FPT: Recently, I have been thinking, more and more, that we should be preparing for the possibility of global cooling. Why? Because of what I have read of the effects of volcanos, for example, Stommel and Stommel's "Volcano Weather": https://www.amazon.com/Volcano-Weather-Story-Without-Summer/dp/0915160714
We will have a volcanic eruption that cools the earth, some time in the future. Perhaps not again in my life time, but very likely in the next hundred years, and nearly certain in the next thousand.
If there is a way to predict such an event, long enough in advance to be useful, I am not aware of it. (We certainly should be looking for a way, or ways.)
I went to an Oxford Uni event yesterday where one of the speakers was an XR (Extinction Rebellion) founder, Rupert Read. He said that current thinking was that the climate in the UK was being made more unstable by failure to curb persistent emissions - perhaps irreversibly so, though he held out some hope of change - and could involve swings to more extreme cold as well as heat. The possible collapse of the Gulf Stream would be a relevant cause.
I didn't find him altogether persuasive, but it was distinctively different from the "world is simply getting hotter" thesis.
The collapse of the Gulf Stream would spell the end for Britain as we know it.
Probably not though it might not be pleasant for a while. Given the world is warming, it seems reasonable to assume the summers would still be warm and perhaps our climate would be more "continental" in nature - drier and colder in winter, drier and warmer in summer though of course it would still rain.
We might end up like Labrador or the NE United States - I doubt it would be Greenland though doubtless the Mail would blame Starmer if the glaciers started advancing towards London.
The UK is a lot further north than people realise, relative to other places with a similar climate. Without the gulf stream we would have to hope we end up like Norway / Sweden. Glasgow is 55° north which is further north than most of the major US and Canadian cities (with the exception of Anchorage).
JD Vance laments the diversity of New York City ahead of Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally:
“London doesn’t feel fully English to me anymore. Right? New York of course is the classic American city. Over time, I think New York will start to feel less American.” https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1850580229665755330
Vance's own wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants so his whole approach to this issue is bizarre. London of course has never really been an English city anyway. It predates the arrival of the English and has always been a diverse city as you'd expect from a major port and former administrative centre of a vast multi ethnic empire. It's why it attracts people from all over the world and lets them all feel at home.
Reading this comment, you would think that London is no more diverse now than it was 50 years ago, but that's clearly not true. It has been transformed demographically.
London was already a very diverse city in 1974 but yes clearly it is even more so now. I don't know if you live in London like I do but in my experience, living here since 2010 and earlier for periods since 1997, it doesn't feel "foreign" in the slightest. It just feels like London. Immigration has helped to make it the most dynamic and successful part of the country, with the strongest economy, the best performing schools and thriving local communities. I wouldn't live anywhere else, and if JD Vance doesn't like it all the better.
What you are celebrating is essentially internal migration out of London: Brits out and migrants in. Maybe you benefit from this personally, but it's very much an "I'm all right, Jack" attitude.
It is hard to understand why people would want London to be a depopulating wasteland, which is what the reality would be if the immigration and economic growth of the last 30 years did not happen. The reality is just that things change over time and with economic and cultural circumstances. A lot of the 'Brits' who have left have made a lot of money out of rising house prices and are actually beneficiaries of immigration.
Having said that there is a good point that is made by people like Iain Sinclair: a lot of the people who have lived in London for many generations have left over the past few decades, which does change the psychological character of a place, but I suppose this is also true of a lot of places in England (ie rural villages etc).
I don't think it's unusual in life for things to be in tension: we all weigh up decisions about jobs that might make us more money, for example, but at the cost of our family life. The same can apply for decisions at a national level.
I don't think it makes people hypocrites or ignorant because they don't fully go one way or another in all things.
FPT: Recently, I have been thinking, more and more, that we should be preparing for the possibility of global cooling. Why? Because of what I have read of the effects of volcanos, for example, Stommel and Stommel's "Volcano Weather": https://www.amazon.com/Volcano-Weather-Story-Without-Summer/dp/0915160714
We will have a volcanic eruption that cools the earth, some time in the future. Perhaps not again in my life time, but very likely in the next hundred years, and nearly certain in the next thousand.
If there is a way to predict such an event, long enough in advance to be useful, I am not aware of it. (We certainly should be looking for a way, or ways.)
I went to an Oxford Uni event yesterday where one of the speakers was an XR (Extinction Rebellion) founder, Rupert Read. He said that current thinking was that the climate in the UK was being made more unstable by failure to curb persistent emissions - perhaps irreversibly so, though he held out some hope of change - and could involve swings to more extreme cold as well as heat. The possible collapse of the Gulf Stream would be a relevant cause.
I didn't find him altogether persuasive, but it was distinctively different from the "world is simply getting hotter" thesis.
The theories tend to change as the outcomes change. Hard to sell people on consistent warming when everyone's freezing their tits off. So just blame cold, rain, and every other less than optimal weather condition on the same thing and wagons roll.
More to the point ignore ideologues, regardless of whether they’re XR or contrarians, and listen to what scientific research and data show, and that is a pretty monotonic warming with the chances of some day after tomorrow cooling scenario pretty low. Rainfall and short term events are getting more volatile, not regional or global climate.
As to your previous characteristically acid response to my ship pollution comment, yes requiring ships to spray another harmless reflective particle would be sensible. Certainly better than letting them emit sulphates again. It’s not primarily seamen getting the lung damage, it’s communities in coastal settlements.
We're also seeing that there's more variability in the climate, or more things that vary that affect the climate, so that you have a lot of variability on top of the monotonic trend.
That's why, for example, until recently there was a slight trend to increasing Antarctic sea ice. So, on average it's warming, but there's enough variability that it can be unusually cold.
FPT: Recently, I have been thinking, more and more, that we should be preparing for the possibility of global cooling. Why? Because of what I have read of the effects of volcanos, for example, Stommel and Stommel's "Volcano Weather": https://www.amazon.com/Volcano-Weather-Story-Without-Summer/dp/0915160714
We will have a volcanic eruption that cools the earth, some time in the future. Perhaps not again in my life time, but very likely in the next hundred years, and nearly certain in the next thousand.
If there is a way to predict such an event, long enough in advance to be useful, I am not aware of it. (We certainly should be looking for a way, or ways.)
I went to an Oxford Uni event yesterday where one of the speakers was an XR (Extinction Rebellion) founder, Rupert Read. He said that current thinking was that the climate in the UK was being made more unstable by failure to curb persistent emissions - perhaps irreversibly so, though he held out some hope of change - and could involve swings to more extreme cold as well as heat. The possible collapse of the Gulf Stream would be a relevant cause.
I didn't find him altogether persuasive, but it was distinctively different from the "world is simply getting hotter" thesis.
The collapse of the Gulf Stream would spell the end for Britain as we know it.
Probably not though it might not be pleasant for a while. Given the world is warming, it seems reasonable to assume the summers would still be warm and perhaps our climate would be more "continental" in nature - drier and colder in winter, drier and warmer in summer though of course it would still rain.
We might end up like Labrador or the NE United States - I doubt it would be Greenland though doubtless the Mail would blame Starmer if the glaciers started advancing towards London.
"The Gulf Stream originates in the Gulf of Mexico and transports warm water across the Atlantic towards north-west Europe. As such, it has a strong warming effect on the region and is the reason why the UK does not experience similarly harsh conditions to places like Canada or Siberia, despite being on a similar latitude." https://www.yourweather.co.uk/news/trending/what-will-happen-to-the-uk-if-the-gulf-stream-collapses.html
We would still be coastal, and still on the Western not Eastern edge of the continent facing maritime westerlies so coastal Alaska is potentially more relevant than inland Canada or Siberia - and it’s the North Atlantic drift rather than strictly speaking the Gulf Stream that would collapse: the Northward flow we get because dense salty water sinks in the far North Atlantic.
FPT: Recently, I have been thinking, more and more, that we should be preparing for the possibility of global cooling. Why? Because of what I have read of the effects of volcanos, for example, Stommel and Stommel's "Volcano Weather": https://www.amazon.com/Volcano-Weather-Story-Without-Summer/dp/0915160714
We will have a volcanic eruption that cools the earth, some time in the future. Perhaps not again in my life time, but very likely in the next hundred years, and nearly certain in the next thousand.
If there is a way to predict such an event, long enough in advance to be useful, I am not aware of it. (We certainly should be looking for a way, or ways.)
I went to an Oxford Uni event yesterday where one of the speakers was an XR (Extinction Rebellion) founder, Rupert Read. He said that current thinking was that the climate in the UK was being made more unstable by failure to curb persistent emissions - perhaps irreversibly so, though he held out some hope of change - and could involve swings to more extreme cold as well as heat. The possible collapse of the Gulf Stream would be a relevant cause.
I didn't find him altogether persuasive, but it was distinctively different from the "world is simply getting hotter" thesis.
The collapse of the Gulf Stream would spell the end for Britain as we know it.
Probably not though it might not be pleasant for a while. Given the world is warming, it seems reasonable to assume the summers would still be warm and perhaps our climate would be more "continental" in nature - drier and colder in winter, drier and warmer in summer though of course it would still rain.
We might end up like Labrador or the NE United States - I doubt it would be Greenland though doubtless the Mail would blame Starmer if the glaciers started advancing towards London.
UK is apparently now snow-free (since 18th October) for an unprecedented 3rd year in a row.
JD Vance laments the diversity of New York City ahead of Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally:
“London doesn’t feel fully English to me anymore. Right? New York of course is the classic American city. Over time, I think New York will start to feel less American.” https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1850580229665755330
Vance's own wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants so his whole approach to this issue is bizarre. London of course has never really been an English city anyway. It predates the arrival of the English and has always been a diverse city as you'd expect from a major port and former administrative centre of a vast multi ethnic empire. It's why it attracts people from all over the world and lets them all feel at home.
Rarely read such utter nonsense. 87% white British in 1971, now 36.8%. In the preceding two thousands years it was almost always 90% plus white British. Take a look at any census.
British? Two thousand years ago? The folk who spoke what we call Welsh. Not the Romans. Or the Saxons. Or the Danes. Or the Normans. Not many Welsh (the true British) left now in London.
I'm not either. I had hoped that we (Labour) would revert to proper protocols and announce stuff to Parliament before briefing the press or making policy announcements in interviews or speeches. But no. It's not just the changes to the fiscal rules, it's the (deliberate?) leaking of budget 'secrets' and stuff like today's bus fare announcement. Disappointing.
Because it's more important for them - and the previous government was largely the same- to manage the political positioning in the country and the news cycle than respect parliamentary niceties.
For crucial things like this I can't see it changing, sadly.
If Trump does win it looks like he will win the popular vote and the GOP will win Congress too (even if the Democrats narrow the margin in the Senate).
That would make it the biggest GOP win in a national US election since Bush was re elected in 2004. Harris is basically a female and black John Kerry so fits that narrative.
On average 538 has Harris ahead by 0.4% in Michigan, by 0.1% in Wisconsin and Trump by 0.3% in Pennsylvania (which has an above average number of Puerto Ricans who might react badly to the comedian's insults yesterday to their ancestral homeland).
Axing £2 bus fare looks already like another massive unforced error by Reeves.
Her hero is Gordon Brown. She needs to give him a call.
I'm annoyed. I'm going to have to remember what fares there are now. £2 there and £2 back was always cheaper / same price. do I get a return now, what about other special tickets.
JD Vance laments the diversity of New York City ahead of Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally:
“London doesn’t feel fully English to me anymore. Right? New York of course is the classic American city. Over time, I think New York will start to feel less American.” https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1850580229665755330
Vance's own wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants so his whole approach to this issue is bizarre. London of course has never really been an English city anyway. It predates the arrival of the English and has always been a diverse city as you'd expect from a major port and former administrative centre of a vast multi ethnic empire. It's why it attracts people from all over the world and lets them all feel at home.
Reading this comment, you would think that London is no more diverse now than it was 50 years ago, but that's clearly not true. It has been transformed demographically.
London was already a very diverse city in 1974 but yes clearly it is even more so now. I don't know if you live in London like I do but in my experience, living here since 2010 and earlier for periods since 1997, it doesn't feel "foreign" in the slightest. It just feels like London. Immigration has helped to make it the most dynamic and successful part of the country, with the strongest economy, the best performing schools and thriving local communities. I wouldn't live anywhere else, and if JD Vance doesn't like it all the better.
London was around 90% white British in 1971.
One thing that I find interesting is over compensation for this change. People describing bits of the U.K. that haven’t changed this way as hideously white, or similar.
One amusing tell is *where* they notice this. Apparently Cardiff is very multicultural. But bits of the Home Counties that actually have higher non-white populations are Master Race Central.
JD Vance laments the diversity of New York City ahead of Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally:
“London doesn’t feel fully English to me anymore. Right? New York of course is the classic American city. Over time, I think New York will start to feel less American.” https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1850580229665755330
Vance's own wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants so his whole approach to this issue is bizarre. London of course has never really been an English city anyway. It predates the arrival of the English and has always been a diverse city as you'd expect from a major port and former administrative centre of a vast multi ethnic empire. It's why it attracts people from all over the world and lets them all feel at home.
Reading this comment, you would think that London is no more diverse now than it was 50 years ago, but that's clearly not true. It has been transformed demographically.
London was already a very diverse city in 1974 but yes clearly it is even more so now. I don't know if you live in London like I do but in my experience, living here since 2010 and earlier for periods since 1997, it doesn't feel "foreign" in the slightest. It just feels like London. Immigration has helped to make it the most dynamic and successful part of the country, with the strongest economy, the best performing schools and thriving local communities. I wouldn't live anywhere else, and if JD Vance doesn't like it all the better.
London was around 90% white British in 1971.
Suprising. I would have thought at least 5% Irish, and that doesn't leave room for much else.
FPT: Recently, I have been thinking, more and more, that we should be preparing for the possibility of global cooling. Why? Because of what I have read of the effects of volcanos, for example, Stommel and Stommel's "Volcano Weather": https://www.amazon.com/Volcano-Weather-Story-Without-Summer/dp/0915160714
We will have a volcanic eruption that cools the earth, some time in the future. Perhaps not again in my life time, but very likely in the next hundred years, and nearly certain in the next thousand.
If there is a way to predict such an event, long enough in advance to be useful, I am not aware of it. (We certainly should be looking for a way, or ways.)
I went to an Oxford Uni event yesterday where one of the speakers was an XR (Extinction Rebellion) founder, Rupert Read. He said that current thinking was that the climate in the UK was being made more unstable by failure to curb persistent emissions - perhaps irreversibly so, though he held out some hope of change - and could involve swings to more extreme cold as well as heat. The possible collapse of the Gulf Stream would be a relevant cause.
I didn't find him altogether persuasive, but it was distinctively different from the "world is simply getting hotter" thesis.
The collapse of the Gulf Stream would spell the end for Britain as we know it.
Probably not though it might not be pleasant for a while. Given the world is warming, it seems reasonable to assume the summers would still be warm and perhaps our climate would be more "continental" in nature - drier and colder in winter, drier and warmer in summer though of course it would still rain.
We might end up like Labrador or the NE United States - I doubt it would be Greenland though doubtless the Mail would blame Starmer if the glaciers started advancing towards London.
"The Gulf Stream originates in the Gulf of Mexico and transports warm water across the Atlantic towards north-west Europe. As such, it has a strong warming effect on the region and is the reason why the UK does not experience similarly harsh conditions to places like Canada or Siberia, despite being on a similar latitude." https://www.yourweather.co.uk/news/trending/what-will-happen-to-the-uk-if-the-gulf-stream-collapses.html
Canada copes perfectly well with extremes of temperature - yes, we'd need to adapt and perhaps quickly but it would be possible and certainly wouldn't be some kind of civilisation-ending event. Some Canadian cities have underground shopping areas which people go to and we would need to invest in the kind of winter infrastructure such as exists in Finland and Sweden but again we could...
JD Vance laments the diversity of New York City ahead of Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally:
“London doesn’t feel fully English to me anymore. Right? New York of course is the classic American city. Over time, I think New York will start to feel less American.” https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1850580229665755330
Vance's own wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants so his whole approach to this issue is bizarre. London of course has never really been an English city anyway. It predates the arrival of the English and has always been a diverse city as you'd expect from a major port and former administrative centre of a vast multi ethnic empire. It's why it attracts people from all over the world and lets them all feel at home.
Reading this comment, you would think that London is no more diverse now than it was 50 years ago, but that's clearly not true. It has been transformed demographically.
London was already a very diverse city in 1974 but yes clearly it is even more so now. I don't know if you live in London like I do but in my experience, living here since 2010 and earlier for periods since 1997, it doesn't feel "foreign" in the slightest. It just feels like London. Immigration has helped to make it the most dynamic and successful part of the country, with the strongest economy, the best performing schools and thriving local communities. I wouldn't live anywhere else, and if JD Vance doesn't like it all the better.
London was around 90% white British in 1971.
Suprising. I would have thought at least 5% Irish, and that doesn't leave room for much else.
Until quite recently, minorities were a really, really…. minor part of the population.
JD Vance laments the diversity of New York City ahead of Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally:
“London doesn’t feel fully English to me anymore. Right? New York of course is the classic American city. Over time, I think New York will start to feel less American.” https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1850580229665755330
Vance's own wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants so his whole approach to this issue is bizarre. London of course has never really been an English city anyway. It predates the arrival of the English and has always been a diverse city as you'd expect from a major port and former administrative centre of a vast multi ethnic empire. It's why it attracts people from all over the world and lets them all feel at home.
Reading this comment, you would think that London is no more diverse now than it was 50 years ago, but that's clearly not true. It has been transformed demographically.
London was already a very diverse city in 1974 but yes clearly it is even more so now. I don't know if you live in London like I do but in my experience, living here since 2010 and earlier for periods since 1997, it doesn't feel "foreign" in the slightest. It just feels like London. Immigration has helped to make it the most dynamic and successful part of the country, with the strongest economy, the best performing schools and thriving local communities. I wouldn't live anywhere else, and if JD Vance doesn't like it all the better.
What you are celebrating is essentially internal migration out of London: Brits out and migrants in. Maybe you benefit from this personally, but it's very much an "I'm all right, Jack" attitude.
People move in an out of London all the time. My wife and I are both internal migrants into London, while my dad went the other way many decades ago. Our eldest daughter has just left London for university. My next door neighbour still lives in the street he was born in. Other neighbours are immigrants from all over the world. Many like us are non London Brits. Whether I gain from all of this personally or not is neither here nor there. I'm merely pointing out that it seems to work ok.
.. here to support Labour's lunatic spending plans....
Reeves is threatening spending cuts, and has already restricted the WFA to the chagrin of many. It’s feeling more like austerity than lunatic spending plans.
I’d rather they did actually spend more so I could live in a less tatty country.
So what is the 50 billion going on. .. it ain't tax cuts......
FPT: Recently, I have been thinking, more and more, that we should be preparing for the possibility of global cooling. Why? Because of what I have read of the effects of volcanos, for example, Stommel and Stommel's "Volcano Weather": https://www.amazon.com/Volcano-Weather-Story-Without-Summer/dp/0915160714
We will have a volcanic eruption that cools the earth, some time in the future. Perhaps not again in my life time, but very likely in the next hundred years, and nearly certain in the next thousand.
If there is a way to predict such an event, long enough in advance to be useful, I am not aware of it. (We certainly should be looking for a way, or ways.)
I went to an Oxford Uni event yesterday where one of the speakers was an XR (Extinction Rebellion) founder, Rupert Read. He said that current thinking was that the climate in the UK was being made more unstable by failure to curb persistent emissions - perhaps irreversibly so, though he held out some hope of change - and could involve swings to more extreme cold as well as heat. The possible collapse of the Gulf Stream would be a relevant cause.
I didn't find him altogether persuasive, but it was distinctively different from the "world is simply getting hotter" thesis.
The theories tend to change as the outcomes change. Hard to sell people on consistent warming when everyone's freezing their tits off. So just blame cold, rain, and every other less than optimal weather condition on the same thing and wagons roll.
More to the point ignore ideologues, regardless of whether they’re XR or contrarians, and listen to what scientific research and data show, and that is a pretty monotonic warming with the chances of some day after tomorrow cooling scenario pretty low. Rainfall and short term events are getting more volatile, not regional or global climate.
As to your previous characteristically acid response to my ship pollution comment, yes requiring ships to spray another harmless reflective particle would be sensible. Certainly better than letting them emit sulphates again. It’s not primarily seamen getting the lung damage, it’s communities in coastal settlements.
We're also seeing that there's more variability in the climate, or more things that vary that affect the climate, so that you have a lot of variability on top of the monotonic trend.
That's why, for example, until recently there was a slight trend to increasing Antarctic sea ice. So, on average it's warming, but there's enough variability that it can be unusually cold.
The data so far and climate modelling seem to point to reduced variability for the likes of us and greater variability in the tropics.
Incredible intelligence-led sting by cyclist on bike thief. Typical reluctance from the police.
Harry is great; he's one of the 3 or 4 key people in Walk/Ride GM, and has been known (allegedly) to turn up with tarmac and a bucket & spade when infrastructure is not accessible enough.
He also used to have one of those General Strike Union Man moustaches. He shaved it off and now looks about 19.
FPT: Recently, I have been thinking, more and more, that we should be preparing for the possibility of global cooling. Why? Because of what I have read of the effects of volcanos, for example, Stommel and Stommel's "Volcano Weather": https://www.amazon.com/Volcano-Weather-Story-Without-Summer/dp/0915160714
We will have a volcanic eruption that cools the earth, some time in the future. Perhaps not again in my life time, but very likely in the next hundred years, and nearly certain in the next thousand.
If there is a way to predict such an event, long enough in advance to be useful, I am not aware of it. (We certainly should be looking for a way, or ways.)
I went to an Oxford Uni event yesterday where one of the speakers was an XR (Extinction Rebellion) founder, Rupert Read. He said that current thinking was that the climate in the UK was being made more unstable by failure to curb persistent emissions - perhaps irreversibly so, though he held out some hope of change - and could involve swings to more extreme cold as well as heat. The possible collapse of the Gulf Stream would be a relevant cause.
I didn't find him altogether persuasive, but it was distinctively different from the "world is simply getting hotter" thesis.
The collapse of the Gulf Stream would spell the end for Britain as we know it.
Probably not though it might not be pleasant for a while. Given the world is warming, it seems reasonable to assume the summers would still be warm and perhaps our climate would be more "continental" in nature - drier and colder in winter, drier and warmer in summer though of course it would still rain.
We might end up like Labrador or the NE United States - I doubt it would be Greenland though doubtless the Mail would blame Starmer if the glaciers started advancing towards London.
"The Gulf Stream originates in the Gulf of Mexico and transports warm water across the Atlantic towards north-west Europe. As such, it has a strong warming effect on the region and is the reason why the UK does not experience similarly harsh conditions to places like Canada or Siberia, despite being on a similar latitude." https://www.yourweather.co.uk/news/trending/what-will-happen-to-the-uk-if-the-gulf-stream-collapses.html
Canada copes perfectly well with extremes of temperature - yes, we'd need to adapt and perhaps quickly but it would be possible and certainly wouldn't be some kind of civilisation-ending event. Some Canadian cities have underground shopping areas which people go to and we would need to invest in the kind of winter infrastructure such as exists in Finland and Sweden but again we could...
The main problem - as with so much else - would be with housing. There would be a very large increase in demand for home heating as a result of how poorly constructed and insulated most British housing is.
I'm not either. I had hoped that we (Labour) would revert to proper protocols and announce stuff to Parliament before briefing the press or making policy announcements in interviews or speeches. But no. It's not just the changes to the fiscal rules, it's the (deliberate?) leaking of budget 'secrets' and stuff like today's bus fare announcement. Disappointing.
Can I just say, good on you for saying this. And I agree.
Thanks. I'm still a raging leftie, though.
Thanks for remaining so.
If everyone acknowledges the Great Truth about economics, then we who are Right won’t have anyone to condescend. That would be intolerable.
I can't imagine you ever running out of people to condescend to, given your huge knowledge of everybody and everything.
.. here to support Labour's lunatic spending plans....
Reeves is threatening spending cuts, and has already restricted the WFA to the chagrin of many. It’s feeling more like austerity than lunatic spending plans.
I’d rather they did actually spend more so I could live in a less tatty country.
So what is the 50 billion going on. .. it ain't tax cuts......
It’s going on keeping spending almost stable instead of the (you know, I know) knowingly unrealistic spending cuts Hunt programmed into his post election assumptions so that he could pay for his NI cuts.
SKS briefing some bus passengers are millionaires and we ought to be means testing passengers.
Another own goal.
His people, if we can call them that, are far more likely to use buses
And who thought announcing this three days before the actual Budget was a good comms strategy?
Much more of this and I will start to think @Leon is correct which would never do.
Significant areas are going to be excluded - London, Birmingham and West Yorkshire to name but three. I'm not saying this is a wholly wise move (not sure how much financially it will save) but it's not going to be a problem for a considerable number of bus users.
I'd be sad if all blondes with blue eyes, strawberry blondes and gingers died out because, quite frankly - although it won't happen in my lifetime - I find them prettier than brunettes but that is probably the natural end point in c.200 years on current trends. Through the summations of millions of individual choices and intermixing we'll probably all eventually become mixed race, a bit like how the Spanish did and probably look a bit more like them.
I don't think it necessarily make you a racist if you mourned this, and nor does any one race have more value than another, but I don't share the worries that it will fundamentally change Britain because I think all those people will adopt the values of the prevailing culture, including their heritage and traditions as Eric Kaufmann argues in "Whiteshift". Bit would I miss the blondes? Yes, I would.
[Having said that, it's not irrevocable either - over tens of thousands of years pigmentation would tend to lighten again because it will have to in order to get enough vitamin D, recognising that evolution will be much much slower in an advanced society where far more people survive. If we decide to actually try to have kids, that is.]
Not sure what the problem is plebs give the bus driver a fiver and gets £2 change
Surely the plebs can just get a mate to lend them a limousine for their travel?
I mean that’s what I do - found the servants to the servants hall were waiting for a bus to their accommodation down by the village. So I got the second assistant butler to use his third and fourth best Rolls Royces to ferry them home. Give him a fee for the job and depreciation, of course. Obviously, he gets a couple of the trainee footmen to do the actual driving.
JD Vance laments the diversity of New York City ahead of Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally:
“London doesn’t feel fully English to me anymore. Right? New York of course is the classic American city. Over time, I think New York will start to feel less American.” https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1850580229665755330
Vance's own wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants so his whole approach to this issue is bizarre. London of course has never really been an English city anyway. It predates the arrival of the English and has always been a diverse city as you'd expect from a major port and former administrative centre of a vast multi ethnic empire. It's why it attracts people from all over the world and lets them all feel at home.
Reading this comment, you would think that London is no more diverse now than it was 50 years ago, but that's clearly not true. It has been transformed demographically.
London was already a very diverse city in 1974 but yes clearly it is even more so now. I don't know if you live in London like I do but in my experience, living here since 2010 and earlier for periods since 1997, it doesn't feel "foreign" in the slightest. It just feels like London. Immigration has helped to make it the most dynamic and successful part of the country, with the strongest economy, the best performing schools and thriving local communities. I wouldn't live anywhere else, and if JD Vance doesn't like it all the better.
What you are celebrating is essentially internal migration out of London: Brits out and migrants in. Maybe you benefit from this personally, but it's very much an "I'm all right, Jack" attitude.
It is hard to understand why people would want London to be a depopulating wasteland, which is what the reality would be if the immigration and economic growth of the last 30 years did not happen. The reality is just that things change over time and with economic and cultural circumstances. A lot of the 'Brits' who have left have made a lot of money out of rising house prices and are actually beneficiaries of immigration.
Having said that there is a good point that is made by people like Iain Sinclair: a lot of the people who have lived in London for many generations have left over the past few decades, which does change the psychological character of a place, but I suppose this is also true of a lot of places in England (ie rural villages etc).
That wasn't the alternative. The alternative was balanced internal migration with more young people moving into London, as they have always done, to match the people retiring out to the provinces.
This process has been suppressed as a result of turning London into a 50% British city and has created one of the biggest dividing lines in our society.
The biggest dividing line in London is between the enormous assets of homeowners and the ludicrously high rent paid by private-sector tenants.
FPT: Recently, I have been thinking, more and more, that we should be preparing for the possibility of global cooling. Why? Because of what I have read of the effects of volcanos, for example, Stommel and Stommel's "Volcano Weather": https://www.amazon.com/Volcano-Weather-Story-Without-Summer/dp/0915160714
We will have a volcanic eruption that cools the earth, some time in the future. Perhaps not again in my life time, but very likely in the next hundred years, and nearly certain in the next thousand.
If there is a way to predict such an event, long enough in advance to be useful, I am not aware of it. (We certainly should be looking for a way, or ways.)
I went to an Oxford Uni event yesterday where one of the speakers was an XR (Extinction Rebellion) founder, Rupert Read. He said that current thinking was that the climate in the UK was being made more unstable by failure to curb persistent emissions - perhaps irreversibly so, though he held out some hope of change - and could involve swings to more extreme cold as well as heat. The possible collapse of the Gulf Stream would be a relevant cause.
I didn't find him altogether persuasive, but it was distinctively different from the "world is simply getting hotter" thesis.
The theories tend to change as the outcomes change. Hard to sell people on consistent warming when everyone's freezing their tits off. So just blame cold, rain, and every other less than optimal weather condition on the same thing and wagons roll.
More to the point ignore ideologues, regardless of whether they’re XR or contrarians, and listen to what scientific research and data show, and that is a pretty monotonic warming with the chances of some day after tomorrow cooling scenario pretty low. Rainfall and short term events are getting more volatile, not regional or global climate.
As to your previous characteristically acid response to my ship pollution comment, yes requiring ships to spray another harmless reflective particle would be sensible. Certainly better than letting them emit sulphates again. It’s not primarily seamen getting the lung damage, it’s communities in coastal settlements.
We're also seeing that there's more variability in the climate, or more things that vary that affect the climate, so that you have a lot of variability on top of the monotonic trend.
That's why, for example, until recently there was a slight trend to increasing Antarctic sea ice. So, on average it's warming, but there's enough variability that it can be unusually cold.
The data so far and climate modelling seem to point to reduced variability for the likes of us and greater variability in the tropics.
I don't mean more variability over time due to global warming, but more variability than we were aware of, due to the short period of the observational record.
SKS briefing some bus passengers are millionaires and we ought to be means testing passengers.
Another own goal.
His people, if we can call them that, are far more likely to use buses
And who thought announcing this three days before the actual Budget was a good comms strategy?
Much more of this and I will start to think @Leon is correct which would never do.
Significant areas are going to be excluded - London, Birmingham and West Yorkshire to name but three. I'm not saying this is a wholly wise move (not sure how much financially it will save) but it's not going to be a problem for a considerable number of bus users.
FPT: Recently, I have been thinking, more and more, that we should be preparing for the possibility of global cooling. Why? Because of what I have read of the effects of volcanos, for example, Stommel and Stommel's "Volcano Weather": https://www.amazon.com/Volcano-Weather-Story-Without-Summer/dp/0915160714
We will have a volcanic eruption that cools the earth, some time in the future. Perhaps not again in my life time, but very likely in the next hundred years, and nearly certain in the next thousand.
If there is a way to predict such an event, long enough in advance to be useful, I am not aware of it. (We certainly should be looking for a way, or ways.)
I went to an Oxford Uni event yesterday where one of the speakers was an XR (Extinction Rebellion) founder, Rupert Read. He said that current thinking was that the climate in the UK was being made more unstable by failure to curb persistent emissions - perhaps irreversibly so, though he held out some hope of change - and could involve swings to more extreme cold as well as heat. The possible collapse of the Gulf Stream would be a relevant cause.
I didn't find him altogether persuasive, but it was distinctively different from the "world is simply getting hotter" thesis.
The collapse of the Gulf Stream would spell the end for Britain as we know it.
Probably not though it might not be pleasant for a while. Given the world is warming, it seems reasonable to assume the summers would still be warm and perhaps our climate would be more "continental" in nature - drier and colder in winter, drier and warmer in summer though of course it would still rain.
We might end up like Labrador or the NE United States - I doubt it would be Greenland though doubtless the Mail would blame Starmer if the glaciers started advancing towards London.
"The Gulf Stream originates in the Gulf of Mexico and transports warm water across the Atlantic towards north-west Europe. As such, it has a strong warming effect on the region and is the reason why the UK does not experience similarly harsh conditions to places like Canada or Siberia, despite being on a similar latitude." https://www.yourweather.co.uk/news/trending/what-will-happen-to-the-uk-if-the-gulf-stream-collapses.html
Canada copes perfectly well with extremes of temperature - yes, we'd need to adapt and perhaps quickly but it would be possible and certainly wouldn't be some kind of civilisation-ending event. Some Canadian cities have underground shopping areas which people go to and we would need to invest in the kind of winter infrastructure such as exists in Finland and Sweden but again we could...
The main problem - as with so much else - would be with housing. There would be a very large increase in demand for home heating as a result of how poorly constructed and insulated most British housing is.
Perun did Canadian defence procurement yesterday, and used us as a goodless worse example - getting our RFA tankers for about 12 times less pro-rata than the Canadians paid.
SKS briefing some bus passengers are millionaires and we ought to be means testing passengers.
Another own goal.
His people, if we can call them that, are far more likely to use buses
And who thought announcing this three days before the actual Budget was a good comms strategy?
Much more of this and I will start to think @Leon is correct which would never do.
Why would they announce something like this ahead of the main budget?
Even if we accept that it's necessary, it comes under the heading of "regrettable, but necessary." So why give it prominence by announcing it in advance?
FPT: Recently, I have been thinking, more and more, that we should be preparing for the possibility of global cooling. Why? Because of what I have read of the effects of volcanos, for example, Stommel and Stommel's "Volcano Weather": https://www.amazon.com/Volcano-Weather-Story-Without-Summer/dp/0915160714
We will have a volcanic eruption that cools the earth, some time in the future. Perhaps not again in my life time, but very likely in the next hundred years, and nearly certain in the next thousand.
If there is a way to predict such an event, long enough in advance to be useful, I am not aware of it. (We certainly should be looking for a way, or ways.)
I went to an Oxford Uni event yesterday where one of the speakers was an XR (Extinction Rebellion) founder, Rupert Read. He said that current thinking was that the climate in the UK was being made more unstable by failure to curb persistent emissions - perhaps irreversibly so, though he held out some hope of change - and could involve swings to more extreme cold as well as heat. The possible collapse of the Gulf Stream would be a relevant cause.
I didn't find him altogether persuasive, but it was distinctively different from the "world is simply getting hotter" thesis.
The theories tend to change as the outcomes change. Hard to sell people on consistent warming when everyone's freezing their tits off. So just blame cold, rain, and every other less than optimal weather condition on the same thing and wagons roll.
More to the point ignore ideologues, regardless of whether they’re XR or contrarians, and listen to what scientific research and data show, and that is a pretty monotonic warming with the chances of some day after tomorrow cooling scenario pretty low. Rainfall and short term events are getting more volatile, not regional or global climate.
As to your previous characteristically acid response to my ship pollution comment, yes requiring ships to spray another harmless reflective particle would be sensible. Certainly better than letting them emit sulphates again. It’s not primarily seamen getting the lung damage, it’s communities in coastal settlements.
We're also seeing that there's more variability in the climate, or more things that vary that affect the climate, so that you have a lot of variability on top of the monotonic trend.
That's why, for example, until recently there was a slight trend to increasing Antarctic sea ice. So, on average it's warming, but there's enough variability that it can be unusually cold.
The data so far and climate modelling seem to point to reduced variability for the likes of us and greater variability in the tropics.
I don't mean more variability over time due to global warming, but more variability than we were aware of, due to the short period of the observational record.
Yes fair point, our proxy data (except ice cores) smooth out interannual variability.
You can add on IT equipment, office space, electricity heating, lighting, life assurance, private healthcare, central overheadsz sick pay, etc. on top.
All employers will work on a M-factor they have to multiply anyone's salary by to calculate what that person needs to make "per head" for them to break even within their business model so their employment makes sense.
I've seen these range from 1.4 to 2.8 depending on overheads and how big the firm is, but no doubt some go higher.
SKS briefing some bus passengers are millionaires and we ought to be means testing passengers.
Another own goal.
His people, if we can call them that, are far more likely to use buses
And who thought announcing this three days before the actual Budget was a good comms strategy?
Much more of this and I will start to think @Leon is correct which would never do.
Why would they announce something like this ahead of the main budget?
Even if we accept that it's necessary, it comes under the heading of "regrettable, but necessary." So why give it prominence by announcing it in advance?
Perhaps for procedural reasons, if it’s under the remit of DfT rather than Treasury?
Well theres a thing...to get to my local large supermarket is two bus journeys..cost 4£ and takes an hour....to get to my local large supermarket by taxi takes 5 minutes is door to door and costs £6.40.....I guess starmer wants me to take that taxi as it will cost me 40p more but save 55 minutes extra travel
SKS briefing some bus passengers are millionaires and we ought to be means testing passengers.
Another own goal.
His people, if we can call them that, are far more likely to use buses
And who thought announcing this three days before the actual Budget was a good comms strategy?
Much more of this and I will start to think @Leon is correct which would never do.
Why would they announce something like this ahead of the main budget?
Even if we accept that it's necessary, it comes under the heading of "regrettable, but necessary." So why give it prominence by announcing it in advance?
Cuz shit as it is, it's the best news they've got?
FPT: Recently, I have been thinking, more and more, that we should be preparing for the possibility of global cooling. Why? Because of what I have read of the effects of volcanos, for example, Stommel and Stommel's "Volcano Weather": https://www.amazon.com/Volcano-Weather-Story-Without-Summer/dp/0915160714
We will have a volcanic eruption that cools the earth, some time in the future. Perhaps not again in my life time, but very likely in the next hundred years, and nearly certain in the next thousand.
If there is a way to predict such an event, long enough in advance to be useful, I am not aware of it. (We certainly should be looking for a way, or ways.)
I went to an Oxford Uni event yesterday where one of the speakers was an XR (Extinction Rebellion) founder, Rupert Read. He said that current thinking was that the climate in the UK was being made more unstable by failure to curb persistent emissions - perhaps irreversibly so, though he held out some hope of change - and could involve swings to more extreme cold as well as heat. The possible collapse of the Gulf Stream would be a relevant cause.
I didn't find him altogether persuasive, but it was distinctively different from the "world is simply getting hotter" thesis.
The theories tend to change as the outcomes change. Hard to sell people on consistent warming when everyone's freezing their tits off. So just blame cold, rain, and every other less than optimal weather condition on the same thing and wagons roll.
More to the point ignore ideologues, regardless of whether they’re XR or contrarians, and listen to what scientific research and data show, and that is a pretty monotonic warming with the chances of some day after tomorrow cooling scenario pretty low. Rainfall and short term events are getting more volatile, not regional or global climate.
As to your previous characteristically acid response to my ship pollution comment, yes requiring ships to spray another harmless reflective particle would be sensible. Certainly better than letting them emit sulphates again. It’s not primarily seamen getting the lung damage, it’s communities in coastal settlements.
We're also seeing that there's more variability in the climate, or more things that vary that affect the climate, so that you have a lot of variability on top of the monotonic trend.
That's why, for example, until recently there was a slight trend to increasing Antarctic sea ice. So, on average it's warming, but there's enough variability that it can be unusually cold.
The data so far and climate modelling seem to point to reduced variability for the likes of us and greater variability in the tropics.
I don't mean more variability over time due to global warming, but more variability than we were aware of, due to the short period of the observational record.
Yes fair point, our proxy data (except ice cores) smooth out interannual variability.
There were a lot of earnest papers written about the trend in the NAO index in the late-90s, and what the mechanism might be that connected it to global warming, and why it was that the models didn't reproduce it - and then the hens went into reverse, because it was internal variability.
Humans are overtuned to identify patterns, and often overdo it.
You can add on IT equipment, office space, electricity heating, lighting, life assurance, private healthcare, central overheadsz sick pay, etc. on top.
All employers will work on a M-factor they have to multiply anyone's salary by to calculate what that person needs to make "per head" for them to break even within their business model so their employment makes sense.
I've seen these range from 1.4 to 2.8 depending on overheads and how big the firm is, but no doubt some go higher.
For office based, desk oriented white collar, 2 seems to be quite common.
SKS briefing some bus passengers are millionaires and we ought to be means testing passengers.
Another own goal.
His people, if we can call them that, are far more likely to use buses
And who thought announcing this three days before the actual Budget was a good comms strategy?
Much more of this and I will start to think @Leon is correct which would never do.
Why would they announce something like this ahead of the main budget?
Even if we accept that it's necessary, it comes under the heading of "regrettable, but necessary." So why give it prominence by announcing it in advance?
Perhaps for procedural reasons, if it’s under the remit of DfT rather than Treasury?
The one good thing here, is the thought of Alistair Campbell beating his head against a wall.
This is exactly why he and the rest of the New Labour press operation were so obsessive about messaging grids and packaging releases of information.
JD Vance laments the diversity of New York City ahead of Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally:
“London doesn’t feel fully English to me anymore. Right? New York of course is the classic American city. Over time, I think New York will start to feel less American.” https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1850580229665755330
Vance's own wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants so his whole approach to this issue is bizarre. London of course has never really been an English city anyway. It predates the arrival of the English and has always been a diverse city as you'd expect from a major port and former administrative centre of a vast multi ethnic empire. It's why it attracts people from all over the world and lets them all feel at home.
Rarely read such utter nonsense. 87% white British in 1971, now 36.8%. In the preceding two thousands years it was almost always 90% plus white British. Take a look at any census.
British? Two thousand years ago? The folk who spoke what we call Welsh. Not the Romans. Or the Saxons. Or the Danes. Or the Normans. Not many Welsh (the true British) left now in London.
The Welsh are newcomers, bringing an indo-european language to these islands as the celts swept in. The reasonable presumption is that their lingo displaced a language which would have been a fairly near relation of whatever Basque then sounded like - the non indo-european language isolate still present in a chunk of Spain and France.
FPT: Recently, I have been thinking, more and more, that we should be preparing for the possibility of global cooling. Why? Because of what I have read of the effects of volcanos, for example, Stommel and Stommel's "Volcano Weather": https://www.amazon.com/Volcano-Weather-Story-Without-Summer/dp/0915160714
We will have a volcanic eruption that cools the earth, some time in the future. Perhaps not again in my life time, but very likely in the next hundred years, and nearly certain in the next thousand.
If there is a way to predict such an event, long enough in advance to be useful, I am not aware of it. (We certainly should be looking for a way, or ways.)
I went to an Oxford Uni event yesterday where one of the speakers was an XR (Extinction Rebellion) founder, Rupert Read. He said that current thinking was that the climate in the UK was being made more unstable by failure to curb persistent emissions - perhaps irreversibly so, though he held out some hope of change - and could involve swings to more extreme cold as well as heat. The possible collapse of the Gulf Stream would be a relevant cause.
I didn't find him altogether persuasive, but it was distinctively different from the "world is simply getting hotter" thesis.
The collapse of the Gulf Stream would spell the end for Britain as we know it.
Probably not though it might not be pleasant for a while. Given the world is warming, it seems reasonable to assume the summers would still be warm and perhaps our climate would be more "continental" in nature - drier and colder in winter, drier and warmer in summer though of course it would still rain.
We might end up like Labrador or the NE United States - I doubt it would be Greenland though doubtless the Mail would blame Starmer if the glaciers started advancing towards London.
"The Gulf Stream originates in the Gulf of Mexico and transports warm water across the Atlantic towards north-west Europe. As such, it has a strong warming effect on the region and is the reason why the UK does not experience similarly harsh conditions to places like Canada or Siberia, despite being on a similar latitude." https://www.yourweather.co.uk/news/trending/what-will-happen-to-the-uk-if-the-gulf-stream-collapses.html
Canada copes perfectly well with extremes of temperature - yes, we'd need to adapt and perhaps quickly but it would be possible and certainly wouldn't be some kind of civilisation-ending event. Some Canadian cities have underground shopping areas which people go to and we would need to invest in the kind of winter infrastructure such as exists in Finland and Sweden but again we could...
The main problem - as with so much else - would be with housing. There would be a very large increase in demand for home heating as a result of how poorly constructed and insulated most British housing is.
Perun did Canadian defence procurement yesterday, and used us as a goodless worse example - getting our RFA tankers for about 12 times less pro-rata than the Canadians paid.
Incredible intelligence-led sting by cyclist on bike thief. Typical reluctance from the police.
I read this earlier. Very impressive and resourceful. But you have to wonder about the Police and their whole attitude. It seems any forces treat bike theft as a minor inconvenience.
Even Starmer’s speech venue had a dark, oppressive, miserable maroon backdrop. Doubtless they think it made him look dutiful and sensible, but it just added to the vibe of him being a charmless misery.
I'm very happy to accept that multicultural London has many strengths. But there are issues too. It's concerning that so many who want to praise the former simply ignore the latter.
Jewish Londoners clearly feel under threat and in this provincial bumpkin's mind it was extremely weird to hear the Mayor of London presage his remarks following the acquittal of Martyn Blake with his sympathies for Chris Kaba's family. The family that did everything they could to make sure his like of violence and thuggery remained unknown to the public. I'm not aware if Khan has offered any public sympathy for an officer who has gone through two years of hell and may now be in hiding.
Well theres a thing...to get to my local large supermarket is two bus journeys..cost 4£ and takes an hour....to get to my local large supermarket by taxi takes 5 minutes is door to door and costs £6.40.....I guess starmer wants me to take that taxi as it will cost me 40p more but save 55 minutes extra travel
And because you won't take the bus, it will not represent a 50% increase in inflation to you.
Incredible intelligence-led sting by cyclist on bike thief. Typical reluctance from the police.
I read this earlier. Very impressive and resourceful. But you have to wonder about the Police and their whole attitude. It seems any forces treat bike theft as a minor inconvenience.
They do. Cyclists, phone and laptop owners who have tracking data of their stolen possessions are treated as major inconveniences.
A friend had her bike stolen. The bike was lo-jacked in about seven different ways. Not going reveal all of them - some were her custom ideas (works in IT). Sufice it to say, location was just the first thing.
When she reported this to the police, she showed them what she had on her laptop on the bike. And got told that having that much information on the thieves was dodgy!
I'd be sad if all blondes with blue eyes, strawberry blondes and gingers died out because, quite frankly - although it won't happen in my lifetime - I find them prettier than brunettes but that is probably the natural end point in c.200 years on current trends. Through the summations of millions of individual choices and intermixing we'll probably all eventually become mixed race, a bit like how the Spanish did and probably look a bit more like them.
I don't think it necessarily make you a racist if you mourned this, and nor does any one race have more value than another, but I don't share the worries that it will fundamentally change Britain because I think all those people will adopt the values of the prevailing culture, including their heritage and traditions as Eric Kaufmann argues in "Whiteshift". Bit would I miss the blondes? Yes, I would.
[Having said that, it's not irrevocable either - over tens of thousands of years pigmentation would tend to lighten again because it will have to in order to get enough vitamin D, recognising that evolution will be much much slower in an advanced society where far more people survive. If we decide to actually try to have kids, that is.]
I've never really been into blondes, perhaps this explains my attitude towards immigration.
That incident with Mike Amesbury MP looks really quite serious on the CCTV the Mail is showing on it's website right now.
Of course we don't know what the fella is saying to the MP but it looks like a pretty much unprovoked assault?
Even if the assault were well and truly 'provoked', he carried on hitting and kicking the guy when he was on the floor. That's not dealing with a 'threat' it's thuggery.
I'd be sad if all blondes with blue eyes, strawberry blondes and gingers died out because, quite frankly - although it won't happen in my lifetime - I find them prettier than brunettes but that is probably the natural end point in c.200 years on current trends. Through the summations of millions of individual choices and intermixing we'll probably all eventually become mixed race, a bit like how the Spanish did and probably look a bit more like them.
I don't think it necessarily make you a racist if you mourned this, and nor does any one race have more value than another, but I don't share the worries that it will fundamentally change Britain because I think all those people will adopt the values of the prevailing culture, including their heritage and traditions as Eric Kaufmann argues in "Whiteshift". Bit would I miss the blondes? Yes, I would.
[Having said that, it's not irrevocable either - over tens of thousands of years pigmentation would tend to lighten again because it will have to in order to get enough vitamin D, recognising that evolution will be much much slower in an advanced society where far more people survive. If we decide to actually try to have kids, that is.]
I've never really been into blondes, perhaps this explains my attitude towards immigration.
I’d be fine. The big problem would be the cash fetishists when they realise that London buses (and indeed several other bus networks) have been cashless for years. Oh!
I'd be sad if all blondes with blue eyes, strawberry blondes and gingers died out because, quite frankly - although it won't happen in my lifetime - I find them prettier than brunettes but that is probably the natural end point in c.200 years on current trends. Through the summations of millions of individual choices and intermixing we'll probably all eventually become mixed race, a bit like how the Spanish did and probably look a bit more like them.
I don't think it necessarily make you a racist if you mourned this, and nor does any one race have more value than another, but I don't share the worries that it will fundamentally change Britain because I think all those people will adopt the values of the prevailing culture, including their heritage and traditions as Eric Kaufmann argues in "Whiteshift". Bit would I miss the blondes? Yes, I would.
[Having said that, it's not irrevocable either - over tens of thousands of years pigmentation would tend to lighten again because it will have to in order to get enough vitamin D, recognising that evolution will be much much slower in an advanced society where far more people survive. If we decide to actually try to have kids, that is.]
I've never really been into blondes, perhaps this explains my attitude towards immigration.
I'd be sad if all blondes with blue eyes, strawberry blondes and gingers died out because, quite frankly - although it won't happen in my lifetime - I find them prettier than brunettes but that is probably the natural end point in c.200 years on current trends. Through the summations of millions of individual choices and intermixing we'll probably all eventually become mixed race, a bit like how the Spanish did and probably look a bit more like them.
I don't think it necessarily make you a racist if you mourned this, and nor does any one race have more value than another, but I don't share the worries that it will fundamentally change Britain because I think all those people will adopt the values of the prevailing culture, including their heritage and traditions as Eric Kaufmann argues in "Whiteshift". Bit would I miss the blondes? Yes, I would.
[Having said that, it's not irrevocable either - over tens of thousands of years pigmentation would tend to lighten again because it will have to in order to get enough vitamin D, recognising that evolution will be much much slower in an advanced society where far more people survive. If we decide to actually try to have kids, that is.]
I've never really been into blondes, perhaps this explains my attitude towards immigration.
Well, I have one: my wife.
Not sure she's that keen in me being into others.
I guess it would be "racist" of me to also fess up to finding blondes and redheads prettier (on average) than brunettes.
Incredible intelligence-led sting by cyclist on bike thief. Typical reluctance from the police.
I read this earlier. Very impressive and resourceful. But you have to wonder about the Police and their whole attitude. It seems any forces treat bike theft as a minor inconvenience.
The police seem to treat most things as a minor incovenience these days
House burgaled....have a crime number Car broken into.... have a crime number Car stolen....have a crime number Misgendering someone on twitter...there will be 6 of us round right now
Incredible intelligence-led sting by cyclist on bike thief. Typical reluctance from the police.
I read this earlier. Very impressive and resourceful. But you have to wonder about the Police and their whole attitude. It seems any forces treat bike theft as a minor inconvenience.
They do. Cyclists, phone and laptop owners who have tracking data of their stolen possessions are treated as major inconveniences.
A friend had her bike stolen. The bike was lo-jacked in about seven different ways. Not going reveal all of them - some were her custom ideas (works in IT). Sufice it to say, location was just the first thing.
When she reported this to the police, she showed them what she had on her laptop on the bike. And got told that having that much information on the thieves was dodgy!
Be quite funny to turn it into a haunted bike that does naughty things to wifi...
If Trump does win it looks like he will win the popular vote and the GOP will win Congress too (even if the Democrats narrow the margin in the Senate).
That would make it the biggest GOP win in a national US election since Bush was re elected in 2004. Harris is basically a female and black John Kerry so fits that narrative.
On average 538 has Harris ahead by 0.4% in Michigan, by 0.1% in Wisconsin and Trump by 0.3% in Pennsylvania (which has an above average number of Puerto Ricans who might react badly to the comedian's insults yesterday to their ancestral homeland).
Here is Ron Brownstein of CNN with stacks of data and good sense. He reckons that Kamala's best route is Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin (270/268) without the sunbelt. He gives cogent demographic reasons why it's a good bet for her - though not certain. Worth a watch from 28:49.
Well theres a thing...to get to my local large supermarket is two bus journeys..cost 4£ and takes an hour....to get to my local large supermarket by taxi takes 5 minutes is door to door and costs £6.40.....I guess starmer wants me to take that taxi as it will cost me 40p more but save 55 minutes extra travel
And because you won't take the bus, it will not represent a 50% increase in inflation to you.
Others, however...
That wasn't precisely the point I was making more that instead it would cut my weekly bus journeys by half making it less sustainable to run the service and that I would replace it with a more co2 expensive journey in a time where they worry about global warming and co2 expression into the atmosphere
Well theres a thing...to get to my local large supermarket is two bus journeys..cost 4£ and takes an hour....to get to my local large supermarket by taxi takes 5 minutes is door to door and costs £6.40.....I guess starmer wants me to take that taxi as it will cost me 40p more but save 55 minutes extra travel
And because you won't take the bus, it will not represent a 50% increase in inflation to you.
Others, however...
That wasn't precisely the point I was making more that instead it would cut my weekly bus journeys by half making it less sustainable to run the service and that I would replace it with a more co2 expensive journey in a time where they worry about global warming and co2 expression into the atmosphere
It was, though, a short-term project which the previous government had only funded until the end of December.
Some sort of bus fare subsidy is probably a good thing- though a model where most of the benefit goes to super-long leisure journeys (Bedford to Oxford or Leeds to Scarborough) could do with some fine-tuning.
But when (non-investment) government spending exceeded income by about £700 per person last year, some pretty shitty decisions have to be taken. And the person revealing the shit isn't the one who produced it.
We ain't seen nothing yet. And whilst the ornamentation might have been different had Claire Couthino been doing the Autumn budget, the big picture would have been similar.
I'd be sad if all blondes with blue eyes, strawberry blondes and gingers died out because, quite frankly - although it won't happen in my lifetime - I find them prettier than brunettes but that is probably the natural end point in c.200 years on current trends. Through the summations of millions of individual choices and intermixing we'll probably all eventually become mixed race, a bit like how the Spanish did and probably look a bit more like them.
I don't think it necessarily make you a racist if you mourned this, and nor does any one race have more value than another, but I don't share the worries that it will fundamentally change Britain because I think all those people will adopt the values of the prevailing culture, including their heritage and traditions as Eric Kaufmann argues in "Whiteshift". Bit would I miss the blondes? Yes, I would.
[Having said that, it's not irrevocable either - over tens of thousands of years pigmentation would tend to lighten again because it will have to in order to get enough vitamin D, recognising that evolution will be much much slower in an advanced society where far more people survive. If we decide to actually try to have kids, that is.]
I've never really been into blondes, perhaps this explains my attitude towards immigration.
My weakness has always been redheads, my first love was a redhead, I married a redhead.
That said, I love any kind of head when it comes to women.
JD Vance laments the diversity of New York City ahead of Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally:
“London doesn’t feel fully English to me anymore. Right? New York of course is the classic American city. Over time, I think New York will start to feel less American.” https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1850580229665755330
Vance's own wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants so his whole approach to this issue is bizarre. London of course has never really been an English city anyway. It predates the arrival of the English and has always been a diverse city as you'd expect from a major port and former administrative centre of a vast multi ethnic empire. It's why it attracts people from all over the world and lets them all feel at home.
Reading this comment, you would think that London is no more diverse now than it was 50 years ago, but that's clearly not true. It has been transformed demographically.
London was already a very diverse city in 1974 but yes clearly it is even more so now. I don't know if you live in London like I do but in my experience, living here since 2010 and earlier for periods since 1997, it doesn't feel "foreign" in the slightest. It just feels like London. Immigration has helped to make it the most dynamic and successful part of the country, with the strongest economy, the best performing schools and thriving local communities. I wouldn't live anywhere else, and if JD Vance doesn't like it all the better.
What you are celebrating is essentially internal migration out of London: Brits out and migrants in. Maybe you benefit from this personally, but it's very much an "I'm all right, Jack" attitude.
It is hard to understand why people would want London to be a depopulating wasteland, which is what the reality would be if the immigration and economic growth of the last 30 years did not happen. The reality is just that things change over time and with economic and cultural circumstances. A lot of the 'Brits' who have left have made a lot of money out of rising house prices and are actually beneficiaries of immigration.
Having said that there is a good point that is made by people like Iain Sinclair: a lot of the people who have lived in London for many generations have left over the past few decades, which does change the psychological character of a place, but I suppose this is also true of a lot of places in England (ie rural villages etc).
I don't think it's unusual in life for things to be in tension: we all weigh up decisions about jobs that might make us more money, for example, but at the cost of our family life. The same can apply for decisions at a national level.
I don't think it makes people hypocrites or ignorant because they don't fully go one way or another in all things.
Who does?
And also, we often have concurrent incompatible preferences, such as: I want London to be thriving economically; I don't want to live there with children; I don't want to see too many black and brown people when I get off the train on a visit to watch a West End show.
JD Vance laments the diversity of New York City ahead of Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally:
“London doesn’t feel fully English to me anymore. Right? New York of course is the classic American city. Over time, I think New York will start to feel less American.” https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1850580229665755330
Vance's own wife is the daughter of Indian immigrants so his whole approach to this issue is bizarre. London of course has never really been an English city anyway. It predates the arrival of the English and has always been a diverse city as you'd expect from a major port and former administrative centre of a vast multi ethnic empire. It's why it attracts people from all over the world and lets them all feel at home.
Reading this comment, you would think that London is no more diverse now than it was 50 years ago, but that's clearly not true. It has been transformed demographically.
London was already a very diverse city in 1974 but yes clearly it is even more so now. I don't know if you live in London like I do but in my experience, living here since 2010 and earlier for periods since 1997, it doesn't feel "foreign" in the slightest. It just feels like London. Immigration has helped to make it the most dynamic and successful part of the country, with the strongest economy, the best performing schools and thriving local communities. I wouldn't live anywhere else, and if JD Vance doesn't like it all the better.
What you are celebrating is essentially internal migration out of London: Brits out and migrants in. Maybe you benefit from this personally, but it's very much an "I'm all right, Jack" attitude.
It is hard to understand why people would want London to be a depopulating wasteland, which is what the reality would be if the immigration and economic growth of the last 30 years did not happen. The reality is just that things change over time and with economic and cultural circumstances. A lot of the 'Brits' who have left have made a lot of money out of rising house prices and are actually beneficiaries of immigration.
Having said that there is a good point that is made by people like Iain Sinclair: a lot of the people who have lived in London for many generations have left over the past few decades, which does change the psychological character of a place, but I suppose this is also true of a lot of places in England (ie rural villages etc).
Not true. Policies could have been in place to encourage the people already living there to have more children for example, as has been the case in France.
Looks like Google have been rather naughty, suppressing the Rogan interview from YouTube’s search function. If not cock up and deliberate, a silly move as it just plays into the Trump narrative.
Israel has passed two laws banning the UN's Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa) from operating in Israel, and in occupied areas under its control, by large majorities.
A number of countries, including the US the UK and Germany, have expressed serious concern about the move.
.. here to support Labour's lunatic spending plans....
Reeves is threatening spending cuts, and has already restricted the WFA to the chagrin of many. It’s feeling more like austerity than lunatic spending plans.
I’d rather they did actually spend more so I could live in a less tatty country.
Hmmh… and yet you spend your days “optimising” your clients’ tax bills…
Incredible intelligence-led sting by cyclist on bike thief. Typical reluctance from the police.
I read this earlier. Very impressive and resourceful. But you have to wonder about the Police and their whole attitude. It seems any forces treat bike theft as a minor inconvenience.
Nothing new there. I remember having a valuable camera stolen in a burglary in 1991, I checked the secondhand camera shops in town, and one of them had it. It had been brought in by the thief and they were checking the electronics and had his details. I notified the police. A few days later the camera was returned, but the police never prosecuted him nor found and returned the other things stolen.
Number of Labour votes in London at the last 3 general elections
2024: 1.4 million 2019: 1.8 million 2017: 2.1 million
Number of Conservative votes in London at the last 3 general elections:
2024: 685,082 2019: 1,205,127 2017: 1,268,800
The Tories haven't won London at a general election since 1992 but they have won 4 general elections since then.
The Conservatives don't need to win most seats in London anymore than Labour need to win most seats in rural areas. If either do it is an absolute landslide anyway
Comments
Her hero is Gordon Brown. She needs to give him a call.
Incredible intelligence-led sting by cyclist on bike thief. Typical reluctance from the police.
I don't think it makes people hypocrites or ignorant because they don't fully go one way or another in all things.
Who does?
That's why, for example, until recently there was a slight trend to increasing Antarctic sea ice. So, on average it's warming, but there's enough variability that it can be unusually cold.
The snow patch on Aonach Beag has melted out.
So for the moment, that's not happening.
Tom Harwood
@tomhfh
·
9h
If an employer wants to hire someone on £60,000, this in reality costs the firm £68,351.10.
Hidden from the payslip are employer NICs: £7,030.20 and minimum employer pension contribution: £1,320.90.
It will be interesting to see how much employment costs rise after the budget.
https://x.com/tomhfh/status/1850834773075234942
For crucial things like this I can't see it changing, sadly.
That would make it the biggest GOP win in a national US election since Bush was re elected in 2004. Harris is basically a female and black John Kerry so fits that narrative.
It remains close though and Trump is just 1% ahead in Michigan and Pennsylvania in new Insider Advantage polls.
https://insideradvantage.com/insideradvantage-michigan-survey-trump-leads-by-one-point-slotkin-and-rogers-tied-in-u-s-senate-race/
On average 538 has Harris ahead by 0.4% in Michigan, by 0.1% in Wisconsin and Trump by 0.3% in Pennsylvania (which has an above average number of Puerto Ricans who might react badly to the comedian's insults yesterday to their ancestral homeland).
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/michigan/
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/pennsylvania/
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/wisconsin/
Trump leads by 1.8% in Arizona and 1.5% in Georgia and 1.3% in NC now which look solid for him albeit by a mere 0.2% in Nevada
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/arizona/
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/georgia/
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/nevada/
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/north-carolina/
One amusing tell is *where* they notice this. Apparently Cardiff is very multicultural. But bits of the Home Counties that actually have higher non-white populations are Master Race Central.
Good article here, surprising not paywalled
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27515-x
He also used to have one of those General Strike Union Man moustaches. He shaved it off and now looks about 19.
Not sure what the problem is plebs give the bus driver a fiver and gets £2 change
His people, if we can call them that, are far more likely to use buses
And who thought announcing this three days before the actual Budget was a good comms strategy?
Much more of this and I will start to think @Leon is correct which would never do.
I don't think it necessarily make you a racist if you mourned this, and nor does any one race have more value than another, but I don't share the worries that it will fundamentally change Britain because I think all those people will adopt the values of the prevailing culture, including their heritage and traditions as Eric Kaufmann argues in "Whiteshift". Bit would I miss the blondes? Yes, I would.
[Having said that, it's not irrevocable either - over tens of thousands of years pigmentation would tend to lighten again because it will have to in order to get enough vitamin D, recognising that evolution will be much much slower in an advanced society where far more people survive. If we decide to actually try to have kids, that is.]
I mean that’s what I do - found the servants to the servants hall were waiting for a bus to their accommodation down by the village. So I got the second assistant butler to use his third and fourth best Rolls Royces to ferry them home. Give him a fee for the job and depreciation, of course. Obviously, he gets a couple of the trainee footmen to do the actual driving.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y5d87zjxdo
'Twas a bit coruscating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27wWRszlZWU
Even if we accept that it's necessary, it comes under the heading of "regrettable, but necessary." So why give it prominence by announcing it in advance?
We often hold cocktail parties on the top deck of the H91. Only the best people etc….
All employers will work on a M-factor they have to multiply anyone's salary by to calculate what that person needs to make "per head" for them to break even within their business model so their employment makes sense.
I've seen these range from 1.4 to 2.8 depending on overheads and how big the firm is, but no doubt some go higher.
but save 55 minutes extra travel
Humans are overtuned to identify patterns, and often overdo it.
This is exactly why he and the rest of the New Labour press operation were so obsessive about messaging grids and packaging releases of information.
Spoke to two more on the phone.
Business activity levels here are off the scale.
Will let you know what dinner at their palaces is like...
Better sausages are ahead, says SKS.
Jewish Londoners clearly feel under threat and in this provincial bumpkin's mind it was extremely weird to hear the Mayor of London presage his remarks following the acquittal of Martyn Blake with his sympathies for Chris Kaba's family. The family that did everything they could to make sure his like of violence and thuggery remained unknown to the public. I'm not aware if Khan has offered any public sympathy for an officer who has gone through two years of hell and may now be in hiding.
Others, however...
When's he resigning then?
Of course we don't know what the fella is saying to the MP but it looks like a pretty much unprovoked assault?
A friend had her bike stolen. The bike was lo-jacked in about seven different ways. Not going reveal all of them - some were her custom ideas (works in IT). Sufice it to say, location was just the first thing.
When she reported this to the police, she showed them what she had on her laptop on the bike. And got told that having that much information on the thieves was dodgy!
Although he could neither define a worker or recall what a bus is.
With artistic points for style -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h09ydGGsh28
Not sure she's that keen in me being into others.
House burgaled....have a crime number
Car broken into.... have a crime number
Car stolen....have a crime number
Misgendering someone on twitter...there will be 6 of us round right now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIm5SplyGGc
Matt Goodwin"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeyayUkNR5M
To be fair, he has done a lot to raise awareness of antisocial behaviour.
Some sort of bus fare subsidy is probably a good thing- though a model where most of the benefit goes to super-long leisure journeys (Bedford to Oxford or Leeds to Scarborough) could do with some fine-tuning.
But when (non-investment) government spending exceeded income by about £700 per person last year, some pretty shitty decisions have to be taken. And the person revealing the shit isn't the one who produced it.
We ain't seen nothing yet. And whilst the ornamentation might have been different had Claire Couthino been doing the Autumn budget, the big picture would have been similar.
That said, I love any kind of head when it comes to women.
2024: 1.4 million
2019: 1.8 million
2017: 2.1 million
Four serving and three former officers face disciplinary charges over claims that they looked at confidential information about the murdered Londoner
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/sarah-everard-met-police-x-rays-r6mrlr3bl
Labour has brought in a £3 cap for 2025.
And this is apparently a bad thing.
Loads of folk who never catch a bus manning the barricades.
A number of countries, including the US the UK and Germany, have expressed serious concern about the move.
Progressive activists should be careful what they wish for
Simon Cottee"
https://unherd.com/2024/10/the-dangerous-martyrdom-of-tommy-robinson/
The shock comic who opened for Trump at MSG was planning to call Harris a "c*nt" in his set. It got flagged by the campaign.
https://x.com/samstein/status/1850985272256966820
Then Labour mayors persuaded the Tories to introduce a maximum £2 single so £5.50 became £4
Now SKS has made the political choice to impose a 50% increase
I have a free bus pass now but its not the point.
Working people expected to find an extra £520 a year to get to work is definitely a bad thing
Only warped Centrist logic would conclude otherwise.
2024: 685,082
2019: 1,205,127
2017: 1,268,800
🔵 Harris 54% (+12)
🔴 Trump 42%
Siena #A - LV - 10/26
https://x.com/PpollingNumbers/status/1850866044212011194
The Conservatives don't need to win most seats in London anymore than Labour need to win most seats in rural areas. If either do it is an absolute landslide anyway