Despite Brexit, the UK is still following EU law on new car models, all of which have to deliver extremely annoying visual and audio warnings whenever the car thinks you are driving faster than the speed limit.
Not quite: the UK is not following this law. It's just unlikely most manufacturers will bother removing it for us. Some may, though.
The general vehicle safety laws we follow are these, also followed by the EU (and many countries with the notable exception of the USA):
"Although this law will not apply in Britian, it is very likely that most new cars will be affected by the introduction of the technology. This is because the manufacturers are unlikely to modify new vehicle designs for the market here in Britain.
Known as Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA), it is a system that restricts the speed of a vehicle automatically.
It uses a combination of GPS tracking data, satellite navigation, and information on speed limits of that roads that the vehicle is currently on.
If the driver is travelling over the speed limit, the system can reduce engine power until the speed drops to the limit of the road.
The limiters will be included in new vehicles sold in Northern Ireland.
Current regulation allows drivers to turn the speed limiter off, however, the ISA will be enabled when you switch the engine on again.
This means that the ISA cannot be permanently disabled in new cars."
Of course the database of speed limits is bound to have errors, so no doubt we'll be treated to the sight of drivers of older cars angrily honking at the poor sod in his new car doing 20 in a 60 zone because Nanny won't let him go faster.
It will also be interesting to see how long it takes for state-backed hackers to bring a country to its knees by compromising the database and setting all the speed limits to 0.
"We define extreme right-wing terrorism as the active or vocal support of ideologies that advocate discrimination or violence against minority groups. The 3 most common sub categories of extreme right-wing terrorist ideologies and their narratives are:
"Cultural nationalism: 'Western culture' is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups.
"White/ethno-nationalism: Mass migration from the 'non-white world' and demographic change poses an existential threat to the 'white race' and 'Western culture'.
"White supremacism: The 'white race is biologically, culturally and spiritually superior to all other races. An alternative form of government, ranging from fascist regimes to ethno-tribalism, should replace Western parliamentary democracy."
This is @bondegezou turned into the Gestapo. You are no longer allowed to worry about immigration and integration, as these are signs you are being radicalised and need to be silenced
On the upside - it's good to see that years of journalistic training haven't been wasted.
"Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf reverses decision to quit party
Yusuf has reversed his decision to quit the party, saying "the mission is too important" and that he "cannot let people down". Instead, he said he will return in a new role, heading up an Elon Musk-inspired "UK DOGE team"."
I really think Reform need to abandon this DOGE stuff. In the coming months it's going to be exposed as an absolutely disaster in the US (if it hasn't been already). By the time of the next UK GE, Sir Keir a co. will be champing at the bit to hang the acronym around Nigel's neck like a noose. They don't need to be signing up to this thing. Why do it?
DOGE in the USA is intended to shake-up the civil service, whom the MAGA Republicans absolutely hate because civil servants are university educated elitist liberals, who try to block MAGA policies.
Reform's DOGE is intended to work the same way & shake-up the university educated liberal UK civil service.
I think it will be difficult for Starmer to use DOGE as an effective campaign tactic. Harris tried the same tactic of running on a platform of "protecting institutions" but it failed badly.
In fact, Starmer's main campaign slogan is "change". It will be hard for him to argue that Reform's DOGE will bring "change" to the UK civil service and that type of change is bad, but other types of change are good.
"We define extreme right-wing terrorism as the active or vocal support of ideologies that advocate discrimination or violence against minority groups. The 3 most common sub categories of extreme right-wing terrorist ideologies and their narratives are:
"Cultural nationalism: 'Western culture' is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups.
"White/ethno-nationalism: Mass migration from the 'non-white world' and demographic change poses an existential threat to the 'white race' and 'Western culture'.
"White supremacism: The 'white race is biologically, culturally and spiritually superior to all other races. An alternative form of government, ranging from fascist regimes to ethno-tribalism, should replace Western parliamentary democracy."
This is @bondegezou turned into the Gestapo. You are no longer allowed to worry about immigration and integration, as these are signs you are being radicalised and need to be silenced
On the upside - it's good to see that years of journalistic training haven't been wasted.
What's amazing is that the government hasn't taken this down, despite the Telegraph coverage. Suggests they either think it is fine, as is, or.... they have no control over the narrative
Why on earth do @BBCNews so relentlessly pander to people who want to destroy them? Their love affair with @reformparty_uk and the lack of actual scrutiny is beyond weird … of all the things happening in the world tonight is the return of someone most viewers have never heard of really the most important, meriting one of @ChrisMasonBBC ‘s essays after an overlong news report. Beyond weird
Was it an old Toy Story that had a Woody Allen-esque moth-character who couldn't resist flying towards the seductive blue light of the insect trap?
Why on earth do @BBCNews so relentlessly pander to people who want to destroy them? Their love affair with @reformparty_uk and the lack of actual scrutiny is beyond weird … of all the things happening in the world tonight is the return of someone most viewers have never heard of really the most important, meriting one of @ChrisMasonBBC ‘s essays after an overlong news report. Beyond weird
Was it an old Toy Story that had a Woody Allen-esque moth-character who couldn't resist flying towards the seductive blue light of the insect trap?
"We define extreme right-wing terrorism as the active or vocal support of ideologies that advocate discrimination or violence against minority groups. The 3 most common sub categories of extreme right-wing terrorist ideologies and their narratives are:
"Cultural nationalism: 'Western culture' is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups.
"White/ethno-nationalism: Mass migration from the 'non-white world' and demographic change poses an existential threat to the 'white race' and 'Western culture'.
"White supremacism: The 'white race is biologically, culturally and spiritually superior to all other races. An alternative form of government, ranging from fascist regimes to ethno-tribalism, should replace Western parliamentary democracy."
This is @bondegezou turned into the Gestapo. You are no longer allowed to worry about immigration and integration, as these are signs you are being radicalised and need to be silenced
On the upside - it's good to see that years of journalistic training haven't been wasted.
What's amazing is that the government hasn't taken this down, despite the Telegraph coverage. Suggests they either think it is fine, as is, or.... they have no control over the narrative
Either is disturbing
Or the person who looks after the website is on holiday. Or they've outsourced the website to a consultancy and are now trying to find out whos budget-code they can charge the £100k for the change request.
"We define extreme right-wing terrorism as the active or vocal support of ideologies that advocate discrimination or violence against minority groups. The 3 most common sub categories of extreme right-wing terrorist ideologies and their narratives are:
"Cultural nationalism: 'Western culture' is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups.
"White/ethno-nationalism: Mass migration from the 'non-white world' and demographic change poses an existential threat to the 'white race' and 'Western culture'.
"White supremacism: The 'white race is biologically, culturally and spiritually superior to all other races. An alternative form of government, ranging from fascist regimes to ethno-tribalism, should replace Western parliamentary democracy."
This is @bondegezou turned into the Gestapo. You are no longer allowed to worry about immigration and integration, as these are signs you are being radicalised and need to be silenced
Rather grim.
But the people pushing this will be the people being checked up on in a few years. So that's something for them to look forward to.
Odd that their definition of terrorism to include "vocal support" of "discrimination" doesn't seem to match what the CPS says is terrorism:
"We define extreme right-wing terrorism as the active or vocal support of ideologies that advocate discrimination or violence against minority groups. The 3 most common sub categories of extreme right-wing terrorist ideologies and their narratives are:
"Cultural nationalism: 'Western culture' is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups.
"White/ethno-nationalism: Mass migration from the 'non-white world' and demographic change poses an existential threat to the 'white race' and 'Western culture'.
"White supremacism: The 'white race is biologically, culturally and spiritually superior to all other races. An alternative form of government, ranging from fascist regimes to ethno-tribalism, should replace Western parliamentary democracy."
This is @bondegezou turned into the Gestapo. You are no longer allowed to worry about immigration and integration, as these are signs you are being radicalised and need to be silenced
On the upside - it's good to see that years of journalistic training haven't been wasted.
What's amazing is that the government hasn't taken this down, despite the Telegraph coverage. Suggests they either think it is fine, as is, or.... they have no control over the narrative
Either is disturbing
Or the person who looks after the website is on holiday. Or they've outsourced the website to a consultancy and are now trying to find out whos budget-code they can charge the £100k for the change request.
"We define extreme right-wing terrorism as the active or vocal support of ideologies that advocate discrimination or violence against minority groups. The 3 most common sub categories of extreme right-wing terrorist ideologies and their narratives are:
"Cultural nationalism: 'Western culture' is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups.
"White/ethno-nationalism: Mass migration from the 'non-white world' and demographic change poses an existential threat to the 'white race' and 'Western culture'.
"White supremacism: The 'white race is biologically, culturally and spiritually superior to all other races. An alternative form of government, ranging from fascist regimes to ethno-tribalism, should replace Western parliamentary democracy."
This is @bondegezou turned into the Gestapo. You are no longer allowed to worry about immigration and integration, as these are signs you are being radicalised and need to be silenced
On the upside - it's good to see that years of journalistic training haven't been wasted.
Despite Brexit, the UK is still following EU law on new car models, all of which have to deliver extremely annoying visual and audio warnings whenever the car thinks you are driving faster than the speed limit.
Not quite: the UK is not following this law. It's just unlikely most manufacturers will bother removing it for us. Some may, though.
The general vehicle safety laws we follow are these, also followed by the EU (and many countries with the notable exception of the USA):
"Although this law will not apply in Britian, it is very likely that most new cars will be affected by the introduction of the technology. This is because the manufacturers are unlikely to modify new vehicle designs for the market here in Britain.
Known as Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA), it is a system that restricts the speed of a vehicle automatically.
It uses a combination of GPS tracking data, satellite navigation, and information on speed limits of that roads that the vehicle is currently on.
If the driver is travelling over the speed limit, the system can reduce engine power until the speed drops to the limit of the road.
The limiters will be included in new vehicles sold in Northern Ireland.
Current regulation allows drivers to turn the speed limiter off, however, the ISA will be enabled when you switch the engine on again.
This means that the ISA cannot be permanently disabled in new cars."
Of course the database of speed limits is bound to have errors, so no doubt we'll be treated to the sight of drivers of older cars angrily honking at the poor sod in his new car doing 20 in a 60 zone because Nanny won't let him go faster.
It will also be interesting to see how long it takes for state-backed hackers to bring a country to its knees by compromising the database and setting all the speed limits to 0.
If this is like the auto engine cutout there will be ways and means.
My auto-cutout is downright dangerous as it cuts the engine when you are just about to accelerate at a roundabout, so I set the minimum battery voltage at which it operates (designed to stop the battery going flat) higher than the battery can be charged to.
I just have to remember to set it back before an MOT.
£15 adapter, £5 app.
The alternative is to take the dash panel off and put an extra switch in line that remembers the last button press, but that's a bit more painful.
I'd probably do the same for this, although I am actually a stickler for speed limits (except on the M74).
"Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf reverses decision to quit party
Yusuf has reversed his decision to quit the party, saying "the mission is too important" and that he "cannot let people down". Instead, he said he will return in a new role, heading up an Elon Musk-inspired "UK DOGE team"."
I really think Reform need to abandon this DOGE stuff. In the coming months it's going to be exposed as an absolutely disaster in the US (if it hasn't been already). By the time of the next UK GE, Sir Keir a co. will be champing at the bit to hang the acronym around Nigel's neck like a noose. They don't need to be signing up to this thing. Why do it?
DOGE in the USA is intended to shake-up the civil service, whom the MAGA Republicans absolutely hate because civil servants are university educated elitist liberals, who try to block MAGA policies.
Reform's DOGE is intended to work the same way & shake-up the university educated liberal UK civil service.
I think it will be difficult for Starmer to use DOGE as an effective campaign tactic. Harris tried the same tactic of running on a platform of "protecting institutions" but it failed badly.
In fact, Starmer's main campaign slogan is "change". It will be hard for him to argue that Reform's DOGE will bring "change" to the UK civil service and that type of change is bad, but other types of change are good.
Musk already thinks Trump has scrapped DOGE for a massive expansion of the state in his budget, so if even Trump has stopped DOGE shouldn't be that hard for Starmer to do so here given we are a bigger state society than the USA
Aimée P. Balthazar @aimeebalthazar · 3m Trump is basically declaring martial law in LA because they dared to protest against ICE's unlawful actions. This is full-blown fascism
Aimée P. Balthazar @aimeebalthazar · 3m Trump is basically declaring martial law in LA because they dared to protest against ICE's unlawful actions. This is full-blown fascism
Why is enforcing the removal of illegal migrants fascism?
"Four people were killed in an “extremely violent” blaze seemingly caused by a battery-powered electric scooter that tore through a 10-story housing block in Reims, the capital of France’s Champagne region, authorities said Saturday.
A 13-year-old jumped to his death from the 4th floor apartment where the fire started in the early hours of Friday and a burned body found inside is believed to be that of his older brother, aged 15, said Reims prosecutor François Schneider."
Rachel Bitecofer 🗽🦆 @RachelBitecofer · 3h For those of us who’ve spend the last 6 months discussing how the Trump would use deportations to create chaos is the Blue states and then use that chaos as an excuse to declare a national emergency and seize total power, things are right on schedule
If you read communist-era dissidents from Eastern Europe, there are uncanny similarities between the climate of ideological conformity they describe and the modern West.
How on earth have we ended up in this position in western countries?
Because the grand experiment of mass immigration and multiculturalism has demonstrably failed, and is failing harder every day, and the average voter has now noticed, and is turning to extreme solutions (usually the hard or far right)
The establishment cannot admit this failure, and yet cannot deny it either - but their lives, careers, mindsets depend on maintaining the faith. So the only solution is a botch job, and horribly temporary: silence all forms of dissent. This is usually done in the legal arena - prosecute hard/far right poltiicians - see Le Pen, the AfD, and so many others - or persecute individuals (see this Prevent strategy)
It will not hold, and it makes things worse. It is uncannilly like communism, or indeed any dominant and intolerant ideology that fears its end is near. Crush dissent
Le Pen and her party were prosecuted fairly so not sure that’s a good example , the AfD need to stop the martyrdom act . Reform is positively Mary Poppins compared to the AfD .
Aimée P. Balthazar @aimeebalthazar · 3m Trump is basically declaring martial law in LA because they dared to protest against ICE's unlawful actions. This is full-blown fascism
As someone who lives in Los Angeles, I can assure you that there is no martial law.
Despite Brexit, the UK is still following EU law on new car models, all of which have to deliver extremely annoying visual and audio warnings whenever the car thinks you are driving faster than the speed limit.
Not quite: the UK is not following this law. It's just unlikely most manufacturers will bother removing it for us. Some may, though.
The general vehicle safety laws we follow are these, also followed by the EU (and many countries with the notable exception of the USA):
"Although this law will not apply in Britian, it is very likely that most new cars will be affected by the introduction of the technology. This is because the manufacturers are unlikely to modify new vehicle designs for the market here in Britain.
Known as Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA), it is a system that restricts the speed of a vehicle automatically.
It uses a combination of GPS tracking data, satellite navigation, and information on speed limits of that roads that the vehicle is currently on.
If the driver is travelling over the speed limit, the system can reduce engine power until the speed drops to the limit of the road.
The limiters will be included in new vehicles sold in Northern Ireland.
Current regulation allows drivers to turn the speed limiter off, however, the ISA will be enabled when you switch the engine on again.
This means that the ISA cannot be permanently disabled in new cars."
Of course the database of speed limits is bound to have errors, so no doubt we'll be treated to the sight of drivers of older cars angrily honking at the poor sod in his new car doing 20 in a 60 zone because Nanny won't let him go faster.
It will also be interesting to see how long it takes for state-backed hackers to bring a country to its knees by compromising the database and setting all the speed limits to 0.
My Rivian weirdly thinks that a portion of the 405 freeway near me has a 45 mph speed limit.
So, as I'm cheerfully letting my car drive, it decides to slow down for no obvious reason.
"Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf reverses decision to quit party
Yusuf has reversed his decision to quit the party, saying "the mission is too important" and that he "cannot let people down". Instead, he said he will return in a new role, heading up an Elon Musk-inspired "UK DOGE team"."
I really think Reform need to abandon this DOGE stuff. In the coming months it's going to be exposed as an absolutely disaster in the US (if it hasn't been already). By the time of the next UK GE, Sir Keir a co. will be champing at the bit to hang the acronym around Nigel's neck like a noose. They don't need to be signing up to this thing. Why do it?
DOGE in the USA is intended to shake-up the civil service, whom the MAGA Republicans absolutely hate because civil servants are university educated elitist liberals, who try to block MAGA policies.
Reform's DOGE is intended to work the same way & shake-up the university educated liberal UK civil service.
I think it will be difficult for Starmer to use DOGE as an effective campaign tactic. Harris tried the same tactic of running on a platform of "protecting institutions" but it failed badly.
In fact, Starmer's main campaign slogan is "change". It will be hard for him to argue that Reform's DOGE will bring "change" to the UK civil service and that type of change is bad, but other types of change are good.
Musk already thinks Trump has scrapped DOGE for a massive expansion of the state in his budget, so if even Trump has stopped DOGE shouldn't be that hard for Starmer to do so here given we are a bigger state society than the USA
Musk and Trump have very different visions of DOGE.
Musk had a vision of DOGE as a genuine attempt to cut the size of government and retrench civil servants, irrespective of the ideology of the civil servants.
Trump's vision of DOGE is different and he sees it as a means of control of the civil service. He only wants to get rid of, or otherwise subjugate the liberal Democrat-supporting civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists.
For Trump, the DOGE staffers are very similar to the political commissars of the Soviet Union.
"Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf reverses decision to quit party
Yusuf has reversed his decision to quit the party, saying "the mission is too important" and that he "cannot let people down". Instead, he said he will return in a new role, heading up an Elon Musk-inspired "UK DOGE team"."
I really think Reform need to abandon this DOGE stuff. In the coming months it's going to be exposed as an absolutely disaster in the US (if it hasn't been already). By the time of the next UK GE, Sir Keir a co. will be champing at the bit to hang the acronym around Nigel's neck like a noose. They don't need to be signing up to this thing. Why do it?
DOGE in the USA is intended to shake-up the civil service, whom the MAGA Republicans absolutely hate because civil servants are university educated elitist liberals, who try to block MAGA policies.
Reform's DOGE is intended to work the same way & shake-up the university educated liberal UK civil service.
I think it will be difficult for Starmer to use DOGE as an effective campaign tactic. Harris tried the same tactic of running on a platform of "protecting institutions" but it failed badly.
In fact, Starmer's main campaign slogan is "change". It will be hard for him to argue that Reform's DOGE will bring "change" to the UK civil service and that type of change is bad, but other types of change are good.
There's an interesting - and rather sympathetic - look at why Trump failed in Washington by Francis Fukayama on Substack. TL;dr, if you get all your news from my 1,000 people Musk follows on Twitter, you will get a very warped idea of how the US government spends its money.
"Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf reverses decision to quit party
Yusuf has reversed his decision to quit the party, saying "the mission is too important" and that he "cannot let people down". Instead, he said he will return in a new role, heading up an Elon Musk-inspired "UK DOGE team"."
I really think Reform need to abandon this DOGE stuff. In the coming months it's going to be exposed as an absolutely disaster in the US (if it hasn't been already). By the time of the next UK GE, Sir Keir a co. will be champing at the bit to hang the acronym around Nigel's neck like a noose. They don't need to be signing up to this thing. Why do it?
DOGE in the USA is intended to shake-up the civil service, whom the MAGA Republicans absolutely hate because civil servants are university educated elitist liberals, who try to block MAGA policies.
Reform's DOGE is intended to work the same way & shake-up the university educated liberal UK civil service.
I think it will be difficult for Starmer to use DOGE as an effective campaign tactic. Harris tried the same tactic of running on a platform of "protecting institutions" but it failed badly.
In fact, Starmer's main campaign slogan is "change". It will be hard for him to argue that Reform's DOGE will bring "change" to the UK civil service and that type of change is bad, but other types of change are good.
Musk already thinks Trump has scrapped DOGE for a massive expansion of the state in his budget, so if even Trump has stopped DOGE shouldn't be that hard for Starmer to do so here given we are a bigger state society than the USA
Musk and Trump have very different visions of DOGE.
Musk had a vision of DOGE as a genuine attempt to cut the size of government and retrench civil servants, irrespective of the ideology of the civil servants.
Trump's vision of DOGE is different and he sees it as a means of control of the civil service. He only wants to get rid of, or otherwise subjugate the liberal Democrat-supporting civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists.
For Trump, the DOGE staffers are very similar to the political commissars of the Soviet Union.
Drain the swamp so that the water can be used in the new swamp.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
Any other problem you guys want sorted - the mind/body problem, Does God Exist, the Fermi Paradox, what is the purpose of the cosmos, Why England Can't Win Football Cups, how to get laid in North Africa, just let me know
I'm here for you, got a couple of minutes spare
I was going to suggest the three body problem, but I think Nick Palmer has solved that.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
I think in the next few days we might see something similar to the televised purges that take place in dictatorships.
We might have a televised cabinet meeting where the various cabinet secretaries describe Musk's various "crimes". So, Trump might start the meeting by saying that he has deep concerns that Musk could have been doing lots of illegal things which need looking into. And then the Transportation Secretary might say that Musk was trying to force the Air Traffic control system to use Starlink. And the Defence Secretary might say that Musk was trying to install his minion as head of NASA etc.
Aimée P. Balthazar @aimeebalthazar · 3m Trump is basically declaring martial law in LA because they dared to protest against ICE's unlawful actions. This is full-blown fascism
Why is enforcing the removal of illegal migrants fascism?
The complaint was about declaring martial law in response to a political protest.
Aimée P. Balthazar @aimeebalthazar · 3m Trump is basically declaring martial law in LA because they dared to protest against ICE's unlawful actions. This is full-blown fascism
Why is enforcing the removal of illegal migrants fascism?
Because they are not just enforcing the removal of illegal immigrants; they have been pulling people off the streets and sending them abroad regardless of legal process or even evidence.
I'd have thought you'd have been against such actions.
Ukrainian drones flew out of grain train car hatches and destroyed 13 Russian tanks and more than a 100 armored vehicles and other equipment being transported by the Russian train in occupied southern Ukraine. The hatches appear to have been opened remotely, again. https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1931452296287887404
This mode of attack is about to become a global security nightmare, as it's probably within the capability of almost any state, and plenty of non state actors.
I expect we'll see quite a number of these sorts of things in UK ports over the next few years.
HIGH-ENERGY TRANSMISSION X-RAY For cargo systems, high-energy, high-performance transmission X-rays deeply penetrate densely loaded containers for greater detection. High-energy transmission X-rays provide fine details, even while penetrating up to 400 mm of steel — and offer a reliable means of detecting threatening materials, weapons, and contraband hidden in cargo containers, tankers, and large vehicles. https://www.rapiscansystems.com/en/technologies/high-energy-transmission-x-ray
Thank heavens Kemi is on the case and is really getting to grips with the big problems the country is facing ! No not public services , slow growth , etc but apparently women wearing burkas in offices !
Chasing Reform and now threatening what’s left of the more liberal Conservatives if they disagree with her Commission on leaving the ECHR .
With Yusuf back in Reform perhaps she has seen an opening to grab the burka hating hard right vote
I have zero time for the burka but in the list of things that need fixing in the country it’s well down the list . I don’t think it’s really just a hard right thing . I think the vast majority of people even liberals would like to see the end of the burka .
Fix the potholes, then some people might think about it.
Seems most politicians have been captured by think-tanks and focus groups. They'd save a lot of money by getting rid of them and talking to their constituents.
"We define extreme right-wing terrorism as the active or vocal support of ideologies that advocate discrimination or violence against minority groups. The 3 most common sub categories of extreme right-wing terrorist ideologies and their narratives are:
"Cultural nationalism: 'Western culture' is under threat from mass migration and a lack of integration by certain ethnic and cultural groups.
"White/ethno-nationalism: Mass migration from the 'non-white world' and demographic change poses an existential threat to the 'white race' and 'Western culture'.
"White supremacism: The 'white race is biologically, culturally and spiritually superior to all other races. An alternative form of government, ranging from fascist regimes to ethno-tribalism, should replace Western parliamentary democracy."
This is @bondegezou turned into the Gestapo. You are no longer allowed to worry about immigration and integration, as these are signs you are being radicalised and need to be silenced
On the upside - it's good to see that years of journalistic training haven't been wasted.
The Knapper offers training? Who knew?
More counseling than training, I would have thought.
"Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf reverses decision to quit party
Yusuf has reversed his decision to quit the party, saying "the mission is too important" and that he "cannot let people down". Instead, he said he will return in a new role, heading up an Elon Musk-inspired "UK DOGE team"."
I really think Reform need to abandon this DOGE stuff. In the coming months it's going to be exposed as an absolutely disaster in the US (if it hasn't been already). By the time of the next UK GE, Sir Keir a co. will be champing at the bit to hang the acronym around Nigel's neck like a noose. They don't need to be signing up to this thing. Why do it?
DOGE in the USA is intended to shake-up the civil service, whom the MAGA Republicans absolutely hate because civil servants are university educated elitist liberals, who try to block MAGA policies.
Reform's DOGE is intended to work the same way & shake-up the university educated liberal UK civil service.
I think it will be difficult for Starmer to use DOGE as an effective campaign tactic. Harris tried the same tactic of running on a platform of "protecting institutions" but it failed badly.
In fact, Starmer's main campaign slogan is "change". It will be hard for him to argue that Reform's DOGE will bring "change" to the UK civil service and that type of change is bad, but other types of change are good.
Musk already thinks Trump has scrapped DOGE for a massive expansion of the state in his budget, so if even Trump has stopped DOGE shouldn't be that hard for Starmer to do so here given we are a bigger state society than the USA
Musk and Trump have very different visions of DOGE.
Musk had a vision of DOGE as a genuine attempt to cut the size of government and retrench civil servants, irrespective of the ideology of the civil servants.
Trump's vision of DOGE is different and he sees it as a means of control of the civil service. He only wants to get rid of, or otherwise subjugate the liberal Democrat-supporting civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists.
For Trump, the DOGE staffers are very similar to the political commissars of the Soviet Union.
Project 2025 has called this "draining the swamp" but they are clear that any appointment is on 'merit'. This is why they have Hegseth and Noem.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
Everyone knows the name of Neil Armstrong, so that would certainly be the way to lasting notoriety
I'm not sure they do know the name.
One of the documentaries made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings went to visit Armstrong's childhood home: the one where he threw paper planes out of his bedroom window as a kid. They knocked on the door to ask permission to film. The homeowner replied with something like: "I'll have nothing to do with that cheater!"
They realised the homeowner thought they were talking about Lance Armstrong, not Neil Armstrong...
Boris got 44% in 2019. Reform UK are polling around 30-32%. They need a third of their support again to match Boris.
Perhaps that's the way - Boris joins Reform and they do a reverse merger with the rump Tories to become the Reformatories aka borstal boys
@bondegezou is characteristically wrong. If the electoral field is fragmented as it is now, then 32% might do fine for Reform, under FPTP
Tactical voting might do for Nige though, especially if his ceiling is 30% or so. He will have to tread carefully, which he's not well known for. The attack on Sarwar in the Scottish by-election backfired, encouraged Labour's vote to turn out, and delivered an unexpected victory for Labour.
People certainly do want immigration tackled, but they are squeamish about voting for obvious bad 'uns who are playing them - this is not the USofA.
FPTP is a terrible system, so Reform UK might win a majority on 30%. 30%, nevertheless, remains only three quarters of what Boris got.
FPTP is a good system. You have to actually come first in 325 seats to form a government as of right. In every single one of them there is a cage fight going on to stop you doing it. if you can do it with 30% of the vote, it is equally true that someone else can stop you by getting 31%, so it's obviously harder than it sounds. You have to come first in actual communities that are quite small units and they are all different. It's a clever thing to be able to do in 50% + of the entire country.
We are a democracy of seats, not of votes. It has great merit.
If the opinion of the majority of the voters is ignored, in what way is that a democracy?
It's a democracy of seats, as explained. And no government can keep a democracy of seats by ignoring 'the majority'.
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
Farage is back in full control of Reform, Zia is out as director. So, not 'workload pressure' then Nige?
I'm not sure why he would still be a Director when he has resigned as Chairman? Clearly he wants out - it would be weird if he retained a position within the setup.
Its more a comment on what the party hierarchy have said about why he left - Farage, Tice and Oakeshott pushing the line that he found the workload too much - if it were simply that there would be no need to immediately step down as director, just as Chairman. Its obvious that wasn't it from what he said and that Farage, Tice etc are being 'nice' to try and lance the boil. We await the Sundays with interest given his silence since that tweet and some of the, shall we say, rather less charitable comments from the likes of Banks etc
What to do we know?
Yusuf had been a bit erratic. He made a claim about DEI savings that apparently he couldn't substantiate either during the interview or after it. He made a further claim about specific savings at KCC that apparently wasn't supported by the Reform leader of KCC. According to Camilla Tominey, a briefing she had had with Yusuf was unexpectedly attended by Farage, which Yusuf apparently wasn't overjoyed about.
That seems to me to be someone who is overworked and stressed out, and getting to be a bit of a concern.
Then into that, you get Sarah Poachin's Burqa question, and his Tweet calling it 'dumb'.
It seems to me that he expected (wholly unrealistically in my opinion) Nigel to support him against Poachin the way that he'd supported him against Lowe. But Nigel could never have done that - you can't call an MP dumb on social media for asking a question in the Commons and have that be OK.
So Nigel didn't support him, and as a result he left (is my theory).
I would be somewhat surprised if he goes to the Sundays to throw shit at Reform. I am sure he has plenty of shit to throw (anyone that high up in any party would), but I just don't see him doing it.
We will of course see but there were certainly some interesting reactions - Lee Andersons non thanks and Arron Banks (who is of course on the DOGE squad) suggest a deeper rift in the hierarchy. Im not sure he'll go for Reform but certain figures within it. He's been getting trashed left right and centre by some Reformers (and thanked by others), i can't see him shrugging off the attacks. If not now a lot of shit will come out during Rupert Lowes action against them.
Sigh.
It's a shame.
However, growing pains. Reform are the equivalent of a 6ft 3-year old just now. It can't all be smooth sailing.
Absolutely. And as they seem set to become a factor or maybe even a government they need to learn how to 'be' without psychodrama. Too much, too fast, there's an awful lot of people filling in the blank page and not from the same intent. They will be a powderkeg for some time The Tories have been since at least 1990 and Labour since the 70s, after all
Reform do have a big problem coming which is that they still don’t have a coherent ideology outside of their key aims of reducing immigration and being anti woke.
What exactly do Reform want to be? Old Labour protectionists? Cost-cutting small government freewheelers? Big spenders? Tories in all but name?
The fact that they are new entrants in a deeply discredited party system and they major on immigration and culture topics gets them a fair step along the road to success, but before long if they desire power they are going to have to start thinking about their overall message. Farage’s tendencies are towards small-state, low tax neo-Thatcherism, I think. I’m not convinced his more high-spending tack of late is anything other than intended to shoot Labour foxes and solidify his appeal with the red wall. But you can’t run a party forever on contradictions. The Tories found that post 2019.
There is a realignment taking place in British politics, which is similar to the realignment in US politics.
Reform is becoming the party of the working class, with Labour increasingly a party of the uni educated professional class. This is similar to how MAGA Republicans are becoming a working class party, with Democrats a party of the professional class.
Based on Yougov data: Among C2, D & E, Reform leads at 37%, with Lab 19%, Con 15% & Lib Dem 14% Among A, B & C1, Labour leads at 24%, with Reform 21%, Con 20% & Lib Dem 19%
Republican party policies are undergoing a transformation, with any cuts to Social Security or Medicare now off the table for Republicans. Reform policies will undergo a similar transformation, to reflect their working-class voter base.
It seems odd to say that Social Security and Medicare cuts are “off the table” for Republicans when Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill contains massive cuts to the US welfare state.
The Republicans are cutting Medicaid (used by poor people) but both Social Security and Medicare (used by retirees) are untouchable.
That's the entire source of Elon's beef with the Trump & his Big Beautiful Bill. Elon wants to cut Social Security & Medicare, but Trump & the Republicans are refusing to do so.
The difference between the US & UK is a perception among the Republican base that Medicaid is mainly used by Democrat-voting black people. This makes it easier to target Medicaid for cuts. If black people voted 80% for Republicans then Medicaid would also have been left untouched.
You were putting forth an argument that the GOP was becoming a party of the working class and therefore won’t cut working class benefits, but they are cutting working class benefits (Medicaid, SNAP). They are protecting *pensioner* benefits. They have become a party for retirees.
The biggest ethnic group using Medicaid in the US is white, followed by Hispanic second. Black is 3rd.
Boris got 44% in 2019. Reform UK are polling around 30-32%. They need a third of their support again to match Boris.
Perhaps that's the way - Boris joins Reform and they do a reverse merger with the rump Tories to become the Reformatories aka borstal boys
@bondegezou is characteristically wrong. If the electoral field is fragmented as it is now, then 32% might do fine for Reform, under FPTP
Tactical voting might do for Nige though, especially if his ceiling is 30% or so. He will have to tread carefully, which he's not well known for. The attack on Sarwar in the Scottish by-election backfired, encouraged Labour's vote to turn out, and delivered an unexpected victory for Labour.
People certainly do want immigration tackled, but they are squeamish about voting for obvious bad 'uns who are playing them - this is not the USofA.
FPTP is a terrible system, so Reform UK might win a majority on 30%. 30%, nevertheless, remains only three quarters of what Boris got.
FPTP is a good system. You have to actually come first in 325 seats to form a government as of right. In every single one of them there is a cage fight going on to stop you doing it. if you can do it with 30% of the vote, it is equally true that someone else can stop you by getting 31%, so it's obviously harder than it sounds. You have to come first in actual communities that are quite small units and they are all different. It's a clever thing to be able to do in 50% + of the entire country.
We are a democracy of seats, not of votes. It has great merit.
If the opinion of the majority of the voters is ignored, in what way is that a democracy?
It's a democracy of seats, as explained. And no government can keep a democracy of seats by ignoring 'the majority'.
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
"A democracy of seats as explained" is not democratic if the number of seats is not allocated according to the freely expressed will of the people. You may have a political system, but you do not have a democratic system. For example, the People´s Republic of China has a Parliament with the vast majority of seats allocated to the Chinese Communist Party. One would not mistake the PRC for a democracy.
I'd love to see Canada join the EU, if only for the look on Brexiteers' faces.
I'm sure that the EU would be willing to make many accommodations to bring in Canada that they weren't willing to make to keep the UK in. My hope is that once Canada has blazed the trail, the EU will find it's possible for the UK also.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
Everyone knows the name of Neil Armstrong, so that would certainly be the way to lasting notoriety
I'm not sure they do know the name.
One of the documentaries made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings went to visit Armstrong's childhood home: the one where he threw paper planes out of his bedroom window as a kid. They knocked on the door to ask permission to film. The homeowner replied with something like: "I'll have nothing to do with that cheater!"
They realised the homeowner thought they were talking about Lance Armstrong, not Neil Armstrong...
Or he/she was in the small but significant minority of Americans who believed the landings were faked, perhaps.
Boris got 44% in 2019. Reform UK are polling around 30-32%. They need a third of their support again to match Boris.
Perhaps that's the way - Boris joins Reform and they do a reverse merger with the rump Tories to become the Reformatories aka borstal boys
@bondegezou is characteristically wrong. If the electoral field is fragmented as it is now, then 32% might do fine for Reform, under FPTP
Tactical voting might do for Nige though, especially if his ceiling is 30% or so. He will have to tread carefully, which he's not well known for. The attack on Sarwar in the Scottish by-election backfired, encouraged Labour's vote to turn out, and delivered an unexpected victory for Labour.
People certainly do want immigration tackled, but they are squeamish about voting for obvious bad 'uns who are playing them - this is not the USofA.
FPTP is a terrible system, so Reform UK might win a majority on 30%. 30%, nevertheless, remains only three quarters of what Boris got.
FPTP is a good system. You have to actually come first in 325 seats to form a government as of right. In every single one of them there is a cage fight going on to stop you doing it. if you can do it with 30% of the vote, it is equally true that someone else can stop you by getting 31%, so it's obviously harder than it sounds. You have to come first in actual communities that are quite small units and they are all different. It's a clever thing to be able to do in 50% + of the entire country.
We are a democracy of seats, not of votes. It has great merit.
If the opinion of the majority of the voters is ignored, in what way is that a democracy?
It's a democracy of seats, as explained. And no government can keep a democracy of seats by ignoring 'the majority'.
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
"A democracy of seats as explained" is not democratic if the number of seats is not allocated according to the freely expressed will of the people. You may have a political system, but you do not have a democratic system. For example, the People´s Republic of China has a Parliament with the vast majority of seats allocated to the Chinese Communist Party. One would not mistake the PRC for a democracy.
It is a genuine form of democracy - others are available - as unlike China all can stand and campaign and all can vote under well known rules as to who wins. To 'win' you have to get the most votes in half the seats. In a multi party democracy to do that you have to be broad and popular. To stay winning you have to govern for the good of voters as a whole.
Its weaknesses have to be looked at in the light of alternatives and their weaknesses too. Eg hyper PR gives you Israel.
I'd love to see Canada join the EU, if only for the look on Brexiteers' faces.
I'm sure that the EU would be willing to make many accommodations to bring in Canada that they weren't willing to make to keep the UK in. My hope is that once Canada has blazed the trail, the EU will find it's possible for the UK also.
Good morning, everyone.
If Canada has to have FoM it may soon find its population is about 600,000,000.
I'd love to see Canada join the EU, if only for the look on Brexiteers' faces.
I'm sure that the EU would be willing to make many accommodations to bring in Canada that they weren't willing to make to keep the UK in. My hope is that once Canada has blazed the trail, the EU will find it's possible for the UK also.
Good morning, everyone.
Besides the geographical issue (the EU is not as lenient as Eurovision on this, although this could be overcome, possibly requiring a treaty tweak), both Canada and the UK are in CPTPP which would preclude both from joining the EU as long as they are with that other bloc, as I understand it.
Ukrainian drones flew out of grain train car hatches and destroyed 13 Russian tanks and more than a 100 armored vehicles and other equipment being transported by the Russian train in occupied southern Ukraine. The hatches appear to have been opened remotely, again. https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1931452296287887404
This mode of attack is about to become a global security nightmare, as it's probably within the capability of almost any state, and plenty of non state actors.
And drones can be stored within target countries for years, just in case.
Boris got 44% in 2019. Reform UK are polling around 30-32%. They need a third of their support again to match Boris.
Perhaps that's the way - Boris joins Reform and they do a reverse merger with the rump Tories to become the Reformatories aka borstal boys
@bondegezou is characteristically wrong. If the electoral field is fragmented as it is now, then 32% might do fine for Reform, under FPTP
Tactical voting might do for Nige though, especially if his ceiling is 30% or so. He will have to tread carefully, which he's not well known for. The attack on Sarwar in the Scottish by-election backfired, encouraged Labour's vote to turn out, and delivered an unexpected victory for Labour.
People certainly do want immigration tackled, but they are squeamish about voting for obvious bad 'uns who are playing them - this is not the USofA.
FPTP is a terrible system, so Reform UK might win a majority on 30%. 30%, nevertheless, remains only three quarters of what Boris got.
FPTP is a good system. You have to actually come first in 325 seats to form a government as of right. In every single one of them there is a cage fight going on to stop you doing it. if you can do it with 30% of the vote, it is equally true that someone else can stop you by getting 31%, so it's obviously harder than it sounds. You have to come first in actual communities that are quite small units and they are all different. It's a clever thing to be able to do in 50% + of the entire country.
We are a democracy of seats, not of votes. It has great merit.
If the opinion of the majority of the voters is ignored, in what way is that a democracy?
It's a democracy of seats, as explained. And no government can keep a democracy of seats by ignoring 'the majority'.
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
"A democracy of seats as explained" is not democratic if the number of seats is not allocated according to the freely expressed will of the people. You may have a political system, but you do not have a democratic system. For example, the People´s Republic of China has a Parliament with the vast majority of seats allocated to the Chinese Communist Party. One would not mistake the PRC for a democracy.
It is a genuine form of democracy - others are available - as unlike China all can stand and campaign and all can vote under well known rules as to who wins. To 'win' you have to get the most votes in half the seats. In a multi party democracy to do that you have to be broad and popular. To stay winning you have to govern for the good of voters as a whole.
Its weaknesses have to be looked at in the light of alternatives and their weaknesses too. Eg hyper PR gives you Israel.
Thanks @algarkirk. Best defence of FPTP I've heard in a while (I'm generally not a fan).
Reforms to enable employers to extract surpluses from traditional pension schemes will release only £8.4 billion over ten years, a small fraction of the £160 billion that ministers have previously suggested could be available.
A newly published impact assessment report from the Department for Work and Pensions estimates that unlocked surpluses would amount to £957 million a year and could be as little as £153 million a year.
That compared with £160 billion of surpluses that Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, announced in January were trapped and could potentially be unlocked and used by employers for fresh investment or to pay higher pensions or wages.
Some of the 1,700 yachts competing in the RTI passing by, yesterday
Been there done that. At the time my wife asked if I wasn't worried about drowning. My reply was that there was a greater risk of being run over by a competing boat.
I have to say patrolling the start line for our start when the then Americas Cup catamarans came through for their start was awesome. You don't want to be hit by one of them at full pelt.
Good thing no-one here was stupid enough to be taken in and believes in UFOs.
Striking just how gullible many of those hard eyed, mistrustful men of the right are. ‘I’m only asking questions, just not about UFOs, satanic pizza parlours or Haitian cat eaters.’
Boris got 44% in 2019. Reform UK are polling around 30-32%. They need a third of their support again to match Boris.
Perhaps that's the way - Boris joins Reform and they do a reverse merger with the rump Tories to become the Reformatories aka borstal boys
@bondegezou is characteristically wrong. If the electoral field is fragmented as it is now, then 32% might do fine for Reform, under FPTP
Tactical voting might do for Nige though, especially if his ceiling is 30% or so. He will have to tread carefully, which he's not well known for. The attack on Sarwar in the Scottish by-election backfired, encouraged Labour's vote to turn out, and delivered an unexpected victory for Labour.
People certainly do want immigration tackled, but they are squeamish about voting for obvious bad 'uns who are playing them - this is not the USofA.
FPTP is a terrible system, so Reform UK might win a majority on 30%. 30%, nevertheless, remains only three quarters of what Boris got.
FPTP is a good system. You have to actually come first in 325 seats to form a government as of right. In every single one of them there is a cage fight going on to stop you doing it. if you can do it with 30% of the vote, it is equally true that someone else can stop you by getting 31%, so it's obviously harder than it sounds. You have to come first in actual communities that are quite small units and they are all different. It's a clever thing to be able to do in 50% + of the entire country.
We are a democracy of seats, not of votes. It has great merit.
If the opinion of the majority of the voters is ignored, in what way is that a democracy?
It's a democracy of seats, as explained. And no government can keep a democracy of seats by ignoring 'the majority'.
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
"A democracy of seats as explained" is not democratic if the number of seats is not allocated according to the freely expressed will of the people. You may have a political system, but you do not have a democratic system. For example, the People´s Republic of China has a Parliament with the vast majority of seats allocated to the Chinese Communist Party. One would not mistake the PRC for a democracy.
It is a genuine form of democracy - others are available - as unlike China all can stand and campaign and all can vote under well known rules as to who wins. To 'win' you have to get the most votes in half the seats. In a multi party democracy to do that you have to be broad and popular. To stay winning you have to govern for the good of voters as a whole.
Its weaknesses have to be looked at in the light of alternatives and their weaknesses too. Eg hyper PR gives you Israel.
Thanks @algarkirk. Best defence of FPTP I've heard in a while (I'm generally not a fan).
Thanks. FWIW I do actually support amending the current FPTP to a very simple AV, so as to shore up the legitimacy of the seat winner and give well founded new entrants a chance to grow and flourish. Apart from that (voters rejected it of course) I would keep the status quo.
Boris got 44% in 2019. Reform UK are polling around 30-32%. They need a third of their support again to match Boris.
Perhaps that's the way - Boris joins Reform and they do a reverse merger with the rump Tories to become the Reformatories aka borstal boys
@bondegezou is characteristically wrong. If the electoral field is fragmented as it is now, then 32% might do fine for Reform, under FPTP
Tactical voting might do for Nige though, especially if his ceiling is 30% or so. He will have to tread carefully, which he's not well known for. The attack on Sarwar in the Scottish by-election backfired, encouraged Labour's vote to turn out, and delivered an unexpected victory for Labour.
People certainly do want immigration tackled, but they are squeamish about voting for obvious bad 'uns who are playing them - this is not the USofA.
FPTP is a terrible system, so Reform UK might win a majority on 30%. 30%, nevertheless, remains only three quarters of what Boris got.
FPTP is a good system. You have to actually come first in 325 seats to form a government as of right. In every single one of them there is a cage fight going on to stop you doing it. if you can do it with 30% of the vote, it is equally true that someone else can stop you by getting 31%, so it's obviously harder than it sounds. You have to come first in actual communities that are quite small units and they are all different. It's a clever thing to be able to do in 50% + of the entire country.
We are a democracy of seats, not of votes. It has great merit.
If the opinion of the majority of the voters is ignored, in what way is that a democracy?
It's a democracy of seats, as explained. And no government can keep a democracy of seats by ignoring 'the majority'.
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
"A democracy of seats as explained" is not democratic if the number of seats is not allocated according to the freely expressed will of the people. You may have a political system, but you do not have a democratic system. For example, the People´s Republic of China has a Parliament with the vast majority of seats allocated to the Chinese Communist Party. One would not mistake the PRC for a democracy.
It is a genuine form of democracy - others are available - as unlike China all can stand and campaign and all can vote under well known rules as to who wins. To 'win' you have to get the most votes in half the seats. In a multi party democracy to do that you have to be broad and popular. To stay winning you have to govern for the good of voters as a whole.
Its weaknesses have to be looked at in the light of alternatives and their weaknesses too. Eg hyper PR gives you Israel.
Israel’s society gives you Israel, not PR. FPTP in Israel would deliver an even more bonkers Knesset.
Niall Ferguson @nfergus · 6h That scraping sound you hear is @RachelReevesMP moving the deckchairs around on the Titanic. What’s that big white thing we’re sailing towards? The answer is an unsustainably high national debt. 1/13
Niall Ferguson @nfergus The lesson is clear. With Labour stuck in Harold Wilson/Jim Callaghan mode and heading inevitably for “Crisis, what crisis?”, and with Farage offering secondhand populism, @KemiBadenoch needs to unleash her inner Milei. That does not mean donning a leather jacket and wielding a chainsaw, which did not work for Elon Musk. It means being the committed free-market libertarian she is — and the symbol of a successful, multiracial society that she is uniquely placed to be. 12/13
And being a slash the state libertarian on the lines of Musk and Milei has even seen Trump fall out with the former after being accused of not going far enough by Musk who is too small state even for the President. Here it would just see some One Nation Tories still voting Tory go LD without winning over nationalist Reform voters
Kemi may well be stuffed whatever happens, and I'd say in that case it's better to go down supporting economically literate policies than moronic ones.
If nothing else, once Reform get power and their policies are proven to be unworkable, it puts the Conservatives in a better position to rebuild a decade from now.
Then again, four years is a long time, and at least some voters may be sick of tax and spend by then.
A newly published impact assessment report from the Department for Work and Pensions estimates that unlocked surpluses would amount to £957 million a year and could be as little as £153 million a year.
That compared with £160 billion of surpluses that Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, announced in January were trapped and could potentially be unlocked and used by employers for fresh investment or to pay higher pensions or wages.
That is a massive error, which I don’t think can be explained by falling gilt yields as they are almost as high as they have been in many years, if I’m not mistaken (and the stockmarket is also high). I wonder what the explanation is.
Boris got 44% in 2019. Reform UK are polling around 30-32%. They need a third of their support again to match Boris.
Perhaps that's the way - Boris joins Reform and they do a reverse merger with the rump Tories to become the Reformatories aka borstal boys
@bondegezou is characteristically wrong. If the electoral field is fragmented as it is now, then 32% might do fine for Reform, under FPTP
Tactical voting might do for Nige though, especially if his ceiling is 30% or so. He will have to tread carefully, which he's not well known for. The attack on Sarwar in the Scottish by-election backfired, encouraged Labour's vote to turn out, and delivered an unexpected victory for Labour.
People certainly do want immigration tackled, but they are squeamish about voting for obvious bad 'uns who are playing them - this is not the USofA.
FPTP is a terrible system, so Reform UK might win a majority on 30%. 30%, nevertheless, remains only three quarters of what Boris got.
FPTP is a good system. You have to actually come first in 325 seats to form a government as of right. In every single one of them there is a cage fight going on to stop you doing it. if you can do it with 30% of the vote, it is equally true that someone else can stop you by getting 31%, so it's obviously harder than it sounds. You have to come first in actual communities that are quite small units and they are all different. It's a clever thing to be able to do in 50% + of the entire country.
We are a democracy of seats, not of votes. It has great merit.
If the opinion of the majority of the voters is ignored, in what way is that a democracy?
It's a democracy of seats, as explained. And no government can keep a democracy of seats by ignoring 'the majority'.
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
"A democracy of seats as explained" is not democratic if the number of seats is not allocated according to the freely expressed will of the people. You may have a political system, but you do not have a democratic system. For example, the People´s Republic of China has a Parliament with the vast majority of seats allocated to the Chinese Communist Party. One would not mistake the PRC for a democracy.
It is a genuine form of democracy - others are available - as unlike China all can stand and campaign and all can vote under well known rules as to who wins. To 'win' you have to get the most votes in half the seats. In a multi party democracy to do that you have to be broad and popular. To stay winning you have to govern for the good of voters as a whole.
Its weaknesses have to be looked at in the light of alternatives and their weaknesses too. Eg hyper PR gives you Israel.
Israel’s society gives you Israel, not PR. FPTP in Israel would deliver an even more bonkers Knesset.
And FPTP in Holyrood would have given successive large majorities to the SNP whose strong claim for a second Indy ref even Westminster would be unable to ignore. Only joking, of course they would ignore it!
Niall Ferguson @nfergus · 6h That scraping sound you hear is @RachelReevesMP moving the deckchairs around on the Titanic. What’s that big white thing we’re sailing towards? The answer is an unsustainably high national debt. 1/13
Niall Ferguson @nfergus The lesson is clear. With Labour stuck in Harold Wilson/Jim Callaghan mode and heading inevitably for “Crisis, what crisis?”, and with Farage offering secondhand populism, @KemiBadenoch needs to unleash her inner Milei. That does not mean donning a leather jacket and wielding a chainsaw, which did not work for Elon Musk. It means being the committed free-market libertarian she is — and the symbol of a successful, multiracial society that she is uniquely placed to be. 12/13
And being a slash the state libertarian on the lines of Musk and Milei has even seen Trump fall out with the former after being accused of not going far enough by Musk who is too small state even for the President. Here it would just see some One Nation Tories still voting Tory go LD without winning over nationalist Reform voters
Kemi may well be stuffed whatever happens, and I'd say in that case it's better to go down supporting economically literate policies than moronic ones.
If nothing else, once Reform get power and their policies are proven to be unworkable, it puts the Conservatives in a better position to rebuild a decade from now.
Then again, four years is a long time, and at least some voters may be sick of tax and spend by then.
Trouble is that what the public wants, what the public votes for, what the public demands, is no-tax and spend.
One of the reasons all this is happening is the contortions governments have gone through to try and achieve that for a little bit longer.
Reforms to enable employers to extract surpluses from traditional pension schemes will release only £8.4 billion over ten years, a small fraction of the £160 billion that ministers have previously suggested could be available.
A newly published impact assessment report from the Department for Work and Pensions estimates that unlocked surpluses would amount to £957 million a year and could be as little as £153 million a year.
That compared with £160 billion of surpluses that Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, announced in January were trapped and could potentially be unlocked and used by employers for fresh investment or to pay higher pensions or wages.
Not the first time that Labour politicians have made over optimistic claims about how much money could be taken from pensions.
Yet we still have Reeves looking at at ways to damage DC pensions.
One of the factors that will play into this is the pension lifeboat that is, absurdly, funded by other pensions. Each year there is a joke of a financial assessment of each pension fund (well, it beats working I suppose) and a levy is imposed. The "levy", otherwise known as theft, is supposed to reflect the risk that that pension might itself require the services of the lifeboat. This means that it is quite cost effective to ensure that you keep a reasonable surplus in the fund. Paying it out to the funders will increase the costs of the pension and, indirectly, future pension contributions.
Another part of the assessment is the quality of the guarantee of the funder. This, once again, encourages funders to keep their balance sheets in good order simply to save money. Which itself is hardly conducive to either investment or even consumption. Describing the whole set up as idiotic is offensive to idiots.
Boris got 44% in 2019. Reform UK are polling around 30-32%. They need a third of their support again to match Boris.
Perhaps that's the way - Boris joins Reform and they do a reverse merger with the rump Tories to become the Reformatories aka borstal boys
@bondegezou is characteristically wrong. If the electoral field is fragmented as it is now, then 32% might do fine for Reform, under FPTP
Tactical voting might do for Nige though, especially if his ceiling is 30% or so. He will have to tread carefully, which he's not well known for. The attack on Sarwar in the Scottish by-election backfired, encouraged Labour's vote to turn out, and delivered an unexpected victory for Labour.
People certainly do want immigration tackled, but they are squeamish about voting for obvious bad 'uns who are playing them - this is not the USofA.
FPTP is a terrible system, so Reform UK might win a majority on 30%. 30%, nevertheless, remains only three quarters of what Boris got.
FPTP is a good system. You have to actually come first in 325 seats to form a government as of right. In every single one of them there is a cage fight going on to stop you doing it. if you can do it with 30% of the vote, it is equally true that someone else can stop you by getting 31%, so it's obviously harder than it sounds. You have to come first in actual communities that are quite small units and they are all different. It's a clever thing to be able to do in 50% + of the entire country.
We are a democracy of seats, not of votes. It has great merit.
If the opinion of the majority of the voters is ignored, in what way is that a democracy?
It's a democracy of seats, as explained. And no government can keep a democracy of seats by ignoring 'the majority'.
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
"A democracy of seats as explained" is not democratic if the number of seats is not allocated according to the freely expressed will of the people. You may have a political system, but you do not have a democratic system. For example, the People´s Republic of China has a Parliament with the vast majority of seats allocated to the Chinese Communist Party. One would not mistake the PRC for a democracy.
It is a genuine form of democracy - others are available - as unlike China all can stand and campaign and all can vote under well known rules as to who wins. To 'win' you have to get the most votes in half the seats. In a multi party democracy to do that you have to be broad and popular. To stay winning you have to govern for the good of voters as a whole.
Its weaknesses have to be looked at in the light of alternatives and their weaknesses too. Eg hyper PR gives you Israel.
Thanks @algarkirk. Best defence of FPTP I've heard in a while (I'm generally not a fan).
It's an argument, but the last couple of decades hardly bears this out, unless you qualify "stay winning" with "forever" ..To stay winning you have to govern for the good of voters as a whole...
Boris got 44% in 2019. Reform UK are polling around 30-32%. They need a third of their support again to match Boris.
Perhaps that's the way - Boris joins Reform and they do a reverse merger with the rump Tories to become the Reformatories aka borstal boys
@bondegezou is characteristically wrong. If the electoral field is fragmented as it is now, then 32% might do fine for Reform, under FPTP
Tactical voting might do for Nige though, especially if his ceiling is 30% or so. He will have to tread carefully, which he's not well known for. The attack on Sarwar in the Scottish by-election backfired, encouraged Labour's vote to turn out, and delivered an unexpected victory for Labour.
People certainly do want immigration tackled, but they are squeamish about voting for obvious bad 'uns who are playing them - this is not the USofA.
FPTP is a terrible system, so Reform UK might win a majority on 30%. 30%, nevertheless, remains only three quarters of what Boris got.
FPTP is a good system. You have to actually come first in 325 seats to form a government as of right. In every single one of them there is a cage fight going on to stop you doing it. if you can do it with 30% of the vote, it is equally true that someone else can stop you by getting 31%, so it's obviously harder than it sounds. You have to come first in actual communities that are quite small units and they are all different. It's a clever thing to be able to do in 50% + of the entire country.
We are a democracy of seats, not of votes. It has great merit.
If the opinion of the majority of the voters is ignored, in what way is that a democracy?
It's a democracy of seats, as explained. And no government can keep a democracy of seats by ignoring 'the majority'.
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
"A democracy of seats as explained" is not democratic if the number of seats is not allocated according to the freely expressed will of the people. You may have a political system, but you do not have a democratic system. For example, the People´s Republic of China has a Parliament with the vast majority of seats allocated to the Chinese Communist Party. One would not mistake the PRC for a democracy.
It is a genuine form of democracy - others are available - as unlike China all can stand and campaign and all can vote under well known rules as to who wins. To 'win' you have to get the most votes in half the seats. In a multi party democracy to do that you have to be broad and popular. To stay winning you have to govern for the good of voters as a whole.
Its weaknesses have to be looked at in the light of alternatives and their weaknesses too. Eg hyper PR gives you Israel.
Israel’s society gives you Israel, not PR. FPTP in Israel would deliver an even more bonkers Knesset.
And FPTP in Holyrood would have given successive large majorities to the SNP whose strong claim for a second Indy ref even Westminster would be unable to ignore. Only joking, of course they would ignore it!
Yes, the situation in Scotland is a strong argument against FPTP.
At the last election, the SNP got 62 out of 73 constituency seats.
FPTP wrongly suggests that 85% of Scots want Independence.
Ukrainian drones flew out of grain train car hatches and destroyed 13 Russian tanks and more than a 100 armored vehicles and other equipment being transported by the Russian train in occupied southern Ukraine. The hatches appear to have been opened remotely, again. https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1931452296287887404
This mode of attack is about to become a global security nightmare, as it's probably within the capability of almost any state, and plenty of non state actors.
And drones can be stored within target countries for years, just in case.
Though easier to do in an area occupied by an invader, with plenty of supportive locals. The more territory the Russians take, the more insurgency.
Seems a bit daft from Trump’s perspective (presumably it gives Musk a due process reason to appeal any adverse decision) but more importantly it would be an extraordinary abuse of power and is very revealing about Trump’s mindset.
Boris got 44% in 2019. Reform UK are polling around 30-32%. They need a third of their support again to match Boris.
Perhaps that's the way - Boris joins Reform and they do a reverse merger with the rump Tories to become the Reformatories aka borstal boys
@bondegezou is characteristically wrong. If the electoral field is fragmented as it is now, then 32% might do fine for Reform, under FPTP
Tactical voting might do for Nige though, especially if his ceiling is 30% or so. He will have to tread carefully, which he's not well known for. The attack on Sarwar in the Scottish by-election backfired, encouraged Labour's vote to turn out, and delivered an unexpected victory for Labour.
People certainly do want immigration tackled, but they are squeamish about voting for obvious bad 'uns who are playing them - this is not the USofA.
FPTP is a terrible system, so Reform UK might win a majority on 30%. 30%, nevertheless, remains only three quarters of what Boris got.
FPTP is a good system. You have to actually come first in 325 seats to form a government as of right. In every single one of them there is a cage fight going on to stop you doing it. if you can do it with 30% of the vote, it is equally true that someone else can stop you by getting 31%, so it's obviously harder than it sounds. You have to come first in actual communities that are quite small units and they are all different. It's a clever thing to be able to do in 50% + of the entire country.
We are a democracy of seats, not of votes. It has great merit.
If the opinion of the majority of the voters is ignored, in what way is that a democracy?
It's a democracy of seats, as explained. And no government can keep a democracy of seats by ignoring 'the majority'.
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
"A democracy of seats as explained" is not democratic if the number of seats is not allocated according to the freely expressed will of the people. You may have a political system, but you do not have a democratic system. For example, the People´s Republic of China has a Parliament with the vast majority of seats allocated to the Chinese Communist Party. One would not mistake the PRC for a democracy.
It is a genuine form of democracy - others are available - as unlike China all can stand and campaign and all can vote under well known rules as to who wins. To 'win' you have to get the most votes in half the seats. In a multi party democracy to do that you have to be broad and popular. To stay winning you have to govern for the good of voters as a whole.
Its weaknesses have to be looked at in the light of alternatives and their weaknesses too. Eg hyper PR gives you Israel.
Really the essential feature of democracy is that the people can throw out the government if they want. The exact mechanism by which votes translate to representation in parliament is a detail.
I'd love to see Canada join the EU, if only for the look on Brexiteers' faces.
Sez one newbie German MEP as he launches as “aspirational” campaign.
The EU would have to radically change in function and purpose.
It’s not happening. (And if it did change to accommodate Canada then it might well be interesting again for the UK as I assume it would be a much looser arrangement)
A newly published impact assessment report from the Department for Work and Pensions estimates that unlocked surpluses would amount to £957 million a year and could be as little as £153 million a year.
That compared with £160 billion of surpluses that Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, announced in January were trapped and could potentially be unlocked and used by employers for fresh investment or to pay higher pensions or wages.
That is a massive error, which I don’t think can be explained by falling gilt yields as they are almost as high as they have been in many years, if I’m not mistaken (and the stockmarket is also high). I wonder what the explanation is.
I posted it yesterday and it attracted little comment. Part of the explanation seems to be that the defined benefit funds (which is what this is about) have been offloading their pensions liability to insurance companies - which then precludes their making investment decisions with the actuarial surpluses.
There's a huge amount of capital (well over a trillion) involved, and a pretty small number if beneficiaries.
Seems a bit daft from Trump’s perspective (presumably it gives Musk a due process reason to appeal any adverse decision) but more importantly it would be an extraordinary abuse of power and is very revealing about Trump’s mindset.
There's a reason for Trump doing something that looks daft, which boils down to him being more than a bit daft. But as President, he has facts-on-the-ground realpolitik on his side.
As with anyone who decides to ride a tiger, you have to wonder what Musk was thinking when he got on the Trump train.
Boris got 44% in 2019. Reform UK are polling around 30-32%. They need a third of their support again to match Boris.
Perhaps that's the way - Boris joins Reform and they do a reverse merger with the rump Tories to become the Reformatories aka borstal boys
@bondegezou is characteristically wrong. If the electoral field is fragmented as it is now, then 32% might do fine for Reform, under FPTP
Tactical voting might do for Nige though, especially if his ceiling is 30% or so. He will have to tread carefully, which he's not well known for. The attack on Sarwar in the Scottish by-election backfired, encouraged Labour's vote to turn out, and delivered an unexpected victory for Labour.
People certainly do want immigration tackled, but they are squeamish about voting for obvious bad 'uns who are playing them - this is not the USofA.
FPTP is a terrible system, so Reform UK might win a majority on 30%. 30%, nevertheless, remains only three quarters of what Boris got.
FPTP is a good system. You have to actually come first in 325 seats to form a government as of right. In every single one of them there is a cage fight going on to stop you doing it. if you can do it with 30% of the vote, it is equally true that someone else can stop you by getting 31%, so it's obviously harder than it sounds. You have to come first in actual communities that are quite small units and they are all different. It's a clever thing to be able to do in 50% + of the entire country.
We are a democracy of seats, not of votes. It has great merit.
If the opinion of the majority of the voters is ignored, in what way is that a democracy?
It's a democracy of seats, as explained. And no government can keep a democracy of seats by ignoring 'the majority'.
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
"A democracy of seats as explained" is not democratic if the number of seats is not allocated according to the freely expressed will of the people. You may have a political system, but you do not have a democratic system. For example, the People´s Republic of China has a Parliament with the vast majority of seats allocated to the Chinese Communist Party. One would not mistake the PRC for a democracy.
What you are ignoring is the weight of London. That could easily be more 30-40% of the votes cast in an election. But their interests might be different to other parts of the country.
It’s why we have devolution in Scotland and Wales. Otherwise English MPs would always exercise majority control over their affairs which would represent a democratic deficit.
The beauty of FPTP is that you need to win the most votes in multiple seats - and to get a majority you need to appeal to different regions and different types of communities (rural, city, semi rural, etc)
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
Everyone knows the name of Neil Armstrong, so that would certainly be the way to lasting notoriety
I'm not sure they do know the name.
One of the documentaries made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings went to visit Armstrong's childhood home: the one where he threw paper planes out of his bedroom window as a kid. They knocked on the door to ask permission to film. The homeowner replied with something like: "I'll have nothing to do with that cheater!"
They realised the homeowner thought they were talking about Lance Armstrong, not Neil Armstrong...
The median PB demographic, who were alive during the Apollo program will. But as you note, it's over half a century since the last Apollo flight.
The people who need to aplogise for the Truss fiasco are a) the (now largely unemployed) MPs who voted to put her to the members and b) the members who voted her in as PM. Most of those have probably gone to Reform I'd guess, but those who are still there in both groups need to learn some serious lessons.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
Everyone knows the name of Neil Armstrong, so that would certainly be the way to lasting notoriety
I'm not sure they do know the name.
One of the documentaries made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings went to visit Armstrong's childhood home: the one where he threw paper planes out of his bedroom window as a kid. They knocked on the door to ask permission to film. The homeowner replied with something like: "I'll have nothing to do with that cheater!"
They realised the homeowner thought they were talking about Lance Armstrong, not Neil Armstrong...
The median PB demographic, who were alive during the Apollo program will. But as you note, it's over half a century since the last Apollo flight.
I don't believe the median PB demographic is over 53. Mid 40s maybe.
I'd just turned 45 when I first posted on here. I'm 51 now. Which is depressing.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
Everyone knows the name of Neil Armstrong, so that would certainly be the way to lasting notoriety
I'm not sure they do know the name.
One of the documentaries made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings went to visit Armstrong's childhood home: the one where he threw paper planes out of his bedroom window as a kid. They knocked on the door to ask permission to film. The homeowner replied with something like: "I'll have nothing to do with that cheater!"
They realised the homeowner thought they were talking about Lance Armstrong, not Neil Armstrong...
The median PB demographic, who were alive during the Apollo program will. But as you note, it's over half a century since the last Apollo flight.
It's 20 years since Lance Armstrong last won the Tour de France though. His fame will be fading fast too.
I'd love to see Canada join the EU, if only for the look on Brexiteers' faces.
Sez one newbie German MEP as he launches as “aspirational” campaign.
The EU would have to radically change in function and purpose.
It’s not happening. (And if it did change to accommodate Canada then it might well be interesting again for the UK as I assume it would be a much looser arrangement)
I seem to recall hearing about how incredibly tough Canada are when it comes to trade agreements so I’m not sure how their position on protecting agriculture for example would dovetail with the EU’s position.
Then there is free movement which isn’t going to go down overly well in Canada so many reasons not to see it remotely happening.
It does however add to the sense that the EU needs to have that “outer ring” that Macron suggested or alternatively to itself become a looser arrangement based on trade and defence which would then be more attractive to potential new members.
Boris got 44% in 2019. Reform UK are polling around 30-32%. They need a third of their support again to match Boris.
Perhaps that's the way - Boris joins Reform and they do a reverse merger with the rump Tories to become the Reformatories aka borstal boys
@bondegezou is characteristically wrong. If the electoral field is fragmented as it is now, then 32% might do fine for Reform, under FPTP
Tactical voting might do for Nige though, especially if his ceiling is 30% or so. He will have to tread carefully, which he's not well known for. The attack on Sarwar in the Scottish by-election backfired, encouraged Labour's vote to turn out, and delivered an unexpected victory for Labour.
People certainly do want immigration tackled, but they are squeamish about voting for obvious bad 'uns who are playing them - this is not the USofA.
FPTP is a terrible system, so Reform UK might win a majority on 30%. 30%, nevertheless, remains only three quarters of what Boris got.
FPTP is a good system. You have to actually come first in 325 seats to form a government as of right. In every single one of them there is a cage fight going on to stop you doing it. if you can do it with 30% of the vote, it is equally true that someone else can stop you by getting 31%, so it's obviously harder than it sounds. You have to come first in actual communities that are quite small units and they are all different. It's a clever thing to be able to do in 50% + of the entire country.
We are a democracy of seats, not of votes. It has great merit.
If the opinion of the majority of the voters is ignored, in what way is that a democracy?
It's a democracy of seats, as explained. And no government can keep a democracy of seats by ignoring 'the majority'.
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
"A democracy of seats as explained" is not democratic if the number of seats is not allocated according to the freely expressed will of the people. You may have a political system, but you do not have a democratic system. For example, the People´s Republic of China has a Parliament with the vast majority of seats allocated to the Chinese Communist Party. One would not mistake the PRC for a democracy.
What you are ignoring is the weight of London. That could easily be more 30-40% of the votes cast in an election. But their interests might be different to other parts of the country.
It’s why we have devolution in Scotland and Wales. Otherwise English MPs would always exercise majority control over their affairs which would represent a democratic deficit.
The beauty of FPTP is that you need to win the most votes in multiple seats - and to get a majority you need to appeal to different regions and different types of communities (rural, city, semi rural, etc)
Not always, in 1974 England voted Tory but got a UK Labour government due to Scottish and Welsh Labour MPs
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
Everyone knows the name of Neil Armstrong, so that would certainly be the way to lasting notoriety
I'm not sure they do know the name.
One of the documentaries made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings went to visit Armstrong's childhood home: the one where he threw paper planes out of his bedroom window as a kid. They knocked on the door to ask permission to film. The homeowner replied with something like: "I'll have nothing to do with that cheater!"
They realised the homeowner thought they were talking about Lance Armstrong, not Neil Armstrong...
The median PB demographic, who were alive during the Apollo program will. But as you note, it's over half a century since the last Apollo flight.
It's 20 years since Lance Armstrong last won the Tour de France though. His fame will be fading fast too.
Wasn't his disgrace in 2012 or so? So probably only five or six years before the documentary was made.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
Everyone knows the name of Neil Armstrong, so that would certainly be the way to lasting notoriety
I'm not sure they do know the name.
One of the documentaries made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings went to visit Armstrong's childhood home: the one where he threw paper planes out of his bedroom window as a kid. They knocked on the door to ask permission to film. The homeowner replied with something like: "I'll have nothing to do with that cheater!"
They realised the homeowner thought they were talking about Lance Armstrong, not Neil Armstrong...
The median PB demographic, who were alive during the Apollo program will. But as you note, it's over half a century since the last Apollo flight.
It's 20 years since Lance Armstrong last won the Tour de France though. His fame will be fading fast too.
Of course (channelling my inner HYUFD there) the record books will show he never won the Tour de France.
Boris got 44% in 2019. Reform UK are polling around 30-32%. They need a third of their support again to match Boris.
Perhaps that's the way - Boris joins Reform and they do a reverse merger with the rump Tories to become the Reformatories aka borstal boys
@bondegezou is characteristically wrong. If the electoral field is fragmented as it is now, then 32% might do fine for Reform, under FPTP
Tactical voting might do for Nige though, especially if his ceiling is 30% or so. He will have to tread carefully, which he's not well known for. The attack on Sarwar in the Scottish by-election backfired, encouraged Labour's vote to turn out, and delivered an unexpected victory for Labour.
People certainly do want immigration tackled, but they are squeamish about voting for obvious bad 'uns who are playing them - this is not the USofA.
FPTP is a terrible system, so Reform UK might win a majority on 30%. 30%, nevertheless, remains only three quarters of what Boris got.
FPTP is a good system. You have to actually come first in 325 seats to form a government as of right. In every single one of them there is a cage fight going on to stop you doing it. if you can do it with 30% of the vote, it is equally true that someone else can stop you by getting 31%, so it's obviously harder than it sounds. You have to come first in actual communities that are quite small units and they are all different. It's a clever thing to be able to do in 50% + of the entire country.
We are a democracy of seats, not of votes. It has great merit.
If the opinion of the majority of the voters is ignored, in what way is that a democracy?
It's a democracy of seats, as explained. And no government can keep a democracy of seats by ignoring 'the majority'.
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
"A democracy of seats as explained" is not democratic if the number of seats is not allocated according to the freely expressed will of the people. You may have a political system, but you do not have a democratic system. For example, the People´s Republic of China has a Parliament with the vast majority of seats allocated to the Chinese Communist Party. One would not mistake the PRC for a democracy.
It is a genuine form of democracy - others are available - as unlike China all can stand and campaign and all can vote under well known rules as to who wins. To 'win' you have to get the most votes in half the seats. In a multi party democracy to do that you have to be broad and popular. To stay winning you have to govern for the good of voters as a whole.
Its weaknesses have to be looked at in the light of alternatives and their weaknesses too. Eg hyper PR gives you Israel.
Does it ? I don't think you can really explain a country's politics purely by its electoral system.
Israel might well be in something like its current mess under any electoral system.
Democracy itself isn't a panacea. It's just the best chance we all have.
The people who need to aplogise for the Truss fiasco are a) the (now largely unemployed) MPs who voted to put her to the members and b) the members who voted her in as PM. Most of those have probably gone to Reform I'd guess, but those who are still there in both groups need to learn some serious lessons.
I've said many times on here that I think that party members outside Parliament ultimately deciding who leads the party inside Parliament is wrongheaded and verging on unconstitutional. Whoever had that bright idea (Hague in the case of the Conservatives wasn't it?) needs to apologise.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
Everyone knows the name of Neil Armstrong, so that would certainly be the way to lasting notoriety
I'm not sure they do know the name.
One of the documentaries made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings went to visit Armstrong's childhood home: the one where he threw paper planes out of his bedroom window as a kid. They knocked on the door to ask permission to film. The homeowner replied with something like: "I'll have nothing to do with that cheater!"
They realised the homeowner thought they were talking about Lance Armstrong, not Neil Armstrong...
The median PB demographic, who were alive during the Apollo program will. But as you note, it's over half a century since the last Apollo flight.
It's 20 years since Lance Armstrong last won the Tour de France though. His fame will be fading fast too.
Louis Armstrong Neil Armstrong Lance Armstrong Alexander Armstrong
Seems a bit daft from Trump’s perspective (presumably it gives Musk a due process reason to appeal any adverse decision) but more importantly it would be an extraordinary abuse of power and is very revealing about Trump’s mindset.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
Everyone knows the name of Neil Armstrong, so that would certainly be the way to lasting notoriety
I'm not sure they do know the name.
One of the documentaries made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings went to visit Armstrong's childhood home: the one where he threw paper planes out of his bedroom window as a kid. They knocked on the door to ask permission to film. The homeowner replied with something like: "I'll have nothing to do with that cheater!"
They realised the homeowner thought they were talking about Lance Armstrong, not Neil Armstrong...
The median PB demographic, who were alive during the Apollo program will. But as you note, it's over half a century since the last Apollo flight.
It's 20 years since Lance Armstrong last won the Tour de France though. His fame will be fading fast too.
Louis Armstrong Neil Armstrong Lance Armstrong Alexander Armstrong
The batton is passed from one to the next.
You're forgetting Gary Armstrong, Scotland scrum-half.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
Everyone knows the name of Neil Armstrong, so that would certainly be the way to lasting notoriety
I'm not sure they do know the name.
One of the documentaries made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings went to visit Armstrong's childhood home: the one where he threw paper planes out of his bedroom window as a kid. They knocked on the door to ask permission to film. The homeowner replied with something like: "I'll have nothing to do with that cheater!"
They realised the homeowner thought they were talking about Lance Armstrong, not Neil Armstrong...
The median PB demographic, who were alive during the Apollo program will. But as you note, it's over half a century since the last Apollo flight.
It's 20 years since Lance Armstrong last won the Tour de France though. His fame will be fading fast too.
Louis Armstrong Neil Armstrong Lance Armstrong Alexander Armstrong
The batton is passed from one to the next.
You're forgetting Gary Armstrong, Scotland scrum-half.
Boris got 44% in 2019. Reform UK are polling around 30-32%. They need a third of their support again to match Boris.
Perhaps that's the way - Boris joins Reform and they do a reverse merger with the rump Tories to become the Reformatories aka borstal boys
@bondegezou is characteristically wrong. If the electoral field is fragmented as it is now, then 32% might do fine for Reform, under FPTP
Tactical voting might do for Nige though, especially if his ceiling is 30% or so. He will have to tread carefully, which he's not well known for. The attack on Sarwar in the Scottish by-election backfired, encouraged Labour's vote to turn out, and delivered an unexpected victory for Labour.
People certainly do want immigration tackled, but they are squeamish about voting for obvious bad 'uns who are playing them - this is not the USofA.
FPTP is a terrible system, so Reform UK might win a majority on 30%. 30%, nevertheless, remains only three quarters of what Boris got.
FPTP is a good system. You have to actually come first in 325 seats to form a government as of right. In every single one of them there is a cage fight going on to stop you doing it. if you can do it with 30% of the vote, it is equally true that someone else can stop you by getting 31%, so it's obviously harder than it sounds. You have to come first in actual communities that are quite small units and they are all different. It's a clever thing to be able to do in 50% + of the entire country.
We are a democracy of seats, not of votes. It has great merit.
If the opinion of the majority of the voters is ignored, in what way is that a democracy?
It's a democracy of seats, as explained. And no government can keep a democracy of seats by ignoring 'the majority'.
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
"A democracy of seats as explained" is not democratic if the number of seats is not allocated according to the freely expressed will of the people. You may have a political system, but you do not have a democratic system. For example, the People´s Republic of China has a Parliament with the vast majority of seats allocated to the Chinese Communist Party. One would not mistake the PRC for a democracy.
It is a genuine form of democracy - others are available - as unlike China all can stand and campaign and all can vote under well known rules as to who wins. To 'win' you have to get the most votes in half the seats. In a multi party democracy to do that you have to be broad and popular. To stay winning you have to govern for the good of voters as a whole.
Its weaknesses have to be looked at in the light of alternatives and their weaknesses too. Eg hyper PR gives you Israel.
Does it ? I don't think you can really explain a country's politics purely by its electoral system.
Israel might well be in something like its current mess under any electoral system.
Democracy itself isn't a panacea. It's just the best chance we all have.
I think it’s safe to say there would likely be far fewer parties under FPTP. What is now Likud might well be in the same party as some of the harder-right elements currently in coalition with Bibi, for instance.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
Everyone knows the name of Neil Armstrong, so that would certainly be the way to lasting notoriety
I'm not sure they do know the name.
One of the documentaries made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings went to visit Armstrong's childhood home: the one where he threw paper planes out of his bedroom window as a kid. They knocked on the door to ask permission to film. The homeowner replied with something like: "I'll have nothing to do with that cheater!"
They realised the homeowner thought they were talking about Lance Armstrong, not Neil Armstrong...
The median PB demographic, who were alive during the Apollo program will. But as you note, it's over half a century since the last Apollo flight.
I don't believe the median PB demographic is over 53. Mid 40s maybe.
I'd just turned 45 when I first posted on here. I'm 51 now. Which is depressing.
It was a guess. But every so often I'm surprised, when PBers reveal their ages, by just how old we are. I'm over a decade on from you.
It's amusing but I think it misreads the dynamic between Trump and Musk.
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
Everyone knows the name of Neil Armstrong, so that would certainly be the way to lasting notoriety
I'm not sure they do know the name.
One of the documentaries made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings went to visit Armstrong's childhood home: the one where he threw paper planes out of his bedroom window as a kid. They knocked on the door to ask permission to film. The homeowner replied with something like: "I'll have nothing to do with that cheater!"
They realised the homeowner thought they were talking about Lance Armstrong, not Neil Armstrong...
The median PB demographic, who were alive during the Apollo program will. But as you note, it's over half a century since the last Apollo flight.
It's 20 years since Lance Armstrong last won the Tour de France though. His fame will be fading fast too.
Louis Armstrong Neil Armstrong Lance Armstrong Alexander Armstrong
The batton is passed from one to the next.
On that trajectory getting a distinct modern ife is rubbish vibe.
Comments
It will also be interesting to see how long it takes for state-backed hackers to bring a country to its knees by compromising the database and setting all the speed limits to 0.
Reform's DOGE is intended to work the same way & shake-up the university educated liberal UK civil service.
I think it will be difficult for Starmer to use DOGE as an effective campaign tactic. Harris tried the same tactic of running on a platform of "protecting institutions" but it failed badly.
In fact, Starmer's main campaign slogan is "change". It will be hard for him to argue that Reform's DOGE will bring "change" to the UK civil service and that type of change is bad, but other types of change are good.
Either is disturbing
https://www.awesomebooks.com/book/9781862076556/stasiland-stories-from-behind-the-berlin-wall
https://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/terrorism#:~:text=The use or threat of action, as set out above,a section of the public.
My auto-cutout is downright dangerous as it cuts the engine when you are just about to accelerate at a roundabout, so I set the minimum battery voltage at which it operates (designed to stop the battery going flat) higher than the battery can be charged to.
I just have to remember to set it back before an MOT.
£15 adapter, £5 app.
The alternative is to take the dash panel off and put an extra switch in line that remembers the last button press, but that's a bit more painful.
I'd probably do the same for this, although I am actually a stickler for speed limits (except on the M74).
Spencer Hakimian
@SpencerHakimian
“We are making Los Angeles safer. We are going to bring the National Guard in tonight.” - Tom Homan
LA is about to turn into a total mess over the next 24 hours.
https://x.com/SpencerHakimian/status/1931474349846069670
@aimeebalthazar
·
3m
Trump is basically declaring martial law in LA because they dared to protest against ICE's unlawful actions. This is full-blown fascism
A 13-year-old jumped to his death from the 4th floor apartment where the fire started in the early hours of Friday and a burned body found inside is believed to be that of his older brother, aged 15, said Reims prosecutor François Schneider."
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/07/europe/electric-scooter-fire-deaths-france-intl
Rachel Bitecofer 🗽🦆
@RachelBitecofer
·
3h
For those of us who’ve spend the last 6 months discussing how the Trump would use deportations to create chaos is the Blue states and then use that chaos as an excuse to declare a national emergency and seize total power, things are right on schedule
https://www.youtube.com/@eastgermanyinvestigated
I find it very informative
Indeed, there's no sign of either rioters or ICE.
So, as I'm cheerfully letting my car drive, it decides to slow down for no obvious reason.
Here's a NY Times article from today which mentions how DOGE has been "embedded" in various federal agencies & how its work "goes on": https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/us/politics/trump-musk-doge-interior-epa.html?unlocked_article_code=1.NE8.1Seg.qFojlZYBgU8R&smid=url-share
Musk and Trump have very different visions of DOGE.
Musk had a vision of DOGE as a genuine attempt to cut the size of government and retrench civil servants, irrespective of the ideology of the civil servants.
Trump's vision of DOGE is different and he sees it as a means of control of the civil service. He only wants to get rid of, or otherwise subjugate the liberal Democrat-supporting civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists.
For Trump, the DOGE staffers are very similar to the political commissars of the Soviet Union.
@mrexits
Oh yeah this is a masterpiece
https://x.com/mrexits/status/1931435716896051592
I think the dynamic is similar to that between Stalin and Trotsky, and not the father and child dynamic implied by the Twitter short.
Stalin's (Trump's) authority has now been directly challenged by Trotsky (Musk). Musk hasn't just disagreed with Trump on policy, but he has also openly called for Trump to be impeached and removed. This is a red line for Trump, that he would never be able to ignore or forgive.
Musk has his own following & can be very dangerous to Trump's hold on MAGA.
Trump must now destroy Musk to make sure that he longer poses a threat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz4zel00G68
We might have a televised cabinet meeting where the various cabinet secretaries describe Musk's various "crimes". So, Trump might start the meeting by saying that he has deep concerns that Musk could have been doing lots of illegal things which need looking into. And then the Transportation Secretary might say that Musk was trying to force the Air Traffic control system to use Starlink. And the Defence Secretary might say that Musk was trying to install his minion as head of NASA etc.
Bidders demand Thames Water granted immunity over environmental crimes
Exclusive: ‘Ransom note’ requests would leave Environment Agency unable to prosecute company or management
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jun/07/bidders-demand-thames-water-granted-immunity-over-environmental-crimes
I'd have thought you'd have been against such actions.
The hatches appear to have been opened remotely, again.
https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1931452296287887404
This mode of attack is about to become a global security nightmare, as it's probably within the capability of almost any state, and plenty of non state actors.
HIGH-ENERGY TRANSMISSION X-RAY
For cargo systems, high-energy, high-performance transmission X-rays deeply penetrate densely loaded containers for greater detection. High-energy transmission X-rays provide fine details, even while penetrating up to 400 mm of steel — and offer a reliable means of detecting threatening materials, weapons, and contraband hidden in cargo containers, tankers, and large vehicles.
https://www.rapiscansystems.com/en/technologies/high-energy-transmission-x-ray
Which is a bit of a 'no shit, Sherlock' conclusion.
Seems most politicians have been captured by think-tanks and focus groups. They'd save a lot of money by getting rid of them and talking to their constituents.
One of the documentaries made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lunar landings went to visit Armstrong's childhood home: the one where he threw paper planes out of his bedroom window as a kid. They knocked on the door to ask permission to film. The homeowner replied with something like: "I'll have nothing to do with that cheater!"
They realised the homeowner thought they were talking about Lance Armstrong, not Neil Armstrong...
All democracies make choices between the many things that count as 'democracy'. This is is OK.
I'd love to see Canada join the EU, if only for the look on Brexiteers' faces.
The biggest ethnic group using Medicaid in the US is white, followed by Hispanic second. Black is 3rd.
Good morning, everyone.
Its weaknesses have to be looked at in the light of alternatives and their weaknesses too. Eg hyper PR gives you Israel.
Reforms to enable employers to extract surpluses from traditional pension schemes will release only £8.4 billion over ten years, a small fraction of the £160 billion that ministers have previously suggested could be available.
A newly published impact assessment report from the Department for Work and Pensions estimates that unlocked surpluses would amount to £957 million a year and could be as little as £153 million a year.
That compared with £160 billion of surpluses that Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, announced in January were trapped and could potentially be unlocked and used by employers for fresh investment or to pay higher pensions or wages.
https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/pension-surpluses-blow-for-reeves-m355f7b06
Not the first time that Labour politicians have made over optimistic claims about how much money could be taken from pensions.
Yet we still have Reeves looking at at ways to damage DC pensions.
I have to say patrolling the start line for our start when the then Americas Cup catamarans came through for their start was awesome. You don't want to be hit by one of them at full pelt.
‘I’m only asking questions, just not about UFOs, satanic pizza parlours or Haitian cat eaters.’
If nothing else, once Reform get power and their policies are proven to be unworkable, it puts the Conservatives in a better position to rebuild a decade from now.
Then again, four years is a long time, and at least some voters may be sick of tax and spend by then.
Only joking, of course they would ignore it!
One of the reasons all this is happening is the contortions governments have gone through to try and achieve that for a little bit longer.
Another part of the assessment is the quality of the guarantee of the funder. This, once again, encourages funders to keep their balance sheets in good order simply to save money. Which itself is hardly conducive to either investment or even consumption. Describing the whole set up as idiotic is offensive to idiots.
..To stay winning you have to govern for the good of voters as a whole...
At the last election, the SNP got 62 out of 73 constituency seats.
FPTP wrongly suggests that 85% of Scots want Independence.
Seems a bit daft from Trump’s perspective (presumably it gives Musk a due process reason to appeal any adverse decision) but more importantly it would be an extraordinary abuse of power and is very revealing about Trump’s mindset.
L’etat, c’est moi.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/07/trump-threatens-musk-democrats
The EU would have to radically change in function and purpose.
It’s not happening. (And if it did change to accommodate Canada then it might well be interesting again for the UK as I assume it would be a much looser arrangement)
Part of the explanation seems to be that the defined benefit funds (which is what this is about) have been offloading their pensions liability to insurance companies - which then precludes their making investment decisions with the actuarial surpluses.
There's a huge amount of capital (well over a trillion) involved, and a pretty small number if beneficiaries.
As with anyone who decides to ride a tiger, you have to wonder what Musk was thinking when he got on the Trump train.
It’s why we have devolution in Scotland and Wales. Otherwise English MPs would always exercise majority control over their affairs which would represent a democratic deficit.
The beauty of FPTP is that you need to win the most votes in multiple seats - and to get a majority you need to appeal to different regions and different types of communities (rural, city, semi rural, etc)
But as you note, it's over half a century since the last Apollo flight.
I'd just turned 45 when I first posted on here. I'm 51 now. Which is depressing.
Good news! It's starting to make the US seem half civilised again
Then there is free movement which isn’t going to go down overly well in Canada so many reasons not to see it remotely happening.
It does however add to the sense that the EU needs to have that “outer ring” that Macron suggested or alternatively to itself become a looser arrangement based on trade and defence which would then be more attractive to potential new members.
I don't think you can really explain a country's politics purely by its electoral system.
Israel might well be in something like its current mess under any electoral system.
Democracy itself isn't a panacea. It's just the best chance we all have.
Neil Armstrong
Lance Armstrong
Alexander Armstrong
The batton is passed from one to the next.
But every so often I'm surprised, when PBers reveal their ages, by just how old we are. I'm over a decade on from you.