. If you've been paying off your mortgage (or paid it off) you owe less or nothing on your home already, it's those who need to buy one we should be caring about not those who already have one.
Costs going up is a bad thing, costs going down is a good thing. Or do you want gas prices and other costs to only ever go up?
The only people who lose big time are.
Those that inherit. Investors/Landlords with multiple properties. The government if the owner goes into care as the self funded money runs out quicker.
Excess asset price inflation is just as corrosive to society as any other type of inflation. It is at the root of most of the ills that currently bedevill our society.
People who need to sell e.g. because they change jobs, also lose big time. At the start of the 90s there were lots of people who wanted to move but could not do so because the market was stagnant.
Which is utterly miniscule compared to the number of people who lose out by being priced out of the market altogether due to overvalued costs.
It can also be addressed (and has been by other countries) by transferable mortgages.
Even if you go into negative equity its only a paper problem unless it gets realised, ride it out and inflation will eventually mean you're out of it - or you continue to/finish paying off your mortgage so mathematically must come out of it eventually as you'll ultimately owe nothing.
Anyone paying interest-only on a mortgage, or remortgaging to realise paper gains only to end up with a paper loss deserves little sympathy for their foolishness.
The last thing the Tories need is Reform voters. Their views are extreme.
The ideal for the Conservatives is to get the votes of Reform backers without turning into Reform themselves. Partly because it would be bad government, but also because there are still more votes to lose on their left flank.
Unfortunately, that's not easy to do. The best way would have been to strangle them at birth, but it's about twenty years too later for that.
Do you mean by attempting to deceive them by putting a few right wing bones in the manifesto you have no intention of implementing (the norm)?
Which no longer works.
Or actually addressing the problem which means both building a lot more houses on nimby members prized view and stopping immigration to the extent that there is net migration to facilitate a house price collapase so that under 40s can get somewhere to live without paying an extortionate amount?
All of which is anathema to the wealthy vested interests controlling the party.
How stupid can you be, anyone facilitating a house price collapse would be out on their arses tout suite. Typical selfish arseholes wanting to bankrupt lots of people because they want everything for nothing. Get out and earn enough to buy a house you sad sick loser.
A house price collapse doesn't bankrupt anyone, it just makes costs more affordable. If you've been paying off your mortgage (or paid it off) you owe less or nothing on your home already, it's those who need to buy one we should be caring about not those who already have one.
Costs going up is a bad thing, costs going down is a good thing. Or do you want gas prices and other costs to only ever go up?
The only people who lose big time are.
Those that inherit. Investors/Landlords with multiple properties. The government if the owner goes into care as the self funded money runs out quicker.
Excess asset price inflation is just as corrosive to society as any other type of inflation. It is at the root of most of the ills that currently bedevill our society.
People who need to sell e.g. because they change jobs, also lose big time. At the start of the 90s there were lots of people who wanted to move but could not do so because the market was stagnant.
People who need to sell to change jobs will also be buyers, so it is swings and roundabouts. They are not net losers.
The problem in the 1990s was negative equity. People could not sell because if they did, they would not realise enough money to pay off the mortgage.
he plans to table amendments to Rachel Reeves' first Budget to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
I would originally have opposed his amendment but as we need to increase our birthrate it has some merit
Yet again, England may follow a SNP policy. After screaming and howling. NB how SKS had to deny flatly that he was going to breach it, for fear of the Tory media before the election.
So perhaps that chap at the Scottish by election last year, promising SNP not Labour policy on the two child policy, had a crystal ball? Nah, just expediency.
That is very good news. Economic growth will be well above forecasts, this year.
Perhaps looking at each month in isolation isn't a good idea.
There's an element of ebb and flow about all of this - a poor April followed by a better May overall balances out. I suspect we're still in a period of growth but it's historically low. My concern is one month's strength will panic the MPC into postponing interest rate cuts to the autumn.
Obviously, it doesn't make a lot of difference politically now if rates are cut in August, September or October - I suspect Reeves would like to be able to showcase the interest rate cut at her first Labour Conference speech as CoE but to be honest most people will be looking at the cats fighting in a sack which will be the Conservative Party shindig.
It may take the Conservative Party a while to accustom itself to the idea that it is rather less important than it was.
If it continues to argue publicly and pointlessly it will quickly become even less important. It has just 50 more seats than the LDs, ffs. Does nobody in the Party appreciate that?
The last thing the Tories need is Reform voters. Their views are extreme.
The ideal for the Conservatives is to get the votes of Reform backers without turning into Reform themselves. Partly because it would be bad government, but also because there are still more votes to lose on their left flank.
Unfortunately, that's not easy to do. The best way would have been to strangle them at birth, but it's about twenty years too later for that.
Do you mean by attempting to deceive them by putting a few right wing bones in the manifesto you have no intention of implementing (the norm)?
Which no longer works.
Or actually addressing the problem which means both building a lot more houses on nimby members prized view and stopping immigration to the extent that there is net migration to facilitate a house price collapase so that under 40s can get somewhere to live without paying an extortionate amount?
All of which is anathema to the wealthy vested interests controlling the party.
How stupid can you be, anyone facilitating a house price collapse would be out on their arses tout suite. Typical selfish arseholes wanting to bankrupt lots of people because they want everything for nothing. Get out and earn enough to buy a house you sad sick loser.
A house price collapse doesn't bankrupt anyone, it just makes costs more affordable. If you've been paying off your mortgage (or paid it off) you owe less or nothing on your home already, it's those who need to buy one we should be caring about not those who already have one.
Costs going up is a bad thing, costs going down is a good thing. Or do you want gas prices and other costs to only ever go up?
The only people who lose big time are.
Those that inherit. Investors/Landlords with multiple properties. The government if the owner goes into care as the self funded money runs out quicker.
Excess asset price inflation is just as corrosive to society as any other type of inflation. It is at the root of most of the ills that currently bedevill our society.
People who need to sell e.g. because they change jobs, also lose big time. At the start of the 90s there were lots of people who wanted to move but could not do so because the market was stagnant.
People who need to sell to change jobs will also be buyers, so it is swings and roundabouts. They are not net losers.
The problem in the 1990s was negative equity. People could not sell because if they did, they would not realise enough money to pay off the mortgage.
And that was a problem in the early 1990s by later that decade (as show in 2009 onwards) banks are now flexible in allowing people to move taking the additional debt into their new home...
Negative equity and moving for work issues is a none issue
German TV commentary and analysis agreed that it was a penalty according to the rules - though I've noticed German commentators rarely disagree much with referee decisions. OTH, Bild, for example, has splashed on Neville saying it was never a penalty.
German consensus after the Switzerland game: England played badly but are in the semis, whereas Germany played well but are out. Them's the breaks.
German consensus after last night: England deserved to win, but where the hell was this team for the first 5 matches? England's chances of winning the final have increased from approximately zero before last night's game, to maybe 40%.
This is just one aspect of football's institutional stupidity.
If there is a transgression, the only thing you can do is award a free kick, which if it's inside the area is a penalty. But for some acts of blatant cheating - pulling down a forward running through at goal, but outside the penalty area, from where the chances of a goal are maybe 20%, the punishment - a free kick, from which the chances of scoring a goal are probably rather less than 2%, and a yellow card - seems a ridiculously small sanction. For other minor transgressions which happen to be in the box: yes, they need sanction, but you have gone from a 5% chance of scoring to a 75% chance of scoring.
In rugby, there is a much better balance between the magnitude of the transgression and the chances of profiting from the situation. And if you transgress, and get caught, you are always worse off than if you did not transgress.
None of this would matter so much if football wasn't such a ridiculously low scoring game. In a high-scoring game like rugby the unfairnesses even themselves out over time. Whereas in football every one is pored over and everyone agonises about how things could have been different. Usually in sport, one individual or team deserves to win, and wins: you rarely come out of a sporting occasion having lost and thinking 'we should have won that but for incident x, which was unfair for reason y. But in football you almost always do. It's almost designed to make people cross.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Football is stupid.
That's the point isn't it ? As we saw last night with the comments about the NL coach, decades long grudges are the lifeblood of the sport.
Haha - I think *almost* is the key word there. I think the lifeblood of the sport is that it's simple. You need almost no resources to play it. You don't get informal rugby matches popping up in playgrounds, for all sorts of reasons.
But there must be some way of improving it; of removing the stupidity of it, at least a bit.
Surely people can't enjoy the grudges? Surely people can't enjoy the constant anger? (Personally, having enjoyed the game as a teenager, that's why I drifted away from it and one of the main reasons I could never reconnect with it. I just can't muster that level of animosity against a group of people who happen to have a different favourite football team to me. And I can't really identify as 'we' as if I was actually on the bloody pitch taking part in the way that football fans do. It always amuses me when my in-laws chatter on this way as if they actually were the team, rather than just some of the people who wanted the team to win.)
German TV commentary and analysis agreed that it was a penalty according to the rules - though I've noticed German commentators rarely disagree much with referee decisions. OTH, Bild, for example, has splashed on Neville saying it was never a penalty.
German consensus after the Switzerland game: England played badly but are in the semis, whereas Germany played well but are out. Them's the breaks.
German consensus after last night: England deserved to win, but where the hell was this team for the first 5 matches? England's chances of winning the final have increased from approximately zero before last night's game, to maybe 40%.
This is just one aspect of football's institutional stupidity.
If there is a transgression, the only thing you can do is award a free kick, which if it's inside the area is a penalty. But for some acts of blatant cheating - pulling down a forward running through at goal, but outside the penalty area, from where the chances of a goal are maybe 20%, the punishment - a free kick, from which the chances of scoring a goal are probably rather less than 2%, and a yellow card - seems a ridiculously small sanction. For other minor transgressions which happen to be in the box: yes, they need sanction, but you have gone from a 5% chance of scoring to a 75% chance of scoring.
In rugby, there is a much better balance between the magnitude of the transgression and the chances of profiting from the situation. And if you transgress, and get caught, you are always worse off than if you did not transgress.
None of this would matter so much if football wasn't such a ridiculously low scoring game. In a high-scoring game like rugby the unfairnesses even themselves out over time. Whereas in football every one is pored over and everyone agonises about how things could have been different. Usually in sport, one individual or team deserves to win, and wins: you rarely come out of a sporting occasion having lost and thinking 'we should have won that but for incident x, which was unfair for reason y. But in football you almost always do. It's almost designed to make people cross.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Football is stupid.
Yes I agree with that. The penalty last night seemed unfair, but correct according to the rules. VAR means that any foul in the penalty area is likely to lead to goal, even when as in this case, the foul was unintentional AND the ball was already heading out of play (so actually 0% chance of scoring). Make it an indirect free kick? They won't change the rules though, because controversy sells. Also making defenders less wary of challenging players in the penalty area would presumably lead to even fewer goals being scored.
Sunak and Hunt are serious people and have just left the Conservative party to its worst defeat in its history. I expect most Tory members and many Tory MPs will first be looking for a leader who can win back some voters who went to ReformUK while also holding onto almost all who stayed Conservative on 4th July.
Braverman may do the former but not the latter, Badenoch could do both. Tugendhat is a serious candidate who would hold most current Tory voters and maybe win back some lost to the LDs but he wouldn't win back any lost to Reform and could leak further to Farage
Whilst not disagreeing with your analysis of what each contender would achieve regarding lost voters to Reform and LDs I do think it unfair to blame Sunak and Hunt. I can't think of much Hunt did wrong and although Sunak led a poor campaign he was handed a hospital pass.
For me the blame lays squarely with Boris. I accept that the Tories were probably going to lose anyway after so long in power, but to lose so badly is down to Boris (and Boris came about because of Brexit).
On another note prior to the election you kept wanting to add Reform to the Tory count presuming they would come back to the fold and still believe Reform voters are ex Tories. Lots are, but lots aren't. They are disaffected voters from all parties. Something the LDs used to gain a lot from. During our (LD) knocking up in Guildford of 'Ours' and 'Probables' we came across a not inconsiderable number who voted Reform. So people who said they were voting LD in a LD target and went and voted Reform.
You can not add the Reform vote to the Tory count.
The last thing the Tories need is Reform voters. Their views are extreme.
The ideal for the Conservatives is to get the votes of Reform backers without turning into Reform themselves. Partly because it would be bad government, but also because there are still more votes to lose on their left flank.
Unfortunately, that's not easy to do. The best way would have been to strangle them at birth, but it's about twenty years too later for that.
Do you mean by attempting to deceive them by putting a few right wing bones in the manifesto you have no intention of implementing (the norm)?
Which no longer works.
Or actually addressing the problem which means both building a lot more houses on nimby members prized view and stopping immigration to the extent that there is net migration to facilitate a house price collapase so that under 40s can get somewhere to live without paying an extortionate amount?
All of which is anathema to the wealthy vested interests controlling the party.
How stupid can you be, anyone facilitating a house price collapse would be out on their arses tout suite. Typical selfish arseholes wanting to bankrupt lots of people because they want everything for nothing. Get out and earn enough to buy a house you sad sick loser.
A house price collapse doesn't bankrupt anyone, it just makes costs more affordable. If you've been paying off your mortgage (or paid it off) you owe less or nothing on your home already, it's those who need to buy one we should be caring about not those who already have one.
Costs going up is a bad thing, costs going down is a good thing. Or do you want gas prices and other costs to only ever go up?
The only people who lose big time are.
Those that inherit. Investors/Landlords with multiple properties. The government if the owner goes into care as the self funded money runs out quicker.
Excess asset price inflation is just as corrosive to society as any other type of inflation. It is at the root of most of the ills that currently bedevill our society.
People who need to sell e.g. because they change jobs, also lose big time. At the start of the 90s there were lots of people who wanted to move but could not do so because the market was stagnant.
Also people looking to remortgage. After the last crash in Ireland there were people who couldn't remortgage, saw their mortgage sold off to some random company, were trapped on a variable rate charging them a ridiculous interest rate while the central bank rate was negative. Not being able to remortgage, because of negative equity, meant they could be fleeced by a legal protection racket.
Btw I don't think this has been put out there very well but parents still receive child benefit for 3 children and beyond. My colleague who this is relevant to was slightly surprised when she got CB for her third (Now heading to two as her eldest is an apprentice). I think most people think you don't get CB after child 2. This is not the case.
German TV commentary and analysis agreed that it was a penalty according to the rules - though I've noticed German commentators rarely disagree much with referee decisions. OTH, Bild, for example, has splashed on Neville saying it was never a penalty.
German consensus after the Switzerland game: England played badly but are in the semis, whereas Germany played well but are out. Them's the breaks.
German consensus after last night: England deserved to win, but where the hell was this team for the first 5 matches? England's chances of winning the final have increased from approximately zero before last night's game, to maybe 40%.
This is just one aspect of football's institutional stupidity.
If there is a transgression, the only thing you can do is award a free kick, which if it's inside the area is a penalty. But for some acts of blatant cheating - pulling down a forward running through at goal, but outside the penalty area, from where the chances of a goal are maybe 20%, the punishment - a free kick, from which the chances of scoring a goal are probably rather less than 2%, and a yellow card - seems a ridiculously small sanction. For other minor transgressions which happen to be in the box: yes, they need sanction, but you have gone from a 5% chance of scoring to a 75% chance of scoring.
In rugby, there is a much better balance between the magnitude of the transgression and the chances of profiting from the situation. And if you transgress, and get caught, you are always worse off than if you did not transgress.
None of this would matter so much if football wasn't such a ridiculously low scoring game. In a high-scoring game like rugby the unfairnesses even themselves out over time. Whereas in football every one is pored over and everyone agonises about how things could have been different. Usually in sport, one individual or team deserves to win, and wins: you rarely come out of a sporting occasion having lost and thinking 'we should have won that but for incident x, which was unfair for reason y. But in football you almost always do. It's almost designed to make people cross.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Football is stupid.
Yes I agree with that. The penalty last night seemed unfair, but correct according to the rules. VAR means that any foul in the penalty area is likely to lead to goal, even when as in this case, the foul was unintentional AND the ball was already heading out of play (so actually 0% chance of scoring). Make it an indirect free kick? They won't change the rules though, because controversy sells. Also making defenders less wary of challenging players in the penalty area would presumably lead to even fewer goals being scored.
For the purposes of transparency, I should clarify that this is an example of man-on-internet-pontificating-inexpertly: I didn't actually see the game; I was watching the highlights of the cricket in the other room.
Reposting this story from the last thread. With the caveat that the solar figures will drop sharply over the winter, this is nonetheless remarkably encouraging news from China.
Analysis: China’s clean energy pushes coal to record-low 53% share of power in May 2024
Coal lost seven percentage points compared with May 2023, when it accounted for 60% of generation in China.
Other key insights revealed by the analysis include:
Monthly National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data on generation by technology is now severely limited for wind and solar. For example, it excludes “distributed” rooftop solar and smaller centralised solar plants, capturing only about half of solar generation. This mismatch becomes clear when comparing the NBS total for monthly electricity generation of 718 terawatt hours (TWh) with reported monthly electricity demand of 775TWh, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA). In reality, electricity generation must be higher than demand due to losses at power plants and on the grid. Media reports have speculated that the record renewable capacity additions would have run into grid constraints in May, but the new data shows this is not the case. China’s electricity demand in May 2024 grew by 49TWh (7.2%) from a year earlier. At the same time, generation from clean energy sources grew by a record 78TWh, including a record rise from solar of 41TWh (78%), a recovery from earlier drought-driven lows for hydro of 34TWh (39%) and a modest rise for wind of 4TWh (5%). With clean energy expanding by more than the rise in electricity demand, fossil fuel output was forced into retreat, seeing the largest monthly drop since the Covid 19 pandemic. Gas generation fell by 4TWh (16%) and that from coal by 16TWh (4%). Falling generation from fossil fuels point to a 3.6% drop in CO2 emissions from the power sector, which accounts for around two-fifths of China’s total greenhouse gas emissions and has been the dominant source of emissions growth in recent years. The new findings show a continuation of recent trends, which helped send China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels and cement into reverse in March 2024.
If current rapid wind and solar deployment continues, then China’s CO2 output is likely to continue falling, making 2023 the peak year for the country’s emissions...
One other leg of the energy transition - the switch to battery power for transport - is currently happening faster in China than in the west.
China is a lot further south than Britain. Beijing, relatively far north in China, is at about 40N, and so the ratio of solar insulation in midsummer to midwinter is only three, much lower than for Britain. For more southern areas of China this ratio would be under two.
Yes, we're atypically far north for a densely populated country. It's a shame that wind power is always going to be more expensive than solar - but it does provide us with a pretty good seasonal renewables mix.
The other renewables story is this. Battery prices are falling quite a bit faster than the most optimistic forecast from even a couple of years ago.
What’s going on with lithium-ion battery prices?
In short, they’re plummeting, and the implications are just starting to ripple out across the automotive and power sectors.
Again, we have massive Chinese state subsidies to thank for priming the pump.
China is the world’s largest auto market, and battery-electric vehicles are currently the cheapest drivetrain by average transaction price in the country, even after stripping out mini city cars from the dataset. https://x.com/colinmckerrache/status/1810927649583206861
Btw I don't think this has been put out there very well but parents still receive child benefit for 3 children and beyond. My colleague who this is relevant to was slightly surprised when she got CB for her third (Now heading to two as her eldest is an apprentice). I think most people think you don't get CB after child 2. This is not the case.
Isn't it? Well what is the cap then?
(FWIW, I have three kids and I thought I only got CB for the first two. This is one part of the household finances I have only a hazy idea of...)
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
Btw I don't think this has been put out there very well but parents still receive child benefit for 3 children and beyond. My colleague who this is relevant to was slightly surprised when she got CB for her third (Now heading to two as her eldest is an apprentice). I think most people think you don't get CB after child 2. This is not the case.
Isn't it? Well what is the cap then?
(FWIW, I have three kids and I thought I only got CB for the first two. This is one part of the household finances I have only a hazy idea of...)
Btw I don't think this has been put out there very well but parents still receive child benefit for 3 children and beyond. My colleague who this is relevant to was slightly surprised when she got CB for her third (Now heading to two as her eldest is an apprentice). I think most people think you don't get CB after child 2. This is not the case.
Isn't it? Well what is the cap then?
(FWIW, I have three kids and I thought I only got CB for the first two. This is one part of the household finances I have only a hazy idea of...)
You'll be getting child benefit for all 3, or more accurately your wife is
It's other child related UC benefits that are stopped after 2 kids
he plans to table amendments to Rachel Reeves' first Budget to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
I would originally have opposed his amendment but as we need to increase our birthrate it has some merit
Yet again, England may follow a SNP policy. After screaming and howling. NB how SKS had to deny flatly that he was going to breach it, for fear of the Tory media before the election.
So perhaps that chap at the Scottish by election last year, promising SNP not Labour policy on the two child policy, had a crystal ball? Nah, just expediency.
It is also Meloni's policy in Italy, she has increased financial support for families with 2 children or more, so the SNP don't own it
Totally off topic. I dreamt last night that Starmer was building me a new guitar. Despite just being elevated to PM, he was very keen to build me this guitar - acoustic, not electric - and went so far as to go to a lumber yard to choose the woods himself, inspecting them for quality before deciding which were good enough for the front, back and sides. He also gave me a business card with his personal number on it so I didn’t have to bother going through his busy office to get hold of him.
Seemed like a really nice bloke. I think his attention to detail bodes well.
Reposting this story from the last thread. With the caveat that the solar figures will drop sharply over the winter, this is nonetheless remarkably encouraging news from China.
Analysis: China’s clean energy pushes coal to record-low 53% share of power in May 2024
Coal lost seven percentage points compared with May 2023, when it accounted for 60% of generation in China.
Other key insights revealed by the analysis include:
Monthly National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data on generation by technology is now severely limited for wind and solar. For example, it excludes “distributed” rooftop solar and smaller centralised solar plants, capturing only about half of solar generation. This mismatch becomes clear when comparing the NBS total for monthly electricity generation of 718 terawatt hours (TWh) with reported monthly electricity demand of 775TWh, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA). In reality, electricity generation must be higher than demand due to losses at power plants and on the grid. Media reports have speculated that the record renewable capacity additions would have run into grid constraints in May, but the new data shows this is not the case. China’s electricity demand in May 2024 grew by 49TWh (7.2%) from a year earlier. At the same time, generation from clean energy sources grew by a record 78TWh, including a record rise from solar of 41TWh (78%), a recovery from earlier drought-driven lows for hydro of 34TWh (39%) and a modest rise for wind of 4TWh (5%). With clean energy expanding by more than the rise in electricity demand, fossil fuel output was forced into retreat, seeing the largest monthly drop since the Covid 19 pandemic. Gas generation fell by 4TWh (16%) and that from coal by 16TWh (4%). Falling generation from fossil fuels point to a 3.6% drop in CO2 emissions from the power sector, which accounts for around two-fifths of China’s total greenhouse gas emissions and has been the dominant source of emissions growth in recent years. The new findings show a continuation of recent trends, which helped send China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels and cement into reverse in March 2024.
If current rapid wind and solar deployment continues, then China’s CO2 output is likely to continue falling, making 2023 the peak year for the country’s emissions...
One other leg of the energy transition - the switch to battery power for transport - is currently happening faster in China than in the west.
China is a lot further south than Britain. Beijing, relatively far north in China, is at about 40N, and so the ratio of solar insulation in midsummer to midwinter is only three, much lower than for Britain. For more southern areas of China this ratio would be under two.
They also have an awful lot of empty space for large solar farms, and a government flush with hard currency that can build factories to make them.
But anything that stops them building yet more coal power stations is a good thing.
Btw I don't think this has been put out there very well but parents still receive child benefit for 3 children and beyond. My colleague who this is relevant to was slightly surprised when she got CB for her third (Now heading to two as her eldest is an apprentice). I think most people think you don't get CB after child 2. This is not the case.
Isn't it? Well what is the cap then?
(FWIW, I have three kids and I thought I only got CB for the first two. This is one part of the household finances I have only a hazy idea of...)
It’s not CB, it’s Universal Credit with the two-child limit.
Which led to stories of large families with no-one working, living in very nice houses at the taxpayer’s expense.
The last thing the Tories need is Reform voters. Their views are extreme.
The ideal for the Conservatives is to get the votes of Reform backers without turning into Reform themselves. Partly because it would be bad government, but also because there are still more votes to lose on their left flank.
Unfortunately, that's not easy to do. The best way would have been to strangle them at birth, but it's about twenty years too later for that.
Do you mean by attempting to deceive them by putting a few right wing bones in the manifesto you have no intention of implementing (the norm)?
Which no longer works.
Or actually addressing the problem which means both building a lot more houses on nimby members prized view and stopping immigration to the extent that there is net migration to facilitate a house price collapase so that under 40s can get somewhere to live without paying an extortionate amount?
All of which is anathema to the wealthy vested interests controlling the party.
How stupid can you be, anyone facilitating a house price collapse would be out on their arses tout suite. Typical selfish arseholes wanting to bankrupt lots of people because they want everything for nothing. Get out and earn enough to buy a house you sad sick loser.
A house price collapse doesn't bankrupt anyone, it just makes costs more affordable. If you've been paying off your mortgage (or paid it off) you owe less or nothing on your home already, it's those who need to buy one we should be caring about not those who already have one.
Costs going up is a bad thing, costs going down is a good thing. Or do you want gas prices and other costs to only ever go up?
The only people who lose big time are.
Those that inherit. Investors/Landlords with multiple properties. The government if the owner goes into care as the self funded money runs out quicker.
Excess asset price inflation is just as corrosive to society as any other type of inflation. It is at the root of most of the ills that currently bedevill our society.
People who need to sell e.g. because they change jobs, also lose big time. At the start of the 90s there were lots of people who wanted to move but could not do so because the market was stagnant.
Which is utterly miniscule compared to the number of people who lose out by being priced out of the market altogether due to overvalued costs.
It can also be addressed (and has been by other countries) by transferable mortgages.
Even if you go into negative equity its only a paper problem unless it gets realised, ride it out and inflation will eventually mean you're out of it - or you continue to/finish paying off your mortgage so mathematically must come out of it eventually as you'll ultimately owe nothing.
Anyone paying interest-only on a mortgage, or remortgaging to realise paper gains only to end up with a paper loss deserves little sympathy for their foolishness.
People talk about negative equity as if its a problem for life.
In reality to be in negative equity you need to have:
1) Bought pretty much at the top of the market 2) Put down a very minimal deposit 3) Not reduced the outstanding mortgage amount by repayment
Negative equity results from a combination of greed, stupidity and bad luck.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
But China is moving decisively in the right direction - yes? They're not going to want to stick with coal, because it's hugely polluting but also because it's bloody inefficient.
I don't have a firm grasp of the stats - but the impression I get is that China is very much a good news story on greenhouse gas consumtpion trends?
Fearing a floor revolt against his nomination, President Biden’s aides are telephoning individual delegates to next month’s Democratic convention to gauge their loyalty to the president, according to three delegates who received a call this week.
Quite right. If Biden is going to be challenged Democrat opponents should do it at the convention and try and find another candidate they think is electable enough to beat Trump and who can get a majority of delegates at the convention behind them instead of Biden
The last thing the Tories need is Reform voters. Their views are extreme.
The ideal for the Conservatives is to get the votes of Reform backers without turning into Reform themselves. Partly because it would be bad government, but also because there are still more votes to lose on their left flank.
Unfortunately, that's not easy to do. The best way would have been to strangle them at birth, but it's about twenty years too later for that.
Do you mean by attempting to deceive them by putting a few right wing bones in the manifesto you have no intention of implementing (the norm)?
Which no longer works.
Or actually addressing the problem which means both building a lot more houses on nimby members prized view and stopping immigration to the extent that there is net migration to facilitate a house price collapase so that under 40s can get somewhere to live without paying an extortionate amount?
All of which is anathema to the wealthy vested interests controlling the party.
How stupid can you be, anyone facilitating a house price collapse would be out on their arses tout suite. Typical selfish arseholes wanting to bankrupt lots of people because they want everything for nothing. Get out and earn enough to buy a house you sad sick loser.
A house price collapse doesn't bankrupt anyone, it just makes costs more affordable. If you've been paying off your mortgage (or paid it off) you owe less or nothing on your home already, it's those who need to buy one we should be caring about not those who already have one.
Costs going up is a bad thing, costs going down is a good thing. Or do you want gas prices and other costs to only ever go up?
The only people who lose big time are.
Those that inherit. Investors/Landlords with multiple properties. The government if the owner goes into care as the self funded money runs out quicker.
Excess asset price inflation is just as corrosive to society as any other type of inflation. It is at the root of most of the ills that currently bedevill our society.
You should read The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson. This was exactly his central insight
To reduce the price rises on houses to below inflation, let alone crash the market, would take a heroic level of house building.
France has the same population (pretty much) and 8 million more properties. And yet their house prices are not zero.
And they have higher levels of overcrowding than us. Price:income ratio is roughly the same, and has followed the same trend as the UK (big spike from the 90s to 2008, flat-ish since then). Weird.
Lots of counter examples to France though (before Barty goes ballistic), so let's just make we don't end up like them.
(The OECD website is annoying for country comparisons. They love indexing everything to 2015, the swines)
The last thing the Tories need is Reform voters. Their views are extreme.
The ideal for the Conservatives is to get the votes of Reform backers without turning into Reform themselves. Partly because it would be bad government, but also because there are still more votes to lose on their left flank.
Unfortunately, that's not easy to do. The best way would have been to strangle them at birth, but it's about twenty years too later for that.
Do you mean by attempting to deceive them by putting a few right wing bones in the manifesto you have no intention of implementing (the norm)?
Which no longer works.
Or actually addressing the problem which means both building a lot more houses on nimby members prized view and stopping immigration to the extent that there is net migration to facilitate a house price collapase so that under 40s can get somewhere to live without paying an extortionate amount?
All of which is anathema to the wealthy vested interests controlling the party.
How stupid can you be, anyone facilitating a house price collapse would be out on their arses tout suite. Typical selfish arseholes wanting to bankrupt lots of people because they want everything for nothing. Get out and earn enough to buy a house you sad sick loser.
A house price collapse doesn't bankrupt anyone, it just makes costs more affordable. If you've been paying off your mortgage (or paid it off) you owe less or nothing on your home already, it's those who need to buy one we should be caring about not those who already have one.
Costs going up is a bad thing, costs going down is a good thing. Or do you want gas prices and other costs to only ever go up?
The only people who lose big time are.
Those that inherit. Investors/Landlords with multiple properties. The government if the owner goes into care as the self funded money runs out quicker.
Excess asset price inflation is just as corrosive to society as any other type of inflation. It is at the root of most of the ills that currently bedevill our society.
People who need to sell e.g. because they change jobs, also lose big time. At the start of the 90s there were lots of people who wanted to move but could not do so because the market was stagnant.
Which is utterly miniscule compared to the number of people who lose out by being priced out of the market altogether due to overvalued costs.
It can also be addressed (and has been by other countries) by transferable mortgages.
Even if you go into negative equity its only a paper problem unless it gets realised, ride it out and inflation will eventually mean you're out of it - or you continue to/finish paying off your mortgage so mathematically must come out of it eventually as you'll ultimately owe nothing.
Anyone paying interest-only on a mortgage, or remortgaging to realise paper gains only to end up with a paper loss deserves little sympathy for their foolishness.
People talk about negative equity as if its a problem for life.
In reality to be in negative equity you need to have:
1) Bought pretty much at the top of the market 2) Put down a very minimal deposit 3) Not reduced the outstanding mortgage amount by repayment
Negative equity results from a combination of greed, stupidity and bad luck.
Its also a very temporary problem.
Dipping into negative equity, so long as you continue to make your mortgage payments, will see you soon repay enough to get out of negative equity (unless you're on an interest-only mortgage, again greed/stupidity) or see regular inflation end up taking you back out of it again anyway.
Being priced out by ever escalating prices is not a temporary problem.
Fearing a floor revolt against his nomination, President Biden’s aides are telephoning individual delegates to next month’s Democratic convention to gauge their loyalty to the president, according to three delegates who received a call this week.
Quite right. If Biden is going to be challenged Democrat opponents should do it at the convention and try and find another candidate they think is electable enough to beat Trump and who can get a majority of delegates at the convention behind them instead of Biden
Quite right. If someone wants the crown they'll need to come for the king.
Totally off topic. I dreamt last night that Starmer was building me a new guitar. Despite just being elevated to PM, he was very keen to build me this guitar - acoustic, not electric - and went so far as to go to a lumber yard to choose the woods himself, inspecting them for quality before deciding which were good enough for the front, back and sides. He also gave me a business card with his personal number on it so I didn’t have to bother going through his busy office to get hold of him.
Seemed like a really nice bloke. I think his attention to detail bodes well.
The last thing the Tories need is Reform voters. Their views are extreme.
The ideal for the Conservatives is to get the votes of Reform backers without turning into Reform themselves. Partly because it would be bad government, but also because there are still more votes to lose on their left flank.
Unfortunately, that's not easy to do. The best way would have been to strangle them at birth, but it's about twenty years too later for that.
Do you mean by attempting to deceive them by putting a few right wing bones in the manifesto you have no intention of implementing (the norm)?
Which no longer works.
Or actually addressing the problem which means both building a lot more houses on nimby members prized view and stopping immigration to the extent that there is net migration to facilitate a house price collapase so that under 40s can get somewhere to live without paying an extortionate amount?
All of which is anathema to the wealthy vested interests controlling the party.
How stupid can you be, anyone facilitating a house price collapse would be out on their arses tout suite. Typical selfish arseholes wanting to bankrupt lots of people because they want everything for nothing. Get out and earn enough to buy a house you sad sick loser.
A house price collapse doesn't bankrupt anyone, it just makes costs more affordable. If you've been paying off your mortgage (or paid it off) you owe less or nothing on your home already, it's those who need to buy one we should be caring about not those who already have one.
Costs going up is a bad thing, costs going down is a good thing. Or do you want gas prices and other costs to only ever go up?
The only people who lose big time are.
Those that inherit. Investors/Landlords with multiple properties. The government if the owner goes into care as the self funded money runs out quicker.
Excess asset price inflation is just as corrosive to society as any other type of inflation. It is at the root of most of the ills that currently bedevill our society.
People who need to sell e.g. because they change jobs, also lose big time. At the start of the 90s there were lots of people who wanted to move but could not do so because the market was stagnant.
Which is utterly miniscule compared to the number of people who lose out by being priced out of the market altogether due to overvalued costs.
It can also be addressed (and has been by other countries) by transferable mortgages.
Even if you go into negative equity its only a paper problem unless it gets realised, ride it out and inflation will eventually mean you're out of it - or you continue to/finish paying off your mortgage so mathematically must come out of it eventually as you'll ultimately owe nothing.
Anyone paying interest-only on a mortgage, or remortgaging to realise paper gains only to end up with a paper loss deserves little sympathy for their foolishness.
People talk about negative equity as if its a problem for life.
In reality to be in negative equity you need to have:
1) Bought pretty much at the top of the market 2) Put down a very minimal deposit 3) Not reduced the outstanding mortgage amount by repayment
Negative equity results from a combination of greed, stupidity and bad luck.
Its also a very temporary problem.
Dipping into negative equity, so long as you continue to make your mortgage payments, will see you soon repay enough to get out of negative equity (unless you're on an interest-only mortgage, again greed/stupidity) or see regular inflation end up taking you back out of it again anyway.
Being priced out by ever escalating prices is not a temporary problem.
Indeed, it’s only a real problem if people’s income characteristics change at the same time, through redundancy or transfer.
Banks are much better regulated now than in 1993, it should be easy enough to come up with a scheme that covers the vast majority of cases.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
The conventional wisdom was that poor countries like China and India would have to produce absolutely loads of carbon before they could get rich and clean like us. This was essentially apocalyptic for the climate, and my lecturers were talking like Preppers - store baked beans and build houses on top of mountains.
That's happening to an extent as their population and economy explodes. However, they are doing significantly better than expected which is great source of happiness for everyone in the 20s and 30s. By the time Africa gets to this stage, solar will be so cheap they can transition to a developed economy with very little increase in emissions at all. Yaaas!
“At the moment we have 40,000 outfits purporting to make number plates,” he laughs. “It’s ridiculous. We need to increase the annual fee to be a plate manufacturer – at the moment it’s just £40. The number plate is classed as ‘personal information’ by the Information Commissioner, but we don’t have our driving licences or passports made this way.”
I always presumed they were highly controlled in the way being a locksmith is.
Basically every motor factor does plates. If you're a normal punter, you have to show a V5 before they will make you a plate up, however trade customers sign something to take responsibility and can just get them on demand. Unfortunately, any other solution is wildly impractical - imagine being an accident repair center and having to produce all the paperwork for every car which needs a bumper.
Also, peices of perspex with some letters on and some reflective yellow backing are never going to be particularly difficult to make and are totally unregulated if you apply a sticky label saying "not for road use".
Unfortunately the best fix is to not try and do everything via ANPR as a substitute for actual policing.
Is it 'wildly impractical' ?
My Aussie Ex was bemused by how lax our number plate laws were, and said in Aussie (Vic in her case) you could only have them made at a few set places. Though that might differ state-by-state.
Our current system is an absolute farce. It needs tightening up.
What problem are we trying to solve by tightening up number plate manufacture?
The ex-copper quoted in the article that started this sub-thread said:-
“It’s not hard to defeat the system,” explains Tony Porter, a retired senior police officer and former surveillance commissioner for England and Wales. “You get legitimate number plates being rendered unreadable with mud, or deliberately masked or altered. You get expired plates from scrapped cars being applied to other vehicles, or plates stolen from a parked car to be fitted to another.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/10/anpr-cameras-vigilante-drivers-surveillance/
Restricting who can make plates will fix precisely none of those issues.
Move to metal (stamped) plates for all new cars.
A big issue is that number plates are used for much more than they were a few decades ago. A years or so ago, my parents had the police rocking up to their door because their car had been used in something illegal. The number plate had been cloned. Large amounts of police and other resources are being wasted because owner, car and plates are *not* reliably linked. It also decreases road safety as @sshats think they can just chuck a false plate onto a car and go speeding.
Yes and your proposed solution will be expensive, inefficient and still does not address the problem. People, bad people, who are prepared to break the laws against carrying sawn-off shotguns, robbing banks or selling drugs, are also not above fitting false plates. Even if every number plate in the land has to be signed by the King himself, people can still cover them in mud, alter them with tape or paint, or steal plates from another car. Or just use one of the thousands of kits that will be made redundant when your measures go through parliament.
*No* system will stop a determined criminal. What you can do is make it as difficult as possible for them to do so.
The current system simply does not work. What would be your proposal?
Accept that no system will stop a determined criminal and that utopian attempts will cause more misery than they relieve, so accept it isnt a panacea and do nothing.
So you would not have any systems to stop criminals at all?
No I would leave the existing system in place and not waste money on expensive, utopian and authoritarian measures that achieve little other than making it harder to replace a broken number plate.
Well said, something I can completely agree with you on.
We don't need an authoritarian desire for perfection to replace the good enough.
This isn't an 80/20 problem, its a 99.5/0.5 problem and the 99.5 is good enough and the 0.5 is never getting addressed whatever you do.
Indeed. Stamped plates aren't going to be hard to clone either - I've a CNC milling machine and a 150T press at work, I could easily enough be doing a run of fake plates this afternoon if I wanted. It's a bit like the way gun control laws generally mean only criminals can still get guns easily, it would mean loads of hassle for normal people when a plate gets damaged, and people who really want cloned plates would still have cloned plates.
Yep. And the perps who want them for petty-crime or more minor offences (eg avoiding PCNs, not being held responsible for their own behaviour when they break some motoring laws they think should not apply to them) would not have them, which would remove the noise from the system.
Which makes the "people who really want cloned plates" much easier to detect.
ISTM that the integrity of number plates in a society with 40m motor vehicles is like the integrity of bank notes or credit cards - it is just a necessary basic.
It's worth a note that not everyone who wants to get away with breaking the parking rules at the supermarket, or whatever, has access to a CNC Machine and a 150 tonnes press.
It's a little bizarre that £40 is somehow being denounced as "expensive". That is the cost of 4 gallons of petrol . That looks like fantastic value for the benefits.
Sunak and Hunt are serious people and have just left the Conservative party to its worst defeat in its history. I expect most Tory members and many Tory MPs will first be looking for a leader who can win back some voters who went to ReformUK while also holding onto almost all who stayed Conservative on 4th July.
Braverman may do the former but not the latter, Badenoch could do both. Tugendhat is a serious candidate who would hold most current Tory voters and maybe win back some lost to the LDs but he wouldn't win back any lost to Reform and could leak further to Farage
Whilst not disagreeing with your analysis of what each contender would achieve regarding lost voters to Reform and LDs I do think it unfair to blame Sunak and Hunt. I can't think of much Hunt did wrong and although Sunak led a poor campaign he was handed a hospital pass.
For me the blame lays squarely with Boris. I accept that the Tories were probably going to lose anyway after so long in power, but to lose so badly is down to Boris (and Boris came about because of Brexit).
On another note prior to the election you kept wanting to add Reform to the Tory count presuming they would come back to the fold and still believe Reform voters are ex Tories. Lots are, but lots aren't. They are disaffected voters from all parties. Something the LDs used to gain a lot from. During our (LD) knocking up in Guildford of 'Ours' and 'Probables' we came across a not inconsiderable number who voted Reform. So people who said they were voting LD in a LD target and went and voted Reform.
You can not add the Reform vote to the Tory count.
No they lost so badly because of Truss, it was her budget disaster and the consequent surge in interest rates and mortgage repayments that collapsed the Tories to around 20%. Under Boris even after partygate the Conservatives were still around 30%. Hence Truss lost her seat.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
The conventional wisdom was that poor countries like China and India would have to produce absolutely loads of carbon before they could get rich and clean like us. This was essentially apocalyptic for the climate, and my lecturers were talking like Preppers - store baked beans and build houses on top of mountains.
That's happening to an extent as their population and economy explodes. However, they are doing significantly better than expected which is great source of happiness for everyone in the 20s and 30s. By the time Africa gets to this stage, solar will be so cheap they can transition to a developed economy with very little increase in emissions at all. Yaaas!
The relationship between China and the UK on renewables is perhaps largely irrelevant. Neither influences the other a massive amount.
The influence of the Chinese energy transition on how the global South develops without massive increases in emissions is really important though. Starting with India.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
The conventional wisdom was that poor countries like China and India would have to produce absolutely loads of carbon before they could get rich and clean like us. This was essentially apocalyptic for the climate, and my lecturers were talking like Preppers - store baked beans and build houses on top of mountains.
That's happening to an extent as their population and economy explodes. However, they are doing significantly better than expected which is great source of happiness for everyone in the 20s and 30s. By the time Africa gets to this stage, solar will be so cheap they can transition to a developed economy with very little increase in emissions at all. Yaaas!
Well indeed, the solution to climate issues is science and technology, not cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Cutting consumption does absolutely nothing to improve the planet, as the rest of the planet intends to increase consumption not decrease it.
The way to solve climate problems is by ensuring we invest in clean consumption. Do so and you can have as much consumption as you like without hurting the planet (since anything times zero equals zero).
We can lead the way by investing in, developing and supporting clean technologies and the rest of the world will follow on that.
The madness of watermelon lunatics who pretend to be green but really just want to hurt people's consumption will do nothing for the environment.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
The conventional wisdom was that poor countries like China and India would have to produce absolutely loads of carbon before they could get rich and clean like us. This was essentially apocalyptic for the climate, and my lecturers were talking like Preppers - store baked beans and build houses on top of mountains.
That's happening to an extent as their population and economy explodes. However, they are doing significantly better than expected which is great source of happiness for everyone in the 20s and 30s. By the time Africa gets to this stage, solar will be so cheap they can transition to a developed economy with very little increase in emissions at all. Yaaas!
China's population s not exploding, it's falling off a cliff. Good news then they can close down all their coal power stations. India's got more of a problem.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
The conventional wisdom was that poor countries like China and India would have to produce absolutely loads of carbon before they could get rich and clean like us. This was essentially apocalyptic for the climate, and my lecturers were talking like Preppers - store baked beans and build houses on top of mountains.
That's happening to an extent as their population and economy explodes. However, they are doing significantly better than expected which is great source of happiness for everyone in the 20s and 30s. By the time Africa gets to this stage, solar will be so cheap they can transition to a developed economy with very little increase in emissions at all. Yaaas!
China's population s not exploding, it's falling off a cliff. Good news then they can close down all their coal power stations. India's got more of a problem.
India has no excuse not to be investing in solar power.
The last thing the Tories need is Reform voters. Their views are extreme.
The ideal for the Conservatives is to get the votes of Reform backers without turning into Reform themselves. Partly because it would be bad government, but also because there are still more votes to lose on their left flank.
Unfortunately, that's not easy to do. The best way would have been to strangle them at birth, but it's about twenty years too later for that.
Do you mean by attempting to deceive them by putting a few right wing bones in the manifesto you have no intention of implementing (the norm)?
Which no longer works.
Or actually addressing the problem which means both building a lot more houses on nimby members prized view and stopping immigration to the extent that there is net migration to facilitate a house price collapase so that under 40s can get somewhere to live without paying an extortionate amount?
All of which is anathema to the wealthy vested interests controlling the party.
How stupid can you be, anyone facilitating a house price collapse would be out on their arses tout suite. Typical selfish arseholes wanting to bankrupt lots of people because they want everything for nothing. Get out and earn enough to buy a house you sad sick loser.
A house price collapse doesn't bankrupt anyone, it just makes costs more affordable. If you've been paying off your mortgage (or paid it off) you owe less or nothing on your home already, it's those who need to buy one we should be caring about not those who already have one.
Costs going up is a bad thing, costs going down is a good thing. Or do you want gas prices and other costs to only ever go up?
The only people who lose big time are.
Those that inherit. Investors/Landlords with multiple properties. The government if the owner goes into care as the self funded money runs out quicker.
Excess asset price inflation is just as corrosive to society as any other type of inflation. It is at the root of most of the ills that currently bedevill our society.
People who need to sell e.g. because they change jobs, also lose big time. At the start of the 90s there were lots of people who wanted to move but could not do so because the market was stagnant.
Which is utterly miniscule compared to the number of people who lose out by being priced out of the market altogether due to overvalued costs.
It can also be addressed (and has been by other countries) by transferable mortgages.
Even if you go into negative equity its only a paper problem unless it gets realised, ride it out and inflation will eventually mean you're out of it - or you continue to/finish paying off your mortgage so mathematically must come out of it eventually as you'll ultimately owe nothing.
Anyone paying interest-only on a mortgage, or remortgaging to realise paper gains only to end up with a paper loss deserves little sympathy for their foolishness.
People talk about negative equity as if its a problem for life.
In reality to be in negative equity you need to have:
1) Bought pretty much at the top of the market 2) Put down a very minimal deposit 3) Not reduced the outstanding mortgage amount by repayment
Negative equity results from a combination of greed, stupidity and bad luck.
House prices fell by 50% from peak to trough following the GFC in Ireland.
If/when house prices fall by that much a lot of people are going to be caught in negative equity.
House prices in Ireland recently regained their previous peak, and avoiding the scenario of wanting to remortgage while in negative equity is encouraging me to choose a longer fix, even though most people expect that we're at the top of the current cycle in interest rates, and so it's the worst time to take out a long fix.
Well I can't be the only one struck by the Starmer/Southgate similarity. Both of them slagged off relentlessly for being dull, negative, too cautious etc etc, they ignore all that, stick to their guns and ... WIN.
Had a weird semi-scam call yesterday; “Are you an OAP? Did you know that if you have to go into care the Government will confiscate your house?” A somewhat acrimonious argument followed, which ended with me putting the phone down. Something else was about to happen, so I didn’t want to get into a long discussion, but I wondered afterwards which company this was and whether it was the start of negative campaigning now we have a Labour government.
Fearing a floor revolt against his nomination, President Biden’s aides are telephoning individual delegates to next month’s Democratic convention to gauge their loyalty to the president, according to three delegates who received a call this week.
Quite right. If Biden is going to be challenged Democrat opponents should do it at the convention and try and find another candidate they think is electable enough to beat Trump and who can get a majority of delegates at the convention behind them instead of Biden
Quite right. If someone wants the crown they'll need to come for the king.
Talking conventions, the RNC have announced themes for each night of the Republican convention next week:
Well I can't be the only one struck by the Starmer/Southgate similarity. Both of them slagged off relentlessly for being dull, negative, too cautious etc etc, they ignore all that, stick to their guns and ... WIN.
So far, so good anyway. I’m not particularly into football, but I get the impression that Spain are a good, creative side.
There are no easy answers for them. And any suggestion that they can fix things by simple moves in positioning is I think incorrect.
The other issue is timing. Although Tories won’t like to hear this there is perhaps less risk in pursuing a two parliament strategy (firstly rebuild the foundations then start the fight back) then there is in putting the cart before the horse. But how much time they have will very much depend on how their opponents get on as well.
If I were a strategist for the Tories (and I’m glad I’m not), I think I would be suggesting that the big priority for the next 2-3 years is fixing the Reform issue. How that is fixed is the elephant in the room. But I could see some sense in the Tories tacking rightwards at least initially to try and coax some of that vote back. The other key building blocks are to have something to say to young people and the professional working middle classes again.
They also need to have a serious think about topics like business rates, rebalancing the economy, urban regeneration and development and supporting SMEs. Some of these are areas that Labour may struggle on (based on their priorities, the economic situation and the general trend).
I want to say a week from the GE I am experiencing deja vu from the 1997 Blair win with a mixture of relief that Starmer has won and looks not only competent but also is leading a government that seems to have acknowledged the depth of the crisis and do have some interesting ideas
I am impressed with Wes Streeting with his declaration that the NHS is broken and his proposal to divert money from the NHS to GPS and involve the private sector in both dentistry and reducing the waiting lists
My daughter is in a senior position in the DWP and said she had received a notice from Liz Kendall that a zoom call will happen today no doubt to outline Labour's proposals to get many back to work and address the huge benefit bill
In many ways the conservatives had similar proposals but they did not have the political capital to carry them out whereas Labour do
If I was giving points it would be 8/10 for Starmer and Labour and 2/10 for the conservatives only awarded as recognition that Sunak has been courageous enough to take the flack and remain in post until his successor is chosen, rather than the option of heading to California to enjoy his riches
“At the moment we have 40,000 outfits purporting to make number plates,” he laughs. “It’s ridiculous. We need to increase the annual fee to be a plate manufacturer – at the moment it’s just £40. The number plate is classed as ‘personal information’ by the Information Commissioner, but we don’t have our driving licences or passports made this way.”
I always presumed they were highly controlled in the way being a locksmith is.
Basically every motor factor does plates. If you're a normal punter, you have to show a V5 before they will make you a plate up, however trade customers sign something to take responsibility and can just get them on demand. Unfortunately, any other solution is wildly impractical - imagine being an accident repair center and having to produce all the paperwork for every car which needs a bumper.
Also, peices of perspex with some letters on and some reflective yellow backing are never going to be particularly difficult to make and are totally unregulated if you apply a sticky label saying "not for road use".
Unfortunately the best fix is to not try and do everything via ANPR as a substitute for actual policing.
Is it 'wildly impractical' ?
My Aussie Ex was bemused by how lax our number plate laws were, and said in Aussie (Vic in her case) you could only have them made at a few set places. Though that might differ state-by-state.
Our current system is an absolute farce. It needs tightening up.
What problem are we trying to solve by tightening up number plate manufacture?
The ex-copper quoted in the article that started this sub-thread said:-
“It’s not hard to defeat the system,” explains Tony Porter, a retired senior police officer and former surveillance commissioner for England and Wales. “You get legitimate number plates being rendered unreadable with mud, or deliberately masked or altered. You get expired plates from scrapped cars being applied to other vehicles, or plates stolen from a parked car to be fitted to another.” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/10/anpr-cameras-vigilante-drivers-surveillance/
Restricting who can make plates will fix precisely none of those issues.
Move to metal (stamped) plates for all new cars.
A big issue is that number plates are used for much more than they were a few decades ago. A years or so ago, my parents had the police rocking up to their door because their car had been used in something illegal. The number plate had been cloned. Large amounts of police and other resources are being wasted because owner, car and plates are *not* reliably linked. It also decreases road safety as @sshats think they can just chuck a false plate onto a car and go speeding.
Yes and your proposed solution will be expensive, inefficient and still does not address the problem. People, bad people, who are prepared to break the laws against carrying sawn-off shotguns, robbing banks or selling drugs, are also not above fitting false plates. Even if every number plate in the land has to be signed by the King himself, people can still cover them in mud, alter them with tape or paint, or steal plates from another car. Or just use one of the thousands of kits that will be made redundant when your measures go through parliament.
*No* system will stop a determined criminal. What you can do is make it as difficult as possible for them to do so.
The current system simply does not work. What would be your proposal?
Accept that no system will stop a determined criminal and that utopian attempts will cause more misery than they relieve, so accept it isnt a panacea and do nothing.
So you would not have any systems to stop criminals at all?
No I would leave the existing system in place and not waste money on expensive, utopian and authoritarian measures that achieve little other than making it harder to replace a broken number plate.
Well said, something I can completely agree with you on.
We don't need an authoritarian desire for perfection to replace the good enough.
This isn't an 80/20 problem, its a 99.5/0.5 problem and the 99.5 is good enough and the 0.5 is never getting addressed whatever you do.
Indeed. Stamped plates aren't going to be hard to clone either - I've a CNC milling machine and a 150T press at work, I could easily enough be doing a run of fake plates this afternoon if I wanted. It's a bit like the way gun control laws generally mean only criminals can still get guns easily, it would mean loads of hassle for normal people when a plate gets damaged, and people who really want cloned plates would still have cloned plates.
Yep. And the perps who want them for petty-crime or more minor offences (eg avoiding PCNs, not being held responsible for their own behaviour when they break some motoring laws they think should not apply to them) would not have them, which would remove the noise from the system.
Which makes the "people who really want cloned plates" much easier to detect.
ISTM that the integrity of number plates in a society with 40m motor vehicles is like the integrity of bank notes or credit cards - it is just a necessary basic.
It's worth a note that not everyone who wants to get away with breaking the parking rules at the supermarket, or whatever, has access to a CNC Machine and a 150 tonnes press.
It's a little bizarre that £40 * is somehow being denounced as "expensive". That is the cost of 4 gallons of petrol . That looks like fantastic value for the benefits.
* May have got the wrong note on where that £40 number came from, but I don't think it affects the case.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
The conventional wisdom was that poor countries like China and India would have to produce absolutely loads of carbon before they could get rich and clean like us. This was essentially apocalyptic for the climate, and my lecturers were talking like Preppers - store baked beans and build houses on top of mountains.
That's happening to an extent as their population and economy explodes. However, they are doing significantly better than expected which is great source of happiness for everyone in the 20s and 30s. By the time Africa gets to this stage, solar will be so cheap they can transition to a developed economy with very little increase in emissions at all. Yaaas!
Well indeed, the solution to climate issues is science and technology, not cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Cutting consumption does absolutely nothing to improve the planet, as the rest of the planet intends to increase consumption not decrease it.
The way to solve climate problems is by ensuring we invest in clean consumption. Do so and you can have as much consumption as you like without hurting the planet (since anything times zero equals zero).
We can lead the way by investing in, developing and supporting clean technologies and the rest of the world will follow on that.
The madness of watermelon lunatics who pretend to be green but really just want to hurt people's consumption will do nothing for the environment.
Nah. You need people to agitate for change and disrupt the economy. There is no chance you would have all the UK's offshore wind capacity without green loonies making a fuss over the last 30 years - chief among them Maggie Thatcher.
Thankfully the government listened so we aren't as far behind as we could have been. They'll need to do the same with AI in the public sector, cashless transactions and so on.
And don't make the mistake of insisting that the green energy revolution must be a direct replacement for the way our economy and society work at the moment. All other revolutions resulted in huge changes. Cheap energy + batteries is going to transform things in ways we simply can't predict. E-bikes and e-scooters is just a hint of what might happen.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
The conventional wisdom was that poor countries like China and India would have to produce absolutely loads of carbon before they could get rich and clean like us. This was essentially apocalyptic for the climate, and my lecturers were talking like Preppers - store baked beans and build houses on top of mountains.
That's happening to an extent as their population and economy explodes. However, they are doing significantly better than expected which is great source of happiness for everyone in the 20s and 30s. By the time Africa gets to this stage, solar will be so cheap they can transition to a developed economy with very little increase in emissions at all. Yaaas!
Well indeed, the solution to climate issues is science and technology, not cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Cutting consumption does absolutely nothing to improve the planet, as the rest of the planet intends to increase consumption not decrease it.
The way to solve climate problems is by ensuring we invest in clean consumption. Do so and you can have as much consumption as you like without hurting the planet (since anything times zero equals zero).
We can lead the way by investing in, developing and supporting clean technologies and the rest of the world will follow on that.
The madness of watermelon lunatics who pretend to be green but really just want to hurt people's consumption will do nothing for the environment.
Me and other Greens have been arguing for Britain to invest in new technology for decades, and people have told us we shouldn't do anything until China does.
Now China has done it and it's pretty much too late for Britain to take a lead on any of the relevant technology, because Britain let other countries get there first.
Just in the last year or two the opportunity to take a lead on small modular nuclear reactors has slipped through Britain's fingers. Unless Labour manage to dramatically turn this around, Britain will be paying other countries for the green energy technology they could have profited from.
So don't lecture me about green watermelons, thank you very much.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
But China is moving decisively in the right direction - yes? They're not going to want to stick with coal, because it's hugely polluting but also because it's bloody inefficient.
I don't have a firm grasp of the stats - but the impression I get is that China is very much a good news story on greenhouse gas consumtpion trends?
It's mixed, I guess. On the one hand, China's CO2 emissions have increased enormously as the country has industrialised over the past few decades. On the other hand, though, China is currently deploying renewables at such an incredible rate that its CO2 emissions should soon start falling again. It is also, of course, exporting huge quantities of solar panels, electric cars and the like, which will, in turn, help other countries to reduce their emissions.
In short, China appears to be going through the process of industrialisation followed by decarbonisation at breakneck speed.
Well I can't be the only one struck by the Starmer/Southgate similarity. Both of them slagged off relentlessly for being dull, negative, too cautious etc etc, they ignore all that, stick to their guns and ... WIN.
he plans to table amendments to Rachel Reeves' first Budget to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
He’s a Labour MP, and is going to try and amend the budget with an uncosted spending plan?
Good luck with keeping the whip then, or perhaps that was his intention all along…
I suspect there is a lot of discussion to be had on this over the summer within Labour. Most of them hate defending this policy.
It’s one of those policies that, once enacted, becomes exceedingly difficult and very expensive to abolish.
It carries a financial cost (£xbn), a political cost (a large rise in benefits given to a small number of people seen as undeserving), disincentivises work for these people, and helps prop up house prices.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
The conventional wisdom was that poor countries like China and India would have to produce absolutely loads of carbon before they could get rich and clean like us. This was essentially apocalyptic for the climate, and my lecturers were talking like Preppers - store baked beans and build houses on top of mountains.
That's happening to an extent as their population and economy explodes. However, they are doing significantly better than expected which is great source of happiness for everyone in the 20s and 30s. By the time Africa gets to this stage, solar will be so cheap they can transition to a developed economy with very little increase in emissions at all. Yaaas!
The relationship between China and the UK on renewables is perhaps largely irrelevant. Neither influences the other a massive amount.
The influence of the Chinese energy transition on how the global South develops without massive increases in emissions is really important though. Starting with India.
I don't think that's true. The influence of China on global prices for both solar panels and batteries is immense. If we rely on increasing amounts of wind power, it will be partly thanks to cheap storage - and with the rate battery prices are falling, that's likely to be the dominant storage technology.
China massively subsidised its renewable industries entirely out of calculated self-interest, but that doesn't mean that won't indirectly benefit the rest of the world.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
The conventional wisdom was that poor countries like China and India would have to produce absolutely loads of carbon before they could get rich and clean like us. This was essentially apocalyptic for the climate, and my lecturers were talking like Preppers - store baked beans and build houses on top of mountains.
That's happening to an extent as their population and economy explodes. However, they are doing significantly better than expected which is great source of happiness for everyone in the 20s and 30s. By the time Africa gets to this stage, solar will be so cheap they can transition to a developed economy with very little increase in emissions at all. Yaaas!
China's population s not exploding, it's falling off a cliff. Good news then they can close down all their coal power stations. India's got more of a problem.
India has no excuse not to be investing in solar power.
India is investing in solar power. I shared a story about them smashing their targets in the last month or so.
German TV commentary and analysis agreed that it was a penalty according to the rules - though I've noticed German commentators rarely disagree much with referee decisions. OTH, Bild, for example, has splashed on Neville saying it was never a penalty.
German consensus after the Switzerland game: England played badly but are in the semis, whereas Germany played well but are out. Them's the breaks.
German consensus after last night: England deserved to win, but where the hell was this team for the first 5 matches? England's chances of winning the final have increased from approximately zero before last night's game, to maybe 40%.
This is just one aspect of football's institutional stupidity.
If there is a transgression, the only thing you can do is award a free kick, which if it's inside the area is a penalty. But for some acts of blatant cheating - pulling down a forward running through at goal, but outside the penalty area, from where the chances of a goal are maybe 20%, the punishment - a free kick, from which the chances of scoring a goal are probably rather less than 2%, and a yellow card - seems a ridiculously small sanction. For other minor transgressions which happen to be in the box: yes, they need sanction, but you have gone from a 5% chance of scoring to a 75% chance of scoring.
In rugby, there is a much better balance between the magnitude of the transgression and the chances of profiting from the situation. And if you transgress, and get caught, you are always worse off than if you did not transgress.
None of this would matter so much if football wasn't such a ridiculously low scoring game. In a high-scoring game like rugby the unfairnesses even themselves out over time. Whereas in football every one is pored over and everyone agonises about how things could have been different. Usually in sport, one individual or team deserves to win, and wins: you rarely come out of a sporting occasion having lost and thinking 'we should have won that but for incident x, which was unfair for reason y. But in football you almost always do. It's almost designed to make people cross.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Football is stupid.
Yes I agree with that. The penalty last night seemed unfair, but correct according to the rules. VAR means that any foul in the penalty area is likely to lead to goal, even when as in this case, the foul was unintentional AND the ball was already heading out of play (so actually 0% chance of scoring). Make it an indirect free kick? They won't change the rules though, because controversy sells. Also making defenders less wary of challenging players in the penalty area would presumably lead to even fewer goals being scored.
The rules have changed, I think, since I was refereeing so I am on slightly dodgy ground here, but in my day it would not have been a penalty because there was no apparent intent and it therefore could not have been a 'technical offence' i.e., a free kick. It could have been a non-technical offence, namely dangerous play. That would have meant an indirect free-kick. I have rarely seen an indirect free-kick given to the attacking team inside the penalty area, but it is not unknown. You tend to remember the incidents because they usually produce the oddity of most of the outfield players standing on the goal line. (It's a rare instance of players being able to stand less than ten yards from the ball while the kick is being taken if the offence happened closer than ten yards from from the goal-line. Players must stand ten yards OR on the goal-line, even if that is less - so they obviously cram the goal.)
I think the VAR team got it wrong. In my opinion it was simply an accidental collision arising from the genuine attempts of both players to play the ball. You could reasonably argue that it was possibly dangerous play, but VAR has no power to intervene for such an offence, and if the ref didn't give it, they had no basis for intervention. There was no intent, so no foul on that basis, and since it was a legitimate and normal attempt to play the ball I can't see why any penalty was given. I wouldn't have given a foul for that no matter where it was on the field of play, and I don't think many refs would.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
But China is moving decisively in the right direction - yes? They're not going to want to stick with coal, because it's hugely polluting but also because it's bloody inefficient.
I don't have a firm grasp of the stats - but the impression I get is that China is very much a good news story on greenhouse gas consumtpion trends?
It's mixed, I guess. On the one hand, China's CO2 emissions have increased enormously as the country has industrialised over the past few decades. On the other hand, though, China is currently deploying renewables at such an incredible rate that its CO2 emissions should soon start falling again. It is also, of course, exporting huge quantities of solar panels, electric cars and the like, which will, in turn, help other countries to reduce their emissions.
In short, China appears to be going through the process of industrialisation followed by decarbonisation at breakneck speed.
Yes. In the same way we have offloaded some of our carbon emissions to manufacturers like India, China, Vietnam etc, China should be recognised in turn for reducing our domestic emissions via cheap solar panels.
I want to say a week from the GE I am experiencing deja vu from the 1997 Blair win with a mixture of relief that Starmer has won and looks not only competent but also is leading a government that seems to have acknowledged the depth of the crisis and do have some interesting ideas
I am impressed with Wes Streeting with his declaration that the NHS is broken and his proposal to divert money from the NHS to GPS and involve the private sector in both dentistry and reducing the waiting lists
My daughter is in a senior position in the DWP and said she had received a notice from Liz Kendall that a zoom call will happen today no doubt to outline Labour's proposals to get many back to work and address the huge benefit bill
In many ways the conservatives had similar proposals but they did not have the political capital to carry them out whereas Labour do
If I was giving points it would be 8/10 for Starmer and Labour and 2/10 for the conservatives only awarded as recognition that Sunak has been courageous enough to take the flack and remain in post until his successor is chosen, rather than the option of heading to California to enjoy his riches
Interesting about DWP.
On DWP issues, Emma Reynolds has been made a joint minister in Treasury and DWP. Something is afoot.
Meanwhile the Red Tory SKS Party says "The NHS is no longer a public service...it's an economic growth department"
Why is this at all controversial?
“One of the things I’ve said to my department and to the NHS is that we need to rethink our role in Government and in our country at large – this is no longer simply a public services department, this is an economic growth department.
“The health of the nation and the health of the economy are inextricably linked.
“That means we’re going to be a Government that firstly recognises that fact, and recognises that as we get people not just back to health, but back to work, that’s a big contribution to growth as there are three million people who are off work off sick.
“As we focus with a bold agenda on public health and prevention… we will not only be enabling people to live well, and live well for longer, but to contribute more and to drive the economic growth of the country.”
Btw I don't think this has been put out there very well but parents still receive child benefit for 3 children and beyond. My colleague who this is relevant to was slightly surprised when she got CB for her third (Now heading to two as her eldest is an apprentice). I think most people think you don't get CB after child 2. This is not the case.
Philip Collins @PhilipJCollins1 · 40m Growth much better than expected. A few more months of that and the circumstances will be quite good for calling an election.
he plans to table amendments to Rachel Reeves' first Budget to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
He’s a Labour MP, and is going to try and amend the budget with an uncosted spending plan?
Good luck with keeping the whip then, or perhaps that was his intention all along…
I suspect there is a lot of discussion to be had on this over the summer within Labour. Most of them hate defending this policy.
It’s one of those policies that, once enacted, becomes exceedingly difficult and very expensive to abolish.
It carries a financial cost (£xbn), a political cost (a large rise in benefits given to a small number of people seen as undeserving), disincentivises work for these people, and helps prop up house prices.
Meh. It's a relatively small cost for a significant number of kids pulled out of absolute poverty. There are already loads of disincentives to work (requires a much bigger reform to fix that).
In terms of propping up house prices - a drop in the ocean compared with the LHA element of Universal Credit. Part of the reason our benefits bill is so high is because we shovel so much cash to private landlords housing UC claimants in areas of high housing demand.
Fearing a floor revolt against his nomination, President Biden’s aides are telephoning individual delegates to next month’s Democratic convention to gauge their loyalty to the president, according to three delegates who received a call this week.
Quite right. If Biden is going to be challenged Democrat opponents should do it at the convention and try and find another candidate they think is electable enough to beat Trump and who can get a majority of delegates at the convention behind them instead of Biden
Quite right. If someone wants the crown they'll need to come for the king.
Talking conventions, the RNC have announced themes for each night of the Republican convention next week:
Meanwhile the Red Tory SKS Party says "The NHS is no longer a public service...it's an economic growth department"
You need to understand that dogma is at the root of breaking the NHS and Streeting not only knows this but is addressing it directly and for the NHS to have a future he needs to succeed
Rather late on this, but does anyone else not give two figs for poor old Ronald Koeman's complaints about VAR? If VAR had been in use in 1993 he'd have been red carded and seen England awarded a penalty.
Meanwhile the Red Tory SKS Party says "The NHS is no longer a public service...it's an economic growth department"
Why is this at all controversial?
“One of the things I’ve said to my department and to the NHS is that we need to rethink our role in Government and in our country at large – this is no longer simply a public services department, this is an economic growth department.
“The health of the nation and the health of the economy are inextricably linked.
“That means we’re going to be a Government that firstly recognises that fact, and recognises that as we get people not just back to health, but back to work, that’s a big contribution to growth as there are three million people who are off work off sick.
“As we focus with a bold agenda on public health and prevention… we will not only be enabling people to live well, and live well for longer, but to contribute more and to drive the economic growth of the country.”
The Big Problem in the NHS is the lack of joined up thinking/actions.
Great for the op to save your life after a road accident. Terrible at the physical and mental rehabilitation to get you back to your old life.
Big savings (and better outcomes) on preventing people needing medical treatment in the first place. Big savings possible with early testing and treatment that catches problems at the “take a pill stage” rather than the “long term hospitalisation stage” of an illness….
The Democrats are relying on retaking House seats in NY to regain control of Congress. The recent polling there does not look good for them.
A number of the more vocal calls for him to stand aside, are those worried about down-ticket elections.
In many states, it’s possible to just fill in a single party box at the top of the ballot paper, to vote for that party’s candidate for everyone from the President to the local dog catcher. So if the candidate for President is unpopular, a lot of people abstain from many of the other elections held at the same time, if they turn out at all.
he plans to table amendments to Rachel Reeves' first Budget to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
He’s a Labour MP, and is going to try and amend the budget with an uncosted spending plan?
Good luck with keeping the whip then, or perhaps that was his intention all along…
I suspect there is a lot of discussion to be had on this over the summer within Labour. Most of them hate defending this policy.
It’s one of those policies that, once enacted, becomes exceedingly difficult and very expensive to abolish.
It carries a financial cost (£xbn), a political cost (a large rise in benefits given to a small number of people seen as undeserving), disincentivises work for these people, and helps prop up house prices.
I see Kendall is this morning on about how terrible child poverty is. But planning not to do anything about the two child cap.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
The conventional wisdom was that poor countries like China and India would have to produce absolutely loads of carbon before they could get rich and clean like us. This was essentially apocalyptic for the climate, and my lecturers were talking like Preppers - store baked beans and build houses on top of mountains.
That's happening to an extent as their population and economy explodes. However, they are doing significantly better than expected which is great source of happiness for everyone in the 20s and 30s. By the time Africa gets to this stage, solar will be so cheap they can transition to a developed economy with very little increase in emissions at all. Yaaas!
Well indeed, the solution to climate issues is science and technology, not cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Cutting consumption does absolutely nothing to improve the planet, as the rest of the planet intends to increase consumption not decrease it.
The way to solve climate problems is by ensuring we invest in clean consumption. Do so and you can have as much consumption as you like without hurting the planet (since anything times zero equals zero).
We can lead the way by investing in, developing and supporting clean technologies and the rest of the world will follow on that.
The madness of watermelon lunatics who pretend to be green but really just want to hurt people's consumption will do nothing for the environment.
Me and other Greens have been arguing for Britain to invest in new technology for decades, and people have told us we shouldn't do anything until China does.
Now China has done it and it's pretty much too late for Britain to take a lead on any of the relevant technology, because Britain let other countries get there first.
Just in the last year or two the opportunity to take a lead on small modular nuclear reactors has slipped through Britain's fingers. Unless Labour manage to dramatically turn this around, Britain will be paying other countries for the green energy technology they could have profited from.
So don't lecture me about green watermelons, thank you very much.
It is the nature of UK governments to subsidise consumption rather than production.
And they do this because that's what people want and vote for.
People prefer another foreign holiday to the development of new energy technology.
German TV commentary and analysis agreed that it was a penalty according to the rules - though I've noticed German commentators rarely disagree much with referee decisions. OTH, Bild, for example, has splashed on Neville saying it was never a penalty.
German consensus after the Switzerland game: England played badly but are in the semis, whereas Germany played well but are out. Them's the breaks.
German consensus after last night: England deserved to win, but where the hell was this team for the first 5 matches? England's chances of winning the final have increased from approximately zero before last night's game, to maybe 40%.
This is just one aspect of football's institutional stupidity.
If there is a transgression, the only thing you can do is award a free kick, which if it's inside the area is a penalty. But for some acts of blatant cheating - pulling down a forward running through at goal, but outside the penalty area, from where the chances of a goal are maybe 20%, the punishment - a free kick, from which the chances of scoring a goal are probably rather less than 2%, and a yellow card - seems a ridiculously small sanction. For other minor transgressions which happen to be in the box: yes, they need sanction, but you have gone from a 5% chance of scoring to a 75% chance of scoring.
In rugby, there is a much better balance between the magnitude of the transgression and the chances of profiting from the situation. And if you transgress, and get caught, you are always worse off than if you did not transgress.
None of this would matter so much if football wasn't such a ridiculously low scoring game. In a high-scoring game like rugby the unfairnesses even themselves out over time. Whereas in football every one is pored over and everyone agonises about how things could have been different. Usually in sport, one individual or team deserves to win, and wins: you rarely come out of a sporting occasion having lost and thinking 'we should have won that but for incident x, which was unfair for reason y. But in football you almost always do. It's almost designed to make people cross.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Football is stupid.
Yes I agree with that. The penalty last night seemed unfair, but correct according to the rules. VAR means that any foul in the penalty area is likely to lead to goal, even when as in this case, the foul was unintentional AND the ball was already heading out of play (so actually 0% chance of scoring). Make it an indirect free kick? They won't change the rules though, because controversy sells. Also making defenders less wary of challenging players in the penalty area would presumably lead to even fewer goals being scored.
The rules have changed, I think, since I was refereeing so I am on slightly dodgy ground here, but in my day it would not have been a penalty because there was no apparent intent and it therefore could not have been a 'technical offence' i.e., a free kick. It could have been a non-technical offence, namely dangerous play. That would have meant an indirect free-kick. I have rarely seen an indirect free-kick given to the attacking team inside the penalty area, but it is not unknown. You tend to remember the incidents because they usually produce the oddity of most of the outfield players standing on the goal line. (It's a rare instance of players being able to stand less than ten yards from the ball while the kick is being taken if the offence happened closer than ten yards from from the goal-line. Players must stand ten yards OR on the goal-line, even if that is less - so they obviously cram the goal.)
I think the VAR team got it wrong. In my opinion it was simply an accidental collision arising from the genuine attempts of both players to play the ball. You could reasonably argue that it was possibly dangerous play, but VAR has no power to intervene for such an offence, and if the ref didn't give it, they had no basis for intervention. There was no intent, so no foul on that basis, and since it was a legitimate and normal attempt to play the ball I can't see why any penalty was given. I wouldn't have given a foul for that no matter where it was on the field of play, and I don't think many refs would.
It was just a mistake.
In full speed its impossible for anyone to judge thats a foul with any confidence, so not sure how it could possibly be a clear and obvious error. Its a serious mistake in judgement but those have always happened and always will. Swings and roundabouts, Koeman had a lucky decision or two in the past.
I want to say a week from the GE I am experiencing deja vu from the 1997 Blair win with a mixture of relief that Starmer has won and looks not only competent but also is leading a government that seems to have acknowledged the depth of the crisis and do have some interesting ideas
I am impressed with Wes Streeting with his declaration that the NHS is broken and his proposal to divert money from the NHS to GPS and involve the private sector in both dentistry and reducing the waiting lists
My daughter is in a senior position in the DWP and said she had received a notice from Liz Kendall that a zoom call will happen today no doubt to outline Labour's proposals to get many back to work and address the huge benefit bill
In many ways the conservatives had similar proposals but they did not have the political capital to carry them out whereas Labour do
If I was giving points it would be 8/10 for Starmer and Labour and 2/10 for the conservatives only awarded as recognition that Sunak has been courageous enough to take the flack and remain in post until his successor is chosen, rather than the option of heading to California to enjoy his riches
Labour havent actually done anything yet except a few PRish positioning calls. It is way to early too say what is happening. Give it 6 months and then see how things are looking.
Rachel Reeves is trying to talk us all in to gloom while the economic data behind her just isnt playing ball. I'd have more respect for her if she just stopped spinning crap and provided a balanced view.
Fearing a floor revolt against his nomination, President Biden’s aides are telephoning individual delegates to next month’s Democratic convention to gauge their loyalty to the president, according to three delegates who received a call this week.
Quite right. If Biden is going to be challenged Democrat opponents should do it at the convention and try and find another candidate they think is electable enough to beat Trump and who can get a majority of delegates at the convention behind them instead of Biden
Quite right. If someone wants the crown they'll need to come for the king.
Talking conventions, the RNC have announced themes for each night of the Republican convention next week:
Meanwhile the Red Tory SKS Party says "The NHS is no longer a public service...it's an economic growth department"
Why is this at all controversial?
“One of the things I’ve said to my department and to the NHS is that we need to rethink our role in Government and in our country at large – this is no longer simply a public services department, this is an economic growth department.
“The health of the nation and the health of the economy are inextricably linked.
“That means we’re going to be a Government that firstly recognises that fact, and recognises that as we get people not just back to health, but back to work, that’s a big contribution to growth as there are three million people who are off work off sick.
“As we focus with a bold agenda on public health and prevention… we will not only be enabling people to live well, and live well for longer, but to contribute more and to drive the economic growth of the country.”
The Big Problem in the NHS is the lack of joined up thinking/actions.
Great for the op to save your life after a road accident. Terrible at the physical and mental rehabilitation to get you back to your old life.
Big savings (and better outcomes) on preventing people needing medical treatment in the first place. Big savings possible with early testing and treatment that catches problems at the “take a pill stage” rather than the “long term hospitalisation stage” of an illness….
Are Labour brave enough to cut (or slow) hospital spending and re-direct it to primary care and public health?
Philip Collins @PhilipJCollins1 · 40m Growth much better than expected. A few more months of that and the circumstances will be quite good for calling an election.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
The conventional wisdom was that poor countries like China and India would have to produce absolutely loads of carbon before they could get rich and clean like us. This was essentially apocalyptic for the climate, and my lecturers were talking like Preppers - store baked beans and build houses on top of mountains.
That's happening to an extent as their population and economy explodes. However, they are doing significantly better than expected which is great source of happiness for everyone in the 20s and 30s. By the time Africa gets to this stage, solar will be so cheap they can transition to a developed economy with very little increase in emissions at all. Yaaas!
China's population s not exploding, it's falling off a cliff. Good news then they can close down all their coal power stations. India's got more of a problem.
India has no excuse not to be investing in solar power.
It just doesn't have the benefit of US and German manufacturers having offshored their manufacturing there a decade or two back - and having grown a highly subsidised domestic industry (which has driven its foreign competitors out of business) on the back of it.
But it's quite likely that India will try to follow the Chinese model over the next decade.
Sunak and Hunt are serious people and have just left the Conservative party to its worst defeat in its history. I expect most Tory members and many Tory MPs will first be looking for a leader who can win back some voters who went to ReformUK while also holding onto almost all who stayed Conservative on 4th July.
Braverman may do the former but not the latter, Badenoch could do both. Tugendhat is a serious candidate who would hold most current Tory voters and maybe win back some lost to the LDs but he wouldn't win back any lost to Reform and could leak further to Farage
Whilst not disagreeing with your analysis of what each contender would achieve regarding lost voters to Reform and LDs I do think it unfair to blame Sunak and Hunt. I can't think of much Hunt did wrong and although Sunak led a poor campaign he was handed a hospital pass.
For me the blame lays squarely with Boris. I accept that the Tories were probably going to lose anyway after so long in power, but to lose so badly is down to Boris (and Boris came about because of Brexit).
On another note prior to the election you kept wanting to add Reform to the Tory count presuming they would come back to the fold and still believe Reform voters are ex Tories. Lots are, but lots aren't. They are disaffected voters from all parties. Something the LDs used to gain a lot from. During our (LD) knocking up in Guildford of 'Ours' and 'Probables' we came across a not inconsiderable number who voted Reform. So people who said they were voting LD in a LD target and went and voted Reform.
You can not add the Reform vote to the Tory count.
What people want from the Tories is a serious leader, rather than a member of the right-wing entertainment industry. The Kemi vs Suella melodrama is a complete turn-off. Catnip for Labour and the LibDems. The Tories do need to address the Reform issue, but following them down a populist rabbit-hole is unlikely to be a silver bullet. If anything, it will embolden Farage.
I saw a poll the other day, which has both Hunt and Tugendhat polling quite well. As Hunt won't be standing for the leadership then Tugendhat might get quite a reasonable level of support. The Tories could do a lot worse than him as leader. Looks and sounds like an adult and is not associated with the current regime and its troubles as Badenoch and Braverman are. Well, we shall see.
The Democrats are relying on retaking House seats in NY to regain control of Congress. The recent polling there does not look good for them.
A number of the more vocal calls for him to stand aside, are those worried about down-ticket elections.
In many states, it’s possible to just fill in a single party box at the top of the ballot paper, to vote for that party’s candidate for everyone from the President to the local dog catcher. So if the candidate for President is unpopular, a lot of people abstain from many of the other elections held at the same time, if they turn out at all.
They are going to lose House, Senate and WH at this rate.
Everyone arguing that Britain shouldn't do anything about the climate until China does will now be supporting investment in renewable energy then?
China has dropped their coal consumption to 53% of power generation.
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
The conventional wisdom was that poor countries like China and India would have to produce absolutely loads of carbon before they could get rich and clean like us. This was essentially apocalyptic for the climate, and my lecturers were talking like Preppers - store baked beans and build houses on top of mountains.
That's happening to an extent as their population and economy explodes. However, they are doing significantly better than expected which is great source of happiness for everyone in the 20s and 30s. By the time Africa gets to this stage, solar will be so cheap they can transition to a developed economy with very little increase in emissions at all. Yaaas!
Well indeed, the solution to climate issues is science and technology, not cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Cutting consumption does absolutely nothing to improve the planet, as the rest of the planet intends to increase consumption not decrease it.
The way to solve climate problems is by ensuring we invest in clean consumption. Do so and you can have as much consumption as you like without hurting the planet (since anything times zero equals zero).
We can lead the way by investing in, developing and supporting clean technologies and the rest of the world will follow on that.
The madness of watermelon lunatics who pretend to be green but really just want to hurt people's consumption will do nothing for the environment.
Me and other Greens have been arguing for Britain to invest in new technology for decades, and people have told us we shouldn't do anything until China does.
Now China has done it and it's pretty much too late for Britain to take a lead on any of the relevant technology, because Britain let other countries get there first.
Just in the last year or two the opportunity to take a lead on small modular nuclear reactors has slipped through Britain's fingers. Unless Labour manage to dramatically turn this around, Britain will be paying other countries for the green energy technology they could have profited from.
So don't lecture me about green watermelons, thank you very much.
NEW: A Tory MP says that Suella Braverman, a potential leadership contender, should "bugger off to Reform" as she has "lost all her mates and pissed off the gays" within the party
The Democrats are relying on retaking House seats in NY to regain control of Congress. The recent polling there does not look good for them.
A number of the more vocal calls for him to stand aside, are those worried about down-ticket elections.
In many states, it’s possible to just fill in a single party box at the top of the ballot paper, to vote for that party’s candidate for everyone from the President to the local dog catcher. So if the candidate for President is unpopular, a lot of people abstain from many of the other elections held at the same time, if they turn out at all.
They are going to lose House, Senate and WH at this rate.
Even if he is forgetting where they are, does he still know how to use google maps?
Comments
Seemed like a really nice bloke. I think his attention to detail bodes well.
Story time.
So, about six years ago, I set out to make a movie (trailer below) and write a book on the same subject at the same time. (Book is here https://amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0062998870/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=) It seemed like a great idea . . .
https://x.com/ashleevance/status/1811187523722326222
It can also be addressed (and has been by other countries) by transferable mortgages.
Even if you go into negative equity its only a paper problem unless it gets realised, ride it out and inflation will eventually mean you're out of it - or you continue to/finish paying off your mortgage so mathematically must come out of it eventually as you'll ultimately owe nothing.
Anyone paying interest-only on a mortgage, or remortgaging to realise paper gains only to end up with a paper loss deserves little sympathy for their foolishness.
The problem in the 1990s was negative equity. People could not sell because if they did, they would not realise enough money to pay off the mortgage.
So perhaps that chap at the Scottish by election last year, promising SNP not Labour policy on the two child policy, had a crystal ball? Nah, just expediency.
Negative equity and moving for work issues is a none issue
But there must be some way of improving it; of removing the stupidity of it, at least a bit.
Surely people can't enjoy the grudges? Surely people can't enjoy the constant anger? (Personally, having enjoyed the game as a teenager, that's why I drifted away from it and one of the main reasons I could never reconnect with it. I just can't muster that level of animosity against a group of people who happen to have a different favourite football team to me. And I can't really identify as 'we' as if I was actually on the bloody pitch taking part in the way that football fans do. It always amuses me when my in-laws chatter on this way as if they actually were the team, rather than just some of the people who wanted the team to win.)
For me the blame lays squarely with Boris. I accept that the Tories were probably going to lose anyway after so long in power, but to lose so badly is down to Boris (and Boris came about because of Brexit).
On another note prior to the election you kept wanting to add Reform to the Tory count presuming they would come back to the fold and still believe Reform voters are ex Tories. Lots are, but lots aren't. They are disaffected voters from all parties. Something the LDs used to gain a lot from. During our (LD) knocking up in Guildford of 'Ours' and 'Probables' we came across a not inconsiderable number who voted Reform. So people who said they were voting LD in a LD target and went and voted Reform.
You can not add the Reform vote to the Tory count.
Good luck with keeping the whip then, or perhaps that was his intention all along…
It's a shame that wind power is always going to be more expensive than solar - but it does provide us with a pretty good seasonal renewables mix.
The other renewables story is this. Battery prices are falling quite a bit faster than the most optimistic forecast from even a couple of years ago.
What’s going on with lithium-ion battery prices?
In short, they’re plummeting, and the implications are just starting to ripple out across the automotive and power sectors.
A short thread:
https://x.com/colinmckerrache/status/1810926635660488915
Again, we have massive Chinese state subsidies to thank for priming the pump.
China is the world’s largest auto market, and battery-electric vehicles are currently the cheapest drivetrain by average transaction price in the country, even after stripping out mini city cars from the dataset.
https://x.com/colinmckerrache/status/1810927649583206861
(FWIW, I have three kids and I thought I only got CB for the first two. This is one part of the household finances I have only a hazy idea of...)
The UK has kept its coal consumption steady at 0% of power generation.
Are you sure you want Britain to do what China is doing?
I'm glad they've belatedly started to catch up with what we did decades ago, but lets not delude ourselves into thinking we're doing badly or they're doing better.
It's other child related UC benefits that are stopped after 2 kids
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/italy-earmarks-e1-billion-to-boost-dwindling-birthrate/.
McDonnell is of course a strict Roman Catholic like Meloni and the Vatican would back both on this issue
But anything that stops them building yet more coal power stations is a good thing.
Which led to stories of large families with no-one working, living in very nice houses at the taxpayer’s expense.
In reality to be in negative equity you need to have:
1) Bought pretty much at the top of the market
2) Put down a very minimal deposit
3) Not reduced the outstanding mortgage amount by repayment
Negative equity results from a combination of greed, stupidity and bad luck.
They're not going to want to stick with coal, because it's hugely polluting but also because it's bloody inefficient.
I don't have a firm grasp of the stats - but the impression I get is that China is very much a good news story on greenhouse gas consumtpion trends?
Lots of counter examples to France though (before Barty goes ballistic), so let's just make we don't end up like them.
(The OECD website is annoying for country comparisons. They love indexing everything to 2015, the swines)
Dipping into negative equity, so long as you continue to make your mortgage payments, will see you soon repay enough to get out of negative equity (unless you're on an interest-only mortgage, again greed/stupidity) or see regular inflation end up taking you back out of it again anyway.
Being priced out by ever escalating prices is not a temporary problem.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/26/mesmerising-boris-johnsons-bizarre-model-buses-claim-raises-eyebrows
Banks are much better regulated now than in 1993, it should be easy enough to come up with a scheme that covers the vast majority of cases.
That's happening to an extent as their population and economy explodes. However, they are doing significantly better than expected which is great source of happiness for everyone in the 20s and 30s. By the time Africa gets to this stage, solar will be so cheap they can transition to a developed economy with very little increase in emissions at all. Yaaas!
Which makes the "people who really want cloned plates" much easier to detect.
ISTM that the integrity of number plates in a society with 40m motor vehicles is like the integrity of bank notes or credit cards - it is just a necessary basic.
It's worth a note that not everyone who wants to get away with breaking the parking rules at the supermarket, or whatever, has access to a CNC Machine and a 150 tonnes press.
It's a little bizarre that £40 is somehow being denounced as "expensive". That is the cost of 4 gallons of petrol
Yes Reform gained from all parties but most voted Conservative last time, indeed Yougov has 25% of 2019 Conservative voters voting Reform in 2024 but just 3% of 2019 Labour voters voting Reform and 2% of 2019 LD voters voting Reform
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49978-how-britain-voted-in-the-2024-general-election
The influence of the Chinese energy transition on how the global South develops without massive increases in emissions is really important though. Starting with India.
Cutting consumption does absolutely nothing to improve the planet, as the rest of the planet intends to increase consumption not decrease it.
The way to solve climate problems is by ensuring we invest in clean consumption. Do so and you can have as much consumption as you like without hurting the planet (since anything times zero equals zero).
We can lead the way by investing in, developing and supporting clean technologies and the rest of the world will follow on that.
The madness of watermelon lunatics who pretend to be green but really just want to hurt people's consumption will do nothing for the environment.
Just by chance, I saw Prof. SIr John Curtice outside St James's Park tube station in London yesterday:
If/when house prices fall by that much a lot of people are going to be caught in negative equity.
House prices in Ireland recently regained their previous peak, and avoiding the scenario of wanting to remortgage while in negative equity is encouraging me to choose a longer fix, even though most people expect that we're at the top of the current cycle in interest rates, and so it's the worst time to take out a long fix.
A somewhat acrimonious argument followed, which ended with me putting the phone down. Something else was about to happen, so I didn’t want to get into a long discussion, but I wondered afterwards which company this was and whether it was the start of negative campaigning now we have a Labour government.
Trump will meet with Hungary's Viktor Orban in Florida on Thursday, per sources.
https://x.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1811232720988570058
'Monday will be dedicated to events under the banner “Make America Wealthy Once Again”, Tuesday’s theme is “Make America Safe Again”, Wednesday’s is “Make America Strong Again” and Thursday’s is “Make America Great Once Again”.'
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/rnc-2024-trump-republican-convention-b2577370.html
There are no easy answers for them. And any suggestion that they can fix things by simple moves in positioning is I think incorrect.
The other issue is timing. Although Tories won’t like to hear this there is perhaps less risk in pursuing a two parliament strategy (firstly rebuild the foundations then start the fight back) then there is in putting the cart before the horse. But how much time they have will very much depend on how their opponents get on as well.
If I were a strategist for the Tories (and I’m glad I’m not), I think I would be suggesting that the big priority for the next 2-3 years is fixing the Reform issue. How that is fixed is the elephant in the room. But I could see some sense in the Tories tacking rightwards at least initially to try and coax some of that vote back. The other key building blocks are to have something to say to young people and the professional working middle classes again.
They also need to have a serious think about topics like business rates, rebalancing the economy, urban regeneration and development and supporting SMEs. Some of these are areas that Labour may struggle on (based on their priorities, the economic situation and the general trend).
I am impressed with Wes Streeting with his declaration that the NHS is broken and his proposal to divert money from the NHS to GPS and involve the private sector in both dentistry and reducing the waiting lists
My daughter is in a senior position in the DWP and said she had received a notice from Liz Kendall that a zoom call will happen today no doubt to outline Labour's proposals to get many back to work and address the huge benefit bill
In many ways the conservatives had similar proposals but they did not have the political capital to carry them out whereas Labour do
If I was giving points it would be 8/10 for Starmer and Labour and 2/10 for the conservatives only awarded as recognition that Sunak has been courageous enough to take the flack and remain in post until his successor is chosen, rather than the option of heading to California to enjoy his riches
Thankfully the government listened so we aren't as far behind as we could have been. They'll need to do the same with AI in the public sector, cashless transactions and so on.
And don't make the mistake of insisting that the green energy revolution must be a direct replacement for the way our economy and society work at the moment. All other revolutions resulted in huge changes. Cheap energy + batteries is going to transform things in ways we simply can't predict. E-bikes and e-scooters is just a hint of what might happen.
Now China has done it and it's pretty much too late for Britain to take a lead on any of the relevant technology, because Britain let other countries get there first.
Just in the last year or two the opportunity to take a lead on small modular nuclear reactors has slipped through Britain's fingers. Unless Labour manage to dramatically turn this around, Britain will be paying other countries for the green energy technology they could have profited from.
So don't lecture me about green watermelons, thank you very much.
In short, China appears to be going through the process of industrialisation followed by decarbonisation at breakneck speed.
It carries a financial cost (£xbn), a political cost (a large rise in benefits given to a small number of people seen as undeserving), disincentivises work for these people, and helps prop up house prices.
The influence of China on global prices for both solar panels and batteries is immense. If we rely on increasing amounts of wind power, it will be partly thanks to cheap storage - and with the rate battery prices are falling, that's likely to be the dominant storage technology.
China massively subsidised its renewable industries entirely out of calculated self-interest, but that doesn't mean that won't indirectly benefit the rest of the world.
I think the VAR team got it wrong. In my opinion it was simply an accidental collision arising from the genuine attempts of both players to play the ball. You could reasonably argue that it was possibly dangerous play, but VAR has no power to intervene for such an offence, and if the ref didn't give it, they had no basis for intervention. There was no intent, so no foul on that basis, and since it was a legitimate and normal attempt to play the ball I can't see why any penalty was given. I wouldn't have given a foul for that no matter where it was on the field of play, and I don't think many refs would.
It was just a mistake.
On DWP issues, Emma Reynolds has been made a joint minister in Treasury and DWP. Something is afoot.
https://x.com/DelgadoforNY/status/1811117871579234526
The Democrats are relying on retaking House seats in NY to regain control of Congress. The recent polling there does not look good for them.
“One of the things I’ve said to my department and to the NHS is that we need to rethink our role in Government and in our country at large – this is no longer simply a public services department, this is an economic growth department.
“The health of the nation and the health of the economy are inextricably linked.
“That means we’re going to be a Government that firstly recognises that fact, and recognises that as we get people not just back to health, but back to work, that’s a big contribution to growth as there are three million people who are off work off sick.
“As we focus with a bold agenda on public health and prevention… we will not only be enabling people to live well, and live well for longer, but to contribute more and to drive the economic growth of the country.”
@PhilipJCollins1
·
40m
Growth much better than expected. A few more months of that and the circumstances will be quite good for calling an election.
https://x.com/PhilipJCollins1/status/1811323215932694594
In terms of propping up house prices - a drop in the ocean compared with the LHA element of Universal Credit. Part of the reason our benefits bill is so high is because we shovel so much cash to private landlords housing UC claimants in areas of high housing demand.
Green Tories 4 seats
Great for the op to save your life after a road accident. Terrible at the physical and mental rehabilitation to get you back to your old life.
Big savings (and better outcomes) on preventing people needing medical treatment in the first place. Big savings possible with early testing and treatment that catches problems at the “take a pill stage” rather than the “long term hospitalisation stage” of an illness….
In many states, it’s possible to just fill in a single party box at the top of the ballot paper, to vote for that party’s candidate for everyone from the President to the local dog catcher. So if the candidate for President is unpopular, a lot of people abstain from many of the other elections held at the same time, if they turn out at all.
China is also building alot of new coal capacity too though.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-responsible-for-95-of-new-coal-power-construction-in-2023-report-says/
I can't see how they keep this up for five years.
And they do this because that's what people want and vote for.
People prefer another foreign holiday to the development of new energy technology.
Rachel Reeves is trying to talk us all in to gloom while the economic data behind her just isnt playing ball. I'd have more respect for her if she just stopped spinning crap and provided a balanced view.
*doubt*
https://www.pv-tech.org/indian-solar-capacity-up-400-in-q1-2024/
It just doesn't have the benefit of US and German manufacturers having offshored their manufacturing there a decade or two back - and having grown a highly subsidised domestic industry (which has driven its foreign competitors out of business) on the back of it.
But it's quite likely that India will try to follow the Chinese model over the next decade.
I saw a poll the other day, which has both Hunt and Tugendhat polling quite well. As Hunt won't be standing for the leadership then Tugendhat might get quite a reasonable level of support. The Tories could do a lot worse than him as leader. Looks and sounds like an adult and is not associated with the current regime and its troubles as Badenoch and Braverman are. Well, we shall see.