US economy shrank in the first three months of 2025, contracting by an annualised rate of 0.3 percent, after nearly three years of solid growth, as tariff-related uncertainty undermines spending/investment and raises fears of impending recession.
US economy shrank in the first three months of 2025, contracting by an annualised rate of 0.3 percent, after nearly three years of solid growth, as tariff-related uncertainty undermines spending/investment and raises fears of impending recession.
Actually Tony Blair shows how lots of money from Saudi Arabia to his institute leads to a conclusion we need more fossil fuels.
Nah, I think that's a conspiracy theory. A fair few people are quizzing if this is possible, now, or if we're just fruitlessly beggaring ourselves.
The catch with that question is that solar/wind/battery are cheaper than fossil fuels + CCS right now and have the massive advantage of already existing at scale. The price factor has changed a lot in recent years, as OGH Jr points out; and lots of people haven't noticed yet.
The main downside is the balance of initial and ongoing costs. Gas is like an inkjet printer; cheap upfront but expensive to run (which is why it's OK to keep them as backup for a few days a year). Renewable + storage is a laser printer- more expensive upfront, but cheaper over the lifetime.
Getting that sort of decision right is something humans find hard and British humans almost impossible. Hence the scrambling by some for other reasons not to do this.
Sorry but that is simply not true. The strike price of gas is artificially elevated by being on constant stop start due to the intermittency of shite renewables of the type you describe. You don't do your side any favours when you speciously omit key facts because the don't support 'the transition'.
Are you saying if we used more gas the gas would be cheaper?
I am saying that if we used gas consistently it would be cheaper. The cost of constantly restarting gas plants is high, and that cost is placed artificially on the strike price of gas.
If we got rid of "shite renewables" we'd have to produce that electricity in another way. Suggestions?
Also - do you have a citation for how much restarting gas plants adds to the cost of gas?
Dependable renewables like tidal. SMR nuclear. UK produced oil, gas, and potentially coal. And ensure that unreliable intermittent sources (which are a feature now whether I would like it or not) are incentivised to store energy to even out their supply.
No, I don't have prices figures on what percent of the gas price is due to renewable intermittency, but I will try to get some later.
Nuclear is unreliably intermittent...
"The outages of four reactors - two at Heysham and two in Hartlepool - were unplanned, prompted by a part failure in the boiler pipework at Heysham 1 in Lancashire."
I'm in favour of nuclear. I'm in favour of O&G. I'm in favour of renewables. We need a mix, not one thing, all working together to get us security of supply.
And O&G does *not* give us security of supply, and AIUI will automagically not even if we maximise North Sea output. And the thought of going back to coal is laughable.
Large nuclear plants going offline is going to cause an issue (though it's nothing like as intermittent as wind or solar). Many more smaller SMR stations would provide a far more even supply not affected catastrophically by outages (would be my surmise). We need to pivot toward SMRs and away from costly too-big-to-fail nuclear projects with France and China.
I agree we need a mix.
I disagree. There are huge reserves in the North Sea - we need to properly incentivise getting it out. We also need to progress with fracking.
Coal is not 'laughable' when the world's biggest industrial economy is opening coal stations at a rate of knots to supply our windmills. And when even Germany has added more coal to its mix. Neither have particularly laughable approaches to their needs. The only laughable energy policy is our energy policy.
Coal is laughable for a number of reasons: We have zero mines, and they are massively costly to open (and controversial...) we have zero coal-fire power stations left. We have zero coal-handling infrastructure left (even the old MGR trains...)
I'd strongly argue that money spent correcting these would be much better spent elsewhere; even nuclear.
But my main reason is environmental, but not the gasses. I was born and raised a couple of miles from a large coal-fired power station, and it was impossible to hang washing out if the wind was blowing from that direction, as it would get covered in particles from the coal burning. IMV one of the best pieces of post-war legislation were the various clean air acts, and burning coal - even in power stations - is bad for air quality. (*)
You appear to hate renewables; but going back to coal would be the worst of all worlds.
(*) Orders of magnitude more radiation is released into the environment from burning coal than from nuclear power stations, for the same power generated...
Things not existing doesn't make them laughable - otherwise anything new would be laughable. There was a big plan for a large clean coal power station 15 years or so ago. Alec Salmond was interested for Scotland.
Clearly I don't hate renewables, because tidal is included in my list. I hate undependable, intermittent, and unsuitable renewables whose primary purpose is to farm subsidies.
Tidal is predictable. It's still super intermittent; you have slack tides that change time during the week, and the difference in generation between a spring and neap tide is over 50%. There is very little scope for storage even with lagoons, and utilising the Severn estuary to its full extent would only generate about 10 GW.
To put that into perspective, Scotland alone currently has nearly 50 GW of renewables operating, under construction or in planning. Only 5% of UK households have solar, yet we're generating 12 GW right now.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
It's worse than that. It's a way of using immigrants as a human shield and exploiting people's fear of being accused of racism.
It's easy to see how ridiculous the argument is if you apply it to some other question:
- I think we have too much private debt. - So you're saying that borrowers are the source of all the problems? Why do you hate borrowers?
What a load of old nonsense. Good analogy, shame it doesn't really apply.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
For Callaghan and Sunak, you can make a case that they were doomed fag-end PMs, who had a pretty bad hand dealt to them by their predecessors. You can say that maybe in other circumstances would've been quite effective PMs, but never really had the chance to show their stuff. Eden was author of his own downfall, but again barely had his feet under the table before he had to go. We'll never really know what any of them would have done if they'd had a real run at being PM - we can debate the counterfactual, but the fact is they were gone in the blink of an eye.
But Baldwin was party leader for 14 years and PM for more than half of that time. He was the dominant figure of the era, and had plenty of time to show his abilities. Indeed, he's generally ranked reasonably highly by modern historians (perhaps more as a politician shaping Tory dominance for much of the 20th century than as a statesman, but still). His record is obviously overshadowed by the issue of what more he could and should have done in the long run up to war, but he's hardly an underrated, forgotten man. He's got a substantial, if mixed, record.
US economy shrank in the first three months of 2025, contracting by an annualised rate of 0.3 percent, after nearly three years of solid growth, as tariff-related uncertainty undermines spending/investment and raises fears of impending recession.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
US economy shrank in the first three months of 2025, contracting by an annualised rate of 0.3 percent, after nearly three years of solid growth, as tariff-related uncertainty undermines spending/investment and raises fears of impending recession.
And this is only the anticipation of tariffs not the application of them. In a sane country the Trump crime family would be on the hook for the damage they are doing.
US economy shrank in the first three months of 2025, contracting by an annualised rate of 0.3 percent, after nearly three years of solid growth, as tariff-related uncertainty undermines spending/investment and raises fears of impending recession.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
I wonder whether the only way to resolve this argument is to give the Ultras what they want. Announce a moratorium on immigration for say 2 years, No Immigration At All, and use the time to clear the entire backlog, reduce the pressure on housing and identify those areas where we really do need immigration.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
Even I don't think we should have zero immigration - that's unworkable for lots of reasons.
However, the country is fundamentally full. We're building houses at an astonishing pace, the infrastructure is creaking at the seams, and we're not even keeping up with the growth in demand driven by immigration alone. We already have too many people for the country to remain a pleasant place to live, so we should stop adding more.
The fix? We should have an net zero immigration rule - for simplicity we permit in as a maximum, the number of people who left the year before. The best part of half a million people left last year, so it's not like we won't have many spaces available.
We then prioritise for visas relatives/partners of British citizens, probably once they've been British citizens for a minimum qualifying period (say 15 years) to make it really difficult to game the system by immigrating, aquiring citizenship and then importing your extended family.
And then we should auction the remaining visas to the highest bidder, with a substantial price floor (£50k?). If your business really needs someone high value to come from abroad, you'll pay. But it won't be worth it to import Deliveroo Drivers.
Oh and the students, before people raise that boggieman. Take them out of the system, and the numbers, but three conditions. 1) No dependants 2) The cannot work or access social security 3) There is no route for them to remain once their course is finished other than bidding for visas like everyone else.
None of this is hard to do. Yes, there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth from those whose business model is run on cheap imported labour, or who expect a McDonald's delivered in 5 mins at and time of the day or night - but tough. We're currently running an immigration ponzi scheme. It always hurts to drop out of one, but the longer you stay in, the worse the pain when it finally ends.
I tend to start talking enthusiastically about the causes I take an interest in while expressing delight that their cause is so close to their heart and explaining that I am already fully committed and reconsider those commitments annually. The moment you try to engage them in your cause and not their's they lose interest in you. It usually takes only seconds for them to switch off.
I'll offer to take a leaflet with donation details explaining that I have a budget and existing donations, which I'm happy to review, but will not make a decision there and then. Any volunteer genuinely enthused with the charity will oblige (and this has happened - one, a local wildlife charity, I then did support) while those doing it simply for the sign-up commission will not.
I've no objection to people doing this as a job, but if you want to support a charity it's far better to donate directly rather than via the chugger, whose commission might wipe out much or all of your first year's donation.
ETA: I normally deal politely with door-knockers, even canvassers The one exception recently was some fibre broadband sellers who rang the doorbell, causing me to break off from a meeting, and then immediately headed off down the drive and to the next house. Then they came back later. I wasn't very polite!
Chris Philp of the "Free Speech" Party demands a say in who plays Glastonbury.
I assume this is in relation to Kneecap?
If so, keep in mind, free speech, yes. But incitement to violence has always been a criminal offence and remains so.
Frankly, after allegedly saying ""kill your local MP" and "the only good Tory is a dead Tory" , Kneecap will be getting away lightly if they only get cancelled from Glasto.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
The problem is that they say this: We urgently need the risk from water near to active travel routes to be recognised, assessed and appropriately mitigated.
Realistically, you can't fence off 1,000s of miles of waterside pathways and it would ruin the benefit for a lot of people of going there.
The thing you could do is increase swimming lessons (do schools still offer these)? It says 15% of drownings are related to alcohol, but then 85% are not.
US economy shrank in the first three months of 2025, contracting by an annualised rate of 0.3 percent, after nearly three years of solid growth, as tariff-related uncertainty undermines spending/investment and raises fears of impending recession.
Actually Tony Blair shows how lots of money from Saudi Arabia to his institute leads to a conclusion we need more fossil fuels.
Nah, I think that's a conspiracy theory. A fair few people are quizzing if this is possible, now, or if we're just fruitlessly beggaring ourselves.
The catch with that question is that solar/wind/battery are cheaper than fossil fuels + CCS right now and have the massive advantage of already existing at scale. The price factor has changed a lot in recent years, as OGH Jr points out; and lots of people haven't noticed yet.
The main downside is the balance of initial and ongoing costs. Gas is like an inkjet printer; cheap upfront but expensive to run (which is why it's OK to keep them as backup for a few days a year). Renewable + storage is a laser printer- more expensive upfront, but cheaper over the lifetime.
Getting that sort of decision right is something humans find hard and British humans almost impossible. Hence the scrambling by some for other reasons not to do this.
Sorry but that is simply not true. The strike price of gas is artificially elevated by being on constant stop start due to the intermittency of shite renewables of the type you describe. You don't do your side any favours when you speciously omit key facts because the don't support 'the transition'.
Are you saying if we used more gas the gas would be cheaper?
I am saying that if we used gas consistently it would be cheaper. The cost of constantly restarting gas plants is high, and that cost is placed artificially on the strike price of gas.
If we got rid of "shite renewables" we'd have to produce that electricity in another way. Suggestions?
Also - do you have a citation for how much restarting gas plants adds to the cost of gas?
Dependable renewables like tidal. SMR nuclear. UK produced oil, gas, and potentially coal. And ensure that unreliable intermittent sources (which are a feature now whether I would like it or not) are incentivised to store energy to even out their supply.
No, I don't have prices figures on what percent of the gas price is due to renewable intermittency, but I will try to get some later.
Nuclear is unreliably intermittent...
"The outages of four reactors - two at Heysham and two in Hartlepool - were unplanned, prompted by a part failure in the boiler pipework at Heysham 1 in Lancashire."
I'm in favour of nuclear. I'm in favour of O&G. I'm in favour of renewables. We need a mix, not one thing, all working together to get us security of supply.
And O&G does *not* give us security of supply, and AIUI will automagically not even if we maximise North Sea output. And the thought of going back to coal is laughable.
Large nuclear plants going offline is going to cause an issue (though it's nothing like as intermittent as wind or solar). Many more smaller SMR stations would provide a far more even supply not affected catastrophically by outages (would be my surmise). We need to pivot toward SMRs and away from costly too-big-to-fail nuclear projects with France and China.
I agree we need a mix.
I disagree. There are huge reserves in the North Sea - we need to properly incentivise getting it out. We also need to progress with fracking.
Coal is not 'laughable' when the world's biggest industrial economy is opening coal stations at a rate of knots to supply our windmills. And when even Germany has added more coal to its mix. Neither have particularly laughable approaches to their needs. The only laughable energy policy is our energy policy.
Coal is laughable for a number of reasons: We have zero mines, and they are massively costly to open (and controversial...) we have zero coal-fire power stations left. We have zero coal-handling infrastructure left (even the old MGR trains...)
I'd strongly argue that money spent correcting these would be much better spent elsewhere; even nuclear.
But my main reason is environmental, but not the gasses. I was born and raised a couple of miles from a large coal-fired power station, and it was impossible to hang washing out if the wind was blowing from that direction, as it would get covered in particles from the coal burning. IMV one of the best pieces of post-war legislation were the various clean air acts, and burning coal - even in power stations - is bad for air quality. (*)
You appear to hate renewables; but going back to coal would be the worst of all worlds.
(*) Orders of magnitude more radiation is released into the environment from burning coal than from nuclear power stations, for the same power generated...
I think coal could make sense as a strategic reserve. Get a pile of the stuff and never use it except in an emergency.
Not impressed with the Tony Blair Institute report incidentally. His starting point is that net zero is perceived by the public as unaffordable whereas the starting for any policy should be what makes sense in own terms and look to convince the public of the merits. Actually there's potential for a lot of cheap renewable energy - particularly solar - before you hit practical limits, so why not focus on that, rather than worrying about whether we get to 100% or 70% when current figures are less than 20% worldwide I think?
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
I fear a lot of those are likely to be suicides. There are about 7,000 suicides a year in the UK, and about 5% of them being by jumping into rivers is not implausible.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
Well my mate won’t walk by water alone as he has had fits in the past and if he had one by water he’s a goner if he falls in.
WH Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to NY Post: "The president has devoted 100 days and his very top people to Russia and Ukraine, and if peace is not achieved, it will be because it can’t be achieved. It just cannot."
Actually Tony Blair shows how lots of money from Saudi Arabia to his institute leads to a conclusion we need more fossil fuels.
Nah, I think that's a conspiracy theory. A fair few people are quizzing if this is possible, now, or if we're just fruitlessly beggaring ourselves.
The catch with that question is that solar/wind/battery are cheaper than fossil fuels + CCS right now and have the massive advantage of already existing at scale. The price factor has changed a lot in recent years, as OGH Jr points out; and lots of people haven't noticed yet.
The main downside is the balance of initial and ongoing costs. Gas is like an inkjet printer; cheap upfront but expensive to run (which is why it's OK to keep them as backup for a few days a year). Renewable + storage is a laser printer- more expensive upfront, but cheaper over the lifetime.
Getting that sort of decision right is something humans find hard and British humans almost impossible. Hence the scrambling by some for other reasons not to do this.
Sorry but that is simply not true. The strike price of gas is artificially elevated by being on constant stop start due to the intermittency of shite renewables of the type you describe. You don't do your side any favours when you speciously omit key facts because the don't support 'the transition'.
Are you saying if we used more gas the gas would be cheaper?
I am saying that if we used gas consistently it would be cheaper. The cost of constantly restarting gas plants is high, and that cost is placed artificially on the strike price of gas.
If we got rid of "shite renewables" we'd have to produce that electricity in another way. Suggestions?
Also - do you have a citation for how much restarting gas plants adds to the cost of gas?
Dependable renewables like tidal. SMR nuclear. UK produced oil, gas, and potentially coal. And ensure that unreliable intermittent sources (which are a feature now whether I would like it or not) are incentivised to store energy to even out their supply.
No, I don't have prices figures on what percent of the gas price is due to renewable intermittency, but I will try to get some later.
Nuclear is unreliably intermittent...
"The outages of four reactors - two at Heysham and two in Hartlepool - were unplanned, prompted by a part failure in the boiler pipework at Heysham 1 in Lancashire."
I'm in favour of nuclear. I'm in favour of O&G. I'm in favour of renewables. We need a mix, not one thing, all working together to get us security of supply.
And O&G does *not* give us security of supply, and AIUI will automagically not even if we maximise North Sea output. And the thought of going back to coal is laughable.
Large nuclear plants going offline is going to cause an issue (though it's nothing like as intermittent as wind or solar). Many more smaller SMR stations would provide a far more even supply not affected catastrophically by outages (would be my surmise). We need to pivot toward SMRs and away from costly too-big-to-fail nuclear projects with France and China.
I agree we need a mix.
I disagree. There are huge reserves in the North Sea - we need to properly incentivise getting it out. We also need to progress with fracking.
Coal is not 'laughable' when the world's biggest industrial economy is opening coal stations at a rate of knots to supply our windmills. And when even Germany has added more coal to its mix. Neither have particularly laughable approaches to their needs. The only laughable energy policy is our energy policy.
Coal is laughable for a number of reasons: We have zero mines, and they are massively costly to open (and controversial...) we have zero coal-fire power stations left. We have zero coal-handling infrastructure left (even the old MGR trains...)
I'd strongly argue that money spent correcting these would be much better spent elsewhere; even nuclear.
But my main reason is environmental, but not the gasses. I was born and raised a couple of miles from a large coal-fired power station, and it was impossible to hang washing out if the wind was blowing from that direction, as it would get covered in particles from the coal burning. IMV one of the best pieces of post-war legislation were the various clean air acts, and burning coal - even in power stations - is bad for air quality. (*)
You appear to hate renewables; but going back to coal would be the worst of all worlds.
(*) Orders of magnitude more radiation is released into the environment from burning coal than from nuclear power stations, for the same power generated...
I think coal could make sense as a strategic reserve. Get a pile of the stuff and never use it except in an emergency.
Not impressed with the Tony Blair Institute report incidentally. His starting point is that net zero is perceived by the public as unaffordable whereas the starting for any policy should be what makes sense in own terms and look to convince the public of the merits. Actually there's potential for a lot of cheap renewable energy - particularly solar - before you hit practical limits, so why not focus on that, rather than worrying about whether we get to 100% or 70% when current figures are less than 20% worldwide I think?
In a push can these big waste to energy incinerators run on coal?
US economy shrank in the first three months of 2025, contracting by an annualised rate of 0.3 percent, after nearly three years of solid growth, as tariff-related uncertainty undermines spending/investment and raises fears of impending recession.
Sorry, when you said another I thought you meant more than one. Or do you just want to select the odd days where the market falls back and harp on about them ?
And the futures reverse we are seeing is not exactly brutal. The markets have just had several days of growth. Funny no one was speaking about that. Markets go up and down.
It doesn’t matter what it does short term and if people get stressed by short term movements they shouldn’t be in it
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
Pissed?
In York (and elsewhere) the various universities have lost a few students into the Ouse after drunken nights out.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
I wonder whether the only way to resolve this argument is to give the Ultras what they want. Announce a moratorium on immigration for say 2 years, No Immigration At All, and use the time to clear the entire backlog, reduce the pressure on housing and identify those areas where we really do need immigration.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
The key factor is that we need to have a controlled immigration system rather than an uncontrolled shambles.
Let's say we had a system where each year we issue 100,000 economic visas to the sectors most in need of workers using a points-based system AND we issue 10,000 asylum visas focusing on families in refugee camps who are most in need AND x'000 student visas AND 1,000 golden visas for wealthy entrepreneurs. And let's say we can deport anyone who commits a serious crime or overstays, while we give people the chance to apply for citizenship if they work hard and contribute. I think most reasonable people wouldn't have a problem with that.
The issue is we have uncontrolled migration using small boats, consisting of young men who are claiming asylum but are not the most in need, but who would also be unlikely to qualify using a points-based system. Stop the boats and a lot of the anxiety around immigration would diminish.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
I wonder whether the only way to resolve this argument is to give the Ultras what they want. Announce a moratorium on immigration for say 2 years, No Immigration At All, and use the time to clear the entire backlog, reduce the pressure on housing and identify those areas where we really do need immigration.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
Even I don't think we should have zero immigration - that's unworkable for lots of reasons.
However, the country is fundamentally full. We're building houses at an astonishing pace, the infrastructure is creaking at the seams, and we're not even keeping up with the growth in demand driven by immigration alone. We already have too many people for the country to remain a pleasant place to live, so we should stop adding more.
The fix? We should have an net zero immigration rule - for simplicity we permit in as a maximum, the number of people who left the year before. The best part of half a million people left last year, so it's not like we won't have many spaces available.
We then prioritise for visas relatives/partners of British citizens, probably once they've been British citizens for a minimum qualifying period (say 15 years) to make it really difficult to game the system by immigrating, aquiring citizenship and then importing your extended family.
And then we should auction the remaining visas to the highest bidder, with a substantial price floor (£50k?). If your business really needs someone high value to come from abroad, you'll pay. But it won't be worth it to import Deliveroo Drivers.
Oh and the students, before people raise that boggieman. Take them out of the system, and the numbers, but three conditions. 1) No dependants 2) The cannot work or access social security 3) There is no route for them to remain once their course is finished other than bidding for visas like everyone else.
None of this is hard to do. Yes, there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth from those whose business model is run on cheap imported labour, or who expect a McDonald's delivered in 5 mins at and time of the day or night - but tough. We're currently running an immigration ponzi scheme. It always hurts to drop out of one, but the longer you stay in, the worse the pain when it finally ends.
Thanks for responding, and I did realise you weren't personally advocating zero immigration. In fact you're probably right to go for net zero as absolute zero would be impossible, and I suspect it would be restrictive enough to flush out all the issues quickly.
That also takes students out of the equation, as they should be one out one in. And we probably have to take some asylum seekers but not necessarily arrivals by boat.
I also wonder whether sponsors should be on the hook for visa overstayers? If you recruit someone you should guarantee that they leave at the end of their term. If you don't trust them enough for that, you shouldn't employ them, surely?
I'm not saying personally I advocate any of this but am just trying to think through what a policy might look like.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
I fear a lot of those are likely to be suicides. There are about 7,000 suicides a year in the UK, and about 5% of them being by jumping into rivers is not implausible.
So being pedantic - is that not a water related activity!? Clearly you wouldn't want to put that down...
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
Pissed?
In York (and elsewhere) the various universities have lost a few students into the Ouse after drunken nights out.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
Pissed?
In York (and elsewhere) the various universities have lost a few students into the Ouse after drunken nights out.
The seaside Unis are the same. Ultimately it's the cost of being in the freedom of choice business.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
Pissed?
In York (and elsewhere) the various universities have lost a few students into the Ouse after drunken nights out.
The seaside Unis are the same. Ultimately it's the cost of being in the freedom of choice business.
Durham had the problem for a few years it's taken a lot of efforts from a lot of different groups to resolve it.
WH Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to NY Post: "The president has devoted 100 days and his very top people to Russia and Ukraine, and if peace is not achieved, it will be because it can’t be achieved. It just cannot."
Chris Philp of the "Free Speech" Party demands a say in who plays Glastonbury.
I assume this is in relation to Kneecap?
If so, keep in mind, free speech, yes. But incitement to violence has always been a criminal offence and remains so.
Frankly, after allegedly saying ""kill your local MP" and "the only good Tory is a dead Tory" , Kneecap will be getting away lightly if they only get cancelled from Glasto.
Incitement is an old law but I believe (and I don't have expertise in this) that there was quite an important change under the last Labour Government in terms of moving from intention to recklessness as the mens rea.
"Kill your local MP" is a bloody stupid thing to say, but it's incredibly hard to show the person saying it intends for the hearer to act on it, rather than it being hyperbole, showing off, misguided humour, and/or general idiocy. You might well get there if the incitement was a meeting with a hitman, but it'd be nigh on impossible for a stage performance.
It's easier - although still not easy - with recklessness as the judge/jury doesn't need to mindread (it's sufficient that the reasonable person would have heard it as a genuine invitation to commit murder - so objective rather than subjective).
Chris Philp of the "Free Speech" Party demands a say in who plays Glastonbury.
He’s not trying to deprive them of free speech. They have a right to that. They do not have a right to a platform. As they have supported terrorist groups and called for people to kill Tory MPs like Chris Philp, I think he has a point. Especially as one of his former colleagues was murdered.
WH Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to NY Post: "The president has devoted 100 days and his very top people to Russia and Ukraine, and if peace is not achieved, it will be because it can’t be achieved. It just cannot."
“I will settle the war in Ukraine before I even take office; I’ll settle it as president-elect. I met with President Zelensky the other day. I know President Putin very well. I’ll get it settled.”
Let's be frank. If someone had been elected in November 2024 promising to tip the US into negative growth in Q1, handicapped severely by the fact he wasn't in charge for the first three weeks, we'd have quite rightly castigated them for their outrageous promises, impossible to keep. President Trump truly is exceptional.
Chris Philp of the "Free Speech" Party demands a say in who plays Glastonbury.
I assume this is in relation to Kneecap?
If so, keep in mind, free speech, yes. But incitement to violence has always been a criminal offence and remains so.
Frankly, after allegedly saying ""kill your local MP" and "the only good Tory is a dead Tory" , Kneecap will be getting away lightly if they only get cancelled from Glasto.
Incitement is an old law but I believe (and I don't have expertise in this) that there was quite an important change under the last Labour Government in terms of moving from intention to recklessness as the mens rea.
"Kill your local MP" is a bloody stupid thing to say, but it's incredibly hard to show the person saying it intends for the hearer to act on it, rather than it being hyperbole, showing off, misguided humour, and/or general idiocy. You might well get there if the incitement was a meeting with a hitman, but it'd be nigh on impossible for a stage performance.
It's easier - although still not easy - with recklessness as the judge/jury doesn't need to mindread (it's sufficient that the reasonable person would have heard it as a genuine invitation to commit murder - so objective rather than subjective).
Hmm, I don't recall the same arguments being made in mitigation when people were imprisoned for what they tweeted during the unrest last year.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
I fear a lot of those are likely to be suicides. There are about 7,000 suicides a year in the UK, and about 5% of them being by jumping into rivers is not implausible.
So being pedantic - is that not a water related activity!? Clearly you wouldn't want to put that down...
Not really, no. If you're going sailing or swimming, that's "water related" because your objective is to do a thing that by definition involves water and is therefore inherently water related. If you're commiting suicide, your objective is to end your life, which can be done in a number of ways, many of them not involving water.
Q1 had an import surge to get ahead of tariffs which apparently depresses GDP, something you'd not expect that to be repeated in Q2. Q2's numbers are very important I think now.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
Pissed?
In York (and elsewhere) the various universities have lost a few students into the Ouse after drunken nights out.
The seaside Unis are the same. Ultimately it's the cost of being in the freedom of choice business.
Durham had the problem for a few years it's taken a lot of efforts from a lot of different groups to resolve it.
You’re right. I remember years ago when I moved here there were always stories about it.
Mind you don’t people drink a lot less now anyway so that helps.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
Pissed?
In York (and elsewhere) the various universities have lost a few students into the Ouse after drunken nights out.
The seaside Unis are the same. Ultimately it's the cost of being in the freedom of choice business.
Durham had the problem for a few years it's taken a lot of efforts from a lot of different groups to resolve it.
You’re right. I remember years ago when I moved here there were always stories about it.
Mind you don’t people drink a lot less now anyway so that helps.
I think this is true. The Uni students at Bath are unrecognisable from those I knew 30 years ago (gulp) at Warwick.
Let's be frank. If someone had been elected in November 2024 promising to tip the US into negative growth in Q1, handicapped severely by the fact he wasn't in charge for the first three weeks, we'd have quite rightly castigated them for their outrageous promises, impossible to keep. President Trump truly is exceptional.
Chris Philp of the "Free Speech" Party demands a say in who plays Glastonbury.
I assume this is in relation to Kneecap?
If so, keep in mind, free speech, yes. But incitement to violence has always been a criminal offence and remains so.
Frankly, after allegedly saying ""kill your local MP" and "the only good Tory is a dead Tory" , Kneecap will be getting away lightly if they only get cancelled from Glasto.
Incitement is an old law but I believe (and I don't have expertise in this) that there was quite an important change under the last Labour Government in terms of moving from intention to recklessness as the mens rea.
"Kill your local MP" is a bloody stupid thing to say, but it's incredibly hard to show the person saying it intends for the hearer to act on it, rather than it being hyperbole, showing off, misguided humour, and/or general idiocy. You might well get there if the incitement was a meeting with a hitman, but it'd be nigh on impossible for a stage performance.
It's easier - although still not easy - with recklessness as the judge/jury doesn't need to mindread (it's sufficient that the reasonable person would have heard it as a genuine invitation to commit murder - so objective rather than subjective).
Hmm, I don't recall the same arguments being made in mitigation when people were imprisoned for what they tweeted during the unrest last year.
Well no, because the law was changed in the noughties as I said. I agree they may well have been in a better position had they had the foresight to have tweeted before Twitter existed.
Actually Tony Blair shows how lots of money from Saudi Arabia to his institute leads to a conclusion we need more fossil fuels.
Nah, I think that's a conspiracy theory. A fair few people are quizzing if this is possible, now, or if we're just fruitlessly beggaring ourselves.
The catch with that question is that solar/wind/battery are cheaper than fossil fuels + CCS right now and have the massive advantage of already existing at scale. The price factor has changed a lot in recent years, as OGH Jr points out; and lots of people haven't noticed yet.
The main downside is the balance of initial and ongoing costs. Gas is like an inkjet printer; cheap upfront but expensive to run (which is why it's OK to keep them as backup for a few days a year). Renewable + storage is a laser printer- more expensive upfront, but cheaper over the lifetime.
Getting that sort of decision right is something humans find hard and British humans almost impossible. Hence the scrambling by some for other reasons not to do this.
Sorry but that is simply not true. The strike price of gas is artificially elevated by being on constant stop start due to the intermittency of shite renewables of the type you describe. You don't do your side any favours when you speciously omit key facts because the don't support 'the transition'.
Are you saying if we used more gas the gas would be cheaper?
I am saying that if we used gas consistently it would be cheaper. The cost of constantly restarting gas plants is high, and that cost is placed artificially on the strike price of gas.
If we got rid of "shite renewables" we'd have to produce that electricity in another way. Suggestions?
Also - do you have a citation for how much restarting gas plants adds to the cost of gas?
Dependable renewables like tidal. SMR nuclear. UK produced oil, gas, and potentially coal. And ensure that unreliable intermittent sources (which are a feature now whether I would like it or not) are incentivised to store energy to even out their supply.
No, I don't have prices figures on what percent of the gas price is due to renewable intermittency, but I will try to get some later.
Nuclear is unreliably intermittent...
"The outages of four reactors - two at Heysham and two in Hartlepool - were unplanned, prompted by a part failure in the boiler pipework at Heysham 1 in Lancashire."
I'm in favour of nuclear. I'm in favour of O&G. I'm in favour of renewables. We need a mix, not one thing, all working together to get us security of supply.
And O&G does *not* give us security of supply, and AIUI will automagically not even if we maximise North Sea output. And the thought of going back to coal is laughable.
Large nuclear plants going offline is going to cause an issue (though it's nothing like as intermittent as wind or solar). Many more smaller SMR stations would provide a far more even supply not affected catastrophically by outages (would be my surmise). We need to pivot toward SMRs and away from costly too-big-to-fail nuclear projects with France and China.
I agree we need a mix.
I disagree. There are huge reserves in the North Sea - we need to properly incentivise getting it out. We also need to progress with fracking.
Coal is not 'laughable' when the world's biggest industrial economy is opening coal stations at a rate of knots to supply our windmills. And when even Germany has added more coal to its mix. Neither have particularly laughable approaches to their needs. The only laughable energy policy is our energy policy.
Coal is laughable for a number of reasons: We have zero mines, and they are massively costly to open (and controversial...) we have zero coal-fire power stations left. We have zero coal-handling infrastructure left (even the old MGR trains...)
I'd strongly argue that money spent correcting these would be much better spent elsewhere; even nuclear.
But my main reason is environmental, but not the gasses. I was born and raised a couple of miles from a large coal-fired power station, and it was impossible to hang washing out if the wind was blowing from that direction, as it would get covered in particles from the coal burning. IMV one of the best pieces of post-war legislation were the various clean air acts, and burning coal - even in power stations - is bad for air quality. (*)
You appear to hate renewables; but going back to coal would be the worst of all worlds.
(*) Orders of magnitude more radiation is released into the environment from burning coal than from nuclear power stations, for the same power generated...
Things not existing doesn't make them laughable - otherwise anything new would be laughable. There was a big plan for a large clean coal power station 15 years or so ago. Alec Salmond was interested for Scotland.
Clearly I don't hate renewables, because tidal is included in my list. I hate undependable, intermittent, and unsuitable renewables whose primary purpose is to farm subsidies.
It does make it laughable when it's a massively regressive step.
As doe the idea of 'clean' coal: when I last looked into it, that was a myth. Can you point to a coal power plant, particularly a large one, anywhere in the world that has fewer emissions than a typical CCGT?
Well my mate won’t walk by water alone as he has had fits in the past and if he had one by water he’s a goner if he falls in.
I saw someone have an episode on the Metro platform at Longbenton Station. he fell onto the tracks
At least they’re not electrified there. Harrowing all the same. My mate said he’d walk by water if someone was with him, we walked back via some canals in Brum after the game. If he’d fell in I wouldn’t fancy going in the water of a canal in Birmingham city centre.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
I fear a lot of those are likely to be suicides. There are about 7,000 suicides a year in the UK, and about 5% of them being by jumping into rivers is not implausible.
So being pedantic - is that not a water related activity!? Clearly you wouldn't want to put that down...
Not really, no. If you're going sailing or swimming, that's "water related" because your objective is to do a thing that by definition involves water and is therefore inherently water related. If you're commiting suicide, your objective is to end your life, which can be done in a number of ways, many of them not involving water.
I'm mostly joking (about a grim subject) but if the activity is to drown oneself, then it is water related
But I DO understand why they are being coy about the stats.
Well my mate won’t walk by water alone as he has had fits in the past and if he had one by water he’s a goner if he falls in.
I saw someone have an episode on the Metro platform at Longbenton Station. he fell onto the tracks
At least they’re not electrified there. Harrowing all the same. My mate said he’d walk by water if someone was with him, we walked back via some canals in Brum after the game. If he’d fell in I wouldn’t fancy going in the water of a canal in Birmingham city centre.
President Donald Trump acknowledged that he could secure the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador last month but refuses to do so.
Well my mate won’t walk by water alone as he has had fits in the past and if he had one by water he’s a goner if he falls in.
I saw someone have an episode on the Metro platform at Longbenton Station. he fell onto the tracks
At least they’re not electrified there. Harrowing all the same. My mate said he’d walk by water if someone was with him, we walked back via some canals in Brum after the game. If he’d fell in I wouldn’t fancy going in the water of a canal in Birmingham city centre.
Probably not as bad as you think, but not ideal.
I don’t doubt you’re right but glad it was not tested.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
I fear a lot of those are likely to be suicides. There are about 7,000 suicides a year in the UK, and about 5% of them being by jumping into rivers is not implausible.
So being pedantic - is that not a water related activity!? Clearly you wouldn't want to put that down...
Not really, no. If you're going sailing or swimming, that's "water related" because your objective is to do a thing that by definition involves water and is therefore inherently water related. If you're commiting suicide, your objective is to end your life, which can be done in a number of ways, many of them not involving water.
I'm mostly joking (about a grim subject) but if the activity is to drown oneself, then it is water related
But I DO understand why they are being coy about the stats.
Arguably, someone killing themself doesn't intend to drown themselves as such (or poison themselves, or strangle themselves etc). They just intent to end their life.
In terms of the recording, I don't think it's being "coy" really. It's useful to know how dangerous "river related activities" are in terms of the actions and resources you put in to making those activities safer. You may well separately want to know about people committing suicide, but it's a different sort of problem (around mental health etc). If you include suicides by drowning within "water related activities" you get a wildly exaggerated view of how unsafe swimming or sailing are.
Chris Philp of the "Free Speech" Party demands a say in who plays Glastonbury.
He’s not trying to deprive them of free speech. They have a right to that. They do not have a right to a platform. As they have supported terrorist groups and called for people to kill Tory MPs like Chris Philp, I think he has a point. Especially as one of his former colleagues was murdered.
When you call yourselves Kneecap, and have form for glorifying terrorism, people are entitled to take you at your word, rather than assume it’s just a tasteless joke.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
Pissed?
In York (and elsewhere) the various universities have lost a few students into the Ouse after drunken nights out.
The seaside Unis are the same. Ultimately it's the cost of being in the freedom of choice business.
Durham had the problem for a few years it's taken a lot of efforts from a lot of different groups to resolve it.
Though clearly it isn't the responsibility of adult university students to avoid acting in absurd, attention seeking and childish ways which get themselves killed; but obviously it is the job of other adults to organise collectively with great effort to make sure it doesn't happen.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
Pissed?
In York (and elsewhere) the various universities have lost a few students into the Ouse after drunken nights out.
The seaside Unis are the same. Ultimately it's the cost of being in the freedom of choice business.
Durham had the problem for a few years it's taken a lot of efforts from a lot of different groups to resolve it.
When I was a councillor, chugging used to come up as an issue. And it has always intrigued and amused me that the Venn diagram of 'I hate charity fundraising in the street' and 'beggars are all scroungers' and 'it's better if the government gives less help and leaves it to charity' is close to unity.
Actually Tony Blair shows how lots of money from Saudi Arabia to his institute leads to a conclusion we need more fossil fuels.
Nah, I think that's a conspiracy theory. A fair few people are quizzing if this is possible, now, or if we're just fruitlessly beggaring ourselves.
The catch with that question is that solar/wind/battery are cheaper than fossil fuels + CCS right now and have the massive advantage of already existing at scale. The price factor has changed a lot in recent years, as OGH Jr points out; and lots of people haven't noticed yet.
The main downside is the balance of initial and ongoing costs. Gas is like an inkjet printer; cheap upfront but expensive to run (which is why it's OK to keep them as backup for a few days a year). Renewable + storage is a laser printer- more expensive upfront, but cheaper over the lifetime.
Getting that sort of decision right is something humans find hard and British humans almost impossible. Hence the scrambling by some for other reasons not to do this.
Sorry but that is simply not true. The strike price of gas is artificially elevated by being on constant stop start due to the intermittency of shite renewables of the type you describe. You don't do your side any favours when you speciously omit key facts because the don't support 'the transition'.
Are you saying if we used more gas the gas would be cheaper?
I am saying that if we used gas consistently it would be cheaper. The cost of constantly restarting gas plants is high, and that cost is placed artificially on the strike price of gas.
If we got rid of "shite renewables" we'd have to produce that electricity in another way. Suggestions?
Also - do you have a citation for how much restarting gas plants adds to the cost of gas?
Dependable renewables like tidal. SMR nuclear. UK produced oil, gas, and potentially coal. And ensure that unreliable intermittent sources (which are a feature now whether I would like it or not) are incentivised to store energy to even out their supply.
No, I don't have prices figures on what percent of the gas price is due to renewable intermittency, but I will try to get some later.
Nuclear is unreliably intermittent...
"The outages of four reactors - two at Heysham and two in Hartlepool - were unplanned, prompted by a part failure in the boiler pipework at Heysham 1 in Lancashire."
I'm in favour of nuclear. I'm in favour of O&G. I'm in favour of renewables. We need a mix, not one thing, all working together to get us security of supply.
And O&G does *not* give us security of supply, and AIUI will automagically not even if we maximise North Sea output. And the thought of going back to coal is laughable.
Large nuclear plants going offline is going to cause an issue (though it's nothing like as intermittent as wind or solar). Many more smaller SMR stations would provide a far more even supply not affected catastrophically by outages (would be my surmise). We need to pivot toward SMRs and away from costly too-big-to-fail nuclear projects with France and China.
I agree we need a mix.
I disagree. There are huge reserves in the North Sea - we need to properly incentivise getting it out. We also need to progress with fracking.
Coal is not 'laughable' when the world's biggest industrial economy is opening coal stations at a rate of knots to supply our windmills. And when even Germany has added more coal to its mix. Neither have particularly laughable approaches to their needs. The only laughable energy policy is our energy policy.
Coal is laughable for a number of reasons: We have zero mines, and they are massively costly to open (and controversial...) we have zero coal-fire power stations left. We have zero coal-handling infrastructure left (even the old MGR trains...)
I'd strongly argue that money spent correcting these would be much better spent elsewhere; even nuclear.
But my main reason is environmental, but not the gasses. I was born and raised a couple of miles from a large coal-fired power station, and it was impossible to hang washing out if the wind was blowing from that direction, as it would get covered in particles from the coal burning. IMV one of the best pieces of post-war legislation were the various clean air acts, and burning coal - even in power stations - is bad for air quality. (*)
You appear to hate renewables; but going back to coal would be the worst of all worlds.
(*) Orders of magnitude more radiation is released into the environment from burning coal than from nuclear power stations, for the same power generated...
Things not existing doesn't make them laughable - otherwise anything new would be laughable. There was a big plan for a large clean coal power station 15 years or so ago. Alec Salmond was interested for Scotland.
Clearly I don't hate renewables, because tidal is included in my list. I hate undependable, intermittent, and unsuitable renewables whose primary purpose is to farm subsidies.
It does make it laughable when it's a massively regressive step.
As doe the idea of 'clean' coal: when I last looked into it, that was a myth. Can you point to a coal power plant, particularly a large one, anywhere in the world that has fewer emissions than a typical CCGT?
Q1 had an import surge to get ahead of tariffs which apparently depresses GDP, something you'd not expect that to be repeated in Q2. Q2's numbers are very important I think now.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
I wonder whether the only way to resolve this argument is to give the Ultras what they want. Announce a moratorium on immigration for say 2 years, No Immigration At All, and use the time to clear the entire backlog, reduce the pressure on housing and identify those areas where we really do need immigration.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
The key factor is that we need to have a controlled immigration system rather than an uncontrolled shambles.
Let's say we had a system where each year we issue 100,000 economic visas to the sectors most in need of workers using a points-based system AND we issue 10,000 asylum visas focusing on families in refugee camps who are most in need AND x'000 student visas AND 1,000 golden visas for wealthy entrepreneurs. And let's say we can deport anyone who commits a serious crime or overstays, while we give people the chance to apply for citizenship if they work hard and contribute. I think most reasonable people wouldn't have a problem with that.
The issue is we have uncontrolled migration using small boats, consisting of young men who are claiming asylum but are not the most in need, but who would also be unlikely to qualify using a points-based system. Stop the boats and a lot of the anxiety around immigration would diminish.
When "controlled immigration" is running at a million in the Boriswave, the odd few thousand in small boats are just a rounding error.
Actually Tony Blair shows how lots of money from Saudi Arabia to his institute leads to a conclusion we need more fossil fuels.
Nah, I think that's a conspiracy theory. A fair few people are quizzing if this is possible, now, or if we're just fruitlessly beggaring ourselves.
The catch with that question is that solar/wind/battery are cheaper than fossil fuels + CCS right now and have the massive advantage of already existing at scale. The price factor has changed a lot in recent years, as OGH Jr points out; and lots of people haven't noticed yet.
The main downside is the balance of initial and ongoing costs. Gas is like an inkjet printer; cheap upfront but expensive to run (which is why it's OK to keep them as backup for a few days a year). Renewable + storage is a laser printer- more expensive upfront, but cheaper over the lifetime.
Getting that sort of decision right is something humans find hard and British humans almost impossible. Hence the scrambling by some for other reasons not to do this.
Sorry but that is simply not true. The strike price of gas is artificially elevated by being on constant stop start due to the intermittency of shite renewables of the type you describe. You don't do your side any favours when you speciously omit key facts because the don't support 'the transition'.
Are you saying if we used more gas the gas would be cheaper?
I am saying that if we used gas consistently it would be cheaper. The cost of constantly restarting gas plants is high, and that cost is placed artificially on the strike price of gas.
If we got rid of "shite renewables" we'd have to produce that electricity in another way. Suggestions?
Also - do you have a citation for how much restarting gas plants adds to the cost of gas?
Dependable renewables like tidal. SMR nuclear. UK produced oil, gas, and potentially coal. And ensure that unreliable intermittent sources (which are a feature now whether I would like it or not) are incentivised to store energy to even out their supply.
No, I don't have prices figures on what percent of the gas price is due to renewable intermittency, but I will try to get some later.
Nuclear is unreliably intermittent...
"The outages of four reactors - two at Heysham and two in Hartlepool - were unplanned, prompted by a part failure in the boiler pipework at Heysham 1 in Lancashire."
I'm in favour of nuclear. I'm in favour of O&G. I'm in favour of renewables. We need a mix, not one thing, all working together to get us security of supply.
And O&G does *not* give us security of supply, and AIUI will automagically not even if we maximise North Sea output. And the thought of going back to coal is laughable.
Large nuclear plants going offline is going to cause an issue (though it's nothing like as intermittent as wind or solar). Many more smaller SMR stations would provide a far more even supply not affected catastrophically by outages (would be my surmise). We need to pivot toward SMRs and away from costly too-big-to-fail nuclear projects with France and China.
I agree we need a mix.
I disagree. There are huge reserves in the North Sea - we need to properly incentivise getting it out. We also need to progress with fracking.
Coal is not 'laughable' when the world's biggest industrial economy is opening coal stations at a rate of knots to supply our windmills. And when even Germany has added more coal to its mix. Neither have particularly laughable approaches to their needs. The only laughable energy policy is our energy policy.
Coal is laughable for a number of reasons: We have zero mines, and they are massively costly to open (and controversial...) we have zero coal-fire power stations left. We have zero coal-handling infrastructure left (even the old MGR trains...)
I'd strongly argue that money spent correcting these would be much better spent elsewhere; even nuclear.
But my main reason is environmental, but not the gasses. I was born and raised a couple of miles from a large coal-fired power station, and it was impossible to hang washing out if the wind was blowing from that direction, as it would get covered in particles from the coal burning. IMV one of the best pieces of post-war legislation were the various clean air acts, and burning coal - even in power stations - is bad for air quality. (*)
You appear to hate renewables; but going back to coal would be the worst of all worlds.
(*) Orders of magnitude more radiation is released into the environment from burning coal than from nuclear power stations, for the same power generated...
Things not existing doesn't make them laughable - otherwise anything new would be laughable. There was a big plan for a large clean coal power station 15 years or so ago. Alec Salmond was interested for Scotland.
Clearly I don't hate renewables, because tidal is included in my list. I hate undependable, intermittent, and unsuitable renewables whose primary purpose is to farm subsidies.
It does make it laughable when it's a massively regressive step.
As doe the idea of 'clean' coal: when I last looked into it, that was a myth. Can you point to a coal power plant, particularly a large one, anywhere in the world that has fewer emissions than a typical CCGT?
Boundary Dam, Fitted with carbon capture.
Somewhat mixed reviews on that, though. Quick google suggests coal power plant CO2 emissions are approx double compared to CCGT, so the ~50% achieved CO2 capture (some later to be re-emitted during long term storage) doesn't look great for the investment.
Actually Tony Blair shows how lots of money from Saudi Arabia to his institute leads to a conclusion we need more fossil fuels.
Nah, I think that's a conspiracy theory. A fair few people are quizzing if this is possible, now, or if we're just fruitlessly beggaring ourselves.
The catch with that question is that solar/wind/battery are cheaper than fossil fuels + CCS right now and have the massive advantage of already existing at scale. The price factor has changed a lot in recent years, as OGH Jr points out; and lots of people haven't noticed yet.
The main downside is the balance of initial and ongoing costs. Gas is like an inkjet printer; cheap upfront but expensive to run (which is why it's OK to keep them as backup for a few days a year). Renewable + storage is a laser printer- more expensive upfront, but cheaper over the lifetime.
Getting that sort of decision right is something humans find hard and British humans almost impossible. Hence the scrambling by some for other reasons not to do this.
Sorry but that is simply not true. The strike price of gas is artificially elevated by being on constant stop start due to the intermittency of shite renewables of the type you describe. You don't do your side any favours when you speciously omit key facts because the don't support 'the transition'.
Are you saying if we used more gas the gas would be cheaper?
I am saying that if we used gas consistently it would be cheaper. The cost of constantly restarting gas plants is high, and that cost is placed artificially on the strike price of gas.
If we got rid of "shite renewables" we'd have to produce that electricity in another way. Suggestions?
Also - do you have a citation for how much restarting gas plants adds to the cost of gas?
Dependable renewables like tidal. SMR nuclear. UK produced oil, gas, and potentially coal. And ensure that unreliable intermittent sources (which are a feature now whether I would like it or not) are incentivised to store energy to even out their supply.
No, I don't have prices figures on what percent of the gas price is due to renewable intermittency, but I will try to get some later.
Nuclear is unreliably intermittent...
"The outages of four reactors - two at Heysham and two in Hartlepool - were unplanned, prompted by a part failure in the boiler pipework at Heysham 1 in Lancashire."
I'm in favour of nuclear. I'm in favour of O&G. I'm in favour of renewables. We need a mix, not one thing, all working together to get us security of supply.
And O&G does *not* give us security of supply, and AIUI will automagically not even if we maximise North Sea output. And the thought of going back to coal is laughable.
Large nuclear plants going offline is going to cause an issue (though it's nothing like as intermittent as wind or solar). Many more smaller SMR stations would provide a far more even supply not affected catastrophically by outages (would be my surmise). We need to pivot toward SMRs and away from costly too-big-to-fail nuclear projects with France and China.
I agree we need a mix.
I disagree. There are huge reserves in the North Sea - we need to properly incentivise getting it out. We also need to progress with fracking.
Coal is not 'laughable' when the world's biggest industrial economy is opening coal stations at a rate of knots to supply our windmills. And when even Germany has added more coal to its mix. Neither have particularly laughable approaches to their needs. The only laughable energy policy is our energy policy.
Coal is laughable for a number of reasons: We have zero mines, and they are massively costly to open (and controversial...) we have zero coal-fire power stations left. We have zero coal-handling infrastructure left (even the old MGR trains...)
I'd strongly argue that money spent correcting these would be much better spent elsewhere; even nuclear.
But my main reason is environmental, but not the gasses. I was born and raised a couple of miles from a large coal-fired power station, and it was impossible to hang washing out if the wind was blowing from that direction, as it would get covered in particles from the coal burning. IMV one of the best pieces of post-war legislation were the various clean air acts, and burning coal - even in power stations - is bad for air quality. (*)
You appear to hate renewables; but going back to coal would be the worst of all worlds.
(*) Orders of magnitude more radiation is released into the environment from burning coal than from nuclear power stations, for the same power generated...
Things not existing doesn't make them laughable - otherwise anything new would be laughable. There was a big plan for a large clean coal power station 15 years or so ago. Alec Salmond was interested for Scotland.
Clearly I don't hate renewables, because tidal is included in my list. I hate undependable, intermittent, and unsuitable renewables whose primary purpose is to farm subsidies.
It does make it laughable when it's a massively regressive step.
As doe the idea of 'clean' coal: when I last looked into it, that was a myth. Can you point to a coal power plant, particularly a large one, anywhere in the world that has fewer emissions than a typical CCGT?
Boundary Dam, Fitted with carbon capture.
AIUI that doesn't capture all gassses, e.g. sulphur.
and it is a failed project:
"In 2015, internal documents from SaskPower revealed that there were "serious design issues" in the carbon capture system, resulting in regular breakdowns and maintenance problems that led the unit to only be operational 40% of the time. SNC-Lavalin had been contracted to engineer, procure, and build the facility, and the documents asserted that it "has neither the will or the ability to fix some of these fundamental flaws."
"In July 2018, SaskPower announced that it would not retrofit Units 4 and 5 with CCS, with minister responsible Dustin Duncan saying that the units were approaching their mandated shut down in 2024 and that natural gas is a cheaper option.[34] Any units without CCS would have to be retired by 2030 under federal regulations.[35]"
Actually Tony Blair shows how lots of money from Saudi Arabia to his institute leads to a conclusion we need more fossil fuels.
Nah, I think that's a conspiracy theory. A fair few people are quizzing if this is possible, now, or if we're just fruitlessly beggaring ourselves.
The catch with that question is that solar/wind/battery are cheaper than fossil fuels + CCS right now and have the massive advantage of already existing at scale. The price factor has changed a lot in recent years, as OGH Jr points out; and lots of people haven't noticed yet.
The main downside is the balance of initial and ongoing costs. Gas is like an inkjet printer; cheap upfront but expensive to run (which is why it's OK to keep them as backup for a few days a year). Renewable + storage is a laser printer- more expensive upfront, but cheaper over the lifetime.
Getting that sort of decision right is something humans find hard and British humans almost impossible. Hence the scrambling by some for other reasons not to do this.
Sorry but that is simply not true. The strike price of gas is artificially elevated by being on constant stop start due to the intermittency of shite renewables of the type you describe. You don't do your side any favours when you speciously omit key facts because the don't support 'the transition'.
Are you saying if we used more gas the gas would be cheaper?
I am saying that if we used gas consistently it would be cheaper. The cost of constantly restarting gas plants is high, and that cost is placed artificially on the strike price of gas.
If we got rid of "shite renewables" we'd have to produce that electricity in another way. Suggestions?
Also - do you have a citation for how much restarting gas plants adds to the cost of gas?
Dependable renewables like tidal. SMR nuclear. UK produced oil, gas, and potentially coal. And ensure that unreliable intermittent sources (which are a feature now whether I would like it or not) are incentivised to store energy to even out their supply.
No, I don't have prices figures on what percent of the gas price is due to renewable intermittency, but I will try to get some later.
Nuclear is unreliably intermittent...
"The outages of four reactors - two at Heysham and two in Hartlepool - were unplanned, prompted by a part failure in the boiler pipework at Heysham 1 in Lancashire."
I'm in favour of nuclear. I'm in favour of O&G. I'm in favour of renewables. We need a mix, not one thing, all working together to get us security of supply.
And O&G does *not* give us security of supply, and AIUI will automagically not even if we maximise North Sea output. And the thought of going back to coal is laughable.
Large nuclear plants going offline is going to cause an issue (though it's nothing like as intermittent as wind or solar). Many more smaller SMR stations would provide a far more even supply not affected catastrophically by outages (would be my surmise). We need to pivot toward SMRs and away from costly too-big-to-fail nuclear projects with France and China.
I agree we need a mix.
I disagree. There are huge reserves in the North Sea - we need to properly incentivise getting it out. We also need to progress with fracking.
Coal is not 'laughable' when the world's biggest industrial economy is opening coal stations at a rate of knots to supply our windmills. And when even Germany has added more coal to its mix. Neither have particularly laughable approaches to their needs. The only laughable energy policy is our energy policy.
Coal is laughable for a number of reasons: We have zero mines, and they are massively costly to open (and controversial...) we have zero coal-fire power stations left. We have zero coal-handling infrastructure left (even the old MGR trains...)
I'd strongly argue that money spent correcting these would be much better spent elsewhere; even nuclear.
But my main reason is environmental, but not the gasses. I was born and raised a couple of miles from a large coal-fired power station, and it was impossible to hang washing out if the wind was blowing from that direction, as it would get covered in particles from the coal burning. IMV one of the best pieces of post-war legislation were the various clean air acts, and burning coal - even in power stations - is bad for air quality. (*)
You appear to hate renewables; but going back to coal would be the worst of all worlds.
(*) Orders of magnitude more radiation is released into the environment from burning coal than from nuclear power stations, for the same power generated...
Things not existing doesn't make them laughable - otherwise anything new would be laughable. There was a big plan for a large clean coal power station 15 years or so ago. Alec Salmond was interested for Scotland.
Clearly I don't hate renewables, because tidal is included in my list. I hate undependable, intermittent, and unsuitable renewables whose primary purpose is to farm subsidies.
It does make it laughable when it's a massively regressive step.
As doe the idea of 'clean' coal: when I last looked into it, that was a myth. Can you point to a coal power plant, particularly a large one, anywhere in the world that has fewer emissions than a typical CCGT?
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
I wonder whether the only way to resolve this argument is to give the Ultras what they want. Announce a moratorium on immigration for say 2 years, No Immigration At All, and use the time to clear the entire backlog, reduce the pressure on housing and identify those areas where we really do need immigration.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
The key factor is that we need to have a controlled immigration system rather than an uncontrolled shambles.
Let's say we had a system where each year we issue 100,000 economic visas to the sectors most in need of workers using a points-based system AND we issue 10,000 asylum visas focusing on families in refugee camps who are most in need AND x'000 student visas AND 1,000 golden visas for wealthy entrepreneurs. And let's say we can deport anyone who commits a serious crime or overstays, while we give people the chance to apply for citizenship if they work hard and contribute. I think most reasonable people wouldn't have a problem with that.
The issue is we have uncontrolled migration using small boats, consisting of young men who are claiming asylum but are not the most in need, but who would also be unlikely to qualify using a points-based system. Stop the boats and a lot of the anxiety around immigration would diminish.
When "controlled immigration" is running at a million in the Boriswave, the odd few thousand in small boats are just a rounding error.
Problem is small boats are visible - and not easy to solve given how relatively easy it is to cross the channel.
Q1 had an import surge to get ahead of tariffs which apparently depresses GDP, something you'd not expect that to be repeated in Q2. Q2's numbers are very important I think now.
This.
This is a common misconception but imports don't actually reduce GDP.
Chris Philp of the "Free Speech" Party demands a say in who plays Glastonbury.
He’s not trying to deprive them of free speech. They have a right to that. They do not have a right to a platform. As they have supported terrorist groups and called for people to kill Tory MPs like Chris Philp, I think he has a point. Especially as one of his former colleagues was murdered.
When you call yourselves Kneecap, and have form for glorifying terrorism, people are entitled to take you at your word, rather than assume it’s just a tasteless joke.
For once nudge politics might be the way to curb this tendency of events to platform ever more revolting lumps of turd.
If Glastonbury or anywhere else wants to give time to any one that is their right. But if such poor choices are made then it is foolish for those who suckle the taxpayer's nipple such as Ch 4 and BBC to give them any air time at all.
For both the day of reckoning when the left lose a General Election is already written in, the severity will be determined by 1,000 decisions on matters such as this.
However, the right is configured after the GE do not expect a right of centre government to just make the best of the situation they have been left. Only once did an incoming Conservative government attempt to tackle the morass created by Labour and their LD handmaidens. And that was the most successful government of the 20th C.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
Pissed?
In York (and elsewhere) the various universities have lost a few students into the Ouse after drunken nights out.
The seaside Unis are the same. Ultimately it's the cost of being in the freedom of choice business.
Durham had the problem for a few years it's taken a lot of efforts from a lot of different groups to resolve it.
Though clearly it isn't the responsibility of adult university students to avoid acting in absurd, attention seeking and childish ways which get themselves killed; but obviously it is the job of other adults to organise collectively with great effort to make sure it doesn't happen.
As an academic at a Uni the status of students as adults is a huge challenge. In reality most sit in an uncomfortable hinterland of having not quite left home (so home to parents for non-teaching time) yet living as adults in most other ways (living in houses, usually shared, paying bills, looking after their own affairs). Parents often feel that we should tell them about things that their children are doing, yet we cannot if we do not have permission from said young adult. Similarly these young adults are no longer at school. Don't want to turn up for the lab/lecture/workshop/tutorial? Fine - that's on you. We believe it will harm your chances if you act like this. We had an interesting case a few years back. Someone complained to the Uni about a house of students (in a private rental). We said that officially we can't intervene - these are adults renting a private house who happen to be our students. However I think that quiet words were had along the lines of reputation of the Uni etc.
Chris Philp of the "Free Speech" Party demands a say in who plays Glastonbury.
I assume this is in relation to Kneecap?
If so, keep in mind, free speech, yes. But incitement to violence has always been a criminal offence and remains so.
Frankly, after allegedly saying ""kill your local MP" and "the only good Tory is a dead Tory" , Kneecap will be getting away lightly if they only get cancelled from Glasto.
The bigger scandal is why on earth they got a grant? You go around wearing balaclavas in the Irish flag, calling for murder? They're also true believers of the genocide in Gaza. Perhaps that's the sort of thing that goes down well at Glastonbury nowadays?
Q1 had an import surge to get ahead of tariffs which apparently depresses GDP, something you'd not expect that to be repeated in Q2. Q2's numbers are very important I think now.
This.
This is a common misconception but imports don't actually reduce GDP.
Michael Race Business reporter
The surge in companies rushing to bring in more goods from overseas ahead of import taxes kicking in has been the main driver behind the US economy contracting.
However, some economists are suggesting the downturn could prove to be a one-off.
While the first three months of the year saw imports rise some 41.3%, "the surge now appears to be going into reverse," according to Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics.
That makes sense given a lot of firms shipped in the goods they wanted before the tariffs – and might be now looking for alternative and/or American-based suppliers, which is what Trump wants in order to boost American manufacturing.
Ashworth predicts imports falling going forward will likely lead to the economy bouncing back in the next few months.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
You have to laugh . Reform saying we should give preference to immigrants who are net beneficiaries to the treasury and are less likely to put a strain on services.
So basically that would be people from Europe !
As has been pointed out repeatedly people are against immigration.
But they are not against immigration for high earners who contribute high taxes. They are not against immigration for students who pay high fees and tend to leave after 3 years. They are not against immigration for care workers looking after their parents or grandparents. They are not against immigration for doctors and nurses who can speed up their hip operation.
The above is about 80% of the immigration that people are against........governments can't fix the incoherent and inconsistent policy preferences of voters.
The reality is that people are not against immigration. Immigration is just people moving around and people have always moved around.
People think they are against immigration because they have been riled up and led to believe that immigrants are the source of all problems. They're not.
The argument that "People believe immigration is the source of all the problems" thing is an attempt to engage in a fallacy which says "this thing isn't the whole cause of the problem, therefore we shouldn't bother fixing it". This is nonsense on stilts - even if immigration is only the cause of 5% of our problems, a 5% improvement is much better than a 0% improvement.
I wonder whether the only way to resolve this argument is to give the Ultras what they want. Announce a moratorium on immigration for say 2 years, No Immigration At All, and use the time to clear the entire backlog, reduce the pressure on housing and identify those areas where we really do need immigration.
But I think the most useful thing will be to hear the screams of the Ultras as they can't get GP appointments, have to pay double for social care, or they or their (grand)children can't bring their Australian partners into the country.
Then we can have a proper grown up discussion about what sort of immigration is beneficial, and what isn't. Probably we will find we still need a lot of what we currently have. Maybe we will also find out that if employers pay a proper wage rate for delivery drivers and baristas in places like London, they might be able to recruit locally after all.
But we do have to find all this out, because until we do, no level of reduction of immigration will be enough for Reform and the extreme right.
The key factor is that we need to have a controlled immigration system rather than an uncontrolled shambles.
Let's say we had a system where each year we issue 100,000 economic visas to the sectors most in need of workers using a points-based system AND we issue 10,000 asylum visas focusing on families in refugee camps who are most in need AND x'000 student visas AND 1,000 golden visas for wealthy entrepreneurs. And let's say we can deport anyone who commits a serious crime or overstays, while we give people the chance to apply for citizenship if they work hard and contribute. I think most reasonable people wouldn't have a problem with that.
The issue is we have uncontrolled migration using small boats, consisting of young men who are claiming asylum but are not the most in need, but who would also be unlikely to qualify using a points-based system. Stop the boats and a lot of the anxiety around immigration would diminish.
When "controlled immigration" is running at a million in the Boriswave, the odd few thousand in small boats are just a rounding error.
It's tens of thousands but thinking it is all a numbers game is very foolish. They are overwhelmingly young men from very different cultures to ours who have paid people smugglers to get here. Exactly the sort of migration that worries people the most.
Q1 had an import surge to get ahead of tariffs which apparently depresses GDP, something you'd not expect that to be repeated in Q2. Q2's numbers are very important I think now.
This.
This is a common misconception but imports don't actually reduce GDP.
Michael Race Business reporter
The surge in companies rushing to bring in more goods from overseas ahead of import taxes kicking in has been the main driver behind the US economy contracting.
However, some economists are suggesting the downturn could prove to be a one-off.
While the first three months of the year saw imports rise some 41.3%, "the surge now appears to be going into reverse," according to Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics.
That makes sense given a lot of firms shipped in the goods they wanted before the tariffs – and might be now looking for alternative and/or American-based suppliers, which is what Trump wants in order to boost American manufacturing.
Ashworth predicts imports falling going forward will likely lead to the economy bouncing back in the next few months.
"the purchase of domestic goods and services should increase GDP, but the purchase of imported goods and services should have no direct impact on GDP."
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
They always link to sources, as any credible organisation would.
One core point of the statement is that there is not even any guidance, never mind design standards. By comparison for roads there is guidance on width of path vs pedestrian or cycle traffic, and recommended and minimum buffer distance for each speed limit of road.
It's about listing what evidence we have, to demonstrate that we need more, to be able to then make improvements.
"At least 93" is saying "these are the ones we know about; there is not enough data about the others to be precise".
On "per mile travelled", that is telling us something different from "the total". Either can be a reason for needing improvement.
The big causes are around inland waterways and water bodies. So that would be boat related (eg retired people on their narrowboat), dinghy and yacht people, wild swimming, impromptu wild swimming or falling in (eg drunk 18 year olds after the pub). I can also recall about 10 vehicle in water ones just off the top of my head - there were the 4 lads on a camping weekend in North Wales, and also the people out playing in their SUVs in Northumberland in the floods who got it wrong.
Also suicides.
Around half who drowned had not intended to enter the water.
If you read the paper, there is also a believed high risk for people with autism.
Q1 had an import surge to get ahead of tariffs which apparently depresses GDP, something you'd not expect that to be repeated in Q2. Q2's numbers are very important I think now.
This.
This is a common misconception but imports don't actually reduce GDP.
Michael Race Business reporter
The surge in companies rushing to bring in more goods from overseas ahead of import taxes kicking in has been the main driver behind the US economy contracting.
However, some economists are suggesting the downturn could prove to be a one-off.
While the first three months of the year saw imports rise some 41.3%, "the surge now appears to be going into reverse," according to Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics.
That makes sense given a lot of firms shipped in the goods they wanted before the tariffs – and might be now looking for alternative and/or American-based suppliers, which is what Trump wants in order to boost American manufacturing.
Ashworth predicts imports falling going forward will likely lead to the economy bouncing back in the next few months.
That's just an example of the misconception at work, and a business reporter really ought to know better.
Q1 had an import surge to get ahead of tariffs which apparently depresses GDP, something you'd not expect that to be repeated in Q2. Q2's numbers are very important I think now.
This.
This is a common misconception but imports don't actually reduce GDP.
Not directly. If there's been an import surge as argued then two things (or a mix) are possible:
These imports were additional to other purchases, displacing future imports (should be no real effect on GDP)
These imports did displace some domestic purchases, even if only due to domestic purchases being delayed to free up cash for imports being brought forward
In the second case, there could be an import-related depression of GDP now and a short term boost to GDP in the next quarters as delayed domestic purchases are made.
ETA: At least, that's my understanding from basic economics modules a few years ago when I was doing more health economics. Someone who actually knows will probably correct me, along - probably - with several wh don't
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
I fear a lot of those are likely to be suicides. There are about 7,000 suicides a year in the UK, and about 5% of them being by jumping into rivers is not implausible.
So being pedantic - is that not a water related activity!? Clearly you wouldn't want to put that down...
Not really, no. If you're going sailing or swimming, that's "water related" because your objective is to do a thing that by definition involves water and is therefore inherently water related. If you're commiting suicide, your objective is to end your life, which can be done in a number of ways, many of them not involving water.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
I fear a lot of those are likely to be suicides. There are about 7,000 suicides a year in the UK, and about 5% of them being by jumping into rivers is not implausible.
So being pedantic - is that not a water related activity!? Clearly you wouldn't want to put that down...
Not really, no. If you're going sailing or swimming, that's "water related" because your objective is to do a thing that by definition involves water and is therefore inherently water related. If you're commiting suicide, your objective is to end your life, which can be done in a number of ways, many of them not involving water.
Actually Tony Blair shows how lots of money from Saudi Arabia to his institute leads to a conclusion we need more fossil fuels.
Nah, I think that's a conspiracy theory. A fair few people are quizzing if this is possible, now, or if we're just fruitlessly beggaring ourselves.
The catch with that question is that solar/wind/battery are cheaper than fossil fuels + CCS right now and have the massive advantage of already existing at scale. The price factor has changed a lot in recent years, as OGH Jr points out; and lots of people haven't noticed yet.
The main downside is the balance of initial and ongoing costs. Gas is like an inkjet printer; cheap upfront but expensive to run (which is why it's OK to keep them as backup for a few days a year). Renewable + storage is a laser printer- more expensive upfront, but cheaper over the lifetime.
Getting that sort of decision right is something humans find hard and British humans almost impossible. Hence the scrambling by some for other reasons not to do this.
Sorry but that is simply not true. The strike price of gas is artificially elevated by being on constant stop start due to the intermittency of shite renewables of the type you describe. You don't do your side any favours when you speciously omit key facts because the don't support 'the transition'.
Are you saying if we used more gas the gas would be cheaper?
I am saying that if we used gas consistently it would be cheaper. The cost of constantly restarting gas plants is high, and that cost is placed artificially on the strike price of gas.
If we got rid of "shite renewables" we'd have to produce that electricity in another way. Suggestions?
Also - do you have a citation for how much restarting gas plants adds to the cost of gas?
Dependable renewables like tidal. SMR nuclear. UK produced oil, gas, and potentially coal. And ensure that unreliable intermittent sources (which are a feature now whether I would like it or not) are incentivised to store energy to even out their supply.
No, I don't have prices figures on what percent of the gas price is due to renewable intermittency, but I will try to get some later.
Nuclear is unreliably intermittent...
"The outages of four reactors - two at Heysham and two in Hartlepool - were unplanned, prompted by a part failure in the boiler pipework at Heysham 1 in Lancashire."
I'm in favour of nuclear. I'm in favour of O&G. I'm in favour of renewables. We need a mix, not one thing, all working together to get us security of supply.
And O&G does *not* give us security of supply, and AIUI will automagically not even if we maximise North Sea output. And the thought of going back to coal is laughable.
Large nuclear plants going offline is going to cause an issue (though it's nothing like as intermittent as wind or solar). Many more smaller SMR stations would provide a far more even supply not affected catastrophically by outages (would be my surmise). We need to pivot toward SMRs and away from costly too-big-to-fail nuclear projects with France and China.
I agree we need a mix.
I disagree. There are huge reserves in the North Sea - we need to properly incentivise getting it out. We also need to progress with fracking.
Coal is not 'laughable' when the world's biggest industrial economy is opening coal stations at a rate of knots to supply our windmills. And when even Germany has added more coal to its mix. Neither have particularly laughable approaches to their needs. The only laughable energy policy is our energy policy.
Coal is laughable for a number of reasons: We have zero mines, and they are massively costly to open (and controversial...) we have zero coal-fire power stations left. We have zero coal-handling infrastructure left (even the old MGR trains...)
I'd strongly argue that money spent correcting these would be much better spent elsewhere; even nuclear.
But my main reason is environmental, but not the gasses. I was born and raised a couple of miles from a large coal-fired power station, and it was impossible to hang washing out if the wind was blowing from that direction, as it would get covered in particles from the coal burning. IMV one of the best pieces of post-war legislation were the various clean air acts, and burning coal - even in power stations - is bad for air quality. (*)
You appear to hate renewables; but going back to coal would be the worst of all worlds.
(*) Orders of magnitude more radiation is released into the environment from burning coal than from nuclear power stations, for the same power generated...
I think coal could make sense as a strategic reserve. Get a pile of the stuff and never use it except in an emergency.
Not impressed with the Tony Blair Institute report incidentally. His starting point is that net zero is perceived by the public as unaffordable whereas the starting for any policy should be what makes sense in own terms and look to convince the public of the merits. Actually there's potential for a lot of cheap renewable energy - particularly solar - before you hit practical limits, so why not focus on that, rather than worrying about whether we get to 100% or 70% when current figures are less than 20% worldwide I think?
In a push can these big waste to energy incinerators run on coal?
Probably, but why would there be a shortage of waste? All else fails, we've plenty of old landfill to dig up!
Like a lot of issues, if it became the number one focus and goal you could solve it quickly. All councils will have teams working on this, but sadly there are too many people prepared to fly-tip to make a quick buck. Ultimately the people who use these people are part of the issue. Paying in cash? Should be suspect.
While I'm here, let me just say that CCS (carbon capture and storage) is stupid and CDR (carbon dioxide removal) is colossally stupid. I hope that helps.
US economy shrank in the first three months of 2025, contracting by an annualised rate of 0.3 percent, after nearly three years of solid growth, as tariff-related uncertainty undermines spending/investment and raises fears of impending recession.
Come on, you know that looking at 1 day's change doesn't tell us much. And is quickly out of date!
Looking now, the Dow is down 1.6% today, down 5.0% over the last month, and down 5.9% since the beginning of the year. Trump is an economic disaster. The $ is also down 8.3% since the beginning of the year.
Here's a section about evidence for risk factors - links at the original page. I'll make this my last comment on the topic, unless any more questions appear.
(For disabled people one difference is that it is perhaps more about keeping them out first rather than rescuing them, since they may be eg attached to a mobility scooter.)
The comparison to Platform Edge incidents is an interesting one, as is the increased risk for ethnic minority children.
Evidence on specific risk factors: - Autistic people: CDC references a study showing 40x increased risk of drowning for autistic people, attributed mainly to autistic people walking near open water. - Epileptic people: Drowning is identified as “the most common cause of death from unintentional injury for people with epilepsy” by the American Academy of Pediatrics (2019 policy statement). - Blind and visually impaired people: RNIB states up to 15% of falls from rail platforms happen to Blind and VI people. This compares to around 3% of the population being Blind or visually impaired. It seems likely that unprotected drops into water near paths may be a comparable hazard to rail platform edges. - Children from minoritised ethnic groups and socioeconomically deprived areas are drowning at much higher rates than average (2019-2021 data). 41 children drowned in 2023, with almost half drowning at inland water. - Over 80% of people who drown in the UK are male. - Reduced capacity related to alcohol and/or drugs – 14% of accidental drowning reports in 2023 noted presence of alcohol. This seems comparable to pedestrian impairment by drug or alcohol being given as a contributory cause in 9% of pedestrian road traffic deaths or serious injuries in 2019-2023 data.
Have to laugh at those on the last thread defending Blair's intervention.
In the same breath he complains that we can't afford net zero, while simultaneously arguing in favour of carbon capture, which makes fossil fuels even more expensive.
And he's one of the less idiotic critics.
There's a reasonable case to be made that we can't afford net zero on the timescale the government is following. Blair hasn't made it.
I think we can get to 75-80% of Net Zero in the UK by 2050 and 100% by 2065-2070.
The whole world? By 2080-2090, probably. I'm basing that on maturity of tech and the economics. We'll always add more in over zero, so we'll need to take back out, and that means shit-hot carbon suck out (capture) on an industrial scale, and it will need to be cheap, easy and simple to do to work.
What does that do to the climate? Not sure. It's probably not good. But I think it's the only path.
Q1 had an import surge to get ahead of tariffs which apparently depresses GDP, something you'd not expect that to be repeated in Q2. Q2's numbers are very important I think now.
This.
This is a common misconception but imports don't actually reduce GDP.
A genuinely interesting thought-provoker from Wheels for Wellbeing about risks from walking, wheeling and cycling alongside water. Not an area many have thought about systematically, but that is what specialised charities are for.
Waterside routes are being selected and upgraded to form part of active travel networks (see Canal and River Trust, Sustrans). ... In 2023 in the UK, the number of people drowning when using waterside routes was comparable to the numbers of pedestrians killed in collisions with motor vehicles (405 pedestrians killed in collisions, 555 people died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities, at least 93 of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route.
That is interesting. Their numbers don't entirely support their claim, however. 405 pedestrians killed in collisions versus "at least 93" of whom were walking/wheeling/jogging/cycling on a waterside route. On the other hand, if we adjusted per mile travelled, then presumably the figures for waterside routes would look way worse?
I'm grimly fascinated by the fate of the other 462 who died after falling into water while not taking part in water-related activities. Do they give examples?
Pissed?
In York (and elsewhere) the various universities have lost a few students into the Ouse after drunken nights out.
The seaside Unis are the same. Ultimately it's the cost of being in the freedom of choice business.
Durham had the problem for a few years it's taken a lot of efforts from a lot of different groups to resolve it.
No such issues with the canals in Brum.
End of season bluenoses would jump in the canals round by the ground. To much merriment. I never joined in.
Peter Navarro on CNBC reacts to the shrinking GDP number by insisting it's actually good news because if you strip out the effect of tariffs "you have 3 percent growth. So we really like where we're at now."
Comments
@afneil
US economy shrank in the first three months of 2025, contracting by an annualised rate of 0.3 percent, after nearly three years of solid growth, as tariff-related uncertainty undermines spending/investment and raises fears of impending recession.
To put that into perspective, Scotland alone currently has nearly 50 GW of renewables operating, under construction or in planning. Only 5% of UK households have solar, yet we're generating 12 GW right now.
For Callaghan and Sunak, you can make a case that they were doomed fag-end PMs, who had a pretty bad hand dealt to them by their predecessors. You can say that maybe in other circumstances would've been quite effective PMs, but never really had the chance to show their stuff. Eden was author of his own downfall, but again barely had his feet under the table before he had to go. We'll never really know what any of them would have done if they'd had a real run at being PM - we can debate the counterfactual, but the fact is they were gone in the blink of an eye.
But Baldwin was party leader for 14 years and PM for more than half of that time. He was the dominant figure of the era, and had plenty of time to show his abilities. Indeed, he's generally ranked reasonably highly by modern historians (perhaps more as a politician shaping Tory dominance for much of the 20th century than as a statesman, but still). His record is obviously overshadowed by the issue of what more he could and should have done in the long run up to war, but he's hardly an underrated, forgotten man. He's got a substantial, if mixed, record.
Performative crap due to the locals. Enforce the current laws.
However, the country is fundamentally full. We're building houses at an astonishing pace, the infrastructure is creaking at the seams, and we're not even keeping up with the growth in demand driven by immigration alone. We already have too many people for the country to remain a pleasant place to live, so we should stop adding more.
The fix? We should have an net zero immigration rule - for simplicity we permit in as a maximum, the number of people who left the year before. The best part of half a million people left last year, so it's not like we won't have many spaces available.
We then prioritise for visas relatives/partners of British citizens, probably once they've been British citizens for a minimum qualifying period (say 15 years) to make it really difficult to game the system by immigrating, aquiring citizenship and then importing your extended family.
And then we should auction the remaining visas to the highest bidder, with a substantial price floor (£50k?). If your business really needs someone high value to come from abroad, you'll pay. But it won't be worth it to import Deliveroo Drivers.
Oh and the students, before people raise that boggieman. Take them out of the system, and the numbers, but three conditions.
1) No dependants
2) The cannot work or access social security
3) There is no route for them to remain once their course is finished other than bidding for visas like everyone else.
None of this is hard to do. Yes, there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth from those whose business model is run on cheap imported labour, or who expect a McDonald's delivered in 5 mins at and time of the day or night - but tough. We're currently running an immigration ponzi scheme. It always hurts to drop out of one, but the longer you stay in, the worse the pain when it finally ends.
I've no objection to people doing this as a job, but if you want to support a charity it's far better to donate directly rather than via the chugger, whose commission might wipe out much or all of your first year's donation.
ETA: I normally deal politely with door-knockers, even canvassers
If so, keep in mind, free speech, yes. But incitement to violence has always been a criminal offence and remains so.
Frankly, after allegedly saying ""kill your local MP" and "the only good Tory is a dead Tory" , Kneecap will be getting away lightly if they only get cancelled from Glasto.
Realistically, you can't fence off 1,000s of miles of waterside pathways and it would ruin the benefit for a lot of people of going there.
The thing you could do is increase swimming lessons (do schools still offer these)? It says 15% of drownings are related to alcohol, but then 85% are not.
US GDP contracted for the first time in years in the first quarter as consumers and businesses fret about President Trump's massive new tariffs
https://bsky.app/profile/cnn.com/post/3lnztcm5i2k2p
It makes me wonder why they used it & what results they were getting from the model, using a more realistic turnout estimate.
Not impressed with the Tony Blair Institute report incidentally. His starting point is that net zero is perceived by the public as unaffordable whereas the starting for any policy should be what makes sense in own terms and look to convince the public of the merits. Actually there's potential for a lot of cheap renewable energy - particularly solar - before you hit practical limits, so why not focus on that, rather than worrying about whether we get to 100% or 70% when current figures are less than 20% worldwide I think?
@olivialarinaldi
WH Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to NY Post: "The president has devoted 100 days and his very top people to Russia and Ukraine, and if peace is not achieved, it will be because it can’t be achieved. It just cannot."
https://x.com/olivialarinaldi/status/1917552334588239971
And the futures reverse we are seeing is not exactly brutal. The markets have just had several days of growth. Funny no one was speaking about that. Markets go up and down.
It doesn’t matter what it does short term and if people get stressed by short term movements they shouldn’t be in it
Let's say we had a system where each year we issue 100,000 economic visas to the sectors most in need of workers using a points-based system AND we issue 10,000 asylum visas focusing on families in refugee camps who are most in need AND x'000 student visas AND 1,000 golden visas for wealthy entrepreneurs. And let's say we can deport anyone who commits a serious crime or overstays, while we give people the chance to apply for citizenship if they work hard and contribute. I think most reasonable people wouldn't have a problem with that.
The issue is we have uncontrolled migration using small boats, consisting of young men who are claiming asylum but are not the most in need, but who would also be unlikely to qualify using a points-based system. Stop the boats and a lot of the anxiety around immigration would diminish.
That also takes students out of the equation, as they should be one out one in. And we probably have to take some asylum seekers but not necessarily arrivals by boat.
I also wonder whether sponsors should be on the hook for visa overstayers? If you recruit someone you should guarantee that they leave at the end of their term. If you don't trust them enough for that, you shouldn't employ them, surely?
I'm not saying personally I advocate any of this but am just trying to think through what a policy might look like.
And that's lunchtime up!
"Kill your local MP" is a bloody stupid thing to say, but it's incredibly hard to show the person saying it intends for the hearer to act on it, rather than it being hyperbole, showing off, misguided humour, and/or general idiocy. You might well get there if the incitement was a meeting with a hitman, but it'd be nigh on impossible for a stage performance.
It's easier - although still not easy - with recklessness as the judge/jury doesn't need to mindread (it's sufficient that the reasonable person would have heard it as a genuine invitation to commit murder - so objective rather than subjective).
If someone had been elected in November 2024 promising to tip the US into negative growth in Q1, handicapped severely by the fact he wasn't in charge for the first three weeks, we'd have quite rightly castigated them for their outrageous promises, impossible to keep.
President Trump truly is exceptional.
Mind you don’t people drink a lot less now anyway so that helps.
MORAN: Even some people who voted for you are saying, 'I didn't sign up for this.' So how do you answer those concerns?
TRUMP: Well, they did sign up for it actually
As doe the idea of 'clean' coal: when I last looked into it, that was a myth. Can you point to a coal power plant, particularly a large one, anywhere in the world that has fewer emissions than a typical CCGT?
But I DO understand why they are being coy about the stats.
@cnn.com
President Donald Trump acknowledged that he could secure the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador last month but refuses to do so.
https://bsky.app/profile/cnn.com/post/3lnzv2zhok22q
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lnzupvzi3y2w
https://x.com/wallstengine/status/1917568533736874355
In terms of the recording, I don't think it's being "coy" really. It's useful to know how dangerous "river related activities" are in terms of the actions and resources you put in to making those activities safer. You may well separately want to know about people committing suicide, but it's a different sort of problem (around mental health etc). If you include suicides by drowning within "water related activities" you get a wildly exaggerated view of how unsafe swimming or sailing are.
and it is a failed project:
"In 2015, internal documents from SaskPower revealed that there were "serious design issues" in the carbon capture system, resulting in regular breakdowns and maintenance problems that led the unit to only be operational 40% of the time. SNC-Lavalin had been contracted to engineer, procure, and build the facility, and the documents asserted that it "has neither the will or the ability to fix some of these fundamental flaws."
"In July 2018, SaskPower announced that it would not retrofit Units 4 and 5 with CCS, with minister responsible Dustin Duncan saying that the units were approaching their mandated shut down in 2024 and that natural gas is a cheaper option.[34] Any units without CCS would have to be retired by 2030 under federal regulations.[35]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_Dam_Power_Station
The insanity of the Carbon Capture deception: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prrFtReaFMY
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lnzwe3v7cg26
If Glastonbury or anywhere else wants to give time to any one that is their right. But if such poor choices are made then it is foolish for those who suckle the taxpayer's nipple such as Ch 4 and BBC to give them any air time at all.
For both the day of reckoning when the left lose a General Election is already written in, the severity will be determined by 1,000 decisions on matters such as this.
However, the right is configured after the GE do not expect a right of centre government to just make the best of the situation they have been left. Only once did an incoming Conservative government attempt to tackle the morass created by Labour and their LD handmaidens. And that was the most successful government of the 20th C.
We had an interesting case a few years back. Someone complained to the Uni about a house of students (in a private rental). We said that officially we can't intervene - these are adults renting a private house who happen to be our students. However I think that quiet words were had along the lines of reputation of the Uni etc.
Business reporter
The surge in companies rushing to bring in more goods from overseas ahead of import taxes kicking in has been the main driver behind the US economy contracting.
However, some economists are suggesting the downturn could prove to be a one-off.
While the first three months of the year saw imports rise some 41.3%, "the surge now appears to be going into reverse," according to Paul Ashworth, chief North America economist at Capital Economics.
That makes sense given a lot of firms shipped in the goods they wanted before the tariffs – and might be now looking for alternative and/or American-based suppliers, which is what Trump wants in order to boost American manufacturing.
Ashworth predicts imports falling going forward will likely lead to the economy bouncing back in the next few months.
While I do pom-pom wave for CCS, I don't think fossil power is the right place for it.
https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/page-one-economics/2018/09/04/how-do-imports-affect-gdp
One core point of the statement is that there is not even any guidance, never mind design standards. By comparison for roads there is guidance on width of path vs pedestrian or cycle traffic, and recommended and minimum buffer distance for each speed limit of road.
It's about listing what evidence we have, to demonstrate that we need more, to be able to then make improvements.
"At least 93" is saying "these are the ones we know about; there is not enough data about the others to be precise".
On "per mile travelled", that is telling us something different from "the total". Either can be a reason for needing improvement.
The big causes are around inland waterways and water bodies. So that would be boat related (eg retired people on their narrowboat), dinghy and yacht people, wild swimming, impromptu wild swimming or falling in (eg drunk 18 year olds after the pub). I can also recall about 10 vehicle in water ones just off the top of my head - there were the 4 lads on a camping weekend in North Wales, and also the people out playing in their SUVs in Northumberland in the floods who got it wrong.
Also suicides.
Around half who drowned had not intended to enter the water.
If you read the paper, there is also a believed high risk for people with autism.
See for example:
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/imports-do-not-subtract-from-gdp
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2018/09/do-imports-subtract-from-gdp
- These imports were additional to other purchases, displacing future imports (should be no real effect on GDP)
- These imports did displace some domestic purchases, even if only due to domestic purchases being delayed to free up cash for imports being brought forward
In the second case, there could be an import-related depression of GDP now and a short term boost to GDP in the next quarters as delayed domestic purchases are made.ETA: At least, that's my understanding from basic economics modules a few years ago when I was doing more health economics. Someone who actually knows will probably correct me, along - probably - with several wh don't
Drowning is about 5% as suggested.
https://x.com/stevereedmp/status/1917471873777996122
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/suicidesintheunitedkingdomreferencetables
https://x.com/parkerpbutler/status/1917577497291481120
Looking now, the Dow is down 1.6% today, down 5.0% over the last month, and down 5.9% since the beginning of the year. Trump is an economic disaster. The $ is also down 8.3% since the beginning of the year.
(For disabled people one difference is that it is perhaps more about keeping them out first rather than rescuing them, since they may be eg attached to a mobility scooter.)
The comparison to Platform Edge incidents is an interesting one, as is the increased risk for ethnic minority children.
Evidence on specific risk factors:
- Autistic people: CDC references a study showing 40x increased risk of drowning for autistic people, attributed mainly to autistic people walking near open water.
- Epileptic people: Drowning is identified as “the most common cause of death from unintentional injury for people with epilepsy” by the American Academy of Pediatrics (2019 policy statement).
- Blind and visually impaired people: RNIB states up to 15% of falls from rail platforms happen to Blind and VI people. This compares to around 3% of the population being Blind or visually impaired. It seems likely that unprotected drops into water near paths may be a comparable hazard to rail platform edges.
- Children from minoritised ethnic groups and socioeconomically deprived areas are drowning at much higher rates than average (2019-2021 data). 41 children drowned in 2023, with almost half drowning at inland water.
- Over 80% of people who drown in the UK are male.
- Reduced capacity related to alcohol and/or drugs – 14% of accidental drowning reports in 2023 noted presence of alcohol. This seems comparable to pedestrian impairment by drug or alcohol being given as a contributory cause in 9% of pedestrian road traffic deaths or serious injuries in 2019-2023 data.
The whole world? By 2080-2090, probably. I'm basing that on maturity of tech and the economics. We'll always add more in over zero, so we'll need to take back out, and that means shit-hot carbon suck out (capture) on an industrial scale, and it will need to be cheap, easy and simple to do to work.
What does that do to the climate? Not sure. It's probably not good. But I think it's the only path.
We'll probably get to 2.5C warming I think.
Peter Navarro on CNBC reacts to the shrinking GDP number by insisting it's actually good news because if you strip out the effect of tariffs "you have 3 percent growth. So we really like where we're at now."