I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I remember the SNL sketch after Trump's first debate against Hillary in 2016 where they cut 'live' to 'Hillary's campaign HQ' with everybody dancing and partying.
I was at the time conducting focus groups in the US where the issue of Trump was being brought up unprompted again and again by America's equivalent of our own working class. The idea that he was for them, while the media was for the elites.
To me, Trump's rants come off a bit like the deranged ramblings of your drunken uncle at the family get-together. But they clearly resonate with a significant portion of US society. Whereas the Kamala ramping reminds me of Milifandom - attempting to make something pretty stodgy seem cool. 'Kamala is brat'. Really? ...Really?
I think Kamala will look clear, insightful and intellectual when placed against Trump. But it only takes one comment, say, Hilary's 'basket of deplorables' to completely alienate an entire segment of voters. Plus the RCS point that incumbent governments round the world are getting a kicking due to the last few years of economic malaise and inflation.
Kamala is a massive improvement on Biden and I would be voting for her if I lived in the US. I also think the odds of her winning are closer to 50/50, so the current odds on offer are value. But it is definitely not a slam dunk as some posters on here are making out.
Yes, the US is horribly divided at the moment, and there’s at least 40% of voters who are for one side or the other, and never going to change their minds between now and the election.
The media is even more divided, with most of the mainstream falling heavily for Harris and most of the alternative media behind Trump. Personally I try and watch both, to try and understand what each side is saying. Mostly they’re talking straight past each other.
Here’s an MSM article from when Harris was running for a DA job in California, describing herself as Asian with no mention of Black - which supports Trump’s position that she changed her identity at some point. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1818719005089448294
I've pointed out a few times that this website is well inside the 'liberal mainstream' hive/bubble. If you switch to the other bubble, IE even just by reading Elon Musk's posts on Twitter, the world appears very different.
The main problem is that people have whipped themselves up in to total repulsion and disgust at Trump to such a degree that they give the liberals a total free pass over anything. So whatever the left does or tolerates (terrorism, rioting, discrimination, racism) it is all basically ok because there is a greater enemy to be defeated.
If given the choice I would probably vote for Harris as the 'less worse' option, not because I agree in any way with the dominant analysis (as set out above). The deal breaker is that Trump has proved to be an existential danger to democracy, whereas Harris is not.
Are you taking the absolute piss? With MrbEd, Leon, Pagan2, HYUFD, Max… I could go on. The site is full of right wing late middle aged blokes who think they are edgy and will create outrage when, in truth, their views are well aired in both the mainstream and alternative news. The liberal left is in a distinct minority on here. Rightist views dominate.
Not convinced. Is there is single contributor who will defend Trump's actions WRT 6th January or attempted vote rigging or the EDL. Are there even any who strongly supported the Rwanda scheme, giving a reasoned account of how it could work?
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
'Roy Cooper Withdraws From Harris’s Vice-Presidential Field Mr. Cooper, the governor of North Carolina, had been seen as one of the half-dozen top candidates to join the Democratic presidential ticket....“This just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket,” Mr. Cooper wrote. “She has an outstanding list of people from which to choose, and we’ll all work to make sure she wins.”
Mr. Cooper, who previously served as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, was asked last week by the Harris campaign to be vetted for vice president but declined to participate, according to two people engaged in the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.'
On topic - this is the Access Hollywood tape redux. It won’t make a shred of difference and Trump will win, perhaps not as convincingly as he would have done against Biden, but handsomely enough. Nothing can stop that.
It might be my memory playing tricks on me but I think the Access Hollywood tape made plenty of difference. Trump's team certainly thought it was hurting them, that's why Trump paid off Stormy Daniels when Trump was initially inclined to just let her say whatever she was going to say. It ultimately wasn't enough to lose him the election, but without his lucky break with the Comey stuff it probably would have been.
I don't think this footage in itself is massively damaging, but the relevant thing it shows is that Trump is only capable of doing friendly media (unlike 2016 Trump).
On the assumption that trump won’t be running in 2028, I wonder what direction the Republican Party will go in by then? Eventually the uk Labour Party stopped picking people like Michael Foot and Kinnock and went with a slick centrist. Or do they pick an heir to trump who’s a bit less gaffe prone and without the baggage.
It took 3 consecutive general election defeats for Foot and Kinnock to get to Blair.
Of course part of the reason Trump got the nomination in the first place is the GOP had picked centrists twice in a row, McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012 and both had lost. Trump then surprisingly won in 2016 and although he lost in 2020 it would likely take defeats for both him in November and Vance or De Santis in 2028 (one of whom is the likely next GOP nominee) for them to pick a centrist like Haley again
That last sentence is why the Republicans have a problem. Haley may be non-MAGA, and that may count as centrist these days, but it's a rum sort of centrism.
(See Sunak for a milder version of the same effect.)
Assuming that the Republicans can avoid putting up Trump up again in 2028 (even if he's in an orange jumpsuit or six feet under), presumably the temptation will be to go for MAGA without Trump. But as Vance is showing, MAGA needs Trump to work, because MAGA is Trump.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
Ofwat have a quite wide brief. They have to approve pricing and investment plans for the utilities on a 5 year basis. They also have to ensure the basic financial stability of the Water cos which is why TW now finds itself breaking its covenants to the regulator and hence more pressure on itself and HMG.
The industry is a regulated industry, it's just the regulator is crap.
The core business of the water companies is profitable.
If they're losing money due to bad management of loans then tough shit.
That is the bondholders/shareholders responsibility not the taxpayers responsibility and they need to face the consequences of their choices.
I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I remember the SNL sketch after Trump's first debate against Hillary in 2016 where they cut 'live' to 'Hillary's campaign HQ' with everybody dancing and partying.
I was at the time conducting focus groups in the US where the issue of Trump was being brought up unprompted again and again by America's equivalent of our own working class. The idea that he was for them, while the media was for the elites.
To me, Trump's rants come off a bit like the deranged ramblings of your drunken uncle at the family get-together. But they clearly resonate with a significant portion of US society. Whereas the Kamala ramping reminds me of Milifandom - attempting to make something pretty stodgy seem cool. 'Kamala is brat'. Really? ...Really?
I think Kamala will look clear, insightful and intellectual when placed against Trump. But it only takes one comment, say, Hilary's 'basket of deplorables' to completely alienate an entire segment of voters. Plus the RCS point that incumbent governments round the world are getting a kicking due to the last few years of economic malaise and inflation.
Kamala is a massive improvement on Biden and I would be voting for her if I lived in the US. I also think the odds of her winning are closer to 50/50, so the current odds on offer are value. But it is definitely not a slam dunk as some posters on here are making out.
Yes, the US is horribly divided at the moment, and there’s at least 40% of voters who are for one side or the other, and never going to change their minds between now and the election.
The media is even more divided, with most of the mainstream falling heavily for Harris and most of the alternative media behind Trump. Personally I try and watch both, to try and understand what each side is saying. Mostly they’re talking straight past each other.
Here’s an MSM article from when Harris was running for a DA job in California, describing herself as Asian with no mention of Black - which supports Trump’s position that she changed her identity at some point. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1818719005089448294
I've pointed out a few times that this website is well inside the 'liberal mainstream' hive/bubble. If you switch to the other bubble, IE even just by reading Elon Musk's posts on Twitter, the world appears very different.
The age bubble is also an issue. Media consuption in the under 34s is now so radically different to media consuption in the over 44s that they might as well be different countries.
As an illustration - this is OFCOMs latest estimates of in-home video consumption. Those huge pink blocks in the <35s? That’s video social media. And that’s why, in spite of PBs periodic desire to see social media banned*, it won’t be. To do so would be electoral suicide.
*(though, of course, not the good ship PB as we’re one of the good one!)
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I remember the SNL sketch after Trump's first debate against Hillary in 2016 where they cut 'live' to 'Hillary's campaign HQ' with everybody dancing and partying.
I was at the time conducting focus groups in the US where the issue of Trump was being brought up unprompted again and again by America's equivalent of our own working class. The idea that he was for them, while the media was for the elites.
To me, Trump's rants come off a bit like the deranged ramblings of your drunken uncle at the family get-together. But they clearly resonate with a significant portion of US society. Whereas the Kamala ramping reminds me of Milifandom - attempting to make something pretty stodgy seem cool. 'Kamala is brat'. Really? ...Really?
I think Kamala will look clear, insightful and intellectual when placed against Trump. But it only takes one comment, say, Hilary's 'basket of deplorables' to completely alienate an entire segment of voters. Plus the RCS point that incumbent governments round the world are getting a kicking due to the last few years of economic malaise and inflation.
Kamala is a massive improvement on Biden and I would be voting for her if I lived in the US. I also think the odds of her winning are closer to 50/50, so the current odds on offer are value. But it is definitely not a slam dunk as some posters on here are making out.
Yes, the US is horribly divided at the moment, and there’s at least 40% of voters who are for one side or the other, and never going to change their minds between now and the election.
The media is even more divided, with most of the mainstream falling heavily for Harris and most of the alternative media behind Trump. Personally I try and watch both, to try and understand what each side is saying. Mostly they’re talking straight past each other.
Here’s an MSM article from when Harris was running for a DA job in California, describing herself as Asian with no mention of Black - which supports Trump’s position that she changed her identity at some point. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1818719005089448294
I've pointed out a few times that this website is well inside the 'liberal mainstream' hive/bubble. If you switch to the other bubble, IE even just by reading Elon Musk's posts on Twitter, the world appears very different.
The main problem is that people have whipped themselves up in to total repulsion and disgust at Trump to such a degree that they give the liberals a total free pass over anything. So whatever the left does or tolerates (terrorism, rioting, discrimination, racism) it is all basically ok because there is a greater enemy to be defeated.
If given the choice I would probably vote for Harris as the 'less worse' option, not because I agree in any way with the dominant analysis (as set out above). The deal breaker is that Trump has proved to be an existential danger to democracy, whereas Harris is not.
Are you taking the absolute piss? With MrbEd, Leon, Pagan2, HYUFD, Max… I could go on. The site is full of right wing late middle aged blokes who think they are edgy and will create outrage when, in truth, their views are well aired in both the mainstream and alternative news. The liberal left is in a distinct minority on here. Rightist views dominate.
That isn't really true, 38% of UK voters voted Tory or Reform on 4th July, I would guess less than 38% of PBers did.
This site is largely liberal centrist and always has been, I would expect more PBers than the UK average vote LD in particular
I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I remember the SNL sketch after Trump's first debate against Hillary in 2016 where they cut 'live' to 'Hillary's campaign HQ' with everybody dancing and partying.
I was at the time conducting focus groups in the US where the issue of Trump was being brought up unprompted again and again by America's equivalent of our own working class. The idea that he was for them, while the media was for the elites.
To me, Trump's rants come off a bit like the deranged ramblings of your drunken uncle at the family get-together. But they clearly resonate with a significant portion of US society. Whereas the Kamala ramping reminds me of Milifandom - attempting to make something pretty stodgy seem cool. 'Kamala is brat'. Really? ...Really?
I think Kamala will look clear, insightful and intellectual when placed against Trump. But it only takes one comment, say, Hilary's 'basket of deplorables' to completely alienate an entire segment of voters. Plus the RCS point that incumbent governments round the world are getting a kicking due to the last few years of economic malaise and inflation.
Kamala is a massive improvement on Biden and I would be voting for her if I lived in the US. I also think the odds of her winning are closer to 50/50, so the current odds on offer are value. But it is definitely not a slam dunk as some posters on here are making out.
Yes, the US is horribly divided at the moment, and there’s at least 40% of voters who are for one side or the other, and never going to change their minds between now and the election.
The media is even more divided, with most of the mainstream falling heavily for Harris and most of the alternative media behind Trump. Personally I try and watch both, to try and understand what each side is saying. Mostly they’re talking straight past each other.
Here’s an MSM article from when Harris was running for a DA job in California, describing herself as Asian with no mention of Black - which supports Trump’s position that she changed her identity at some point. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1818719005089448294
I've pointed out a few times that this website is well inside the 'liberal mainstream' hive/bubble. If you switch to the other bubble, IE even just by reading Elon Musk's posts on Twitter, the world appears very different.
The main problem is that people have whipped themselves up in to total repulsion and disgust at Trump to such a degree that they give the liberals a total free pass over anything. So whatever the left does or tolerates (terrorism, rioting, discrimination, racism) it is all basically ok because there is a greater enemy to be defeated.
If given the choice I would probably vote for Harris as the 'less worse' option, not because I agree in any way with the dominant analysis (as set out above). The deal breaker is that Trump has proved to be an existential danger to democracy, whereas Harris is not.
Are you taking the absolute piss? With MrbEd, Leon, Pagan2, HYUFD, Max… I could go on. The site is full of right wing late middle aged blokes who think they are edgy and will create outrage when, in truth, their views are well aired in both the mainstream and alternative news. The liberal left is in a distinct minority on here. Rightist views dominate.
Not convinced. Is there is single contributor who will defend Trump's actions WRT 6th January or attempted vote rigging or the EDL. Are there even any who strongly supported the Rwanda scheme, giving a reasoned account of how it could work?
Hardly any Trumpists anywhere will try to defend his actions over January 6th. They do deflection and what-aboutism.
This is also what Trump does in the interview, but unfortunately he doesn't have the agility he used to so he ends up going with "sure those police got their ribs broken and one of them died of a stroke, but what about those left-wing protestors who sprayed paint on a memorial? Do you know how hard it is to get paint off granite"?
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The owners can argue what they like.
The regulator should say "no". The shareholders/bondholders made their bed and they can lie in it.
I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I remember the SNL sketch after Trump's first debate against Hillary in 2016 where they cut 'live' to 'Hillary's campaign HQ' with everybody dancing and partying.
I was at the time conducting focus groups in the US where the issue of Trump was being brought up unprompted again and again by America's equivalent of our own working class. The idea that he was for them, while the media was for the elites.
To me, Trump's rants come off a bit like the deranged ramblings of your drunken uncle at the family get-together. But they clearly resonate with a significant portion of US society. Whereas the Kamala ramping reminds me of Milifandom - attempting to make something pretty stodgy seem cool. 'Kamala is brat'. Really? ...Really?
I think Kamala will look clear, insightful and intellectual when placed against Trump. But it only takes one comment, say, Hilary's 'basket of deplorables' to completely alienate an entire segment of voters. Plus the RCS point that incumbent governments round the world are getting a kicking due to the last few years of economic malaise and inflation.
Kamala is a massive improvement on Biden and I would be voting for her if I lived in the US. I also think the odds of her winning are closer to 50/50, so the current odds on offer are value. But it is definitely not a slam dunk as some posters on here are making out.
Yes, the US is horribly divided at the moment, and there’s at least 40% of voters who are for one side or the other, and never going to change their minds between now and the election.
The media is even more divided, with most of the mainstream falling heavily for Harris and most of the alternative media behind Trump. Personally I try and watch both, to try and understand what each side is saying. Mostly they’re talking straight past each other.
Here’s an MSM article from when Harris was running for a DA job in California, describing herself as Asian with no mention of Black - which supports Trump’s position that she changed her identity at some point. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1818719005089448294
I've pointed out a few times that this website is well inside the 'liberal mainstream' hive/bubble. If you switch to the other bubble, IE even just by reading Elon Musk's posts on Twitter, the world appears very different.
The main problem is that people have whipped themselves up in to total repulsion and disgust at Trump to such a degree that they give the liberals a total free pass over anything. So whatever the left does or tolerates (terrorism, rioting, discrimination, racism) it is all basically ok because there is a greater enemy to be defeated.
If given the choice I would probably vote for Harris as the 'less worse' option, not because I agree in any way with the dominant analysis (as set out above). The deal breaker is that Trump has proved to be an existential danger to democracy, whereas Harris is not.
Are you taking the absolute piss? With MrbEd, Leon, Pagan2, HYUFD, Max… I could go on. The site is full of right wing late middle aged blokes who think they are edgy and will create outrage when, in truth, their views are well aired in both the mainstream and alternative news. The liberal left is in a distinct minority on here. Rightist views dominate.
That isn't really true, 38% of UK voters voted Tory or Reform on 4th July, I would guess less than 38% of PBers did.
This site is largely liberal centrist and always has been, I would expect more PBers than the UK average vote LD in particular
Balderdash, to resurrect an underused phrase
OK, produce the evidence that over 38% of posters on here voted Tory or Reform? I suspect the percentage who voted Reform in particular is well below the 14% of UK voters overall who voted Reform
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
Modern cars are much less likely to cause serious injury because the emphasis on fuel consumption and wind tunnels have resulted in far more rounded shapes which means the force of the impact is spread over a longer period of time reducing the force of the collusion. You are much less likely to be pinged into the air and the way of oncoming traffic. Of course this helps very little if you are hit by a bus or a lorry with a flat front.
Indeed.
All of this, plus features like automatic braking, mean both cars and pedestrians are measurably miles safer than they were in the past.
Not any more, I'm afraid. For pedestrians, that trend has decisively reversed in the USA from around 15 years ago.
The low point of pedestrian deaths on USA roads was 4109 in 2009. In 2022 there were 7502 pedestrian deaths.
I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I remember the SNL sketch after Trump's first debate against Hillary in 2016 where they cut 'live' to 'Hillary's campaign HQ' with everybody dancing and partying.
I was at the time conducting focus groups in the US where the issue of Trump was being brought up unprompted again and again by America's equivalent of our own working class. The idea that he was for them, while the media was for the elites.
To me, Trump's rants come off a bit like the deranged ramblings of your drunken uncle at the family get-together. But they clearly resonate with a significant portion of US society. Whereas the Kamala ramping reminds me of Milifandom - attempting to make something pretty stodgy seem cool. 'Kamala is brat'. Really? ...Really?
I think Kamala will look clear, insightful and intellectual when placed against Trump. But it only takes one comment, say, Hilary's 'basket of deplorables' to completely alienate an entire segment of voters. Plus the RCS point that incumbent governments round the world are getting a kicking due to the last few years of economic malaise and inflation.
Kamala is a massive improvement on Biden and I would be voting for her if I lived in the US. I also think the odds of her winning are closer to 50/50, so the current odds on offer are value. But it is definitely not a slam dunk as some posters on here are making out.
Yes, the US is horribly divided at the moment, and there’s at least 40% of voters who are for one side or the other, and never going to change their minds between now and the election.
The media is even more divided, with most of the mainstream falling heavily for Harris and most of the alternative media behind Trump. Personally I try and watch both, to try and understand what each side is saying. Mostly they’re talking straight past each other.
Here’s an MSM article from when Harris was running for a DA job in California, describing herself as Asian with no mention of Black - which supports Trump’s position that she changed her identity at some point. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1818719005089448294
I've pointed out a few times that this website is well inside the 'liberal mainstream' hive/bubble. If you switch to the other bubble, IE even just by reading Elon Musk's posts on Twitter, the world appears very different.
The main problem is that people have whipped themselves up in to total repulsion and disgust at Trump to such a degree that they give the liberals a total free pass over anything. So whatever the left does or tolerates (terrorism, rioting, discrimination, racism) it is all basically ok because there is a greater enemy to be defeated.
If given the choice I would probably vote for Harris as the 'less worse' option, not because I agree in any way with the dominant analysis (as set out above). The deal breaker is that Trump has proved to be an existential danger to democracy, whereas Harris is not.
Are you taking the absolute piss? With MrbEd, Leon, Pagan2, HYUFD, Max… I could go on. The site is full of right wing late middle aged blokes who think they are edgy and will create outrage when, in truth, their views are well aired in both the mainstream and alternative news. The liberal left is in a distinct minority on here. Rightist views dominate.
Not convinced. Is there is single contributor who will defend Trump's actions WRT 6th January or attempted vote rigging or the EDL. Are there even any who strongly supported the Rwanda scheme, giving a reasoned account of how it could work?
WilliamGlenn in re Jan 6 and Leon in re Rwanda to pluck two out of the air.
I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I remember the SNL sketch after Trump's first debate against Hillary in 2016 where they cut 'live' to 'Hillary's campaign HQ' with everybody dancing and partying.
I was at the time conducting focus groups in the US where the issue of Trump was being brought up unprompted again and again by America's equivalent of our own working class. The idea that he was for them, while the media was for the elites.
To me, Trump's rants come off a bit like the deranged ramblings of your drunken uncle at the family get-together. But they clearly resonate with a significant portion of US society. Whereas the Kamala ramping reminds me of Milifandom - attempting to make something pretty stodgy seem cool. 'Kamala is brat'. Really? ...Really?
I think Kamala will look clear, insightful and intellectual when placed against Trump. But it only takes one comment, say, Hilary's 'basket of deplorables' to completely alienate an entire segment of voters. Plus the RCS point that incumbent governments round the world are getting a kicking due to the last few years of economic malaise and inflation.
Kamala is a massive improvement on Biden and I would be voting for her if I lived in the US. I also think the odds of her winning are closer to 50/50, so the current odds on offer are value. But it is definitely not a slam dunk as some posters on here are making out.
Yes, the US is horribly divided at the moment, and there’s at least 40% of voters who are for one side or the other, and never going to change their minds between now and the election.
The media is even more divided, with most of the mainstream falling heavily for Harris and most of the alternative media behind Trump. Personally I try and watch both, to try and understand what each side is saying. Mostly they’re talking straight past each other.
Here’s an MSM article from when Harris was running for a DA job in California, describing herself as Asian with no mention of Black - which supports Trump’s position that she changed her identity at some point. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1818719005089448294
I've pointed out a few times that this website is well inside the 'liberal mainstream' hive/bubble. If you switch to the other bubble, IE even just by reading Elon Musk's posts on Twitter, the world appears very different.
The age bubble is also an issue. Media consuption in the under 34s is now so radically different to media consuption in the over 44s that they might as well be different countries.
As an illustration - this is OFCOMs latest estimates of in-home video consumption. Those huge pink blocks in the
This is interesting. Surprising that for the older age groups live TV is still much more prevalent than recorded TV (which I assume includes things like iplayer and More4). Possibly boosted by live sport?
I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I remember the SNL sketch after Trump's first debate against Hillary in 2016 where they cut 'live' to 'Hillary's campaign HQ' with everybody dancing and partying.
I was at the time conducting focus groups in the US where the issue of Trump was being brought up unprompted again and again by America's equivalent of our own working class. The idea that he was for them, while the media was for the elites.
To me, Trump's rants come off a bit like the deranged ramblings of your drunken uncle at the family get-together. But they clearly resonate with a significant portion of US society. Whereas the Kamala ramping reminds me of Milifandom - attempting to make something pretty stodgy seem cool. 'Kamala is brat'. Really? ...Really?
I think Kamala will look clear, insightful and intellectual when placed against Trump. But it only takes one comment, say, Hilary's 'basket of deplorables' to completely alienate an entire segment of voters. Plus the RCS point that incumbent governments round the world are getting a kicking due to the last few years of economic malaise and inflation.
Kamala is a massive improvement on Biden and I would be voting for her if I lived in the US. I also think the odds of her winning are closer to 50/50, so the current odds on offer are value. But it is definitely not a slam dunk as some posters on here are making out.
Yes, the US is horribly divided at the moment, and there’s at least 40% of voters who are for one side or the other, and never going to change their minds between now and the election.
The media is even more divided, with most of the mainstream falling heavily for Harris and most of the alternative media behind Trump. Personally I try and watch both, to try and understand what each side is saying. Mostly they’re talking straight past each other.
Here’s an MSM article from when Harris was running for a DA job in California, describing herself as Asian with no mention of Black - which supports Trump’s position that she changed her identity at some point. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1818719005089448294
I've pointed out a few times that this website is well inside the 'liberal mainstream' hive/bubble. If you switch to the other bubble, IE even just by reading Elon Musk's posts on Twitter, the world appears very different.
The age bubble is also an issue. Media consuption in the under 34s is now so radically different to media consuption in the over 44s that they might as well be different countries.
As an illustration - this is OFCOMs latest estimates of in-home video consumption. Those huge pink blocks in the
Yes, no-one under 45 is watching much live TV except for sports, breaking news (when something big happens), or the occasional drama finale (Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad etc).
The oldies are still watching TV, mostly whatever happens to be on, including plenty of cable news.
A surprising amount of those youngsters get their news primarily from Instragram and TikTok, with all the issues that might entail.
I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I remember the SNL sketch after Trump's first debate against Hillary in 2016 where they cut 'live' to 'Hillary's campaign HQ' with everybody dancing and partying.
I was at the time conducting focus groups in the US where the issue of Trump was being brought up unprompted again and again by America's equivalent of our own working class. The idea that he was for them, while the media was for the elites.
To me, Trump's rants come off a bit like the deranged ramblings of your drunken uncle at the family get-together. But they clearly resonate with a significant portion of US society. Whereas the Kamala ramping reminds me of Milifandom - attempting to make something pretty stodgy seem cool. 'Kamala is brat'. Really? ...Really?
I think Kamala will look clear, insightful and intellectual when placed against Trump. But it only takes one comment, say, Hilary's 'basket of deplorables' to completely alienate an entire segment of voters. Plus the RCS point that incumbent governments round the world are getting a kicking due to the last few years of economic malaise and inflation.
Kamala is a massive improvement on Biden and I would be voting for her if I lived in the US. I also think the odds of her winning are closer to 50/50, so the current odds on offer are value. But it is definitely not a slam dunk as some posters on here are making out.
Yes, the US is horribly divided at the moment, and there’s at least 40% of voters who are for one side or the other, and never going to change their minds between now and the election.
The media is even more divided, with most of the mainstream falling heavily for Harris and most of the alternative media behind Trump. Personally I try and watch both, to try and understand what each side is saying. Mostly they’re talking straight past each other.
Here’s an MSM article from when Harris was running for a DA job in California, describing herself as Asian with no mention of Black - which supports Trump’s position that she changed her identity at some point. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1818719005089448294
I've pointed out a few times that this website is well inside the 'liberal mainstream' hive/bubble. If you switch to the other bubble, IE even just by reading Elon Musk's posts on Twitter, the world appears very different.
The main problem is that people have whipped themselves up in to total repulsion and disgust at Trump to such a degree that they give the liberals a total free pass over anything. So whatever the left does or tolerates (terrorism, rioting, discrimination, racism) it is all basically ok because there is a greater enemy to be defeated.
If given the choice I would probably vote for Harris as the 'less worse' option, not because I agree in any way with the dominant analysis (as set out above). The deal breaker is that Trump has proved to be an existential danger to democracy, whereas Harris is not.
Are you taking the absolute piss? With MrbEd, Leon, Pagan2, HYUFD, Max… I could go on. The site is full of right wing late middle aged blokes who think they are edgy and will create outrage when, in truth, their views are well aired in both the mainstream and alternative news. The liberal left is in a distinct minority on here. Rightist views dominate.
That isn't really true, 38% of UK voters voted Tory or Reform on 4th July, I would guess less than 38% of PBers did.
This site is largely liberal centrist and always has been, I would expect more PBers than the UK average vote LD in particular
Balderdash, to resurrect an underused phrase
OK, produce the evidence that over 38% of posters on here voted Tory or Reform? I suspect the percentage who voted Reform in particular is well below the 14% of UK voters overall who voted Reform
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
Modern cars are much less likely to cause serious injury because the emphasis on fuel consumption and wind tunnels have resulted in far more rounded shapes which means the force of the impact is spread over a longer period of time reducing the force of the collusion. You are much less likely to be pinged into the air and the way of oncoming traffic. Of course this helps very little if you are hit by a bus or a lorry with a flat front.
Indeed.
All of this, plus features like automatic braking, mean both cars and pedestrians are measurably miles safer than they were in the past.
Not any more, I'm afraid. For pedestrians, that trend has decisively reversed in the USA from around 15 years ago.
The low point of pedestrian deaths on USA roads was 4109 in 2009. In 2022 there were 7502 pedestrian deaths.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
Modern cars are much less likely to cause serious injury because the emphasis on fuel consumption and wind tunnels have resulted in far more rounded shapes which means the force of the impact is spread over a longer period of time reducing the force of the collusion. You are much less likely to be pinged into the air and the way of oncoming traffic. Of course this helps very little if you are hit by a bus or a lorry with a flat front.
Indeed.
All of this, plus features like automatic braking, mean both cars and pedestrians are measurably miles safer than they were in the past.
Not any more, I'm afraid. For pedestrians, that trend has decisively reversed in the USA from around 15 years ago.
The low point of pedestrian deaths on USA roads was 4109 in 2009. In 2022 there were 7502 pedestrian deaths.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
Being hit at 30mph is, and always has been, worse than being hit at 20mph. The way cars are constructed and the materials they are made out of has made a big difference between the 1970's and now.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
Modern cars are much less likely to cause serious injury because the emphasis on fuel consumption and wind tunnels have resulted in far more rounded shapes which means the force of the impact is spread over a longer period of time reducing the force of the collusion. You are much less likely to be pinged into the air and the way of oncoming traffic. Of course this helps very little if you are hit by a bus or a lorry with a flat front.
Indeed.
All of this, plus features like automatic braking, mean both cars and pedestrians are measurably miles safer than they were in the past.
Not any more, I'm afraid. For pedestrians, that trend has decisively reversed in the USA from around 15 years ago.
The low point of pedestrian deaths on USA roads was 4109 in 2009. In 2022 there were 7502 pedestrian deaths.
Is that right, pedestrian deaths up 80% in 13 years in the US? What are the major factors behind such an increase? Do people now walk home drunk instead of driving home drunk?
Picking up "lidos with views of cathedrals", it's a bit of a challenge as cathedrals tend to be urban. Wild swimming with views may be a better option. The best option may be the seaside in the South, or pleasant churches which are not cathedrals next to rivers.
I can do you a castle, at St Andrews, and a tidal pool. But that's the North sea off Scotland, so it will freeze your balls off (1). Lots more castles (2). Hathersage Lido may have views of Peak District hills - @TSE can advise.
For cathedrals - Salisbury and the Avon, perhaps? Or use of Cathedral Schools pools in the summer - Salisbury school has an outdoor one.
The best would be the Minster Pool at Lichfield - they are running "Lichfield Beach" this summer, so that's a surprise. Local authority missed a trick.
I really can't see why urban open water swimming is so restricted.
My favourite would be Melbourne Poole, Derbyshire, near one of the top Norman Churches in the country, with Sheela-na-Gig. But Melbourne is a very Nimby sort of place; also the only place I have *ever* been asked not to inject insulin in a restaurant.
As things stand, try the Anchor Church, on the Rover Trent nr Ingleby. My photo for the day:
For more, I think there is a fighting chance that access legislation in England may get overhauled now the Landowners' Party are out, and that may include a universal-with-limitations right to navigate rivers as Scotland, including lake / reservoir access. Re-regulation of water companies may help.
THe sort of access right the Landowners' Party tried to extinguish completely on land and water in Scotland rather than allow the codification of the open access enjoyed immemorial?
That's a very interesting suggestion - good luck down there.
I hope there's been a sea change. Nulab did a lot, but got quite bogged down.
One notorious move was around the Right to Claim Rights of Way due to historic usage, where an agreement had been reached between NFU type bodies and Ramblers type bodies, and Theresa Coffey the Minister threw it out and just abolished it on her own say so at 5 days notice.
That was later reversed, but it's indicative of the basic assumptions - which have now changed to at least some degree. I'm not sure how far it goes.
But Theresa Coffey and friends are now largely reduced to a tinny wibbling noise emerging from the dustbin of history. That is, a sunk cost - and we start from here.
One thing we do have are that creating and upgrading footpaths etc are now in Sustainable Farming Payments, which is an opportunity. That is a Boris Johnson thing worked through this spring - so credit to the Tories for that. I'd like to see Ukraine style field margins with a national network of active travel routes through them.
Well, NuLab was responsible for the 2003 Scottish legislation, at least in being the major component of the governing coalition, though one would need to do some deep diving to be sure how far the LDs, their partner, drove or hindered the legislation (I suspect the former, if anything). But of course the original legal background was different, even if the landowners tried to argue that that should mean no presumption of legal access at all (ie no rights of way system).
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
Ofwat have a quite wide brief. They have to approve pricing and investment plans for the utilities on a 5 year basis. They also have to ensure the basic financial stability of the Water cos which is why TW now finds itself breaking its covenants to the regulator and hence more pressure on itself and HMG.
The industry is a regulated industry, it's just the regulator is crap.
The core business of the water companies is profitable.
If they're losing money due to bad management of loans then tough shit.
That is the bondholders/shareholders responsibility not the taxpayers responsibility and they need to face the consequences of their choices.
We should let them go bust. But dont kid yourself that the taxpayer wont be on the hook.
There will still be a need for people to use water and flush loos. Its a public health issue and HMG will have to step in. Consumers will probably see their water prices double and as I pointed out earlier TW going potentially brings a collapse in its supply chain.
As part of the privatisation process the Water cos oursourced huge chunks of what I would say are core skills. They cannot do much maintenance except through their supply chain. If that supply chain goes then functioning fresh water and sewage are at risk. Suppliers will need guarntees to keep going and in the mean time they will ramp up their prices and charge pro forms. Somebody has to fund that - it can only be the taxpayer.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The shareholders failed in their due diligence in that case. The taxpayer/bill payer shouldn't pay for that failure and the regulator needs to be stern here and tell them to get fucked.
It's time to let it go bankrupt along with all of the other water companies, have the bondholders take a hefty haircut and let them either take it over or sell the assets to the state for a nominal amount on the basis that the state takes on the remaining liability ~ 30-40% of what it is currently.
Water is one part of our infrastructure that should never have been privatised and Labour have an opportunity to bring it all back under state ownership over the next 5 years by working with the regulator to wipe out the shareholders.
I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I remember the SNL sketch after Trump's first debate against Hillary in 2016 where they cut 'live' to 'Hillary's campaign HQ' with everybody dancing and partying.
I was at the time conducting focus groups in the US where the issue of Trump was being brought up unprompted again and again by America's equivalent of our own working class. The idea that he was for them, while the media was for the elites.
To me, Trump's rants come off a bit like the deranged ramblings of your drunken uncle at the family get-together. But they clearly resonate with a significant portion of US society. Whereas the Kamala ramping reminds me of Milifandom - attempting to make something pretty stodgy seem cool. 'Kamala is brat'. Really? ...Really?
I think Kamala will look clear, insightful and intellectual when placed against Trump. But it only takes one comment, say, Hilary's 'basket of deplorables' to completely alienate an entire segment of voters. Plus the RCS point that incumbent governments round the world are getting a kicking due to the last few years of economic malaise and inflation.
Kamala is a massive improvement on Biden and I would be voting for her if I lived in the US. I also think the odds of her winning are closer to 50/50, so the current odds on offer are value. But it is definitely not a slam dunk as some posters on here are making out.
Yes, the US is horribly divided at the moment, and there’s at least 40% of voters who are for one side or the other, and never going to change their minds between now and the election.
The media is even more divided, with most of the mainstream falling heavily for Harris and most of the alternative media behind Trump. Personally I try and watch both, to try and understand what each side is saying. Mostly they’re talking straight past each other.
Here’s an MSM article from when Harris was running for a DA job in California, describing herself as Asian with no mention of Black - which supports Trump’s position that she changed her identity at some point. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1818719005089448294
I've pointed out a few times that this website is well inside the 'liberal mainstream' hive/bubble. If you switch to the other bubble, IE even just by reading Elon Musk's posts on Twitter, the world appears very different.
The main problem is that people have whipped themselves up in to total repulsion and disgust at Trump to such a degree that they give the liberals a total free pass over anything. So whatever the left does or tolerates (terrorism, rioting, discrimination, racism) it is all basically ok because there is a greater enemy to be defeated.
If given the choice I would probably vote for Harris as the 'less worse' option, not because I agree in any way with the dominant analysis (as set out above). The deal breaker is that Trump has proved to be an existential danger to democracy, whereas Harris is not.
Are you taking the absolute piss? With MrbEd, Leon, Pagan2, HYUFD, Max… I could go on. The site is full of right wing late middle aged blokes who think they are edgy and will create outrage when, in truth, their views are well aired in both the mainstream and alternative news. The liberal left is in a distinct minority on here. Rightist views dominate.
Not convinced. Is there is single contributor who will defend Trump's actions WRT 6th January or attempted vote rigging or the EDL. Are there even any who strongly supported the Rwanda scheme, giving a reasoned account of how it could work?
I agree. The strongest support of Rwanda on here was "well, we've got to try something. It might work".
There has been some expectation of a cut but will it happen this time given that the Bank will be aware that Rachel's MASSIVE public sector pay rises will provide a MASSIVE boost to inflation
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Not true, if the mass of the person hit is small compared to the mass of the car doing the hitting. Think of a fly on the car windscreen. It's going to be squashed much more easily at high speeds, with very little difference due toi car mass.
There are also issues about the transfer of kinetic energy, the speed of the transfer, and the impact of the unfortunate pedestrian on the ground or against lampposts at speed which is conferred by the car.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
So you want some 'here today gone next year' politician to overrule the regulator ?
The regulator being the expert and doing the job permanently the politician very unlikely to be an expert and having a few hours to look at the info.
Lets just say it would be a 'brave' decision by the politician.
And what would be the result - lots of aggravation whatever happens, especially so if the politician is mistaken and with likely no thanks if the politician turns out to be correct.
Of course there are sometimes 'brave' politicians:
Liz Truss is likely to give ministers the power to overturn some financial regulators’ decisions if she becomes UK prime minister, a potential move that could set up fresh tensions with the Bank of England.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Wrong, that's only the case if its a like-for-like comparison but it is not.
Its not just physics because car shapes and designs have changed, in no small part in Europe (not USA!) because of EU regulations.
Cars are obliged to pass safety tests before they go on the market that they weren't 30 years ago. A lot of work has been done on safety, and aerodynamics etc too.
So while if you're hit by a bus or truck its like being hit by a moving brick wall, if you're hit by a car it is not and the cars are designed better to allow the body to react to the collision in a manner that better suits the human body.
I'd far rather be hit by a car at 30 by a 2022 car than at a 1992 car - or even worse, a bus.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
Because they've had to retreat from the world.
A small example: the reduction in child roaming much discussed a few weeks back.
Cars and aggressive drivers are a major reason for that.
I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I remember the SNL sketch after Trump's first debate against Hillary in 2016 where they cut 'live' to 'Hillary's campaign HQ' with everybody dancing and partying.
I was at the time conducting focus groups in the US where the issue of Trump was being brought up unprompted again and again by America's equivalent of our own working class. The idea that he was for them, while the media was for the elites.
To me, Trump's rants come off a bit like the deranged ramblings of your drunken uncle at the family get-together. But they clearly resonate with a significant portion of US society. Whereas the Kamala ramping reminds me of Milifandom - attempting to make something pretty stodgy seem cool. 'Kamala is brat'. Really? ...Really?
I think Kamala will look clear, insightful and intellectual when placed against Trump. But it only takes one comment, say, Hilary's 'basket of deplorables' to completely alienate an entire segment of voters. Plus the RCS point that incumbent governments round the world are getting a kicking due to the last few years of economic malaise and inflation.
Kamala is a massive improvement on Biden and I would be voting for her if I lived in the US. I also think the odds of her winning are closer to 50/50, so the current odds on offer are value. But it is definitely not a slam dunk as some posters on here are making out.
Yes, the US is horribly divided at the moment, and there’s at least 40% of voters who are for one side or the other, and never going to change their minds between now and the election.
The media is even more divided, with most of the mainstream falling heavily for Harris and most of the alternative media behind Trump. Personally I try and watch both, to try and understand what each side is saying. Mostly they’re talking straight past each other.
Here’s an MSM article from when Harris was running for a DA job in California, describing herself as Asian with no mention of Black - which supports Trump’s position that she changed her identity at some point. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1818719005089448294
I've pointed out a few times that this website is well inside the 'liberal mainstream' hive/bubble. If you switch to the other bubble, IE even just by reading Elon Musk's posts on Twitter, the world appears very different.
The age bubble is also an issue. Media consuption in the under 34s is now so radically different to media consuption in the over 44s that they might as well be different countries.
As an illustration - this is OFCOMs latest estimates of in-home video consumption. Those huge pink blocks in the
This is interesting. Surprising that for the older age groups live TV is still much more prevalent than recorded TV (which I assume includes things like iplayer and More4). Possibly boosted by live sport?
It’s from OFCOMs Media Nations 2024 report. Start with pages 6 onwards. Page 11 is also interesting.
And I think iPlayer comes under ‘BVoD’.
I suspect the rates of live viewing for the older groups is just a continuation of the ‘if someones in the lounge then the tv goes on’ mode of passive playback that felt almost universal before video on demand and doomscrolling.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The shareholders failed in their due diligence in that case. The taxpayer/bill payer shouldn't pay for that failure and the regulator needs to be stern here and tell them to get fucked.
It's time to let it go bankrupt along with all of the other water companies, have the bondholders take a hefty haircut and let them either take it over or sell the assets to the state for a nominal amount on the basis that the state takes on the remaining liability ~ 30-40% of what it is currently.
Water is one part of our infrastructure that should never have been privatised and Labour have an opportunity to bring it all back under state ownership over the next 5 years by working with the regulator to wipe out the shareholders.
Yes , but this is New New Labour, theyll be quite happy with getting rich by being filthy as Mandy told them.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Physics requires exact numbers. It depends on "heavy" versus "light". The damage depends on kinetic energy, which equals one half of the mass times the velocity squared.
There has been some expectation of a cut but will it happen this time given that the Bank will be aware that Rachel's MASSIVE public sector pay rises will provide a MASSIVE boost to inflation
I project a 5-4 vote to keep rates at 5.25%
Yes, I'm expecting a narrow vote to hold, they'll be factoring in the 5.5% pay settlement boosting demand over the coming year. It's 3.5% above inflation, that's not going to go unnoticed.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
Modern cars are much less likely to cause serious injury because the emphasis on fuel consumption and wind tunnels have resulted in far more rounded shapes which means the force of the impact is spread over a longer period of time reducing the force of the collusion. You are much less likely to be pinged into the air and the way of oncoming traffic. Of course this helps very little if you are hit by a bus or a lorry with a flat front.
Indeed.
All of this, plus features like automatic braking, mean both cars and pedestrians are measurably miles safer than they were in the past.
Not any more, I'm afraid. For pedestrians, that trend has decisively reversed in the USA from around 15 years ago.
The low point of pedestrian deaths on USA roads was 4109 in 2009. In 2022 there were 7502 pedestrian deaths.
Not really. Where the USA leads, we are likely to follow if we do not design out the unacceptable risks they tolerate first. One example of a risk we (or rather the EU iirc) *did* design out was the Tesla Cybertruck. We need to address for example tax breaks for crewcab pick ups which the last Govt designed back in last spring, which adds a risk to all our streets.
I don't have the time to dig into the specific stats this morning, and it's a question that can't be elucidated by totals since the pedestrian subcategory gets averaged out.
Blatantly, there are significant numbers of pedestrians killed in avoidable collisions, and the trend to heavier and larger vehicles makes consequences of collisions more serious. These can, and should, be addressed.
On the assumption that trump won’t be running in 2028, I wonder what direction the Republican Party will go in by then? Eventually the uk Labour Party stopped picking people like Michael Foot and Kinnock and went with a slick centrist. Or do they pick an heir to trump who’s a bit less gaffe prone and without the baggage.
It took 3 consecutive general election defeats for Foot and Kinnock to get to Blair.
Of course part of the reason Trump got the nomination in the first place is the GOP had picked centrists twice in a row, McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012 and both had lost. Trump then surprisingly won in 2016 and although he lost in 2020 it would likely take defeats for both him in November and Vance or De Santis in 2028 (one of whom is the likely next GOP nominee) for them to pick a centrist like Haley again
That last sentence is why the Republicans have a problem. Haley may be non-MAGA, and that may count as centrist these days, but it's a rum sort of centrism.
(See Sunak for a milder version of the same effect.)
Assuming that the Republicans can avoid putting up Trump up again in 2028 (even if he's in an orange jumpsuit or six feet under), presumably the temptation will be to go for MAGA without Trump. But as Vance is showing, MAGA needs Trump to work, because MAGA is Trump.
In US terms though Haley was probably the most centrist candidate running this year, even more centrist than Biden.
Apart from Hunt, Sunak was also the most centrist Tory candidate running in 2022 here.
If Trump wins this year then Vance will be heir apparent to carry the MAGA torch as his VP, which is likely why he picked him, even though it is very much a Trump led group ideologically Vance is MAGA.
DeSantis though is more traditional conservative, more pro free trade for example than MAGA are and if Trump and Vance are defeated he is likely favourite for 2028 GOP nominee. Do not be surprised if DeSantis and Haley are both secretly rooting for Harris to win!
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
Because they've had to retreat from the world.
A small example: the reduction in child roaming much discussed a few weeks back.
Cars and aggressive drivers are a major reason for that.
The facts show the polar opposite is the case, pedestrian mileage has increased as pedestrian fatalities have fallen.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The owners can argue what they like.
The regulator should say "no". The shareholders/bondholders made their bed and they can lie in it.
That's a very good example of begging the question.
You're starting from a position that privatisation of a monopoly is a good thing, and all that's required is a competent regulator to replace the market function. But you have presented no argument at all for how we might ensure a competent regulator.
Clearly a private infrastructure company will require quite a large amount of borrowing, just to finance its long terms investments in infrastructure. The problem is that issuing debt against the predictable cashflows of a monopoly utility is also an excellent, and much used tool to extract cash from the corporate entity. The events of the last three and a half decades suggest that government has no idea how to design a reliable regulatory process which prevents self interested private owners from wrecking the financial structure of privately owned companies for their own benefit.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Hang on.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
Was it here that we were having the discussion a while back about whether weight actually makes a difference to injuries or am I thinking of somewhere else? As I understood the argument that it doesn't, what hurts you if you get hit by a car is that you're suddenly accelerated by a hard surface. If you're also in a car, the weight of your car will reduce the speed at which it accelerates you and proportionally decelerate the other car. But if you're a pedestrian and you're not a massive lard-arse, the car is already many times heavier than you so you will have basically no power in decelerating it. In that case doubling the weight of the car that hit you will hardly make any difference.
There's also a lot of stuff about heavier vehicles hitting the torso or the head, rather than the legs, so causing more serious injuries - in addition to poorer visibility, less stability etc, and that a heavy vehicle vs a smaller vehicle has greater consequences.
For peds, compare a big crew cab pick up, currently with tax breaks that were reintroduced by Ministers in the spring for electoral reasons after the HMRC were proposing to remove them, with the 4x4 Subaru estate or similar many had 2 decades ago.
Right but this stuff is strictly speaking about the shape, not the weight, right? Like, if you took the same Subaru Forester and made it heavier (for example by putting a load of batteries in it) but also improved the braking so it didn't brake any slower, my understanding is that it's basically the same for the unlucky pedestrian who gets hit by it.
There has been some expectation of a cut but will it happen this time given that the Bank will be aware that Rachel's MASSIVE public sector pay rises will provide a MASSIVE boost to inflation
I project a 5-4 vote to keep rates at 5.25%
US held rates yesterday, while Japan raised theirs (albeit from 0.1% to 0.25%) as inflation proves sticky.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Anyway - just spotted the claim in the nested comments that insurance claims are down by 20%. Is that number of claims or by value? If the latter, that's highly significant, because that's an excellent proxy for monetising the benefits of the scheme. We're halfway to a really good cost-benefit analysis! I trust the insurance companies are passing on these savings to drivers who happen to live in Wales? Seriously, if they were, you'd get a rather more accurate way of judging whether you supported the scheme - would you rather drive at Drakeford-speed if by doing so you saved £100 a year?
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The shareholders failed in their due diligence in that case. The taxpayer/bill payer shouldn't pay for that failure and the regulator needs to be stern here and tell them to get fucked.
It's time to let it go bankrupt along with all of the other water companies, have the bondholders take a hefty haircut and let them either take it over or sell the assets to the state for a nominal amount on the basis that the state takes on the remaining liability ~ 30-40% of what it is currently.
Water is one part of our infrastructure that should never have been privatised and Labour have an opportunity to bring it all back under state ownership over the next 5 years by working with the regulator to wipe out the shareholders.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The owners can argue what they like.
The regulator should say "no". The shareholders/bondholders made their bed and they can lie in it.
That's a very good example of begging the question.
You're starting from a position that privatisation of a monopoly is a good thing, and all that's required is a competent regulator to replace the market function. But you have presented no argument at all for how we might ensure a competent regulator.
Clearly a private infrastructure company will require quite a large amount of borrowing, just to finance its long terms investments in infrastructure. The problem is that issuing debt against the predictable cashflows of a monopoly utility is also an excellent, and much used tool to extract cash from the corporate entity. The events of the last three and a half decades suggest that government has no idea how to design a reliable regulatory process which prevents self interested private owners from wrecking the financial structure of privately owned companies for their own benefit.
No, I'm doing the opposite, I'm saying the market function should be allowed to do its job.
If the business fails it should go bankrupt. That's the market working as intended - bad firms go bust.
Privatise the gains also means privatise the losses.
If the firms have overleveraged themselves, then they've failed, and should be allowed to fail. Their loss, not the taxpayers.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The owners can argue what they like.
The regulator should say "no". The shareholders/bondholders made their bed and they can lie in it.
That's a very good example of begging the question.
You're starting from a position that privatisation of a monopoly is a good thing, and all that's required is a competent regulator to replace the market function. But you have presented no argument at all for how we might ensure a competent regulator.
Clearly a private infrastructure company will require quite a large amount of borrowing, just to finance its long terms investments in infrastructure. The problem is that issuing debt against the predictable cashflows of a monopoly utility is also an excellent, and much used tool to extract cash from the corporate entity. The events of the last three and a half decades suggest that government has no idea how to design a reliable regulatory process which prevents self interested private owners from wrecking the financial structure of privately owned companies for their own benefit.
They could start by using a bit of corporate governance, Prosecute the directors and ban them from holding office. I find that tends to concentrate minds.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Hang on.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
Like everything else, it's complicated. But one explanation for the US figures is that getting hit by a tall SUV is a bit like colliding with a square block dead on - and is much more likely to result in a severe head injury.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The owners can argue what they like.
The regulator should say "no". The shareholders/bondholders made their bed and they can lie in it.
That's a very good example of begging the question.
You're starting from a position that privatisation of a monopoly is a good thing, and all that's required is a competent regulator to replace the market function. But you have presented no argument at all for how we might ensure a competent regulator.
Clearly a private infrastructure company will require quite a large amount of borrowing, just to finance its long terms investments in infrastructure. The problem is that issuing debt against the predictable cashflows of a monopoly utility is also an excellent, and much used tool to extract cash from the corporate entity. The events of the last three and a half decades suggest that government has no idea how to design a reliable regulatory process which prevents self interested private owners from wrecking the financial structure of privately owned companies for their own benefit.
They could start by using a bit of corporate governance, Prosecute the directors and ban them from holding office. I find that tends to concentrate minds.
But they've done nothing illegal, just scummy. Being a scumbag isn't against the law.
I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I remember the SNL sketch after Trump's first debate against Hillary in 2016 where they cut 'live' to 'Hillary's campaign HQ' with everybody dancing and partying.
I was at the time conducting focus groups in the US where the issue of Trump was being brought up unprompted again and again by America's equivalent of our own working class. The idea that he was for them, while the media was for the elites.
To me, Trump's rants come off a bit like the deranged ramblings of your drunken uncle at the family get-together. But they clearly resonate with a significant portion of US society. Whereas the Kamala ramping reminds me of Milifandom - attempting to make something pretty stodgy seem cool. 'Kamala is brat'. Really? ...Really?
I think Kamala will look clear, insightful and intellectual when placed against Trump. But it only takes one comment, say, Hilary's 'basket of deplorables' to completely alienate an entire segment of voters. Plus the RCS point that incumbent governments round the world are getting a kicking due to the last few years of economic malaise and inflation.
Kamala is a massive improvement on Biden and I would be voting for her if I lived in the US. I also think the odds of her winning are closer to 50/50, so the current odds on offer are value. But it is definitely not a slam dunk as some posters on here are making out.
Yes, the US is horribly divided at the moment, and there’s at least 40% of voters who are for one side or the other, and never going to change their minds between now and the election.
The media is even more divided, with most of the mainstream falling heavily for Harris and most of the alternative media behind Trump. Personally I try and watch both, to try and understand what each side is saying. Mostly they’re talking straight past each other.
Here’s an MSM article from when Harris was running for a DA job in California, describing herself as Asian with no mention of Black - which supports Trump’s position that she changed her identity at some point. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1818719005089448294
I've pointed out a few times that this website is well inside the 'liberal mainstream' hive/bubble. If you switch to the other bubble, IE even just by reading Elon Musk's posts on Twitter, the world appears very different.
The main problem is that people have whipped themselves up in to total repulsion and disgust at Trump to such a degree that they give the liberals a total free pass over anything. So whatever the left does or tolerates (terrorism, rioting, discrimination, racism) it is all basically ok because there is a greater enemy to be defeated.
If given the choice I would probably vote for Harris as the 'less worse' option, not because I agree in any way with the dominant analysis (as set out above). The deal breaker is that Trump has proved to be an existential danger to democracy, whereas Harris is not.
Are you taking the absolute piss? With MrbEd, Leon, Pagan2, HYUFD, Max… I could go on. The site is full of right wing late middle aged blokes who think they are edgy and will create outrage when, in truth, their views are well aired in both the mainstream and alternative news. The liberal left is in a distinct minority on here. Rightist views dominate.
That isn't really true, 38% of UK voters voted Tory or Reform on 4th July, I would guess less than 38% of PBers did.
This site is largely liberal centrist and always has been, I would expect more PBers than the UK average vote LD in particular
I would largely agree with that. The only bit I may not agree with is 'always has been' as there has been an ebb and flow over time I think.
Specifically my gut feeling is Reform is definitely under represented. It feels like there are a lot of ex-Tories who are now Lab or LD or disenfranchised, but would like to go home to the Tories if they re-establish themselves. The LDs feel over represented, probably helped by the reference in my previous sentence. Labour being high in the polls are possibly not over represented.
But by and large, although there are a significant number of posters from the right, they do seem to be in a definite minority currently.
Mr. Eagles, it's wrong to say Saudi Arabia are to build 11 stadiums. It's 11 stadia. And I'll believe the 'Neom' stadium when I see it.
It is stadia if you believe that stadium is still a Latin loan word. It is stadiums if you believe stadium has been adopted as an English word. The grammatical rule is that you conjugate according to the language the word belongs to. Should the word belong to two languages, conjugate according to the one you're speaking.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Hang on.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
Like everything else, it's complicated. But one explanation for the US figures is that getting hit by a tall SUV is a bit like colliding with a square block dead on - and is much more likely to result in a severe head injury.
Indeed and British "SUVs" are nothing like American ones.
American ones are more like what we call trucks in this country. And I would not want to be hit by a bus or a truck.
I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I think you and Mister Bedfordshire seem to miss the obvious difference.
Even Fox News are ripping into Trump.
That would be the Fox who fired Tucker Carlson and are now seen to be as infected with the woke liberal virus as the rest of them?
I see your comment is rooted as in much reality as most of your other posts.
Seems to me that the one consistent feature of his posts is their being rooted in talking points coming out of Moscow.
Indeed.
The thing I find hysterical is his love of family values but also loves the pussy grabber.
Yawn
Shall we discuss Trump's multiple visits to Epstein's paedo island - not that it would make any difference in your love of him..
Did he pick up any presidential tips from Bill Clinton ?
Epstein's friends is a story that seems to have died, presumably because the people pursuing it found no smoking gun on the other side, or too many photos on their side.
First thought for this morning - back around 2008, Allister Heath, while he was still Editor of City AM and before he went mad, wrote a number of intelligent pieces arguing for every company over a certain size to be legally required to have a "will" to explain what should happen in the event of bankruptcy/insolvency.
This would be particularly pertinent for large companies whose sudden collapse leaves everyone from staff to shareholders wondering what's going to happen next. As they always said in a place where I once worked, hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
Appointed administratoes would then have a blueprint of instructions as to hoe to resolve the affairs of the company.
There has been some expectation of a cut but will it happen this time given that the Bank will be aware that Rachel's MASSIVE public sector pay rises will provide a MASSIVE boost to inflation
I project a 5-4 vote to keep rates at 5.25%
Yes, I'm expecting a narrow vote to hold, they'll be factoring in the 5.5% pay settlement boosting demand over the coming year. It's 3.5% above inflation, that's not going to go unnoticed.
OTOH Reeves has clearly indicated she'll raise taxes in her fiscal statement which should throttle demand.
The 3 external members (Mann, Greene, Haskel) all hate life so will vote to hold;
Dinghra and Ramsden will vote to cut.
I think Broadbent will do whatever Bailey does, so it comes down to Bailey persuading one of Pill and/or Breeden.
I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I remember the SNL sketch after Trump's first debate against Hillary in 2016 where they cut 'live' to 'Hillary's campaign HQ' with everybody dancing and partying.
I was at the time conducting focus groups in the US where the issue of Trump was being brought up unprompted again and again by America's equivalent of our own working class. The idea that he was for them, while the media was for the elites.
To me, Trump's rants come off a bit like the deranged ramblings of your drunken uncle at the family get-together. But they clearly resonate with a significant portion of US society. Whereas the Kamala ramping reminds me of Milifandom - attempting to make something pretty stodgy seem cool. 'Kamala is brat'. Really? ...Really?
I think Kamala will look clear, insightful and intellectual when placed against Trump. But it only takes one comment, say, Hilary's 'basket of deplorables' to completely alienate an entire segment of voters. Plus the RCS point that incumbent governments round the world are getting a kicking due to the last few years of economic malaise and inflation.
Kamala is a massive improvement on Biden and I would be voting for her if I lived in the US. I also think the odds of her winning are closer to 50/50, so the current odds on offer are value. But it is definitely not a slam dunk as some posters on here are making out.
Yes, the US is horribly divided at the moment, and there’s at least 40% of voters who are for one side or the other, and never going to change their minds between now and the election.
The media is even more divided, with most of the mainstream falling heavily for Harris and most of the alternative media behind Trump. Personally I try and watch both, to try and understand what each side is saying. Mostly they’re talking straight past each other.
Here’s an MSM article from when Harris was running for a DA job in California, describing herself as Asian with no mention of Black - which supports Trump’s position that she changed her identity at some point. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1818719005089448294
I've pointed out a few times that this website is well inside the 'liberal mainstream' hive/bubble. If you switch to the other bubble, IE even just by reading Elon Musk's posts on Twitter, the world appears very different.
The main problem is that people have whipped themselves up in to total repulsion and disgust at Trump to such a degree that they give the liberals a total free pass over anything. So whatever the left does or tolerates (terrorism, rioting, discrimination, racism) it is all basically ok because there is a greater enemy to be defeated.
If given the choice I would probably vote for Harris as the 'less worse' option, not because I agree in any way with the dominant analysis (as set out above). The deal breaker is that Trump has proved to be an existential danger to democracy, whereas Harris is not.
Are you taking the absolute piss? With MrbEd, Leon, Pagan2, HYUFD, Max… I could go on. The site is full of right wing late middle aged blokes who think they are edgy and will create outrage when, in truth, their views are well aired in both the mainstream and alternative news. The liberal left is in a distinct minority on here. Rightist views dominate.
Not convinced. Is there is single contributor who will defend Trump's actions WRT 6th January or attempted vote rigging or the EDL. Are there even any who strongly supported the Rwanda scheme, giving a reasoned account of how it could work?
WilliamGlenn in re Jan 6 and Leon in re Rwanda to pluck two out of the air.
Thanks. I shall keep an eye out for their reasoned arguments I have overlooked; I would quite like to know what they are. Liberals (small 'l') like me need to be better at evaluating arguments they don't care much for, but sometimes it is tough to discern what the arguments are and the reasoning is.
Mr. Eagles, it's wrong to say Saudi Arabia are to build 11 stadiums. It's 11 stadia. And I'll believe the 'Neom' stadium when I see it.
It is stadia if you believe that stadium is still a Latin loan word. It is stadiums if you believe stadium has been adopted as an English word. The grammatical rule is that you conjugate according to the language the word belongs to. Should the word belong to two languages, conjugate according to the one you're speaking.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Hang on.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
The construction of the car is more important than the mass. A modern car (a saloon car, not what the Americans call a light truck) will deform extensively in the bumper and bonnet when involved in a pedestrian impact - whereas an older one is designed much more for car-car collisions, and the pedestrian has his legs broken by the metal bumper and his head broken by the top of the engine underneath the bonnet.
There has been some expectation of a cut but will it happen this time given that the Bank will be aware that Rachel's MASSIVE public sector pay rises will provide a MASSIVE boost to inflation
I project a 5-4 vote to keep rates at 5.25%
Yes, I'm expecting a narrow vote to hold, they'll be factoring in the 5.5% pay settlement boosting demand over the coming year. It's 3.5% above inflation, that's not going to go unnoticed.
OTOH Reeves has clearly indicated she'll raise taxes in her fiscal statement which should throttle demand.
The 3 external members (Mann, Greene, Haskel) all hate life so will vote to hold;
Dinghra and Ramsden will vote to cut.
I think Broadbent will do whatever Bailey does, so it comes down to Bailey persuading one of Pill and/or Breeden.
Also the Fed held - so why buck the trend this month...
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The owners can argue what they like.
The regulator should say "no". The shareholders/bondholders made their bed and they can lie in it.
That's a very good example of begging the question.
You're starting from a position that privatisation of a monopoly is a good thing, and all that's required is a competent regulator to replace the market function. But you have presented no argument at all for how we might ensure a competent regulator.
Clearly a private infrastructure company will require quite a large amount of borrowing, just to finance its long terms investments in infrastructure. The problem is that issuing debt against the predictable cashflows of a monopoly utility is also an excellent, and much used tool to extract cash from the corporate entity. The events of the last three and a half decades suggest that government has no idea how to design a reliable regulatory process which prevents self interested private owners from wrecking the financial structure of privately owned companies for their own benefit.
They could start by using a bit of corporate governance, Prosecute the directors and ban them from holding office. I find that tends to concentrate minds.
But they've done nothing illegal, just scummy. Being a scumbag isn't against the law.
Of course they have, the pollution alone should be enough to drag them through a court as its a danger to public health. And any half decent lawyer could make a case for recklessly endangering the company with unsustainable debt levels.
Bur set that aside, it will be the knowledge that they COULD be dragged off to court and go to jail that will change their behaviour.
Mr. Eagles, it's wrong to say Saudi Arabia are to build 11 stadiums. It's 11 stadia. And I'll believe the 'Neom' stadium when I see it.
It is stadia if you believe that stadium is still a Latin loan word. It is stadiums if you believe stadium has been adopted as an English word. The grammatical rule is that you conjugate according to the language the word belongs to. Should the word belong to two languages, conjugate according to the one you're speaking.
Grammatical rules derive from use not the other way round. The complexity of them (take ancient Greek verb systems as a memorable example for those who have had to study them) is a miraculous example of how fantastical and arcane complexity can arise from the use of people who had no idea that this was happening.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The owners can argue what they like.
The regulator should say "no". The shareholders/bondholders made their bed and they can lie in it.
That's a very good example of begging the question.
You're starting from a position that privatisation of a monopoly is a good thing, and all that's required is a competent regulator to replace the market function. But you have presented no argument at all for how we might ensure a competent regulator.
Clearly a private infrastructure company will require quite a large amount of borrowing, just to finance its long terms investments in infrastructure. The problem is that issuing debt against the predictable cashflows of a monopoly utility is also an excellent, and much used tool to extract cash from the corporate entity. The events of the last three and a half decades suggest that government has no idea how to design a reliable regulatory process which prevents self interested private owners from wrecking the financial structure of privately owned companies for their own benefit.
They could start by using a bit of corporate governance, Prosecute the directors and ban them from holding office. I find that tends to concentrate minds.
But they've done nothing illegal, just scummy. Being a scumbag isn't against the law.
It's quite possible that Macquarie were less than honest with the regulator if you look back a couple of decades. But good luck pursuing that.
I'm beginning to think that the odds on Ms Harris are looking attractive.
Been saying it for ages. Once the media turns on Trump, this becomes a trainwreck. He will be increasingly ridiculed.
The media turned on Trump in 2016, and it didn’t help them much.
Meanwhile, much of the alternative media is turning on Harris. Here’s Joe Rogan and Michael Malice taking the piss out of the mainstream media for their total u-turn on her. https://x.com/vigilantfox/status/1818354746526499090 ^^^ this interview will get tens of millions of views, more than all of the mainstream news combined, especially among the younger demographics.
I remember the SNL sketch after Trump's first debate against Hillary in 2016 where they cut 'live' to 'Hillary's campaign HQ' with everybody dancing and partying.
I was at the time conducting focus groups in the US where the issue of Trump was being brought up unprompted again and again by America's equivalent of our own working class. The idea that he was for them, while the media was for the elites.
To me, Trump's rants come off a bit like the deranged ramblings of your drunken uncle at the family get-together. But they clearly resonate with a significant portion of US society. Whereas the Kamala ramping reminds me of Milifandom - attempting to make something pretty stodgy seem cool. 'Kamala is brat'. Really? ...Really?
I think Kamala will look clear, insightful and intellectual when placed against Trump. But it only takes one comment, say, Hilary's 'basket of deplorables' to completely alienate an entire segment of voters. Plus the RCS point that incumbent governments round the world are getting a kicking due to the last few years of economic malaise and inflation.
Kamala is a massive improvement on Biden and I would be voting for her if I lived in the US. I also think the odds of her winning are closer to 50/50, so the current odds on offer are value. But it is definitely not a slam dunk as some posters on here are making out.
Yes, the US is horribly divided at the moment, and there’s at least 40% of voters who are for one side or the other, and never going to change their minds between now and the election.
The media is even more divided, with most of the mainstream falling heavily for Harris and most of the alternative media behind Trump. Personally I try and watch both, to try and understand what each side is saying. Mostly they’re talking straight past each other.
Here’s an MSM article from when Harris was running for a DA job in California, describing herself as Asian with no mention of Black - which supports Trump’s position that she changed her identity at some point. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1818719005089448294
I've pointed out a few times that this website is well inside the 'liberal mainstream' hive/bubble. If you switch to the other bubble, IE even just by reading Elon Musk's posts on Twitter, the world appears very different.
The main problem is that people have whipped themselves up in to total repulsion and disgust at Trump to such a degree that they give the liberals a total free pass over anything. So whatever the left does or tolerates (terrorism, rioting, discrimination, racism) it is all basically ok because there is a greater enemy to be defeated.
If given the choice I would probably vote for Harris as the 'less worse' option, not because I agree in any way with the dominant analysis (as set out above). The deal breaker is that Trump has proved to be an existential danger to democracy, whereas Harris is not.
Are you taking the absolute piss? With MrbEd, Leon, Pagan2, HYUFD, Max… I could go on. The site is full of right wing late middle aged blokes who think they are edgy and will create outrage when, in truth, their views are well aired in both the mainstream and alternative news. The liberal left is in a distinct minority on here. Rightist views dominate.
That isn't really true, 38% of UK voters voted Tory or Reform on 4th July, I would guess less than 38% of PBers did.
This site is largely liberal centrist and always has been, I would expect more PBers than the UK average vote LD in particular
Balderdash, to resurrect an underused phrase
OK, produce the evidence that over 38% of posters on here voted Tory or Reform? I suspect the percentage who voted Reform in particular is well below the 14% of UK voters overall who voted Reform
You made the assertion as to percentages. The burden is on you.
There has been some expectation of a cut but will it happen this time given that the Bank will be aware that Rachel's MASSIVE public sector pay rises will provide a MASSIVE boost to inflation
I project a 5-4 vote to keep rates at 5.25%
US held rates yesterday, while Japan raised theirs (albeit from 0.1% to 0.25%) as inflation proves sticky.
There has been some expectation of a cut but will it happen this time given that the Bank will be aware that Rachel's MASSIVE public sector pay rises will provide a MASSIVE boost to inflation
I project a 5-4 vote to keep rates at 5.25%
We have full employment, wages should be rising.
Those who object to my desire to see house price falls normally retort that they want to see house prices stability combined with wage rises as the solution to seeing homes be more affordable . . . but then many here seem absolutely gutted with the notion of wage rises.
I want to see the government do less and we should have fewer people working for the state (and I could list a number of functions I'd cut and let people go from) but those who are working should be paid a decent salary for their work. And if we're at full employment, then wages need to go up until we reach an equilibrium that means that we don't have major vacancies anymore.
Picking up "lidos with views of cathedrals", it's a bit of a challenge as cathedrals tend to be urban. Wild swimming with views may be a better option. The best option may be the seaside in the South, or pleasant churches which are not cathedrals next to rivers.
I can do you a castle, at St Andrews, and a tidal pool. But that's the North sea off Scotland, so it will freeze your balls off (1). Lots more castles (2). Hathersage Lido may have views of Peak District hills - @TSE can advise.
For cathedrals - Salisbury and the Avon, perhaps? Or use of Cathedral Schools pools in the summer - Salisbury school has an outdoor one.
The best would be the Minster Pool at Lichfield - they are running "Lichfield Beach" this summer, so that's a surprise. Local authority missed a trick.
I really can't see why urban open water swimming is so restricted.
My favourite would be Melbourne Poole, Derbyshire, near one of the top Norman Churches in the country, with Sheela-na-Gig. But Melbourne is a very Nimby sort of place; also the only place I have *ever* been asked not to inject insulin in a restaurant.
As things stand, try the Anchor Church, on the Rover Trent nr Ingleby. My photo for the day:
For more, I think there is a fighting chance that access legislation in England may get overhauled now the Landowners' Party are out, and that may include a universal-with-limitations right to navigate rivers as Scotland, including lake / reservoir access. Re-regulation of water companies may help.
THe sort of access right the Landowners' Party tried to extinguish completely on land and water in Scotland rather than allow the codification of the open access enjoyed immemorial?
That's a very interesting suggestion - good luck down there.
I hope there's been a sea change. Nulab did a lot, but got quite bogged down.
One notorious move was around the Right to Claim Rights of Way due to historic usage, where an agreement had been reached between NFU type bodies and Ramblers type bodies, and Theresa Coffey the Minister threw it out and just abolished it on her own say so at 5 days notice.
That was later reversed, but it's indicative of the basic assumptions - which have now changed to at least some degree. I'm not sure how far it goes.
But Theresa Coffey and friends are now largely reduced to a tinny wibbling noise emerging from the dustbin of history. That is, a sunk cost - and we start from here.
One thing we do have are that creating and upgrading footpaths etc are now in Sustainable Farming Payments, which is an opportunity. That is a Boris Johnson thing worked through this spring - so credit to the Tories for that. I'd like to see Ukraine style field margins with a national network of active travel routes through them.
Well, NuLab was responsible for the 2003 Scottish legislation, at least in being the major component of the governing coalition, though one would need to do some deep diving to be sure how far the LDs, their partner, drove or hindered the legislation (I suspect the former, if anything). But of course the original legal background was different, even if the landowners tried to argue that that should mean no presumption of legal access at all (ie no rights of way system).
AIUI (and this may be some way off) there are perhaps 3 political traditions in support of countryside access:
1 - Labour / working class. 2 - Liberal radicals. 3 - Paternalistic Tories eg consider some founders of the National Trust or industrialists, although there were also aristocratic socialists such as Octavia Hill.
I think we have shifted back to 1 and partly 2 being in the ascendant as underlying values, rather than having a tinge of 3 in there somewhere.
Second thought of the day - consider it a BOGOF for the first day of the new month.
I've been interested to read the Police citing disinformation as a cause for some of the disturbances coming off the Southport murders. One example - there was a video showing a couple of groups of young men in Southen fighting at one end of the promenade with machetes and that inevitably went viral and caused all sort of comment.
Youngsters fighting in Southend is hardly news - it's been going on for at least 60 years if not longer. It might be machetes now rather than switchblades or baseball bats but let's not imagine this is some new horror vested on us. The change is it is filmed in real time, uploaded onto X and within minutes is seen by hundreds if not thousands helped by a nice attention grabbling title like "Big Machete Fight in Southend" or whatever.
The power of misinformation or disinformation has been exposed this week (if it wasn't known even back in 2011 for example when the disorder then was largely fanned if not orchestrated by a nascent Twitter). You can't put the genie back in the bottle unfortunately but as we know a growing number of people get their "news" from X or other social media how do we respond?
Those with a functioning brain cell might want to consider the wisdom of commenting on every X posting as soon as it happens or taking half a story and making it the full story (as we've seen with the Manchester Airport business). We're not Reuters or the PA - reading something from X doesn't make it true (a wise man once said the truth is out there, perhaps, but it's becoming a lot harder to find in the jungle of disinformation).
As an aside, we also know the impact of the combination of hot weather and easily available alcohol on some people. Somebody once spoke about personal responsibility - wither that?
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The owners can argue what they like.
The regulator should say "no". The shareholders/bondholders made their bed and they can lie in it.
That's a very good example of begging the question.
You're starting from a position that privatisation of a monopoly is a good thing, and all that's required is a competent regulator to replace the market function. But you have presented no argument at all for how we might ensure a competent regulator.
Clearly a private infrastructure company will require quite a large amount of borrowing, just to finance its long terms investments in infrastructure. The problem is that issuing debt against the predictable cashflows of a monopoly utility is also an excellent, and much used tool to extract cash from the corporate entity. The events of the last three and a half decades suggest that government has no idea how to design a reliable regulatory process which prevents self interested private owners from wrecking the financial structure of privately owned companies for their own benefit.
They could start by using a bit of corporate governance, Prosecute the directors and ban them from holding office. I find that tends to concentrate minds.
But they've done nothing illegal, just scummy. Being a scumbag isn't against the law.
It's quite possible that Macquarie were less than honest with the regulator if you look back a couple of decades. But good luck pursuing that.
Maybe, but I also think this is an opportunity for the government to lay down new rules of engagement to shareholders and more importantly bond investors that UK utilities aren't one way bet so when the financial engineers try and load up the next company with endless debt to pay dividends the bondholders had better be sure about buying in. Just that alone will prevent future iterations of what's happened in the water industry.
Mr. Eagles, it's wrong to say Saudi Arabia are to build 11 stadiums. It's 11 stadia. And I'll believe the 'Neom' stadium when I see it.
It is stadia if you believe that stadium is still a Latin loan word. It is stadiums if you believe stadium has been adopted as an English word. The grammatical rule is that you conjugate according to the language the word belongs to. Should the word belong to two languages, conjugate according to the one you're speaking.
Pluralisation is an inflection not conjugation. Conjugation is the modification of a verb to indicate tense, mood and person. Inflection is the modification of any word, not just a verb, to indicate grammatical function; in this case plurality.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The owners can argue what they like.
The regulator should say "no". The shareholders/bondholders made their bed and they can lie in it.
That's a very good example of begging the question.
You're starting from a position that privatisation of a monopoly is a good thing, and all that's required is a competent regulator to replace the market function. But you have presented no argument at all for how we might ensure a competent regulator.
Clearly a private infrastructure company will require quite a large amount of borrowing, just to finance its long terms investments in infrastructure. The problem is that issuing debt against the predictable cashflows of a monopoly utility is also an excellent, and much used tool to extract cash from the corporate entity. The events of the last three and a half decades suggest that government has no idea how to design a reliable regulatory process which prevents self interested private owners from wrecking the financial structure of privately owned companies for their own benefit.
They could start by using a bit of corporate governance, Prosecute the directors and ban them from holding office. I find that tends to concentrate minds.
But they've done nothing illegal, just scummy. Being a scumbag isn't against the law.
Of course they have, the pollution alone should be enough to drag them through a court as its a danger to public health. And any half decent lawyer could make a case for recklessly endangering the company with unsustainable debt levels.
Bur set that aside, it will be the knowledge that they COULD be dragged off to court and go to jail that will change their behaviour.
In the aviation industry, key personnel in each company have to be licenced by the regulator. So if you’re the Chief Pilot or Chief Engineer at an airline, you have specific certifications that can be and often are suspended or withdrawn in the event of a serious incident.
Regulated industries should do the same for safety and accounting officers, so you’re never working in the industry again if your company has an accident or goes bust. #CancelNu10k
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Hang on.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
The construction of the car is more important than the mass. A modern car (a saloon car, not what the Americans call a light truck) will deform extensively in the bumper and bonnet when involved in a pedestrian impact - whereas an older one is designed much more for car-car collisions, and the pedestrian has his legs broken by the metal bumper and his head broken by the top of the engine underneath the bonnet.
As an aside on "Light Trucks" ie Tonka Tanks, they are simply exempt from many of the safety regs that apply to cars in the USA. That's been a scandal for a very long time, and manufacturers have used their influence to prevent suitable regulations being applied.
There has been some expectation of a cut but will it happen this time given that the Bank will be aware that Rachel's MASSIVE public sector pay rises will provide a MASSIVE boost to inflation
I project a 5-4 vote to keep rates at 5.25%
Yes, I'm expecting a narrow vote to hold, they'll be factoring in the 5.5% pay settlement boosting demand over the coming year. It's 3.5% above inflation, that's not going to go unnoticed.
OTOH Reeves has clearly indicated she'll raise taxes in her fiscal statement which should throttle demand.
The 3 external members (Mann, Greene, Haskel) all hate life so will vote to hold;
Dinghra and Ramsden will vote to cut.
I think Broadbent will do whatever Bailey does, so it comes down to Bailey persuading one of Pill and/or Breeden.
Also the Fed held - so why buck the trend this month...
Broadbent and Bailey are very slightly more dovish than Ramsden despite his recent rate cut vote.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Hang on.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
The construction of the car is more important than the mass. A modern car (a saloon car, not what the Americans call a light truck) will deform extensively in the bumper and bonnet when involved in a pedestrian impact - whereas an older one is designed much more for car-car collisions, and the pedestrian has his legs broken by the metal bumper and his head broken by the top of the engine underneath the bonnet.
As an aside on "Light Trucks" ie Tonka Tanks, they are simply exempt from many of the safety regs that apply to cars in the USA. That's been a scandal for a very long time, and manufacturers have used their influence to prevent suitable regulations being applied.
Indeed, this is something you and I can completely agree on. You are 100% correct.
This is something I would not want to see US rules introduced on, and they're not happening here.
Any use of US data instead instead of UK data is showing dishonesty or a lack of comprehension on this by the person doing so.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Hang on.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
The construction of the car is more important than the mass. A modern car (a saloon car, not what the Americans call a light truck) will deform extensively in the bumper and bonnet when involved in a pedestrian impact - whereas an older one is designed much more for car-car collisions, and the pedestrian has his legs broken by the metal bumper and his head broken by the top of the engine underneath the bonnet.
As an aside on "Light Trucks" ie Tonka Tanks, they are simply exempt from many of the safety regs that apply to cars in the USA. That's been a scandal for a very long time, and manufacturers have used their influence to prevent suitable regulations being applied.
Yes, they’re commercial vehicles but often purchased by individuals, and subject to very different safety standards to cars - which makes them often cheaper than equivalent cars, driving up demand for them even more.
The single best selling vehicle in the US is the Ford F150, and has been for decades.
The new electric Hummer and Tesla trucks are so heavy you can’t drive them on a car licence in the UK, they’re over 3.5t plated max weight.
How long can Thames Water hold out ? Yet another debt downgrade.
"Environment Secretary Steve Reed last week said the group remained “financially viable” and would not need to be nationalised.
Mr Reed added that there was “no need to have undue concerns at the moment”.
I cant help but think that will bite his arse in the coming months and Reeves will do he blame everyone but herself routine as she suddenly has to find a few billion more.
And while she does have a point on the behaviour the various owners, it does rather raise the question of why she's letting MaQuarie one of the villains of the piece take control of the nations gas grid. Clearly she hasnt been "learning the lessons"
Thames Water has looked doomed ever since interest rates went over about 1%. They were used as a source of capital and cheap debt by the owners as a way of monetising the income flow that came from their customers like they were gilts. The problem is that they got too greedy and the regulator was too stupid to spot the obvious risk, that that income flow was fixed by the margin they were allowed on their services, not by the rate of interest. As soon as the rate of interest increased the sustainable debt fell and the owners refused to pay it back, trying to blackmail the regulator into allowing additional charges instead.
It is a classic example of inept and incompetent regulation. Whether that is simply incompetence in the regulator or incompetence on the part of the people who set up the structure is a bit complicated but it is clear neither were fit for purpose.
Them and many many others.
The oil price is rocketing with the latest middle east goings on. You can forget interest rate cuts any time soon.
In fact with the Tory inflationary actions like double digit minimum wage rises and Ldbour inflationary actions like doctors 22% pensionsble pay rises, the next interest rate change may well be up.
The impact of rising oil prices on real inflation would be deflationary - a rising oil price would not call for the raising of interest rates, it would call for a fall in interest rates to counteract the risk of recession.
Mr. Eagles, it's wrong to say Saudi Arabia are to build 11 stadiums. It's 11 stadia. And I'll believe the 'Neom' stadium when I see it.
It is stadia if you believe that stadium is still a Latin loan word. It is stadiums if you believe stadium has been adopted as an English word. The grammatical rule is that you conjugate according to the language the word belongs to. Should the word belong to two languages, conjugate according to the one you're speaking.
Pluralisation is an inflection not conjugation. Conjugation is the modification of a verb to indicate tense, mood and person. Inflection is the modification of any word, not just a verb, to indicate grammatical function; in this case plurality.
As controversial as pineapple on pizza, and topical this week - are there any circumstances under which the word ‘medal’ can properly be used as a verb?
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Hang on.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
The construction of the car is more important than the mass. A modern car (a saloon car, not what the Americans call a light truck) will deform extensively in the bumper and bonnet when involved in a pedestrian impact - whereas an older one is designed much more for car-car collisions, and the pedestrian has his legs broken by the metal bumper and his head broken by the top of the engine underneath the bonnet.
As an aside on "Light Trucks" ie Tonka Tanks, they are simply exempt from many of the safety regs that apply to cars in the USA. That's been a scandal for a very long time, and manufacturers have used their influence to prevent suitable regulations being applied.
Indeed, this is something you and I can completely agree on. You are 100% correct.
This is something I would not want to see US rules introduced on, and they're not happening here.
Any use of US data instead instead of UK data is showing dishonesty or a lack of comprehension on this by the person doing so.
The popularity of SUVs vs cars is safety problem though, cars having lower bonnets, the pedestrian was more likely to be go over the bonnet than under it. Stats demonstrate that 20mph is safer than 30mph, no need to go into any physics and the relevance of the theoretical stopping distance is considerably reduced versus reckless or distracted driving, as demonstrated by the vehicular war on stationary objects such as lamposts.
How long can Thames Water hold out ? Yet another debt downgrade.
"Environment Secretary Steve Reed last week said the group remained “financially viable” and would not need to be nationalised.
Mr Reed added that there was “no need to have undue concerns at the moment”.
I cant help but think that will bite his arse in the coming months and Reeves will do he blame everyone but herself routine as she suddenly has to find a few billion more.
And while she does have a point on the behaviour the various owners, it does rather raise the question of why she's letting MaQuarie one of the villains of the piece take control of the nations gas grid. Clearly she hasnt been "learning the lessons"
Thames Water has looked doomed ever since interest rates went over about 1%. They were used as a source of capital and cheap debt by the owners as a way of monetising the income flow that came from their customers like they were gilts. The problem is that they got too greedy and the regulator was too stupid to spot the obvious risk, that that income flow was fixed by the margin they were allowed on their services, not by the rate of interest. As soon as the rate of interest increased the sustainable debt fell and the owners refused to pay it back, trying to blackmail the regulator into allowing additional charges instead.
It is a classic example of inept and incompetent regulation. Whether that is simply incompetence in the regulator or incompetence on the part of the people who set up the structure is a bit complicated but it is clear neither were fit for purpose.
Them and many many others.
The oil price is rocketing with the latest middle east goings on. You can forget interest rate cuts any time soon.
In fact with the Tory inflationary actions like double digit minimum wage rises and Ldbour inflationary actions like doctors 22% pensionsble pay rises, the next interest rate change may well be up.
The impact of rising oil prices on real inflation would be deflationary - a rising oil price would not call for the raising of interest rates, it would call for a fall in interest rates to counteract the risk of recession.
That's incredibly ignorant and I suggest you look at all economic data from the 1970s onwards especially.
If prices are rising that is inflation by definition. Yes it may be recessionary, but recessions can come with inflation.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The shareholders failed in their due diligence in that case. The taxpayer/bill payer shouldn't pay for that failure and the regulator needs to be stern here and tell them to get fucked.
It's time to let it go bankrupt along with all of the other water companies, have the bondholders take a hefty haircut and let them either take it over or sell the assets to the state for a nominal amount on the basis that the state takes on the remaining liability ~ 30-40% of what it is currently.
Water is one part of our infrastructure that should never have been privatised and Labour have an opportunity to bring it all back under state ownership over the next 5 years by working with the regulator to wipe out the shareholders.
Agreed. But I don't know if they have the bottle.
Well they don't have the cash to throw at share / bond holders so it's be ruthless or create a very simple of attack lines for the opposition at the next election.
Also Canadian Teachers don't have votes in the UK...
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Hang on.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
The construction of the car is more important than the mass. A modern car (a saloon car, not what the Americans call a light truck) will deform extensively in the bumper and bonnet when involved in a pedestrian impact - whereas an older one is designed much more for car-car collisions, and the pedestrian has his legs broken by the metal bumper and his head broken by the top of the engine underneath the bonnet.
As an aside on "Light Trucks" ie Tonka Tanks, they are simply exempt from many of the safety regs that apply to cars in the USA. That's been a scandal for a very long time, and manufacturers have used their influence to prevent suitable regulations being applied.
Indeed, this is something you and I can completely agree on. You are 100% correct.
This is something I would not want to see US rules introduced on, and they're not happening here.
Any use of US data instead instead of UK data is showing dishonesty or a lack of comprehension on this by the person doing so.
The popularity of SUVs vs cars is safety problem though, cars having lower bonnets, the pedestrian was more likely to be go over the bonnet than under it. Stats demonstrate that 20mph is safer than 30mph, no need to go into any physics and the relevance of the theoretical stopping distance is considerably reduced versus reckless or distracted driving, as demonstrated by the vehicular war on stationary objects such as lamposts.
UK SUVs are cars. They are not American
Look at the Nissan Qashqai or the Kia Sportage, they are popular UK SUVs and they have all the safety features of modern cars, including modern, safer bonnets.
Contrast with the Ford F150 which to the best of my knowledge is not sold in this country.
How long can Thames Water hold out ? Yet another debt downgrade.
"Environment Secretary Steve Reed last week said the group remained “financially viable” and would not need to be nationalised.
Mr Reed added that there was “no need to have undue concerns at the moment”.
I cant help but think that will bite his arse in the coming months and Reeves will do he blame everyone but herself routine as she suddenly has to find a few billion more.
And while she does have a point on the behaviour the various owners, it does rather raise the question of why she's letting MaQuarie one of the villains of the piece take control of the nations gas grid. Clearly she hasnt been "learning the lessons"
Thames Water has looked doomed ever since interest rates went over about 1%. They were used as a source of capital and cheap debt by the owners as a way of monetising the income flow that came from their customers like they were gilts. The problem is that they got too greedy and the regulator was too stupid to spot the obvious risk, that that income flow was fixed by the margin they were allowed on their services, not by the rate of interest. As soon as the rate of interest increased the sustainable debt fell and the owners refused to pay it back, trying to blackmail the regulator into allowing additional charges instead.
It is a classic example of inept and incompetent regulation. Whether that is simply incompetence in the regulator or incompetence on the part of the people who set up the structure is a bit complicated but it is clear neither were fit for purpose.
Them and many many others.
The oil price is rocketing with the latest middle east goings on. You can forget interest rate cuts any time soon.
In fact with the Tory inflationary actions like double digit minimum wage rises and Ldbour inflationary actions like doctors 22% pensionsble pay rises, the next interest rate change may well be up.
The impact of rising oil prices on real inflation would be deflationary - a rising oil price would not call for the raising of interest rates, it would call for a fall in interest rates to counteract the risk of recession.
The BoE are tasked only with looking at inflation, not any other economic factors. As we saw two years ago, a sharp spike in the oil price quickly feeds through to the price of everything going up, and rates need to rise to dampen demand.
Aggravating that is that the price elasticity of fuel is low, demand doesn’t change much with price because those goods still need to be delivered and those people still need to get to work. The price needs to rise considerably before demand falls, fuelling inflation even more.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The owners can argue what they like.
The regulator should say "no". The shareholders/bondholders made their bed and they can lie in it.
That's a very good example of begging the question.
You're starting from a position that privatisation of a monopoly is a good thing, and all that's required is a competent regulator to replace the market function. But you have presented no argument at all for how we might ensure a competent regulator.
Clearly a private infrastructure company will require quite a large amount of borrowing, just to finance its long terms investments in infrastructure. The problem is that issuing debt against the predictable cashflows of a monopoly utility is also an excellent, and much used tool to extract cash from the corporate entity. The events of the last three and a half decades suggest that government has no idea how to design a reliable regulatory process which prevents self interested private owners from wrecking the financial structure of privately owned companies for their own benefit.
No, I'm doing the opposite, I'm saying the market function should be allowed to do its job.
If the business fails it should go bankrupt. That's the market working as intended - bad firms go bust.
Privatise the gains also means privatise the losses.
If the firms have overleveraged themselves, then they've failed, and should be allowed to fail. Their loss, not the taxpayers.
There is no market function for most of the operations of a monopoly utility. Its customers can't choose not to use its services, and there is no competitor.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The owners can argue what they like.
The regulator should say "no". The shareholders/bondholders made their bed and they can lie in it.
That's a very good example of begging the question.
You're starting from a position that privatisation of a monopoly is a good thing, and all that's required is a competent regulator to replace the market function. But you have presented no argument at all for how we might ensure a competent regulator.
Clearly a private infrastructure company will require quite a large amount of borrowing, just to finance its long terms investments in infrastructure. The problem is that issuing debt against the predictable cashflows of a monopoly utility is also an excellent, and much used tool to extract cash from the corporate entity. The events of the last three and a half decades suggest that government has no idea how to design a reliable regulatory process which prevents self interested private owners from wrecking the financial structure of privately owned companies for their own benefit.
No, I'm doing the opposite, I'm saying the market function should be allowed to do its job.
If the business fails it should go bankrupt. That's the market working as intended - bad firms go bust.
Privatise the gains also means privatise the losses.
If the firms have overleveraged themselves, then they've failed, and should be allowed to fail. Their loss, not the taxpayers.
There is no market function for most of the operations of a monopoly utility. Its customers can't choose not to use its services, and there is no competitor.
There is a market function for the operations of a regulated monopoly utility.
If it emits lots of pollution then it pays lots of fines, so loses money.
If it cuts pollution, it cuts fines, so makes money.
Hence why rivers and beaches improved dramatically post-privatisation.
Now possibly the regulator needs more teeth, but there's absolutely a function there.
Mr. Eagles, it's wrong to say Saudi Arabia are to build 11 stadiums. It's 11 stadia. And I'll believe the 'Neom' stadium when I see it.
It is stadia if you believe that stadium is still a Latin loan word. It is stadiums if you believe stadium has been adopted as an English word. The grammatical rule is that you conjugate according to the language the word belongs to. Should the word belong to two languages, conjugate according to the one you're speaking.
Pluralisation is an inflection not conjugation. Conjugation is the modification of a verb to indicate tense, mood and person. Inflection is the modification of any word, not just a verb, to indicate grammatical function; in this case plurality.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Hang on.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
The construction of the car is more important than the mass. A modern car (a saloon car, not what the Americans call a light truck) will deform extensively in the bumper and bonnet when involved in a pedestrian impact - whereas an older one is designed much more for car-car collisions, and the pedestrian has his legs broken by the metal bumper and his head broken by the top of the engine underneath the bonnet.
As an aside on "Light Trucks" ie Tonka Tanks, they are simply exempt from many of the safety regs that apply to cars in the USA. That's been a scandal for a very long time, and manufacturers have used their influence to prevent suitable regulations being applied.
Indeed, this is something you and I can completely agree on. You are 100% correct.
This is something I would not want to see US rules introduced on, and they're not happening here.
Any use of US data instead instead of UK data is showing dishonesty or a lack of comprehension on this by the person doing so.
The popularity of SUVs vs cars is safety problem though, cars having lower bonnets, the pedestrian was more likely to be go over the bonnet than under it. Stats demonstrate that 20mph is safer than 30mph, no need to go into any physics and the relevance of the theoretical stopping distance is considerably reduced versus reckless or distracted driving, as demonstrated by the vehicular war on stationary objects such as lamposts.
UK SUVs are cars. They are not American
Look at the Nissan Qashqai or the Kia Sportage, they are popular UK SUVs and they have all the safety features of modern cars, including modern, safer bonnets.
Contrast with the Ford F150 which to the best of my knowledge is not sold in this country.
The Ford Ranger, a smaller truck built to car standards, is sold in the UK and Europe, but not the F-series.
If you see an F-series it will be a one-off import, left hand drive, and usually a work truck for something specific like towing heavy trailers. Plus maybe a few hanging around outside football club training grounds.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The owners can argue what they like.
The regulator should say "no". The shareholders/bondholders made their bed and they can lie in it.
That's a very good example of begging the question.
You're starting from a position that privatisation of a monopoly is a good thing, and all that's required is a competent regulator to replace the market function. But you have presented no argument at all for how we might ensure a competent regulator.
Clearly a private infrastructure company will require quite a large amount of borrowing, just to finance its long terms investments in infrastructure. The problem is that issuing debt against the predictable cashflows of a monopoly utility is also an excellent, and much used tool to extract cash from the corporate entity. The events of the last three and a half decades suggest that government has no idea how to design a reliable regulatory process which prevents self interested private owners from wrecking the financial structure of privately owned companies for their own benefit.
They could start by using a bit of corporate governance, Prosecute the directors and ban them from holding office. I find that tends to concentrate minds.
But they've done nothing illegal, just scummy. Being a scumbag isn't against the law.
It's quite possible that Macquarie were less than honest with the regulator if you look back a couple of decades. But good luck pursuing that.
Maybe, but I also think this is an opportunity for the government to lay down new rules of engagement to shareholders and more importantly bond investors that UK utilities aren't one way bet so when the financial engineers try and load up the next company with endless debt to pay dividends the bondholders had better be sure about buying in. Just that alone will prevent future iterations of what's happened in the water industry.
We could start by saying they must be responsible corporations and pay Corporation Tax on shore.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Hang on.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
The construction of the car is more important than the mass. A modern car (a saloon car, not what the Americans call a light truck) will deform extensively in the bumper and bonnet when involved in a pedestrian impact - whereas an older one is designed much more for car-car collisions, and the pedestrian has his legs broken by the metal bumper and his head broken by the top of the engine underneath the bonnet.
As an aside on "Light Trucks" ie Tonka Tanks, they are simply exempt from many of the safety regs that apply to cars in the USA. That's been a scandal for a very long time, and manufacturers have used their influence to prevent suitable regulations being applied.
Indeed, this is something you and I can completely agree on. You are 100% correct.
This is something I would not want to see US rules introduced on, and they're not happening here.
Any use of US data instead instead of UK data is showing dishonesty or a lack of comprehension on this by the person doing so.
The popularity of SUVs vs cars is safety problem though, cars having lower bonnets, the pedestrian was more likely to be go over the bonnet than under it. Stats demonstrate that 20mph is safer than 30mph, no need to go into any physics and the relevance of the theoretical stopping distance is considerably reduced versus reckless or distracted driving, as demonstrated by the vehicular war on stationary objects such as lamposts.
UK SUVs are cars. They are not American
Look at the Nissan Qashqai or the Kia Sportage, they are popular UK SUVs and they have all the safety features of modern cars, including modern, safer bonnets.
Contrast with the Ford F150 which to the best of my knowledge is not sold in this country.
The Ford Ranger, a smaller truck built to car standards, is sold in the UK and Europe, but not the F-series.
If you see an F-series it will be a one-off import, left hand drive, and usually a work truck for something specific like towing heavy trailers. Plus maybe a few hanging around outside football club training grounds.
Mr. Eagles, it's wrong to say Saudi Arabia are to build 11 stadiums. It's 11 stadia. And I'll believe the 'Neom' stadium when I see it.
It is stadia if you believe that stadium is still a Latin loan word. It is stadiums if you believe stadium has been adopted as an English word. The grammatical rule is that you conjugate according to the language the word belongs to. Should the word belong to two languages, conjugate according to the one you're speaking.
Pluralisation is an inflection not conjugation. Conjugation is the modification of a verb to indicate tense, mood and person. Inflection is the modification of any word, not just a verb, to indicate grammatical function; in this case plurality.
As controversial as pineapple on pizza, and topical this week - are there any circumstances under which the word ‘medal’ can properly be used as a verb?
Bemedalled is a common adjectival participle (?) used to describe e.g. brown jobs or Admirals on formal occasions. Okay, that's really a derivative of 'bemedal' but OED does have 'medal' as a transitive verb - e.g. a Fenland Tech magazine in 1890
"In that year it was decided that both crews should be medalled, the winners with silver, the losers with bronze." Granta 6 December
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The shareholders failed in their due diligence in that case. The taxpayer/bill payer shouldn't pay for that failure and the regulator needs to be stern here and tell them to get fucked.
It's time to let it go bankrupt along with all of the other water companies, have the bondholders take a hefty haircut and let them either take it over or sell the assets to the state for a nominal amount on the basis that the state takes on the remaining liability ~ 30-40% of what it is currently.
Water is one part of our infrastructure that should never have been privatised and Labour have an opportunity to bring it all back under state ownership over the next 5 years by working with the regulator to wipe out the shareholders.
Agreed. But I don't know if they have the bottle.
Well they don't have the cash to throw at share / bond holders so it's be ruthless or create a very simple of attack lines for the opposition at the next election.
Also Canadian Teachers don't have votes in the UK...
I agree entirely with both you and Max on this. Let the shareholders go bust, and screw the bondholders. But it needs to be done in a manner which least spooks bond markets.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The shareholders failed in their due diligence in that case. The taxpayer/bill payer shouldn't pay for that failure and the regulator needs to be stern here and tell them to get fucked.
It's time to let it go bankrupt along with all of the other water companies, have the bondholders take a hefty haircut and let them either take it over or sell the assets to the state for a nominal amount on the basis that the state takes on the remaining liability ~ 30-40% of what it is currently.
Water is one part of our infrastructure that should never have been privatised and Labour have an opportunity to bring it all back under state ownership over the next 5 years by working with the regulator to wipe out the shareholders.
Agreed. But I don't know if they have the bottle.
Well they don't have the cash to throw at share / bond holders so it's be ruthless or create a very simple of attack lines for the opposition at the next election.
Also Canadian Teachers don't have votes in the UK...
I agree entirely with both you and Max on this. Let the shareholders go bust, and screw the bondholders. But it needs to be done in a manner which least spooks bond markets.
Giving the bond markets a bit of a spook is no bad thing.
Let them know they need to do their due diligence.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Hang on.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
The construction of the car is more important than the mass. A modern car (a saloon car, not what the Americans call a light truck) will deform extensively in the bumper and bonnet when involved in a pedestrian impact - whereas an older one is designed much more for car-car collisions, and the pedestrian has his legs broken by the metal bumper and his head broken by the top of the engine underneath the bonnet.
As an aside on "Light Trucks" ie Tonka Tanks, they are simply exempt from many of the safety regs that apply to cars in the USA. That's been a scandal for a very long time, and manufacturers have used their influence to prevent suitable regulations being applied.
Indeed, this is something you and I can completely agree on. You are 100% correct.
This is something I would not want to see US rules introduced on, and they're not happening here.
Any use of US data instead instead of UK data is showing dishonesty or a lack of comprehension on this by the person doing so.
The popularity of SUVs vs cars is safety problem though, cars having lower bonnets, the pedestrian was more likely to be go over the bonnet than under it. Stats demonstrate that 20mph is safer than 30mph, no need to go into any physics and the relevance of the theoretical stopping distance is considerably reduced versus reckless or distracted driving, as demonstrated by the vehicular war on stationary objects such as lamposts.
UK SUVs are cars. They are not American
Look at the Nissan Qashqai or the Kia Sportage, they are popular UK SUVs and they have all the safety features of modern cars, including modern, safer bonnets.
Contrast with the Ford F150 which to the best of my knowledge is not sold in this country.
The Ford Ranger, a smaller truck built to car standards, is sold in the UK and Europe, but not the F-series.
If you see an F-series it will be a one-off import, left hand drive, and usually a work truck for something specific like towing heavy trailers. Plus maybe a few hanging around outside football club training grounds.
I go for simple people carriers.
I think my next vehicle will be a G-Wagen.
Ha, you’re turning into an old footballer getting one of those in the UK!
The new G is actually very nice to drive, much more of a car than the terrible-handling-but-cool-looking truck that was the previous model. Very popular in my neck of the woods.
That said, the GLS is a better vehicle in almost every way.
Well look at that. Andriy Derkach, the Ukrainian ex-MP who helped Trump and Giuliani pressure Ukraine to smear Biden, and was sanctioned by the US for being “an active Russian agent” working to interfere with the 2020 election — all of which which he denied being/doing — has surfaced in Russia with Russian citizenship and is now seeking political office. https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1818914491830047163
Mr. Eagles, it's wrong to say Saudi Arabia are to build 11 stadiums. It's 11 stadia. And I'll believe the 'Neom' stadium when I see it.
It is stadia if you believe that stadium is still a Latin loan word. It is stadiums if you believe stadium has been adopted as an English word. The grammatical rule is that you conjugate according to the language the word belongs to. Should the word belong to two languages, conjugate according to the one you're speaking.
Pluralisation is an inflection not conjugation. Conjugation is the modification of a verb to indicate tense, mood and person. Inflection is the modification of any word, not just a verb, to indicate grammatical function; in this case plurality.
As controversial as pineapple on pizza, and topical this week - are there any circumstances under which the word ‘medal’ can properly be used as a verb?
Bemedalled is a common adjectival participle (?) used to describe e.g. brown jobs or Admirals on formal occasions. Okay, that's really a derivative of 'bemedal' but OED does have 'medal' as a transitive verb - e.g. a Fenland Tech magazine in 1890
"In that year it was decided that both crews should be medalled, the winners with silver, the losers with bronze." Granta 6 December
But more recent usages up to the present day.
Grr. Listening to the Olympics coverage it annoys the hell out of me! It only started a few years ago, perhaps in Beijing ‘08, when the BBC presenters suddenly started talking about medalling, and it’s grated ever since.
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Hang on.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
The construction of the car is more important than the mass. A modern car (a saloon car, not what the Americans call a light truck) will deform extensively in the bumper and bonnet when involved in a pedestrian impact - whereas an older one is designed much more for car-car collisions, and the pedestrian has his legs broken by the metal bumper and his head broken by the top of the engine underneath the bonnet.
As an aside on "Light Trucks" ie Tonka Tanks, they are simply exempt from many of the safety regs that apply to cars in the USA. That's been a scandal for a very long time, and manufacturers have used their influence to prevent suitable regulations being applied.
Indeed, this is something you and I can completely agree on. You are 100% correct.
This is something I would not want to see US rules introduced on, and they're not happening here.
Any use of US data instead instead of UK data is showing dishonesty or a lack of comprehension on this by the person doing so.
The popularity of SUVs vs cars is safety problem though, cars having lower bonnets, the pedestrian was more likely to be go over the bonnet than under it. Stats demonstrate that 20mph is safer than 30mph, no need to go into any physics and the relevance of the theoretical stopping distance is considerably reduced versus reckless or distracted driving, as demonstrated by the vehicular war on stationary objects such as lamposts.
UK SUVs are cars. They are not American
Look at the Nissan Qashqai or the Kia Sportage, they are popular UK SUVs and they have all the safety features of modern cars, including modern, safer bonnets.
Contrast with the Ford F150 which to the best of my knowledge is not sold in this country.
A Full Fat Range Rover or Defender, TSE's G Wagen or a Grenadier could do you some hefty damage and what about a Ford Ranger truck? A friend of my son, dicking about on Cardiff Road in Barry some years ago was killed by a Skoda Octavia taxi at 30mph. By today's standards a Skoda Octavia is a relatively small car. The road is now a 20. He'd have been injured at 20, but would probably have survived.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The shareholders failed in their due diligence in that case. The taxpayer/bill payer shouldn't pay for that failure and the regulator needs to be stern here and tell them to get fucked.
It's time to let it go bankrupt along with all of the other water companies, have the bondholders take a hefty haircut and let them either take it over or sell the assets to the state for a nominal amount on the basis that the state takes on the remaining liability ~ 30-40% of what it is currently.
Water is one part of our infrastructure that should never have been privatised and Labour have an opportunity to bring it all back under state ownership over the next 5 years by working with the regulator to wipe out the shareholders.
Agreed. But I don't know if they have the bottle.
Well they don't have the cash to throw at share / bond holders so it's be ruthless or create a very simple of attack lines for the opposition at the next election.
Also Canadian Teachers don't have votes in the UK...
I agree entirely with both you and Max on this. Let the shareholders go bust, and screw the bondholders. But it needs to be done in a manner which least spooks bond markets.
Spooking the bond markets for UK utilities would probably be a net benefit as companies will be forced to outline more detailed investment plans and how they intend to service/redeem the bonds from the increased cashflow generated by the investment. Management won't be able to write paper and pay out dividends any more which would be a good result for the UK economy.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The shareholders failed in their due diligence in that case. The taxpayer/bill payer shouldn't pay for that failure and the regulator needs to be stern here and tell them to get fucked.
It's time to let it go bankrupt along with all of the other water companies, have the bondholders take a hefty haircut and let them either take it over or sell the assets to the state for a nominal amount on the basis that the state takes on the remaining liability ~ 30-40% of what it is currently.
Water is one part of our infrastructure that should never have been privatised and Labour have an opportunity to bring it all back under state ownership over the next 5 years by working with the regulator to wipe out the shareholders.
Agreed. But I don't know if they have the bottle.
Well they don't have the cash to throw at share / bond holders so it's be ruthless or create a very simple of attack lines for the opposition at the next election.
Also Canadian Teachers don't have votes in the UK...
I agree entirely with both you and Max on this. Let the shareholders go bust, and screw the bondholders. But it needs to be done in a manner which least spooks bond markets.
Someone mentioned upthread the supply chain that depends on Thames Water.
If Thames Water goes bust, the shareholders and bond holders get wiped out (or as much as required).
The "lightened" business, shorn of much of it's debt would be extremely profitable - and would be able to support temporarily higher prices from the suppliers without having to raise bills.
You'd want good managers to manage the supplier prices back down after the initial bump, though.
I honestly think that the crossover is going to come very soon, possibly even today. The latest polls show Harris between 3 and 7(!) points ahead. Trump is imploding, his choice of VP has gone down very badly and Harris looks competent, comparatively young and sane.
I don't see the current odds lasting long.
Of course there is a long way to go but Trump is the unhinged old man of this contest now.
I would like to think so, but America is a weird place, so being weird is not a bar to support. The pussy grabbing, riot provoking bigot still has nearly half of America supporting him. Astonishing but true.
Whereas we elected a Prime Minister who had been sacked from multiple jobs for lying and doesn't know how many children he has. That ended well.
Thames Water is just one of many examples of pisspoor administration by the last government. So focused on Brexit, stoking Culture War and graft to bother with the mundanities of competent administration.
They deserve an eternity on the Opposition benches.
Why do you put the blame for Thames Water on politicians as opposed to Ofwat whose actual purpose is to regulate the water companies.
Because the politicians have let Ofwat do a piss (other words for effluent can be substituted) poor job...
So you want a minister for regulating regulators or perhaps a regulator for regulating regulators, Ofof.
And if there are disputes between the supply company, the regulator, the regulators regulator and the 'here today gone next year' politician who is supposed to be 'the expert' ?
Remember 'experts' ? Those people politicians are always condemned for not paying attention to.
You don't have to be an expert to note on a gross scale how badly regulators have got it wrong. The ministers with responsibility could very easily have noted how much cash was going out as dividends. compared to what was being spent on infrastructure. If they'd thought to ask.
We aren't arguing over minutiae.
Why is that the regulators responsibility?
The regulators responsibility is to ensure water is clean. That happened, in leaps and bounds, post-privatisation.
It is shareholders/bondholders responsibility to look after their interests. It is not the regulators responsibility to look after bondholders, it is the regulators responsibility to look after the public.
But the regulators are also responsible for deciding how much money a monopoly can charge, of course; the market can't do that. Macquarie completely hoodwinked them.
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices. Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
The shareholders failed in their due diligence in that case. The taxpayer/bill payer shouldn't pay for that failure and the regulator needs to be stern here and tell them to get fucked.
It's time to let it go bankrupt along with all of the other water companies, have the bondholders take a hefty haircut and let them either take it over or sell the assets to the state for a nominal amount on the basis that the state takes on the remaining liability ~ 30-40% of what it is currently.
Water is one part of our infrastructure that should never have been privatised and Labour have an opportunity to bring it all back under state ownership over the next 5 years by working with the regulator to wipe out the shareholders.
Agreed. But I don't know if they have the bottle.
Well they don't have the cash to throw at share / bond holders so it's be ruthless or create a very simple of attack lines for the opposition at the next election.
Also Canadian Teachers don't have votes in the UK...
I agree entirely with both you and Max on this. Let the shareholders go bust, and screw the bondholders. But it needs to be done in a manner which least spooks bond markets.
Someone mentioned upthread the supply chain that depends on Thames Water.
If Thames Water goes bust, the shareholders and bond holders get wiped out (or as much as required).
The "lightened" business, shorn of much of it's debt would be extremely profitable - and would be able to support temporarily higher prices from the suppliers without having to raise bills.
You'd want good managers to manage the supplier prices back down after the initial bump, though.
No, you'd want good managers to start insourcing those functions over time and building up those divisions again.
Good morning one and all! Off topic I know but I've just had a look at my junk mail and there's a letter there from our local MP Priti Patel. Sorry Dame Priti Patel. She reports on, among other things, her objections to the Labour Governments proposal to release prisoners early. I thought it was originally proposed by Rishi Sunak's Conservative Government!
26% reduction in road casualities 23% in killed / seriously injured 55% drop in people killed 27% drop in slight injuries
And insurance claims down 20%.
The thing that convinced me that this speed reduction policy was a good idea was the stat that vehicles are getting heavier.
Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.
That is patently false and not represented by the data whatsoever.
Decades of technological and safety improvements, including crash test designs and iterations, mean you are far, far, far less likely to die today than decades ago. Which includes pedestrians.
That is true, but does not contradict the above point that "Getting hit at 20mph now is likely to be worse than being hit at 30mph some twenty/thirty years ago.".
Perhaps rather than having a speed limit we should have a momentum limit?
It does contradict it.
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average. In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
No it doesn't. Your point about cars being safer is about their ability to quickly decelerate. But TSE's point remains true - if you get hit at 20mph in a heavy car you will be worse off than if you get hit at 30mph in a light one. That's just physics.
Hang on.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
The construction of the car is more important than the mass. A modern car (a saloon car, not what the Americans call a light truck) will deform extensively in the bumper and bonnet when involved in a pedestrian impact - whereas an older one is designed much more for car-car collisions, and the pedestrian has his legs broken by the metal bumper and his head broken by the top of the engine underneath the bonnet.
As an aside on "Light Trucks" ie Tonka Tanks, they are simply exempt from many of the safety regs that apply to cars in the USA. That's been a scandal for a very long time, and manufacturers have used their influence to prevent suitable regulations being applied.
Indeed, this is something you and I can completely agree on. You are 100% correct.
This is something I would not want to see US rules introduced on, and they're not happening here.
Any use of US data instead instead of UK data is showing dishonesty or a lack of comprehension on this by the person doing so.
The popularity of SUVs vs cars is safety problem though, cars having lower bonnets, the pedestrian was more likely to be go over the bonnet than under it. Stats demonstrate that 20mph is safer than 30mph, no need to go into any physics and the relevance of the theoretical stopping distance is considerably reduced versus reckless or distracted driving, as demonstrated by the vehicular war on stationary objects such as lamposts.
UK SUVs are cars. They are not American
Look at the Nissan Qashqai or the Kia Sportage, they are popular UK SUVs and they have all the safety features of modern cars, including modern, safer bonnets.
Contrast with the Ford F150 which to the best of my knowledge is not sold in this country.
The Ford Ranger, a smaller truck built to car standards, is sold in the UK and Europe, but not the F-series.
If you see an F-series it will be a one-off import, left hand drive, and usually a work truck for something specific like towing heavy trailers. Plus maybe a few hanging around outside football club training grounds.
I go for simple people carriers.
I think my next vehicle will be a G-Wagen.
Ha, you’re turning into an old footballer getting one of those in the UK!
The new G is actually very nice to drive, much more of a car than the terrible-handling-but-cool-looking truck that was the previous model. Very popular in my neck of the woods.
That said, the GLS is a better vehicle in almost every way.
Best vehicle I’ve ever hard was the Porsche Cayenne Turbo.
That was basically a sports cars on a 4x4 floor plan.
Comments
A lot of arguments being made still rely upon old data. Most claims made by "road safety campaigners" who want speed limits cut use obsolete data from the 1970s or 1990s to back up their claims . . . because the data today does not.
Pedestrian casualty rates have collapsed in recent decades: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-pedestrian-factsheet-2022/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-pedestrian-factsheet-2022
In 2004 there were 53.6 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
In 2022 there were 26.5 pedestrian casualties per billion miles walked on average.
Pedestrians, not drivers, are twice as safe as they were previously.
Mr. Cooper, the governor of North Carolina, had been seen as one of the half-dozen top candidates to join the Democratic presidential ticket....“This just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket,” Mr. Cooper wrote. “She has an outstanding list of people from which to choose, and we’ll all work to make sure she wins.”
Mr. Cooper, who previously served as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, was asked last week by the Harris campaign to be vetted for vice president but declined to participate, according to two people engaged in the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/29/us/politics/roy-cooper-kamala-harris-vp.html
I don't think this footage in itself is massively damaging, but the relevant thing it shows is that Trump is only capable of doing friendly media (unlike 2016 Trump).
(See Sunak for a milder version of the same effect.)
Assuming that the Republicans can avoid putting up Trump up again in 2028 (even if he's in an orange jumpsuit or six feet under), presumably the temptation will be to go for MAGA without Trump. But as Vance is showing, MAGA needs Trump to work, because MAGA is Trump.
If they're losing money due to bad management of loans then tough shit.
That is the bondholders/shareholders responsibility not the taxpayers responsibility and they need to face the consequences of their choices.
As an illustration - this is OFCOMs latest estimates of in-home video consumption. Those huge pink blocks in the <35s? That’s video social media. And that’s why, in spite of PBs periodic desire to see social media banned*, it won’t be. To do so would be electoral suicide.
*(though, of course, not the good ship PB as we’re one of the good one!)
The other point is that we're not starting from scratch now. Thames has been loaded up with a huge amount of debt, and the owners are arguing the regulator should help them finance it by putting up prices.
Parsing out what amount of debt is reasonable in terms of financing infrastructure work - and how much has been incurred simply as a means of extracting cash out of the company (which definitely happened under Macquarie) - is now as much a political as it is a regulatory issue.
This is also what Trump does in the interview, but unfortunately he doesn't have the agility he used to so he ends up going with "sure those police got their ribs broken and one of them died of a stroke, but what about those left-wing protestors who sprayed paint on a memorial? Do you know how hard it is to get paint off granite"?
The regulator should say "no". The shareholders/bondholders made their bed and they can lie in it.
The low point of pedestrian deaths on USA roads was 4109 in 2009. In 2022 there were 7502 pedestrian deaths.
A total of 7,522 pedestrian deaths occurred in 2022. Pedestrian fatalities account for 18% of all crash fatalities. Although pedestrian deaths in 2022 were approximately the same as in 1975, they have increased 83% since reaching their lowest point in 2009.
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedestrians#:~:text=Posted June 2024.-,Trends,their lowest point in 2009.
UK trends could follow.
The oldies are still watching TV, mostly whatever happens to be on, including plenty of cable news.
A surprising amount of those youngsters get their news primarily from Instragram and TikTok, with all the issues that might entail.
The data from the UK is absolutely that pedestrian deaths are collapsing and continue to collapse.
Since you chose to reference 2009 and 2022 as reference points there, UK data shows a 23% fall in deaths between 2009 and 2022.
There will still be a need for people to use water and flush loos. Its a public health issue and HMG will have to step in. Consumers will probably see their water prices double and as I pointed out earlier TW going potentially brings a collapse in its supply chain.
As part of the privatisation process the Water cos oursourced huge chunks of what I would say are core skills. They cannot do much maintenance except through their supply chain. If that supply chain goes then functioning fresh water and sewage are at risk. Suppliers will need guarntees to keep going and in the mean time they will ramp up their prices and charge pro forms. Somebody has to fund that - it can only be the taxpayer.
It's time to let it go bankrupt along with all of the other water companies, have the bondholders take a hefty haircut and let them either take it over or sell the assets to the state for a nominal amount on the basis that the state takes on the remaining liability ~ 30-40% of what it is currently.
Water is one part of our infrastructure that should never have been privatised and Labour have an opportunity to bring it all back under state ownership over the next 5 years by working with the regulator to wipe out the shareholders.
There has been some expectation of a cut but will it happen this time given that the Bank will be aware that Rachel's MASSIVE public sector pay rises will provide a MASSIVE boost to inflation
I project a 5-4 vote to keep rates at 5.25%
There are also issues about the transfer of kinetic energy, the speed of the transfer, and the impact of the unfortunate pedestrian on the ground or against lampposts at speed which is conferred by the car.
The regulator being the expert and doing the job permanently the politician very unlikely to be an expert and having a few hours to look at the info.
Lets just say it would be a 'brave' decision by the politician.
And what would be the result - lots of aggravation whatever happens, especially so if the politician is mistaken and with likely no thanks if the politician turns out to be correct.
Of course there are sometimes 'brave' politicians:
Liz Truss is likely to give ministers the power to overturn some financial regulators’ decisions if she becomes UK prime minister, a potential move that could set up fresh tensions with the Bank of England.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-10/truss-supports-giving-uk-ministers-power-to-overrule-regulators
Its not just physics because car shapes and designs have changed, in no small part in Europe (not USA!) because of EU regulations.
Cars are obliged to pass safety tests before they go on the market that they weren't 30 years ago. A lot of work has been done on safety, and aerodynamics etc too.
So while if you're hit by a bus or truck its like being hit by a moving brick wall, if you're hit by a car it is not and the cars are designed better to allow the body to react to the collision in a manner that better suits the human body.
I'd far rather be hit by a car at 30 by a 2022 car than at a 1992 car - or even worse, a bus.
A small example: the reduction in child roaming much discussed a few weeks back.
Cars and aggressive drivers are a major reason for that.
And I think iPlayer comes under ‘BVoD’.
I suspect the rates of live viewing for the older groups is just a continuation of the ‘if someones in the lounge then the tv goes on’ mode of passive playback that felt almost universal before video on demand and doomscrolling.
I don't have the time to dig into the specific stats this morning, and it's a question that can't be elucidated by totals since the pedestrian subcategory gets averaged out.
Blatantly, there are significant numbers of pedestrians killed in avoidable collisions, and the trend to heavier and larger vehicles makes consequences of collisions more serious. These can, and should, be addressed.
Have a good day.
Apart from Hunt, Sunak was also the most centrist Tory candidate running in 2022 here.
If Trump wins this year then Vance will be heir apparent to carry the MAGA torch as his VP, which is likely why he picked him, even though it is very much a Trump led group ideologically Vance is MAGA.
DeSantis though is more traditional conservative, more pro free trade for example than MAGA are and if Trump and Vance are defeated he is likely favourite for 2028 GOP nominee. Do not be surprised if DeSantis and Haley are both secretly rooting for Harris to win!
You're starting from a position that privatisation of a monopoly is a good thing, and all that's required is a competent regulator to replace the market function.
But you have presented no argument at all for how we might ensure a competent regulator.
Clearly a private infrastructure company will require quite a large amount of borrowing, just to finance its long terms investments in infrastructure. The problem is that issuing debt against the predictable cashflows of a monopoly utility is also an excellent, and much used tool to extract cash from the corporate entity.
The events of the last three and a half decades suggest that government has no idea how to design a reliable regulatory process which prevents self interested private owners from wrecking the financial structure of privately owned companies for their own benefit.
If it was a square block running into a square block dead on, then that might well be true.
But the energy is not all dissipated in that way. In particular, a pedestrian is (typically) thrown up and onto the car. 30mph crashes are incredibly dangerous compared to 20mph one because you don't have time to get thrown upwards and the damage to your lower body - including severing of the spinal column - is extreme.
So, I suspect that @BartholomewRoberts is correct here.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/bank-japan-outline-bond-taper-plan-debate-rate-hike-timing-2024-07-30/
UK looks like a hold as well, until inflation is sustained at or below the 2% target.
I trust the insurance companies are passing on these savings to drivers who happen to live in Wales?
Seriously, if they were, you'd get a rather more accurate way of judging whether you supported the scheme - would you rather drive at Drakeford-speed if by doing so you saved £100 a year?
But I don't know if they have the bottle.
If the business fails it should go bankrupt. That's the market working as intended - bad firms go bust.
Privatise the gains also means privatise the losses.
If the firms have overleveraged themselves, then they've failed, and should be allowed to fail. Their loss, not the taxpayers.
But one explanation for the US figures is that getting hit by a tall SUV is a bit like colliding with a square block dead on - and is much more likely to result in a severe head injury.
Specifically my gut feeling is Reform is definitely under represented. It feels like there are a lot of ex-Tories who are now Lab or LD or disenfranchised, but would like to go home to the Tories if they re-establish themselves. The LDs feel over represented, probably helped by the reference in my previous sentence. Labour being high in the polls are possibly not over represented.
But by and large, although there are a significant number of posters from the right, they do seem to be in a definite minority currently.
American ones are more like what we call trucks in this country. And I would not want to be hit by a bus or a truck.
First thought for this morning - back around 2008, Allister Heath, while he was still Editor of City AM and before he went mad, wrote a number of intelligent pieces arguing for every company over a certain size to be legally required to have a "will" to explain what should happen in the event of bankruptcy/insolvency.
This would be particularly pertinent for large companies whose sudden collapse leaves everyone from staff to shareholders wondering what's going to happen next. As they always said in a place where I once worked, hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
Appointed administratoes would then have a blueprint of instructions as to hoe to resolve the affairs of the company.
The 3 external members (Mann, Greene, Haskel) all hate life so will vote to hold;
Dinghra and Ramsden will vote to cut.
I think Broadbent will do whatever Bailey does, so it comes down to Bailey persuading one of Pill and/or Breeden.
Bur set that aside, it will be the knowledge that they COULD be dragged off to court and go to jail that will change their behaviour.
Those who object to my desire to see house price falls normally retort that they want to see house prices stability combined with wage rises as the solution to seeing homes be more affordable . . . but then many here seem absolutely gutted with the notion of wage rises.
I want to see the government do less and we should have fewer people working for the state (and I could list a number of functions I'd cut and let people go from) but those who are working should be paid a decent salary for their work. And if we're at full employment, then wages need to go up until we reach an equilibrium that means that we don't have major vacancies anymore.
1 - Labour / working class.
2 - Liberal radicals.
3 - Paternalistic Tories eg consider some founders of the National Trust or industrialists, although there were also aristocratic socialists such as Octavia Hill.
I think we have shifted back to 1 and partly 2 being in the ascendant as underlying values, rather than having a tinge of 3 in there somewhere.
I've been interested to read the Police citing disinformation as a cause for some of the disturbances coming off the Southport murders. One example - there was a video showing a couple of groups of young men in Southen fighting at one end of the promenade with machetes and that inevitably went viral and caused all sort of comment.
Youngsters fighting in Southend is hardly news - it's been going on for at least 60 years if not longer. It might be machetes now rather than switchblades or baseball bats but let's not imagine this is some new horror vested on us. The change is it is filmed in real time, uploaded onto X and within minutes is seen by hundreds if not thousands helped by a nice attention grabbling title like "Big Machete Fight in Southend" or whatever.
The power of misinformation or disinformation has been exposed this week (if it wasn't known even back in 2011 for example when the disorder then was largely fanned if not orchestrated by a nascent Twitter). You can't put the genie back in the bottle unfortunately but as we know a growing number of people get their "news" from X or other social media how do we respond?
Those with a functioning brain cell might want to consider the wisdom of commenting on every X posting as soon as it happens or taking half a story and making it the full story (as we've seen with the Manchester Airport business). We're not Reuters or the PA - reading something from X doesn't make it true (a wise man once said the truth is out there, perhaps, but it's becoming a lot harder to find in the jungle of disinformation).
As an aside, we also know the impact of the combination of hot weather and easily available alcohol on some people. Somebody once spoke about personal responsibility - wither that?
Regulated industries should do the same for safety and accounting officers, so you’re never working in the industry again if your company has an accident or goes bust. #CancelNu10k
Average Deviation from actual:
0.18750% Greene (8 votes)
0.11842% Mann (23 votes)
0.02778% Haskel (49 votes)
0.00263% Ramsden (57 votes)
0.00000% Bailey (36 votes)
0.00000% Breeden (6 votes)
0.00000% Broadbent (128 votes)
0.00000% Pill (23 votes)
-0.25000% Dinghra (15 votes)
Hawk to Dove
This is something I would not want to see US rules introduced on, and they're not happening here.
Any use of US data instead instead of UK data is showing dishonesty or a lack of comprehension on this by the person doing so.
The single best selling vehicle in the US is the Ford F150, and has been for decades.
The new electric Hummer and Tesla trucks are so heavy you can’t drive them on a car licence in the UK, they’re over 3.5t plated max weight.
Stats demonstrate that 20mph is safer than 30mph, no need to go into any physics and the relevance of the theoretical stopping distance is considerably reduced versus reckless or distracted driving, as demonstrated by the vehicular war on stationary objects such as lamposts.
If prices are rising that is inflation by definition. Yes it may be recessionary, but recessions can come with inflation.
Well they don't have the cash to throw at share / bond holders so it's be ruthless or create a very simple of attack lines for the opposition at the next election.
Also Canadian Teachers don't have votes in the UK...
Look at the Nissan Qashqai or the Kia Sportage, they are popular UK SUVs and they have all the safety features of modern cars, including modern, safer bonnets.
Contrast with the Ford F150 which to the best of my knowledge is not sold in this country.
Aggravating that is that the price elasticity of fuel is low, demand doesn’t change much with price because those goods still need to be delivered and those people still need to get to work. The price needs to rise considerably before demand falls, fuelling inflation even more.
Its customers can't choose not to use its services, and there is no competitor.
If it emits lots of pollution then it pays lots of fines, so loses money.
If it cuts pollution, it cuts fines, so makes money.
Hence why rivers and beaches improved dramatically post-privatisation.
Now possibly the regulator needs more teeth, but there's absolutely a function there.
If you see an F-series it will be a one-off import, left hand drive, and usually a work truck for something specific like towing heavy trailers. Plus maybe a few hanging around outside football club training grounds.
I think my next vehicle will be a G-Wagen.
"In that year it was decided that both crews should be medalled, the winners with silver, the losers with bronze."
Granta 6 December
But more recent usages up to the present day.
Let the shareholders go bust, and screw the bondholders. But it needs to be done in a manner which least spooks bond markets.
Let them know they need to do their due diligence.
The new G is actually very nice to drive, much more of a car than the terrible-handling-but-cool-looking truck that was the previous model. Very popular in my neck of the woods.
That said, the GLS is a better vehicle in almost every way.
https://x.com/ChristopherJM/status/1818914491830047163
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-39734797.amp
If Thames Water goes bust, the shareholders and bond holders get wiped out (or as much as required).
The "lightened" business, shorn of much of it's debt would be extremely profitable - and would be able to support temporarily higher prices from the suppliers without having to raise bills.
You'd want good managers to manage the supplier prices back down after the initial bump, though.
Ford should import them, then do warrantied RHD conversions like they do for Australia/NZ. They would sell well and have excellent margins.
Off topic I know but I've just had a look at my junk mail and there's a letter there from our local MP Priti Patel. Sorry Dame Priti Patel.
She reports on, among other things, her objections to the Labour Governments proposal to release prisoners early.
I thought it was originally proposed by Rishi Sunak's Conservative Government!
That was basically a sports cars on a 4x4 floor plan.