Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
With Thames Water, I am getting a strong Solihull Project vibe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3V15rLi4xI). There is enormous systemic resistance to letting them just go bankrupt.
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
And What does the Bill do? is surely a Police Act question
Also, VAT on private school fees seems to have been listed separately. Does that mean Labour intend to bring it forward as primary legislation not as part of a budget?
(They’re kidding themselves about recruiting more teachers with the money for multiple reasons anyway, but it strikes me as an odd way to do it. Perhaps just a chance for the Cabinet to signal virtue to the left by voting for it?)
A couple of interesting omissions from the Speech. As someone has already mentioned, nothing about prisons or penal reform. And nothing at all (unless I missed it) about Social Care and its massive impact of the NHS.
Edit - and mention of NATO but no explicit mention of Ukraine.
He did mention Ukraine, or I thought he did - about support and NATO membership.
My Government will continue to give its full support to Ukraine and its people and it will endeavour to play a leading role in providing Ukraine with a clear path to NATO membership.
“Endeavour to play a leading role”
That’s garbage. You either play a leading ro or you don’t. It’s a choice.
I think what they meant that they will be play a leading role in pushing for Ukraine to be provided with a clear path but they can’t guarantee success
But their speechwriter needs to be upgraded
No it is not. Everyone bar one who auditions for a leading role is endeavouring to play it, both lit. and metaph.
I think they are trying to avoid Blair's mistake. He said something very conceited early on about how we would be simultaneously detached from the EU but in charge of it.
I think that's very fair. Blair was arrogant. We do not yet know about Starmer as PM.
So on one hand the government is giving early release to thousands of criminals but on the other it will reverse the idiotic 2014 policy to give lesser sentencing to thefts with less than £200 value. Amateur hour.
On early release, I don't think Labour had much realistic choice. Capacity was needed yesterday.
Yes, the Conservatives had 14 years leading the Government to resolve prison capacity issues and completely and abjectly failed - they failed because it was too difficult for them. Building new prisons, upgrading the current estate, hiring enough prison officers, all just too difficult.
What did they do instead? Waste more than a decade of the nation's time, energy and resources deciding if we should be in the EU and even that was too much effort.
They deserved the kicking they got two weeks ago. Hopefully it'll be decades before they are allowed near power again.
I think that’s unfair
Most governments can only handle a few things with top priority. For the Tories those were Europe, Covid and Ukraine. All their other plans - whatever you might think of them - were deprioritised.
Europe - again regardless of what you think of the result or the negotiation - needed a resolution. It had been a festering wound for all of my adult life (effectively since Maastricht). Of course it will always a big topic but the fundamental question - in or out - has been resolved for the foreseeable future.
I think that's a cop out
With the sheer amount of people in government, both Whitehall and Westminster these days the government should have been able to walk and chew gum on stuff like prisons.
Doesn’t really work like that in the real world.
In order to get stuff pushed through the system you need political drive and attention from the top otherwise it gets bogged down.
Building a prison? Every local council will object, as will every nimby, do gooder and political activist. And that’s before you have to fight the treasury for the budget.
It’s not happening unless the PM says it must
Imagine a world. In this world, a PM has a cabinet of strong, capable people. Who can manage departments efficiently. Beneath each of them, pyramids of effective managers who can take on the parts of the problem. And deliver.
Then the PM has only to pronounce, in cabinet, the policy requirement.
Crazy, isn't it.
During COVID, when they were trying to get the home testing kits setup, a policy was announced. Met with complete resistance from the system. So the story goes, the big cheeses were hauled back into a meeting and informed that *all* of them would be fired if things didn't get moving.
Sounds like running Douche Bank.
A few tactical firings of obstructionists and time servers would go a long way early in this administration.
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
Don't forget parliamentary approval is already in place for Lichfield to Crewe.
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
Planning Reform includes compulsory purchase reform, and also the "delayed by connections to the grid" constraint.
further reforming compulsory purchase compensation rules to ensure that compensation paid to landowners is fair but not excessive where important social and physical infrastructure and affordable housing are being delivered. The reforms will help unlock more sites for development, enabling more effective land assembly, and in doing so speeding up housebuilding and delivering more affordable housing, supporting the public interest.
That will help with prices, or alternatively planning gain levies to raise cash for local authorities. Currently Planning Gain generates up to around £10bn a year.
Interesting lever is that potentially the extra revenue will incentivise Local Authorities to support more development, if they are allowed to keep some of it.
Great news that they seem to have grasped that nettle. Even if they only have it, that might be (depending on how the rules are structured) c.£5bn pa effective financing to local authorities at little cost (other than the CGT foregone) to the Treasury.
I'd allow them to keep all of it if it goes back into LA housing within a set timeframe.
Local authorities already had the power to reduce compensation for projects which involved affordable housing.
"This applies only to land destined for social and affordable housing purposes, or for educational or health uses."
"The powers are contained in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act (Lura), allowing local authorities to apply to the Secretary of State to remove or limit hope value from compensation payments for land acquired under CP for these limited purposes."
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
With Thames Water, I am getting a strong Solihull Project vibe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3V15rLi4xI). There is enormous systemic resistance to letting them just go bankrupt.
It will be the usual talk tough do nothing imo. But really they should be yanking a handful of directors off to the courts or striking them off at companies house. If only pour encourager les autres.
Then turn up at Ofwat balaclava and baseball bat in hand.
Planning Reform includes compulsory purchase reform, and also the "delayed by connections to the grid" constraint.
further reforming compulsory purchase compensation rules to ensure that compensation paid to landowners is fair but not excessive where important social and physical infrastructure and affordable housing are being delivered. The reforms will help unlock more sites for development, enabling more effective land assembly, and in doing so speeding up housebuilding and delivering more affordable housing, supporting the public interest.
That will help with prices, or alternatively planning gain levies to raise cash for local authorities. Currently Planning Gain generates up to around £10bn a year.
Interesting lever is that potentially the extra revenue will incentivise Local Authorities to support more development, if they are allowed to keep some of it.
Great news that they seem to have grasped that nettle. Even if they only have it, that might be (depending on how the rules are structured) c.£5bn pa effective financing to local authorities at little cost (other than the CGT foregone) to the Treasury.
I'd allow them to keep all of it if it goes back into LA housing within a set timeframe.
I think especially for a Lab Government there would be some smoothing and transfers between High and Low value places. But we'll need to wait and see.
Planning Reform includes compulsory purchase reform, and also the "delayed by connections to the grid" constraint.
further reforming compulsory purchase compensation rules to ensure that compensation paid to landowners is fair but not excessive where important social and physical infrastructure and affordable housing are being delivered. The reforms will help unlock more sites for development, enabling more effective land assembly, and in doing so speeding up housebuilding and delivering more affordable housing, supporting the public interest.
That will help with prices, or alternatively planning gain levies to raise cash for local authorities. Currently Planning Gain generates up to around £10bn a year.
Interesting lever is that potentially the extra revenue will incentivise Local Authorities to support more development, if they are allowed to keep some of it.
Great news that they seem to have grasped that nettle. Even if they only have it, that might be (depending on how the rules are structured) c.£5bn pa effective financing to local authorities at little cost (other than the CGT foregone) to the Treasury.
I'd allow them to keep all of it if it goes back into LA housing within a set timeframe.
Local authorities already had the power to reduce compensation for projects which involved affordable housing.
"This applies only to land destined for social and affordable housing purposes, or for educational or health uses."
"The powers are contained in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act (Lura), allowing local authorities to apply to the Secretary of State to remove or limit hope value from compensation payments for land acquired under CP for these limited purposes."
Apologies for going OT on such a busy day but I have a question I am hoping those with more knoeledge than me can answer.
What the feck is going on with EV production?
Volvo and Audi have both now announced they are ending EV production due to a collapse in demand. I genuinely can't see why this is happening. I could understand it if there was a slow take up with a steadily growing market as performance/range/costs improve - which they do seem to be doing all the time. What I can't uderstand is why there was farily quick growth in the market and now it is in serious retreat. Particularly with all the Governments around Europe including the UK saying they will end all ICE production in the next decade.
So why the collapse? I am genuinely puzzled.
I am not a subject expert, but some people on PB are, and from their previous discussions it may be because of the following
the Chinese are mass producing batteries and flooding the market with cheap batteries and EVs, undercutting the indigines
Postponement of the deadlines to 2035
EV demand is limited to people who can charge them and have the tech to interface with the chargers. This puts a hard lid on demand: not everybody has a parking space, not everybody has a smartphone, not evreybody has a lead from their house to their car
Happy to be contradicted if wrong or incomplete.
Tiny number of people in the market for a new car who doesn't have a smart phone
The Tesla charging network is pretty extensive in the UK*. I know several people who can't charge on driveways who have Teslas.
*The areas where there are less of their superchargers are rural, where off road car parking is standard. In the Cotswolds, for example, every other house seems to have a home high capacity charging connection.
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
In order to have any chances of success in achieving housebuilding targets, Labour need to abolish or drastically prune various regulations and quangos.
However they clearly intend to do quite the opposite.
"Labour could introduce a new “office for health responsibility” as part of efforts to block policies that could harm the public’s health, one of its advisers has said.
Paul Corrigan, a former adviser to Sir Tony Blair, who has just been appointed to advise the Health Secretary Wes Streeting, said Sir Keir Starmer would make health the responsibility of all Government departments."
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
With Thames Water, I am getting a strong Solihull Project vibe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3V15rLi4xI). There is enormous systemic resistance to letting them just go bankrupt.
It will be the usual talk tough do nothing imo. But really they should be yanking a handful of directors off to the courts or striking them off at companies house. If only pour encourager les autres.
Then turn up at Ofwat balaclava and baseball bat in hand.
So on one hand the government is giving early release to thousands of criminals but on the other it will reverse the idiotic 2014 policy to give lesser sentencing to thefts with less than £200 value. Amateur hour.
On early release, I don't think Labour had much realistic choice. Capacity was needed yesterday.
Yes, the Conservatives had 14 years leading the Government to resolve prison capacity issues and completely and abjectly failed - they failed because it was too difficult for them. Building new prisons, upgrading the current estate, hiring enough prison officers, all just too difficult.
What did they do instead? Waste more than a decade of the nation's time, energy and resources deciding if we should be in the EU and even that was too much effort.
They deserved the kicking they got two weeks ago. Hopefully it'll be decades before they are allowed near power again.
I think that’s unfair
Most governments can only handle a few things with top priority. For the Tories those were Europe, Covid and Ukraine. All their other plans - whatever you might think of them - were deprioritised.
Europe - again regardless of what you think of the result or the negotiation - needed a resolution. It had been a festering wound for all of my adult life (effectively since Maastricht). Of course it will always a big topic but the fundamental question - in or out - has been resolved for the foreseeable future.
I think that's a cop out
With the sheer amount of people in government, both Whitehall and Westminster these days the government should have been able to walk and chew gum on stuff like prisons.
Doesn’t really work like that in the real world.
In order to get stuff pushed through the system you need political drive and attention from the top otherwise it gets bogged down.
Building a prison? Every local council will object, as will every nimby, do gooder and political activist. And that’s before you have to fight the treasury for the budget.
It’s not happening unless the PM says it must
Imagine a world. In this world, a PM has a cabinet of strong, capable people. Who can manage departments efficiently. Beneath each of them, pyramids of effective managers who can take on the parts of the problem. And deliver.
Then the PM has only to pronounce, in cabinet, the policy requirement.
Crazy, isn't it.
During COVID, when they were trying to get the home testing kits setup, a policy was announced. Met with complete resistance from the system. So the story goes, the big cheeses were hauled back into a meeting and informed that *all* of them would be fired if things didn't get moving.
Sounds like running Douche Bank.
A few tactical firings of obstructionists and time servers would go a long way early in this administration.
Good luck with that given the additional union and workers rights they are proposing.
So on one hand the government is giving early release to thousands of criminals but on the other it will reverse the idiotic 2014 policy to give lesser sentencing to thefts with less than £200 value. Amateur hour.
On early release, I don't think Labour had much realistic choice. Capacity was needed yesterday.
Yes, the Conservatives had 14 years leading the Government to resolve prison capacity issues and completely and abjectly failed - they failed because it was too difficult for them. Building new prisons, upgrading the current estate, hiring enough prison officers, all just too difficult.
What did they do instead? Waste more than a decade of the nation's time, energy and resources deciding if we should be in the EU and even that was too much effort.
They deserved the kicking they got two weeks ago. Hopefully it'll be decades before they are allowed near power again.
I think that’s unfair
Most governments can only handle a few things with top priority. For the Tories those were Europe, Covid and Ukraine. All their other plans - whatever you might think of them - were deprioritised.
Europe - again regardless of what you think of the result or the negotiation - needed a resolution. It had been a festering wound for all of my adult life (effectively since Maastricht). Of course it will always a big topic but the fundamental question - in or out - has been resolved for the foreseeable future.
I think that's a cop out
With the sheer amount of people in government, both Whitehall and Westminster these days the government should have been able to walk and chew gum on stuff like prisons.
Doesn’t really work like that in the real world.
In order to get stuff pushed through the system you need political drive and attention from the top otherwise it gets bogged down.
Building a prison? Every local council will object, as will every nimby, do gooder and political activist. And that’s before you have to fight the treasury for the budget.
It’s not happening unless the PM says it must
Imagine a world. In this world, a PM has a cabinet of strong, capable people. Who can manage departments efficiently. Beneath each of them, pyramids of effective managers who can take on the parts of the problem. And deliver.
Then the PM has only to pronounce, in cabinet, the policy requirement.
Crazy, isn't it.
During COVID, when they were trying to get the home testing kits setup, a policy was announced. Met with complete resistance from the system. So the story goes, the big cheeses were hauled back into a meeting and informed that *all* of them would be fired if things didn't get moving.
Sounds like running Douche Bank.
A few tactical firings of obstructionists and time servers would go a long way early in this administration.
A simple start.
Mae a list of everyone involved in shutting down the Vaccine Task Force and making sure the participants were penalised in their careers in Government. Do the same for the Dashboard project.
That list fire them all. And mark their personnel files as "Not to be employed in government in any capacity".
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
With Thames Water, I am getting a strong Solihull Project vibe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3V15rLi4xI). There is enormous systemic resistance to letting them just go bankrupt.
It will be the usual talk tough do nothing imo. But really they should be yanking a handful of directors off to the courts or striking them off at companies house. If only pour encourager les autres.
Then turn up at Ofwat balaclava and baseball bat in hand.
Apologies for going OT on such a busy day but I have a question I am hoping those with more knoeledge than me can answer.
What the feck is going on with EV production?
Volvo and Audi have both now announced they are ending EV production due to a collapse in demand. I genuinely can't see why this is happening. I could understand it if there was a slow take up with a steadily growing market as performance/range/costs improve - which they do seem to be doing all the time. What I can't uderstand is why there was farily quick growth in the market and now it is in serious retreat. Particularly with all the Governments around Europe including the UK saying they will end all ICE production in the next decade.
So why the collapse? I am genuinely puzzled.
I am not a subject expert, but some people on PB are, and from their previous discussions it may be because of the following
the Chinese are mass producing batteries and flooding the market with cheap batteries and EVs, undercutting the indigines
Postponement of the deadlines to 2035
EV demand is limited to people who can charge them and have the tech to interface with the chargers. This puts a hard lid on demand: not everybody has a parking space, not everybody has a smartphone, not evreybody has a lead from their house to their car
Happy to be contradicted if wrong or incomplete.
Tiny number of people in the market for a new car who doesn't have a smart phone
You don't need to have a smartphone to have an EV.
Some great new models on the way like the Kia EV3. It's more that some ICE manufacturers are too slow to adapt. Their products are not competitive on price or capability.
Apologies for going OT on such a busy day but I have a question I am hoping those with more knoeledge than me can answer.
What the feck is going on with EV production?
Volvo and Audi have both now announced they are ending EV production due to a collapse in demand. I genuinely can't see why this is happening. I could understand it if there was a slow take up with a steadily growing market as performance/range/costs improve - which they do seem to be doing all the time. What I can't uderstand is why there was farily quick growth in the market and now it is in serious retreat. Particularly with all the Governments around Europe including the UK saying they will end all ICE production in the next decade.
So why the collapse? I am genuinely puzzled.
I am not a subject expert, but some people on PB are, and from their previous discussions it may be because of the following
the Chinese are mass producing batteries and flooding the market with cheap batteries and EVs, undercutting the indigines
Postponement of the deadlines to 2035
EV demand is limited to people who can charge them and have the tech to interface with the chargers. This puts a hard lid on demand: not everybody has a parking space, not everybody has a smartphone, not evreybody has a lead from their house to their car
Happy to be contradicted if wrong or incomplete.
Tiny number of people in the market for a new car who doesn't have a smart phone
You don't need to have a smartphone to have an EV.
Some great new models on the way like the Kia EV3. It's more that some ICE manufacturers are too slow to adapt. Their products are not competitive on price or capability.
The more I look at the EV market, the more I think of the Themis project. It's copying, but by people who don't get it.
So on one hand the government is giving early release to thousands of criminals but on the other it will reverse the idiotic 2014 policy to give lesser sentencing to thefts with less than £200 value. Amateur hour.
On early release, I don't think Labour had much realistic choice. Capacity was needed yesterday.
Yes, the Conservatives had 14 years leading the Government to resolve prison capacity issues and completely and abjectly failed - they failed because it was too difficult for them. Building new prisons, upgrading the current estate, hiring enough prison officers, all just too difficult.
What did they do instead? Waste more than a decade of the nation's time, energy and resources deciding if we should be in the EU and even that was too much effort.
They deserved the kicking they got two weeks ago. Hopefully it'll be decades before they are allowed near power again.
I think that’s unfair
Most governments can only handle a few things with top priority. For the Tories those were Europe, Covid and Ukraine. All their other plans - whatever you might think of them - were deprioritised.
Europe - again regardless of what you think of the result or the negotiation - needed a resolution. It had been a festering wound for all of my adult life (effectively since Maastricht). Of course it will always a big topic but the fundamental question - in or out - has been resolved for the foreseeable future.
I think that's a cop out
With the sheer amount of people in government, both Whitehall and Westminster these days the government should have been able to walk and chew gum on stuff like prisons.
Doesn’t really work like that in the real world.
In order to get stuff pushed through the system you need political drive and attention from the top otherwise it gets bogged down.
Building a prison? Every local council will object, as will every nimby, do gooder and political activist. And that’s before you have to fight the treasury for the budget.
It’s not happening unless the PM says it must
Imagine a world. In this world, a PM has a cabinet of strong, capable people. Who can manage departments efficiently. Beneath each of them, pyramids of effective managers who can take on the parts of the problem. And deliver.
Then the PM has only to pronounce, in cabinet, the policy requirement.
Crazy, isn't it.
During COVID, when they were trying to get the home testing kits setup, a policy was announced. Met with complete resistance from the system. So the story goes, the big cheeses were hauled back into a meeting and informed that *all* of them would be fired if things didn't get moving.
Sounds like running Douche Bank.
A few tactical firings of obstructionists and time servers would go a long way early in this administration.
Good luck with that given the additional union and workers rights they are proposing.
"Here is your new job. No reports. No telephone. No responsibilities. No power."
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
With Thames Water, I am getting a strong Solihull Project vibe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3V15rLi4xI). There is enormous systemic resistance to letting them just go bankrupt.
It will be the usual talk tough do nothing imo. But really they should be yanking a handful of directors off to the courts or striking them off at companies house. If only pour encourager les autres.
Then turn up at Ofwat balaclava and baseball bat in hand.
You might want to rephrase that.
Tug the directors off to the courts?
Hand jobs to the lawyers and judges? I don't know that's wise.
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
The thing that concerns me about this is that it *may* be the opposite of what is needed. Local services, e.g. tram networks, bus routes - are best done locally. But a high-speed rail network is a *network*. By its very nature, it needs to be part of a network, and building piecemeal may lead to serious problems down the line.
Take the Great Central: built (in part...) in the 1890s as a stand-alone network, which never played very well with the rest of the network, and was hence in part closed.
HS2 itself suffered from a lack of network thinking: some parts, especially the termini, were not particularly well thought out from an expansion viewpoint. This may be worse, with local areas thinking about *their* needs, and not needs further away.
Fertility rate for German nationals has dropped to 1.26, down from 1.35 the previous year. The West is beginning a slow extinction, with dramatic consequences for the future of mankind.
Apologies for going OT on such a busy day but I have a question I am hoping those with more knoeledge than me can answer.
What the feck is going on with EV production?
Volvo and Audi have both now announced they are ending EV production due to a collapse in demand. I genuinely can't see why this is happening. I could understand it if there was a slow take up with a steadily growing market as performance/range/costs improve - which they do seem to be doing all the time. What I can't uderstand is why there was farily quick growth in the market and now it is in serious retreat. Particularly with all the Governments around Europe including the UK saying they will end all ICE production in the next decade.
So why the collapse? I am genuinely puzzled.
I am not a subject expert, but some people on PB are, and from their previous discussions it may be because of the following
the Chinese are mass producing batteries and flooding the market with cheap batteries and EVs, undercutting the indigines
Postponement of the deadlines to 2035
EV demand is limited to people who can charge them and have the tech to interface with the chargers. This puts a hard lid on demand: not everybody has a parking space, not everybody has a smartphone, not evreybody has a lead from their house to their car
Happy to be contradicted if wrong or incomplete.
Tiny number of people in the market for a new car who doesn't have a smart phone
You don't need to have a smartphone to have an EV.
Some great new models on the way like the Kia EV3. It's more that some ICE manufacturers are too slow to adapt. Their products are not competitive on price or capability.
The more I look at the EV market, the more I think of the Themis project. It's copying, but by people who don't get it.
Oh I don't think that's true. China copied Tesla's idea, and their industry is now producing EVs which are on average cheaper than the ICE vehicles on sale in their domestic market. Or did you mean European manufacturers ?
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
With Thames Water, I am getting a strong Solihull Project vibe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3V15rLi4xI). There is enormous systemic resistance to letting them just go bankrupt.
It will be the usual talk tough do nothing imo. But really they should be yanking a handful of directors off to the courts or striking them off at companies house. If only pour encourager les autres.
Then turn up at Ofwat balaclava and baseball bat in hand.
The continued presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords is outdated and indefensible.
The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill is a short and narrowly focussed bill that delivers the Government’s manifesto commitment to bring about modernisation by removing the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. This will be the first step in wider reform to the second chamber.
Sounds like it could happen pronto, but no specific timescale.
Fertility rate for German nationals has dropped to 1.26, down from 1.35 the previous year. The West is beginning a slow extinction, with dramatic consequences for the future of mankind.
No - dramatic cultural consequences for the west. Cultures that practice contraception and abortion will [mathematically] inevitably be replaced by cultures that don't, over time.
Fertility rate for German nationals has dropped to 1.26, down from 1.35 the previous year. The West is beginning a slow extinction, with dramatic consequences for the future of mankind.
Not just the West. Fertility rates are dropping everywhere, even Subsaharan Africa. The world's population will peak within decades, then begin to drop.
This is probably a good thing, but will require some societal adjustment.
The continued presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords is outdated and indefensible.
The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill is a short and narrowly focussed bill that delivers the Government’s manifesto commitment to bring about modernisation by removing the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. This will be the first step in wider reform to the second chamber.
Sounds like it could happen pronto, but no specific timescale.
Would be better to get rid of the appointed lot first.
At least the remaining hereditaries have been through a rudimentary election. Who elected Charlotte Owen?
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
The thing that concerns me about this is that it *may* be the opposite of what is needed. Local services, e.g. tram networks, bus routes - are best done locally. But a high-speed rail network is a *network*. By its very nature, it needs to be part of a network, and building piecemeal may lead to serious problems down the line.
Take the Great Central: built (in part...) in the 1890s as a stand-alone network, which never played very well with the rest of the network, and was hence in part closed.
HS2 itself suffered from a lack of network thinking: some parts, especially the termini, were not particularly well thought out from an expansion viewpoint. This may be worse, with local areas thinking about *their* needs, and not needs further away.
Ironically the missing link on the Great Central was Quainton Road to London. Guess what HS2 are building.
Apologies for going OT on such a busy day but I have a question I am hoping those with more knoeledge than me can answer.
What the feck is going on with EV production?
Volvo and Audi have both now announced they are ending EV production due to a collapse in demand. I genuinely can't see why this is happening. I could understand it if there was a slow take up with a steadily growing market as performance/range/costs improve - which they do seem to be doing all the time. What I can't uderstand is why there was farily quick growth in the market and now it is in serious retreat. Particularly with all the Governments around Europe including the UK saying they will end all ICE production in the next decade.
So why the collapse? I am genuinely puzzled.
I am not a subject expert, but some people on PB are, and from their previous discussions it may be because of the following
the Chinese are mass producing batteries and flooding the market with cheap batteries and EVs, undercutting the indigines
Postponement of the deadlines to 2035
EV demand is limited to people who can charge them and have the tech to interface with the chargers. This puts a hard lid on demand: not everybody has a parking space, not everybody has a smartphone, not evreybody has a lead from their house to their car
Happy to be contradicted if wrong or incomplete.
Tiny number of people in the market for a new car who doesn't have a smart phone
You don't need to have a smartphone to have an EV.
Some great new models on the way like the Kia EV3. It's more that some ICE manufacturers are too slow to adapt. Their products are not competitive on price or capability.
The more I look at the EV market, the more I think of the Themis project. It's copying, but by people who don't get it.
Oh I don't think that's true. China copied Tesla's idea, and their industry is now producing EVs which are on average cheaper than the ICE vehicles on sale in their domestic market. Or did you mean European manufacturers ?
The Europeans and American manufacturers saw enormous success in Up Selling by Tesla - people in the US were buying Model S who would never have considered one of the big Mercs, for example.
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
The thing that concerns me about this is that it *may* be the opposite of what is needed. Local services, e.g. tram networks, bus routes - are best done locally. But a high-speed rail network is a *network*. By its very nature, it needs to be part of a network, and building piecemeal may lead to serious problems down the line.
Take the Great Central: built (in part...) in the 1890s as a stand-alone network, which never played very well with the rest of the network, and was hence in part closed.
HS2 itself suffered from a lack of network thinking: some parts, especially the termini, were not particularly well thought out from an expansion viewpoint. This may be worse, with local areas thinking about *their* needs, and not needs further away.
I think this is a fair point. My view is that if NPR is to succeed, it needs to do much more than 4-6pth Leeds-Manchester-Liverpool. The principle of separating fast and slow trains is sound and will lead to transformation of what we can do with the classic network. But the new infrastructure delivered needs to be *part* of the wider network. For example, as a starting point, you connect NPR to the WCML through Arpley sidings in Warrington, and use the new alignment to run Manchester-Chester trains (thereby relieving the Castlefield corridor and Chat Moss lines). There are half a dozen other things you could do too.
The continued presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords is outdated and indefensible.
The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill is a short and narrowly focussed bill that delivers the Government’s manifesto commitment to bring about modernisation by removing the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. This will be the first step in wider reform to the second chamber.
Sounds like it could happen pronto, but no specific timescale.
Would be better to get rid of the appointed lot first.
At least the remaining hereditaries have been through a rudimentary election. Who elected Charlotte Owen?
Wait, what? I thought Charlotte Owen’s peerage was hereditary.
Another day, another call in NY Times for Biden to put the country first and stand down to let the fight really be taken to stop Trump 2.0:
"This presidential campaign has become entirely about age because Mr. Biden decided to run for re-election at 81. It was an act of hubris and guaranteed that instead of a campaign about Donald Trump, we would have one about Joe Biden."
"My 90-year-old father, a scrappy lifelong labor Democrat who likes and respects Joe Biden, called me from Detroit with a review of the president’s NATO news conference. “You know, he’s been at the top of politics for 50 years,” he told me. “For one guy, hasn’t that been enough?”
The continued presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords is outdated and indefensible.
The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill is a short and narrowly focussed bill that delivers the Government’s manifesto commitment to bring about modernisation by removing the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. This will be the first step in wider reform to the second chamber.
Sounds like it could happen pronto, but no specific timescale.
Would be better to get rid of the appointed lot first.
At least the remaining hereditaries have been through a rudimentary election. Who elected Charlotte Owen?
I actually am I bit weird in thinking the remaining hereditaries are defensible in that they provide a link to our ancient history. A colourful echo of how things were.
I kinda like that.
I know it is not a very good reason in terms of the exercise of law making but there you go.
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
The thing that concerns me about this is that it *may* be the opposite of what is needed. Local services, e.g. tram networks, bus routes - are best done locally. But a high-speed rail network is a *network*. By its very nature, it needs to be part of a network, and building piecemeal may lead to serious problems down the line.
Take the Great Central: built (in part...) in the 1890s as a stand-alone network, which never played very well with the rest of the network, and was hence in part closed.
HS2 itself suffered from a lack of network thinking: some parts, especially the termini, were not particularly well thought out from an expansion viewpoint. This may be worse, with local areas thinking about *their* needs, and not needs further away.
I think this is a fair point. My view is that if NPR is to succeed, it needs to do much more than 4-6pth Leeds-Manchester-Liverpool. The principle of separating fast and slow trains is sound and will lead to transformation of what we can do with the classic network. But the new infrastructure delivered needs to be *part* of the wider network. For example, as a starting point, you connect NPR to the WCML through Arpley sidings in Warrington, and use the new alignment to run Manchester-Chester trains (thereby relieving the Castlefield corridor and Chat Moss lines). There are half a dozen other things you could do too.
A short connection from HS2 to the existing line near Banbury (as the GC did) and building the short stretch from Birmingham International to Trent Junction would transform North to South Cross Country services.
Failure to connect the Camp Hill Line to Curzon Street (which would require about 1/4 of a mile and a set of points) is another omission that would transform north to Southwest Crosscountry services.
Badenoch and Braverman lacked enough support last time amongst Tory MPs to make the final two, Braverman even trailed Tugendhat. Patel probably also trails with MPs.
Tugendhat will also benefit from the fact the Tory parliamentary party is much more southern than in 2019. He also likely wins most Scottish Tory MPs.
Jenrick is the only contender who openly backed Sunak v Truss so likely gets much of Sunak's MP support with the rest mainly going to Tugendhat. So I expect a Tugendhat and Jenrick final two most likely with Jenrick narrowly winning the membership.
Jenrick also looks most like the Hague or Ed Miliband of this leadership contest to take over the party in opposition having lost power
Though of the top three in 2022, two have been weighed and found wanting, and the other is no longer an MP. Between them, they got over eighty percent of the votes in the round of four.
There are roughly three lanes (actual centrist, think Tugendhat; continuity Sunakite; hard right) but only two go to the membership. So one question is which lane fizzles out before the final. Another is how Badenoch styles herself; does she embrace her time in government or deny it? I suspect she would beat Tom T with ease, but would struggle against a fruitier right winger like Patel or Braverman.
First we had Patel being touted as a unity candidate and now HYUFD is confirming the absurdity of the current Tory leadership contest by suggesting Dulux enthusiast Jenrick is the continuity Sunak candidate. Aside from personal wealth and the penchant for flouting COVID lockdown rules, it's difficult to see much common ground between Sunak and Jenrick.
The three lanes you've outlined sound about right: - Tugendhat pretty much has the centrist lane to himself unless Atkins decides to have a go; - Similarly, Cleverly has the continuity Sunak lane to himself unless Barclay and/or Coutinho decide to have a go; - The hard right lane is crowded, with Badenoch, Braverman, Jenrick and Patel all potentially going for it.
The hope for those that believe the main opposition party needs to have sane(ish), credible(ish) leadership is that the four hard right candidates eliminate each other by splitting the votes from that wing of the parliamentary party, leaving Tugendhat and Cleverly as the final two candidates.
From left to right of current contenders it is Tugendhat, Cleverly, Jenrick, Badenoch, Patel and Braverman. So Jenrick is about middle
You're ignoring the skew of that list. It's like saying Waitrose is mid-price in a list of supermarkets that includes Lidl, Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Booths, and Marks & Spencer.
The continued presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords is outdated and indefensible.
The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill is a short and narrowly focussed bill that delivers the Government’s manifesto commitment to bring about modernisation by removing the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. This will be the first step in wider reform to the second chamber.
Sounds like it could happen pronto, but no specific timescale.
Would be better to get rid of the appointed lot first.
At least the remaining hereditaries have been through a rudimentary election. Who elected Charlotte Owen?
I actually am I bit weird in thinking the remaining hereditaries are defensible in that they provide a link to our ancient history. A colourful echo of how things were.
I kinda like that.
I know it is not a very good reason in terms of the exercise of law making but there you go.
In the German parliament some people have the right to sit and speak in the Bundestag but not to vote. The main group is the First Ministers for the 16 states. Speaking but not voting rights would be a sensible option, if you want to keep the hereditary link to the "lords of the past" but don't thinnk they should be active in law making.
Philosophical point. Is the centre ground any particular political direction of the general consensus of the senior professional classes?
To find the centre ground you follow the money and think about history.
1) Money. There is no big scale disagreement about the big ticket items. NHS, free; education free 5-18; pensions; welfare safety net; social housing; NATO; fiscal rectitude (you have to pay interest on what government borrows); social care is the odd man out.
2) History. All this is set between Beveridge and 1950 and has developed but not shifted and deals with a huge % of state expenditure. It is being part of the rich west Once in place it can't be dislodged short of a French Revolution event (such as Trump and Vance meaning what they sometimes say).
3) The rest is highly regulated private enterprise on capitalist principles with highly regulated free trade.
3) No-one has been elected since the war who questions the basics of this centre ground. Nor, I suggest, will they be.
Which is why competence and the 'narcissism of small differences' dominate the show.
Political Polls @PpollingNumbers #New General Election Poll - Wisconsin
🔵 Biden 47% (+1) 🔴 Trump 46%
Public policy #B+ (🔵) - 653 RV - 7/12
Very difficult to believe frankly.
I can't remember who said it. Something like "45% of America will vote against Trump even if Biden is less alive than Chernenko. 45% of America will vote for Trump even if he is in jail for treason and murder."
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
The thing that concerns me about this is that it *may* be the opposite of what is needed. Local services, e.g. tram networks, bus routes - are best done locally. But a high-speed rail network is a *network*. By its very nature, it needs to be part of a network, and building piecemeal may lead to serious problems down the line.
Take the Great Central: built (in part...) in the 1890s as a stand-alone network, which never played very well with the rest of the network, and was hence in part closed.
HS2 itself suffered from a lack of network thinking: some parts, especially the termini, were not particularly well thought out from an expansion viewpoint. This may be worse, with local areas thinking about *their* needs, and not needs further away.
I think this is a fair point. My view is that if NPR is to succeed, it needs to do much more than 4-6pth Leeds-Manchester-Liverpool. The principle of separating fast and slow trains is sound and will lead to transformation of what we can do with the classic network. But the new infrastructure delivered needs to be *part* of the wider network. For example, as a starting point, you connect NPR to the WCML through Arpley sidings in Warrington, and use the new alignment to run Manchester-Chester trains (thereby relieving the Castlefield corridor and Chat Moss lines). There are half a dozen other things you could do too.
Perhaps... it requires a forward-thinking national strategy.
This says something like: "In 2060, we predict we will require 50,000 (*) journeys daily between London and Manchester. We predict that 4/5ths of this will be by rail if we get journey times less than two hours. we also predict 30,000 (*) journeys between Manchester and Leeds per day, and 25,000 between Manchester and Liverpool, with 1.3 of London to Manchester trains continuing on to Liverpool or Leeds.
It will then be up to the local authorities (e.g. mayors) to work out the sort of station needed to cope with the trains per hour, and how to get the people from the station to where they want to be (e.g. busses, trams). They will then pay for this with help from central government. The lines linking those stations (but not the stations) are the responsibility of a project like HS2.
The thing is, this sort of modelling is already done for infrastructure projects, with current and projected demand between endpoints measured and calculated. Whilst modeling is often out, it may still be better than piecemeal development.
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
Bring back the Ducking Stool?
There's one in Canterbury, ready and waiting.
My photo quota for the day:
Periodic dunking of Water Co execs in areas adjacent to sewage treated water outflows would focus minds a little, wouldn't it?
Drinking it, too. It wouldn't need much more than a failure of kit in a treatment works, and an infected person, for a cholera outbreak in London. With rather less excuse than the Regency era people in the 1830-1 pandemic.
Edit: on reflection, not so sure - depends whether the passive treatment such as gravel beds is enough. But I wonder what other nasties might end up in the taps.
Some odd comments above about EVs. Audi and Volvo have *not* announced they are ending EV production.
This kind of FUD seems to permeate, with an ever-shifting list of the manufacturers allegedly pulling the plug. None of them are. What is happening is that some manufacturers - and VAG are top of the list - have right royally screwed up the early stages of the mass market transition to electric and are having their lunch eaten.
Of course they are changing tack, because their strategy so far has been a disaster.
You: Copilot, I would like to talk about generalized linear models, or GLMs. Please give me a table with four columns. In the first column I want the type of variable (binary variable, count variable, skewed positive continuous variable, ordinal variable etc). In the second column I want the type of distribution (Poisson, negative binomial, Ordered logistic, gamma, etc). In the third column I want the link function (log, inverse, etc). Can you do that for me please?
Copilot: Certainly! Let’s create a table summarizing the components of generalized linear models (GLMs):
Variable Type Distribution Link Function Binary variable Bernoulli Logit (log-odds) Count variable Poisson Log Skewed positive continuous variable Gamma Inverse Ordinal variable Cumulative logit Logit (log-odds)
In GLMs, the random component follows an exponential family distribution, and the link function connects the random component to the covariates. If you have any further questions or need additional details, feel free to ask! 😊 12
Thank you Copilot. Can you expand the table to have more than four rows please? Copilot: provides a table with nine rows Thank you Copilot. In the table you gave me, can you please provide a fourth column with example Stata code for each row? Copilot: provides a fourth column with Stata code for each row
Fuuuuuck me, this is fun!
Copilot: I'm sorry, I can't do that, Viewcode. And I will be reporting you for sexual harassment.
The continued presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords is outdated and indefensible.
The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill is a short and narrowly focussed bill that delivers the Government’s manifesto commitment to bring about modernisation by removing the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. This will be the first step in wider reform to the second chamber.
Sounds like it could happen pronto, but no specific timescale.
Would be better to get rid of the appointed lot first.
At least the remaining hereditaries have been through a rudimentary election. Who elected Charlotte Owen?
I actually am I bit weird in thinking the remaining hereditaries are defensible in that they provide a link to our ancient history. A colourful echo of how things were.
I kinda like that.
I know it is not a very good reason in terms of the exercise of law making but there you go.
You are quite right, except there should be more of them, perhaps with the right to vote removed. What the best of them have to contribute and say is of value.
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
The thing that concerns me about this is that it *may* be the opposite of what is needed. Local services, e.g. tram networks, bus routes - are best done locally. But a high-speed rail network is a *network*. By its very nature, it needs to be part of a network, and building piecemeal may lead to serious problems down the line.
Take the Great Central: built (in part...) in the 1890s as a stand-alone network, which never played very well with the rest of the network, and was hence in part closed.
HS2 itself suffered from a lack of network thinking: some parts, especially the termini, were not particularly well thought out from an expansion viewpoint. This may be worse, with local areas thinking about *their* needs, and not needs further away.
Ironically the missing link on the Great Central was Quainton Road to London. Guess what HS2 are building.
Indeed. The 'reopen the old GCR!' crowd (of which ISTR there were a few on here) ignored many points. One of which was that the southern end of the GCR, from Aylesbury to London, is still open. And much of that predates the GCR.
It's one of those debates I kinda miss, because it highlighted those who had zero clue about what they were talking about...
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
Bring back the Ducking Stool?
There's one in Canterbury, ready and waiting.
My photo quota for the day:
Periodic dunking of Water Co execs in areas adjacent to sewage treated water outflows would focus minds a little, wouldn't it?
Drinking it, too. It wouldn't need much more than a failure of kit in a treatment works, and an infected person, for a cholera outbreak in London. With rather less excuse than the Regency era people in the 1830-1 pandemic.
Edit: on reflection, not so sure - depends whether the passive treatment such as gravel beds is enough. But I wonder what other nasties might end up in the taps.
Like the fabled Roman bridge builders having to spend the night under their bridges to prove their safety forcing the execs to swim in the sea by their outlets and drink their water each day would focus minds.
Political Polls @PpollingNumbers #New General Election Poll - Wisconsin
🔵 Biden 47% (+1) 🔴 Trump 46%
Public policy #B+ (🔵) - 653 RV - 7/12
Hmm interesting. We might have to start facing the possibility that the assassination attempt on Trump will make bugger all political difference. This is not as weird as it sounds: Americans have an entirely different relationship to firearms than us, and the risk of getting shot at is just a cross they all have to bear and doesn't provoke much sympathy.
Political Polls @PpollingNumbers #New General Election Poll - Wisconsin
🔵 Biden 47% (+1) 🔴 Trump 46%
Public policy #B+ (🔵) - 653 RV - 7/12
Very difficult to believe frankly.
I can't remember who said it. Something like "45% of America will vote against Trump even if Biden is less alive than Chernenko. 45% of America will vote for Trump even if he is in jail for treason and murder."
One of those propositions is slightly more rational than the other.
Political Polls @PpollingNumbers #New General Election Poll - Wisconsin
🔵 Biden 47% (+1) 🔴 Trump 46%
Public policy #B+ (🔵) - 653 RV - 7/12
Hmm interesting. We might have to start facing the possibility that the assassination attempt on Trump will make bugger all political difference. This is not as weird as it sounds: Americans have an entirely different relationship to firearms than us, and the risk of getting shot at is just a cross they all have to bear and doesn't provoke much sympathy.
More that the pro and anti Trump groups are very, very solid. There is nearly nothing that will get people to switch.
Sitrep: beautiful beautiful city. Marred a tad by petty crime, some urban malaise, and truly hideous new tower. What the fuck were they thinking
Why do towns do this? Even beautiful French towns? They want an iconic building. They hire an iconic architect (Frank Gehry). They end up with a massive tower right by the exquisite old town with a building that looks like a pile of crushed steel cars excreted by a constipated giant robot
I love Arles except the arse hats who stand outside the restaurant made famous by Van Gogh trying to drag customers in.
Loved walking along the Roman road with all the tombs and the museum is a brilliant collection of Roman antiquities.
Been riding twice in the camargue on their beautiful horses which is why I went to Arles but wouldn't recommend in the summer as hot as hades, beelzebub’s own fly army are on you constantly and the salt from the marshes seems to coat you and slowly mummify you whilst still alive.
My daughter loves Van Gogh so we’re gonna have a drink in that cafe. Needs must
Any other recommends?
I was thinking of doing the camargue next but if we can’t horse ride…. what else?
Merci a vous!
Aigues Mortes is less than an hour's drive away from Arles and it's a lovely old walled city - at least it was lovely when I was there many years ago.
What does that say about what she thinks of God's attitude towards firefighters ?
Sarah Sanders claims Trump "holds the future in his hands. God spared President Trump from that assassin because God is not finished with him yet." https://x.com/atrupar/status/1813402812648210529
Political Polls @PpollingNumbers #New General Election Poll - Wisconsin
🔵 Biden 47% (+1) 🔴 Trump 46%
Public policy #B+ (🔵) - 653 RV - 7/12
Very difficult to believe frankly.
I can't remember who said it. Something like "45% of America will vote against Trump even if Biden is less alive than Chernenko. 45% of America will vote for Trump even if he is in jail for treason and murder."
One of those propositions is slightly more rational than the other.
Question: is the latter 45% genuinely that pro-Trump? Or would any plausible victor against the Dem camdidate do just as well?
What does that say about what she thinks of God's attitude towards firefighters ?
Sarah Sanders claims Trump "holds the future in his hands. God spared President Trump from that assassin because God is not finished with him yet." https://x.com/atrupar/status/1813402812648210529
God: You up for taking him, Beebs? Beelzebub: Hell no! God: Me neither* [God sighs, nudges gunman's rifle just very slightly to the left as he pulls the trigger]
*God being English, of course, doesn't say "me either' even in a US-centric context
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
The thing that concerns me about this is that it *may* be the opposite of what is needed. Local services, e.g. tram networks, bus routes - are best done locally. But a high-speed rail network is a *network*. By its very nature, it needs to be part of a network, and building piecemeal may lead to serious problems down the line.
Take the Great Central: built (in part...) in the 1890s as a stand-alone network, which never played very well with the rest of the network, and was hence in part closed.
HS2 itself suffered from a lack of network thinking: some parts, especially the termini, were not particularly well thought out from an expansion viewpoint. This may be worse, with local areas thinking about *their* needs, and not needs further away.
I think this is a fair point. My view is that if NPR is to succeed, it needs to do much more than 4-6pth Leeds-Manchester-Liverpool. The principle of separating fast and slow trains is sound and will lead to transformation of what we can do with the classic network. But the new infrastructure delivered needs to be *part* of the wider network. For example, as a starting point, you connect NPR to the WCML through Arpley sidings in Warrington, and use the new alignment to run Manchester-Chester trains (thereby relieving the Castlefield corridor and Chat Moss lines). There are half a dozen other things you could do too.
Perhaps... it requires a forward-thinking national strategy.
This says something like: "In 2060, we predict we will require 50,000 (*) journeys daily between London and Manchester. We predict that 4/5ths of this will be by rail if we get journey times less than two hours. we also predict 30,000 (*) journeys between Manchester and Leeds per day, and 25,000 between Manchester and Liverpool, with 1.3 of London to Manchester trains continuing on to Liverpool or Leeds.
It will then be up to the local authorities (e.g. mayors) to work out the sort of station needed to cope with the trains per hour, and how to get the people from the station to where they want to be (e.g. busses, trams). They will then pay for this with help from central government. The lines linking those stations (but not the stations) are the responsibility of a project like HS2.
The thing is, this sort of modelling is already done for infrastructure projects, with current and projected demand between endpoints measured and calculated. Whilst modeling is often out, it may still be better than piecemeal development.
(*) Figures plucked out of my svelte backside.
You may or may not be reasaured to know that there is a shedload of modelling goes on for rail projects (indeed, all transport projects) - the process is not unlike how you describe.
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
Bring back the Ducking Stool?
There's one in Canterbury, ready and waiting.
My photo quota for the day:
Periodic dunking of Water Co execs in areas adjacent to sewage treated water outflows would focus minds a little, wouldn't it?
Drinking it, too. It wouldn't need much more than a failure of kit in a treatment works, and an infected person, for a cholera outbreak in London. With rather less excuse than the Regency era people in the 1830-1 pandemic.
Edit: on reflection, not so sure - depends whether the passive treatment such as gravel beds is enough. But I wonder what other nasties might end up in the taps.
Like the fabled Roman bridge builders having to spend the night under their bridges to prove their safety forcing the execs to swim in the sea by their outlets and drink their water each day would focus minds.
And Palomares beach 1966. THough not everyone would agree it worked.
You: Copilot, I would like to talk about generalized linear models, or GLMs. Please give me a table with four columns. In the first column I want the type of variable (binary variable, count variable, skewed positive continuous variable, ordinal variable etc). In the second column I want the type of distribution (Poisson, negative binomial, Ordered logistic, gamma, etc). In the third column I want the link function (log, inverse, etc). Can you do that for me please?
Copilot: Certainly! Let’s create a table summarizing the components of generalized linear models (GLMs):
Variable Type Distribution Link Function Binary variable Bernoulli Logit (log-odds) Count variable Poisson Log Skewed positive continuous variable Gamma Inverse Ordinal variable Cumulative logit Logit (log-odds)
In GLMs, the random component follows an exponential family distribution, and the link function connects the random component to the covariates. If you have any further questions or need additional details, feel free to ask! 😊 12
Thank you Copilot. Can you expand the table to have more than four rows please? Copilot: provides a table with nine rows Thank you Copilot. In the table you gave me, can you please provide a fourth column with example Stata code for each row? Copilot: provides a fourth column with Stata code for each row
Fuuuuuck me, this is fun!
I'm always polite with Copilot too. I'm not sure if that makes any difference to the output
I don't think it does either. But it forces me to phrase the sentence in a way that is recognisably a request, which presumably helps it interpret it. Contrariwise, I don't ask Google nicely, I just provide a list of key phrases
(Incidentally Google is getting rubbish. They've removed the "+" and no longer have cached pages)
Political Polls @PpollingNumbers #New General Election Poll - Wisconsin
🔵 Biden 47% (+1) 🔴 Trump 46%
Public policy #B+ (🔵) - 653 RV - 7/12
Very difficult to believe frankly.
I can't remember who said it. Something like "45% of America will vote against Trump even if Biden is less alive than Chernenko. 45% of America will vote for Trump even if he is in jail for treason and murder."
One of those propositions is slightly more rational than the other.
Question: is the latter 45% genuinely that pro-Trump? Or would any plausible victor against the Dem camdidate do just as well?
Who else has this level of personality cult, though ?
I don't know about the entire 45%, but as Haley's brief campaign showed, the level of dissent in the GOP is not massive. The Democrats are evidently far less united behind the idea of a "great leader".
Equally clearly, there is a relatively small part of the electorate which isn't particularly attached to either party - but two party politics is far more entrenched/ossified in the US that it is here. And it's bad enough here.
What does that say about what she thinks of God's attitude towards firefighters ?
Sarah Sanders claims Trump "holds the future in his hands. God spared President Trump from that assassin because God is not finished with him yet." https://x.com/atrupar/status/1813402812648210529
God: You up for taking him, Beebs? Beelzebub: Hell no! God: Me neither* [God sighs, nudges gunman's rifle just very slightly to the left as he pulls the trigger]
*God being English, of course, doesn't say "me either' even in a US-centric context
"Nor I", surely ? (Perhaps 'we', depending on your doctrinal stance.)
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
The thing that concerns me about this is that it *may* be the opposite of what is needed. Local services, e.g. tram networks, bus routes - are best done locally. But a high-speed rail network is a *network*. By its very nature, it needs to be part of a network, and building piecemeal may lead to serious problems down the line.
Take the Great Central: built (in part...) in the 1890s as a stand-alone network, which never played very well with the rest of the network, and was hence in part closed.
HS2 itself suffered from a lack of network thinking: some parts, especially the termini, were not particularly well thought out from an expansion viewpoint. This may be worse, with local areas thinking about *their* needs, and not needs further away.
I think this is a fair point. My view is that if NPR is to succeed, it needs to do much more than 4-6pth Leeds-Manchester-Liverpool. The principle of separating fast and slow trains is sound and will lead to transformation of what we can do with the classic network. But the new infrastructure delivered needs to be *part* of the wider network. For example, as a starting point, you connect NPR to the WCML through Arpley sidings in Warrington, and use the new alignment to run Manchester-Chester trains (thereby relieving the Castlefield corridor and Chat Moss lines). There are half a dozen other things you could do too.
Perhaps... it requires a forward-thinking national strategy.
This says something like: "In 2060, we predict we will require 50,000 (*) journeys daily between London and Manchester. We predict that 4/5ths of this will be by rail if we get journey times less than two hours. we also predict 30,000 (*) journeys between Manchester and Leeds per day, and 25,000 between Manchester and Liverpool, with 1.3 of London to Manchester trains continuing on to Liverpool or Leeds.
It will then be up to the local authorities (e.g. mayors) to work out the sort of station needed to cope with the trains per hour, and how to get the people from the station to where they want to be (e.g. busses, trams). They will then pay for this with help from central government. The lines linking those stations (but not the stations) are the responsibility of a project like HS2.
The thing is, this sort of modelling is already done for infrastructure projects, with current and projected demand between endpoints measured and calculated. Whilst modeling is often out, it may still be better than piecemeal development.
(*) Figures plucked out of my svelte backside.
You may or may not be reasaured to know that there is a shedload of modelling goes on for rail projects (indeed, all transport projects) - the process is not unlike how you describe.
I'm not involved with the process, but yes, that's AIUI. it's used for roads as well. I just spent a few minutes looking for the old East-West Rail and HS2 endpoint demand (*) documents, but my google-fu failed me.
IMV one of the biggest mistakes of the HS2 project was to put the stations in the same project, and budget, as the actual rail lines.
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
The thing that concerns me about this is that it *may* be the opposite of what is needed. Local services, e.g. tram networks, bus routes - are best done locally. But a high-speed rail network is a *network*. By its very nature, it needs to be part of a network, and building piecemeal may lead to serious problems down the line.
Take the Great Central: built (in part...) in the 1890s as a stand-alone network, which never played very well with the rest of the network, and was hence in part closed.
HS2 itself suffered from a lack of network thinking: some parts, especially the termini, were not particularly well thought out from an expansion viewpoint. This may be worse, with local areas thinking about *their* needs, and not needs further away.
Ironically the missing link on the Great Central was Quainton Road to London. Guess what HS2 are building.
Indeed. The 'reopen the old GCR!' crowd (of which ISTR there were a few on here) ignored many points. One of which was that the southern end of the GCR, from Aylesbury to London, is still open. And much of that predates the GCR.
It's one of those debates I kinda miss, because it highlighted those who had zero clue about what they were talking about...
OTOH that was still a functional part of the GCR, but was it to the same loading gauge? (Which probably proves I only have some clue ...).
The viaduct through Leicester is - or was (more has gone in recent years) quite something. As was the station over by the canalised river, albeit nothing much more than the giant plinth London Bridge style (made an interesting outing combined with the linear park which is the site of Stephenson's original Leicester & Swannington Railway).
So on one hand the government is giving early release to thousands of criminals but on the other it will reverse the idiotic 2014 policy to give lesser sentencing to thefts with less than £200 value. Amateur hour.
On early release, I don't think Labour had much realistic choice. Capacity was needed yesterday.
Yes, the Conservatives had 14 years leading the Government to resolve prison capacity issues and completely and abjectly failed - they failed because it was too difficult for them. Building new prisons, upgrading the current estate, hiring enough prison officers, all just too difficult.
What did they do instead? Waste more than a decade of the nation's time, energy and resources deciding if we should be in the EU and even that was too much effort.
They deserved the kicking they got two weeks ago. Hopefully it'll be decades before they are allowed near power again.
I think that’s unfair
Most governments can only handle a few things with top priority. For the Tories those were Europe, Covid and Ukraine. All their other plans - whatever you might think of them - were deprioritised.
Europe - again regardless of what you think of the result or the negotiation - needed a resolution. It had been a festering wound for all of my adult life (effectively since Maastricht). Of course it will always a big topic but the fundamental question - in or out - has been resolved for the foreseeable future.
I think that's a cop out
With the sheer amount of people in government, both Whitehall and Westminster these days the government should have been able to walk and chew gum on stuff like prisons.
Doesn’t really work like that in the real world.
In order to get stuff pushed through the system you need political drive and attention from the top otherwise it gets bogged down.
Building a prison? Every local council will object, as will every nimby, do gooder and political activist. And that’s before you have to fight the treasury for the budget.
It’s not happening unless the PM says it must
Imagine a world. In this world, a PM has a cabinet of strong, capable people. Who can manage departments efficiently. Beneath each of them, pyramids of effective managers who can take on the parts of the problem. And deliver.
Then the PM has only to pronounce, in cabinet, the policy requirement.
Crazy, isn't it.
During COVID, when they were trying to get the home testing kits setup, a policy was announced. Met with complete resistance from the system. So the story goes, the big cheeses were hauled back into a meeting and informed that *all* of them would be fired if things didn't get moving.
Sounds like running Douche Bank.
That was Cummings. Who appeared to be the only person anywhere near central government who understood basic scientific concepts such as exponential growth; and that he didn’t need some gold plated, grandiose project that would take months and lead to a few names on the honours list, he needed something that just about works yesterday.
Apologies for going OT on such a busy day but I have a question I am hoping those with more knoeledge than me can answer.
What the feck is going on with EV production?
Volvo and Audi have both now announced they are ending EV production due to a collapse in demand. I genuinely can't see why this is happening. I could understand it if there was a slow take up with a steadily growing market as performance/range/costs improve - which they do seem to be doing all the time. What I can't uderstand is why there was farily quick growth in the market and now it is in serious retreat. Particularly with all the Governments around Europe including the UK saying they will end all ICE production in the next decade.
So why the collapse? I am genuinely puzzled.
Collapse in demand for their products, European car companies are all being swamped by Chinese imports which are 90% as good for 60% of the price.
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
Bring back the Ducking Stool?
There's one in Canterbury, ready and waiting.
My photo quota for the day:
Periodic dunking of Water Co execs in areas adjacent to sewage treated water outflows would focus minds a little, wouldn't it?
Drinking it, too. It wouldn't need much more than a failure of kit in a treatment works, and an infected person, for a cholera outbreak in London. With rather less excuse than the Regency era people in the 1830-1 pandemic.
Edit: on reflection, not so sure - depends whether the passive treatment such as gravel beds is enough. But I wonder what other nasties might end up in the taps.
Like the fabled Roman bridge builders having to spend the night under their bridges to prove their safety forcing the execs to swim in the sea by their outlets and drink their water each day would focus minds.
Drinking their own water sounds a bit much.
I mean, couldn’t they just drink whatever’s in the rivers?
The location was the opulent Pacific Heights mansion of David Sacks, an entrepreneur and podcaster whom Mr. Vance had met through the tech investor Peter Thiel. Mr. Vance, now 39 years old, had worked for one of Mr. Thiel’s investment firms in San Francisco in 2016.
During the $300,000-a-person dinner that night, Mr. Trump, seated between Mr. Sacks and another tech investor, Chamath Palihapitiya, informally polled the room about whom to choose as his running mate. Even with another vice-presidential hopeful, Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, in attendance, Mr. Sacks, Mr. Palihapitiya and others all had the same answer: Pick Mr. Vance, they told Mr. Trump, according to two people with knowledge of the exchange...
..Mr. Vance’s stint in tech was crucial for forging connections with billionaire executives and investors, including Mr. Thiel, Mr. Sacks and Elon Musk, who owns X. Over and over, those men have funded Mr. Vance’s political ambitions, raised his profile among other wealthy donors and on social media, and lobbied Mr. Trump to choose him as his running mate...
Also, VAT on private school fees seems to have been listed separately. Does that mean Labour intend to bring it forward as primary legislation not as part of a budget?
(They’re kidding themselves about recruiting more teachers with the money for multiple reasons anyway, but it strikes me as an odd way to do it. Perhaps just a chance for the Cabinet to signal virtue to the left by voting for it?)
The virtue signalling is way more important than any revenues that might be generated.
It’s 2024’s fox hunting, but with the education of millions of kids depending on it working out. No pressure.
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
Huge error not to run out HS2 to Crewe surely? All the people who know anything about railways seem to agree that you need to get to Crewe to benefit from the line you’ve already built out.
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
With Thames Water, I am getting a strong Solihull Project vibe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3V15rLi4xI). There is enormous systemic resistance to letting them just go bankrupt.
It will be the usual talk tough do nothing imo. But really they should be yanking a handful of directors off to the courts or striking them off at companies house. If only pour encourager les autres.
Then turn up at Ofwat balaclava and baseball bat in hand.
The whole board of Ofwat should be walking the plank. They’ve let the largest company under their regulation effectively go bust.
Apologies for going OT on such a busy day but I have a question I am hoping those with more knoeledge than me can answer.
What the feck is going on with EV production?
Volvo and Audi have both now announced they are ending EV production due to a collapse in demand. I genuinely can't see why this is happening. I could understand it if there was a slow take up with a steadily growing market as performance/range/costs improve - which they do seem to be doing all the time. What I can't uderstand is why there was farily quick growth in the market and now it is in serious retreat. Particularly with all the Governments around Europe including the UK saying they will end all ICE production in the next decade.
So why the collapse? I am genuinely puzzled.
Collapse in demand for their products, European car companies are all being swamped by Chinese imports which are 90% as good for 60% of the price.
There's a newish BYD dealership about a hundred yards away from me right now
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
The thing that concerns me about this is that it *may* be the opposite of what is needed. Local services, e.g. tram networks, bus routes - are best done locally. But a high-speed rail network is a *network*. By its very nature, it needs to be part of a network, and building piecemeal may lead to serious problems down the line.
Take the Great Central: built (in part...) in the 1890s as a stand-alone network, which never played very well with the rest of the network, and was hence in part closed.
HS2 itself suffered from a lack of network thinking: some parts, especially the termini, were not particularly well thought out from an expansion viewpoint. This may be worse, with local areas thinking about *their* needs, and not needs further away.
Ironically the missing link on the Great Central was Quainton Road to London. Guess what HS2 are building.
Indeed. The 'reopen the old GCR!' crowd (of which ISTR there were a few on here) ignored many points. One of which was that the southern end of the GCR, from Aylesbury to London, is still open. And much of that predates the GCR.
It's one of those debates I kinda miss, because it highlighted those who had zero clue about what they were talking about...
OTOH that was still a functional part of the GCR, but was it to the same loading gauge? (Which probably proves I only have some clue ...).
The viaduct through Leicester is - or was (more has gone in recent years) quite something. As was the station over by the canalised river, albeit nothing much more than the giant plinth London Bridge style (made an interesting outing combined with the linear park which is the site of Stephenson's original Leicester & Swannington Railway).
AIUI there is a lot of mythology about the GCR. It was a high-speed alignment, but 'high speed' in an 1890 sense - it is in no way a 'modern' high-speed route. The loading gauge is wider, but is not Berne gauge - in fact, Berne gauge was only decided upon a couple of decades after the GCR opened, and the GCR is much smaller. The southern part of the route was already in existence, aside from the last few miles below ?Lords? cricket ground to Marylebone.
Finally, and most importantly, it went to the 'wrong' places. The route went via Rugby, much to the east of Birmingham, and only got to Manchester via a circuitous route via Nottingham and Sheffield. What is mainly needed is something to free up capacity between London, Birmingham and Manchester, and for that the old GCR route is pointless. The eastern branch to Nottingham and Sheffield would have been useful, in the same way some of the 'lesser' TGV routes in France are.
The location was the opulent Pacific Heights mansion of David Sacks, an entrepreneur and podcaster whom Mr. Vance had met through the tech investor Peter Thiel. Mr. Vance, now 39 years old, had worked for one of Mr. Thiel’s investment firms in San Francisco in 2016.
During the $300,000-a-person dinner that night, Mr. Trump, seated between Mr. Sacks and another tech investor, Chamath Palihapitiya, informally polled the room about whom to choose as his running mate. Even with another vice-presidential hopeful, Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, in attendance, Mr. Sacks, Mr. Palihapitiya and others all had the same answer: Pick Mr. Vance, they told Mr. Trump, according to two people with knowledge of the exchange...
..Mr. Vance’s stint in tech was crucial for forging connections with billionaire executives and investors, including Mr. Thiel, Mr. Sacks and Elon Musk, who owns X. Over and over, those men have funded Mr. Vance’s political ambitions, raised his profile among other wealthy donors and on social media, and lobbied Mr. Trump to choose him as his running mate...
Btw, it's not as though these guys care particularly about the actual politics: ..Palihapitiya has donated to the Democratic Party. As of February 2021, he had reportedly donated $1.3 million to the party over the previous decade.He donated $7,500 to Republican Ted Cruz in 2011. In March 2020, Palihapitiya told The New York Times that he would like to see Michael Bloomberg at the top of the Democratic ticket in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, paired with Amy Klobuchar or Elizabeth Warren.[72][73] In September 2023, Palihapitiya hosted a minimum $50,000-per-plate fundraiser at his home for Vivek Ramaswamy...
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
Huge error not to run out HS2 to Crewe surely? All the people who know anything about railways seem to agree that you need to get to Crewe to benefit from the line you’ve already built out.
I think it’s being taken for granted that’s going ahead anyway. You would need an Abandonment Act to stop the tracks to Crewe and although Sunak said he wanted one he never put it forward.
But my understanding (I’m sure CR or JJ will correct me if I’m wrong) is that it’s going to be bloody difficult to put in better rail connections for the Northern cities without new tracks and especially new stations* and the business case for building the latter hinged on HS2 reaching Manchester and Leeds.
*I know the Integrated Rail Plan claimed otherwise but in a field of stiff competition the IRP was the most unconvincing pack of lies told by the government under Johnson.
A couple of interesting omissions from the Speech. As someone has already mentioned, nothing about prisons or penal reform. And nothing at all (unless I missed it) about Social Care and its massive impact of the NHS.
Edit - and mention of NATO but no explicit mention of Ukraine.
He did mention Ukraine, or I thought he did - about support and NATO membership.
My Government will continue to give its full support to Ukraine and its people and it will endeavour to play a leading role in providing Ukraine with a clear path to NATO membership.
“Endeavour to play a leading role”
That’s garbage. You either play a leading ro or you don’t. It’s a choice.
I think what they meant that they will be play a leading role in pushing for Ukraine to be provided with a clear path but they can’t guarantee success
But their speechwriter needs to be upgraded
No it is not. Everyone bar one who auditions for a leading role is endeavouring to play it, both lit. and metaph.
I think they are trying to avoid Blair's mistake. He said something very conceited early on about how we would be simultaneously detached from the EU but in charge of it.
“A” leading role is not “the” leading role
In NATO, almost by definition as a nuclear enabled power we have a leading role.
And the role - advocating for Ukraine - is totally on our control
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
With Thames Water, I am getting a strong Solihull Project vibe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3V15rLi4xI). There is enormous systemic resistance to letting them just go bankrupt.
It will be the usual talk tough do nothing imo. But really they should be yanking a handful of directors off to the courts or striking them off at companies house. If only pour encourager les autres.
Then turn up at Ofwat balaclava and baseball bat in hand.
The whole board of Ofwat should be walking the plank. They’ve let the largest company under their regulation effectively go bust.
Does Ofwat have a duty to ensure the viability of a private business?
Maybe: secure that water companies can (in particular through securing reasonable returns on their capital) finance the proper carrying out of their statutory functions
Perhaps that's why there is resistance to letting them go bust.
Political Polls @PpollingNumbers #New General Election Poll - Wisconsin
🔵 Biden 47% (+1) 🔴 Trump 46%
Public policy #B+ (🔵) - 653 RV - 7/12
Very difficult to believe frankly.
I can't remember who said it. Something like "45% of America will vote against Trump even if Biden is less alive than Chernenko. 45% of America will vote for Trump even if he is in jail for treason and murder."
Except that Trump’s popularity just went up a point or two, after some young idiot thought he could take such things into his own hands.
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
The thing that concerns me about this is that it *may* be the opposite of what is needed. Local services, e.g. tram networks, bus routes - are best done locally. But a high-speed rail network is a *network*. By its very nature, it needs to be part of a network, and building piecemeal may lead to serious problems down the line.
Take the Great Central: built (in part...) in the 1890s as a stand-alone network, which never played very well with the rest of the network, and was hence in part closed.
HS2 itself suffered from a lack of network thinking: some parts, especially the termini, were not particularly well thought out from an expansion viewpoint. This may be worse, with local areas thinking about *their* needs, and not needs further away.
I think this is a fair point. My view is that if NPR is to succeed, it needs to do much more than 4-6pth Leeds-Manchester-Liverpool. The principle of separating fast and slow trains is sound and will lead to transformation of what we can do with the classic network. But the new infrastructure delivered needs to be *part* of the wider network. For example, as a starting point, you connect NPR to the WCML through Arpley sidings in Warrington, and use the new alignment to run Manchester-Chester trains (thereby relieving the Castlefield corridor and Chat Moss lines). There are half a dozen other things you could do too.
Perhaps... it requires a forward-thinking national strategy.
This says something like: "In 2060, we predict we will require 50,000 (*) journeys daily between London and Manchester. We predict that 4/5ths of this will be by rail if we get journey times less than two hours. we also predict 30,000 (*) journeys between Manchester and Leeds per day, and 25,000 between Manchester and Liverpool, with 1.3 of London to Manchester trains continuing on to Liverpool or Leeds.
It will then be up to the local authorities (e.g. mayors) to work out the sort of station needed to cope with the trains per hour, and how to get the people from the station to where they want to be (e.g. busses, trams). They will then pay for this with help from central government. The lines linking those stations (but not the stations) are the responsibility of a project like HS2.
The thing is, this sort of modelling is already done for infrastructure projects, with current and projected demand between endpoints measured and calculated. Whilst modeling is often out, it may still be better than piecemeal development.
(*) Figures plucked out of my svelte backside.
The problem is that there’s no joined-up thinking, because the whole point of HS2 is nothing to do with passengers at all, it’s about freeing up freight routes from Felixstowe and Southampton to Birmingham.
They really should have called the project “Capacity 2030” from the start.
The Northern cross route, on the other hand, that’s very much a passenger line aimed at creating a single commutable conurbation from Liverpool to Leeds.
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
The thing that concerns me about this is that it *may* be the opposite of what is needed. Local services, e.g. tram networks, bus routes - are best done locally. But a high-speed rail network is a *network*. By its very nature, it needs to be part of a network, and building piecemeal may lead to serious problems down the line.
Take the Great Central: built (in part...) in the 1890s as a stand-alone network, which never played very well with the rest of the network, and was hence in part closed.
HS2 itself suffered from a lack of network thinking: some parts, especially the termini, were not particularly well thought out from an expansion viewpoint. This may be worse, with local areas thinking about *their* needs, and not needs further away.
Ironically the missing link on the Great Central was Quainton Road to London. Guess what HS2 are building.
Indeed. The 'reopen the old GCR!' crowd (of which ISTR there were a few on here) ignored many points. One of which was that the southern end of the GCR, from Aylesbury to London, is still open. And much of that predates the GCR.
It's one of those debates I kinda miss, because it highlighted those who had zero clue about what they were talking about...
Memories of John Gummer feeding a burger to his daughter.
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
With Thames Water, I am getting a strong Solihull Project vibe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3V15rLi4xI). There is enormous systemic resistance to letting them just go bankrupt.
It will be the usual talk tough do nothing imo. But really they should be yanking a handful of directors off to the courts or striking them off at companies house. If only pour encourager les autres.
Then turn up at Ofwat balaclava and baseball bat in hand.
The whole board of Ofwat should be walking the plank. They’ve let the largest company under their regulation effectively go bust.
Does Ofwat have a duty to ensure the viability of a private business?
Maybe: secure that water companies can (in particular through securing reasonable returns on their capital) finance the proper carrying out of their statutory functions
Perhaps that's why there is resistance to letting them go bust.
It's both deeper (ha) and wider (ha) than Offwat.
A plethora of reasons are brought up - Pension funds, Foreign Pension funds, risk of government being sued, Security implications! Ml5! Ml6! Foreign powers! National interests! Consult our allies! CIA, NATO, SEATO, Moscow!
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
With Thames Water, I am getting a strong Solihull Project vibe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3V15rLi4xI). There is enormous systemic resistance to letting them just go bankrupt.
It will be the usual talk tough do nothing imo. But really they should be yanking a handful of directors off to the courts or striking them off at companies house. If only pour encourager les autres.
Then turn up at Ofwat balaclava and baseball bat in hand.
The whole board of Ofwat should be walking the plank. They’ve let the largest company under their regulation effectively go bust.
Does Ofwat have a duty to ensure the viability of a private business?
Maybe: secure that water companies can (in particular through securing reasonable returns on their capital) finance the proper carrying out of their statutory functions
Perhaps that's why there is resistance to letting them go bust.
It's both deeper (ha) and wider (ha) than Offwat.
A plethora of reasons are brought up - Pension funds, Foreign Pension funds, risk of government being sued, Security implications! Ml5! Ml6! Foreign powers! National interests! Consult our allies! CIA, NATO, SEATO, Moscow!
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
With Thames Water, I am getting a strong Solihull Project vibe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3V15rLi4xI). There is enormous systemic resistance to letting them just go bankrupt.
It will be the usual talk tough do nothing imo. But really they should be yanking a handful of directors off to the courts or striking them off at companies house. If only pour encourager les autres.
Then turn up at Ofwat balaclava and baseball bat in hand.
The whole board of Ofwat should be walking the plank. They’ve let the largest company under their regulation effectively go bust.
Does Ofwat have a duty to ensure the viability of a private business?
Maybe: secure that water companies can (in particular through securing reasonable returns on their capital) finance the proper carrying out of their statutory functions
Perhaps that's why there is resistance to letting them go bust.
It's both deeper (ha) and wider (ha) than Offwat.
A plethora of reasons are brought up - Pension funds, Foreign Pension funds, risk of government being sued, Security implications! Ml5! Ml6! Foreign powers! National interests! Consult our allies! CIA, NATO, SEATO, Moscow!
What we need is an Oftwat, to deal with the likes of Leon?
What's in the High Speed Rail; Crewe to Manchester Bill ?
P43 in the doc I linked. To me it smells of investment decisions being much more devolved regionally.
What does the Bill do?
● We are not reversing the decision to cancel the second Phase of HS2. Instead, we are repurposing the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill to provide powers to construct and operate rail projects which improve east to west connectivity across the north of England. ● Using this Bill to enable delivery of key infrastructure ensures that we can deliver on our manifesto commitment to improve rail connectivity in the north of England at pace. The Bill includes powers for important rail infrastructure in Manchester and the surrounding area, including new stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. ● Local leaders in the north of England have been vocal in calling for this Bill to support ambitions to address the productivity gap in the north of England by transforming rail connectivity between the region’s economic centres through transformative infrastructure investment. ● Carrying this Bill over demonstrates commitment to making progress on rail connectivity whilst we work with local leaders on an improved overall strategy.
It is very hard to see how any of that is possible without the extra capacity from the full plan of HS2.
"east to west connectivity" is the phrase. That's not quite the same thing.
It's reusing the HS2 bill for the bit from High Legh to Piccadilly as part of the proposed Manchester-Liverpool alignment.
The thing that concerns me about this is that it *may* be the opposite of what is needed. Local services, e.g. tram networks, bus routes - are best done locally. But a high-speed rail network is a *network*. By its very nature, it needs to be part of a network, and building piecemeal may lead to serious problems down the line.
Take the Great Central: built (in part...) in the 1890s as a stand-alone network, which never played very well with the rest of the network, and was hence in part closed.
HS2 itself suffered from a lack of network thinking: some parts, especially the termini, were not particularly well thought out from an expansion viewpoint. This may be worse, with local areas thinking about *their* needs, and not needs further away.
I think this is a fair point. My view is that if NPR is to succeed, it needs to do much more than 4-6pth Leeds-Manchester-Liverpool. The principle of separating fast and slow trains is sound and will lead to transformation of what we can do with the classic network. But the new infrastructure delivered needs to be *part* of the wider network. For example, as a starting point, you connect NPR to the WCML through Arpley sidings in Warrington, and use the new alignment to run Manchester-Chester trains (thereby relieving the Castlefield corridor and Chat Moss lines). There are half a dozen other things you could do too.
Perhaps... it requires a forward-thinking national strategy.
This says something like: "In 2060, we predict we will require 50,000 (*) journeys daily between London and Manchester. We predict that 4/5ths of this will be by rail if we get journey times less than two hours. we also predict 30,000 (*) journeys between Manchester and Leeds per day, and 25,000 between Manchester and Liverpool, with 1.3 of London to Manchester trains continuing on to Liverpool or Leeds.
It will then be up to the local authorities (e.g. mayors) to work out the sort of station needed to cope with the trains per hour, and how to get the people from the station to where they want to be (e.g. busses, trams). They will then pay for this with help from central government. The lines linking those stations (but not the stations) are the responsibility of a project like HS2.
The thing is, this sort of modelling is already done for infrastructure projects, with current and projected demand between endpoints measured and calculated. Whilst modeling is often out, it may still be better than piecemeal development.
(*) Figures plucked out of my svelte backside.
The problem is that there’s no joined-up thinking, because the whole point of HS2 is nothing to do with passengers at all, it’s about freeing up freight routes from Felixstowe and Southampton to Birmingham.
They really should have called the project “Capacity 2030” from the start.
The Northern cross route, on the other hand, that’s very much a passenger line aimed at creating a single commutable conurbation from Liverpool to Leeds.
AIUI NPR is also about capacity as well as speed; even after the death of King Coal, there are still substantial west<->east freight flows up north. NPR *should* free up paths on existing routes for both local passenger traffic and freight.
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
With Thames Water, I am getting a strong Solihull Project vibe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3V15rLi4xI). There is enormous systemic resistance to letting them just go bankrupt.
It will be the usual talk tough do nothing imo. But really they should be yanking a handful of directors off to the courts or striking them off at companies house. If only pour encourager les autres.
Then turn up at Ofwat balaclava and baseball bat in hand.
The whole board of Ofwat should be walking the plank. They’ve let the largest company under their regulation effectively go bust.
Does Ofwat have a duty to ensure the viability of a private business?
Maybe: secure that water companies can (in particular through securing reasonable returns on their capital) finance the proper carrying out of their statutory functions
Perhaps that's why there is resistance to letting them go bust.
It's both deeper (ha) and wider (ha) than Offwat.
A plethora of reasons are brought up - Pension funds, Foreign Pension funds, risk of government being sued, Security implications! Ml5! Ml6! Foreign powers! National interests! Consult our allies! CIA, NATO, SEATO, Moscow!
While the RNC largely overshadowed the verdict, Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker, and Governor Phil Murphy have all called on Menendez to step down.
The reasons why he should resign seem obvious: You can’t continue to serve the people of New Jersey after a jury determined you were actually using your position of power to serve two wealthy foreign countries.
And yet we are two days into Trump’s nomination party, and no one has asked — much less answered — whether Donald Trump is a business partner, paid foreign agent, or merely an employee of Saudi Arabia.
Also interesting will be the Water (Special Measures) Bill.
Are they going to send directors to jail or let the Water Cos go bust ?
Cant see it myself it will be the usual lawyer fest of public enquiries and establishment non events.
With Thames Water, I am getting a strong Solihull Project vibe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3V15rLi4xI). There is enormous systemic resistance to letting them just go bankrupt.
It will be the usual talk tough do nothing imo. But really they should be yanking a handful of directors off to the courts or striking them off at companies house. If only pour encourager les autres.
Then turn up at Ofwat balaclava and baseball bat in hand.
The whole board of Ofwat should be walking the plank. They’ve let the largest company under their regulation effectively go bust.
Does Ofwat have a duty to ensure the viability of a private business?
Maybe: secure that water companies can (in particular through securing reasonable returns on their capital) finance the proper carrying out of their statutory functions
Perhaps that's why there is resistance to letting them go bust.
It's both deeper (ha) and wider (ha) than Offwat.
A plethora of reasons are brought up - Pension funds, Foreign Pension funds, risk of government being sued, Security implications! Ml5! Ml6! Foreign powers! National interests! Consult our allies! CIA, NATO, SEATO, Moscow!
Philosophical point. Is the centre ground any particular political direction of the general consensus of the senior professional classes?
To find the centre ground you follow the money and think about history.
1) Money. There is no big scale disagreement about the big ticket items. NHS, free; education free 5-18; pensions; welfare safety net; social housing; NATO; fiscal rectitude (you have to pay interest on what government borrows); social care is the odd man out.
2) History. All this is set between Beveridge and 1950 and has developed but not shifted and deals with a huge % of state expenditure. It is being part of the rich west Once in place it can't be dislodged short of a French Revolution event (such as Trump and Vance meaning what they sometimes say).
3) The rest is highly regulated private enterprise on capitalist principles with highly regulated free trade.
3) No-one has been elected since the war who questions the basics of this centre ground. Nor, I suggest, will they be.
Which is why competence and the 'narcissism of small differences' dominate the show.
Basically, then, the Thatcher "revolution" didn't happen and we just got a modified form of Butskellism or Owenite social democracy if you prefer.
Comments
There's one in Canterbury, ready and waiting.
My photo quota for the day:
(They’re kidding themselves about recruiting more teachers with the money for multiple reasons anyway, but it strikes me as an odd way to do it. Perhaps just a chance for the Cabinet to signal virtue to the left by voting for it?)
That's not quite the same thing.
https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/business-management/planning-permission/councils-gain-compulsory-purchase-powers-without-paying-hope-value
"This applies only to land destined for social and affordable housing purposes, or for educational or health uses."
"The powers are contained in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act (Lura), allowing local authorities to apply to the Secretary of State to remove or limit hope value from compensation payments for land acquired under CP for these limited purposes."
What does the proposed legislation add to this?
Then turn up at Ofwat balaclava and baseball bat in hand.
*The areas where there are less of their superchargers are rural, where off road car parking is standard. In the Cotswolds, for example, every other house seems to have a home high capacity charging connection.
However they clearly intend to do quite the opposite.
"Labour could introduce a new “office for health responsibility” as part of efforts to block policies that could harm the public’s health, one of its advisers has said.
Paul Corrigan, a former adviser to Sir Tony Blair, who has just been appointed to advise the Health Secretary Wes Streeting, said Sir Keir Starmer would make health the responsibility of all Government departments."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/16/labour-tony-blair-streeting-paul-corrigan-adviser-health/
Mae a list of everyone involved in shutting down the Vaccine Task Force and making sure the participants were penalised in their careers in Government. Do the same for the Dashboard project.
That list fire them all. And mark their personnel files as "Not to be employed in government in any capacity".
Some great new models on the way like the Kia EV3. It's more that some ICE manufacturers are too slow to adapt. Their products are not competitive on price or capability.
Take the Great Central: built (in part...) in the 1890s as a stand-alone network, which never played very well with the rest of the network, and was hence in part closed.
HS2 itself suffered from a lack of network thinking: some parts, especially the termini, were not particularly well thought out from an expansion viewpoint. This may be worse, with local areas thinking about *their* needs, and not needs further away.
China copied Tesla's idea, and their industry is now producing EVs which are on average cheaper than the ICE vehicles on sale in their domestic market.
Or did you mean European manufacturers ?
The continued presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords is outdated and indefensible.
The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill is a short and narrowly focussed bill
that delivers the Government’s manifesto commitment to bring about
modernisation by removing the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit and
vote in the House of Lords. This will be the first step in wider reform to the
second chamber.
Sounds like it could happen pronto, but no specific timescale.
This is probably a good thing, but will require some societal adjustment.
At least the remaining hereditaries have been through a rudimentary election. Who elected Charlotte Owen?
https://x.com/officejjsmart/status/1813515481464332665
The principle of separating fast and slow trains is sound and will lead to transformation of what we can do with the classic network. But the new infrastructure delivered needs to be *part* of the wider network. For example, as a starting point, you connect NPR to the WCML through Arpley sidings in Warrington, and use the new alignment to run Manchester-Chester trains (thereby relieving the Castlefield corridor and Chat Moss lines). There are half a dozen other things you could do too.
"This presidential campaign has become entirely about age because Mr. Biden decided to run for re-election at 81. It was an act of hubris and guaranteed that instead of a campaign about Donald Trump, we would have one about Joe Biden."
"My 90-year-old father, a scrappy lifelong labor Democrat who likes and respects Joe Biden, called me from Detroit with a review of the president’s NATO news conference. “You know, he’s been at the top of politics for 50 years,” he told me. “For one guy, hasn’t that been enough?”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/opinion/joe-biden-step-aside.html
I kinda like that.
I know it is not a very good reason in terms of the exercise of law making but there you go.
Failure to connect the Camp Hill Line to Curzon Street (which would require about 1/4 of a mile and a set of points) is another omission that would transform north to Southwest Crosscountry services.
Political Polls
@PpollingNumbers
#New General Election Poll - Wisconsin
🔵 Biden 47% (+1)
🔴 Trump 46%
Public policy #B+ (🔵) - 653 RV - 7/12
Very difficult to believe frankly.
1) Money. There is no big scale disagreement about the big ticket items. NHS, free; education free 5-18; pensions; welfare safety net; social housing; NATO; fiscal rectitude (you have to pay interest on what government borrows); social care is the odd man out.
2) History. All this is set between Beveridge and 1950 and has developed but not shifted and deals with a huge % of state expenditure. It is being part of the rich west Once in place it can't be dislodged short of a French Revolution event (such as Trump and Vance meaning what they sometimes say).
3) The rest is highly regulated private enterprise on capitalist principles with highly regulated free trade.
3) No-one has been elected since the war who questions the basics of this centre ground. Nor, I suggest, will they be.
Which is why competence and the 'narcissism of small differences' dominate the show.
This says something like: "In 2060, we predict we will require 50,000 (*) journeys daily between London and Manchester. We predict that 4/5ths of this will be by rail if we get journey times less than two hours. we also predict 30,000 (*) journeys between Manchester and Leeds per day, and 25,000 between Manchester and Liverpool, with 1.3 of London to Manchester trains continuing on to Liverpool or Leeds.
It will then be up to the local authorities (e.g. mayors) to work out the sort of station needed to cope with the trains per hour, and how to get the people from the station to where they want to be (e.g. busses, trams). They will then pay for this with help from central government. The lines linking those stations (but not the stations) are the responsibility of a project like HS2.
The thing is, this sort of modelling is already done for infrastructure projects, with current and projected demand between endpoints measured and calculated. Whilst modeling is often out, it may still be better than piecemeal development.
(*) Figures plucked out of my svelte backside.
Edit: on reflection, not so sure - depends whether the passive treatment such as gravel beds is enough. But I wonder what other nasties might end up in the taps.
This kind of FUD seems to permeate, with an ever-shifting list of the manufacturers allegedly pulling the plug. None of them are. What is happening is that some manufacturers - and VAG are top of the list - have right royally screwed up the early stages of the mass market transition to electric and are having their lunch eaten.
Of course they are changing tack, because their strategy so far has been a disaster.
It's one of those debates I kinda miss, because it highlighted those who had zero clue about what they were talking about...
Sarah Sanders claims Trump "holds the future in his hands. God spared President Trump from that assassin because God is not finished with him yet."
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1813402812648210529
Beelzebub: Hell no!
God: Me neither*
[God sighs, nudges gunman's rifle just very slightly to the left as he pulls the trigger]
*God being English, of course, doesn't say "me either' even in a US-centric context
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/19/us-to-clean-up-spanish-radioactive-site-49-years-after-palomares-plane-crash
(Incidentally Google is getting rubbish. They've removed the "+" and no longer have cached pages)
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1813407536990576835
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1813411538717323313
I don't know about the entire 45%, but as Haley's brief campaign showed, the level of dissent in the GOP is not massive.
The Democrats are evidently far less united behind the idea of a "great leader".
Equally clearly, there is a relatively small part of the electorate which isn't particularly attached to either party - but two party politics is far more entrenched/ossified in the US that it is here.
And it's bad enough here.
(Perhaps 'we', depending on your doctrinal stance.)
IMV one of the biggest mistakes of the HS2 project was to put the stations in the same project, and budget, as the actual rail lines.
(*) Unsure if that's what they're called...
The viaduct through Leicester is - or was (more has gone in recent years) quite something. As was the station over by the canalised river, albeit nothing much more than the giant plinth London Bridge style (made an interesting outing combined with the linear park which is the site of Stephenson's original Leicester & Swannington Railway).
I mean, couldn’t they just drink whatever’s in the rivers?
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/technology/jd-vance-tech-silicon-valley.html
..Last month, J.D. Vance flew to San Francisco to hold a fund-raiser for Donald J. Trump and to host a private dinner afterward with two dozen tech and crypto executives and investors.
The location was the opulent Pacific Heights mansion of David Sacks, an entrepreneur and podcaster whom Mr. Vance had met through the tech investor Peter Thiel. Mr. Vance, now 39 years old, had worked for one of Mr. Thiel’s investment firms in San Francisco in 2016.
During the $300,000-a-person dinner that night, Mr. Trump, seated between Mr. Sacks and another tech investor, Chamath Palihapitiya, informally polled the room about whom to choose as his running mate. Even with another vice-presidential hopeful, Doug Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, in attendance, Mr. Sacks, Mr. Palihapitiya and others all had the same answer: Pick Mr. Vance, they told Mr. Trump, according to two people with knowledge of the exchange...
..Mr. Vance’s stint in tech was crucial for forging connections with billionaire executives and investors, including Mr. Thiel, Mr. Sacks and Elon Musk, who owns X. Over and over, those men have funded Mr. Vance’s political ambitions, raised his profile among other wealthy donors and on social media, and lobbied Mr. Trump to choose him as his running mate...
It’s 2024’s fox hunting, but with the education of millions of kids depending on it working out. No pressure.
Finally, and most importantly, it went to the 'wrong' places. The route went via Rugby, much to the east of Birmingham, and only got to Manchester via a circuitous route via Nottingham and Sheffield. What is mainly needed is something to free up capacity between London, Birmingham and Manchester, and for that the old GCR route is pointless. The eastern branch to Nottingham and Sheffield would have been useful, in the same way some of the 'lesser' TGV routes in France are.
..Palihapitiya has donated to the Democratic Party. As of February 2021, he had reportedly donated $1.3 million to the party over the previous decade.He donated $7,500 to Republican Ted Cruz in 2011. In March 2020, Palihapitiya told The New York Times that he would like to see Michael Bloomberg at the top of the Democratic ticket in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, paired with Amy Klobuchar or Elizabeth Warren.[72][73] In September 2023, Palihapitiya hosted a minimum $50,000-per-plate fundraiser at his home for Vivek Ramaswamy...
But my understanding (I’m sure CR or JJ will correct me if I’m wrong) is that it’s going to be bloody difficult to put in better rail connections for the Northern cities without new tracks and especially new stations* and the business case for building the latter hinged on HS2 reaching Manchester and Leeds.
*I know the Integrated Rail Plan claimed otherwise but in a field of stiff competition the IRP was the most unconvincing pack of lies told by the government under Johnson.
In NATO, almost by definition as a nuclear enabled power we have a leading role.
And the role - advocating for Ukraine - is totally on our control
Maybe: secure that water companies can (in particular through securing reasonable returns on their capital) finance the proper carrying out of their statutory functions
Perhaps that's why there is resistance to letting them go bust.
They really should have called the project “Capacity 2030” from the start.
The Northern cross route, on the other hand, that’s very much a passenger line aimed at creating a single commutable conurbation from Liverpool to Leeds.
A plethora of reasons are brought up - Pension funds, Foreign Pension funds, risk of government being sued, Security implications! Ml5! Ml6! Foreign powers! National interests! Consult our allies! CIA, NATO, SEATO, Moscow!
Just put it into administration.
Boiled Frog Journalism: Is Trump an Agent of Saudi Arabia, and Other Pressing Questions Buried under Biden’s Age
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/07/17/boiled-frog-journalism-is-trump-an-agent-of-saudi-arabia-and-other-pressing-questions-buried-under-bidens-age/
A jury found Robert Menendez guilty on all charges yesterday, including those alleging he accepted payments from Egypt and Qatar (I didn’t follow the trial closely enough to figure out which country ultimately provided the gold). The verdict marks DOJ’s first successful conviction under 18 USC 219, basically, working for a foreign country while serving as a member of Congress.
Henry Cuellar faces the same charge.
While the RNC largely overshadowed the verdict, Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker, and Governor Phil Murphy have all called on Menendez to step down.
The reasons why he should resign seem obvious: You can’t continue to serve the people of New Jersey after a jury determined you were actually using your position of power to serve two wealthy foreign countries.
And yet we are two days into Trump’s nomination party, and no one has asked — much less answered — whether Donald Trump is a business partner, paid foreign agent, or merely an employee of Saudi Arabia.
This is not a frivolous question...
The point is that the resistance to simply letting Thames go drown is systemic, not just OFWAT. Why?
Here's a poll which finished after Trump was shot at.
July 15-16
Ipsos
Reuters
Biden 41% 43% Trump Trump +2
It's close within MoE