Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Are you carried to and from your Uber to trains in a sealed palanquin?
Even better, I travel first class.
What sort of idiots in London would build a metro system and not include first class carriages?
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Are you carried to and from your Uber to trains in a sealed palanquin?
Even better, I travel first class.
What sort of idiots in London would build a metro system and not include first class carriages?
Cough. See my post above.
What was that, some sort of special party train?
Out in the sandpit where I live, we are civilised enough to have first class on every train.
Geniune Metropolitan Railway First Class Carriage haulef by Metropolitan Railway and LT locos. Open to anyone who buys a ticket.
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Or wheelchair users (see end of previous thread).
Or many elderly.
PB often has a disturbing tendency to forget those folk (and PBers to forget their own likely future).
As for buses, if Lothian Buses can have two wheelchair/buggy spaces and a quick-acting ramp ... But I forget. It interferes with the free market to have such socialist crap as municipal buses and disabled access. Apparently.
Blind forner colleague of mine said the most important thing is having a regular set of drivers on his service. They knew to look out for him, took notes of when he wasn't at the stop in case something had gone wrong, told him when the route would be diverted for roadworks etc
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
It's a stupid idea. Just rename St Pancreas to a proper name. Agincourt. Crécy, Aboukir (be nice to the locals)
Those of us who have diabetes would object to St Pancreas being renamed. It puts us on the map.
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
We are also going to need a lot more builders if we want to build more homes and improve infrastructure.
The basic problem is that the world has never been wealthier but that wealth is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of people and corporations. It's just sitting there doing next to nothing. Until we tackle that, discontent is only going to grow.
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
It's a stupid idea. Just rename St Pancreas to a proper name. Agincourt. Crécy, Aboukir (be nice to the locals)
The Conservatives are really in a dire place per this survey. Reform supporters have limited interest in switching; Labour and Lib Dem voters have zero interest whatsoever. Labour consequently in a strong position. The mile wide and an inch deep remarks don't seem on the mark.
There is a mild majority for gently 'progressive' politics, and a huge majority for competence.
The Tories have a huge opportunity and time to do it. To sort out their ideological position, work out some big ideas within the Overton window, explicitly reject populism (simple answers to complex problems), and exude competence.
BTW Lammy was disappointing this morning on R4 Today. He has not remotely mastered the art of appearing to answer the question while saying nothing. I kept thinking that Cameron or Mandelson would do this better. I like him a lot but is he quite the finished article?
Biden's COVID seems to have given the betting markets quite a jolt. Harris is back to favourite as the Democratic nominee now.
It sounds as if he is asymptomatic, just tested because Jill was symptomatic.
I would like to see him handover though. He's had a long run and needs to retire.
In Kamala we trust.
Still not sure about that. Biden really screwed things up by running through the primaries. I very much doubt that Kamala would have come out of competitive primaries on top.
The whole mess has significantly increased the probability of Trump 2: the revenge.
Sure, if Biden had not run and allowed an open field in the Dem primaries then he would really have been a bridge to a new generation, and a useful discussion of direction. That ship has sailed though.
Failing that, then stepping down now in favour of Kamala is the best option now.
Oh I agree, there really is no alternative now. But will Kamala beat Trump? I am really not sure. She is very California liberal type from what I can see and won't have anything like the blue collar reach that Biden had.
Which is why Biden will stay nominee.
I thought that until a couple of weeks ago but the pressure from his own side is building and, of course, undermining. If a number of senior Democrats go on record saying he is not up to it Tump will have a field day. I think he really has to stand down now but it is silly to think that this solves the Democrat's problems. It just gives them a new set.
It will be messy, so the next question is when is the least messy time for Biden to go? When would the Trump campaign lest like him to go- presumably with a "fellow Americans, I would love to serve you longer, but I must follow the advice of my doctors" speech? When would Michael Dobbs or Jeffrey Archer or someone like that write him as going?
It has to be at the Convention and his endorsed successor (Kamala, almost inevitably) must have everyone signed up behind her in advance so there is no challenge. "Messy" might understate it a little.
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Or wheelchair users (see end of previous thread).
Or many elderly.
PB often has a disturbing tendency to forget those folk (and PBers to forget their own likely future).
As for buses, if Lothian Buses can have two wheelchair/buggy spaces and a quick-acting ramp ... But I forget. It interferes with the free market to have such socialist crap as municipal buses and disabled access. Apparently.
Blind forner colleague of mine said the most important thing is having a regular set of drivers on his service. They knew to look out for him, took notes of when he wasn't at the stop in case something had gone wrong, told him when the route would be diverted for roadworks etc
The Lothain Buses improvements certainly seem to have got local people used to moving up etc when a wheelchair or buggy turns up (and to folding the buggy if needed). I don't remember any Karen [sic] incidents.
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
You can split those industries into 2 though. For universities most students return after 3 to 5 years so you have an initial massive increase but in the near future it will plateau out.
Likewise food supply is come here for 6-9 months then return home before the cycle repeats.
Social care and health are therefore the real issues and we don't have people who want to do the work and we don't have people willing to work for the wages offered so that is just going to be a problem fixed by imported people. And given we don't like Europeans it's going to be people from further afield..
Trouble is the net figures show that many don't return home, and that's corroborated by the census every 10 years.
Apparently, according to the BBC, there's a thing called the "Better Buses Bill" in the King's Speech.
Boris would be proud.
That one interests me.
Currently there's a Gadarene Rush to get electric buses in, but wheelchair space requirements are still stuck in the 1990s, and they are *always* - like everything else - done to the absolute minimum.
So a lot won't fit, and some only have one space (so send your partner on the next bus an hour later), and we just wired a lot of this in for another 25 years.
First Bus: A spokesperson for First York said: “The bus design we selected from the manufacturer meets all disability access requirements. The position of the poles has also been modified after consultation with disability groups.
A few months back I helped a man in a wheelchair off a bus on the way back from Cambridge. He was in the wheelchair space, but the driver and I had to manhandle the man and chair around a pole in order to get him out. It was inconvenient, wasted time and perhaps most importantly, not very dignified for the man.
It made me wonder whether the bus designers had actually tried their disabled provision space with a wide range of disabled people. (On the other hand, ISTR the bus had lowering suspension that enabled level entry. Might have that mixed up with another bus though.)
If you want me to I can bore for England on this one.
For buses they are defined around a thing called the "Reference Wheelchair", which is based on mobility aids from the 1990s I think. Here is more recent Govt research with data tables about how many won't fit (a lot) from 2021/2, but meanwhile all the buses are being replaced and it has not been put in place. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reference-wheelchair-standard-and-transport-design
The transit companies including rail usually like to work to the utter, utter legal minimum - just like LHAs building cycle facilities with no powerful local lobby groups, paint the lane, share the existing footpath and tick the box. The difference is between viewing something as a cost to be minimised or an investment to provide a full service. I'm watching on this one because fleet replacement time is the efficient time to do changes, but given the mentality requires some regulation - which they did not do under the last Govt.
Even to gain a priority right to occupy a wheelchair space took a legal action at Supreme Court level. And companies have fought it off enough that drivers have to little more than ask nicely. Karen refuses to move her pushchair, the driver won't take action, and the wheelchair user is left at the bus stop - happens quite regularly. Then what happens is that the wheelchair user gives up on public transport and stays at home. The problem is that if a service cannot be relied upon, then a vulnerable person can be dumped - which is not an acceptable risk. Some things could help, such as better bus services - but they aren't a fix.
What is the driver meant to do if Karen won't move?
If he so much as raises his voice to her she will be shrieking harrasment and assault (and racism if she can pull that one) with the whole thing filmed by other passengers and reported to the authorities and youtube.
The days when a bus driver could grab a passenger by the scruff of the neck and eject them are long over.
What is the driver to do if Karen has not a baby but her own wheelchair?
ETA or if Karen is a whole crowd of standing passengers because this is the rush hour?
Limits to numbers standing, anyway. And some of them get out of the way temporarily if need be.
Get out the way by getting off the bus, you mean? Make half a dozen people get off and wait for the next bus, where they can pay a second fare?
No, to the side or even off temporarily (though you have to make the driver knows). The restrictions on standing do however make that fairly unusual.
The LibDems are the least scrupulous party of the mainstream in GB, perhaps because they feel so sure they're right and the system is unfair that they have to manipulate it in any way they can? The level of misleading leaflets (espcially in quoting polls. sometimes omitting the Y-axis or relating to a different area) completely dwarfs what the other main parties offer, though none of the parties are squeaky clean. It's quite successful at a local level and they're hard to dislike in any other way so they get away with it. But arguably there are invisible drawbacks in reluctance to give way even when they are clearly the main local alternative to the Tories,
Oh come off it Nick. You should have seen some of the bar charts Lab and the Tories put out in Guildford at this election. Lab trying to claim it was neck and neck between them and the Tories. Tories did similarly. On polling day there was a good morning leaflet with two bars of equal length for the Tories and Labour with the LDs hardly registering and no reference as to where that came from at all and we can't think of anything it can possibly represent.
And the result was?
Oh and I remember Lab doing a bar chart and only Lab can win here and a vote for the LDs is a wasted vote in a Euro election with PR!!! Unscrupulous?
I always compare Lib Dems to lawyers.
Their principles require them not to have any principles.
Wage growth at the lowest for 2 years. Ignoring the fact that inflation is now 2% and that real wage growth is accordingly 3.7%, an unusually high increase.
Most of the Democratic Party, and all of their many friends in the media, preferred to spend the last year taking about how wonderfully the Emperor was dressesd, until he turned up to last month’s debate and the whole World saw him very much naked.
For logistical reasons, they are doing the formal nomination via an online meeting in advance of their Convention, probably on August 1st, so those who want to see someone else nominated don’t have a lot of time on their hands.
You've replied to the wrong post [eta now fixed] and your characterisation of pre-debate discussion is tendentious. There were lots of calls for Biden to retire for months before that debate.
I recall seeing many Conservative commentators suggesting he was somewhat frail and senile, but don’t recall many from his own side saying the same out loud before the debate.
Bonus point for ‘tendentious’ by the way, not seen that word for years.
The discussion predates the primaries. And as was noted repeatedly at the time, it's very hard indeed to run against a sitting president whose administration has not been a disaster. Then, just as much as now, the only way it works for the Democrats is for him to step down voluntarily.
The LibDems are the least scrupulous party of the mainstream in GB, perhaps because they feel so sure they're right and the system is unfair that they have to manipulate it in any way they can? The level of misleading leaflets (espcially in quoting polls. sometimes omitting the Y-axis or relating to a different area) completely dwarfs what the other main parties offer, though none of the parties are squeaky clean. It's quite successful at a local level and they're hard to dislike in any other way so they get away with it. But arguably there are invisible drawbacks in reluctance to give way even when they are clearly the main local alternative to the Tories,
Oh come off it Nick. You should have seen some of the bar charts Lab and the Tories put out in Guildford at this election. Lab trying to claim it was neck and neck between them and the Tories. Tories did similarly. On polling day there was a good morning leaflet with two bars of equal length for the Tories and Labour with the LDs hardly registering and no reference as to where that came from at all and we can't think of anything it can possibly represent.
And the result was?
Oh and I remember Lab doing a bar chart and only Lab can win here and a vote for the LDs is a wasted vote in a Euro election with PR!!! Unscrupulous?
I always compare Lib Dems to lawyers.
Their principles require them not to have any principles.
That's outrageous. I have lots of principles. And for the right fee I can have even more.
The LibDems are the least scrupulous party of the mainstream in GB, perhaps because they feel so sure they're right and the system is unfair that they have to manipulate it in any way they can? The level of misleading leaflets (espcially in quoting polls. sometimes omitting the Y-axis or relating to a different area) completely dwarfs what the other main parties offer, though none of the parties are squeaky clean. It's quite successful at a local level and they're hard to dislike in any other way so they get away with it. But arguably there are invisible drawbacks in reluctance to give way even when they are clearly the main local alternative to the Tories,
In my area a local community centre had to withdraw an exit poll after a hustings because the local Labour Party organised activists to pack the audience. In the last week of the election they were posting a poll from March on social media showing they were just behind the Tories in second place. They came third and the Lib Dems won. I’m not annoyed at them it’s politics but let’s not be sanctimonious and pretend that one party is worse than another.
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
It's a stupid idea. Just rename St Pancreas to a proper name. Agincourt. Crécy, Aboukir (be nice to the locals)
Those of us who have diabetes would object to St Pancreas being renamed. It puts us on the map.
As a compromise we could rename some of the Channel Islands as the Islets of Langerhans.
Biden's COVID seems to have given the betting markets quite a jolt. Harris is back to favourite as the Democratic nominee now.
It sounds as if he is asymptomatic, just tested because Jill was symptomatic.
I would like to see him handover though. He's had a long run and needs to retire.
In Kamala we trust.
Still not sure about that. Biden really screwed things up by running through the primaries. I very much doubt that Kamala would have come out of competitive primaries on top.
The whole mess has significantly increased the probability of Trump 2: the revenge.
Sure, if Biden had not run and allowed an open field in the Dem primaries then he would really have been a bridge to a new generation, and a useful discussion of direction. That ship has sailed though.
Failing that, then stepping down now in favour of Kamala is the best option now.
Oh I agree, there really is no alternative now. But will Kamala beat Trump? I am really not sure. She is very California liberal type from what I can see and won't have anything like the blue collar reach that Biden had.
Which is why Biden will stay nominee.
I thought that until a couple of weeks ago but the pressure from his own side is building and, of course, undermining. If a number of senior Democrats go on record saying he is not up to it Tump will have a field day. I think he really has to stand down now but it is silly to think that this solves the Democrat's problems. It just gives them a new set.
Getting a new set of problems is a good idea if you have no good solution for the original set of problems.
There is no good solution to Biden's deteriorating faculties.
Who would want to stand instead? The chances of winning are small, and the price of losing immense - including everyone saying that if Biden had not been driven out he would have won. A Democratic hopeful would await 2028 or at least await Biden's invitation to stand.
The complacency that the Democrats have shown over the last decade or so has been grossly negligent, they allowed Trump to install a 6-3 SCOTUS majority that will last for years, and Biden has done nothing to address it, and then the front runners to replace BIden sat back planning to campaign in 2028 when it's pretty clear Trump's backers intend to skew the system in the Republican's favour as far as possible.
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Are you carried to and from your Uber to trains in a sealed palanquin?
Even better, I travel first class.
What sort of idiots in London would build a metro system and not include first class carriages?
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Are you carried to and from your Uber to trains in a sealed palanquin?
Even better, I travel first class.
What sort of idiots in London would build a metro system and not include first class carriages?
Cough. See my post above.
What was that, some sort of special party train?
Out in the sandpit where I live, we are civilised enough to have first class on every train.
Geniune Metropolitan Railway First Class Carriage haulef by Metropolitan Railway and LT locos. Open to anyone who buys a ticket.
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Are you carried to and from your Uber to trains in a sealed palanquin?
Even better, I travel first class.
What sort of idiots in London would build a metro system and not include first class carriages?
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Are you carried to and from your Uber to trains in a sealed palanquin?
Even better, I travel first class.
What sort of idiots in London would build a metro system and not include first class carriages?
Cough. See my post above.
What was that, some sort of special party train?
Out in the sandpit where I live, we are civilised enough to have first class on every train.
Geniune Metropolitan Railway First Class Carriage haulef by Metropolitan Railway and LT locos. Open to anyone who buys a ticket.
The tickets were by lottery but shortly before the day, they announced that some of the winners hadn't taken them up and there were a batch available to buy if you enquired in person at the LT Museum.
The Fares were. Eastbound - Steam Loco pulling, electric pushing £100 third class, £160 first class.
Going the other way with the steam loco at the back was half the fare. As it was mostly in tunnels and the steam loco was working it didn't make much difference.
Rode in Met First Class Coach 353 built in 1892 and restored after a period as a house and later a farm outbuilding.
It had to be proper underground train stock on safety grounds. Mainline coaches don't have curved top doors to allow emergency evacuation in the tunnels.
I think something that only Lord Hendy could have got through. The fire people were jumpy about it to say the very least (steam engines full of red hot burning coal running underground through Kings Cross etc.
Had to have fire watchers everywhere and a staff member in every compartment to stop unauthorised door opening and window leaning.
Still got the ticket, confirming it was first class and the fare.
£80 was a lot in 2013 but a once in a lifetime opportunity and I now have provable bragging rights to be one of the few people alive to have travelled first class on the underground.
Also to have travelled on a non stop "Express" from Moorgate to Earls Court.
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
It's a stupid idea. Just rename St Pancreas to a proper name. Agincourt. Crécy, Aboukir (be nice to the locals)
Those of us who have diabetes would object to St Pancreas being renamed. It puts us on the map.
As a compromise we could rename some of the Channel Islands as the Islets of Langerhans.
"Langerhans" sounds like a German pseudonym @Leon would adopt.
Biden's COVID seems to have given the betting markets quite a jolt. Harris is back to favourite as the Democratic nominee now.
It sounds as if he is asymptomatic, just tested because Jill was symptomatic.
I would like to see him handover though. He's had a long run and needs to retire.
In Kamala we trust.
Still not sure about that. Biden really screwed things up by running through the primaries. I very much doubt that Kamala would have come out of competitive primaries on top.
The whole mess has significantly increased the probability of Trump 2: the revenge.
Sure, if Biden had not run and allowed an open field in the Dem primaries then he would really have been a bridge to a new generation, and a useful discussion of direction. That ship has sailed though.
Failing that, then stepping down now in favour of Kamala is the best option now.
Oh I agree, there really is no alternative now. But will Kamala beat Trump? I am really not sure. She is very California liberal type from what I can see and won't have anything like the blue collar reach that Biden had.
Which is why Biden will stay nominee.
I thought that until a couple of weeks ago but the pressure from his own side is building and, of course, undermining. If a number of senior Democrats go on record saying he is not up to it Tump will have a field day. I think he really has to stand down now but it is silly to think that this solves the Democrat's problems. It just gives them a new set.
It will be messy, so the next question is when is the least messy time for Biden to go?
I get the sense that Biden's retirement is just waiting for someone to write the best retirement speech ever written. Something that will move the dial. Something that leaves MLK's 'I have a dream....' standing. Something that tells Americans and the world why Trump is the most unfit man to run for President again that even beelzebub couldn't have invented....
It'll be tough but it has to be done and I'm now sure it will be. They have one chance to write something everyone will read many times. I've no idea who will take over. Maybe Harris? In a way it doesn't matter. Someone younger and more wholesome definitely.
The zeitgeist feels like it's changing and maybe the clipped ear was the wake up call.
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
The other issue is that there are now low millions of people living in this country with strong connections back to their countries of origin, whether that is the subcontinent or many parts of Africa. They often want to bring spouses, parents and family members for education or otherwise. That base makes reducing immigration to 1980s levels almost impossible without taking the flack for splitting up families and cases that will generate considerable sympathy on an individual basis.
I think that we have to accept that the consequence of past immigration is more immigration in future and recalibrate our expectations accordingly.
Without immigration, we get a falling population and one that is increasingly old, frail and unable to work. If we really want to reduce immigration, we have to work very hard to:
(1) make emigration less of a compelling need in the first place. That means tackling the effects of severe climate change in many parts of the world, finding equitable solutions to regional conflicts and building the economies of countries in Africa and much of Asia.
(2) finding ways to incentivise more women in the UK to have babies.
In other words, we have to do a lot of incredibly difficult, expensive and time-consuming things. It's the work of decades. And that's only if there is the will to do it in the first place, which there very clearly isn't.
The Conservatives are really in a dire place per this survey. Reform supporters have limited interest in switching; Labour and Lib Dem voters have zero interest whatsoever. Labour consequently in a strong position. The mile wide and an inch deep remarks don't seem on the mark.
Were in the middle of a honeymoon period.
Come back in five years when everything has got worse because the process state stopped anything happening and Labour made it even worse by increasing the cats cradle of complex and cpnflicting regulations and standards that the process state administers on goodly, index linked pensioned, salaries.
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
Sometimes, the only winning move is not to play.
I agree on the main point- voters might not like the current immigration numbers, but they would like the consequences of a massive cut even less.
So the best solution I can come up with is the boring one. Deal with the pinch points around housing and services. Stop the worst abuses in the underground economy. Process asylum claims quickly, deport the obvious mickey-takers. And shut up about headline stuff that isn't going to happen. Even if you think ECHR is a joke, it's not realistic to leave it.
Boring, and incomplete, and there will still be some loss of votes to the right. But it would work better for the Conservatives than this.
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Are you carried to and from your Uber to trains in a sealed palanquin?
Even better, I travel first class.
What sort of idiots in London would build a metro system and not include first class carriages?
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Are you carried to and from your Uber to trains in a sealed palanquin?
Even better, I travel first class.
What sort of idiots in London would build a metro system and not include first class carriages?
Cough. See my post above.
What was that, some sort of special party train?
Out in the sandpit where I live, we are civilised enough to have first class on every train.
Geniune Metropolitan Railway First Class Carriage haulef by Metropolitan Railway and LT locos. Open to anyone who buys a ticket.
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Are you carried to and from your Uber to trains in a sealed palanquin?
Even better, I travel first class.
What sort of idiots in London would build a metro system and not include first class carriages?
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Are you carried to and from your Uber to trains in a sealed palanquin?
Even better, I travel first class.
What sort of idiots in London would build a metro system and not include first class carriages?
Cough. See my post above.
What was that, some sort of special party train?
Out in the sandpit where I live, we are civilised enough to have first class on every train.
Geniune Metropolitan Railway First Class Carriage haulef by Metropolitan Railway and LT locos. Open to anyone who buys a ticket.
The tickets were by lottery but shortly before the day, they announced that some of the winners hadn't taken them up and there were a batch available to buy if you enquired in person at the LT Museum.
The Fares were. Eastbound - Steam Loco pulling, electric pushing £100 third class, £160 first class.
Going the other way with the steam loco at the back was half the fare. As it was mostly in tunnels and the steam loco was working it didn't make much difference.
Rode in Met First Class Coach 353 built in 1892 and restored after a period as a house and later a farm outbuilding.
It had to be proper underground train stock on safety grounds. Mainline coaches don't have curved top doors to allow emergency evacuation in the tunnels.
I think something that only Lord Hendy could have got through. The fire people were jumpy about it to say the very least (steam engines full of red hot burning coal running underground through Kings Cross etc.
Had to have fire watchers everywhere and a staff member in every compartment to stop unauthorised door opening and window leaning.
Still got the ticket, confirming it was first class and the fare.
£80 was a lot in 2013 but a once in a lifetime opportunity and I now have provable bragging rights to be one of the few people alive to have travelled first class on the underground.
Also to have travelled on a non stop "Express" from Moorgate to Earls Court.
The question is why?
One can ascend Mam Tor on a unicycle wearing a sequinned mankini, a fedora and platform boots, but what's the point? *
Apparently, according to the BBC, there's a thing called the "Better Buses Bill" in the King's Speech.
Boris would be proud.
That one interests me.
Currently there's a Gadarene Rush to get electric buses in, but wheelchair space requirements are still stuck in the 1990s, and they are *always* - like everything else - done to the absolute minimum.
So a lot won't fit, and some only have one space (so send your partner on the next bus an hour later), and we just wired a lot of this in for another 25 years.
First Bus: A spokesperson for First York said: “The bus design we selected from the manufacturer meets all disability access requirements. The position of the poles has also been modified after consultation with disability groups.
A few months back I helped a man in a wheelchair off a bus on the way back from Cambridge. He was in the wheelchair space, but the driver and I had to manhandle the man and chair around a pole in order to get him out. It was inconvenient, wasted time and perhaps most importantly, not very dignified for the man.
It made me wonder whether the bus designers had actually tried their disabled provision space with a wide range of disabled people. (On the other hand, ISTR the bus had lowering suspension that enabled level entry. Might have that mixed up with another bus though.)
If you want me to I can bore for England on this one.
For buses they are defined around a thing called the "Reference Wheelchair", which is based on mobility aids from the 1990s I think. Here is more recent Govt research with data tables about how many won't fit (a lot) from 2021/2, but meanwhile all the buses are being replaced and it has not been put in place. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reference-wheelchair-standard-and-transport-design
The transit companies including rail usually like to work to the utter, utter legal minimum - just like LHAs building cycle facilities with no powerful local lobby groups, paint the lane, share the existing footpath and tick the box. The difference is between viewing something as a cost to be minimised or an investment to provide a full service. I'm watching on this one because fleet replacement time is the efficient time to do changes, but given the mentality requires some regulation - which they did not do under the last Govt.
Even to gain a priority right to occupy a wheelchair space took a legal action at Supreme Court level. And companies have fought it off enough that drivers have to little more than ask nicely. Karen refuses to move her pushchair, the driver won't take action, and the wheelchair user is left at the bus stop - happens quite regularly. Then what happens is that the wheelchair user gives up on public transport and stays at home. The problem is that if a service cannot be relied upon, then a vulnerable person can be dumped - which is not an acceptable risk. Some things could help, such as better bus services - but they aren't a fix.
What is the driver meant to do if Karen won't move?
If he so much as raises his voice to her she will be shrieking harrasment and assault (and racism if she can pull that one) with the whole thing filmed by other passengers and reported to the authorities and youtube.
The days when a bus driver could grab a passenger by the scruff of the neck and eject them are long over.
What is the driver to do if Karen has not a baby but her own wheelchair?
ETA or if Karen is a whole crowd of standing passengers because this is the rush hour?
Limits to numbers standing, anyway. And some of them get out of the way temporarily if need be.
Get out the way by getting off the bus, you mean? Make half a dozen people get off and wait for the next bus, where they can pay a second fare?
Which is rather more commercially ruinous than shrugging your shoulders and saying sorry, they won't move.
As Peter Hitchens says, Utopia is a castle you can never quite be reached but can only be approached by trying to cross a moat filled with blood.
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Are you carried to and from your Uber to trains in a sealed palanquin?
Even better, I travel first class.
What sort of idiots in London would build a metro system and not include first class carriages?
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Are you carried to and from your Uber to trains in a sealed palanquin?
Even better, I travel first class.
What sort of idiots in London would build a metro system and not include first class carriages?
Cough. See my post above.
What was that, some sort of special party train?
Out in the sandpit where I live, we are civilised enough to have first class on every train.
Geniune Metropolitan Railway First Class Carriage haulef by Metropolitan Railway and LT locos. Open to anyone who buys a ticket.
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Are you carried to and from your Uber to trains in a sealed palanquin?
Even better, I travel first class.
What sort of idiots in London would build a metro system and not include first class carriages?
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
If you want to take 3/5 times longer than the Tube would take...
But I don't have to deal with the germ ridden great unwashed.
Are you carried to and from your Uber to trains in a sealed palanquin?
Even better, I travel first class.
What sort of idiots in London would build a metro system and not include first class carriages?
Cough. See my post above.
What was that, some sort of special party train?
Out in the sandpit where I live, we are civilised enough to have first class on every train.
Geniune Metropolitan Railway First Class Carriage haulef by Metropolitan Railway and LT locos. Open to anyone who buys a ticket.
The tickets were by lottery but shortly before the day, they announced that some of the winners hadn't taken them up and there were a batch available to buy if you enquired in person at the LT Museum.
The Fares were. Eastbound - Steam Loco pulling, electric pushing £100 third class, £160 first class.
Going the other way with the steam loco at the back was half the fare. As it was mostly in tunnels and the steam loco was working it didn't make much difference.
Rode in Met First Class Coach 353 built in 1892 and restored after a period as a house and later a farm outbuilding.
It had to be proper underground train stock on safety grounds. Mainline coaches don't have curved top doors to allow emergency evacuation in the tunnels.
I think something that only Lord Hendy could have got through. The fire people were jumpy about it to say the very least (steam engines full of red hot burning coal running underground through Kings Cross etc.
Had to have fire watchers everywhere and a staff member in every compartment to stop unauthorised door opening and window leaning.
Still got the ticket, confirming it was first class and the fare.
£80 was a lot in 2013 but a once in a lifetime opportunity and I now have provable bragging rights to be one of the few people alive to have travelled first class on the underground.
Also to have travelled on a non stop "Express" from Moorgate to Earls Court.
The question is why?
One can ascend Mam Tor on a unicycle wearing a sequinned mankini, a fedora and platform boots, but what's the point? *
The LibDems are the least scrupulous party of the mainstream in GB, perhaps because they feel so sure they're right and the system is unfair that they have to manipulate it in any way they can? The level of misleading leaflets (espcially in quoting polls. sometimes omitting the Y-axis or relating to a different area) completely dwarfs what the other main parties offer, though none of the parties are squeaky clean. It's quite successful at a local level and they're hard to dislike in any other way so they get away with it. But arguably there are invisible drawbacks in reluctance to give way even when they are clearly the main local alternative to the Tories,
In my area a local community centre had to withdraw an exit poll after a hustings because the local Labour Party organised activists to pack the audience. In the last week of the election they were posting a poll from March on social media showing they were just behind the Tories in second place. They came third and the Lib Dems won. I’m not annoyed at them it’s politics but let’s not be sanctimonious and pretend that one party is worse than another.
Well, quite. Nick was wildly ramping his own Party´s chances in Didcot and Wantage, when it was clear that his loathing of the Lib Dems had blinded him to reality. Understandable? Yes. Reprehensible? Also yes, given that his own party was talking about tactical votes to defeat Conservatives.
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
You can split those industries into 2 though. For universities most students return after 3 to 5 years so you have an initial massive increase but in the near future it will plateau out.
Likewise food supply is come here for 6-9 months then return home before the cycle repeats.
Social care and health are therefore the real issues and we don't have people who want to do the work and we don't have people willing to work for the wages offered so that is just going to be a problem fixed by imported people. And given we don't like Europeans it's going to be people from further afield..
If you've been following the news, the explanation for why, with record immigration, we have lots of vacancies unfilled has been outed.
The companies with delegated visa granting ability have been selling visas.
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
The other issue is that there are now low millions of people living in this country with strong connections back to their countries of origin, whether that is the subcontinent or many parts of Africa. They often want to bring spouses, parents and family members for education or otherwise. That base makes reducing immigration to 1980s levels almost impossible without taking the flack for splitting up families and cases that will generate considerable sympathy on an individual basis.
I think that we have to accept that the consequence of past immigration is more immigration in future and recalibrate our expectations accordingly.
Without immigration, we get a falling population and one that is increasingly old, frail and unable to work. If we really want to reduce immigration, we have to work very hard to:
(1) make emigration less of a compelling need in the first place. That means tackling the effects of severe climate change in many parts of the world, finding equitable solutions to regional conflicts and building the economies of countries in Africa and much of Asia.
(2) finding ways to incentivise more women in the UK to have babies.
In other words, we have to do a lot of incredibly difficult, expensive and time-consuming things. It's the work of decades. And that's only if there is the will to do it in the first place, which there very clearly isn't.
Apparently, according to the BBC, there's a thing called the "Better Buses Bill" in the King's Speech.
Boris would be proud.
That one interests me.
Currently there's a Gadarene Rush to get electric buses in, but wheelchair space requirements are still stuck in the 1990s, and they are *always* - like everything else - done to the absolute minimum.
So a lot won't fit, and some only have one space (so send your partner on the next bus an hour later), and we just wired a lot of this in for another 25 years.
First Bus: A spokesperson for First York said: “The bus design we selected from the manufacturer meets all disability access requirements. The position of the poles has also been modified after consultation with disability groups.
A few months back I helped a man in a wheelchair off a bus on the way back from Cambridge. He was in the wheelchair space, but the driver and I had to manhandle the man and chair around a pole in order to get him out. It was inconvenient, wasted time and perhaps most importantly, not very dignified for the man.
It made me wonder whether the bus designers had actually tried their disabled provision space with a wide range of disabled people. (On the other hand, ISTR the bus had lowering suspension that enabled level entry. Might have that mixed up with another bus though.)
If you want me to I can bore for England on this one.
For buses they are defined around a thing called the "Reference Wheelchair", which is based on mobility aids from the 1990s I think. Here is more recent Govt research with data tables about how many won't fit (a lot) from 2021/2, but meanwhile all the buses are being replaced and it has not been put in place. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reference-wheelchair-standard-and-transport-design
The transit companies including rail usually like to work to the utter, utter legal minimum - just like LHAs building cycle facilities with no powerful local lobby groups, paint the lane, share the existing footpath and tick the box. The difference is between viewing something as a cost to be minimised or an investment to provide a full service. I'm watching on this one because fleet replacement time is the efficient time to do changes, but given the mentality requires some regulation - which they did not do under the last Govt.
Even to gain a priority right to occupy a wheelchair space took a legal action at Supreme Court level. And companies have fought it off enough that drivers have to little more than ask nicely. Karen refuses to move her pushchair, the driver won't take action, and the wheelchair user is left at the bus stop - happens quite regularly. Then what happens is that the wheelchair user gives up on public transport and stays at home. The problem is that if a service cannot be relied upon, then a vulnerable person can be dumped - which is not an acceptable risk. Some things could help, such as better bus services - but they aren't a fix.
What is the driver meant to do if Karen won't move?
If he so much as raises his voice to her she will be shrieking harrasment and assault (and racism if she can pull that one) with the whole thing filmed by other passengers and reported to the authorities and youtube.
The days when a bus driver could grab a passenger by the scruff of the neck and eject them are long over.
What is the driver to do if Karen has not a baby but her own wheelchair?
ETA or if Karen is a whole crowd of standing passengers because this is the rush hour?
Limits to numbers standing, anyway. And some of them get out of the way temporarily if need be.
Get out the way by getting off the bus, you mean? Make half a dozen people get off and wait for the next bus, where they can pay a second fare?
Which is rather more commercially ruinous than shrugging your shoulders and saying sorry, they won't move.
As Peter Hitchens says, Utopia is a castle you can never quite be reached but can only be approached by trying to cross a moat filled with blood.
I'm not convinced of that. Utopia is not a reasonable comparison.
All it's about is getting a small number of people to recognise that when they cause serious problems for others for a minor benefit for themselves, such behaviour is not acceptable.
It's a very minor change in culture.
It's like a large proportion of ASB issues - a willingness to enforce once should cause a long-term change in unacceptable behaviour.
I was chatting to a friend from an active travel group in Congleton about the impact of Operation Parksafe by the Cheshire Constabulary (which allows pavement parking to be reported via the Operation SNAP video portal). The first warning letter normally changes the anti-social behaviour, which does not often recur. Although TBF these are still early days; many more constabularies seem to be looking at following this route now; we even have a trial in Derbyshire.
The LibDems are the least scrupulous party of the mainstream in GB, perhaps because they feel so sure they're right and the system is unfair that they have to manipulate it in any way they can? The level of misleading leaflets (espcially in quoting polls. sometimes omitting the Y-axis or relating to a different area) completely dwarfs what the other main parties offer, though none of the parties are squeaky clean. It's quite successful at a local level and they're hard to dislike in any other way so they get away with it. But arguably there are invisible drawbacks in reluctance to give way even when they are clearly the main local alternative to the Tories,
In my area a local community centre had to withdraw an exit poll after a hustings because the local Labour Party organised activists to pack the audience. In the last week of the election they were posting a poll from March on social media showing they were just behind the Tories in second place. They came third and the Lib Dems won. I’m not annoyed at them it’s politics but let’s not be sanctimonious and pretend that one party is worse than another.
Yes it is just a nonsense biased view that we (whoever we are) are always scrupulously honest with our bar charts and the other side are always dishonest. We had the luxury in Guildford of just being 2000 odd behind with Labour nowhere so no manipulation was involved, but the Labour and Tory leaflets (and facebook ads) weren't even subtle. They were outrageous. Both portrayed Labour being the main challengers for their own ends. Tories obviously to confuse tactical voting, but in Labour's case you really have to wonder at the motives, because all it could have done was stop the LDs taking it from the Tories.
Fortunately neither Lab nor the Tories had the delivery capability to get that message across. Labour came 4th. Challengers, honestly.
Apparently, according to the BBC, there's a thing called the "Better Buses Bill" in the King's Speech.
Boris would be proud.
That one interests me.
Currently there's a Gadarene Rush to get electric buses in, but wheelchair space requirements are still stuck in the 1990s, and they are *always* - like everything else - done to the absolute minimum.
So a lot won't fit, and some only have one space (so send your partner on the next bus an hour later), and we just wired a lot of this in for another 25 years.
First Bus: A spokesperson for First York said: “The bus design we selected from the manufacturer meets all disability access requirements. The position of the poles has also been modified after consultation with disability groups.
A few months back I helped a man in a wheelchair off a bus on the way back from Cambridge. He was in the wheelchair space, but the driver and I had to manhandle the man and chair around a pole in order to get him out. It was inconvenient, wasted time and perhaps most importantly, not very dignified for the man.
It made me wonder whether the bus designers had actually tried their disabled provision space with a wide range of disabled people. (On the other hand, ISTR the bus had lowering suspension that enabled level entry. Might have that mixed up with another bus though.)
If you want me to I can bore for England on this one.
For buses they are defined around a thing called the "Reference Wheelchair", which is based on mobility aids from the 1990s I think. Here is more recent Govt research with data tables about how many won't fit (a lot) from 2021/2, but meanwhile all the buses are being replaced and it has not been put in place. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reference-wheelchair-standard-and-transport-design
The transit companies including rail usually like to work to the utter, utter legal minimum - just like LHAs building cycle facilities with no powerful local lobby groups, paint the lane, share the existing footpath and tick the box. The difference is between viewing something as a cost to be minimised or an investment to provide a full service. I'm watching on this one because fleet replacement time is the efficient time to do changes, but given the mentality requires some regulation - which they did not do under the last Govt.
Even to gain a priority right to occupy a wheelchair space took a legal action at Supreme Court level. And companies have fought it off enough that drivers have to little more than ask nicely. Karen refuses to move her pushchair, the driver won't take action, and the wheelchair user is left at the bus stop - happens quite regularly. Then what happens is that the wheelchair user gives up on public transport and stays at home. The problem is that if a service cannot be relied upon, then a vulnerable person can be dumped - which is not an acceptable risk. Some things could help, such as better bus services - but they aren't a fix.
What is the driver meant to do if Karen won't move?
If he so much as raises his voice to her she will be shrieking harrasment and assault (and racism if she can pull that one) with the whole thing filmed by other passengers and reported to the authorities and youtube.
The days when a bus driver could grab a passenger by the scruff of the neck and eject them are long over.
What is the driver to do if Karen has not a baby but her own wheelchair?
ETA or if Karen is a whole crowd of standing passengers because this is the rush hour?
Limits to numbers standing, anyway. And some of them get out of the way temporarily if need be.
Get out the way by getting off the bus, you mean? Make half a dozen people get off and wait for the next bus, where they can pay a second fare?
No, to the side or even off temporarily (though you have to make the driver knows). The restrictions on standing do however make that fairly unusual.
Yes, if there is room to move, people will move. But what happens in rush hour when there is no space to move?
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
It's a stupid idea. Just rename St Pancreas to a proper name. Agincourt. Crécy, Aboukir (be nice to the locals)
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
'Low pay for long hours' and people won't do it. Switch the domain, and think about being CEO of a large company, or in the top level of banking. The message we hear constantly is that they are worth their millions because (a) it's the going rate and (b) you have to pay to get the talent.
I don't argue with that, but goose, gander. We are a free market. You discover what is the right pay by what pay attracts about the right number of good applicants, not by pre-ordaining that this job has to be low paid and importing cheap labour.
It's strange how capitalism/free marketeers/better off people forget their own principles when it is about other people.
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
The other issue is that there are now low millions of people living in this country with strong connections back to their countries of origin, whether that is the subcontinent or many parts of Africa. They often want to bring spouses, parents and family members for education or otherwise. That base makes reducing immigration to 1980s levels almost impossible without taking the flack for splitting up families and cases that will generate considerable sympathy on an individual basis.
I think that we have to accept that the consequence of past immigration is more immigration in future and recalibrate our expectations accordingly.
Without immigration, we get a falling population and one that is increasingly old, frail and unable to work. If we really want to reduce immigration, we have to work very hard to:
(1) make emigration less of a compelling need in the first place. That means tackling the effects of severe climate change in many parts of the world, finding equitable solutions to regional conflicts and building the economies of countries in Africa and much of Asia.
(2) finding ways to incentivise more women in the UK to have babies.
In other words, we have to do a lot of incredibly difficult, expensive and time-consuming things. It's the work of decades. And that's only if there is the will to do it in the first place, which there very clearly isn't.
Most of the things that need doing need many of our most cherished shibboleths since 1945 repealed or scaled back and will require a lot of people (several million) to suffer unpleasantness and hardship of a kind not seen since the mass unemployment (and almost token benefits) of the 1980s.
Thats why our establish politicians construct ever more elaborate ways of avoiding the issue, things continue to get worse and outsiders break tbrough the first past the post hurdle in record numbers.
Sooner or later this country will learn the hard way (it is too late for any other way) that you can have immigration or a welfare state, not both. Short of a latter day Idi Amin expelling Millions, which just isn't going to happen, that means goodbye welfare state, sooner than people might think.
The day when people wake up and discover that welfare and state pensions pay for a couple of loaves of bread, they have to pay state schools large fees and similar for medical care becauae tbe state is bankrupt and can no longer get buyers for gilts is not going to be much fun. Especially in a big city.
But come it will. The reckless spending since 2008 and rise of the far east will see to it.
Apparently, according to the BBC, there's a thing called the "Better Buses Bill" in the King's Speech.
Boris would be proud.
That one interests me.
Currently there's a Gadarene Rush to get electric buses in, but wheelchair space requirements are still stuck in the 1990s, and they are *always* - like everything else - done to the absolute minimum.
So a lot won't fit, and some only have one space (so send your partner on the next bus an hour later), and we just wired a lot of this in for another 25 years.
First Bus: A spokesperson for First York said: “The bus design we selected from the manufacturer meets all disability access requirements. The position of the poles has also been modified after consultation with disability groups.
A few months back I helped a man in a wheelchair off a bus on the way back from Cambridge. He was in the wheelchair space, but the driver and I had to manhandle the man and chair around a pole in order to get him out. It was inconvenient, wasted time and perhaps most importantly, not very dignified for the man.
It made me wonder whether the bus designers had actually tried their disabled provision space with a wide range of disabled people. (On the other hand, ISTR the bus had lowering suspension that enabled level entry. Might have that mixed up with another bus though.)
If you want me to I can bore for England on this one.
For buses they are defined around a thing called the "Reference Wheelchair", which is based on mobility aids from the 1990s I think. Here is more recent Govt research with data tables about how many won't fit (a lot) from 2021/2, but meanwhile all the buses are being replaced and it has not been put in place. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reference-wheelchair-standard-and-transport-design
The transit companies including rail usually like to work to the utter, utter legal minimum - just like LHAs building cycle facilities with no powerful local lobby groups, paint the lane, share the existing footpath and tick the box. The difference is between viewing something as a cost to be minimised or an investment to provide a full service. I'm watching on this one because fleet replacement time is the efficient time to do changes, but given the mentality requires some regulation - which they did not do under the last Govt.
Even to gain a priority right to occupy a wheelchair space took a legal action at Supreme Court level. And companies have fought it off enough that drivers have to little more than ask nicely. Karen refuses to move her pushchair, the driver won't take action, and the wheelchair user is left at the bus stop - happens quite regularly. Then what happens is that the wheelchair user gives up on public transport and stays at home. The problem is that if a service cannot be relied upon, then a vulnerable person can be dumped - which is not an acceptable risk. Some things could help, such as better bus services - but they aren't a fix.
What is the driver meant to do if Karen won't move?
If he so much as raises his voice to her she will be shrieking harrasment and assault (and racism if she can pull that one) with the whole thing filmed by other passengers and reported to the authorities and youtube.
The days when a bus driver could grab a passenger by the scruff of the neck and eject them are long over.
What is the driver to do if Karen has not a baby but her own wheelchair?
ETA or if Karen is a whole crowd of standing passengers because this is the rush hour?
Limits to numbers standing, anyway. And some of them get out of the way temporarily if need be.
Get out the way by getting off the bus, you mean? Make half a dozen people get off and wait for the next bus, where they can pay a second fare?
Which is rather more commercially ruinous than shrugging your shoulders and saying sorry, they won't move.
As Peter Hitchens says, Utopia is a castle you can never quite be reached but can only be approached by trying to cross a moat filled with blood.
Occasionally I wonder if the integration pendulum has swung so far as to make life worse for wheelchair users, and if it might be better to expand something like London's Dial-a-ride scheme, with door-to-door transport on request. Obviously this can co-exist with wheelchair spaces on buses.
Been a while since I bought myself a history book, but a work on Theoderic is coming today. English translation from the German original. He's rather fascinating.
Before Italy underwent long term fragmentation it had two stable, unified periods. Both were Ostrogothic kingdoms. The first was run by Odoacer, the chap who ended the Western Roman Empire. The second was founded and then initially run by Theoderic, who was commissioned to take it over in the name of Zeno, the Eastern Empire, but to be largely independent.
It was only when the megalomaniac poster boy for imperial overreach, Justinian, wanted to too hurriedly reconquer Italy after Carthage that things ended up becoming broken into competing interests and mini-kingdoms.
A clear majority of Reform voters prefer the Tories over Labour though and most Tories prefer Reform to Labour. Most marginal seats are Conservative v Labour.
That doesn't mean the Tories should become Reform though. They should maintain equidistance between Reform and the LDs which is where the polling also shows most of their voters are
The LibDems are the least scrupulous party of the mainstream in GB, perhaps because they feel so sure they're right and the system is unfair that they have to manipulate it in any way they can? The level of misleading leaflets (espcially in quoting polls. sometimes omitting the Y-axis or relating to a different area) completely dwarfs what the other main parties offer, though none of the parties are squeaky clean. It's quite successful at a local level and they're hard to dislike in any other way so they get away with it. But arguably there are invisible drawbacks in reluctance to give way even when they are clearly the main local alternative to the Tories,
Oh come off it Nick. You should have seen some of the bar charts Lab and the Tories put out in Guildford at this election. Lab trying to claim it was neck and neck between them and the Tories. Tories did similarly. On polling day there was a good morning leaflet with two bars of equal length for the Tories and Labour with the LDs hardly registering and no reference as to where that came from at all and we can't think of anything it can possibly represent.
And the result was?
Oh and I remember Lab doing a bar chart and only Lab can win here and a vote for the LDs is a wasted vote in a Euro election with PR!!! Unscrupulous?
I've only experienced the LibDems seriously in 3 constituencies - Broxtowe (where objectively they were and are a distant 3rd), Godalming and Ash (where objectively they're 2nd and challenging for 1st) and Didcot and Wantage (where they've been 2nd for a while). In all three they've played the "only we can win here" card, but in G&A more mildly ("so we'd like to borrow your vote"), as they included Labour as junior partners in coalition, and in return the Labour vote at GEs has sunk to 5%. There's a case for saying that being less unscrupulous pays off.
Obviously the real villain of the piece is the electoral system. But the way it's played has subtle effects on later cooperation.
Biden's COVID seems to have given the betting markets quite a jolt. Harris is back to favourite as the Democratic nominee now.
It sounds as if he is asymptomatic, just tested because Jill was symptomatic.
I would like to see him handover though. He's had a long run and needs to retire.
In Kamala we trust.
Still not sure about that. Biden really screwed things up by running through the primaries. I very much doubt that Kamala would have come out of competitive primaries on top.
The whole mess has significantly increased the probability of Trump 2: the revenge.
Sure, if Biden had not run and allowed an open field in the Dem primaries then he would really have been a bridge to a new generation, and a useful discussion of direction. That ship has sailed though.
Failing that, then stepping down now in favour of Kamala is the best option now.
Given Vance's incredibly hard line on abortion, I can't help wondering whether recent events have deluded Trump into thinking the election is already in the bag and he doesn't even have to try to appeal to moderate voters. A new candidate could change the narrative quite a lot.
I still can't see Trump winning. A convicted felon, who's had to pay millions to a woman he sexually assaulted, who attempted to overturn the result of a presidential election in favour of the losing candidate, and whose running mate wants to abolish abortion will appeal to floating voters exactly how?
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
The solution is to let the market do it's thing and let businesses that can't cope without higher wages fail and shut down.
The solution is to invest in automation and productivity where possible so that people are freed up to do that which can't be automated and be paid a higher wage to do it.
I've no issues with migration but we absolutely do not need to be deflating our productivity, our efficiency and our GDP per capita by encouraging poor business practices to continue.
We should be importing people to do skilled jobs, with skills we may lack, at high wages. Not importing people to allow badly run inefficient practices to thrive.
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
You can split those industries into 2 though. For universities most students return after 3 to 5 years so you have an initial massive increase but in the near future it will plateau out.
Likewise food supply is come here for 6-9 months then return home before the cycle repeats.
Social care and health are therefore the real issues and we don't have people who want to do the work and we don't have people willing to work for the wages offered so that is just going to be a problem fixed by imported people. And given we don't like Europeans it's going to be people from further afield..
If you've been following the news, the explanation for why, with record immigration, we have lots of vacancies unfilled has been outed.
The companies with delegated visa granting ability have been selling visas.
Biden's COVID seems to have given the betting markets quite a jolt. Harris is back to favourite as the Democratic nominee now.
It sounds as if he is asymptomatic, just tested because Jill was symptomatic.
I would like to see him handover though. He's had a long run and needs to retire.
In Kamala we trust.
Still not sure about that. Biden really screwed things up by running through the primaries. I very much doubt that Kamala would have come out of competitive primaries on top.
The whole mess has significantly increased the probability of Trump 2: the revenge.
Sure, if Biden had not run and allowed an open field in the Dem primaries then he would really have been a bridge to a new generation, and a useful discussion of direction. That ship has sailed though.
Failing that, then stepping down now in favour of Kamala is the best option now.
Oh I agree, there really is no alternative now. But will Kamala beat Trump? I am really not sure. She is very California liberal type from what I can see and won't have anything like the blue collar reach that Biden had.
Which is why Biden will stay nominee.
I thought that until a couple of weeks ago but the pressure from his own side is building and, of course, undermining. If a number of senior Democrats go on record saying he is not up to it Tump will have a field day. I think he really has to stand down now but it is silly to think that this solves the Democrat's problems. It just gives them a new set.
Getting a new set of problems is a good idea if you have no good solution for the original set of problems.
There is no good solution to Biden's deteriorating faculties.
And Kamala has got 1 advantage with a female president they can go all in on abortion and similar issues - I suspect that is a weak spot for Trump..
Plus replacing Biden with Kamala makes Trump the doddery old fool of the race.
I suspect he would not be able to restrain himself from some boorish misogyny in any debate with Kamala (and in speeches referring to her). That would fire up the base but hopefully US politics is not so debased that neutrals/undecideds would be ok with it.
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
'Low pay for long hours' and people won't do it. Switch the domain, and think about being CEO of a large company, or in the top level of banking. The message we hear constantly is that they are worth their millions because (a) it's the going rate and (b) you have to pay to get the talent.
I don't argue with that, but goose, gander. We are a free market. You discover what is the right pay by what pay attracts about the right number of good applicants, not by pre-ordaining that this job has to be low paid and importing cheap labour.
It's strange how capitalism/free marketeers/better off people forget their own principles when it is about other people.
Only because they can get enough benefits to not be cold and hungry.
Biden's COVID seems to have given the betting markets quite a jolt. Harris is back to favourite as the Democratic nominee now.
It sounds as if he is asymptomatic, just tested because Jill was symptomatic.
I would like to see him handover though. He's had a long run and needs to retire.
In Kamala we trust.
Still not sure about that. Biden really screwed things up by running through the primaries. I very much doubt that Kamala would have come out of competitive primaries on top.
The whole mess has significantly increased the probability of Trump 2: the revenge.
Sure, if Biden had not run and allowed an open field in the Dem primaries then he would really have been a bridge to a new generation, and a useful discussion of direction. That ship has sailed though.
Failing that, then stepping down now in favour of Kamala is the best option now.
Oh I agree, there really is no alternative now. But will Kamala beat Trump? I am really not sure. She is very California liberal type from what I can see and won't have anything like the blue collar reach that Biden had.
Which is why Biden will stay nominee.
I thought that until a couple of weeks ago but the pressure from his own side is building and, of course, undermining. If a number of senior Democrats go on record saying he is not up to it Tump will have a field day. I think he really has to stand down now but it is silly to think that this solves the Democrat's problems. It just gives them a new set.
Getting a new set of problems is a good idea if you have no good solution for the original set of problems.
There is no good solution to Biden's deteriorating faculties.
And Kamala has got 1 advantage with a female president they can go all in on abortion and similar issues - I suspect that is a weak spot for Trump..
Plus replacing Biden with Kamala makes Trump the doddery old fool of the race.
No it makes Trump the champion of the white working class and middle America and the Democrats again the party of the liberal coastal elite ie how Trump won in 2016 v Hillary before Biden regained the rustbelt swing states in 2020
A clear majority of Reform voters prefer the Tories over Labour though and most Tories prefer Reform to Labour. Most marginal seats are Conservative v Labour.
That doesn't mean the Tories should become Reform though. They should maintain equidistance between Reform and the LDs which is where the polling also shows most of their voters are
But that doesn't address the question of how do they broaden their appeal and attract more voters.
Yes, appearing to be united and competent will help bring back those who abstained, but for voters who find LD or ReFuk to their liking, why should they switch to the Conservatives?
Biden's COVID seems to have given the betting markets quite a jolt. Harris is back to favourite as the Democratic nominee now.
It sounds as if he is asymptomatic, just tested because Jill was symptomatic.
I would like to see him handover though. He's had a long run and needs to retire.
In Kamala we trust.
Still not sure about that. Biden really screwed things up by running through the primaries. I very much doubt that Kamala would have come out of competitive primaries on top.
The whole mess has significantly increased the probability of Trump 2: the revenge.
Sure, if Biden had not run and allowed an open field in the Dem primaries then he would really have been a bridge to a new generation, and a useful discussion of direction. That ship has sailed though.
Failing that, then stepping down now in favour of Kamala is the best option now.
Given Vance's incredibly hard line on abortion, I can't help wondering whether recent events have deluded Trump into thinking the election is already in the bag and he doesn't even have to try to appeal to moderate voters. A new candidate could change the narrative quite a lot.
I still can't see Trump winning. A convicted felon, who's had to pay millions to a woman, who attempted to overturn the result of a presidential election in favour of the losing candidate, and whose running mate wants to abolish abortion will appeal to floating voters exactly how?
What you need to understand is the other guy is very old and in four years in the White House has seen falling living standards and never addressed the question of whether to risk shark attack or electrocution.
Trump's felonious nature is baked in, and won't shift many votes either way. The new factor is Vance who can disown any unpopular views as being subordinate to Trump's policies.
Ironically, the only way to use Vance's record against him is to campaign on the very real possibility of Trump having to step down after a year or two. Obviously, Biden can't take that line.
Apparently, according to the BBC, there's a thing called the "Better Buses Bill" in the King's Speech.
Boris would be proud.
That one interests me.
Currently there's a Gadarene Rush to get electric buses in, but wheelchair space requirements are still stuck in the 1990s, and they are *always* - like everything else - done to the absolute minimum.
So a lot won't fit, and some only have one space (so send your partner on the next bus an hour later), and we just wired a lot of this in for another 25 years.
First Bus: A spokesperson for First York said: “The bus design we selected from the manufacturer meets all disability access requirements. The position of the poles has also been modified after consultation with disability groups.
A few months back I helped a man in a wheelchair off a bus on the way back from Cambridge. He was in the wheelchair space, but the driver and I had to manhandle the man and chair around a pole in order to get him out. It was inconvenient, wasted time and perhaps most importantly, not very dignified for the man.
It made me wonder whether the bus designers had actually tried their disabled provision space with a wide range of disabled people. (On the other hand, ISTR the bus had lowering suspension that enabled level entry. Might have that mixed up with another bus though.)
If you want me to I can bore for England on this one.
For buses they are defined around a thing called the "Reference Wheelchair", which is based on mobility aids from the 1990s I think. Here is more recent Govt research with data tables about how many won't fit (a lot) from 2021/2, but meanwhile all the buses are being replaced and it has not been put in place. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reference-wheelchair-standard-and-transport-design
The transit companies including rail usually like to work to the utter, utter legal minimum - just like LHAs building cycle facilities with no powerful local lobby groups, paint the lane, share the existing footpath and tick the box. The difference is between viewing something as a cost to be minimised or an investment to provide a full service. I'm watching on this one because fleet replacement time is the efficient time to do changes, but given the mentality requires some regulation - which they did not do under the last Govt.
Even to gain a priority right to occupy a wheelchair space took a legal action at Supreme Court level. And companies have fought it off enough that drivers have to little more than ask nicely. Karen refuses to move her pushchair, the driver won't take action, and the wheelchair user is left at the bus stop - happens quite regularly. Then what happens is that the wheelchair user gives up on public transport and stays at home. The problem is that if a service cannot be relied upon, then a vulnerable person can be dumped - which is not an acceptable risk. Some things could help, such as better bus services - but they aren't a fix.
What is the driver meant to do if Karen won't move?
If he so much as raises his voice to her she will be shrieking harrasment and assault (and racism if she can pull that one) with the whole thing filmed by other passengers and reported to the authorities and youtube.
The days when a bus driver could grab a passenger by the scruff of the neck and eject them are long over.
What is the driver to do if Karen has not a baby but her own wheelchair?
ETA or if Karen is a whole crowd of standing passengers because this is the rush hour?
Limits to numbers standing, anyway. And some of them get out of the way temporarily if need be.
Get out the way by getting off the bus, you mean? Make half a dozen people get off and wait for the next bus, where they can pay a second fare?
No, to the side or even off temporarily (though you have to make the driver knows). The restrictions on standing do however make that fairly unusual.
Yes, if there is room to move, people will move. But what happens in rush hour when there is no space to move?
There *is* space to move because the buses cannot move completely jam packed, for safety reasons. There is an upper limit on numbers, which will no doubt take occupation of the wheelchair space as assumed. Notably, the wheelchair space is very close to the front access anyway, so not that much moving around is needed even during loading/egress.
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
'Low pay for long hours' and people won't do it. Switch the domain, and think about being CEO of a large company, or in the top level of banking. The message we hear constantly is that they are worth their millions because (a) it's the going rate and (b) you have to pay to get the talent.
I don't argue with that, but goose, gander. We are a free market. You discover what is the right pay by what pay attracts about the right number of good applicants, not by pre-ordaining that this job has to be low paid and importing cheap labour.
It's strange how capitalism/free marketeers/better off people forget their own principles when it is about other people.
Only because they can get enough benefits to not be cold and hungry.
That's the basic ground rule of wealthy western societies, it's not something that is a unique UK issue, so it doesn't change the general picture, except that it sets a minimum well above benefits people who work have to be paid if you want applicants.
Apparently, according to the BBC, there's a thing called the "Better Buses Bill" in the King's Speech.
Boris would be proud.
That one interests me.
Currently there's a Gadarene Rush to get electric buses in, but wheelchair space requirements are still stuck in the 1990s, and they are *always* - like everything else - done to the absolute minimum.
So a lot won't fit, and some only have one space (so send your partner on the next bus an hour later), and we just wired a lot of this in for another 25 years.
First Bus: A spokesperson for First York said: “The bus design we selected from the manufacturer meets all disability access requirements. The position of the poles has also been modified after consultation with disability groups.
A few months back I helped a man in a wheelchair off a bus on the way back from Cambridge. He was in the wheelchair space, but the driver and I had to manhandle the man and chair around a pole in order to get him out. It was inconvenient, wasted time and perhaps most importantly, not very dignified for the man.
It made me wonder whether the bus designers had actually tried their disabled provision space with a wide range of disabled people. (On the other hand, ISTR the bus had lowering suspension that enabled level entry. Might have that mixed up with another bus though.)
If you want me to I can bore for England on this one.
For buses they are defined around a thing called the "Reference Wheelchair", which is based on mobility aids from the 1990s I think. Here is more recent Govt research with data tables about how many won't fit (a lot) from 2021/2, but meanwhile all the buses are being replaced and it has not been put in place. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reference-wheelchair-standard-and-transport-design
The transit companies including rail usually like to work to the utter, utter legal minimum - just like LHAs building cycle facilities with no powerful local lobby groups, paint the lane, share the existing footpath and tick the box. The difference is between viewing something as a cost to be minimised or an investment to provide a full service. I'm watching on this one because fleet replacement time is the efficient time to do changes, but given the mentality requires some regulation - which they did not do under the last Govt.
Even to gain a priority right to occupy a wheelchair space took a legal action at Supreme Court level. And companies have fought it off enough that drivers have to little more than ask nicely. Karen refuses to move her pushchair, the driver won't take action, and the wheelchair user is left at the bus stop - happens quite regularly. Then what happens is that the wheelchair user gives up on public transport and stays at home. The problem is that if a service cannot be relied upon, then a vulnerable person can be dumped - which is not an acceptable risk. Some things could help, such as better bus services - but they aren't a fix.
What is the driver meant to do if Karen won't move?
If he so much as raises his voice to her she will be shrieking harrasment and assault (and racism if she can pull that one) with the whole thing filmed by other passengers and reported to the authorities and youtube.
The days when a bus driver could grab a passenger by the scruff of the neck and eject them are long over.
What is the driver to do if Karen has not a baby but her own wheelchair?
ETA or if Karen is a whole crowd of standing passengers because this is the rush hour?
Limits to numbers standing, anyway. And some of them get out of the way temporarily if need be.
Get out the way by getting off the bus, you mean? Make half a dozen people get off and wait for the next bus, where they can pay a second fare?
No, to the side or even off temporarily (though you have to make the driver knows). The restrictions on standing do however make that fairly unusual.
Yes, if there is room to move, people will move. But what happens in rush hour when there is no space to move?
There *is* space to move because the buses cannot move completely jam packed, for safety reasons. There is an upper limit on numbers, which will no doubt take occupation of the wheelchair space as assumed. Notably, the wheelchair space is very close to the front access anyway, so not that much moving around is needed even during loading/egress.
Buses can and often do run completely jam packed, whether or not they should. At least they do round here.
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
'Low pay for long hours' and people won't do it. Switch the domain, and think about being CEO of a large company, or in the top level of banking. The message we hear constantly is that they are worth their millions because (a) it's the going rate and (b) you have to pay to get the talent.
I don't argue with that, but goose, gander. We are a free market. You discover what is the right pay by what pay attracts about the right number of good applicants, not by pre-ordaining that this job has to be low paid and importing cheap labour.
It's strange how capitalism/free marketeers/better off people forget their own principles when it is about other people.
Only because they can get enough benefits to not be cold and hungry.
That's the basic ground rule of wealthy western societies, it's not something that is a unique UK issue, so it doesn't change the general picture, except that it sets a minimum well above benefits people who work have to be paid if you want applicants.
Benefits should be limited only to UK citizens. If companies want to bring in immigrants, they’ll need to pay them enough to live without any recourse to public funds.
Apparently, according to the BBC, there's a thing called the "Better Buses Bill" in the King's Speech.
Boris would be proud.
That one interests me.
Currently there's a Gadarene Rush to get electric buses in, but wheelchair space requirements are still stuck in the 1990s, and they are *always* - like everything else - done to the absolute minimum.
So a lot won't fit, and some only have one space (so send your partner on the next bus an hour later), and we just wired a lot of this in for another 25 years.
First Bus: A spokesperson for First York said: “The bus design we selected from the manufacturer meets all disability access requirements. The position of the poles has also been modified after consultation with disability groups.
A few months back I helped a man in a wheelchair off a bus on the way back from Cambridge. He was in the wheelchair space, but the driver and I had to manhandle the man and chair around a pole in order to get him out. It was inconvenient, wasted time and perhaps most importantly, not very dignified for the man.
It made me wonder whether the bus designers had actually tried their disabled provision space with a wide range of disabled people. (On the other hand, ISTR the bus had lowering suspension that enabled level entry. Might have that mixed up with another bus though.)
If you want me to I can bore for England on this one.
For buses they are defined around a thing called the "Reference Wheelchair", which is based on mobility aids from the 1990s I think. Here is more recent Govt research with data tables about how many won't fit (a lot) from 2021/2, but meanwhile all the buses are being replaced and it has not been put in place. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reference-wheelchair-standard-and-transport-design
The transit companies including rail usually like to work to the utter, utter legal minimum - just like LHAs building cycle facilities with no powerful local lobby groups, paint the lane, share the existing footpath and tick the box. The difference is between viewing something as a cost to be minimised or an investment to provide a full service. I'm watching on this one because fleet replacement time is the efficient time to do changes, but given the mentality requires some regulation - which they did not do under the last Govt.
Even to gain a priority right to occupy a wheelchair space took a legal action at Supreme Court level. And companies have fought it off enough that drivers have to little more than ask nicely. Karen refuses to move her pushchair, the driver won't take action, and the wheelchair user is left at the bus stop - happens quite regularly. Then what happens is that the wheelchair user gives up on public transport and stays at home. The problem is that if a service cannot be relied upon, then a vulnerable person can be dumped - which is not an acceptable risk. Some things could help, such as better bus services - but they aren't a fix.
What is the driver meant to do if Karen won't move?
If he so much as raises his voice to her she will be shrieking harrasment and assault (and racism if she can pull that one) with the whole thing filmed by other passengers and reported to the authorities and youtube.
The days when a bus driver could grab a passenger by the scruff of the neck and eject them are long over.
What is the driver to do if Karen has not a baby but her own wheelchair?
ETA or if Karen is a whole crowd of standing passengers because this is the rush hour?
Limits to numbers standing, anyway. And some of them get out of the way temporarily if need be.
Get out the way by getting off the bus, you mean? Make half a dozen people get off and wait for the next bus, where they can pay a second fare?
No, to the side or even off temporarily (though you have to make the driver knows). The restrictions on standing do however make that fairly unusual.
Yes, if there is room to move, people will move. But what happens in rush hour when there is no space to move?
There *is* space to move because the buses cannot move completely jam packed, for safety reasons. There is an upper limit on numbers, which will no doubt take occupation of the wheelchair space as assumed. Notably, the wheelchair space is very close to the front access anyway, so not that much moving around is needed even during loading/egress.
Buses can and often do run completely jam packed, whether or not they should. At least they do round here.
The ones I catch, to Newcastle, often are standing room only by the time they get into Chester Le Street.
We really are crying out for more and an increased train service as well. Once every two hours out of peak is disgraceful.
Apparently, according to the BBC, there's a thing called the "Better Buses Bill" in the King's Speech.
Boris would be proud.
That one interests me.
Currently there's a Gadarene Rush to get electric buses in, but wheelchair space requirements are still stuck in the 1990s, and they are *always* - like everything else - done to the absolute minimum.
So a lot won't fit, and some only have one space (so send your partner on the next bus an hour later), and we just wired a lot of this in for another 25 years.
First Bus: A spokesperson for First York said: “The bus design we selected from the manufacturer meets all disability access requirements. The position of the poles has also been modified after consultation with disability groups.
A few months back I helped a man in a wheelchair off a bus on the way back from Cambridge. He was in the wheelchair space, but the driver and I had to manhandle the man and chair around a pole in order to get him out. It was inconvenient, wasted time and perhaps most importantly, not very dignified for the man.
It made me wonder whether the bus designers had actually tried their disabled provision space with a wide range of disabled people. (On the other hand, ISTR the bus had lowering suspension that enabled level entry. Might have that mixed up with another bus though.)
If you want me to I can bore for England on this one.
For buses they are defined around a thing called the "Reference Wheelchair", which is based on mobility aids from the 1990s I think. Here is more recent Govt research with data tables about how many won't fit (a lot) from 2021/2, but meanwhile all the buses are being replaced and it has not been put in place. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reference-wheelchair-standard-and-transport-design
The transit companies including rail usually like to work to the utter, utter legal minimum - just like LHAs building cycle facilities with no powerful local lobby groups, paint the lane, share the existing footpath and tick the box. The difference is between viewing something as a cost to be minimised or an investment to provide a full service. I'm watching on this one because fleet replacement time is the efficient time to do changes, but given the mentality requires some regulation - which they did not do under the last Govt.
Even to gain a priority right to occupy a wheelchair space took a legal action at Supreme Court level. And companies have fought it off enough that drivers have to little more than ask nicely. Karen refuses to move her pushchair, the driver won't take action, and the wheelchair user is left at the bus stop - happens quite regularly. Then what happens is that the wheelchair user gives up on public transport and stays at home. The problem is that if a service cannot be relied upon, then a vulnerable person can be dumped - which is not an acceptable risk. Some things could help, such as better bus services - but they aren't a fix.
What is the driver meant to do if Karen won't move?
If he so much as raises his voice to her she will be shrieking harrasment and assault (and racism if she can pull that one) with the whole thing filmed by other passengers and reported to the authorities and youtube.
The days when a bus driver could grab a passenger by the scruff of the neck and eject them are long over.
What is the driver to do if Karen has not a baby but her own wheelchair?
ETA or if Karen is a whole crowd of standing passengers because this is the rush hour?
Limits to numbers standing, anyway. And some of them get out of the way temporarily if need be.
Get out the way by getting off the bus, you mean? Make half a dozen people get off and wait for the next bus, where they can pay a second fare?
Which is rather more commercially ruinous than shrugging your shoulders and saying sorry, they won't move.
As Peter Hitchens says, Utopia is a castle you can never quite be reached but can only be approached by trying to cross a moat filled with blood.
Is that the same Peter Hitchens who once claimed that "the greenhouse effect probably doesn't exist"? What an idiot. Why would anyone listen to anything that he says, given his obviously tenuous grasp on reality?
Biden's COVID seems to have given the betting markets quite a jolt. Harris is back to favourite as the Democratic nominee now.
It sounds as if he is asymptomatic, just tested because Jill was symptomatic.
I would like to see him handover though. He's had a long run and needs to retire.
In Kamala we trust.
Still not sure about that. Biden really screwed things up by running through the primaries. I very much doubt that Kamala would have come out of competitive primaries on top.
The whole mess has significantly increased the probability of Trump 2: the revenge.
Sure, if Biden had not run and allowed an open field in the Dem primaries then he would really have been a bridge to a new generation, and a useful discussion of direction. That ship has sailed though.
Failing that, then stepping down now in favour of Kamala is the best option now.
Given Vance's incredibly hard line on abortion, I can't help wondering whether recent events have deluded Trump into thinking the election is already in the bag and he doesn't even have to try to appeal to moderate voters. A new candidate could change the narrative quite a lot.
I still can't see Trump winning. A convicted felon, who's had to pay millions to a woman, who attempted to overturn the result of a presidential election in favour of the losing candidate, and whose running mate wants to abolish abortion will appeal to floating voters exactly how?
What you need to understand is the other guy is very old and in four years in the White House has seen falling living standards and never addressed the question of whether to risk shark attack or electrocution.
Trump's felonious nature is baked in, and won't shift many votes either way. The new factor is Vance who can disown any unpopular views as being subordinate to Trump's policies.
Ironically, the only way to use Vance's record against him is to campaign on the very real possibility of Trump having to step down after a year or two. Obviously, Biden can't take that line.
There's still over three months to go - and the Dems need to get their act together, including replacing Biden - I think they will, and they have time for an advertising blitz which will emphasise Trump's unsuitability. They'll have the capacity to massively outgun the Reps in this respect as Trump's campaign funds appear to be mostly being spent on his legal fees
Mmm, that "48% of the population ranked Reform fifth place or lower" stat should set alarm bells ringing for anybody suggesting the Tories ought to move that way.
Yes and no. As someone on the right I would never vote Green, Lib Dems or Labour. Who goes bottom in that ranking is pretty random. On the left side of things there are more options, and so it would be remarkable for any one of them to get so many bottom places. Probably the Greens should get more bottom place votes, but they seem to trade on a name that's a lot of the more cuddly than their reality.
If you're from the left, the you'll probably put Reform bottom as the Tories are much further left than Reform, so if the country was roughly split 50—50 left right Reform gets about half of all last places.
Also Farage's comments on Ukraine did immense damage - it cost Reform >5% voteshare (they dropped from polling 20%ish to 15%ish virtually instantly), My parents were probably going to vote Reform until that happened, afterwards no chance.
This gives an opportunity to the Tories to go after people who would support Reform on policy - Net Zero Migration, Tax Cuts, anti-Woke, anti-Net Zero but we're utterly turned off over Ukraine. Reform are dumb in other ways too - e.g. cutting taxes by moving income tax thresholds, when "spending" the same to lower rates was more likely to have positive "Laffer" effects.
The Tories were shafted because they drove away all sides of their electoral coalition. They used right sounding language to repell the Lib-Dems, without doing a single actual right leaning thing (they never intended Rwanda to work, it was just a pathetic wedge issue - hence they kept passing legislation that their advisors told them would be struck down in the courts). They raised taxes that should have been abolished,again driving voters from their right flank (it was the NI rises to pay for social care when I decided my vote definitely wasn't coming their way). They cheerfully imported millions of low skilled immigrants without even making any effort to close the obvious scams like the fake healthcare recruitment firms or the bottom end "students" bringing their families to do "business studies" courses they somehow forget to attend.
Of course there are votes for them in going right, competently - it's probably the only route that doesn't send them to electoral oblivion; trying to be a nastier take on the Lib Dems only works if all the space to the right of them is unoccupied.
The main question is where next for Reform. I reckon if they gave me the equivalent of an "Alistair Campbell" brief*, I could win them the next election. They need to become presentable, lose some of the more fruity fruitcakes, tidy up their policy offer to be more coherent, shut up about Ukraine and build a ground game in the red wall. Once Labour's honeymoon drops off (which won't take long) they have a chance to hold the balance of power.
*Alas for all concerned I don't actually want the job - I've a engineering business to run, and can't just drop that to become a political organiser.
The LibDems are the least scrupulous party of the mainstream in GB, perhaps because they feel so sure they're right and the system is unfair that they have to manipulate it in any way they can? The level of misleading leaflets (espcially in quoting polls. sometimes omitting the Y-axis or relating to a different area) completely dwarfs what the other main parties offer, though none of the parties are squeaky clean. It's quite successful at a local level and they're hard to dislike in any other way so they get away with it. But arguably there are invisible drawbacks in reluctance to give way even when they are clearly the main local alternative to the Tories,
Oh come off it Nick. You should have seen some of the bar charts Lab and the Tories put out in Guildford at this election. Lab trying to claim it was neck and neck between them and the Tories. Tories did similarly. On polling day there was a good morning leaflet with two bars of equal length for the Tories and Labour with the LDs hardly registering and no reference as to where that came from at all and we can't think of anything it can possibly represent.
And the result was?
Oh and I remember Lab doing a bar chart and only Lab can win here and a vote for the LDs is a wasted vote in a Euro election with PR!!! Unscrupulous?
I've only experienced the LibDems seriously in 3 constituencies - Broxtowe (where objectively they were and are a distant 3rd), Godalming and Ash (where objectively they're 2nd and challenging for 1st) and Didcot and Wantage (where they've been 2nd for a while). In all three they've played the "only we can win here" card, but in G&A more mildly ("so we'd like to borrow your vote"), as they included Labour as junior partners in coalition, and in return the Labour vote at GEs has sunk to 5%. There's a case for saying that being less unscrupulous pays off.
Obviously the real villain of the piece is the electoral system. But the way it's played has subtle effects on later cooperation.
I have only ever been in LD/Tory battles so obviously we have used it a lot. I have only ever been honest, but admittedly that has been easy because I haven't had to manipulate as the message was true because of where I was. I have to say (and this might me being biased here) that the LD manipulation is usually quite clever i.e. true but misleading, as opposed to an outright lie as we were getting in Guildford by both the Tories and Labour. For example in Suffolk Coastal the LD leaflet identified us as the challengers based upon the last local election results in wards in the constituency (not sure if it used gains or overall). Perfectly factual. The Greens could have made a similar slightly different claim. We came 4th and they came 5th in the end in the GE.. Not lying, but relevant? No.
@NickPalmer if you ever speak to anyone involved in the Labour campaign in Guildford I would love to know what was going through their minds? I accept locals will want to campaign locally but why did they spend so much on massive bus adverts and why was the candidate apparently working it full time and not in Aldershot and why all the misleading stuff. It is not like they even tried in reality. They didn't take advantage of the free addressed Royal Mail delivery. Just a bog standard one and outside of a very, very small area they didn't do anything. Those working it seemed hell bent on returning a Tory to Guildford.
Apparently, according to the BBC, there's a thing called the "Better Buses Bill" in the King's Speech.
Boris would be proud.
That one interests me.
Currently there's a Gadarene Rush to get electric buses in, but wheelchair space requirements are still stuck in the 1990s, and they are *always* - like everything else - done to the absolute minimum.
So a lot won't fit, and some only have one space (so send your partner on the next bus an hour later), and we just wired a lot of this in for another 25 years.
First Bus: A spokesperson for First York said: “The bus design we selected from the manufacturer meets all disability access requirements. The position of the poles has also been modified after consultation with disability groups.
A few months back I helped a man in a wheelchair off a bus on the way back from Cambridge. He was in the wheelchair space, but the driver and I had to manhandle the man and chair around a pole in order to get him out. It was inconvenient, wasted time and perhaps most importantly, not very dignified for the man.
It made me wonder whether the bus designers had actually tried their disabled provision space with a wide range of disabled people. (On the other hand, ISTR the bus had lowering suspension that enabled level entry. Might have that mixed up with another bus though.)
If you want me to I can bore for England on this one.
For buses they are defined around a thing called the "Reference Wheelchair", which is based on mobility aids from the 1990s I think. Here is more recent Govt research with data tables about how many won't fit (a lot) from 2021/2, but meanwhile all the buses are being replaced and it has not been put in place. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reference-wheelchair-standard-and-transport-design
The transit companies including rail usually like to work to the utter, utter legal minimum - just like LHAs building cycle facilities with no powerful local lobby groups, paint the lane, share the existing footpath and tick the box. The difference is between viewing something as a cost to be minimised or an investment to provide a full service. I'm watching on this one because fleet replacement time is the efficient time to do changes, but given the mentality requires some regulation - which they did not do under the last Govt.
Even to gain a priority right to occupy a wheelchair space took a legal action at Supreme Court level. And companies have fought it off enough that drivers have to little more than ask nicely. Karen refuses to move her pushchair, the driver won't take action, and the wheelchair user is left at the bus stop - happens quite regularly. Then what happens is that the wheelchair user gives up on public transport and stays at home. The problem is that if a service cannot be relied upon, then a vulnerable person can be dumped - which is not an acceptable risk. Some things could help, such as better bus services - but they aren't a fix.
What is the driver meant to do if Karen won't move?
If he so much as raises his voice to her she will be shrieking harrasment and assault (and racism if she can pull that one) with the whole thing filmed by other passengers and reported to the authorities and youtube.
The days when a bus driver could grab a passenger by the scruff of the neck and eject them are long over.
What is the driver to do if Karen has not a baby but her own wheelchair?
ETA or if Karen is a whole crowd of standing passengers because this is the rush hour?
Limits to numbers standing, anyway. And some of them get out of the way temporarily if need be.
Get out the way by getting off the bus, you mean? Make half a dozen people get off and wait for the next bus, where they can pay a second fare?
No, to the side or even off temporarily (though you have to make the driver knows). The restrictions on standing do however make that fairly unusual.
Yes, if there is room to move, people will move. But what happens in rush hour when there is no space to move?
There *is* space to move because the buses cannot move completely jam packed, for safety reasons. There is an upper limit on numbers, which will no doubt take occupation of the wheelchair space as assumed. Notably, the wheelchair space is very close to the front access anyway, so not that much moving around is needed even during loading/egress.
Buses can and often do run completely jam packed, whether or not they should. At least they do round here.
That's part of the logic behind half-empty double deckers - the additional cost of that extra level is relatively small but the capacity to absorb passengers for big sporting events, Taylor Swift, rained off cyclists, boosts revenue substantially.
Yes, yes, it's all politics and aren't the Liberal Democrats nasty and unscrupulous?
Seriously?
Ed Davey and the LDs played a system they neither like nor want nor does them any favours for maximum advantage and all we now hear is moaning from the "losers" including an activist for a Party which won over 400 seats.
Labour has occasionally "talked" about change to the electoral system - usually when they've been on the wrong end of an election defeat. We may now hear the Conservatives begin to "think aloud" about PR. Neither is sincere - the duopoly has survived fairly comfortably - 58% of the vote has got the two parties 84% of the seats in England, Scotland and Wales so the current system works fine for both Conservative and Labour and for that reason alone there'll be no change until one or both of them is decisively defeated.
Farage and Davey can shout into the dark calling for PR but it will get them nowhere.
As for the "let's add Reform and the Conservatives and call it a single bloc" - that was widely derided on here months ago by the more thoughtful commentators and analysts. There was never any polling evidence of a direct transfer - at most a third of Reform voters would support a Conservative in the absence of a Reform candidate.
The Conservatives lost votes to Reform, to Labour and in some places to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens and also suffered considerable abstention (as did Labour). Until we get more definitive research on what happened to the Conservative vote and why 47% of the 2019 vote disappeared, we're speculating. We can all have our pet theories and I suspect the answer will vary from region to region and even from seat to seat.
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
You can split those industries into 2 though. For universities most students return after 3 to 5 years so you have an initial massive increase but in the near future it will plateau out.
Likewise food supply is come here for 6-9 months then return home before the cycle repeats.
Social care and health are therefore the real issues and we don't have people who want to do the work and we don't have people willing to work for the wages offered so that is just going to be a problem fixed by imported people. And given we don't like Europeans it's going to be people from further afield..
If you've been following the news, the explanation for why, with record immigration, we have lots of vacancies unfilled has been outed.
The companies with delegated visa granting ability have been selling visas.
Who to?
The people who want to come to this country. It seems the price, strangely, is above that for the RIB across the Channel.
A very frequent bus traveller writes. I have never seen passengers being disobliging in making room for a wheelchair, or for a buggy/pram - people will cram in however they need to to accommodate both. Indeed, I've seen people offering to disembark and wait for the next bus so that a wheelchair user can get on.
Bus travellers are, on the whole, very considerate and kind. More so than most other road users, I'd hazard.
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
I went from St Pancras to Nottingham yesterday. It’s a strange experience, travelling via our most glamorous railway terminal to some of the least glamorous destinations in the country.
The mobile reception on the East Midlands mainline is shit too.
The long journey also gave me the opportunity to read the Economist for the first time in ages. I’d forgotten what a weirdly patronising and self-conscious title it is. It’s like what EdExcel would publish if they did a “magazine” to help A Level students with their Politics and Economics. The tone throughout is “educational”.
Once you realise that it’s written mostly by a bunch of twentysomething arts graduates with a very tight style guide, it all starts to make sense.
It's also rather good; better than any other British newspaper. Yes, it's not perfect, but that still leaves plenty of room to be better than the others.
And it's coverage of science (a couple of key stories each week, snappily told) is about the best in the mainstream media. Way better than New Scientist, which has fallen a long way in its desire to be popular and relevant.
Sometimes, the non-specialist writer with the discipline of a tight style guide is what you need.
(Having just realised that I haven't seen Horizon for a while, the BBC don't seem to have made new episodes for a couple of years now. What the heck is that about?)
A little over a decade ago, I met a New Scientist journalist on a Scottish hill. We chatted for a while; and I said I used to religiously read it, but I did not any more. When he asked why, I said it had dumbed down too much, and gone too sensational. He sighed and agreed, then gave a pleasant rant about the publication...
Amused to see Starmer is meeting European leaders at Blenheim Palace. The War of the Spanish Succession was of course a great example of European cooperation... but I am not sure what Macron will make of it
One of Dave's best acts as Foreign Secretary was to choose Blenheim Palace as the location.
Any party that decides to change the Eurostar terminus from St. Pancras back to Waterloo station will win my vote for life.
Bugger that last for a game of commuters on the Tube. It's bad enough not having direct connections with Eurostar from the north *in the same station* without having that added as well.
I say that as somebody who is from Sheffield and uses St Pancras a lot.
Plus, hang on, you use the Tube? You utter peasant, use Uber Luxury, that's the way to travel in London.
I went from St Pancras to Nottingham yesterday. It’s a strange experience, travelling via our most glamorous railway terminal to some of the least glamorous destinations in the country.
The mobile reception on the East Midlands mainline is shit too.
The long journey also gave me the opportunity to read the Economist for the first time in ages. I’d forgotten what a weirdly patronising and self-conscious title it is. It’s like what EdExcel would publish if they did a “magazine” to help A Level students with their Politics and Economics. The tone throughout is “educational”.
Once you realise that it’s written mostly by a bunch of twentysomething arts graduates with a very tight style guide, it all starts to make sense.
It's also rather good; better than any other British newspaper. Yes, it's not perfect, but that still leaves plenty of room to be better than the others.
And it's coverage of science (a couple of key stories each week, snappily told) is about the best in the mainstream media. Way better than New Scientist, which has fallen a long way in its desire to be popular and relevant.
Sometimes, the non-specialist writer with the discipline of a tight style guide is what you need.
(Having just realised that I haven't seen Horizon for a while, the BBC don't seem to have made new episodes for a couple of years now. What the heck is that about?)
A little over a decade ago, I met a New Scientist journalist on a Scottish hill. We chatted for a while; and I said I used to religiously read it, but I did not any more. When he asked why, I said it had dumbed down too much, and gone too sensational. He sighed and agreed, then gave a pleasant rant about the publication...
A neighbour used to work at the Economist. Identical views on the changes there....
The Isle of Man buses were magnificent - Mercedes Benz, comfortable, big, smooth and perfectly flexible to drive round small villages and down relatively narrow lanes. Perhaps we should do Germany a favour and do a bulk order for 50,000 buses.
Seriously, buses in London are vital - the routes (often historical) need to be re-thought to cover where people really are and where they want to go now but that's a long term job. The big problem is drivers who think they are at Le Mans or Silverstone and are so obsessed with keeping to timetable they don't give the elderly and the semi-mobile a chance to sit down before they lurch away from the stop. The other problem is the different levels inside the bus which aren't helpful to older passengers.
We also have the hardy perennial of wheelchair vs pushchair (I've seen people nearly come to blows).
A very frequent bus traveller writes. I have never seen passengers being disobliging in making room for a wheelchair, or for a buggy/pram - people will cram in however they need to to accommodate both. Indeed, I've seen people offering to disembark and wait for the next bus so that a wheelchair user can get on.
Bus travellers are, on the whole, very considerate and kind. More so than most other road users, I'd hazard.
No - just that you notice the idiot road users more. They are the same people. Bit like the idiot cyclists thing.
I've seen Karens with push chairs on the bus. And seen plenty of people get off for the wheelchair users - even when the bus is rammed.
.....Much of it done by Johnson and Truss. Interestingly I count 25 women in the shot and 18 men. That rebalance is one of the great advances of this parliament and something that hints the country might be moving forward on several fronts
Why are people with different genitals a "great advance"? It is neither an advance nor a retreat in itself. What we need are the best people, regardless of their gender.
Not everywhere though - Surrey, posh bits of London. Misses out Edinburgh too.
Yes, it will be a challenge in Surrey because the land on which school buildings and playing fields sit is valuable for residential redevelopment. When a school's roll falls too far it is merged with another school and the first school is basically sold for development. Mothballing school buildings just isn't viable.
The wave of new school building in the 2010s ought to help but the big pressure is on SEN accommodation (although according to some on here, the whole SEN thing is a scam as parents are putting in false claims - apparently?)
The Isle of Man buses were magnificent - Mercedes Benz, comfortable, big, smooth and perfectly flexible to drive round small villages and down relatively narrow lanes. Perhaps we should do Germany a favour and do a bulk order for 50,000 buses.
Seriously, buses in London are vital - the routes (often historical) need to be re-thought to cover where people really are and where they want to go now but that's a long term job. The big problem is drivers who think they are at Le Mans or Silverstone and are so obsessed with keeping to timetable they don't give the elderly and the semi-mobile a chance to sit down before they lurch away from the stop. The other problem is the different levels inside the bus which aren't helpful to older passengers.
We also have the hardy perennial of wheelchair vs pushchair (I've seen people nearly come to blows).
I was told by a driver that the lurching away from a stop was a condition of older buses, combined poor maintenance. He liked driving the Boris buses because the power train didn't do that.
A very frequent bus traveller writes. I have never seen passengers being disobliging in making room for a wheelchair, or for a buggy/pram - people will cram in however they need to to accommodate both. Indeed, I've seen people offering to disembark and wait for the next bus so that a wheelchair user can get on.
Bus travellers are, on the whole, very considerate and kind. More so than most other road users, I'd hazard.
Because you can look someone in the eyes and appreciate that they are a fellow human being. If you removed the windows and doors off cars you would resolve 90% of road rage incidents.
The Isle of Man buses were magnificent - Mercedes Benz, comfortable, big, smooth and perfectly flexible to drive round small villages and down relatively narrow lanes. Perhaps we should do Germany a favour and do a bulk order for 50,000 buses.
Seriously, buses in London are vital - the routes (often historical) need to be re-thought to cover where people really are and where they want to go now but that's a long term job. The big problem is drivers who think they are at Le Mans or Silverstone and are so obsessed with keeping to timetable they don't give the elderly and the semi-mobile a chance to sit down before they lurch away from the stop. The other problem is the different levels inside the bus which aren't helpful to older passengers.
We also have the hardy perennial of wheelchair vs pushchair (I've seen people nearly come to blows).
I was told by a driver that the lurching away from a stop was a condition of older buses, combined poor maintenance. He liked driving the Boris buses because the power train didn't do that.
Hence the argument for investing in new stock - I must confess the newer hybrid buses in London such as on route 366 are a much better experience but presumably cost pressures mean whole fleets can't be renewed at once.
A very frequent bus traveller writes. I have never seen passengers being disobliging in making room for a wheelchair, or for a buggy/pram - people will cram in however they need to to accommodate both. Indeed, I've seen people offering to disembark and wait for the next bus so that a wheelchair user can get on.
Bus travellers are, on the whole, very considerate and kind. More so than most other road users, I'd hazard.
No - just that you notice the idiot road users more. They are the same people. Bit like the idiot cyclists thing.
I've seen Karens with push chairs on the bus. And seen plenty of people get off for the wheelchair users - even when the bus is rammed.
No? You're very assertive in telling me I'm wrong. But, since you clearly know everything, I concede.
A very frequent bus traveller writes. I have never seen passengers being disobliging in making room for a wheelchair, or for a buggy/pram - people will cram in however they need to to accommodate both. Indeed, I've seen people offering to disembark and wait for the next bus so that a wheelchair user can get on.
Bus travellers are, on the whole, very considerate and kind. More so than most other road users, I'd hazard.
Because you can look someone in the eyes and appreciate that they are a fellow human being. If you removed the windows and doors off cars you would resolve 90% of road rage incidents.
I'm not really thinking about road rage. I had in mind the thousands of drivers who wilfully block pavement access for wheelchairs and buggies so that such users have to go on the road. Doesn't happen on buses.
I don't believe it. Has the huge error in Putney been pointed out yet on here? Turns out 6,500 votes were not reported on election night in the constituency, about 10% of the total. It didn't affect the result or order of candidates, but a 17% drop in turnout always looked a bit unusual. It looks like another spreadsheet error, like there was in Plymouth Sutton & Devonport in 2017, not a problem with physically counting the votes.
Most probably this was a case of entering the results into a spreadsheet and having a "totals" row at the bottom, with the person selecting the rows to be totalled accidentally missed the top or bottom row off the selected rows. Everyone's done it when using a spreadsheet, but a double check usually catches the mistake.
They will have fished out the spreadsheet used last time, when there were four candidates, and edited in extra rows for this time’s seven. Or something similar with the latest set of polling districts. As you say, somewhere along the line the old totals row wasn’t correctly amended to cover all the extra rows properly.
Whoops. That’s rather embarrassing for the Returning Officer. What would have happened if the missing votes had materially affected the result, with the new MP already sworn in?
.....Much of it done by Johnson and Truss. Interestingly I count 25 women in the shot and 18 men. That rebalance is one of the great advances of this parliament and something that hints the country might be moving forward on several fronts
Why are people with different genitals a "great advance"? It is neither an advance nor a retreat in itself. What we need are the best people, regardless of their gender.
One of the positive things about May (perhaps unfairly) and especially Truss, is that they prove that women can be just as much a failure, or as incompetent, as men. The idea that putting a woman in charge is a magic solution to an organisation's woes is, I fear, a false one.
.....Much of it done by Johnson and Truss. Interestingly I count 25 women in the shot and 18 men. That rebalance is one of the great advances of this parliament and something that hints the country might be moving forward on several fronts
Why are people with different genitals a "great advance"? It is neither an advance nor a retreat in itself. What we need are the best people, regardless of their gender.
A roughly even distribution is an indicator that you may indeed be getting the best people. Assuming that talent is equally spread across the genders, then a group that consisted mainly of one gender would be very unlikely to have the best available talent. Statistics and logic, innit?
Mmm, that "48% of the population ranked Reform fifth place or lower" stat should set alarm bells ringing for anybody suggesting the Tories ought to move that way.
Yes and no. As someone on the right I would never vote Green, Lib Dems or Labour. Who goes bottom in that ranking is pretty random. On the left side of things there are more options, and so it would be remarkable for any one of them to get so many bottom places. Probably the Greens should get more bottom place votes, but they seem to trade on a name that's a lot of the more cuddly than their reality.
If you're from the left, the you'll probably put Reform bottom as the Tories are much further left than Reform, so if the country was roughly split 50—50 left right Reform gets about half of all last places.
Also Farage's comments on Ukraine did immense damage - it cost Reform >5% voteshare (they dropped from polling 20%ish to 15%ish virtually instantly), My parents were probably going to vote Reform until that happened, afterwards no chance.
This gives an opportunity to the Tories to go after people who would support Reform on policy - Net Zero Migration, Tax Cuts, anti-Woke, anti-Net Zero but we're utterly turned off over Ukraine. Reform are dumb in other ways too - e.g. cutting taxes by moving income tax thresholds, when "spending" the same to lower rates was more likely to have positive "Laffer" effects.
The Tories were shafted because they drove away all sides of their electoral coalition. They used right sounding language to repell the Lib-Dems, without doing a single actual right leaning thing (they never intended Rwanda to work, it was just a pathetic wedge issue - hence they kept passing legislation that their advisors told them would be struck down in the courts). They raised taxes that should have been abolished,again driving voters from their right flank (it was the NI rises to pay for social care when I decided my vote definitely wasn't coming their way). They cheerfully imported millions of low skilled immigrants without even making any effort to close the obvious scams like the fake healthcare recruitment firms or the bottom end "students" bringing their families to do "business studies" courses they somehow forget to attend.
Of course there are votes for them in going right, competently - it's probably the only route that doesn't send them to electoral oblivion; trying to be a nastier take on the Lib Dems only works if all the space to the right of them is unoccupied.
The main question is where next for Reform. I reckon if they gave me the equivalent of an "Alistair Campbell" brief*, I could win them the next election. They need to become presentable, lose some of the more fruity fruitcakes, tidy up their policy offer to be more coherent, shut up about Ukraine and build a ground game in the red wall. Once Labour's honeymoon drops off (which won't take long) they have a chance to hold the balance of power.
*Alas for all concerned I don't actually want the job - I've a engineering business to run, and can't just drop that to become a political organiser.
As terms like "left" and "right" no longer have any real meaning - they are leftovers from history - perhaps we need to think of other terms.
Those opposed to high levels of immigration need to state the consequences of a "Net Zero" policy (are we seriously talking one in, one out?) in terms of labour capacity. We've all seen what happens when you get a shortage of anything - the price goes up - and if you have a shortage of workers the price of everything goes up. Yes, there are people willing to work - you see them outside Wickes every day looking for cash-in-hand manual work - but not enough for all the demands of a complex economy.
Farage and Tice are Thatcherites - they want tax cuts first and foremost because they'll benefit and they still have this arcane belief in Laffer and trickle down. The Reform voter in my experience wants to see public spending but in WWC areas - that's why they loved the "Levelling Up" agenda of Johnson which has been consigned to history.
No one (and I include Labour, the LDs, Greens and the rest) has come up with a coherent response to the deficit. This was £131 billion in 2023/24 and included £116 billion in debt interest payments (a clue there). If you are going to close that gap, you have three options - wholesale tax rises, wholesale spending cuts or a nuanced mix of the two (perhaps more 50/50 than Osborne's "austerity" in 2010). If we have to pay 25p basic income tax and 50% higher rate is the world going to come to an end? Probably not - but where do you make your cuts (no sacred cows unlike 2010, even defence has to take its pain)?
A very frequent bus traveller writes. I have never seen passengers being disobliging in making room for a wheelchair, or for a buggy/pram - people will cram in however they need to to accommodate both. Indeed, I've seen people offering to disembark and wait for the next bus so that a wheelchair user can get on.
Bus travellers are, on the whole, very considerate and kind. More so than most other road users, I'd hazard.
No - just that you notice the idiot road users more. They are the same people. Bit like the idiot cyclists thing.
I've seen Karens with push chairs on the bus. And seen plenty of people get off for the wheelchair users - even when the bus is rammed.
No? You're very assertive in telling me I'm wrong. But, since you clearly know everything, I concede.
Just that I've walked, driven, cycled and... bused??... all over the places. The idea that any special virtue attends to one group of transport users is simply wrong.
There are a small number of utter chods in each. For example, I've encountered ramblers who seem to think that leaving a farmer's gate open is not just a matter of not bothering. They do it deliberately. Maybe less than 1% of walkers. But enough to be problem if you are running a farm. So farmers see....
It won't and if he gets through COVID relatively unscathed at over 80 he can use that to boost his health status claims
Didn't think of that, but that's a good point too.
I think he is too big at 2.6 now for the nomination, we basically have heard via social media that he's told Pelosi where to go.
I fear that you're right. There's too much of a temptation to assume that the Democrats are somehow collectively capable of taking the blindingly obvious course necessary to stay in the game and factor that in to the odds, and I think the 2.6 reflects that.
.....Much of it done by Johnson and Truss. Interestingly I count 25 women in the shot and 18 men. That rebalance is one of the great advances of this parliament and something that hints the country might be moving forward on several fronts
Why are people with different genitals a "great advance"? It is neither an advance nor a retreat in itself. What we need are the best people, regardless of their gender.
It seems unlikely we were getting "best people, regardless of their gender" in the past when Parliament was mostly male (and mostly white, and heavily biased to private school education). Sexism was stopping us having the best people, regardless of gender.
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
You can split those industries into 2 though. For universities most students return after 3 to 5 years so you have an initial massive increase but in the near future it will plateau out.
Likewise food supply is come here for 6-9 months then return home before the cycle repeats.
Social care and health are therefore the real issues and we don't have people who want to do the work and we don't have people willing to work for the wages offered so that is just going to be a problem fixed by imported people. And given we don't like Europeans it's going to be people from further afield..
If you've been following the news, the explanation for why, with record immigration, we have lots of vacancies unfilled has been outed.
The companies with delegated visa granting ability have been selling visas.
Who to?
The people who want to come to this country. It seems the price, strangely, is above that for the RIB across the Channel.
A legal work permit that allows you to earn money immediately is more expensive than an illegal one, who would have guessed?
Apparently, according to the BBC, there's a thing called the "Better Buses Bill" in the King's Speech.
Boris would be proud.
That one interests me.
Currently there's a Gadarene Rush to get electric buses in, but wheelchair space requirements are still stuck in the 1990s, and they are *always* - like everything else - done to the absolute minimum.
So a lot won't fit, and some only have one space (so send your partner on the next bus an hour later), and we just wired a lot of this in for another 25 years.
First Bus: A spokesperson for First York said: “The bus design we selected from the manufacturer meets all disability access requirements. The position of the poles has also been modified after consultation with disability groups.
A few months back I helped a man in a wheelchair off a bus on the way back from Cambridge. He was in the wheelchair space, but the driver and I had to manhandle the man and chair around a pole in order to get him out. It was inconvenient, wasted time and perhaps most importantly, not very dignified for the man.
It made me wonder whether the bus designers had actually tried their disabled provision space with a wide range of disabled people. (On the other hand, ISTR the bus had lowering suspension that enabled level entry. Might have that mixed up with another bus though.)
If you want me to I can bore for England on this one.
For buses they are defined around a thing called the "Reference Wheelchair", which is based on mobility aids from the 1990s I think. Here is more recent Govt research with data tables about how many won't fit (a lot) from 2021/2, but meanwhile all the buses are being replaced and it has not been put in place. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reference-wheelchair-standard-and-transport-design
The transit companies including rail usually like to work to the utter, utter legal minimum - just like LHAs building cycle facilities with no powerful local lobby groups, paint the lane, share the existing footpath and tick the box. The difference is between viewing something as a cost to be minimised or an investment to provide a full service. I'm watching on this one because fleet replacement time is the efficient time to do changes, but given the mentality requires some regulation - which they did not do under the last Govt.
Even to gain a priority right to occupy a wheelchair space took a legal action at Supreme Court level. And companies have fought it off enough that drivers have to little more than ask nicely. Karen refuses to move her pushchair, the driver won't take action, and the wheelchair user is left at the bus stop - happens quite regularly. Then what happens is that the wheelchair user gives up on public transport and stays at home. The problem is that if a service cannot be relied upon, then a vulnerable person can be dumped - which is not an acceptable risk. Some things could help, such as better bus services - but they aren't a fix.
What is the driver meant to do if Karen won't move?
If he so much as raises his voice to her she will be shrieking harrasment and assault (and racism if she can pull that one) with the whole thing filmed by other passengers and reported to the authorities and youtube.
The days when a bus driver could grab a passenger by the scruff of the neck and eject them are long over.
What is the driver to do if Karen has not a baby but her own wheelchair?
ETA or if Karen is a whole crowd of standing passengers because this is the rush hour?
Limits to numbers standing, anyway. And some of them get out of the way temporarily if need be.
Get out the way by getting off the bus, you mean? Make half a dozen people get off and wait for the next bus, where they can pay a second fare?
Which is rather more commercially ruinous than shrugging your shoulders and saying sorry, they won't move.
As Peter Hitchens says, Utopia is a castle you can never quite be reached but can only be approached by trying to cross a moat filled with blood.
Occasionally I wonder if the integration pendulum has swung so far as to make life worse for wheelchair users, and if it might be better to expand something like London's Dial-a-ride scheme, with door-to-door transport on request. Obviously this can co-exist with wheelchair spaces on buses.
I think the problem is that it is approached from "we must regulate to stop wicked people duscriminating rather than, how can we best help these people to get where they want to go.
I can't help think that entitling people with disabilities that necessitate a wheelchair to a pass granting them subsidised taxi fares so that they pay no more than they would travelling by public transport would be a rather more economic and dignified solution.
And a far better reason to spend public money on taxis than ferrying badly behaved brats whos parents have managed to get an ADHD diagnosis to school.
The Isle of Man buses were magnificent - Mercedes Benz, comfortable, big, smooth and perfectly flexible to drive round small villages and down relatively narrow lanes. Perhaps we should do Germany a favour and do a bulk order for 50,000 buses.
Seriously, buses in London are vital - the routes (often historical) need to be re-thought to cover where people really are and where they want to go now but that's a long term job. The big problem is drivers who think they are at Le Mans or Silverstone and are so obsessed with keeping to timetable they don't give the elderly and the semi-mobile a chance to sit down before they lurch away from the stop. The other problem is the different levels inside the bus which aren't helpful to older passengers.
We also have the hardy perennial of wheelchair vs pushchair (I've seen people nearly come to blows).
I was told by a driver that the lurching away from a stop was a condition of older buses, combined poor maintenance. He liked driving the Boris buses because the power train didn't do that.
Hence the argument for investing in new stock - I must confess the newer hybrid buses in London such as on route 366 are a much better experience but presumably cost pressures mean whole fleets can't be renewed at once.
The Boris bus thing was a classic case of Oppositionalism. It was a design for a hybrid bus to recuse pollution, increase driver comfort and ease of access. They are still running in London.
The idea was that the basic "skate" could have different bodies on top - single deckers etc. And it was designed to go full electric when the cost of batteries dropped. As the cherry on top, made in the UK.
My theory is that Reform are still taboo for many right wingers, but a merger with the Tories would detoxify them. It’s a tale as old as time.
So pronouncing that current toxicity means you can’t simply add up the bloc numbers is perhaps premature.
Thatcher managed to kill off the National Front and absorb their voters in 1979 simply by making an immigration pledge, and passing the 1981 British Nationality Act.
Practical politics. Today, they'd be told "we don't want any of your votes", and so they wouldn't get any of their votes.
Which is what Dave did in 2007 to 2010. Possibly with the Thatcher approach in mind.
Trouble is that something that worked for Thatcher became a millstone for the governments of Cameron and all his successors. Not sure why, but I suspect it's important.
Initial suspicions are either that immigration fears are dampened down massively when people feel better off or that squeezing immigration was just easier in the 1980s than the 2020s because of the shape of British demographics.
I think it's the latter.
It's very hard to make a highly globalised economy like ours, based on services, work without high levels of immigration, particularly since for low end services there are millions of jobs we all depend upon yet are low pay for long hours. People don't want to pay much more money for all those and, even if they did, it's not clear if many Brits would do the work anyway.
If we stopped it all immigration would certainly go "down" but social care, health, some universities, and many food supply chains would also go down.
What is the solution?
You can split those industries into 2 though. For universities most students return after 3 to 5 years so you have an initial massive increase but in the near future it will plateau out.
Likewise food supply is come here for 6-9 months then return home before the cycle repeats.
Social care and health are therefore the real issues and we don't have people who want to do the work and we don't have people willing to work for the wages offered so that is just going to be a problem fixed by imported people. And given we don't like Europeans it's going to be people from further afield..
If you've been following the news, the explanation for why, with record immigration, we have lots of vacancies unfilled has been outed.
The companies with delegated visa granting ability have been selling visas.
Who to?
The people who want to come to this country. It seems the price, strangely, is above that for the RIB across the Channel.
A legal work permit that allows you to earn money immediately is more expensive than an illegal one, who would have guessed?
Well, illegally buying a legal permit..... But yes. The deluxe version of people smuggling.
It won't and if he gets through COVID relatively unscathed at over 80 he can use that to boost his health status claims
Didn't think of that, but that's a good point too.
I think he is too big at 2.6 now for the nomination, we basically have heard via social media that he's told Pelosi where to go.
I fear that you're right. There's too much of a temptation to assume that the Democrats are somehow collectively capable of taking the blindingly obvious course necessary to stay in the game and factor that in to the odds, and I think the 2.6 reflects that.
The problem is that there is no mechanism to force him to go if he doesn’t want to. He can just say “nah, I’m staying in” and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. Even if the whole Democratic establishment turns on him and tells him it’s a bad idea.
I still think there’s a chance they do get him to bow out (based on current media reports), but it is going to be a close run thing and the longer he clings on the more unedifying and difficult it becomes to avoid political damage. The best way would have been for a period of reflection after the debate followed by a calm handover. As it is he’s being dragged out kicking and screaming, and it’s not very edifying.
Apparently, according to the BBC, there's a thing called the "Better Buses Bill" in the King's Speech.
Boris would be proud.
That one interests me.
Currently there's a Gadarene Rush to get electric buses in, but wheelchair space requirements are still stuck in the 1990s, and they are *always* - like everything else - done to the absolute minimum.
So a lot won't fit, and some only have one space (so send your partner on the next bus an hour later), and we just wired a lot of this in for another 25 years.
First Bus: A spokesperson for First York said: “The bus design we selected from the manufacturer meets all disability access requirements. The position of the poles has also been modified after consultation with disability groups.
A few months back I helped a man in a wheelchair off a bus on the way back from Cambridge. He was in the wheelchair space, but the driver and I had to manhandle the man and chair around a pole in order to get him out. It was inconvenient, wasted time and perhaps most importantly, not very dignified for the man.
It made me wonder whether the bus designers had actually tried their disabled provision space with a wide range of disabled people. (On the other hand, ISTR the bus had lowering suspension that enabled level entry. Might have that mixed up with another bus though.)
If you want me to I can bore for England on this one.
For buses they are defined around a thing called the "Reference Wheelchair", which is based on mobility aids from the 1990s I think. Here is more recent Govt research with data tables about how many won't fit (a lot) from 2021/2, but meanwhile all the buses are being replaced and it has not been put in place. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reference-wheelchair-standard-and-transport-design
The transit companies including rail usually like to work to the utter, utter legal minimum - just like LHAs building cycle facilities with no powerful local lobby groups, paint the lane, share the existing footpath and tick the box. The difference is between viewing something as a cost to be minimised or an investment to provide a full service. I'm watching on this one because fleet replacement time is the efficient time to do changes, but given the mentality requires some regulation - which they did not do under the last Govt.
Even to gain a priority right to occupy a wheelchair space took a legal action at Supreme Court level. And companies have fought it off enough that drivers have to little more than ask nicely. Karen refuses to move her pushchair, the driver won't take action, and the wheelchair user is left at the bus stop - happens quite regularly. Then what happens is that the wheelchair user gives up on public transport and stays at home. The problem is that if a service cannot be relied upon, then a vulnerable person can be dumped - which is not an acceptable risk. Some things could help, such as better bus services - but they aren't a fix.
What is the driver meant to do if Karen won't move?
If he so much as raises his voice to her she will be shrieking harrasment and assault (and racism if she can pull that one) with the whole thing filmed by other passengers and reported to the authorities and youtube.
The days when a bus driver could grab a passenger by the scruff of the neck and eject them are long over.
What is the driver to do if Karen has not a baby but her own wheelchair?
ETA or if Karen is a whole crowd of standing passengers because this is the rush hour?
Limits to numbers standing, anyway. And some of them get out of the way temporarily if need be.
Get out the way by getting off the bus, you mean? Make half a dozen people get off and wait for the next bus, where they can pay a second fare?
Which is rather more commercially ruinous than shrugging your shoulders and saying sorry, they won't move.
As Peter Hitchens says, Utopia is a castle you can never quite be reached but can only be approached by trying to cross a moat filled with blood.
Occasionally I wonder if the integration pendulum has swung so far as to make life worse for wheelchair users, and if it might be better to expand something like London's Dial-a-ride scheme, with door-to-door transport on request. Obviously this can co-exist with wheelchair spaces on buses.
I think the problem is that it is approached from "we must regulate to stop wicked people duscriminating rather than, how can we best help these people to get where they want to go.
I can't help think that entitling people with disabilities that necessitate a wheelchair to a pass granting them subsidised taxi fares so that they pay no more than they would travelling by public transport would be a rather more economic and dignified solution.
And a far better reason to spend public money on taxis than ferrying badly behaved brats whos parents have managed to get an ADHD diagnosis to school.
Your ignorance of the issues of SEND appears to be almost perfect.
The Isle of Man buses were magnificent - Mercedes Benz, comfortable, big, smooth and perfectly flexible to drive round small villages and down relatively narrow lanes. Perhaps we should do Germany a favour and do a bulk order for 50,000 buses.
Seriously, buses in London are vital - the routes (often historical) need to be re-thought to cover where people really are and where they want to go now but that's a long term job. The big problem is drivers who think they are at Le Mans or Silverstone and are so obsessed with keeping to timetable they don't give the elderly and the semi-mobile a chance to sit down before they lurch away from the stop. The other problem is the different levels inside the bus which aren't helpful to older passengers.
We also have the hardy perennial of wheelchair vs pushchair (I've seen people nearly come to blows).
I was told by a driver that the lurching away from a stop was a condition of older buses, combined poor maintenance. He liked driving the Boris buses because the power train didn't do that.
Hence the argument for investing in new stock - I must confess the newer hybrid buses in London such as on route 366 are a much better experience but presumably cost pressures mean whole fleets can't be renewed at once.
Scrapping perfectly serviceable buses is the most environmentally unfriendly thing you can do.
Build/demolish is a huge proportion of environmental footprint.
The turnaround in Lib-Dem fortunes since 2015 is remarkable (just like the turnaround in Labour fortunes since 2019)
We live in volatile times and that, more than anything, will give the Conservatives heart that one day they'll be back...
As a Liberal Democrat, the night of 4th-5th July was revenge for 2015. Capturing back many of the seats lost in that election laid the ghost of the Coalition to rest but it was incredible to break through in places like Chichester.
Of course, no one takes anything for granted in politics and as you say the pendulum will swing back one day to some extent.
The LDs will now spend the next four or five years trying to "fortify" the gains but anyone who thinks they "know" what is going to happen politically between now and the next GE is a fool.
As an aside, I do wonder if Farage's asinine comments on Ukraine saved the Conservatives from an even worse defeat. Had the party scored sub 20% it's possible they would have finished third in terms of seats and even perhaps votes. That's the thing with Farage - if you let him talk long enough he'll say something stupid (true of most of us to be honest).
Had the result been Labour 34%, Reform 20%, Conservative 19%, Liberal Democrat 13% we'd be in a very different political world now.
Comments
The basic problem is that the world has never been wealthier but that wealth is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of people and corporations. It's just sitting there doing next to nothing. Until we tackle that, discontent is only going to grow.
The Tories have a huge opportunity and time to do it. To sort out their ideological position, work out some big ideas within the Overton window, explicitly reject populism (simple answers to complex problems), and exude competence.
BTW Lammy was disappointing this morning on R4 Today. He has not remotely mastered the art of appearing to answer the question while saying nothing. I kept thinking that Cameron or Mandelson would do this better. I like him a lot but is he quite the finished article?
Their principles require them not to have any principles.
And as was noted repeatedly at the time, it's very hard indeed to run against a sitting president whose administration has not been a disaster.
Then, just as much as now, the only way it works for the Democrats is for him to step down voluntarily.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/IIAdHEwiAy8?autoplay=1&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.bing.com&rel=0&mute=0
But it won't.
The Fares were.
Eastbound - Steam Loco pulling, electric pushing £100 third class, £160 first class.
Going the other way with the steam loco at the back was half the fare. As it was mostly in tunnels and the steam loco was working it didn't make much difference.
Rode in Met First Class Coach 353 built in 1892 and restored after a period as a house and later a farm outbuilding.
It had to be proper underground train stock on safety grounds. Mainline coaches don't have curved top doors to allow emergency evacuation in the tunnels.
I think something that only Lord Hendy could have got through. The fire people were jumpy about it to say the very least (steam engines full of red hot burning coal running underground through Kings Cross etc.
Had to have fire watchers everywhere and a staff member in every compartment to stop unauthorised door opening and window leaning.
Still got the ticket, confirming it was first class and the fare.
£80 was a lot in 2013 but a once in a lifetime opportunity and I now have provable bragging rights to be one of the few people alive to have travelled first class on the underground.
Also to have travelled on a non stop "Express" from Moorgate to Earls Court.
With or without a sock.
It'll be tough but it has to be done and I'm now sure it will be. They have one chance to write something everyone will read many times. I've no idea who will take over. Maybe Harris? In a way it doesn't matter. Someone younger and more wholesome definitely.
The zeitgeist feels like it's changing and maybe the clipped ear was the wake up call.
(1) make emigration less of a compelling need in the first place. That means tackling the effects of severe climate change in many parts of the world, finding equitable solutions to regional conflicts and building the economies of countries in Africa and much of Asia.
(2) finding ways to incentivise more women in the UK to have babies.
In other words, we have to do a lot of incredibly difficult, expensive and time-consuming things. It's the work of decades. And that's only if there is the will to do it in the first place, which there very clearly isn't.
I expect it will be taken.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/other/joe-biden-tests-positive-for-covid-19-as-senior-democrat-joins-calls-for-him-to-step-aside/ar-BB1qbYlC?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=6599cb7b24084ae8a71c0471354ffd87&ei=26
Come back in five years when everything has got worse because the process state stopped anything happening and Labour made it even worse by increasing the cats cradle of complex and cpnflicting regulations and standards that the process state administers on goodly, index linked pensioned, salaries.
I agree on the main point- voters might not like the current immigration numbers, but they would like the consequences of a massive cut even less.
So the best solution I can come up with is the boring one. Deal with the pinch points around housing and services. Stop the worst abuses in the underground economy. Process asylum claims quickly, deport the obvious mickey-takers. And shut up about headline stuff that isn't going to happen. Even if you think ECHR is a joke, it's not realistic to leave it.
Boring, and incomplete, and there will still be some loss of votes to the right. But it would work better for the Conservatives than this.
One can ascend Mam Tor on a unicycle wearing a sequinned mankini, a fedora and platform boots, but what's the point? *
* Unless one is @TSE .
As Peter Hitchens says, Utopia is a castle you can never quite be reached but can only be approached by trying to cross a moat filled with blood.
So there.
Thhhbbbb!!
The companies with delegated visa granting ability have been selling visas.
Hopefully it will give a few more days time to rest and think seriously about whether he is up to four more years. Because he clearly isn't.
All it's about is getting a small number of people to recognise that when they cause serious problems for others for a minor benefit for themselves, such behaviour is not acceptable.
It's a very minor change in culture.
It's like a large proportion of ASB issues - a willingness to enforce once should cause a long-term change in unacceptable behaviour.
I was chatting to a friend from an active travel group in Congleton about the impact of Operation Parksafe by the Cheshire Constabulary (which allows pavement parking to be reported via the Operation SNAP video portal). The first warning letter normally changes the anti-social behaviour, which does not often recur. Although TBF these are still early days; many more constabularies seem to be looking at following this route now; we even have a trial in Derbyshire.
Fortunately neither Lab nor the Tories had the delivery capability to get that message across. Labour came 4th. Challengers, honestly.
I don't argue with that, but goose, gander. We are a free market. You discover what is the right pay by what pay attracts about the right number of good applicants, not by pre-ordaining that this job has to be low paid and importing cheap labour.
It's strange how capitalism/free marketeers/better off people forget their own principles when it is about other people.
Thats why our establish politicians construct ever more elaborate ways of avoiding the issue, things continue to get worse and outsiders break tbrough the first past the post hurdle in record numbers.
Sooner or later this country will learn the hard way (it is too late for any other way) that you can have immigration or a welfare state, not both. Short of a latter day Idi Amin expelling Millions, which just isn't going to happen, that means goodbye welfare state, sooner than people might think.
The day when people wake up and discover that welfare and state pensions pay for a couple of loaves of bread, they have to pay state schools large fees and similar for medical care becauae tbe state is bankrupt and can no longer get buyers for gilts is not going to be much fun. Especially in a big city.
But come it will. The reckless spending since 2008 and rise of the far east will see to it.
Before Italy underwent long term fragmentation it had two stable, unified periods. Both were Ostrogothic kingdoms. The first was run by Odoacer, the chap who ended the Western Roman Empire. The second was founded and then initially run by Theoderic, who was commissioned to take it over in the name of Zeno, the Eastern Empire, but to be largely independent.
It was only when the megalomaniac poster boy for imperial overreach, Justinian, wanted to too hurriedly reconquer Italy after Carthage that things ended up becoming broken into competing interests and mini-kingdoms.
That doesn't mean the Tories should become Reform though. They should maintain equidistance between Reform and the LDs which is where the polling also shows most of their voters are
Obviously the real villain of the piece is the electoral system. But the way it's played has subtle effects on later cooperation.
The solution is to invest in automation and productivity where possible so that people are freed up to do that which can't be automated and be paid a higher wage to do it.
I've no issues with migration but we absolutely do not need to be deflating our productivity, our efficiency and our GDP per capita by encouraging poor business practices to continue.
We should be importing people to do skilled jobs, with skills we may lack, at high wages. Not importing people to allow badly run inefficient practices to thrive.
champion of the white
working class and middle America and the Democrats
again the party of the liberal
coastal elite ie how Trump won in 2016 v Hillary before Biden regained the rustbelt swing states in 2020
Yes, appearing to be united and competent will help bring back those who abstained, but for voters who find LD or ReFuk to their liking, why should they switch to the Conservatives?
Trump's felonious nature is baked in, and won't shift many votes either way. The new factor is Vance who can disown any unpopular views as being subordinate to Trump's policies.
Ironically, the only way to use Vance's record against him is to campaign on the very real possibility of Trump having to step down after a year or two. Obviously, Biden can't take that line.
We really are crying out for more and an increased train service as well. Once every two hours out of peak is disgraceful.
If you're from the left, the you'll probably put Reform bottom as the Tories are much further left than Reform, so if the country was roughly split 50—50 left right Reform gets about half of all last places.
Also Farage's comments on Ukraine did immense damage - it cost Reform >5% voteshare (they dropped from polling 20%ish to 15%ish virtually instantly), My parents were probably going to vote Reform until that happened, afterwards no chance.
This gives an opportunity to the Tories to go after people who would support Reform on policy - Net Zero Migration, Tax Cuts, anti-Woke, anti-Net Zero but we're utterly turned off over Ukraine. Reform are dumb in other ways too - e.g. cutting taxes by moving income tax thresholds, when "spending" the same to lower rates was more likely to have positive "Laffer" effects.
The Tories were shafted because they drove away all sides of their electoral coalition. They used right sounding language to repell the Lib-Dems, without doing a single actual right leaning thing (they never intended Rwanda to work, it was just a pathetic wedge issue - hence they kept passing legislation that their advisors told them would be struck down in the courts). They raised taxes that should have been abolished,again driving voters from their right flank (it was the NI rises to pay for social care when I decided my vote definitely wasn't coming their way). They cheerfully imported millions of low skilled immigrants without even making any effort to close the obvious scams like the fake healthcare recruitment firms or the bottom end "students" bringing their families to do "business studies" courses they somehow forget to attend.
Of course there are votes for them in going right, competently - it's probably the only route that doesn't send them to electoral oblivion; trying to be a nastier take on the Lib Dems only works if all the space to the right of them is unoccupied.
The main question is where next for Reform. I reckon if they gave me the equivalent of an "Alistair Campbell" brief*, I could win them the next election. They need to become presentable, lose some of the more fruity fruitcakes, tidy up their policy offer to be more coherent, shut up about Ukraine and build a ground game in the red wall. Once Labour's honeymoon drops off (which won't take long) they have a chance to hold the balance of power.
*Alas for all concerned I don't actually want the job - I've a engineering business to run, and can't just drop that to become a political organiser.
@NickPalmer if you ever speak to anyone involved in the Labour campaign in Guildford I would love to know what was going through their minds? I accept locals will want to campaign locally but why did they spend so much on massive bus adverts and why was the candidate apparently working it full time and not in Aldershot and why all the misleading stuff. It is not like they even tried in reality. They didn't take advantage of the free addressed Royal Mail delivery. Just a bog standard one and outside of a very, very small area they didn't do anything. Those working it seemed hell bent on returning a Tory to Guildford.
Yes, yes, it's all politics and aren't the Liberal Democrats nasty and unscrupulous?
Seriously?
Ed Davey and the LDs played a system they neither like nor want nor does them any favours for maximum advantage and all we now hear is moaning from the "losers" including an activist for a Party which won over 400 seats.
Labour has occasionally "talked" about change to the electoral system - usually when they've been on the wrong end of an election defeat. We may now hear the Conservatives begin to "think aloud" about PR. Neither is sincere - the duopoly has survived fairly comfortably - 58% of the vote has got the two parties 84% of the seats in England, Scotland and Wales so the current system works fine for both Conservative and Labour and for that reason alone there'll be no change until one or both of them is decisively defeated.
Farage and Davey can shout into the dark calling for PR but it will get them nowhere.
As for the "let's add Reform and the Conservatives and call it a single bloc" - that was widely derided on here months ago by the more thoughtful commentators and analysts. There was never any polling evidence of a direct transfer - at most a third of Reform voters would support a Conservative in the absence of a Reform candidate.
The Conservatives lost votes to Reform, to Labour and in some places to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens and also suffered considerable abstention (as did Labour). Until we get more definitive research on what happened to the Conservative vote and why 47% of the 2019 vote disappeared, we're speculating. We can all have our pet theories and I suspect the answer will vary from region to region and even from seat to seat.
Not everywhere though - Surrey, posh bits of London. Misses out Edinburgh too.
Bus travellers are, on the whole, very considerate and kind. More so than most other road users, I'd hazard.
The Isle of Man buses were magnificent - Mercedes Benz, comfortable, big, smooth and perfectly flexible to drive round small villages and down relatively narrow lanes. Perhaps we should do Germany a favour and do a bulk order for 50,000 buses.
Seriously, buses in London are vital - the routes (often historical) need to be re-thought to cover where people really are and where they want to go now but that's a long term job. The big problem is drivers who think they are at Le Mans or Silverstone and are so obsessed with keeping to timetable they don't give the elderly and the semi-mobile a chance to sit down before they lurch away from the stop. The other problem is the different levels inside the bus which aren't helpful to older passengers.
We also have the hardy perennial of wheelchair vs pushchair (I've seen people nearly come to blows).
I've seen Karens with push chairs on the bus. And seen plenty of people get off for the wheelchair users - even when the bus is rammed.
The wave of new school building in the 2010s ought to help but the big pressure is on SEN accommodation (although according to some on here, the whole SEN thing is a scam as parents are putting in false claims - apparently?)
Viewcode, 2023-01-29: "Germany is on the back foot, and although it will help it will be little and late"
You don't pay me enough.
We live in volatile times and that, more than anything, will give the Conservatives heart that one day they'll be back...
Those opposed to high levels of immigration need to state the consequences of a "Net Zero" policy (are we seriously talking one in, one out?) in terms of labour capacity. We've all seen what happens when you get a shortage of anything - the price goes up - and if you have a shortage of workers the price of everything goes up. Yes, there are people willing to work - you see them outside Wickes every day looking for cash-in-hand manual work - but not enough for all the demands of a complex economy.
Farage and Tice are Thatcherites - they want tax cuts first and foremost because they'll benefit and they still have this arcane belief in Laffer and trickle down. The Reform voter in my experience wants to see public spending but in WWC areas - that's why they loved the "Levelling Up" agenda of Johnson which has been consigned to history.
No one (and I include Labour, the LDs, Greens and the rest) has come up with a coherent response to the deficit. This was £131 billion in 2023/24 and included £116 billion in debt interest payments (a clue there). If you are going to close that gap, you have three options - wholesale tax rises, wholesale spending cuts or a nuanced mix of the two (perhaps more 50/50 than Osborne's "austerity" in 2010). If we have to pay 25p basic income tax and 50% higher rate is the world going to come to an end? Probably not - but where do you make your cuts (no sacred cows unlike 2010, even defence has to take its pain)?
There are a small number of utter chods in each. For example, I've encountered ramblers who seem to think that leaving a farmer's gate open is not just a matter of not bothering. They do it deliberately. Maybe less than 1% of walkers. But enough to be problem if you are running a farm. So farmers see....
https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-lists-42-000-missing-persons/
This does not include 20k or more kidnapped children taken to Russia.
(Heard in the DT Ukraine the Latest podcast).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjkwlYeRcBM
I can't help think that entitling people with disabilities that necessitate a wheelchair to a pass granting them subsidised taxi fares so that they pay no more than they would travelling by public transport would be a rather more economic and dignified solution.
And a far better reason to spend public money on taxis than ferrying badly behaved brats whos parents have managed to get an ADHD diagnosis to school.
The idea was that the basic "skate" could have different bodies on top - single deckers etc. And it was designed to go full electric when the cost of batteries dropped. As the cherry on top, made in the UK.
Con -20.3%
LD +0.7%
LDs go from 11 seats to 72, (or 8 if you use the notional results).
I still think there’s a chance they do get him to bow out (based on current media reports), but it is going to be a close run thing and the longer he clings on the more unedifying and difficult it becomes to avoid political damage. The best way would have been for a period of reflection after the debate followed by a calm handover. As it is he’s being dragged out kicking and screaming, and it’s not very edifying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9u40Mt7V2k
Build/demolish is a huge proportion of environmental footprint.
Of course, no one takes anything for granted in politics and as you say the pendulum will swing back one day to some extent.
The LDs will now spend the next four or five years trying to "fortify" the gains but anyone who thinks they "know" what is going to happen politically between now and the next GE is a fool.
As an aside, I do wonder if Farage's asinine comments on Ukraine saved the Conservatives from an even worse defeat. Had the party scored sub 20% it's possible they would have finished third in terms of seats and even perhaps votes. That's the thing with Farage - if you let him talk long enough he'll say something stupid (true of most of us to be honest).
Had the result been Labour 34%, Reform 20%, Conservative 19%, Liberal Democrat 13% we'd be in a very different political world now.