Isn't this just Farage doing what he always does? I think he enjoys the limelight but would run a mile from political office.
It’s always easier to be in permanent opposition, able to suggest solutions and ideas that never have to be actually implemented.
Unfortunately the current government appears to have arrived with no ideas, and the previous government had run out of them.
As many of their newly elected councillors running an administration, they’ll be discovering that governing is hard hard hard. A series of spinning plates full of shit, surrounded by electric fans.
I don't think incompetence in office will hit Reform hard enough. A recent example:
That situation would have applied whoever ran the county. There is a consultation on the budget tomorrow and the details have been published on the council site. Reform have made some savings but the demands on councils and budgets across the board are going up. That’s not incompetence it’s a broken funding model for local govt.
Maybe. But it still leaves Reform heading up the shit-sandwich buffet...
What is Reform's policy for mending the broken funding model for local government? 3 words: Close. Things. Down.
Nope
It’s the same as any other local Govt
More.govt.money
Not quite in Durham you also have lower council tax grants so the poorest now have to find more money to pay a council tax bill they previously didn’t need to pay
Which suggests that Trump isn't as historically unpopular as has been claimed and that the Dems are neither enthusing either their own or swing voters.
Now the Dems will still gain the House next year but the pattern of failing governments and congressional gridlock looks set to continue.
The Dems did have a really terrible candidate in TN7.
She’s in favour of defunding police, providing sanctuary to foreign criminals etc, and said previously that she hated Nashville and country music, before standing in a district that contained half of, err, Nashville.
Yes the Dems will take back the House, but if their primary process produces fringe candidates in swing seats it could be closer than expected. The Senate will likely stay GOP but with a reduced majority, and we’ll have two years of total gridlock in Congress.
Yet the Dems still got their highest voteshare in TN7 since 1982 despite a terrible candidate and indeed Trump had to intervene at the last moment on Truth Social to get his MAGA voters out to vote for Van Epps to ensure he scraped over the line.
The House therefore is almost certainly going Dem next year, if the GOP are stupid enough to nominate Paxton over Cornyn the Dems could scrape home in the Senate too as polls show Paxton could be beaten by the Dems in Texas while Maine and NC are also likely Dem pickups and Ohio looks close. The Dems need 4 net gains to retake the Senate
There have been boundary changes in TN7 with the GOP vote dropping 10% between 2020 and 2022:
Even so Trump won TN7 by 22% in 2024, it is a mainly rural district in the South of the US, if Republicans aren't winning it by a landslide but only scraping home even in the rural South then they certainly aren't holding the House nationally next year
Pool A: Australia (hosts), Hong Kong China, Chile, New Zealand Pool B: Romania, Georgia, Italy, South Africa Pool C: Canada, Spain, Fiji, Argentina Pool Portugal, Uruguay, Scotland, Ireland Pool E: Samoa, USA, Japan, France Pool F: Zimbabwe, Tonga, Wales, England
Pool A: Australia (hosts), Hong Kong China, Chile, New Zealand Pool B: Romania, Georgia, Italy, South Africa Pool C: Canada, Spain, Fiji, Argentina Pool D : Portugal, Uruguay, Scotland, Ireland Pool E: Samoa, USA, Japan, France Pool F: Zimbabwe, Tonga, Wales, England
Isn't this just Farage doing what he always does? I think he enjoys the limelight but would run a mile from political office.
It’s always easier to be in permanent opposition, able to suggest solutions and ideas that never have to be actually implemented.
Unfortunately the current government appears to have arrived with no ideas, and the previous government had run out of them.
As many of their newly elected councillors running an administration, they’ll be discovering that governing is hard hard hard. A series of spinning plates full of shit, surrounded by electric fans.
I don't think incompetence in office will hit Reform hard enough. A recent example:
That situation would have applied whoever ran the county. There is a consultation on the budget tomorrow and the details have been published on the council site. Reform have made some savings but the demands on councils and budgets across the board are going up. That’s not incompetence it’s a broken funding model for local govt.
Maybe. But it still leaves Reform heading up the shit-sandwich buffet...
What is Reform's policy for mending the broken funding model for local government? 3 words: Close. Things. Down.
Nope
It’s the same as any other local Govt
More.govt.money
Not quite in Durham you also have lower council tax grants so the poorest now have to find more money to pay a council tax bill they previously didn’t need to pay
Quite right too. They should contribute something.
Some perspective required
Durham previously let the ‘poorest’ have a 100% rebate on their council tax. This will now be 90%. Far more generous than most other councils including Labour ones.
Which suggests that Trump isn't as historically unpopular as has been claimed and that the Dems are neither enthusing either their own or swing voters.
Now the Dems will still gain the House next year but the pattern of failing governments and congressional gridlock looks set to continue.
Its a pretty flamboyant piece of gerrymandering. This is how Nashville is split between 3 districts:
Isn't the main point of gerrymandering to ensure that very few seats are in play, so reducing the need to campaign everywhere else? Which is why both parties support it.
No. The main point is to win many more seats than your support across the area warrants. You can gerrymander the map to favour one party or the other.
Which suggests that Trump isn't as historically unpopular as has been claimed and that the Dems are neither enthusing either their own or swing voters.
Now the Dems will still gain the House next year but the pattern of failing governments and congressional gridlock looks set to continue.
The Dems did have a really terrible candidate in TN7.
She’s in favour of defunding police, providing sanctuary to foreign criminals etc, and said previously that she hated Nashville and country music, before standing in a district that contained half of, err, Nashville.
Yes the Dems will take back the House, but if their primary process produces fringe candidates in swing seats it could be closer than expected. The Senate will likely stay GOP but with a reduced majority, and we’ll have two years of total gridlock in Congress.
Are you just regurgitating Fox News talking points again?
Pool A: Australia (hosts), Hong Kong China, Chile, New Zealand Pool B: Romania, Georgia, Italy, South Africa Pool C: Canada, Spain, Fiji, Argentina Pool Portugal, Uruguay, Scotland, Ireland Pool E: Samoa, USA, Japan, France Pool F: Zimbabwe, Tonga, Wales, England
Very few potential banana skins there. Possibly Italy v Georgia although Italy are looking good at the moment. Not sure how good Tonga are right now and Wales surely will improve by then so looks like the top seeds will win their groups and second level will come second.
Pool A: Australia (hosts), Hong Kong China, Chile, New Zealand Pool B: Romania, Georgia, Italy, South Africa Pool C: Canada, Spain, Fiji, Argentina Pool D : Portugal, Uruguay, Scotland, Ireland Pool E: Samoa, USA, Japan, France Pool F: Zimbabwe, Tonga, Wales, England
Anyhow, La Belle Alliance was an inn or tavern, which Farage would probably like, and not an actual alliance, which he may not. It’s near the Waterloo battlefield but got its name prior to the battle, believed to be because when the publican died, his widow married a series of men each of whom also died, until she ended up married to the new innkeeper.
La Belle Alliance was what the Prussians called the Battle of Waterloo as a reference to The Seventh Coalition.
The French called it the Battle of Mont-Saint-Jean.
Which suggests that Trump isn't as historically unpopular as has been claimed and that the Dems are neither enthusing either their own or swing voters.
Now the Dems will still gain the House next year but the pattern of failing governments and congressional gridlock looks set to continue.
The Dems did have a really terrible candidate in TN7.
She’s in favour of defunding police, providing sanctuary to foreign criminals etc, and said previously that she hated Nashville and country music, before standing in a district that contained half of, err, Nashville.
Yes the Dems will take back the House, but if their primary process produces fringe candidates in swing seats it could be closer than expected. The Senate will likely stay GOP but with a reduced majority, and we’ll have two years of total gridlock in Congress.
Are you just regurgitating Fox News talking points again?
Well he has a point about the candidate. The Democrats do not do well in red states when they run candidates on the left of the party. That's plain common sense.
She was actually to the left of Mamdani on policing - and crime is the one issue where, rightly or wrongly (the latter, IMO), the polling for the GOP is less than awful. If the Democrats want to compete in red states, which is entirely possible, they have to pick candidates who can do so.
The good news for lawyers is the inquiry still has another two years to run.
The funniest part was reported by the BBC on the website. Apparently the spokesman for the Covid 19 Bereaved Families for justice said the enquiries needed to be "...to become more efficient and less adversarial."
I'd argue that the presence and questioning of the lawyers for the Covid Bereaved Families for justice has been one of the main reasons for its adversarial nature. The lack of awareness is astonishing.
Pool A: Australia (hosts), Hong Kong China, Chile, New Zealand Pool B: Romania, Georgia, Italy, South Africa Pool C: Canada, Spain, Fiji, Argentina Pool D : Portugal, Uruguay, Scotland, Ireland Pool E: Samoa, USA, Japan, France Pool F: Zimbabwe, Tonga, Wales, England
If that swing was replicated Nationwide, 42 Republicans would lose their seats
If.
Polling in TN-7 suggested the Dems were only 2% behind. So, either:
a) polling failure or
b) polling was correct causing the Republicans to go into high-cost panic mode.
It was very high turnout for a special election. The Republicans certainly went into high cost panic mode; normally they would hardly spend anything there. The polls might well have been skewed (certainly early voting favoured the Democrats, as it always tends to).
Pool A: Australia (hosts), Hong Kong China, Chile, New Zealand Pool B: Romania, Georgia, Italy, South Africa Pool C: Canada, Spain, Fiji, Argentina Pool D : Portugal, Uruguay, Scotland, Ireland Pool E: Samoa, USA, Japan, France Pool F: Zimbabwe, Tonga, Wales, England
Number 1 article on the BBC this morning is about SUVs. Hopefully we'll follow the French and reform VED into something that deters people from buying them.
Though of course a significant driver as to why cars are getting bigger is safety - so much of the packaging bloat is there to protect the occupants.
Yes, but a Mini meets the safety regulations just as a Range Rover does.
We should be discouraging people from buying massive SUVs just for the school run in the city. (Yes, rural Scotland is a little different!)
The increasing prevalence of speed bumps etc in towns and cities is another incentive for buying SUVs that take them much better.
I drive a small vehicle, a Suzuki Swift, but down my road we have about a dozen speed bumps despite the road being 30mph. Even taking them at 20mph in my Swift is a pain, despite the limit being considerably higher.
An SUV takes bumps much easier.
If Councils insist on making roads bumpy then don't be surprised to see people reacting to that by buying vehicles that can handle that better, meaning vehicles designed for the countryside work better in towns than smaller ones do - thanks to the Councils choices.
Which suggests that Trump isn't as historically unpopular as has been claimed and that the Dems are neither enthusing either their own or swing voters.
Now the Dems will still gain the House next year but the pattern of failing governments and congressional gridlock looks set to continue.
Its a pretty flamboyant piece of gerrymandering. This is how Nashville is split between 3 districts:
Plus, the Republicans dug out some, er, unwise quotes from the Democrat candidate about how she hated Nashville! With a better candidate, it could have been significantly closer. That said, the Republicans had to spend a shedload of money to get a poor result. They can't do that everywhere next November.
Money will not the limiting factor in GOP spending. It has more than enough billionaires signing cheques.
Top 2 teams in each group go through to a last round of 16 (expanded) with the top 4 third place teams
The draw has been held early to give more time for fans to make travel arrangements and for the organisers to stage a successful tournament, according to BBC
Incredible the draw has happened nearly 2 years out from the tournament with all teams already qualified ... there will be 6 teams qualify for the football World Cup in March who won't be able to make arrangements until 10 weeks before the tournament!
Which suggests that Trump isn't as historically unpopular as has been claimed and that the Dems are neither enthusing either their own or swing voters.
Now the Dems will still gain the House next year but the pattern of failing governments and congressional gridlock looks set to continue.
The Dems did have a really terrible candidate in TN7.
She’s in favour of defunding police, providing sanctuary to foreign criminals etc, and said previously that she hated Nashville and country music, before standing in a district that contained half of, err, Nashville.
Yes the Dems will take back the House, but if their primary process produces fringe candidates in swing seats it could be closer than expected. The Senate will likely stay GOP but with a reduced majority, and we’ll have two years of total gridlock in Congress.
Are you just regurgitating Fox News talking points again?
Are you just playing the man and not the ball again?
My point was actually that it could be worse for the GOP in the mid-terms, because the Dems chose a terrible candidate in TN7.
She did actually say that she hated the city in which she was now standing, and refused in several interviews during the campaign to walk back her earlier comments.
Isn't this just Farage doing what he always does? I think he enjoys the limelight but would run a mile from political office.
It’s always easier to be in permanent opposition, able to suggest solutions and ideas that never have to be actually implemented.
Unfortunately the current government appears to have arrived with no ideas, and the previous government had run out of them.
As many of their newly elected councillors running an administration, they’ll be discovering that governing is hard hard hard. A series of spinning plates full of shit, surrounded by electric fans.
I don't think incompetence in office will hit Reform hard enough. A recent example:
That situation would have applied whoever ran the county. There is a consultation on the budget tomorrow and the details have been published on the council site. Reform have made some savings but the demands on councils and budgets across the board are going up. That’s not incompetence it’s a broken funding model for local govt.
Maybe. But it still leaves Reform heading up the shit-sandwich buffet...
What is Reform's policy for mending the broken funding model for local government? 3 words: Close. Things. Down.
Nope
It’s the same as any other local Govt
More.govt.money
I refer the honourable members to my long standing answer on this. Abolish local government, standardise services nationwide, and reap the benefits of doing it all at scale.
Pool A: Australia (hosts), Hong Kong China, Chile, New Zealand Pool B: Romania, Georgia, Italy, South Africa Pool C: Canada, Spain, Fiji, Argentina Pool Portugal, Uruguay, Scotland, Ireland Pool E: Samoa, USA, Japan, France Pool F: Zimbabwe, Tonga, Wales, England
Oh dear. So we're going to get another month-long moan about how England only progressed because they were in the easiest group in history.
Isn't this just Farage doing what he always does? I think he enjoys the limelight but would run a mile from political office.
It’s always easier to be in permanent opposition, able to suggest solutions and ideas that never have to be actually implemented.
Unfortunately the current government appears to have arrived with no ideas, and the previous government had run out of them.
As many of their newly elected councillors running an administration, they’ll be discovering that governing is hard hard hard. A series of spinning plates full of shit, surrounded by electric fans.
I don't think incompetence in office will hit Reform hard enough. A recent example:
That situation would have applied whoever ran the county. There is a consultation on the budget tomorrow and the details have been published on the council site. Reform have made some savings but the demands on councils and budgets across the board are going up. That’s not incompetence it’s a broken funding model for local govt.
Maybe. But it still leaves Reform heading up the shit-sandwich buffet...
What is Reform's policy for mending the broken funding model for local government? 3 words: Close. Things. Down.
Nope
It’s the same as any other local Govt
More.govt.money
I refer the honourable members to my long standing answer on this. Abolish local government, standardise services nationwide, and reap the benefits of doing it all at scale.
Solved.
Indeed. Alternatively hand local powers back to people and get the busybodies out of the way.
Anything that is standardised nationwide, like SEND/Care etc should be dealt with and funded nationwide.
Anything that is a choice, should be chosen by the individuals concerned.
Get rid of the local councils, elections and abolish that whole layer of bureaucracy and crap.
Number 1 article on the BBC this morning is about SUVs. Hopefully we'll follow the French and reform VED into something that deters people from buying them.
Though of course a significant driver as to why cars are getting bigger is safety - so much of the packaging bloat is there to protect the occupants.
Yes, but a Mini meets the safety regulations just as a Range Rover does.
We should be discouraging people from buying massive SUVs just for the school run in the city. (Yes, rural Scotland is a little different!)
The increasing prevalence of speed bumps etc in towns and cities is another incentive for buying SUVs that take them much better.
I drive a small vehicle, a Suzuki Swift, but down my road we have about a dozen speed bumps despite the road being 30mph. Even taking them at 20mph in my Swift is a pain, despite the limit being considerably higher.
An SUV takes bumps much easier.
If Councils insist on making roads bumpy then don't be surprised to see people reacting to that by buying vehicles that can handle that better, meaning vehicles designed for the countryside work better in towns than smaller ones do - thanks to the Councils choices.
Also, people choose SUVs because they are higher, due to searchlight LED headlights blinding drivers, and being lower down makes the dazzling even worse.
If that swing was replicated Nationwide, 42 Republicans would lose their seats
If.
Polling in TN-7 suggested the Dems were only 2% behind. So, either:
a) polling failure or
b) polling was correct causing the Republicans to go into high-cost panic mode.
Claiming that the other side spent money is always a good sign of a disappointing result.
A result which would give the Democrats a very handy working majority in the House? I reckon the Democrats will take that disappointment in their stride.
More likely is it will give the Republicans a degre of complacency that in all the circumstances isn't warranted.
The good news for lawyers is the inquiry still has another two years to run.
That’s absolutely crazy.
Pandemics, like wars, are indeed expensive, but to spend what’s going to end up being close to half a *BILLION* on the inquiry, while learning very little that wasn’t known already about how to handle the next pandemic..?
I’d be curious to see a breakdown of that spending. Presumably lots of lawyers
There can be value in the inquiry. But ~£500m would buy a good chunk of vaccine/testing research or public health preparedness/more fit for purpose modelling tools (e.g. some of the existing models re-written in a maintainable way by software developers).
Or, even, a couple of bags of PPE from a Tory donor!
Maybe we'll get an inquiry into the inquiry flinging so much money at lawyers.
Bagzes the enquiry into the enquiry about the enquiry…
I note that our plan for PPE is to… do exactly the same again.
Number 1 article on the BBC this morning is about SUVs. Hopefully we'll follow the French and reform VED into something that deters people from buying them.
Though of course a significant driver as to why cars are getting bigger is safety - so much of the packaging bloat is there to protect the occupants.
Yes, but a Mini meets the safety regulations just as a Range Rover does.
We should be discouraging people from buying massive SUVs just for the school run in the city. (Yes, rural Scotland is a little different!)
The increasing prevalence of speed bumps etc in towns and cities is another incentive for buying SUVs that take them much better.
I drive a small vehicle, a Suzuki Swift, but down my road we have about a dozen speed bumps despite the road being 30mph. Even taking them at 20mph in my Swift is a pain, despite the limit being considerably higher.
An SUV takes bumps much easier.
If Councils insist on making roads bumpy then don't be surprised to see people reacting to that by buying vehicles that can handle that better, meaning vehicles designed for the countryside work better in towns than smaller ones do - thanks to the Councils choices.
New traffic calming measures locally have involved an unusually large/steep bump onto a raised area precisely to deal with the prevalence of SUVs that can sail over normal speed bumps. I heard one story about a tractor almost losing its box going over it too quickly.
I can't help but feel that this absurd speed bump inflation is going to end in tears, but if some drivers will insist on driving at unsafe speeds in the vicinity of schools then councils will feel obliged to take measures to do something about it.
The road in one direction from our house has been flooded for most of the last two months, so we're surprised to find ourselves in the position of wishing we had an SUV. No doubt if our next vehicle is an SUV, whenever we drive into the city people will tut about us not needing an SUV, ignorant of where we've driven from.
We won't know what alliances are possible until after the next General election; all we will know is what parties say before the election. The Tories face an unenviable choice of what to present to the public, and have no choice but to present something. None are good.
They are:
Yes, deal with Reform possible. No. Not possible. Say nothing. Say both they will and they won't. Say the question doesn't arise because they are going to win anyway.
Or, present policies which appeal to the electorate (OK, bit of question begging there), and challenge Reform on their nebulous/incoherent programme ?
The impression I get from the Farage story is that he's not really prepared to do the hard graft of preparing for government. He's a very effective campaigner, but that is perhaps the limit of his political skills.
Perhaps they will manage that, but they still have, I suggest, no choice but to present one of the five options to the voter. BTW the fact that Farage's skills are limited does not stop him winning an election. Someone has to come first, and someone has to form a government. 'Governing brilliantly' skills are in short supply.
It’s option 5 of course
“Appreciate the question, thank you Algar. As you know, I’ve just talked through our policy on space wombats. We have an extensive set of policies spelled out in our manifesto- clearly those are the best policies for the future of this country and so our entire focus is on convincing as many voters as possible to elect a Tory government on May 5”
I don’t think any of the parties, to be honest, are doing enough on the space wombat question. I would vote for a party that put forward clearly thought through policy in this area. It’s all just net wombat immigration is too high or space wombats will increase productivity without explaining how.
It’s quite clear to me: you extract urine from the space wombats to power the ISS. We are working on new technologies that will allow us to do it in situ which will reduce logistic costs and help us achieve our net zero objectives as well as limiting immigration to essential wombats only
If that swing was replicated Nationwide, 42 Republicans would lose their seats
If.
Polling in TN-7 suggested the Dems were only 2% behind. So, either:
a) polling failure or
b) polling was correct causing the Republicans to go into high-cost panic mode.
Claiming that the other side spent money is always a good sign of a disappointing result.
A result which would give the Democrats a very handy working majority in the House? I reckon the Democrats will take that disappointment in their stride.
More likely is it will give the Republicans a degre of complacency that in all the circumstances isn't warranted.
Interesting disparity between the urban and rural votes, Dems won almost 80% of the district inc Nashville, GOP 80% in small rural districts.
Number 1 article on the BBC this morning is about SUVs. Hopefully we'll follow the French and reform VED into something that deters people from buying them.
Though of course a significant driver as to why cars are getting bigger is safety - so much of the packaging bloat is there to protect the occupants.
Yes, but a Mini meets the safety regulations just as a Range Rover does.
We should be discouraging people from buying massive SUVs just for the school run in the city. (Yes, rural Scotland is a little different!)
The increasing prevalence of speed bumps etc in towns and cities is another incentive for buying SUVs that take them much better.
I drive a small vehicle, a Suzuki Swift, but down my road we have about a dozen speed bumps despite the road being 30mph. Even taking them at 20mph in my Swift is a pain, despite the limit being considerably higher.
An SUV takes bumps much easier.
If Councils insist on making roads bumpy then don't be surprised to see people reacting to that by buying vehicles that can handle that better, meaning vehicles designed for the countryside work better in towns than smaller ones do - thanks to the Councils choices.
New traffic calming measures locally have involved an unusually large/steep bump onto a raised area precisely to deal with the prevalence of SUVs that can sail over normal speed bumps. I heard one story about a tractor almost losing its box going over it too quickly.
I can't help but feel that this absurd speed bump inflation is going to end in tears, but if some drivers will insist on driving at unsafe speeds in the vicinity of schools then councils will feel obliged to take measures to do something about it.
The road in one direction from our house has been flooded for most of the last two months, so we're surprised to find ourselves in the position of wishing we had an SUV. No doubt if our next vehicle is an SUV, whenever we drive into the city people will tut about us not needing an SUV, ignorant of where we've driven from.
That's what we have, new steeper ones and that is a PITA for my Swift. Much easier in an SUV still.
Especially irritating as our road, a new and quite long road, has no houses on it, all the houses are on estates off the road. And there is a very large pedestrian and bike (separated) path separated from the road by grass. So there's really no need for any humps, let alone large ones.
All the older roads nearby, many of which do have houses on them, don't have humps. Its just our new one with all the new estates off it that does.
Number 1 article on the BBC this morning is about SUVs. Hopefully we'll follow the French and reform VED into something that deters people from buying them.
Though of course a significant driver as to why cars are getting bigger is safety - so much of the packaging bloat is there to protect the occupants.
Yes, but a Mini meets the safety regulations just as a Range Rover does.
We should be discouraging people from buying massive SUVs just for the school run in the city. (Yes, rural Scotland is a little different!)
The increasing prevalence of speed bumps etc in towns and cities is another incentive for buying SUVs that take them much better.
I drive a small vehicle, a Suzuki Swift, but down my road we have about a dozen speed bumps despite the road being 30mph. Even taking them at 20mph in my Swift is a pain, despite the limit being considerably higher.
An SUV takes bumps much easier.
If Councils insist on making roads bumpy then don't be surprised to see people reacting to that by buying vehicles that can handle that better, meaning vehicles designed for the countryside work better in towns than smaller ones do - thanks to the Councils choices.
New traffic calming measures locally have involved an unusually large/steep bump onto a raised area precisely to deal with the prevalence of SUVs that can sail over normal speed bumps. I heard one story about a tractor almost losing its box going over it too quickly.
I can't help but feel that this absurd speed bump inflation is going to end in tears, but if some drivers will insist on driving at unsafe speeds in the vicinity of schools then councils will feel obliged to take measures to do something about it.
The road in one direction from our house has been flooded for most of the last two months, so we're surprised to find ourselves in the position of wishing we had an SUV. No doubt if our next vehicle is an SUV, whenever we drive into the city people will tut about us not needing an SUV, ignorant of where we've driven from.
You should get an EV. The Leaf, for example, has an official wading depth of 70 cm and unofficially can apparently manage up to a metre. ICE vehicles are limited by the height of the exhaust pipe outlet. EVs also don't float as easily due to the lack of air pockets (exhaust system, fuel tank, etc.) compared to ICE vehicles.
Isn't this just Farage doing what he always does? I think he enjoys the limelight but would run a mile from political office.
It’s always easier to be in permanent opposition, able to suggest solutions and ideas that never have to be actually implemented.
Unfortunately the current government appears to have arrived with no ideas, and the previous government had run out of them.
As many of their newly elected councillors running an administration, they’ll be discovering that governing is hard hard hard. A series of spinning plates full of shit, surrounded by electric fans.
I don't think incompetence in office will hit Reform hard enough. A recent example:
That situation would have applied whoever ran the county. There is a consultation on the budget tomorrow and the details have been published on the council site. Reform have made some savings but the demands on councils and budgets across the board are going up. That’s not incompetence it’s a broken funding model for local govt.
Maybe. But it still leaves Reform heading up the shit-sandwich buffet...
What is Reform's policy for mending the broken funding model for local government? 3 words: Close. Things. Down.
Nope
It’s the same as any other local Govt
More.govt.money
I refer the honourable members to my long standing answer on this. Abolish local government, standardise services nationwide, and reap the benefits of doing it all at scale.
Solved.
Indeed. Alternatively hand local powers back to people and get the busybodies out of the way.
Anything that is standardised nationwide, like SEND/Care etc should be dealt with and funded nationwide.
Anything that is a choice, should be chosen by the individuals concerned.
Get rid of the local councils, elections and abolish that whole layer of bureaucracy and crap.
Getting rid of local councils will reduce headcount by about 2mn. Headcount and services have been reduced over the years. Current figures for Central Government are 4.04mn (2025) up from 2.3mn in 1999. Total employed is 34mn or 75% of those of workforce age.
How does everyone feel about Bart's suggestion of more central government?
If that swing was replicated Nationwide, 42 Republicans would lose their seats
If.
Polling in TN-7 suggested the Dems were only 2% behind. So, either:
a) polling failure or
b) polling was correct causing the Republicans to go into high-cost panic mode.
Claiming that the other side spent money is always a good sign of a disappointing result.
A result which would give the Democrats a very handy working majority in the House? I reckon the Democrats will take that disappointment in their stride.
More likely is it will give the Republicans a degre of complacency that in all the circumstances isn't warranted.
Interesting disparity between the urban and rural votes, Dems won almost 80% of the district inc Nashville, GOP 80% in small rural districts.
So it seems her anti-Nashville comments weren't that big of issue, but her anti-country music comments were.
I don't like much modern country music up to much. Even the Handsome Family haven't done anything decent in decades.
Isn't this just Farage doing what he always does? I think he enjoys the limelight but would run a mile from political office.
It’s always easier to be in permanent opposition, able to suggest solutions and ideas that never have to be actually implemented.
Unfortunately the current government appears to have arrived with no ideas, and the previous government had run out of them.
As many of their newly elected councillors running an administration, they’ll be discovering that governing is hard hard hard. A series of spinning plates full of shit, surrounded by electric fans.
I don't think incompetence in office will hit Reform hard enough. A recent example:
That situation would have applied whoever ran the county. There is a consultation on the budget tomorrow and the details have been published on the council site. Reform have made some savings but the demands on councils and budgets across the board are going up. That’s not incompetence it’s a broken funding model for local govt.
Maybe. But it still leaves Reform heading up the shit-sandwich buffet...
What is Reform's policy for mending the broken funding model for local government? 3 words: Close. Things. Down.
Nope
It’s the same as any other local Govt
More.govt.money
I refer the honourable members to my long standing answer on this. Abolish local government, standardise services nationwide, and reap the benefits of doing it all at scale.
Solved.
Indeed. Alternatively hand local powers back to people and get the busybodies out of the way.
Anything that is standardised nationwide, like SEND/Care etc should be dealt with and funded nationwide.
Anything that is a choice, should be chosen by the individuals concerned.
Get rid of the local councils, elections and abolish that whole layer of bureaucracy and crap.
Getting rid of local councils will reduce headcount by about 2mn. Headcount and services have been reduced over the years. Current figures for Central Government are 4.04mn (2025) up from 2.3mn in 1999. Total employed is 34mn or 75% of those of workforce age.
How does everyone feel about Bart's suggestion of more central government?
Its more a suggestion for less government, than more central government.
Much of what local government funds currently comes from central government diktats and obligations anyway. Councils are legally obliged to follow through with care and SEND and other stuff that central government insists upon. If central government insists upon it, then it should fund it. Care that is obligated to be provided should be funded through the Department of Health and Social Care. SEND should be funded through the Department of Education.
Local funding should be for local choices. Of which there is precious little anyway, so either free that up, or abolish the whole lot of it.
Number 1 article on the BBC this morning is about SUVs. Hopefully we'll follow the French and reform VED into something that deters people from buying them.
Though of course a significant driver as to why cars are getting bigger is safety - so much of the packaging bloat is there to protect the occupants.
Yes, but a Mini meets the safety regulations just as a Range Rover does.
We should be discouraging people from buying massive SUVs just for the school run in the city. (Yes, rural Scotland is a little different!)
The increasing prevalence of speed bumps etc in towns and cities is another incentive for buying SUVs that take them much better.
I drive a small vehicle, a Suzuki Swift, but down my road we have about a dozen speed bumps despite the road being 30mph. Even taking them at 20mph in my Swift is a pain, despite the limit being considerably higher.
An SUV takes bumps much easier.
If Councils insist on making roads bumpy then don't be surprised to see people reacting to that by buying vehicles that can handle that better, meaning vehicles designed for the countryside work better in towns than smaller ones do - thanks to the Councils choices.
New traffic calming measures locally have involved an unusually large/steep bump onto a raised area precisely to deal with the prevalence of SUVs that can sail over normal speed bumps. I heard one story about a tractor almost losing its box going over it too quickly.
I can't help but feel that this absurd speed bump inflation is going to end in tears, but if some drivers will insist on driving at unsafe speeds in the vicinity of schools then councils will feel obliged to take measures to do something about it.
The road in one direction from our house has been flooded for most of the last two months, so we're surprised to find ourselves in the position of wishing we had an SUV. No doubt if our next vehicle is an SUV, whenever we drive into the city people will tut about us not needing an SUV, ignorant of where we've driven from.
You should get an EV. The Leaf, for example, has an official wading depth of 70 cm and unofficially can apparently manage up to a metre. ICE vehicles are limited by the height of the exhaust pipe outlet. EVs also don't float as easily due to the lack of air pockets (exhaust system, fuel tank, etc.) compared to ICE vehicles.
Our next car is already pencilled in as an EV, but I didn't realise they also had that advantage over ICE cars. Good to know.
The delivery van that aquaplaned through the flood yesterday was an EV, so I guess they knew.
Number 1 article on the BBC this morning is about SUVs. Hopefully we'll follow the French and reform VED into something that deters people from buying them.
Though of course a significant driver as to why cars are getting bigger is safety - so much of the packaging bloat is there to protect the occupants.
Yes, but a Mini meets the safety regulations just as a Range Rover does.
We should be discouraging people from buying massive SUVs just for the school run in the city. (Yes, rural Scotland is a little different!)
The increasing prevalence of speed bumps etc in towns and cities is another incentive for buying SUVs that take them much better.
I drive a small vehicle, a Suzuki Swift, but down my road we have about a dozen speed bumps despite the road being 30mph. Even taking them at 20mph in my Swift is a pain, despite the limit being considerably higher.
An SUV takes bumps much easier.
If Councils insist on making roads bumpy then don't be surprised to see people reacting to that by buying vehicles that can handle that better, meaning vehicles designed for the countryside work better in towns than smaller ones do - thanks to the Councils choices.
New traffic calming measures locally have involved an unusually large/steep bump onto a raised area precisely to deal with the prevalence of SUVs that can sail over normal speed bumps. I heard one story about a tractor almost losing its box going over it too quickly.
I can't help but feel that this absurd speed bump inflation is going to end in tears, but if some drivers will insist on driving at unsafe speeds in the vicinity of schools then councils will feel obliged to take measures to do something about it.
The road in one direction from our house has been flooded for most of the last two months, so we're surprised to find ourselves in the position of wishing we had an SUV. No doubt if our next vehicle is an SUV, whenever we drive into the city people will tut about us not needing an SUV, ignorant of where we've driven from.
That's what we have, new steeper ones and that is a PITA for my Swift. Much easier in an SUV still.
Especially irritating as our road, a new and quite long road, has no houses on it, all the houses are on estates off the road. And there is a very large pedestrian and bike (separated) path separated from the road by grass. So there's really no need for any humps, let alone large ones.
All the older roads nearby, many of which do have houses on them, don't have humps. Its just our new one with all the new estates off it that does.
Many years back, they tried ever more savage speed bumps in Hampstead. This led to a tried craze of buying American Dodge Ram trucks among the super wealthy.
The effect on small cars was brutal - even if you crawled over the bump at 10mph, doing all the slowing and accelerating at the right moments, it hammer the suspension.
Isn't this just Farage doing what he always does? I think he enjoys the limelight but would run a mile from political office.
It’s always easier to be in permanent opposition, able to suggest solutions and ideas that never have to be actually implemented.
Unfortunately the current government appears to have arrived with no ideas, and the previous government had run out of them.
As many of their newly elected councillors running an administration, they’ll be discovering that governing is hard hard hard. A series of spinning plates full of shit, surrounded by electric fans.
I don't think incompetence in office will hit Reform hard enough. A recent example:
That situation would have applied whoever ran the county. There is a consultation on the budget tomorrow and the details have been published on the council site. Reform have made some savings but the demands on councils and budgets across the board are going up. That’s not incompetence it’s a broken funding model for local govt.
Maybe. But it still leaves Reform heading up the shit-sandwich buffet...
What is Reform's policy for mending the broken funding model for local government? 3 words: Close. Things. Down.
Nope
It’s the same as any other local Govt
More.govt.money
I refer the honourable members to my long standing answer on this. Abolish local government, standardise services nationwide, and reap the benefits of doing it all at scale.
Solved.
Indeed. Alternatively hand local powers back to people and get the busybodies out of the way.
Anything that is standardised nationwide, like SEND/Care etc should be dealt with and funded nationwide.
Anything that is a choice, should be chosen by the individuals concerned.
Get rid of the local councils, elections and abolish that whole layer of bureaucracy and crap.
On the one hand, we are handing "local powers back to people" - whatever that means - and on the other we are abolishing local councils and elections.
Perhaps the ideal is a forum of Conservative business people who can run all services because they will automatically a) know how to run things efficiently (stop giggling) and b) will know what the people want and what they need. Good honest old-fashioned paternalism at work.
There are already national standards in many areas to which local councils have to adhere and much of what local Government does (that's the stuff behind the scenes) is providing information back to central Government and that could and arguably should be extended to a national run adult social care service.
I do agree the suggestion from @biggles is absurd - the idea every decision affecting every council having to be decided in Whitehall is ridiculous - you could do it in a small country perhaps but the notion of that in a bigger country is a recipe for paralysis.
They went for a mix of F9 - first stage 9 engines, upper stage 1, vertical landing - with Starship - stainless steel, Methane/LOX fuel.
Why is this of interest? Well if you land your first stage, you get to use it again. The cost to SpaceX of a launch dropped to less than $20 million by doing this. Which means they can undercut everyone else. You also can launch incredibly frequently. SpaceX is now launching every 2 days, on average.
Your regular reminder that developing the F9, the most successful launch system ever, cost less that £0.5Bn, for the initial version.
No reason the U.K. couldn’t have done that.
Next year, there are *5* other new Chinese rockets attempting launch. All with reuse.
Meanwhile in Europe, we might or might launch a demonstrator for reuse by 2030…
Isn't this just Farage doing what he always does? I think he enjoys the limelight but would run a mile from political office.
It’s always easier to be in permanent opposition, able to suggest solutions and ideas that never have to be actually implemented.
Unfortunately the current government appears to have arrived with no ideas, and the previous government had run out of them.
As many of their newly elected councillors running an administration, they’ll be discovering that governing is hard hard hard. A series of spinning plates full of shit, surrounded by electric fans.
I don't think incompetence in office will hit Reform hard enough. A recent example:
That situation would have applied whoever ran the county. There is a consultation on the budget tomorrow and the details have been published on the council site. Reform have made some savings but the demands on councils and budgets across the board are going up. That’s not incompetence it’s a broken funding model for local govt.
Maybe. But it still leaves Reform heading up the shit-sandwich buffet...
What is Reform's policy for mending the broken funding model for local government? 3 words: Close. Things. Down.
Nope
It’s the same as any other local Govt
More.govt.money
I refer the honourable members to my long standing answer on this. Abolish local government, standardise services nationwide, and reap the benefits of doing it all at scale.
Solved.
Indeed. Alternatively hand local powers back to people and get the busybodies out of the way.
Anything that is standardised nationwide, like SEND/Care etc should be dealt with and funded nationwide.
Anything that is a choice, should be chosen by the individuals concerned.
Get rid of the local councils, elections and abolish that whole layer of bureaucracy and crap.
Getting rid of local councils will reduce headcount by about 2mn. Headcount and services have been reduced over the years. Current figures for Central Government are 4.04mn (2025) up from 2.3mn in 1999. Total employed is 34mn or 75% of those of workforce age.
How does everyone feel about Bart's suggestion of more central government?
Its more a suggestion for less government, than more central government.
Much of what local government funds currently comes from central government diktats and obligations anyway. Councils are legally obliged to follow through with care and SEND and other stuff that central government insists upon. If central government insists upon it, then it should fund it. Care that is obligated to be provided should be funded through the Department of Health and Social Care. SEND should be funded through the Department of Education.
Local funding should be for local choices. Of which there is precious little anyway, so either free that up, or abolish the whole lot of it.
Many years ago the NHS was run under a set of regional organisations. RHAs. These units were large enough to have scale but local enough to be responsive. We have had 20 years now of greater central government direction and it has been an omnishambles. We are getting rid of NHS England and most doctors and nurses I know see this as a positive. Less initiatives requiring more paperwork and more time to treat patients. If centralisation failed the NHS why will it help social care etc.
Number 1 article on the BBC this morning is about SUVs. Hopefully we'll follow the French and reform VED into something that deters people from buying them.
Though of course a significant driver as to why cars are getting bigger is safety - so much of the packaging bloat is there to protect the occupants.
Yes, but a Mini meets the safety regulations just as a Range Rover does.
We should be discouraging people from buying massive SUVs just for the school run in the city. (Yes, rural Scotland is a little different!)
The increasing prevalence of speed bumps etc in towns and cities is another incentive for buying SUVs that take them much better.
I drive a small vehicle, a Suzuki Swift, but down my road we have about a dozen speed bumps despite the road being 30mph. Even taking them at 20mph in my Swift is a pain, despite the limit being considerably higher.
An SUV takes bumps much easier.
If Councils insist on making roads bumpy then don't be surprised to see people reacting to that by buying vehicles that can handle that better, meaning vehicles designed for the countryside work better in towns than smaller ones do - thanks to the Councils choices.
New traffic calming measures locally have involved an unusually large/steep bump onto a raised area precisely to deal with the prevalence of SUVs that can sail over normal speed bumps. I heard one story about a tractor almost losing its box going over it too quickly.
I can't help but feel that this absurd speed bump inflation is going to end in tears, but if some drivers will insist on driving at unsafe speeds in the vicinity of schools then councils will feel obliged to take measures to do something about it.
The road in one direction from our house has been flooded for most of the last two months, so we're surprised to find ourselves in the position of wishing we had an SUV. No doubt if our next vehicle is an SUV, whenever we drive into the city people will tut about us not needing an SUV, ignorant of where we've driven from.
That's what we have, new steeper ones and that is a PITA for my Swift. Much easier in an SUV still.
Especially irritating as our road, a new and quite long road, has no houses on it, all the houses are on estates off the road. And there is a very large pedestrian and bike (separated) path separated from the road by grass. So there's really no need for any humps, let alone large ones.
All the older roads nearby, many of which do have houses on them, don't have humps. Its just our new one with all the new estates off it that does.
Many years back, they tried ever more savage speed bumps in Hampstead. This led to a tried craze of buying American Dodge Ram trucks among the super wealthy.
The effect on small cars was brutal - even if you crawled over the bump at 10mph, doing all the slowing and accelerating at the right moments, it hammer the suspension.
The Dodge Rams just sailed across.
That sounds like where I live. Normal cars have to almost stop for speed bumps, but the big trucks and SUVs on offroad tyres just sail straight over them.
Is it beyond the wit of the political parties to get together to buy off Farage with a grand title that a) pumps up his ego b) pays a tidy sum whilst c) requiring him to do bugger all work?
Number 1 article on the BBC this morning is about SUVs. Hopefully we'll follow the French and reform VED into something that deters people from buying them.
Though of course a significant driver as to why cars are getting bigger is safety - so much of the packaging bloat is there to protect the occupants.
Yes, but a Mini meets the safety regulations just as a Range Rover does.
We should be discouraging people from buying massive SUVs just for the school run in the city. (Yes, rural Scotland is a little different!)
The increasing prevalence of speed bumps etc in towns and cities is another incentive for buying SUVs that take them much better.
I drive a small vehicle, a Suzuki Swift, but down my road we have about a dozen speed bumps despite the road being 30mph. Even taking them at 20mph in my Swift is a pain, despite the limit being considerably higher.
An SUV takes bumps much easier.
If Councils insist on making roads bumpy then don't be surprised to see people reacting to that by buying vehicles that can handle that better, meaning vehicles designed for the countryside work better in towns than smaller ones do - thanks to the Councils choices.
New traffic calming measures locally have involved an unusually large/steep bump onto a raised area precisely to deal with the prevalence of SUVs that can sail over normal speed bumps. I heard one story about a tractor almost losing its box going over it too quickly.
I can't help but feel that this absurd speed bump inflation is going to end in tears, but if some drivers will insist on driving at unsafe speeds in the vicinity of schools then councils will feel obliged to take measures to do something about it.
The road in one direction from our house has been flooded for most of the last two months, so we're surprised to find ourselves in the position of wishing we had an SUV. No doubt if our next vehicle is an SUV, whenever we drive into the city people will tut about us not needing an SUV, ignorant of where we've driven from.
That's what we have, new steeper ones and that is a PITA for my Swift. Much easier in an SUV still.
Especially irritating as our road, a new and quite long road, has no houses on it, all the houses are on estates off the road. And there is a very large pedestrian and bike (separated) path separated from the road by grass. So there's really no need for any humps, let alone large ones.
All the older roads nearby, many of which do have houses on them, don't have humps. Its just our new one with all the new estates off it that does.
Many years back, they tried ever more savage speed bumps in Hampstead. This led to a tried craze of buying American Dodge Ram trucks among the super wealthy.
The effect on small cars was brutal - even if you crawled over the bump at 10mph, doing all the slowing and accelerating at the right moments, it hammer the suspension.
The Dodge Rams just sailed across.
That sounds like where I live. Normal cars have to almost stop for speed bumps, but the big trucks and SUVs on offroad tyres just sail straight over them.
And then people moan and wonder why others are going for larger vehicles? 🤦♂️
I see Barty is coming up with his simple solutions to complex problems again.
Jut trying to visualise the suggestion based on what I've seen locally. For example to stop people being bounced from one central government department to another, they have set up triage hubs. So someone who is unemployed, with health issues that cannot pay their local rates could go along to a hub where there was a representative of the local authority to discuss payment, the health service to discuss possible referrals, the DWP Job Centre to discuss benefits, training or job openings and certain charities (aka third sector) to discuss debt. So they would go from table to table to get some progress. Seemed to work as not everyone wants to play voicemail ping-pong with numerous departments.
It's a sort of agile organisation that allows centralised functions to have a local presence. But the drawback will be the dead time between clients for the staff at the hub. Sometimes there has to be a bit of slack in the system unless you want to have people wait until a government employee is available. See queues for the NHS.
They went for a mix of F9 - first stage 9 engines, upper stage 1, vertical landing - with Starship - stainless steel, Methane/LOX fuel.
Why is this of interest? Well if you land your first stage, you get to use it again. The cost to SpaceX of a launch dropped to less than $20 million by doing this. Which means they can undercut everyone else. You also can launch incredibly frequently. SpaceX is now launching every 2 days, on average.
Your regular reminder that developing the F9, the most successful launch system ever, cost less that £0.5Bn, for the initial version.
No reason the U.K. couldn’t have done that.
Next year, there are *5* other new Chinese rockets attempting launch. All with reuse.
Meanwhile in Europe, we might or might launch a demonstrator for reuse by 2030…
Yes, given the glaring need for strategic autonomy in the era of Trump and the US hostile authoritarians, it's quite astonishing just how slow the politicians on this side of the Atlantic are to work out the necessity of doing it.
The European incumbents should surely also be aware that their business model is dead as soon as someone does it - and attempts to delay/sabotage such efforts are self-defeating.
As it is, it's likely that Japan and possibly S Korea will beat us to it.
Number 1 article on the BBC this morning is about SUVs. Hopefully we'll follow the French and reform VED into something that deters people from buying them.
Though of course a significant driver as to why cars are getting bigger is safety - so much of the packaging bloat is there to protect the occupants.
Yes, but a Mini meets the safety regulations just as a Range Rover does.
We should be discouraging people from buying massive SUVs just for the school run in the city. (Yes, rural Scotland is a little different!)
The increasing prevalence of speed bumps etc in towns and cities is another incentive for buying SUVs that take them much better.
I drive a small vehicle, a Suzuki Swift, but down my road we have about a dozen speed bumps despite the road being 30mph. Even taking them at 20mph in my Swift is a pain, despite the limit being considerably higher.
An SUV takes bumps much easier.
If Councils insist on making roads bumpy then don't be surprised to see people reacting to that by buying vehicles that can handle that better, meaning vehicles designed for the countryside work better in towns than smaller ones do - thanks to the Councils choices.
New traffic calming measures locally have involved an unusually large/steep bump onto a raised area precisely to deal with the prevalence of SUVs that can sail over normal speed bumps. I heard one story about a tractor almost losing its box going over it too quickly.
I can't help but feel that this absurd speed bump inflation is going to end in tears, but if some drivers will insist on driving at unsafe speeds in the vicinity of schools then councils will feel obliged to take measures to do something about it.
The road in one direction from our house has been flooded for most of the last two months, so we're surprised to find ourselves in the position of wishing we had an SUV. No doubt if our next vehicle is an SUV, whenever we drive into the city people will tut about us not needing an SUV, ignorant of where we've driven from.
You should get an EV. The Leaf, for example, has an official wading depth of 70 cm and unofficially can apparently manage up to a metre. ICE vehicles are limited by the height of the exhaust pipe outlet. EVs also don't float as easily due to the lack of air pockets (exhaust system, fuel tank, etc.) compared to ICE vehicles.
Our next car is already pencilled in as an EV, but I didn't realise they also had that advantage over ICE cars. Good to know.
The delivery van that aquaplaned through the flood yesterday was an EV, so I guess they knew.
I'd be surprised if a nissan leaf didn't float at 1m draft.
Your regular reminder that developing the F9, the most successful launch system ever, cost less that £0.5Bn, for the initial version.
No reason the U.K. couldn’t have done that.
Next year, there are *5* other new Chinese rockets attempting launch. All with reuse.
Meanwhile in Europe, we might or might launch a demonstrator for reuse by 2030…
I was chatting to someone recently who suggested that Branson had the right idea and should have pursued it beyond the initial failure
The Virgin Galactic joyrides are dangerously and can never reach orbit. Size and ISP. They are a dead end.
Orbital air launch limits you to the size of the carrier plane. And then you have the cost of running the carrier plane. See the Roc. Another dead end.
As the Americans worked out in the late 60s, with Project Isinglass, it’s simpler and cheaper to use a rocket stage to get to altitude.
Reusing the first stage rocket is the next trick.
Once that happened, air launch died.
The price of Virgin Orbit was $12m - for a tiny payload. $24,000 a kilo.
SpaceX charges $6,500 a kilo, for their Rideshare program.
Your regular reminder that developing the F9, the most successful launch system ever, cost less that £0.5Bn, for the initial version.
No reason the U.K. couldn’t have done that.
Next year, there are *5* other new Chinese rockets attempting launch. All with reuse.
Meanwhile in Europe, we might or might launch a demonstrator for reuse by 2030…
I was chatting to someone recently who suggested that Branson had the right idea and should have pursued it beyond the initial failure
The Virgin Galactic joyrides are dangerously and can never reach orbit. Size and ISP. They are a dead end.
Orbital air launch limits you to the size of the carrier plane. And then you have the cost of running the carrier plane. See the Roc. Another dead end.
As the Americans worked out in the late 60s, with Project Isinglass, it’s simpler and cheaper to use a rocket stage to get to altitude.
Reusing the first stage rocket is the next trick.
Once that happened, air launch died.
The price of Virgin Orbit was $12m - for a tiny payload. $24,000 a kilo.
SpaceX charges $6,500 a kilo, for their Rideshare program.
There are probably niche cases for air launch. But Virgin didn't satisfactorily occupy the niche, anyway.
... while Ms Reeves did win the under-14 title for the British Women’s Chess Association (BWCA) Girls Championship in 1993, there was an important distinction.
Mr Edmans explained: “That is not the British girls’ championship, it is clearly defined as the girl who does best in the British championship. “She may well have won titles, but the title of British girls’ champion is a specific event. The BWCA has its own championship and then you are the BWCA champion.” https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2141580/rachel-reeves-left-redfaced-truth
Good luck explaining that to the public, whether you are on the side that Reeves lied or was truthful. It makes the different boxing world titles look straightforward.
Starmer Reeves and Lammy.. you wouldn't buy a used car from any of them. Lammy is by far the stupidest.. the other two just tell one falsehood after another.
Starmer Reeves and Lammy.. you wouldn't buy a used car from any of them. Lammy is by far the stupidest.. the other two just tell one falsehood after another.
He was much better at the Foreign Office than Justice. A poor move from Starmer.
OT - Clearly Farage expects the Cons to come to him on bended knee begging for the said alliance. No Ref oppo to sitting MPs in return for Ref getting a free run everywhere else for example. Seems unlikely. A much better plan to just take over the Cons - but that seems more likely after the next GE than before it. Farage needs things to happen fast - it won't get better for him and he may end up operating from a much weaker position.
Your regular reminder that developing the F9, the most successful launch system ever, cost less that £0.5Bn, for the initial version.
No reason the U.K. couldn’t have done that.
Next year, there are *5* other new Chinese rockets attempting launch. All with reuse.
Meanwhile in Europe, we might or might launch a demonstrator for reuse by 2030…
I was chatting to someone recently who suggested that Branson had the right idea and should have pursued it beyond the initial failure
The Virgin Galactic joyrides are dangerously and can never reach orbit. Size and ISP. They are a dead end.
Orbital air launch limits you to the size of the carrier plane. And then you have the cost of running the carrier plane. See the Roc. Another dead end.
As the Americans worked out in the late 60s, with Project Isinglass, it’s simpler and cheaper to use a rocket stage to get to altitude.
Reusing the first stage rocket is the next trick.
Once that happened, air launch died.
The price of Virgin Orbit was $12m - for a tiny payload. $24,000 a kilo.
SpaceX charges $6,500 a kilo, for their Rideshare program.
There are probably niche cases for air launch. But Virgin didn't satisfactorily occupy the niche, anyway.
Virgin Orbit might have been an interesting way of getting small satellites into unusual orbits, had they kept up the development, but in the end Falcon 9 was the clear winner once they could reliably land and reuse the first stage.
The problem now is that the rest of the West are accepting of what’s become a monopoly, so one safety or regulatory issue can become a big problem. We know that plane types can and do get grounded after accidents, sometimes for weeks.
A good effort from the Chinese the other day, but that last few hundred feet down to the deck is the really difficult bit!
... while Ms Reeves did win the under-14 title for the British Women’s Chess Association (BWCA) Girls Championship in 1993, there was an important distinction.
Mr Edmans explained: “That is not the British girls’ championship, it is clearly defined as the girl who does best in the British championship. “She may well have won titles, but the title of British girls’ champion is a specific event. The BWCA has its own championship and then you are the BWCA champion.” https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2141580/rachel-reeves-left-redfaced-truth
Good luck explaining that to the public, whether you are on the side that Reeves lied or was truthful. It makes the different boxing world titles look straightforward.
However after the Colston vandalism acquittal verdicts, the acquittal of the speeding outrider who killed a woman of careless driving causing death and the acquittal of Ricky Jones of encouraging violent disorder after he was caught on video saying “They are disgusting Nazi fascists. We need to cut all their throats and get rid of them all” does suggest for minor offences juries may not always be delivering justice. Indeed sometimes politics may be said to be coming before the law in jury verdicts which wouldn't be the case in judge led verdicts.
You can certainly view it as such. You're aware of the concept of civic duty ?
The removal of jury trials is one of those reflexes from The System. The same idea comes up again and again. Judge led trials for most offences.
Bit like the ID card thing. No matter the problem, the answer is ID cards. So they say.
Note the idea of magistrates sitting with the judge for these trials being dropped.
This is because a chunk of the legal system hates magistrates.
Back under New Labour fury was caused by a study that showed magistrates courts were nearly exactly equal to crown courts (judge) in terms of overturned sentences. Fury because what was wanted was clear evidence that magistrates were evil and probably racist. That way they could be swept away and replaced with judges. Which would require thousands of new judges…. The the evidence that lay volunteers go do as good a job as a proper judge was something close to treason.
I note they had dropped the further idea of binning magistrates. For the moment.
The next step will be, when the backlog fails to fall, to demand the appointment of many more judges.
Isn't this just Farage doing what he always does? I think he enjoys the limelight but would run a mile from political office.
It’s always easier to be in permanent opposition, able to suggest solutions and ideas that never have to be actually implemented.
Unfortunately the current government appears to have arrived with no ideas, and the previous government had run out of them.
As many of their newly elected councillors running an administration, they’ll be discovering that governing is hard hard hard. A series of spinning plates full of shit, surrounded by electric fans.
I don't think incompetence in office will hit Reform hard enough. A recent example:
That situation would have applied whoever ran the county. There is a consultation on the budget tomorrow and the details have been published on the council site. Reform have made some savings but the demands on councils and budgets across the board are going up. That’s not incompetence it’s a broken funding model for local govt.
Maybe. But it still leaves Reform heading up the shit-sandwich buffet...
What is Reform's policy for mending the broken funding model for local government? 3 words: Close. Things. Down.
Nope
It’s the same as any other local Govt
More.govt.money
I refer the honourable members to my long standing answer on this. Abolish local government, standardise services nationwide, and reap the benefits of doing it all at scale.
Solved.
Indeed. Alternatively hand local powers back to people and get the busybodies out of the way.
Anything that is standardised nationwide, like SEND/Care etc should be dealt with and funded nationwide.
Anything that is a choice, should be chosen by the individuals concerned.
Get rid of the local councils, elections and abolish that whole layer of bureaucracy and crap.
You need local councils to still design and manage local plans and planning applications, provide social housing, manage pavements and highways, organise refuse collection, manage benefits applications and business licenses and trading standards, manage libraries and local museums and archives, run cemeteries and parks and swimming pools and gyms, remove fly tipping and organise local events even if you removed social care from its functions.
That would also require an increase in national insurance nationally even if social care no longer being run locally made it easier to cut council tax
OT - Clearly Farage expects the Cons to come to him on bended knee begging for the said alliance. No Ref oppo to sitting MPs in return for Ref getting a free run everywhere else for example. Seems unlikely. A much better plan to just take over the Cons - but that seems more likely after the next GE than before it. Farage needs things to happen fast - it won't get better for him and he may end up operating from a much weaker position.
Only Jenrick if he replaced Kemi would even consider a formal Tory and Reform pact pre GE and Cleverly and Stride might not even back Farage to be PM post GE if a hung parliament but abstain
You can certainly view it as such. You're aware of the concept of civic duty ?
The removal of jury trials is one of those reflexes from The System. The same idea comes up again and again. Judge led trials for most offences.
Bit like the ID card thing. No matter the problem, the answer is ID cards. So they say.
Note the idea of magistrates sitting with the judge for these trials being dropped.
This is because a chunk of the legal system hates magistrates.
Back under New Labour fury was caused by a study that showed magistrates courts were nearly exactly equal to crown courts (judge) in terms of overturned sentences. Fury because what was wanted was clear evidence that magistrates were evil and probably racist. That way they could be swept away and replaced with judges. Which would require thousands of new judges…. The the evidence that lay volunteers go do as good a job as a proper judge was something close to treason.
I note they had dropped the further idea of binning magistrates. For the moment.
The next step will be, when the backlog fails to fall, to demand the appointment of many more judges.
Lay magistrates, of course.
The old "stipendiary magistrates" are now (I think ) rebranded as District Judges ?
The point, though, that a semi-random selection of lay people is quite likely superior to a single judge (and certainly their equal) in determining matters of fact, rather than law, is, I think a strong one.
And the breadth of societal/cultural representation within the judiciary is almost certainly quite a lot less than that in the general population.
If that swing was replicated Nationwide, 42 Republicans would lose their seats
If.
Polling in TN-7 suggested the Dems were only 2% behind. So, either:
a) polling failure or
b) polling was correct causing the Republicans to go into high-cost panic mode.
Claiming that the other side spent money is always a good sign of a disappointing result.
A result which would give the Democrats a very handy working majority in the House? I reckon the Democrats will take that disappointment in their stride.
More likely is it will give the Republicans a degre of complacency that in all the circumstances isn't warranted.
Interesting disparity between the urban and rural votes, Dems won almost 80% of the district inc Nashville, GOP 80% in small rural districts.
So it seems her anti-Nashville comments weren't that big of issue, but her anti-country music comments were.
I don't like much modern country music up to much. Even the Handsome Family haven't done anything decent in decades.
Though the Democrats haven't won rural Tennessee since 1996 under President Bill Clinton and only then helped by Perot and his Reform Party splitting the GOP vote
After yesterday's Ref defence in Derbyshire we have the following local by-elections tomorrow: Broxtowe Alliance elected as Lab defence in Broxtowe, LD defences in East Devon, Middlesbrough, and Watford, and a Con defence in Torridge There is a possibility the Lib Dems could win them all.
BREXIT IS BACK - story courtesy of @patrickkmaguire and The State of It podcast
Sir Keir Starmer has signalled that the government will intensify its criticism of Brexit as the Labour Party moves to put relations with Brussels at the heart of its campaign against Reform UK
In a speech in the City of London on Monday the prime minister denounced Britain’s departure from the European Union as an “utterly reckless” template for foreign policy and criticised the “wild promises” of those who had campaigned to leave in 2016
The prime minister was his party’s leading advocate for a second referendum before Brexit was implemented in 2020 and his strategists, anxious about alienating voters in Labour seats that voted to leave, have hitherto been wary of reopening the political argument or appearing critical of the result
However, Downing Street has been emboldened to take a more direct approach by opinion polling that shows as many as six in ten voters now believe Britain should pursue a closer economic relationship with Europe
The Times has been told that Starmer’s close ally Nick Thomas-Symonds, the paymaster-general, has been promoted to full cabinet rank as the government seeks to intensify talks over a closer relationship
Has Reeves been caught inflating her chess achievements. It would appear so.. There is a pattern here.....
I've read the piece posted earlier – Reeves won the under-14 title at the BWCA but did not win a different BWCA title with the same name – at least six times and no jury would convict. Oops.
Reeves' problem is that even if she did not lie about the OBR and chess, people unfamiliar with these matters will come to think there is ‘no smoke without fire’.
If that swing was replicated Nationwide, 42 Republicans would lose their seats
If.
Polling in TN-7 suggested the Dems were only 2% behind. So, either:
a) polling failure or
b) polling was correct causing the Republicans to go into high-cost panic mode.
Claiming that the other side spent money is always a good sign of a disappointing result.
A result which would give the Democrats a very handy working majority in the House? I reckon the Democrats will take that disappointment in their stride.
More likely is it will give the Republicans a degre of complacency that in all the circumstances isn't warranted.
Interesting disparity between the urban and rural votes, Dems won almost 80% of the district inc Nashville, GOP 80% in small rural districts.
So it seems her anti-Nashville comments weren't that big of issue, but her anti-country music comments were.
I don't like much modern country music up to much. Even the Handsome Family haven't done anything decent in decades.
Though the Democrats haven't won rural Tennessee since 1996 under President Bill Clinton and only then helped by Perot and his Reform Party splitting the GOP vote
This from yesterday.
National Republicans are scrambling to avert disaster today in a Tennessee district Trump won by +20 points
“If our victory margin is single digits, the conference may come unhinged,” one senior House Republican said. A loss would be catastrophic.
Isn't this just Farage doing what he always does? I think he enjoys the limelight but would run a mile from political office.
It’s always easier to be in permanent opposition, able to suggest solutions and ideas that never have to be actually implemented.
Unfortunately the current government appears to have arrived with no ideas, and the previous government had run out of them.
As many of their newly elected councillors running an administration, they’ll be discovering that governing is hard hard hard. A series of spinning plates full of shit, surrounded by electric fans.
I don't think incompetence in office will hit Reform hard enough. A recent example:
That situation would have applied whoever ran the county. There is a consultation on the budget tomorrow and the details have been published on the council site. Reform have made some savings but the demands on councils and budgets across the board are going up. That’s not incompetence it’s a broken funding model for local govt.
Maybe. But it still leaves Reform heading up the shit-sandwich buffet...
What is Reform's policy for mending the broken funding model for local government? 3 words: Close. Things. Down.
Nope
It’s the same as any other local Govt
More.govt.money
I refer the honourable members to my long standing answer on this. Abolish local government, standardise services nationwide, and reap the benefits of doing it all at scale.
Solved.
Indeed. Alternatively hand local powers back to people and get the busybodies out of the way.
Anything that is standardised nationwide, like SEND/Care etc should be dealt with and funded nationwide.
Anything that is a choice, should be chosen by the individuals concerned.
Get rid of the local councils, elections and abolish that whole layer of bureaucracy and crap.
Getting rid of local councils will reduce headcount by about 2mn. Headcount and services have been reduced over the years. Current figures for Central Government are 4.04mn (2025) up from 2.3mn in 1999. Total employed is 34mn or 75% of those of workforce age.
How does everyone feel about Bart's suggestion of more central government?
Its more a suggestion for less government, than more central government.
Much of what local government funds currently comes from central government diktats and obligations anyway. Councils are legally obliged to follow through with care and SEND and other stuff that central government insists upon. If central government insists upon it, then it should fund it. Care that is obligated to be provided should be funded through the Department of Health and Social Care. SEND should be funded through the Department of Education.
Local funding should be for local choices. Of which there is precious little anyway, so either free that up, or abolish the whole lot of it.
... while Ms Reeves did win the under-14 title for the British Women’s Chess Association (BWCA) Girls Championship in 1993, there was an important distinction.
Mr Edmans explained: “That is not the British girls’ championship, it is clearly defined as the girl who does best in the British championship. “She may well have won titles, but the title of British girls’ champion is a specific event. The BWCA has its own championship and then you are the BWCA champion.” https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2141580/rachel-reeves-left-redfaced-truth
Good luck explaining that to the public, whether you are on the side that Reeves lied or was truthful. It makes the different boxing world titles look straightforward.
If that swing was replicated Nationwide, 42 Republicans would lose their seats
If.
Polling in TN-7 suggested the Dems were only 2% behind. So, either:
a) polling failure or
b) polling was correct causing the Republicans to go into high-cost panic mode.
Claiming that the other side spent money is always a good sign of a disappointing result.
A result which would give the Democrats a very handy working majority in the House? I reckon the Democrats will take that disappointment in their stride.
More likely is it will give the Republicans a degre of complacency that in all the circumstances isn't warranted.
Interesting disparity between the urban and rural votes, Dems won almost 80% of the district inc Nashville, GOP 80% in small rural districts.
So it seems her anti-Nashville comments weren't that big of issue, but her anti-country music comments were.
I don't like much modern country music up to much. Even the Handsome Family haven't done anything decent in decades.
Though the Democrats haven't won rural Tennessee since 1996 under President Bill Clinton and only then helped by Perot and his Reform Party splitting the GOP vote
This from yesterday.
National Republicans are scrambling to avert disaster today in a Tennessee district Trump won by +20 points
“If our victory margin is single digits, the conference may come unhinged,” one senior House Republican said. A loss would be catastrophic.
... while Ms Reeves did win the under-14 title for the British Women’s Chess Association (BWCA) Girls Championship in 1993, there was an important distinction.
Mr Edmans explained: “That is not the British girls’ championship, it is clearly defined as the girl who does best in the British championship. “She may well have won titles, but the title of British girls’ champion is a specific event. The BWCA has its own championship and then you are the BWCA champion.” https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2141580/rachel-reeves-left-redfaced-truth
Good luck explaining that to the public, whether you are on the side that Reeves lied or was truthful. It makes the different boxing world titles look straightforward.
BP Abandons H2Teesside Carbon Capture & Hydrogen Scheme Amid AI Push
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bp-abandons-h2teesside-carbon-capture-192000443.html ...BP’s decision to abandon its “H2Teesside” project, announced in 2021, will instead allow for the construction of a large artificial intelligence data center at the site. This proposal involves building a data center spanning almost 500,000 square meters, intended to be the largest one in Europe, according to the Financial Times. This plan also has the backing of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
The UK government introduced these “AI growth zones” within the AI Opportunities Action Plan in January. As part of the plan, the government offers specific geographic areas to push for the development of artificial intelligence infrastructure. The companies can benefit from this by receiving simplified planning approvals and preferential access to energy, as data centers require massive amounts of electricity.
BP’s “H2Teesside” scheme was intended to produce blue hydrogen by extracting hydrogen from natural gas. The carbon dioxide produced in the process would have been captured and stored. BP’s decision to scrap this project was also influenced by weaker demand for low-carbon hydrogen. Initially, the company expected this project to produce 20% of the targeted production of hydrogen in the UK by 2030. However, the closure of a nearby site owned by the chemical giant Sabic, viewed as a potential customer, reduced the viability of the project. The demand for hydrogen produced this way has long faced challenges due to the high costs associated with its production. This marks a major setback for the UK government’s strategy to accelerate hydrogen production...
I get the feeling this jury proposal is just a sacrificial lamb to distract people from ID cards and make them think they've got a 'win' if the jury stuff doesn't go through. Meanwhile ID cards (which is taking 1.6bn out of the Justice Department's budget) gets the heat taken off it.
The incompetence of this Government is richly enjoyable, but their ugly authoritarian streak isn't a laughing matter.
BREXIT IS BACK - story courtesy of @patrickkmaguire and The State of It podcast
Sir Keir Starmer has signalled that the government will intensify its criticism of Brexit as the Labour Party moves to put relations with Brussels at the heart of its campaign against Reform UK
In a speech in the City of London on Monday the prime minister denounced Britain’s departure from the European Union as an “utterly reckless” template for foreign policy and criticised the “wild promises” of those who had campaigned to leave in 2016
The prime minister was his party’s leading advocate for a second referendum before Brexit was implemented in 2020 and his strategists, anxious about alienating voters in Labour seats that voted to leave, have hitherto been wary of reopening the political argument or appearing critical of the result
However, Downing Street has been emboldened to take a more direct approach by opinion polling that shows as many as six in ten voters now believe Britain should pursue a closer economic relationship with Europe
The Times has been told that Starmer’s close ally Nick Thomas-Symonds, the paymaster-general, has been promoted to full cabinet rank as the government seeks to intensify talks over a closer relationship
BREXIT IS BACK - story courtesy of @patrickkmaguire and The State of It podcast
Sir Keir Starmer has signalled that the government will intensify its criticism of Brexit as the Labour Party moves to put relations with Brussels at the heart of its campaign against Reform UK
In a speech in the City of London on Monday the prime minister denounced Britain’s departure from the European Union as an “utterly reckless” template for foreign policy and criticised the “wild promises” of those who had campaigned to leave in 2016
The prime minister was his party’s leading advocate for a second referendum before Brexit was implemented in 2020 and his strategists, anxious about alienating voters in Labour seats that voted to leave, have hitherto been wary of reopening the political argument or appearing critical of the result
However, Downing Street has been emboldened to take a more direct approach by opinion polling that shows as many as six in ten voters now believe Britain should pursue a closer economic relationship with Europe
The Times has been told that Starmer’s close ally Nick Thomas-Symonds, the paymaster-general, has been promoted to full cabinet rank as the government seeks to intensify talks over a closer relationship
Which other top politician says Boris screwed up Brexit? Oh, yes, Nigel Farage. Great tactics from Team Starmer.
This was always the plan.
Sadly the plan has gone badly wrong, and people quite rightly blame Reeves for the parlous state of the economy, not Brexit.
I hope Starmer does make this a central issue, and puts forging closer relationships with Europe at the heart of his programme for Government. Everything he touches falls apart.
If that swing was replicated Nationwide, 42 Republicans would lose their seats
If.
Polling in TN-7 suggested the Dems were only 2% behind. So, either:
a) polling failure or
b) polling was correct causing the Republicans to go into high-cost panic mode.
Claiming that the other side spent money is always a good sign of a disappointing result.
A result which would give the Democrats a very handy working majority in the House? I reckon the Democrats will take that disappointment in their stride.
More likely is it will give the Republicans a degre of complacency that in all the circumstances isn't warranted.
Interesting disparity between the urban and rural votes, Dems won almost 80% of the district inc Nashville, GOP 80% in small rural districts.
Not much evidence there that the Dem candidate’s past comments about Nashville were an issue.
The latest piece of creeping authoritarianism - Pakistan's 27th Amendment to their constitution.
‘A king above all’: The rise and rise of Asim Munir, Pakistan’s increasingly powerful army chief Known as Trump’s ‘favourite field marshal’, Munir’s power now extends over all the armed forces, along with lifelong immunity from prosecution, thanks to a constitutional amendment https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/03/asim-munir-pakistan-army-chief
Executive power coupled with immunity from prosecution is a dangerously potent combination, as we've seen elsewhere.
Draw for Rugby World Cup underway for those interested.
Quite why it needs to be made before the football world cup draw, (and seeded based on results more than two years out of date) when the tournament is over a year later remains unexplained.
Sometimes it takes a post to realise a great truth. Barty is the anti-Doug. Or Doug is the anti-Barty if you prefer. While Barty's libertarianism suggests local govt should be abolished in favour of national, I believe the opposite. If I were arrogant enough to draft a proposal for a well organised society, I'd posit that municipalities should be the primary unit of political organisation, rather than nation-states. I genuinely despise nationalism and would love a political culture rooted in citizenship and civic engagement rather than ethnic or cultural identity. Even so-called "civic nationalists" can't completely escape the taint of at least one of those. Usually both.
I daydream that democracy moves back to the original idea of its classical founders - people would participate directly in face-to-face assemblies at the municipal level to make decisions about local affairs, moving beyond representative democracy toward genuine participatory self-governance. I think representative democracy is cracking up and the only way to save democracy in any meaningful sense is to move back to toward genuine participation. Yeah, theoretically you could do that on a national basis, like a Eurovision vote, endless referenda, but are people really participating, rather than just observing.
Municipalities could form voluntary confederations to coordinate on larger issues while maintaining local autonomy. Economic life would be reorganised around municipal ownership and cooperative enterprises making the local community the fundamental unit of political life while connecting these communities through horizontal networks rather than vertical state structures.
It'll never happen but, hey, it's my ha'penny's worth on how to save the world.
You can certainly view it as such. You're aware of the concept of civic duty ?
The removal of jury trials is one of those reflexes from The System. The same idea comes up again and again. Judge led trials for most offences.
Bit like the ID card thing. No matter the problem, the answer is ID cards. So they say.
Note the idea of magistrates sitting with the judge for these trials being dropped.
This is because a chunk of the legal system hates magistrates.
Back under New Labour fury was caused by a study that showed magistrates courts were nearly exactly equal to crown courts (judge) in terms of overturned sentences. Fury because what was wanted was clear evidence that magistrates were evil and probably racist. That way they could be swept away and replaced with judges. Which would require thousands of new judges…. The the evidence that lay volunteers go do as good a job as a proper judge was something close to treason.
I note they had dropped the further idea of binning magistrates. For the moment.
The next step will be, when the backlog fails to fall, to demand the appointment of many more judges.
Lay magistrates, of course.
The old "stipendiary magistrates" are now (I think ) rebranded as District Judges ?
The point, though, that a semi-random selection of lay people is quite likely superior to a single judge (and certainly their equal) in determining matters of fact, rather than law, is, I think a strong one.
And the breadth of societal/cultural representation within the judiciary is almost certainly quite a lot less than that in the general population.
Exactly.
The anger at the results of the study was interesting. The hope was that magistrates would be proved to be racist misogynists. Except they weren’t.
The dislike for magistrates by some lawyers is something to behold. I recall a case I watched where a chap on a series of motoring offences tried using a barrister. The barrister seemed to think that the court would bow to him, and was shocked when the magistrates ruled that the copious evidence against his client (including a hospital administered drug test) was sufficient for a conviction.
Comments
Draw for Rugby World Cup underway for those interested.
World Cup draw in full
Pool A: Australia (hosts), Hong Kong China, Chile, New Zealand
Pool B: Romania, Georgia, Italy, South Africa
Pool C: Canada, Spain, Fiji, Argentina
Pool
Pool E: Samoa, USA, Japan, France
Pool F: Zimbabwe, Tonga, Wales, England
Pool A: Australia (hosts), Hong Kong China, Chile, New Zealand
Pool B: Romania, Georgia, Italy, South Africa
Pool C: Canada, Spain, Fiji, Argentina
Pool D : Portugal, Uruguay, Scotland, Ireland
Pool E: Samoa, USA, Japan, France
Pool F: Zimbabwe, Tonga, Wales, England
A few good local rivalries in there!
Some perspective required
Durham previously let the ‘poorest’ have a 100% rebate on their council tax. This will now be 90%. Far more generous than most other councils including Labour ones.
By world rank:
7, 3, 17, 23
22, 13, 10, 1
15, 25, 8, 6
20, 14, 9, 4
19, 16, 12, 5
24, 18, 11, 3
a) polling failure or
b) polling was correct causing the Republicans to go into high-cost panic mode.
The Democrats do not do well in red states when they run candidates on the left of the party. That's plain common sense.
She was actually to the left of Mamdani on policing - and crime is the one issue where, rightly or wrongly (the latter, IMO), the polling for the GOP is less than awful.
If the Democrats want to compete in red states, which is entirely possible, they have to pick candidates who can do so.
I'd argue that the presence and questioning of the lawyers for the Covid Bereaved Families for justice has been one of the main reasons for its adversarial nature. The lack of awareness is astonishing.
22, 13, 10, 1
25, 15, 8, 6
20, 14, 9, 4
19, 16, 12, 5
24, 18, 11, 3
Even !
The Republicans certainly went into high cost panic mode; normally they would hardly spend anything there.
The polls might well have been skewed (certainly early voting favoured the Democrats, as it always tends to).
(Ah, I see the correction.)
I drive a small vehicle, a Suzuki Swift, but down my road we have about a dozen speed bumps despite the road being 30mph. Even taking them at 20mph in my Swift is a pain, despite the limit being considerably higher.
An SUV takes bumps much easier.
If Councils insist on making roads bumpy then don't be surprised to see people reacting to that by buying vehicles that can handle that better, meaning vehicles designed for the countryside work better in towns than smaller ones do - thanks to the Councils choices.
Top 2 teams in each group go through to a last round of 16 (expanded) with the top 4 third place teams
The draw has been held early to give more time for fans to make travel arrangements and for the organisers to stage a successful tournament, according to BBC
Incredible the draw has happened nearly 2 years out from the tournament with all teams already qualified ... there will be 6 teams qualify for the football World Cup in March who won't be able to make arrangements until 10 weeks before the tournament!
My point was actually that it could be worse for the GOP in the mid-terms, because the Dems chose a terrible candidate in TN7.
She did actually say that she hated the city in which she was now standing, and refused in several interviews during the campaign to walk back her earlier comments.
Here’s CNN quoting what she said in 2020.
https://x.com/3sidedstory/status/1995162662108602393
Solved.
Anything that is standardised nationwide, like SEND/Care etc should be dealt with and funded nationwide.
Anything that is a choice, should be chosen by the individuals concerned.
Get rid of the local councils, elections and abolish that whole layer of bureaucracy and crap.
More likely is it will give the Republicans a degre of complacency that in all the circumstances isn't warranted.
I note that our plan for PPE is to… do exactly the same again.
I can't help but feel that this absurd speed bump inflation is going to end in tears, but if some drivers will insist on driving at unsafe speeds in the vicinity of schools then councils will feel obliged to take measures to do something about it.
The road in one direction from our house has been flooded for most of the last two months, so we're surprised to find ourselves in the position of wishing we had an SUV. No doubt if our next vehicle is an SUV, whenever we drive into the city people will tut about us not needing an SUV, ignorant of where we've driven from.
Especially irritating as our road, a new and quite long road, has no houses on it, all the houses are on estates off the road. And there is a very large pedestrian and bike (separated) path separated from the road by grass. So there's really no need for any humps, let alone large ones.
All the older roads nearby, many of which do have houses on them, don't have humps. Its just our new one with all the new estates off it that does.
How does everyone feel about Bart's suggestion of more central government?
I don't like much modern country music up to much. Even the Handsome Family haven't done anything decent in decades.
Much of what local government funds currently comes from central government diktats and obligations anyway. Councils are legally obliged to follow through with care and SEND and other stuff that central government insists upon. If central government insists upon it, then it should fund it. Care that is obligated to be provided should be funded through the Department of Health and Social Care. SEND should be funded through the Department of Education.
Local funding should be for local choices. Of which there is precious little anyway, so either free that up, or abolish the whole lot of it.
The delivery van that aquaplaned through the flood yesterday was an EV, so I guess they knew.
The effect on small cars was brutal - even if you crawled over the bump at 10mph, doing all the slowing and accelerating at the right moments, it hammer the suspension.
The Dodge Rams just sailed across.
Perhaps the ideal is a forum of Conservative business people who can run all services because they will automatically a) know how to run things efficiently (stop giggling) and b) will know what the people want and what they need. Good honest old-fashioned paternalism at work.
There are already national standards in many areas to which local councils have to adhere and much of what local Government does (that's the stuff behind the scenes) is providing information back to central Government and that could and arguably should be extended to a national run adult social care service.
I do agree the suggestion from @biggles is absurd - the idea every decision affecting every council having to be decided in Whitehall is ridiculous - you could do it in a small country perhaps but the notion of that in a bigger country is a recipe for paralysis.
The first Chinese attempt at a rocket that lands its first stage like a Falcon 9 made orbit on their first launch.
The landing failed - looks like a RUD during relight for the landing burn.
https://m.weibo.cn/detail/5239754958311987#&video
The rocket is certainly rather familiar looking
They went for a mix of F9 - first stage 9 engines, upper stage 1, vertical landing - with Starship - stainless steel, Methane/LOX fuel.
Why is this of interest? Well if you land your first stage, you get to use it again. The cost to SpaceX of a launch dropped to less than $20 million by doing this. Which means they can undercut everyone else. You also can launch incredibly frequently. SpaceX is now launching every 2 days, on average.
Your regular reminder that developing the F9, the most successful launch system ever, cost less that £0.5Bn, for the initial version.
No reason the U.K. couldn’t have done that.
Next year, there are *5* other new Chinese rockets attempting launch. All with reuse.
Meanwhile in Europe, we might or might launch a demonstrator for reuse by 2030…
Many years ago the NHS was run under a set of regional organisations. RHAs. These units were large enough to have scale but local enough to be responsive. We have had 20 years now of greater central government direction and it has been an omnishambles. We are getting rid of NHS England and most doctors and nurses I know see this as a positive. Less initiatives requiring more paperwork and more time to treat patients.
If centralisation failed the NHS why will it help social care etc.
It's a sort of agile organisation that allows centralised functions to have a local presence. But the drawback will be the dead time between clients for the staff at the hub. Sometimes there has to be a bit of slack in the system unless you want to have people wait until a government employee is available. See queues for the NHS.
The European incumbents should surely also be aware that their business model is dead as soon as someone does it - and attempts to delay/sabotage such efforts are self-defeating.
As it is, it's likely that Japan and possibly S Korea will beat us to it.
This is utterly DAMNING for David Lammy.
"We are not looking to convict people as quickly as possible, we are looking for justice."
A Barrister clinically dismantles David Lammy's disgraceful decision to scrap jury trials.
Watch until the end.
It wont even fix the backlog.
https://x.com/addicted2newz/status/1995954389014774270
Orbital air launch limits you to the size of the carrier plane. And then you have the cost of running the carrier plane. See the Roc. Another dead end.
As the Americans worked out in the late 60s, with Project Isinglass, it’s simpler and cheaper to use a rocket stage to get to altitude.
Reusing the first stage rocket is the next trick.
Once that happened, air launch died.
The price of Virgin Orbit was $12m - for a tiny payload. $24,000 a kilo.
SpaceX charges $6,500 a kilo, for their Rideshare program.
You're aware of the concept of civic duty ?
But Virgin didn't satisfactorily occupy the niche, anyway.
... while Ms Reeves did win the under-14 title for the British Women’s Chess Association (BWCA) Girls Championship in 1993, there was an important distinction.
Mr Edmans explained: “That is not the British girls’ championship, it is clearly defined as the girl who does best in the British championship. “She may well have won titles, but the title of British girls’ champion is a specific event. The BWCA has its own championship and then you are the BWCA champion.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2141580/rachel-reeves-left-redfaced-truth
Good luck explaining that to the public, whether you are on the side that Reeves lied or was truthful. It makes the different boxing world titles look straightforward.
As an interesting aside, the Mr Edmans calling out the Chancellor is the same professor who gave a Ted talk on trust in a post-truth world.
https://www.ted.com/talks/alex_edmans_what_to_trust_in_a_post_truth_world
Lammy is by far the stupidest.. the other two just tell one falsehood after another.
The problem now is that the rest of the West are accepting of what’s become a monopoly, so one safety or regulatory issue can become a big problem. We know that plane types can and do get grounded after accidents, sometimes for weeks.
A good effort from the Chinese the other day, but that last few hundred feet down to the deck is the really difficult bit!
There is a pattern here.....
There isn't.
Bit like the ID card thing. No matter the problem, the answer is ID cards. So they say.
Note the idea of magistrates sitting with the judge for these trials being dropped.
This is because a chunk of the legal system hates magistrates.
Back under New Labour fury was caused by a study that showed magistrates courts were nearly exactly equal to crown courts (judge) in terms of overturned sentences. Fury because what was wanted was clear evidence that magistrates were evil and probably racist. That way they could be swept away and replaced with judges. Which would require thousands of new judges…. The the evidence that lay volunteers go do as good a job as a proper judge was something close to treason.
I note they had dropped the further idea of binning magistrates. For the moment.
The next step will be, when the backlog fails to fall, to demand the appointment of many more judges.
That would also require an increase in national insurance nationally even if social care no longer being run locally made it easier to cut council tax
The old "stipendiary magistrates" are now (I think ) rebranded as District Judges ?
The point, though, that a semi-random selection of lay people is quite likely superior to a single judge (and certainly their equal) in determining matters of fact, rather than law, is, I think a strong one.
And the breadth of societal/cultural representation within the judiciary is almost certainly quite a lot less than that in the general population.
Sir Keir Starmer has signalled that the government will intensify its criticism of Brexit as the Labour Party moves to put relations with Brussels at the heart of its campaign against Reform UK
In a speech in the City of London on Monday the prime minister denounced Britain’s departure from the European Union as an “utterly reckless” template for foreign policy and criticised the “wild promises” of those who had campaigned to leave in 2016
The prime minister was his party’s leading advocate for a second referendum before Brexit was implemented in 2020 and his strategists, anxious about alienating voters in Labour seats that voted to leave, have hitherto been wary of reopening the political argument or appearing critical of the result
However, Downing Street has been emboldened to take a more direct approach by opinion polling that shows as many as six in ten voters now believe Britain should pursue a closer economic relationship with Europe
The Times has been told that Starmer’s close ally Nick Thomas-Symonds, the paymaster-general, has been promoted to full cabinet rank as the government seeks to intensify talks over a closer relationship
https://x.com/steven_swinford/status/1996164304547049580?s=61&t=c6bcp0cjChLfQN5Tc8A_6g
Reeves' problem is that even if she did not lie about the OBR and chess, people unfamiliar with these matters will come to think there is ‘no smoke without fire’.
National Republicans are scrambling to avert disaster today in a Tennessee district Trump won by +20 points
“If our victory margin is single digits, the conference may come unhinged,” one senior House Republican said. A loss would be catastrophic.
OBR says Reeves did not mislead public over Budget forecasts
https://www.ft.com/content/48c29b11-deca-423c-bfbd-06968f43867d
BP Abandons H2Teesside Carbon Capture & Hydrogen Scheme Amid AI Push
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bp-abandons-h2teesside-carbon-capture-192000443.html
...BP’s decision to abandon its “H2Teesside” project, announced in 2021, will instead allow for the construction of a large artificial intelligence data center at the site. This proposal involves building a data center spanning almost 500,000 square meters, intended to be the largest one in Europe, according to the Financial Times. This plan also has the backing of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
The UK government introduced these “AI growth zones” within the AI Opportunities Action Plan in January. As part of the plan, the government offers specific geographic areas to push for the development of artificial intelligence infrastructure. The companies can benefit from this by receiving simplified planning approvals and preferential access to energy, as data centers require massive amounts of electricity.
BP’s “H2Teesside” scheme was intended to produce blue hydrogen by extracting hydrogen from natural gas. The carbon dioxide produced in the process would have been captured and stored. BP’s decision to scrap this project was also influenced by weaker demand for low-carbon hydrogen. Initially, the company expected this project to produce 20% of the targeted production of hydrogen in the UK by 2030. However, the closure of a nearby site owned by the chemical giant Sabic, viewed as a potential customer, reduced the viability of the project. The demand for hydrogen produced this way has long faced challenges due to the high costs associated with its production. This marks a major setback for the UK government’s strategy to accelerate hydrogen production...
The incompetence of this Government is richly enjoyable, but their ugly authoritarian streak isn't a laughing matter.
YouTube's algorithm yesterday gave me a whole playlist of songs, most of which seemed to be AI-assisted anti-Starmer parodies.
Sadly the plan has gone badly wrong, and people quite rightly blame Reeves for the parlous state of the economy, not Brexit.
I hope Starmer does make this a central issue, and puts forging closer relationships with Europe at the heart of his programme for Government. Everything he touches falls apart.
‘A king above all’: The rise and rise of Asim Munir, Pakistan’s increasingly powerful army chief
Known as Trump’s ‘favourite field marshal’, Munir’s power now extends over all the armed forces, along with lifelong immunity from prosecution, thanks to a constitutional amendment
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/03/asim-munir-pakistan-army-chief
Executive power coupled with immunity from prosecution is a dangerously potent combination, as we've seen elsewhere.
I daydream that democracy moves back to the original idea of its classical founders - people would participate directly in face-to-face assemblies at the municipal level to make decisions about local affairs, moving beyond representative democracy toward genuine participatory self-governance. I think representative democracy is cracking up and the only way to save democracy in any meaningful sense is to move back to toward genuine participation. Yeah, theoretically you could do that on a national basis, like a Eurovision vote, endless referenda, but are people really participating, rather than just observing.
Municipalities could form voluntary confederations to coordinate on larger issues while maintaining local autonomy. Economic life would be reorganised around municipal ownership and cooperative enterprises making the local community the fundamental unit of political life while connecting these communities through horizontal networks rather than vertical state structures.
It'll never happen but, hey, it's my ha'penny's worth on how to save the world.
The anger at the results of the study was interesting. The hope was that magistrates would be proved to be racist misogynists. Except they weren’t.
The dislike for magistrates by some lawyers is something to behold. I recall a case I watched where a chap on a series of motoring offences tried using a barrister. The barrister seemed to think that the court would bow to him, and was shocked when the magistrates ruled that the copious evidence against his client (including a hospital administered drug test) was sufficient for a conviction.
Is there a "need" for Jury Service?
Note to editors: Sunil is one of that intrepid band who have been "called up" twice.
Small steps but encouraging for the conservatives
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1996142406056439948?s=19