Okay, so it looks like these “Russian teens got offered money on Telegram to set fire to helicopters” stories from a couple of weeks ago, might be spreading around the country.
Ukranian infiltration of Russian social media channels?
The suggestion is that they’re paying Russian kids somewhere in the $10k range, through some sort of crypto transaction, to sabotage military aircraft at their local airfield. But that yes they are paying it, so more kids are signing up to Puck Futin.
This was a tactic once used by drug dealers in Liverpool to stop the police helicopter aka the Paraffin Budgie from operating.
If you can get access to them there are plenty of low tech ways to damage them sufficiently.
CNN - Kentucky judge had lunch with the sheriff now arrested in his killing, court clerk says
A local sheriff ate lunch with a prominent district judge hours before allegedly shooting the judge in his chambers, according to a court official, who said the killing last Thursday has stunned the small community of Letcher County, Kentucky.
Circuit Clerk Mike Watt saw District Judge Kevin Mullins and Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines shortly before noon on Thursday, he told CNN affiliate WKYT, describing the kind of encounter that might happen among coworkers in any workplace across the country.
“We were kind of joking around about national politics … And then I talked to the sheriff about attending the sheriff’s association (conference) last week in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and asked him how that went,” Watts said. “And then they went down the street to eat lunch.”
Later that day, Stines, 43 – a man whose role made him responsible for judge’s personal security – fatally shot Mullins, 54, inside the Letcher County courthouse in Whitesburg, according to Kentucky State Police. Stines was arrested at the courthouse and is now facing a first-degree murder charge, authorities said.. . .
After the heated conversation, a 911 call reported shots fired on the second floor of the courthouse just before 3 p.m., then the district judge of 15 years was found with multiple gunshot wounds and pronounced dead, Kentucky State Police said. . . .
SSI - Notwithstanding the reference to "national politics" my own very uneducated guess, is that the argument that ended with the sheriff and the judge had nothing to do with that, but was instead some kind of personal OR legal issue.
Note that political violence - or violence involving elected officials - is hardly unknown in Kentucky
> in leadup to US Civil War, when the majority of White Kentuckians were either pro-slavery or held their tongues on that issue, Cassius Clay (not the 20th-century boxer, but the 19th-cen. nephew to Henry Clay) was a vocally anti-slavery AND pro-Republican (not Lincoln was NOT on KY ballots in 1860). AND he was not just vocal, but combative, being a high-spirited representative of the Bluegrass gentry. Thus he engaged in several duels which he survived, but his opponents sometimes not.
> later in the century was the assassination of Kentucky Gov. William Goebel, the only assassination of a governor in US history; he was shot before and died after his innauguaration. Note that Goebel, a Republican, had previously killed a former Confederate (and Democrat) in a duel.
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
Can’t see it. There’s half the cabinet involved and they’re not all going to resign. They’ll all stand in line behind the PM.
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
While I'm on a roll, these are the relevant paragraphs from the Oakervee Review:
12.9 Analysis suggests that not going to Euston would have a significant negative impact on the business case for HS2: demand modelling by HS2 Ltd suggests that around two-thirds of London passengers prefer Euston station and the remaining one third prefer Old Oak Common, and that removing the section from Old Oak Common to Euston could reduce transport user benefits and revenues by £20-30bn. However, others have pointed out that the time taken for passengers to reach central London locations from Euston or from Old Oak Common, via the London Underground network or Crossrail respectively, would be similar.
12.10 Evidence from Transport for London stated that Crossrail services would be extremely crowded if forced to disperse larger HS2 passenger numbers if Old Oak Common is the only London station – this is the case even if Old Oak Common is used as the London terminus on a temporary basis. Even a reduced frequency of HS2 service to say 10tph would likely cause crowding issues in rush hour east of Paddington. Crossrail was designed to relieve the Central line and provide additional capacity for East-West travel. It was not designed for the onward movement of passengers from HS2. Crossrail services and their interchanges with the London Underground network would likely need to be enhanced to cope with the larger passenger numbers, or face significant crowding and disruption. The Mayor of London’s submission to the Review was unequivocal that he/Transport for London did not believe terminating HS2 at Old Oak Common station permanently would be a viable option.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
Hardly a hanging offence in all honesty. I didn't realise family members had to be included in the register of MP's expenses. I'm not entirely sure why.
I guess the point is a holiday for two people, or five people, is of much greater value than a holiday for one person. (?)
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
Perhaps these issues could be mitigated by moving lots of things to Old Oak Common? The HoC refurb would be a lot cheaper if it was in Acton, and we'd save a lot on MPs housing allowances.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
Hardly a hanging offence in all honesty. I didn't realise family members had to be included in the register of MP's expenses. I'm not entirely sure why.
I guess the point is a holiday for two people, or five people, is of much greater value than a holiday for one person. (?)
These new ministers all just got a massive pay rise in July, from c£90k to c.£150k. And they STILL can’t pay for their own family holidays?
The Siena /New York Times for Arizona poll looks questionable.
The last poll was done before the debate which Harris clearly won , she was leading 50-45 in Arizona .
Now those figures are reversed .
In terms of NC it’s the turnout weighting which gives Trump a lead . In terms of NC and Robinson , if he withdraws then a new candidate won’t be named on the ballot , so voters will have to understand that a vote for Robinson is for the new candidate.
As discussed previously, Robinson's odds of getting elected Gov of NC were already worse than, say, Ian's darling doggie BEFORE the Black Nazi + watersport scandal.
Reckon any GOP replacement to the left of Herman Goering has a better chance, by definition. Though also reckon that the Dem nominee will be next Gov.
HOWEVER, the BIG impact could be upon the race at the TOP of the ticket.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
Hardly a hanging offence in all honesty. I didn't realise family members had to be included in the register of MP's expenses. I'm not entirely sure why.
Seems it is similar to Rayner who didn't declare Sam Tarry stayed with her in New York
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
Hardly a hanging offence in all honesty. I didn't realise family members had to be included in the register of MP's expenses. I'm not entirely sure why.
I guess the point is a holiday for two people, or five people, is of much greater value than a holiday for one person. (?)
In all the regulations and laws about gifts I am aware of, family members are included. Otherwise, the obvious loophole of "I received nothing. My wife got a diamond necklace worth a million" would occur.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Just watched (on X) Rachel Reeves being interviewed by Nick Ferrari. On the defensive. It occurred to me that I'd never really listened to her before. God, she's wooden: like a speaking clock. I was reminded of someone - couldn't think who - and then remembered: E L Wisty, as played by Peter Cook. As Sir Keir is hardly Mr Animation himself, this Govt really is going to have to find a few people with a bit of vitality and humour. But who?
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
Hardly a hanging offence in all honesty. I didn't realise family members had to be included in the register of MP's expenses. I'm not entirely sure why.
I do agree but then the rules are the rules and it just adds to the freebie stories
Here are the rules. They are not straight forward and open to interpretation in many places.
You're right. It does add to the freebie stories for those with an agenda to damage the Labour Party. If I were Starmer I'd just ignore it until people got bored with it.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
Hardly a hanging offence in all honesty. I didn't realise family members had to be included in the register of MP's expenses. I'm not entirely sure why.
I do agree but then the rules are the rules and it just adds to the freebie stories
Here are the rules. They are not straight forward and open to interpretation in many places.
You're right. It does add to the freebie stories for those with an agenda to damage the Labour Party. If I were Starmer I'd just ignore it until people got bored with it.
By the time theyre bored with it the stench of corruption will be well established
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Love to know who you would temper the wfa announcement - there are very limited datasets available hence the switch to pension credit as it's the only other dataset that is usable...
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
We are into the stage of re-cycling stories that have been in the public domain for 6 months.
A couple earning £250k between them taking a family holiday (with 2 kids) value £1400 gifted from another Labour politician ? Weird (and cheap).
Going on holiday on your own to Padstow without hudband & kids ?
Ever weirder and cheap.
I don't think any resignations are incoming not least as too many people have snout in the trough.
Her husband is a senior civil servant though. Should he be enjoying all these jollies ? Civil service rules tend to be stricter in an absolute sense than for MP's.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
The budget is massive. The frustration of 14 years opposition and this stuttering start in government will explode if it's anything but a banger.
Very good !!!!!
They really need to pick a tax fight with an enemy who is unpopular with the Labour base if they are to recover.
Big mistake with WFA. It maybe that they thought they could do without the oldies (core Tory vote, after all), but failed to understand that, on the whole, the country feels rather protective of its old folk.
Seattle Times - Why the WA Republican Party is struggling for cash
With less than a month before ballots are mailed for the general election, the state Republican Party just can’t compete financially with the Democrats.
The state GOP had just $76,000 in its state accounts at the end of August — less than 2% of the $4.3 million stashed by the state Democratic Party, according to the latest filings to the Public Disclosure Commission.
The deficit further steepens the Republican Party’s already uphill climb to win contests for key legislative races and statewide offices, including ending a four-decade losing streak in gubernatorial races.
Republicans are lagging financially in the governor race too, as Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson has raised more than $11 million, compared with $5 million for Republican former U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert.
In 2012, the last time Washington had a competitive open-seat race for governor, the state GOP had nearly $600,000 stashed in its campaign accounts at this point. In that race, Republican Rob McKenna, the sitting attorney general, outspent Jay Inslee, then a U.S. representative, by more than $1 million.
This year, Republican insiders say some donors have backed away after the state party’s at-times chaotic convention in April, in which the party officially backed longshot gubernatorial candidate Semi Bird over Reichert for the August primary. . . .
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
But that's why I think there might have to be a resignation or two
This is now such a mess Labour have to spill some blood to propitiate the angry Gods. A human sacrifice is needed
If it happens it will surely be a lesser minister. Perhaps that daft Education woman with her "but the bribe was too nice to resist!" Taylor Swift tickets
OTOH if they start sacking people where does it end?
As my lefty friend said yesterday, "it's just so fucking stupid"
I was thinking with scandal over clobbergate, whatever happened to investigation into gamble-gate? It surely can't take many months to look at people's gambling history and assess it for dodgy betting patterns, all the bookies have such system in place.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Love to know who you would temper the wfa announcement - there are very limited datasets available hence the switch to pension credit as it's the only other dataset that is usable...
Council House bands. A-C
Crude and doesn't help that much as 60% are in bands A-C.
Difficult to argue that band D and above need it, even if they are asset rich and cash poor.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
Can’t see it. There’s half the cabinet involved and they’re not all going to resign. They’ll all stand in line behind the PM.
Would be a terrible mistake for someone to resign. The media pack would just move on to the next victim. Much better braving it out. The journos won't be satiated by blood in the water - has the opposite effect.
A big problem with the donations is the incomplete/ misleading way they are being recorded. Family holiday, put it down as juat you, worth £5k, put it down as worth £1k. £14k birthday party, put it down as office works do.
It smells like expenses scandal, where amongst MPs it was just the done thing to play the system.
I was thinking with scandal over clobbergate, whatever happened to investigation into gamble-gate? It surely can't take many months to look at people's gambling history and assess it for dodgy betting patterns, all the bookies have such system in place.
iirc there was no further action - at least from the police. My memory is hazy though.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Just watched (on X) Rachel Reeves being interviewed by Nick Ferrari. On the defensive. It occurred to me that I'd never really listened to her before. God, she's wooden: like a speaking clock. I was reminded of someone - couldn't think who - and then remembered: E L Wisty, as played by Peter Cook. As Sir Keir is hardly Mr Animation himself, this Govt really is going to have to find a few people with a bit of vitality and humour. But who?
As I didn't vote for the Government (never have to be honest), I don't know but it seems there has been a struggle behind the scenes to define the "tone" or the "mood" of the new administration.
Boris came in 2019 with his optimism, his positivity and his good humour and there's a lot to be said for that at certain times, unfortunately not in the middle of a major health crisis and it's not good when managing detail.
I suspect the original concept for the new Government was sober, serious and managerial and while that may be dull and boring, it's not the worst mood for a Government facing a substantial financial problem. Indeed, there's a lot to be said for it but that's not what we've got. Part of the problem has been an election in July which has in effect left the new Government to drift through the summer and the OBR needing its time to work on the budget numbers.
Nature abhors a vacuum and of course no one could have predicted Southport and its consequences and to be honest after a poor start Starmer and Cooper did pretty well. The next problems have been of their own making and aided and abetted by the summer holidays - the Government already looks like it is drifting without a vision - I think it has a vision but it has been waiting until it announces it.
It's hit the ground but rather than hitting it running, it's gone down face first.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
But that's why I think there might have to be a resignation or two
This is now such a mess Labour have to spill some blood to propitiate the angry Gods. A human sacrifice is needed
If it happens it will surely be a lesser minister. Perhaps that daft Education woman with her "but the bribe was too nice to resist!" Taylor Swift tickets
OTOH if they start sacking people where does it end?
As my lefty friend said yesterday, "it's just so fucking stupid"
I doubt Labour high command see Philipson as a "lesser minister".
I was thinking with scandal over clobbergate, whatever happened to investigation into gamble-gate? It surely can't take many months to look at people's gambling history and assess it for dodgy betting patterns, all the bookies have such system in place.
I was thinking with scandal over clobbergate, whatever happened to investigation into gamble-gate? It surely can't take many months to look at people's gambling history and assess it for dodgy betting patterns, all the bookies have such system in place.
iirc there was no further action - at least from the police. My memory is hazy though.
But the gambling commission were also investigating, no? Some of the hysteria was nonsense e.g. £50 bets, but there were a couple of cases that were very stinky.
I still think "we ran out of money for our railway because we put it most of it in a tunnel through some completely flat countryside " should've got more discussion. https://x.com/echetus/status/1837969659317940568
I was thinking with scandal over clobbergate, whatever happened to investigation into gamble-gate? It surely can't take many months to look at people's gambling history and assess it for dodgy betting patterns, all the bookies have such system in place.
That ended with no prosecutions or fines brought. It was such a jumped up bit of bullshit timed to hurt the government during the election. The Tories deserved to be beaten but it did seem like towards the end the establishment within the state wanted the Tories out and were making sure they did whatever was necessary.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Love to know who you would temper the wfa announcement - there are very limited datasets available hence the switch to pension credit as it's the only other dataset that is usable...
Council House bands. A-C
Crude and doesn't help that much as 60% are in bands A-C.
Difficult to argue that band D and above need it, even if they are asset rich and cash poor.
Now tell me which households in bands A-C have people who qualify for it?
And how you are going to administer the payments because you've now got councils involved...
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
You don’t have any friends. Let alone “lefty” friends. Having friends involves liking people. You don’t like the concept of people.
I still think "we ran out of money for our railway because we put it most of it in a tunnel through some completely flat countryside " should've got more discussion. https://x.com/echetus/status/1837969659317940568
Hey - the people in Amersham / Chesham didn't like the railway so got their senior MP to complain and solve the problem. And instead of saying sod off the Government wasted £10bn on a few tunnels instead.
But the locals are still complaining because of the air vents that are required
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
But that's why I think there might have to be a resignation or two
This is now such a mess Labour have to spill some blood to propitiate the angry Gods. A human sacrifice is needed
If it happens it will surely be a lesser minister. Perhaps that daft Education woman with her "but the bribe was too nice to resist!" Taylor Swift tickets
OTOH if they start sacking people where does it end?
As my lefty friend said yesterday, "it's just so fucking stupid"
Unless someone has taken a holiday from Mohamad Al Fayed or a load of tracksuits from Jimmy Saville, I'd be fairly confident.
Oh hang on...
It was actually Thatcher lobbying (many times) for Jimbo to be made a Knight and making him head of a Broadmoor taskforce.
It was of course Tory MP's larging it up the Ritz and taking 5k a time in used 20's to ask some questions on his behalf in parliament.
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
Perhaps these issues could be mitigated by moving lots of things to Old Oak Common? The HoC refurb would be a lot cheaper if it was in Acton, and we'd save a lot on MPs housing allowances.
Is there really a capacity issue wrt Crossrail and HS2 passengers disembarking. HS2 is 500 seats a train I think? Crossrail trains are bigger than that iirc. Obviously there will be other passengers already on Crossrail - but how many? Are Crossrail trains full already?
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Just watched (on X) Rachel Reeves being interviewed by Nick Ferrari. On the defensive. It occurred to me that I'd never really listened to her before. God, she's wooden: like a speaking clock. I was reminded of someone - couldn't think who - and then remembered: E L Wisty, as played by Peter Cook. As Sir Keir is hardly Mr Animation himself, this Govt really is going to have to find a few people with a bit of vitality and humour. But who?
As I didn't vote for the Government (never have to be honest), I don't know but it seems there has been a struggle behind the scenes to define the "tone" or the "mood" of the new administration.
Boris came in 2019 with his optimism, his positivity and his good humour and there's a lot to be said for that at certain times, unfortunately not in the middle of a major health crisis and it's not good when managing detail.
I suspect the original concept for the new Government was sober, serious and managerial and while that may be dull and boring, it's not the worst mood for a Government facing a substantial financial problem. Indeed, there's a lot to be said for it but that's not what we've got. Part of the problem has been an election in July which has in effect left the new Government to drift through the summer and the OBR needing its time to work on the budget numbers.
Nature abhors a vacuum and of course no one could have predicted Southport and its consequences and to be honest after a poor start Starmer and Cooper did pretty well. The next problems have been of their own making and aided and abetted by the summer holidays - the Government already looks like it is drifting without a vision - I think it has a vision but it has been waiting until it announces it.
It's hit the ground but rather than hitting it running, it's gone down face first.
It does echo Starmer in opposition. The sequence "purge the left, attack the government, only then set out any real plans at all" felt painfully slow at the time. And it has left a vacuum where trivia has intruded. It doesn't help that July is a lousy month to take office, because it means you start with two chunky interruptions.
But I suspect that a slow start and a methodical plod is how Starmer operates most effectively. He's won the right to try it in Number Ten, and if it works, that's good news for all of us.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Just watched (on X) Rachel Reeves being interviewed by Nick Ferrari. On the defensive. It occurred to me that I'd never really listened to her before. God, she's wooden: like a speaking clock. I was reminded of someone - couldn't think who - and then remembered: E L Wisty, as played by Peter Cook. As Sir Keir is hardly Mr Animation himself, this Govt really is going to have to find a few people with a bit of vitality and humour. But who?
Underrated question. If they think there’s a genuine chance of Trump winning - which there certainly is - then this would be among the most consequential of all his policies in terms of the impact on the majority of Americans.
Should a public inquiry be launched, into just how much of UK's "investment" into expanding & improving rail transport, was syphoned off to pay for Michael Portillo's pepto-pink pants and lime-green sports coats (also visa versa)?
Those (HS2) options in full: 1) Build HS2 properly so it can serve its strategic purpose for the next century. 2) Make a century-defining historic error, fuck up the growth mission and become an international laughing stock.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Love to know who you would temper the wfa announcement - there are very limited datasets available hence the switch to pension credit as it's the only other dataset that is usable...
Council House bands. A-C
Crude and doesn't help that much as 60% are in bands A-C.
Difficult to argue that band D and above need it, even if they are asset rich and cash poor.
Now tell me which households in bands A-C have people who qualify for it?
And how you are going to administer the payments because you've now got councils involved...
Every pensioner who recieves a state pension has a national insurance number, a date of birth and an address. Each of those addresses has a council tax band, which are maintained by the Valuation Office not local councils. Its a relatively simple data merge.
As I said, crude. Imperfect certainly but it would solve 98% of the problem.
No doubt there will be load of whataboutery but never let the perfect by the enemy of the good.
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
Perhaps these issues could be mitigated by moving lots of things to Old Oak Common? The HoC refurb would be a lot cheaper if it was in Acton, and we'd save a lot on MPs housing allowances.
Is there really a capacity issue wrt Crossrail and HS2 passengers disembarking. HS2 is 500 seats a train I think? Crossrail trains are bigger than that iirc. Obviously there will be other passengers already on Crossrail - but how many? Are Crossrail trains full already?
The detail is in the Oakervee Report I posted a link to.
Of course, that was written back when it was assumed HS2 would be going beyond Birmingham, so some assumptions may need to be revisited. But that would be tantamount to saying 'we're not going to use the new track.'
It's a similar logic to the way major motorways don't just dump all their traffic at the end on the local network but trickle onto smaller distributors.
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
Perhaps these issues could be mitigated by moving lots of things to Old Oak Common? The HoC refurb would be a lot cheaper if it was in Acton, and we'd save a lot on MPs housing allowances.
Is there really a capacity issue wrt Crossrail and HS2 passengers disembarking. HS2 is 500 seats a train I think? Crossrail trains are bigger than that iirc. Obviously there will be other passengers already on Crossrail - but how many? Are Crossrail trains full already?
Nope HS2 trains are 400m long and would have 1100 seats..
That's part of the issue of not expanding manchester, you replace 266m long Pendolino trains with 200m HS2 trains (because the platforms aren't long enough to allow the 400m trains) and which removes 57/103 seats per journey.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
You don’t have any friends. Let alone “lefty” friends. Having friends involves liking people. You don’t like the concept of people.
I was thinking with scandal over clobbergate, whatever happened to investigation into gamble-gate? It surely can't take many months to look at people's gambling history and assess it for dodgy betting patterns, all the bookies have such system in place.
iirc there was no further action - at least from the police. My memory is hazy though.
But the gambling commission were also investigating, no? Some of the hysteria was nonsense e.g. £50 bets, but there were a couple of cases that were very stinky.
Although the Commission would have some concerns in this area, it is likely that we would consider sports rules, education programme, referral to employer and/or the SGB and other disruptive action to be appropriate. In particular, we wish to encourage sports and other bodies to quickly release information which is sensitive in betting terms to the public, as this is an appropriate means to limit the impact in this area.
or
The Commission would have concerns in this area. In most cases, the appropriate form of sanction would be through the Sports Body or through the employer, combined with the betting operator refusing the bet under contractual terms. The Commission may consider taking action to void a bet.
So nothing in the public domain. Interestingly if a betting company trader followed in those bets and knew they were close to the decision, the GC would consider a criminal referral for the traders.
Given the Ivey edge sorting case, if anyone had been prosecuted it could have been dicey for them.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
You don’t have any friends. Let alone “lefty” friends. Having friends involves liking people. You don’t like the concept of people.
What about the concept of seals?
By the way, could you please ask your friends to stop doing this?
A single scull is hard enough to row without a freeloader.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
But that's why I think there might have to be a resignation or two
This is now such a mess Labour have to spill some blood to propitiate the angry Gods. A human sacrifice is needed
If it happens it will surely be a lesser minister. Perhaps that daft Education woman with her "but the bribe was too nice to resist!" Taylor Swift tickets
OTOH if they start sacking people where does it end?
As my lefty friend said yesterday, "it's just so fucking stupid"
Your lefty friend again! I can imagine you going round the bars in Camden and drinkers start leaving like there's a flood 'Oh fuck not him again! All he talks about is Starmer' He hobbles you into a corner and bores you to death. I'm out of here.....!'
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
You don’t have any friends. Let alone “lefty” friends. Having friends involves liking people. You don’t like the concept of people.
Below the belt. Withdraw your comment.
Slacker - bet your manly friends hit harder in the towel whipping contests....
Underrated question. If they think there’s a genuine chance of Trump winning - which there certainly is - then this would be among the most consequential of all his policies in terms of the impact on the majority of Americans.
Two thirds of people think it is unacceptable for MPs to accept tickets to concert and football matches as gifts from donors or companies, a new poll has revealed. More than four in ten people said that the practice was “completely unacceptable”, and 20 per cent believed it was “somewhat unacceptable”, according to YouGov.
Personally i would struggle to answer this and would depend on the question e.g. is freebie ticket for PM / Sport minister to attend an England match from the FA, for me that's absolutely fine. Is constantly accepting tickets for the racing from gambling companies, then it starts to get whiffy.
I was thinking with scandal over clobbergate, whatever happened to investigation into gamble-gate? It surely can't take many months to look at people's gambling history and assess it for dodgy betting patterns, all the bookies have such system in place.
That ended with no prosecutions or fines brought. It was such a jumped up bit of bullshit timed to hurt the government during the election. The Tories deserved to be beaten but it did seem like towards the end the establishment within the state wanted the Tories out and were making sure they did whatever was necessary.
Not quite.
It fell foul of the same (unwritten) rule that is causing Labour so much trouble at the moment.
If the public get cross about it when it's in the papers, it doesn't really matter what the rules say. You're still in trouble.
(And this is the kicker) The public reserves the right to be arbitrary and capricious in its judgement of what's acceptable.
And if that sounds like the wisdom of mobs, that's because it largely is.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Just watched (on X) Rachel Reeves being interviewed by Nick Ferrari. On the defensive. It occurred to me that I'd never really listened to her before. God, she's wooden: like a speaking clock. I was reminded of someone - couldn't think who - and then remembered: E L Wisty, as played by Peter Cook. As Sir Keir is hardly Mr Animation himself, this Govt really is going to have to find a few people with a bit of vitality and humour. But who?
I was thinking with scandal over clobbergate, whatever happened to investigation into gamble-gate? It surely can't take many months to look at people's gambling history and assess it for dodgy betting patterns, all the bookies have such system in place.
That ended with no prosecutions or fines brought. It was such a jumped up bit of bullshit timed to hurt the government during the election. The Tories deserved to be beaten but it did seem like towards the end the establishment within the state wanted the Tories out and were making sure they did whatever was necessary.
Not quite.
It fell foul of the same (unwritten) rule that is causing Labour so much trouble at the moment.
If the public get cross about it when it's in the papers, it doesn't really matter what the rules say. You're still in trouble.
(And this is the kicker) The public reserves the right to be arbitrary and capricious in its judgement of what's acceptable.
And if that sounds like the wisdom of mobs, that's because it largely is.
Indeed. The third rule is that this trivial nonsense will very quickly blow over once the media stop talking about it
(this will be either when a) they get bored of it b) something important happens that they have to then cover or c) they are exposed for the hypocrites they are).
I was thinking with scandal over clobbergate, whatever happened to investigation into gamble-gate? It surely can't take many months to look at people's gambling history and assess it for dodgy betting patterns, all the bookies have such system in place.
That ended with no prosecutions or fines brought. It was such a jumped up bit of bullshit timed to hurt the government during the election. The Tories deserved to be beaten but it did seem like towards the end the establishment within the state wanted the Tories out and were making sure they did whatever was necessary.
Not quite.
It fell foul of the same (unwritten) rule that is causing Labour so much trouble at the moment.
If the public get cross about it when it's in the papers, it doesn't really matter what the rules say. You're still in trouble.
(And this is the kicker) The public reserves the right to be arbitrary and capricious in its judgement of what's acceptable.
And if that sounds like the wisdom of mobs, that's because it largely is.
Not really, the investigations could have been brought after the election, especially since the likelihood of prosecution was so low.
On safety of cycle lanes for @Eabhal and @Taz , it was Transport for London not Active Travel England.
They published data in around 2009 that "painted on the road" cycle lanes were associated with increased casualties for people riding cycles.
Here most people cycle on the pavement because that is where the Council seem to want them.
At around the same time they published date showing that removing "fences to restrain pedestrians at road junctions" (ie the railings on central pedestrian 'refuges' etc) reduced casualties for pedestrians.
15 years later, up and down the country Local Highways Authorities continue to install them "keep pedestrians safe". If I suggested removing them here at similar junctions the Council would have a brainstorm.
Should a public inquiry be launched, into just how much of UK's "investment" into expanding & improving rail transport, was syphoned off to pay for Michael Portillo's pepto-pink pants and lime-green sports coats (also visa versa)?
That's absurd.
The delivery of Michael Portillo's trousers and coat was quietly efficient and completed years ago. It is a foul libel on Government transport procurement to suggest they were involved in his sartorial infrastructure.
Underrated question. If they think there’s a genuine chance of Trump winning - which there certainly is - then this would be among the most consequential of all his policies in terms of the impact on the majority of Americans.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
But that's why I think there might have to be a resignation or two
This is now such a mess Labour have to spill some blood to propitiate the angry Gods. A human sacrifice is needed
If it happens it will surely be a lesser minister. Perhaps that daft Education woman with her "but the bribe was too nice to resist!" Taylor Swift tickets
OTOH if they start sacking people where does it end?
As my lefty friend said yesterday, "it's just so fucking stupid"
Your lefty friend again! I can imagine you going round the bars in Camden and drinkers start leaving like there's a flood 'Oh fuck not him again! All he talks about is Starmer' He hobbles you into a corner and bores you to death. I'm out of here.....!'
I have seen mugshots of him in pubs in NW1, warning the punters that if they indulge this man in conversation they could be in for a very long night.
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
Perhaps these issues could be mitigated by moving lots of things to Old Oak Common? The HoC refurb would be a lot cheaper if it was in Acton, and we'd save a lot on MPs housing allowances.
Is there really a capacity issue wrt Crossrail and HS2 passengers disembarking. HS2 is 500 seats a train I think? Crossrail trains are bigger than that iirc. Obviously there will be other passengers already on Crossrail - but how many? Are Crossrail trains full already?
My experience of travelling on the Elizabeth line suggests that that would be a big concern, but whether my observation is correct is another matter.
The Elizabeth line seems also to have quite a lot of issues. I'd say that the majority of the times I've used it there has been something or other - although that seems to be lessening over time.
From observation, absolutely huge numbers of people use the Elizabeth line.
Underrated question. If they think there’s a genuine chance of Trump winning - which there certainly is - then this would be among the most consequential of all his policies in terms of the impact on the majority of Americans.
I've not seen any plans but sounds like it would involve lots of train carriages and men in uniform.
In the run up to the '67 war, the Egyptian cabinet was discussing how they would expel all Jews in Palestine/Israel once they had conquered Israel. Nasser suggested they hire some cruise ships. Others in the cabinet joked that they should hire cattle ships. And not many of them would be required.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Love to know who you would temper the wfa announcement - there are very limited datasets available hence the switch to pension credit as it's the only other dataset that is usable...
Council House bands. A-C
Crude and doesn't help that much as 60% are in bands A-C.
Difficult to argue that band D and above need it, even if they are asset rich and cash poor.
Now tell me which households in bands A-C have people who qualify for it?
And how you are going to administer the payments because you've now got councils involved...
Every pensioner who recieves a state pension has a national insurance number, a date of birth and an address. Each of those addresses has a council tax band, which are maintained by the Valuation Office not local councils. Its a relatively simple data merge.
As I said, crude. Imperfect certainly but it would solve 98% of the problem.
No doubt there will be load of whataboutery but never let the perfect by the enemy of the good.
You haven't looked at the data quality have you.
I've seen the data quality of both the DWP databases and the VoA ones.
Shall we just say it's not going to solve 98% of the problem.
And that's before I discuss how many sheltered accommodation blocks are band D and above for entertaining reasons..
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
You don’t have any friends. Let alone “lefty” friends. Having friends involves liking people. You don’t like the concept of people.
What about the concept of seals?
By the way, could you please ask your friends to stop doing this?
A single scull is hard enough to row without a freeloader.
Is that poor seal trying to flee a toxic waste dump?
I would be more concerned about getting trapped in a pub having to listen to Leon's bad takes on AI, although that would still be preferable than listening to Roger tales of filming a tampon commercial in Timbuktu.
On safety of cycle lanes for Eabhal and Taz , it was Transport for London not Active Travel England.
They published data in around 2009 that "painted on the road" cycle lanes were associated with increased casualties for people riding cycles.
At around the same time they published date showing that removing "fences to restrain pedestrians at road junctions" (ie the railings on central pedestrian 'refuges' etc) reduced casualties for pedestrians.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
But that's why I think there might have to be a resignation or two
This is now such a mess Labour have to spill some blood to propitiate the angry Gods. A human sacrifice is needed
If it happens it will surely be a lesser minister. Perhaps that daft Education woman with her "but the bribe was too nice to resist!" Taylor Swift tickets
OTOH if they start sacking people where does it end?
As my lefty friend said yesterday, "it's just so fucking stupid"
Your lefty friend again! I can imagine you going round the bars in Camden and drinkers start leaving like there's a flood 'Oh fuck not him again! All he talks about is Starmer' He hobbles you into a corner and bores you to death. I'm out of here.....!'
You don't imagine he travels the world because he can write? No, the landlords of Camden clubbed together and sent him off places, just to protect their trade.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Love to know who you would temper the wfa announcement - there are very limited datasets available hence the switch to pension credit as it's the only other dataset that is usable...
Council House bands. A-C
Crude and doesn't help that much as 60% are in bands A-C.
Difficult to argue that band D and above need it, even if they are asset rich and cash poor.
Now tell me which households in bands A-C have people who qualify for it?
And how you are going to administer the payments because you've now got councils involved...
Every pensioner who recieves a state pension has a national insurance number, a date of birth and an address. Each of those addresses has a council tax band, which are maintained by the Valuation Office not local councils. Its a relatively simple data merge.
As I said, crude. Imperfect certainly but it would solve 98% of the problem.
No doubt there will be load of whataboutery but never let the perfect by the enemy of the good.
Btw single person discount to stay, if not already noted. Huzzah from saddo loners like me.
And an excellent guardian comment: labour winning power is the dog which chases cars catching up with a car.
HS2 seems to be one of the few things that unites virtually all of PB
Get. It. Finished
Get HS2 done!
I don't want it 'done'. I do want it linked at both ends to something vaguely useful to make good at least some of the egregious losses. Perhaps if I were harder-hearted it would be more sensible to shitcan the whole thing and not spend a single penny more. But I do think it should probably continue to Crewe (is it Crewe?) and definitely to a London terminus worthy of the name. After that, sell all the land and make it completely impossible for any deeply stupid future Government with too much money on its hands to even consider building the rest.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Love to know who you would temper the wfa announcement - there are very limited datasets available hence the switch to pension credit as it's the only other dataset that is usable...
Council House bands. A-C
Crude and doesn't help that much as 60% are in bands A-C.
Difficult to argue that band D and above need it, even if they are asset rich and cash poor.
Now tell me which households in bands A-C have people who qualify for it?
And how you are going to administer the payments because you've now got councils involved...
Every pensioner who recieves a state pension has a national insurance number, a date of birth and an address. Each of those addresses has a council tax band, which are maintained by the Valuation Office not local councils. Its a relatively simple data merge.
As I said, crude. Imperfect certainly but it would solve 98% of the problem.
No doubt there will be load of whataboutery but never let the perfect by the enemy of the good.
You haven't looked at the data quality have you.
I've seen the data quality of both the DWP databases and the VoA ones.
Shall we just say it's not going to solve 98% of the problem.
And that's before I discuss how many sheltered accommodation blocks are band D and above for entertaining reasons..
Furthermore WFA is paid in November-December and the reason Reeves made this announcement early was so the change could be made
There is only two solutions for this year, either ignore the clamour including from the unions, or reverse it for this year
As the second ends Reeves credibility it will not be changed but this with her and the rests freebies will have caused reputation damage anyway
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
Perhaps these issues could be mitigated by moving lots of things to Old Oak Common? The HoC refurb would be a lot cheaper if it was in Acton, and we'd save a lot on MPs housing allowances.
Is there really a capacity issue wrt Crossrail and HS2 passengers disembarking. HS2 is 500 seats a train I think? Crossrail trains are bigger than that iirc. Obviously there will be other passengers already on Crossrail - but how many? Are Crossrail trains full already?
My experience of travelling on the Elizabeth line suggests that that would be a big concern, but whether my observation is correct is another matter.
The Elizabeth line seems also to have quite a lot of issues. I'd say that the majority of the times I've used it there has been something or other - although that seems to be lessening over time.
From observation, absolutely huge numbers of people use the Elizabeth line.
Indeedy. It's striking how busy it is, even off-peak.
There's also something psychological that's changed about the geography of this bit of London. Stepping on a train in the suburbs of Romford and stepping off in the West End ties one to London in a way that changing at Liverpool Street doesn't. Rail lines are magic like that in a way that roads aren't.
But yes- whatever problems Britain has, an excess of railway lines isn't one of them.
I would be more concerned about getting trapped in a pub having to listen to Leon's bad takes on AI, although that would still be preferable than listening to Roger tales of filming a tampon commercial in Timbuktu.
I quite like Roger's tales of filming tampon advertisements in exotic locales. It's when he strays into political commentary that he tends to lose me.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Love to know who you would temper the wfa announcement - there are very limited datasets available hence the switch to pension credit as it's the only other dataset that is usable...
Council House bands. A-C
Crude and doesn't help that much as 60% are in bands A-C.
Difficult to argue that band D and above need it, even if they are asset rich and cash poor.
Now tell me which households in bands A-C have people who qualify for it?
And how you are going to administer the payments because you've now got councils involved...
Every pensioner who recieves a state pension has a national insurance number, a date of birth and an address. Each of those addresses has a council tax band, which are maintained by the Valuation Office not local councils. Its a relatively simple data merge.
As I said, crude. Imperfect certainly but it would solve 98% of the problem.
No doubt there will be load of whataboutery but never let the perfect by the enemy of the good.
Btw single person discount to stay, if not already noted. Huzzah from saddo loners like me.
And an excellent guardian comment: labour winning power is the dog which chases cars catching up with a car.
Get it done, raising the money with a tax on the Chiltern Tories who made the most unneeded bit cost so much by insisting we made a largely flat railway line go through a tunnel.
Joking of course, but it is incredibly stupid not building the bits that genuinely make a difference to capacity on overstretched northern lines and have the potential to provide vital links, because David Cameron and his MPs wasted billions ensuring people they met at the farmers market would never have to listen to trains like common plebs.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
You don’t have any friends. Let alone “lefty” friends. Having friends involves liking people. You don’t like the concept of people.
What about the concept of seals?
By the way, could you please ask your friends to stop doing this?
A single scull is hard enough to row without a freeloader.
Is that poor seal trying to flee a toxic waste dump?
Interestingly, I was told by a chap who does the water testing for the river swimmers that the Thames is one of the least polluted river in a capital city in Europe.
"Tory leadership contender Kemi Badenoch has defended MPs taking freebie tickets to events, saying it allows them to spend time with their families.
The Conservatives have accused Labour of being "a government of self-service" and "living the high life" since details emerged of donations to senior figures in the party - including tickets for Sir Keir Starmer to watch football matches and see Taylor Swift in concert.
But while Ms Badenoch accused the new government of "hypocrisy" for taking donations, she also stood by her own register of interests that shows she had taken tickets and hospitality for a rugby game, the Jingle Bell Ball concert, and Ed Sheeran."
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
You don’t have any friends. Let alone “lefty” friends. Having friends involves liking people. You don’t like the concept of people.
What about the concept of seals?
By the way, could you please ask your friends to stop doing this?
A single scull is hard enough to row without a freeloader.
Is that poor seal trying to flee a toxic waste dump?
Interestingly, I was told by a chap who does the water testing for the river swimmers that the Thames is one of the least polluted river in a capital city in Europe.
Since amphibians are good indicator species, they will know it is clean when frogs start to appear, in the frog-suitable waters (ie some of the not-very flowing bits).
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
Perhaps these issues could be mitigated by moving lots of things to Old Oak Common? The HoC refurb would be a lot cheaper if it was in Acton, and we'd save a lot on MPs housing allowances.
Is there really a capacity issue wrt Crossrail and HS2 passengers disembarking. HS2 is 500 seats a train I think? Crossrail trains are bigger than that iirc. Obviously there will be other passengers already on Crossrail - but how many? Are Crossrail trains full already?
My experience of travelling on the Elizabeth line suggests that that would be a big concern, but whether my observation is correct is another matter.
The Elizabeth line seems also to have quite a lot of issues. I'd say that the majority of the times I've used it there has been something or other - although that seems to be lessening over time.
From observation, absolutely huge numbers of people use the Elizabeth line.
Indeedy. It's striking how busy it is, even off-peak.
There's also something psychological that's changed about the geography of this bit of London. Stepping on a train in the suburbs of Romford and stepping off in the West End ties one to London in a way that changing at Liverpool Street doesn't. Rail lines are magic like that in a way that roads aren't.
But yes- whatever problems Britain has, an excess of railway lines isn't one of them.
Interesting line in Oakvee review:
"The Mayor of London’s submission to the Review was unequivocal that he/Transport for London did not believe terminatng HS2 at Old Oak Common staton permanently would be a viable opton."
Will Mayor now be telling Reeves to just build the bloody Euston end.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
But that's why I think there might have to be a resignation or two
This is now such a mess Labour have to spill some blood to propitiate the angry Gods. A human sacrifice is needed
If it happens it will surely be a lesser minister. Perhaps that daft Education woman with her "but the bribe was too nice to resist!" Taylor Swift tickets
OTOH if they start sacking people where does it end?
As my lefty friend said yesterday, "it's just so fucking stupid"
Your lefty friend again! I can imagine you going round the bars in Camden and drinkers start leaving like there's a flood 'Oh fuck not him again! All he talks about is Starmer' He hobbles you into a corner and bores you to death. I'm out of here.....!'
You don't imagine he travels the world because he can write? No, the landlords of Camden clubbed together and sent him off places, just to protect their trade.
He's like one of those incontinent farting dogs. Can you imagine him sitting there with his marionette before they throw him out....
'You take it from me Archle, Starmer and Reeves are getting their comeuppance...."
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
While I'm on a roll, these are the relevant paragraphs from the Oakervee Review:
12.9 Analysis suggests that not going to Euston would have a significant negative impact on the business case for HS2: demand modelling by HS2 Ltd suggests that around two-thirds of London passengers prefer Euston station and the remaining one third prefer Old Oak Common, and that removing the section from Old Oak Common to Euston could reduce transport user benefits and revenues by £20-30bn. However, others have pointed out that the time taken for passengers to reach central London locations from Euston or from Old Oak Common, via the London Underground network or Crossrail respectively, would be similar.
12.10 Evidence from Transport for London stated that Crossrail services would be extremely crowded if forced to disperse larger HS2 passenger numbers if Old Oak Common is the only London station – this is the case even if Old Oak Common is used as the London terminus on a temporary basis. Even a reduced frequency of HS2 service to say 10tph would likely cause crowding issues in rush hour east of Paddington. Crossrail was designed to relieve the Central line and provide additional capacity for East-West travel. It was not designed for the onward movement of passengers from HS2. Crossrail services and their interchanges with the London Underground network would likely need to be enhanced to cope with the larger passenger numbers, or face significant crowding and disruption. The Mayor of London’s submission to the Review was unequivocal that he/Transport for London did not believe terminating HS2 at Old Oak Common station permanently would be a viable option.
Excellent posts.
Also, a lot of people just wouldn't use HS2 at all. If you're coming from Waterloo, Charing Cross or Victoria and heading north you're not going to bother heading out to OOC first, and nor would you bother choosing HS2 heading south if you subsequently wanted to transfer to Kings Cross or St. Pancras, which are a stone's throw from Euston. Instead, you'd just continue to use the conventional lines. Tourists will struggle to find OOC, or compute why they should go there in the first place, and the transit time to get there (extra 25-30 minutes or so) being roughly what the HS2 train shaves off the journey to Birmingham, but with extra faff.
It's off the scale f-tard dumb to do anything but build the Euston extension in full.
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Love to know who you would temper the wfa announcement - there are very limited datasets available hence the switch to pension credit as it's the only other dataset that is usable...
Council House bands. A-C
Crude and doesn't help that much as 60% are in bands A-C.
Difficult to argue that band D and above need it, even if they are asset rich and cash poor.
Now tell me which households in bands A-C have people who qualify for it?
And how you are going to administer the payments because you've now got councils involved...
Every pensioner who recieves a state pension has a national insurance number, a date of birth and an address. Each of those addresses has a council tax band, which are maintained by the Valuation Office not local councils. Its a relatively simple data merge.
As I said, crude. Imperfect certainly but it would solve 98% of the problem.
No doubt there will be load of whataboutery but never let the perfect by the enemy of the good.
Btw single person discount to stay, if not already noted. Huzzah from saddo loners like me.
And an excellent guardian comment: labour winning power is the dog which chases cars catching up with a car.
Get it done, raising the money with a tax on the Chiltern Tories who made the most unneeded bit cost so much by insisting we made a largely flat railway line go through a tunnel.
Joking of course, but it is incredibly stupid not building the bits that genuinely make a difference to capacity on overstretched northern lines and have the potential to provide vital links, because David Cameron and his MPs wasted billions ensuring people they met at the farmers market would never have to listen to trains like common plebs.
Or perhaps it was just never a particularly good project, and has been sold on the basis of being 'infrastructure' because we 'need infrastructure', when actually it has all the appropriateness in serving our national infrastructure needs as handing a deep sea diver a toaster and telling him use it to breathe underwater.
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
Perhaps these issues could be mitigated by moving lots of things to Old Oak Common? The HoC refurb would be a lot cheaper if it was in Acton, and we'd save a lot on MPs housing allowances.
Is there really a capacity issue wrt Crossrail and HS2 passengers disembarking. HS2 is 500 seats a train I think? Crossrail trains are bigger than that iirc. Obviously there will be other passengers already on Crossrail - but how many? Are Crossrail trains full already?
My experience of travelling on the Elizabeth line suggests that that would be a big concern, but whether my observation is correct is another matter.
The Elizabeth line seems also to have quite a lot of issues. I'd say that the majority of the times I've used it there has been something or other - although that seems to be lessening over time.
From observation, absolutely huge numbers of people use the Elizabeth line.
Indeedy. It's striking how busy it is, even off-peak.
There's also something psychological that's changed about the geography of this bit of London. Stepping on a train in the suburbs of Romford and stepping off in the West End ties one to London in a way that changing at Liverpool Street doesn't. Rail lines are magic like that in a way that roads aren't.
But yes- whatever problems Britain has, an excess of railway lines isn't one of them.
The Elizabeth Line has comfortably exceeded all the benefits set out in its business case.
It is an astoundingly successful project that has helped move London forward.
Liam Thorp @LiamThorpECHO · 1h I spoke to the Transport Secretary earlier, who said she is currently unable to commit to a £12 billion pound package promised by the previous government to improve rail links and stations in Liverpool and Manchester
The PB lefties seem to be taking the Total Shittiness of the Starmer Government quite badly
I guess it must be painful tho. 14 years of hope and waiting and all that patiently invested faith, and then… THIS
It's not that bad because I didn't have high hopes going in to it.
Also, so far, the largest decision of substance has been on cutting WFA, and given where I think the country is at the moment - budget deficit too large, but need to increase investment spending - that definitely has the air of a decision that was so right it should have been done years ago.
Obviously it's great that PB Righties have been able to take to the pleasures of opposition so quickly and with so much enthusiasm. Right-wingers railing at a Labour government just feels like the natural order of things. You Righties were desperate to be in opposition for years.
Yes some truth in that. Being in opposition is quite fun - you can really put the boot in. And Labour present quite the target
I’m still surprised by the tantrum-throwing despondency of some PB lefties, however
Their plight is explained by Kubler Ross on stages of grief. KR is about responses to SHOCK, not death. It's about how people in their 40s with no apparent health issues respond to "I wouldn't start reading any long novels" diagnoses. That's not the Tory party, which died in a hospice in July, to almost everyone's relief, after 3 years in and out of hospital. Not a shock. Starmer and Co's couldn't-make-it-up levels of cynical incompetence: huge shock, not just to the left but to anyone who was sort of hoping to be competently governed for five minutes. But the non-left have the compensation of at least getting a good laugh out of it.
Yes, you could be right
Also I am getting serious anger at HMG from my lefty friends. Last night (as I mentioned on here) one of my oldest Labour-voting friends was spitting venom about the stupidity of Starmer and Co, he didn't even wait for me to tease him about it: he launched right in. And a glimpse at the BTL comments on the Guardian, today, beneath the rolling blog about Reeves, offers quite the spectacle. The Labour lefties are furious about the austerity and WFA and all that, and the Blairities are furious about the grift and incompetence
" difficult decisions" Rachel Reeves has taken
-should I get the dress or the trouser suit ? - should I ask Lord Alli to buy the shoes too ?
New
Reeves enjoyed a week holiday in Padstow in July gifted to her by Richard Parker, Labour donor and now mayor of West Midlands and while logging her stay, she omitted her family members enjoyed the stay which benefit has to be declared
This is possibly going to end in resignations
I suspect not.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
But that's why I think there might have to be a resignation or two
This is now such a mess Labour have to spill some blood to propitiate the angry Gods. A human sacrifice is needed
If it happens it will surely be a lesser minister. Perhaps that daft Education woman with her "but the bribe was too nice to resist!" Taylor Swift tickets
OTOH if they start sacking people where does it end?
As my lefty friend said yesterday, "it's just so fucking stupid"
Your lefty friend again! I can imagine you going round the bars in Camden and drinkers start leaving like there's a flood 'Oh fuck not him again! All he talks about is Starmer' He hobbles you into a corner and bores you to death. I'm out of here.....!'
Although I clearly suggested it tongue-in-cheek, I quite like the idea of a big redevelopment programme around Old Oak Common. I know the area reasonably well.
Creating a big development area there would be quite interesting. Sticking the A40 underground and the rest of the crap traffic, rehabilitating some really quite nice areas from a bit of a slide downhill. I really can see it working.
Liam Thorp @LiamThorpECHO · 1h I spoke to the Transport Secretary earlier, who said she is currently unable to commit to a £12 billion pound package promised by the previous government to improve rail links and stations in Liverpool and Manchester
COALTION Fine Gael 24% (+5% since May) Fianna Fáil 20% (+4%) Green Party 4% (-1%)
OPPOSITION Sinn Féin 18% (-9%) Social Democrats 5% (-1%) Irish Labour Party 4% (+1%) Solidarity/People Before Profit 3% (no change) Aontú 2% (-1%) Independents/Other 20% (+2%)
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
Perhaps these issues could be mitigated by moving lots of things to Old Oak Common? The HoC refurb would be a lot cheaper if it was in Acton, and we'd save a lot on MPs housing allowances.
Is there really a capacity issue wrt Crossrail and HS2 passengers disembarking. HS2 is 500 seats a train I think? Crossrail trains are bigger than that iirc. Obviously there will be other passengers already on Crossrail - but how many? Are Crossrail trains full already?
My experience of travelling on the Elizabeth line suggests that that would be a big concern, but whether my observation is correct is another matter.
The Elizabeth line seems also to have quite a lot of issues. I'd say that the majority of the times I've used it there has been something or other - although that seems to be lessening over time.
From observation, absolutely huge numbers of people use the Elizabeth line.
Indeedy. It's striking how busy it is, even off-peak.
There's also something psychological that's changed about the geography of this bit of London. Stepping on a train in the suburbs of Romford and stepping off in the West End ties one to London in a way that changing at Liverpool Street doesn't. Rail lines are magic like that in a way that roads aren't.
But yes- whatever problems Britain has, an excess of railway lines isn't one of them.
The Elizabeth Line has comfortably exceeded all the benefits set out in its business case.
It is an astoundingly successful project that has helped move London forward.
See my point earlier that the complete and utter success of the Elizabeth line isn't being mentioned to avoid Crossrail 2 / 3 discussions.
Both of which should be in progress...
Heck if you rolled the Euston underground changes into CR2 (as was the original plan) Euston would start to look affordable...
COALTION Fine Gael 24% (+5% since May) Fianna Fáil 20% (+4%) Green Party 4% (-1%)
OPPOSITION Sinn Féin 18% (-9%) Social Democrats 5% (-1%) Irish Labour Party 4% (+1%) Solidarity/People Before Profit 3% (no change) Aontú 2% (-1%) Independents/Other 20% (+2%)
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
Perhaps these issues could be mitigated by moving lots of things to Old Oak Common? The HoC refurb would be a lot cheaper if it was in Acton, and we'd save a lot on MPs housing allowances.
Is there really a capacity issue wrt Crossrail and HS2 passengers disembarking. HS2 is 500 seats a train I think? Crossrail trains are bigger than that iirc. Obviously there will be other passengers already on Crossrail - but how many? Are Crossrail trains full already?
My experience of travelling on the Elizabeth line suggests that that would be a big concern, but whether my observation is correct is another matter.
The Elizabeth line seems also to have quite a lot of issues. I'd say that the majority of the times I've used it there has been something or other - although that seems to be lessening over time.
From observation, absolutely huge numbers of people use the Elizabeth line.
The Elizabeth Line has been an absolute game changer for me. It dramatically reduces the time to go between East London (and environs) and West London (and Reading, Heathrow, etc.)
Especially if I land at Terminal 3, I can often go from deplaning to my apartment in comfortably under an hour.
But it's not only that: getting to Liverpool Street, or Canary Wharf, or the Exel Centre is now super easy. The time to get out to Ealing Broadway is halved.
And the trains are airconditioned too, so the whole experience is pleasant even at the height of summer.
Liam Thorp @LiamThorpECHO · 1h I spoke to the Transport Secretary earlier, who said she is currently unable to commit to a £12 billion pound package promised by the previous government to improve rail links and stations in Liverpool and Manchester
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
Perhaps these issues could be mitigated by moving lots of things to Old Oak Common? The HoC refurb would be a lot cheaper if it was in Acton, and we'd save a lot on MPs housing allowances.
Is there really a capacity issue wrt Crossrail and HS2 passengers disembarking. HS2 is 500 seats a train I think? Crossrail trains are bigger than that iirc. Obviously there will be other passengers already on Crossrail - but how many? Are Crossrail trains full already?
My experience of travelling on the Elizabeth line suggests that that would be a big concern, but whether my observation is correct is another matter.
The Elizabeth line seems also to have quite a lot of issues. I'd say that the majority of the times I've used it there has been something or other - although that seems to be lessening over time.
From observation, absolutely huge numbers of people use the Elizabeth line.
The Elizabeth Line has been an absolute game changer for me. It dramatically reduces the time to go between East London (and environs) and West London (and Reading, Heathrow, etc.)
Especially if I land at Terminal 3, I can often go from deplaning to my apartment in comfortably under an hour.
But it's not only that: getting to Liverpool Street, or Canary Wharf, or the Exel Centre is now super easy. The time to get out to Ealing Broadway is halved.
And the trains are airconditioned too, so the whole experience is pleasant even at the height of summer.
No wonder it's popular.
Brilliant. Now for the love of God could we have some of this kind of infrastructure in the North?
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
Perhaps these issues could be mitigated by moving lots of things to Old Oak Common? The HoC refurb would be a lot cheaper if it was in Acton, and we'd save a lot on MPs housing allowances.
Is there really a capacity issue wrt Crossrail and HS2 passengers disembarking. HS2 is 500 seats a train I think? Crossrail trains are bigger than that iirc. Obviously there will be other passengers already on Crossrail - but how many? Are Crossrail trains full already?
My experience of travelling on the Elizabeth line suggests that that would be a big concern, but whether my observation is correct is another matter.
The Elizabeth line seems also to have quite a lot of issues. I'd say that the majority of the times I've used it there has been something or other - although that seems to be lessening over time.
From observation, absolutely huge numbers of people use the Elizabeth line.
Indeedy. It's striking how busy it is, even off-peak.
There's also something psychological that's changed about the geography of this bit of London. Stepping on a train in the suburbs of Romford and stepping off in the West End ties one to London in a way that changing at Liverpool Street doesn't. Rail lines are magic like that in a way that roads aren't.
But yes- whatever problems Britain has, an excess of railway lines isn't one of them.
The Elizabeth Line has comfortably exceeded all the benefits set out in its business case.
It is an astoundingly successful project that has helped move London forward.
See my point earlier that the complete and utter success of the Elizabeth line isn't being mentioned to avoid Crossrail 2 / 3 discussions.
Both of which should be in progress...
At what cost though? Remember Moorgate and TCR were wasteland construction sites for 5-10 years, some of the locations for outer London stations wouldn't survive that, what's left of their fragile high streets would move elsewhere.
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
Perhaps these issues could be mitigated by moving lots of things to Old Oak Common? The HoC refurb would be a lot cheaper if it was in Acton, and we'd save a lot on MPs housing allowances.
Is there really a capacity issue wrt Crossrail and HS2 passengers disembarking. HS2 is 500 seats a train I think? Crossrail trains are bigger than that iirc. Obviously there will be other passengers already on Crossrail - but how many? Are Crossrail trains full already?
My experience of travelling on the Elizabeth line suggests that that would be a big concern, but whether my observation is correct is another matter.
The Elizabeth line seems also to have quite a lot of issues. I'd say that the majority of the times I've used it there has been something or other - although that seems to be lessening over time.
From observation, absolutely huge numbers of people use the Elizabeth line.
Indeedy. It's striking how busy it is, even off-peak.
There's also something psychological that's changed about the geography of this bit of London. Stepping on a train in the suburbs of Romford and stepping off in the West End ties one to London in a way that changing at Liverpool Street doesn't. Rail lines are magic like that in a way that roads aren't.
But yes- whatever problems Britain has, an excess of railway lines isn't one of them.
The Elizabeth Line has comfortably exceeded all the benefits set out in its business case.
It is an astoundingly successful project that has helped move London forward.
I'm not sure that's entirely true - if it were the case then it's surprising that nobody is claiming it.
Liam Thorp @LiamThorpECHO · 1h I spoke to the Transport Secretary earlier, who said she is currently unable to commit to a £12 billion pound package promised by the previous government to improve rail links and stations in Liverpool and Manchester
"Tory leadership contender Kemi Badenoch has defended MPs taking freebie tickets to events, saying it allows them to spend time with their families.
The Conservatives have accused Labour of being "a government of self-service" and "living the high life" since details emerged of donations to senior figures in the party - including tickets for Sir Keir Starmer to watch football matches and see Taylor Swift in concert.
But while Ms Badenoch accused the new government of "hypocrisy" for taking donations, she also stood by her own register of interests that shows she had taken tickets and hospitality for a rugby game, the Jingle Bell Ball concert, and Ed Sheeran."
Comments
If you can get access to them there are plenty of low tech ways to damage them sufficiently.
CNN - Kentucky judge had lunch with the sheriff now arrested in his killing, court clerk says
A local sheriff ate lunch with a prominent district judge hours before allegedly shooting the judge in his chambers, according to a court official, who said the killing last Thursday has stunned the small community of Letcher County, Kentucky.
Circuit Clerk Mike Watt saw District Judge Kevin Mullins and Letcher County Sheriff Shawn M. Stines shortly before noon on Thursday, he told CNN affiliate WKYT, describing the kind of encounter that might happen among coworkers in any workplace across the country.
“We were kind of joking around about national politics … And then I talked to the sheriff about attending the sheriff’s association (conference) last week in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and asked him how that went,” Watts said. “And then they went down the street to eat lunch.”
Later that day, Stines, 43 – a man whose role made him responsible for judge’s personal security – fatally shot Mullins, 54, inside the Letcher County courthouse in Whitesburg, according to Kentucky State Police. Stines was arrested at the courthouse and is now facing a first-degree murder charge, authorities said.. . .
After the heated conversation, a 911 call reported shots fired on the second floor of the courthouse just before 3 p.m., then the district judge of 15 years was found with multiple gunshot wounds and pronounced dead, Kentucky State Police said. . . .
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/22/us/kentucky-judge-mullins-shot-sunday/index.html
* traditional alleged meaning of "Kentucky"
SSI - Notwithstanding the reference to "national politics" my own very uneducated guess, is that the argument that ended with the sheriff and the judge had nothing to do with that, but was instead some kind of personal OR legal issue.
Note that political violence - or violence involving elected officials - is hardly unknown in Kentucky
> in leadup to US Civil War, when the majority of White Kentuckians were either pro-slavery or held their tongues on that issue, Cassius Clay (not the 20th-century boxer, but the 19th-cen. nephew to Henry Clay) was a vocally anti-slavery AND pro-Republican (not Lincoln was NOT on KY ballots in 1860). AND he was not just vocal, but combative, being a high-spirited representative of the Bluegrass gentry. Thus he engaged in several duels which he survived, but his opponents sometimes not.
n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassius_Marcellus_Clay_(politician)
> later in the century was the assassination of Kentucky Gov. William Goebel, the only assassination of a governor in US history; he was shot before and died after his innauguaration. Note that Goebel, a Republican, had previously killed a former Confederate (and Democrat) in a duel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Goebel
The main issue is not speed (it seldom is, with HS2) but capacity.
The point is, the Elizabeth Line does not have the capacity to accommodate everyone getting off HS2 at OOC and continuing into Central London – and nor do its high demand Central London stations (Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street).
If you were the only passenger on HS2 and you were going from Manchester to Central London (Bond Street, say) you might not be particularly inconvenienced by getting off at Old Oak Common and getting on the Elizabeth Line – indeed, you might choose to do that anyway*. But if EVERYONE has to get off at OOC, the result is huge queues on the Elizabeth Line, with the result that in practice, your journey to Central London is much longer as you cannot get on the first Elizabeth Line train that comes (as well as congestion on other modes).
(Indeed, the same would be true if we had Euston but no OOC. The reason HS2 has both Euston AND OOC is to spread out the demand on London’s network rather than having it all land in one place.)
While it’s hard to place a specific value on journey times, due to the point about where in London your destination is, HS2’s demand modelling (referenced by Oakervee, see below) shows that two thirds of HS2 passengers prefer Euston, while one-third prefer OOC. Therefore, by abandoning Euston, we would be providing disbenefits to two-thirds of passengers.
The best published summary of this, I think, is from the Oakervee Review: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/870092/oakervee-review.pdf
- see in particular paragraphs 12.7 - 12.12.
TLDR: Abandoning Euston for OOC is stupid.
*Lets assume interchange times at Euston and OOC are equivalent; a ten minute trip from OOC to Bond Street on the Elizabeth Line is comparable to what it would take on the tube, and you save yourself the additional time on HS2 between OOC and Euston. Of course, there are other destinations in Central London which would be more easily reached from Euston than OOC (Charing Cross, for example), for which it would be less convenient to get off at OOC.
12.9 Analysis suggests that not going to Euston would have a significant negative impact on the business case for HS2: demand modelling by HS2 Ltd suggests that around two-thirds of London passengers prefer Euston station and the remaining one third prefer Old Oak Common, and that removing the section from Old Oak Common to Euston could reduce transport user benefits and revenues by £20-30bn. However, others have pointed out that the time taken for passengers to reach central London locations from Euston or from Old Oak Common, via the London Underground network or Crossrail respectively, would be similar.
12.10 Evidence from Transport for London stated that Crossrail services would be extremely crowded if forced to disperse larger HS2 passenger numbers if Old Oak Common is the only London station – this is the case even if Old Oak Common is used as the London terminus on a temporary basis. Even a reduced frequency of HS2 service to say 10tph would likely cause crowding issues in rush hour east of Paddington. Crossrail was designed to relieve the Central line and provide additional capacity for East-West travel. It was not designed for the onward movement of passengers from HS2. Crossrail services and their interchanges with the London Underground network would likely need to be enhanced to cope with the larger passenger numbers, or face significant crowding and disruption. The Mayor of London’s submission to the Review was unequivocal that he/Transport for London did not believe terminating HS2 at Old Oak Common station permanently would be a viable option.
As you conceded in our exchange yesterday, the problem isn't the gifts themselves which probably aren't that different to those received by Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers in the past (perhaps not the scale of them) when the order of the day was either Gannex raincoats or shooting parties on a friend's estate.
The two problems are first the commitments made by Starmer and others as to how they would comport themselves in Government which were long on generalities ("cleaning up Government") and short on specifics and which has left them open to the slightest receipt of the smallest thing being a case of grift or venality.
Second is the juxtaposition of accepting freebies, going on free holidays and the rest at a time when many pensioners are going to lose the winter fuel allowance and the cliff-edge nature of the means testing has a number of pensioners losing the £250 on the basis of having income less than £5 over the threshold.
Both are unnecessary self-inflicted wounds which, you could argue, is part of the learning process about being in Government but it's given the Tories, who, let's face it, have had a pretty rotten last couple of years, something to smile about (or it will until we seek the parade of the unelectables next week).
What I find strange is no one in Labour saw or realised what the public reaction would be. Absent the wfa debacle, the grift itself is probably not too serious - the Ecclestone affair was far worse. The wfa announcement was just plain stupid - if you do something like this, the losers will be the first to scream and scream loud and long.
I suspect the wfa announcement will be tempered in the Budget by some tapering of the cliff edge and perhaps some changes on who is involved.
Reckon any GOP replacement to the left of Herman Goering has a better chance, by definition. Though also reckon that the Dem nominee will be next Gov.
HOWEVER, the BIG impact could be upon the race at the TOP of the ticket.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmcode/1076/107604.htm
You're right. It does add to the freebie stories for those with an agenda to damage the Labour Party. If I were Starmer I'd just ignore it until people got bored with it.
A couple earning £250k between them taking a family holiday (with 2 kids) value £1400 gifted from another Labour politician ?
Weird (and cheap).
Going on holiday on your own to Padstow without hudband & kids ?
Ever weirder and cheap.
I don't think any resignations are incoming not least as too many people have snout in the trough.
Her husband is a senior civil servant though.
Should he be enjoying all these jollies ?
Civil service rules tend to be stricter in an absolute sense than for MP's.
Big mistake with WFA. It maybe that they thought they could do without the oldies (core Tory vote, after all), but failed to understand that, on the whole, the country feels rather protective of its old folk.
Wonder who's in the firing line.
With less than a month before ballots are mailed for the general election, the state Republican Party just can’t compete financially with the Democrats.
The state GOP had just $76,000 in its state accounts at the end of August — less than 2% of the $4.3 million stashed by the state Democratic Party, according to the latest filings to the Public Disclosure Commission.
The deficit further steepens the Republican Party’s already uphill climb to win contests for key legislative races and statewide offices, including ending a four-decade losing streak in gubernatorial races.
Republicans are lagging financially in the governor race too, as Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson has raised more than $11 million, compared with $5 million for Republican former U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert.
In 2012, the last time Washington had a competitive open-seat race for governor, the state GOP had nearly $600,000 stashed in its campaign accounts at this point. In that race, Republican Rob McKenna, the sitting attorney general, outspent Jay Inslee, then a U.S. representative, by more than $1 million.
This year, Republican insiders say some donors have backed away after the state party’s at-times chaotic convention in April, in which the party officially backed longshot gubernatorial candidate Semi Bird over Reichert for the August primary. . . .
This is now such a mess Labour have to spill some blood to propitiate the angry Gods. A human sacrifice is needed
If it happens it will surely be a lesser minister. Perhaps that daft Education woman with her "but the bribe was too nice to resist!" Taylor Swift tickets
OTOH if they start sacking people where does it end?
As my lefty friend said yesterday, "it's just so fucking stupid"
Crude and doesn't help that much as 60% are in bands A-C.
Difficult to argue that band D and above need it, even if they are asset rich and cash poor.
Free gear, two tier, one year Keir, which is quite funny
It smells like expenses scandal, where amongst MPs it was just the done thing to play the system.
Boris came in 2019 with his optimism, his positivity and his good humour and there's a lot to be said for that at certain times, unfortunately not in the middle of a major health crisis and it's not good when managing detail.
I suspect the original concept for the new Government was sober, serious and managerial and while that may be dull and boring, it's not the worst mood for a Government facing a substantial financial problem. Indeed, there's a lot to be said for it but that's not what we've got. Part of the problem has been an election in July which has in effect left the new Government to drift through the summer and the OBR needing its time to work on the budget numbers.
Nature abhors a vacuum and of course no one could have predicted Southport and its consequences and to be honest after a poor start Starmer and Cooper did pretty well. The next problems have been of their own making and aided and abetted by the summer holidays - the Government already looks like it is drifting without a vision - I think it has a vision but it has been waiting until it announces it.
It's hit the ground but rather than hitting it running, it's gone down face first.
https://x.com/echetus/status/1837969659317940568
And how you are going to administer the payments because you've now got councils involved...
But the locals are still complaining because of the air vents that are required
Oh hang on...
It was actually Thatcher lobbying (many times) for Jimbo to be made a Knight and making him head of a Broadmoor taskforce.
It was of course Tory MP's larging it up the Ritz and taking 5k a time in used 20's to ask some questions on his behalf in parliament.
How quickly we forget.
But I suspect that a slow start and a methodical plod is how Starmer operates most effectively. He's won the right to try it in Number Ten, and if it works, that's good news for all of us.
If it works.
If they think there’s a genuine chance of Trump winning - which there certainly is - then this would be among the most consequential of all his policies in terms of the impact on the majority of Americans.
Have there been any stories in any major media outlets describing what Donald Trump's plan to deport 10-20 million people might look like?
https://x.com/DeanBaker13/status/1838198604059865386
1) Build HS2 properly so it can serve its strategic purpose for the next century.
2) Make a century-defining historic error, fuck up the growth mission and become an international laughing stock.
https://x.com/Psythor/status/1838171006046720454
Each of those addresses has a council tax band, which are maintained by the Valuation Office not local councils.
Its a relatively simple data merge.
As I said, crude.
Imperfect certainly but it would solve 98% of the problem.
No doubt there will be load of whataboutery but never let the perfect by the enemy of the good.
Of course, that was written back when it was assumed HS2 would be going beyond Birmingham, so some assumptions may need to be revisited. But that would be tantamount to saying 'we're not going to use the new track.'
It's a similar logic to the way major motorways don't just dump all their traffic at the end on the local network but trickle onto smaller distributors.
That's part of the issue of not expanding manchester, you replace 266m long Pendolino trains with 200m HS2 trains (because the platforms aren't long enough to allow the 400m trains) and which removes 57/103 seats per journey.
https://assets.ctfassets.net/j16ev64qyf6l/4KPgzbWpVpd5ZPsE444S9F/f4c8a91df1d3e578d698a6fbd24c5a55/Misuse-of-inside-information.pdf
Possible actions, if any, would be either:
Although the Commission would have some
concerns in this area, it is likely that we would
consider sports rules, education programme, referral
to employer and/or the SGB and other disruptive
action to be appropriate.
In particular, we wish to encourage sports and other
bodies to quickly release information which is
sensitive in betting terms to the public, as this is an
appropriate means to limit the impact in this area.
or
The Commission would have concerns in this area.
In most cases, the appropriate form of sanction
would be through the Sports Body or through the
employer, combined with the betting operator
refusing the bet under contractual terms.
The Commission may consider taking action to void a
bet.
So nothing in the public domain. Interestingly if a betting company trader followed in those bets and knew they were close to the decision, the GC would consider a criminal referral for the traders.
Given the Ivey edge sorting case, if anyone had been prosecuted it could have been dicey for them.
By the way, could you please ask your friends to stop doing this?
A single scull is hard enough to row without a freeloader.
They'd both kill your dog.
Personally i would struggle to answer this and would depend on the question e.g. is freebie ticket for PM / Sport minister to attend an England match from the FA, for me that's absolutely fine. Is constantly accepting tickets for the racing from gambling companies, then it starts to get whiffy.
It fell foul of the same (unwritten) rule that is causing Labour so much trouble at the moment.
If the public get cross about it when it's in the papers, it doesn't really matter what the rules say. You're still in trouble.
(And this is the kicker) The public reserves the right to be arbitrary and capricious in its judgement of what's acceptable.
And if that sounds like the wisdom of mobs, that's because it largely is.
(this will be either when a) they get bored of it b) something important happens that they have to then cover or c) they are exposed for the hypocrites they are).
They published data in around 2009 that "painted on the road" cycle lanes were associated with increased casualties for people riding cycles.
Here most people cycle on the pavement because that is where the Council seem to want them.
At around the same time they published date showing that removing "fences to restrain pedestrians at road junctions" (ie the railings on central pedestrian 'refuges' etc) reduced casualties for pedestrians.
15 years later, up and down the country Local Highways Authorities continue to install them "keep pedestrians safe". If I suggested removing them here at similar junctions the Council would have a brainstorm.
I'd need to look around find the links.
The delivery of Michael Portillo's trousers and coat was quietly efficient and completed years ago. It is a foul libel on Government transport procurement to suggest they were involved in his sartorial infrastructure.
The Elizabeth line seems also to have quite a lot of issues. I'd say that the majority of the times I've used it there has been something or other - although that seems to be lessening over time.
From observation, absolutely huge numbers of people use the Elizabeth line.
I've seen the data quality of both the DWP databases and the VoA ones.
Shall we just say it's not going to solve 98% of the problem.
And that's before I discuss how many sheltered accommodation blocks are band D and above for entertaining reasons..
Not published data, so disregard for the moment.
And an excellent guardian comment: labour winning power is the dog which chases cars catching up with a car.
There is only two solutions for this year, either ignore the clamour including from the unions, or reverse it for this year
As the second ends Reeves credibility it will not be changed but this with her and the rests freebies will have caused reputation damage anyway
There's also something psychological that's changed about the geography of this bit of London. Stepping on a train in the suburbs of Romford and stepping off in the West End ties one to London in a way that changing at Liverpool Street doesn't. Rail lines are magic like that in a way that roads aren't.
But yes- whatever problems Britain has, an excess of railway lines isn't one of them.
Joking of course, but it is incredibly stupid not building the bits that genuinely make a difference to capacity on overstretched northern lines and have the potential to provide vital links, because David Cameron and his MPs wasted billions ensuring people they met at the farmers market would never have to listen to trains like common plebs.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-thames-clean-river-citiy-b2064862.html
The Conservatives have accused Labour of being "a government of self-service" and "living the high life" since details emerged of donations to senior figures in the party - including tickets for Sir Keir Starmer to watch football matches and see Taylor Swift in concert.
But while Ms Badenoch accused the new government of "hypocrisy" for taking donations, she also stood by her own register of interests that shows she had taken tickets and hospitality for a rugby game, the Jingle Bell Ball concert, and Ed Sheeran."
https://news.sky.com/story/kemi-badenoch-defends-mps-taking-freebies-as-way-to-spend-time-with-family-13220838
The Seine will be fun.
Since amphibians are good indicator species, they will know it is clean when frogs start to appear, in the frog-suitable waters (ie some of the not-very flowing bits).
"The Mayor of London’s submission to the Review was unequivocal that he/Transport for London did not believe terminatng HS2 at Old Oak Common staton permanently would be a viable opton."
Will Mayor now be telling Reeves to just build the bloody Euston end.
'You take it from me Archle, Starmer and Reeves are getting their comeuppance...."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPIP9KXdmO0
Also, a lot of people just wouldn't use HS2 at all. If you're coming from Waterloo, Charing Cross or Victoria and heading north you're not going to bother heading out to OOC first, and nor would you bother choosing HS2 heading south if you subsequently wanted to transfer to Kings Cross or St. Pancras, which are a stone's throw from Euston. Instead, you'd just continue to use the conventional lines. Tourists will struggle to find OOC, or compute why they should go there in the first place, and the transit time to get there (extra 25-30 minutes or so) being roughly what the HS2 train shaves off the journey to Birmingham, but with extra faff.
It's off the scale f-tard dumb to do anything but build the Euston extension in full.
It is an astoundingly successful project that has helped move London forward.
@LiamThorpECHO
·
1h
I spoke to the Transport Secretary earlier, who said she is currently unable to commit to a £12 billion pound package promised by the previous government to improve rail links and stations in Liverpool and Manchester
https://x.com/LiamThorpECHO/status/1838240757334909060
Creating a big development area there would be quite interesting. Sticking the A40 underground and the rest of the crap traffic, rehabilitating some really quite nice areas from a bit of a slide downhill. I really can see it working.
Sunday Times/Opinions poll,1k adults, 13-19 Sept, moa +/-3%
COALTION
Fine Gael 24% (+5% since May)
Fianna Fáil 20% (+4%)
Green Party 4% (-1%)
OPPOSITION
Sinn Féin 18% (-9%)
Social Democrats 5% (-1%)
Irish Labour Party 4% (+1%)
Solidarity/People Before Profit 3% (no change)
Aontú 2% (-1%)
Independents/Other 20% (+2%)
undecided 11% (no change)
https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0922/1471301-opinion-poll/
Both of which should be in progress...
Heck if you rolled the Euston underground changes into CR2 (as was the original plan) Euston would start to look affordable...
Especially if I land at Terminal 3, I can often go from deplaning to my apartment in comfortably under an hour.
But it's not only that: getting to Liverpool Street, or Canary Wharf, or the Exel Centre is now super easy. The time to get out to Ealing Broadway is halved.
And the trains are airconditioned too, so the whole experience is pleasant even at the height of summer.
No wonder it's popular.
Seems implausible.
Conservative (from the Electorate Stats), Lib Dem, Green, Reform and SNP could be quite close.
Today the Leeanderthal Man is posting "85000 members of Reform":
https://x.com/LeeAndersonMP_/status/1838234971346960603
Indefensible.